Mpanza’s followers on the illegally occupied land called Masakeng had been resettled in new accommodation at Shelters, together with backroom dwellers from other areas. Masakeng had been demolished. Aletta, Andrew’s mother, was one of those who got accommodation at the new Shelters in Orlando West. She had moved there with Letjeta and Emma, his younger brother and twin sister, while he remained with Sekila in Pimville. With the resettlement of Mpanza’s squatters accomplished, Andrew observed and learned from another form of struggle. As the bruised Johannesburg City Council tried to redeem itself, it attempted action against Mpanza, and in January 1946 attempted to have him removed from Johannesburg under Section 5 of the Native Administration Act, a move which the central government supported after some prevarication. The resilient Mpanza stalled the proceedings by taking the matter to court. In addition, the Council warned two Orlando Advisory Board members, Lukas Kumalo and G Xolile, his main accomplices, that they too might be removed from Johannesburg. Observing these events from a distance, Andrew learned from the City Council’s response to the Sofasonke Party that if this leadership could be deported to far-flung rural areas he could suffer the same fate, as he too had rural roots. ‘I decided that to avoid deportation and banishment I would in future claim that I had been born in Prospect township – a defunct settlement in Johannesburg.’ His argument could easily be supported by the fact that Nyoko had briefly stayed at Prospect and at least some records were there to link it with his family. This fabrication, however, would be entrenched in his mind to the extent that he would use it even when there were no longer threats of banishment. It was a lie that he, as its inventor, would later come to believe.
By the time Andrew was in his last year of school, his relationship with Ruth First had shifted to a higher gear. He had been managing various campaigns for the YCL and assisted Ruth with some of her work to support the 1946 mineworkers’ strike which saw the African mineworkers of the Witwatersrand downing tools on 12 August 1946, demanding higher wages (ten shillings a day). The strike was conducted under the auspices of the CPSA-aligned African Mineworkers Union of which JB Marks was president and Dan Tloome secretary. ‘Both men were charismatic and as radical in their approach as the miners they led.’ They reminded him of Mpanza and the members of his Sofasonke party. ‘I’m convinced the miners continued the strike for a week in the face of the most savage police terror because of the quality of their leadership,’ he later said. By the end of the strike, officially 1 248 workers had been wounded and a large number (officially only nine) were killed. ‘Police and army violence eventually smashed the strike,’ recalled Andrew. The resources of the racist state were mobilised, almost on a war footing, against the unarmed workmen. But the miners’ strike had profound repercussions which were to be felt for many years to come. The intense persecution of workers’ organisations which began during the strike, when trade union and political offices and homes of officials were raided throughout the country, continued unabated. The most profound result of the strike, in Andrew’s view, was to be its impact on the political thinking within the ANC and CPSA. ‘Almost immediately the two organisations shifted significantly from a policy of concession to more dynamic and militant forms of struggle … this trend had been gaining momentum for some time.’
By the end of 1946 Andrew had been exposed to several forms of struggles that had shaped his mind. His rural background on the farms of the Orange Free State had exposed him to the plight of farm dwellers and the struggle for land of rural black people who woke up one day to discover that the land they had owned for years was no longer theirs and that the people who had seized it were their masters. His exposure to the poor urban life of black people in Bethlehem and Johannesburg had exposed him to the struggle for service delivery. The miners’ strike had exposed him to labour issues.
Andrew still regarded himself only as an ordinary member of the ANC and the ANCYL. The youth formation he was more actively involved in was the YCL, through which he claimed membership of the CPSA. But the YCL and the CPSA were increasingly facing a barrage of attacks from the state, with far reaching implications. Four years later, when the National Party (NP) had been in power for two years, it became clear that it was irritated by any mention of the word ‘communism’ and the influence the CPSA had over the lives of ordinary black people. The NP also hated the non-racialism that was preached and practised by the CPSA, which was contrary to the legislated ideology of segregation. Thus was passed the Suppression of Communism Act on 26 June 1950 (although they had been planning to ban the CPSA as early as 1948), which became effective on 17 July of the same year. The law formally banned the CPSA and proscribed any party or group subscribing to the ideology of socialism. The minister of justice had the power to issue an order which severely restricted the freedoms of anyone deemed to be a communist. People could be banned from certain places or from talking about politics. The Act was worded in such a way that any person could be barred from running for public office and attending public meetings, restricted from entering a specific portion of the country or even jailed, simply because the minister of justice deemed him to be a communist.
The Act also defined communism and its aims so sweepingly that anyone seeking to change a law could be considered a communist. Since the Act specifically stated that one of the aims of communism was to stir up conflict between the races, it was frequently used legally to gag critics of racial segregation.
To deal with the implications of the Act the CPSA closely monitored the developments around its promulgation. On 5 and 6 May 1950, it convened an emergency meeting of the Central Committee in Cape Town to discuss the Bill declaring the propagation of communism illegal. There was a view within the Party that the Bill earmarked its forcible dissolution and the laying down of various measures that the government aimed to take against members of the CPSA, and the meeting considered how to deal with the government’s threat. Six days before the Act was passed, on 20 June, the CPSA Central Committee meeting in Cape Town also discussed the impending banning of the organisation and various options for the Party, including going underground or dissolving rather than facing a host of breaches of law and subsequent penalties, which would curtail members’ ability to fight the cause. Leaders such as Dr Yusuf Dadoo argued for the Party to go underground. Moses Kotane, JB Marks and Edwin Thabo Mofutsanyana pointed out the dangers of going underground without preparation. After much debate, the meeting declared that the CPSA would dissolve a few days before the Suppression of Communism Act was passed. For Andrew, that was a serious setback. ‘It was a bad decision for the Party to dissolve itself. Some of us wanted it to soldier on to face and deal with any counter-revolutionary action.’
The minister of justice responded quickly to the declaration by appointing a liquidator, a Mr J de Villiers Louw, to wind up the affairs of the Party. Louw made several claims that the CPSA still continued to exist, as it had not been dissolved in terms of its constitution. A court ruling followed, and the dissolution of the CPSA went ahead. When the Act was finally promulgated six days later it was the voice of the ANC that was heard declaring that the day be marked as a day of mourning for the 18 CPSA members killed during the May Day strike on 1 May 1950. In the general strike that followed, Andrew saw with pleasure the manner in which leaders of the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), African People’s Organisation and the dissolved CPSA pledged support for the strike called by the ANC. Even more interesting was to see the strike being organised by a joint coordinating committee of which Walter Sisulu and Ahmed Cachalia of the SAIC were joint secretaries. The strike reverberated through the cities of Durban and Cape Town. Andrew was encouraged by this response – Africans and Indians were coming together to fight an unjust system. Importantly, the ANC and the SAIC were rallying behind the CPSA. ‘This would be significant in the struggle for the total emancipation of the majority.’
The urge to be actively involved in the liberation struggle became stronger and louder. He had his own view on how he could assist the struggle and was certain that the promulgation of the Suppression of Communism Act in 1950 and the discontinuation of the CPSA would not dampen his spirit. If anything, it may have pushed him closer to the ANC – and it appears to have done the same to many of his peers in the CPSA and YCL. Alfred Nziba, a young man whom Andrew had known very well, was one of the members of the YCL to have actively drifted into the ANC mainly because of the discontinuation of the CPSA, and would influence Andrew to lean towards the ANC as well. (A Fort Hare dropout, Nziba was said
