Events were breaking above their heads: Socialism in South Africa, 1921–1950

Abstract

This paper examines the organizational dilemmas of South African socialism during its legal phase of existence from 1921–1950. It points to structural factors arising from capitalism's combined and uneven development, such as extreme regionalism and a rigidly‐divided working class, which impeded the development of a stable socialist movement. Within these structural constraints, socialists sought to build the organizational stability and continuity which they believed necessary to strengthen socialism as a political movement, to build political alliances and to facilitate working class and black unity. But socialism's organizational dilemmas, communism's centripetalism and Trotskyism s centrifugalism accentuated the difficulties in building political alliances, and socialists remained posed ambiguously between the white working class, black working class and black petty bourgeoisie. This paper illustrates the complex interrelationship between the organizational question and the development of political movements.