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Sebatakgomo and the Zoutpansberg Balemi Association: The ANC, the Communist Party and Rural Organization, 1939–55

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Peter Delius
Peter Delius
Affiliation:
University of the Witwatersrand
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Extract

Sebatakgomo — a migrant worker-based movement – was founded in 1954 and went on to play a central role in the Sekhukhuneland Revolt of 1958. It was launched from within the ANC, and a number of its leaders were also members of the Communist Party. This article explores the roles played by these wider political movements in the formation of Sebatakgomo. It argues that, while ANC networks and individuals within its central leadership made an important contribution, the rural presence of the ANC was fragmentary in this period and that its central organizational strategies had been effectively checkmated by an increasingly authoritarian state. It suggests that the crucial initial impetus and strategy behind Sebatakgomo came from Communist Party members living in a migrant world and trained in the Party's history and methods of organization. In particular Alpheus Maliba, who led the Zoutpansberg Balemi Association in the northern Transvaal in the early 1940s, provided a mentor and model for Flag Boshielo, who was the driving force in the establishment of Sebatakgomo. The article also suggests that the history of Sebatakgomo provides an example of the impact of Communist Party activists in transforming the ANC into a mass organization in the early 1950s.

Type
Migrant Workers in Southern Africa
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , July 1993 , pp. 293 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

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2 Baruch Hirson, in particular, has done valuable and pioneering work on the ZCA/ZBA. See Hirson, B., ‘Rural revolt in South Africa; 1937–1951’, in The Societies of Southern Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Collected Seminar Papers No. 22, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London) (London, 1977), viii, 115–32Google Scholar; Hirson, B., Yours for the Union: Class and Community Struggles in South Africa, 1930–1947 (Johannesburg, 1989), ch. 10Google Scholar; Interview by P. Delius, London, 14 June 1990.

3 Delius, P., ‘Sebatakgomo: migrant organization, the ANC and the Sekhukhuneland Revolt’, J. Southern Afr. Studies, XV (1989), 581–615.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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12 Delius, , ‘Sebatakgomo’, 599–601Google Scholar; Rev. Mothubatse, interview; Walshe, , The Rise, 385–7.Google Scholar

13 Ibid.; Hirson, Yours for the Union, ch. 10; University of the Witwatersrand Library (UWL), Xuma Papers ABX430112, T. R. Masethe to Xuma, 12 Jan. 1943; ABX430219, T. R. Masethe to Xuma, 14 Feb. 1943; ABX430607c, T. R. Masethe to Xuma, 7 June 1943; AXB430823a, T. R. Masethe to Xuma, 23 Aug. 1943; AXB430907C, Xuma to J. M. Nkosi, 7 Sept. 1943; AXB430918a, J. M. Nkosi to Xuma, 18 Sept. 1943; ABX43101b, T. R. Masethe to Xuma, 16 Oct. 1943; AXB431021f, J. M. Nkosi to Xuma, 21 Oct. 1941; ABX431122c, T. R. Masethe to Xuma, 22 Nov. 1943; ABX40320a, J. M. Nkosi to Xuma, 20 Mar. 1944; ABX440203b, J. M. Nkosi to Xuma, 3 Feb. 1944.

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15 D. W. Bopape, interviewed by P. Delius, Johannesburg, 28 Oct. 1987. Bopape was also a leading figure in the Communist Party of South Africa, and it appears that some of his rural trips – especially to the Zoutpansberg – were undertaken primarily for the CP.

16 Maredi, interview.

17 Ibid.; J. Nkadimeng, interview i by H. Macmillan, Lusaka, 6 June 1988, and interview 3 by P. Delius, Johannesburg, 3 Apr. 1991; Karis, and Carter, (eds.), From Protest to Challenge, iv, 97.Google Scholar

18 M. Basner, ‘Biography of H. Basner’ (unpublished manuscript), ch. 15; Bopape, interview.

19 Bopape, interview.

20 Joseph, H., If This Be Treason (London, 1963), 162–3.Google Scholar

21 See references in note 12 above. See also UWL, ABX460731b, Secretary Bookkeeper to Xuma and enclosures, 31 July 1944; ABX450727, Xuma to I. Chili, 27 July 1945; ABX460817b, T. R. Masethe to Xuma, 17 Aug. 1946; ABX480615a, Secretary Springbok Legion Witbank to Xuma, 15 June 1958. Institute of Commonwealth Studies (ICS), London University, South African Materials Project (SAMP) No. 99/100, interview H. Basner.

22 Schirmer, , ‘Freedom in land and work’, 43–4Google Scholar.

23 Bekker, J., ‘We will plough where we like’, 70Google Scholar.

24 Ibid.

25 ICS, SAMP No. 99/100, Basner, interview.

26 UWL, ABX460618, Bopape to Xuma, 18 June 1946.

27 Bopape, interview; G. M. Pitje, interviewed by P. Delius, Johannesburg, 12 Oct. 1987; Elias Motsoaledi, interviews 1 and 2; Nkadimeng, interview 1.

28 W. Sisulu, interviewed by P. Delius, Johannesburg, 15 Aug. 1990. See also Lodge, Black Politics, ch. i.

29 Ibid.

30 Walshe, , The Rise, 387–8Google Scholar; Pitje, interview; Nkadimeng, interview i; Sisulu, interview; Motsoaledi, interviews 1 and 2; Bopape, interview.

31 Ibid.

32 Sisulu, interview.

33 E. Motsoaledi, interview 3 by P. Delius, Soweto, 11 May 1990; see also J. Nkadimeng, interview 3.

34 Bundy, , ‘Land and liberation’, 262–3, 281Google Scholar; Hirson, Yours for the Union, ch. 10.

35 Delius, , ‘Sebatakgomo’, 606Google Scholar.

36 Bundy, , ‘Land and liberation’, 260Google Scholar. See also Bunting, B., Moses Kotane: South African Revolutionary (London, 1975), 32–42.Google Scholar

37 L. Bernstein, interviewed by P. Delius, Dorstone, 18 June 1990. In practice, of course, many African members of the CP were migrant workers with strong rural connections.

38 This is not to say, of course, that there were not individuals within the CP who were strongly opposed to effort being expended on the countryside. ICS, SAMP No. 99/100, interview with H. Basner; Bernstein, interv iew; Motsoaledi, interview 3; B. Bunting, personal communication, London, 12 June 1990. For a more negative version of the role of the CP see Hirson, , ‘Rural revolt’, 122Google Scholar, and Yours for the Union, 133. It is difficult, however, on the basis of the evidence produced to sustain the argument that a substantial section of the CP was actively hostile to rural work.

39 ICS, SAMP No. 99/100, Basner, interview; Hirson, interview; Bekker, ‘We will plough where we like’, passim.

40 Karis, and Carter, (eds.), From Protest to Challenge, iv, 70.Google Scholar Maliba's early life history remains vague. There is, for example, fascinating but fragmentary evidence that Maliba, as early as 1932, was in contact with T. W. Thibedi and the Trotskyist Communist League of Africa; Hirson, interview; Drew, A., ‘Events were breaking above their heads: socialism in South Africa, 1921–1950’, Social Dynamics, XVII (1991), 72.Google Scholar Hopefully, oral research on Maliba's life currently in progress will clarify this picture.

41 Maliba, , Venda, 9.Google ScholarHirson, , Yours for the Union, 129Google Scholar, finds it surprising that a Communist Party publication should call for individual tenure. The most probable explanation lies in the prevalence of two-stage theory and in the fact that the pamphlet was a prelude to launching a mass organization rather than a party structure. It certainly is unlikely to have been a popular demand amongst communities battling to protect systems of communal tenure and it was not – as far as existing evidence shows – repeated by the ZCA/ZBA.

42 Maliba, , Venda, 9–10.Google Scholar

43 Bernstein, interview; see also Motsoaledi, interview 3 and interview 4 by P. Delius, Johannesburg, 2 Apr. 1991; Nkadimeng, interviews i and 3.

44 Bernstein, interview.

45 A crucial source of additional information on Maliba and the ZCA/ZBA has been the Venda section of the Party newspaper – Inkululeko. I am grateful for the advice of B. Hirson and L. Bernstein, who directed me to this rich source, and to T. Nemutanzhela who translated the articles for me. See especially Inkululeko, Dec. 1940, Jan. 1941, Apr. 1941, May 1941, June 1941, Aug. 1941, Nov. 1941, Jan. 1942, Feb. 1942, Mar. 1942, May 1942, Aug. 1942, Sept. 1942, 6 Feb. 1943, 20 Feb. 1943, 27 Mar. 1943, 20 June 1943, 20 Nov. 1943, 4 Mar. 1944, 15 Apr. 1944, 10 June 1944, 22 July 1944, 14 Aug. 1944, 25 Aug. 1944, 30 Sept. 1944, 7 Oct. 1944, 25 Nov. 1944, 9 Dec. 1944. See also Nemutanzhela, T., ‘Cultural forms and literacy as resources for political mobilization: A. M. Malivha and the Zoutpansberg Balemi Association, 1939–1944’ (B.A. Honours dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, 1991).Google Scholar

46 Inkululeko, Dec. 1940–Mar. 1944; Hirson, ,‘Rural revolts’, 115–32Google Scholar, and Yours for the Union, ch. 10.

47 Inkululeko, Jan. 1942–Aug. 1944.

48 Ibid. Mar.–Dec. 1944.

49 Ibid.; Hirson, , Yours for the Union, 132–3.Google Scholar

50 Bernstein, interview.

51 Hirson, , Yours for the Union, 133.Google Scholar

52 Ibid. 132–4; Nkadimeng, interviews 1 and 3; Motsoaledi, interviews 3 and 4.

53 Lodge, T., ‘Class conflict, communal struggle and patriotic unity: The Communist Party of South Africa during the Second World War’ (unpublished seminar paper, African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, 1985), 1.Google Scholar

54 Bernstein, interview.

55 Ibid.; Sapire, H., ‘African political mobilization in Brakpan in the 1950s’ (unpublished seminar paper, African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, 1989)Google Scholar; Lodge, , Black Politics, 97–8, 131–4.Google Scholar

56 Bernstein, interview; Bunting, Moses Kotane, chs. 1, 6 and 7; Motsoaledi, interviews 2 and 3; ICS, SAMP No. 99/100, Basner interview.

57 Ibid.

58 Delius, P., ‘Sebatakgomo’, 593–605Google Scholar.

59 Motsoaledi, interviews 1, 2 and 3; see also Nkadimeng, interviews 1 and 3.

60 Motsoaledi, interview 2; Bernstein, interview; see also G. Ngake, interviewed by P. Delius, Oliphants River, 7 Apr. 1988.

61 Motsoaledi, interviews 1–4; Nkadimeng, interviews 1 and 3.

62 Nkadimeng, interviews 1 and 3.

63 Bernstein, interview.

64 Ibid.

65 Motsoaledi, interview 2. See also Mokgatle, N., Autobiography of an Unknown South African (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1971), 239–42.Google Scholar

66 Ibid; Bernstein, interview; Nkadimeng, interview 3.

67 Lodge, , ‘Class conflict’, 16Google Scholar.

68 Bernstein, interview.

69 Motsoaledi, interview 2.

70 Motsoaledi, interview 3; see also Nkadimeng, interview 3.

71 Bernstein, interview; see also Motsoaledi, interview 4.

72 Lodge, , Black Politics, 302Google Scholar; Nkadimeng, interview 3; Motsoaledi, interviews 2, 3 and 4.

73 Everatt, , ‘The politics of nonracialism’, 49–118Google Scholar; Motsoaledi, interview 4; Bernstein, interview. Flag Boshielo played a part in this process and became a member of the reconstituted Johannesburg District Committee.

74 Nkadimeng, interview 4. See also Nkadimeng, interviews 1 and 3, and Motsoaledi, interviews 3 and 4, for the formation and growth of. the movement.

75 Karis, and Carter, (eds.), From Protest to Challenge, 111, 235.Google Scholar

76 Delius, , ‘Sebatakgomo’, 605–16Google Scholar; Nkadimeng, interviews 1, 3 and 4; Motsoaledi, interviews 3 and 4.

77 Delius, , ‘Sebatakgomo’, 606–16Google Scholar.

78 Bundy, , ‘Land and liberation’, 281Google Scholar.

79 Delius, , ‘Sebatakgomo’, 605–15Google Scholar.

80 Everatt, , ‘The politics of nonracialism’, 51Google Scholar; see Lodge, , Black Politics, 28–30Google Scholar, for a rather more balanced, if incomplete, view.