Chapter 4 - THE PARTY AND THE “SOLDIERS OF LUTHULI”

A few months after the first formal ANC-SACP meeting in exile, in June 1970, the Party organised its first augmented CC meeting in Moscow, along the lines the CEC had suggested in 1966. The meeting, attended by 19 persons, was the first formal gathering bringing together the CC and some rank-and-file members. With Kotane entered in the attendance register as present when he was in fact in hospital, no-CC members present included Ray Simons, Ruth First, Moses Mabhida and Eric Mtshali; representation covered exile members in the USSR, East Africa and London. Most of those present had joined the Party between the 1930s and 1950s (the bulk of these having joined in the 1940s), with only two having joined the Party in the 1960s. Therefore, the meeting was to benefit from the depth of experience that most of those pres­ent had with the Party, running from the legal period to the post-1953 underground years as well as the 1961- 63 military campaigns. The racial composition of those present was 11 Africans, five whites, two Indians and one Coloured person. For the elections to the nine CC positions, 26 nominations were received, and with Kotane and Marks retaining their positions, new members on the CC included Josiah Jele, Moses Mabhida and Chris Hani.

Resolutions were taken on a number of issues, in particular on relations with the ANC, the armed struggle and organisational work. With regard to the latter, an important decision aimed at strengthening and regularising the work of the CC and establishing units. The resolution on the armed struggle, while reflecting a shift from the sabotage thesis that informed the 1961 - 63 MK campaign, was still based on the belief that guerilla warfare in South Africa had to be waged from the rural areas - a position that was to lie behind some of the operations that were to be undertaken later in the 1970s such as Operation J. The augmented meeting not only saw the emergence of a new breed of African leaders for the Party, some of whom were later to play a prominent role, but also prepared the Party to root itself among the exile community based in Africa.

However, the September 1972 CC meeting took place against the background of the attacks on the Party led by "dissidents", this even overshadowing Operation J if the agenda and resolutions of the meeting are anything to go by. In fact, earlier on, at the ANC meeting organised in Lusaka in 1971 to discuss "strategic questions connected with new developments inside the country", the Party was not invited; the meeting "was the first of its kind since 1966 in which brother organizations, including the Party, were not asked to send a participant or an observer".1

Slovo's "verbal" report to the 1972 CC meeting is also telling in this regard. According to Slovo: "A pattern has been set that the Party has call only on its white, Indian and Coloured members and [that] all Africans are the almost exclusive property of the ANC... Yet the fact that it [the Party] was restricted essentially to minority groups has caused and is continuing to cause enormous political damage"; an "impression has become even more entrenched that we are a minority organization. Loss of Moses [Kotane] and JB [Marks]... And no public African figure of stature seen to be at the top". Furthermore, "...a view has become entrenched that we have only a qualified right to mobilize people at home under the Party's banner". Nor was the independent profile of the Party exempted from this challenge:

"We hear attacks against us every time it leaks out that we take a collective stand on an important issue even in support of the ANC Executive... In other words we are expected to accept a position which makes a complete mockery of our independence." If this trend were to continue, argued Slovo, "we might as well decide here and now to liquidate the Party". 2

Therefore, Slovo's report suggests that critical issues, some of which were discussed at the ANC-SACP meeting of 1969, were still unresolved. First was the right of the Party to organise among the exile community; there was still some resistance to allowing the Party to have an organised presence, especially in MK camps. Secondly, the Party was not expected to have its own independent profile; Tambo even raised concerns about the Party having to meet before the meetings of the Revolutionary Council. Finally, that the Party was perceived to be an organisation of minorities was indeed a serious stumbling block. So, instead of a Party that was triumphing, and even taking over the ANC in the post-Morogoro period, as some scholars have suggested, we see here a Party that is struggling for its own survival as a political force in exile and within the liberation movement.

The response of the Party to this crisis was to strengthen its presence among the exile community based in Africa by creating more capacity to support CC members there in the form of the appointment of Eric Mtshali as a full-time functionary for "Hull". Secondly, the Party increased its efforts aimed at creating units in East Africa. Thirdly, the process of creating a new layer of African leadership was initiated in appointing Hani as assistant secretary at the 1972 CC meeting. Fourthly, the establishment of SACTU in organised form in exile was to be supported. Finally, the Party's propaganda work within the liberation movement also intensified (as demonstrated in the table below), thanks to the establishment, in 1970, of an "Inner-Party Bulletin" for distribution among Party members, and in 1971, of Inkululeko-Freedom as the Party's mouthpiece. With Dadoo elected chairperson at the November 1973 CC meeting following the death of Marks the previous year and two Africans co-opted into the CC at the same meeting, the Party continued its resolve to root itself in Africa. By the time of the October 1975 CC meeting, the affairs of Hull were now a standing item on the agenda of CC meetings. In fact, the business of the CC was becoming more and more regularised; meetings would begin with a political and organisational report, then proceed to a discussion, and end with resolutions and a public statement.

However, in spite of this, difficulties in relations with the ANC were far from over. A report sent after the 1975 CC meeting by the Secretariat to Hani who was then operating in Lesotho, raised some concern: "OR's [Tambo] attitude remains an extremely complex one. At the RC [Revolutionary Council] meeting itself he paid tribute to the Party but in his own rather complicated way, he emphasized the need for the Party to work in the tradition of Malume [Kotane] by which he understands that it should not really be organized as an independent force". 3

Nor were relations with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union unaffected, especially after the failure of Operation J. With the 1971 annual allocation from the CPSU reduced by £10 000 to £30 000, the CC had to appeal:

This reduction [of the 1971 allocation] has had serious consequences for the capacity of our Party to maintain and expand our various efforts in the extremely difficult conditions which face us... [T]he new problems which arose in connection with the attempted implementation of Operation J have seriously aggravated our financial position. To date there has been an expenditure of £25 000 over and above the total amount which had been allocated for this project by you... The additional amounts involved in pursuing Operation J has had to be found solely by our Party and has denuded our reserves to a critical point and we face the coming period with wholly inadequate resources.4

However, by the end of the 1970s, relations had improved; the CC could thank its Soviet counterpart for the 1977 allocation:

Table 1: Party Propaganda, 1966-1972

It is needless to stress that without this solidarity aid it would not have been possible for our Party organization to make the substantial progress it has been able to achieve during the last twelve months. In this period we have not only consolidated but also increased the number of our units functioning inside the country. Also, the network connecting the internal machinery with the Centre [CC] is working more satisfactorily through the regional committees established in the bordering States including Lesotho [referring to Hani's work]. 5

As for the London Committee, later renamed a district, it had grown since it's restructuring in 1966. The Committee and its groups were continuing to meet regularly, keeping in constant communication with the Secretariat, and often even sending suggestions on people to recruit and material to produce. In fact, the eight London Committee members of the mid-1970s were figures who had a rich experience with the Party - the members included Brian Bunting, Rusty Bernstein and Reg September. But London's problems were far from over. Firstly, the groups, because of their distance from home and their general isolation from the "front", would sometimes lose purpose and direction at the danger of even becoming administrative. Second, and very important/ was the turf battle between the groups and the Secretariat. Many members of the London groups wanted to do more than simply solidarity and propaganda work and political education; they wanted to interact with the underground inside the country. Much of the corresponce between the Secretariat and the London Committee during the 1970s centered on this issue. The Secretariat tried, on at least two occasions, to spell out the tasks of the London Committee and its groups with the hope of closing the debate on the matter.

But the lack of clarity in this area persisted, even leading to the expulsion of Ben Turok from the Party in March 1976, after he had taken the initiative to raise funds from Oxfam (Canada) for assistance to certain underground formations inside the country. The Secretariat asked Turok to provide the names of his contacts in the country, but he refused. The London Committee deliberated an the matter at its meeting of January 1976, and concluded that the Turok affair was largely due to the fact that the Party lacked clear guidelines on the matter - even instructing Bernstein to develop guidelines for discussion. Thus the Committee recommended that Turok be suspended for six months, but the Secretariat opted for expulsion. Finally, the racial composition of the London groups was also a concern:

...by an historical accident the racial composition of our membership in London is overwhelmingly white and, until recently... the other levels of our movement have not been effectively integrated... care has to be taken to guard against the temptation of entrenching our top-level apparatus in a basically unsuitable area and with a predominance of personnel who do not reflect the real character of our social structure. It is not a question of lower grade participation by those who belong to the minority groups, but rather one of guarding against what could become a harmful distortion in the true character of our movement with all the negative consequences, which would flow from such an arrangement. 6

These problems notwithstanding, the 1970s presented the Party with both opportunities and new challenges, which were linked to developments inside the country. Following the re-emergence of trade unionism and the student uprising in the mid-1970s in the country, a flood of youth crossed South Africa's borders to swell the ranks of the ANC, this even resulting in the establishment of MK's Lithuli Detachment. Thanks to the independence of Mozambique and Angola in 1974, the latter even providing the ANC with facilities for the establishment of MK training camps, for the first time the apartheid regime felt exposed and insecure.

Thus when the CC met with the membership at its second augmented meeting in 1979 in the German Democratic Republic, Party regions and units were now in existence in Africa, and the new CC included more leaders who were based in Africa. Therefore, the issue was no longer that of "reconstructing" the Party but rather of "strengthening and extending" Party regions and units. More powers were devolved to the regions, including London, on matters pertaining to Party building inside the country:

"Regional committees in the forward areas bordering on our country and the London region must devote uninterrupted attention to the task of creating internal Party units and contacts". This decision may have helped in moderating the turf battle that had been taking place between the London Committee and the Secretariat, but the problem was far from over. Another issue, which was still outstanding, was the development of a comprehensive cadre recruitment policy: "The incoming CC shall issue a guide on cadre policy based on the discussions on this topic [at this extended meeting]".

From: The South African Communist Party In Exile 1963 - 1990 By Eddy Maloka