The making (and remaking) of a revolutionary plan: strategic dilemmas of the ANC’s armed struggle, 1974–1978

Abstract

After the African National Congress’ (ANC’s) political and military structures within South Africa were destroyed by police repression in the mid‐1960s, there was a hiatus of a decade before the movement could contemplate resuming military operations within South Africa. By the mid‐1970s, the ANC found that the events that made this resumption possible also severely constrained its scope for action. While Mozambican independence gave the ANC a common border over which it could conduct attacks into South Africa, restrictions imposed by Mozambique’s government limited the ANC’s freedom to use the border in the same way that other African liberation movements had done in their struggles. This article argues that the ANC’s focus on military operations deep within the South African interior limited the ability of its rear bases to supply internal military units and thus made its army dependent on underground political structures for sustenance. The article explains how the absence of such structures resulted in significant casualties and contributed to the ANC’s decision to convene a review of strategy in 1978.

Keywords:

• African National Congress
• armed propaganda
• Joe Slovo
• Soweto Uprising
• Umkhonto we Sizwe

Notes

1. For more on the issues relating to the Morogoro conference, see Hugh Macmillan’s article, ‘After Morogoro: the continuing crisis in the African National Congress (of South Africa) in Zambia, 1969–1971’, in this volume.

2. Interview with Sue Rabkin, 16 October 2008.