It will be difficult this weekend to find a political commentator to speak ill of Nelson Mandela, but it was not always so.

The man dubbed a communist terrorist by Margaret Thatcher is now portrayed as everyone's grandfather, a loveable old man with a twinkle in his eye and a kind word for everyone.

We owe it to history to step beyond this one-sided picture and to proclaim the reality that Mandela was a revolutionary, committed to the liberation of South Africa from colonialism and imperialism.

He was firm in his views but flexible enough to discuss disagreements and to admit he was wrong when convinced of a case.

This applied to his initial anti-communism after he joined the African National Congress Youth League in 1944, working with Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Anton Lembede, Peter Mda and others to radicalise the ANC, moving from petitions and delegations to civil disobedience, stayaways and other forms of mass action.

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FORMER president Nelson Mandela was a member of the South African Communist Party’s (SACP’s) central executive committee at the time of his arrest in 1962, the SACP and the African National Congress (ANC) confirmed on Friday.

Even though it had always been denied, the ANC and the SACP confirmed that Mr Mandela had served on the party’s central executive committee in their statements paying tribute to the antiapartheid icon. There had been much debate about the issue among historians and academics.

SACP deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila on Thursday said he was a member of the party, but it was denied at the time for "political reasons".

"There was a huge offensive by the oppressive apartheid regime at the time against communists. They portrayed the ANC as a communist organisation, but it was not," he said.

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