Anarchism Is South Africa ft. Andrew

Andrew walks Mia through the oft forgotten history of anarchism is South Africa.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
All the media.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome to grappen Here. I'm Andrew SI to a future
channel Andreism. I'm joined by Mia Wong.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Did not miss your que this time.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
This will not make any sense to you unless you've
heard the previous episode in which I missed by you.
But hello, indeed, indeed welcome, did missic you. So recently
I read Born a Crime by Trevoroah. It was his
memoir of his childhood in South Africa and politics society.

(00:38):
Is a decent comedian and had me laughing out loud
and thinking a lot as well, and it really reignited
my long pass and interest in South African history because
he's given a lot of context when sharing his stories.
So I decided to look into the history of anarchism

(00:59):
in So Africa and that's what we will be exploring today.
Much of the information I gathered is thanks to the
scholarship of Lucian van der Walt, a South African anarchist
and professor of sociology. Particularly, I'll be looking at the
work on anarchism and Cynicalism Southern Africa from the International

(01:20):
Encyclopedia Revolution and Protest and Anarchism and cynical in the
Colonial and post colonial world. Without getting into the lengthy
and storied history of the region, I do need to
provide some context, so we'll start in the mid nineteenth century,
where the region that became South Africa was considered marginal
to the world economy. You had the Port of the

(01:42):
Cape of Good Hope and Port Elizabeth, which handled me
in the agricultural exports. And this was during the second
period of the British Cape Colony's existence, after it had
briefly fallen into the hands of the Batavia and Republic
during the Napoleonic Wars. None of that is particularly necessary
to know for our sake, but you know a little

(02:02):
fun fact at this point, once again under the British,
the land was broadly agrarian, and Britain's farms were worked
by colored and African workers. The neighboring Natal Colony, also
under British rule, had its plantations worked by indentured Indians.
The rest of the interior was under various Africana republics

(02:24):
and African kingdoms. For those not in the know, so
African in this context refers to obviously Africans, Black Africans,
to be specific, Indians referring to the indentured laborers from
the Indian subcontinent, Africanas referring to the Afrikaans or Dutch

(02:45):
speaking white South Africans. And then we have of course
the British, which are you know, white British people, and
the colored as a designation as a group as a
self identified ethnic group referred to the people of mixed
European and African heritage that had begun to develop their

(03:08):
own identity in their own community. Because the settlement of
South Africa had started centuries before, so other than the
agricultural export and ports providing a respite for trade between
the West and the East, the Southern African colonies weren't
particularly high up on anyone's list of priorities. But then
the economic landscape of the region transformed with the discovery

(03:30):
of diamonds in Kimberlee in eighteen sixty seven and gold
in Woodwater surround in eighteen eighty six. To make a
very long story short, this led to the rapid centralization
of mining activities and the growth of towns like Johannesburg,
one of the most well known towns in South Africa.
Imperial interests intensified, resultant in the British Wars and Africans

(03:53):
and Africanas and the establishment of the Union of South
Africa in nineteen ten an extremely diverse and polygoth society
under British rule. By nineteen thirteen, almost half of the
world's gold output came from with waters Round Aeriel and
with waters Rand Minds employed one hundred and ninety five
thousand Africans and twenty two thousand white workers. The working

(04:17):
class clearly faced many racial and ethnic divisions. It was
primarily composed of various Africans, which had their own divisions
between them, and there were also divisions between the largely
skilled white immigrants from Europe and the largely unskilled local
white africaners. The marginalized African and colored middle classes that

(04:40):
began to form from the few free laborers involved in
various grown industries would come to lead early nationalist movements
while grappling with segregation, discrimination, and linguistic challenges. As Van
der Wald said and a Coote, they lived in a
situation where a cheap African labor formed the bedrock of
the mine as well as state industry and the growing

(05:02):
commercial farming and manufacturing sectors, and where the cheapness of
African labor was primarily a function of the black's historic
incorporation into the country as a subject to people. In
this sense, local capitalist relations of exploitation were constructed upon
colonial relations of domination. Fast forward to the eve of
apartheid in nineteen forty eight, when Africana nationalists took power

(05:24):
and extended the segregation policies in the first four decades
of the Union even further, you get two responses to
the national question preceding the development of apartheid from the
organized labor crowd at the time. The first response, known
as white laborism, was associated with the mainstream white labor
movement leading back to the nineteenth century. The South African

(05:45):
Labor Party and South African Industrial Federation were key proponents
of white labourism, and both organizations were born from the
exclusiveness of early craft unions that later evolved into more
pronounced racial exclusiveness. This white laborism approach combined social democracy
with segregation, promoting job reservation and preferential employment for whites,

(06:09):
urban segregation and Asian repatriation white power for white workers. Basically,
the other races can figure out their own deal. Of course,
on the reservations that we put them in. So it's
no surprise that the apartheid government in part mainstreamed this
white laborism movement. But the second response to the national

(06:31):
question was linked to the Communist Party of South Africa
the CPSA from nineteen twenty eight, when it adopted the
Native Republic thesis under pressure from the Communist International. This
approach advocate of the establishment of an independent South African
Native Republic as a precursor to the Workers and Peasants Republic,
separating national liberation specifically in the form of nationalism and

(06:54):
then socialism into distinct stages. The CPSA initially considered leading
both of these stages, but later abandoned this idea and
opted for a united front with the African National Congress,
even for a unitary, democratic and capitalist state with land
reform and partial nationalization. But there's a hidden history that

(07:17):
goes unnoticed prior to the rise of apartheid and the CPSA.
All the way back in the eighteen eighties, Henry Glass
played a pivotal role in establishing the local anarchist tradition
in South Africa. He was an Englishman born in India
with a background in radical London circles. He moved to

(07:39):
Port Elizabeth in the eighteen eighties and engaged in various jobs,
including working on the Witwatersrand mines among African people. He
contributed to the Cape Labor Press, translated key works by
Kropotkin into English, and distributed anarchist materials through various organizations.
Glass seems to have taken a good look at Cloud

(08:01):
saw how Africans were treated, and didn't shy away from
calling it out now self is writing did idealize pre
capitalist cultures, for example, pointing out in a letter to
Kropotkin that you can still find amongst them the principle
of communism, but his main focus was on pointing fingers
at an order that treated Africans like second class citizens,

(08:23):
and going even further to champion the idea of a
working class movement that bridged racial divides. He understood the
foolishness of white workers to try and pursue their liberation
alone while sidelining their colored comrades, and though Glass spent
his time agitating in Port Elizabeth, this was also a
perspective shared by the Social Democratic Federation or SDF, based

(08:45):
in Cape Town, which despite its name, was all about
pushing anarchism and syndicalism. Actually, the maybe more precise there
was a dominant wing within the SDF of Cape Town
that emphasized anarchism and syndicalism. There will also moderate and
status elements in the SDF as well. Cape Town was

(09:05):
quite different at that time from Port Elizabeth. Port Elizabeth
was mostly African and white, but Cape Town had a
significant colored population, which created a situation where much of
Cape Town's working class was free labor rather than bound
to some form of slavery or dansure. Coloreds were facing
growing official segregation and popular discrimination from the late nineteenth

(09:29):
century onwards, though, so there was a growing discontent as
the working class fractured even further. But there was a
key figure in the Cape Town SDF that pushed anarchism
and cynicalism, and that was Wilfred Harrison, another friend of Kropotkin.
A carpenter, a trade unionist, and an ex soldier, he
was known as a very dynamic speaker and a staunch

(09:49):
anarchist communist who pushed for a future where workers owned
and controlled everything. With Harrison at the Helm, the SDF
set up shop in Adelaide Street, where they were allizing talks, events,
and even standing in elections for propaganda purposes. The sdf's
events attracted thousands, creating truly uniquely integrated public spheres that

(10:11):
would bring colors, whites, and Africans in some of the
same spaces. They were holding speeches in Afrikaans, which was
the most popular language of the colors, and in Eating Closer,
the language of the closer people. They had bookshops, reading rooms,
refreshment bars, beach trips, choirs, and even a few socialist

(10:32):
christ Nets. At the various talks, they welcomed controversial figures,
including a young Gandhi. Harrison's wing of the SDF further
sought to remove union colour bars, unionize colors, secure equal pay,
and build unions that would unite all workers, regardless of race.

(10:52):
In the early nineteen hundreds, Socialists with Waters Round launched
the Weekly Voice of Labor, led by Archie Crawford and
Mary Fitzgerald. The People served to connect socialists across cities
from Duban to Kimberley, to Cape Town to Johannesburg. Archie
Crawford was a staunch anti segregationist, pushing back against the
South African Labor Party for its policies and organized in

(11:14):
the neglected colored workers. In nineteen ten, the SDF hosted
British Synicolas tom Mann, whose tours the region would inspire
the founding of the Socialist Labor Party or SLP. In Johannesburg.
They adopted the ideas of Daniel de Leon, the American
leader of the International Workers of the World, and were
followed by the Industrial Workers' Union, which linked with the

(11:35):
IWW in Chicago. The IWW's ideas spread to Duban and Pretoria,
but it was Johannesburg where they flexed their muscles with
successful strikes and challenges to labor laws. The IWW's position
carried the same as its forebears, fight the class war
with the aid of all workers, whether efficient or inefficient,

(11:57):
skilled or unskilled, white or black. IWW organizer Jock Campbell
would be the first to specifically make propaganda amongst the
African workers in which waters Rand. But don't get me wrong,

(12:20):
these efforts do not mean that they necessarily succeeded. The
IWW and SLP's struggle to recruit to cross racial lines
stems not primarily from prejudice, but from their overall weakness
as union organizers outside the tram sector where they saw
the most successes, and of course the practical challenges of

(12:40):
organizing the predominantly unfree African workforce Underwitwater's Rand. So they
talked a good talk about reaching across racial lines, but
not a massive success because they didn't have a strategy
in place to actually establish those connections between Africans, colored
and Indian workers in this regard. Actually, the SDF in

(13:01):
Cape Town was a lot more successful. However, something did
happen in witwaters Rand. In May nineteen thirteen, a significant
general strike erupted on the witwaters Rand, initiated by white
miners and quickly spread in across industries. The strike was
marked by riots and gun battles and escalated on what's

(13:22):
called Black Saturday, July fifth, resulting in twenty five deaths
at the hands of the imperial troops. Subsequent strikes by
African miners and Indian passive resistance campaigns further intensified the
social unrest, with the failure of a compromise in the
aftermath of the nineteen thirteen strike led to a second
general strike in January nineteen fourteen. The State responded swiftly,

(13:46):
declaring martial law, mobilizing forces and suppress in the unions,
resulting the arrest and deportation of key activists, including Archie Crawford.
Then World War One further disrupted things, with the U
s Country joining the British side. While some organizations suspended
activities to support the war efforts, hardline African and nationalists

(14:08):
launched an armed rebellion, leading to split within the SDF
and the South African Labor Party. Although anarchism and syndicalism
played a role in these turbulent events, the actual syndicalist
movement on the Witwater Strand was weak and divided. By
nineteen thirteen, despite attempts to forge unity through the United
Socialist Party, the USP it fell apart due to existing

(14:30):
divisions and ideological differences among the constituent groups. While organized
syndicalism struggled to lead the strikes, syndicalist ideas and sloguans
gained considerable traction in labor circles. The strikes and war
issues reinvigorated existing anarchists and syndicalists, radicalized new activists, and
sparked widespread interest in radical ideas, which would lead to

(14:55):
a new development. In September nineteen fifteen, the Industrial Socialists
League the ISL emerged as a prominent syndicalist formation. Comprising
of the syndicalist veterans and anti war South African Labor
Party activists, the ISL quickly became the largest left political
group before the Communist Party of South Africa. The ISL

(15:17):
rooted in theww tradition, advocated for the organization of workers
on industrial alliance irrespective of race, and envisioned an integrated
revolutionary one big union for national liberation and class struggle.
The ISL criticized whitecraft unions for the divisive practices and
advocated fundictrial unions to confront the challenges posed by jant

(15:39):
corporations and trusts. Racial prejudice, according to the ISL, served
the ruling class's interests insuring a study supply of cheap,
unorganized African labor at the same time that the ISL
was actively opposing discriminatory laws. The ISSL also doubted the
efficacy of African nationalist programs in genuinely emancipating the black masses.

(16:04):
It contended that national oppression was rooted in capitalism, making
national liberation unlikely under the prevalent system. The ISL aimed
to reform white unions, but while leading efforts to organize
people of color, they faced challenges, of course, in the
form of opposition from white workers, electoral defeats, and hostility

(16:24):
from established unions. They were evicted from Trades Hall in
nineteen seventeen for resistant discriminatory policies, but continued the activities
cultivating links with people of color, particularly through its passionately
anti Zionist Yiddish speaking branch. The ISL played a pivotal
role in establishing unions among people of color, launching the

(16:47):
Indian Workers Industrial Union in Durban in nineteen seventeen, and
later through night schools for Africans initiating the Industrial Workers
of Africa in the same year, both of which would
be led by their own constituents. By nineteen eighteen, there
would be another general strike, this time primarily by Africans.
Earlier that year, one hundred and fifty two African municipal

(17:09):
workers were sentenced to hard labor for striking, leading to
protests organized by the Industrial Workers of Africa, the International
Socialist League and the South African Native National Congress and
the South Africa Native National Congress. The SANNC, which was
the precursor to the currently ruled in African National Congress

(17:29):
the ANC. The Joint Action Committee proposed a general strike
on the Witwatersrand for the release of the sentenced workers
and better pay for African workers. Although the strike was
canceled last minute, several thousand African miners participated anyway, resulting
in arrests for incitement to public violence. The rested individuals

(17:50):
included ISL members and a member of both the Industrial
Workers of Africa and the SANNC. A year later, in
March nineteen nineteen, ISL members played a role in their
civil disobedience campaign against past lords, which required non whites
in South Africa to carry documents authorizing their presence in
restricted white areas. That resistance campaign led to nearly seven

(18:14):
hundred arrests. That same year, in Kimberley, the ISSL established
syndicalist unions among colored workers, such as the Clothing Workers
Industrial Union and the host Drivers Union. These unions achieved
significant successes, including wage increases in Cape Town. ISL members

(18:34):
City Way and CRY aimed to organize the Industrial Workers
of Africa on the docks. They collaborated with the Industrial
Socialist League, the ind sl a syndicalist breakaway from the SDF,
and played a role in the major strike on the
docks in December nineteen nineteen. Now, the strike ultimately disintegrated,
but it still marked a significant event. All in all,

(18:59):
the ISL, heavily influenced by syndicalism, would play a major
role in the strikes of the late nineteen tenths. The
ISL's influence extended to the formation of the Communist Party
of South Africa CPS alongside the SDF and the INDs
CEL and a few other groups in the nineteen twenties.
That party would go underground after the Anti Communists Act

(19:21):
of the fifties and re emerge as the South African
Communist Party the SAACP. For most of its history, it
has been explicitly Marxist Leninist, heavily influenced by the Bolsheviks. However,
when it first started, syndicalist concepts still lingered within the
party for many years before was eventually excised. The internationalist

(19:44):
and multi racial vision of the syndicalist movement was later
taken over by the two stage strategy of the cpsa
slash SACP, which sought to establish an independent, democratic, capitalist
republic as a precursor to a socialist order. This, of course,
diverges from the earth anarchist and syndicalist strategy, which viewed
the anti colonial independence and class struggles as interconnected and

(20:07):
didn't see national liberation as solely the purview of nationalism,
a view which to me is more sophisticated and revolutionary
than this one track status view that Marxist tend to
adopt contrary to the organizing efforts of actual working class people. Interestingly,
Van der Walt argues that while CPSA undeniably contributed to

(20:27):
working class struggles since the nineteen forties, a critical look
reveals that they made consistent cricketures of the pre CPSA left.
They sort of established themselves as the true vanguard in
the fight for South Africa's liberation. So they portrayed the
pre CPSA left in two main currents. The Proto Bolsheviks
considered true socialists and everyone else. The pre CPSA left

(20:51):
was deemed a failure, with the Proto Bolsheviks credited for
pioneering socialist work among black workers. According to their narrative,
it was only in the nineteen twenties the cpsa's adoption
of the native republic thesis and Marxistleninist ideas that the
national question was adequately addressed. Anarchism and syndicalism are portrayed

(21:11):
as marginal and bothersome predominantly white movements that at best
underestimated the significance of national oppression or at worst endorsed
white supremacy and segregation. This interpretation, of course, positions a
CPSA slash SACP as the sole bearers of revolutionary socialist
solution to the national question, while ironically erasing the history

(21:34):
of early African socialist and syndicalist radicalism. So wrapping up
a bit here, we delved into the intricate history of
anarchism and syndicalism in South Africa, uncovering a movement that
played a significant role in Southern Africa from the eighteen
eighties to the nineteen twenties and consistently grappled with the
complexities of the national question. We've seen a multi racial

(21:57):
and internationalist movement marked by a step fast opposition to
racial discrimination and a commitment to interracial labor organization and
the unity of the working class. They had a vision
of a society rooted in class solidarity of an industrial
republic distinct from the conventional nation state and in lockstep
with an international industrial republic. Now, despite the decline of

(22:21):
anarchism and cynicalism in the years following the founding of
the CPSA slash SACP anarchism is still alive today in
South Africa. The Zaba Laza Anarchist Communist Front or ZACF
is a specific anarchist political organization based in Johannesburg, South
Africa and founded on May Day in two thousand and three.

(22:44):
The organization operates on an individual membership basis by invitation only,
emphasising theoretical and strategic unity among members. The Zaba Lazas
align with the anarchist, communist, platformist and a specifistic traditions
within anarchism, subscribe to the idea of an active minority
pushing anarchist ideas within larger movements. In fact, unlike the anarchisynicalists,

(23:09):
the Zablazas don't aim to build mass anarchist movements, but
rather to participate in existing social movements, spreading anarchist principles
within heterogeneous organizations. Zablaza advocates for direct democracy mutual aid, horizontalism,
class combativeness, direct action, and class independence. It emerged during

(23:31):
a time of political closure within trade unions which were
controlled by the African National Congress government. It oriented itself
towards emergent social movements such as the Anti Privatization Forum
and the Landless People's Movement, aim into advance anarchist principles
within these movements. Sablas's work includes popular political education, combatant

(23:54):
reformists and authoritarian tendencies, and advocating for the independence of
social movements from political parties and electoral politics. So that's
the story the history of anarchism and cynicalism and South Africa.
Obviously this is a summary, but it goes to show
the influence that these movements have had in shaping the

(24:17):
history of that often forgotten region of the world. Thanks
for joining me once again or power to all the people.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
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(24:49):
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