This Year in History: The 1922 Rand Revolt

IF 0.4 3区 历史学 Q1 HISTORY South African Historical Journal Pub Date : 2022-07-03 DOI:10.1080/02582473.2023.2193867
D. Money, Danelle van Zyl-Hermann
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Abstract

In the opening decades of the twentieth century, the most serious challenge to South Africa’s newly established settler state came not, as might be expected, from Africans displaced by the 1913 Native Land Act or corralled into compounds as cheap labour for the brutal mining industry. It came, instead, from white workers: a racially privileged but structurally vulnerable class of men – and women – living and labouring on ‘the margins of a capitalist society where charity was in short supply and social contempt abundant’. The perpetual threat of displacement with cheap black labour animated white industrial conflict throughout the first two decades of the century, with major strikes in 1907, 1913, and 1914. All centred on the mining industry, the axis of the South African economy. In each case, the state forces intervened in favour of mining interests. At least 20 strikers were killed in 1913 when troops opened fire on crowds outside the Rand Club, and in 1914 a largescale military mobilisation halted strikes. 1922, however, was of a different magnitude. Amid rampant inflation and falling gold prices, the Chamber of Mines moved to replace 2000 semi-skilled white workers with cheaper black workers. The broader white mining workforce, fearing it would soon face the same fate, reacted with outrage. In January, a major strike broke out on the gold and coal mines, escalating by early March to a general strike across the Transvaal. This took a revolutionary direction as armed strikers seized control over parts of the Rand and formed commandos to directly confront the state. This challenge took two main forms: republican strikers, animated by the memory of the Boer conflict with Britain, sought the formation of an independent republic; anti-capitalist strikers, drawing on revolutionary currents influential in the white labour movement, sought the formation of a communist state. Many strikers had military experience, and intense violence engulfed the Rand. White working-class women, too, formed commandos that attacked police and
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历史上的这一年:1922年兰德起义
在20世纪的头几十年里,南非新建立的定居者国家面临的最严重挑战并不像人们所预期的那样,来自因1913年《原住民土地法》而流离失所的非洲人,也不是被残酷的采矿业作为廉价劳动力关入大院的非洲人。相反,它来自白人工人:一个种族特权但结构脆弱的男女阶层,生活和劳动在“慈善短缺、社会蔑视泛滥的资本主义社会边缘”。廉价黑人劳动力流离失所的永久威胁在本世纪头二十年引发了白人工业冲突,1907年、1913年和1914年发生了大规模罢工。所有这些都集中在采矿业,这是南非经济的轴心。在每一个案例中,国家军队都进行了有利于矿业利益的干预。1913年,军队在兰德俱乐部外向人群开火,造成至少20名罢工者死亡。1914年,大规模的军事动员阻止了罢工。然而,1922年的情况则不同。在通货膨胀猖獗和金价下跌的情况下,矿业商会采取行动,用更便宜的黑人工人取代2000名半熟练白人工人。更广泛的白人采矿工人担心自己很快会面临同样的命运,他们的反应是愤怒。1月,金矿和煤矿爆发了一场大罢工,到3月初升级为德兰士瓦省的大罢工。这是一个革命性的方向,武装罢工者夺取了兰德部分地区的控制权,并组建了突击队直接对抗国家。这一挑战主要有两种形式:共和国罢工者因布尔人与英国冲突的记忆而活跃起来,寻求建立一个独立的共和国;反资本主义罢工者利用在白人劳工运动中有影响力的革命潮流,寻求建立一个共产主义国家。许多罢工者都有军事经验,激烈的暴力席卷了兰德号。白人工人阶级妇女也组成了突击队,袭击警察和
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.70
自引率
0.00%
发文量
37
期刊介绍: Over the past 40 years, the South African Historical Journal has become renowned and internationally regarded as a premier history journal published in South Africa, promoting significant historical scholarship on the country as well as the southern African region. The journal, which is linked to the Southern African Historical Society, has provided a high-quality medium for original thinking about South African history and has thus shaped - and continues to contribute towards defining - the historiography of the region.
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