Anarchism Is South Africa ft. Andrew

So I decided to look into the history of anarchism in So Africa and that's what we will be exploring today. Much of the information I gathered is thanks to the scholarship of Lucian van der Walt, a South African anarchist and professor of sociology. Particularly, I'll be looking at the work on anarchism and Cynicalism Southern Africa from the International Encyclopedia Revolution and Protest and Anarchism and cynical in the

Colonial and post colonial world. Without getting into the lengthy and storied history of the region, I do need to provide some context, so we'll start in the mid nineteenth century, where the region that became South Africa was considered marginal to the world economy. You had the Port of the Cape of Good Hope and Port Elizabeth, which handled me

in the agricultural exports. And this was during the second period of the British Cape Colony's existence, after it had briefly fallen into the hands of the Batavia and Republic during the Napoleonic Wars. None of that is particularly necessary to know for our sake, but you know a little fun fact at this point, once again under the British, the land was broadly agrarian, and Britain's farms were worked

by colored and African workers. The neighboring Natal Colony, also under British rule, had its plantations worked by indentured Indians. The rest of the interior was under various Africana republics and African kingdoms. For those not in the know, so African in this context refers to obviously Africans, Black Africans, to be specific, Indians referring to the indentured laborers from the Indian subcontinent, Africanas referring to the Afrikaans or Dutch

speaking white South Africans. And then we have of course the British, which are you know, white British people, and the colored as a designation as a group as a self identified ethnic group referred to the people of mixed European and African heritage that had begun to develop their

own identity in their own community. Because the settlement of South Africa had started centuries before, so other than the agricultural export and ports providing a respite for trade between the West and the East, the Southern African colonies weren't particularly high up on anyone's list of priorities. But then the economic landscape of the region transformed with the discovery of diamonds in Kimberlee in eighteen sixty seven and gold

in Woodwater surround in eighteen eighty six. To make a very long story short, this led to the rapid centralization of mining activities and the growth of towns like Johannesburg, one of the most well known towns in South Africa. Imperial interests intensified, resultant in the British Wars and Africans and Africanas and the establishment of the Union of South Africa in nineteen ten an extremely diverse and polygoth society

under British rule. By nineteen thirteen, almost half of the world's gold output came from with waters Round Aeriel and with waters Rand Minds employed one hundred and ninety five thousand Africans and twenty two thousand white workers. The working

class clearly faced many racial and ethnic divisions. It was primarily composed of various Africans, which had their own divisions between them, and there were also divisions between the largely skilled white immigrants from Europe and the largely unskilled local white africaners. The marginalized African and colored middle classes that began to form from the few free laborers involved in various grown industries would come to lead early nationalist movements

while grappling with segregation, discrimination, and linguistic challenges. As Van der Wald said and a Coote, they lived in a situation where a cheap African labor formed the bedrock of the mine as well as state industry and the growing commercial farming and manufacturing sectors, and where the cheapness of African labor was primarily a function of the black's historic

incorporation into the country as a subject to people. In this sense, local capitalist relations of exploitation were constructed upon colonial relations of domination. Fast forward to the eve of apartheid in nineteen forty eight, when Africana nationalists took power and extended the segregation policies in the first four decades of the Union even further, you get two responses to the national question preceding the development of apartheid from the

organized labor crowd at the time. The first response, known as white laborism, was associated with the mainstream white labor movement leading back to the nineteenth century. The South African Labor Party and South African Industrial Federation were key proponents of white labourism, and both organizations were born from the exclusiveness of early craft unions that later evolved into more

pronounced racial exclusiveness. This white laborism approach combined social democracy with segregation, promoting job reservation and preferential employment for whites, urban segregation and Asian repatriation white power for white workers. Basically, the other races can figure out their own deal. Of course, on the reservations that we put them in. So it's no surprise that the apartheid government in part mainstreamed this

white laborism movement. But the second response to the national question was linked to the Communist Party of South Africa the CPSA from nineteen twenty eight, when it adopted the Native Republic thesis under pressure from the Communist International. This approach advocate of the establishment of an independent South African Native Republic as a precursor to the Workers and Peasants Republic, separating national liberation specifically in the form of nationalism and

then socialism into distinct stages. The CPSA initially considered leading both of these stages, but later abandoned this idea and opted for a united front with the African National Congress, even for a unitary, democratic and capitalist state with land reform and partial nationalization. But there's a hidden history that goes unnoticed prior to the rise of apartheid and the CPSA.

All the way back in the eighteen eighties, Henry Glass played a pivotal role in establishing the local anarchist tradition in South Africa. He was an Englishman born in India with a background in radical London circles. He moved to Port Elizabeth in the eighteen eighties and engaged in various jobs,

including working on the Witwatersrand mines among African people. He contributed to the Cape Labor Press, translated key works by Kropotkin into English, and distributed anarchist materials through various organizations.

Glass seems to have taken a good look at Cloud saw how Africans were treated, and didn't shy away from calling it out now self is writing did idealize pre capitalist cultures, for example, pointing out in a letter to Kropotkin that you can still find amongst them the principle of communism, but his main focus was on pointing fingers at an order that treated Africans like second class citizens, and going even further to champion the idea of a

working class movement that bridged racial divides. He understood the foolishness of white workers to try and pursue their liberation alone while sidelining their colored comrades, and though Glass spent his time agitating in Port Elizabeth, this was also a perspective shared by the Social Democratic Federation or SDF, based in Cape Town, which despite its name, was all about pushing anarchism and syndicalism. Actually, the maybe more precise there was a dominant wing within the SDF of Cape Town

that emphasized anarchism and syndicalism. There will also moderate and status elements in the SDF as well. Cape Town was quite different at that time from Port Elizabeth. Port Elizabeth was mostly African and white, but Cape Town had a significant colored population, which created a situation where much of Cape Town's working class was free labor rather than bound

to some form of slavery or dansure. Coloreds were facing growing official segregation and popular discrimination from the late nineteenth century onwards, though, so there was a growing discontent as the working class fractured even further. But there was a key figure in the Cape Town SDF that pushed anarchism and cynicalism, and that was Wilfred Harrison, another friend of Kropotkin.

A carpenter, a trade unionist, and an ex soldier, he was known as a very dynamic speaker and a staunch anarchist communist who pushed for a future where workers owned and controlled everything. With Harrison at the Helm, the SDF set up shop in Adelaide Street, where they were allizing talks, events,

and even standing in elections for propaganda purposes. The sdf's events attracted thousands, creating truly uniquely integrated public spheres that would bring colors, whites, and Africans in some of the same spaces. They were holding speeches in Afrikaans, which was the most popular language of the colors, and in Eating Closer, the language of the closer people. They had bookshops, reading rooms, refreshment bars, beach trips, choirs, and even a few socialist

christ Nets. At the various talks, they welcomed controversial figures, including a young Gandhi. Harrison's wing of the SDF further sought to remove union colour bars, unionize colors, secure equal pay, and build unions that would unite all workers, regardless of race. In the early nineteen hundreds, Socialists with Waters Round launched the Weekly Voice of Labor, led by Archie Crawford and Mary Fitzgerald. The People served to connect socialists across cities

from Duban to Kimberley, to Cape Town to Johannesburg. Archie Crawford was a staunch anti segregationist, pushing back against the South African Labor Party for its policies and organized in the neglected colored workers. In nineteen ten, the SDF hosted British Synicolas tom Mann, whose tours the region would inspire the founding of the Socialist Labor Party or SLP. In Johannesburg.

They adopted the ideas of Daniel de Leon, the American leader of the International Workers of the World, and were followed by the Industrial Workers' Union, which linked with the IWW in Chicago. The IWW's ideas spread to Duban and Pretoria, but it was Johannesburg where they flexed their muscles with successful strikes and challenges to labor laws. The IWW's position carried the same as its forebears, fight the class war with the aid of all workers, whether efficient or inefficient,

skilled or unskilled, white or black. IWW organizer Jock Campbell would be the first to specifically make propaganda amongst the African workers in which waters Rand. But don't get me wrong, these efforts do not mean that they necessarily succeeded. The IWW and SLP's struggle to recruit to cross racial lines stems not primarily from prejudice, but from their overall weakness as union organizers outside the tram sector where they saw the most successes, and of course the practical challenges of

organizing the predominantly unfree African workforce Underwitwater's Rand. So they talked a good talk about reaching across racial lines, but not a massive success because they didn't have a strategy in place to actually establish those connections between Africans, colored and Indian workers in this regard. Actually, the SDF in Cape Town was a lot more successful. However, something did

happen in witwaters Rand. In May nineteen thirteen, a significant general strike erupted on the witwaters Rand, initiated by white miners and quickly spread in across industries. The strike was marked by riots and gun battles and escalated on what's called Black Saturday, July fifth, resulting in twenty five deaths

at the hands of the imperial troops. Subsequent strikes by African miners and Indian passive resistance campaigns further intensified the social unrest, with the failure of a compromise in the aftermath of the nineteen thirteen strike led to a second general strike in January nineteen fourteen. The State responded swiftly, declaring martial law, mobilizing forces and suppress in the unions, resulting the arrest and deportation of key activists, including Archie Crawford.

Then World War One further disrupted things, with the U s Country joining the British side. While some organizations suspended activities to support the war efforts, hardline African and nationalists launched an armed rebellion, leading to split within the SDF and the South African Labor Party. Although anarchism and syndicalism played a role in these turbulent events, the actual syndicalist

movement on the Witwater Strand was weak and divided. By nineteen thirteen, despite attempts to forge unity through the United Socialist Party, the USP it fell apart due to existing divisions and ideological differences among the constituent groups. While organized syndicalism struggled to lead the strikes, syndicalist ideas and sloguans

gained considerable traction in labor circles. The strikes and war issues reinvigorated existing anarchists and syndicalists, radicalized new activists, and sparked widespread interest in radical ideas, which would lead to a new development. In September nineteen fifteen, the Industrial Socialists League the ISL emerged as a prominent syndicalist formation. Comprising of the syndicalist veterans and anti war South African Labor Party activists, the ISL quickly became the largest left political

group before the Communist Party of South Africa. The ISL rooted in theww tradition, advocated for the organization of workers on industrial alliance irrespective of race, and envisioned an integrated revolutionary one big union for national liberation and class struggle. The ISL criticized whitecraft unions for the divisive practices and advocated fundictrial unions to confront the challenges posed by jant

corporations and trusts. Racial prejudice, according to the ISL, served the ruling class's interests insuring a study supply of cheap, unorganized African labor at the same time that the ISL was actively opposing discriminatory laws. The ISSL also doubted the efficacy of African nationalist programs in genuinely emancipating the black masses. It contended that national oppression was rooted in capitalism, making

national liberation unlikely under the prevalent system. The ISL aimed to reform white unions, but while leading efforts to organize people of color, they faced challenges, of course, in the form of opposition from white workers, electoral defeats, and hostility from established unions. They were evicted from Trades Hall in nineteen seventeen for resistant discriminatory policies, but continued the activities cultivating links with people of color, particularly through its passionately

anti Zionist Yiddish speaking branch. The ISL played a pivotal role in establishing unions among people of color, launching the Indian Workers Industrial Union in Durban in nineteen seventeen, and later through night schools for Africans initiating the Industrial Workers of Africa in the same year, both of which would be led by their own constituents. By nineteen eighteen, there would be another general strike, this time primarily by Africans.

Earlier that year, one hundred and fifty two African municipal workers were sentenced to hard labor for striking, leading to protests organized by the Industrial Workers of Africa, the International Socialist League and the South African Native National Congress and the South Africa Native National Congress. The SANNC, which was the precursor to the currently ruled in African National Congress

the ANC. The Joint Action Committee proposed a general strike on the Witwatersrand for the release of the sentenced workers and better pay for African workers. Although the strike was canceled last minute, several thousand African miners participated anyway, resulting in arrests for incitement to public violence. The rested individuals included ISL members and a member of both the Industrial

Workers of Africa and the SANNC. A year later, in March nineteen nineteen, ISL members played a role in their civil disobedience campaign against past lords, which required non whites in South Africa to carry documents authorizing their presence in restricted white areas. That resistance campaign led to nearly seven hundred arrests. That same year, in Kimberley, the ISSL established syndicalist unions among colored workers, such as the Clothing Workers

Industrial Union and the host Drivers Union. These unions achieved significant successes, including wage increases in Cape Town. ISL members City Way and CRY aimed to organize the Industrial Workers of Africa on the docks. They collaborated with the Industrial Socialist League, the ind sl a syndicalist breakaway from the SDF, and played a role in the major strike on the docks in December nineteen nineteen. Now, the strike ultimately disintegrated,

but it still marked a significant event. All in all, the ISL, heavily influenced by syndicalism, would play a major role in the strikes of the late nineteen tenths. The ISL's influence extended to the formation of the Communist Party of South Africa CPS alongside the SDF and the INDs CEL and a few other groups in the nineteen twenties. That party would go underground after the Anti Communists Act of the fifties and re emerge as the South African

Communist Party the SAACP. For most of its history, it has been explicitly Marxist Leninist, heavily influenced by the Bolsheviks. However, when it first started, syndicalist concepts still lingered within the party for many years before was eventually excised. The internationalist and multi racial vision of the syndicalist movement was later taken over by the two stage strategy of the cpsa slash SACP, which sought to establish an independent, democratic, capitalist

republic as a precursor to a socialist order. This, of course, diverges from the earth anarchist and syndicalist strategy, which viewed the anti colonial independence and class struggles as interconnected and didn't see national liberation as solely the purview of nationalism, a view which to me is more sophisticated and revolutionary than this one track status view that Marxist tend to

adopt contrary to the organizing efforts of actual working class people. Interestingly, Van der Walt argues that while CPSA undeniably contributed to working class struggles since the nineteen forties, a critical look reveals that they made consistent cricketures of the pre CPSA left. They sort of established themselves as the true vanguard in the fight for South Africa's liberation. So they portrayed the pre CPSA left in two main currents. The Proto Bolsheviks

considered true socialists and everyone else. The pre CPSA left was deemed a failure, with the Proto Bolsheviks credited for pioneering socialist work among black workers. According to their narrative, it was only in the nineteen twenties the cpsa's adoption of the native republic thesis and Marxistleninist ideas that the

national question was adequately addressed. Anarchism and syndicalism are portrayed as marginal and bothersome predominantly white movements that at best underestimated the significance of national oppression or at worst endorsed white supremacy and segregation. This interpretation, of course, positions a CPSA slash SACP as the sole bearers of revolutionary socialist solution to the national question, while ironically erasing the history

of early African socialist and syndicalist radicalism. So wrapping up a bit here, we delved into the intricate history of anarchism and syndicalism in South Africa, uncovering a movement that played a significant role in Southern Africa from the eighteen eighties to the nineteen twenties and consistently grappled with the

complexities of the national question. We've seen a multi racial and internationalist movement marked by a step fast opposition to racial discrimination and a commitment to interracial labor organization and the unity of the working class. They had a vision of a society rooted in class solidarity of an industrial republic distinct from the conventional nation state and in lockstep

with an international industrial republic. Now, despite the decline of anarchism and cynicalism in the years following the founding of the CPSA slash SACP anarchism is still alive today in South Africa. The Zaba Laza Anarchist Communist Front or ZACF is a specific anarchist political organization based in Johannesburg, South Africa and founded on May Day in two thousand and three. The organization operates on an individual membership basis by invitation only,

emphasising theoretical and strategic unity among members. The Zaba Lazas align with the anarchist, communist, platformist and a specifistic traditions within anarchism, subscribe to the idea of an active minority pushing anarchist ideas within larger movements. In fact, unlike the anarchisynicalists, the Zablazas don't aim to build mass anarchist movements, but rather to participate in existing social movements, spreading anarchist principles

within heterogeneous organizations. Zablaza advocates for direct democracy mutual aid, horizontalism, class combativeness, direct action, and class independence. It emerged during a time of political closure within trade unions which were controlled by the African National Congress government. It oriented itself towards emergent social movements such as the Anti Privatization Forum and the Landless People's Movement, aim into advance anarchist principles

within these movements. Sablas's work includes popular political education, combatant reformists and authoritarian tendencies, and advocating for the independence of social movements from political parties and electoral politics. So that's the story the history of anarchism and cynicalism and South Africa. Obviously this is a summary, but it goes to show the influence that these movements have had in shaping the

history of that often forgotten region of the world. Thanks for joining me once again or power to all the people.