Soviet Freedom in South Africa

The reception in South Africa of the utopian tradition initiated by Marx, Engels and Lenin is analysed, focusing on the period from 1910 to 1930. The chapter examines the early South African dreams of freedom derived from or influenced by classical Marxism: the political journalism of Olive Schreiner from the 1880s to 1920; the novel 1960 (A Retrospect) by James and Margaret Scott Marshall; the Christian-influenced dreams of David Ivon Jones and Josiah Gumede; the 1928 Native Republic Thesis prescribed for South Africa by the Soviet Union’s Comintern; the literary visions of freedom of Edward Roux (inspired by Swinburne) and J. T. Bain (inspired by William Morris), as well as the many dreams expressed in literary form in the pages of The International and successor CPSA newspapers The South African Worker and Umsebenzi; J. M. Gibson’s ideal of an economic freedom that supersedes the political freedoms of liberalism; and the Stalinist telos driven by ‘the deepening economic crisis’ and culminating in the dictatorship of the proletariat. Roux’s political cartoons envisioning freedom and published in Umsebenzi are analysed.

Lineages of Hope and Despair

Literary and political expressions of the liberal dream of freedom from the 1880s to the 1970s are analysed in the opening chapter. The liberal dream’s lineage in political discourse is analysed in Cecil John Rhodes’s dreams of unifying South Africa in the 1890s; Olive Schreiner’s political journalism from the 1880s to the 1910s; the ANC’s Bill of Rights of 1923; H. Selby Msimang’s pamphlet The Crisis (1936); R. F. A. Hoernlé’s lectures South African Native Policy and the Liberal Spirit (1939); the ANC’s African Claims in South Africa (1943); the ANC’s Freedom Charter (1955); and the Liberal Party’s Blueprint for South Africa (1958). In juxtaposition with these political texts, the following literary texts articulating the liberal dream of freedom are analysed: Olive Schreiner’s Dreams (1890); J. A. D. Smith’s The Great Southern Revolution (1893); Archibald Lamont’s South Africa in Mars (1923); George Heaton Nicholls’s Bayete! (1923); S. E. K. Mqhayi’s U-Don Jadu (1929); Arthur Keppel-Jones’s When Smuts Goes (1947); Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country (1948); Lewis Sowden’s Tomorrow’s Comet (1951); Garry Allighan’s Verwoerd —The End (1961); Anthony Delius’s The Day Natal Took Off (1963); Karel Schoeman’s The Promised Land (1972); and Jordan Ngubane’s Ushaba: The Hurtle to Blood River (1974).

Introduction

Contrasting the belief that freedom had arrived in 1994 with the formal end of apartheid, and the disillusionment in South Africa 25 years later, the Introduction addresses this disjuncture by returning to the dreams of freedom which sustained South Africans under colonialism, segregation and apartheid. In setting out an approach adequate to analysing the South African dreams of freedom expressed in literary form and political discourse, the arguments of a number of thinkers are introduced – Immanuel Wallerstein, James C. Scott, Ernst Bloch, Hannah Arendt, Fredric Jameson, Ursula Le Guin and Reinhart Koselleck. The book’s structure is explained: a chapter on each of the five main political and literary traditions which dreamed of freedom (the ANC, the ICU, the CPSA, the NEUM and the PAC).

Conclusion

The iconic moments in the ANC road to freedom (the 1923 Bill of Rights; the 1943 African Claims; the 1955 Freedom Charter) are juxtaposed to an alternative political tradition comprised of the 1926 ICU Manifesto; the CPSA’s 1928 Native Republic Thesis; the NEUM’s 1943 Ten-Pont Programme; and the PAC’s 1959 Manifesto. In imagining alternatives to capitalism and the nation state, this tradition of ‘failed’ dreams exceeds the prescriptions of centrist liberalism. Conclusions about the literary dreams of freedom discussed in the book include: that literary dreams expressing hope out-number those expressing despair; that a majority of the dreams emphasize economic equality as much as political freedom; and that most of the literary dreams of freedom were produced at specific historical conjunctures (the 1920s and the 1940s). Contrasting the dreams of freedom from the 1880s to the 1970s with a selection of forty short projections of the future produced in 2014 (twenty years after the formal end of apartheid), it is evident that dystopian visions have replaced the tendency to utopianism in the earlier period.

The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) and the Language of Freedom

The second dream of freedom is the ICU’s utopian mix of Christianity, Garveyism, Communism, British trade unionism and vernacular freedoms. Due attention is directed to each of these distinct political discourses which marked the evolution of the ICU through the 1920s. The influence of Christianity is identified in the pages of the Workers’ Herald and in the speeches of Clements Kadalie; of Garveyism in the pages of The Black Man and the writings of Bennett Ncwana and James Thaele; of British trade unionism in the writings of William Ballinger; and of vernacular freedoms in the speeches of ICU leaders P. S. Sijadu and Dorrington Mqayi. Complementing the discussion of these political texts are analyses of the contemporaneous dreams of freedom expressed in literary form, both original literary works and literary appropriations: James La Guma’s poems; Kadalie’s adaptations of Swinburne and Henley; A. W. G. Champion’s religious poems and adoptions of abolitionist verse; Ethelreda Lewis’s novel Wild Deer (1933) and her anti-Communist column ‘The Book Shelf’ in the Workers Herald; and Winnifred Holtby’s novel Mandoa, Mandoa (1933) and her promotion of a liberal literary culture within the ICU.

Pan-Africanism: Freedom for Africa

The Pan-Africanist dream of freedom as expressed in South African political writings and literature from the 1940s to 1970s is the focus of the final chapter. The Pan-Africanist dreams expressed in political discourse that are discussed include: the ANC Youth League’s Manifesto (1944); the ANC’s Programme of Action (1949); the political writings of Muziwakhe Anton Lembede, A. P. Mda and Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe; the PAC’s Manifesto of the Africanist Movement (1959); and the articles and reviews in PAC publications like The Africanist and Mafube. Pan-Africanist dreams of freedom expressed in literary terms are discussed in sections on Lembede’s thoughts on individual literary works; Mda’s prescriptions for literature; Sobukwe’s wide reading and eclectic literary tastes; Melikhaya Mbutumu’s praise poems; novels hostile to the PAC by Peter Abrahams, Richard Rive and Alex la Guma; and novels sympathetic to the PAC by Lauretta Ngcobo and Bessie Head. The popularity within the PAC of Howard Fast’s novels My Glorious Brothers (1948) and Spartacus (1951) is also assessed.

Anti-Stalinist Dreams of Freedom

The alternative South African Marxist tradition derived from Trotsky’s critique of Stalinism and centred in the NEUM from the 1940s to 1960s is the focus of analysis. The South African adaptations of Trotsky’s fusion of critique and utopia in political discourse that are examined include: the writings of I. B. Tabata, Ben Kies, Goolam Gool and Baruch Hirson; the NEUM’s Ten-Point Programme of 1943; and the political journalism in publications loosely affiliated to the NEUM and the New Era Fellowship like Torch, The Bulletin and Discussion. The literary culture associated with the NEUM is discussed both by tracing the influence of the ideas of Marx, Trotsky and Brecht on South Africa’s counter-public sphere, and by analysing the literary-cultural writings of Dora Taylor (her poems, short stories, novels and book reviews); A. C. Jordan’s literary criticism and animal fables; Ben Kies’s newspaper columns; Neville Alexander’s letters; Livingstone Mqotsi’s novel House of Bondage (1990); and the widespread use of literary quotations in political speeches by NEUM leaders, including Tabata, Kies, Leo Sihlali and Goolam Gool.