The ANC welcomes the South African government's commitment to returning the remains of all struggle heroes who died on foreign soil. Among these struggle icons are JB Marks and Moses Kotane whom are buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.
Comrade JB Marks was born in 1903 at Ventersdorp in North West province. He joined the ANC and the South African Communist Party, SACP, in 1928, and devoted his life to the struggle for the national and social emancipation of all the oppressed people of South Africa.
It was during his life that the ANC and Communist Party laid the background for the class consciousness that became the handle of the liberation movement. He was struck down by a severe illness in 1971 while on active duty at the headquarters of the ANC external mission in Tanzania. He was sent to the then Soviet Union where he suffered a fatal heart attack and died on 11 August 1972.
Moses Kotane was born in Tamposstad in the then Transvaal which is now North West in 1905. Kotane was sent to Moscow to study Marxism-Leninism at the International Lenin School and returned to South Africa in 1933. He advanced through the SACP until the point where he became the party's general secretary in 1939. He suffered a stroke in 1968 and was sent for treatment in the Soviet Union, where he died on 19 May 1978. During a week- long ... [Time expired.]