Red Road to Freedom: A History of the South African Communist Party, 1921–2021

Abstract

Uncovering the 10 decades of the history of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), now known as the South African Communist Party (SACP), Tom Lodge seamlessly reveals a fraternal journey in the formation of one of the most significant movements in the anti-colonial and anti-apartheid class struggles in South Africa. The archival research material used to knit this book together has given it a very robust intellectual supremacy in terms of its ability to provide a genealogical account of the CPSA through its DNA that is embedded in the class struggles of mine workers and industrial workers (trade unions). From the early formations of socialist groups and their linkages with other international socialist movements, leading up to the formation of the CPSA and forging alliances with national liberation movements, Lodge has managed to add to the existing literature about communism in South Africa, including how it came into existence in South Africa, what role it played in shaping the liberation struggle in exile, and the extent to which it continues to occupy an influential position in the tripartite alliance post liberation. His book provides us with richly detailed descriptions that begin from the revival of gold mines, which lured many African migrants and white immigrants from Continental and Eastern Europe, England, Australia, the Unites States and Asia. He is able to show how the arrival of European immigrants, particularly those who had been part of the Italian Socialist Groups, German Socialist Democrats, Friends of Russian Freedom and Jewish Bund who were exposed to Marxist teachings, brought revolutionary strategies into labour movements from the early 1920s. Lodge demonstrates how, during this period, these groups played a key role in organising mine workers’ strikes and using insurrectionary strategies in labour struggles. In addition, the issue of racial labour reservation also became the nexus through which communists had to carefully think about how to distinguish themselves from exclusive white Socialist and Labour parties that paid little attention to representing and incorporating African mine workers into the union and labour movements. Here, we begin to see the emergence of a prominent figure amongst communists, Sidney Bunting, who was a member of the International Socialist League. Through the formation of Industrial Workers of Africa, the connections with the Transvaal Native Congress and communists who were members of the International Socialist League began to take shape. However, as we can see in the book, the presence of the Communist Party members and activists was mainly concentrated in Johannesburg and Cape Town, with a growing presence in Port Elizabeth and support of Indians in Durban who were affiliated to the Indian