National Democratic Revolution, Part 8a
Road to South African
Freedom
Among other
things we are trying, in this short series, to recover the fact that the
National Democratic Revolution, taken in full, is a project whose origins can
be found at least 90 years ago, and which has a
continuous history from that time onwards, both outside and inside South
Africa.
We are
trying to trace the main steps of the NDR in South Africa and we have
consequently touched, among others, upon the Black Republic Thesis, the Cradock
Letter, the Doctors’ Pact, the Defiance Campaign, the Congress of the People
and the Freedom Charter, the Peasants’ Revolt, and now the Strategy and Tactics
document of the Morogoro, Tanzania conference of the ANC in 1969, which is our
main document in this part.
The Treason Trial that followed the Congress of the People
came to an end in 1959 with the acquittal of all the defendants. In the same
year, the African Communist magazine was launched from exile. It was the first
public manifestation of the South African Communist Party, re-established and
renamed after the banning and dissolution of the CPSA in 1950.
Between 1959 and
the 1969 Morogoro Conference, a number of things happened. New campaigns
were launched, but came to an abrupt end following the Sharpeville massacre and
the banning of the ANC and the PAC in 1960. Umkhonto we Sizwe was
launched in 1961. The raid on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia took place in 1963. It
was a great setback to the movement.
The SACP published the Road to South African Freedom in
1962. It is probably the first published document of the SACP, apart from a few
quarterly editions of the African Communist (the “AC”) that had appeared up to
that time.
The Road to South African Freedom is about National
Democratic Revolution. This can be seen from its section specifically on the
NDR, where the document spells out that:
“This crisis can only
be resolved by a revolutionary change in the social system which will overcome
these conflicts by putting an end to the colonial oppression of the African and
other non-White people. The immediate and imperative interests of all sections
of the South African people demand the carrying out of such a change, a national democratic revolution…”
Things that were said and written in those days continue to
be relevant. In a document we will review tomorrow, it is recorded that by
1928, after less than seven years of existence, the Communist Party of South
Africa had 1,750 members, and that 1,600 of them were Africans, using the
classification of the time. In the 1960s and 1970s there were struggles within
the movement that were essentially about class, but which often focused on
those few members of the SACP who were white, Indian or Coloured.
We will return to this question in the next post. Meanwhile,
let us celebrate two white comrades who must surely have assisted with the
publication of the Road to South African Freedom, Hilda and Rusty Bernstein,
pictured above.
- The above is to introduce the original reading-text: Road to South African Freedom,
1962, SACP: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
- To download any of the CU courses in PDF files please click here.
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