“The Bolsheviks are Coming” was distributed in Pietermartitzburg by David Ivon Jones and L.H. Greene. Jones was a senior figure in the syndicalist International Socialist League (ISL). The two were prosecuted in March under the Riotous Assemblies Act. What did they mean by “Bolshevism”? Syndicalism, not Leninism, as Jones made clear in court:  the ISL aimed “to establish the Socialist Commonwealth and the methods were organization and education by Press and platform, specially with regard to native workers; participation in the elections of public bodies, and the promotion of the establishment of  revolutionary industrial organizations by workers to form the skeleton of the Social[ist] Commonwealth” (quoted in Baruch Hirson, 1988, “David Ivon Jones: the early writings on socialism in South Africa”, Searchlight South Africa, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 117).

Source: 25 April 1919 , The International

THE BOLSHEVIKS ARE COMING
To the Workers of South Africa — Black as well as White
A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Bolshevism! Continue Reading »

Industrial Workers of Africa leaflet, April 1919, by T.W. Thibedi. Thibedi was a leading figure in the International Socialist League (ISL) and the Industrial Workers of Africa syndicalist union.

Source: Baruch Hirson, 1988, “David Ivon Jones: the early writings on socialism in South Africa”, Searchlight South Africa, vol. 1, no,. 1, p. 107

 INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF AFRICA    

1 This Native Council is for all those who call themselves Country Workers.  Black African open your eyes, the time has come for you all who call themselves Country Workers that you should join and become members of your own Council. It is not to say that we workers stop you from joining any other Councils, but you must know what you are in the Country for (rich or poor). All workers are poor therefore they should have their own Council.    

2 Item 1: Friend are you not a worker?     Continue Reading »

The appeal below appeared in a number of English-language newspapers in the West.  It includes a basic analysis of South Africa in the transition period of the early 1990s. The authors (as the appeal indicates) would initiate a loose Johannesburg-based group called the Anarchist Revolutionary Movement (ARM). ARM lasted from 1993-1995.  The remainder of the ARM founded the Workers Solidarity Federation (WSF) in April 1995, a Platformist group. The scan is below the text.

Source: Rebel Worker: paper of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation, Sydney, Australia
vol. 12, no. 9 (108), Oct 1993, p. 12

SOUTH AFRICA

Dear Comrades,
Greetings from South Africa. Recently we set in motion actions which will hopefully result in the formation of the Anarchist Revolutionary Movement which, to our knowledge, will be South Africa’s first anarchist organisation to operate in the open. Continue Reading »

“Revised Constitution of the ICU”, Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa, 1925

Source: Thomas Karis and Gwendolyn M. Carter, editors, 1972, From Protest to Challenge: a documentary history of African politics in South Africa, 1882-1964, vol.one, pp. 325-326

 Whereas the interest of the workers and those of the employers are opposed to each other, the former living by selling their labour, receiving for its labour only part of the wealth they produce; and the latter living by exploiting the labour of the workers; depriving the workers of a part of the product of their labour in the form of profit, no peace can be between the two classes, a struggle must always obtain about the division of the products of human labour, until the workers through their industrial organisations take from the capitalist class the means of production, to be owned and controlled by the workers for the benefit of all, instead of for the profit of a few.

Under such a system, he who does not work, neither shall he eat. The basis of remuneration shall be the principle, from each man according to his abilities, to each man according to his needs. This is the goal for which the ICU strives along with all other organised workers throughout the world. Further this organisation does not foster or encourage antagonism towards other established bodies, political or otherwise, of African peoples, or of organised European labour.

“Manifesto of the Mine Workers”, Council of Action, Johannesburg, 1921

Source: The Workers’ Dreadnought, 18 February 1922

 … The Council of Action, as an industrial body, [is not an] inspiration or a brain wave of the moment, but is an attempt to formulate a scheme of things likened to the Workers’ Committee movement in Britain, which, in an unofficial way, is doing a great and useful work. The method is to work within and without the official Trade Union movement, with the object of abolishing Capitalism and establishing control of industry by the worker for the worker.

The Council of Action, as an indutrial [sic] body, claims that the purpose of production, distribution and exchange, under Capitalism, is to serve class interests. Under this system of society, the working class is dependent upon the capitalist class, because the latter owns and controls the means of production, distribution and exchange, and thus the two classes have nothing in common. From this opposition of class interests there arises an antagonism which manifests itself in the class struggle; one class organising and fighting to hold the power of ownership and control, whilst the working class is compelled to organise to capture the means of production, distribution and exchange to be worked in the interests of society as a whole. Continue Reading »

“Where WE Stand”, Industrial Socialist League, Cape Town, February 1920

Source: The Bolshevik, February 1920

 The interests of the Working Class and of the Employing Class are diametrically opposed. There can be no peace as long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people, and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the all the toilers come together on the industrial field, and take and hold what they produce by their labour, through an economic organisation of the working class, without affiliation to any political party. The rapid gathering of wealth in and the centring of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands make the Trades Unions unable to cope with the ever-growing power of the employing class, because the Trades Unions foster a state of things which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. The Trades Unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.

These sad conditions can be only be changed, and the interests of the working class upheld by an organisation formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry – or in all industries if necessary – cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all. Continue Reading »

“Ba Sebetsi Ba Afrika”,  Industrial Workers of Africa, Johannesburg, 1917

Source: translation by Wilfred Jali attached to report on meeting of 1 November 1917, Department of Justice, “The ISL and Coloured Workers”, JD 3/527/17, National Archives, Pretoria

 Workers of the Bantu race:

Why do you live in slavery? Why are you not free as other men are free? Why are you kicked and spat upon by your masters? Why must you carry a pass before you can move anywhere? And if you are found without one, why are you thrown into prison? Why do you toil hard for little money? And again thrown into prison if you refuse to work? Why do they herd you like cattle into compounds?  WHY?

Because you are the toilers of the earth. Because the masters want you to labour for their profit. Because they pay the Government and Police to keep you as slaves to toil for them. Continue Reading »

“International Socialism and the Native: no labour movement without the black proletariat”, International Socialist League, Johannesburg, 1917

Source:  The International, 7 December 1917

The Management Committee of the ISL has issued the following statement to the Branches as a basis of discussion at the Annual Conference. The MC recommends this statement of our attitude towards the native worker to be embodied in the League platform for 1918 propaganda. Comrades are invited to read it with a view to discussion, and amendment if they so desire, at the Conference of the League, which will be held in January 6th next.

The abolition of the Native Indenture, Passport and Compound Systems and the lifting of the Native Workers to the Political and Industrial Status of the White is an essential step towards the Emancipation of the Working-class in South Africa.

Society is divided into two classes: the working class, doing all the labour; and the idle class, living on the fruits of labour. Strictly speaking therefore there is no ‘Native Problem’. There is only a working class problem. But within the working class arises the problem of the native worker. In all countries the influx of cheap labour is used as a whip wherewith to beat the whole of the working class. Continue Reading »

“Revolutionary Industrial Unionism”, International Socialist League, Johannesburg, 1917

 Source: The International, 1 June 1917

The International Socialist League puts forward its candidates for the provincial Council Elections not because it thinks that getting Socialists into public office will alone emancipate the workers, but because we believe that the industrial organisation of the workers should be supported by that of the political. On the other hand we wish to emphasize the point that the mere putting of representatives into public office is futile unless backed up by the economic power of that class. Economic organisation is the power of our class, but if we are to emancipate ourselves, we must organise in a different manner and on a different basis. The basis on which we must organise is that of Industrial Unionism.

Revolutionary Industrial Unionism – that is, the proposition that all wage-workers must come together in “organisation according to Industry”; the grouping of the workers, in each of the big divisions of industry as a whole into local, national, and international industrial unions, all to be interlocked, dove-tailed, welded into One Big Union of all wage workers; a big union bent on aggressively forging ahead, and compelling shorter hours, more wages and better conditions in and out of the workshops and as each advaunce [sic] is made, holding on grimly to the fresh gain with the determination to push still forward – gaining strength from each victory and learning by every temporary set-back – until the working class is able to take possession and control of the machinery, premises and materials of production right from the capitalists’ hands, and use that control to distribute the product entirely amongst the workers. Continue Reading »

“WAR!”, Wilfred Harrison, War on War League, Cape Town, 1914

Source: Simons Papers, Manuscript and Archives section, African Studies Centre, University of Cape Town, Fragile Papers section

War! A familiar word, a necessary phenomenon, we are told, to maintain, our libertarian traditions and national civilisation. We admit it because it is customary to admit prevailing conditions without question or analysis. Head hunting or warfare in primitive times was customary, and also considered essential to man’s religion and destiny; then between individuals, now between organised nations, the same instinct is there, the same purpose, the same atrocious acts.

A distinct analogy between primitive and modern warfare; but the primitive method has been analysed and admitted to be barbarous, brutal and inhuman: modern organised warfare is still customary, lawful, just and heroic! The former was renounced because the perpetrators lived in a condition of savagery. The latter is accepted because the man, and not the deed, is considered a civilised product.

It is to-day NOT murder, it is war! So let us give it the necessary analysis and for the moment cast aside sentiment. Continue Reading »