The Impact of Anti-communism on White Rhodesian Political Culture, ca.1920s–1980

Abstract

Anti-communism has often been seen as a marginal aspect of white Rhodesian political ideology, designed to manipulate eccentric metropolitan and American opinion. However, it was neither shallow nor peripheral, but integral to it and essential to an understanding of the politics and ideological resilience of White Rhodesia in its closing decades. Many white Rhodesians regarded African disaffection as externally fomented and international, so that there appeared to be no need to address any grievances. The Cold War crucially sealed Rhodesia's political fate, since the successful encouragement of anti-communist sentiment made it difficult for a Rhodesian government to advocate compromise of any kind.

Acknowledgements

The author wishs to thank Dr Jo Duffy of the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum Archives, Bristol, and Dr Kent Fedorowich of the University of the West of England for their kind assistance in consulting the Rhodesian Army Association Archives.

Notes

 [1] Smith, Great Betrayal, 34, 124–5, 140, 144, 153–4, 183, 235–6, 268, 271, 355, 380, 407; McFarlane, “Justifying Rebellion,” 59.

 [2] Contemporary colonial place names are used throughout this article. Unless otherwise qualified, Rhodesia should be taken to refer to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The prefix, ‘Southern’, was dropped by the Government of Southern Rhodesia from the title of the self-governing colony following the independence of Northern Rhodesia, as Zambia, in 1964.

 [3] Krikler, White Rising, passim.

 [4] Jollie, Real Rhodesia, 102; Lee, “An Analysis,” 71–98; Hodder-Williams and Whiteley, “The Rhodesian Referendum,” 56–74; Lowry, “White Woman's Country,” 259–82.

 [5] Keller, Fascists of Southern Rhodesia.

 [6] Steele, “White Working-class Disunity,” 67.

 [7] Blake, History of Rhodesia, 235–6.

 [8] Steele, “Doris Lessing's Rhodesia,” 51–2; and see the following works by : Martha Quest, A Proper Marriage and A Ripple from the Storm.

 [9] Lessing, Under My Skin, 265–314.

[10] Ibid., 307; Ellert, “Rhodesian Security and Intelligence Community,” 90.

[11] Dupont, Reluctant President, ch.1.

[12] Skeen, Prelude to Independence, 3–4.

[13] Steele, “Doris Lessing's Rhodesia,” 51–2; Lessing, Walking in the Shade, 179.

[14] Ranger, Are We Not Also Men?, 103.

[15] Blake, History of Rhodesia, 240.

[16] Hodder-Williams, White Farmers, 203; Rhodesia Herald, 20 August 1948.

[17] Gray, Two Nations, 312, 348. See also Sithole, African Nationalism, 131–145.

[18] Hancock, “Capricorn Africa Society,” 41; Hancock, White Liberals, 40.

[19] Lowry, “Southern Rhodesia and the Imperial Idea,” 305–42.

[20] Godwin and Hancock, ‘Rhodesians Never Die,’ 61.

[21] Leys, European Politics, 268; , Smith of Rhodesia, 355–8; Young, Rhodesia and Independence, 617.

[22] Leys, European Politics, 250.

[23] Welensky, Welensky's 4000 Days, 44, 110–12, 341–3. The Welensky Papers, held at Rhodes House, Oxford, contain references to the communist threat too numerous to mention here. For some of the flavour of Welensky's views, however, see the following files: 237/6–7; 692/6; 726/11; 740/8. See also Wood, So Far, 192.

[24] DO35/7532, no.1, 6 May 1958: Despatch from M. R. Metcalf to Lord Home [Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations]; 334–5: 335: DO183/214, 21 September 1962 note by Sir R. Hollis [Director-General of the Security Service] following a meeting with Sir Roy Welensky. In British Documents on the End of Empire: Central Africa, Part 1 , 334–5, 409; Wood, So Far, 41. For Anglo-Rhodesian intelligence connections in this period see Murphy, “Intelligence and Decolonization.” See also Butler, “Britain, the United States,” 131–151, and James, “Britain, the Cold War,” 152–168.

[25] Rogers and Franz, Racial Themes in Southern Rhodesia, 259. See also 269, 336.

[26] Gann and Duignan, “Changing Patterns of a White Elite,” 148, n.2. According to census figures, already by 1921 53.2 per cent of whites had no active church affiliation, even if most identified themselves as protestant.

[27] Clements, Rhodesia, 134.

[28] Hodder-Williams, “White Attitudes,” 250.

[29] Evans, “The Role of Ideology.”

[30] McFarlane, “Justifying Rebellion,” 58.

[31] Evans, “Role of Ideology,” 107.

[32] Godwin and Hancock, ‘Rhodesians Never Die’, 11, 15.

[33] Wood, So Far, 202.

[34] Clements, Rhodesia, 210–11; Moorcraft, Short Thousand Years, 13.

[35] Godwin and Hancock, ‘Rhodesians Never Die’, 39.

[36] Ibid., 72.

[37] British Empire and Commonwealth Museum Archives, Bristol. Rhodesian Army Papers 118/JP114/JPS/1/4: A Joint Assessment of the Security Situation in Southern Rhodesia for the second quarter of 1964 prepared by Joint Planning Staff for Chiefs of Staff Committee, 2 April 1964.

[38] British Empire and Commonwealth Museum Archives, Bristol. Rhodesian Army Papers 117: JP35/JPS/13/plans [Discussion of a] United Kingdom air base in Southern Rhodesia, 20 September 1963.

[39] Barber, Rhodesia, 260, 285–94.

[40] West, The White Tribes, 74.

[41] Peck, Rhodesia Condemns; Reed, The Battle for Rhodesia; Soref and Grieg, The Puppeteers.

[42] Barclay, “Friends in Salisbury,” 38–49; Welsh, “Ian D. Smith,” 139–45.

[43] Evans, “Role of Ideology,” 122–3; Di Perna, Right to Be Proud, introduction.

[44] Lake, ‘Tar Baby Option’, Ch.6.

[45] Young, Rhodesia and Independence, 617–19; Joyce, Smith of Rhodesia, 355–8.

[46] Evans, “Role of Ideology,” 125–6.

[47] Bader, “Kith and Kin,” passim.

[48] Quoted in Taylor, “Memory and Desire,” 60

[49] Evans, “Role of Ideology,” 129.

[50] Prime Minister's address to the nation, Rhodesia Herald, 12 November 1965.

[51] For a discussion of the tradition of conditional loyalty among British settlers in the British Empire, see Lowry, “Ulster Resistance,” 196–215. In the case of the Ulster Covenant of 1912, the concluding prayer, of course, was ‘God Save the King’. For allusions to the Boston Tea Party, see Murphy, “An Intricate and Distasteful Subject,” 751; Lowry, “Southern Rhodesia,” 306–7. For Ward's belief in an impending East–West ‘showdown’ and conspiracies by British trades unionists to seize control, see University of York, Hugh Maude Papers, MAU I, Harold Soref to Hugh Maude, 8 April 1969; Harvey Ward to Hugh Maude, 4 February 1969 and 19 April 1969; K. J. Riddell to H. A. C. Maude, 21 August 1972.

[52] Hodder-Williams, White Farmers, 203.

[53] Tredgold, Rhodesia, 255.

[54] Clements, Rhodesia, 254–5.

[55] Flower, Serving Secretly, 120–22.

[56] Meredith, The Past, 44

[57] Evans, “Role of Ideology”, 92–6.

[58] Ibid., 100.

[59] Joyce, Anatomy of a Rebel, 366.

[60] Evans, “Role of Ideology”, 106.

[61] Ibid., 163.

[62] Flower, Serving Secretly, 138, 213. For more detailed examinations of Rhodesian intelligence operations see Ellert, “The Rhodesian Security and Intelligence Community,” 87–103; Stiff, See You in November, passim.

[63] Rhodesia Ministry of Information, Anatomy of Terror, 1. For a similar view, see Gale, Years Between, 51–3.

[64] Hancock, White Liberals, 161, 179–80.

[65] Godwin and Hancock, ‘Rhodesians Never Die’, 120–21, 220, 302, 360; Lewis, Rhodesia Live or Die; Lewis, Rhodesia Undefeated; Lewis, Christian Terror.

[66] Edmond, Story of Troopiesongs, 14.

[67] , “Rhodesian Discourse,” 102–30. For other fictional examples of this outlook see Stiff, Rain Goddess; Davis, Hold My Hand I'm Dying; Hartmann, Game for Vultures.

[68] Meredith, The Past, 134.

[69] Ibid., 208.

[70] Ibid., 220, 243–4.

[71] Godwin and Hancock, Rhodesians Never Die, 209.

[72] Ellert, “Rhodesian Security,” 91.

[73] Lovett, Contact!, 9, 37–8. For further insights into white Rhodesian popular culture, including anti-communism, in these years, see Caute, Under the Skin; Hills , Rebel People; and Hills, Last Days.

[74] Frederikse, None But Ourselves, 186–7.

[75] Women for Rhodesia, Rhodesia, 2.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Donal Lowry

Donal Lowry is a Reader in Imperial and Commonwealth History and in Irish History, and Field Chair in History, at Oxford Brookes University. He has taught at Rhodes University, the University of York and the University of Oxford, where he is a member of the History Faculty and a Fellow and Tutor of Greyfriars Hall. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Southern African Studies and of the advisory panel for the 2007 conference on the British World, which will be held in Bristol. He has held visiting fellowships at Rhodes University, University College Cork, the University of Trier, and the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, at King's College London.