History

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Browsing History by Author "Gumede, Sphamandla Siyabonga"

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    The organizational operations and impact of the PAN Africanist Congress on the struggle for liberation in South Africa, 1959 -1990
    (University of Zululand, 2017) Gumede, Sphamandla Siyabonga; Shamase, Z.; De Villiers, J.; Ochonu, M.E.
    This research study addresses the organisational operations and the impact of the Pan Africanist Congress of South Africa (later- of Azania) in the liberation struggle from its inception to 1990. Having been formed in 1959 by a coterie of renegade African National Congress (ANC) members, the PAC masqueraded as the Africanist movement. ‘Africanist’ is a 19th century ideology that says that black people should determine their own future - Africa for the Africans. The ideology of the PAC embodied external Africanist influences as well as South African experiences. This was clearly illustrated in the basic documents of the organisation, e.g. the Pan Africanist Manifesto, PAC Disciplinary Code, the Constitution, Oath of Allegiance and most importantly, Sobukwe’s inaugural address. These documents show how the Africanists conceived of the South African struggle as part of the broader struggle of the peoples of Africa against colonialism, imperialism and white domination. The PAC was barely a year old when it was banned in 1960 with its leaders restricted and scattered before they could clearly formulate a coherent approach on many pressing issues like African socialism, dialectical materialism, co-operation with other population groups and their attitude towards the South African Communist Party (SACP) and its members. It is generally believed that through 40 years of exile, self-marginalisation, political somersaults and internal leadership wrangles, the one point of consistency has been the PAC's attempt to define itself in opposition to the ANC. A plethora of scholars have over the years extensively and painstakingly researched the role of the PAC in the struggle for the liberation of South Africa. However, a survey of the available literature on the PAC reveals a lack of in-depth academic analysis of its organizational modus operandi and impact thereof. As such, the research is geared towards studying the dynamics of the PAC’s policies and mode of operations to fill the lacuna that exists in the literature.
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    The role of the South African Communist Party (SACP) in the struggle for liberation in South Africa, C.1921-2015
    (University of Zululand, 2021) Gumede, Sphamandla Siyabonga
    This research study addresses the role of the South African Communist Party (SACP) in the liberation struggle from its inception, through the apartheid era to post-apartheid epoch. The South African Communist Party (SACP) had a strong grip on the African National Congress (ANC) on questions of theory, strategy and tactics of the national liberation struggle. It is argued in this thesis that the SACP produced vast reading material such as the African Communist to exert its influence in the liberation struggle through the ANC. They contributed immensely in the drafting of the Freedom Charter which in turn shaped the political perspectives of the ANC. This thesis asserts that Joe Slovo contributed to the ANC’s “Two Phase Theory” revolution for which the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) perspective was premised. This theory and perspective logically led to the formation of the ‘Mass Democratic Movement’ strategy which accommodated everybody from committed revolutionaries, moderates, reformists, opportunists, reactionaries, puppets and dissenters. Slovo argued that it is the inclusiveness of everybody and everything that makes the NDR democratic and national and therefore justifiable. Thus, by implication, communists intentionally took the ANC and its allies through a reformist path. Emerging from this thesis is a narrative that says it is not for revolutionaries to do anything nonrevolutionary, anti-socialist and liberal in orientation and character for the sake of convenience. The crucial contributions made by Slovo equal to the Two Stage theory and which shaped the South African anti-colonial struggle were two pieces of work, viz, ‘Colonialism of a Special Type’ ( i.e. Settler Colonialism) and the ‘Sunset Clause’ respectively. The two, Colonialism of a Special Type and the Sunset Clause professed that the colonized and exploited workers had to co-exist with the oppressors and exploiters. The theory of colonialism of special type has as its main function to explain the fact that SA colonizers are ‘live-in’ colonizers. The logic of this analysis led to the conclusion that the ‘anti-colonial’ struggle should not be to drive the colonizers away but to reconcile with them, hence ‘power sharing mechanism’ which produced the 1994 government of national ‘unity’. This colonialism of special type theory that promoted ‘power’ sharing and ‘reconciliation’ flowed from Moscow’s policy shift from supporting armed struggle to advocating negotiated settlement as the preferred solution. It is also premised on the Freedom Charter’s declaration that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it”. The Sunset Clause, also written by Joe Slovo, was intended to focus the attention of the masses to the gradual removal of settler colonial racists from power positions not the overthrow of the entire state machinery.
University of Zululand