Anarchism and syndicalism in an African port city: the revolutionary traditions of Cape Town's multiracial working class, 1904–1931

Abstract

This paper examines the development of anarchism and syndicalism in early twentieth century Cape Town, South Africa, drawing attention to a crucial but neglected chapter of labor and left history. Central to this story were the anarchists in the local Social Democratic Federation (SDF), and the revolutionary syndicalists of the Industrial Socialist League, the Industrial Workers of Africa (IWA), and the Sweets and Jam Workers’ Industrial Union. These revolutionary anti-authoritarians, Africans, Coloureds and whites, fostered a multiracial radical movement – considerably preceding similar achievements by the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) in this port city. They were also part of a larger anarchist and syndicalist movement across the southern African subcontinent. Involved in activist centers, propaganda, public meetings, cooperatives, demonstrations, union organizing and strikes, and linked into international and national radical networks, Cape Town's anarchists and syndicalists had an important impact on organizations like the African Political Organization (APO), the Cape Federation of Labour Unions, the Cape Native Congress, the CPSA, the General Workers Union, and the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa (ICU). This paper is therefore also a contribution to the recovery of the history of the first generation of African and Coloured anti-capitalist radicals, and part of a growing international interest in anarchist and syndicalist history.

Notes

1. By ‘anarchism’, I mean the revolutionary libertarian socialist current that emerged around Mikhail Bakunin and the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy in the International Workingmen's Association (1864–1877). An internationalist, rationalist movement seeking to mobilize the working class and peasantry against capitalism, the state and all forms of economic and social hierarchy and inequality, anarchism fought for a world based on common ownership, self-management, democratic planning from below, and production for need. ‘Syndicalism’ is an anarchist strategy, pioneered by the Bakuninists; in line with anarchist opposition to the state and parliamentary politics, it argued that revolutionary labor unions should seize the means of production, becoming the workplace councils of the new society. Anarchism and its syndicalist progeny insisted that popular self-activity, outside and against the state, was a matter of revolutionary necessity. There is an extensive literature on these issues, including Thorpe, ‘The Workers Themselves’; Salerno, Red November, Black November; and van der Walt and Schmidt, Black Flame.

2. See van der Walt, ‘The Industrial Union’; van der Walt, ‘Bakunin's Heirs in South Africa’; van der Walt, ‘The First Globalisation’; and van der Walt, ‘Anarchism and Syndicalism’.

3. Anderson, Under Three Flags, 2, 54

4. Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa, Revised Constitution.

5. Reports on speeches, Divisional Criminal Investigations Officer, Witwatersrand Division, 1 May 1926, Confidential Report to Deputy Commissioner, South African Police, Witwatersrand Division, Johannesburg, in Department of Justice file, JUS 915 1/18/26 part 2, Pretoria: National Archives.

6. As quoted in Wickens, ‘The Industrial and Commercial’, 97, also see 145–6.

7. The Workers’ Dreadnought, 7 August 1920, letter from Manuel Lopes, hereafter WD.

8. Cf. Shor, ‘Left Labour Agitators’, 150.

9. Harmel, Fifty Fighting Years.

10. ‘Introduction by Dr Yusuf Dadoo, National Chairman of the South African Communist Party’, to Bunting, South African Communists Speak, xv.

11. Dedication on frontispiece of Harmel, Fifty Fighting Years.

12. For example, Cronin, ‘Rediscovering our Socialist History’; Cronin, ‘Origins and ‘Native Republic’; Forman, Chapters in the History; Mbeki, The Struggle for Liberation.

13. Bunting, South African Communists Speak; Bunting, Letters to Rebecca.

14. Harmel, Fifty Fighting Years; Meli, South Africa Belongs to Us; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour.

15. Bunting, Moses Kotane; Cope, Comrade Bill.

16. See van der Walt, ‘The Industrial Union’; van der Walt, ‘Bakunin's Heirs in South Africa’; and van der Walt, ‘Anarchism and Syndicalism’.

17. Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 139–40, 142–3.

18. Cope, Comrade Bill, 96.

19. Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 215.

20. Harmel, Fifty Fighting Years, 37.

21. Besides the work of the present author, there is to date but one study of the Industrial Socialist League: Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, reprinting as Chapter material which first appeared in 1981; the League also features in Hirson, ‘Death of a Revolutionary’ and Hirson, Frank Glass. The SDF is discussed in Ticktin, ‘The Origins’ and Visser, ‘Die Geskiedenis en Rol van Persorgane’, but much of the story told in this paper is missing from those accounts. The commendable work of Drew, Discordant Comrades, nonetheless gives the early twentieth century left in South Africa only 20 pages: pp. 20–40; there is also some material in passing in Hyslop, The Notorious Syndicalist; Johns, ‘The Birth of Non-white’; Wickens, ‘The Industrial and Commercial’; Wickens, ‘The One Big Union Movement’.

22. For an overview of the literature, see Bonner et al., ‘Rethinking Worlds of Labour’; also see Lewis, ‘South African Labour History’.

23. See Worden, ‘Artisan Conflicts in a Colonial Context’.

24. Ulrich, Abolition from Below.

25. Mabin, ‘The Rise and Decline of Port Elizabeth’, 282.

26. Andrews, Class Struggles in South Africa, 12–3.

27. Bickford-Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice, 108–111.

28. Nasson, ‘The Unity Movement’, 189–90.

29. Turok, Nothing but the Truth, 24.

30. For an overview, see Bickford-Smith et al., Cape Town in the Twentieth Century, chaps 1, 2.

31. Bickford-Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice, 11–3, 16–7, 43–6, 129–130; Mabin, ‘The Rise and Decline of Port Elizabeth’, 288–9, 295–8, and 290, Table 2, 295, Table 3.

32. Bickford-Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice, 130; also see Nicol, ‘A History of Garment and Tailoring’, 70–1.

33. Perhaps 114,000 immigrants arrived within two years of the end of the Anglo-Boer War, including many demobilized soldiers: Visser, ‘Die Geskiedenis en Rol van Persorgane’, 2–3.

34. Bickford-Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice, 130; also see Nicol, ‘A History of Garment and Tailoring’, 70–1.

35. Bickford-Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice, 11, Table 1.

36. Ibid., 130–1.

37. See Ibid., 186–209.

38. The population of South Africa was estimated in 1911 as around six million, comprising 4,000,000 Africans (around 67% of the total), 1,276,000 whites (around 21%), 525,000 Coloureds (around 9%), and 150,000 Indians (around 2.5%): van Duin, ‘South Africa’, 640, n. 38.

39. Budlender, ‘A History of Stevedores’, 6, Table IV.

40. Ticktin, ‘The Origins’, 42; see also Adhikari, ‘Let us Live for Our Children’, 48. These whites were only enfranchised in 1931.

41. In Natal province (formerly British Natal), a highly restrictive system enabled a small number of people of color (mainly Indians) to qualify for the vote; there were no such openings in the northern provinces. The Cape system was phased out from the 1930s, as the province was brought in line with the system used elsewhere.

42. Rosenthal, ‘Abdurrahman, Dr. Abdullah’, 1. People of color could not sit in the Union parliament under any circumstances.

43. For example, Abdurahman, ‘The 1910 Presidential Address, Port Elizabeth, Cape’, 34. See Adhikari, ‘Let us Live for Our Children’, 16–37; Bickford-Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice, 204–7; Goldin, ‘The Reconstitution of Coloured Identity’, 162–3; Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 22–5, 40–1, 70–4.

44. Adhikari, ‘Let us Live for Our Children’, pp. 48–9; Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 84–7.

45. Nicol, ‘A History of Garment and Tailoring’, 19–21.

46. Goldin, ‘The Reconstitution of Coloured Identity’, 159; also see Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 12, 65–6.

47. Particularly evocative of conditions is Pinnock, ‘From Argie Boys to Skolly Gangsters’.

48. Bickford-Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice, 164–185; Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 16–7; van Duin, ‘Artisans and Trade Unions’; van Duin, ‘South Africa’.

49. Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 94–5; Nicol, ‘A History of Garment and Tailoring’, 93–5.

50. In the mid 1910s, the party (partly because of Cape union pressure, and partly with its eye on the Coloured vote) briefly relaxed its color bar to allow Coloureds to join – but only if they agreed to maintain ‘white standards’: Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 82.

51. See Giffard, ‘Cutting the Current’, 10. The SAIF claimed 47,000 members in 45 affiliates that year: Hessian, ‘An Investigation into the Causes of the Labour Agitation on the Witwatersrand, January to March, 1922’, 6.

52. Nicol, ‘A History of Garment and Tailoring’, 93–4.

53. Ibid., 68–9.

54. Lessing, Under my Skin, 350.

55. See Bickford-Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice, 127–8; also van Duin, ‘South Africa’, 627–8, and Simons, ‘Organised Coloured Political Movements’, 213.

56. Stuart, ‘I Look Back’, 3–4.

57. Adhikari, ‘Let us Live for Our Children’, 31; also see Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 16.

58. See Budlender, ‘A History of Stevedores’, 12–5, 18, and Wickens, ‘The Industrial and Commercial’, 46–8.

59. See Bickford-Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice, 214; Budlender, ‘A History of Stevedores’, 22–3; Simons, ‘Organised Coloured Political Movements’, 218–20. Coloureds were (at least nominally) included alongside whites in color bar legislation: Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 88–9, 128–36.

60. Henry Glasse, ‘International Notes: South Africa’, Freedom, November–December 1905.

61. Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 139–40, 142–3.

62. Jack Erasmus, ‘Social Democratic Federation: Annual Report’, South African News, 8 June 1905, press clipping in Max Nettlau Collection, International Institute of Social History.

63. Ticktin, ‘The Origins’, 330.

64. Social Democratic Federation, [1904] 1973, ‘The Cape Town Social Democratic Federation's Fighting Platform, 1904’, available as Appendix B, I, 2, in Ticktin, ‘The Origins’, 497.

65. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 3–4.

66. See Erasmus, ‘Social Democratic Federation’, see note 62; Special Correspondent, ‘Capetown's Meeting of Sympathy’, Cape Daily Telegraph, 6 February 1905, press clipping in Max Nettlau Collection, International Institute of Social History; James Kier Hardie, ‘In Cape Colony’, The Labour Leader, 5 May 1908; James Kier Hardie, ‘South Africa: Conclusions’, The Labour Leader, 22 May 1908; also Ticktin, ‘The Origins’, 330–1, 333–4, 498, Appendix B, I, 4; Visser, ‘Die Geskiedenis en Rol van Persorgane’, 18.

67. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 5–6, 9–10.

68. Cope, Comrade Bill, 96–7.

69. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 32, 38, 119–20; Wilfred Harrison, ‘Anarchy’, Voice of Labour, 1 July 1910, hereafter VOL.

70. On Harrison, see Boydell, ‘Foreword’, vii–xiv, and Boydell, ‘My Luck was In’, 123–6, 133–42; Gitsham and Trembath, A First Account of Labour, 167–8; Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 123–6, 133–40; Walker and Weinbren, 2,000 Casualties, 57.

71. Visser, ‘Die Geskiedenis en Rol van Persorgane’, 217.

72. Boydell, ‘My Luck was In’, 41; Boydell, ‘Foreword’, viii, ix.

73. Forman, Chapters in the History, 42–4; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 74–7, 139–40.

74. Boydell, ‘Foreword’, viiii.

75. Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 31.

76. Nicol, ‘A History of Garment and Tailoring’, 21–2, 95–7.

77. Stuart, ‘I Look Back’, 3–4; also Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 23, 52–3; Nicol, ‘A History of Garment and Tailoring’, 96; Ticktin, ‘The Origins’, 415. Given that Stuart left in the early 1910s, he presumably meant anarchist-communists. There was a split around 1910 as moderates left over anarchist influence: see Cope, Comrade Bill, 96; Thomas, ‘A History of the Labour Party’, 25–6.

78. Contra. Cope, Comrade Bill, 96–7; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 76; Ticktin, ‘The Origins’, 339; Hyslop, The Notorious Syndicalist, 194.

79. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 16, 118–9.

80. To judge by the first issue, the only one that survives (July 1905): The Cape Socialist Vanguard: official organ of the Social Democratic Federation – Cape District. It is in the folder ‘The Cape Socialist Vanguard: organ of the Forward Labour Movement’ held in the serials collection of the International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam. Not to be confused with the similarly named Cape Workers Vanguard: Organ of the Forward Labour Movement (hereafter CWV) published by the Cape unions, also in that folder.

81. Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 139–40; van Duin, ‘South Africa’, 649.

82. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 105.

83. Quoted in Ticktin, ‘The Origins’, 340; VOL, 21 August 1909. The Transvaal Labour Party, a forerunner of the SA Labour Party, sent a secret counter-appeal to British Labour, opposing any amendments: Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 53.

84. Abdurahman, ‘The 1909 Presidential Address, Cape Town, 13 April 1909’, 48.

85. Cope, Comrade Bill, 112.

86. Visser, ‘Die Geskiedenis en Rol van Persorgane’, 18. On Malan at the time, see Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 122–8.

87. Cope, Comrade Bill, 143; Drew, Discordant Comrades, 23; Forman, Chapters in the History, 35, 42–4; Harmel, Fifty Fighting Years, 29–30; Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 13; Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 54–5, 78–9, 98; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 76–7, 122, 125–8; van Duin, ‘Artisans and Trade Unions’, 104–5. Some of this material is from ‘Communist school’ texts, showing that these texts often make claims quite at odds with their data.

88. Quoted in Forman, Chapters in the History, 43; also see Philips, ‘The South African Wobblies’, 123.

89. See A.W. Noon, ‘Cape Notes’, VOL, 22 April 1910; also see Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 54–5; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 113.

90. Forman, Chapters in the History, 42–4; Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 17–8, 22–6; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 139.

91. CWV, 27 October 1905, p. 2; also Bickford-Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice, 174.

92. Bickford-Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice, 174; CWV, ‘Tramway Guards and Motormen’, March 1906; Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 32–9; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 74; Visser, ‘Die Geskiedenis en Rol van Persorgane’, 10.

93. Mantzaris, ‘From the History of Bundist’, 2–3; Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 53.

94. CWV, February 1906, 3–4, and ‘A Strike Speech’, 6; also see Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 10, and Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 53–5.

95. CWV, June 1906, ‘Men versus Money: the Lock Out’; Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 10; Mantzaris, ‘From the History of Bundist’, p. 3; also see Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 56–61; Walker and Weinbren, 2,000 Casualties, 18–9.

96. Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 36–7.

97. Ibid., 32–40, quote from p. 38; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 74; also see Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 19.

98. Beinart, ‘Jamani’, 168.

99. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 9.

100. Ibid., 8–9; Cape Times, 7 August 1906, ‘[Editorial] Hooligans and Unemployed’; Cape Times, 8 August 1906, ‘[Editorial] Leaders and Led’.

101. Quoted in Hallet, ‘The Hooligan Riots’, 15.

102. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 8–9; also see Cape Times, 7 August 1906, ‘Hooligans and Unemployed: Disgraceful Scenes’. Also see Hallet, ‘The Hooligan Riots’, 15–27.

103. La Guma, Jimmy La Guma, 18.

104. Cape Times, 7 August 1906, see note 102; Cape Times, 8 August 1906, ‘Mob and Police’; South African Times, 7 August 1906, ‘Unemployed Raids in City’; South African Times, 8 August 1907, ‘Hooligans Renew Raids’.

105. Forman, Chapters in the History, 42–4.

106. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 8–9; John Tobin, 13 August 1906, letter to LS. Jameson, Prime Minister of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, in folder ‘Unemployed in Cape Town. 1906-1908’, Prime Minister's Office (PMO), volume 222, reference 1239, part 6, Cape Archives, Cape Town; CWV, September 1906, 3; R. Herschel, 30 August 1906, report on meeting of Painters and Cigarette Makers Union, in folder ‘Rex versus Woollends, G. Reduction of bail. Cape Town’, Attorney General (AG), volume 1709, reference 5418, part 6, Cape Archives, Cape Town.

107. R. Herschel, 23 September 1906, report on meeting at the Stone, in folder ‘Rex versus Woollends, G. Reduction of bail. Cape Town’, Attorney General (AG), volume 1709, reference 5418, part 6, Cape Archives, Cape Town.

108. Hallet, ‘The Hooligan Riots’, 27–31.

109. A.W. Noon, 22 April 1910, ‘Cape Notes’, VOL.

110. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 24; Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 21, 98. Harrison's use of elections was obviously idiosyncratic for an anarchist: he argued it provided a propaganda platform, and insisted he would not take office if elected.

111. Hirson, Frank Glass, 18.

112. Kreel, ‘Reminiscences of a Socialist’.

113. Ibid.

114. Erasmus, ‘Social Democratic Federation’, see note 62; Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 13. On the ‘Stone’ and on Tobin, see Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 18–9, 26–7, 45, 56–7.

115. Union resentment of SDF rates (and noise from SDF events) eventually led to the rooms being provided free, a generous subsidy to the unions: CWV, May 1906, ‘Trades and Labour Council: Friday, April 27’.

116. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 6.

117. ‘Socialism and Humanity: debate between Messrs. Needham and Main’, 1906 press clipping, no source given, Max Nettlau Collection, folder 471, International Institute of Social History.

118. Erasmus, ‘Social Democratic Federation’, see note 62; Special Correspondent, ‘Capetown's Meeting’, see note 66.

119. CWV, 1 December 1905, 3. The body was linked to the Bund: Mantzaris, ‘From the History of Bundist’, 1.

120. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 16.

121. Kreel, ‘Reminiscences of a Socialist’.

122. Mantzaris, ‘From the History of Bundist’; Mantzaris, ‘Radical Community: The Yiddish-speaking Branch of the International Socialist League, 1918–20’, 161, 163; Grobler, ‘Die Invloed van Geskoolde Blanke Arbeid’, 51, 57, 60; Ticktin, ‘The Origins’, 182–3, 185, 229, also 518, Appendix B, IV, 6; Visser, ‘Die Geskiedenis en Rol van Persorgane’, 15–6; cf. also Harmel, Fifty Fighting Years, 31; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 102.

123. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 40–3; Walker and Weinbren, 2,000 Casualties, 56–7.

124. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 50–62.

125. See Nasson, ‘A Great Divide’.

126. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 53–5.

127. Wilfred Harrison, 1914, ‘WAR!’, issued by War on War League in Cape Town, Simons Papers, African Studies Centre, University of Cape Town.

128. See James Kier Hardie, ‘South Africa: in Natal’, The Labour Leader, 17 April 1908, 17 April 1908; Hyslop, ‘The World Voyage of James Keir Hardie’.

129. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 19–22; Hardie, ‘South Africa: Conclusions’, see note 66.

130. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 36, 143.

131. Ibid., pp. 9, 38, 118–9, 144; Wilfred Harrison, 21 June 1912, ‘What's up With the Movement?’

132. On the Bulletin, see Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism, 234–6, 375; Thorpe, ‘The Workers Themselves’, 31–2; for a representative IWW piece, see Vincent St John, ‘History of the Industrial Workers of the World’, VOL, 27 October 1911.

133. Cope, Comrade Bill, 108–10, also 99–100.

134. VOL, 14 August 1909, ‘A Socialist Party’ (editorial); Archie Crawford, ‘From the Watch Tower’, VOL, 26 January 1912; Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 33–6.

135. Judging, at least, by style and argument: cf. Marais, ‘Labour's Battle in South Africa’; Anon., ‘The Value of the Strike’; Marais, ‘Workers Arise and Seize the Earth!’.

136. ‘Proletarian’, 27 October 1911, ‘The Problem of Coloured Labour’, VOL, emphasis in original; ‘Our Special Representative’, 1 December 1911, ‘Sundry Jottings from the Cape: A Rebel's Review’.

137. Contra. Cope, Comrade Bill, 96; Thomas, ‘A History of the Labour Party’, 25–6.

138. Cope, Comrade Bill, 108–110; Visser, ‘Suid-Afrikaanse Koerantberriggewing’, 247–8; for an examination of the syndicalists on the Witwatersrand, see van der Walt, ‘The Industrial Union’; van der Walt, ‘Bakunin's Heirs in South Africa’.

139. Crawford, ‘Socialist Party Progress’; 12 April 1912, ‘Easter Conference of the United Socialist Party of South Africa’; VOL, 26 April 1912, ‘The United S.P.’; VOL, 10 May 1912, ‘U.S.P. Notes’; VOL, 17 May 1912, ‘U.S.P. Notes’; VOL, 31 May 1912, ‘U.S.P. Notes’; VOL, 13 September 1912, ‘U.S.P. Notes’

140. Murray, ‘Capitalist Development’; also see Marais, ‘Labour's Battle in South Africa’, 588, emphasis in the original.

141. Marais, ‘Workers Arise and Seize the Earth!’, 219, emphasis in the original; also see Marais, ‘Labour's Battle in South Africa’, 588.

142. Quoted in Tsuzuki, Tom Mann, 1856–1941, 170.

143. On the regional strike wave, see van der Walt, ‘The First Globalisation’, 229–31.

144. Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 2.

145. Pike, A History of Communism, 103–5.

146. Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 333.

147. Ibid., p. 333; also see Cope, Comrade Bill, 200; and van Duin, ‘South Africa’, 640, n. 3.

148. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 62.

149. Ibid., p. 64.

150. Solomon Buirski, undated, Fleeting Memories, unpublished manuscript, in my possession, pp. 26–7. I would like to thank William Beinart for providing me with a copy.

151. Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 99–105; Wickens, ‘The Industrial and Commercial’, 7, n. 1 and 2, 8–12, and see 9, n. 1 for excerpts from the DLP programme; also see Johns, ‘The Birth of Non-white’, 179.

152. Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 95.

153. See Nicol, ‘A History of Garment and Tailoring’, 55–61; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 226–7.

154. Detective Wilfred Jali, report on IWA, Johannesburg, 26 July 1917, in Department of Justice, ‘The ISL and Coloured Workers’, JD 3/527/17, National Archives, Pretoria.

155. Inter alia, The International (hereafter Int.), 5 May 1916, ‘What's Wrong with Ireland’; Int., 5 May 1916, Int., 4 August 1916, ‘Chopping off Heads’; Int., 19 October 1917, ‘The Pass Laws: Organise for their Abolition’; Int., 7 December 1917, ‘International Socialism and the Native: No Labour Movement without the Black Proletariat’; Detective William Mtembu, report on IWA, Johannesburg, 26 July 1917, in Department of Justice, JD 3/527/17; Detective R. Moroosi, report in meeting of 25 October 1917, in Department of Justice, JD 3/527/17.

156. Report on meeting of Transvaal Native Congress and Industrial Workers of Africa, 23 May 1918 by Wilfred Jali, in JD 3/527/17.

157. Unlabelled report, May 1918 (full date illegible), in Department of Justice, JD 3/527/17.

158. Skota, The African Yearly Register, 137, 167; Int., 13 September 1918; Hirson, Frank Glass, 20–1.

159. See Kinkead-Weekes, ‘Africans in Cape Town’, 201–20.

160. Hirson, A History of the Left, 15.

161. Int., 25 July 1919; Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 5; also Wickens, ‘The One Big Union Movement’, 393.

162. Hirson, Frank Glass, 20–1.

163. Wickens, ‘The Industrial and Commercial’, 51, n. 3, 52.

164. Ibid., 61, n. 1

165. Kadalie, My Life and the ICU, 40.

166. See Budlender, ‘A History of Stevedores’, 18; on ICU membership, see Wickens, ‘The Industrial and Commercial’, 56–7.

167. Kadalie, My Life and the ICU, chap. 2.

168. Ibid., 54–5. Kadalie mainly associated with Coloureds and West Indians in Cape Town, and both he and his brother, Robert Victor Kadalie, married Coloured women.

169. Contra. Hirson, Frank Glass, 21–2.

170. Wickens, ‘The Industrial and Commercial’, 67.

171. Fred Cetiwe, 21 December 1919, ‘To the Mayor of the City of Cape Town’, in ‘Strike of Natives in Docks’, 3/CT, 4/1/4/286, F31/4, Cape Archives. This was more than double the minimum wage of 4 shillings established the previous year: Kinkead-Weekes, ‘Africans in Cape Town’, 205.

172. Cf. Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 95, 101.

173. On the details of the strike, see Budlender, ‘A History of Stevedores’, 18–22; Johns, ‘The Birth of Non-white’, 180; Wickens, ‘The Industrial and Commercial’, 60–85; Kadalie, My Life and the ICU, chap. 2.

174. Roux, Time Longer than Rope, 155.

175. Kadalie, My Life and the ICU, 44.

176. Wickens, ‘The Industrial and Commercial’, 79–80.

177. Ibid., 84.

178. La Guma, Jimmy La Guma, 21–3.

179. Wickens, ‘The Industrial and Commercial’, 52, n. 1.

180. Ibid., 109.

181. Sol Plaatje, [3 August 1918], 1988, ‘Letter to the President, Kimberley Chamber of Commerce, 18 November 1918’, in Willan, Sol Plaatje, 237.

182. As quoted in Wickens, ‘The Industrial and Commercial’, 97, also see 145–6.

183. The key study is Wickens, ‘The One Big Union Movement’. Also see Johns, ‘The Birth of Non-white’.

184. Quoted in Wickens, ‘The Industrial and Commercial’, 153.

185. Commissioner of Police, 30 November 1920, ‘Bolshevism in the Union of South Africa’, to Secretary for Justice, in Justice Department, ‘Bolshevism in South Africa, Reports on’, JUS 267 3/1064/18, National Archives, Pretoria, 32–3.

186. Wickens, ‘The One Big Union Movement’, 406.

187. Contra. Hirson, Frank Glass, 23.

188. As quoted in Wickens, ‘The Industrial and Commercial’, 97, also see 145–6.

189. Tom Mann, ‘S. African Natives and Coloured Men’, All Power, March 1923.

190. See Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa, 1925, Revised Constitution.

191. Divisional Criminal Investigations Officer, Witwatersrand Division, 1 May 1926, Confidential Report to Deputy Commissioner, South African Police, Witwatersrand Division, Johannesburg, in Department of Justice file, JUS 915 1/18/26 part 2, Pretoria: National Archives.

192. Champion, The Truth about the ICU, 5–7, copy held in folder ‘Industrial and Commercial Workers Union’, IWW Collection, Archives of Labour and Urban Affairs, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit.

193. H.W. Sampson, House of Assembly, cited in Davies, Capital, State and White Labour, 235–6, n. 52.

194. See the ‘Industrial and Commercial Workers Union’, IWW Collection.

195. Alfred Nzula, [1935] 1979, ‘The Struggles of the Negro Toilers in South Africa’, Appendix to Nzula et al., Forced Labour in Colonial Africa, 206.

196. For the main exception, see Bonner, ‘Home Truths’, who calls its doctrines ‘millenarian syndicalism’.

197. Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 10.

198. The Bolshevik, February 1920, ‘What WE Stand For’, hereafter Bols, emphasis in original. Also see ‘Industrial Socialist League of South Africa, Methods and Principles, Rules – Cape Town, 1919’, in S.A. Rochlin Collection of South African Political and Trade Union Organisations, Concordia University Library Special Collection.

199. Bols, February 1920, ‘What WE Stand For’.

200. ‘Communist’, January 1920, ‘Socialism v. Violence’, Bols; ‘The War of the Classes’, Bols, April 1920, emphasis in original; also see ‘Liberty of the Press’, Bols, December 1919.

201. On the Trotskyists, see Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, chap. 7; Drew, Discordant Comrades, chaps 7, 9.

202. WD, 7 August 1920, letter from Manuel Lopes.

203. ‘The Strongest Weapon of Capitalism I’, Bols, January 1920. Also see in Bols: ‘Searchlight’, and ‘The Bankruptcy of Trade Unionism’, November 1919, ‘Searchlight’, January 1920, ‘Trade Union Notes’; February 1920, ‘The Strongest Weapon of Capitalism II’; Manuel Lopes, April 1920, ‘Socialism and the Labour Party’.

204. ‘The South African Labour Party Exposed! To the Native and Coloured Workers of the Cape Province’, ISL Press: Johannesburg, in S.A. Rochlin Collection.

205. Isaac Vermont, ‘Socialism and the Coloured Folk’, Bols, March 1920.

206. Commissioner of Police, 29 July 1920, ‘Bolshevism in the Union of South Africa’, to Secretary for Justice, in Justice Department, ‘Bolshevism in South Africa, Reports on’, 82; also Commissioner of Police, 30 September 1920, ‘Bolshevism in the Union of South Africa’, to Secretary for Justice, in Justice Department, ‘Bolshevism in South Africa, Reports on’, 69; Commissioner of Police, 27 August 1920, ‘Bolshevism in the Union of South Africa’, to Secretary for Justice, in Justice Department, ‘Bolshevism in South Africa, Reports on’, 74.

207. Int., 21 December 1918, ‘Cape Notes’.

208. Commissioner of Police, 1 June 1920, ‘Report on Bolshevism in the Union of South Africa’, in Justice Department, ‘Bolshevism in South Africa, Reports on’, 102.

209. Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 98–9.

210. Manuel Lopes, ‘Cape Notes’, Int., 27 September 1918; Minutes of the Fifth Meeting of the Industrial Union of the Combined Sweet and Jam Workers Union of the Cape Peninsula, held at the Industrial Socialist League Hall, 3 December 1918, S.A. Rochlin Collection; also see Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 89; Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 13.

211. First meeting, 10 September 1918, in Minutes of the First, Second and Third Meetings of the Industrial Union of the Combined Sweet and Jam Workers, held in the Industrial Socialist League Hall, 1918, S.A. Rochlin Collection.

212. Manuel Lopes, ‘Cape Notes’, Int., 27 September 1918; Int., 21 December 1918, ‘Cape Notes’; also see Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 7–10, 13.

213. Second meeting, 17 September 1918, in Minutes of the First, Second and Third Meetings of the Industrial Union of the Combined Sweet and Jam Workers, held in the Industrial Socialist League Hall, 1918, S.A. Rochlin Collection.

214. WD, 7 August 1920, letter from Manuel Lopes. The Cape ‘Malays’, largely of Muslim slave descent, were then often regarded as separate to Coloureds, a situation that later changed.

215. No membership lists survive, but see Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 4.

216. Nicol, ‘A History of Garment and Tailoring’, 55–60; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 226–7.

217. ‘Secret: Bolshevism’, January 1919, in Justice Department, ‘Bolshevism in South Africa, Reports on’, 207. Davidoff, a League member, seems to have been a former advocate of anarchist ‘propaganda by the deed’: Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 38.

218. Manuel Lopes, ‘Cape Notes’, Int., 24 January 1919; also see Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 68 and Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 4.

219. ‘Secret: Bolshevism’, January 1919, in Justice Department, ‘Bolshevism in South Africa, Reports on’, 207.

220. Drew, Discordant Comrades, 52; Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 52, 56–7, 64–70; Hirson, ‘Death of a Revolutionary’; Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 7–10.

221. ‘League Notes’, Bols, February 1920.

222. Buirski, undated, Fleeting Memories, 27–8 (see note 150).

223. See Commissioner of Police, 27 August 1920, letter to Secretary of Justice, in Justice Department, ‘Bolshevism in SA, Reports on’, 75 and Commissioner of Police, 29 July 1919, letter to Secretary of Justice, in Justice Department, ‘Bolshevism in South Africa, Reports on’, 86.

224. See advert in Bols, December 1919.

225. Ibid.

226. Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 13.

227. Commissioner of Police, 30 September 1920, ‘Bolshevism in the Union of South Africa’, to Secretary for Justice, in Justice Department, ‘Bolshevism in South Africa, Reports on’, 69.

228. Commissioner of Police, 21 January 1921, ‘Bolshevism in the Union of South Africa’, to Secretary for Justice, in Justice Department, ‘Bolshevism in South Africa, Reports on’, 1.

229. L. Turok, ‘Cape Notes’, Int., 24 January 1919; Manuel Lopes, ‘Cape Notes’, Int., 23 May 1919; A.Z. Berman, ‘Cape Notes’, Int., 27 June 1919; Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 7–10; Shain, The Roots of Anti-Semitism, 83–91; Simons and Simons, Class and Colour, 215.

230. For example: Morris Walt, ‘May Day in Cape Town’, WD, 12 June 1920; letter from Manuel Lopes, WD, 7 August 1920.

231. Kreel, ‘Reminiscences of a Socialist’.

232. Manuel Lopes, ‘Cape Notes’, Int., 24 January 1919.

233. ‘The Workers of Zion’, a left Zionist group. See Buirski, undated, Fleeting Memories, 26–7 (see Note 150); Manuel Lopes, ‘Cape Notes’, Int., 29 November 1918; also see Drew, Discordant Comrades, 52; Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 115; Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 8.

234. Morris Walt, ‘May Day in Cape Town’, WD, 12 June 1920; also Nicol, ‘A History of Garment and Tailoring’, 98.

235. Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 13.

236. Ibid., 25, n. 106; ‘Trade Union Notes’, Bols, May 1920; Commissioner of Police, 1 June 1920, ‘Report on Bolshevism in the Union of South Africa’, to Secretary for Justice, in Justice Department, ‘Bolshevism in South Africa, Reports on’, 103; ‘Cape Federation of Labour Unions Third Annual Congress, Resolutions, March 1921’, in S.A. Rochlin Collection.

237. Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 12; Nicol, ‘A History of Garment and Tailoring’, 98–9.

238. ‘Russian Workmen Vindicate Marx’, Int., 18 May 1917; ‘The Call of the Bolsheviks – League Manifesto’, Int., 1 March 1918.

239. Cope, Comrade Bill, 206.

240. Frank Glass, ‘South African Communist Party’, WD, 27 August 1921.

241. Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 71–2, 79, 102; Hirson, ‘Death of a Revolutionary’, 29–30.

242. Harmel, Fifty Fighting Years, 40.

243. Isaac Vermont, ‘Execution of Rand Strikers’, WD, 25 November 1922; Isaac Vermont, ‘South African News’, WD, 31 March 1923; Isaac Vermont, ‘South African News’, WD, 5 May 1923.

244. Sylvia Pankhurst, ‘Freedom of Discussion’, WD, 17 September 1921; Sylvia Pankhurst, ‘Our View’, WD, 17 February 1923; ‘Draft Constitution for the All-Workers Revolutionary Union of Workshop Committees’, WD, 23 September 1922. Also see Shipway, Anti-Parliamentary Communism, 13–8, 92–9.

245. Isaac Vermont, ‘Correspondence’, WD, 23 May 1923; Isaac Vermont, ‘South African News’, WD, 5 May 1923.

246. Eddie Roux, CPSA activist, stated that a ‘Cape Marxist’ inserted the IWW clauses. From what we now know, it seems certain this ‘Marxist’ was a Dreadnought supporter. See Roux, Time Longer than Rope, 400.