Overview

Author Sylvia Neame’s study of the development of the national liberation movement in South Africa is in stark contrast to the frequent depictions of the history of the ANC by leading academics as fragmented, fractured and discontinuous. Not only does her analyses disprove the belief that the ANC’s development has been episodic, several of the conclusions drawn point to its essential inner coherence. Crucial to the development of the congress movement was the search for an alliance strategy that wouldensure the ANC its central role. Particularly striking, and essentially new, is the depiction of the various alliance partners - including the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU), the Communist Party and the South African Congress of Trade Unions - and their complicated interaction. The research, based on extensive primary and secondary sources including some eighty interviews dating back to the early 1960s, uniquely combines narrative and analysis. The Congress Movement invites the reader to engage in the fascinating development of the national liberation movement in South Africa in its formative period and uncovers its outstanding continuities as well as the considerable range of its methods. Volume 3 explores how the ANC emerges and steps into its primary role as a national liberation movement resulting from a complex process stretching from the 1920s to the beginning of the 1960s. A key theme in this context is the integral role of the then Congress Youth League leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo.

Full Product Details

Author:   Sylvia Neame
Publisher:   HSRC Press
Imprint:   HSRC Press
Dimensions:   Width: 17.50cm , Height: 3.60cm , Length: 24.50cm
Weight:   0.975kg
ISBN:  

9780796924889

ISBN 10:   0796924880
Pages:   640
Publication Date:   08 December 2015
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

Volume 3: 1928-1961; Searching for the adequate form of the united front, 1928-34: Threats to the ANC's primary role; Introduction; ANC-ICU decision for cooperation, 1928 - with an anti-communist rider; Issue of passes, 1928-30; League of African rights. What kind of organization was this?; Mahabane, not Gumede, takes the lead in calling for an African convention; Mahabane's policy of a black-white round table & declaration of rights, 1929 ANC conference; The communists' attitude to Mahabane's policies; Mahabane & communism, 1929; Manoeuvres to dismantle the ANC's primary role, 1926-30; Gumede loses the Congress presidency; Plans to restructure the ANC on the basis of employees' organizations - role of Ballinger; The non-European conference; ANC at the time of the Seme presidency, 1930-37: Its congress character is endangered; Introduction; Seme's political positions at the time of the founding of the ANC; The new Seme constitution; Seme & the upper house at the time of the Mahabane presidency, 1937-40; Seme & business; Fate of the Heaton Nicholls initiative in the framework of the Joint select committee; Some ANC leaders & the Nicholls plan, 1931; State of the ANC in the first half of the '30s; Liberals prime DDT Jabavu as African leader on the franchise proposals; Congress leaders call for an All African convention. The regional conferences; The all African convention, 1935; Manoeuvres around the compromise of 1936; Thema, Dube & Seme & the compromise ; Seme's removal at the 1937 conference. Mahabane puts the ANC back on course; AAC & ANC, 1937-48: Federal or unitary principle?; Introduction; Kadalie's response to the AAC; Was the AAC a new social movement?; The communists' attitude to the AAC; Reservations about the AAC & early moves to revive the ANC; The AAC challenge is defeated - 1943 a turning point; Xuma & AAC(-NEUM), including the meeting of the 12 leaders ; ANC under Xuma, 1940-49: To what extent was it a break with the previous era?; Introduction; Were Congress councillors on the NRC mandated by the ANC?; Division of labour between Matthews & Xuma. 1943 NRC recess committee on representation; A new phase opens with Africans' claims; Pass campaign, 1943-46; The crisis conditions of 1946; Xuma, congress & trade unionism; Prelude to the African mineworkers' strike; African mineworkers' strike, 1946; The communists & the question of a non-European trade union federation; Adjournment of the NRC & the Smuts proposals; Xuma, the ANC, & the boycott of the NRC; Xuma & organization; Growing political role of Indian leaders; The people's assembly of 1948. Problems of the united front; Phase of the programme of action, 1948-50: A complicated historical juncture; Introduction; ANC & the general election of 1948; Emergence of the Congress Youth League. What was its strategy?; CYL's programme for a new South Africa; Issue of a programme of action prior to the ANC's 1948 conference; ANC conference, December 1948, & a programme of action; Efforts to formulate a programme of action in the course of 1949; ANC conference, December 1949, adopts the programme of action; Response of the communists to the programme; The difficulties of leading Youth Leaguers with the Defend free speech convention, 1950; Suppression of Communism act. Mandela, Tambo & Sisulu jettison anti-communism; Champion, Msimang & Thema leave the ANC, 1951-52: The end of an era; Introduction; CYL & radical-democracy; CYL & trade unionism. CYL's attitude to the ICU; Kadalie's last years; Champion's efforts to secure the role of leader of Natal ; Champion's growing irritation with the ANC; Natal, the National fund, the Afrikaner nationalists & the Zulu royal house; African-Indian confrontation in Durban - the 1949 riots; Champion's attitude to the Youth leaguers & to the programme of action; Msimang turns against Champion. Lutuli takes over the Natal leadership; The Baloyi issue. Congress & the Afrikaner nationalists; Thema's role in congress, 1946-49; Thema in 1949; Establishment of the National-minded bloc; The National-minded bloc, business & economic independence ; The Youth leaguers & the National-minded bloc; Common basis of the defection of Thema, Champion & Msimang; Defiance campaign, 1952; Xuma & the ANC, late '40s-early '50s, including his attitude to the Defiance campaign; Postscript: How did Xuma come to turn against the ANC?; Lutuli & Mandela, 1952-61: The Mahabane heritage; Introduction; The problem of a united front with the Liberal party; The ANC, the Liberal party & the COP; What influences shaped the Freedom Charter?; The land shall be shared among those who work it; What organization or organizational framework was responsible for the Charter?; Lutuli & the Freedom Charter; M-plan - preparation for revolution?; The 1958 ANC constitution & the question of centralization; Political orientation of the IDAMF; All-in African conference, October 1956; Multi-racial conference, December 1957. Question of the broad front; Proceedings of the Multi-racial conference; Was the Multi-racial conference simply a dead end?; Dialogue continues; Liberal party-ANC relationship in the late 1950s; The PAC; Why did the ANC leadership prevaricate on the issue of a pass campaign?; Growing lack of confidence in the method of mass campaigns; Crisis symptoms in the economy; Sharpeville . Was it a herald of revolution or counter-revolution?; Conceptual considerations in relation to the call for a national convention, 1960-1; Consultative conference, December 1960, & All-in African conference, March 1961; Reference list; Index.

Reviews

The Congress Movement is an historical epic, which no future scholarship in this field can ignore. Coming from within the movement it describes, this is the most authoritative history of the ANC's leadership that we are ever likely to receive. - Tom Lodge, Shedding New Light on the Historical Development of the ANC, Journal of Southern African Studies

Author Information

Sylvia Neame is a long-standing member of the Congress movement who spent several years in jail during apartheid. She has a doctorate of philosophy in the field of African history and is a former teacher and researcher at Leipzig University.

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