THE short-lived ceasefire between the ANC Youth League and SACP leader Jeremy Cronin is over.

The league yesterday compared SACP deputy general secretary Cronin to arch-capitalist Nicky Oppenheimer - and also accused Cronin of using "sophisticated English" to mislead the SACP.

Floyd Shivambu of the ANCYL said De Beers' chairperson Oppenheimer, Cronin and Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu shared the same wish that property relations should stay as they are.

"The only slight difference is that the other one (Cronin) uses sophisticated English to mislead our ally, the SACP, on its response to the ANCYL's document on the nationalisation of mines."

The latest fight began on Tuesday when Shabangu told an international mining conference in Cape Town that the mines would never be nationalised "in her lifetime".

Oppenheimer then weighed in, saying he supported Shabangu.

On Wednesday, Cronin warned in the SACP's newsletter Umsebenzi that nationalisation was no guarantee that state property "will not be plundered by senior management for their own private accumulation purposes".

Cronin also warned against "Kebble-ism", which he described as a union between "unscrupulous business people (black and white) and a bullying, chauvinistic populist tendency in parts of our movement".

He did not mention the league by name, but said it would be "the height of hypocrisy to call for nationalisation while being intimately involved in the private plundering of public resources".

The ANCYL also said that Cronin had failed to deliver a chapter he had promised to write for their document on nationalising the mines.

Shivambu said Cronin was guilty of expressing his personal views, and not those of the SACP.