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Abstract
This article focuses on Nelson Mandela’s tenure as the first commander-in-chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). It emphasises his objectives for MK as reflected in the archive of diaries, notebooks and reports that he produced at the time. It also looks at the effectiveness of his work as Commander by exploring how the army he built fared in its insurgency against the state. The article emphasises the seriousness of purpose of Mandela and colleagues, which is something they have not always been credited for in the literature. Also explored is MK’s history beyond Mandela’s arrest. This involves revisiting what would be the first ‘Free Mandela’ campaign in history. Led by the underground within South Africa, the campaign offers a platform from which to assess the durability and effectiveness of the structures that Mandela left behind. The history of the post-Mandela underground also encompasses ‘Operation Mayibuye’, which was the MK High Command’s first attempt at launching guerrilla warfare. Operation Mayibuye was not implemented. This was a result of a crackdown by the state, most notably with the raid on Lilieslief Farm in July 1963. The article looks at how the underground absorbed the blows that it received at the hands of the state from 1963 to 1964, including the process by which the leadership of MK shifted to the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) External Mission, led by Oliver Tambo. The contribution of the Communist bloc and independent African states in facilitating the transition is discussed, as well as the embedding of the armed struggle in the larger conflicts of the Cold War and decolonisation. Finally, the paper considers the legacy of the urban revolt of the early 1960s and its significance for the larger debate regarding the role of the armed struggle in the broader liberation struggle in South Africa.
Acknowledgements
This article is based on research supported by the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences of South Africa.
Notes
1 Joseph Lelyveld, Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black And White (London, Michael Joseph, 1986), p. 328; Stephen M. Davis, Apartheid’s Rebels: Inside South Africa’s Hidden War (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1987), p. 203; Paul L. Moorcraft, African Nemesis: War and Revolution in Southern Africa, 1945–2010 (London, Brassey’s, 1990), p. 341; ‘Demobilised Army Struggles to Come to Terms with Peace’, Business Day, Johannesburg, 13 August 1991; Warwick Davies-Webb, Special Report: June 1991: Umkhonto we Sizwe and the South African Communist Party: Searching for a Mission in the 1990s (Bryanston, International Freedom Foundation, 1991), p. 2; British broadcaster Brian Walden quoted in Anthony Sampson, Mandela: The Authorised Biography (London, Harper Collins, 2000), p. 580.
2 Tom Lodge, Mandela: A Critical Life (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 90–1.
3 Jonathan Hyslop, ‘Mandela on War’, in Rita Barnard (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Nelson Mandela (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 172, 175, 178.
4 Sampson, Mandela: The Authorised Biography, pp. 159, 179.
5 Scott Couper, Albert Luthuli: Bound by Faith (Scottsville, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2010), p. 144.
6 David James Smith, Young Mandela (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2010), p. 279.
7 See Thula Simpson, ‘Nelson Mandela and the Genesis of the ANC’s Armed Struggle: Notes on Method’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 44, 1 (2018), pp. 133–148.
8 Edward Feit, Urban Revolt in South Africa, 1960–1964: A Case Study (Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1971).
9 Fatima Meer, Higher than Hope: The Authorized Biography of Nelson Mandela (London, Penguin, 1988), p. 170; Couper, Albert Luthuli, p. 144.
10 ‘S.A.-Wide Police Net for Bomb Attack Terrorists’, Rand Daily Mail, Johannesburg, 18 December 1961; Ben Turok, Nothing but the Truth: Behind the ANC’s Struggle Politics (Johannesburg, Jonathan Ball, 2003), pp. 128–30.
11 ‘North Promised to Back Us – Mr. X’, Rand Daily Mail, 12 December 1963; ‘Road Blocks Set Up on all Borders of the Republic’, Natal Mercury, Durban, 18 December 1961; ‘Mass Police Alert after Ten Bomb Explosions’, Cape Times, Cape Town, 18 December 1961; ‘Voices of Resistance – Transcripts’: Vino Reddy interview of Subbiah Moodley, 3 July 2002, pp. 20–1. Link to transcript available at http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/Audio/VOR/Transcript.htm, retrieved 4 May 2018.
12 University of the Witwatersrand Historical Papers (hereafter UWHP), Rivonia Trial, AD1844, A2.3.3., Annexure ‘B’ to Indictment, pp. 3–4.
13 ‘S.A.-Wide Police Net for Bomb Attack Terrorists’, Rand Daily Mail; ‘Mass Police Alert after Ten Bomb Explosions’, Cape Times.
14 Padraig O’Malley interview of Laloo Chiba, 7 January 2003, available at http://www.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv00017/04lv00344/05lv01435/06lv01437.htm, retrieved 4 May 2018.
15 ‘Sabotage Outbreak in S.A.’, Sunday Times, Johannesburg, 17 December 1961; ‘S.A.-Wide Police Net for Bomb Attack Terrorists’, Rand Daily Mail.
16 UWHP, AD1844, A2.3.3., Annexure ‘B’ to Indictment, p. 4.
17 ‘Bomb Case Man in My Home, says P.E. Woman’, Rand Daily Mail, 5 May 1963; ‘Arrests at Rivonia Described’, Rand Daily Mail, 13 February 1964; ‘ANC Elder Statesmen: Interviews with Govan Mbeki and Raymond Mhlaba’, Monitor, Kampala, December 1989.
18 UWHP, AD1844, A2.3.3., Annexure ‘B’ to Indictment, pp. 4, 6; National Archives of South Africa (hereafter SANA), Transvaal Repository (hereafter TAB), WLD, 284/62, Part 1, The State versus Benjamin Turok, Testimony of Titus Mabaso and ‘Judgement’, pp. 17–8, 155–7, 165–6.
19 ‘Blanke agitators sit agter sabotasie’, Die Transvaler, Johannesburg, 19 December 1961.
20 Smith, Young Mandela, pp. 246–7.
21 SANA, Pietermaritzburg Repository (hereafter PAR), RSC, 1/1/448, The State versus Ebrahim Ismail and Others, Testimony of Curnick Ndhlovu and Billy Nair, pp. 2682–5, 2924–5; UWHP, AD1844, A2.3.3., Annexure ‘B’ to Indictment, p. 4.
22 ‘Sabotage Witness a Hypocrite – State’, Rand Daily Mail, 10 September 1964; ‘Judge Finds Eight Men Guilty of Sabotage’, Rand Daily Mail, 18 September 1964; UWHP, Political Trials, AD1901, Box 33, The State versus Andrew Mashaba and Others, Testimony of John Masupye, pp. 6–7.
23 ‘George Peake to Face Bomb Bid Charge’, Rand Daily Mail, 30 May 1962.
24 UWHP, AD1901, Box 43, The State versus M. Magwayi and Others, Testimony of Oceanic Ngoza, p. 4.
25 UWHP, AD1901, Box 32, The State versus Malcomess Kondoti and Others, Testimony by Reginald Mdube and Lizo Dukashe, pp. 29–30, 253.
26 UWHP, AD1901, Box 6, Folder 6.9, The State versus Samson Fadana, Testimony of Essop Suleiman, p. 22.
27 Botswana National Archives (hereafter BNA), Office of the President (hereafter OP), 33/6, Divisional Special Branch Office, Lobatse, to O.C.S.B. Mafeking, ‘Undesirables in the B.P.’, 15 January 1962, and High Commissioner Cape Town to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 22 January 1962; Brenthurst Library (hereafter BL), Percy Yutar Papers (PYP), MS.385/19, Mandela’s Diary – African Tour, Exhibit No. 17, p. 6, in Rivonia Exhibits, p. 209.
28 Nelson Mandela Foundation (hereafter NMF), Nelson Mandela’s autobiographical prison manuscript, p. 437.
29 Ibid., p. 428; ‘Mystery Caller’, Sunday Times, 17 December 1961; ‘Manifesto of Umkhonto we Sizwe’, leaflet issued by the Command of Umkhonto we Sizwe, 16 December 1961; Oxford University, Bodleian Library, MSS AAM 945, ‘Manifesto of Umkhonto we Sizwe’, in African National Congress, Advance to People’s Power: 75 Years of Struggle (London, ANC, 1987).
30 Sampson, Mandela: The Authorised Biography, p. 163.
31 BL, PYP, MS.385/19, ‘“Maroc”, Supplement to Diary on Algeria, Malay Camaroons’, Exhibit No. R16, and Mandela’s Diary – African Tour, Exhibit No. 17, in Rivonia Exhibits, pp. 198, 210–15.
32 Irvin M. Wall, France, the United States and the Algerian War (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001), p. 251; Matthew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 263–4.
33 NMF, Nelson Mandela’s prison manuscript, p. 475.
34 BL, PYP, MS.385/19, ‘Maroc’, in Rivonia Exhibits, p. 198.
35 Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (London, Abacus, 1997), p. 355.
36 UWHP, Barbara Harmel Interviews, A3301, B8.1, Phil Bonner and Barbara Harmel interview of Raymond Mhlaba, 55 minutes 20 seconds–59 minutes 55 seconds.
37 Nandha Naidoo, ‘The “Indian Chap”: Recollections of a South African Underground Trainee in Mao’s China’, South African Historical Journal, 64, 3 (2012), p. 714; Mandla Mathebula, The Backroom Boy: Andrew Mlangeni’s Story (Johannesburg, Wits University Press, 2017), pp. 1–3.
38 BL, PYP, MS.385/19, ‘Maroc’, in Rivonia Exhibits, p. 190–1.
39 BL, PYP, MS.385/19, Mandela’s Diary – African Tour, in Rivonia Exhibits, pp. 215–27.
40 Ibid., pp. 228–9.
41 Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 363.
42 Tom Lodge, Mandela, p. 100; Couper, Albert Luthuli, p. 155.
43 BNA, OP/33/24, Officer Commanding, Special Branch, to Commissioner of Police, ‘Sabotage Training’, 19 March 1963.
44 UWHP, AD1901, Box 13, The State versus Henry Fazzie and Others, Testimony of Isaac Rani and Alfred Jantjies, pp. 50, 100, 101–6; Motsamai Mpho, The Autobiography of Motsamai Mpho [written by Wayne Edge] (Gaborone, Lebopo Productions, 1996), pp. 30, 56, 61–2.
45 Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 364.
46 NMF, Nelson Mandela’s prison manuscript, p. 436.
47 ‘Saboteurs Trained in Ethiopia’, Cape Times, 2 April 1963.
48 BNA, OP/33/21, R.C. Mafikeng to H.C. Pretoria, ‘Secret – U.K. Eyes Only’, 26 July 1962; Fish Keitseng, Comrade Fish: Memories of a Motswana in the ANC Underground (Gaborone, Pula Press, 1999), pp. 29–30, 56.
49 Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, pp. 369–70.
50 ‘Mandela is Arrested’, Rand Daily Mail, 8 August 1962; ‘Mandela is Asked Not to Become “Difficult”’, Rand Daily Mail, 25 October 1962; Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, pp. 370–2; Ahmed Kathrada, Memoirs (Cape Town, Zebra, 2004), p. 150; SANA, PAR, RSC, 1/1/449, The State versus Ebrahim Ismail and Others, Testimony of Billy Nair, p. 3013.
51 ‘Mandela Sentenced to Five Years’, Star, Johannesburg, 7 November 1962.
52 Smith, Young Mandela, p. 279.
53 ‘Sabotage: Death Penalty Foreshadowed’, Sunday Times, 24 December 1961; ‘Death for Sabotage in New S.A. Bill’, Natal Daily News, Durban, 12 May 1962; Scott Couper, Albert Luthuli, p. 162.
54 SANA, PAR, RSC, 1/1/446, The State versus Ebrahim Ismail and Others, Testimony of Bruno Mtolo, pp. 1688, 1745.
55 Liliesleaf Archives (hereafter LA), Box: Site Solutions UK Collection DO, Ring Binder: UK1 DO 119.1478, Prodrome Pretoria from Durban, 18 October 1962; SANA, PAR, RSC, 1/1/443 and 1/1/446, The State versus Ebrahim Ismail and Others, ‘Indictment’ and testimony of Bruno Mtolo, pp. 7, 1688, 1745.
56 ‘Police Hunt Kathrada and Sisulu’ and ‘Six-Month Banning Order’, Sunday Times, 21 October 1962; LA, Site Solutions UK Collection DO, UK1 DO 119.1478, British Embassy, Pretoria, ‘Restricted’, 16 October 1962.
57 SANA, PAR, RSC, 1/1/446, The State versus Ebrahim Ismail and Others, Testimony of Bruno Mtolo, pp. 1708–10.
58 Ibid., pp. 1701–2; SANA, PAR, RSC, 1/1/444, The State versus Ebrahim Ismail and Others, Testimony of Emmanuel Isaacs, p. 658; UWHP, AD1844/A, Box 3, Vol. 15, Testimony of Bruno Mtolo, p. 65.
59 SANA, PAR, RSC, 1/1/446, The State versus Ebrahim Ismail and Others, Testimony of Bruno Mtolo, p. 1709.
60 ‘Saboteurs Believed Trained by Reds’, Sunday Times, 4 November 1962; SANA, PAR, RSC, 1/1/443 and 1/1/448, The State versus Ebrahim Ismail and Others, ‘Indictment’ and testimony of Billy Nair, pp. 8, 2957–9.
61 ‘S.A. Saboteurs Baffle Police’, Sunday Times, 4 November 1962.
62 ‘Mandela Sentenced to Five Years’, Star.
63 ‘Vorster Says Arrestees Can Quit S.A.’, Sunday Times, 11 November 1962.
64 ‘Police Know Sabotage Leaders’, Sunday Times, 16 December 1962.
65 Ibid.
66 ‘Report from a secret consultative conference of the African National Congress (ANC) party in South Africa, held in Leballo [sic], Bechuanaland, on 27–28 October 1962’, in 25 Documents from Czech Archives (Prague, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, 2016), pp. 69–70.
67 LA, Box: Site Solutions NASA Collection Codes BLO/BLM/BTS/TES, Ring Binder: NASA BTS 109/6 Vol. 1, Special Branch Headquarters, ‘South African Student Refugees’, 26 October 1962; Fish Keitseng, Comrade Fish, p. 63.
68 LA, Site Solutions UK Collection CO, UK1 CO1048/460, Part 2, Bechuanaland Protectorate Central Intelligence Committee Report, February 1963, p. 5.
69 ‘Federal Refugee Row’, Rand Daily Mail, 24 May 1963; ‘Refugees from S.A. Smuggle Letter out of N.R. Jail’, Sunday Times, 26 May 1963; ‘Era Closes Today’, Rand Daily Mail, 28 June 1963.
70 ‘Federal Refugee Row’; ‘Refugees from S.A. Smuggle Letter out of N.R. Jail’; ‘Het ontsnapte vlugtelinge uit S.A. gehelp’, Die Transvaler, 27 May 1963; ‘N.R. Threat to Ban Sir Roy’, Sunday Times, 2 June 1963.
71 ‘Measure Bypasses S.A. Courts’, Rand Daily Mail, 24 April 1963; Denis Goldberg, The Mission: A Life for Freedom in South Africa (Johannesburg, STE, 2010), p. 92.
72 UWHP, AD1844/A, Box 2, Vol. 7, Testimony of Essop Suleiman, p. D 4; LA, Site Solutions UK Collection CO, UK1 CO1048/460, Part 2, Bechuanaland Protectorate Central Intelligence Committee Report, June 1963, pp. 7–8.
73 SANA, PAR, RSC, 1/1/444, The State versus Ebrahim Ismail and Others, Testimony of Solomon T. Mbanjwa, p. 208; University of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS. Afr. s. 2151 5/1, B20, Unpublished autobiography of Shadrack Maphumulo, p. 224.
74 SANA, TAB/TPD/253/64, The State versus National High Command, ‘Operation Mayibuye’ in Rivonia Trial: State’s Concluding Address, Part I, p. 11.
75 Ibid., p. 14.
76 Raymond Mhlaba narrated to Thembeka Mufamadi, Raymond Mhlaba’s Personal Memoirs: Reminiscing from Rwanda and Uganda (Pretoria, HSRC Press, 2001), p. 111.
77 Bob Hepple, ‘Rivonia: The Story of Accused No. 11’, Social Dynamics, 30, 1 (2004), pp. 196–7.
78 LA, Joel Joffe Papers, ‘A Factual Analysis of the Documentary Exhibits Handed in and of the Oral Testimony Given at the So-Called Rivonia Trial’, p. 14.
79 ‘Rivonia Judge is Given Guerrilla War Papers’, Rand Daily Mail, 18 January 1964; P.S. Landau, ‘Mandela the Reader, 1961’, The Thinker, 80 (2019), pp. 56–9.
80 UWHP, A3301, B8.1, Phil Bonner and Barbara Harmel interview of Raymond Mhlaba, 55 minutes 20 seconds–59 minutes 55 seconds; Naidoo, ‘The “Indian Chap”’, p. 714.
81 UWHP, A3345, A6.1.4.1, ‘Memorandum’, p. 1; UWHP, A3345, A6.1.4.2, ‘Notes on Some Aspects of the Political Situation in the Republic of South Africa’, 9 November 1961, pp. 13–4; UWHP, A3301, B8.1, Phil Bonner and Barbara Harmel interview of Raymond Mhlaba, 60 minutes 00 seconds–63 minutes 10 seconds; Mhlaba narrated to Mufamadi, Raymond Mhlaba’s Personal Memoirs, pp. 111–12, 117–18.
82 UWHP, Karis-Gerhart Collection, A2675, Part I, Folder 22, Thomas Karis interview of Raymond Mhlaba, 7 December 1989, pp. 12–13.
83 Mhlaba narrated to Mufamadi, Raymond Mhlaba’s Personal Memoirs, pp. 118–19; Thula Simpson, ‘The Turn to Armed Struggle: International Dimensions, 1960–1967’, The Thinker, 80 (2019), pp. 27–8.
84 Ibid.
85 UWHP, A3301, B9.1, Barbara Harmel and Phil Bonner interview of Wilton Mkwayi, B9.1, 8 minutes 25 seconds–15 minutes 00 seconds.
86 ‘Rivonia Pimpernel Caught’, Post, Durban, 11 October 1964; ‘Police Capture S. Africa’s Most Wanted Man’, Sunday Times, 18 October 1964; ‘Rivonia Pimpernel in Court’, Post, 1 November 1964.
87 Ronnie Kasrils, ‘MK in the Aftermath of Rivonia (1963–1976)’, The Thinker, 80 (2019), p. 16.
88 ‘Mandela Addresses “Perhaps the Last” MK Parade as Liberation Army’, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 18 December 1993, based on a South African Press Association release, 16 December 1993.
89 Jonathan Hyslop, ‘Mandela on War’, pp. 167–8.
90 Howard Barrell, ‘Conscripts to Their Age: African National Congress Operational Strategy, 1976–1986’ (PhD thesis, Oxford University, 1993), pp. 26–31, 445–8, 467.
91 Oxford University, Bodleian Library, MSS. Afr. s. 2151 2/2, Howard Barrell interview with Sue Rabkin, 26 November 1990, p. 887.