The South African Communist Party (SACP) is a communist party in South Africa. It was founded on 12 February 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), and tactically dissolved itself in 1950 in the face of being declared illegal by the governing National Party under the Suppression of Communism Act, 1950. The Communist Party was reconstituted underground and re-launched as the SACP in 1953, participating in the struggle to end the apartheid system. It is a member of the ruling Tripartite Alliance alongside the African National Congress and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and through this it influences the South African government. The party's Central Committee is the party's highest decision-making structure. Although the party has not left the Tripartite Alliance, the SACP has announced its intention to break with the ANC and run its own candidates in the 2026 local elections, following the ANC's decision to enter a unity government with right-wing parties.
Contents
History
The Communist Party of South Africa was founded in 1921 by the joining together of the International Socialist League and others under the leadership of William H. Andrews. It first came to prominence during the Rand Rebellion, a strike by white miners in 1922. The large mining concerns, facing labour shortages and wage pressures, had announced their intention of engaging blacks in semi-skilled and some higher-level jobs at low wage rates, compared to their white counterparts who enjoyed the monopoly of higher and well-paying occupations. The CPSA supported the strike as the struggle between the working class and the capitalist class, but it distanced itself from racist slogans associated with the strike. The party said in the statement a white South Africa was impossible, and all the workers had to organise and unite regardless of their race to fight for a non-racial South Africa and better conditions for all workers.
The party thus reoriented itself at its 1924 Party Congress towards organising black workers and "Africanising" the party. By 1928, 1,600 of the party's 1,750 members were black. In the same year, the Communist International adopted a resolution for the CPSA to adopt the "Native Republic" thesis, which stipulated that South Africa is a country belonging to the natives, that is, the Indigenous Black population, and that most of South Africa's revolutionary potential laid with them. The resolution was influenced by a delegation from South Africa. James la Guma, the party Chairperson from Cape Town, had met with the leadership of the Communist International.
Contemporary scholars have argued that the party dismissed competing attempts at multiracial revolutionary organisations during this period, especially multiracial union organising by the syndicalists, and used revisionist history to claim that the party and its Native Republic policy was the only viable route to African liberation. Despite this, in 1929 the party adopted a "strategic line" which held that, "The most direct line of advance to socialism runs through the mass struggle for majority rule". By 1948, the Communist Party had officially abandoned the Native Republic policy.
In 1946, the CPSA along with the African National Congress participated in the general strike that was started by the African Mine Workers' Strike in 1946. Many party members, such as Bram Fischer, were arrested.
Fight against apartheid
Aware that the National Party, elected to government in 1948, was about to ban the Communist Party, the CPSA decided by a majority to dissolve itself. A minority felt that the party should organise underground, but the majority apparently argued that this would be unnecessary, believing that support should be given to the African National Congress (ANC) in the drive to majority rule. After its voluntary dissolution, the CPSA was declared illegal in 1950. In 1953, a group of former CPSA members launched the South African Communist Party that remained — as had been the CPSA — aligned with the Soviet Union. The ban on the party was lifted in 1990 when the ANC and other anti-apartheid organisations and individuals were also unbanned, and African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela was released from prison.
The CPSA/SACP was a particular target of the governing National Party. The Suppression of Communism Act was used against all those dedicated to ending apartheid, but was obviously particularly targeted at the communists.
Following the dissolution and subsequent banning of the CPSA, former party members and, after 1953, members of the SACP adopted a policy of primarily working within the ANC in order to reorient that organisation's programme from a nationalist policy akin to the CPSA's former Native Republic policy towards a non-racial programme which declared that all ethnic groups residing in South Africa had equal rights to the country. While black members of the SACP were encouraged to join the ANC and seek leadership positions within that organisation, many of its white leading members formed the Congress of Democrats which in turn allied itself with the African National Congress and other "non-racial" congresses in the Congress Alliance on the basis of multi-racialism. The Congress Alliance committed itself to a democratic, non-racial South Africa where the "people shall govern" through the Freedom Charter. The Freedom Charter was adopted by the ANC, the SACP and other partners in the Alliance in accordance with its evolution. The Charter has since remained the cornerstone of the Alliance, as its basic, shared programme to advance a national democratic revolution, both a process of struggle and transformation to achieve a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa.
The SACP played a role in the development of the Freedom Charter through its cadres who were openly active in the Congress Alliance and in the Party's underground organisation. In the same vein the Party played an important role in the evolution of the Alliance and the development of the liberation movement in South Africa.
Post-apartheid
With victory a number of communists occupied prominent positions on the ANC benches in parliament. Most prominently, Nelson Mandela appointed Joe Slovo as Minister for Housing. This period also brought new strains in the ANC-SACP alliance when the ANC's programme did not threaten the existence of capitalism in South Africa and was heavily reliant on foreign investment and tourism. However, the Freedom Charter had been considered only as a blueprint for a future democratic and free South Africa. In his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela famously remarked:
"The cynical have always suggested that the Communists were using us. But who is to say that we were not using them?"
After Mandela's death in 2013, the ANC confirmed that he had been a member of the SACP and served on its central committee.
On July 30, 2011 the SACP celebrated its 90th anniversary.
Through the Tripartite Alliance and the sitting of many SACP members on the ANC's NEC, the SACP has wielded influence from within the ANC, often serving as an ideological opposition against the presidency and socio-economic policies of Thabo Mbeki (1999–2008); this became most apparent with the ouster of Mbeki from the presidencies of both the party (2007, by vote) and the government (2008, by ANC party recall) and his eventual replacement in both offices with Jacob Zuma, who was widely seen as being more conciliatory to the ideological demands of both the SACP and COSATU.
Initially, the party did not contest elections under its own name. However, in December 2017, the party contested a number of local council by-elections in Metsimaholo Local Municipality in the Free State, failing to win any first-past-the-post ward seats, but gaining three proportional representation seats. In total the SACP received 3,270 votes (6,3%).
In his address to the 2015 Biennial National Conference of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, South African President Jacob Zuma credited South African Jews for being "among the first to organise the South African working class" as some Jewish activists occupied leading positions within the Communist Party.
General secretaries
1921: William H. Andrews
1925: Jimmy Shields
1929: Douglas Wolton
1929: Albert Nzula
1932: J. B. Marks
1933: Moses Kotane
1936: Edwin Thabo Mofutsanyana
1938: Moses Kotane
1978: Moses Mabhida
1984: Joe Slovo
1991: Chris Hani
1993: Charles Nqakula
1998: Blade Nzimande
2022: Solly Afrika Mapaila
National chairperson
1921: William H. Andrews
1925: Sidney Bunting
1931: Douglas Wolton
1933: Lazar Bach
1935: Issie Wolfson
1939: William H. Andrews
1953: Bram Fischer
2007: Gwede Mantashe
2017: Senzeni Zokwana
2022: Blade Nzimande
Prominent members of the Central Committee of the SACP
Michael Harmel
Moses Kotane
J. B. Marks
Bram Fischer
Jeremy Cronin
Ruth First
Chris Hani
Ronnie Kasrils
David Ivon Jones
Mac Maharaj
Nelson Mandela
Govan Mbeki
Thabo Mbeki
Raymond Mhlaba
Joe Slovo
Yusuf Dadoo
Blade Nzimande
Sechaba "Charles" Setsubi
Rob Davies
George Mashamba
Mfengu Makhalima
Brian Bunting
Kay Moonsamy
John Nkadimeng
Esther Barsel
Charles Nqakula
Judy Malqueeny
Thenjiwe Mtintso
John Gomomo
Veterans' category
Sydney Mufamadi
Charles Nqakula
Essop Pahad
David Niddrie
David Ivon Jones – founding member of the South African Communist Party