South Africa's May Day
The Working-Class Heart of Our History
A resource-book for educators
Part 2
A great landmark
It is easy to forget that the African Mineworkers Strike of 1946 was crushed
by the Smuts government of the day, and that this was the same Smuts who had
been responsible for the terrible Bulhoek massacre and for many other
atrocities.
The Smuts regime was a racist regime of brutality and cruelty. The National
Party government that followed it, in 1948 - and which invented the word
"apartheid" - was different in some degree, but it was not different in
kind. The compound labour system was already in place. The deprivation of
the majority of the population of most of the country's land, had already
happened. And so on.
What, then, was the purpose of apartheid? It was to create new and more
severe pass laws. These were anti-working-class-laws. They were as much
about labour, as they were about race. They were about the control of
racialised labour. They were about the racialisation of labour, for purposes
of control.
While the ANC was busy organising, and while the new ANC Youth League was
producing its Programme of Action, and while Dr Moroka was replacing Dr Xuma
as President of the ANC, the National Party government of D F Malan was
quickly passing laws in Parliament that were directed against the main
defender of the working class, the communist party.
In the process of legislating against the existence of a political party,
the National Party was consciously building the instruments by which it
could attack any and all organisations of the popular masses, whether
expressly communist or not.
In these circumstances, the liberation movement as a whole saw that the
attack on the communists was an attack on the entire movement. In 1947, the
non-communist Dr Xuma had already sat down with Dr Naicker and with the
communist Dr Dadoo to sign the "Doctors' Pact" of alliance between the ANC
and the two Indian Congresses.
As the time approached, they could all see that the Suppression of Communism
Act that would come into force in mid-1950 would menace all of them and they
determined themselves to act together.
The book "A Distant Clap of Thunder says:"the militants of the ANC youth
league formed a natural working partnership with the militant veterans of an
earlier period, particularly the communists like Radebe, Kotane,
Mofutsanyana and Marks, who were already in the leadership ranks."
The "militants of the Youth League" were the likes of Mandela, Sisulu,
Lembede and Tambo.
Govan Mbeki
Govan Mbeki later wrote:
"Typical of a regime inspired by fascist ideas and practices, the government
opened its programme of trampling human rights underfoot by passing the
Suppression of Communism Act in 1950. The Act, which was purportedly
intended to crush Communism, carried clauses of a sweeping nature that
destroyed everybody's right to free association and expression. It was the
realisation of this fact which induced the ANC to share the platform jointly
with the Communist Party on May Day 1950 to protest against the Suppression
of Communism Bill, which parliament duly passed into law. During the course
of protests in various parts of the Reef, the police killed eighteen
Africans and wounded many others."
Michael Harmel ("A Lerumo") wrote:
"...a massive 'Defend Free Speech' Convention was called in Johannesburg in
March [1950] by the ANC (Transvaal) the Transvaal Indian Congress, the
African People's Organisation and the Johannesburg District of the Communist
Party. Under the chairmanship of Dr. Moroka the conference adopted a
militant series of demands for freedom of speech, movement and organisation,
for land and the ending of colour bars. It issued a call for a general
strike on the first of May."
The Stayaway Tactic
The 1946 Mineworkers strike taught the movement that masses of workers out
in the open could be cut down, killed, wounded and dispersed by the armed
forces of the regime. In response they invented the tactic of the stayaway,
whereby workers, instead of picketing and demonstrating, would stay indoors
at home.
This tactic, designed to minimise casualties, was used later, again and
again, but as we shall see, on the first occasion that it was used - 1 May
1950 - it was not a full success from this point of view.
"Defend Free Speech" Day of May 1st, 1950 led to June 26th - "Freedom Day" -
which became the occasion of the passing of the Freedom Charter.
"Defend Free Speech" was in practice and in the first place, defence of the
Communist Party, which the Party can never forget and does not forget. On
that day, the ANC defended the rights of the vanguard party of the working
class.
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