The Struggle for Liberation in South Africa – ANC
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Contents

Foreward

1. The Roots of the Struggle

2.The Anglo-Boer War and its Aftermath

3.The Grand Design: The Union Constitution

4.African Rights under Siege

5.A New Front Opens: The Labour Struggle

6.The Interlude: 1936-1946

7.The New Offensive: The ANC after 1949

8.The New Option: The Armed Struggle

9.Epilogue

Foreword: by Z. Pallo Jordan

The purpose of this book is to provide the general reader with a basic knowledge of the history of the national liberation struggle, its background and its relationship to other struggles in the world today. While it approaches its subject matter historically, there is a serious attempt to steer away from the mere cataloguing of historical facts. Its primary objective is to illustrate the growth and development of policy, relating this to changing conditions of struggle and the appearance of new challenges. It is written by someone who has been most intimately involved in the politics of national liberation since the 1930s, as an activist, an organiser, a journalist and a political leader. The privileged access the author enjoyed to the processes of policy formulation and strategising that shaped the politics of struggle during two crucial decades, the 1950s and 1960s, makes it unique for its insights.

If this book assists readers in understanding the economic, social and political forces that have fashioned our present, and through such an understanding helps them grasp what forces can be marshalled to bring about change, it will have succeeded in its purpose.

1. The Roots of the Struggle

In the latter half of the nineteenth century a fertile ground was laid in which the struggle for national liberation took root. For during this period Boer and Briton set the foundations for the systematic oppression and exploitation of the indigenous people of South Africa, against which the liberatory forces have pitted themselves for more than a century.

Within a few years after the discovery of diamonds in the 1860s the British imperial government embarked on a policy of expansion in southern Africa. British and colonial troops engaged in war against a number of chiefdoms and overpowered one after the other in quick succession: the Hlubi in 1873; Gcaleka and Pedi in 1877; Ngqika, Thembu, Mpondo, Griqua and Rolong in 1878; Zulu in 1879; Sotho in 1880; and Ndebele in 1893.

As these Wars of Dispossession drew to an end, Africans embarked on new forms of struggle to achieve the same goals which their military struggle had failed to secure on the field of battle. During the second half of the nineteenth century Presbyterian, Methodist and Anglican missionaries were establishing educational institutions in southern Africa which trained teachers, builders, carpenters, printers, ministers of religion and others. The young men who qualified at these institutions in the Cape soon registered as voters, and entered a new arena to take up the struggle which was drawing to a close on the field of battle. This first-generation product of the mission schools threw themselves unreservedly into the task of recruiting and helping those who could fulfil the conditions for qualifying as voters. According to the Cape constitution, the franchise was open to any man – black or white – who occupied property worth at least ?25 or earned at least ?50 each year. It is not difficult to see that given the enthusiastic recruitment, the African voters would, in the course of time, have returned to parliament a significant number of MPs to play a decisive role in influencing legislation for the benefit of all the people of the Colony. They sought to use the constitution to ensure that its democratic mechanisms operated for the benefit of all, white as well as black. Their genuineness in this regard is shown by the fact they supported election candidates on the basis of their manifestos and never attempted to use an African bloc vote. This approach has long characterised the policies of the ANC.

Another significant development in the latter half of the nineteenth century was the mineral revolution. The discovery of diamonds and gold brought not only foreign capital – British capital – but also capital`s stablemate, labour. The immigrant skilled workers who flocked to the mines not only claimed the wage level they had already attained in the metropolitan country but demanded to be paid for the loss of amenities suffered by coming to work in colonial conditions. In addition, they had to assume the role of supervisors over the mass of the unskilled labour force, and had to maintain artificial standards that were expected of white men irrespective of their station. Thus, together with the employing class, the skilled workers created and maintained a social structure in which white men occupied a position of superiority. And from this developed attitudes and their attendant practices which over the years were refined into the philosophy of white supremacy or baasskap.

To satisfy the need for a plentiful and inexhaustible supply of cheap labour for the developing economy Boer and Briton acted jointly to achieve a common purpose. While there were serious contradictions between them, on one question – the forging of a common policy that would ensure a regular flow of cheap labour from the African reserves to the white farms and mines there was agreement. In these circumstances it was obvious that the aspirations of black and white would be poles apart. The oppressor and exploiter would strive to be on top for all time, while the downtrodden would struggle to stand on their feet, to overthrow oppression, to enjoy to the full the product of their own labour, to share on a basis of equality the resources which nature has so liberally bestowed on this country.

Attack on African Franchise in the Cape

As we have seen, the granting of the franchise to the Africans in the Cape marked the beginning of a new era. The fight was no longer to be on the battlefield with lethal weapons of war that brought death and destruction. Instead it shifted to public platforms and the weapons became words, spoken and written. Those who had acquired education from the missionary institutions set about registering all who were in a position to qualify for the vote, particularly the substantial number of peasants who fulfilled the qualifications under the Cape constitution. As a result of such campaigns, Africans in some Eastern Cape constituencies began to form the majority of voters. This trend, however, alarmed the whites, who took steps to arrest it. In 1887 the Electoral Amendment Act, which was introduced by J. G. Sprigg, then prime minister, and the Parliamentary Voters Registration Act were passed. The Africans called the latter Tung` umlomo (Sew up the mouth). These laws excluded tribal and community tenure as qualification for the franchise. The effect was to remove some 30 000 voters from the voters, roll. Africans reacted to the Tung` umlomo Act by intensifying their efforts to register. Consequently by 1891 the number of African voters was restored to the former level. As if this legislation had not done enough harm, Cecil Rhodes, premier of the Cape and arch-imperialist, joined hands with the Afrikaner Bond of Jan Hofmeyr, to pass in 1892 the Franchise and Ballot Act, which raised the qualification in respect of property from ?25 to ?75. In addition, an educational qualification was required, namely, that for purposes of registration as a voter one should be able to read and write. The intention of all these measures was to eliminate the African vote.

The attitude of the whites towards African political rights, and their determination to strip the Africans of the franchise, was explicitly stated by Cecil Rhodes, when he declared: `We [the Whites] are to be lords over them [the Africans]. These are my politics … and these are the politics of South Africa. Yet in 1852 when some settlers expressed opposition to the introduction of a liberal franchise the Attorney-General of the Cape, William Porter, had the amazing foresight to declare: `Why should you fear the exercise of the franchise? This is a delicate question but it must be touched upon. I do not hesitate to say that I would rather meet the Hottentot at the hustings voting for his representative than meet him in the wilds with his gun on his shoulder. Is it not better to disarm them by granting them the privileges of the constitution? If you now blast all their hopes and tell them they shall not fight their battles constitutionally, do not you yourselves apply to them the stimulus to fight their battles unconstitutionally?, (With the support of white South Africa the National Party government after 1948 chose deliberately to provoke Africans to meet it on the battlefield rather than grant them the right to express their aspirations as South Africans constitutionally.)

Rhodes followed with dogged determination the policy of disenfranchising Africans by passing the Glen Grey Act in 1894, in a three-pronged attack to render the African completely defenceless against naked oppression and exploitation. The Act aimed, firstly, to establish a system of local administration under which the African would be forced to concentrate on local matters rather than on national politics and parliament. With the establishment of the local council system under the Act the burden of providing funds for the development of the infrastructure and certain important services like education and veterinary services in the Native reserves was shifted to the inhabitants of the reserves. This laid the foundation for policies that for decades excluded the Africans from the Treasury.

Secondly, the Glen Grey Act provided for a system of attenuated individual land-ownership. In seven surveyed districts in the southern Transkei, a form of title-deed was issued for arable allotments averaging four morgen in extent. In the event of the death of the original title-holder, the land would pass to his male heir, while the rest of his sons would have to find other ways of making a living. Before long a mass of landless people was thrown up in the reserves.

Thirdly, the Act imposed a labour tax of 10 shillings on any African male who had not worked outside his district for at least three months in the year. With this attack on three fronts, the designers of the Glen Grey Act expected that poverty and starvation would force Africans from the reserves to seek employment on the white farms and the mines. The Act brought the conditions for Africans in the Cape into line with those in the Afrikaner Republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, where no equality existed between Africans and Afrikaners in state or church.

Racial Organisations and the Birth of African Nationalism

Caught between the Afrikaner Bond and English-speaking colonists who had combined in a determined attack on the African franchise and access to land, Africans in the Cape formed organisations to unite them against the onslaught. In 1881 they founded lmbumba Yamanyama to fight for the advancement of African rights which the two settler groups sought to destroy. This happened shortly after the formation of the Afrikaner Bond in 1879.

Later, Africans in the Free State, Natal and the Transvaal formed, independently of each other, Native Congresses, while Cape Africans formed the South African Native Congress in 1898. In 1902 Dr Abdullah Abdurahman established the African Political Organisation (APO). Although the membership of the APO was open to all, in practice it became an organisation for Coloureds. And in Natal, Mahatma Gandhi formed an Indian Congress in 1894. Thus, at the turn of the century racially based political organisations had been formed, on the one hand; by whites to entrench their dominance and, on the other, by blacks to fight for equal rights for all.

The pursuance by the colonial government of political and economic policies that put the Africans at a disadvantage had a pervasive effect on all levels of the settler society. The church and the trading community could not have been expected to pursue policies in their own spheres that cut across the policies of the law-makers. Consequently a colonial culture developed that determined the general attitude and set standards of behaviour in relation to the indigenous people.

While the battle was waged on the political and economic front primarily, Africans were also engaged in a struggle for equality within the Church. When they did not see this happen, they started a movement to break away from the white man`s Church, where the key positions were reserved for the whites.

In South Africa a cluster of breakaways occurred about the same period over a wide area including the Cape, Transvaal and Natal. This occurrence, about the same time, would seem to suggest that Africans saw the white-controlled Churches as pursuing the policies of denial of equality for all.

In the Transvaal, Mangena Mokone, who in 1892 broke away from the Wesleyan Church, formed the Ethiopian Church. By 1896 the Rev. J. M. Dwane had also broken away from the Wesleyan Church to join the Ethiopian Church, but later seceded to lead the Order of Ethiopia. The dissatisfaction also spread to the (Presbyterian) Free Church of Scotland. The Rev. Pambani Mzimba broke away to form the Bantu Presbyterian Church (iCawa yakwa-Mzimba) in 1898.

The growth and spread of the Ethiopian Movement took place at the same time that Africans were forming independent political movements. Although these religious and political movements grew alongside each other, individuals within them did not find it difficult to be members of both. It was in this setting that African nationalism had its origins

2. The Anglo-Boer War and its Aftermath

The end of the Wars of Dispossession coincided with the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand and a massive inflow of foreign capital, largely British, for investment in gold mining. Large numbers of foreign speculators and businessmen flocked to the Reef in search of easy fortunes. To the Boers the arrival of these Uitlanders disturbed their placid farming life and threatened the continued existence of their Republic. The Uitlanders, for their part, were not satisfied with only the opening of investment opportunities; they sought to ensure the future by gaining complete control of power. That meant turning the Boer Republics into British colonies. It could not be expected that the Boers who had fled from British colonial rule in the Cape would allow the land they had acquired by conquest to fall into the hands of the British. The outcome was the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902.

When towards the end of the war the Boer generals realised that they could no longer pursue hostilities, they sued for peace on terms which left them much room for future positioning and took steps to ensure that what they had lost on the battlefield they regained by political manoeuvre. In approaching Kitchener to arrange for a peace settlement the generals sought to maintain the independence of the Boer Republics. In the end, however, the Treaty of Vereeniging saw British rule established, but the Boers made sure the British government gave an undertaking that the franchise would not be extended to the blacks in the former Boer Republics before representative government was granted.

With British rule established over the whole region and the development of the mining industry assured with massive British capital investment, the need to form a central government became urgent. Competition between the four colonies to impose customs duties could only harm the economy of the whole area. After the war, Alfred Milner, as High Commissioner and Governor of the Transvaal and Orange River colonies, was assigned the task of bringing about the reconstruction of British South Africa. Milner was determined to keep South Africa British. Towards this goal he fostered the use of English as the only official language and medium of instruction in schools. He went further and promoted immigration of English stock from Britain, Australia and Canada.

In addition, Milner sought to help the mines find a source of labour to meet the post-war labour shortage. As part of his programme to bring about a reconstruction of British South Africa he concluded an agreement in 1901 with the Governor of Mozambique to import Shangaan labour from that Portuguese colony. Milner also introduced Chinese labour. This move was strongly opposed by Afrikaners who saw it as an attempt to deny them opportunities of employment, while white trade unionists regarded it as a threat to their high wage standards.

Milner`s anglicisation and immigration policies met with stiff Afrikaner resistance. Realising that the four colonies had to be brought under one central authority he tried to forge links with the Boers. That could only be done at the expense of the Africans. Since Milner was opposed to political equality for Africans, he set about ensuring that all the four colonies adopted a uniform policy towards Africans. A commission of inquiry was appointed, which made recommendations that met the Boer aspirations on the question of political rights for Africans. The commission recommended that there should be separation of Africans and Europeans on a permanent basis; that there should be no direct representation for Africans in any future legislature; and that in urban areas locations for Africans should be established. In these ways the commission formalised the idea of segregation and prepared the ground for the uniform application of a Native policy in all the four colonies.

Shortly after the cessation of hostilities in 1902 the Boer leaders had pressed for self-government in their former Republics. Louis Botha, J. C. Smuts, J. B. M. Hertzog and others met Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, to demand self-government, but their representations were not received with sympathy either by Chamberlain or by Alfred Milner.

Following this setback, the Boer leaders began to form their own political organisations. In the Transvaal, Het Volk was established in 1905 and during the same year the Orangia Unie was founded at a meeting held at Brandfort in the Orange River Colony. The two organisations took a firm stand against the introduction of Chinese labour. But an even stronger movement built up round the demand for the recognition of Afrikaans as an official language and its use as a medium of instruction in the classroom. The campaign was not only waged on political platforms but was taken up by the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk.

As the Afrikaners were coming closer together as a group to fight against Milner`s policies to extend and entrench British influence, an outcrop of political organisations emerged on the Witwatersrand among English speakers. A new political body – the Responsible Government Association (The Responsibles) – was formed which, like Het Volk, sought self-government. Before long the two political organisations forged a working agreement. Het Volk agreed that they would refrain from running a campaign against Chinese labour, while the Responsibles, who represented English capitalist interests, would cease their support for Milner`s policy of making English the only medium of instruction in schools. But even more important for Het Volk, the Responsibles gave an undertaking that the franchise would be restricted to whites only.2 At the same time a Transvaal Progressive Association came into being, under the leadership of two prominent captains of industry, Percy FitzPatrick and George Farrar.

For their part, the white working class on the Witwatersrand realised that their class interests could only be served if they formed a political party that was devoted to the advancement of their class. Thus they set up the Transvaal Labour Party (1904), the Political Labour League (1905) and the Labour Representation Committee (1906). The craft unions and those who constituted membership of the labour groupings were only concerned with the protection of the interests of white artisans, not of the working class in general. It was, therefore, no surprise that white miners made common cause with the Responsibles and Het Volk. These white labour parties joined the Responsibles and Het Volk in demanding the restriction of the franchise to whites. The last word, however, came at a convention in 1909 where a decision was taken to establish a South African Labour Party. At the convention it was agreed that the Labour Party would not open its membership to Africans.

After the granting of responsible government to the Transvaal and Orange River colonies,4 elections were held in 1907. The outcome in the Transvaal was that Het Volk won 37 seats, and the Progressives 21. In the Orange River Colonies, 4 Orangia Unie easily won the poll.

In the Cape, the Afrikaner Bond made a swift and shrewd move. They allied themselves with the liberals Solomon, Sauer and Merriman – to form the South African Party (SAP) in 1903. In the elections held in the Cape in 1908, the SAP was returned to power. This placed the Afrikaner parties in a very strong position when Union was formed in 1910. The Cape liberals in whom the Africans had placed so much confidence colluded with the Afrikaner Bond and the leaders of the Boer Republics to keep Africans out of the body politic.

At the National Convention of 1909, following the adoption of a motion by Merriman, who worked very closely with Smuts, that a legislative Union of South Africa be formed, the delegates proceeded to draw up a draft constitution. All the parties at the National Convention agreed that as far as the political rights of the Africans were concerned, the situation that had prevailed in the various former colonies would not be changed with the formation of Union.

The African franchise in the Cape was entrenched in the Union constitution so that it could only be removed by a simple two-thirds majority of a joint sitting of the two houses of parliament. It was a flimsy protective cover which in time would be scrapped and thereby render all Africans voiceless, and place the Afrikaner and English in a position to determine the place of the Africans in their scheme of things.

African Reaction

As we have noted, by the beginning of the nineteenth century a number of African political organisations had sprung up in all the four colonies. Unlike the Ethiopian Movement, these organisations addressed themselves to the question of African political rights, which were denied in the northern colonies, and which in the Cape were continually under attack. While the white political parties sought to keep the Africans outside of a common citizenship, the latter strove to work within the framework of a common citizenship.

It was the threat of white Union which prompted the formation of a national African political organisation.5 The South African Native Convention met at the Waaihoek location in Bloemfontein on 24-26 March 1909 to consider the draft constitution which had been adopted at the whites-only National Convention. Those Africans meeting decided that the convention would continue as a permanent body, and Dr Walter Rubusana was elected as its President. From this organisation would emerge in January 1912 the South African Native National Congress, later renamed the African National Congress (ANC).

The African convention of 1909 decided to send a deputation to Britain to put their case before the British government against the draft constitution of the Union of South Africa. The deputation, which was led by W. P. Schreiner, consisted of Dr Walter Rubusana, Dr Abdullah Abdurahman, Tengo Jabavu, J. Langa Dube, D. Dwanya and T. Mapikela. In contrast with the warm and sympathetic welcome which the delegation from the white National Convention received in England, the African deputation returned home empty-handed. The British government refused to listen to the case of its black subjects against a constitution that was to exclude them from citizenship rights in their own country.

The answer to the combined onslaught of the Afrikaner and English (conducted with the approval and backing of the British government) lay in the unity of the oppressed. The need for such unity was aptly expressed by Dr Abdurahman in 1910: `If Europeans persist in their policy of repression, there will one day arise a solid mass of Black and Coloured humanity whose demands will be irresistible.6

3. The Grand Design: The Union Constitution

With the acceptance by the Imperial Government of the draft constitution the decks were cleared for a concerted assault by Afrikaners and English on African political and property rights.

The results of the 1910 parliamentary elections – the first under the Union constitution – showed an overwhelming victory for the South African Party (SAP). After the elections, General Louis Botha formed a government which was committed to bringing about a reconciliation between Boer and Briton, and the exclusion of Africans from the political life of the country. It was this government – a government dedicated to the promotion of the exclusive interests of the whites and the degradation of the Africans – that took office on 31 May 1910.

For different reasons 31 May 1910 was a significant day for both the Britons and the Boers. For the former the formation of a central government in South Africa ensured political stability for mining capital. For the Afrikaners the formation of Union under an Afrikaner-led government represented a triumph: what they had lost on the battlefield during the Anglo-Boer War they won less than a decade later in a constitutional manner. This was the beginning of a road that in time would lead to something bigger than the former Boer Republics – to a republican South Africa under Afrikaner rule. For the overwhelming majority of the indigenous people of this country, the road of struggle will come to an end when South Africa becomes a home for all its people, including the Afrikaner.

In and out of the Union parliament the main preoccupation of white politics was the problem of the relationship of Africans to whites (the `Native Problem,). It was this obsession – this evil obsession – which moved Margaret Ballinger, a member of parliament representing Africans, to declare, `All Union politics are Native Affairs.1 Yet though they figured so largely in national politics the Act of Union denied the Africans a voice in parliament where decisions were made, and ensured that there was no room for Africans, Coloureds and Indians within the framework of parliamentary politics.

In the very first session of the Union parliament in 1911, the government fired the first shot in what would become a barrage of legislation that was designed to strip Africans of the means to defend themselves, and to deliver them helpless to capitalist exploitation by mining and farming interests. Two important statutes were passed in this first session. The Mines and Works Act reserved certain occupations in the mining industry for whites only, and thus laid down the principle of the industrial colour bar. The second piece of legislation passed during the same session of parliament was the Native Labour Regulation Act. In terms of this Act the government armed itself with powers of control over the movement of Africans. Not only was the movement of Africans from one area to another strictly determined by this law, but their vertical mobility was to be strictly controlled through subsequent legislation which condemned the African worker to a position of menial labourer.

By controlling the movement of African labour the government was able to create a pool of cheap labour in the Native reserves which could be drawn upon to satisfy the needs of employers in the `white areas` – be they the mines, manufacturing industry, commerce or the farms. The effect of this was two-pronged. Firstly it entrenched the practice of migrant labour, by creating a situation where only the labourer was permitted to take up employment in the `white areas` while his family was left in the reserves.

The adoption of the migrant labour system gave rise in turn to the compound system of housing labour, which had first started in the diamond, gold and coal mines. When the secondary and tertiary sectors developed in the twentieth century they also housed their labour in compounds, which went under the name `hostel` to make them sound more respectable. These hideous structures are to be found in all the main industrial areas. The ruinous effects of the migrant labour system on the social and family life of Africans has been well documented.2

The second effect of the Native Labour Regulation Act was to render African workers a faceless mass of undifferentiated labourers and to eliminate competition for jobs in the various sectors of the economy. This resulted in the adoption of an average standard wage for the `Native`. And the wage level on the mines became the model for all sectors of the economy.

The Natives Land Act, 1913

By the time the Wars of Dispossession ended around 1880, Africans had been pushed back to the areas which were known as the Native reserves at the formation of Union in 1910. Both the mine-owners and the farmers hoped that since the area of the Native reserves was not large enough to provide subsistence for the increasing African population, Africans would be forced to seek employment on the mines and white farms.

Africans, however, did not in practice accept being locked up in the reserves. They sought an escape from being bottled up there by renting land from the white landowners who owned in practice more land than they could gainfully use. Moreover, there were a sizeable number of non-combatants who had remained on the white farms during the Wars of Dispossession while the African forces were being thrown back into what became known as the reserves. With the growth of new markets towards the end of the nineteenth century as a result of the mineral revolution, African peasant farmers were quick to seize the opportunities. But white farmers could not tolerate such competition from African producers. They attributed their continued shortage of labour to the fact that some Africans who should have been confined to the reserves were squatting on white farms, where they managed to raise sufficient food not only for themselves but for the market.

The squatters, whose presence on white farms had become such an intense emotional issue by 1910, fell into four categories: (a) those who paid a cash rent; (b) those who owned livestock and were granted pasturage on condition that the farmer used such stock together with his own for all farming activities; (c) those who were allowed to till a given piece of land on condition they shared the crop equally between themselves and the farmer; and (d) those who were allowed to remain on the farm as labour tenants.

The campaign by white farmers against squatting, which culminated in the passing of the Natives Land Act of 1913, centred around the following issues:

a.According to whites, squatting on the farms aggravated the shortage of labour.

b.It was claimed that the presence of settled Africans who led an independent life on the farms they occupied, would result in social contact between them and whites who occupied adjoining farms. This was regarded as highly undesirable.

c.Whites argued that as long as the vote was open to Africans on the basis of a property qualification, unrestricted purchase of land by Africans would lead to an increase in the number of registered African voters. This would result in a threat to the white monopoly of political power.

d.Strong opposition was expressed to the practice of `farming Kaffirs` by absentee landlords and speculators who rented their farms to Africans in preference to European lessees, because it was easy to terminate an agreement with Africans at short notice.

e.It was claimed that the growing number of Africans on white farms encouraged the foundation of African syndicates that bought up land, thus creating a scarcity, which resulted in rising land values.

f.Yet another reason advanced against squatting was that the Africans did not use land properly.

Yet when the Natives Land Act of 1913 was passed the estimated number of squatters hardly justified the hysteria that surrounded the issue and brought all the parties to give their unqualified support to legislation which, in effect, sought to inflict genocide. What the whites failed to achieve on the battlefield – to wipe the Africans out – they sought to do by starving them to death. The hysteria that accompanied the build-up to the passing of the Natives Land Act was really intended to throw up a smokescreen and so hide the base racist intentions of the legislation. Sol Plaatje put it starkly thus: `The Boers are now ousting the Englishmen from the public scene, and when they have finished with them, they will make a law declaring it a crime for a Native to live in South Africa, unless he is a servant in the employ of a Boer, and from this it will be just one step to complete slavery.3 When H. F. Verwoerd made a statement almost four decades later setting out the goals of the apartheid policy of the National Party and declaring the Africans were `sojourners, in areas outside the Bantustans, who would say Sol Plaatje`s prognosis had been baseless?

With the passing of the Natives Land Act of 1913 in addition to the Mines and Works Act and the Native Labour Regulation Act of 1911, the white government laid firm foundations for a race-based system of oppression and exploitation.

Long-term Effects of Land Policy

The Natives Land Act, which was introduced in parliament on a motion by an Orange Free State member, prohibited black people from wandering about without a proper pass, squatting on farms, and sowing on the share system, and it took effective measures to restrict the purchase and lease of land by blacks. In effect the Act extended to the whole Union the land laws of the Boer Republic of the Orange Free State which had denied land-ownership rights to Africans.

After the Act was passed, the South African Native National Congress (as the African National Congress was then called) made a desperate appeal to the Governor-General to withhold his signature until Congress had lodged its objections to the law. The Governor-General curtly replied that it was not within his `constitutional function, to do so. A deputation which Congress sent to England to make representations to the British government was refused a hearing and returned home empty-handed. It was at that point that the first Secretary-General of the ANC, Sol Plaatje, who had so tirelessly led the campaign against the passing of the Act, threw up his hands in despair, saying: `Thereby the die was cast, and the mandate went forth that the land laws of the Orange Free State … shall be the laws of the whole Union of South Africa. The worst feature in the case is the fact that … now, however, without a president, and without the prerogative of the king (by the exercise of which the evils of such a law could have been averted), disowned by the king`s own ministers on the spot, God in the heavens alone knows what will become of the hapless, because voteless Natives, who are without a president, without a king, and without a Governor-General with constitutional functions, under taskmasters whose national traditions are to enslave the dark races.

The effects of the Natives Land Act were felt immediately. Not only were Africans dispossessed of their land, but within a month of the passing of the Act they were thrown out of white farms and dispossessed of their livestock.

In terms of the Act a commission was appointed to draw up a schedule of the areas set aside for occupation by Africans. These were known as the scheduled areas. Although in theory Africans were free to purchase land in these areas, in practice they belonged to the government, which reserved them for occupation by Africans. Thus Sol Plaatje`s oft-stated fear that the passing of the Natives Land Act would prohibit Africans `from investing their earnings in land whereon they could spend their days in peace,5 was proved true.

The Grim Reality

With all the political parties in the Union parliament agreed on setting aside certain prescribed areas of occupation for Africans, there was no problem in determining their extent. They fixed the boundaries where the end of the Wars of Dispossession had left the Africans. The area set aside for Africans constituted 7,3 per cent of the country`s total land area.

In spite of the increasing population, the extent of the scheduled areas, which had already created serious problems of landlessness at the time of the passing of the Act in 1913, remained unchanged. The government acknowledged this fact by passing the Native Land and Trust Act of 1936 in exchange for the African right to the franchise, by allocating an additional 5 789 544 morgen of released areas to make up a total area set aside for African occupation of 17 518 977 morgen or 12,4 per cent of the country`s total land area. In 1989, when the African population was estimated at 28 million, the area for African occupation remained what it was in 1936.

Over the years white governments have tried all sorts of stratagems to avoid the crucial issue of land by addressing the overpopulation of the reserves and their increasing inability to provide sustenance for the peasantry. In 1943 the Smuts government issued a White Paper in which it set out its scheme to rehabilitate the reserves. Among the major features of the rehabilitation and betterment scheme was the culling of stock to the carrying capacity of the communal pasturage, and the removal from residential areas of those who had no arable allotments and placing them in various labour settlements. In this way the government hoped that peasant farmers in the reserves could be made self-sufficient.

The peasants fought back by destroying the fences the government had put up to fence off the communal pasturage, and winter and summer grazing camps.6 In turn the government held communities nearby the destroyed fences collectively responsible and imposed a collective fine. This action served only to provoke whole peasant communities into various forms of resistance that have now become part of the national struggle for liberation.

The stringent implementation of rehabilitation measures, which limited the number of livestock to the carrying capacity of the pasturage, has left most households without stock to use for farming purposes. In many areas tractors are hired to plough the land but most owners of arable land cannot afford the charges. Consequently the land is left fallow, and the people rely to an ever-increasing extent on the earnings of migrant and commuter workers as well as on those of workers employed in the Bantustans themselves.

Since the 1960s the problem of overpopulation has been exacerbated by the National Party policy of uprooting millions of Africans and dumping them in rural settlements in various parts of the country. Among the most notorious of these settlements are Dimbaza, Sada, and Mdantsane in the border region of the Eastern Cape, Botshabelo in the Orange Free State, and Duiwelskloof, Oukasie and others in the Transvaal. The mass removal of people from areas they had occupied for half a century and more has affected an estimated three million people.

In addition, the implementation of influx control regulations also caused a swelling of the numbers of Africans in the reserves. The policy of `Back to the Land, which the Dutch Reformed Church had called for in the 1920s to stem the tide of Afrikaner urbanisation failed; yet the same people and the same church were not only prescribing it for Africans in the latter half of the twentieth century, but were enforcing it legally and brutally.

Thus with the passage of time, the land distribution in the various reserves became critical as millions of Africans were trapped between-the grinding poverty of the reserves and the hammer of the laws that forced them out of the urban or rural `white areas`. As a result migrant labour became a way of life for the vast majority of able-bodied men, who were forced to leave their families in the reserves while they went in search of employment in the white areas. This set in motion the widespread, socially undesirable system of migrant labour which entrenched some of the worst forms of exploitation.

Not on y did the mines pay very low wages to the migrant labourers but because of the role which gold played in the economy, they set a pattern for the low level of wages throughout the economy. In computing the wages of workers the mines did not take into account their families. For a long time the Chamber of Mines argued that the wage of a black mine worker was subsidised by the produce of his peasant arable holding – a lie which the Chamber of Mines knew to be such. In seeking to find a theoretical justification for its bloodsucking practices, the Chamber`s economists advanced the theory that if the wages of an African mine worker were raised he would work only for a short period of time to satisfy his simple needs. They proceeded to lend respectability to this false theory by representing it graphically with a backward-bending supply curve; hereby they sought to show that higher wages would result in a diminishing supply of labour, since African mine workers required cash wages only to pay once annually the poll and local taxes.

In the 1960s the government devised a policy of industrial decentralisation in an attempt to create employment for the impoverished and overpopulated Bantustans by encouraging the establishment of industries on the borders of these territories. The immediate effect of the decentralisation of industry to the border areas was the creation of large settlements of African workers on the Bantustan side of the border. To attract industries to locate in border areas the government tolerated the worst forms of exploitation. Chinese industrialists from Taiwan, for example, have found a fertile field for investment in the Bantustans. Here, under conditions which hardly differ from those on South Africa`s commercial farms, Africans toil under unimaginable conditions of insecurity. Not satisfied with denying the African workers recognition of their trade unions, the government prohibited the Wage Board, which had originally been set up to protect the interests of the unskilled and unorganised workers, from determining wages for African workers employed in border industries. Even after black trade unions were recognised in the late 1970s, Bantustan administrations did not allow unions in the industries that operated in their areas.

In this way the South African government sought to wash its hands of its responsibility for the millions of Africans whom it condemned to a living death in the Bantustans. It did not have to provide housing, education or health services. It denied them the right to protect themselves through their trade unions against unscrupulous exploitation by greedy domestic and foreign capitalists. The workers in these settlements fall into two broad categories, namely those who commute daily to work on the `white` side of the border, and those who work in factories located on the Bantustan side of the border. The underlying assumption in the case of both is that the wage supplemented earnings from subsistence farming. Yet in practice the earnings derived from employment either in the border industries or in factories inside the Bantustans as well as from migrant labour are the only real source of income for households in the reserves.

The issue of land and its redistribution is fundamental to the struggle for liberation in South Africa. There can be no peace until this and other rights of which the majority of the people have been deprived for so long have been restored to them.

4. African Rights under Siege

The formation of the South African Native Convention in 1909 marked a watershed. The convention drew together all the black political groups which had operated in the four colonies. Its decision to continue meeting and elect a committee to ensure such continuity laid the ground for the establishment of a national organisation. Even before the formation of Union the need to unite in order to fight effectively against determined attacks on the political rights of Africans by the alliance of Boers and Britons had become apparent.

The launching of the South African Native National Congress on 8 January 1912 (later renamed the African National Congress) was thus the culmination of a process that had started before Union. Emphasising the dire need for unity which would have to cut across and replace all hitherto ethnically based organisational structures, Pixley ka l. Seme- one of the founders of the ANC – declared: `The demon of racialism, the aberrations of the Xhosa-Fingo feud, the animosities that exist between Zulus and the Tsongas, between the Basutos and every other Native must be buried and forgotten … We are one people.

The call for unity has been consciously kept alive throughout the history of the ANC, and has been immortalised in today`s ANC freedom songs:

Sikhalela Izwe Lakithi

Sikhalela Izwe Lakithi

Elathathwa ngama Galajana.

Zulu Xhosa Msotho

Hlanganani.

[We cry for our country

We cry for our country

Which was taken by robbers.

Zulu Xhosa MoSotho

Unite.]

When the ANC was formed the people of those days expressed their joy by saying that while Boer and Briton had formed a parliament for themselves, the ANC represented the Africans, own parliament. Obviously matters could not for ever remain this way. There cannot be two parliaments in one and the same country. The ANC is struggling to form one people, to be represented in one parliament in one country. In spite of the various ethnic groupings in the country, black and white, the ANC is seeking to forge one nation, building a non-racial democracy in a unitary state.

Still in its swaddling clothes, the ANC had to wage a grim battle against the Natives Land Act, which laid the foundation for naked exploitation of African labour and easy accumulation by white capitalists. In addition, in 1913 pass laws were extended to women in the Orange Free State, thus opening another front. The resistance by the women took the form of defiance, and in the end the government was forced to abandon its plans to extend the pass laws to women. That was a victory for the ANC in a battle in which women formed the front line, a victory that kept at bay for more than forty years the forces that sought to enslave and expose African women to the unspeakable indignities of the pass laws.

When the ANC saw how harshly the government was implementing the Natives Land Act, and the disastrous effects 1 it had on Africans who were regarded as squatters under the law, it once again, out of desperation, sent a delegation to London to make representations to the British government. As was the case with the delegation sent in 1909 it met with indifference. From then on the ANC knew that it had, out of necessity, to plough a lone furrow. Yet while it faced this reality it was prepared to join hands with anyone who was opposed to the injustice that white domination unleashed on the majority.

An event that was to bring to the South African political scene a new force and new thinking was the breakaway from the South African Labour Party of some of its members, who formed the International Socialist League in 1915. Following the teachings of Karl Marx, the members of the League, though they had for so long been members of a political party that subscribed to the racist attitudes of `keeping the Kaffir in his place`, moved away from the established white stereotypes. They accepted that the African working class suffered even greater exploitation than themselves and in addition were subjected to national oppression. They therefore forged links with the ANC by appearing on the same platforms with it. By the time the League was transformed into the Communist Party of South Africa in 1921, the ground had been prepared for a relationship that would ripen into a deeper and clearer understanding of the problems facing South Africa.

The Stallard Commission

The legislation affecting Africans that parliament passed in the first few years after Union had been hastily put together to deal with specific issues. Louis Botha and Jan Smuts considered that there was a need to set out guidelines that would provide a framework for and continuity in the policies that white governments would pursue with regard to Africans. The Stallard Commission was assigned this task. Its findings appeared in the Report of the Local Government Commission of 1921.

After considering representations made before it on the question of differentiation between Africans and whites on grounds of colour, the Report had this to say: `The differentiation on the ground of colour – by confining the franchise to Europeans – is one of a serious character and raises at once the future of the black races in white urban areas. If the Native is to be regarded as a permanent element in municipal areas, and if he is to have an equal opportunity of establishing himself there permanently, there can be no justification for basing his exclusion from the franchise on the simple ground of colour.`

The Commission proceeded to make a statement that was so often refuted on public platforms by white politicians. `Some Coloured persons and Natives are possessed of property and of brains, and have educational qualifications not inferior to some enfranchised Europeans; many carry on trades and are their own employers, and it cannot be denied that they have special and peculiar needs not at present being met If, as we consider, it is to the public advantage that all sections of the permanent community should be represented in the government, on what ground is the franchise withheld from the Natives?,

That is the question, the crucial question that anybody would ask. But other factors had to be taken into consideration. The Commission`s final recommendation was this: `We consider that the history of the races, especially having regard to South African history, shows that the commingling of black and white is undesirable. The Native should only be allowed to enter urban areas, which are essentially the white man`s creation, when he is willing to enter and minister to the needs of the white man, and should depart therefrom, when he ceases so to minister. In seeking a way to control the movement of Africans, the Commission laid down guidelines, which were later refined by the National Party after 1948 by the influx control regulations, the tightening of the pass laws, and the setting up of the labour bureau system of the 1950s. For the efficient and effective administration of these measures, the Dom Boek became the monitoring instrument which every African over the age of fifteen years had to carry on his person and produce on demand. The Commission recommended: `Natives should … be warned timeously of the prevailing conditions in the labour market and in this matter the government might usefully co-operate with municipalities, magistrates, officers of the Department of Native Affairs, and the police might be posted with the necessary information and advise Natives of places where work is and is not available, of the nature of the labour required… Such measures will check the excessive influx of Natives to towns.

The Commission further suggested that every municipality should establish a department dealing solely with Native Affairs as was the case in Durban where such a department had been set up with `most satisfactory results,. Also following the example of Durban, the Commission recommended that municipal authorities should have the sole monopoly of production and distribution of Mqombothi (African corn beer). All profits derived from the sale of the beer would be spent on improvements in the African areas. It was this recommendation which in later years was used by the Nationalist government to justify its insistence that the Africans must pay for the provision of services in their areas – in housing, the building of schools, and all aspects of welfare. They had to be drowned in alcohol in order to generate funds to provide for improvements in African areas. Is it surprising that during times of unrest in African townships the first targets to be destroyed were the liquor outlets which the government built?

To solve the problem of lack of housing for Africans in the urban areas in those days (which is still as bad in the present day), the Commission concluded: `After careful consideration and consultation with the Native Affairs Commission and the officials of the Native Affairs Department, your Commissioners have unanimously come to the conclusion, and recommend, that it should be a recognised principle of government that Natives men, women and children – should only be permitted within municipal areas in so far and for so long as their presence is demanded by the wants of the white population.

One may ask, as did one of the characters in Plato`s Republic, What is Justice? The reply, which is apt in today`s South Africa, was: Justice is the interests of the Stronger.

With regard to the administration of urban African locations, the Commission suggested the appointment by the government of location superintendents. The Commission went on to recommend that there should be an Advisory Committee `representing all Native residents in that area under his jurisdiction, to ensure that he would be best placed to `keep in close touch with the Natives under his charge … thus ensuring prudent administration and general contentment. The Commission concluded thus: `We … recommend that Municipal Councils should be empowered by law to make regulations (subject to the approval of the central government) for the constitution of Advisory Committees of Natives in Native villages, and that these regulations should define the duties and functions of these committees.

Following this recommendation, Native Advisory Boards were established in 1923 ostensibly to provide urban Africans with a platform to air their views, thereby complementing the rural local councils set up under the Glen Grey Act of 1894. For good measure the Commission felt that there should be a special mechanism to ensure that the policy it had outlined in the Report would be carried out: `We consider that a most powerful and, indeed, an essential weapon exists in the pass laws, which should be maintained in their integrity… It must be obvious that by the slack administration of those laws, travelling and settlement of undesirable Natives in White areas are facilitated.

The passing of the Natives (Urban Areas) Act in 1923 established the parameters within which the government`s policies affecting Africans were to be determined.

The Implementation of Policy

The crushing of the white mine workers, strike of 1922 by the Defence Force paved the way for the formation of an electoral pact between the Labour Party and the National Party. In the elections subsequent to the Rand Rebellion, the South African Party (SAP) was defeated and a Labour-Nationalist Pact government was formed in 1924.

No sooner had the Pact government taken over the reins of power than it passed a battery of legislation to promote the interests of white workers, in particular, and those of the whites as a group. The legislative measures of the 1920s and 1930s were enacted with such rapidity that they had a crippling effect on both the African National Congress and the Communist Party.

In 1923 the Natives (Urban Areas) Act systematised the pass laws and marked out those who carried them in the same manner that slaves carried brand marks. It was under these laws that Africans were subjected to some of the worst forms of humiliation, and to untold indignities, were thrown into jail in droves, were pressed into convict labour on the farms, where the relations between them and the farmers were no better than those between the lord of the manor and his serfs in feudal Europe. Parents were insulted by young, uncaring police at any time of day in the presence of their children in ways that were calculated to destroy their self-respect.

In 1922 the Smuts government passed the Apprenticeship Act which laid down conditions of apprenticeship that virtually excluded the Africans. In addition, the deeply embedded prejudices of the whites against Africans were so strong that white skilled workers were never prepared to help African workers to serve their apprenticeship. As a result Africans were condemned to remain in the category of unskilled workers. They slowly emerged from that position as job reservation was abandoned in order to meet the growing demand for skilled labour by all sectors of the economy. For years the government tried to prevent the employment of Africans in skilled categories by recruiting white labour from Europe.

As soon as the Pact government was formed it passed the Industrial Conciliation Act in 1924, which provided machinery for collective bargaining between employers and trade unions. In terms of this law, pass-bearing Africans were not regarded as employees, and therefore were excluded from its provisions. For years African trade unions were not recognised, and if the workers resorted to strike action the police came in to break it up violently.

In terms of the Wages Act of 1925, a Wage Board consisting of three members appointed by the government was set up. Its main function was to investigate conditions of work and wage rates in industries in which there were no trade unions. After listening to representations by trade unions, the Wage Board fixed minimum wage determinations which were legally enforced. As African trade unions were not recognised by law, their case was put before the Board by the (white) trade union in the particular industry. How effectively that was done depended on the sympathetic attitude of the trade union to the African workers.

By the middle of the 1920s, the poor white problem had become so serious that the government was compelled to seek a solution. Thousands upon thousands of Afrikaners were drifting from the farms to seek work in urban areas. Primary industry which involved the exploitation of mineral resources offered few employment opportunities. The one sector of the economy that was capable of absorbing the increasing numbers of poor whites was manufacturing industry. The government thus charged the Board of Trade and Industry (BTI) with the task of making recommendations to promote the development of secondary industry.

Towards this end, the government passed the Customs Tariff and Excise Duties Act in 1925 which afforded protection to a number of firms in secondary industry on condition they gave preference in employment to whites. In addition, the government required that the white unskilled labour force should be paid wages commensurate with an arbitrarily determined standard of living – a practice known as the `civilised labour policy`, in terms of which even the wrapping on tins of jam was marked `Manufactured by white labour`. (This raised such strong reaction among students at Fort Hare University during the Depression years of the 1930s that they emptied the contents of the jam tins on the tables and the floor in the dining-room.) Unskilled whites began to earn more than their unskilled black counterparts. This differential practice meant in effect that the higher wage level of whites was subsidised by the black worker, and largely explains the hostile attitude of the white worker to any changes that would alter the status of the African workers and make the African workers compete with him.

The pursuance of this preferential employment policy speeded up the growth of the manufacturing industry and also wiped out the poor white problem by the time the Second World War broke out in 1939. Employment avenues were kept open for whites at a time of decline in business activity. During the Depression years from 1929 to 1933 the number of black workers in manufacturing industries dropped by almost ten thousand while that of whites increased by three thousand.

The position of the Wage Board was reviewed towards the end of the Second World War. By then the interests of virtually all white workers were looked after by their trade unions. The Board continued to operate after the end of the war purportedly to look after the black workers who were largely unorganised. But during the decade 1947 to 1957, when Afrikaner business enterprises were finding their feet, the Wage Board did not fix new minimum wage levels so that there was no growth in real wages for blacks.

In 1925 parliament passed legislation to consolidate laws relating to the payment of taxes by Africans. The poll tax was imposed on all African males between the ages of 18 and 65 years. Development services for Africans were paid for from the poll tax of one pound per head. Only one-fifth of the poll tax proceeds was set aside for African education. It was this niggardly provision for African education which for years set severe limits to any further development. Over a long period of time, both the colonial and the Union governments had not shown any interest in African education. Missionary schools under the management of various denominations set up schools in the Native reserves to enable their converts to acquire literary skills mainly to read the Bible. As African educational needs grew beyond the ability of the churches to finance, they pressurised the government to subsidise them. The government, however, regarded the provision of services for Africans as an area in which the Africans should provide for themselves from their own resources. According to government policy Africans were not part of the country`s population. It was in compliance with this policy that the government subsidised African education from the poll tax proceeds, and used four-fifths of the poll tax to pay for the development of the African areas.

Disenfranchisement of Africans

After the Pact government was formed in 1924, Prime Minister Hertzog elucidated the policy of his government in his notorious Smithfield speech of 1925, in which he dwelt at length on the threat the African franchise in the Cape posed to the whites. If the Africans continued to exercise the vote, he argued, `It must inevitably lead to the decline of the whites and European civilization in the Union. He saw the continued enfranchisement of Africans in the Cape as a `threatening evil` which had to be removed: `Unless this franchise is removed from the Natives in the Cape … it will become impossible for the Northern Provinces … to keep the door closed against the demand for the franchise from the Natives within their boundaries.2

General Hertzog advanced as a reason for the need to scrap the African franchise the fact that a number of Cape members of parliament owed their seats to the African vote. Out of 135 members of parliament the Cape had 51 members, 12 of whom were elected in constituencies where the registered African voters were in the majority. In this he saw the danger that the whites would not have an unlimited right to do what they wished with the Africans, as there would always be opposing voices in parliament. The answer lay in the creation by the government of a `Union Native Council` where Africans would `satisfy their desire to participate in the government of the country`. This foreshadowed the establishment some twelve years later of the Natives Representative Council. Such a Council would give the African an `opportunity to do everything for his nation within his own country … without the intervention of the white man – except in so far as the white man`s leadership is required. In the establishment of such a Council he saw what he regarded as the final solution of the `Native Problem,.

As far as the Coloureds were concerned he dismissed their position thus: `Fortunately the Cape Coloureds are sensible enough to realise in line with the politics laid down by the Nationalist Party that their interests are with the Whites and not to be found with the Natives. 3

As prime minister, Hertzog pressed hard for the elimination of the Cape African franchise. He pursued this vigorously as one of the conditions for the formation of a coalition government with Smuts`s South African Party in 1933.

As a result of the concerted attack not only to deprive the Africans in the Cape of their right to the franchise but also to slam the door against the extension of the franchise to Africans in the three other provinces, P.Ka L Seme, then President-General of the ANC, and Professor D. D. T. Jabavu called the All-African Convention in 1935 to fight against the Hertzog Bills. For the second time when Africans were faced with legislation that sought to deprive them of basic human rights and to cut them off from the common stream of South African society, they converged on Bloemfontein, as they had done in 1909, to oppose the Hertzog Bills, which had once again provided a common platform for the unity of the whites.

The Representation of Natives Bill provided for the removal of Cape African registered voters from the common roll of voters. After the legislation had been passed Africans would be allowed to elect three representatives to the law-making House of Assembly who would only vote in matters affecting Africans. This meant that no other members of parliament would owe their seat to the African vote. The other provinces, as well as the Cape, were allowed to elect, through electoral colleges, four representatives to the Senate, which was like a schoolboys, debating society with no powers to make laws.

To salve the conscience of whites who might still have some scruples about disenfranchising a whole people, rendering them outcasts, parliament passed the Native Land and Trust Act which allocated an additional seven million morgen for the African population. When Africans complained about the inadequacy of the offer, Hertzog sent them away saying that half a loaf of bread was better than nothing; they should be grateful.

On the Defensive

The vicious attack that was launched in the years from 1920 to 1936 caught the ANC unprepared. From the day the ANC was formed it had been forced on the defensive, always seeking to parry an unending series of crippling blows. In devising its tactics to counter such attacks, the ANC had been guided by the belief that it could appeal to what it believed was the British sense of justice. When it found itself unable to take a stand against Hertzog`s attacks it was not in a position to go to the people with any plan of action, being top-heavy with very little support amongst the masses of people. As a result, not only were the masses not provided with an effective leadership, but those who were at the head of the ANC felt helpless to do anything.

From year to year the ANC held conferences and passed resolutions that failed to grapple with the ever-deteriorating situation. It was only in 1935 that both the ANC and their African leaders were shocked into action and called the All-African Convention.

5. A New Front Opens: The Labour Struggle

It did not take long before the Natives Land Act and other legislation achieved what they had been intended to do. Africans were soon being driven out of the reserves by the sheer need to survive by finding work in the `white areas`. Given the level of economic development in the decades following the formation of Union in 1910, the supply of labour flooding the labour market was far in excess of the demand. This was illustrated by a statement made by a white foreman at a jam factory that if workers did not work hard enough there were many others sitting at the gate `waving flies off their faces,. Driven hard, paid barely a subsistence wage, workers faced conditions of employment that were utterly deplorable: the stage was set for employer-worker conflict.

Within the first few years after its formation the ANC found itself involved in various facets of the struggle to promote the interests of the oppressed in the country. In the period 1918-1919 a great deal of activity among the African and Coloured workers of Cape Town took place around the issue of wages, especially the African and Coloured dock workers. There was also considerable discontent among the stevedores who were employed by private firms and were paid according to the number of days they worked. Wages had lagged behind the increasing cost of living. This was very ably illustrated by S. H. Frankel: `nothing has changed so little in South Africa as the Black man`s rate of pay.1 The workers attributed the increases in the price of commodities to the fact that foodstuffs were exported, thus creating a shortage in the domestic market. Because of a severe drought in the Eastern Cape in 1919, there was a grave shortage of maize in the Transkei, resulting in an increase in the price of maize and maize products while the government continued to export maize.

On 16 December 1919 the Cape Native National Congress, jointly with the Industrial and Commercial Union (ICU) and Industrial Workers of Africa, held a meeting at Ndabeni location. The meeting resolved to approach both the government and private employers to increase the wages of African and Coloured workers. The meeting also protested against the export of foodstuffs.

Congress played a leading role in the strike that ensued as a result of the unwillingness of employers to raise wages. The strikers involved fell into three groups: African dock workers employed by the Railways; African and Coloured workers; casual and general labour employed by the Railways. Even then the tendency of the white workers to observe from a distance while the black workers were locked in a struggle with the employers gave an indication of the gap that was to widen on racial lines over the years between black and white workers, to the detriment of the working class. During the course of the strike, Robert Stuart of the Cape Federation of Trade Unions and E. H. Jones of the National Union of Railways and Harbour Services gave only moral support and failed to bring out the white workers.

On the other hand, the Rev. Z. R. Mahabane, president of Congress in the Cape, wrote a strongly worded letter to the press in reply to a statement made by Mr Girdwood, the Port Superintendent of Cape Town. [He] had the effrontery to suggest that at the outside a couple of pounds a month would cover the gross living expenses of the average raw kaffir? … The truth of the matter is that even this “raw kaffir” can never in these days of profiteering subsist and support his family at home and pay his taxes on a sum of 40s. per month. Mr Girdwood`s horse (if he has any) could not subsist on that amount.

In the `bucket strike` of municipal workers that took place in Johannesburg in 1917, Congress had also been involved. Five of its leaders, D. S. Letanka, L. T. Mvabaza, N. D. Ngojo, R. Cetyiwe and H. Kraai – the last two formed the Cape Town branch of the Industrial Workers of Africa (IWA) – were arrested together with S. P. Bunting and H. C. Hanscombe of the International Socialist League. They were charged with instigating the `bucket strike`. When the ICU later set up offices in the northern provinces it was welcomed by some of the leaders of the ANC like J. T. Gumede, R. Ngcayiya, Selope Thema, and L. T. Mvabaza.

All Bound Together

It was not just because of colour prejudice that African workers were excluded from the provisions of the Industrial Conciliation Act of 1924. The main purpose of government policy was the exploitation of Africans. To achieve that end the policy with regard to Africans had to be all-embracing, covering them all without distinction between classes. The interests of the workers, like those of any class or social group, were bound together by a common bond of oppression and exploitation. From this there was no escape even for those who were used by the government to carry out its policies – for example, the police, civil servants and chiefs.

The refusal to recognise African trade unions and the right of an African to become a member of a registered trade union because he was pass-bearing was part of an overall plan of national oppression and exploitation. It serves to show in a practical way that the working-class struggle in the South African situation is inextricably bound up with the struggle for national liberation. The working class has no way of bringing about fundamental changes to the long-entrenched policies of exploitation without first breaking down the barriers that stand in the pathway towards national liberation.

In addition, the refusal to recognise African trade unions was linked up with very intense capital accumulation during the period from the 1920s through to the 1960s. It was during the twenties that the government accepted the advice that the economy of the country should not be made to depend on gold since it was a wasting asset and the gold-mining industry had a limited life. In 1925 the government adopted the recommendation of the Board of Trade and Industry (BTI) to encourage the development of manufacturing industry. When the National Party formed a Pact government with the Labour Party, it was well placed to create the conditions in which the growth of Afrikaner capital would take place rapidly.

The founding of the Afrikaner Broederbond in 1918 and of Sanlam as well as of Federale Volksbeleggings, which was formed as a result of decisions taken at the Ekonomiese Volkskongres in 1939, represents the main landmarks in the rise and development of Afrikaner capital. Occupying the commanding heights in both government and civil service, Afrikaners were able to make use of parliament to pass legislation that would favour capital accumulation.

In forming these cultural-political-economic organisations purporting to be concerned with the interests and welfare of the Afrikaner, Afrikaner capitalists succeeded in bringing all classes of Afrikaners into the trenches `in defence of Afrikanerdom,. In this way there was no fear that the volk would make demands that would affect unfavourably a programme that was designed to improve the cause of the Afrikaner.

Like their English counterparts, Afrikaner capitalists realised that the paramount feature of costs in production in primary and secondary industry as well as in commerce and service industry had to be kept as low as possible. The wages of African labour, the main component of the labour force, had to be maintained at a level that would allow for rapid capital accumulation. It was for this reason that Africans were excluded from recognition as employees in terms of the Industrial Conciliation Act of 1924; and that, in implementing the plan to foster the development of secondary industry in 1925, the Pact government under the leadership of General Hertzog adopted the white labour policy whereby the white working class was bought by the ruling class with unearned remuneration drawn from the surplus value created by African labour. The way was now open for the ruthless exploitation of the Africans.

The ANC was thus forced to fight on a multiplicity of fronts for it was the rights of all Africans, of all classes, that were under attack. The struggle for liberation is a struggle that affects all Africans equally and it is in recognition of this fact that the ANC has always been and still is in the forefront of the working-class struggle, of the general struggle for liberation.

When the National Party of D. F. Malan came to power in 1948 it immediately set about preparing an ingenious plan to create labour pools to control the flow of labour to every sector of the economy. This is what the influx control regulations set out to do, by establishing labour bureaux which kept a tag on every worker. The labour bureau issued every African with a Dom Boek (reference book) which showed the name of his or her employer.

On the first page it carried in purple stamp: ,[John] is permitted to remain in the urban area of … while employed by… The effect of this was threefold: (i) It tied down a worker to an employer, however bad his conditions of employment were, for fear that if he lost his job he would be endorsed out of the city to the reserves. (ii) Inexhaustible supplies of labour were dammed up in the reserves and only released in regulated doses as they were wanted for specific employment. (iii) The government delivered the African worker bound hand and foot to capital for exploitation.

The operation of the influx control regulations encompassed all Africans. The fight against them could not be left to any one section to lead. It was a total fight that required mobilisation of all the people. It was the ANC, and it alone, that had the capacity to rally the people against such ruthless suppression of every human right. The decade of the fifties saw the ANC going into action in the urban townships to organise workers, and in the Bantustans to organise peasants in a peasant-led struggle against the racially inspired monster of apartheid. ANC organisers concentrated on instilling the need for its members to join trade unions. Scores and scores of meetings took place in the townships under the cover of darkness. It was a task that was carried out patiently and consistently. It blossomed over a long period of time into the mushroom growth of the trade-union movement of the 1980s, which has culminated in the formation of the biggest trade-union federation COSATU – the country has ever known. From the beginning of the 1950s the ANC was actively involved in the working-class struggle in two significant respects that were to influence the course of the struggle for liberation.

Firstly, in 1953 the government amended the Industrial Conciliation Act and brought in apartheid to ensure that trade unions would be organised on a racial basis. War Measure 145 of January 1942, which had been renewed from year to year, was incorporated in the Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act of 1953. This provided for works committees to make representations to employers, thus slamming the door on the recognition of African trade unions. The differences which arose in the trade-union movement as a result of the compulsory enforcement of apartheid by the government led to the formation of two trade-union federations. One, TUCSA, fell in line with government policy not to admit Africans in its membership. The other, the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), was openly opposed to the government`s racial policies. The ANC actively assisted in its formation and worked with it in the Congress Alliance.

Secondly, the ANC spared no effort to show to its members and to the public generally the symbiotic relationship between the oppressed and exploited working class and itself in the struggle for liberation. The role of the working class in the national democratic struggle and the role of the ANC in the working-class struggle for the recognition of the rights of workers to form and belong to trade unions became two faces of the same coin. The ANC is thus the spearhead of the national democratic struggle, and the working class as the major force within the national democratic struggle should give effective leadership to that struggle.

6. The Interlude: 1936-1946

The decade 1936-46 marked a departure from years of inactivity as well as a pointer to a new phase in the struggle for liberation.

The All-African Convention had been convened for the specific purpose of marshalling Africans in every walk of life to fight the disenfranchisement of African voters in the Cape. But with the passing of the Representation of Natives Act in 1936, the AAC failed in the task. What then was to be done? Some delegates at the 1936 conference of the AAC, especially those from the Western Cape, argued that it should be permanently established. Those who espoused this view were carried away by the apparent unity of all Africans and the solidarity of some small groups of Coloured debating societies into believing that independent organisations like the ANC, which had taken part in the AAC during 1935-6, would surrender their autonomy. Furthermore, no attempt was made to examine the inherent weakness of a federal structure in leading a protracted struggle that demanded a high degree of individual loyalty.

The Representation of Natives Act provided, firstly, for the representation of the Cape African voters by three whites in the House of Assembly, and by two whites in the Cape Provincial Council. Secondly, four whites elected by bodies like Advisory Boards and the United Transkeian Territories General Council (UTTGC or Bunga) would represent Africans in the Senate. Thirdly, a Natives Representative Council was established to ensure representation of Africans at national level, as distinct from Advisory Boards for urban Africans and the local councils, which provided local administration in the Native reserves. The Natives Representative Council consisted of twelve elected members and four government-appointed members. The Secretary of Native Affairs presided at all the meetings of the Council, which were also attended by a number of Native Commissioners.

In their immediate reaction the African voters of the Cape, who had for eighty years known the value of the franchise and used it to influence decisions where they were made – in parliament – decided to boycott participation in government-created institutions. But the older African leadership, for whom there was no alternative to complying, saw boycotts as a form of passive inaction that robbed them of an opportunity to elect people to put their case to the government. Moreover, the Africans in the northern provinces, who had never known any better, also participated in elections to the new bodies, as did the Communist Party, which gauged the support of its policies by the number of votes it mustered in such elections. When differences of opinion in such matters arise it is easy to call the opposite side names. Because the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) was known to be Trotskyite-inclined and supported the boycott, all those who urged the boycott of government institutions were associated with the Unity Movement and with Trotskyism. On the other hand, the NEUM dubbed all those who argued for participation as collaborators. Consequently no proper examination of the advantages or disadvantages of participation took place, with the result that a tactical move which could have been tried and abandoned if it did not work was allowed to simmer over a long period of time until the Nationalist government through its own blunders virtually closed the debate.

With the passing of the Hertzog Bills, the government slammed the door on Africans who had enjoyed the franchise on a common roll with whites, to say nothing of extending the franchise to Africans in the northern provinces. It was then that the ANC awoke to the dire need to provide effective leadership. It set out to reorganise, and in the years from 1937 to 1939 its President-General and Secretary-General – the Rev. Z. R. Mahabane and the Rev. J. A. Calata – toured the country with a view to breathing new life into the ANC. At the 1940 conference of the ANC, Dr A. B. Xumawas elected President-General. Conscious of the structural weakness of the organisation whose constitution had not been reviewed since 1912 when it was established, he took steps to ensure that the effort to recruit membership would be matched by a suitable organisational form.

Guided by his vision that `The emancipation of the African people shall come from Congress, this can come about when Congress is well organised`, a new constitution, which became known as the Xuma Constitution, was adopted by the 1943 conference. This provided for individual membership based on payment of a membership fee. It also clearly defined the structure of the organisation, consisting of the National Executive, elected at national conferences, to which delegates came from branches established throughout the country; the Provincial Executive, elected at an annual conference to which delegates were drawn from branches within the provinces; and at the local level an executive elected by a conference of the branch, which became the machine for the recruitment of members. The organisation financed its activities from the meagre membership fee of 2s. 6d. shared equally between the three levels. The 1941 conference was the first to take place with Xumaas President. In addition to the decision to draw up a new constitution, it resolved to revive the Women`s League, and a year later conference called on the National Executive to set up a Youth League. With the establishment of these two important organs to work among women and youth, the ANC had its feet well set on the road to lead the national struggle for liberation.

While the ANC was striving to build an efficient machine based on a people united in purpose to fight against segregation, elements among African and Coloured intellectuals set up splinter organisations. With the passing in 1936 of the Hertzog Bills, a system of segregation and repression was established for the Africans that eventually would be extended to the Coloureds and Indians as well. But the government sought to tackle one group at a time to make sure that the three would not be united in fighting a common evil. Each would tend to see an attack on its rights in isolation.

Though in 1938 the National Liberation League had the foresight to form a Non-European United Front against the emerging policy of segregation, when the Smuts government struck against the Coloureds some intellectuals thought they could stem the tide by forming new organisations. In 1943 the government set up within the Department of the Interior a Coloured Affairs Department (CAD), under which all matters relating to Coloureds would be handled separately by civil servants assigned for that purpose. This was the equivalent of the Native Affairs Department (NAD) for Africans. Some Coloureds reacted by forming the Anti-Coloured Affairs Department, which was an organisation of the elite composed mainly of teachers and debating societies like the New Era Fellowship. Shortly after its formation, its members attended the annual conference of what was left of the All-African Convention (AAC), where a decision was taken to form a Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) based on a l0-point programme. In practice the Non-European Unity Movement concentrated all its energies and propaganda on opposing the ANC. Its mouthpiece, Torch, poured venom on Professor Z. K. Matthews as if to destroy him would have been tantamount to paralysing the ANC. Its main plank was to call for a boycott not only of government institutions but also of every move by the ANC and other progressive organisations against the government. When the government introduced separate seating arrangements for whites and blacks in buses in Cape Town, the Non-European Unity Movement boycotted the decision to fight the move. As long as the discussions were limited to talking and they could take an opposite view, all was well with them. Action … No. Talk, talk, talk … Yes.

Another group that sprang up at the time was the African Democratic Party under the leadership of Paul Mosaka, a brilliant scholar and an able and courageous debater who grew up in the slum of Pimville. He would stand up at any time, anywhere, as he did in the Natives Representative Council, to express unflinchingly his views about government policy. But he kept out of the organisation where his talents could have been fruitfully harnessed. The Democratic Party, which never mustered much support, assumed the role of critic of the ANC, and it soon disappeared.

After the government had taken the stand that the Africans were not to be part of the country`s common political stream, it adopted other repressive measures which left the Africans no alternative but to resist as best they could. Among these were the Native Laws Amendment Act which tightened up the pass laws so that it became very difficult to get permission to seek work in areas like the Western Cape; War Measure No. 145 which strictly forbade strike action by African workers during the war years when the scarcity of basic consumer goods, accompanied by sharp increases in the cost of living, resulted in a serious lag in wages; and the Betterment and Rehabilitation Scheme with its emphasis on the culling of stock in the reserves and resettling of people, which resulted in removals and touched the peasants on a raw spot.

It was as a result of these pressing social and economic conditions that the ANC had to give leadership in the fight against the pass laws. The anti-pass campaign of 1943, which was led by the ANC, covered both the urban and rural areas. This campaign served to focus the attention of the people on the ANC as the organisation to lead the struggle not only against pass laws but against national oppression in all its manifestations. The President-General of the ANC presided over an action committee, which included also some members of the Communist Party. The committee guided the campaign, in the course of which many people joined the ANC as members.

The war years saw the rapid expansion of manufacturing industry, which attracted a large influx of labour from the reserves. The Council of Non-European Trade Unions became very active in organising unions among African workers, whose wages were low and could not keep pace with the fast-rising costs of living. The 1942 War Measure 145, on the other hand, prohibited strikes by Africans, thus creating a situation in which discontent was rife and an opportunity developed for the ANC to increase its membership. In addition, the large inflow of people from the reserves gave rise to a sharp demand for housing. The situation became critical as shantytowns began springing up, and although the ANC did not exploit this situation to make the shantytowns their recruiting field, it was the only organisation to which the people looked for leadership.

The problem of housing and high rents was aggravated by increasing costs of transport. Before the end of the war, two bus boycotts had taken place in Alexandra as a result of an increase in fares by one penny. The fact that people had to walk eighteen miles to save a penny is a measure of how seriously the high cost of living had affected the people.

There were other troubled waters in which the ANC was to fish. The situation of migrant labourers in the mining industry was appalling. For a long time the mines had based their calculation of the wages of migrant labour on the assumption that these were supplemented by production from subsistence peasant farming. Following this approach, the wages on the mines remained pegged over a long period of many years; while in the meanwhile, during the war years, a serious drought had broken out, resulting not only in a grave shortage of mealies but in high prices for the product. Although mealies were strictly rationed at 200 bags a month per trader in the reserves, the supplies were so short that maize of very poor quality had to be imported from Argentina at a high price.

It was under these conditions that great discontent with wages spread through the mines; and at a conference held in 1941 under the auspices of the ANC a decision was taken to form an African Mineworkers, Union. The union embarked on a campaign to claim a minimum wage of ten shillings a day. The demand made no impression on the mine-owners and the government, whose main concern was to keep the costs of producing gold low so that they could raise the level of profit and taxes. After the union had been making representations for a number of years to no avail, the workers voted at a meeting in April 1946 to go on strike. As in 1922 with the Rand Rebellion, Smuts acted swiftly and brutally to crush the strike of 70000 African mine workers and forced them at bayonet point from the compounds to go to work. Some 12 workers were killed and 1 200 wounded.

In June 1936 Clements Kadalie had told the writer that it was virtually impossible to organise on the mines, so tight was the security. Yet almost a decade thereafter a massive strike on the mines was organised. The organisers of the 1946 strike used ooMabhalana (the mine clerks) to reach out to the workers through the indunas. This was the only way to circumvent a regulation which prohibited a meeting of more than twenty Africans on mine property. After the 1946 mine strike, the mines were never again the same.

The repercussions of that strike were nation-wide and far-reaching. The Natives Representative Council which was in session at the time could not look on while the people whom it represented were being killed. At the time of the outbreak of the strike the President-General of the ANC, Dr A. B. Xuma, had already asked the members of the Council to adjourn if the government did not abolish the pass laws, recognise African trade unions, and repeal the Native Administration Act of 1927, which provided for the banishment of Africans without trial. Consequently at a session of the Natives Representative Council, Dr Moroka, after the Deputy Secretary for Native Affairs failed to answer questions on the strike, moved for an indefinite adjournment. The motion was adopted unanimously. Ignored by the government, with their advice counting for nothing, the councillors had come to realise the futility of the Council. In the words of Paul Mosaka it was a `toy telephone`, which was ultimately destroyed by the government itself because it did not serve the purpose for which it was intended, namely to distract the attention of the Africans from the struggle for full political rights on an equal basis with whites in a South Africa undivided by race or colour lines.

Another important factor which was decisive in breathing new life into the ANC as well as giving it a sense of direction was the formation of the ANC Youth League, which acted as a pressure group within the organisation. Unlike the older generation, the Youth League members had not had any contact with liberals. They therefore pursued a line which was nationalistic and sought to rely exclusively on themselves to revive the ANC into a fighting instrument for the rights of the Africans. They mounted an intensive recruiting campaign among young students – men and women – especially at Fort Hare and among workers in the urban areas. The ANC Youth League competed for pride of position with the All-African Convention and the Non-European Unity Movement, which were weak federal structures given to indecisive armchair talk on the basis of a programme that was never translated into action on the ground.

From its inception the Youth League was constructively critical of the manner of operation of the mother body. It argued that the ANC had tended to cater for the interests of the elite rather than for the masses of the people. The main ideas in its manifesto were finally incorporated in the Programme of Action, which was passed by the 1949 conference of the ANC. Taking its line from the various attempts to fight against the increasingly repressive measures of the 1940s, the programme called for mass action by means of strikes and other forms of protest. It also called for non-collaboration with government institutions for Africans such as the Advisory Boards and the Bunga and rejected separate representation of Africans in parliament.

In Port Elizabeth the local people, who were down-to-earth in their approach to issues, took a decision in New Brighton township in 1949 to elect the chairman of the ANC branch, Raymond Mlahba to the local Advisory Board with a mandate to raise general grievances at its meetings. He was required to report back regularly at open-air meetings. After he had taken up the people`s grievances over a period of time to no avail, the branch decided that it was futile to work through the Advisory Board and did not continue to elect anyone. It called for a boycott of government institutions and got down to the task of organising the local people to form the biggest branch in the ANC. The most important lesson learnt from this was that it did not require a government-created platform to reach out to the people. If anything, using such platforms resulted in the neglect of organisational work that made a real difference in people`s lives.

One successful struggle in Port Elizabeth took place against an increase in bus fares, which eventually resulted in the South African Railways giving up its bus service at New Brighton. As from the beginning of April 1949 the South African Railways raised the fare from 3d. to 4d. The ANC branch called on the people to boycott the buses. The bus boycott lasted about four months until the beginning of August. During that period meetings were held in the township which discussed a wide range of grievances about local conditions. The attention of the people became focused on making their own representations rather than depending on outsiders to take up issues for them.

They demanded that the railway bus service be taken over by private companies, as people were always late at work because of poor service, and coming back home after work had to stand for hours waiting in long queues; moreover, the drivers were abusive and often co-operated with the police, stopping at police stations so that the police could search people. The Minister finally agreed to terminate the service if a private company could take it over. When the ANC could not find any African bus company to absorb it, the Bay Transport Company did so. The ANC next insisted that the company should hire African drivers and conductors, and won this demand.

The people had through their own organised strength succeeded in getting results. This inspired them with confidence as they moved into the 1950s. All the struggles of the late 1940s were achieved as a result of mass organisational work – a lesson the local people never lost sight of, as later years were to bear testimony.

The situation in the reserves in the 1940s also called forth government attention. The reserves had long been overpopulated and overstocked. Faced with conditions like these and the endemic shortage of mealies, the government introduced measures which failed to take into account the root cause of overstocking and the consequent denudation of land, namely overpopulation of a small area of land. In 1943 it introduced the Betterment and Rehabilitation Scheme which laid stress on reducing stock to the carrying capacity of the available pasturage. To accomplish this, the pasturage was padlocked to provide winter and summer grazing camps, which were divided by fences.

This aroused the anger and resistance of the peasants as nothing else had ever done. They cut the fences, and grazed their stock at night in the camps that had been set aside for a different season. The actions of the government in using the chiefs, alleging it had been informed by them that the peasants had consented to the introduction of the Betterment and Rehabilitation Scheme, drove a wedge between the chiefs and the peasants.

It was against this background that the Transkei Voters, Association resolved at its annual conference in 1942 to call a meeting of 