MANDELA, SOBUKWE AND LEBALLO

THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY

AND THE PAN AFRICANIST CONGRESS

Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe

1925 - 1978

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

1918 - 2013

Bernard Ben Leeman

[email protected]

5 July 2016

Potlako Kitchener Leballo

1915 - 1986

SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
1940
1944
1945

1947
1948
1949

1950

1951-2

Dec 1952

1953

1954

1955

1956

The African National Congress (ANC) revives its fading fortunes by electing a cautious
but modernizing president, Dr Alfred Bitini Xuma
Radical young Africans associated with Anton Muziwakhe Lembede decide to form the
ANC Youth League (ANCYL) rather than a more militant separate party
John Beaver J. B. Marks revives the Communist Partys reputation in the Miners
Strike but consequent repression makes it impossible to utilize miners for political
agitation for decades
Lembede dies and is replaced by the ineffectual theorist Ashley Peter Mda
The Purified National Party of Dr Malan wins the national election and, despite its slim
majority, ignores its own economic advisers to implement apartheid
The ANCYL succeeds in having a compromise strategy The Programme of Action
adopted as ANC policy, which imitates Gandhi and Nkrumahs examples of peaceful
mass protests but without due consideration for counter measures against the
possibility of white regime extreme retaliation. Dr Xuma is replaced by Dr Moroka as
ANC president
Kwame Nkrumahs Positive Action campaign in Gold Coast (Ghana). Nelson Mandela
is appointed leader of the Defiance Campaign volunteers
Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) dissolves to avoid prosecution
Inspired by Nkrumahs February 1951 election victory in Ghana, thousands of ANC
volunteers and affiliated minority ethnic organisations defy the pass laws and other
race-based restrictions. Basutoland African Congress (BAC) founded in Basutoland
against ANC wishes. P. K. Leballo heads most powerful (Transvaal) BAC branch.
March 1952 Nkrumah becomes prime minister in Ghana.
The ANC leadership calls off the Defiance Campaign, frightened by escalating
violence and impeding legislation. Dr Moroka is sacked and replaced by Chief Albert
Lutuli
The Criminal Law Amendment Act and Public Safety Act deter political activists
from professional classes from confrontational activities. Growing anger from lower
class ANC activists against leaderships perceived cowardice. Communists secretly
form South African Communist Party (SACP) and gain control over Congress of
Democrats, Indian Congress, SACPO, and SACTU. ANC secretary general Walter
Sisulu secretly visits Soviet bloc without Lutulis knowledge
Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe and P. K. Leballo take over the leadership of the
Africanist Movement from Mda and lead campaign against clandestine communist
control of ANC
Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu. secret members of the SACP, manipulate The
Congress of the People and the Freedom Charter events, taking advantage of Lutulis
lethargy and isolation, to reduce the ANC to the position of a mere equal in a five
man SACP executive committee in charge of the Congress Alliance: ANC, SAIC,
SACPO, COD and SACTU.
Inept blanket arrests of past and present activists and subsequent Treason Trial give
2

1957
1958

1959

1960

1961

1962

1963

1964

1965

international publicity to Congress Alliance leaders but exacerbate corruption and

mismanagement in the Transvaal ANC. Africanist strength escalates
Oliver Tambo alters the ANC Constitution to entrench elitist undemocratic structure
of Congress Alliance. Nkrumahs Ghana independent
Basotho leader Ntsu Mokhehle elected to AAPC (African Comintern) Steering
Committee but British government imposes adopts new constitution on Basutoland
similar to Congress Alliance. Oliver Tambo closes ANC Transvaal Province
Conference to prevent election of Robert Sobukwe in place of Nelson Mandela.
Mokhehle advises Sobukwe, Leballo and Madzunya to form a new party backed by
the AAPC of Kwame Nkrumah. BAC become Basutoland Congress Party (BCP)
April formation of the PAC Africanist Congress. Sobukwe becomes president with
Leballo as secretary-general. Rapid recruitment of young male lower class activists
with considerable assistance from Mokhehles BCP
December ANC and PAC conferences both plan for national demonstrations in 1960.
Challenged by ANC, the PAC decides to launch a major campaign rather than gain
experience first
Ntsu Mokhehle wins 36 out of 40 seats in the Basutoland election but 40 additional
nominated members relegate him to a minor role. However, BCP controls eight out of
nine local government district councils. PAC demonstrations commence on 21 March
with significant support from Basotho communities in the Transvaal and Cape. Main
PAC leaders arrested before shooting at Sharpeville kills over 69 protestors. Pass
laws suspended
March 30 Colonel Terblanche disobeys orders to save Cape Town from probable
police-PAC carnage. State of Emergency declared. PAC and ANC banned. Verwoerd
survives assassination attempt and believes he has divine mission. Pass laws
reinstated. PAC leaders jailed on 4 May Sobukwe for three years. 1950s rural
tensions in the Transkei escalate and coalesce into Poqo movement. ANC, Unity
Movement and PAC all claim leadership but PAC eventually takes over.
March 25-26, All In Conference Mandela announces formation of All Action
Council. Police respond in May by arresting over eight thousand suspects. Mokhehle
attacked for criticising Mandela. November 1961 formation of ANC military force,
Umkhonto we Sizwe led by eleven SACP members under Mandela and ostensibly
modelled on the Israeli Irgun movement but emphasizing sabotage not combat.
Mandela secretly leaves South Africa for other African states and obtains basic
military training in Ethiopia. Urges an end to Alliance domination of ANC. Arrested
in August after probable SACP betrayal and sentenced to five years jail. Leballo
escapes to Basutoland from Tongaland detention and takes over as acting PAC leader.
PAC violence in the Cape.
Poqo/PAC Mbashe River bridge murders and other violence leads to severe white
criticism of NP regime. Leballo warns that the coming war will cause widespread
white civilian deaths. The British police raid PAC HQ in Maseru. Leballo evades
capture for six months. Sobukwe detained after completing his sentence and sent to
Robben Island. MK high command captured at Liliesleaf farm, Rivonia, along with
Mandelas incriminating diary. Rivonia Trial begins. PMU formed in Protectorates.
Mandela receives life sentence. Leballo expelled from Basutoland. Royalist-ANC
oriented Marematlou Freedom Party (MFP) support plummets following Rothe
murders. Shift in anti-BCP forces from MFP to NP-Catholic missionary OMI backed
BNP. Nkrumah declares one party state and himself as president for life.
Overconfidence, neglect of eastern mountains, and SACP funding costs BCP election
win. BNP government derided as NP-OMI puppet-government of herd boys.
3

1966

1967
1968

1970
1974

1976
1977
1978

1979
1980

1981

1985

1986

Leabua Jonathan becomes prime minister after by-election. Traditional chiefs replace
elected district councils.
Leabua Jonathan meets Verwoerd in Pretoria. Vorster becomes prime minister after
Verwoerds assassination. October independence for Lesotho. Thaba Bosiu violence
the Lesotho King attempts to become executive monarch and BCP tries to swamp
government offices and seize power. King signs suicide clause and becomes a
restricted recluse. February, Nkrumah overthrown by coup.
Albert Lutuli killed on railway line. Oliver Tambo becomes acting ANC president.
Leballo, with Sobukwes support, reorients PAC towards a synthesis of Africanist
thought with Maoism. Attempts to militarise exiles fiercely opposed by PAC exiled
reformists.
Ntsu Mokhehle wins the January general election but is denied power by a British
mercenary led coup with links to rogue South African intelligence operatives.
Following release from detention, BCP activists launch an unsuccessful rising.
Refugee Basotho are recruited by Leballo and Mokhehle as Lesotho Liberation Army
(LLA) ostensibly as APLA guerrillas and trained in Libya. Portuguese coup enables
Moscow allied movements to take power in former colonies but Machel permits
PACs ally ZANU to establish bases after ZAPU ineptitude
Refugees from the Soweto and Cape rising solve the ANC/SACP and PAC
recruitment problems.
ANC/SACP ally to Leabua Jonathan to thwart BCP and PAC. Steve Biko, designated
PAC deputy leader, murdered in detention
Former CIA deputy director Ray Cline, funded by international extreme right wing
Anti-Communist League, establishes office in South Africa to fund Inkatha, UNITA,
RENAMO and other organisations. The Carter administration pressures PAC to adopt
detente and dialogue. Massive American and Nigerian bribery buys support for
American and Tanzanian backed David Sibekos reform faction. LLA quarantined in
Tanzania. Leballo elected chairman (not president) of PAC and Sibeko seizes power
when Leballo leaves for England. White APLA officer funds LLA escape from
Tanzania to begin war in Lesotho. Sibeko assassinated by angry APLA leaders.
Guerrilla war begins in Lesotho. Zephaniah Mothopeng, senior PAC member inside
South Africa and clandestine APLA recruiter, imprisoned
11 March Tanzanian troops kill, wound, detain and split up ALPA for refusing to
follow Vus Make and accept Nyereres decision that it is too dangerous to fight
Pretoria. Zimbabwe becomes independence. Leballo arrives in Harare. LLA asks him
for help since Mokhehle had disappeared.
Tanzania installs Pokela as PAC leader and demands Mugabe expel Leballo when
APLA troops in Tanzania reject Pokela. Leballo arrested and deported to Libya.
Mokhehle, beset by declining health and mental pressures, leaves Botswana to hide in
South Africa. Clines operatives take him to Lisikisiki near Port St Johns where he
assists American, Rhodesian and other agents experiment with psychological
methods and physical torture to turn guerrillas.
Pokela dies suddenly in Harare. Leballo manages to unite former rivals and in
January begins to pressure Lesotho commander Justin Lekhanya to remove Leabua
Jonathan and restore democracy. Twentieth-fifth anniversary of Sharpeville
demonstrations lead to ongoing violence. Agitation by internal political organisations
more effective than external ANC/SACP and PAC
Leballo dies of hypertension aged seventy (not sixty as he claimed). PAC degenerates
into inept, corrupt, murderous, mystical fascism. Lekhanya, also under pressure from
Pretoria, seizes power shortly after Leballos death but appoints Lesotho Communist
4

1991
1992
1993
1994

1999
2003

2004

2009
2012
2013
2014
2015

Party leader Sefali Malefane and former MFP secretary-general Bennett Khaketla as
ministers in his coup government. Leballo buried at Lifelekoaneng but Lekhanya
forbids public attendance. Mokhehle returns to Lesotho
Release of Nelson Mandela
Lekhanya removed in a coup
Mokhehle wins every seat in the Lesotho national election but BCP eventually splits
into four after he fails to address his brother Shakhanes corruption
Mandela elected president of South Africa, one of very few Communist Party leaders
globally elected in a democratic vote. Parasitic SACP members elected under ANC
umbrella. No viable left wing party contents the elections. Tanzanian-puppet PAC
wins 1.25% of the vote and five seats
PAC wins 0.71 % of the vote and three seats
Death of Ntsu Mokhehle
PAC vice president Patricia de Lille breaks away to form new Independent
Democrats party (ID). Walter Sisulu dies and SACP reveals he was a secret member
of the party
ID wins 1.7% of the vote and seven seats.
PAC wins 0.73 % of the vote and three seats. Its leader, Mokotso Pheko, who claims
two bogus degrees, is later sacked for corruption. He is replaced by Letlapa
Mphahlele, a psychotic murderer
PAC wins 0.27% of the vote and a single seat
Fiftieth anniversary of Sharpeville Massacre
Nelson Mandela dies and SACP reveals he was a secret member of the party
Julius Malema launches Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party
PAC wins 0.21% of vote (one seat). EFF wins 6.4 % (25 seats). De Lilles IP merged
with the main opposition Democratic Alliance party.
Letlapa Mphahlele re-elected PAC leader

INTRODUCTION
Nelson Mandela was, and will remain, a major historical figure. Unfortunately, he has been ill-served by
biographers and, in the opinion of many especially the Africanists/Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) should
have, in his autobiography, elaborated on defining episodes in his career, in particular the events of late 1962
following his return from Ethiopia. He was a far more complex activist than portrayed as the Messiah come to
claim his realm in the majority of biographies; and succeeded despite major errors that have been expunged
from most commentaries. Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe and Potlako Leballo are hardly known outside Southern
Africa, which is indicative of media manipulation and antipathy towards grass roots movements hostile to
European ideologies. They were leaders of a type of movement that has since proliferated elsewhere in Africa
and the Middle East where exasperated, younger, less-educated activists, seize the initiative from conservative
elites.
The first draft of this work was written in 2010 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre.
In that work, Nelson Mandelas career between 1953 and 1960 was likened to the Shakespearean tragic hero
Hamlet, prince of Denmark, another dithering aristocrat who acted too late; and Walter Sisulu was compared to
Judas Iscariot. Not surprisingly, no publisher or even printer in South Africa considered producing it. That
proved fortunate because the political history of South Africa between 1950 and 1960 has undergone a
reassessment following the disclosure after Mandelas death in 2013 that he, like Sisulu, had been a secret
member of the clandestine South African Communist Party (SACP)1 and were responsible for betraying Albert
Lutulis trust and placing the ANC under the control of the SACP. Whereas many liberation movements have
benefited significantly from communist links, the SACPs Eastern European/Indian leaderships ultra cautious,
micro-management style of trying to overthrow the South African regime, through potato boycotts and the like,
finally exasperated Mandela. His silence on his secret party membership probably reflects either his lack of
commitment or a deep feeling of regret. Whatever his attitude, Mandelas Communist Party links stifled the
South African liberation movement, split the African National Congress (ANC) on class lines and confounded
African politics by relegating the ANC to the role as an emasculated stooge of the Soviet Union rather than a
party committed to mass action. Since the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other Western security
organisations were either aware or extremely suspicious of Mandelas involvement, it cost the ANC support of
American administrations from Eisenhower to Reagan as well as sections of the Civil Rights Movement, and
other African-American organisations. It even placed Mandela on a terrorist list. Had Mandela not arranged
the coup that related the ANC to SACP control in 1955; and had the ANC stayed aloof from the Cold War, the
ANC would not have wasted the years 1955 - 1989 posturing as a Soviet vanguard movement that incited even
more unsavoury American intelligence elements to infest the region. It is even possible that freedom could have
come much earlier to South Africa. Mandela could have broadened the ANCs appeal by accommodating the
Africanists, instead of trying to kill their dynamism. They, in turn, later admitted they should have stayed in the
ANC and fought out issues rather than forming the Pan Africanist Congress in 1959.2 The Sharpeville Massacre
of 21 March 1960 was certainly an indirect result of Mandelas decision to curb mass activism and place the
ANC under SACP. In summary, the story of the South African liberation struggle is really of only two
movements striving for supremacy the South African Communist Party and the Pan Africanist Congress.
From 1955 to the present (although partially influenced by the collapse of the Soviet union), the ANC has been
merely a brand name exploited by the SACP, which has provided three of its members - Mandela, Mbeki and
Zuma - as presidents and still gets elected to parliament along with COSATU (the trade union movement),
masquerading as ANC. Despite ostensibly democratic elections, real power is invested in the troika (ANC
elitists/COSATU/SACP), which represents the urban professionals, big business and privileged miners.
The United States, which opposed the ANC for decades because of the SACPs control, characteristically
destroyed effective opposition by its inept manipulation of the PAC 1978-1980 and its outsourced3 attempt to
make Inkatha a viable force.
Although the Sharpeville Massacre is probably the most famous event in South African history next to the
election of Mandela as president, there are very few serious accounts of the issues that led to the national
1

Obituary of Professor Stephen Ellis, The Independent (UK) 18 August 2015

Several remarks to this writer by Potlako Leballo
3
The USA privatized some of its foreign policy by using ex CIA operatives. The prime example was Ray Steiner
Cline, who was funded by the Anti-Communist League, an organisation he helped found (or even created) while
CIA chief in Taiwan.
2

demonstrations that day, which Mandela himself opposed. Although neither the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC)
president Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe nor Potlako Kitchener Leballo, PAC secretary-general and eventual PAC
leader and army commander, wrote about their experiences, some perceptive accounts survive. The best among
them are Martyrs and Fanatics by Peter Dreyer, a member of the South African Liberal Party; African
Liberation Movements by Richard Gibson, an African American Marxist; An African Explains Apartheid by
Jordan Ngubane, a political maverick; and Black Power in South Africa by Gail Gerhart. These writers
personally knew or interviewed in depth the major players such as the PAC and/or Africanist ANC leaders
Sobukwe, Leballo, Ashley Peter Mda, and Nyakane Michael Tsolo, although Gerhart did not use some very
insightful interviews relating to the class aspect of the Africanist Movement when she finally published her
work. Of great value are Forty Lost Years by Dan OMeara and The Apartheid State in Crisis by Robert Price,
as they facilitate placing the rise of the Africanist Movement and the PAC in their social and economic context,
representing the rise after 1945 of the African urban lower middle class, still strongly linked to its recent rural
past. Nelson Mandelas Long Walk to Freedom (pages 345-377) is a revealing account of finally coming to
terms with his role in the Freedom Charter and Congress Alliances intrigue that so damaged resistance to
white rule. Works by Tom Lodge, a hostile white elitist; and Kwandiwe Merriman Kondlo, whose doctrinal
thesis was supervised by Afrikaners, are deeply flawed by reliance on evidence taken from inept police
informers4 and self-styled former PAC activists whose attempts to ingratiate themselves with ANC for gainful
employment in 1993/4 were matched by the venom they displayed distancing themselves from their more
principled comrades. Sobukwe and Apartheid by Benjamin Pogrund, a close friend of Mangaliso Robert
Sobukwe, the PAC president, is surprisingly shallow although Pogrund, as he admits, had somewhat distanced
himself from Sobukwe in the lead-up to Sharpeville. One of the potentially most accurate analytical accounts,
unfortunately never completed, should have been by Stephen Franklin Burgess, a much troubled Marxist
American academic5. My own 1984 PhD magna cum laude thesis on the ANC, PAC, SACP and BCP-Lesotho
is still downloaded on average three times daily on www.academia.edu, so it may have some merit.
The Sharpeville Massacre was very much the result of the failure of the ANC, despite the 1949 Programme
of Action, to become a mass democratic movement. The inexorable implementation of draconian apartheid
legislation in the 1950s desperately required a united African opposition but the years 1952-1960 were wasted,
as leading ANC/SACP officials and theorists from relatively privileged backgrounds fought to entrench
themselves against socially unacceptable rivals from the increasingly militant and expanding urban African
lower and lower middle class. This was the period where Mandela should have asserted himself as the major
African nationalist (leaders elsewhere made their move when much younger) but was instead distracted by the
multiracial good life, his career, and higher class aspirations. The malaise of the 1950s created a political
culture lasting today. Whereas the Cuban revolution accomplished astonishing social, educational, medical,
military, sporting, land distribution and other achievements within a short time of seizing power, the new
South Africa, after twenty-two years, remains a crime ridden society with major health problems and an
astonishingly escalating disparity of wealth far worse than under the apartheid regime. The ruling
ANC/SACP/COSATU alliance is rooted in the conspiratorial undemocratic elitism of the 1950s that led to
Sharpeville. In Professor Iliffes words, The deeper reality [of 1994] was that two elites [black and white]
sought a settlement which would enable them to contain, and perhaps in part relive, the immense pressures from
below bred by demographic growth, mass poverty, urbanization, education, and the demands of youth. Now,
as the settlement generation passes away, there can be a more open discussion of that period of history no
longer dominated by academics, journalists, and writers sympathetic to the ANC.
Bernard Ben Leeman
Former PAC education secretary
APLA Intelligence and liaison officer to the BCP/LLA 1977-1981
Adjutant to Potlako Leballo, 1980-1986
Co-editor The Africanist
5 July 2016
4

Kondlo calls me Benjamin and both he and Lodge call Potlako Leballo Potlake. Neither had military
experience nor association with mainstream pre-1986 PAC/APLA . Lodge is not known to have any knowledge
of Venda, Sotho, Zulu or Xhosa languages. PAC compared Lodges research to a British liberal visiting Nazi
Germany, using only Gestapo files to write a denigratory attack on Jewish resistance.
5
Burgess eventually became an instructor at Maxwell Airforce Academy, Alabama, USA
7

CHAPTER ONE
On 21 March 1960, thousands of supporters of the newly formed Pan Africanist Congress (PAC)
presented themselves for arrest at Sharpeville police station south of Johannesburg. Some, including of
of their main leaders, Mike Nyakane Tsolo, were taken into custody but the others, wavering between
good humour and impatience, remained outside. Eventually, a scuffle triggered the police into opening
fire upon the crowd, killing at least sixty nine. Most were shot in the back. The massacre and its
immediate consequences panicked the countrys white population but, despite African restraint, the
white, predominantly rural Afrikaner farming members of the National Party regime banned the two
major African political movements, the militant PAC and the more conservative African National
Congress (ANC), forcing them into armed conflict.
To those who have a better knowledge of the events that led to Sharpeville, the majority of
accounts read as if the narrator is addressing an audience hoping they will not notice a gigantic
elephant standing behind him. The elephant represents what cannot be mentioned and certainly not
published in the new South Africa: the issues that reflect extremely badly on many ANC and SACP
heroes and which nearly obliterated the ANC from history.
There were four main factors behind the events that led to the Sharpeville Massacre. The first was
obvious. Africans wanted opportunities to lead prosperous meaningful lives and therefore an end to
minority white rule and racial persecution. They naturally received support from the Indian and
Coloured (mixed race) communities and also from a few white dissidents: liberal, communist and
otherwise. The second, barely alluded to any work on Sharpeville, was an attempt by Basotho
politicians in and outside Basutoland (Lesotho) to play a significant role in South African politics as a
means to rectify historical injustices and establish a powerful role in a future united Azanian state.
The third was the culmination of a struggle that had split the ANC into two parties on class lines and
mostly concerned the most effective strategy to achieve freedom. Lastly, there was the highly
controversial, even treacherous, behaviour of Nelson Mandela, the ANC deputy national president
leader, and Walter Sisulu, the ANC secretary-general, who, taking advantage of the ANC presidentgeneral Albert Lutulis stressinduced indolence, succeeded in subordinating the ANC in 1955 to
control by the well funded, but clandestine, minuscule, and slavishly Moscow-oriented South African
Communist Party, which they had secretly joined and whose philosophies and vision were in total
contrast to those of the ANC.
The ANC had been founded in 1912 by a group of westernized Christian professionals, traders,
and members of the old royal houses and court circles. The party was at first a sort of social network
among the aristocracy, its feudal retainers, main stream Christians, and the westernised elite that
advocated parliamentary democracy and mercantile Christian capitalism on the British model, which
blended male democracy (women were first admitted as ANC members in 1943) and the rights of
hereditary nobility, while encouraging a socio-economic system that emphasized personal acquisition,
individual land tenure, career diversity, consumerism, the monetarization of relationships, and free
trade. Its political strategy was completely ineffectual and characterized by polite petitioning to the
Afrikaner-dominated Union government. As a consequence of the ANCs failure to oppose the 1936
Land Acts and move beyond its narrow appeal to relatively privileged Africans; it was in danger of
being disbanded in 1940. It owed its revival to a new leader, a modernizer named Dr Alfred Bitini
Xuma (1893-1962), and the establishment of a radical Youth League inspired by Anton Muziwakhe
Lembede. Despite, or maybe because of, its conservatism, the ANC nevertheless faced down
challenges from a number of rivals, some with international links, such as the Marcus Garveys United
Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), Clements Kadalies Industrial and Commercial Union
(ICU), the Trotskyite Unity Movement and Paul Mosakas short lived African Democratic Party
(ADP).
8

From 1945 onwards, the ANC leaderships most valuable ally was the Communist Party (CPSA),
founded in 1921. The CP wanted to establish a Soviet Republic. It politicized industrial workers in
order to create a vanguard to seize control of the country. Until recently, the Communist Party was
dominated by ethnic minorities, particularly Jewish Eastern Europeans and descendents of migrants
from British Imperial India (modern India and Pakistan). In the 1920s, the CPSA did valuable
pioneering work, encouraged by Joseph Stalins decision to support a Black Republic and its
successful alliance under CPSA secretary-general Albert Nzula6 (1905-1934) with the ANCs radical
president-general (1927-1930) Josiah Tshangana Gumede (1870-1947). However, by 1940, the
CPSAs credibility was in serious jeopardy for slavishly supporting Soviet dictates, which had shifted
from African revolution to acceptance of colonial rule and an alliance with Nazi Germany. One of the
important consequences of this Soviet reversal was that other anti-colonial movements, such as the
Chinese and Indo-Chinese communist parties, became far more self reliant, while George Padmore,
the former Soviet agent for African revolution, also took an independent stance, recruiting Kwame
Nkrumah and other future African leaders to a more militant approach against White rule.
Xuma recognized that the old ANC leadership style, apart from Gumedes, had been somewhat
lackadaisical and attached to the notion that high academic qualifications, royal blood and professional
status guaranteed adulation and support. Though Xuma was from a royal Xhosa background, he
abolished the partys House of Chiefs, established an efficient centralized secretariat and accounting
system, called for full participation of Africans in the Union, and allowed all races to join the party.
He removed the word Native from the ANCs name and united the party by abolishing the autonomy
of the four provincial ANCs. He favoured a socialist agenda and joint action with the CPSA. Padmore
accused him of being a CPSA fellow traveller but years later, in 1959, Xuma covertly (so as not to
antagonize his wife) joined the PAC. Despite the steady expansion of the ANC under Xuma, the party
was unable to gauge popular support for its actions outside the townships and the best it could do in
such circumstances (especially during the Second World War) was to create a competent
administrative structure with a political program more radical than the 1930s but not radical enough
to provoke the minority racist regime into banning it. Xuma still sought accommodation with the
ruling United Party he was later encouraged by the friendly greeting he received from white
regimes prime minister, Field Marshal Jan Smuts, at the United Nations in 1946.
By 1940, the ANC had achieved little or no success in galvanizing support from the subsistence
farmers, urban professionals, and underpaid artisan class but the creation of the ANCYL attracted a
new generation of young African activists representing a wider socio-economic class.
Industrialization, consumerism, education and urbanization were already diversifying African society
before it was exposed to new influences and pressures in the Second World War. Between 1940 and
1950, the number of urbanized Africans rose from 14 to 22 per cent and their numbers in the
manufacturing industries by 81%. After 1945, manufacturing always contributed more to the economy
than mining, which thereafter sometimes even dipped below agriculture (e.g. 1950 1955).
Eventually the demands of manufacturing would be the major force for ending minority European
rule.
The ANC and CPSA, except for the brief flurry in the late 1920s, had advocated polices that were
too narrow in their appeal. Occupations were diversifying (see Table 1)

Nzula was sent for studies in Moscow where he became an alcoholic and suspected Trotskyite. He died of
pneumonia after falling asleep drunk in a snowdrift.
9

Table 1. SOUTH AFRICAN WORKFORCE 1950 1970

Sector
Agriculture
Mining
Manufacturing
Commerce
Total Figures

1950 (%)
40
22
25
13
2,219122

1960 (%)
36
23
27
14
2,561,850

1970 (%)
28
21
37
14
3,160619

Inevitably the new rising generation of schoolteachers, artisans, nurses, former soldiers, petty
entrepreneurs, lesser clergy, clerks, migrant workers, subsistence farmers, criminal gangs, factory
workers, sports enthusiasts, and unemployed youth were impatient. They were interested in a far wider
range of economic and social issues. The rapidly expanding African townships with a high
concentration of intelligent, skilled, innovative and ambitious workers, forming networks in long term
residential areas, inevitably heightened political awareness and facilitated political organization. For
example, African industrial unrest escalated after 1940 and, by 1945, trade union membership reached
128,000, five times what it had been in 1940. Afrikaner economic and political power was still
overwhelmingly rural and mindful of the Uitlander experience, when foreign white skilled workers
and foreign investment threatened their power. Afrikaners were hostile to the rapidly expanding urban
African proletariat. Consequently, there was a significant Afrikaner shift against Smuts after his 1943
election victory in the interest of Afrikaner self-preservation. The white electoral system was highly
skewed in favour of rural Afrikaner constituencies and this was reflected until the late 1960s in the
regimes parliament.
Whereas Xumas ANC was advocating eventual African equality in every sphere of South African
society, the competing imperial United Party and republican National Party rivals within
Afrikanerdom were rooted deeply in the past. Smuts still dreamed of using the British imperial
connection to enhance South Africas world status and gain local advantages as he had done after the
First World War. Indicative of his mindset, Smuts complained, when he lost the 1948 election, that his
old comrades had deserted him. An aide pointed out that all his old comrades were dead. Dr Franois
Malan, who defeated Smuts in the 1948 election, still sought revenge for Smuts refusal to spare the
First World War traitor, Jopie Fourie, and sought to transform South Africa into a holy Afrikaner
fascist arcadia. Colour and religion aside, the majority of black South Africans and the whites who
controlled business and industry probably supported the ideals of the Xumas ANC peace, education,
land redistribution, economic cooperation, wage equality, an end of the pass system, and eventual
universal franchise. The advent of Malans hideous experiment in social engineering in 1948 (which
his own think tank opposed) was indeed, in Dan OMeara words, the start of forty lost years.
The nature of the PACs national protests in 1960 was inspired by resistance ideologies developed
by the ANCYL. The original idea for an ANC Youth League came from Manasseh Moerane, who later
became editor of The World and joined Moral Rearmament, which Padmore identified as a significant
threat to African liberation with its appeal to achieve upper middle class status mitigated by Christian
values and good works. The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) was founded under William Nkomo at
the Bantu Mens Social Centre in Johannesburg in April 1944. The ANCYL became a dynamic closet
revolutionary but ostensibly radical vanguard movement under Nkomos successor as president, Anton
Muziwakhe Lembede (1914-1947), a puritanical Zulu intellectual from a poor subsistence farming
family, who had originally considered forming a separate organization to the ANC. Lembede had
gained his BA, LLB and Masters degrees through distance education from UNISA but provided a
focal point for a younger generation of African politicians particularly associated with University
College, Fort Hare. However, from the very start, the ANCYL was divided into two main camps that
eventually caused civil war within the ANC. Lembede himself was rural oriented and rejected both the
British-oriented ANC objective of a capitalist industrial economy and neglected rural class sustaining
10

a sizeable urban westernized middle class society of individualistic, acquisitive, liberal Christians; and
the CPSA target of establishing a Soviet state with a heavily policed, urbanized, industrial workermilitary, professional, bureaucratic, and intellectual dictatorship fed by a demoralized, inefficiently
collectivized, and despised peasantry.
Lembedes deputy was Ashley Peter Solomzi Mda (1916-1993), a Mosotho raised in the Aliwal
North area of the Cape, where his chiefly family had fled from Mafeteng, Basutoland, after an
altercation with a British magistrate. Other like-minded prominent members were Ntsu Mokhehle
(1918-1999) from Fort Hare and Potlako Leballo (1915-1986), an ex-WW2 South African army
sergeant, both from Basutoland; and Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe (1924-1978) of Fort Hare of
Basotho-Pondo ancestry from Graaff-Reinet in the Eastern Cape. Mda, a hypochondriac with
occasional genuine health problems, eventually lost his nerve and retreated into rural isolation, which
he inappropriately compared to Lenin in Switzerland and Mao Zedong at Yenan. However, the other
three, while occasionally liaising with Mda in the hope of persuading him out of his masterful
inactivity, would form a close alliance up until Sobukwes death. The rival camp consisted of three
Xhosa-speakers: the ANCYL secretary-general, Walter Sisulu (1912-2003), an entrepreneurial estate
agent, talented administrator, but ultimately duplicitous political networker, disowned by his white
father and racially taunted by Lembede; the ANCYL treasurer, Kaizana Oliver Tambo (1917 - 1993), a
physics and mathematics graduate orphaned at sixteen, who taught at the prestigious St Peters School
in Johannesburg (where he recruited many students as dual CPSA/ANC members); and the future
ANCYL president Nelson Mandela, a charismatic member of the Thembu royal house, who married
Sisulus cousin and would later be articled with Tambo in the same Johannesburg law firm. These
three were urban oriented professionals with higher class aspirations and increasing involvement with
dissident European and Indian politicians and professionals. Mda stated that the CPSA deliberately
targeted Mandela, Sisulu, and Tambo as potentially valuable recruits, either as communists or fellow
travellers, and in doing so severely weakened the ANCYL to such as extent that it became irrelevant
after 1952.
During crises, for example the Lifaqane/Mfecane of the early 1800s, African society was
extremely adaptable and frequently produced leaders of scandalous parentage, such as Shaka Zulu and
Lepoqo Moshoeshoe, who were not from the traditional ruling class yet succeeded by introducing
innovations such as the short stabbing spear and gun bearing cavalry. Shaka replaced the traditional
chieftaincy with military indunas while Moshoeshoe used polygyny to father a new ruling class.
Lembede was also an innovator from a low status family but did not seek to become a leader in the old
mode such as a chief, a professional, a cleric, or high ranking academic. Lembede was essentially a
democratic populist who believed the only effective weapon to achieve liberation was mass African
action. However, his rhetoric and methods of gaining support from the lower echelons of the
townships and the impoverished rural areas indicated that he was a national-socialist. Edwin
Mofutsanyana (1899-1995), a Mosotho and former CPSA secretary-general (until 1939) attacked
Lembede for Nazi sympathies; and Potlako Leballo recalled that when he first witnessed Lembede
speaking publicly in 1945 the speech provoked the Communist activist, John Beaver J. B. Marks, to
exclaim, The Fhrer has spoken! Lembedes mostly lower middle class supporters in the townships
considered themselves to have a higher socio-economic status than their rural relations and were not
prepared to communalize what little wealth they had acquired. This lower class based, xenophobic
anti-communist attitude, had sustained a number of right wing white dictatorships worldwide and
brought the Malan Purified National Party (NP) to power in South Africa in 1948. Lembede believed
that a fundamentalist political system was necessary to prevent the eternal problem of the African elite
identifying with local liberal whites and (later) being bought off by foreign interests. Besides closely
following the NPs rise, he even investigated religion in the hope of discovering a faith his colleagues
would embrace that would bolster nationalism and inspire them with a spirituality that despised
material gain. He was extremely unsuccessful. Mda, a Leninist from a rural background where land
was communally held, worked hard to divert Lembede from Nazi beliefs but the national-socialist
11

influence persisted to such an extent that the PAC faction which disastrously participated in the 1994,
1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014 elections is justly described as mystical-fascist. Lembedes extremism
quickly alienated Sisulu, who not only failed his exams in Lembedes School of African Nationalism
in Orlando East but also endured abuse from Lembede on his mixed racial origins (his father was a
white magistrate). Tambo later described Lembedes Africanist Thought as primitive although
Mandela was more accommodating. In status conscious ridden African society, African nationalism
was a more attractive concept than an appeal to members of the poorer classes to unite. Members of
the poorer classes have higher class aspirations and often dislike being referred to in terms that have
derogatory connotations, although Lembede would not have objected to Ngubanes description of him
at teacher training college as the living symbol of African misery.
The alternate Smuts-Hertzog regimes since 1919 had been damaging enough in every aspect of
African life but, in 1948, the situation took a catastrophic turn for the worst when Malans NP won the
general election. The South African economy needed a much larger educated skilled workforce and a
just salary structure not only to support consumer goods expansion but also to take advantage of
markets as far north as Kenya. Malans solution, which ignored his slim coalition majority (79 to 74),
his own economic advisers, and international outrage, was a madness called apartheid (hybrid
English-Afrikaans for apartness). Under this scheme, Africans would become impoverished citizens
of powerless mini-states called Bantustans created in the scattered enclaves of official African land
allocated in 1936 that comprised 13.7% of the country. Malan planned for cheap African labour to be
phased out and entirely replaced by European workers. African urban areas would be scattered
satellite townships built on a grid system that would be simple for the police and army to contain and
attack but difficult for inhabitants to defend. Electricity, water, food supplies and communications
could easily be cut (usually a single road or rail track led to the nearby city). Redundant African
workers would be banished to the Bantustans, which would ultimately become foreign countries ruled
by puppet dictators. Eventually, no Africans would remain in the 83.3% of South Africa already
allocated entirely to Europeans. Another stage of the plan, implemented in the 1950s, was to dumb
down African education so the level of scientific and mathematical skills would be considerably
reduced, social science curricula distorted, and first language education expanded. In 1912, Afrikaans,
a semi-creole language, had replaced mutually intelligible Dutch, a major European language with
huge literary, technical and scientific resources, as the medium for education in Afrikaner education.
Southern Africans rarely suffered sociolinguistic trauma through education in a second or third
language unless it was Afrikaans. They recognized English as a useful tool not only for education but
also for global participation, and, while they respected their mother tongue and used it at home, in
church, or reading books and newspapers if they were available, they opposed mother tongue
education except in rural areas in the lowest grades. Even Afrikaans, despite immense political and
financial backing, was still unacceptably underdeveloped and under-resourced in 1994. Besides
confining Africans to a sort of permanent gulag or badly run zoo, the new legislation also immediately
threatened what few professional career prospects remained to the ANCYL leadership.
In the 1940s, the CPSA began to revive and achieved successes in creating industrial unrest. The
most serious resistance to the white power structure in the 1940s came from the CPSA-directed
Miners Strike. The African Mine Workers Union was launched in 1941 under the presidency of the
CPSA activist J. B. Marks (1903-1972) whose father was an African railway worker and whose
mother was white. At that time, the wage rate for African workers was, using present currency, R70
per year, while White workers received R848. By August 12, 1946, when between 75 - 100,000
African mine workers went on strike for a daily wage of 10 shillings (One Rand) the wages were:
Africans R87 and whites R1106. The strike lasted for five days and affected 32 of the 45 mines on the
Rand. Brutal police suppression resulted in an official toll of 1,248 workers wounded and nine killed.
The CPSA and Indian Congress activist, M. P. Naicker, later erroneously claimed in 1976 that
The brave miners of 1946 gave birth to the ANC Youth League's Programme of Action adopted in
1949. There was no basis for this assumption. J. B. Markss just accusations of Lembedes flirtation
12

with national-socialism indicated there was no meeting point between the CPSA and Lembedes
immediate circle who inspired The Programme of Action. Firstly, the massive system of informants,
the pass system, the short term contract migrant labour system and intense vigilance by the mining
companies, police and tribal authorities made it impossible for political parties to build on the brief
success of the 1946 Miners Strike. During the strike, Marks and his executive, through police
repression, had been isolated from the action which, despite being widespread on the Rand, was
localised not national and had economic not political objectives. Secondly, Lembedes ideas were
initially popular with African university students and young graduates as well as members of the post
Second World War expanding African urban class of teachers, petty entrepreneurs, and ex-soldiers,
who recognized that mass action would enhance their own chances of attaining political leadership.
For that reason they were not at all anxious to see any challenge from of a powerful African Miners
Union, more so because they considered miners to be from an uneducated lower class strata.
Lembede died in 1947, possibly poisoned by a jealous girl friend, but his ideas were adopted in a
somewhat diluted form as The Programme of Action at the ANC national conference in 1949.
The animosity between Lembede and Marks was unfortunate because the concepts of spontaneous
mass protest (Lembede) and carefully targeted and controlled mass protest (Marks) needed much
deeper analysis and there should have been a meeting point between them because, until 1955, ANC
and CPSA members, despite rivalry and intrigue, generally had good relations. Several senior African
openly known CPSA office bearers, such as Moses Kotane and J. B. Marks, were also members of the
ANC.
The ANCYL was already working on The Programme of Action before the National Party
extremist Dr Franois Malan became premier in 1948. Lembede had intended The Programme of
Action to transform the ANC into an African-led democratic socialist revolutionary movement but it
was only adopted in 1949 after his death and was a compromise between the two major factions
within the ANCYL. While the ANCYL intended to launch the programme as a means of convincing
the African majority that nation-wide coordinated mass peaceful political demonstrations would bring
freedom, the ANCs Christian-oriented professional element stressed guarantees to assure Indian and
Coloured organizations. This understandable widening of the focus nevertheless played a major role in
diverting the struggle from its primary objective to one protecting class interests in the name of racial
harmony.
The launching of The Programme of Action was complicated by the banning of the Communist
Party, whose international links had been considerably enhanced but was already experiencing
divergent strategies for liberation in the wake of Josip Broz Titos victory in Yugoslavia and Mao
Zedongs 1949 victory in China. On the eve of the Second World War, the Soviet Union had
degenerated into a brutal, paranoid, isolated, introverted state that had abandoned its earlier ideals of
colonial freedom and world revolution, decimating its political elite and massacring a large part of its
officer corps. However, by 1949, it had assumed a global role establishing communist states in
occupied Eastern Europe and North Korea, annexing parts of Japan and seeing communism triumph in
China. Non-aligned newly independent countries such as India were adopting Soviet economic
models, while anti-colonial movements in Indo-China were adopting Marxist solutions, albeit
modelled more on the Chinese peoples war strategies than the 1917 Soviet workers-military coup
approach. Liberation literature was so scarce in South Africa that although Africanist church members
knew about Garvey, who claimed his UNIA had been inspired by conditions in Basutoland, most
political leaders were unaware of Toussaint LOuverture or Mao Zedongs writings. However,
Mahatma Gandhis (1869-1948) political career had started in South Africa and his highly successful
campaign in India of Satyagraha - resistance through mass non-violent civil disobedience was very
influential in the ANC.
Membership numbers of the CPSA were unknown and the identity and relative authority of its
office bearers extremely nebulous but the party had revived its fortunes through its involvement with
the 1946 Miners Strike. Although the strike had failed, it demonstrated that the CPSA was again a
13

credible force. Xuma continued to allow CPSA leaders such as Moses Kotane and J. B. Marks to hold
National Executive Committee (NEC) positions in the ANC making the ANC appear less a political
party than an ill defined movement. Lembedes colleagues argued that the all-inclusive, nonideological character of the ANC, was its weakness while Jordan Ngubane (who later joined the
Liberal Party) criticised the policy of seeking alliances, instead of encouraging mass recruitment,
which caused the ANC to stop at every station to pick up all sorts of passengers.
The Victoria East Branch of the ANCYL (which included Fort Hare) had been responsible for
drawing up the completed draft of the Programme of Action. The branch president was Sobukwe and
his vice president Ntsu Mokhehle, both of Fort Hare. In December 1949, the ANC held its conference
in Bloemfontein. The Programme of Action had been passed to the branches, discussed in depth and
returned to the conference for approval. According to Leballo and Ntsu Mokhehle, the Youth
Leaguers reckoned that the older members of the ANC would be somewhat tired by the early morning
and not in a good position to resist a determined assault for the Programmes adoption. According to
them, the Programme of Action was presented to the conference at 2.30am and duly accepted, along
with the election of Dr James Moroka as president in place of Xuma. Xuma was elected to the
executive but the presence of the CPSA in the new executive convinced Mda that, if Africanism were
to prevail, it should be formally constituted.
The Programme of Action today reads as quite a mild document but in 1949 it was almost
revolutionary. Unlike the 1955 Freedom Charter, which seriously split the liberation struggle, The
Programme of Action was widely discussed through the entire party structure so that every leading
ANC member, particularly those on the Rand and at Fort Hare, had a say in its compilation. The
Programme of Action was extremely Gandhian for it called for civil disobedience, strikes, boycotts
and stays-at-home and, thus, unequivocally committed the ANC to a new strategy, based on extralegal tactics, mass action and the principle of non-collaboration. Unfortunately but understandably,
given the ferocity of the apartheid government, there were no directives about the next stage of the
struggle should open conflict erupt. Gandhi had exhorted Jews in 1938 on the eve of the Holocaust:
If the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have
imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought
deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the God-fearing, death has no
terror.
This was certainly not the sort of message volatile young African activists let alone the Jewish
communists wanted to hear. In militant African minds this was a strategy for the older middle class
professional membership lawyers, doctors, and reverend gentlemen - to adopt but the youth reasoned
that their elders martyrdom would inspire them to use violence to avenge them. They had plenty of
examples to guide them. The methods used to crush the miners and thereafter control and isolate them
should have warned the ANC what they could expect but even bellicose former soldiers like Leballo
later admitted that the African political leadership, despite its rhetoric, underestimated the vicious
vindictive obduracy of the NP regime. In 1949 there was an assumption that, if the ANC could
organise an escalating number of increasingly larger peaceful mass demonstrations, the NP
government would be forced to negotiate. While many Africanists (Mda, Sobukwe, Mokhehle,
Leballo) later downplayed the influence of Nkrumah and the rise of his Peoples Convention Party
(PCP) in the Gold Coast (Ghana) it was clear the PCP experience was inspirational and Sobukwe
believed in Nkrumahs example so much that he had no Plan B. Nkrumah, guided by Padmore (who
thought him rather dim), had split away from the more conservative but highly educated leadership of
Dr Danquah, seized the initiative by supporting rural activism and launched a vigorous campaign of
Positive Action in January 1950 that focused on civil disobedience, non-cooperation, boycotts, and
strikes. The British arrested Nkrumah and many of his supporters and he was sentenced to three years
in prison. However the British gave way and Nkrumah won Africas first true general election while
14

still in jail. On the 13th February 1951, a day after being freed, he was asked to form a government.
International Communism had considerable examples and strategies to guide the CPSA in the
coming confrontation but the minuscule professional nature of the CPSA membership was ill suited to
revolutionary activism and, although the CPSA wanted credit for participation in mass demonstrations,
it did not want ANC grass roots activism to succeed. J. B. Marks evoked respect from the Africanists
but his success in the Miners Strike ensured the regime took steps to prevent any similar occurrence.
Despite Markss organisational abilities, he does not appear to have been as influential in the CPSA as
he deserved and future resistance strategies were thereafter conducted by over-cautious white
communists like Joe Slovo. Sobukwe dismissed the communists as quacks in his view only
intellectual communists. He continued:
They were wealthy and they used and enjoyed their wealth [but]none of them was
willing to materially come down to our level, or to accept the possibility that roles might
someday be reversed.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1970
The CPSA had immediate local problems not only with the NP regime but also with major religious
groups. In 1949, the Roman Catholic Pope Pius XII decreed that anyone professing, defending or
spreading Communist doctrine would be excommunicated. Lembede had been a Catholic but,
although the faith had a dominant position in Basutoland, it was not very influential in South Africa
since the Afrikaner heritage was Dutch Protestant augmented by French Huguenot (Protestant)
refugees, and most English speakers were also Protestants. However, on the eve of provincial elections
the same year, C. R. Swart, the justice minister in Malans administration, had announced that a
departmental committee investigating communism had produced a report which had disclosed that
there was a national danger from the communists and that they were undermining our national life,
our democratic institutions and our western philosophy. At beginning of 1950, after the adoption of
The Programme of Action, the Dutch Reformed Church advocated the closure of the Soviet consulate
in Pretoria and urged the government to tighten the law punishing incitement of non-Europeans
against Europeans. In March 1950, the Dutch Reformed Church Congress called for government
action against communism and the NP duly introduced an Unlawful Organisations Bill into
parliament. The Bill was withdrawn following protests that its terms of reference were too sweeping.
It was replaced by a Suppression of Communism Bill. The bill defined communism as ... the
doctrine of Marxian socialism as expounded by Lenin and Trotsky, the Third Communist International
(the Comintern) or the Communist Information Bureau (the Cominform) or any related form of that
doctrine expounded or advocated in the Union for the promotion of the fundamental principles of that
doctrine ..... Among the list of sub-definitions was: (b) which aims at bringing about any political,
industrial, social or economic change within the Union by the promotion of disturbance or disorder, by
unlawful acts or omissions or by the threat of such acts or omissions or threat. A maximum penalty
of ten years imprisonment was laid down for any infringement. Section (b) was to prove the relevant
part of the Act which became law on 22nd June, 1950, for it enabled the authorities to stamp down on
dissension through the use of banning, rather than bringing people to court. The same year South
Africa entered the Korean War and incurred heavy warplane losses.
In May 1950, six weeks before the Act became law, the Central Committee of the CPSA met at its
office on the Sixth floor of the Stuttaford Building in Johannesburg to discuss the implications of the
forthcoming Act. Of the sixteen members present, only two voted against the motion that the party
should dissolve itself before the Act became law. These were W. H. Andrews, an English trade
unionist, and Edwin Mofutsanyana, from Basutoland. Dissolution, with no reference to the party
membership was unusual, and Mofutsanyana suggested that it was hardly appropriate for the party to
dissolve itself, even before the government had passed the Act. Andrews asked the party to show some
courage and face the coming onslaught. Michael Harmel, regarded as the partys leading theoretician,
15

spoke for the majority. Mofutsanyana described Harmel as pale and shaking as he urged the committee
to dissolve the party. Later, Harmel wrote that the move had been necessary because, No effective
steps had been taken to prepare for underground existence and illegal work. The CPSA leadership,
being for the most part professional people, many of them lawyers, would not only be subject to
economic loss to a far greater extent than most of those affected by the provisions of the Act but also
find it nearly impossible to lead underground resistance outside their class and ethnic circle.
While Lembede, Mda and the Africanists were searching for an effective liberation doctrine, the
CPSA could draw on numerous examples from allied movements including communist parties in
Algeria, China, Indochina, India, Indonesia, Malaya, Burma and Korea. At the May 1950 CPSA
dissolution meeting, the central committee agreed to Resolution 212 whereby the party should be
reconstituted secretly. In the meantime, its members were instructed to turn their attention to infiltrate,
establish and take over other political organisations. A notable previous example of infiltration (which
ended in mass murder of the communists April-May 1927) had been when the Soviet directed
Communist International (Comintern) in 1922 ordered members of the Communist Party of China to
join the Guomindang (Nationalist Party) to transform the Guomindang from the inside rather than
rival it. However, the CPSA failure to create a large working class-peasant membership meant that
clandestine activities were extremely precarious. In Thailand and Malaya communist insurgency was
hampered and eventually failed because it was associated with ethnic minorities (Chinese) whose
insurgents nevertheless far exceeded the sum total of the entire CPSA membership (African and
minorities) from 1921 till the present day. The CPSA membership was minuscule (even in the Soviet
Union membership was a privilege. In 1986 about 10% of Soviet adult citizens belonged to the party,
with over 44 per cent classed as industrial workers and 12 per cent collective farmers) and its
leadership overwhelmingly urban, professional and from ethnic minorities (Georgians, Poles,
Armenians, Balts, Jews7). The growing appeal of the Africanists was making it difficult to recruit
outside the CPSAs own socio-economic class so communist strategy therefore aimed at those
opposition groups felt threatened by the empowerment of lower class Africans.
The ex-CPSA used its professional expertise (its lawyers were always in demand) and superior
financial resources to exercise disproportionate influence. Dr Yusuf Dadoo, a member of the CPSA
central committee, was already president of the South African Indian Congress (SAIC) but stepped
down in order to operate more freely. Monty Naicker, the Gandhian past president of the SAIC,
resumed the leadership in name, while Dadoo, nominally no longer an office holder, retained the real
power with Yusuf Cachalia as secretary-general. Moses Kotane, the secretary-general of the 1950
CPSA central committee, was ordered to work for the reconstruction of the CPSA which had been
previously known as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) as the underground South African
Communist Party (SACP). He ostensibly worked for his own furniture business, operating between
Alexandra and Johannesburg, but this was apparently a front for his party activities. The SACP
writers certainly did not recognise any break in the partys history. Harmels history of the Communist
Party dates the partys 50th anniversary as 1971 and, since the CP was formed in 1921, it is evident
that the dissolution in 1950 was merely a ploy to evade prosecution. Certainly no present SACP
member considers any break to have occurred in the partys history. The CP was secretly reconstituted
as the SACP in 1953. In 1962, after Mandela tried to downgrade the importance of the Freedom
Charter Congress Alliance, the SACP drew up a policy document, which was taken by some observers
to mean that its secret reconvening belonged to that year. The secretive nature of the Communist Party
after 1950 ensured it would never be anything except a small clandestine, Soviet funded (until 1989),
multi-racial, anti-democratic, elitist group of trade unionists and professionals that used the ANC for
its own purposes and, even since 1994, has never stood for national elections.
After Lembedes death in 1947, Mda worked for greater grass roots activism but, because of his
nave directive that his Africanist group should hold back until the appropriate juncture, he was
7

Stalin once advised his Jewish colleagues to change their names in order not to upset Hitler
16

quickly outmanoeuvred by the better funded, more dynamic and professionally-assisted Sisulu,
Mandela, and Tambo. Walter Sisulu was elected ANC secretary general in 1949 bit was replaced by
Oliver Tambo after he was banned from political activity in 1953. Mandela was elected a member of
the ANC NEC in 1950, appointed leader of volunteers in Defiance Campaign, and succeeded Godfrey
Pitje as ANCYL president in 1952. He became national deputy leader of the ANC the same year. Mda
tried to counter the rise of his moderate nationalist rivals by organising the Africanists at Leballos
lodgings at 142 Adams Street, Orlando East. In July 1950, Mda held a-meeting of the hard core of
African nationalists and Africanists at Bochabela Location in Bloemfontein. The seventeen activists
present were A.P. Mda, Leballo, Sobukwe, G. Pitje, J. Ngubane, N. Mokhehle, V. Sifora, Dr. Conco,
M. Yengwa, John Nyati Pokela, Cornelius Judah Fazzie, A. Z. Gwenje, T. E. Ka Tschunungwa,
J. Lengese and Messrs Mzamane, Xgabashe and Kopo. This group was similar to the Inner Circle of
the Africanist Movement that met at Adams Street. According to Leballo, the Inner Circle consisted of
Mda, Leballo, Ngendane, Molotsi, Lekage, Makhetha, Tsoolo, Zephaniah Mothopeng (President of
the Transvaal Teachers Association in 1950), Sifora, Pokela, Sobukwe, Phillip Gallant, Z. B. Molete
and two others, including a woman, whose names escaped him. The Inner Circle held guidance line
meetings two or three times a week, from 6pm to 6am, and also met at weekends. They read widely,
wrote papers and held discussions. Their work was concerned with drawing from African experience
to build up an ideology of resistance, as well as to inspire Africans to take a pride in their past and
traditions and fight for their own freedom without help from any other group. George Padmore,
though strapped for funds, had been extremely active since his expulsion from the Comintern and the
concomitant quarantining of his popular publications. He had remained in Europe and started an
unofficial organisation in Hampstead, London, called the Pan African Brotherhood. After the Italian
invasion of Ethiopia, Padmore, Jomo Kenyatta, Ras Makonnen, Wallace-Johnson and C.L.R. James
formed the International African Friends of Abyssinia and, in 1937, the International Africa Service
Bureau (IASB). Padmore was able to recruit younger African activists including Kwame Nkrumah and
disseminate instructions on how to form and run clandestine political movements. Despite his
expulsion from Soviet circles, Padmores methods remained distinctly Leninist with emphasis on the
concept of a small hard core of trained revolutionaries directing the masses. Mdas Africanists had the
same organisation, ideology and titles (Inner Circle, Hard Core) as Kwame Nkrumahs early political
movement. Padmore, Nkrumahs mentor, had been rumoured to have undertaken clandestine visits to
Africa, including Johannesburg. Mda seems to have modelled himself on Padmore, but Mda stated in
1970 that he had never met him. Like Nkrumahs Peoples Convention Party (PCP), Mdas Africanists,
from less respectable class backgrounds, quickly began to upstage their more prestigious rivals
mainly because the lower strata of African society with higher class aspirations could relate better to
them.
The Africanists displayed considerable class animosity and ridicule towards the ambitious
professionals, especially Mandela with his playboy reputation. Ntsu Mokhehle self-deprecatingly
referred to the Africanists as simple country-folk while Mda commented:
The tendencies I saw during the and after the Defiance Campaign caused me to be
pessimistic. I saw that the communists had resources. I was skeptical of our chances of
maintaining control of the ANC. The communists had not just money, but also a press. They
also had social pull; they could sweep people away by the glamour of associating with
whites. If you went along with them, you would get the opportunity of dancing with white
girls, going to parties, even kissing white girls, in private of course. You could stay in fine
hotels, be in a fine social setting. We didnt have, couldnt offer, any of these advantages.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1970

17

Leballo was equally scathing:

This Communist Party of South Africa, the so-called communists, it was never a real
one. It was composed of rich Jewish people, you know, bourgeois elements, and these
people were giving a lot of money to Mandela, Tambo. Particularly they were sponsors for
them to article them for, you know, they were to become lawyers.And you find a number
of them [European communists] in Johannesburg who were very rich, staying in Lower
Houghton, the richest part of Johannesburg, and their money was very important...
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1968
Sobukwe, who seems never to have known that Mandela and Sisulu secretly joined SACP before or
in 1955, the year they delivered the ANC to SACP control, agreed:
In the case of Sisulu, everyone could see what had happened. While he was secretarygeneral, there was one period of about six months when the ANC was so poor that the
phone and electricity were cut off in the office. These communists from the Indian
Congress Dadoo and Cachalia - came and supplied the ANC and Sisulu with money. Also
Sisulus business was in trouble. You couldnt blame him for being grateful to these men.
Sisulu even said this openly himself to us, that what else could he do?
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart
1970
Mary Benson [1966], a close European friend of Mandela, described his political discussions with
Indian and European activists, which contrasted sharply with the austere, often puritanical, Africanists:
Great days and, in [Ismail] Meers flat - over endless cups of tea and curry meals at
any time of the day or night, they discussed and argued and planned. They studied and they
listened to the gramophone. They could feel optimistic; they were young and planning for a
better world .....
Leballo and Mandela, despite their political rivalry, had a mutual respect but Leballo nevertheless
teased Mandela by imitating his stiff and formal public manner haughtily reminding his audience in
pompous tones that he was of the Royal House of the Thembu.
Sobukwe was more critical of Mandelas manner:
Mandela was one man I never really knew personally until I was already in prison. We
were never friendly, although I had heard him address meetings and had met him. He is a
very arrogant man. He lacks a common touch. I remember him at one meeting around the
time of the Defiance Campaign. People had gone there still undecided if they were going to
participate. Mandela got up and said very peremptorily, All those with us, come forward;
all others get out. And most people just got out. They were put off by his manner. Mandela
was strong among the leaders, although we always recognized Tambo as superior in
intelligence. Mandela had a way of attacking people very viciously if they disagreed with
him, and were a smaller person than himself. He could reduce them to a shriveling
mass, then he would pat them on the head and draw them to him, and thereafter they
would be his men, always deferring to him, looking up to him. If he came across any man
[such as Sobukwe] who wouldnt look up and defer to him and acknowledge his superiority
then he wouldnt have anything to do with that person. Mandela could always attract weak
people; but he could never get on with another strong person. In any relationship, he had to

18

dominate. But he was an engaging person. He could always crack a joke, make you laugh;
he always had a story to tell. But I was never friendly with him.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1970
Joe Matthews of the SACP confirmed the class division and contempt for rural activism when
commenting on the arrival of Mangaliso Sobukwe in Johannesburg:
... Some of us like Nokwe and others and myself ... had come to Fort Hare from
Johannesburg.... We had spent five years in Johannesburg and had been in the
Johannesburg political whirlpool and it was a very, exciting time to be in Johannesburg,
during and just after the war. ... By the time we got to college we had ideas.... We were
members of the movement; we had been in that movement for some time and we knew the
iris and outs of the ANC. And we found ... chaps like Sobukwe and others had just come
straight from Healdtown, six miles across to Fort Hare. And this was their life ... the quiet
sort of life of that part of the country. And from there into teaching at Standerton, another
little town.... He might have been able to adjust if he had been participating (in 1950-54)
but, being out of the sort of practical day-to-day thing, he then came with what he
considered was an idea which he had and which had not been fulfilled ... (he was a) sincere
sort of chap. And sincere in a way which, unfortunately, politicians are not. By that, I
mean that he had the sincerity of a starry-eyed type. Gerhart [1978:189]
Mandela confirmed the attractions of higher society, telling Godfrey Pitje and others in his office,
Look, chaps, you cant blame me for this. Im beginning to look at things differently. [Sampson
1999:118] However, not all were seduced. Peter Raboroko had been at school with Tambo yet
identified so strongly with African township culture that Mandela, who admitted he had never mixed
in lower class circles, sneeringly dismissed him as shebeen intellectual. Raboroko took it as a
compliment.
Therefore, in 1950, the Africanists and the disbanded CP, aware of each others intentions, were
both intending to take over the ANC by utilising the class divisions within the movement. The
Africanists believed that the ANC could be converted to a more effective form of resistance by a
sustained grass roots campaign resulting from a mass membership whose natural nationalism would
support the Africanist view point and leadership. On the face of it, it appeared the ex-CP had little
chance of combating the Africanists. However, perceptions altered and, ironically, the CP profited by
the Africanists success in the Defiance Campaign. Mda was in two minds about the Defiance
Campaign. Although he wanted to politicize the grass roots through implementing mass action, he
believed that the ANC was hampered by its leaderships professional concerns, its communist allies
Soviet directed intentions, and its Christian-Gandhian concept of passive resistance. Mdas ostensible
objective was to provoke the racist regime into violence and then incite violent mass African
retaliation although, when this became a probability, he lost his nerve and became a recluse.
When the implementation of the Programme began in 1950, the new president-general of the ANC
was Dr Moroka, who not only had not sought the leadership (at the conference the ANCYL found him
having illicit sex when they went to ask him) but was also an untested politician, who was never able
to exercise effective control over his party let alone deal with the communists. Moroka opened a
Freedom of Speech Convention in Johannesburg but ANCYL and communists clashed over the latters
attempt to seize control of May Day celebrations. The brutality of the South African police in breaking
up the demonstration, killing 18 and wounding 30, briefly reconciled the two groups and, on 26th
June, they joined with other organisations to demonstrate against the Bill for Group Areas and the Bill
for the Suppression of Communism, combining the event into a national day of mourning. In 1951, the
newly-formed Coloured organisation, the Franchise Action Council, organised strikes in the Cape
Peninsular and Port Elizabeth, with Indian and African support, in protest against the Separate
19

Representation of Voters Bill.

The Programme of Action had stated, The National Organisations of the Africans, Indians and
Coloureds may co-operate on common issues and on 17 June 1951, the national executive of the
ANC, still lacking clear forceful leadership, decided to invite all other national executives of the
national organisations of the non-European people of South Africa to a conference to place before
them a programme of direct action. The difficulty that faced the ANC was that, although The
Programme of Action called for Africans to free themselves, non-Africans would continue to protest
against injustice, otherwise they would appear opposed or apathetic to African freedom. The ANC
could not expect non-Africans to abandon resistance and so, to prevent confusion and rival
demonstrations, it was necessary- so they believed - to co-ordinate activities. On 29th July, the leaders
of the ANC, SAIC and FAC (Cape) met and resolved:
1.

2.
3.

to declare war on Pass Laws and Stock Limitation, the Group Areas Act, the
Voters Representation Act, the Suppression of Communism Act and the Bantu
Authorities Act.
to embark upon an immediate mass campaign for the repeal of these oppressive
laws, and
to establish a Joint Planning Council to co-ordinate the efforts of the National
Organisations of the African, Indian and Coloured peoples in this mass
campaign.

The Joint Planning Committee members were Dr. James Sebe Moroka, chairman, (ANC), W. M.
Sisulu (ANC), J. B. Marks (ANC-CP), Dr. Y. M. Dadoo (SAIC-CP) and Y. Cachalia (SAIC). On 8
November, 1951, the committee made its report. It recommended that the ANC annual conference in
December that year should call upon the Union government to repeal the following by February
1952:the Pass Laws, the Group Areas Act, the Voters Representation Act, the Suppression of
Communism Act, the Bantu Authorities Act, the policy of stock limitation and the socalled rehabilitation scheme.
Should the Union government reject this ultimatum, the committee suggested that a Plan of Action
be implemented:
We recommend that the struggle for securing the repeal of unjust laws be DEFIANCE
OF UNJUST LAWS based on non-cooperation. Defiance of unjust laws and regulations
which are undemocratic, unjust, racially discriminatory and repugnant to the natural rights
of man.
The three stages of Defiance of Unjust, Laws were defined as below:1. Commencement of the struggle by calling upon selected and trained persons to go
into action in the big centres, e.g. Johannesburg, Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Port
Elizabeth and Durban.
2. Number of volunteer corps to be increased as well as the number of operation.
3. This is the stage of mass action, during which as far as possible the struggle
should broaden out on a country-wide scale and assume a general mass character.
For its success, preparation on a mass scale to cover the people both in the urban
and rural areas would be necessary.

20

Volunteers were to enter areas where they were forbidden as units and to court arrest when
challenged. Selected leaders were to announce that they were refusing to carry passes of any
description. In rural areas, volunteers should resist cattle-culling and stock limitation and decide in the
conferences of the rural areas upon which laws to defy. The committee also recommended that
volunteers should instruct people not to co-operate with the coming enforcement of the Population
Registration Act. Finally, the committee called for a one million shilling drive to finance the
campaign, and for the issue of an inspired National Pledge.
The committees recommendations were accepted by the 39th Session of the ANC, held in
Bloemfontein in December 1951. The following month, Moroka and Sisulu, the ANC secretarygeneral wrote to Malan, the NP premier, calling for the repeal of repressive legislation and threatening
a Defiance Campaign. On 29 January, Malan replied: While the government is not prepared to grant
the Bantu political equality within the European community, it is only too willing to encourage Bantu
initiative, Bantu services and Bantu administration within the Bantu community. Malan pointed out
that the government, considered that the Bantu Authorities Act was designed to give the Africans the
opportunity of enlightened administration of their own affairs, and warned the ANC that the
government would not tolerate infringements of the law.
The same month, in a move that further demonstrated the fragmentary nature of the ANC, the Inner
Circle of the Africanist Movement officially launched the Bureau of African Nationalism in all four
provinces of the Union, while maintaining silence over its membership. During the rest of the year, the
Inner Circle members operated chiefly out of the Xhosa speaking Eastern Cape. Their choice was
significant. The area had had the longest exposure to European expansion. It was an area where both
liberalism and extreme nationalism had had successes. The ANC and SAIC national executives met at
Port Elizabeth on 31 May and agreed that the campaign of defiance of unjust laws would commence
on 26 June, 1952. In May, before the campaign had even begun, the government, acting under the
provisions of the Suppression of Communism Act, had ordered Kotane, Marks, Ngwevela, Bopape
and Dadoo - Communist Party members - to resign from their ANC and SAIC posts and to stay away
from political gatherings. The same month, The Guardian, the CP newspaper, was also suppressed,
only to be revived as Advance. The two CP members of the National Parliament and Cape Provincial
councils, S. Kahn and F. Carneson, were banned, as was Michael Harmel, then member of the
Transvaal Peace Council, and E. S. Sachs of the Garment Workers Union. On 30 July, the police
raided all premises of the ANC, ANCYL, the Franchise Action Council, the Natal Indian Congress, the
Transvaal Indian Congress, the Cape Provincial Indian assembly and other non-European
organisations and trade unions in the major centres of the Union. They also raided newspaper offices
and the private homes and offices of leaders involved in the campaign. Between 12 and 15 August,
twenty leaders of the ANC and SAIC, including Moroka and Dadoo, were arrested and charged the
next month under the Suppression of Communism Act.
Throughout these months, the Defiance Campaign proceeded as planned. Nelson Mandela was in
charge of volunteers and these volunteers deliberately defied laws all over the country openly courting
arrest. Altogether, 8,057 volunteers were arrested. The Bureau of African Nationalism did important
work throughout the Defiance Campaign. It circulated pamphlets urging resisters not to allow the
campaign to be taken over by minority interests, but to keep faith with the resolutions of The
Programme of Action. The writers of these pamphlets were Sobukwe, A.P. Mda, T. T. Letlaka, C. J.
Fazzie, J. N. Pokela and others (they all used pseudonyms), and their work was distributed to ANCYL
members around the Union.
Leballos work consisted of sustaining mass support and leading by example. The Bureau focused
on encouraging Africans to organise themselves for a political campaign on a massive scale. Up until
then, opposition on a national scale had been a sedate affair, conducted by intellectuals or trade
unionists like Kadalie, whose objectives were accommodation by the European authorities. Leadership
in the 1950s and, to a great extent thereafter, depended on a university degree. Lawyers and doctors
easily became the accepted leaders of the African population but the Bureau of African Nationalism
21

wanted the African masses to gain experience and throw up their own leadership, hence their call to
ignore outside interference, although Mda was never specific about exactly the protestors should act
according to a scenario of circumstances. Ostensibly, the Bureau wanted Africans to learn their own
power and indeed had much success in building the foundations for later widespread resistance but it
became clear that Mdas rhetoric conflicted with his personal distaste at the uncouth forces that were
emerging. Despite Mdas deepening disgust with the Mankno-ites8 and radical Africanist church
members he had unleashed, the Bureau had received valuable assistance from Fort Hare University
students, Mdas preferred class of militant. Nevertheless, Mdas Leninist ambivalence towards his
supporters narrowed his movements appeal. Sobukwe (in detention) and Leballo (in exile) later
realised in 1964 after Poqo, which was a logical extension of the Defiance Campaign, that grass root
activism needed more to sustain it and the movement had failed to attract significant numbers of
educated activists, the older generation and women because the Africanist philosophy was too
nebulous to achieve liberation and the implementation of an equitable society.
Although the Africanists had achieved success in encouraging mass demonstrations, newspaper
publicity given to the arrest of former CP members gave the communists a prominence out of
proportion to their actual influence on events. Professor Matthews, reacting to an accusation that the
Defiance Campaign had been Communist-influenced, wrote:
The Campaign was strongest and best organised precisely in those areas where the socalled Communist influence was weakest. Anybody who knows anything about the
Communist Party of South Africa knows, or ought to know, that its influence was strongest in
Cape Town, where its headquarters are situated, in Johannesburg and in Durban. The figures
of the campaign speak for themselves ... Cape Town providing a negligible number (of
incidents and arrests). The largest number (of arrests) came from the Eastern Cape where the
Communist influence was practically nil.
Of the total of 8,057 volunteers arrested for deliberately infringing apartheid laws, 5,719 were
arrested in the Eastern Cape, 1,411 in the Transvaal, 423 in the Western Cape, Mafeking and
Kimberley, 258 in the OFS and 246 in Natal.
In the Eastern Cape, resistance was marked by notable religious fervour - it was often preceded by
prayer - and it was supported by African clergy and by African trade unions. Secondly, the people in
these parts had lost more than others since 1936, through the operation of the land and franchise laws
that deprived them and their children of old-established rights. Fort Hare also played an active part in
politicising the area during the campaign although they also encountered class antagonism. In many
areas it was evident that African working women were influential in encouraging resistance.
In August, police reinforcements were drafted into Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown and East London.
In October, serious rioting broke out at New Brighton location in Port Elizabeth. Europeans were
attacked and one, a proprietor of a local cinema, was killed. Buildings were set ablaze, and a post
office was wrecked along with several shops. The police shot dead and wounded several rioters in the
suppression which followed and, about two weeks later, an even more serious riot occurred at East
London after the police opened fire on a meeting at West Bank, where protesters had defied a ban on
gatherings. Three Europeans, including a nun and a doctor, were killed in the ensuing riot. Towards
the end of the campaign, a few European protestors entered Germiston location on 8 December, 1952,
and were charged with behaviour in a manner calculated to cause Natives to resist and to contravene
a law, or to prevail upon them to obstruct the administration of any law by leading a procession or
8

Nestor Mankno (1888 1934) was a colourful erratic Ukrainian anarcho-communist revolutionary peasant general and artist
whose troops voted to refuse his orders if he was drunk. The Soviet Red Army commander Trotsky so detested his independent
line that he reportedly declared, It's better to cede the entire Ukraine to Denikin (White Army) than to allow an expansion of
Makhnovism. Deniken defeated the Reds but was in turn defeated by Mankhno. Eventually the Reds forced Mankhno into
exile in 1921.
22

group of Natives into the Germiston location.

The Defiance Campaign was now at its most critical stage as it was probable that violence in large
urban centres would break out in retaliation to police suppression. Mandela had achieved considerable
success but had not established a plan of action to deal with the more volatile situation. His ability to
organise static mass demonstrations was laudable but designed as a political statement and publicity,
not as a step to more intense activity such as the mass targeting of specific locations for swift
occupation and abandonment by flying columns, who would eventually add destruction to their
repertoire and incite increased police brutality. It was envisioned that, ultimately, a massive police
miscalculation would present the protesters with the sort of opportunity wasted by Kgosana in Cape
Town in March 1960 nine days after Sharpeville. While such ambitious plans were extremely difficult
to implement, due to lack of communications, it seems nothing at all was developed during these years
concerning crowd direction. There was of course a tradition the highly disciplined 19th century Zulu
battle formations mixing speed, deception and force but in the 1940s and 1950s it was
inconceivable for any such drilling be permitted. Even when the film Zulu was shot in South Africa,
Zulu warrior extras were issued with dummy heads and shields to double their apparent size.
Eventually Mandelas colleagues lost their nerve and called off the Defiance Campaign. Several
were arrested and all were frightened by the lower class violence that had broken out. In December
1952, twenty leaders of the ANC and SAIC were found guilty of statutory Communism in contrast
to what is commonly known as Communism. The twenty, who included Moroka, Sisulu, Marks,
Mandela, Dadoo and Cachalia, were sentenced to nine months imprisonment with hard labour,
suspended for three years. The Johannesburg trial witnessed the attempt of Dr. Moroka to dissociate
himself from his fellow accused. He hired a separate lawyer and spoke of his opposition to
Communism. It is apparent that he did so because he wanted to emphasize that the ANC, not the CP
covert membership, had initiated the Defiance Campaign and that he was against interference from
Moscow. In the circumstances, his attitude was interpreted in a different light, especially when he
entered a plea in mitigation that stressed his long and happy association with Afrikaner patients.
At the ANC annual conference in mid-December 1952, Moroka found only his own OFS
delegation prepared to support him for re-election. Leballo, speaking on behalf of the Transvaal rank
and file, successfully nominated Albert Lutuli, the ANC Natal Provincial leader, as Morokas
successor. Leballo and others had been impressed by Lutulis comments during riots in Natal when
Africans had attacked Indians. Lutuli rejected criticism of such racism, pointing out that the sugar
cane Indian workers had been left unmolested, while Africans had only attacked the mercantile
Indians, whom they considered to be as much a part of the process of exploitation as the Europeans.
In keeping with ANC tradition where many leaders did not actively seek office, Godfrey Pitje was
taken aback and not at all pleased when he was elected Mdas successor as ANCYL leader with
Mangaliso Sobukwe as national secretary. During Morokas term of office, paid-up membership of the
ANC had risen to about 100,000. Lutuli was a Zulu chief, a fervent Christian and a nationalist, but not
a member of the Africanist Movement, whose outlook he eventually dismissed as right wing.
Lutulis election was a serious mistake. The obvious contender was Mandela. Mandela, although
somewhat of a playboy, was ambitious, experienced, charismatic, and independent minded. In 1952,
he was thirty four years old, the same age as Ntsu Mokhehle, Kenneth Kaunda, and Milton Obote
when they respectively founded the Basutoland African Congress in October 1952, ZANC in 1958,
and UCP in 1959; and four years older than Julius Nyerere, who founded the Tanganyika African
National Union in 1954 aged thirty two. Moreover, Mandela was based on the Rand, the powerhouse
of African politics. In contrast, Lutuli (1898-1967) was the son of a Seventh Day Adventist missionary
and became chief of the Zulu at Umzinyathi Christian mission reserve near Stanger in Natal in 1936.
Lutuli became a Methodist lay preacher and qualified as a teacher before joining the ANC in 1944 and
he became president of the Natal branch in 1951. Lembede (a Zulu), Leballo, and other militant
nationalists regarded the Zulu area as a favourable area for armed insurrection but the Transvaal urban
based ANC and communists dismissed Natal as a feudal backwater with an insignificant proletariat.
23

Lutuli was never able to assert his leadership on the ANC and remained restricted to his rural home
from early 1953 onwards. Without firm central control, the ANC continued as a battleground between
warring factions allied or opposed to the clandestine communists. Lutuli had an unfortunate but
justified reputation for laziness and eventually took a partisan stance against the Africanists, which
included adopting Indian national dress as the ANC uniform. The ANC, traditionally elitist and
conservative, probably considered Mandela too young to be its national leader but, in April 1959,
when Mandela was forty, Mangaliso Sobukwe was thirty four when he launched the PAC and seized
the initiative from the vacillating ANC.

Josiah Gumede

Albert Nzula

Clements Kadalie

Marcus Garvey

Survivors of the 11 March 1980 massacre of APLA performing in Nairobi

after escaping detention in Tanzania

Proposed Azania flag 1994

24

Toussaint LOuverture

CHAPTER TWO
The abrupt termination of the Defiance Campaign in December 1952 incensed the more
militant elements within the ANC. They argued the protestors should have totally ignored any
regime reaction, allowing the rioting to spread and eventually forcing the NP regime to
negotiate. Their agitation had been encouraged by Nkrumahs election as prime minister of the
Gold Coast (Ghana) on 21 March 1952, the declaration of a State of Emergency in Kenya on
October 20, the failure of the American led UN force to defeat North Korean and Chinese
forces, and the increasing success of the Viet Minh against French troops in Vietnam. They
accused the ANC leadership of cowardice, refusing to sacrifice their financial interests and
career prospects to ensure victory.
In retrospect, their anger appears to have had considerable justification. The ANC was still a united
force in 1952 and far better placed than the PAC in 1960 to escalate the struggle, because the NP
regime, not yet firmly entrenched, was being challenged by the Torch Commando. The NP leader,
Malan, had turned seventy eight, yet was unable to appoint chosen successors. Had the white
opposition United Party been more effective and in 1952 there were far more white sympathisers for
African rights than in 1960 perhaps prolonging the Defiance Campaign would have forced
negotiation.
In early 1953 the National Party regime rushed through two historically significant laws that caused
an impasse in African political activity until Sobukwe launched the anti-pass campaign of March
1960. The Criminal Law Amendment Act made it an offence to break any law by way of protest or as
part of a campaign against any law, the punishment being a fine of 300 and/or three years
imprisonment and/or ten lashes. The second law was the Public Safety Act, which was not used until
1960, but empowered the government to proclaim a state of emergency and rule by decree. The
Criminal Law Amendment Act proved to be too powerful a deterrent for the volunteers and the
Defiance Campaign ended. This explains why the ANC and its ethnic minority allies overemphasized
as spectacular triumphs the 1955 Congress of the People, the adoption of the Freedom Charter, and
the Treason Trial. The truth was that the ANC, whose leaders and allies included a large number of
lawyers, considered the legislation was so draconian that it was inadvisable to launch any further
national protests. In 1953, the leading nationalist, Jomo Kenyatta, was jailed for seven years in Kenya
for inciting violence. ANC/SACP leaders were rightly convinced the South African regime would treat
them worse for far minor offences.
In response to the two acts, ANC strategy from 1952 until 1960 was primarily conducted by ANCCP lawyers cautiously probing to find legal avenues of protest while creating elitist alliances,
denigrating and blocking lower class leaders, and encouraging media interest in their cause. The
essential weakness of this approach was that the ANC-CP expected the NP regime to react rationally
and in kind, as if the struggle were a legal chess game played within existing social and economic
parameters, whereas, in reality, the pig-headed rural bigots of NP were not only self driven and self
centred but also incredibly ignorant of their opponents intentions, affiliations, and identities and were
hell-bent on contorting society into nightmarish dimensions.
Although Sobukwe spoke publicly with Tambo during the Defiance Campaign and consequently
lost his teaching post, he was still waiting orders to launch when the campaign was abruptly
terminated because, according to Sobukwe, the leaders got cold feet. When these laws were passed
[1953 Public Safety Act and Criminal Laws Amendment Act], it became clear that they werent
actually prepared to make sacrifices.
Leballo agreed:
in 1949 at the conference of the ANC in Bloemfontein, it was the decisive
conference where the program of African nationalism for positive action, also for the
boycott of government dummy institutions was put through by the Youth League. And
25

this program had succeeded, but the leadership failed - of the ANC - failed to carry out
this program.
He added
the main issue in this was to carry out the Programme of 1949, of African
nationalism, on the basis of boycott, non-cooperation, and to struggle for real selfdetermination. (However) in fact it had been compromised. It had been sabotaged, by the
so-called Communists, pseudo-Communists. At the time, you know, the Communist Party
of South Africa was banned in 1950, and it decided to infiltrate into African
organizations, particularly the ANC, to carry out their program. So they [used for their
own ends] the militant Program of 1949, particularly to engage the African people into
Defiance Campaign, passive resistance against the unjust laws. The so-called
Communists at the time in fact stole this programme and made it one big strike in 1950
and we felt that it had been stabbed at the back.
Gail PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1968
Sobukwe elaborated:
By this time the Program was already being compromised. The struggle was always
to bring the ANC back to the Programme. During the 1950s it strayed far away. If the
Programme had been followed we would all be living different lives today. Deviation
began with the strikes in 1950. These were concocted by the left wing. We felt that they
had nothing to do with us but were merely protests at the banning of the Communist
Party. A split was already beginning in our ranks; the Youth League was on the decline.
Some were going over to the communists. The main thing we didnt like about the
Defiance Campaign was the leadership role taken by Indians and Whites. It was a lesson
we had learned, that whenever these groups were involved in any action, you had the
Africans just taking a back seat, sitting back and letting these people run things. We felt
this had to be overcome and that Africans had to learn to take the initiative, to do things
for themselves. I recognized there were some non-Africans who fully identified with us
and were prepared to sacrifice, but as a matter of principle we couldnt let these people
take any part because of the bad psychological effect this had on our people. One reason
some Africans welcomed Indian and white support was that as of the time of the Defiance
Campaign it became clear that campaigns would always end in everyone needing a
lawyer and money for defense. This increased dependence on non-Africans. When the
split began, we knew that Sisulu had gone over and Mandela had gone over. Tambo, we
knew was resisting. We saw this happening in the Youth League. I myself was national
presidentno, national secretary. Pitje was president. We were elected in December 1949
at the ANC conference. We saw this split happening, but we were just too weak to
prevent it.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1970
Lutuli was restricted to his farm at Groutville in early 1953 at the same time the SACP resumed
activities. Lutulis ineffectual leadership enabled the SACP members of the ANC on the Rand to act
with considerable freedom and the same year the Africanists suffered two major setbacks. Firstly, their
candidate, R.V. Selope Thema, lost the election for the presidency of the ANC Transvaal Province to
J. B.Marks, whose popularity had increased since his role in the miners strike. Sobukwe
acknowledged Marks was a good speaker, hard working and a strong leader but his election
exacerbated tensions within the party. In retrospect Thema was a peculiar choice, being an arch
26

conservative and eventual member of Moral Rearmament. Secondly, the Africanist cause lost
considerable momentum when Mda, having launched Leballo against resurgent elitism in, and
communist infiltration of, the ANC leadership, suddenly quit the struggle. Many liberation leaders
balanced their political careers with professional development, especially in law and teaching, but
after 1948 the rising generation of African politicians quickly discovered the appalling consequences
of their career choice. Perpetual stress, frequent dismissal from employment, police raids, arrest, and
detention took a heavy toll on their health and family but, unlike Mda, most preserved. Sobukwe
named Leballo as the hardest working of his colleagues. Leballo suffered not only from high blood
pressure, froze-bitten feet (from his WW2 German P.O.W. days) and eventually problems from prison
but also because - despite his enormous courage, frequent physical battles, and seemingly boundless
energy - he was in fact older than Mda by a year yet pretended to be have been born ten years later in
1925 and tried to behave as such. Mda had ulcers and heart problems and had left teaching to qualify
as a lawyer. He began practising at Herschel but was still highly respected even though the post 1952
generation of activists knew very little of him. In 1959 Mandela asked if Mda supported the founding
of PAC because, if he did, then the ANC is dead. Mda himself was aware that many colleagues
regarded him as a coward but he was more a theoretician who disliked the very forces he wanted to
empower. Sobukwe had advised him to remain in a strategic position but he lacked the strength of
character, for example, of the female political leaders in Sri Lanka, Burma, Pakistan, and India who
experienced far more personal horrors than he could have imagined. In 1981, Mda could have saved
the movement he had launched nearly forty years earlier with a minuscule percentage of the effort and
will that sustained Sonia Gandhi, but his timidity and mean spirited, petty class snobbery killed it9.
With Mdas departure, Leballo became the main driving force for implementation of the
Programme of Action. Leballos background is somewhat nebulous and he was extremely evasive
about his life prior to 1945, often exaggerating or inventing episodes or claiming family histories
(such as Mdas) as his own. He was aware of controversy over his parentage. He was born to a chiefly
family of Bataung origin at Lifelekoaneng near Mafeteng in Basutoland on 19 December 1915 when
his father was away overseas serving in the Basotho contingent in the First World War but Leballo
later claimed to be born in 1924 or 1925. Leballo dropped several heavy hints to this writer implying
he was in fact Mdas half brother. Leballo rarely spoke of his family but said his mother was the sister
of the famous Sesotho writer Thomas Mofolo. Leballos soldier father, to whom he was never close,
was a teacher and an Anglican catechist, who often beat his wife. The main influences in P. K.
Leballos early life were his uncle Nathaniel, an Anglican pastor, and Motsoasele, his fathers half
brother, a former warrior who had lost an eye at the Battle of Qalabane in the Gun War (1880-84).
Leballo always wanted to be a warrior. As a child he accidently killed another boy in a herd boy
conflict. Speaking in 1970 Sobukwe said PK was a fighter! He was always for barging ahead. He
could never hold his tongue when he was provoked. Leballo went to Lovedale to train as a teacher
but volunteered for the South African Army in 1940, eventually serving as a sergeant.
Before joining APLA, I served in several British regiments in England and Germany and retained
senior military contacts. I took considerable pains in Germany, Britain, India and elsewhere to check
every detail of the story Leballo gave me about his military service. While certain details (such as his
army number when attached to the Durham regiment, which he pronounced incorrectly as dur ham
instead of durrum), are embellishments of casual encounters, he had a detailed accurate knowledge of
the battles of Sidi Rezagh in the North African campaign, the orders concerning prisoners of Erwin
Rommel, the African mutiny at Tobruk, and German attempts to recruit African prisoners of war to
serve in the Wehrmacht. His description of his days as a prisoner of war was of starvation and
humiliation (as opposed to Leballos inventions, which were always of heroic stances) and he was able
to quote German military commands. However, after his death, Joel Bolnick, a highly hostile white
9

His son, Zakes Mda, who sat out the struggle in America, refers to me as one Leeman which is, along with
small boy, the usual elitist African put-down of people they consider of no consequence. The same phrase was
used in a politically motivated trial in Lesotho covering up the embezzlement of LLA funds in Botswana.
27

commentator (tautology?) dismissed his claim to have been a prisoner in Germany, which surprised
his family, which was adamant he had been a POW, as was Professor Macquarrie, his tutor at
Lovedale.
After the war, Leballo qualified as a teacher but was constantly in trouble with authority. Sobukwe
declared, PK by nature is an oppositionist. Hes always got to be in opposition to something.
Leballos belligerence brought him into physical confrontations including one with the Afrikaner
fascist Grey Shirts that left him unconscious. The Lovedale riot [Shepherd; Bolnick], disputes with the
education department and the Anglican Church combined with daily indignity of being treated as an
inferior being increased his militancy. While training as a teacher, Leballo had lived in Orlando West
sharing with a former soldier and Owen Mda, A. P.s younger brother. However, a teacher who had
left for America loaned her house to Leballo at 142 Adams Street Orlando East and this became the
meeting place for A.P. Mda and the Africanists. Leballo was expelled from his teaching post after
serving twenty eight days in jail during for fighting an inspector at Pretoria railway station. He became
a salesman for Liptons tea, operating out of Pritchard Street in Johannesburg to the townships. An
argument with the police ended in a black eye and dismissal from Liptons. He then worked for Paul
Mosakas African Chamber of Commerce on a commission basis and as a ballroom instructor (he
loved Strauss waltzes), recruiting shopkeepers and students to the Africanist movement. Dancing
competitions were held at hospitals and schools where he gained more recruits. ANC/SACP
denigrators implied he was a hardened criminal of dubious character because of a one month
suspended sentence for forging a mythical Rand employers signature in his pass book. I spent ten
years with Leballo and confirm Sobukwes view that he led an austere life selflessly sharing what he
had with his comrades and preferring to read books on Erwin Rommel to socialising.
Mda used Leballo as his shock weapon to challenge what he saw as the abandonment of the
Programme of Action. However, Mdas intellectual Leninist outlook was unnerved by Leballos direct
and confrontational methods geared to recruiting a revolutionary army rather than creating a political
party. Additionally, Leballo had a double role, being co-founder in 1952 of the Basutoland African
Congress (BAC) in the protectorate. Consequently many of his adherents had dual party membership
and increased the Basotho element in the ANC, especially in townships such as Sharpeville. It was
inevitable that Leballo was more successful in recruiting volatile young men rather than existing ANC
party members to the Africanist cause because the former class, particularly the Basotho with their
history of successful resistance to Cape Colony rule, could not relate to Lutulis Christian Gandhian
strategies. Nevertheless Mda, like his adversaries in the Communist Party, found that while in theory
he thought the people should rule, in practice he wasnt very happy when the people started to
take control. Leballos methods and outlook were always of urgency. Even thirty years later, if had he
arranged to meet for example on a street corner in Harare or London, he would become agitated if the
other person didnt arrive precisely on time. In the 1950s, he saw African society being inexorably
shunted into oblivion, doomed to slave labour or barren overcrowded gulags by a regime that was
periodically re-elected by the European population with increased majorities. It was understandable
why he saw the leadership of Lutuli, Mandela, Tambo and Sisulu as disastrous because it was
preventing participation in the struggle of the most effective shock weapon young African men with
roots both in the townships and rural areas during the countrys worst crisis. Contrary to the ANC
leaderships belief, Leballos primary target was not them but the destruction of the European state
and its exploitation of African labour and resources.
Leballos recruitment drive soon had severe consequences for the ANC leadership in the Rand
townships, where branch officials were subjected to a constant litany of accusations including selling
out to minority interests, cowardice, bourgeois class aspirations, and assimilation. The crisis deepened
in 1953 when J. B. Marks and others of the clandestine SACP on the Rand organised an overseas trip
for Walter Sisulu, the ANC secretary-general; Duma Nokwe (1927-1978), a former CP Youth Leaguer
who was the chairman of the powerful ANC Orlando township branch (with 28 sub branches) of the
ANC (and a SACP member), Henry Makgothi (1928- ), and Andrew Mlangeni (1925- ) without
28

Lutulis knowledge. Nokwe, Makgothi, and Mlangeni were all dual ANC/SACP members who had
been recruited by Tambo while students at St Peters School. Sisulus delegation flew to Bucharest and
then journeyed on for five months to visit the Soviet Union, Poland, China (where Sisulu enquired
about arms supplies), Britain, and Israel. Duma Nokwe spoke slightingly of Leballo, stating that his
adherents mainly operated a sort of dissident little group, (a leading Africanist, Z. B. Molete,
estimated there were about one hundred at the end of 1955) but Sisulu and his ANC/SACP colleagues
clandestine journey was part of a strategy to neutralise the Africanists and increase international
support. This strategy eventually gained ground through Lutulis parochialism, isolation, lethargy, and
dislike of lower class activists. The violent final days of the Defiance Campaign had startled the ANCCP leadership. Grass roots activism was producing more volatile leaders with more militant
objectives, such as a prolonged war involving race and land, as in Kenya and Algeria. The ANC-CP
believed events were moving too fast. They needed allies and prestige to counter the Africanists.
Leballo also needed allies now Mda had withdrawn to Herschel in the Eastern Cape. He stated
I felt that myself, as a great organizer, I was not able to lead, I was too violent and ruthless, so I felt
that a man who is a bit cool, like Sobukwe, highly educated and an intellectual, he would be able to
come and assist us. Im just a good organizer, and so we had to get Sobukwe to come.
Mangaliso Robert Sobukwes political career was brief and tragic. Before Tambo fraudulently
prevented his election as ANC Transvaal leader to replace Mandela in late 1958, he was a peripheral
academic and relatively minor politician but succeeded, where Mda, Mandela, and Slovo had not, in
inspiring lower class activists by inculcating a sense of worth and mission. Probably most important of
all, he not only understood, trusted and knew how to use Leballo but also as Sibeko and Pokela were
later too frightened to try had no fear of personally confronting him and convincing him to accept a
different opinion.
In 1950, after leaving Fort Hare, Sobukwe had taught History, English and Scripture at Jandrell
Secondary School at Standerton 160 km east of Johannesburg. Like Leballo, Sobukwe discovered a
talent for training school choirs. He was still the ANCYL national secretary but Godfrey Pitje
(ANCYL president), undertaking teacher training at the Wilberforce Institute in Evaton, never
contacted him. However, in 1954 Sobukwe, recently married to Veronica Zodwa Mathe, a Zulu nurse
he had met in 1949 during a nursing student strike, was appointed language assistant in Zulu at one of
the countrys top institutions, the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg.
Sobukwes mother tongue was Xhosa but is closely related dialect to Zulu within an Nguni continuum.
Since their marriage was mixed, they were housed on the edge of Mofolo in Soweto, a Basotho
residential area bordering a Zulu one. At Wits, Sobukwe took formal studies in Sesotho. Sobukwes
appointment was immensely fortuitous for the Africanist movement and there may have been some
African political backing as his degree grade was only an unexpectedly disappointing Pass. Sobukwe
had risen to prominence with a remarkable speech as president of the Student Representative Council
that had electrified the graduating class of 1949 at Fort Hare, appalled his brother, alienated the
paternalist Europeans who had funded his early studies, and cost him any chance of a teaching
position in his home area. Nevertheless, he had excellent testimonials from his Fort Hare referees for
his Wits application, Professor Z. K. Matthews10 and G. I. Mzamane (lecturer in Bantu Languages),
but Leballo was probably correct in saying that political factors played a role in Sobukwes
appointment. Sobukwes predecessor at Wits had been the late Dr Vilikazi, a lecturer in African
languages and a friend of Lembede. Professor Wellington, of the Wits Geography department and a
friend of Vilikazi, met Sobukwe through Leballo at an Africanist meeting in 1954. Wellington had
served in the Second World War and used to discuss his experiences with Leballo. As with many
university appointments, there was probably networking at play. The new post gave Sobukwe more
10

Zachariah Keodirelang Matthews (1901- 68), the son of diamond mine worker, had a distinguished academic
serving as head of the high school at Adams College in natal (where Lutuli was teaching). In 1933 he went first to
Yale and then to London School of Economics. He became head of Fort Hares Department of African Studies,
resigning in 1958 when it became a Xhosa ethnic college.
29

than double his old salary and placed him in the highest African wage bracket (550 with a annual
increments of 50 to a cap of 750) besides considerable prestige in an African society that equated
success with acceptance in European institutions. He and Veronica had a tiny house with basic
facilities and a vegetable garden. They produced four children, including twins, and if Sobukwe had
chosen a purely academic career they would have had a relatively comfortable life, where he would
have probably ended his days as a high ranking academic in South Africa or the United States. In early
1955, he enrolled in an honours degree course in Sesotho with emphasis on Sesotho, Phonetics, Social
Anthropology, and Xhosa riddles, graduating in March 1958. Again, his degree was undistinguished (a
Second) but he was the last African in that department for the next nineteen years to be allowed to
study for an honours degree.
Sobukwes arrival enabled the Africanists to make inroads into the educated African middle class
repelled by Leballos aggressive township persona. In March 1954, Leballo had been elected chairman
of the ANCYL branch in Orlando East, defeating Duma Nokwe, an SACP apparatchik. Leballo
chaired regular three hour Africanist meetings at his house on Sundays and had become a nightmare
for the elitist sections of the ANC, mocking their pretensions, jeering at their subservience to whites,
ridiculing their role as eastern functionaries, and calling for them to be real Africans. The
Transvaal leadership responded to Leballos defeat of Nokwe and his constant gate-crashing
bellowing No Stalinism here! by trying to expel Leballo and MacDonald Maseko, chairman of the
Orlando Branch. Leballos Africanist main branch (his post was in the Youth League) retaliated by
expelling B.G. Makgothi, the ANCYL Transvaal president, who had visited Romania. At length, the
Transvaal leadership of Mandela, Sisulu and Nokwe became aggressive and open violence flared not
only between them and Leballo but also ANC women who physically attacked him partly for his
meanness towards his wife but mostly for disrupting the status quo. As Sobukwe commented
It was hard to fight an established organization like the ANC Being up against the
ANC was like being up against a church. It was like a religion to its followers. Your
father had belonged, so you belonged. People like Z. K. Matthews knew the appeal of the
ANC in this way, and would never leave it. It had the tradition and aura of a church.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1970
With Sobukwes arrival the Africanists took a more intellectual approach. In November 1954, the
Africanists launched their newspaper, The Africanist, edited by William Jalobe, then Peter Molotsi
and eventually Sobukwe. Despite his exit, Mda contributed articles and sometimes met the Africanists
either in the townships or rural locations. The Africanist was cut on stencils in Basners office and the
duplicated sheets distributed nation-wide, 2,500 going to the Transvaal, 2,000 to the Cape, 800 to the
OFS, and 500 to Natal. The readership was apparently much in excess of these figures. The Africanists
also established a covert Africanist central committee - Cencom - which would recruit and agitate
within the ANC. Membership of Cencom varied. Mda, Leballo, Sobukwe, Pokela, Peter Molotsi,
Ngendane, and Victor Sifora served more often than most. Geographical distance, personal
relationships and employment all played a part.
The Defiance Campaign succeeded in expanding national opposition to the NP particularly among
the lower socio-economic strata in the townships and rural areas. This had several effects. Firstly, it
encouraged the Africanists; secondly, many African communists and African nationalists developed
mutual respect during their joint efforts; and, thirdly, there was a combined elitist ANC and hard line
Moscow line communist backlash. Complicating everything was the lack of any central leadership.
The communists refused to admit their partys existence, the ANC leader Lutuli was restricted to
Natal, Mda had become a nervous recluse, and Mandela, the ANC deputy leader, was ambivalent
about his political philosophy sometimes playing a committed communist, at other times a bourgeois
liberal. The ANC was in fact out of control and had become a loose confederation of warring factions
and rival ideologies bedevilled by the SACPs smoke and mirror strategies seeking control without
30

visible leadership. Lutuli had not sought the ANC leadership and was no more than a figurehead.
Much of the subsequent success of Sobukwe was that, for the first time since Xuma, there was an
African mass political movement with a leader who wanted to lead and was clearly in charge of his
organisation. Significantly Leballo, the leader of the Africanist Movement following Mdas departure,
was prepared to step down as leader deferring to Sobukwe.
Stephen Franklin Burgess, an American Maoist commentator, summarized the Africanist dilemma.
In his view Mda was essentially a petty bourgeois with Leninist rhetoric who,
had encouraged African mass involvement but intended that the leadership of the
Africanists remain under the control of the intelligentsia. The notion persisted among the
Africanists that the educated intellectuals had to play the leading role in guiding the
mobilised African masses towards liberation and in properly defining the Africanist
ideology.
Leballo himself did not question this analysis nor Burgesss other remark that,
Leballo and Madzunya [see below] were more concerned with propagating
Africanism in order to incite mass action than with projecting a correct ideological
image. [Burgess 1983]
Sobukwe, the first radical national leader since Gumede, was unusual because he was the only
leading African academic in South Africa openly to oppose the general political trend. African
demands for freedom were countered in the 1950s, and even later, by a strong feeling not only among
Europeans but also the educated and feudal minded African elite that lower class Africans were not
ready to rule themselves or participate in democratic structures. The past fifty years had been dramatic
enough with colonial expansion and contraction, civil wars, the end of empires, two world wars, the
start of the Cold War rivalry, escalating Israeli-Arab conflict, and the decline of Britain and France as
world powers. All major powers, irrespective of rhetoric and rivalry, believed events, especially the
rise of African nationalism, were moving too fast. Even Sobukwe, who was criticized in 1959 for
demanding freedom by 1963, later admitted that before Sharpeville he would have been willing to
accept a limited qualified franchise compromise with the NP. South Africas strategic position,
military capability, and mineral resources made it a valuable asset in the Cold War so the British and
Americans were prepared to tolerate the apartheid regime, especially after the Chinese Great Leap
Forward and the 1960 Congo crisis, for fear a local Dedan Kimathi or Pierre Mulele would take power
and lead the country into barbaric economic destruction or the Communist orbit or both.
The Soviet Union was also cautious about African freedom for it had reversed its Black Republic
stance only partly because of its foreign policy priorities. The Soviets did not want African revolution
to take any other path different to the Soviet model (Che Guevaras Congo attempt is discussed later)
and when Marxist regimes eventually did get established in the 1970s in the former Portuguese
colonies and Ethiopia, they were (as in Russia) the result of military coups. Although the European,
Coloured and Asian members of the CP and Trotskyite Unity Movement had a reputation for treating
everyone equally irrespective of race, CP policy was based on the concept of transforming rural
societies into industrial proletariats. The CPs primary political direction was careful control of
political activity by small groups of professional revolutionaries. It despised militant peasant action
and opposed the Africanists because they believed an African government elected by a single universal
franchise would result in a kleptocracy of township thugs and rural warlord militia linked to American
intelligence agencies and international crime. Even Mdas sudden retirement was partly motivated by
visions that became reality in Liberia, Congo-Zaire, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Guinea-Bissau, and
Sierra Leone in the 1990s and early 2000s. The Africanists justly accused the CP of wishing to join
not change the existing political structure so the countrys financial institutions, industries, armed
31

forces, and strategic position could be incorporated into the Soviet orbit with minimal disruption. This
may explain why, even after the SACP took control of the ANC and its military wing between 1955
1962, it did not dissolve and become part of the ANC because it always believed in what it saw as its
vanguard role as a small undiluted group of manipulative revolutionary geniuses. However, the elitist
attitude of the South African communist leadership began to be undermined during the Defiance
Campaign when non-European communists isolated from control by the European communist
apparatchiks cooperated with African nationalists and thus resurrected the old camaraderie of the
Gumede-Nzula era. Oliver Tambo was a nationalist but pessimistic about mass democracy. Mandela,
whom Mda accurately unwittingly described as a non-party communist, was, because of his Defiance
Campaign experiences, moving away from Soviet vanguardism, liberal democracy, and feudal elitism
towards a synthesis of socialism and peasant activism. Sobukwe, who personally disliked Mandela
and avoided him in prison, nevertheless later described Mandela as either a Maoist or Titoist. Anthony
Sampson, Mandelas biography, noted that the charismatic self confident independent minded
Mandela was early on regarded as a political loose cannon and therefore a potential danger in the
eyes of Joe Slovo, the inflexible communist who was responsible for holding the SACP to the
Moscow line in a time of deepening tension between Nikita Khrushchev and Mao Zedong over issues
that included liberation strategies for Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Mandela believed he would
emerge as ANC leader irrespective of whether or not he was a communist. He used communism
because it provided him with useful lessons concerning liberation but, unlike the SACP Sovietoriented European and Indian leadership, he was more interested in the Chinese, Vietnamese, and
(eventually) Cuban experiences because their revolutions, unlike the Soviet October 1917 revolution,
had been achieved through rural based revolutionary warfare.
There was also a powerful anti-democratic force among Church leaders, professionals, liberals,
and leading business people. Local European communities in East, Central, and Southern Africa were
either openly racist or cloaked their racism in class terms but their views that Africans in Africa and
the Diaspora from the lower socio-economic strata were not fit to rule themselves, run economies, let
alone control armies and manage strategic resources were widely shared in European colonial
government circles and in many parts of the southern United States and the Caribbean (even the West
Indian Federation considered becoming a Canadian province). British Labour government colonial
policy after the Second World War began to place emphasis on creating liberal multi-racial pressure
groups, elitist philosophies, and political structures to protect ethnic minorities and British interests.
The British, realising that African colonies were an economic burden, started a neo-colonial policy
recruiting talented Africans to the idea of a community of nations later the British Commonwealth
by establishing universities, encouraging African participation in government and giving scholarships.
The British path to African freedom was to create large numbers of suitable assimilated middle class
Africans and aristocratic feudal leaders who would rule jointly with local liberal Europeans and Asians
in colonial political structures (the French went further by allowing Africans a role in the French
Assembly) until their territories were politically, economically and socially as stable as Australia,
Canada or New Zealand. Although the conservative British prime minister Harold Macmillan openly
embraced African freedom in his Wind of Change speech in South Africa in 1960, British officials
often advised and sometimes persuaded assimilated Africans, citing Congolese independence four
months later, that without neocolonial external supervision and intervention universal democracy in
Africa would bring political instability, economic chaos and bloodshed.
This post-war policy of moderating African nationalism had hoped to use South Africa as a base.
Smuts had at least acknowledged the potential of reaching accommodation with African nationalism.
South African industry already drew migrant labour from east and central Africa. South Africa had
gained South West Africa in the First World War as a mandate and had almost got control over
Tanganyika (a proposed rival name had been Smutsland). Had it not been for the criticism from
independent India and the creation of the United Nations (in which Smuts himself played a significant
role), it is highly probable that the British would have granted Smuts government control over
32

Swaziland, Bechuanaland and Basutoland in order to boost himself against Malan. Britains post war
Labour government (1945-51) had been optimistic that post war South Africa would be able to
resurrect and perhaps extend nationally the Cape liberal tradition of a qualified franchise, thus
becoming a valuable ally in developing the resources and political institutions of sub Saharan Africa
rather than a pariah state. After the 1948 election of Malan, British hopes of moderating African
nationalism were assisted by the creation of the multi-racial elitist Capricorn Africa Society, founded
by an erratic right wing titled Scots landowner named David Stirling, who founded the elite initially
Scots class based British army Special Air Service regiment (SAS) and later organized mercenary
operations in Africa and the Middle East. Capricorns activities were influential in forming the Central
African Federation (1953-1963) to stifle African rule in present day Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi.
Capricorn was also active in Tanganyika, where wealthy Asian and European settlers supported the
United Tanganyika Party; South Africa (the Liberal Party sent Alan Paton to attend meetings); and
Kenya where representatives of a East Africas largest Asian and European settler community served
in the Legislative Council. Stirling, who settled in Southern Rhodesia, wanted a class based qualified
non-racial franchise based on education, property, and military service. There were therefore many
parallels between the struggle with African nationalism in the Central African Federation struggle
(where six million Africans were represented by a mere six legislators) and the struggle within the
African National Congress from 1949-1959. On one side were multi-racial elitists (Lutuli, Mandela,
Sisulu, Tambo, Dadoo, Slovo, September) who believed that Africans could not liberate, govern, run a
successful economy or protect minority interests without European and Asian support and ethnic
administrative structures; and on the other hand there were the populists or Africanists (Mda,
Sobukwe, Leballo) that believed Africans should liberate and govern themselves in an equitable nonracial society. Therefore, it is fair to conclude that the origins of the disastrous 1955 Congress of the
People, the Freedom Charter, the Congress Alliance, and the 1957 ANC Constitution lay in this desire
to exclude mass lower class participation in the liberation struggle and attempts to keep the ANC in
public view while circumventing the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
The Criminal Law Amendment Act had a deeply sobering effect on political activity and
influenced the nature of ANC activity, which now had to eschew mass demonstrations for fear of
imprisonment. Since the ANC was unwilling to launch armed resistance like the Algerians and
Kenyans, the party confined itself to other measures. Lutuli, Mandela, Tambo, and Sisulu were
receptive to the idea that the disbanded CP should create suitable front organisations with which the
ANC could co-operate. Several Coloured, European and Indian non-communists were interested in
forming pressure groups. The South African Indian Congress (SAIC) was already under CP control,
which was in sharp contrast to the Indian Congress in India. The Indian Communist Party vote in state
elections grew from 8.5% in 1952 to 13.5% in 1954. Nationally, in the April 1952 election, it won
only 26 seats out of 489, compared to the Congresss 364. The premier, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru,
denounced them as Anti-India, anti-people, anti-progress, dazzled by Russia and China, but ignorant
of India. They are without moorings in the land of their birth. They are pledged to a policy of creating
mental and physical conflicts. They indulge in a cult of disruption.11 Whatever the official ideology
of the SAIC, its most prominent members were crypto SACP.
The SACP was reborn at the start of 1953 and, on 12 September that year, the National
Liberation League, a CP-inspired organisation, formed the Coloured Peoples Organisation (SACPO),
later renamed the Coloured Peoples Congress. This organisation was fronted by a non-CP member,
Edgar Deane of the Coloured Furniture Workers Union, with Reg September and John Gomas, both
CP members, holding power behind the scenes and later paving the way for their colleague, James La
Guma, the 1950 CP central committee member, to assume the leadership in 1957, retaining September
as secretary-general. Oliver Tambos suggestion to Europeans to form their own Congress was eagerly
seized by the CP (if they had not in fact suggested the idea to Tambo in the first place). In October
11

Time Magazine Monday December 13, 1954

33

1953, the European members of the CP, constituting the majority of the new party, joined with other
European organisations into the Congress of Democrats (COD). Like the SAIC and SACPO, COD
was led by a non-CP member, in this case Pieter Beyleveld, who secretly joined the SACP in 1956.
P. J. Jack Hodgson, a CP member, was elected national secretary. In March 1955, eight African, three
Coloured and one small European laundry union joined together into the newly-inaugurated South
African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) under Beylevelds leadership. The secretary of SACTU
was Moses Mabhida of the SACP [Leeman 1985].
The Defiance Campaign had shown the potential of the Eastern Cape as a fertile ground for mass
African agitation, but the Africanists understood the political importance of taking control of the
Transvaal townships. Mandela had been elected the ANCs Transvaal provincial president in 1952, as
well as ANC deputy national president under Lutuli, the Africanists holding back under Mdas orders.
In 1953, Mandela and Sisulu had to resign their seats under banning orders. Tambo took over as acting
secretary-general in mid-1954 and took over officially in 1955. The banning severely weakened the
ANC, already drifting under Lutulis ineffectual leadership.
Sobukwe explained the situation:
the real leaders were banned and couldnt speak openly. Therefore we couldnt
directly attack them personally, and there was no way they could personally reply to us in
public. We knew however that it was they who were responsible for the course of events
in the ANC. While these banned men were behind the scenes, men of much lesser caliber
- total fools - were actually in the leadership positions in Congress. We had no respect for
any of these people; yet there was no point in personally attacking them, because they
were simply carrying out instructions from the banned leaders, saying what theyd been
told to say by the big boys. They tended to be dogmatic and there was no point in trying
to engage them in argument. Our tactics in the face of this were to try to use every
meeting and conference to speak directly to the people, to hammer home our line with all
the persuasiveness we could. Pretty soon they got wise to this and began to exclude us
from conferences. But we were up against a situation that has always existed in South
Africa, namely that the masses will automatically follow a leader or organization that they
have a loyalty to, without thinking about the wisdom or weakness of particular policies
they are told to support. This is particularly true of the women. Oh, the women! We
knew that our numbers were small and that it would be hard to put our views across. I was
ANC chairman in Mofolo [in Soweto], and their tactic there was to have their own man
with a rival branch, and when conferences came they would recognize him as a delegate
instead of me.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1970
The rapid move by the anti-Africanist forces towards authoritarianism had several causes. Firstly,
many of the threatened ANC officials identified with the SACP Leninist concept of the wise
professional revolutionary, for it conveniently disposed of theories of liberation through mass peasantworker-student action as unscientific and primitive. Secondly, Lutuli and other ANC Christian
leaders felt that the Defiance Campaign race riots were a blot on African nationalists, showing them to
be no better than their opponents, the National Party. Lutuli was therefore prepared to make an attempt
to appease the non- African opposition groups, who had been appalled at the racial animosity
displayed in the riots and killings during the Defiance Campaign. Although under no illusions of
probable ulterior motives on the part of the communists, Lutuli was receptive to a public
demonstration of multi-racial solidarity to emphasise the anti-National Party forces were morally
superior and above racial hatred. Leballo, writing in The Africanist, prophetically stated that Lutulis
acceptance of the Freedom Charter would eventually lead to a coalition with the Europeans if the
Africanist cause failed.
34

In the 1950s there was a considerable gap between the rhetoric of the liberation movements and
what they actually believed. Africans had endured 300 years of European occupation and exploitation,
yet until 1960 many of the liberation leadership - even extremists like Leballo - still could not
perceive just how vicious the apartheid regime would become. The racial situation in the 1950s was
worse than Nazi Germany or Poland in the 1930s, yet Lutuli didnt see it that way. Whereas he, and in
particular Jewish SACP leaders, would never have interpreted the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto rising as the
work of narrow-minded, racist chauvinists, this was how they viewed the Africanists because Lutuli
refused to accept that the NP government and South African European society as a whole was
irredeemably evil. At the subsequent Treason Trial Lutuli confirmed this when he declared,
The African National Congress was not working for the overthrow of the ruling
classes. It was working for being given an opportunity to participate in the government
of the country.
Since Lutuli and the ANC Christian leadership bracketed the Africanists with the Afrikaner
Nationalists as obsessed with racial pride and anti-communism, there was, therefore, a natural
inclination to demonstrate Christian moral superiority. In addition, the Christian ANC, lacking any
political model except European Liberalism, tended to have no other policy except to oppose the
Afrikaner Nationalists, having dissociated themselves from the African state building processes that
preceded colonialism. European Liberalism in fact triumphed in 1994 but Lutulis ANC was incapable
of hammering home (instead of politely petitioning as in the 1930s) the message, backed by
economic and employment statistics, that Africans did not want mayhem and destruction but merely a
fair share in making the country peaceful and prosperous. As Sobukwe commented, Just as in the
earlier days, we felt the ANC was only reacting to moves made by the government. It had abandoned
the Programme of 1949 altogether.
Since the CP had been disbanded, the multi racial elitist ideal of uniting with the SAIC, SACPO
and COD seemed attractive and political advisable, in particular because it would combat the rising
influence of irresponsible lower class township and rural demagogues while avoiding the penalties of
the Criminal Law Amendment Act. Again there were parallels with the Central African Federation,
established on August 1, 1953, which was designed to find a compromise between radical African
nationalism and the racist European regimes of South Africa, Angola, and Mozambique. A suggestion
by the Cape ANC leader Professor Z.K. Matthews, who returned to the country in May 1953 after a
year as visiting professor at New York Union Theological Seminary, provided the opportunity for the
Christian multi-racial forces within the ANC and in the organisations informally allied to it to express
their solidarity at a mass meeting. Professor Matthews, a prominent politician of All Africa
Convention fame12 and ANC Cape provincial president since 1949, began to hold a number of
meetings at his home in Alice in the Eastern Cape from the middle of 1953 onwards, discussing the
issue of an All-In Conference. During one of the meetings, attended by Dr James Njongwe of the Port
Elizabeth ANC (and like Matthews once a front runner to be ANC president) and Robert Matji, the
ANC Cape secretary, the idea was put forward of convening another National Convention, but one
that would be more representative than that of 1908-09, and which would include non-Africans, unlike
the 1935-37 All African Convention. Professor Matthews envisaged that the conference should
12

The All African Convention (AAC) was held 15-18 December 1935 at Community Hall, Bloemfontein. and again 19
June-12 July, 1936 in an unsuccessful attempt to combat National Party legislation that included the 1936 Native Trust
and Land Act, which strengthened the process of land segregation, apportioning a mere 13.7% of South Africa for
African ownership. This act turned thousands of African squatters off the land, forcing them to seek employment as
labourers. The act scrapped the Common Cape Roll and froze the numbers of enfranchised Cape Africans, who totalled
about 11,000. The African voters would be represented by three whites, whom they would elect on a separate voter roll.
In addition, a Union Native Representative Council (NRC) was created, with strictly advisory powers to which Africans
were allowed to elect a mere twelve powerless representatives.

35

produce a charter that would be a reflection of the demands or visions of a future society, filtered
upwards from the mass of common men and women. Matthews later said that his idea of convening
such a meeting was to aid the instilling of political consciousness into the people and the encouraging
of political activity. This was a strange statement, for Matthews was fully aware of The Programme
of Action, which had been adopted only after energetic discussion at all levels of the ANC. He himself
had rejected the ANCYL invitation to oust Xuma from the leadership. Critics speculated that his
marriage to Frieda Bokwe, a Coloured lady from a prominent Xhosa background, or contempt for
Lembede influenced his mind. Certainly, the whole exercise seemed an unnecessary exercise so far as
the Africanists were concerned. Again, it seemed an attempt to maintain the ANCs national reputation
while avoiding prosecution under the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
In 1953, the ANC announced campaigns against the Bantu Education Act of that year and the
Western Areas removals, which were designed to oust tens of thousands of Africans from the
townships next to Johannesburg. The Bantu Education Act had emphasised the use of tribal languages
in educating Africans and government statements confirmed the African view that the education
system was being redesigned to fragment their growing unity and to close the door to skilled work and
the professions. The poor response to the call to action was due to the ANC leaderships attempt to use
the preparations for the protests as an opportunity to build up its inter-group co-operation policies.
Robert Resha of the Transvaal ANCYL was put in charge of the campaign to prevent the destruction
of the affected areas, but he utilised the Rev Trevor Huddleston, who eagerly took the chairmanship of
the Western Areas Protest Committee. Huddleston had replaced Michael Scott (1907-1983)13, who had
been declared a prohibited immigrant, as the leading anti-government Anglican cleric, but
Huddlestons sincere, yet rather blinkered enthusiasm, played into the SACPs hands. The covert
SACP needed a figurehead whom the NP regime might be cautious in subjecting to the penalties of the
Criminal Laws Amendment Act.
The Western Areas Protest Committee contained COD and ANC representatives. Huddlestons
presence and international repute gained publicity for the committee, which held public meetings with
the SAIC and COD. Despite Huddlestons hard work, the campaign was a humiliating failure. The
campaign against the Bantu Education Act was also badly conducted, but it succeeded in establishing
ANC links with the African Bureau in London, a philanthropic organisation, whose co-founder and
secretary was Mary Benson, Mandelas close friend, who was assisted by Scott. In the following
years, more contacts were established not only with philanthropic organisations but also Euro-centric
socialist and left wing groups and publishers that were (and still are) repelled by the Africanists antiEuropean rhetoric.
In December 1953, the ANC annual conference, its leaders believing (as did the creators of the
Central African Federation four months earlier) that the deteriorating class and race relations within
the freedom movement could be rectified by multi-racial elitist alliances, instructed the national
executive committee to make immediate preparations for the Organisation of a Congress of the People
of South Africa, whose task should be to produce a Freedom Charter, for all peoples and groups in
the country. In March 1954, the national executives of the ANC, SAIC, SACPO and COD met under
Lutulis chairmanship and agreed to the proposal to hold a Congress of People at which a Freedom
Charter would be adopted. Africanist opposition was intense and the same month, Leballo was
elected chairman of the Orlando East ANCYL. In June 1954, the ANC met at Uitenhage in the Cape.
The ANC leadership refused to recognise the Orlando delegation and, although its members were
permitted to attend the discussions as individuals, Leballo was banned from all proceedings. Joe
Matthews, Z. K.s son, was elected ANCYL president and Duma Nokwe secretary-general. Makgothi
was confirmed as Transvaal ANCYL president. Several Africanist resignations from the ANCYL
followed.
13

Scott was a true Christian, who was banned in 1952 after identifying with the most wretched sections of the African
community, sharing their lives in the shanties and championing African farm workers face to face against Afrikaner
farmers. The Church refused to support him and thereafter he had to live on donations.
36

The COD and SAIC had initially shown little enthusiasm for Professor Matthews proposals for a
Charter, but this attitude changed dramatically when it was realised what possibilities the Congress of
the People (COP) and the Freedom Charter offered. The meeting of the joint executives established a
National Action Council (NAC) to prepare for the congress and the Charter. The COD, SAIC, SACPO
and ANC were allocated two seats each on the council NAC. The SACP funded New Age, which had
replaced Advance, along with the regional committees of the NAC and the ANC local branches all
publicised the coming event and urged people to submit suggestions for the Freedom Charter. Lutuli
later claimed, Nothing in the history of the libratory movement in South Africa quite caught the
popular imagination as this did, not even the Defiance Campaign. Nevertheless, during 1954, African
attention and ANC activity were ostensibly primarily concentrated on protesting against the Bantu
Education Act and the Western Areas Act, to such an extent that Professor Matthews noted at the end
of the year, that it seemed as if the idea of the Congress of the People was going to suffer temporary
eclipse.
The Freedom Charter was a document that was not referred back to the ANC branches for
discussion. It was supposed to reflect or distil thousands of written statements gathered at
thousands of small meetings, which had been flooding into COP headquarters on sheets torn from
school exercise books, on little dog-eared scraps of paper, on slips torn from COP leaflets. Its
compilation contrasted utterly with the open discussion culture introduced by Lembede, when, for
example, The Programme of Action had only been adopted in 1949 after intensive interaction with the
roots membership. Lutuli was unable, through stress related illness, lethargy, and banning to
participate in the drafting of the Freedom Charter or attending the Congress of the People itself. He
was kept ignorant of the contents of the Freedom Charter until after its adoption.
The Charter, as confirmed thirty years later by Joe Slovo, was written by himself with other
members of the SACP. Their cynical tactics were a continuation of the secretive undemocratic
methods employed since the demise of Nzula and had already incensed many of the 1950s generation
of the ANC. The infighting in Orlando East between the Africanists and the Nokwe-Resha-Makgothi
group had spread to other branches. The same year (1954), Peter Hlaole Molotsi, an Africanist
journalist, discovered that New Age had printed the resolutions of the ANC annual conference of 1954
before the conference had even met. What none of the critics realised was that Sisulu and Mandela had
secretly joined the SACP (revealed after their deaths) and had, taking advantage of Lutulis apathy and
sloth, deliberately and treacherously placed the ANC under its control.
The Freedom Charter appeared a few days before the Congress of the People was convened. There
was no reference back to the branches for discussion. The first copies of the Charter were distributed
around the campus of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg by Ruth First, an editor of
New Age and wife of Joe Slovo, who had replaced Lionel Rusty Bernstein as a member of the
National Action Committee following Bernsteins banning. Bernstein was Ruth Firsts editorial
colleague and all three were SACP members. Slovo and Bernstein later became respectively chairman
and secretary of the SACP.
On 22nd June, three days before the COP convened, the ANCs working committee met to discuss
the Freedom Charter. Other, banned, leaders including Mandela, Sisulu, and the new ANCYL leader,
Joe Matthews, also saw copies. Some points were questioned, but since Ruth First and others had
already produced thousands of copies there was no time for amendments. On 25 June, 1955, the first
day of the Congress of the People, seven members of the ANC national executive committee reviewed
the draft. These included Dr. William Z. Conco, Lutulis representative, who later stated he had never
seen the document before the Congress opened. Nevertheless, the committee resolved to work harder
for the achievements of the demands as contained in the Freedom Charter.
The police allowed the Congress of the People to hold its meeting at Kliptown near Johannesburg
but raided it in the closing stages the following day. The COP was held in the midst of a struggle
between the Africanists and the SACP for control and it was a meeting orchestrated and dominated by
the latter. The delegates had been controversially chosen and the meeting was responsible for splitting
37

the ANC. Two thousand eight hundred and eighty four people attended, including 320 Indians, 230
Coloureds and 112 Europeans. Slovo described the Congress of the People as the most representative
assembly ever held in South Africa, and called the people who attended delegates who had been
chosen after sixteen months of public campaigning.
If these delegates had indeed been engaged in sixteen months of campaigning, it would have
been expected that they would have had some idea about what they were campaigning for. Moses
Qhobela Molapo, a future BCP leader and Lesotho foreign minister, was at that time employed as a
journalist for New Age. He later described what took place:
What happened is that no one had ever seen the Freedom Charter. Its a complete
fallacy to say that it was circulated. No one knew what the Freedom Charter was all
about. The only thing we knew - there was quite a big campaign - was that we were going
to hold a big conference at a place called Kliptown, about ten and a half miles outside
Johannesburg, past Orlando, very near Pimville on a big open space there, so all the
branches of the African National Congress were to elect delegates as if we were electing
delegates to the Annual Conferences. The Coloured Peoples Organisation did the same
thing and the Congress of Democrats, in short, the Congress Alliance. I was elected for
Orlando East Branch - I was then its secretary before becoming the Regional secretary, so
I was a delegate to this Freedom Charter Conference. The first thing that we read about
this document - we heard about, it - was when it was read at this meeting. It was read [by
Pieter Beyleveld]. There was not even a vote, there was just a huge acclamation then and,
after that, it was then circulated a bit, because of the Africanist group - later forming itself
into the PAC - there were some pockets of resistance to its acceptance, but the New Age
kept on ramming it ahead and proclaiming that it had been accepted all over South
Africa.
Molapo 1978 Interview with Leeman
As for the Charter itself, Molapo considered It is a beautiful document with flowery language.
Whoever drafted it is a very cunning politician. The authors at the time did not acknowledge their
work but Ruth First, Lionel Bernstein, Mrs S. Muller, Mike Muller, Michael Harmel, Charles Baker,
Fred Carneson and Joe Slovo were all suspected of having a hand in it, especially Ruth First and
Lionel Bernstein. Later, aforementioned, in mid 1985, Joe Slovo claimed a major role in its
compilation.
After the contents of the Charter had been fully examined and elucidated, many ANC members felt
tricked. Eventually many refused to accept the consequences of its adoption and formed the PAC. Yet
the ANC had been placed in a very difficult position. Molapo explained:
We just knew that some document of some importance was going to be presented.
There was going to be a huge rally and the Congress Alliance was going to make a very
important declaration which was going to cement the anti-apartheid forces inside South
Africa. So, in that spirit then, we converged to Kliptown, but it was never circulated to us.
Leeman interview 1978
Sobukwe concurred:
We knew that the Freedom Charter wasnt actually drafted at the Congress of the
People. It had been drafted by Slovo and his circle. People just arrived there and found the
thing already printed up.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1970

38

The size of the Congress of the People, the publicity, the razzamatazz of the occasion and the
increasing difficulties being placed in the way of the ANC leaderships movements all militated
against the Freedom Charter being amended, rejected or even discussed formally at length. There was
acute embarrassment at the way Huddleston had been used to give respectability to the occasion. He,
Dr Dadoo and Chief Albert Lutuli had been awarded the Isitwalandwe (a feather worn by heroes in
African society) by, of all people, Pieter Beyleveld. Dadoo and Lutuli had been prevented from
attending the meeting so Huddleston accepted the thunderous acclaim for this rather foolish gesture
alone. Nevertheless, the Transvaal Province conference of the ANC refused to accept the Freedom
Charter later that year and, when the ANC met at its annual conference at the end of 1955, Lutuli
himself did not support it and the conference refused to endorse the document. Sobukwe commented:
We didnt put much faith in Lutuli. He was a gentle old man, but he didnt have much
political sense. He was politically nave. I dont suppose there was ever a speech of Lutulis
delivered at a conference that was in the original form in which Lutuli had drafted it14.
Leaders like Mandela had a cynical attitude to Lutuli At one ANC annual conference probably 1955 where the Freedom Charter was debated - there was a violent fracas. Calata
was presiding. The Charter was finally shelved on the grounds that it was contrary to the
constitution of the ANC to adopt it. They postponed it and then called a special conference
the following April to adopt it. The conference was actually meant to consider another issue passes for women - but this wasnt discussed. People were just brought there to ratify the
Charter.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1970
The reasons for Africanist objections to the Charter were several and obvious. They were not
against it because its author or authors belonged to the SACP. Nor was the Charter a Marxist
document. They objected because it was a means for an elitist alliance from several ethnic groups to
take over the ANC and stifle democracy. Firstly, its preamble stated. South Africa belongs to all who
live in it, black and white, thus, without discussion, overturning the beliefs that sparked the 1912 and
1935 protests against the Land Acts and recognising that Europeans were citizens and not
uncompromising invaders. Given the circumstances, this was astonishingly insensitive. Africans and
Europeans had lived and worked together for three hundred years, during which the African
populations political, economic, and social situation had rapidly deteriorated. In 1948 the NP
government had been elected because of its horrendous racial exclusion plan which gained increasing
support in subsequent elections. (See charts below)
Year
1943

Year
1948

Party
Purified National Party
United Party
Independents
Total

Seats
43
107
2
152

Majority

Party
Purified National Party
United Party
Afrikaner Party
Labour Party
Independents
Total

Seats
70
65
9
6
3
153

Majority
5
62

14

62

%
46
6

Lutulis book Let my people go was written by the Rev Charles Hooper, an Anglican pastor with a very
controversial reputation. Holland, Roy [2008] Alan Paton Speaking Diadem Books Chashnessie
Scotland, page 8
39

Year
1953

Party
National Party
United Party
Labour Party
Total

Seats
94
57
5
156

Majority
32

%
60

Year
1958

Party
National Party
United Party
Total

Seats
103
53
156

Majority
50

%
66

Year
1961

Party
National Party
United Party
National United Party
Progressive Party
Total

Seats
105
49
1
1
156

Majority
54

%
67

Year
1966

Party
National Party
United Party
Progressive Party
Total

Seats
126
39
1
166

Majority
86

%
76

While land ownership had been a major issue among Africans as a whole, ANC and CP activism
had focused on relatively elitist causes such as trade unionism and qualified voting rights. The
Defiance Campaigns success in the rural Eastern Cape had brought the land issue to the fore and it
had become the slogan of the Africanist Movement. South African class and race were intrinsically
entwined. The struggle between the two ANC groups was class-based but since very few Europeans
like the Reverend Michael Scott identified with the lower strata of society the division was also racial.
European voting patterns, escalating police violence, and proliferating apartheid legislation were
breeding revolutionary conditions which the Freedom Charter was trying to defuse in order to protect
its assimilated class leadership. Anthony Sampson, Mandelas official biographer, mistakenly
claimed that, The Charters message was directed not against capitalists or Western democrats but
against narrow nationalists, both Afrikaner and African. Sampson therefore dismissed the aspirations
of poor black people the countrys overwhelming majority - as narrow nationalism because they
wished to be rid of the cause of their misery. Mandela himself gave the main reason for the Freedom
Charter, when he wrote an article marking its first anniversary that included the following passage,
which was removed by Ruth First Slovo when she later published Mandelas collected works:
For the first time in the history of this country the non-European bourgeoisie will
have the opportunity to own in their own name and right mills and factories and trade and
private enterprise will boom and flourish as never before.
Journal of Democratic Discussion. No.19, June 1956
Secondly, the Charter declared that there should be equal status in the bodies of state, in the courts
and in the schools for all national groups and races. In accordance with this resolution, the ANC,
SACPO, SAIC, COD and the newly-formed SACTU were created equal partners in an ANC Congress
Alliance, each organisation having one member in the executive. This structure was duplicated right
down the national structure to the branches. Since each partner had one vote in the executive, this

40

relegated the ANC to a position equal to the white COD, which never had more than five hundred
members. Since the secretary-generals of all five organisations were SACP, the acceptance of the
Freedom Charter marked a spectacular turn in fortune for the communists.
Slovo consolidated the SACP hold by using his power in the Alliance disciplinary committee to
expel ANC members from the ANC for protesting against the COP and the Charter. Mandela, Tambo,
Nokwe, Marks, Kotane, Sisulu, Joe Matthews and other multi-racial elitists or SACP members on the
Rand pressed the ANC branches to toe the line! and accept the Charter. Molapo said,
The African National Congress was just used. Im sorry to say this. It was just used
by the other, smaller organisations. Im not questioning the sincerity of the people who sat
in other bodies like SACTU and COD - I would hate to give that impression - but ... at
national executive level - that is, in regard to the Congress Alliance - the African National
Congress was not given its proper due in view of its preponderance in membership. Even
at national level, very few people knew what the Freedom Charter was all about
Interview with Leeman 1978
Thirdly, the Freedom Charter only supported a universal franchise specifically linked to the multiracial executive structure. This was not an oversight because Oliver Tambo emphasised this point
when he rewrote the ANC constitution in 1957. The similarities were so close to the constitution of the
Central African Federation that dispassionate observers would not have been blamed if they concluded
David Stirlings Capricorn Africa Society had taken over the ANC.
Supporters of the Freedom Charter were labelled Charterists. On 31 March, 1956 a special
conference of the ANC was convened to discuss the extension of passes by the government to include
women. Delegates credentials were not checked until 1 April, and the special conference, deliberately
packed with Charterists, ignored the agenda and (as Sobukwe claimed) instead passed a resolution
accepting the Freedom Charter. Lutuli himself eventually swung round to support the document. His
position was difficult. To have rejected the Charter would have caused great embarrassment and
damaged his credibility. How could he have explained that the conference and document he had called
for had been turned into a SACP coup? Writing in 1962, he in fact revealed that he thought the
Communist Party had disbanded forever in 1950. He believed that the ANC could handle the
communists in the party. He wrote: If there is any danger of their using Congress for their ends and
infiltrating into key positions, it can only be the result of apathy among non-Communists.15
In December 1957, delegates at the ANC annual conference expressed dissatisfaction not only with
the Transvaal leadership but also with the national executive. Despite the volatile situation, the
conference adopted a Revised Constitution, prepared under Tambos direction. Section 2(p) of Aims
and Objects read, To strive for the attainment of universal adult suffrage and the creation of a united
democratic South Africa on the principles outlined in the Freedom Charter (Authors emphasis).
Lutulis control over the Transvaal ANC, which was pushing for confrontation with the Africanists,
was seemingly nonexistent. He opposed the Africanists on multi-racial, elitist, and Christian grounds,
referring to them as our extreme right wing. However, it is impossible to accept that he was blind to
the results of the Charters acceptance and his partys subservience to the Alliance, any more than
Tambo was. Part of the answer rested in their realisation that this seemed to be their only way to
power. The Africanists represented a rising force throughout Africa with which they could not identify.
The rural areas and shanty towns were becoming increasingly politicised during the 1950s. The ANC
was urban-based and its centre was the Rand. The Africanists ally, BCP in Basutoland, had originally
been an urban elitist organisation but had already begun to change into a mass peasant-migrant worker
party by the time it absorbed Lefelas Commoners League and escalated the process in 1957.
The Africanist Movement was moving in the same direction and was fortified by the BCP migrants on
15

Darrell D. Irwin Contemporary Justice Review: Issues in Criminal, Social, and Restorative Justice, 1477-2248,
Volume 12, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 157 170
41

the Rand, who were led by Leballo. In Kenya, land hunger and pagan beliefs had succeeded in uniting
12,000 Gikuyu into a guerrilla war against European settlers, the British Army, and African
collaborators. Leballo and other Africanists were prepared to take the consequences of unleashing a
revolution but the ANC leadership was not. The fear of unknown rural forces combining with
township tsotsis (crooks or uncouth hooligans), as the Charterists liked to portray Leballo, to bring
carnage was completely unacceptable to the Congress Alliance leadership, whose strategy depended
on building up a multi-racial professional elite able to direct and control African agitation, and
eventually present itself as an alternative to the parties represented in the Union parliament. The
Alliance wanted to use African protests to publicise itself not to influence its policy. This direction
from above, conflicted with the Africanist stand of direction from below, originally propagated by
the Cominterns Black Republic strategy and eventually led the two parties into positions in which the
PAC (Africanists) advocated a Peoples War in which the rural areas and townships would play a
dominant role, while the ANC/SACP adopted nationwide co-ordinated acts of sabotage accomplished
by its multi-racial membership to indicate its organisational abilities. By 1960, the ANC Alliance
appears to have been moving rapidly to a policy whereby it would present itself as a government in
waiting that would bring stability to a country torn apart by widespread violence but over which it
actually had no influence. The Revised Constitutions Section 2(c) ostensibly advocated democracy but
actually stifled it through a federal system, where four nationalities and the trade unions held equal
power. It was an admission that the ANC was building an elitist non-democratic system of
government, not a mass movement whose membership controlled the party. It was an open challenge
to the Africanists.
The Charterists had cause for alarm. Sobukwe had achieved something extremely unusual by
recruiting and politicizing the dreaded tsotsi criminal gangs, many of whom were schoolboys.
According to Leballo (who had a gift for mimicking tsotsi bass voices and acting out situations), in the
crime-torn darkened streets of the townships Sobukwe was permitted to pass unmolested by the
Mosomis and other criminal gangs famed for their violence. Sobukwe, when pressed, commented:
They (tsotsis) are the most bitterly anti-white element, anti-everything, especially in
Johannesburg. In Johannesburg you do have classes in a way, and many Africans are quite
bourgeois, materialistic. The tsotsis arent, and there is friction between them and the
bourgeois element. We recruited entire gangs by getting together with their leaders and
persuading them to work for us instead of fighting each other. They were some of our
strongest supporters in the Transvaal. Anyone in the PAC leadership could walk through
the townships at midnight, and no tsotsi would lift a finger against him. Ngendane once
nearly got himself in trouble, though, because he was such a sharp dresser. One night some
tsotsis stopped him and roughed him up a little. They didnt beat him up; they just warned
him that Sobukwe had said that the high were going to be made low and vice versa. They
didnt say this in words; they gestured with their hands, showing that high was going to be
low. Their concept of politics wasnt very sophisticated, but they had grasped basically
what we stood for. `
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1970
Joe Slovo, saved from political eclipse through the Congress Alliance, defended it vigorously
saying that, The charge of minority dominance of the Alliance (was) ... groundless, and summarised
Africanist opposition to the Charter and its consequences as being directed against the left ideological
positions held by many of the leaders of the SAIC, CPC (SACPO) and COD.
There was disquiet within the ANC at Lutulis weak leadership. One ANC leader stated in 1955:
There exists great inefficiency at varying levels of Congress leadership: the inability
to understand simple local situations, inefficiency in attending to the simple things, such
42

as small complaints, replying to letters, visiting of branches. There is complete lack of

confidence of one another, lack of teamwork in committees, individualism and the lust for
power. The result is sabotage of Congress decisions and directives, gossip and
unprincipled criticism.16
Mandela was furious when the Rand Daily Mail revealed (truthfully, as Mandela admitted) that the
ANC had neither an organizational structure nor a filing system let alone membership lists, and its
officials were far inferior to their counterparts in other countries. One reason why the Africanists
gained adherents was precisely because of this soporific drift which contrasted sharply with Leballos
perpetual frenetic persona. Lutuli revealingly responded in his laissez-faire manner to criticism that
the SACP had taken over the ANC by stating that if they had indeed done so, it was the ANCs fault.
Leballos determination to fight the elitist Charterists on all fronts gave him a large following.
Originally a guinea pig for the Africanist Movement he emerged as its leader willing with Sobukwe
to take the consequences of his beliefs. Tommy Mohajane, a PAC member who later worked against
Leballo, summarised Leballos appeal:
PK spoke a language we all understood. Before he came along, the ANC were talking
about class warfare and multi-racial solidarity. None of it made any sense.
[Leeman Interview 1982]
Sobukwe, wrote Gail Gerhart [1978:192], stood in awe of Leballos boundless stamina and
physical courage, finding in it a spur to own sometimes reluctant involvement. The two men
complemented each other, each encouraging the other to succeed in new fields. However, at the end of
1956 national attention was focused on the arrest of one hundred and fifty six members of antigovernment organisations including Mandela, Tambo, Nokwe, Resha, Z. K. Matthews, Joe Matthews,
Beyleveld, Slovo, Ruth First, Dr Naicker, Alex La Guma, Reg September, Helen Joseph, Lionel
Bernstein, Sisulu and several Africanists. The Treason Trial lasted five years and all defendants were
found not guilty. The trial gave the Congress Alliance enormous publicity and equated its moderate
ideology with revolutionary activity. Anthony Sampson declared that the National Party government
was not only trying the opposition, they were creating it...For the greatest single upshot of the treason
hearings was the emergence, both in African and European minds, of the name Congress as a real
force, The blaze of publicity surrounding the arrests and trial caused the Charterists to try to end the
volatile results of the Africanist-inspired bus boycotts of 1956-57, so as not to pull public interest
away from the trial. Their role in the Treason Trial - albeit an inadvertent choice - was to bolster the
prestige of the higher social classes in the class struggle within the ANC leadership.
The removal of many ANC leaders, the bulk of them Charterists, during the lengthy Treason Trial
(December 1956-61) obliged the Charterists to fill party posts with lower level functionaries, who
were mostly incapable of performing their duties and therefore exacerbated the already deeply
unsatisfactory situation. Nokwe, Sisulus successor as ANC secretary-general, was on the one hand
despairing that the party was still too placid and unfocused while on the other his staff welcomed
regular visits from well mannered Xhosa-speaking Afrikaner policemen as if they were agreeable
social occasions. At first both groups in the ANC demonstrated their solidarity for the Treason Trial
detainees but, as 1957 progressed, the Africanists were unable to tolerate the behaviour of the
shadow leadership in the Transvaal. At the Transvaal Provincial conference of the ANC in October
1957, the shadow Transvaal Executive failed to get Africanist support to accept it en bloc for reelection. Criticism escalated at the annual conference in December. Africanist petitioners in the
Transvaal and the Cape, backed by articles in the African press, expressed widespread dissatisfaction
with the Transvaal and national leadership of the party. A vote of no confidence in the Transvaal
16

Problems of Organisation in the A.N.C. by Banned Leader

www.disa.ukzn.ac.za:8080/.../LiNov55.1729.455X.000.014.Nov1955.4.pdf
43

leadership failed but the matter was set aside for a special conference held on 23 February, 1958.
In 1958 the Africanists had been joined by a remarkable Venda named Josias Madzunya, who had a
large personal following in Alexandra Township. Madzunya had a magnificent beard and coat which
made him look extremely sinister in European eyes and, consequently, he was frequently portrayed as
the embodiment of the Black Peril. Madzunya concentrated on mass rallies and politicising, drawing
fire from the liberals, multi-racial elitists, SACP and other elitists. Unfortunately Sobukwe and
Leballo had their own class snobbery and ill treated him. Sobukwe explained,
he was a critic of the ANC. He wanted to be with us. But he was uncontrollable,
like a wild steer. We thought we could let him draw the fire of the enemy, and use him
to test our strengthMadzunya was not an educated man. He probably didnt grasp the
full import of our philosophy. His thinking was rather primitive - he wanted to put
spears and shields on our flag! He didnt trust middle class educated people like the rest
of us. He said such people would never be able to suffer and sacrifice.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1970
Leballo commented,
His difficulty was that he was leading a tribal group from Vendaland in the northern
Transvaal. Now he had a group of loyal people that supported him and therefore when he
became an opposition man from his own branch in Alexandra Township, he found the
Africanist movement opposing the ANC, so he just jumped in, in 1958We also used
him as an Africanist. We wanted him, to use him in opposing some of the programs in the
ANC. He had (a large personal following) but this was tribalistic. Thats why he had the
difficulty, because he could only have a following from his area, or those who speak his
language.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1968

When Stephen Segale led the petition against the Transvaal leadership in February 1958, tempers
worsened as Charterists tried to prevent Africanists from entering the Orlando Hall, where the
conference was being held. Leballo called for new elections, intending that Sobukwe would become
the Transvaal Provincial leader, although Madzunya was a strong candidate. The meeting
enthusiastically welcomed this demand for elections, but the Charterists, chairing the meeting,
hurriedly closed the conference, saying that the time for leasing the hall had expired. The meeting
broke up in chaos. Eventually the Transvaal leadership was suspended and the ANC executive
committee took direct control of the Provincial branch, through emergency powers.
In 1958, the COD and SAIC partners in the ANC Alliance succeeded in forcing through a
resolution calling for a stay-at-home strike, although the ANC itself, after discussions throughout its
branches, rejected the idea. The Africanist branches, which were growing in number, had been chiefly
responsible for opposition to the proposed strike and, when the strike failed in April 1958, the Alliance
called for the Africanists to be disciplined. Mandela, the ANC Transvaal president, convened a
dubiously-constituted caucus in May 1958 that expelled Leballo and Madzunya from the ANC. This
just exacerbated the situation and did nothing to weaken the Africanist onslaught.
A ban on political gatherings prevented the issue being settled until after August 1958, when
restrictions were lifted by the new National Party government. On 1 November, 1958, the ANC met
for the annual Transvaal Provincial conference. Raboroko and Molete stated that they planned to put
up Madzunya as candidate for the Transvaal presidency, while Leballo says that he intended to
nominate Sobukwe. Oliver Tambo was in charge of delegates credentials. Lutuli spoke at the
conference on the 1st and criticised the Africanists for injecting the virus of prejudice and
44

sectionalism into the African community. Lutuli and Tambo left the hall during the last part of the
discussions on the first day and went to Nobaduza Mpanzas house in Orlando East. There they were
hastily informed by Leslie Masina (of SACTU) that the Africanists were attempting to elect their own
Transvaal leadership and repudiate the NEC. Although Tambo once claimed he wanted to keep the
Africanists within the ANC, because they provided much needed criticism, he hurried back to the hall
and, in scenes of violence, disqualified all the Africanist branch delegates.
On 2 November, Orlando Communal Hall was defended by Charterist thugs, armed with iron bars
and clubs, determined that only delegates approved by Tambo would be allowed entrance. This was
not just a provincial matter. The Transvaal Province was the most important branch the powerhouse of the ANC. Whoever controlled the Transvaal Province could take over the whole party. Indeed, had
Mandela successfully sought the ANC presidency in 1952 many of the organisational problems arising
from a weak, Natal-based leader would have been avoided. With Mandela as president in 1952 there
would have been no Freedom Charter or Congress Alliance. In response to Tambos threat the
Africanists assembled their own thugs - each side had about a hundred - and squared off as police and
security watched from a distance. It is a matter of speculation who would have won a fair election but
Tambos actions signified he was not confident of holding off Sobukwe. The ANC was in crisis and
losing ground, assailed from the left by the Africanists and bedevilled by the nature of the Alliance,
SACP scheming, and Lutulis dithering. The Africanists had previously been divided over the issue of
staying in the ANC. Leballo had advocated withdrawal while Mda preferred taking it over. The actions
of the ANC leadership at the November Transvaal conference decided the issue. If the Transvaal had
fallen to the Africanists, the entire history of African politics would have been very different, reducing
the SACP to the supportive role envisaged by David Ivon Jones (1883-1924) in the 1920s and
broadening the ANCs class appeal. The Africanists decided to break away from the Charterists and
maintain the principles of the ANC policy as it was formulated in 1912 and pursued up to the time of
the Congress Alliances. The breakaway of the Africanists on the Rand was followed by similar
moves in the Cape and Natal.
In December 1958, Sobukwe, Leballo and Madzunya visited Basutoland to attend the Maseru
Basutoland Congress Party (BCP) annual conference as guest speakers. Leballo had been a co-founder
of the BCP in 1952, its original choice for secretary-general, and in 1958 was chairman of its richest
and most powerful branch, the Transvaal Province. During their stay they spent a considerable time
alone with their friend and colleague the BCP leader Ntsu Mokhehle discussing the liberation struggle
and the All Africa Peoples Conference, to which Mokhehle had been elected a member of the
Steering Committee. The AAPC, created in Ghana by Kwame Nkrumah and George Padmore as an
African version of the Comintern, was a totally African response to the problem of freeing the
continent from foreign domination and a more militant organisation that the later Organisation of
African Unity (OAU) and African Union (AU). The importance of Ghana for the Africanists cannot be
understated. It was the first colonised black African country to receive independence on the continent
through the efforts of its own people. Moreover, Nkrumah was a Pan Africanist, picked and trained by
Padmore, with experience among Diaspora African Americans. His triumph did much to convince the
Africanists that their ideology for liberation was correct. For his part, Mokhehle advised Sobukwe not
to waste time remaining as the leading spokesman for a breakaway group but form a new political
party. If Sobukwe followed this advice he should also resign from his post as a language lecturer to
concentrate solely on politics.
Mda had opposed the idea for a new Africanistoriented political party when it had been raised
after the Defiance Campaign but before the 1955 Freedom Charter crisis. He elaborated:
the idea that the ANC could be transformed from within was still there. There was
a very strong belief in the inevitable survival of the ANC. People would comment that
other groups had come and gone, but the ANC had always remained. There were the
trappings of reverence around the ANC; it was almost like a church. People regarded the
45

ANC with a decree of fetishism that had nothing to do with the freedom struggle. There
were two schools among African nationalists. One had faith in being able to supplant the
communists; the others had lost faith in it and advocated a new party. The ANC looked
viable still. It had withstood so many challenges. There was a sense of fatalism in
attacking the ANC that the ANC would still come out ahead.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1970
In 1958 he was still opposed to an Africanist breakaway. Speaking of the events that persuaded
Sobukwe to consider forming a new party, Mda stated:
Eventually there was a definite bid by the youth to take over the ANC [November
1958]. This would have succeeded if the people in power hadnt resorted to thuggery and
open forms of violence, including murder. We didnt think the cause of party unity was
worth the physical sacrifice of some leaders, our own boys. The new bid for leadership
became more and more open. The Africanists now had their own paper, and their own
program, as expounded in The Africanist. In the Transvaal, Leballo and others had strong
popular backing. It was clear that the ANC old guard - i.e. the ANCs new old guard was prepared to use even thuggery to hold on to their positions.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1970
Sobukwe was unable to discuss the proposed break in person with Mda. He described what happened:
I was going down to the Cape - was I going to Grahamstown to work on my [Xhosa]
riddles? - And I went by Engcobo to look for Mda. I forget who was accompanying me.
We didnt find him home. I dont recall exactly when this was. But we decided we would
just have to go ahead with what we were doing without consulting him. Even PK said this,
and he was a great admirer of Mda. But AP wrote us to say he disapproved of the break.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1970
A greater disappointment appears to have been Sobukwes failure to recruit Professor Matthews.
Sobukwe admitted, we couldnt get anywhere with him. He was too much an ANC man, although
we knew he agreed with a lot of what we were saying. Since Matthews had been instrumental in
launching the idea of the Freedom Charter, Sobukwes approach to Matthews seemed politically
inappropriate. However it was clear that Matthews had never intended his idea to be the means of
foisting SACP control over the ANC.
Shortly before his death in 1986, Leballo conceded to this writer that Mda and Matthews may have
been right. The Africans should have continued to fight for control of the ANC rather than have
broken away. However, in April 1959, the Africanists founded the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC)
with Sobukwe as president and Leballo secretary-general. While Mda refused to join the new party he
posed between Sobukwe and Leballo in the group photograph of the bulk of the PAC National
Executive.

46

CHAPTER THREE
Basutoland The Africanist Second Front
Ntsu Mokhehle, Sobukwes deputy in student politics at Fort Hare, was the leading member of the
Africanist Movement in the British Protectorate of Basutoland (Lesotho) and from 1958 its direct link
with Kwame Nkrumah and George Padmores All Africa People's Conference (AAPC). Mokhehle,
suspended from Fort Hare for a year during a student strike, had graduated with a teaching certificate
and a Masters of Science degree in Zoology in 1949. Had he remained in South Africa, it is likely he
would have become a senior member of the Pan Africanist Congress and even succeeded Sobukwe as
leader in 1978. However, he chose to return to Basutoland because of two psychic experiences
[Leeman 1985] that convinced him he had a special mission to accomplish in Basutoland. In October
1952, against ANC wishes, he launched the countrys first political party, the Basutoland African
Congress (BAC), which initially focused on issues such as democracy, incorporation into South
Africa, racially based pay scales, migrant labour, and the colour bar.
Lesotho, San Marino and the Vatican are the only countries totally surrounded by another. Lesotho
was the only southern African kingdom that defeated white (Cape Colony) forces and retained its
independence, albeit as a British protectorate. Despite this success, it had previously lost its best
farming land to the Afrikaner Republic of the Orange Free State either by conquest or corrupt
unauthorised land sales to Wesleyan missionaries. The status of the Basotho chieftaincy had been
enhanced by its resistance in the 1880-4 Gun War but thereafter it declined, as the British magisterial
system and other innovations changed the mutually beneficial relationship between chiefs and
commoners to one where chiefs were no longer chosen by commoners but appointed by the
government. The paramountcy (the name given to office of monarch) became increasingly
authoritarian particularly after Griffith (1913-39) allied himself to the arch-conservative French
Canadian Catholic Missionary Order of Mary Immaculate (OMI). The chieftaincy proliferated because
of polygynous marriages (Moshoeshoe ca. 1786 - 1870, founder of Lesotho, had intended to build an
empire administered by his numerous sons and grandsons) and the ensuing succession disputes,
infighting, status quarrels, murders, controversial executions and litigation resulted in the Moore
Commissions report of 1954, which criticised the Regent and recommended that British officials
should take on the task of administration from the chiefs.
The Basotho Regent, Chieftainess Amelia Mantsebo, was acting on behalf of her polygynous late
husbands heir, Bereng Constantine Seeiso, born in 1940. A simple, kindly, devout Catholic, she was
advised by low ranking chiefs and ill served by senior regional chiefs who disliked strong central
power. To everybodys surprise, Ntsu Mokhehle, a commoner, Anglican and closet republican,
became the protectorates most effective opponent of the Moore Commission and its report. He argued
that the British were deliberately weakening the chieftaincy so the Protectorate could be annexed by
South Africa. The British, who detested Malans NP government, protested their innocence and
abandoned reform.
The BACs success gained it support from groups which later formed rival political parties,
namely the senior chiefs, the minor chiefs, and the anglophiles in the bureaucracy, education, and
literary circles. However, political development became more divisive when Mokhehle, expelled from
his high school teaching job, became a professional politician and switched his focus to recruiting the
peasantry and migrant workers, inheriting the militant but fading peasant movement Lekhotla la Bafo
and taking advice from the CP veteran Edwin Mofutsanyana. Mokhehle gradually abandoned his
westernized persona, such as speaking through an interpreter, but grew intolerant of other university
graduates in the leadership (Basutoland had a small University College founded and dominated by the
Canadian missionaries in order to train a Catholic administrative elite). The party leadership was also
largely Protestant with a power base in the countrys relatively prosperous northwestern lowlands and
47

in the South African townships around Johannesburg. Until 1960, the majority of Congress members
were in the Transvaal, led by Leballo, and the Transvaal Province remained thereafter not only the
most militant branch but also the partys major source of funding. Consequently, while Mokhehle had
to deal with local Basotho issues, the Transvaal Basotho were urging a stance more revolutionary than
the ANC and SACP. In 1956 Mokhehle lost monarchist support when he displayed indifference to
Chief Seepheephe Matetes request to demand the installation of Bereng Seeiso as king. He knew that
if there had been a powerful paramount, the BCP would never have emerged. Matete therefore formed
the kingdoms second political party, the Marema Tlou, a Sesotho expression meaning lets cooperate
to kill the elephant. Next, the BACs increasing republicanism and nationalism not only alienated the
future court circle and minor chieftaincy but also the OMI, which drew considerable support from
women. The Regents advisers were minor chiefs, and, in 1957, one of them, a BCP member Kaiser
Leabua Jonathan Molapo, who had converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, approached his
European friend Patrick Duncan, son of a former governor-general of South Africa and eventually
PAC representative in Algiers whom Leballo sacked in 1965 for congratulating Leabua Jonathan on
his election win of 1965. Duncan was a radical Basotho-phile who ran a bookstore opposite Maseru on
the South African side of the Caledon River. Leabua wanted to form a new political party. Duncan, a
South African Liberal Party activist, met the OMI Bishop Des Rosiers on 10th January, 1958 and
jointly drew up the manifesto for Leabuas new Basotho National Party (BNP), which would absorb
the embryonic Catholic Democratic Party of two commoner brothers Gabriel and Anthony Manyeli
[Leeman 1985].
In 1958, as a result of chiefly pressure the British agreed to a new constitution that established an
eighty seat legislative council and an eight seat executive council to be introduced following elections
in 1960. At the end of the year a delegation went to London consisting of the Regent, five chiefs
including Matete and her advisers (one of whom was Leabua Jonathan Molapo), two British officials,
and a constitutional adviser Professor Cowen (married to Patrick Duncans sister). The new structure
weakened the power of the new paramount while creating a decentralized district council system that
the minor chiefs mistakenly believed they would control. Half the seats in the legislative council were
for appointed members, twenty two for the senior chiefs and eighteen nominated by Bereng Seeiso,
when he became paramount. Elections would first be held for nine district councils. The elected
members would then in turn elect 40 members for the legislative council. Leabua formed the Basotho
National Party (BNP) at the beginning of 1959. Soon afterwards the senior chiefs and the Marema
Tlou succeeded in obtaining agreement for Bereng Seeiso to be placed as paramount in 1960 after
the elections.
The London talks gave Mokhehle an opportunity to establish himself as a Pan African statesman
liaising with the Africanists in the ANC. The BAC raised nearly three hundred pounds for Mokhehle
to lobby in London during the delegations visit. On his outward journey he addressed the party in the
Transvaal and, on his way home, he was appointed to the Steering Committee of the All Africa
Peoples Conference (AAPC), organised by Nkrumah and George Padmore in Accra Ghana, after a
powerful speech where Mokhehle emphasised that Southern African freedom was the key to Africas
future. The AAPC was an African version of the Comintern (the Communist International), dedicated
to coordinating liberation from colonial rule. Mokhehles appointment (Nkrumah personally
nominated him) made him the key regional figure for African-backed African revolution. The BAC
renamed itself the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP).
In December 1958, aforementioned, Ntsu Mokhehle held private talks with Sobukwe, Leballo, and
Madzunya in Maseru. Writing twenty years later in November 1978 Mokhehle stated:
"Mr Potlako Leballo was the Basutoland African Congress provincial secretary in the
Transvaal when they started the PAC - the decision to break away from the ANC was taken
in Maseru before me - and Leballo was the link between the Pan Africanist group in the
ANC and the BAC. From the Transvaal provincial secretary, Leballo easily became the
48

secretary-general - this we did to keep the PAC - BAC links strong and it continued until
1960. Leballo is the real founder of the PAC - and he is the man who decided, promoted
and sponsored Sobukwe's presidency of the PAC - some ignorant people may be startled by
this and tend to challenge it - but it just happens to be true - here much of what I say is
what took place before me and, to a greater extent than not with my help."
Letter to Leeman
The full extent of Basotho involvement in the events that led to Sharpeville belongs to
that secret history of Southern Africa that includes funding by the Soviet Union, the
American CIA, Nkrumah, Nasser and other individuals and agencies whose contributions
are impossible to gauge but which often had far reaching effects. Certainly the Basotho
involvement had dire repercussions for Mokhehle and the BCP.

Potlako Kitchener Leballo (1959)

49

CHAPTER FOUR
The Founding of the PAC
On 6-7 April, 1959, with funds provided by the Accra-based All Africa Peoples Convention, the
Africanists held a conference at Orlando Communal Hall at which the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC)
was founded. Leballo stated that he realised the need for an intellectual for the post of party president
and made sure that he himself was not put forward when nomination time came. He said that he
arranged for the speaker to point at him when the time came for nominating candidates for the
presidency. The Speaker complied whereupon Leballo shouted I nominate Robert Mangaliso
Sobukwe! and delighted supporters carried Sobukwe forward for a unanimous election, giving
Leballo the peculiar distinction of having personally successfully nominated both Albert Lutuli and
Sobukwe for the respective leaderships of the ANC and PAC.
Leballo defeated A. B. Nqcobo for the post of secretary-general. Burgess presents a differing
opinion about the election. He believed that although Leballo and Madzunyas pioneering work had
brought mass support for Africanist ideas, the movements hierarchy was still dominated by
intellectuals and it was even questionable if Leballo was certain of gaining a seat on the national
executive committee (NEC). It was widely expected that Madzunya would obtain an important post,
and he did stand for treasurer and received the required votes. Leballo later privately confessed that
he, Sobukwe, and other leaders decided that Madzunya, as a Standard 5 leaver, was too uneducated
and erratic to be trusted with the office so they switched the votes in favour A.B. Ngcobo (grandson of
a Zulu regimental commander at Isandhlwana), who had lost to Madzunya by a single vote17. Leballo
admitted, in the Inner Circle we had already decided that Sobukwe would be the man, I would be
the man, and we felt, well, we must give Natal two or three positions and so on, and the other people.
[Gerhart interview 1968]
The Africanists had wanted Mdas support for the new party. When it was not forthcoming,
Sobukwe said, We just had to go ahead without him. We still respected him, but his opinion wasnt
sacrosanct any longer. We still saw him as the repository of our ideas. Half a century later, most
commentators feel that the break with the ANC was a mistake but at the time there were very pressing
and maybe intractable reasons why Sobukwe had to form a new party. Firstly, the SACP take-over of
the ANC was a real issue and just cannot be explained away by the unctuous, fatuous dishonesty of
Slovo, the Penguin African Series writers and other authors (One reason why Leballo found Maoism
attractive was because Mao admitted to making mistakes from which he learnt). While both the SACP
and PAC suffered from clandestine American intervention (the PAC fatally), the SACP connection
with the ANC made it in American eyes an enemy of the West, irrespective of the idealism of the
Anti-Apartheid Movement and support for ANC prisoners. Without SACP domination, African
liberation would have gained more support from the ANCs natural allies, the rising African American
middle class of politicians, civil rights campaigners, athletes, academics, lawyers and military officers.
It is significant that no real pressure was made by the Americans and British towards democracy in
South Africa until the Soviet Union had fallen and this was also the reason why American interests
bolstered Inkatha. Secondly, it was not so much the ethnic minority nature of the SACP leadership but
its unethical manipulative behaviour that was anathema to most Africans. Through Lembedes work
the ANC had established, up to 1954, a process of extensive consultation with decisions taken from
the grass roots upwards, a process that Mokhehle instituted in the BCP with immense success in its
opposition years of 1965-1970. The SACP and its creation the Congress Alliance took decisions from
the top downwards and in secret. Consequently, many Africans saw the Alliance as illegitimate and
not worthy of loyalty. Conversely the PAC, although more democratic, did not get immediate support
17

Charles Moore [2013:135] stated that in 1952 Margaret Thatcher, the future British prime minister, was
nominated as a [successful] Conservative parliamentary candidate because the local constituency leader secrely
altered the vote.
50

because it was largely characterized by a class of activist that did not appeal to more conservative,
status conscious, middle class Africans, especially women (as the BCP found in Basutoland) and these
were prepared to overlook the SACP coup so as not to risk the precarious limited socio-economic
position they had achieved in the racist state. Thirdly, although Mda urged Sobukwe to continue his
attempt to change the ANC from within, it is difficult to imagine that, even if the ineffectual Lutuli
had been removed, it would have been possible to oust Mandela, Tambo, and Sisulu let alone overturn
the decisions of the Congress of the People, because the South African regime would have used its
power to prevent the dismantling of the Alliance, which had split the liberation movement and, in its
opinion, had fortuitously equated the ANC with communism. The NP regime was probably not
Machiavellian enough to have used the 1957 1961 Treason Trial for the purpose of strengthening
the Alliance but it certainly had that effect. Sobukwe was careful not to attack the ANC itself,
intending instead to politicize fresh recruits rather than cause more defections. His social status as a
university teacher, his common touch, his willingness to sacrifice, and his ability to inspire and direct
were a welcome alternative to the Alliance where everyone seemed to be a leader but nobody was in
charge and where priority was given to the future protection of considerably wealthier ethnic
minorities rather than achieving African freedom. Most importantly of all, the liberation struggle
needed a leader who would be a man of action, even though it meant certain martyrdom. While
Mandela, Lutuli, Tambo, Sisulu and their Alliance colleagues looked for gaps in the small print of
legal constraints and started to place their political hopes in boycotting potatoes and cigarettes (sic),
Sobukwe based his strategy on the example of 1879 Battle of Isandhlwana where a single man had
turned the battle against the British troops. The African population could be likened to the Zulu impi
laying flat in the grass as the British-Xhosa mercenary square methodically fired at them. After several
volleys one warrior from the umCijo regiment called out demanding to know if this humiliating
posture was really what the Zulu king had in mind, when he ordered them into action. As one, the
Zulu troops rose and charged, panicking the Xhosa side of the square into flight, exposing the rear side
of the three other sections of the square. No British soldiers wearing red jackets escaped the massacre
[Morris 1965]. There had been and would be other examples such as in 1916 when the scholar-poet
Padraig Pearce transformed Irish republican nationalism into Irelands dominant political force
through the badly planned Easter Rising; and on 12 January 1964 when a Ugandan stone mason
named John Okello refused to run away when challenged by a policeman seized his rifle. By morning
Okello had led a rising that had overthrown the Arab gerrymandered government of Zanzibar [Okello
1967]. Sobukwe was proved right for, in the event, a single man, Philip Kgosana, was pivotal but
failed to deliver (see below).
Madzunya continued to support Africanist ideas but the following year he held back his large
personal following in Alexandra from participating in the demonstrations that led to the Sharpeville
massacre. Like others, Madzunya said he felt the PAC was not ready for the action it took, but other
factors, including his justifiable bitterness as being kept out of the NEC, obviously played a large part
in making him refuse to use his enormous influence.
The Transvaal membership dominated the PAC inaugural conference at Orlando Communal Hall of
4 - 6 April, 1959 but the NEC had a national character. Sobukwe, Leballo, Mothopeng, Molotsi,
Ngendane, Peter Raboroko and N. D. Nyoase were based in the Transvaal; A. B. Ngcobo, H. S.
Ngcobo and Hlatswayo were in Durban; E. A. Mfaxa, N. N. Mahomo, C. J. Fazzie and M .G.
Maboza in the Cape; and Z. B. Molete in the OFS. Of the NEC, five were Xhosa, six Sotho and four
Zulu. Although he remained influential, Mda did not accept the need for the PAC and was not allowed
to attend the launch of the new party.
The rhetoric, membership and manifesto of the PAC were revolutionary. The party attributed
Africans menial existence in Southern Africa to the results of European exploitation of the New
World and industrial development both of which had been achieved by the greatest mass chattel
slavery the world has ever known. It bracketed the Congress Alliance with the fate of Toussaint
LOuverture and George Padmore, who had allied themselves with European revolutionaries that had
51

eventually betrayed them. The party listed land loss and national subjugation as the two major issues
confronting Africans. It accepted that African society was fundamentally socialist and that the South
African regime could only be overthrown by an African movement that galvanised the illiterate and
semi-literate African masses into taking power for themselves. Sobukwe was amenable to allowing
financially disadvantaged Indians and Coloureds joining the party but was strongly opposed by A. B.
Ngcobo. Sobukwe gave way because the PAC was extremely weak in Natal where most South African
Indians lived. The PAC envisaged a democratic socialist African society replacing the present white
structure. This new state would eventually unite with the rest of Africa to combat, the forces of
imperialism, colonialism, herrenvolkism (master race-ism) and tribalism. The PACs manifesto did
not call specifically for whites to be driven into the sea, but the implication was clear:
Already European exploiters and oppressors have been dramatically expelled from
such countries as Indonesia, India., China, Burma, Vietnam etc. These are today being
systematically routed and forcibly caused to retreat in confusion. The post-war world has
witnessed the expulsion of European imperialist exploiters and oppressors from large tracts
of Africa......
Furthermore, it stated that, The African people will not tolerate the existence of other national
groups within the confines of one nation. The whites and Indians were therefore given a choice of
absorption or expulsion. Leballo called for the white foreign dogs to leave the country. Molotsi
admitted that, although the PAC membership reflected the gut feelings of Africans, it did not openly
adopt the slogan of driving the whites out because we wanted a lease of life to continue - to get the
bloody bastards, thats all [Gerhart 1978:216]. Many liberal and other white commentators were
unable or unwilling to accept how much their presence was resented. A conservative Eurocentric
historian, T. R. H. Davenport writing in 1978, felt ...a predominantly expatriate (my emphasis)
element sees as inevitable the revolutionary overthrow of the existing order, on the grounds that the
inherent logic of the situation rules out the possibility of a peaceful transition to an acceptable social
system. Confrontation had differing interpretations, ranging from non-co-operation to open violence,
but the PAC as a whole accepted that a white exodus was inevitable and was prepared to suffer years
of economic hardship as Africans learned technical and administrative skills to revive industry (if that
were their intention). Anything was better than continued subjugation to the Boer slave-labour
system known as South Africa.
The PAC was the first movement in South Africa to call for African liberation and African rule,
although the Soviet Black Republic thesis envisaged the same ideal in the late 1920s. The PAC was
open-minded not only to radical political philosophies but also to Christianity. However in both cases
the party looked for African initiatives not European direction. Sobukwe encapsulated the
exasperating role of the SACP when he declared: Like Christianity, communism in South Africa has
been extremely unfortunate in its choice of representatives.18 The Rev. W. M. Dimba, leader of the
largest federation of African independent churches, attended the PAC inaugural conference and, in the
1960s, the PAC had close links with Beijing, being attracted to what it believed was its peasant-based
communist political processes. The PAC drew strong support from those township criminal gangs
whose activities were interpreted as manifestations of anti-settler activity. The entry of the Mosomis
and other gangs, accompanied by a crowd of weight-lifters, boxers and general thugs at the inaugural
conference, panicked the white pressmen, who took refuge on the stage.
Sobukwe and many of his colleagues felt that preparation in depth should precede final
confrontation. The general strategy followed that of the Defiance Campaign, a number of waves in an
incoming tide. Nation-wide demonstrations would gather momentum, politicising PAC supporters,
who would gain experience as the demonstrations and reprisals escalated, until at length a final assault
18

Mahatma Gandhi once commented I like your Christ but I dont like your Christians.
52

would destroy the white edifice. The nature of the PAC membership seemed to be conducive to the
partys strategy, which called for action by people who had nothing much to lose. The PACs rejection
of ANC/SACP moderation had attracted thousands from the most frustrated and embittered elements
of African society. Unlike the ANC, the PAC had little money, no prestige, no revered leaders, little
experience, but was new, young and extremely dynamic.
Translated into the parlance of the ordinary African - the van driver, the office tea boy,
the factory worker, the shop assistant, the street sweeper - nationalism had less to do with
moral niceties than with rough and ready justice, little to do with constitutional
rearrangements, but much to do with the bald realities of power...the ordinary African was
nothing if he was not anti-white, and the PAC was determined to mirror the emotions of the
common man.
Gerhart [1978:217]
The PAC membership was much younger than the ANC. Sobukwe used teenagers widely
particularly as couriers. Adult women, from the experience of South African liberation history, seemed
conservative and were not found in any significant numbers in the PAC. In brief,
The PAC was a new organisation with an untried leadership, but at least it shared the
same sense of urgency and frustration, the same explosive anger as the younger generation.
What the PAC was actually saying, or not saying, was less important than the language it
was speaking. It was speaking a language attuned to the mood of the youth, in contrast to
the more restrained accent of the ANC. An organisation, as one PAC man put it, of our
fathers and mothers.
Gerhart [1978:222]
In particular, the PAC attracted widespread support from disaffected unemployed urban youth who
despised the genteel ways of the middle class. Alienated and without a meaningful place in society
they wanted immediate action.
The inaugural conference had divided the party structure into six regions, as opposed to the ANCs
four. It called for the mobilisation of the African masses by presenting to them a clear political
ideology and course of action. Its advocacy of the use of vernacular languages indicated the areas it
sought support - among the non-westernised rural population, many of whom were migrant labourers.
Originally the PAC suggested that a Status Campaign should precede the final assault, so African
political consciousness could be strengthened and sounder organisations emerge. Boycotts and other
tactics were suggested as methods of fulfilling this campaign.
The PAC office was on the second floor of Mylur House in Dube South. Leballos house was also
used for party work, such as duplicating. Sobukwe paid the office rent and other party bills from his
own salary, which caused friction with his wife. William Monde Jolobe, who, at Lovedale, used to
follow the principal Rev. Dr. Shepherd carrying his books in a wheelbarrow, acted as secretary and
stenographer, although he needed beer to make him work efficiently. The PAC organised a campaign
to recruit members. On 31 July 1959, Leballo reported that 101 branches had been formed with 24,664
members. Probably half the members were branch activists. The Transvaal headed the list with 47
branches and 13,324 members, followed by the Cape with 34 and 7,427 members, Natal with 15 and
3,612 members, and the OFS (hell on earth for Africans) with 5 and 301 members. Repression in the
OFS was extremely difficult to combat overtly. The ANC was particularly aggressive against the
partys rise in Natal and Zululand.
In October 1959, Jacob D. Nyaose launched the PACs trade union movement, the Federation of
Free African Trade Unions of South Africa (FOFATUSA). Nyaose was leader of the African Bakers
and Confectioners Union. This joined with the Garment Workers Union (GWU), which had broken
53

away from SACTU, and with nine other unrecognised African trade unions, giving FOFATUSA a
membership of over 17,000. Lucy Mvubelo and Sarah Chitja of the GWU respectively became vicepresident and secretary-general.
The ANC and PAC both held their annual conferences in December 1959. The ANC made a tactical
mistake by holding theirs a week earlier. Between 1956 and 1958 both Charterist and Africanist
sections of the ANC had been involved in economic boycotts. The Charterists had concentrated on
boycotting Afrikaner owned, large scale, tobacco and potato enterprises while the Africanists had
targeted buses. The Charterists had hoped to organise a massive 26 June 1959 campaign against the
Pass Laws but the Treason Trial and the launch of the PAC disrupted plans, so little was
accomplished. Nevertheless the Pass Laws issue remained the chief target for both ANC and PAC.
At the December 1959 conference, Nokwe, Sisulu, Mandela, and Tambo presented a plan which
extended the economic boycott and set March 31 1960 for the start of an anti-pass campaign which
would culminate in passes being incinerated on 26 June. This appears to have been the gap in the
small print of the Criminal Law Amendment Act because the Alliance lawyers would have been able
to argue in consequent trials that their clients (the Alliance leadership) would not have been in breach
of the Act. The conference also expressed disquiet at the PACs rapid expansion. When Leballo
announced the PAC membership figures the following week of 16 - 20 December 1959, he was
personally disappointed. He had hoped to recruit 100,000 members but his figures totalled 31,035
distributed between 153 branches. Sobukwe later confirmed that the figure of actual signed up
members as about 20,000, which that was immensely impressive given that in 1959 the ANCs
estimated membership, after 47 years of existence, had dropped to about 28,000. The PAC reported
that there was friction in the party between the regional executive committee and the branches on the
Rand. The regional executive was accused of hindering expansion. The NEC responded by
establishing a national working committee to deal with the branches and allow local initiatives to act
unimpeded by regional bureaucracy. The PAC had originally intended to launch a status campaign
demanding courteous treatment from whites in the workplace or when being served in shops. This
would be followed by a more combative campaign of Positive Action. However, Sobukwe
immediately recognised the futility of such moves in the wake of the ANCs announcement of a more
militant anti-pass campaign. The PAC had organisational advantages over the unwieldy structure and
ill defined leadership of the Alliance. It was able to make immediate decisions and switch tactics
whereas the Transvaal cabal of Mandela, Sisulu, Tambo and Nokwe had to liaise with the other four
sections of the Alliance as well as Joe Slovos clandestine dual or treble role communists, and pay lip
service to Lutulis leadership. The PAC therefore abandoned the Status Campaign as impractical and
called for immediate confrontation, whereby Africans would engulf the white security apparatus in
Gandhian waves of martyrs demanding to be arrested for having destroyed their passes. The Alliance
was furious at being upstaged. Joe Slovo denounced the PACs campaign as an ill organised, second
class version of the 1952 Defiance Campaign but Sobukwe had no choice. The Alliance, as Mandela
was rapidly coming to realise, was - despite its rhetoric - flabby, pompous, status conscious, and
conservative. It was listening to the same ideas from an urban, professional, and not very efficient
urban elite that was being outmanoeuvred by impecunious lower class activists it affected to despise.
If the Alliance had matched the PACs rapid decision making, organisational flexibility, and clarity of
purpose it could have quickly regained the initiative.
Although the Alliance could have adapted its plans to counter the Africanists, it did not do so.
Despite its annoyance at the PAC call for an earlier anti-pass campaign, the ANC may have believed
that the ANC December announcement had doomed the PAC by forcing it into premature mass action.
However, a more plausible reason is that the ANC preferred the PAC to act first, knowing that its
leadership would be subject to the draconian provisions of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. The
ANCs own plans were not confrontational and the ANCs protest would probably not have been in
breach of the Act. The ideal scenario as far the ANC was concerned was for the PAC to launch a very
poorly supported peaceful protest that would result in its leadership being discredited and also jailed
54

under the terms of the Act for three years.

The PACs volatile membership, the ANCs own call for a 31 March national day of action and the
AAPC decision in Ghana that the continent should be free by 1963 all served to propel the PAC
forward. Sobukwe had intended to give the PAC some opportunities to gain experience in less
confrontational skirmishing which did not breach the Act as he had originally planned with the Status
Campaign. However, the ANCs anti-pass campaign was a challenge to see which party was a more
effective force. Most importantly of all, Sobukwe wanted to end the seven year stalemate in African
resistance politics. The 1953 Criminal Law Amendment Act had stifled the ANC/SACP and reduced it
to gesture politics, like the Freedom Charter, the Congress of the People with its farcical award of
battle honours, and proposed campaigns that first had to be vetted by SACP lawyers. The Treason
Trial was the shape of things to come: the NP regime content to tie up assimilated malcontents in
litigation for years, on flimsy unconvincing evidence that would deny them martyrdom but assure the
white electorate that their government was ruthless in defence of national security.
In January, the PAC decided to encourage support in the Cape. Sobukwe admitted that when the
PAC was launched
we were weak in PE [Port Elizabeth] weak in the Western Cape. When we got to
PE on our tour in 1960, you could only whisper that you were there from PAC because
the ANC was so strong there. You were more afraid of the ANC than of the police in PE
[Port Elisabeth]! It was like a religion, and religion was strong there too. Cape Town had
no organization at all. We felt strongly that if we could build our strength in the
Transvaal, then other things would follow.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart in 1970
His prophesy was fulfilled to a degree he could never have imagined because the Western Cape
was to provide an unbelievable opportunity that should have ignited a national rising. Both ANC and
PAC were weak in the Western Cape, probably because the large Coloured populations political
militancy had been tempered by partial assimilation, the Cape Liberal tradition and a tendency to look
down on Bantu-speaking Africans. In 1960, in the Cape Town area, it was estimated that only ten per
cent (75,000) people were African, compared to 411,000 Coloureds. Nevertheless, the PAC was able
to accomplish encouraging recruitment among the migrant worker population in the Langa townships
where the ratio of men to women in the migrant hostels was 25:1 and where was considerable anger at
the regimes expulsions to the tribal homelands. Sobukwe and Leballo set out from Johannesburg in
February 1960, driving Howard Ngcobos Volkswagen Kombi van. If the consequences had not been
so tragic, there is something immensely amusing and surrealistic in the vision of a bookish junior
university language assistant (Sobukwe) and an expansive ex-army sergeant (Leballo) careering off in
a VW van to Cape Town to galvanise migrant workers into changing history while wise, well funded,
internationally connected, self anointed, odiously bourgeois elements reclined in the better suburbs of
Johannesburg mocking their efforts and pointing out where they had gone wrong. At Aliwal North,
they held a public meeting mostly of young militants led by Nyati Pokela, who was a teacher at Aliwal
North High School. Next, they drove to Cape Town, visiting different branches and committees, and
finally held a public meeting at Langa along with the Ngcobos, and Selby Ngendane, who was on
there on holiday. Leballo always looked back with nostalgia to that trip, his last as a relatively free
man in South Africa, recalling the grapes that were piled in the van and, in particular, the public
meeting:
Well, we felt very much encouraged because of the response there. And we were in
top form in our speeches there, and I remember even today there are still some people
who imitate the way I speak. And we collected a lot of money, particularly at this public
meeting here. You know, the big tins and this, the bath that we use for washing, money
55

was just put so into them. We made almost about 250 there. And the response was so
great that in fact in those areas we wiped out the ANC in those areas completely. People
had never heard of such a fire before. It was so much a fireworks that they believed that
freedom was overnight.
PAC and Mda Interviews with Gerhart 1968
Leballos famous speech at was significantly peppered with Sesotho:
Everybody felt the electricity as Potlako Leballo, national secretary, climbed on to the
platform and waved his pipe in the air. His powerful voice rang out in Sesotho This is
Potlako of the Leballos. Of whom it is said hold your shield tightly, your fathers land
has been looted by foreigners.19
Langa was eleven kilometres from the city centre and had a population of about 25,000. Sixty-six
percent lived in dormitory barracks. Langa had close ties with Nyanga, nearly nine kilometres further
out. Nyanga had been established as a dumping ground for Langa and Windermeres excess
populations and was denied facilities and services to force Africans to move to the tribal homelands.
The young male population in the two townships, having nothing much left to lose, was potentially
explosive. However, while Sobukwe could openly speak against violence, the regime, through its
ubiquitous spy, agent provocateur, and informer network, would have quickly dealt with Leballo had
he called for carnage. There was perhaps a solution that was never utilised. Mandela, Tambo,
Sobukwe, and Leballo had attended Xhosa and Basotho initiation lodges. Had the PAC decided on
violence there could have used elements from the Africanist Churches, the tsotsi gangs, and the
initiation lodges to create a clandestine network of politicized militant activists. This is similar to what
Dedan Kimathi had accomplished in Kenya with his oathings supervised at night by disguised,
reclusive but certainly anoymous functionaries [Henderson 1958]20. Nana Mahomo had been the first
to suggest recruiting tsotsis and, if there had been more time, small groups of tsotsis could have
recruited to be sent ostensibly for tribal initiation but be trained, allocated specific tasks by disguised
instructors and eventually given small arms, if available. The ZANLA commander, Josiah Tongogara
(1938-1979), used young activists extensively as scouts, informers, and messengers and they
progressed later to guerrilla status. Other movements, such as Northern Irish sectarians and Islamic
extremists, recruited heavily from school low achievers who welcomed the status of soldier or
jihadist rather than unemployed loser. Southern African and British academics have focused on
social and economic causes of dissent, while almost totally neglecting the warrior culture of Leballo
and others who loved combativeness and welcomed the chance to take part in a war where right and
wrong were so clearly defined.
Unfortunately, Sobukwe did not instruct his followers to be flexible within the parameters of nonviolence when dealing with unforeseen circumstances. As far as the Western Cape was concerned,
Sobukwe stated,

19

Tom Lodge [1985], who suffers from the English disease of ingratiating himself with the great and shunning the
vulgar throng and sweaty masses, gives an incomprehensible Sesotho original of this speech (from police files)
, which should read something like: "Ke 'na Potlako oa Leballo, eo ho thoeng o toere thebe ha lefate la habo le
hapiloe ke balichaba" (Lesotho)
"Ke nna Potlako wa Leballo eo ho thweng o tshwere thebe ha lefatshe la habo le hapilwe ke badichaba" (RSA)
"Ke nna Potlako wa Leballo, yeo ho thweng ho ena, 'tshwara thebe hantle, lefatshe la heno le poketswe ke
badichaba.'" (RSA).
20
In the 1970s Gikuyu youth were initated in oathing ceremonies to fortify support for Jomo Kenyatta. One
friend from Kiganjo, near Mount Kenya, told me, There was this guy in red with a wide red hat and a huge
beard. He was really impressive but I had no idea who he was or where he could have come from. I felt great
being Gikuyu for about three days.
56

Privately, on the Cape tour and at other times in preparing for the campaign, I had
told leaders that if the police ordered crowds to disperse, then they should be ordered by
the leaders to disperse.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1970
The Western Cape PAC had been invigorated by a more dynamic leadership in January 1960 when
Philip Kgosana became regional secretary. Kgosana was a twenty-three year old Cape Town
University student from the Transvaal, who had modelled himself on Sobukwe. The most senior
leader in the area was Nana Mahomo, a member of the PAC NEC and also a University of Cape Town
student. Mahomo had played a prominent role in the 1957 bus boycott but in early 1960 began to have
reservations after inevitable imprisonment and had gone to Johannesburg where he and Molotsi drew
up a plan for PAC external representation. Kgosanas impecunious life as a student in a Langa slum
had forced him to approach benefactors for survival. Patrick Duncan of the Liberal Party hired him on
a commission basis to sell Contact and Kgosana also made other Liberal Party connections through
Africanists. The PAC was ambivalent towards the Liberals, the countrys only legal multi-racial
political party, which, like Capricorn, only supported a qualified franchise. Sobukwe was close friends
with the Rand Daily Mail journalist Benjamin Pogrund, his eventual biographer, and Leballo later
appointed Duncan, who spoke French, as PAC representative to Algeria. Duncans fortnightly paper
Contact gave the PAC publicity. The PACs differences with the Liberals were based on a mixture of
opposing views concerning class, communism, capitalism, and race. Sobukwe had considerable
difficulty with Pogrunds obsessive idealistic support for Israels occupation of Palestine but joked
that, when apartheid ended, Pogrund would move to a shack in Soweto while Africans would move to
mansions in the plush White suburbs. Porgund in fact migrated to Israel. Prominent Liberals, such as
Duncan, Jordan Ngubane and Alan Paton did valuable work publicising injustice but they were
politically erratic. Duncan was rejected by the ANC, helped found the BNP, joined the Liberals, and
eventually the PAC. Ngubane began as an Africanist21, switched to the Liberals, and ended up in
Inkatha. Eurocentric Alan Paton, a paternalist and renowned author with a taste for illicit sex with
Zulu girls (a habit which cost his father his life and almost also his own), lost a finger hitting a
disobedient African in the teeth. He at first placed his faith in the United Partys Jan Hofmeyr
[Alexander 1995] and then supported Capricorn. Kgosanas links with the Liberals were to have
historical repercussions on his judgement.
Sobukwe and Leballo visited Port Elizabeth, Stutterheim, and King Williamstown before returning
to Johannesburg. Peter Molotsi and Nana Mahomo were ordered to leave the country to represent the
PAC overseas during the campaign. However, it was becoming clear that enthusiasm might wane
unless the PAC acted soon. Leballo said later that there was criticism that the PAC had not undertaken
enough preparation: We were being pestered. Even Ngubane and A.P. Mda and many others said that
we had not done spade work. Sobukwe testified that Leballo hero-worshipped Mda, but he himself
was clearly exasperated by Mdas posturing, fear of imprisonment, and eternal wait for perfect
conditions. He was hardly alone. Sobukwe commented on the PAC NEC:
Except for PK, they were a rather cautious lot. It was a strange group. They were
always raising reasons why something or other couldnt be done. PK was always
optimistic about success, but the rest were cautious.
However, he had no illusions about certain aspects of Leballos personality:
PK and I always worked very closely together, and I knew everything he knew.
There was no question of my being deceived. Everyone knew that PK always
21

Ngubane may have regarded himself as a PAC member. Leballo would have known but never mentioned it to this
writer. Sobukwe said that Ngubane and A.B. Ngcobo (who dominated the Natal PAC) werent on speaking terms.
57

exaggerated. He would add a naught to every figure. If there were 25 people at a meeting,
PK would come and tell you there were 250. But we always knew to allow for this.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1970
At the September 1959 PAC NEC meeting in Bloemfontein, Mda, forever the armchair theorist,
had lectured them on Mao Zedongs achievements and how to organize but Sobukwe was no longer
impressed. Sobukwe, lacking funds, was relying on Jordan Ngubanes connections with a Durban
Indian printer to produce a series of mass leaflets. The first, to be issued in January 1960, was to alert
supporters of impending action, the second was to tell them to save and money, the third was the date
and instructions for the campaign launch. When Ngubane failed to deliver, he wrote to Sobukwe
advising against launching the campaign. When Mda also wrote in the same manner, Sobukwe was
too angry to reply. Because of Ngubanes circulars failure, the start of the PAC campaign shifted from
7 March to 21 March 1960.
Meanwhile, the PACs allies in the Basotho heartland were experiencing mixed success. National
elections were held in Basutoland for the first time in January 1960. The BCP was far better organized
and experienced than the BNP but neither party was able to take advantage of a large section of its
natural constituency. The 1960 election permitted Basotho in South Africa to utilize a proxy vote.
The BNP acknowledged that most Union Basotho were BCP supporters but the British estimated only
2% of eligible Basotho voters in the Union used the proxy option. The Basotho Catholic rural women
were supportive of the BNP but, since the vote had been granted to tax-payers over 21 years of age,
only 56 of the registered voters were women. The Marema Tlou had declined because it had been a
one issue party whose only success had been the installation of the new paramount. Party loyalties
were not clear in the first round of voting. In some constituencies there were several candidates
claiming to their partys official choice; while many candidates stood as independents in fear that party
affiliation would damage their chances. Therefore, they waited until the second round to reveal their
allegiance. The BCP won six of the nine councils, the independent candidates two and the Marema
Tlou one. The district council members then voted thirty BCP members, five Marema Tlou, four
Independents and one BNP to the legislative council. When the nine district councils were convened,
the BCP controlled eight of them, due to the Independent members identifying with the party.
The Marema Tlou control of Mohkotlong District enabled it to survive and eventually align with
ANC/SACP to thwart Mokhehle taking power in 1965. Nevertheless, the BCP 1960 election victory
resulted in a defeat for Mokhehle. The last stage in the elections was the legislative councils election
of three of its members to the executive council. Mokhehles electoral majority of thirty out of forty
elected members was negated by forty additional nominated members. Twenty two were senior chiefs,
four were British administrators, and fourteen nominated by the paramount. Consequently, Mokhehle
found himself in a minority. The final stage of the election elevated three members of the legislative
council to the executive council. Ntsu Mokhehle, Bennet Khaketla (his deputy) and Gerard
Ramoreboli, a leading Catholic member of the BCP, stood as Congress candidates. Only Khaketla was
elected, coming second behind the Marema Tlous Chief Samuel Matete (forty four votes) with forty
one votes. Ramoreboli was fifth, with thirty three, and Mokhehle sixth, with thirty. Khaketla and
Matete were joined in the executive council by Chief Leshoboro Majara (who had quit the BCP for the
BNP) and MacFarlane Lepolesa (nominated by the paramount) of the minuscule Progressive Party.
The executive council therefore reflected opinions, not electoral support [Leeman 1985].
Mokhehle had hoped in 1958 he would soon be able to speak as Basutolands elected first minister.
Now, as the PAC surged into confrontation, he was merely a party leader subordinate to his own
deputy in a colonial legislature dominated by feudalists. He felt like Gulliver in Lilliput.
Sobukwe would have been considerable boosted had Basutoland achieved independence in 1960,
like many other African countries that year. Certainly, it was well prepared with a strong, though
somewhat damaged, democratic tradition with a single language, no minority problems, a common
culture, and high literacy rate. It had pressing economic problems since its rising population could no
58

longer be sustained after the Afrikaner conquest of the western farmlands. There were severe soil
erosion and the male workforce was mostly absent in South Africa, thousands of them migrant
workers on the gold mines. However, had Basutoland been far removed from white racist states, it
would have been an early candidate for independence. The British were not prepared to irritate
Pretoria by granting it. The 1958 Basutoland constitution in fact closely resembled the legislative
arrangement implemented in South Africas puppet micro nations, the Bantustans [Rogers 1980].
Sobukwe was still inspired by the Ghanaian example of achieving independence. This probably
explains his refusal to consider preparing for a violent response to the PAC protests. In addition, he
had an optimistic interpretation of international events and the South African judicial system, which
had dealt leniently with previous peaceful protests. In Ghana, Nkrumah had been jailed for three years
after his Positive Action campaign of 1950. International protests and local agitation forced the British
to permit elections which Nkrumah won, while still in prison. The day after his early release, he was
asked to form a government. External opinion also encouraged Sobukwes pacifism. On 3 February
1960, the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, addressed the South African parliament in Cape
Town and repeated the warning given earlier in Ghana that a wind of change was sweeping through
the continent. However, Patrick Duncan (at that time a liberal), who used his status as the son of the
former Governor General to attend social functions, noted that Macmillan suddenly went deaf when
Duncan suggested he meet African leaders. Nevertheless, Macmillans speech, combined with the
granting of independence that year to seventeen former sub-Saharan French, British and Belgian
African colonies, boosted PAC expectations.
There was also ample evidence of hardening NP attitudes. The regimes Prime Minister,
Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, was not an Afrikaner but a Dutch immigrant obsessed with the theoretical
aspects of race-based social engineering, irrespective of consequences. Not only were plans already
under way for a referendum to make the country a republic but the NP had also, as early as the 1930s,
been developing an Africa oriented defence policy and this became more urgent in 1960. Of particular
concern was the impending uncertainty and power vacuum caused by colonial withdrawal.
The Belgian administration in the Congo had originally tried to defuse Africa nationalism with an
unsuccessful plan similar to the Central African Federation where a few members of the African elite
would be co-opted into government and the universal franchise delayed indefinitely. However,
seventy one Europeans had been killed in rioting in the Congolese capital in January 1959. 22 A year ,
the party of the jailed left wing working class politician, Patrice Lumumba, won local elections,
paving the way for national elections in May and independence on 30 June 30. In Rwanda, in 1959,
the Belgian backed Tutsi feudal elite, comprising 15% of the population and a model for Verwoerds
Bantustan policy, had been swept away in a bloodbath by the Hutu majority.
Sobukwes strategy was, therefore, to show that the eleven month old PAC had the organizational
ability to conduct significant if not national protests against the Pass Laws that would entail wave after
wave of peaceful protestors surrendering themselves for arrest until the white security services were
overwhelmed. There had been a local historical precedent of peaceful self sacrifice when the Xhosa
had undertaken a massive apocalyptical campaign of cattle killing, partly in the belief the sacrifice
would be rewarded by divine extermination of the whites, and partly in exasperation with their venal
tribal hierarchy. It is reasonable to assume from later developments elsewhere, such as Eastern Europe
and the Philippines, but most importantly Cape Town that, if Sobukwes strategy of self sacrifice had
been maintained for a week, the idea would probably have seized the national imagination and
escalated. Sobukwe was fully aware that he was facing a minimum three year prison sentence but
reasoned that if the campaigns momentum continued the NP regime would be forced to concede to
PAC demands.
22

It is debatable if Verwoerds regime felt any greater affinity with the predominantly Flemish-speaking Belgians than
with British colonials but the impact of Afrikaners listening to horror stories in Flemish, understood by Afrikaners,
would probably have had more sobering than in English.

59

The Congress Alliance was highly critical of the PACs campaign, firstly, because many of its
own leaders were defendants in the Treason Trial and the Alliance did not want the PAC to show that
national protest was possible without them. Secondly, there was a probability that the Alliance hoped
that its leaders would be found guilty, sentenced and then released following international protests to
negotiate with the NP regime. Despite this, it made no effort to pre-empt the PAC protest. This added
support to the theory that it believed the PAC would fail, be further humiliated and hopefully
obliterated by the launch of the Alliances campaign three days later.
Press conferences played an important part in resistance politics. They announced exactly what the
party intended, sometimes as a record for consequent legal trials but mostly so the message could be
disseminated in the popular press and on radio. On 6 March Sobukwe had informed the regimes
commissioner of police, Major General C. I. Rademeyer, that the PAC campaign would be peaceful
and would commence on 21 March. On Friday morning, 18 March 1960, Sobukwe gave a small press
conference in Mylur House. He confirmed that a national, non-violent, anti-pass law campaign would
commence on Monday 21 March. PAC members had been told to leave their passes at home and
present themselves for arrest at police stations. If they were turned away, they would return later to
demand arrest. If they were charged, they would not ask for bail nor offer any defence nor pay any
fine. After release, they would return to be rearrested.
Sobukwe emphasised to the PAC membership that the campaign was not focusing on throwing
stones at Saracen armoured cars to become small revolutionaries engaged in revolutionary warfare
but on abolishing the pass laws. His circular We Will Win to all regions and branches of the PAC was
absolutely clear on the issue of non-violence:
My instructions are that our people must be taught NOW and CONTINUOUSLY,
THAT IN THIS CAMPAIGN we are going to observe ABSOLUTE NONVIOLENCELet us consider for a moment what violence will achieve. I say quite
POSITIVELY, without fear of contradiction, that the only people who will benefit from
violence are the government and the police.
Despite Sobukwes consistent denunciation of violence, Leballo was still sceptical. The PAC
leadership was in Sobukwes image but the membership had been recruited by Leballo with BCP
encouragement. Sobukwes approach was Gandhian or Christ-like martyrdom; Leballos almost an
Islamic jihad.23 The young, volatile, male, lower class element in the PAC was unsuited to Sobukwes
approach. The NP regime was far more confrontational than it had been in 1950-2 and recent events had
made it even more paranoid. On 21 January, there was enormous African resentment when four hundred
and twenty African and six white miners were lost in a cave-in at a mine with a poor safety record. Three
days later, four white and five African policemen were killed in a riot following a raid on an illegal
liquor outlet at the Durban township of Cato Manor. It was impossible for Sobukwe and the NP regime
to gauge at what point on the continuum Africans of the lower social strata were between fatalist
acceptance of the apartheid regime at one end of the scale, and fanatical genocide on Rwandan lines at
the other. Academic researchers and other commentators stress that the African population did not appear
particularly politically volatile in early 1960 and certainly not near breaking point. That may have been
true but given the lengthy nature of African endurance of the semi-slave labour , it is also equally
pertinent to stress that widespread township black on black violence was mostly the result of releasing
pent up frustration at marginalization and helplessness against white domination. There are many global
examples of perceptions of the demeanour of clandestine revolutionaries before and after taking power.
Nevertheless, Leballo thought that his tsotsi reputation militated against the PAC becoming a national
23

Leballo was raised an Anglican. In Libya the APLA force, including Leballo, nominally converted to Islam and he took
the name Muhammad. However, although he adopted several Swahili customs through lengthy residence in Tanzania, he
never expressed any interest in religion apart from occasional references to the gods of Africa, by which he meant
ancestors.
60

movement. The ANC had started as part of the struggle against White domination but, after 1955, was
rapidly declining because it was not only failing to articulate wider class aspirations. It was also adopting
the anti-democratic and tribal divisiveness of the NP regime, creating administrative power structures
based on insignificant ethnic concerns. Leballo believed that the PAC needed intellectual leadership to
attract the skilled and intelligent hence his appeal for Sobukwe to lead and later, in 1981, for Pokela to
become PAC chairman if he (Leballo) could still be APLA commander24. In the end he wore two hats.
First, as PAC secretary-general, he obeyed Sobukwe not to launch an armed rising. Second, although he
had resigned from the BCP, Leballo still maintained influence as its former Transvaal Province leader
and encouraged the Basotho to respond aggressively if the NP regime used violence. The Transvaal
Basotho were in many ways similar to Rwandan Tutsi refugees in Uganda. Both Tutsi and Basotho
engaged in anti-government activities in foreign countries to boost their own national claims. Leballo, a
Mosotho border chief, had an exact knowledge of how much Basotho land had been lost and in what
manner (Afrikaner violence and missionary sales) during the 19th century. Eventually, officially only a
South African politician, Leballo maintained a significant Basotho following inside Lesotho and on the
Rand up until his death in 1986. His success in expanding the PAC so rapidly was very much because of
the Basotho and encouragement from Ntsu Mokhehle. The BCP had won the January 1960 national
election but, aforementioned, Mokhehle had been denied an executive role through the British using
nominated leaders to dilute the democratic decision. Had Mokhehle been elected to the Executive
Council, perhaps Leballo would have been less cautious in the preparations for the March 21 campaign.
Evidence exists that Leballo had made some preparations at Sharpeville to respond in kind if the NP
regime used violence but Sobukwes uncompromising attitude, probably fuelled by the fear of informers,
prevailed. If it emerged through police interrogation that activists had been instructed to use violence
against police brutality, it would have meant a death sentence for the leadership. If Leballo had
infiltrated violent armed protestors into Sharpeville it would not have been difficult for the NP regime to
isolate the township. However, it is important to emphasise Sobukwes overall strategy, which was not
reliant on centrally controlled action but on igniting a spark that would inflame the whole country and let
unknown leaders emerge to lead their people to freedom. The PAC strongly upheld the idea of
spontaneity, believing that,
The revolutionary energy of thousands of young Africans seemed coiled tight like a spring,
ready to be released. It was immaterial that other evidence could be marshalled to show that
African political consciousness was not, in fact, particularly high countrywide, and the limits of
African tolerance had been far from reached. Even Sobukwe, who was much less prone than some
of his colleagues to take the tenets of nationalism literally, was swept along by a conviction that
the time was right, and the masses would find the way.
Gerhart [1978:233]
Unlike Langa and Nyanga, where Kgosana addressed crowds of several thousand on the evening of
Sunday 20 March, the PAC executive in Orlando held no rally. The following morning, when Sobukwe
rose at 5am to have breakfast, there was no indication about the general mood concerning action.
Sobukwe did not see his children when he left home at 6.30am as they had gone to the home of
Veronicas mother. He was joined, along the four and a half kilometer route to Orlando police station, by
small numbers of PAC supporters. Leballo reported that they were heckled as failures by ANC leaders
driving to work. They visited Jacob Nyaoses house but were informed by Mrs Nyaose that her husband
was out. She was immediately contradicted by her small daughter, who blurted out that her father was in
fact hiding in a wardrobe inside and, evading her mother, led them to a bedroom where they discovered
Nyaose immaculately dressed for work, motionless in a wardrobe. He was taken out to accompany them.
Selby Ngendane declared he had to deliver some keys but was forced along too. Zephaniah Mothopeng
24

He dictated the letter to this writer to type.

61

sent a note saying he had to visit his father, who was seriously ill. Sobukwe tore the message to shreds in
a fury but Mothopeng, rent by conscience, appeared after all and was arrested along with the others.
Surprisingly Orlando, the Africanist stronghold, responded poorly to the Positive Action Campaign.
Hundreds, instead of the expected thousands, turned out for the demonstrations. The reason seems to rest
in the PAC leaderships absence in the preceding weeks touring the country. At Sharpeville large
numbers of members had been recruited through door-to-door canvassing but Orlando had been
neglected. Another cause had been PAC intellectuals maintaining their bureaucratic dominance and so
stifling the very forces they intended to encourage. Alexandra also failed to join the demonstrations.
Madzunya was still angry at the rigged voting that had denied him an NEC post on the PAC. On the
night of the 18th he declared that he could not support Sobukwes campaign because it was badly
prepared, but on the 20th he was more forthright:
Sobukwe and his gang can do what they like, but they have themselves failed to
organize Orlando West, because they are intellectuals, and they only drink tea in their
houses.
Lodge [1983:205]
Other problems had arisen through the PACs limited funds and lack of transport. Howard
Ngcobos Volkswagen Kombi was hired to deliver circulars and transport the NEC in campaign tours.
Even in the days preceding 21 March, Leballo himself was kept busy duplicating circulars.
A sympathetic official at the United States Information Service had given him a minor job and Leballo
used the librarys copying service. This was the basis for Joe Slovos claim that the PAC had been
formed by the CIA.25
At 8.30am, when about 200 PAC demonstrators had gathered, Sobukwe entered the police station
to announce that he and his companions had no passes and were presenting themselves for arrest.
The station commander, Captain De Wet Steyn, told Sobukwe he was busy and he should wait
outside. Steyn then left to warn the crowd to stop its noise, otherwise there would be trouble. Next,
news arrived of violent confrontations at Bophelong and Baopetong near Vereeniging, where the
police had shot dead at least two people and Air Force planes were executing low runs over the
protestors. The police may deliberately have been waiting for bloodshed before arresting Sobukwe.
While Sobukwe was ostensibly protesting against the pass laws, his arrest along with Leballo,
Ngendane and eight others by Special Branch officers, who had arrived at 11am, came after the
deaths, enabling the regime to claim that deaths had resulted as a direct consequence of Sobukwe
challenging the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
Sharpeville
Sharpeville was a township serving the steel and coal industries of Vereeniging and Vanderbijl
Park, eighty kilometres south of Johannesburg. The authorities considered Sharpeville to be efficiently
run and relatively healthy with a low crime rate, a clinic, a brewery, electricity, water, and a cinema.
Local members of the Trotskyite Unity Movement had criticised the ANC at the end of the Defiance
Campaign and had failed in an attempt to boycott the 1953 coronation celebrations. In 1960, the
township had a population of about 36,600 with almost 60% teenagers and children. School leavers
did not want employment in the low paid, heavy manual labour industries and were frustrated by the
25

This is what Slovo [1997:134] wrote about the PAC: It was founded at a meeting held at the United States
Information Library where Potlako Leballo, one of the leaders of this group, was employed. His previous career as a
teacher had come to a sticky end when he was imprisoned on a charge of fraud involving the misuse of school funds
collected from African parents. Leballo did have convictions for an assault charge and for forging his pass book but
Slovo is the only known source for the school and PAC origin stories. His book is a disappointment except for the
account of his early life and his eventual return to Lithuania. His disinformation and the failure of ZAPU in Zimbabwe
led to the dispatch of a senior Soviet intelligence officer to the area where he discovered that Slovos reports were
either fabrications or highly exaggerated.
62

shortage of high school places and in particular the pass laws, which prevented them looking for work
elsewhere. Making the situation worse was the removal to the homelands of about 5000
neighbouring residents with close social and economic ties to Sharpeville. Probably of greatest
importance was Sharpevilles Basotho character. Because of the NP regimes tribal obsessions, the
ANC and PAC regarded tribal references as taboo. Nevertheless Sobukwe admitted there was some
truth in the assertion that Sharpeville was a militant area because it was nearly all Sotho and identified
with Leballo when he spoke to them in the vernacular. Sobukwe himself had used Xhosa with
significant effect during the campaign tour of the Cape.
Leballo agreed that Sharpevilles militancy owed much to unemployment and pass raids were also
severe there but stated that the rapid expansion there of the PAC was due to efficient young Basotho
men from the protectorate, who had worked with Leballo in the BCP. He elaborated:
The Sotho population there, in fact its almost 90 per cent. And when we were issuing
even circulars we only sent them in Sotho there. We didnt bother to have [joint] circulars in
Sotho, Xhosa, Pedi and all, English and other languages. It was too easy.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart interview 1968
The PAC at Sharpeville also used coercion, warning bus drivers that while Sobukwe had ordered
them not to use violence against the Whites the rule did not apply to those who collaborated with
strike breakers. On the morning of the 21st, waiting bus passengers were told not to go to work but no
buses arrived anyway. The Sharpeville PAC leader was the branch secretary Mike Nyakane Tsolo, a
Mosotho who remained loyal to Leballo till the latters death. The Sharpeville PAC wanted Leballo to
lead them on 21 March. Leballo explained that he and the Sharpeville youth were advocating violence:
I was under heavy pressure (to participate in a violent confrontation), to the extent
that the President didn't want to do - to go to Sharpeville, to lead the demonstration there.
The pressure was so much, and at Sharpeville where we had organized the youth there,
came and pleaded with the President. And when he refused I decided that I would escape
and run away so that the day of the struggle there they had already collected their
weapons. And I was of the opinion that as far as I knew that South African police were so
brutal and inhuman - The only way is that before we are mowed down brutally we should
also fight. (However) I can say I was rejected by almost everybody (in the NEC)I was
defeated completelyI had no one to back me on this questionthey did understand my
argument but unfortunately it was a democratic centralism we were discussing.
PAC and Mda interviews with Gail Gerhart 1968
Leballo gave an identical account in the 1980s [Leeman 1985].
The Sharpeville activists left Leballos office at about 8pm on the 20th but Sobukwe, knowing that
Leballo was planning to incite the Sharpeville demonstrators, not only made sure the promised
transport did not arrive but also had him watched throughout the night.
On the morning of 21 March 21, between five to seven thousand demonstrators marched to the
municipal offices at Sharpeville, led by the PAC secretary of the Vaal Triangle. Tsolo walked ahead to
advise the police that interference was inadvisable. He was arrested along with several others and
spent his confinement in the Sharpeville police station. From the radio messages and exchanges he
overheard between the police, he concluded that the police experimented with different tactics on the
various demonstrations, shooting at some places, using low-flying aircraft at others and ignoring the
demonstrators demand for arrest elsewhere.26
Reports of the eventual crowd size at Sharpeville ranged from over 7000 [Pogrund:132], 10,000
26

Tsolo eventually went into exile in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. His family said he avoided talking about the
issue.
63

[Sampson:130] to 20,000 [regime premier Hendrik Verwoerd]. Lodge [210] and Pogrund [136]
stressed that the three hundred strong police force at Sharpeville, backed by Saracen armoured cars,
was edgy, because of the Cato Manor police deaths three months earlier that had been sparked by a
policeman treading on a shebeen queens foot. There is general agreement among white commentators
that some of the police panicked. The crowd was certainly unpredictable and volatile. At 1.15pm,
there was an altercation at the police station compound gate when a demonstrator was arrested.
A white policeman was either deliberately or accidentally pushed to the ground and many
demonstrators surged forward through curiosity, hostility or believing there was an opportunity to
fulfill their objective of swamping the police station demanding to be arrested. At this point a Rand
Daily Mail (RDM) team including Sobukwes white friend, Benjamin Pogrund, was amiably chatting
to demonstrators who had engulfed their car. Suddenly firing broke out. Tsolo, inside the police
station, stated that it seemed a direct order initiated the shooting. Pogrund was caught by surprise by
initial shots but felt one or two policemen opened up followed by a sustained volley of automatic and
single shots. His colleague, Ian Berry, was able to take dramatic photographs of the fleeing crowd
before the RDM team barely escaped death as the front ranks of the demonstrators, having briefly
retaliated against the police with stones and knobkerries, vented full fury on the white journalists.
Verwoerd claimed three shots were fired from the crowd while the Star newspaper claimed the police
reacted to a bombardment of stones. The Afrikaans Vaderland reported the police were assailed by an
armed mob of fanatics crazed with a blood lust. Bishop Ambrose Reeves swiftly moved to record
testimonies from hospitalized victims.
The Commission of Enquiry into the Sharpeville Massacre never publicly issued a full report of its
findings but accepted the police claim of crowd hostility and aggression. Officially, police gunfire
killed sixty seven to seventy two demonstrators including ten children and eight women. The PAC
estimate of wounded was higher than the official figure of 186, because Africans wounded by police
preferred to avoid hospital if their injuries were not life threatening. Only about 15% of the victims
were shot while facing the police. Three policemen sustained minor injuries from stones. Officially,
the police discharged 705 rounds of ammunition.
The police killed other demonstrators at Langa, Vanderbijl Park, Nyanga and Gugulethu. Strikes
and further shootings followed. In the aftermath of Sharpeville, the ANC came out in support of the
PAC and declared a national day of mourning. Whites inundated the Canadian and Australian high
commissions to enquire about emigration and many bought weapons. Investors from overseas
withdrew millions of pounds from South Africa. The NP regime was condemned in a torrent of world
criticism and on 30 March a state of emergency was declared, the first since the Afrikaner rising in the
First World War. Steel-helmeted troops patrolled the streets of Johannesburg.
The effective power brokers of the ANC/SACP, Mandela, Slovo, Sisulu, and Nokwe, met on the
evening of the massacre to discuss strategy. They resolved to launch a pass burning campaign
combined with a national day of mourning on which workers would stay at home. Nokwe was
dispatched to advise Lutuli to burn his pass. However, on 25 March, the Commissioner of Police
announced that nobody would be arrested for pass violations and the next day the Pass Laws were
suspended for the first time, before Lutulis much publicized photo opportunity looking solemnly at
the charred remains of his pass book. Mandela, Nokwe and many others followed his example but,
since the laws had been suspended, the exercise was pointless. Police Commissioner Rademeyer then
wrecked the ANCs long planned national anti Pass Campaign by explaining that the suspension of the
pass laws had been motivated by the need to protect the African population from harassment by
political agitators. If Rademeyer or his political controllers had been quicker witted (they had had
three months warning) they would have used such an announcement for March 20 and so avoided
Sharpeville and wrecked both the PAC and ANCs campaigns. In the wake of the massacre, the ANC
at least had a Plan B - The Day of Mourning was scheduled for March 28. Sobukwe was furious.
Just before the police opened fire at Sharpeville, Sobukwe had joined his leading PAC colleagues at
Johannesburg police headquarters at Marshall Square, following police searches of his house and
64

university office in his presence. Sobukwe had been held in reserve during the Defiance Campaign
and the news from Sharpeville severely shook him. His inflexibility hampered him. Whereas Leballo,
eternally combative, optimistic, exuberant, and expansive, had weathered several major setbacks by
bouncing back with often seemingly overambitious objectives, Sobukwe may not have been in a state
of shock (although he did suffer an extraordinary lapse by approaching Joe Slovo about an appeal
[Pogrund 1990:169]) but he was brooding too long on how his campaign had resulted in horrendously
unexpected consequences. Years later, the world heavyweight boxing champion, Mike Tyson,
observed perceptively, Everyone gotta plan till they get hit, but at least Sobukwes mind was clear
and he was being supplied with newspapers and allowed visitors. He needed a statesmanlike stance
but instead responded to Lutulis destruction of his pass by observing caustically that Lutuli now had
the courage which he has lacked for over twelve years to burn his reference book after passes have
been suspended, and the PAC was angered by what they interpreted as Bishop Ambrose Reeves selfserving work recording accounts in hospital from Sharpeville wounded. Sobukwes bitterness at what
he perceived as his timid upper class political rivals using the massacre to enhance themselves was
understandable but as a suddenly emergent national figure he was in danger of appearing petty,
divisive, and mean spirited. The enemy was the racist state not the ANC Alliance. Perhaps he could
have issued directives treating the Alliance as a misguided, overcautious, well meaning junior partner.
Instead, he warned the Alliance and Liberal Party to keep their hands off the PACs campaign. It was
as if he were sulking that the PAC campaign should have been successful as the Gandhian and
Ghanaian examples he had followed and he was unable to deal with the failure. The NP verkramptes
were fully aware of events in India and Ghana and were not British colonial administrators with
homes to return to elsewhere. Passive resistance as an end in itself suddenly seemed not the wisest
strategy and Sobukwe might have well been hanged for a lion than a lamb as Leballo had suggested.
More liberal pressure resulted in Lutuli, not Sobukwe, being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Lutulis
book Let my People Go had been ghost written by Rev Charles Hooper, an Anglican pastor
subordinate to Reeves.
The two main branches of the Africanist movement the PAC and the BCP of Lesotho
respectively failed in 1960 and 1970 to establish an effective command structure once their leaders
had been detained. In the case of the PAC the party was too young to have had time to establish
effective leadership beyond the third and fourth levels but Sobukwes strategy dictated that unknowns
would fill the void. His belief was almost realized in Cape Town.
History is full of incidents where one person turned the course of a battle, such as the UmCijo
soldier at Isandlwana. There are also examples where a commander won a battle by deliberately
ignoring or disobeying an order, such as the British admiral Horatio Nelson clapping a telescope to his
blind eye to inspect a naval signal commanding him to withdraw. Lastly there are cases of local
commanders deciding to disobey orders with disastrous results, such as at Isandhlwana when Colonel
Durnford moved troops out of camp to block what he thought was an escape by a limited Zulu force
only to be overwhelmed by the entire Zulu army [Morris 1965].
Molete was the most senior leader still free but the initiative lay with Philip Kgosana, the PAC
Western Cape secretary. Kgosana was talented and dedicated with highly effective organizational
abilities. On the evening of March 20, about ten thousand of his followers gathered at Langa police
station and were baton charged. The crowd retaliated with stones and came under fire. This enraged
the protestors, who attacked vehicles and set light to buildings. The death toll was unknown but
probably numbered less than ten. The next day, the March 21, Kgosana proceeded cautiously, aware
that police and army reinforcements had arrived during the night but the PAC nevertheless staged
demonstrations outside three police stations around Cape Town. Although over a thousand succeeded
in being arrested at Wynberg, the PAC was more wary at Langa, Nyanga, and Nyanga West. Rather
than order his 5000 followers at Langa police station to surrender themselves, Kgosana ordered them
to disperse because he feared violence. However, he advised them that in the evening they would
probably receive new instructions from party headquarters. Meanwhile activists had been highly
65

successful in dissuading workers to stay away from work.

Once Kgosana had learnt of about forty deaths at Sharpeville he went into Cape Town and was
absent when police attacked his supporters who had gathered for the evening message. They threw
stones at the police, who then killed two whereupon rioting and arson spread through Langa.
On Tuesday morning the police counter attacked by raiding hostels and beating anyone they found but
the PAC responded by blocking bus movements at Nyanga.
What followed was surreal. Kgosana began disregarding Sobukwes implicit instructions. In May
1959 Sobukwe had warned off his followers from associating with Bishop Ambrose Reeves, Bishop
Huddleston, and Patrick Duncan although he relented enough to accept unconditional help from the
Liberal Party and the highly respected white womens pressure group The Black Sash while ordering
the party not to deal with SACP fronts such as the COD. On Wednesday evening Kgosana should
have been discussing strategy with his lieutenants. Instead, he was duchessed.27 He attended a
dinner party organized by Patrick Duncan. Also present were Anton Rupert, Randolph Vigne and
Thomas Ngwenya. When the Second World War broke out, Anton Rupert had supported the German
Nazi Party and then played a major role in developing Afrikaner economic development before
founding the Rembrandt Tobacco Corporation in 1947 with the support of the clandestine
Broederbond. Rupert was the countrys most powerful Afrikaner businessman and had significantly
financed the National Party throughout the 1950s. Now, however, he was beginning to doubt its
policies and in 1958 broke with Verwoerd. Nevertheless, he was hardly an appropriate dinner
companion for the PACs pivotal figure and neither were his fellow guests. Duncan had been the
Liberal Partys national organiser and represented it in Accra when Mokhehle was elected to the
Steering Committee. Although he edited the African-oriented radical publication Contact. He was a
loose cannon, having assisted Leabua Jonathan to launch the BNP [Patrick Duncan papers, York
University UK, quoted in Leeman 1985]. Randolph Vigne was vice president of the Liberal party and
a future prominent member of the Armed Resistance Movement while, remarkably, Ngwenya held
dual membership of the Liberal Party and the ANC.
Nevertheless, this was an opportunity for Kgosana to sound out his fellow diners, especially
Rupert, on their views of the regimes impending intentions. Although Kgosana was potentially the
most dangerous man in the country, Rupert didnt see it that way. Rupert was fully aware of
Verwoerds success in curbing the verligte wing of the NP regime and, if he gave Kgosana advice, it
would have been to warn him not to be fooled by supposedly conciliatory approaches, because the
basic nature of the regime was uncompromising kragdadigheid (determination to use force). Rupert
nevertheless patronized Kgosana, belittling the PAC and urging him to remember that he was just a
young man with a chance to enjoy life. Kgosana was unimpressed but a seed may have been planted in
his mind that powerful Afrikaners might listen to him. Given Kgosanas subsequent messianic
delusions in exile, he may have imaged he was the new Nkrumah about to negotiate for power.
On Thursday, Kgosana maintained his maverick stance by continuing to avoid his followers,
preferring instead to visit the offices of Contact and New Age, the SACP newspaper. By the evening,
a hundred Langa residents demanded arrest at Cape Town police headquarters and, on Friday 25,
about half of the citys African workers remained on strike. Elsewhere, the PAC campaign was over.
That day, Kgosana resumed his activist role, leading around 3000 supporters to police headquarters at
Caledon Square to demand arrest. The police hauled in a handful, including Kgosana, but shortly
afterwards he and his companions were released because the police commander, probably aware of
developments in Johannesburg, declared that the pass laws were being suspended. Kgosana and his
27

Originally, a nineteenth century expression meaning overcome with flattery (usually by a woman) and
probably left at a disadvantage. Michael Collins, the Irish revolutionary leader, was accused of being likewise
flattered by the glamour of London society during negotiations for Irish independence. Irish banknotes showed
either the image or watermark image of Hazel, Lady Lavery (18801935) from 1928 until replaced by the Euro in
2002. Lady Lavery hosted Michael Collins in London during the negotiations. When Collins was assassinated in
1922, her miniature was found hanging round his neck.
66

delighted supporters, unaware of Rademeyers impending announcement that would wreck the ANCs
anti-Pass campaign and the remnants of the PACs own struggle, naturally interpreted the suspension
as their own triumph.
The Caledon Square episode of 24 March a large crowd, arrests, negotiations and release of
Kgosana and fellow leaders had proved a fortuitous practice run but the PAC leaders failed to
develop a new strategy for the changed circumstances. Rademeyer had outmaneuvered them by
temporarily removing their Pass Law target; and the ANC had seized back the political initiative by
calling for a general strike out of respect for the Day of Mourning. Sobukwe and the other PAC
national leaders were in no position to help. They appeared in court on Thursday 24 March where
Sobukwe asked to attend the funeral of the slaughtered demonstrators. The magistrate refused on the
grounds that he would not grant bail. Sobukwe had directed the PAC not to seek bail or pay fines and
he responded: We dont ask for bail. Although there was never any chance of him personally being
granted bail, his inflexibility was costing the PAC valuable strategic ground. The no fine, no bail
policy had been designed for mass arrests following peaceful incidents. Sobukwe did not recognize
that the dramatically changed circumstances now required leadership on the outside. Instead of
immediately reversing his decision to allow some of his fellow leaders to take control, he waited until
weaker members cracked before permitting them to accept bail or fines, which seriously undermined
their authority. In the meantime, he was still able to communicate with Z. B. Molete and William
Jolobe through visitors. Molete was more dynamic but Jolobe served as PAC acting president until
Leballo escaped from restriction near Richards Bay in late 1962. Both Molete and Jolobe urged their
supporters either to continue the anti-pass campaign or stay at home from work. However, the PAC
was in danger of being outmaneuvered by the ANCs decision to switch from its 31 March anti-pass
campaign to the Day of Mourning for the PACs Sharpeville victims on 28 March. Africans were
already staying away from work in considerable numbers and Sobukwe was furious about the prospect
of the ANC claiming the escalating absenteeism as an ANC triumph.
The Day of Mourning of Monday 28 March 1960 received huge national widespread. There was
general agreement that in urban areas 95% of African workers stayed away from work in respect for
the Sharpeville massacre but arrests early the next morning netted more leaders including Molete, who
was detained for five months.
In Cape Town, Colonel Terblanche continued his cautious strategy to ensure there was no
repetition of Sharpeville. He considered rightly that some flexibility might defuse the situation and did
not interpret granting bail to Kgosana as a major concession. Although the situation was still
dangerous, he advised against arresting Liberal party activists, many of whom were distributing food
and other supplies to the volatile townships. Terblanche made further allowances. He arranged for
loudspeaker equipment to be supplied to the Langa PAC for the Day of Mourning service on 18
March, attended by about 50,000 township residents, at which no uniformed police attended. Despite
this, Terblanche resumed violent raids that evening and the following morning aimed at breaking the
strike.
Kgosana was totally unprepared for the reaction planned by anonymous PAC activists at Langa and
Nyanga. He was still in bed on the morning of Wednesday 30 March when he learnt that thousands of
marchers from Langa and Nyanga were converging on Cape Town, sixteen kilometers away.
He rushed to join them and was informed it was a protest against the police raids and their target was
police headquarters in Caledon Square. He convinced them to head instead for the parliament building
(The regimes members of parliament divided their sessions between two parliament buildings, one in
Pretoria and the other in Cape Town) to confront the Minister of Justice, Frans C. Erasmus. When the
marchers, estimated at between thirty and fifty thousand, reached the intersection of Rowland and
Buitenkant streets, they encountered a police block. Kgosana negotiated with the detective in
command and the marchers, amiable and cooperative, agreed to divert to Caledon Square. Saracen
armored cars and armed soldiers were stationed outside parliament. To everyones astonishment,
without a shot being fired, the tens of thousands of African demonstrators found they had occupied
67

barely defended central Cape Town. If trouble had broken out, intervention by the parliamentary guard
could have incited the demonstrators in a hostile destructive, perhaps murderous, flight that would
have wrecked, looted, and burned government offices, prestigious buildings, banks, diplomatic
missions, major stores, and even the docks and shipping. If the crowd had been forced back to the
townships, it could have caused carnage in the white suburbs it had passed on the way in.
Terblanche was waiting at police headquarters in Caledon Square and was prepared to negotiate
with Kgosana, who had taken command of the march. Kgosana demanded the release of Sobukwe and
the other leaders, an end to police brutality, and a meeting with Erasmus, a hard-line former defence
minister (1948-59). Terblanche phoned the minister for instructions. The exact details of the
conversation have never been revealed but it is clear that Terblanche refused Erasmuss order to use
force against the crowd. He could give Kgosana no assurance about releasing the PAC leaders or
changing police tactics but promised a meeting with Erasmus, if Kgosana dispersed the crowd and
returned at 5pm.
The rapport already established between the two men obviously affected Kgosanas judgment,
already exhilarated from his dealings with Rupert and his success in controlling large demonstrations.
He took Terblanche at his word, although there is no evidence that Erasmus had promised such a
meeting. One would have expected Kgosana to have stood his ground a little longer, insisting on
Sobukwes release, more so if he had spent the last few days entirely in the company of the more
militant lower echelons of the party. While he later justified himself by saying his decision to disperse
the marchers was in accordance with Sobukwes instructions about obeying police orders to that
effect, he had already considerably deviated from PAC guidelines by enjoying far too cordial relations
with inappropriate company. He could have been more reserved and distant with Terblanche, Rupert,
and Duncan, consulted more with his followers, and considered strategies more suited to the changed
circumstances, which is a circumspect way of stating he should have considered violence or
uncompromising passive resistance. Ultimately, the negotiations and promises, real or fabricated, were
of no consequence because the regime declared a state of emergency after Kgosana had ordered the
marchers to disperse. When he arrived at 5pm for his interview with Erasmus, he was arrested and
held without trial for five months. Erasmuss fury at Terblanches non-confrontational approach cost
Terblanche his career. Erasmus should have been profoundly grateful. In 2004 Kgosana was awarded
an ANC decoration, Officer of the Order of the Disa,28 for courageous leadership and negotiating
skills during this historic march [which] prevented a bloodbath and was an important milestone on the
road to democracy in South Africa. Kgosana had obviously never read Trotsky [1933, IV]; In a
serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inappropriate time.
The Emperor Frederick the Great of Prussia once roared at his elite guards when they faltered
during an attack: Dogs, do you want to live forever?29 When a cause is great enough, extremist
political activists and soldiers know that success may depend on them risking their lives at a decisive
moment. As individual battle honours for valor reveal, many vital heroic acts are performed by the
most unlikely people, who often survive the ordeal. Caledon Square was awash with suitable
candidates.
Those who were political activists and irregular troops in the South African and Lesotho liberation
movements are painfully aware of the broken lives, wretched existence, failed or unhappy marriages,
estranged children, impecuniousness, imprisonment, loneliness and loss of status in exile, bitterness,
stress-related alcoholism and other afflictions, betrayals, and tragedies that this career path gave most
of us. Joe Slovo lost his wife Ruth First to a parcel bomb and Albie Sachs was mutilated in the same
way. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for twenty seven years, Sobukwe restricted until his death, Ntsu
Mokhehle twenty three years a prisoner, fugitive, and eventually a traitor with a mind so damaged he
could not remember Mandelas name when he welcomed him during a state visit. Very few ever had
the opportunity to take dangerous risks but those that did testify that it compensated for all the
28
29

Disa was a pagan Swedish chieftainess whose name was given to a South African orchid.
Hunde, wollt ihr ewig leben?
68

setbacks, indignities, and jealous criticism they experienced before and since. OMearas book speaks
of South Africas lost forty years but he focuses on Afrikaner politics and economic opportunities not
on the lives of Africans, particularly the class that entered Cape Town fifty years ago on 30 March
1960. It would be interesting to consult surviving participants to ascertain if they feel they should have
attempted to seize control of Cape Town that day. In retrospect were their lives after the march
fulfilling enough so that they had no regrets about marching home peacefully?
Any rioting in central Cape Town would eventually have been ruthlessly suppressed but its
consequences would have been far more serious than the 1976 Soweto and Cape risings, which were
confined to the townships. Cape Town was inadequately garrisoned and, before the march dispersed,
the regime was already calling in sailors to help bolster security. News of sustained street fighting,
destruction of property including police headquarters, combined with insurgent capture and use of
weapons would inevitably have inspired similar actions in Durban and other volatile urban areas.
As the regimes security forces took control, the focus would have shifted to more national stay-athome strikes, bolstered by newly politicized activists forcing workers to comply and then
systematically murdering police spies and informers while developing an alternative government, as
Michael Collins achieved in Ireland. Street fighting and large numbers of casualties in Cape Town
would not have toppled the NP regime but anger at further massacres would probably have created a
national culture of formidable and lasting urban resistance that manifested itself in a growing cycle of
industrial action, attacks on whites, and African student unrest. While rural and lower class urban
Afrikaners would have remained as obdurate as ever, the panic after Sharpeville indicated that the
English speaking community would have rapidly lost confidence and the consequent flight of capital,
skills, and investment would possibly have strengthened the verligte pragmatic reformist elements
hand in searching for a compromise with the ANC, as eventually happened. Future resistance was
severely compromised by the split in the liberation movement along class lines, which denied the
militant PAC funding from the South African middle class and the Soviet bloc. Funds were therefore
allocated to easily identifiable upper class ANC/SACP professionals. In the 1970s, the Lesotho
Liberation Army (Lekhotla la Topollo) was transported, equipped and supplied by an APLA officer
with limited independent means and donations from Basotho miners on the Rand and at Welkom30,
but PAC had achieved very little in getting miners support.
Resistance in fact continued after Kgosanas decision to send the marchers home. Serious violence
threatened the centre of Durban on 31 March and 1 April, and freelance vigilantes kept African
commuters away from work in parts of Johannesburg. However, although rural police forces areas
were being depleted in answer to the urban emergencies, resistance petered out. Most commentaries
on Sharpeville and its aftermath stress that the PAC was ill prepared and Kgosana easily duped.
However, it appears more accurate to apportion blame on the ANCs refusal to accommodate the
aspirations of the expanding African lower middle class and migrant workers, whose frustration
created the PAC.
The NP regime missed a strategic opportunity by failing to follow the advice of Len Lee-Warden,
the COD white MP for the Western Cape African voters, who argued that the PAC alone should be
banned:
30

The APLA officers initial thirteen thousand pound sterling donation (including 3000 to Qhobela Molapo the BCP
London representative) and a large Bedford van (which was actually lost when SWAPO, a Soviet allied movement, duped
Selatile by reneging on its promise to import it into Tanzania free) enabled the LLA to travel in a large group, which
convinced the miners that the war was worth funding. The Mokhehle brothers ordered collections from the miners to be
sent west by car over a weekend to Botswana where much was embezzled by Shakhane at the Gaborone casino and, in
partnership with Moeketsi Sello (later a Lesotho member of parliament), for illegal diamond dealing. Mapefane was
sacked for his carefully worded suggestion that the money be sent east, direct to the LLA on the Lesotho borderlands.
Funding from the APLA officer terminated when Ntsu Mokhehle and Dr Tsiu Selatile asked for 46,000 Rand to buy a
house for Ntsu Mokhehle and his Motswana mistress. Molapo splurged his funds at Harrods in London but later gained
popularity with ex-LLA guerrillas by falsely claiming to have funded their journey from Tanzania to Botswana [PAC
DVD data disk letters and shipping documents].
69

If ever there was a need, it exists today for the government to realise that it has in the
ANC a friend and not an enemy, because these two organisations that we are asked to ban
are so diametrically opposed that the government should seize the opportunity of
appealing to the ANC to assist it to restore peace and order in South Africa.
Had the NP regime followed this line, the ANC would probably have split again as radicals chose
to distance themselves from being labelled government stooges. However, both parties were banned
on 8 April 1960. On 9 April, Verwoerd was shot through the cheek and ear by an English speaking
white farmer, who hanged himself at a mental institution in October 1961. Verwoerd survived and
returned to work, convinced he had been spared for a divine mission. The pass laws were restored on
10 April and, since Africans could not work without a pass, there were humiliating scenes when large
numbers queued to pay for new ones.
Sobukwes refusal to consider alternative strategies had been directed by a determination to avoid
violence. His insistence on principle and his cynical dismissal of the media had unforeseen
consequences, besides undermining the credibility of colleagues who accepted bail. The PAC
represented working class and rural activists who used the vernacular, and distrusted or loathed
whites, especially journalists. More importantly, they distanced themselves from the global caring
middle class who stereotyped Africans as Christ-like martyrs. Sobukwes last public appearance was
in a magistrates court and, had he known this was the last time he could make any impact, he might
have acted differently. However, the offences from an international viewpoint seemed rather trivial
and the sentences perhaps could have been ameliorated by paying fines or altered following appeal by
lawyers, who could prove that Sobukwe and his NEC had no connection to violence and the onus was
on the South African police. Yet, Sobukwe had criticised ANC leaders for hiring defence lawyers at
great expense while the ANC rank and file were jailed. Consequently, he insisted on a policy of no
plea, no bail, no defence, no fine, with the result that on 4 May he was jailed for three years, a mere
forty-three days after Sharpeville. Leballo and three others received two years and the remaining
fourteen, eighteen months, including Madzunya, who had boycotted the demonstrations. Kgosana
skipped bail and was smuggled out of the country by two schoolboys working for BCP, one of whom,
Matooane Chazi Mapefane, later trained the PACs military wing in Libya and commanded the
Lesotho Liberation Army. The other, Tsiu Selatile, became the first African member of the Soviet
Academy of Sciences.
Before his trial, Sobukwe was incarcerated in Number Four prison at Constitution Hill in
Johannesburg. He was then transferred to Stoneyard in Benoni and then to Stofberg Gedenkskool in
the OFS close to the Vaal river near Deneysville. From there, he was moved to Witbank, east of
Pretoria and then to Pretoria central jail. The PAC policy of offering no case enabled the regime to
incarcerate the leaders in a space of weeks before international opinion and local activists could be
organized to publicize the case. In contrast, Mandelas trial in October 1962 commenced more than
two months after his 5 August arrest in which time a support committee had been formed. The Rivonia
trial lasted six months under the international media spotlight and not only restored Mandelas fading
political credibility but made him a global figure.
Zondeni Veronica Sobukwe [1997] stated that her husband was first held in Number Four prison at
Constitution Hill in Johannesburg and then transferred to Stoneyard in Benoni. He was then taken to
Stofberg, from there to Witbank, from Witbank to Pretoria Central Jail. Leballo said that jailed PAC
national executive committee was sent for hard labour at Blue Sky prison near Boksburg. From there
they were moved to Stofberg Gedenk Skool in the OFS to clear a forest, remove boulders and dig an
irrigation lake. When many began to crack under the physical strain and abuse, Sobukwe ordered
many of them to pay their fines and go home. Violence erupted between the guards and prisoners but,
according to Leballo, the authorities later allowed some leniency and Sobukwe was able to use his
authority in organising labour. After the construction had been completed, the prisoners were moved
70

to Witbank Agricultural Prison in the northern Transvaal but Sobukwe and Leballo with a few others
were sent to New Lock Prison in Pretoria. Leballo was held in extreme conditions in solitary
confinement for frequent indiscipline. His sight was damaged, his blood pressure rose and he suffered
thereafter from rheumatism and hypertension, which made his pretence of being ten years younger
than he actually was, more difficult to sustain. He was released in May 1962 and banished to a game
reserve in Tongaland between Swaziland and the Indian Ocean. With the assistance of Joe Mkwanazi,
a PAC activist and headmaster of the nearby Mseleni Mission School, he managed to escape and was
smuggled across the Basutoland border by Ntsu Mokhehle. The Tanganyikan leader, Julius Nyerere,
had urged Mandela to wait until Sobukwe was released before starting an armed insurrection so
Mandela arranged to meet Leballo to ease over differences and form a united front. However,
Mandela was arrested on 6 August, 1962, the day before Leballo reached Maseru.

Mandela and Lutuli burning their pass books after the pass laws had been suspended.

Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe

Potlako Kitchener Leballo

71

CHAPTER FIVE
Basutoland had a historical reputation as the centre of all native agitations [Leeman 1985:45].
In the 1960s the ANC, PAC and SACP tried to make secure bases in the protectorate, the PAC purely
for military reasons, the ANC and SACP to infiltrate or form client Basotho political parties. In
addition the NP regime and OMI Canadian Catholic missionaries worked to install the BNP as the
government at independence while the departing British administration formed the Police Mobile
Unit, commanded by privately contracted British officers to counter perceived future BCP linked
unrest; and favoured politicians subscribing to constitutional monarchy and the Black Englishman
ideal.
Ntsu Mokhehle had won thirty six of the forty elected seats in the new legislature but was not
treated as premier in waiting. His deputy, Bennet Khaketla, had joined the party late, in 1958, to
protect his newspaper Mohlabani, which supported BCPs views after the BCP had launched its own
new publication, Makatolle. When Khaketla, who was supported as a future prime minister by the
British government secretary, Gordon Hector, refused the BCP demand to decline his seat on the
executive council, with eventual catastrophic consequences, the BCP began the first of a series of local
battles to preserve unity and focus on the future. Externally, the Transvaal province branch of the party
was heavily embroiled in the March 1960 demonstrations, because the BCP permitted dual party
membership until December that year. Secondly, Mokhehle was Nkrumahs man in Southern Africa,
working for freedom for both Basutoland and South Africa by 1963. While relieved that his decision
to return to Basutoland had saved him from sharing the fate of the PAC leaders, he felt even more as if
he were in Lilliput. He fought off leadership challenges, juggled the diverse elements within the BCP:
the South African based left wing and the anarchistic Russians (migrant miners), the militant
republican peasantry in Basutoland, the small but influential Maseru based anglophiles, and the newly
formed radical student union. However, the BCP did little or no work in winning over the Basotho
Catholic rural women, who had a hard headed realism and no interest at all in Afro-Asian solidarity
and other issues, if they did not bring their migrant men folk home and give their children a better
future. Nor could he make any headway with the University College, Roma. Whereas, University
College Fort Hare had enabled many of the most talented and politicized young Africans to formulate
political strategies and go on to head the ANC, BCP and PAC, Basutolands only university was a
creation of the Canadian OMI and geared to producing carefully screened conservative Catholic civil
servants. Of great importance was that, despite his setback after winning the election, he was the only
leader of the Fort Hare generation who had practical political experience free of persecution and,
despite his lasting friendship with Sobukwe and Leballo, was committed to parliamentary democracy
not armed insurrection. Over the next ten years he would accumulate a wealth of practical experience
in parliamentary practices and developing communal peasant initiatives but ultimately would be
forced into revolutionary warfare.
After Sharpeville, Joe Matthews was dispatched by the SACP with considerable regular Soviet
funding to take over the BCP. His initial attempt failed but obliged the BCP to terminate dual party
membership as the ANC-PAC dispute was causing friction. Matthews then switched his funding to
form the Lesotho Communist Party. This was not at all successful and the LCP split into factions
respectively allied to Moscow and Beijing. Matthews then accompanied Mandela to other African
countries. His observations on Mandelas rapid political development, in particular his changing
attitude towards the PAC, alarmed the SACP.
While the PAC leadership had been locked up, influential members of both ANC and PAC
concluded that, given the savagery of the NP crackdown and its steps to break from the
Commonwealth and declare a Republic in 1961, the two parties should consider a united strategy.
In April 1960, Peter Molotsi, Nana Mahomo (PAC) and Oliver Tambo (ANC) came under pressure in
Ghana to unite against the white enemy. The next month in Addis Ababa, the Second Conference of
72

Independent African states established offices in London, Cairo, Accra, Dar es Salaam and facilities
for representatives at the United Nations, the Afro-Asian countries and the British Commonwealth for
the newly-constituted South African United Front (SAUF) to which the PAC, ANC, SAIC and the
South-West African National Union (SWANU) belonged.
Z. B. Molete had been released in August 1960 and became PAC acting president. He and Joe
Molefi discussed unity with the ANC. On 16 and 17 December, 1960, a consultative conference was
held to decide on unity and a joint course of action. The PAC delegation, Molete, Molefi and Francis
Mbelu, called for a full conference which should be attended by African delegates alone. No objection
was raised by the Congress Alliance delegation of Govan Mbeki (SACP), Dr William Conco,
Dr Njongwe (ANC) or the ex-ANCYL leader and non PAC Africanist, G. M. Pitje. A Continuation
Committee was formed in December, but, in March 1961, the PAC withdrew from the proceedings,
feeling that they were being used by the ANC to bolster that party's declining fortunes. On 25 and 26
March, 1961, an All-In Conference was held at Pietermaritzburg, ostensibly to decide a suitable
course of action regarding protests against the NP regimes decision to quit the Commonwealth and
declare a republic on 31st May that year. The PAC and BCP believed that conference was stagemanaged by the ANC to demonstrate the party's new-found militancy under Mandela to the detriment
of Lutuli. The ANC dominated the 1,400 member conference and Mandela appeared dramatically - his
first public platform appearance since his banning in 1952 - to issue an ultimatum to the Verwoerd
government. Having done this, it was announced that he was the secretary of a newly-formed National
Action Council but that the identity of the other members of this organisation must be kept secret.
With that, he disappeared. The conference, guided by the ANC, endorsed Mandela's appeal for a stayat-home strike to coincide with Republic Day.
Jordan Ngubane (Liberal Party) and other delegates severely criticised the event arguing that they
had convened in the spirit of earlier meetings (1912 and 1935-36) when Africans from widely
differing backgrounds had met to find common ground. The police responded on 24 May by arresting
8,000-10,000 ANC suspects. Mandela evaded capture during the massive round-up which greeted his
call for action. The PAC denounced the stay-at-home call and the protests were a failure. Mokhehle
criticised Mandela for alerting the white authorities in advance and said he had "run away" to
Basutoland after "causing a mess," a statement which was virulently attacked in New Age. New Age
continued its assault in a later edition, stating,
"Mr Mokhehle's bold statement (perhaps for the benefit of the South African Police)
that Mr Mandela has run away to Basutoland and was present at a meeting to discuss 'the
conquest of the BCP' is the most despicable slander and lie ever fabricated by what is
supposed to be a responsible leader of a struggling people."
Mokhehle clarified his remarks by explaining that Mandela, Sisulu, Moses Kotane and Matthews
met the BCP Executive to seek support for the 31 May protests. They wanted the BCP to join them in
setting up a printing press, the use of which should be denied the PAC. They also asked the BCP to
organise anti-Republic Day demonstrations in Basutoland. Lastly, they advised the BCP to demand
independence, instead of responsible government. Mokhehle, aware of Matthews' activities, doubted
their sincerity and declined to assist. Lutuli now found his passive resistance beliefs were no longer
acceptable to his SACP allies and, more importantly, Nelson Mandela. Several opponents of white
minority rule such as Mahatma Gandhi, Josiah Gumede, Potlako Leballo, James La Guma, Joe Slovo
(who added three years to his age to be accepted for Second World War Service), Rusty Bernstein,
Jack Hodgson, and Mary Benson had served in the local military forces from the South African War to
the Second World War but, until 1960, only Leballo had seriously considered armed revolution.
The SACP/ANC, given their class concerns and Soviet allegiance, adopted a carefully controlled
sabotage strategy that would cause extensive economic damage, refrain from killing anyone, and
eventually force the white regime to negotiate so the ANC/SACP could join and modify the existing
73

structure rather than replace it. This contrasted with the revolutionaries who had seized power in Cuba
in 1959 by combining urban and rural resistance and cooperating with other organizations including
the Communist Party, which at one stage had held ministries in the ousted Battista government. Later,
in 1965, Fidel Castros deputy Ernesto Che Guevara set up a military mission in eastern Congo to
assist rural rebellion but, because of the growing Cuban and Vietnamese dependence on the Soviet
Union, immensely valuable Cuban and Vietnamese military and political support was denied the PAC
and wasted by the ANC when it formed its armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in November 1961
with Mandela as its commander. The other ten members of his Mandelas high command (Dennis
Goldberg, Jack Hodgson, Ahmed Kathrada, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Andrew Mlangeni, Joe
Modise, Elias Motsoaledi, Walter Sisulu, and Joe Slovo), were also members of the SACP, once again
reducing the partys appeal for mass recruitment in order to sustain its narrow upper class leadership
structure, with its obsession for tight control and caution being of more importance than mass action,
the very factors that had split the party in 1959. Umkhonto we Sizwe stressed it was working in the
best interests of all the people of this country, black, brown and white..... a laudable objective where
class and colour were synonymous but did not resonate with the mass of African militants whose only
contact with whites was confined to mostly disagreeable situations. The SACP/ANC argued
optimistically but unconvincingly, given historical precedents such as the allied bombing of Hitlers
Germany and the siege of Stalingrad, that sabotage was the answer because smashed railway lines,
damaged pylons carrying electricity across the country, bombed-out petrol dumps cut Verwoerd off
from his power, and leave him helpless. The first MK recruits were sent for military training to
Algeria followed by Mhlaba, Motsoaleli and others to China but, before their return on 16 December
1961 (Afrikanerdoms holiest day), MK damaged post offices and other government facilities in
Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Durban. The SACP then assisted Mandela to leave the country to get
support for the political and military struggle [Mandela 342-2]. For much of his journey he was
accompanied by Joe Matthews, whose funding of Mokhehles rivals was causing problems for the
BCP.
Mandela evaded capture during the massive round-up which greeted his call for action. He left
Southern Africa, visiting Algeria, Britain, Ethiopia and other countries, meeting Nyerere of
Tanganyika, Haile Selassie, General Abboud of Sudan, Bourguiba of Tunisia, Keita of Mali, Senghor,
Sekou Toure, Tubman of Liberia, Ben Bella, Boumedienne, Kaunda, Oginga Odinga, Nkomo, Obote
and also two leading British politicians, Hugh Gaitskell and Jo Grimond of the Labour and Liberal
parties. However SAUF, the alliance between the movements, collapsed in Dar es Salaam in January
1962. The same month Mandela addressed the Pan-African Freedom Movement in Addis Ababa. The
effect of his few weeks of travels had been profound. It had been his first journey outside South Africa
and he had been taken aback at unusual sights such as an African airline pilot. He had met with the
leaders of African freedom movements who had utilised methods similar to those employed by the
PAC in achieving their objectives - most notably Algeria and Kenya. He had encountered criticism
from African leaders on the ANC's acceptance of control by a small group of whites and Indians.
There was never any question of Mandela going over to the PAC, despite his second wife Winnies
more radical outlook and sympathy for that party, but he could no longer tolerate the ANCs
subjugation to the SACP. Lutulis position was unclear but while Mandela was in Addis Ababa he
withdrew the ANC from that the Congress Alliance. Unfortunately, SAUF finally broke up in Addis
Ababa the next month when Kgosana (who was subsequently expelled from the PAC) attacked the
organisation in Mandelas presence. Mandela then undertook military training in the hills surrounding
Addis Ababa. He accepted that, despite bitterness between ANC/SACP and PAC, the struggle would
be far more successful if they cooperated, utilising their strengths in different spheres. While Mandela
found Sobukwe awkward and petty, he respected Leballo and years later, in 1985 (to Leballos
annoyance), magnanimously appointed Leballo as his defence minister in a proposed unity cabinet.
He believed that if he explained matters face to face with the SACP they would accept the loss of their
dominant role and continue to be a valuable ally.
74

Sometime in 1962, the South African Communist Party took decisions to deal with Mandela's
action. A Programme of the South African Communist Party was adopted at what was called The
Fifth National Conference of the South African Communist Party held inside the country in 1962
(sic). It was, perhaps, felt inconceivable by others that a national conference would be held anywhere
else and, if indeed it was held in South Africa, its attendance must have been minuscule, for it escaped
the notice of Lutuli and everyone else. No date, apart from the year, has ever been forthcoming and it
is likely that no meeting numbering more than two or three people was ever held. Most probably,
Slovo wrote it alone without any discussion. The SACP recognised the continental rise of African
socialism but called it a mistaken concept. It reiterated that The whole of international experience
has proved beyond any shadow of doubt that the main truths of Marxist-Leninism are fully applicable
to countries in every stage of social development. Deviation could only result in the betrayal of the
working class. Two statements were indicative of the mindset of its author(s): Africans live in every
part of our country, (sic) and race hatred and antagonism.....are the greatest threat to the continued
security and existence of the White population. Events in the Congo, the Mau-Mau rising in Kenya
and the expulsion of white settlers from Algeria, Indonesia, and Vietnam certainly influenced their
thought, more so because many of the SACP were eastern European Jews whose families had been
exterminated by racist murderers from a class that frighteningly resembled supporters of the PAC.
Mandela returned to South Africa via Bechuanaland and reached Liliesleaf Farm, Rivonia, which
had been bought by the SACP as MKs operational headquarters. He met with fellow SACP members,
Sisulu, Kotane, Mbeki, Marks, Nokwe and Dan Tloome, the ANC deputy-secretary general but SACP
member and its future chairman. Mandela later wrote I proposed reshaping the Congress Alliance so
that the ANC would clearly be seen as the leader, especially on issues directly affecting Africans
[Mandela 1994:370]. Mandela then left for Durban and met Monty Naicker and Ismail Meer, both of
the Indian Congress/SACP. Naicker and Meer opposed Mandelas suggestion as did Lutuli himself at
Groutville although Lutuli said he would mull over the matter further. Lutuli objected to Mandelas
report that African leaders had advised the party what to do. Lutuli believed they should not interfere.
One important point was not raised. Although the Kennedy administration had not yet achieved much
progress with African American issues, it was clear that changes would eventually be implemented
and inevitably the African American professional class would be highly influential in the future.
Given domination of the ANC by the SACP, the ANC could hardly expect American assistance when
it was directed and funded by Soviet apparatchiks. Certainly, the terminally bourgeois Oliver Tambo
would have gained far more international support in exile if he had not postured as an overweight,
undertrained revolutionary; and South Africa would have been seen more like the Confederacy than a
bulwark against Communism. BCP sources state that Mandela had earlier hid in eastern Basutoland in
1961/2 and intended meeting Leballo, who was due to arrive clandestinely in Maseru in Mokhehles
van on August 6, 1962. Joe Matthews was back in Maseru and, according to the BCP, announced on
August 4 (sic), Hey, have you heard? Mandelas been arrested.
In his book Mandela made no mention of Leballo, stating instead that he intended to travel back to
Johannesburg on August 5 and was arrested at Cedera near Howick by an Afrikaner police officer
who knew exactly where to find him and had an arrest warrant in his name. He also knew the name of
his driver since Bechuanaland, Cecil Williams (1906-1979), of the SACP, a white former soldier and
theatre director who was later hailed as a gay hero. Mandela was sentenced to five years imprisonment
for leaving the country illegally, while Williams was released and allowed to return to his native
England. Despite the highly likely retention of South African police records concerning Mandelas
arrest, the issue of who betrayed him has never been seriously investigated. Colonel Art Spengler,
head of the Witwatersrand special branch, would surely have known who assisted him. Similar lack of
enthusiasm elsewhere such as Ireland, Lesotho (most notoriously Shakhane Mokhehle, Ntsus half
mad brother) and Kenya (where colonial records were destroyed) and examples from Eastern Europe
indicate that many leading personalities often played a double game by acting as informers against
their political rivals. Mandela rejected the usual suspect, the American CIA. Had the CIA been
75

involved, the special branch would have rounded up the SACP at Liliesleaf Farm so there is probably
much justification in the BCP claim that Mandela was betrayed by an SACP member after he had
demanded an end to the Alliance. At the time the leading suspects were Joe Matthews, Harold Wolpe,
Cecil Williams, and SACP members in Durban. Wolpes wife later wrote that she was disappointed
that her husband was seemingly ignored for a high position in the post 1994 South Africa, and Joe
Matthews fall from grace explains why he ended his political career as an Inkatha junior minister.
Leballo had spent almost three years in humiliating brutalized conditions and his primary objective
was to drive the whites into the sea and achieve freedom by 1963, as Sobukwe and Mokhehle
demanded for their respective countries. Leballos strategy contrasted sharply with ANC/SACP,
which seemed mesmerized by the NP. Leballo was constantly on the attack and unconcerned with any
NP reaction, whereas ANC/SACP, in Richard Gibsons prophetic words, was always looking for the
great conference table in the sky. ANC/SACP wanted reform while Leballo wanted to sweep away
the white state and replace its structure with one developed through revolutionary warfare, trusting in
Sobukwes dictum and the historical experience of the Lifaqane/Mfecane that the people would find
their way. He reasoned that, although there would be widespread carnage and severe economic
hardship, the long term future would be far happier than reforming the inequitable racist state.
Looking at the new but still deeply inequitable and troubled South Africa twenty two years after
Mandelas advent to power, perhaps Leballo had a point.
Leballo found the exiled PAC members in Maseru feuding among themselves, which eventually
led, after his departure in 1964, to the murder of members of the Katangese faction of the Western
Cape PAC regional chairman Christopher Mlokoti by the Pokela faction. On 20 December 1960, the
PAC decided at their second national conference to adopt a policy of armed insurrection. Since the
1950s, peasants in Pondoland had been agitating against certain local injustices including corrupt
chiefs and other symbols of oppression. On 6 June, eleven of them were killed by police. The peasants
retaliated by killing twenty collaborators and two chiefs and, by September, Thembuland was
experiencing unrest. In November 1960, a state of emergency was declared in the Transkei (which
contains both Thembu and Pondoland). Eventually 4,769 peasants were detained (officially) of whom
twenty were hanged. Both the ANC and the Unity Movement claimed responsibility for instigating the
risings but, in reality, the peasants had taken the initiative themselves. Other elements such as the
vigilante Makhulu Span and Pondoland Congo mountain men (linked to paganism, ritual murder
and witchcraft) contributed to the breakdown in order with individuals and groups claiming political
allegiances without necessarily having any formal contact with the parties concerned. By the time
Leballo established PAC headquarters in Bonhomme House in Maseru, PAC militants were already
committing violence in the name of Poqo whose meanings included pure undiluted nationalists.
Some PAC branches in the Cape had instigated violence and linked the resistance in the Transkei.
Mandela was too closely related to Poqos chief adversary, the corrupt Mantanzima regime, to
consider involvement. The PAC was already combining with Poqo before Leballos arrival in Maseru.
At the end of September 1962, the PAC convened a presidential Council consisting of Leballo as
acting president, John Nyati Pokela, Percy Gqobose, Z. B. Molete, E. Mfaxa, N. M. Ntantala and J.J.
Letlaka. Zephaniah Mothopeng, released from prison, visited Sobukwe in detention and brought the
PAC leader's endorsement for continued armed struggle. In October, Leballo over flew South Africa
in a United Nations aircraft for Dar es Salaam and then the United Nations in New York. On his
return, he stopped off in Accra and Cairo. He expressed disquiet over the failure of the external
missions to organise military training on a large scale. Only a few PAC members were being trained
in Egypt. President Nkrumah made arrangements with Mahomo, Molotsi and Vus Make (of bus
boycott and Treason Trial fame) respectively the Accra, London and Cairo PAC representatives, for a
Swedish freighter, purchased for 124,000 to be loaded with arms in Egypt. These would be landed on
the Transkei coast for Poqo.
Between October and December 1962, Poqo violence escalated in the Transkei. In October, an
adviser of Chief Matanzima was assassinated at Comfimbava, and Chief Mayeza Dalesile at Encobo.
76

An attempt on Matanzima himself took place in December. In the Cape, Mlami Makwetu, Wellington
Ishongayi and other militant PAC members took control of the local party structure at Langa from less
radical officials. Their agitation led to the attack in Paarl on the night of 22/23 November 1962, when
250 men left Mbekweni location and attacked the Paarl prison and police station. Five were killed,
fourteen wounded and two whites killed. Some of the attackers were later hanged. On 4 February
1963 four members of the Grobbelaar family, including two teenaged daughters, and Derek
Thompson, a mechanic, were hacked to death and roasted on a fire by Thembu members of Poqo at
Mbashe River campsite near Engcobo. Unfortunately, Leballo alluded to possible PAC involvement
and the partys reputation never recovered from this atrocity.
In early 1963, the PACs Swedish freighter was sighted in the Indian Ocean but failed to keep a
rendezvous with Poqo off St. John's. No more was discovered until a report came that it had visited
Madagascar and had eventually been sold elsewhere for 160,000. No culprit was ever found but
American celebrity Maya Angelous husband, Vusumzi Vus Make, who later descended into
alcoholism, corruption and treachery, is generally held to have been responsible. If the SACP had
acquiesced to Mandelas demands of reorienting its relations with ANC, its significant influence in
clandestine trade union work would have assisted a Mandela-Leballo alliance to smuggle in weapons
to rural activists who possibly would have restrained their extreme anti-white activities in gratitude to
white SACP assistance. Denied cooperation, Leballos strategy was to exploit every avenue that would
provoke violence from the regime and cause the lowest socio-economic elements into armed
retaliation. Inevitably, this encouraged the Black Nazi element. In Leballos case he respected and
formed lifetime friendships with a handful of people he called White Africans - whites who either
shared his austere tastes, teetotalism, simple life style and political and/or military commitment to
destroying the Pretoria regime such as Patrick Duncan (briefly), Cosmas Desmond (by reputation),
Reverend Michael Scott, and his Tanganyika-raised APLA intelligence chief. Leballos racist
reputation was class based. He hated white oppression, luxury, and white dissident arrogance cloaked
in Marxist terminology. Poqo activists were mostly urbanised African youth still retaining strong rural
connections. They tended to have had some formal education but were more often than not
unemployed. They shared the tsotsis disgust with African class aspirations (many were in fact tsotsis)
and were virulently anti-white.
In March 1963, the PAC agreed that a national rising would commence on 8 April. On 21 March,
the PAC issued a press statement, declaring that the time was ripe for a knock-out blow against the
whites and that it was possible that white women and children would suffer in the months to come.
This obvious allusion to the Mbashe murders seriously damaged his reputation, although the party had
not been involved. The same day, the South African parliament was informed that Poqo and PAC
were the same organisation and posed a serious threat.
A sense of panic had already afflicted white society. The NP government was under extreme
pressure to take action. Home Guard units established in every Transkeian town had failed to quell the
violence and the scheme had been extended to thirty-five towns in the rest of the Republic. Judge
Snyman, investigating the Paarl attack reported that stronger acts were needed because "Poqo (is) nou
sterker as ooit." (Poqo is stronger than ever). The respected columnist Dawie (usually P. J. Cillie)
writing in Die Burger, the influential Afrikaner newspaper, said of Poqo:
Similar movements have existed in many countries, or still exist. They are not easily
uprooted. It is the outgrowth of a majority's natural striving for political rights and
domination in a united South Africa.
On Monday, 25 March The Rand Daily Mail carried banner headlines BLACK WAVE NEARS
sandwiched between two lesser headlines -Only Arms Can Save S.A. - Donges and Vorster and
Fouche Face Poqo Probe, suggesting NP incompetence. Die Burger printed a cartoon of a giant
snake marked Poqo and called for action in an editorial on Black Terrorism. The generally
77

ineffectual opposition United Party criticised the government for being too slow in dealing with Poqo
while the Progressive Party's only M.P. warned the government that more Poqo risings would occur
unless the government changed its policies. In brief, white opinion across the entire political spectrum
was insisting on immediate dramatic action.
On Sunday, 24 March, Leballo and Z. B. Molete met a single journalist in what was reported as at
a press conference behind locked doors in (Leballo's) Maseru office. In a small article the next day,
overshadowed entirely by the BLACK WAVE NEARS headline, the Rand Daily Mail reported that
Leballo had stated that Poqo and PAC were the same. Other reports said that Leballo had claimed
Poqo was 155,000 in strength, divided into 1000 cells, all poised for the order to attack. Die Burger
took the claims more seriously, announcing that, The police and army are standing ready, and that
John Vorster, the Minister of Justice, was assuring parliament that action was imminent. However, it
is clear that the press conference had no influence at all on NP retaliation for the authorities were
already working towards Snymans recommendation of drastiese stappe (drastic steps) against Poqo.
On 29 March, two PAC couriers, Cynthia Lichaba and Patricia Lethalo, were arrested at the
Caledon Bridge frontier in possession of seventy letters from the PAC headquarters in Maseru,
warning that there was danger in Basutoland and urging members in South Africa to stay put until
the situation in Maseru was clarified. On 1 April, the British-led Basutoland police raided PAC
headquarters, in Bonhomme House, which the party shared with the BCP. Leballo evaded capture by
hiding in Dr Maema's surgery and then in the grounds of the Evangelical Church. He was discovered
by a Mosotho policeman, who warned him to keep low as the police had orders to shoot him on sight.
In the evening, Pokela and Mokhehle took him by land rover to Ha Tsiu village at Berea Mountain, on
the edge of Maseru, where the headman gave him shelter.
The British raid on PAC headquarters was believed to have been undertaken with members of the
South African security forces. The latter had their own sympathisers working in the British police
force in Basutoland, so captured material may have been passed to South Africa through them.
Lieutenant-General J. M. Keevy of the South African police denied that captured lists of PAC
members had been handed over by the British but the Duke of Devonshire, under-secretary for
Commonwealth Relations, fuelled suspicions when he stated in the British parliament that it was
unwise to reply to reports of the discovery of a Poqo list.
The raid was used by rival movements as a weapon against Leballo. It was claimed that Leballo's
press conference had caused the raid, which had netted a list of 15,000 PAC members names.
Gordon Winter, a BOSS agent who had befriended Leballo, later wrote that a certain Hans Lombard
had managed to obtain a list of 4,000 members whom Leballo intended to activate when the time
came. Winter said that the 15,000 figure was the number given by the South Africans in order to alert
whites to the Poqo menace and give credit to the government for smashing the rising. Keevy stated
that the arrests throughout South Africa after the raid were the result of the capture of the seventy
letters. Z.B. Molete, Elias Ntloedibe and Elliot Mfaxa were detained in Basutoland, while Joe Molefi
went to ground. On 3 April, fifty three suspected Poqo members were arrested in Johannesburg and
another twenty in the Cape a day later. These figures supported Keevy's claim that the captured letters
guided the police but did nothing to stifle ANC and other critics. Jack Halpern of the SACP blamed
the raid on Leballo's personal instability and his love for exaggerated claims. At the same time,
Halpern studiously ignored the eight thousand arrests that resulted from his fellow SACP member
Mandela's ultimatum in 1961, calling him widely admired and even revered for his courageous
underground leadership. Mandela remained silent on the issue but the ANC was reported as
threatening to kill Leballo (in contrast to its policy not to harm whites) if he was ever found again
while the Rand Daily Mail, reporting on Leballo's presumed death, said that he was believed killed
by his own people. Mokotso Pheko, a supporter of the Pokela faction PAC, who later had to flee
Zambia when the PAC revealed his habit issuing denunciations of Leballo under pseudonyms,
justified the attempt to overthrow Leballo in 1979 because of his (Leballo's) 1963 stupid statement in
which he got 10,000 PAC members arrested. Tom Lodge, a controversial academic writer on the
78

PAC and Poqo with a personal vendetta against Leballo, did not even consult contemporary
documents when writing on the press conference, giving its date incorrectly as 1 April. Lodge
referred to Leballo throughout his doctrinal thesis and major book as Potlake and sneered at
Leballos post-Poqo military strategy without having read his work [communication to Leeman].
Ironically, Leballo's success in inflaming the most wretched, the most violent and the most
ungrateful sections of the African population brought him more hatred from pious hypocrites and
the liberal-elitist establishment than it reserved for the system they ostensibly opposed. His tutor at
Lovedale and comrade-in-arms in North Africa, Professor Macquarrie, suggested Leballo had been
recruited by the Nazis during his prisoner of war days, while the South African liberal press, with its
prejudice about who should be African leaders - graduates, army officers, ordained ministers or
government appointed chiefs - derided his hopes for freedom, addressing him as self-appointed
leader of the PAC.
Leballo was, irrespective of conditions, constantly belligerent, uncompromising and answerable
only to Sobukwe. What he had achieved was spectacular. Supposedly marginalized by expulsion from
the ANC for rightly denouncing Sisulus treacherous double game, in a matter of a few months his
manic energy had upstaged the ANC and brought armed confrontation between the NP and its African
opponents. Next, within a short time of escaping from restriction he was held responsible for seriously
threatening the republics security and had been listed as Public Enemy Number One. Later he
would train and launch the first major guerrilla attack into the region through the Lesotho Liberation
Army (1979) and in penniless exile still manage to break Leabua Jonathan in January 1986. Ridiculed,
and a major target for yellow journalism, he was a major force in South African and Lesotho politics
from 1952 until his death in 1986, although severely weakened by an American financed, Tanzanian
supported leadership coup in 1979. Such was the hostile reaction of the SACP that he is rarely
mentioned in any publication and only then overwhelmingly disparagingly.
Denied the Egyptian arms, its Basutoland headquarters closed, and with Leballo in hiding, the PAC
suffered a further major setback when Sobukwe, scheduled for release in May 1963 was detained
indefinitely under another law, called The Sobukwe Clause which empowered the government to
detain a prisoner after the expiration of his sentence if the regimes minister of justice considered that
after release he would be likely to further the aims of communism. On 3 May, 1963, Sobukwe was
sent to Robben Island instead of being released from detention. The new prison on Robben Island,
which Sobukwe opened, measured 250 x 150 yards - the exact size of the Koffiefontein internment
camp where the new minister of justice, John Vorster, had been held as a traitor during the Second
World War. In 1964, Sobukwe and the other PAC prisoners on Robben Island were joined by Nelson
Mandela and several African members of the ANC. Sobukwe remained on Robben Island until 1969
and then held in restriction in Kimberley until his death from lung cancer in 1978.
Poqo resistance continued. The police station and airport at East London and the police station at
King Williams Town were attacked on occur on 8 April. On 9 April, Poqo attempted to destroy
Johannesburgs power lines and seize arms and ammunition. With MKs sabotage also on its mind,
the NP quickly retaliated by passing the ninety day law, enabling police to detain people without
trial. By 5 June, 1963, a total of 3,246 suspected Poqo members were under arrest, 124 of whom had
already been convicted of murder. Further activity continued. In April 1965, two hundred PAC
members were found guilty of anti-state activities in the Port Elizabeth area and an additional thirty
were sentenced for planning a rising in the Western Cape. Scattered outbreaks continued until 1968.
Leballo remained hidden at Ha Tsiu until September 1963, by which time it was generally believed
he was dead. His reappearance in the spectators gallery in the Basutoland House of Assembly
prompted the NP regime to pass the Prevention of Violence Abroad Proclamation aimed at anyone
planning insurrection against the South African government from another country. Eventually, in
August 1964 the South Africans pressured Britain into expelling Leballo from Basutoland, his
birthplace and where he ranked as the chief of Lifelekoaneng near Mafeteng. He established a secure
headquarters, firstly in Ghana, and gave serious attention to training guerrillas. About a hundred PAC
79

recruits went for training in Ghana, Egypt, and Algeria, while more went to China at a later date.
These eventually formed the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA) under Templeton Ntantala.
The name Azania was chosen by the PAC in Ghana as an alternative to South Africa. Later, evidence
was submitted to support the name as archaeological diggings in the 1930s in the northern Transvaal
had identified to a possible occupation of Mapungubwe by Cushitic Azanians.
Despite Mandelas imprisonment, Umkhonto we Sizwe remarkably lasted unscathed until 1 July
1963 when a raid at Liliesleaf farm captured almost all the MK high command and discovered
Mandelas incriminating diary implicating his role in sabotage. Pascale Lamche, director of the film
Sophiatown, commented:
What this shows is that they were a bunch of bungling intellectuals. They didn't
really know how to do this. The fact that they kept hundreds of incriminating documents
is ludicrous. Im sure that no other underground guerrilla movement, in basically a police
state, kept documents that could send them away for eternity. But they did because they
realised they were making history and needed to keep all this stuff.
BBC Interview 26 March 2004
The location of MK headquarters was attributed to a South African intelligence agent, Gerard
Ludi, who had joined the Congress of Democrats.
Mandelas trial contrasted vividly with Sobukwes. The PAC leader was arrested, convicted and
imprisoned in a space of forty three days and his sentence never evoked more than a small fraction of
international attention. Even his suffering in jail was dismissed by his supposed close friend Benjamin
Pogrund in order to denigrate Leballo. Lastly, while Mandela was accused by an international pariah the Afrikaner Republic of South Africa - Sobukwe and his colleagues had been answerable to the
Union head of state, Queen Elizabeth II (Regina vs Sobukwe and others). Nelson Mandelas defining
moment was the Rivonia Trial where he was defended by a team of white lawyers led by Bram
Fischer. Fisher was a secret member of the underground SACP but his wife was Jan Smuts niece and
he was an Oxford University Rhodes Scholar, son of an OFS Judge President and grandson of the
Orange River Colonys only prime minister, who became Minister of Home Affairs after Union.
Fischer was assisted by George Bizos, who wrote a vital phrase in Mandelas speech; Arthur
Chaskalson, later Chief Justice 2001-5; Harold Hanson, a Kings/Queens Counsellor since 1946; Joel
Joffe, later a British Labour Party baron in House of Lords; and Harry Schwarz, a prominent United
Party politician and co-founder of the Torch Commando. The trial attracted world attention. The
indictment was served on 9 October 1963 and the trial was due to commence on 26 November but,
after complications, began on 3 December 1963 and ended 12 June 1964. World outrage at Mandelas
life sentence was so great that it gave him and the ANC immense lasting sympathy and political
capital he would never have accumulated had he fled into exile.
Since Mozambique, Rhodesia, Angola, and South West Africa (Namibia) acted as colonial and
racist settler buffers between independent Africa and South Africa, Ntsu Mokhehle remained the
PACs best hope in the region. Between 1960 and 1964 Mokhehles strongest rival had been the
hybrid Marematlou Freedom Party (MFP), an amalgam of senior chiefs, the new Paramount, the
Anglophile elite and ANC/SACP oriented politicians funded by Matthews (who had abandoned the
Lesotho Communist Party) and favored by the outgoing British administration, which had introduced
a paramilitary unit, the Police Mobile Unit (PMU) unit, based on Britains only armed police force,
the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The PMU and the Lesotho Mounted Police (LMP) were commanded
by British officers hostile to the BCP. The MFP secretary-general was Bennet Khaketla, who was
fted in Moscow as the leader of Basutolands ANC. However, in 1964, an ambush of BCP leaders by
MFP supporters at Rothe cost the MFP considerable support to the advantage of the BNP, which was
backed by the conservative OMI and the NP regime in Pretoria. In the 1965 pre-independence

80

election, the BCP and MFP together gained more votes but fewer seats than the BNP31. The BCP was
unable to obtain proxy votes from its huge membership in South Africa and the BNP took great
advantage of the newly enfranchised Basotho Catholic women. Overconfidence cost the BCP the
election because it had deemed election boundary changes to fit demographic change unnecessary
until after the election. Had the changes been implemented it would won more seats in its northwest
strongholds and gained a majority in parliament. Nevertheless, Matthews funding of the MFP is still
considered the major reason for the loss. The chief benefit of the 1960-1965 period was the BCPs
experience in running district councils, where elected members who were not voted to parliament
were determined to make the councils more efficient than under the traditional chieftaincy.
Unfortunately, most of this experience was lost in the dismantling of the councils after 1965 and
through the BNP regimes reliance on foreign expertise and aid. In one incidence the local peasants
built a rival road parallel to a government sponsored road to show that foreign assistance was
unnecessary, and, during the coup regimes rule, foreign projects often foundered through lingering
resentment, such as when a herd of horses, sponsored by the Irish government, was driven over a cliff
[Ferguson 1990]. The BCP councils remain the only example in Southern African politics where the
Africanists experienced power [Leeman 1985] but their experience was never utilised by international
development agencies after 1994. It was as if, from the 1960s onwards, there had been a concerted
effort, not just by the petty chief BNP government and mining interests (which caused the aerial
slaughter of diamond miners in the 1970 repression) but also by international agencies and Christian
organisations (such as the one that finances American pilots to fly round showing condoms to
villagers and proclaim the Lord) who did not want local peasants to direct their own affairs.
Ntsukunyane Mphanya (1931-2016), the BCP leader, expressed the partys disillusionment with the
UN and other organisations, by publishing his work Matsema on land law and agricultural practices in
Sesotho, not English.

Ntsukunyane Mphanya
Tlokweng Gaborone 1980

General Metsing Lekhanya

Mount Moorosi 1977

31

Ntsu Mokhehle under arrest 1970

Sergeant Metsing Lekhanya second right

BNP 108,140 votes, 31 seats (Party leader, secretary-general, deputy secretary-general, chairman, vice-chairman
and treasurer all lost); BCP 103,068 votes, 25 seats (Party deputy secretary-general lost); MFP 40,414 votes, 4 seats
(Party leader and secretary-general lost); Marema Tlou (remnant of original party) 5697, no seats; Independents 79
votes, no seats. BNP had overall majorities in 23 out of 60 seats. [Leeman 1985]
81

CHAPTER SIX
Ironically, Sobukwes success in mobilizing and articulating lower class opposition to the
ANC/SACPs elitist anti-democratic leadership clique ended in defeat following the bannings of 1960
as the PAC was geared to mass politicization not lobbying for support in exile.
The Mbashe river murders continued to haunt Leballo and convinced him that the party should
eradicate its black Nazi element. Consequently, with Sobukwes approval, he reoriented the PAC
towards Maoism although he remained loyal to Nkrumah, despite the latters descent into surrealistic
dictatorship and his overthrow in 1966. Leballo established a personal rapport with Zhou Enlai and
met Mao Zedong but many of the APLA cadres sent for training resented their austere puritanical
environment and their sexual demands appalled their hosts [Hutchison:188]. Leballos frequent rueful
Sesotho comment of despair, when dealing with indiscipline, translated as obsession with huge
breasts. A major problem was that, free from the psychotic demonic South African pressure cooker,
refugees often lost control, unable to believe that life could be so pleasant. Generous funding,
educational scholarships, high social status, offices, interracial sex, abundant alcohol, freedom from
police harassment and other pleasures took a high toll. Z. B. Molete swiftly degenerated into
alcoholism and sexual adventure and younger cadres were reluctant to exchange their new freedom for
a remote military camp. Leballo was hard pressed to assemble an armed force dedicated to the concept
of the guerrilla as a social reformer, a task that was even beyond Guevara in his 1965 dealings in the
Congo with Laurent Kabila, whom he described as being primarily interested in consuming alcohol
and bedding women. Guevara would certainly have appreciated Leballo but the Sino-Soviet split cast
Cuba in the Soviet camp to which ANC/SACP adhered. The invaluable Chinese alliance abruptly
terminated after Zhou and Maos deaths in 1976. The Chinese never seemed to grasp how much their
assistance and examples were appreciated.
The PACs Maoism has either been dismissed by commentators as posturing or ignored. Tom
Lodge, a much quoted but bigoted and unreliable authority, implied APLAs commitment to Maoism
was limited to singing childrens songs [Lodge 1983]. American and European based MarxistLeninists provided the PAC with ideological insights and contributed to the PAC journal Ikwezi.
Leballo also respected and quoted the revolutionary African American nationalist Robert F. Williams,
exiled in Cuba and China. Stephen Burgess, a white American Maoist, a nephew of Senator John
Danforth, a member of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, advised the party on the
Carter administrations Southern African policy initiatives. Leballo was often overcommitted to
Maoism and, despite his readiness to grant impressive military titles to newly trained troops 32, once
contemplated abolishing ranks. He was however fully aware of the failure of the Tanzanian Ujamaa
experiment, modelled closely on Chinas agricultural communes. Nevertheless, Maoism was a far
more powerful and practical ideology for South African liberation than Lembedes national-socialism
or the post 1986 PACs mystical fascism. It recognised that it was possible for humiliated,
impoverished, and violated peasants and industrial workers, if given guidance during a revolution, to
act judiciously and with restraint to create a better society. While Mao Zedong degenerated into
authoritarianism, mismanagement, debauchery and murder, his major upheavals collectivisation, the
Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution - temporarily broke class and gender discrimination,
inspired lower class elements to have more faith in their abilities and power to change society, and
thoroughly discouraged the same type of corrupt bourgeois class that gravitated round Mandela,
Mbeki and Zuma that has flourished in South Africa since 1994. Leballo, a soldier by nature and
training, aforementioned unsuccessfully struggled to create an entirely military organisation in exile
dedicated to the Guevara-ite/Maoist ideal of the guerrilla as a social reformer. Inside South Africa his
ideas would have had more appeal among the 1976 generation than Bikos Black Consciousness: in
32

Zola Vimba of the APLA high command stated Everybody wants to be a chief but nobody Indians.
82

exile the majority of his colleagues were motivated by higher class aspirations and financial gain and,
free from the horrendous constraints of apartheid, deeply resented and bitterly opposed his attempts to
regiment them into an idealistic self-sacrificing guerrilla army. After Leballos death, the PAC Maoists
lost out to the OAU, UN and American backed mystical fascists and some remained in self-imposed
impecunious exile.
The PAC had existed for only eleven months before it was banned in 1960. If Leballo had not led
the party in exile, it is difficult to imagine that the party could have survived to challenge ANC
international dominance. Certainly it collapsed immediately he was removed by the Americans and
Tanzanians in 1979. Leballos theories were outlined in his 1967 PACs Revolutionary Message to the
Nation, which were an extension of the Programme of Action, the Defiance Campaign, and the PACs
Positive Action of 1960. Although mainly a military treatise drawing inspiration from conflicts in
China, Vietnam, Cuba, Algeria, Greece, Cyprus and Malaya for a campaign aimed at making South
Africa ungovernable while avoiding major military engagements, Leballo emphasized that the PAC
intended to empower the lower classes at the expense of the westernized African upper middle class
typified by Tambo and the Moscow oriented pseudo communists, Mandela, Sisulu and others.
Leballo believed that escalation of the guerrilla war would place strains on white manpower, forcing
the regime to permit African workers to enter previously reserved occupations; and the breakdown of
infrastructure would lead to the proliferation of self-reliant African groups. He called for the abolition
of the external missions and, like the original Lesotho Liberation Army in the late 1970s, reliance on
direct contributions within Southern Africa. The Revolutionary Message to the Nation placed far
greater emphasis on the role of lower class activists in revolutionary activities and the construction of
an alternative Azanian state. This contrasted sharply with the ANC/SACP ideal of joining the white
state in order to reform it. After 1985, the contradictions in South African society in fact reflected
some of Leballos predictions the break down in white control, pressure from the South African
overwhelmingly Afrikaner officer corps to reform apartheid, and the rise of myriad self help African
groups. However, the post Leballo PAC/APLA, corrupt, inept and having distanced themselves from
his policies had no influence on developments and spiralled into irrelevance.
Within South Africa, although business, finance and industry recognized that the African
population wanted participation not conflict, the composition of white parliament in 1960 was still
skewed to return members of parliament who represented rural Afrikaner concerns. The NP electoral
triumphs following Sharpeville indicated that while whites needed compliant African workers and a
larger African consumer market, they recoiled at events in the Congo and the PACs random racial
murders, and therefore they supported draconian measures against any dissent. After Verwoerd
recovered from his wounds, he consolidated his power over the NP through the Church, Broederbond
and other extra-parliamentary measures to such an extent that, compared to his dictatorial rule,
previous administrations appeared anarchic and directionless. The Cape NP vertigoes were sidelined
and the political crack down ushered in considerable prosperity between 1964 and 1972 enabling the
white population to enjoy luxuries such as extra servants, swimming pools and more cars. Liberation
activists kept a very low profile during this period.
Leballo faced down several challenges to his leadership from colleagues who wanted alternatives
to military confrontation. He received support from Sobukwe and George Magombe, secretary-general
of the Tanzanian based Organisation of African Unity African Liberation Committee (OAU-ALC).
By the end of 1973, both ANC/SACP and PAC were experiencing manpower shortages. APLA had
about seventy troops stationed near Mbeya under Templeton Ntantala, who had established a
commercial smuggling operation in Swaziland, while his troops had used donated clothing to attract
local women and had consequently fathered an entire village. In 1974, BCP refugees were offered
military training by the ANC/SACP and PAC. Koenyama Chakela, the BCP secretary-general, who
was aware that Mokhehle was being groomed by the South African security services, argued that an
ANC/SACP alliance would be more beneficial since troops could infiltrate from Mozambique, a route
denied PAC. His deputy, Ntsukunyane Mphanya, whose followers in the 1974 captured Mapoteng
83

police station by using their only bullet33, claimed Tanzania offered BCP independent training as did
anti-government movements in Seychelles, Uganda and Zaire. In the event, Mokhehle accepted
Leballos offer. ANC/SACP anger at the PAC claim to have more than one hundred and eighty new
recruits ultimately led to an alliance with Leabua Jonathans coup regime in Lesotho and Leabuas
establishment of diplomatic relations between 1978 and 1983 with the Soviet Union Cuba,
Mozambique, North Korea, Bulgaria, China and East Germany.
In 1976, the ANC and PAC (whose external representatives were largely disinterested,
incompetent, and in the case of Douglas Dumile Dominic Mantshontsho in Botswana, David Sibeko
caught him making a phone call to the South African police - probably working for Pretoria)
respectively recruited about four thousand, five hundred refugee students following the Soweto and
Cape risings. APLA was initially trained by the LLA commander in Libya, Matooane Mapefane. In
1977 one hundred and seventy eight Libyan trained LLA soldiers were sent to the PAC holding camp
at Itumbi, Chunya, near Mbeya in Tanzania.
The ANC/SACP were far better placed that the PAC regarding foreign contacts and offers of
training but they soon discovered the USSR was very poorly informed about South African politics.
Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, the USSR and other countries trained MK troops, who were then stationed at
Kongwa camp in Tanzania. MKs experience was similar to APLA and LLAs. Inept, alcoholic,
corrupt, tribalist political leaders were installed as military commanders, some with festering disputes
dating from their training in Odessa. Inactivity, dismal surroundings and poverty led to a prison
culture with a high incidence of homosexuality, exploitation and violence. Tensions were exacerbated
by Xhosa-Zulu rivalry, frustration at being prevented from returning to fight in South Africa, leaders
using food and other supplies to create fiefdoms, and the constant fear of being denounced as a spy.
Although freedom movements have historically been seriously compromised by informers, scores of
probably blameless MK troopers fled to Kenya. Some joined the PAC only to find an almost identical
situation.
Eventually, MK cadres attempted a push south, only to be thwarted in newly independent
Botswana by British police and, in Portuguese ruled Mozambique, through the difficulties of reaching
South Africa undetected. The MK Odessa trained cadres then won their demand to infiltrate as a large
group in 1967 with cooperation of ZAPU through via Wankie (Wange) in the white rebel colony of
Rhodesia rather than as individuals or in small groups. They were soon detected and, despite an
impressive resistance, were mostly killed or captured. Over twenty survivors, including Chris Hani,
the SACP commissar at Kongwa, reached Botswana, where they were held in custody for a year.
A similar operation in 1968 at Sipolilo next to the Mozambique-Zambian border also failed.
The logistics were too problematic. One trooper, Leonard Nkosi, succeeded in reaching South Africa,
was betrayed, turned and became a policeman. The Pretoria regime reacted to the MKs infiltration
by dispatching thousands of police and counter-insurgency personnel to Rhodesia.
When Hanis group was released from Botswana, the cadres were highly critical not only of the
campaign but also the self-serving nature of the ANC leadership, whom it accused of being content to
remain in exile. Leadership issues were complicated by the death of Lutuli (Leballo said he was told
by Lutulis daughter that it was suicide), the perceived weakness of his successor Oliver Tambo, the
stroke suffered by the SACPs pragmatic Moses Kotane, and the relationship between the SACP and
ANC. A conference at Morogoro in Tanzania in April 1969 established a Revolutionary Council,
which (as the East Germans concluded) consolidated SACP (especially through Slovo, Dadoo and
September) control over the ANC. Slovo later produced a blueprint for a revolution involving the rural
masses, although this was not discussed, let alone adopted, at Morogoro. In July, the Tanzanians,
suspicious of the MK because Oliver Tambo, unlike Leballo, had not reported Oscar Kambonas
33

The BCP had one rifle, one revolver and one bullet. The next morning the British led Police Mobile Unit, commanded by
John McFall, murdered at least fifty residents of Mapoteng in retaliation. Mphanya made an epic escape down a sheer cliff
and across flooded rivers. The PMU doused his wife in gasoline in order to burn her to death but she was saved by a
relative serving in that force.
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request for support in a coup, ordered the Kongwa camp to be closed. MK was evacuated for three
years to the USSR and then regrouped in Zambia. The ANC/SACP imitated the PAC arms shipment
plan with a vessel sailing from Somalia to the Transkei coast but the ship broke down and returned to
port. Ubiquitous informants doomed most MK cadres when they returned to South Africa.
Only about 5% of the ANC/SACP exiles were from minority groups but held inordinate power.
A group of dissents led by The Gang of Eight broke away to form the ANC (African Nationalists)
but quickly fizzled out. However, in 1976, thousands of militant young Africans fled into exile
following the suppression of the Soweto and Cape risings, yet they too were unable to loosen SACP
ethnic minority control over the ANC. The students were ideologically allied to the PAC but, as the
PAC admitted, its venal incompetent external representatives failed, deliberately or otherwise, to
recruit the refugees and, like the ANC/SACP, antagonized those they did. In March 1977, the
ANC/SACP established a new military headquarters in Angola but the troops suffered even worse
problems that at Kongwa. This led to mutinies, the most serious after the MK suffered badly in action
against UNITA in 1983. The mutiny was finally crushed in February 1984 by Angolan forces. Another
military mission was established in Mozambique but South African pressure on the Frelimo
government closed it down. In Zimbabwe, the ruling ZANU (PF) ruthlessly crushed the ANC/SACP
ally, ZAPU, with the North Korean trained 9th Brigade.
The death of PAC leader Sobukwe in 1978 fatally wounded the Africanist alliance that had lasted
since the 1940s. The Carter administration negotiated with the NP regime to settle Zimbabwe. The NP
agreed to put pressure on the Smith regime to negotiate with ZANU and ZAPU and, in exchange, the
Americans would pressure ANC/SAP and PAC to abandon military action and embrace dtente and
dialogue. ANC, firmly in the Soviet orbit and still waiting for the great conference table in the sky,
were amenable, despite their sizable MK force in Angola. The Soviet Union, despite the historical
precedent of Tsarist Russian military participation against the British in the South African War [Wilson
1974], was not prepared to upset the Cold War balance of influence by a direct challenge to South
Africas position as part of the British-American alliance. Thus, the ANC/SACP (as well as President
Nyerere of Tanzania) were adamant that military force would never defeat the NP regime. Dissenting
exiles often found themselves in serious trouble from governments such as Sweden. Leballo, who
believed that massive arms smuggling would eventually bring down the white structure, disagreed.
The Americans, dissatisfied with Communist control of the ANC, sought to replace it with a PAC, led
by Sibeko, adhering to middle class African nationalism free from communist involvement.
Consequently David Sibeko, the PAC bon-viveur UN representative who had proved himself a genius
at diplomacy and gaining external support, was persuaded by Andrew Young, Carters UN
ambassador, and Sibekos lover, Mariam Mohammed, the Nigerian ambassadress in Botswana, to take
control of the PAC with funds that totalled at least US$250,000 and maybe even US$500,00034.
Sibeko succeeded in installing his clique as the new PAC national executive committee but had to
accept Leballo as leader, albeit with the title of chairman instead of president. Meanwhile, the old
APLA of Ntantala resented its loss of status to the more militant younger APLA and launched a coup
that was thwarted by LLA troops in Dar es Salaam defending the PAC office. At the PAC conference
in Arusha, Ntantalas group of seventy was expelled from the PAC despite Leballos desire to retain
Ntantala, whose smuggling operations had at least provided valuable intelligence and given him
organisational skills. Sibeko also succeeded in terminating assistance to LLA, who managed to
extricate themselves by Mokhehles personal appeal to Leballos white intelligence chief, who had
limited but sufficient personal funds available for transport. The LLA travelled south and began the
war in Lesotho with filched ANC AK47s and weapons provided by Basotho miners. In 1979 the main
LLA force was wiped out in a battle in northern Lesotho and Sibeko announced he had replaced
Leballo, stating that Leballo had resigned for health reasons.
34

Sibeko handed a package to an exiled Mosotho schoolboy in Dar es Salaam to take to London by plane and then flew
ahead to meet the boy at Heathrow airport. The schoolboy surreptitiously opened the package on the flight and
discovered it was full of US dollar notes. He carefully removed $400 for his own use.
85

The Sibeko coup backfired. Leballo had certainly not resigned and Sibekos arrogance cost him his
life when he brusquely dismissed the young APLA high commands demand for a share of funds.
They shot him dead in his flat in Oyster Bay, Dar es Salaam. On 11 March 1980, the main APLA force
APLA at Chunya refused Tanzanian Colonel Matikos order to recognise Vus Make as their new
leader. The Tanzanian detachment killed several cadres, wounded many more and split the rest up into
detention camps. In 1980, Leballo arrived in Harare to reestablish his authority but Tanzanian
pressure, as the controlling power of the OAU ALC, resulted in his arrest and expulsion in 1981.
During the crisis, when he and his Tanzanian appointed rival Pokela were both in the city, A. P. Mda,
the one man who could have acted as mediator and saved the party from oblivion, remained silent.
After his expulsion, Leballos personal friendship with Jerry Rawlings of Ghana enabled him to find
sanctuary but little funding. Eventually, he brokered a deal between the Libyans and Musevenis
Ugandan resistance whereby he would receive weapons through northern Zaire to arm those APLA
cadres that had escaped Tanzanian detention. However, Musevenis troops reneged and kept the
shipment. Throughout the whole of 1985, Leballo used incriminating evidence (his white intelligence
chief had served for three months undercover as Lekhanyas adjutant with the rank of major in 1977)
to pressure the Lesotho commander Major General Metsing Lekhanya to overthrow Leabua Jonathan
and restore democracy. However, Leballo died suddenly of hypertension on January 8, 1986, a few
days before Lekhanyas coup, which had also been caused by South African pressure. Leballos total
disillusionment with Mda and Mokhehle caused him much anguish, especially the realization that Mda
despised him and Mokhehle had become a traitor.
On September 25, 1985, three and a half months before his death, he wrote:
I have the most dynamic revolutionary ideas of strategy and tactics of a people's
war to wipe out the foreign illegal occupiers of our fatherland-Azania. ... It is a pity that
one day I will die without having fulfilled this ideological goal... ... Sometime if I don't
write or reply to your letters on time, please, don't blame me, sometimes I feel terribly a
disappointed person.
Letter to Leeman
Leballo has been obliterated from South African political history apart from appearing in
ANC/SACP literature and collaborators academic works (Lodge and Kondlo) respectively as an
incompetent buffoon who sought to derail the brilliantly crafted strategy of Mandela; and an
embarrassment to Sobukwes genius. Leballo was immensely effective as a grass roots activist and
tireless campaigner but was ill served by less dedicated personnel in exile. His APLA commander
Justice Nkonyane (later a post 1994 major-general) simply gave up hope after Chunya, while others,
such as Zola Vimba, were alcoholic sexual predators. However, Leballos 1950s activism and his
adoption of Maoism made him the most credible left wing opponent to the ANC/SACP. During the
1980s and 1990s several PAC members were honoured at their death by commentators who stated, in
complete ignorance, that they were the PAC. Mothopeng certainly deserved recognition but Leballo
was the partys major force. Without him, the PAC would probably have been as ineffectual as
AZAPO (Bikos legacy), the Unity Movement, and other parties that attracted intellectuals. With his
death, the PAC collapsed. The break with Maoist strategies also changed what the PAC represented.
Mandela, despite his association with the SACP, was a symbol of democracy. Without the Maoist
emphasis on lower class political participation, the post Leballo PAC appeared merely an extremist
black male cult that intended to solve the nations economic and social policies by killing whites.
Leballos Tanzanian host in Harare exclaimed after his expulsion that, as far as she was concerned, the
PAC had become a collection of mangy old men and loud little boys. Gail Gerhart, whose
interviews give an unmatched insight into the Africanists viewpoint, paid Leballo ill service when she
dismissed him, without explanation, as a poor substitute for Sobukwe at the helm of the PAC
[1978:252]. Thami ka Plaatjie, a dismally unsuccessful PAC secretary-general in the 21st century
86

stressed [email February 11, 2010] that Leballo had made serious miscalculations that had disastrous
results for the PAC and the Azanian Revolution. Ka Plaatjie, Gail Gerhart, Z.B.Molete, and Peter
Raboroko, all critics of Leballo, never provided specific details when asked and could not explain
how, rid of Leballo and with American, UN and OAU support, the post-Leballo PAC failed so
miserably. Leballo was absolutely loyal to Sobukwe and never criticised him, yet it is clear that much
of the PACs failure in 1960 had been caused by Sobukwe trying to create a passive middle class
Gandhian movement out of a militant lower class that wanted violent action, and he miscalculated
fatally by dismissing Leballos request for a Plan B. Fortunately, many of Leballos papers have
been archived and await the day when researchers less burdened by class prejudice can assess
Leballos achievements in a more balanced fashion, in particular his choice of a Maoist revolutionary
path. In the meantime, any positive mention of PAC actions up until 1986 is dismissed as apologetic
the classic riposte of the academic eunuch who has no convincing counter argument.
Despite (or maybe because of) Mokhehles success with Leballo in launching the first large scale
guerrilla incursion into South Africa and Lesotho in 1979, he became reclusive and vanished at the
end of 1980 causing Mapefane and Jama Mbeki, the LLA intelligence chief and Thabos PAC brother,
to approach Leballo in Harare in 1980-1 for funds and weapons. The full story of Ntsu Mokhehles
activities between 1981 and 1986 has yet to be made public35 but it is clear he was a traitor who went
over to Pretoria; and Jama Mbekis murder in Lesotho was caused by Shakhane Mokhehle informing
the Lesotho military of his activities. Leballos white APLA intelligence chief had corresponded
regularly with Mokhehle. During 1980 and 1981 he offered to house him in Zimbabwe along with
Leballo and it is a mystery why Mokhehle never considered this option.
Mokhehles ideological collapse was linked to the arrival in South Africa in 1978 of Ray Steiner
Cline, former deputy-director of the American CIA and Nixons Director of the Bureau of Intelligence
and Research (INR) at the Department of State until 1973. Cline established an office in South Africa.
As CIA chief in Taiwan, Cline had instigated the formation of the Anti-Communist League funded by
Asian and Latin American dictatorships, intelligence agencies and dubious wealthy organisations such
as the Reverend Sun Myung Moons Unification Church and right wing Japanese politicians suspected
of links with organised crime. Cline had two daughters. The younger, Sibyl had married an obese
American fascist mercenary named Robert MacKenzie linked to Soldier of Fortune, who had been
given a vanity rank in the Rhodesian ersatz Special Air Service regiment36. The elder daughter, Judy
May Fontaine, had a relationship with Leballos white APLA intelligence officer while studying
Chinese at London University 1967-8 (her father was CIA chief in West Germany after narrowly
missing out to Vice Admiral William Francis Raborn as director of the agency37), hence the PACs
interest in Clines arrival in South Africa in 1978. Ray Cline, Sibyl and her husband funded and
publicised UNITA and RENAMO besides assisting independent or rogue intelligence operatives who
supported Inkatha [Minter 1994]. It is possible that Cline had a hand in the bribing of Sibeko but he
was certainly involved in the recruitment of Ntsu Mokhehle. Mokhehle had endured severe refugee
status problems since December 1979 when the ANC/SACP succeeded in persuading an Economist
journalist to publish an article suggesting that Mokhehle and the LLA were marching from Pretoria.
Instead of ignoring the bait, Mokhehle insisted publicly that the LLA had been trained in Libya with
the result that Zambias erratic president, Kenneth Kaunda, expelled Mokhehle for violating the terms
35

Ntsukunyane Mphanya (email 21 February 2010), stated he was publishing a book on Mokhehles activities between
1980 and his return to Lesotho. The draft manuscript was released on March 10.
36
This writer served in the British 21st Special Service 1975-1977 (HQ Detachment, Duke of York Barracks,
Chelsea) and considered the Rhodesian SAS far inferior partly because it recuited its members from a very small
pool of European settlers with unidimensional thinking, somewhat similar to the British Armys officer corps in
the First World War.
37
Raborns tenure was regarded as unsuccessful. David Barret concluded, [Raborn was] incompetent at CIA, not
understanding the agency or the intelligence business - The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story From Truman to
Kennedy, David Barrett, University Press of Kansas. Ray Cline himself had achieved notoriety as a China expert
predicting the Chinese would not intervene in the Korean War.
87

of his refugee status. Mokhehle had no luck either in Botswana and his unfortunate sexual priorities
decided against exile outside Africa. According to his own account, he entered South Africa illegally
and lived in poverty near the border. Mphanya wrote that Botswana and Zambia had refused him
continued residence and that he illegally entered South Africa in the trunk of a car, hiding in the bush
near Zeerust until his brother Shakhane had secured permission for him to stay, only to find that
Mokhehle became a prisoner of covert South African intelligence activities and was held at Vlakplaas
and then Lisikisiki camp in the Transkei under the supervision of MacKenzie, Clines son in law,
invalidated out of the US military in the 1960s. MacKenzie was serving as an obese mercenary Major
in the Transkei Defence Force and correspondent for Soldier of Fortune. MacKenzie became a codirector of Clines Global Strategy Council, whose fellow directors included experts in psychological
warfare, and Donald Rumsfeld, US secretary of defence for both President Ford and President George
W. Bush. LLA cadres of a new force, created by MacKenzie and Mokhehle, suspected of disloyalty
later testified that Mokhehle, whom they named the Vulture (Ntsu means eagle), personally
supervised their torture. MacKenzies incompetence ensured that the new LLA never became a
formidable force and he was later easily outwitted, killed and dismembered by child soldiers in Sierra
Leone. After Lekhanyas coup, Mokhehle returned to Lesotho and was eventually elected prime
minister in 1993 aged seventy four. Although in declining health and with a broken mind (Romanian
doctors in the 1970s exclaimed this man has no blood going to his brain), he nevertheless enjoyed
enough lucid moments to obliterate a leadership challenge from his foreign minister, the venal, slowwitted, alcoholic M.Qhobela Molapo,38 who had been provoked by Shakhanes corruption and past
betrayals. However, aforementioned, when Nelson Mandela visited Lesotho, Mokhehle could not
recall his name. He died in 1999, a complex, enigmatic and tragic figure. Shakhane was sidelined and
died in 2005. Sibekos partial coup, Tanzanian hostility, Leballos death and Mokhehles defection
ensured the BCP/LLA, despite launching the first major guerrilla incursion in 1979, was unable to
assist the liberation of South Africa. In 1998, Mandela sent troops to assist the Lesotho government
following a disputed election but the Lesotho forces gave a very good account of themselves and the
intervention destroyed a large part of Maseru.
After Leballos death, the PAC went rapidly downhill. It had a series of leaders, the inexperienced
Johnson Mlambo, who was unable or unwilling to prevent his colleagues from engaging in a
continental car theft enterprise; the dying veteran Zephaniah Mothopeng, and the insipid Clarence
Makwetu and Bishop Stanley Mogoba. Many PAC leaders were desperate for status and financial gain
and therefore agreed to the 1994 settlement since the new constitution guaranteed parliamentary and
provincial council seats to parties that gained even less that 1% of the vote. Young PAC Maoist
militants - PAC Revolutionary Watchdogs - unsuccessfully argued that, since the PAC was very weak
and none of its economic and social objectives were in sight, the party should therefore boycott the
elections and build up its oganisation for a future thrust for power when the social and economic order
was in crisis. They likened the situation to the Muzorewa-Smith agreement in Zimbabwe, which failed
because it did not appease the militants. The Watchdogs also opposed participation on ideological
grounds as they saw the ANC/SACP-NP-Inkatha pact as a means of creating multiracial elite enjoying a
first world life style at the expense of a vast derelict third world underclass. Joseph Mbatha, a Year 10
student in 1994 and a chairman of the Pan Africanist Student Organisation (PASO) as well as an Azanian
National Youth Unity (AZANYU) member described the younger generation's attitude to the Makwetu
leadership's attitude to elections:

38

Molapo once noted give a dog a bad name referring to one of Mokhehles first names - Sejabanana (seizer of
girls) but he himself was descended from Molapo Moshoeshoe, associated with traitorous activities, and he was a
relative of Leabua Jonathan Molapo. Mokhehle outwitted Molapo by accepting expulsion from the BCP and
immediately forming a new party, the Lesotho Congress Party, which was confirmed in power in 1998 by Mandelas
invasion after a disputed election.
88

There was PAC Congress in 1993 at Umtata in eastern Cape. ... It was there where
the PAC started declining. The PASO, AZANYU and other members of PAC distanced
themselves for elections. I want to state this, there was split already in PAC because we
distanced ourselves as a Youth of Azania from the talks with the settlers regime. We
called ourselves as Revolutionary Watchdogs under the banner of PAC. ... When there
was time to vote for the PAC to participate in talks with the regime. The Congress
became in disorder. The Youth of PAC ran out of the Congress. We unite ourselves
outside the Congress against the captured leadership.
Mbatha summarised the attitude of the PAC Revolutionary Watchdogs to the Mandela election
victory:

The ruling class has only adjusted by co-opting some of the oppressed. The genuine
aspirations of the African are not addressed.
[Letters to Leeman]
Other watchdogs admitted that resentment at the settlement impacted on the post 1994 escalating
crime wave. Change had come by negotiation and the result was reform, not revolution, so the PAC
leadership decision, by accepting the 1994 settlement, had put personal gain before principle.
Leballos the guerrilla as a social reformer was certainly not echoed in the PAC suicidal election
slogan of one settler one bullet, which effectively eliminated the party. Mokotso Pheko was elected
PAC president in a corrupt stage-managed conference. Pheko was a derisory, comic-book figure, who
claimed two doctorate degrees, one he awarded himself from his own Daystar University, the other
bought from a bogus degree mill named Kensington University. Phekos self-published vanity entry on
Wikipedia stated: Dr Pheko is considered to be one of the greatest exponents of Pan-Africanism on
par with Nkrumah, du Bois, Lumumba, Sobukwe and Cabral. Pheko was sacked for corruption and
replaced by Letlapa Mphahlele, a psychotic murderer, who had ordered the slaughter of a church
congregation. The presence of these appalling specimens in the South African parliament was
argument enough for raising the bar to 5% of national votes for political parties to gain seats.
In August 1998, a PAC organizer, Portia Lusaseni, announced that the men executed for the Mbashe
River atrocities would be honoured for heroic achievements. The post-Leballo history of the PAC is
mirrored by other movements in Haiti, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and elsewhere, where alienated
lower class militants took up armed resistance but established nothing more than failed, bloodstained,
racist, priapic, bandit states. In Ethiopia, China, Vietnam, 1916-1922 Ireland, and Cuba, these forces,
combining with disaffected middle class activism, were far more successful. However, in Zimbabwe,
Peru, Tamil Sri Lanka, Columbia, Eritrea and Cambodia, Maoist and other leftist activists terrorized or
oppressed the class they originally represented. The parallel between Mugabes ZANU (PF) and the
post-Leballo PAC is particularly disturbing because ZANU (PF) achieved freedom through American
and British support yet degenerated into fascism despite ongoing international goodwill.
The PAC vote in 2009 was 0.27% and a single seat. In contrast, the SACP, still acting as a sort of
Iranian Council of Guardians or latter-day Broederbond, received no direct votes. Twelve of its office
bearers in parliament included its general-secretary, Blade Nzimande, minister of higher education and
training, the SACP leader who, in 2003, revealed Sisulus treachery as if it were a heroic act. They are
listed as ANC. Instead of being a militant vanguard of a mass movement that could have accomplished
the revolutionary political, social and economic changes the country needed, apart from a brief period
under Nzula, the party remains a pampered privileged undemocratic parasite that has failed to
accomplish any significant reform in the twenty two years of freedom. Neither party had much impact
in bringing apartheid to an end or influencing the countrys future. By the time the Cold War ended in
1989, large areas of Africa had been devastated or mismanaged by superpower rivalry, multinational
exploitation, ethnic disputes, military coups, anti-colonial struggles, and ideological experiments.
In South Africa, the new class of urban Afrikaner professionals in the military, business, industry and
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international trade at last found common ground with middle class Africans, and manufacturing and
industrial workers to share their labour, knowledge and expertise to create a prosperous future. This
entailed considerable risk but skillful negotiations backed by industrial action associated with the trade
union organizer Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa (1952- ), who founded the National Union of Mine
Workers in 1985 and was a dominant force within the Congress of South African Trade Unions
(COSATU), the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Mass Democratic Movement (MDM).
Ramaphosas activism succeeded where ANC, PAC and SACP had failed, for, although the
manufacturing industries employed more workers, the miners were a far more powerful unit and not
seen as a dangerous disruptive force like militant unemployed township protestors. The final
agreement that led to the 1994 election gave enough hope to the electorate that the countys wealth,
resources and facilities would be available on more equitable basis.
However, since the 1994 settlement was a compromise, it led to a coalition government of the
ANC Alliance, the National Party and Inkatha, with an evolutionary rather than revolutionary outlook
with no focus on the countrys problems, only consolidation within the coalition partners.
The National Party was concerned with holding on as much to its former privileges as possible,
keeping the economy stable, and maintaining high standards in areas such as the professions and
higher education. It accepted changes such as the downgrading of the Afrikaans language, the
Africanisation of the military and police, and the mild, selectively indignant, Truth and Reconciliation
Commission enquiry into past atrocities. Inkatha was a Zulu nationalist movement originally funded
by Americans seeking a Third Force (as in Graham Greenes prescient Vietnam War novel The
Quiet American). Inkathas raison dtre was little more than keeping Natal out of ANC control, in
part revenge for the SACPs disrespect for Lutuli. Ramaphosas success had led to a power sharing
within the ANC known as the Tripartite troika Alliance between the ANC, SACP and COSATU
(which, like the SACP, has never stood for elections as a separate entity) that was a reflection of the
industrial nature of the South African economy. However, as in the 1950s, the true nature of the ANC
alliance was very nebulous and almost schizophrenic, with deeply Christian liberal-mercantile
capitalist ANC MPs who denied Darwin mixed with hard line Soviet style Communist atheists. Since
deliberations were conspiratorial, obscure, and over-accommodating towards COSATU and the SACP,
there was no clearly defined national agenda. Ntsukunyane Mphanya (1930-2016), the veteran BCP
politician in Lesotho, whose party had been denied government in 1965 because of the British
electoral model, ironically looked back nostalgically to that arrangement since the proportional
representation system introduced in Lesotho (1993) and South Africa (1994), had, in his opinion,
taken the fire and idealism out of politics, as party leaders knew they would get a seat in parliament
even after the most lackluster campaign.
Although Ramaphosa was elected ANC Secretary-general and was Mandelas choice as successor,
his Venda ethnicity (like Madzunya) and the former exiled ANC/SACP factional cliques denied him
the post in favour of Thabo Mbeki, an ineffectual, intellectually bizarre, apparatchik. There has been
speculation that a Ramaphosa presidency might have undertaken more radical steps to alleviate the
causes of crime and growing political alienation to which the relatively privileged ANC Tripartite
Alliance could not address; but, after his tenure as ANC secretary-general, he quickly identified with
the corporate business elite and lucrative international service. However, he has now become the heir
apparent to President Zuma. The land question is still unresolved. This issue evoked the PAC battle
cry of Izwe Lethu and has caused numerous murders of white, mainly Afrikaner, farmers since 1994.
An atrociously insensitive nepotistic appointment was that of the SACP activist Helena Maria Dolny
(1954- ), widow of the late Joe Slovo, to the post of managing director of the Land Bank, the key body
that finances South Africas large agricultural industries, a reflection of the historical Soviet and even
African urban hostility to cooperative farming (such as coffee and tea ventures in Tanganyika) and
contempt for small scale peasant farming, despite success in Kenya where Gikuyu farmers were
allocated former white farms.
The Tripartite (troika) Alliance brings to mind another unnatural construction. The author of the
90

novel Frankenstein, an English writer named Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851), wrote of
forces similar to those that created the PAC and todays ubiquitous homicidal priapic narco-militias:
The same energy of character which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful
in society, had that society been well organized. Any system focused solely on economic
development will inevitably face violent opposition from marginalized citizens who have escaped
becoming social or psychological derelicts. From Union until the 1970s South Africa was governed
by a small clique answerable to Afrikaner farming interests, which eventually instituted the
horrendous apartheid experiment that came close in the 1980s to engulfing the country in anarchy and
carnage. From the 1970s South Africa has adopted the global liberal mercantile capitalist model of
Adam Smith without, as elsewhere, his insistence on restraint.39 Although the 1994 settlement
alleviated some pressure, Marxist analysis still identifies major contradictions in South Africa society
that will probably lead to further crises. The present South African political, economic and social
structure is mainly dependent on manufacturing and other industries but long term predictions
conclude that, when the countrys exploitable resources are exhausted, much of Southern Africa will
revert to a subsistence rural economy, which means peasant farming still has an important future. This
conclusion is guided by acceptance that Malthusian catastrophe will not be alleviated by new mineral
discoveries and brilliant scientific and technological innovations40. Any new development, as always,
tends to favour a powerful minority at the expense of the bulk of the population. South Africa, with its
continuing two tiered society, and over-reliance in recent years on Chinese trade and investment,41 can
easily spawn militant anti-establishment movements.
Since 1994 the ANC government, like its Afrikaner predecessors, has represented the more
prosperous sections of society, not because of gerrymandered electoral boundaries but by
conspiratorial politics, dating back to Mandela, Sisulu and Slovos SACP coup in 1955, through which
minority groups, now represented by COSATU and SACP, have disproportionate influence. The
SACPs nepotistic membership provides fast track access to lucrative employment and influential
positions as in the case of Max Sisulu (son of SACP Walter), Thabo Mbeki (son of SACP Govan),
Helena Dolny (widow of SACP Joe Slovo), ANC minister Barbara Hogan (wife of SACP Ahmad
Kathrada); and Kasrils and Modise, ineffectual SACP hacks, in defence. The 1955 structure imposed
by Mandelas Freedom Charter Congress Alliance coup still stands. The present ANC secretarygeneral is Gwede Mantashe, a past Secretary-General of the National Union of Mineworkers, who is
also the national chairman of the South African Communist Party. By accepting this arrangement,
Presidents Mandela, Mbeki, Motlanthe42 and Zuma (a SACP politburo member until the 1990s) have,
in the PAC Maoist (as opposed to mystical fascist) viewpoint, failed to harness and accommodate the
energy and aspirations of the increasingly volatile and dissatisfied semi-educated underclass. It is
therefore extremely likely that the country will again see a rise of a lower class movement similar to
the PAC of 1959. The schizophrenic liberal mercantile capitalist/Soviet Marxist nature of the ANC
structure is reflected in its nebulous ideology. Raymond Suttners work on what he terms the
intellectuals of the African National Congress43, is merely a sycophantic survey of undemocratic
39

Adam Smith [1759] The Theory of the Moral Sentiments

Prakesh Javadekar, Minister for the Environment for India, argued for a delay for implementing stricter carbon
emissions for thesame reason http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/02/india-pledges-40-percentelectricity-renewables-2030;
The Hindu 10 December 2015
41
The Economist 12 December 2015
42
Former present Motlanthe caused much debate by dsiscussing the troika issue in November 2015.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/We-respect-Motlanthe-but-Tripartite-alliance-responds-to-attack20151103
43
Raymond Suttner The character and formation of intellectuals within the ANC-led South African liberation
movement in African Intellectuals: Rethinking Politics, Language, Gender and Development Thandika
Mkandawire, Zed Books (2005). Suttner was a typical example of a SACP member from a politically
insignificant background, fast tracked for ANC leadership. He became South Africas ambassador to Sweden.
40

91

elitist activists, almost indistinguishable from the Capricorn Society, who believed they were the
Leninist vanguard of professional revolutionaries. In March 2010, Winnie Mandela, Nelsons former
wife, was associated with remarks to the effect that the 1994 settlement could be interpreted as a
highly unsatisfactory arrangement so far as the lower echelons of African society were concerned.
This had earlier, aforementioned, been expressed by commentators as diverse as Cambridge
Universitys Professor John Iliffe and the PAC Watchdogs but is a significant admission emanating
from one who had greatly benefitted by the 1994 changes.
South Africa has experienced a complex political history. It had two main white populations with
separate languages, religions, economic traditions one feudal, the other mercantile and industrial
capitalist - and political heritage republican, and monarchial with imperial connections. Tensions
between these two groups resulted in major conflict between 1899 and 1902, the aftermath of which
dominated relations into the 1960s. Simultaneously, both white populations were subjected to rapid
industrialization, especially in mining and manufacturing, as the country sought to become selfsufficient as part of its anti-Imperial political agenda. The industrialization had a far more dramatic
effect on the majority African population, whose social and political structures were severely eroded
or completely destroyed in the apartheid lunatic scenario where their labour and skills were essential
to the countrys prosperity. Their efforts were hamstrung and the countrys future jeopardized by the
political dominance of the Afrikaner farming class and their lower class urban ethnic allies working to
reduce Africans to a derelict existence in rural human zoos. Aforementioned, by 1950, politicized
Africans were in three main groups. The first, encouraged by 19th century liberalism, believed in
assimilation into the upper middle class English speaking community; the second, identifying whites
as a irredeemably malignant force, believed that their expulsion was the countrys only solution. The
third, tiny but highly influential, strove to create a Soviet style dictatorship of an industrial class of
privileged workers led by Marxist intellectuals. The second group, associated with the Africanist
Movement and the Pan Africanist Congress, at first looked to African and, later, Asian experience,
especially Ghana and China (both proving illusionary), to develop an appropriate political philosophy
and liberation strategy because their eventual mass membership could not identify with middle class
parliamentary democracy or Soviet vanguardism. They could relate to the expulsion of whites from
Indonesia, Algeria and Vietnam. However, because of their geographical isolation and continued
suppression, they were unable to develop appropriate economic, social and political models. The chief
success of their 1980s youthful rural and township ideological inheritors was to make the country
ungovernable but, before they could develop their own alternative institutions and with severely
disrupted education44, they were outmanouvered by the National Party - ANC/SACP Inkatha
alliance and 1994 settlement and had nothing of value to offer the electorate.
Given the sacrifices and suffering of the past three hundred years, the 1994 settlement
unsurprisingly engendered continued bitterness, because of the failure of the governments from
Mandela to Zuma to create the long expected equitable society. The most obvious resistance to the
status quo came from criminal elements. In 1959, the PAC received significant support from the
criminal underclass. Politics and crime are often closely related. Templeton Ntantala, David Sibeko
and Vus Make embezzled funds while the Harare clique that surrounded Pokela were part of a car theft
ring that also prospered under Johnson Mlambo, Clarence Makwetu and Joe Mkwanazi. Mokotso
Pheko, with two bogus PhD degrees, was sacked as PAC leader for embezzlement. In exile, the ANC
became heavily involved in drug trafficking. This contrasted with the criminal Robin Hood style
thuggery that assisted PAC between 1959 and 1964 that was significantly supportive of idealistic
political and economic sentiments. The PACs 1959 tsotsi supporters opposed the SACPs cynical
manipulation of the ANC and were highly critical of higher class aspirations among the PAC
leadership. In post 1994 democratic South Africa, the lower class criminal gangs often echo the
tsotsi threats of Sobukwes day about the self-seeking upper class. Yet, while Sobukwe, Leballo and
44

The exiled ANC/SACP also encouraged them to believe that revolution was more important than education.
92

Madzunya targeted ANC upper class elitism, SACP secret power deals, and capitalist exploitation, the
former ANCYL leader Julius Malemas targets were almost shadows from the past Afrikaner farmers
and imperialists. The former senior PAC politician Patricia de Lille tapped into class resentment and
quickly upstaged her old party by championing popular issues and corruption. The ANC government
initially utilized the Malemas demagogy to deflect criticism away from itself. The most obvious block
in South Africa to an equitable society continues to be the gerrymandered electoral system that has
permitted the SACP and COSATU to dominate government without electoral support. Both groups are
self-serving, elitist, urban oriented and linked to powerful labour and business interests. At first,
Malema ignored that issue and drew inspiration from Robert Mugabes presidency in Zimbabwe,
which showed that nationalist movements led by western educated intellectuals can nevertheless
establish neo-kleptocracies that lay blame for economic mismanagement on a diminishing white
ethnic minority. Malemas rhetoric was anti white and Indian and therefore ostensibly supportive of
the less privileged African majority. However, his lifestyle, despite a dismal high school record, was
immensely and ostentatiously wealthy. He was a national socialist bourgeois with a self styled
revolutionary but blatantly racist rhetoric, hostile to gender equality and fervently supportive of
Mugabes kleptocracy. Eventually, he proved too embarrassing for the ANC and was expelled from the
party. Freed from ANC restraints, he shifted to seek support from the lower class national socialist
element that was once the PACs natural constituency and he became a highly vocal critic of ANC
corruption. Having formed the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party in 2013, the EFF won 25
seats (6.4 % of the vote) in the 2014 election compared to 0.21% (one seat) for the PAC and 0.11% (no
seat) for AZAPO, Steve Bikos ideological heir. The rhetoric of Letlapa Mphahlele, the psychotic
murderer who heads the PAC, matches that of Malema, who rejoiced in the continuing murder of
white farmers. Letlapas clarion call was One settler, one bullet while Malema exhorted his
followers to Kill the Boer. However, Malema has never got round to killing anyone, which does
much to explain why his party has fared much better than PAC, which lost its main champion for
economic justice when Patricia De Lille broke away to form her own party, the Independent
Democrats, which later merged with the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance. Despite
Malemas divisive character and questionable business ethics45, his early electoral success reflects
significantly disappointment and anger with the ANCs failure to establish economic justice in an
equitable society. In mitigation, V Vn Kit (1922 2008), a peasant guerrilla fighter who rose to be
an effective pragmatic prime minister (1991-1997) of re-united Vietnam, remarked that, despite his
success, it was much easier to wage revolution than run a country. However, unlike the Vietnamese,
the ANC/SACP ran a very disappointing revolution where more effort was expended crushing their
own armys Angolan mutiny than fighting Pretoria. Its objective had been to join not replace the
existing power structure so, on achieving office, the ANC had to rely on financial and other expertise
from personnel from the former apartheid regime. In addition, whereas the most talented Africans of
the apartheid era entered politics, the post 1994 generation has understandably chosen to make money.
This is reflected even in the universities, which has failed to attract African academics.
There was also a transformation in political direction from decades of demanding for democracy
and an end to racial discrimination to insisting on a more equitable society. Opposition politicians,
even upper class members of the cynical manipulative SACP, had suffered for their beliefs.
Nevertheless, in accordance with Machiavellis observation that all idealistic movements, political and
religious, get overwhelmed by self-seeking venal fellow-travellers once they become official, the
ANC and its fellow travellers were ill-equipped to deal with the post 1994 New South Africa.
The country swiftly degenerated into violent crime, endemic rape, drug abuse, and massive corruption
exacerbated by inept brutal aggressive foreign interventions, widespread HIV, West African and other
international criminal networks, a despised police force trained for decades to catch communists,
and low quality presidents (Mbeki and Zuma). Although the worst is over, it is estimated that, since
45

Extremely serious charges against Malema were dismissed because of continuing illness of one of his associates.
There was a justified perception that the reason for the prosecution was political [Al Jazeera 4 August 2015]
93

1994, corrupt officials have embezzled over $50 billion (Al Jazeera 30 September 2015) and policeblock shakedowns are indistinguishable from, and commonplace as in the continuum of fellow African
Commonwealth countries of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe,
Lesotho, Swaziland and Nambia. President Zuma, speaking in October 2015 acknowledged One of
the complaints raised by our people is the impression of lack of discipline within the organisation and
that people do as they please and undermine the authority of the ANC with impunity, [Daily Mail
Australia 10 October 2015]. The very detailed and insightful book External Mission: the ANC in exile,
1960-1990 (Oxford: 2013), by late Professor Stephen Ellis (1953-2015), is a very good explanation of
how the chaotic incompetence and infighting of the Congress Alliance carried over into government.
While alienated lower class activists and criminal gangs may not challenge the
ANC/SACP/COSATU regime, their lower class peers in the South African military are in a more
formidable position to do so and can draw on examples from Ethiopia and Cuba where peoples
armies have implemented more equitable and safer societies. Military coups, ostensibly against
incompetent and corrupt rule, as for example the ones led by Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt
1952), Houari Boumedienne (Algeria 1965), Major Nzeogwu (Nigeria 1966), Colonel Muammar alGaddafi (Libya 1969) Mengistu Haile Mariam (Ethiopia 1974) Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings
(Ghana 1979, 1981), Staff Sergeant Samuel K. Doe (Liberia 1980), and Captain Valentine Strasser
(Sierra Leone 1992), have had mixed results but have not deterred opportunistic and/or idealistic
young military personnel or aggrieved militants (John Okello in Zanzibar 1964) from seizing power
irrespective of international or continental opinion (Niger 2010). However, the ANC is mindful of
precedents and has slashed military spending from 4% to 1% of GDP, making it difficult to launch
effective peace-keeping operations, let alone a coup. In any case, rectifying social and economic
injustice is usually far beyond the capabilities of traditional military personnel, and many from self
styled revolutionary states such as North Korea, Eritrea and Zimbabwe are as corrupt and self
seeking as military juntas in Myanmar/Burma, Fiji, Equatorial Guinea, and Sudan. Unfortunately, in
cases in highly corrupt countries such as Nigeria and Kenya, insurgents no longer make any attempt to
offer a better alternative as, for example, Maos Red Army did against the Guomindang or the TPDF
against the Derg in Ethiopia. It is as if many insurgents accept that, either once in power, they too will
be as corrupt as those they replaced or idealism is only for middle class Western liberals and African
church leaders with selective indignation. On the positive side, South Africa does have excellent
institutions including an independent legal system as well as millions of employed tax-payers
demanding better standards of government services. However, anti-corruption measures are
underutilized. South Africas scale of corruption is 67th out of 174 countries,46 behind (in Africa)
Botswana (31), Cape Verde (42), Mauritius (47), Lesotho, Namibia and Rwanda (55) and Ghana (61)
but better than Brazil, Greece, Italy (69), India and Thailand (85), China (100), Indonesia (107),
Vietnam (119) , Pakistan (126), Iran and Russia (136), Bangladesh (145) Iraq (170) and North Korea
(174) 47. South Africas homicide rate48 (31.0 per 100,000) is third in Africa after Lesotho (38.0) and
Swaziland (33.8) but below Jamaica (39.3), Guatemala (39.9), El Salvador (41.2), Venezuela (53.7)
and Honduras (90.4). In the case of rape, the South African Medical Research Council estimates that
only one in nine rapes are reported to the police. Nevertheless, South Africa has the highest incident of
rape per population (132.4 per 100,000) followed by Botswana (92.9), Lesotho (82.7) and Swaziland
(77.5).49 South Africa also is the worst country for income inequality and has an appalling record for
unemployment, which is around 34.9%.50 South African executives on average earn more than twice
those in Belgium, France and Nigeria and more than those in Germany, Australia and Britain, only

47

http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overview
UNODC Homicide Statistics 2013
49
http://www.abcnewspoint.com/top-10-countries-with-highest-rape-crime-2015/
50
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/unemployment-rate
48

94

being marginally topped by the USA.51 In October 2015, Thomas Piketty stated that 60%-65% of
South Africas wealth is concentrated in the hands of just 10% of the population (compared to 50%55% in Brazil, and 40%-45% in the US).52 In the 2014 South African elections, polls suggested that
job creation, education, and basic services were the main issues. Therefore, since democracy and racial
discrimination (against Africans) no longer dominate South African politics, only parties offering
credible detailed policies that can attract competent honest technocrats, managers and administrators
concerning these issues have any chance of substantial electoral success and alleviating popular
discontent. To a significant extent, politics is still dominated, by what Sobukwe and Mda termed,
respect for the ANC as if it were a church, and a lingering suspicion that any rival party that has a large
white membership has an upper class culture unable to relate to the general population. Reform within
the ANC and an end to the troika alliance would bring far more invigorating debate concerning
economic and social issues. Unchallenged, monolithic power structures are self seeking, venal and
incompetent. The ANCs historical refusal to tolerate differing views has made it flabby and
uncompetitive. Historically, it has never established a long term clearly defined ideology. It is
probably unrealistic to believe marginalised forces in South Africa will coalesce into a militant Maoist
style insurrection. Hopefully, if the ANC/SACP/COSATU troika disbands, such a move would
enliven social, economic and political debate; and perhaps offload much of the incompetent, corrupt,
incestuous, clandestine, conspiratorial culture that has plagued the ANC since 1955.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Above left) Matooane Mapefane (LLA Commander)

Jama Mbeki (Thabos PAC brother and LLA activist)
(Above right) Potlako Leballo, authors flat, Harare 1980

51
52

http://www.pecs.co.za/the-wage-gap-south-africa-s-emotive-issue.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/06/piketty-south-africa-inequality-nelson-mandela-lecture

95

SHARPEVILLE 21 MARCH 1960

96

Leballo before Sharpeville

Leballos widow and Sebabi, his elder son,

at his grave, Lifelekoaneng, Lesotho, 2015

Winnie Mandela, Nelson Mandela and Joe Slovo

(SACP Conference after Mandelas release)

97

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Ntsu Mokhehle in exile, Lusaka 1977

Leabua Jonathan Molapo

100

INDEX
AAPC, 2, 44, 45, 47, 52
African National Congress/ANC, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20,
22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,
36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47,
48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 62, 64,
66, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79,
80, 82, 83, 84 (see also Congress Alliance)
Africanist Movement, 2, 6, 16, 20, 23, 30, 39,
40, 42, 45
Africanists, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 25, 27,
28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 40, 41, 42, 43,
44, 45, 47, 48, 51, 52, 55, 78
All Africa Peoples Conference, 44, 47
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17,
18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32,
33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44,
45, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59,
60, 62, 64, 66, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75,
76, 77, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84
ANCYL, 2, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16, 19, 21, 23, 28, 29,
34, 35, 36, 70
Anti-Communist League, 4, 81
Azanian People's Liberation Army/APLA, 4,
58, 66, 74, 76, 79, 80, 81BAC, 2, 27, 45, 46,
47
Bantustans, 57
Bashee River (see Mbashe River)
Basutoland, 2, 3, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 23, 26, 27,
32, 40, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 56, 68, 69, 70, 72,
75, 76, 77, 86, 87
Basutoland Congress Party/BCP, 2, 3, 4, 36, 40,
44, 46, 47, 48, 56, 58, 60, 63, 67, 69, 70, 72,
75, 77, 79, 86, 87 (see also BAC)
Benson, Mary 17, 35, 70, 86
Beyleveld, Pieter 32, 37, 42
Biko, Steve 4
Black Nazis, 74
Black Republic, 9, 30, 40, 50
BNP, 3, 46, 47, 55, 56, 64, 69, 77
Broederbond, 63, 79, 83
Bureau of African Nationalism, 20, 21, 34
Burgess, Stephen Franklin 30, 48, 86
Capricorn Society , 32, 40, 55
Carter, Jimmy 4, 80, 86
Castro, Fidel 71
Central African Federation, 32, 35, 40, 57
Charterists, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 51
China, 13, 15, 28, 50, 71, 76, 80, 83, 86
Chinese, 9, 13, 15, 24, 30, 31, 79, 81
Chunya, 80
Cline, Ray Steiner 4, 81
Congress Alliance/ COD, 2, 6, 16, 32, 34, 35,
37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 48, 49, 57, 63, 67,
70, 71, 72
Congress of Democrats, 2, 32, 37
Congress of the People, 2, 24, 32, 35, 36, 37,
49, 53
CPSA/Communist Party of South Africa 2, 8, 9,

10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

Criminal Law Amendment, 2, 24, 32, 34, 52, 60
Cuba, 70, 79, 80, 83, 87
Dadoo, Yusuf 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 32, 37
Davenport, T. R. H. 50, 86
de Lille, Patricia 5, 85
Defiance Campaign, 2, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21,
22, 24, 25, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 39, 44, 50,
52, 60, 62
Desmond, Cosmas 74, 86
Dreyer, Peter 6, 86
Duncan, Patrick 46, 47, 55, 57, 63, 65, 74, 86
Erasmus, Frans 65
First, Ruth 36, 37, 39, 42, 66
Fort Hare, 10, 13, 14, 18, 21, 22, 28, 45, 69
Freedom Charter, 2, 6, 13, 16, 24, 32, 33, 34,
35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 44, 45, 53
Gandhi, Mahatma 2, 13, 14, 26, 70
Garvey, Marcus 8, 13, 87
Gerhart, Gail 6, 14, 17, 18, 25, 29, 33, 37, 38,
41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 48, 50, 51, 53, 54, 55, 59,
60, 61, 86
Ghana, 2, 14, 24, 44, 47, 52, 56, 63, 69, 76, 80
Gibson, Richard 6, 73, 86
Guevara, Ernesto Che 30, 71, 79, 86
Gumede, Josiah T. 9, 30, 31, 70
Gun War, 26, 45
Harmel, Michael 15, 16, 20, 37, 86
Hodgson, Jack 32, 70
Hogan, Barbara 86
Hooper, Charles 63
Iliffe, John 7, 86
Indian Congress, 2, 12, 16, 17, 21, 32, 72
Irgun, 3
Isandhlwana, 48, 49, 63
Jolobe, William 51, 64
Kadalie, Clements 8, 21
Kasrils, Ronnie 84
Kathrada, Ahmad 72, 86
Kaunda, Kenneth 23, 71, 82
Kenya, 11, 24, 28, 32, 40, 54, 71, 72
Kenyatta, Jomo 16, 24
Kgosana, Philip 22, 54, 59, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67,
71
Khaketla, Bennet 56, 69, 77
Kondlo, Kwandiwe Merriman 6, 86
LOuverture, Toussaint 13, 49, 87
Lamche, Pascale 77
Langa, 53, 54, 59, 62, 63, 64, 65, 73
Leabua Jonathan Molapo 3, 4, 46, 47, 64, 76,
80, 81
Leballo, Potlako Kitchener 2, 3, 4, 6, 10, 11, 13,
14, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29,
30, 32, 33, 35, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47,
48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 58, 59, 60, 61,
62, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76,
77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 86, 87, 91
Leeman, Bernard 26, 27, 32, 37, 40, 42, 46, 47,
56, 61, 64, 69, 77, 78, 81, 86
101

Lekhanya, Metsing 4, 81
Lekhotla la Bafo, 46
Lembede, Anton Muziwakhe 2, 8, 10, 11, 12,
13, 14, 15, 16, 23, 28, 34, 36, 48
Lenin, V. I. 10, 15
Lesotho, 3, 4, 8, 36, 45, 54, 58, 63, 66, 67, 69,
72, 76, 77, 80, 81, 86
Lesotho Communist Party, 4, 69, 77
Lesotho Liberation Army/LLA, 4, 66, 67, 76,
80, 82
Liberal Party, 6, 13, 32, 46, 55, 62, 63, 70
Lifelekoaneng, 4, 26, 76
Liliesleaf, 3, 72, 77
Lisikisiki, 4, 82
Lodge, Tom 6, 54, 59, 61, 75, 86
Lombard, Hans 75
Ludi, Gerard 77
Lutuli, Albert 2, 4, 8, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 32,
33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 43, 44, 48, 49,
52, 62, 70, 71, 72, 85, 86
MacKenzie, Robert 81
Madzunya, Josias 2, 30, 42, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49,
59, 67, 84
Mahomo, Nana 49, 54, 55, 69, 73
Makatolle, 69
Makgothi, Henry 27, 29, 35, 36
Malan, Franois 2, 10, 11, 13, 15, 20, 24, 32, 46
Mandela, Nelson 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 16, 17, 18,
21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35,
36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 49, 52, 54, 62, 66,
67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 82,
83, 84, 85, 87
Mao Zedong, 10, 13, 31, 48, 55, 79
Mapefane, Maotooane "Chazi" 67, 80, 81
Marematlou Freedom Party/MFP, 3, 4, 77
Marks, J. B. 2, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 22, 25, 27,
39, 72, 87
Maseru, 3, 44, 46, 47, 68, 69, 72, 73, 75, 76, 86
Matanzima, Kaiser 73
Matthews, Joe 18, 36, 39, 42, 45, 70, 7-74, 79,
79, 87
Matthews, Z. K. 21, 28, 29, 34, 35, 42, 45
Mbeki, Govan 71, 72, 73
Mbeki, Jama 8
Mbeki, Thabo 82, 85, 86
Mbashe River, 3, 74, 79, 83
Mbashe River, 3, 83
Mda, Ashley Peter 2, 6, 10, 11, 16, 17, 19, 2132, 34, 43-45, 49, 50, 56, 81
Miners Strike, 2
MK/Umkhonto we Sizwe , 3, 71, 72, 76, 77, 80
Mkwanazi, Joe 68, 85
Modise, Joe 71, 84
Mofolo, Thomas 26,

Mokhehle, Shakhane, 5, 72, 81, 83

Molapo, Moses Qhobela 36, 37, 39, 46, 47, 83
Molete, Z. B. 16, 28, 43, 49, 63, 64, 65, 70, 73,
75, 79
Molotsi, Peter 16, 29, 36, 49, 69
Moroka, James Sebe 2, 13, 19, 20, 21, 22
Moshoeshoe, 46, 87
Mothopeng, Zephaniah 4, 16, 49, 59, 73, 82
Mphahlele, Letlapa 5, 83
Mphanya, Ntsukunyane 79, 87
Mugabe, Robert 85
Nasser, Gamal Abdul 47
National Party/NP, 2, 3, 8, 10, 11, 13, 20, 24,
29, 30 33, 35, 38, 39, 42, 43, 46, 47, 53, 57,
58, 60, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 69, 70, 73, 74, 75,
76, 77, 79, 8087
New Age, 35, 36, 37, 64, 70
Ngcobo, A. B. 48, 49, 50,
Ncqobo, Howard 53, 59
Ngendane, Selby 16, 29, 41, 49, 53, 59, 60
Ngubane, Jordan 6, 11, 13, 16, 55, 70, 87
Nkomo, William 10, 71
Nkrumah, Kwame 2, 3, 9, 14, 17, 24, 44, 45,
47, 56, 64, 69, 73, 79, 83, 87
Nokwe, Duma 18, 27, 29, 35, 36, 39, 42, 52, 62,
72
Ntantala, Templeton 73, 76, 79, 80
Nyanga, 54, 59, 62, 63, 65
Nyaose, Jacob 51, 59
Nyerere, Julius 4, 23, 68, 71
Nzula, Albert 9, 31, 36, 83
Nzimande, Blade 83
Oblates of Mary Immaculate/OMI, 3, 46, 69, 77
OMeara, Dan 6, 10, 66, 87
Padmore, George 9, 10, 14, 16, 44, 45, 47, 49,
86, 87
Pan Africanist Congress/PAC, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9,
10, 11, 23, 24, 26, 37, 40, 41, 42, 45, 46, 47,
48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59,
60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71,
72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84,
86, 87
Pass Laws, 19, 52, 57, 62
Pheko, Mokotso 5, 75, 83
Pitje, Godfrey 16, 18, 23, 25, 28, 70
Pius XII, 14
PMU/Police Mobile Unit, 3, 77
Pogrund, Bejamin 55, 61, 62, 77, 87
Poqo, 3, 21, 73, 74, 75, 76, 86
Port St Johns, 4
Pretoria, 3, 4, 15, 27, 56, 65, 67, 68, 74, 77, 80,
81, 86
Price, Robert 6, 87
Programme of Action, 2, 7, 12, 13, 15, 19, 21,
26, 27, 34, 36
Public Safety Act, 2, 24
Rademayer, C. I. 57, 62, 64
Ramaphosa, Cyril 83, 84
Rand Daily Mail, 41, 55, 61, 74, 75
Reeves, Ambrose 61, 62, 63, 87

Mofolo Township, 28, 33

Mofutsanyana, Edwin 11, 15, 46
Mohlabani, 69
Mokhehle, Ntsu 2, 3, 4, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 23,
44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 56, 59, 64, 66, 68, 69, 70,
72, 73, 75, 77, 80, 81, 83, 86, 87

102

Revolutionary Watchdogs, 82, 83

Rivonia, 3, 67, 72, 77
Robben Island, 3, 76, 87
Rothe, 3, 77
Rupert, Anton 63, 64, 65, 87
SACP/South African Communist Party, 2, 3, 4,
5, 7, 8, 16, 17, 18, 24, 25, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33,
35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 48, 50,
52, 56, 62, 63, 64, 66, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74,
75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84
SACPO, 2, 32, 34, 35, 39, 41
SACTU, 2, 32, 39, 43, 51
SAIC/South African Indian Congress, 2, 16, 19,
20, 22, 32, 34, 35, 39, 41, 43, 70
Sampson, Anthony 18, 31, 39, 42, 61, 87
Scott, Michael 35, 39, 74
Selatile, Tsiu 68, 69
September, Reg 32, 42, 55, 73, 76, 81
Sharpeville, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 22, 27, 30, 47, 49,
59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 79, 87
Shepherd, R.H.W. 27, 51, 87
Sibeko, David 4, 28, 80, 82
Sisulu, Walter 2, 6, 8, 10, 11, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22,
25, 27, 29, 32, 33, 36, 39, 42, 49, 52, 62, 70,
72, 76, 83, 84, 85, 87
Slovo, Joe 14, 28, 31, 32, 36, 37, 39, 41, 42, 48,
52, 60, 62, 66, 70, 84, 87
Smuts, Jan 9, 10, 11, 31, 77, 86
Sobukwe, Mangaliso Robert 2, 3, 4, 6, 10, 13,
14, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29,
30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 37, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45,
47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58,
59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 71, 73,
76, 77, 79, 80, 83, 87
Soviet Union, 13, 15, 28, 30, 47, 48, 71, 80

Special Air Service Regiment (UK), 32

Special Air Service (Rhodesian imitation), 81
Stalin, Joseph 9, 87
Tambo, Oliver 2, 4, 11, 16, 17, 18, 24, 25, 27,
28, 31, 32, 33, 39, 40, 42, 43, 49, 52, 54, 69,
72, 83
Tanzania, 4, 79, 80, 87
Terblanche, Terry 3, 65
Thaba Bosiu, 3
The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2, 24, 32
Thema, Selope 25
Transkei, 3, 73, 82
Treason Trial, 2, 24, 34, 42, 49, 52, 53, 57, 73
Trotsky, Leon 15
Tsolo,Mike Nyakane 6, 8, 61, 87
tsotsis, 40, 41, 54, 74
Umkhonto we Sizwe/MK, 3, 71, 72, 76, 77, 80
Unity Movement, 3, 8, 30, 60, 73
Verwoerd, Hendrik 3, 57, 61, 63, 64, 67, 70, 71,
79
Vigne, Randoph 63
Vusumzi "Vus" Make, 4, 73, 74, 80
Warlordism, 85
Williams, Cecil 72
Wind of Change, 31
Winter, Gordon 75, 87
Xuma, Alfred B. 2, 8, 9, 10, 13, 30, 34
Young, Andrew 80
ZANU(PF), 83
Zhou Enlai, 79
Zimbabwe, 4, 32, 80

103

PAC Central Committee elected at Arusha, Tanzania, 1978

Left to right: E. S. Makgakala, G. Mathutha, E. L. Makoti, V. L. Make, S. M. Sibeko, P. K. Leballo, M. Mokgoatsane,
E. L. Ntloedibe, E. Radebe, E. Sibeko, H. E. Isaacs, R. Xokelelo

104

Anton Lembede
Africanist ideologue

Ashley P. Mda
Africanist ideologue

Nyakane Mike Tsolo

Leader at Sharpeville

Zephaniah Mothopeng
Last credible PAC leader

David Sibeko
Tanzanian appointed PAC
leader

Vus Make (right)

Tanzanian appointed PAC
leader

Nyathi Pokela
Tanzanian appointed PAC
leader

Johnson Mlambo
Tanzanian appointed PAC
leader

Clarence Makwetu
Stanley Mogoba
S.E.M. Pheko
Letlaka Mphahlele
PAC leaders elected in dubiously convened conferences by unrepresentative cliques and rejected by members who
refused to compromise with the National Party regime and ANC/SACP settlement.

105