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Abstract
Drawn into the Communist Party’s social circles through friendships during the 1940s, Mandela became increasingly interested from 1952 onwards in the party’s doctrines and in the Marxist canon that informed their premises. His first encounters with Communists were at a time when the party was beginning to develop its strategic justification for aligning itself with African nationalism, a development that would prompt Communists to begin recruiting and extending their influence among the middle-class African elite. This article explores the implications of Mandela’s association with South Africa’s Communist left. It reviews the evidence that points to his membership of the party at the end of the 1950s. It explores the party’s purpose in drawing Mandela into its embrace and considers the ways in which Mandela’s political thinking and actions may have been shaped by his proximity to South African Communists between 1952 and 1962. Whether Mandela actually thought of himself at that time as a communist is open to question. Through the 1950s and later, he remained receptive to a range of political ideas and captive to none.
Notes
1 Walter Sisulu, interviewed by Barbara Harmel, 10 June 1994, transcript in University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Historical Papers Research Archive (hereafter UWHP), A3301, Barbara Harmel Interviews, B21.7.
2 B. Murray, citing S. Plaatje, ‘ANCYL’s Ideological Conflict with Communism’ (unpublished paper, Grahamstown, 1995), in Wits, The ‘Open Years’: A History of the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1939–1959 (Johannesburg, University of the Witwatersrand Press, 1997), p. 99.
3 Nelson Mandela, interviewed by L. Callinicos, Shell House, Johannesburg, 20 August 1993, transcript, p. 78. I am grateful to Luli Callinicos for showing me the transcript of this interview.
4 I. Meer, A Fortunate Man (Cape Town, Zebra Press, 2002), p. 121.
5 Nelson Mandela, interviewed by Richard Stengel, 1992, Nelson Mandela Foundation, transcript, p. 401.
6 Joe Matthews, interviewed by John Carlin, 1997, transcript available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mandela/interviews/matthews.html, retrieved 21 October 2019.
7 Nelson Mandela, interviewed by Richard Stengel, 1992, Nelson Mandela Foundation, transcript, p. 379.
8 Nelson Mandela to Barbara Lamb, 1 October 1974, UWHP, A3300, B4, Michael Harmel Papers.
9 Nelson Mandela, interviewed by Richard Stengel, 1992, Nelson Mandela Foundation, transcript, p. 379.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., p. 412.
12 Report of the Central Committee to the National Conference of the CPSA, 8–10 January 1949, University of Cape Town (hereafter UCT), BC1081 The Simons Papers, O12.1.
13 Report of the Central Committee to the National Conference of the CPSA, 6–8 January 1950, UCT, BC1081 The Simons Papers, O12.1.
14 Full text in UCT, BC1081 The Simons Papers, O12.1; extract reprinted in B. Bunting (ed.), South African Communists Speak: Documents from the History of the South African Communist Party, 1915–1980 (London, Inkululeko Publications, 1981), pp. 200–211.
15 UWHP, A3345, Ronald Kasril Papers, A6.1.4.2, ‘Some Notes on the Communist Party in South Africa’, undated typescript signed by Michael Harmel.
16 D. Everatt, The Origins of Non-Racialism: White Opposition to Apartheid in the 1950s (Johannesburg, Wits University Press, 2009), pp. 82–96.
17 P. Hudson, ‘The Freedom Charter and Socialist Strategy in South Africa’, Politikon, 13, 1 (1986), pp. 78–81.
18 Letter from Moses Kotane to Brian Bunting, 15 March 1956, Mayibuye Archive, University of the Western Cape, Bunting Papers, 8.1.2.1.
19 R. Bernstein, Memory Against Forgetting: Memoirs from a Life in South African Politics (London, Viking, 1999), p. 116.
20 A. Sampson, Mandela: The Authorized Biography (London, Harper Collins, 1999) p. 62.
21 A. Kathrada, Memoirs (Cape Town, Zebra Press, 2004), pp. 67–8.
22 Nelson Mandela, interviewed by L. Callinicos, Shell House, Johannesburg, 20 August 1993, transcript, p. 2.
23 Kathrada, Memoirs, pp. 67–8.
24 J. Myburgh, ‘Mandela and the Communist Party’, Politicsweb, 25 February 2015, available at https://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/mandela-and-the-communist-party, retrieved 21 October 2019.
25 M. Benson, Nelson Mandela (London, Panaf, 1980), pp. 47–8; S. Johns and H. Davis, Mandela, Tambo and the African National Congress: The Struggle Against Apartheid, 1948–1990, (New York, Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 39–40.
26 Benson, Nelson Mandela, pp. 47–8.
27 Nelson Mandela, unpublished autobiographical manuscripts, c.1976 (Department of Correctional Services Files, Nelson Mandela A5, National Archives of South Africa, Pretoria).
28 R. Mhlaba, Raymond Mhlaba’s Personal Memoirs: Reminiscing from Rwanda and Uganda (Pretoria and Cape Town, Human Sciences Research Council and Robben Island Museum, 2001), p. 79.
29 N. Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (Randburg, MacDonald Purnell, 1994), p. 115.
30 Ibid., pp. 112–13.
31 R. Suttner, ‘The African National Congress Underground: From the M-Plan to Rivonia’, South African Historical Journal, 49, 1 (2003), pp. 133–4.
32 Sampson, Mandela, p. 84.
33 Raymond Mhlaba, interviewed by Barbara Harmel and Philip Bonner, Port Elizabeth, 27 October 1993, transcript in UWHP, A3301, Barbara Harmel Interviews, B8.1.
34 Mhlaba, Raymond Mhlaba’s Personal Memoirs, p. 95.
35 Wilton Mkwayi, interviewed by Barbara Harmel and Philip Bonner, Johannesburg, 18 October 1993, transcript in UWHP, A3301, Barbara Harmel Interviews, B9.1.
36 M. Resha, My Life in the Struggle (Johannesburg, Congress of South African Writers, 1991), p. 58.
37 Johns and Davis, Mandela, Tambo and the African National Congress, pp. 37, 47, 57, 59.
38 T. Karis, G. Carter and G. Gerhart, From Protest to Challenge: Volume 3: Challenge and Violence, 1953–1964 (Stanford, Hoover Institution Press, 1977), pp. 245–9.
39 Hudson, ‘The Freedom Charter and Socialist Strategy in South Africa’, pp. 78–83.
40 Reprinted in Bunting (ed.), South African Communists Speak, pp. 231–41.
41 Editorial, African Communist, 1 (1959), p. 4 (emphasis added).
42 Hilda Bernstein and Ruth First, apparently, though their objections to the invasion were not shared by their husbands. Pauline Podbrey left the party; she had lived in Hungary during the tyrannical Rakosi era. Alan and Beata Lipman tried to resign in Durban but were told that they could not: they needed to be properly expelled. Subsequently, a special envoy from Johannesburg visited them for this purpose. In Cape Town, Fred Carneson stilled any local disaffection by telling group leaders that Hungary had been a home of reaction for decades, an argument that was subsequently reproduced in New Age. See A. Weider, Ruth First and Joe Slovo and the War Against Apartheid (New York, Monthly Review Press, 2013), pp. 86–92; A. Lipman, On the Outside Looking In: Colliding with Apartheid and Other Authorities (Johannesburg, Architect Africa Press, 2003); B. Turok, Nothing But the Truth: Behind the ANC’s Struggle Politics (Johannesburg, Jonathan Ball, 2003) p. 50.
43 P. Landau, ‘Gendered Silences in Nelson Mandela’s and Ruth First’s Struggle Auto/Biographies’, African Studies, 78, 2 (2019), p. 296.
44 B. Bunting, Life is More Joyous: Report of a Visit to the Soviet Union (Johannesburg, South African Society for Peace and Friendship with the Soviet Union, 1954), available at http://www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/inventories/inv_pdfo/AD1812/AD1812-Ex2-3-7-001-jpeg.pdf, retrieved 20 November 2019.
45 N. Mokgatle, The Autobiography of an Unknown South African (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1971), p. 307.
46 Bernstein, Memory Against Forgetting, p. 15.
47 Ibid.
48 Turok, Nothing But the Truth, p. 90.
49 Socialist League of Africa (Baruch Hirson), ‘A Critical Discussion: South Africa: Ten Years of the Stay at Home’, International Socialism (London), 5 (1961).
50 Nelson Mandela, interviewed by Richard Stengel, 1992, Nelson Mandela Foundation, transcript, p. 495.
51 S. Clingman, Bram Fischer: Afrikaner Revolutionary (Amherst, Massachusetts University Press, 1998), p. 201.
52 The picture is reproduced in D.J. Smith, Young Mandela (London, Weidenfield and Nicholson, 2010), opposite p. 87. The Harmels were invited to the wedding in Bizana but declined because it was to take place during their daughter Barbara’s term time; they were able to attend the engagement party in Orlando, though. Conspicuously, they were the only whites there (pp. 144–5).
53 See K. Brown, Saving Nelson Mandela: The Rivonia Trial and the Fate of South Africa (New York, Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 55–8; Sampson, Mandela, p. 190.
54 S. Ellis, External Mission: The ANC in Exile (Johannesburg, Jonathan Ball, 2012), p. 91.
55 UCT, BC1081 The Simons Papers, O8.1, John Pule Motshabi, ‘On the party Bulletin for Internal Circulation only’, ts. 31 March 1980; I am grateful to Hugh Macmillan for finding this document in the Simons Papers and showing it to me.
56 UCT, BC1081 The Simons Papers, O8.1, ‘Minutes of Africa Group meeting, 13 May 1982’.
57 B. Hepple, Young Man with a Red Tie: A Memoir of Mandela and the Failed Revolution (Johannesburg, Jacana, 2013), p. 106.
58 Hepple’s letter to the London Review of Books (23 January 2014) is quoted in C. Bundy, Nelson Mandela (Auckland Park, Jacana, 2015), p. 64.
59 Padraig O’Malley obtained confirmation of Mandela’s membership from Brian Bunting and ‘[o]ther sources embargoed until 2030’. He also quotes from his interview with Hilda Bernstein, who may have been present at the meeting as a member of the Johannesburg district committee; see P. O’Malley, Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa (New York, Viking, 2007), p. 63. See also Brian Bunting, interviewed by Sylvia Neame, London, 14 May 1986 (UWHP, A2729 Sylvia Neame Papers, Folder E1).
60 Pieter Beyleveld, interviewed by David Everatt, April 1986, UWHP, A2521 David Everatt Papers, Aa1.
61 V.G. Shubin, cited in Irina Filatova, ‘Mandela and the SACP: Time to Close the Debate’, Politicsweb, 24 June 2015, available at http://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/mandela-and-the-sacp-time-to-close-the-debate, retrieved 21 October 2019. This is the only record of Mandela making such a request. Whether the conference was the AAPSO meeting or a more discreet affair in unclear. Mandela was in Cairo as an ANC delegate, not an SACP representative, and he certainly would not have appeared publicly in such a capacity.
62 UWHP, A3345, Kasrils Papers, A6.1.4.1, ‘Typescript of a Memorandum about new strategies for the Communist Party and the Party’s decision to be involved in the leadership of Umkhonto we Sizwe, probably late 1962’.
63 Smith, Young Mandela, p. 177.
64 Nelson Mandela, interviewed by Richard Stengel, 1992, Nelson Mandela Foundation, transcript, p. 422.
65 E. Maloka, The South African Communist Party: Exile and After Apartheid (Auckland Park, Jacana Press, 2013), pp. 21–2, 39.
66 UWHP, A3345, Kasrils Papers, A6.1.4.1, ‘Typescript of a Memorandum about … leadership of Umkhonto we Sizwe, probably late 1962’.
67 Bernstein, Memory Against Forgetting, p. 227.
68 Nelson Mandela, interviewed by Richard Stengel, 1992, Nelson Mandela Foundation, transcript, p. 495.
69 Contact (Cape Town), 6 April 1961.
70 Karis, Carter and Gerhart, From Protest to Challenge, p. 377.
71 J. Ngubane, An African Explains Apartheid (New York, Praeger, 1964), p. 172.
72 Sampson, Mandela, p. 143.
73 J. Slovo, Slovo: The Unfinished Autobiography (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1995), p. 150.
74 Raymond Mhlaba, interviewed by Barbara Harmel and Philip Bonner, Port Elizabeth, 27 October 1993, transcript in UWHP, A3301, Barbara Harmel Interviews, B8.1.
75 C.J. Driver, Patrick Duncan: South African and Pan-African (Oxford, James Currey, 2000), p. 195.
76 Nelson Mandela, interviewed by Richard Stengel, 1992, Nelson Mandela Foundation, transcript, p. 601.
77 Ibid., p. 613.
78 Nelson Mandela, ‘PAFMECSA’, 1962, Exhibit R13, Rivonia Trial Records, Brenthurst Library, Johannesburg.
79 This was in a letter he wrote to Sylvia Neame in 1964 reviewing her manuscript history of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (UWHP, A2729, Sylvia Neame Papers, Folder F). See P. Landau, ‘The ANC, MK and “The Turn to Violence”’, South African Historical Journal, 64, 3 (2012), p. 561.
80 Nelson Mandela, interviewed by Richard Stengel, 1992, Nelson Mandela Foundation, transcript, p. 53.
81 Ibid., p. 455.
82 Nelson Mandela, unpublished autobiographical manuscripts, 1976 (Department of Correctional Services Files, Nelson Mandela A5, National Archives of South Africa).
83 C. Nqakula, The People’s War: Reflections of an ANC Cadre (Johannesburg, Real African Publishers, 2017), p. 315.
84 For example, H. Macmillan, ‘Was Mandela Co-opted into Communism?’, Mail and Guardian, Johannesburg, 16 January 2014, available at https://mg.co.za/article/2014-01-16-was-madiba-co-opted-into-communism, retrieved 12 April 2019; Floyd Shivambu, ‘Mandela Was Never a Member of the Communist Party’, Mail and Guardian, 12 December 2013, available at https://mg.co.za/article/2013-12-12-floyd-shivambu-mandela-was-never-a-member-of-the-communist-party, retrieved 12 April 2019.
85 See, for example, Johns and Davis, Mandela, Tambo and the African National Congress.
86 E. Boehmer, Nelson Mandela: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 4.
87 Jonathan Hyslop, ‘Mandela on War’, in R. Barnard (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Nelson Mandela (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 162–81.