4. Conclusion

The decisions made by the Party executive at the end of 1938 proved to be a lifesaver for the Party. Although Johannesburg and Cape Town officials continued to joust over issues, the move to Cape Town created some breathing space for a cohesive leadership to emerge. Branches were given a measure of autonomy to deal with local issues without a centralised leadership hovering over them. Although freed from Comintern meddling (it ceased functioning in 1943), the CPSA still tailored its policies to conform to shifting Soviet positions. ¹¹³At the outset of World War II, the CPSA endorsed the Soviet Union's non-aggression pact with Germany and took the line that because the war was essentially a conflict between rival imperialists, the CPSA would remain neutral. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the CPSA abruptly switched course and lent its full support to the South African government's war effort. Party activists still devoted time to the struggle against Fascism and organising white trade unions, but African comrades concentrated their energies on developing closer ties with the ANC and participating in black popular protests against housing shortages, Pass Laws, and higher bus fares. Their work paid dividends. By the war's end, CPSA membership had shot up from less than a few hundred to several thousand (mostly Africans); and in the coming decades, the CPSA became a major player in black politics. Although black and white Communists co-operated well at the politburo level, at the local level they functioned in more or less separate wings in the manner that Mofutsanyana had proposed at the 1938 meeting.

Given all the internal turmoil and how he was treated when general secretary, Mofutsanyana might have left or at least distanced himself from the Party in the 1930s. Yet when he became a Communist, he took an oath to the struggle and saw no alternative but to remain within the fold. Despite his disenchantment with the Party's direction at its 1938 conference, he was a dutiful functionary who remained loyal to the Party through thick and thin during those years. Throughout the 1940s he remained at the centre of Party affairs and African politics. He served on both the executives of the CPSA and Transvaal ANC, participated in anti-pass campaigns, ran several successful campaigns for election to the Advisory Council in Orlando Township, and co-edited the party newspaper, Inkululeko.

He remained a dependable worker until the Party executive voted to dissolve itself at a meeting in Cape Town in June 1950 before the Suppression of Communism Act became law. Although Mofutsanyana was on the executive and voted for dissolution, he had second thoughts after returning to Johannesburg and consulting with Party rank-and-file that were incensed that the Party could disband without a struggle. He thought the executive made its decision without a full discussion, and he came to the position that the Party should have defied the government whatever the consequences. After that he remained on the fringes of politics and did not actively participate in either ANC or the Party after it was reconstituted underground. His inactivity made no difference to government officials. They interpreted his silence as proof that he was still engaged in subversive activity.

In 1959, feeling heat from the police, he decided to go into exile. Rather than head north as so many others eventually did, he chose to stay as close to South Africa as he could and crossed the border into Basutoland, where he had kinsmen and close political allies in Lekhotla la Bafo and Lesotho's nascent Communist Party. Both organisations relied on his advice and called on him to write memos and pamphlets. He also helped organise circumcision schools. In the 1970s he moved deep into the mountains and earned extra spending money by using an ancient typewriter to type letters for migrant workers and their families. Although he was no longer engaged in politics, he was still targeted by the Lesotho government. Its soldiers harassed him and, on one occasion, they almost shot him by the side of a road. Ironically the South African government lost track of him and drew the conclusion that he died sometime in the early 1980s.

In the early 1980s he heeded the call of several people to make himself more accessible by moving down to the lowlands. He rented a modest room on the outskirts of Butha Buthe. Occasionally he visited the National University of Lesotho, where he revelled in talking through the night with political activists, lecturers and students about the history of the struggle and his role in it. He was energised by the younger generation, and he boasted - despite being in his 80s - that he was prepared to go wherever the struggle was raging.

Once the leading anti-apartheid organisations were legalised in 1990, his family in Witzieshoek looked forward to the time when they could bring him back to South Africa. Despite treating him shabbily for many years, Lesotho officials tried to block Mofutsanyana from returning to South Africa, but finally his family prevailed and brought him home to his birthplace in Witzieshoek. Except for occasional forays to Johannesburg, this was where he spent the remaining years of his life. He lived long enough to witness the historic elections of 1994. He died the following year and is buried in Qwa Qwa. In recognition of his service to the freedom struggle, the Eastern Free State - incorporating Witzieshoek - has been named the Thabo Mofutsanyana District.