Black Dagger
24th March 2009, 16:17
This is an essay i wrote for a university history course in 2006:
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The Move to Armed Struggle
Analyse critically the reasons why the ANC in 1961 finally abandoned 49 years of commitment to non-violence and set up an armed wing to confront the South African state with violence.
Introduction
This essay will analyse critically the reasons for the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe (The Spear of the Nation/MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC) as given during the period by ANC leadership. The two main reasons given were; firstly that “without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy”[1] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn1); and secondly that the nature of government policy had made violence by African people inevitable, indeed some were already developing what Mandela called ‘disturbing ideas of terrorism’[2] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn2). Thus unless responsible leadership (i.e. MK) was given to the people to help channel this sentiment, there would be outbreaks of uncontrolled violence and inter-racial civil war; a war that would leave deep scars and lasting bitterness in the population.
Both of these lines of argument accept that violence was an inevitable outcome of government policy. The first point emphasizes the necessity of violence against the state as the means of liberation from white supremacy. The second acknowledges that violence itself as a general response by African people is inevitable, and that the creation of MK is therefore necessary in order to help channel this inevitable violence towards the primary goal of abolishing white supremacy.
The goal of this essay is to explore what these points mean in the context of South African society in this period. What about the nature of government policy made violence inevitable? And whether or not these reasons are valid given this context.
The role of state policy in precipitating armed struggle
At present there is a significant degree of consensus in the academic community concerning the use of violence by the ANC from 1961 onwards, specifically its root cause. Most of this scholarship closely echoes the sentiments expressed in the 1961 ‘Manifesto of Umkhonto we Sizwe’, the Operation Mayibuye Document found by the police at Rivonia in 1963, and the 1964 ‘I am prepared to die’ speech by Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia trial.
These three sources identify the repressive policies of the apartheid state as the driving force behind the shift to armed struggle, from MK’s manifesto; “The choice [to move to armed struggle] is not ours; it has been made by the Nationalist government which has rejected ever peaceable demand by the people for rights and freedom and answered ever such demand with force and yet more force!”[3] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn3)
The Operation Mayibuye Document made this point even more explicit, “the white state has thrown overboard every pretence of rule by democratic process and has presented the people with only one choice and that is its overthrow by force and violence.”[4] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn4)
Finally, the speech by Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia trial, “we first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.”[5] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn5)
All three of these sources suggest strong causality between the actions and policies of the apartheid state and decision to transition to armed struggle, a position also supported by many historians of this period.[6] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn6) In order to explore the validity of this position, the wider historical context, the history of the resistance leading into 1961 and the creation of MK, and the states response to this struggle needs to be considered.
The 1950-62, civil disobedience versus state violence
The ANC was formed in 1912 to promote and defend the rights of the African people, and for thirty-seven years the organisation restricted itself to purely constitutional struggle. This non-violent strategy involved sending deputations to the government, organising petitions and holding public discussion meetings[7] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn7), the hope was that Africans could attain full civil rights by engaging directly with the political system through official channels. However, a year after the election of the National Party, in 1949, it became apparent that constitutional struggle in and of itself would not bring Africans closer to political equality – the National Party had begun the aggressive implementation of its apartheid policy and were doing so regardless of any ‘official’ protests[8] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn8).
Thus in 1949 there was a shift from constitutional to peaceful, but unlawful forms of protest, civil disobedience, boycotts and strikes became the cornerstones of the ANC’s new strategy[9] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn9). This strategy was to be crystallized in 1952 with the launch of the Defiance Campaign.
Planned in 1951 and launched in 1952, the Defiance Campaign was the first nationwide campaign of resistance[10] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn10). By deliberately breaking the pass and petty-apartheid laws, and by accepting peacefully the arrests that would follow, the defiers hoped to dramatically expose the absurd inequality of the apartheid system in front of a national and international audience. From a more strategic point of view, the Defiance Campaign had aimed at choking the court and prisons of the nation. With mass civil disobedience would come mass arrests, and by flooding the nations courts and prisons the defiers hoped to force the state to re-think its policy approach.
In total more than 8500 persons were arrested, and although the laws remained intact the ANC’s membership soared from 7000 to over 100 000[11] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn11). The relative success of the campaign caught the apartheid state off-guard, but the governments eventual response was swift and brutal, a dialectic that would characterise events for the next decade. Using the expansive terms of the Suppression of Communism Act, the apartheid state banned fifty-two ANC leaders, including Nelson Mandela, and critically, introduced new legislation to markedly increase the penalties for defiance.
Under this new legislation, civil disobedience, even for trivial matters would be punishable by up to three to five year’s imprisonment[12] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn12). This attack continued on into 1956 when a total of 156 leaders of the ANC and other resistance organisations were arrested and put on trial for treason. Despite the fact that all were eventually acquitted, the trial ran until the end of the decade, tying up key members of the resistance movement and draining the resources of already struggling organisations.[13] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn13)
Although the decade had begun with the emergence of the ANC as the leading force of resistance, and was to be the high point of civil disobedience as a political strategy, the beginning of the 1950s also marked the start of a parallel narrative. Despite the growth of the ANC, the 1950s were a period of increasingly violent state oppression, with the apartheid government using an effective combination of anti-activist legislation and brute force to crush African resistance and consolidate its power and authority.
By the end of a decade of militant political resistance, beyond prestige, an immense and growing membership, the ANC had little show for its efforts. It had been unable to force the rollback of any apartheid legalisation, prevent the introduction of Bantu Education or indeed save Sophiatown from the bulldozers of white supremacy. In 1956 despite vigorous protest the Separate Representation of Voters’ Act was passed, taking the vote away from Coloured people in the Cape[14] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn14) and with it yet another potential avenue for reform. In the same year some twenty thousand women of the ANC had marched on Pretoria. The march was met with violence from police, three women were killed and the apartheid government extended the pass laws to women[15] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn15).
The 1950s had shown both the utility and futility of non-violent direct action. Whilst effective as a propaganda tool, reaching a broad range of the population and in building a political membership, when confronted with a government fully prepared to use lethal force in the defence of white supremacy, non-violence often meant pointless massacre[16] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn16), and there would be more to come.
Sharpeville and its aftermath
As the 1950s drew to a close an important historic split occurred within the ANC. The popular Robert Sobukwe broke with the group in 1958 to form the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), a new African resistance organisation that stressed the importance of African unity and leadership in the struggle against white supremacy.[17] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn17) One of the group’s first major actions was to be an anti-pass demonstration in Sharpeville, a township outside the steel town of Vereeniging on March 20 1960.[18] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn18)On that day, sixty-nine people were killed and a hundred and eight-six wounded when state forces unexpectedly opened fire on several thousand demonstrators who had gathered to present themselves for arrest.[19] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn19)
The weeks that followed saw a massive upsurge in both violent and non-violent political activity, with snap strikes, pass burnings and riots gripping the country. On March 26, in order to placate the seething population and thus quell what was an increasingly revolutionary climate, the state temporarily suspended all pass arrests. However this ‘concession’ was accompanied by an immense reconsolidation of state power, with Saracens (armoured vehicles) dispatched on around the clock patrols, and all white citizen reserve units called up to supplement the swelling ranks of the apartheid police and military forces.[20] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn20) All public meetings were outlawed in the nation’s major centres, whilst a barrage of raids and arrests crippled further any resistance organisation that had not yet succumbed during the repression that characterised the later 1950s.[21] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn21)
In response to Sharpeville the ANC organised a stay-at-home on March 28 to mourn the dead, hundreds of thousands of people participated, whilst thousands more burned their pass books and serious rioting broke out in Johannesburg.[22] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn22) On March 30, the government declared a state of emergency and with this mandate launched another barrage of raids on the ailing resistance movement, now aided by powers to detain any subversive elements for an indefinite period.[23] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn23) Further violence erupted when onApril 1 in Durban, state forces opened fire on a crowd of thousands killing three, with more violence and pass-burning in Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein and other centres around the country.[24] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn24)
Throughout this tumultuous two week period the apartheid government urged the white population to, in the words of Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, “stand like walls of granite because the survival of a nation is at stake.”[25] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn25) The survival of apartheid was indeed at stake and with this in mind the ANC and PAC were finally banned with the passing of the 1960Unlawful Organisations Act, effectively legislating these organisations into a corner. The act was also used to further criminalise non-violent resistance, making it illegal to incite others to strike, ad in a much vaguer declaration, “commit any offence by way of protest against a law”[26] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn26), with the accused facing up to fives imprisonment if convicted.
It was within this climate of increasingly violent state repression that the decision was made by the ANC to fight state violence with the controlled violence of the people, Umkhonto we Sizwe. At the beginning of this essay, the notion of causality was raised, that is to what extent did the actions and policies of the apartheid state precipitate the armed resistance movement? The events outlined above clearly support the notion that controlled violence was in 1961 the only viable alternative to complete surrender.
Over the course of twelve years, from 1950-62, the government had through the passing of a series of laws culminating in the Unlawful Organisations Act of 1960, gradually criminalised legitimate resistance to apartheid. Moreover the period was punctuated by severe police repression such as followed the Defiance Campaign and Sharpeville massacre, in which tens of thousands of members of the resistance movement were arrested and imprisoned, many of whom subsequently died in custody. That violence, and even massacre, became staple features of the political landscape underscores the grave political and social reality of this period. The ANC had argued that the policies of the apartheid government provided the people with no choice but to ‘submit or fight’, and the historical evidence points strongly to this conclusion.
The constitutional approach that characterised struggle pre-1948 had failed when met with the steadfast white supremacy of the newly-elected National Party government. The strategy of non-violent direct action and civil disobedience that emerged as a response to this government in the early 1950s, with the Defiance Campaign, and which continued into the early 1960s, had by 1961 ended in total and utter defeat. No rights or concessions had been won, many in fact had been lost, and two of the organisations central to the resistance movement, the ANC and PAC, were now illegal. In this context, the decision by the ANC in 1961 to finally abandon forty-nine years of commitment to non-violence and set up an armed wing to confront the state seems not only logical, but imperative. If the ANC was to maintain any relevance with the African people as a legitimate resistance organisation, its leadership could not continue to preach non-violence in the face of the bare violence inflicted by the apartheid state on African people.
Controlled violence and terrorism
The second reason given by the ANC for their transition to armed struggle emphasised the need for an organisation to channel the inevitable violence of the people towards liberatory ends. That without this guiding influence a devastating ‘racial war’ might destroy the country. There is definitely a basis for this assumption, popular violence had erupted many times before, for example, to end the Defiance Campaign in 1952 when during riots forty people were killed[27] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn27), and more recently in January 1960, when protests against liquor raids lead to a riot in which nine police officers were killed.[28] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn28)
Whilst the extent to which it would ever be possible for the ANC with or without MK to channel popular violence is dubious, the existence of MK did nevertheless provide the African population with an outlet for the anger that had sparked riots for weeks following the Sharpeville massacre. The creation of MK was an attempt to harness this feeling and direct it, not at Africans or white citizens (what Mandela was referring to when talked of ‘disturbing ideas of terrorism’), but at the apartheid state, by means of sabotage. Mandela explained the utility of this approach in his speech at the Rivonia trial in 1964, “sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations”.
Through this approach the ANC envisioned that, “bitterness would be kept to a minimum” and, if the strategy was successful, “democratic government could become a reality”.[29] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn29) The hope was that through a sustained sabotage campaign the apartheid government would, shocked and under pressure, agree to negotiate full democratic rights.
In hindsight the apartheid state would prove much more committed to the maintenance of white supremacy than perceived by the ANC in 1961. Nevertheless the reasoning behind this approach was strong and realistic; a campaign of sabotage was in reality the only campaign of violence the ANC was capable of during this period. Few of the organisations members had received the level of military training needed to begin a more intense guerrilla war and as such sabotage would be an effective beginning to what could be a protracted struggle.
Moreover, the ANC envisioned that the sabotage campaign would drive capital out of the country, as had happened in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre, and that by targeting the nation’s infrastructure, the campaign itself could be a long term drain on the economy, compelling white voters to reconsider apartheid policy.[30] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn30) Whilst this was certainly not the case in the 1960s, MK would survive the Rivonia trial, and in the 1980s was a significant factor in the National Party finally agreeing to negotiate full democracy.
Conclusion
The 1961 decision of the ANC to abandon forty-nine years of non-violence was not one taken recklessly, despite the short-lived nature of the 1960s sabotage campaign. In 1961 when the decision was made to form MK, the ANC faced conditions amounting to what Mandela has accurately described as ‘submit or fight’, that the organisation could either accept being outlawed or go underground and fight back.
Within this organisation, the abandoning of non-violence as the primary strategy in the fight against white supremacy was completely valid. Once the organisation was declared illegal, the strengths of non-violent resistance were made redundant, inciting to strike was an offence, and there was now little point presenting at a police station to be arrested, when simply being a member of the ANC (a banned organisation) was illegal. The decision to transition to armed struggle was shaped heavily by the conditions that government actions and policies created. Every time state forces opened fire on non-violent demonstrators it undermined the legitimacy of non-violent protest in the eyes of the African people. The oppressed majority of South Africa would not continue to risk their lives when it was made clear in the 1950s and early 1960s that no matter what form political resistance took the response was the same, violence, new tougher laws constricting civil disobedience, raids and arrests. The process of criminalising dissent that began in the wake of the Defiance Campaign accelerated with each major act of resistance. This process culminated with the banning of the ANC and PAC in 1960, and when coupled with the intensification of state-rule by force, effectively sealed the fate of non-violence as the leading form of struggle against white supremacy.
Had the state in the late 1950s and early 1960s taken a more tactical approach, as it did later with the introduction of the tricameral parliament, and not so violently insist that it must crush all significant resistance movements, MK may never have been established, and certainly not in 1961.
Although non-violent direct action and civil disobedience had failed to achieve their broader aims, the activism of the 1950s was crucial in building the ANC into a mass-movement. In this way the struggles of the 1950s were necessary in establishing the conditions in which MK and armed struggle was to be launched in the 1960s. Had the ANC chosen violence against the state in the early 1950s the results would have been disastrous.
Lacking the broad-base of support that the organisation enjoyed in the 1960s, the group have been, as the PAC was a decade later, easy pickings for a well-trained, and well-armed police state. Without the broad support in the population, guerrilla war, any armed struggle against the state can never be truly successful. It was the support of the oppressed majority that kept Umkhonto we Sizwe alive following the Rivonia trial, one need only look at the overwhelming failure of Poqo, the armed wing of the PAC, to see the critical role popular support plays in sustaining revolutionary struggle. Thus also the decision to abandon forty-nine years of commitment to non-violence and establish an army of national liberation was entirely valid, it should and does not render void the efforts and fruits of non-violent direct action and civil obedience. Indeed the successes of non-violence formed a sound foundation, upon which the next phase of struggle was launched, the Spear of the Nation.
[1] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref1) Nelson Mandela, “Struggle: I am prepared to die.” In In His Own Words: From Freedom to the Future, Tributes and Speeches, eds Kader Asmal, David Chidester & Wilmot James (London: Little Brown, 2003), 28.
[2] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref2) Ibid., 32.
[3] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref3) Umkhonto we Sizwe, “Manifesto of Umkhonto we Sizwe, Leaflet issued by the Command of Umkhonto we Sizwe, 16th December 1961”, available at URL: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mk/manifesto-mk.html [1/4/06]
[4] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref4) Umkhonto we Sizwe, “Operation Mayibuye: Document found by the police at Rivonia, 11 July 1963”, available at URL: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mk/mayibuye.html [1/4/06]
[5] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref5) Mandela, 28.
[6] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref6) For example, Thomas G. Karis, “it is not a coincidence that the process moved from no-violent protest to armed resistance in 1961, a year after the oldest and largest African opposition movement, the African National Congress, was banned” (Thomas G. Karis, “Black Politics: The Road To Revolution.” In Apartheid In Crisis, ed. by Mark A. Uhlig, [New York: Vintage Books, 1986], 115) & Lyle Tatum, “After Sharpeville, there was an almost unanimous coming together to the view that violence is necessary to win liberation for South African blacks.” (Lyle Tatum, South Africa: Challenge and Hope [Toronto:Collins Publishers, 1987], 58). See also: Chris Alder, The Rise and Fall of the South African Security State (London: Macmillan Press, 1996), 18.
[7] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref7) Thomas G. Karis, “Black Politics: The Road to Revolution.” In Apartheid in Crisis, ed. by Mark A. Uhlig, (New York: Vintage Books, 1986), 115.
[8] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref8) In the words of Chief Luthuli, who became president of the ANC in 1952, “What have been the fruits of moderation? The past thirty years have seen the greatest number of laws restricting our rights and progress, until today we have reached a stage where we have almost no rights at all.” (Mandela, 29).
[9] Karis, 115.
[10] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref10) Lyle Tatum, South Africa: Challenge and Hope (Toronto: Collins Publishers, 1987), 57-58.
[11] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref11) Ibid.
[12] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref12) James North, Freedom Rising (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1985), 285.
[13] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref13) Ibid.
[14] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref14) North, 285.
[15] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref15) Tatum, 56.
[16] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref16) Nelson Mandela cited some examples of this pattern of violence in his speech at the Rivonia trial, “there had been violence in 1957 when the women of Zeerust were ordered to carry passes; there was violence in 1958 with the enforcement of cattle culling in Sekhukhuniland; there was violence in 1959 when the people of Cato Manor protested against pass raids; there was violence in 1960 when the Government attempted to impose Bantu Authorities in Pondoland. Thirty-nine Africans died in these disturbances.” (Mandela, 32).
[17] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref17) Tatum, 58.
[18] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref18) North, 287.
[19] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref19) Tatum, 58.
[20] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref20) Gail M. Gerhart, Black Power in South Africa: The Evolution of an Ideology (Berkley: University of California Press, 1978), 242.
[21] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref21) Ibid.
[22] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref22) Gerhart, 243.
[23] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref23) Ibid.
[24] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref24) Gerhart, 246.
[25] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref25) Chris Alder, The Rise and Fall of the South African Security State (London: Macmillan Press, 1996), 18.
[26] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref26) Gerhart, 246.
[27] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref27) Tatum, 57-58.
[28] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref28) Gerhart, 233.
[29] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref29) Mandela, 34.
[30] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref30) Ibid.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
MANDELA, N. “Freedom: Release from Prison.” In In His Own Words: From Freedom to the Future, Tributes and Speeches edited by Kader Asmal, David Chidester & Wilmot James, 61.London:Little Brown, 2003.
MANDELA, N. “Struggle: I am prepared to die.” In In His Own Words: From Freedom to the Future, Tributes and Speeches edited by Kader Asmal, David Chidester & Wilmot James, 28.London:Little Brown, 2003.
TAMBO, O. R. (1969) “Capture the Citadel: Broadcast to South Africa on the eight anniversary of the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe, December 16, 1969”, available at URL: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/or/or69-3.html [1/4/06]
UMKHONTO WE SIZWE (1961) “Manifesto of Umkhonto we Sizwe, Leaflet issued by the Command of Umkhonto we Sizwe, 16th December 1961”, available at URL: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mk/manifesto-mk.html [1/4/06]
UMKHONTO WE SIZWE (1963) “Operation Mayibuye: Document found by the police at Rivonia, 11 July 1963”, available at URL: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mk/mayibuye.html [1/4/06]
Secondary Sources
ALDER, C. The Rise and fall of the South African Security State.London: Macmillan Press, 1996.
GERHART, G. M. Black Power in South Africa: The Evolution of an Ideology.Berkley: University of California Press, 1978.
KARIS, T.G. “Black Politics: The Road to Revolution.” In Apartheid in Crisis, edited by Mark A. Uhlig, 115. New York: Vintage Books, 1986.
NORTH, J. Freedom Rising. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1985.
TATUM, L, ed. South Africa: Challenge and Hope. Toronto:Collins Publishers, 1987.
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The Move to Armed Struggle
Analyse critically the reasons why the ANC in 1961 finally abandoned 49 years of commitment to non-violence and set up an armed wing to confront the South African state with violence.
Introduction
This essay will analyse critically the reasons for the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe (The Spear of the Nation/MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC) as given during the period by ANC leadership. The two main reasons given were; firstly that “without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy”[1] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn1); and secondly that the nature of government policy had made violence by African people inevitable, indeed some were already developing what Mandela called ‘disturbing ideas of terrorism’[2] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn2). Thus unless responsible leadership (i.e. MK) was given to the people to help channel this sentiment, there would be outbreaks of uncontrolled violence and inter-racial civil war; a war that would leave deep scars and lasting bitterness in the population.
Both of these lines of argument accept that violence was an inevitable outcome of government policy. The first point emphasizes the necessity of violence against the state as the means of liberation from white supremacy. The second acknowledges that violence itself as a general response by African people is inevitable, and that the creation of MK is therefore necessary in order to help channel this inevitable violence towards the primary goal of abolishing white supremacy.
The goal of this essay is to explore what these points mean in the context of South African society in this period. What about the nature of government policy made violence inevitable? And whether or not these reasons are valid given this context.
The role of state policy in precipitating armed struggle
At present there is a significant degree of consensus in the academic community concerning the use of violence by the ANC from 1961 onwards, specifically its root cause. Most of this scholarship closely echoes the sentiments expressed in the 1961 ‘Manifesto of Umkhonto we Sizwe’, the Operation Mayibuye Document found by the police at Rivonia in 1963, and the 1964 ‘I am prepared to die’ speech by Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia trial.
These three sources identify the repressive policies of the apartheid state as the driving force behind the shift to armed struggle, from MK’s manifesto; “The choice [to move to armed struggle] is not ours; it has been made by the Nationalist government which has rejected ever peaceable demand by the people for rights and freedom and answered ever such demand with force and yet more force!”[3] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn3)
The Operation Mayibuye Document made this point even more explicit, “the white state has thrown overboard every pretence of rule by democratic process and has presented the people with only one choice and that is its overthrow by force and violence.”[4] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn4)
Finally, the speech by Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia trial, “we first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.”[5] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn5)
All three of these sources suggest strong causality between the actions and policies of the apartheid state and decision to transition to armed struggle, a position also supported by many historians of this period.[6] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn6) In order to explore the validity of this position, the wider historical context, the history of the resistance leading into 1961 and the creation of MK, and the states response to this struggle needs to be considered.
The 1950-62, civil disobedience versus state violence
The ANC was formed in 1912 to promote and defend the rights of the African people, and for thirty-seven years the organisation restricted itself to purely constitutional struggle. This non-violent strategy involved sending deputations to the government, organising petitions and holding public discussion meetings[7] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn7), the hope was that Africans could attain full civil rights by engaging directly with the political system through official channels. However, a year after the election of the National Party, in 1949, it became apparent that constitutional struggle in and of itself would not bring Africans closer to political equality – the National Party had begun the aggressive implementation of its apartheid policy and were doing so regardless of any ‘official’ protests[8] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn8).
Thus in 1949 there was a shift from constitutional to peaceful, but unlawful forms of protest, civil disobedience, boycotts and strikes became the cornerstones of the ANC’s new strategy[9] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn9). This strategy was to be crystallized in 1952 with the launch of the Defiance Campaign.
Planned in 1951 and launched in 1952, the Defiance Campaign was the first nationwide campaign of resistance[10] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn10). By deliberately breaking the pass and petty-apartheid laws, and by accepting peacefully the arrests that would follow, the defiers hoped to dramatically expose the absurd inequality of the apartheid system in front of a national and international audience. From a more strategic point of view, the Defiance Campaign had aimed at choking the court and prisons of the nation. With mass civil disobedience would come mass arrests, and by flooding the nations courts and prisons the defiers hoped to force the state to re-think its policy approach.
In total more than 8500 persons were arrested, and although the laws remained intact the ANC’s membership soared from 7000 to over 100 000[11] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn11). The relative success of the campaign caught the apartheid state off-guard, but the governments eventual response was swift and brutal, a dialectic that would characterise events for the next decade. Using the expansive terms of the Suppression of Communism Act, the apartheid state banned fifty-two ANC leaders, including Nelson Mandela, and critically, introduced new legislation to markedly increase the penalties for defiance.
Under this new legislation, civil disobedience, even for trivial matters would be punishable by up to three to five year’s imprisonment[12] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn12). This attack continued on into 1956 when a total of 156 leaders of the ANC and other resistance organisations were arrested and put on trial for treason. Despite the fact that all were eventually acquitted, the trial ran until the end of the decade, tying up key members of the resistance movement and draining the resources of already struggling organisations.[13] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn13)
Although the decade had begun with the emergence of the ANC as the leading force of resistance, and was to be the high point of civil disobedience as a political strategy, the beginning of the 1950s also marked the start of a parallel narrative. Despite the growth of the ANC, the 1950s were a period of increasingly violent state oppression, with the apartheid government using an effective combination of anti-activist legislation and brute force to crush African resistance and consolidate its power and authority.
By the end of a decade of militant political resistance, beyond prestige, an immense and growing membership, the ANC had little show for its efforts. It had been unable to force the rollback of any apartheid legalisation, prevent the introduction of Bantu Education or indeed save Sophiatown from the bulldozers of white supremacy. In 1956 despite vigorous protest the Separate Representation of Voters’ Act was passed, taking the vote away from Coloured people in the Cape[14] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn14) and with it yet another potential avenue for reform. In the same year some twenty thousand women of the ANC had marched on Pretoria. The march was met with violence from police, three women were killed and the apartheid government extended the pass laws to women[15] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn15).
The 1950s had shown both the utility and futility of non-violent direct action. Whilst effective as a propaganda tool, reaching a broad range of the population and in building a political membership, when confronted with a government fully prepared to use lethal force in the defence of white supremacy, non-violence often meant pointless massacre[16] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn16), and there would be more to come.
Sharpeville and its aftermath
As the 1950s drew to a close an important historic split occurred within the ANC. The popular Robert Sobukwe broke with the group in 1958 to form the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), a new African resistance organisation that stressed the importance of African unity and leadership in the struggle against white supremacy.[17] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn17) One of the group’s first major actions was to be an anti-pass demonstration in Sharpeville, a township outside the steel town of Vereeniging on March 20 1960.[18] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn18)On that day, sixty-nine people were killed and a hundred and eight-six wounded when state forces unexpectedly opened fire on several thousand demonstrators who had gathered to present themselves for arrest.[19] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn19)
The weeks that followed saw a massive upsurge in both violent and non-violent political activity, with snap strikes, pass burnings and riots gripping the country. On March 26, in order to placate the seething population and thus quell what was an increasingly revolutionary climate, the state temporarily suspended all pass arrests. However this ‘concession’ was accompanied by an immense reconsolidation of state power, with Saracens (armoured vehicles) dispatched on around the clock patrols, and all white citizen reserve units called up to supplement the swelling ranks of the apartheid police and military forces.[20] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn20) All public meetings were outlawed in the nation’s major centres, whilst a barrage of raids and arrests crippled further any resistance organisation that had not yet succumbed during the repression that characterised the later 1950s.[21] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn21)
In response to Sharpeville the ANC organised a stay-at-home on March 28 to mourn the dead, hundreds of thousands of people participated, whilst thousands more burned their pass books and serious rioting broke out in Johannesburg.[22] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn22) On March 30, the government declared a state of emergency and with this mandate launched another barrage of raids on the ailing resistance movement, now aided by powers to detain any subversive elements for an indefinite period.[23] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn23) Further violence erupted when onApril 1 in Durban, state forces opened fire on a crowd of thousands killing three, with more violence and pass-burning in Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein and other centres around the country.[24] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn24)
Throughout this tumultuous two week period the apartheid government urged the white population to, in the words of Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, “stand like walls of granite because the survival of a nation is at stake.”[25] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn25) The survival of apartheid was indeed at stake and with this in mind the ANC and PAC were finally banned with the passing of the 1960Unlawful Organisations Act, effectively legislating these organisations into a corner. The act was also used to further criminalise non-violent resistance, making it illegal to incite others to strike, ad in a much vaguer declaration, “commit any offence by way of protest against a law”[26] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn26), with the accused facing up to fives imprisonment if convicted.
It was within this climate of increasingly violent state repression that the decision was made by the ANC to fight state violence with the controlled violence of the people, Umkhonto we Sizwe. At the beginning of this essay, the notion of causality was raised, that is to what extent did the actions and policies of the apartheid state precipitate the armed resistance movement? The events outlined above clearly support the notion that controlled violence was in 1961 the only viable alternative to complete surrender.
Over the course of twelve years, from 1950-62, the government had through the passing of a series of laws culminating in the Unlawful Organisations Act of 1960, gradually criminalised legitimate resistance to apartheid. Moreover the period was punctuated by severe police repression such as followed the Defiance Campaign and Sharpeville massacre, in which tens of thousands of members of the resistance movement were arrested and imprisoned, many of whom subsequently died in custody. That violence, and even massacre, became staple features of the political landscape underscores the grave political and social reality of this period. The ANC had argued that the policies of the apartheid government provided the people with no choice but to ‘submit or fight’, and the historical evidence points strongly to this conclusion.
The constitutional approach that characterised struggle pre-1948 had failed when met with the steadfast white supremacy of the newly-elected National Party government. The strategy of non-violent direct action and civil disobedience that emerged as a response to this government in the early 1950s, with the Defiance Campaign, and which continued into the early 1960s, had by 1961 ended in total and utter defeat. No rights or concessions had been won, many in fact had been lost, and two of the organisations central to the resistance movement, the ANC and PAC, were now illegal. In this context, the decision by the ANC in 1961 to finally abandon forty-nine years of commitment to non-violence and set up an armed wing to confront the state seems not only logical, but imperative. If the ANC was to maintain any relevance with the African people as a legitimate resistance organisation, its leadership could not continue to preach non-violence in the face of the bare violence inflicted by the apartheid state on African people.
Controlled violence and terrorism
The second reason given by the ANC for their transition to armed struggle emphasised the need for an organisation to channel the inevitable violence of the people towards liberatory ends. That without this guiding influence a devastating ‘racial war’ might destroy the country. There is definitely a basis for this assumption, popular violence had erupted many times before, for example, to end the Defiance Campaign in 1952 when during riots forty people were killed[27] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn27), and more recently in January 1960, when protests against liquor raids lead to a riot in which nine police officers were killed.[28] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn28)
Whilst the extent to which it would ever be possible for the ANC with or without MK to channel popular violence is dubious, the existence of MK did nevertheless provide the African population with an outlet for the anger that had sparked riots for weeks following the Sharpeville massacre. The creation of MK was an attempt to harness this feeling and direct it, not at Africans or white citizens (what Mandela was referring to when talked of ‘disturbing ideas of terrorism’), but at the apartheid state, by means of sabotage. Mandela explained the utility of this approach in his speech at the Rivonia trial in 1964, “sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations”.
Through this approach the ANC envisioned that, “bitterness would be kept to a minimum” and, if the strategy was successful, “democratic government could become a reality”.[29] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn29) The hope was that through a sustained sabotage campaign the apartheid government would, shocked and under pressure, agree to negotiate full democratic rights.
In hindsight the apartheid state would prove much more committed to the maintenance of white supremacy than perceived by the ANC in 1961. Nevertheless the reasoning behind this approach was strong and realistic; a campaign of sabotage was in reality the only campaign of violence the ANC was capable of during this period. Few of the organisations members had received the level of military training needed to begin a more intense guerrilla war and as such sabotage would be an effective beginning to what could be a protracted struggle.
Moreover, the ANC envisioned that the sabotage campaign would drive capital out of the country, as had happened in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre, and that by targeting the nation’s infrastructure, the campaign itself could be a long term drain on the economy, compelling white voters to reconsider apartheid policy.[30] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftn30) Whilst this was certainly not the case in the 1960s, MK would survive the Rivonia trial, and in the 1980s was a significant factor in the National Party finally agreeing to negotiate full democracy.
Conclusion
The 1961 decision of the ANC to abandon forty-nine years of non-violence was not one taken recklessly, despite the short-lived nature of the 1960s sabotage campaign. In 1961 when the decision was made to form MK, the ANC faced conditions amounting to what Mandela has accurately described as ‘submit or fight’, that the organisation could either accept being outlawed or go underground and fight back.
Within this organisation, the abandoning of non-violence as the primary strategy in the fight against white supremacy was completely valid. Once the organisation was declared illegal, the strengths of non-violent resistance were made redundant, inciting to strike was an offence, and there was now little point presenting at a police station to be arrested, when simply being a member of the ANC (a banned organisation) was illegal. The decision to transition to armed struggle was shaped heavily by the conditions that government actions and policies created. Every time state forces opened fire on non-violent demonstrators it undermined the legitimacy of non-violent protest in the eyes of the African people. The oppressed majority of South Africa would not continue to risk their lives when it was made clear in the 1950s and early 1960s that no matter what form political resistance took the response was the same, violence, new tougher laws constricting civil disobedience, raids and arrests. The process of criminalising dissent that began in the wake of the Defiance Campaign accelerated with each major act of resistance. This process culminated with the banning of the ANC and PAC in 1960, and when coupled with the intensification of state-rule by force, effectively sealed the fate of non-violence as the leading form of struggle against white supremacy.
Had the state in the late 1950s and early 1960s taken a more tactical approach, as it did later with the introduction of the tricameral parliament, and not so violently insist that it must crush all significant resistance movements, MK may never have been established, and certainly not in 1961.
Although non-violent direct action and civil disobedience had failed to achieve their broader aims, the activism of the 1950s was crucial in building the ANC into a mass-movement. In this way the struggles of the 1950s were necessary in establishing the conditions in which MK and armed struggle was to be launched in the 1960s. Had the ANC chosen violence against the state in the early 1950s the results would have been disastrous.
Lacking the broad-base of support that the organisation enjoyed in the 1960s, the group have been, as the PAC was a decade later, easy pickings for a well-trained, and well-armed police state. Without the broad support in the population, guerrilla war, any armed struggle against the state can never be truly successful. It was the support of the oppressed majority that kept Umkhonto we Sizwe alive following the Rivonia trial, one need only look at the overwhelming failure of Poqo, the armed wing of the PAC, to see the critical role popular support plays in sustaining revolutionary struggle. Thus also the decision to abandon forty-nine years of commitment to non-violence and establish an army of national liberation was entirely valid, it should and does not render void the efforts and fruits of non-violent direct action and civil obedience. Indeed the successes of non-violence formed a sound foundation, upon which the next phase of struggle was launched, the Spear of the Nation.
[1] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref1) Nelson Mandela, “Struggle: I am prepared to die.” In In His Own Words: From Freedom to the Future, Tributes and Speeches, eds Kader Asmal, David Chidester & Wilmot James (London: Little Brown, 2003), 28.
[2] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref2) Ibid., 32.
[3] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref3) Umkhonto we Sizwe, “Manifesto of Umkhonto we Sizwe, Leaflet issued by the Command of Umkhonto we Sizwe, 16th December 1961”, available at URL: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mk/manifesto-mk.html [1/4/06]
[4] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref4) Umkhonto we Sizwe, “Operation Mayibuye: Document found by the police at Rivonia, 11 July 1963”, available at URL: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mk/mayibuye.html [1/4/06]
[5] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref5) Mandela, 28.
[6] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref6) For example, Thomas G. Karis, “it is not a coincidence that the process moved from no-violent protest to armed resistance in 1961, a year after the oldest and largest African opposition movement, the African National Congress, was banned” (Thomas G. Karis, “Black Politics: The Road To Revolution.” In Apartheid In Crisis, ed. by Mark A. Uhlig, [New York: Vintage Books, 1986], 115) & Lyle Tatum, “After Sharpeville, there was an almost unanimous coming together to the view that violence is necessary to win liberation for South African blacks.” (Lyle Tatum, South Africa: Challenge and Hope [Toronto:Collins Publishers, 1987], 58). See also: Chris Alder, The Rise and Fall of the South African Security State (London: Macmillan Press, 1996), 18.
[7] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref7) Thomas G. Karis, “Black Politics: The Road to Revolution.” In Apartheid in Crisis, ed. by Mark A. Uhlig, (New York: Vintage Books, 1986), 115.
[8] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref8) In the words of Chief Luthuli, who became president of the ANC in 1952, “What have been the fruits of moderation? The past thirty years have seen the greatest number of laws restricting our rights and progress, until today we have reached a stage where we have almost no rights at all.” (Mandela, 29).
[9] Karis, 115.
[10] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref10) Lyle Tatum, South Africa: Challenge and Hope (Toronto: Collins Publishers, 1987), 57-58.
[11] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref11) Ibid.
[12] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref12) James North, Freedom Rising (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1985), 285.
[13] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref13) Ibid.
[14] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref14) North, 285.
[15] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref15) Tatum, 56.
[16] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref16) Nelson Mandela cited some examples of this pattern of violence in his speech at the Rivonia trial, “there had been violence in 1957 when the women of Zeerust were ordered to carry passes; there was violence in 1958 with the enforcement of cattle culling in Sekhukhuniland; there was violence in 1959 when the people of Cato Manor protested against pass raids; there was violence in 1960 when the Government attempted to impose Bantu Authorities in Pondoland. Thirty-nine Africans died in these disturbances.” (Mandela, 32).
[17] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref17) Tatum, 58.
[18] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref18) North, 287.
[19] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref19) Tatum, 58.
[20] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref20) Gail M. Gerhart, Black Power in South Africa: The Evolution of an Ideology (Berkley: University of California Press, 1978), 242.
[21] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref21) Ibid.
[22] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref22) Gerhart, 243.
[23] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref23) Ibid.
[24] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref24) Gerhart, 246.
[25] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref25) Chris Alder, The Rise and Fall of the South African Security State (London: Macmillan Press, 1996), 18.
[26] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref26) Gerhart, 246.
[27] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref27) Tatum, 57-58.
[28] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref28) Gerhart, 233.
[29] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref29) Mandela, 34.
[30] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ftnref30) Ibid.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
MANDELA, N. “Freedom: Release from Prison.” In In His Own Words: From Freedom to the Future, Tributes and Speeches edited by Kader Asmal, David Chidester & Wilmot James, 61.London:Little Brown, 2003.
MANDELA, N. “Struggle: I am prepared to die.” In In His Own Words: From Freedom to the Future, Tributes and Speeches edited by Kader Asmal, David Chidester & Wilmot James, 28.London:Little Brown, 2003.
TAMBO, O. R. (1969) “Capture the Citadel: Broadcast to South Africa on the eight anniversary of the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe, December 16, 1969”, available at URL: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/or/or69-3.html [1/4/06]
UMKHONTO WE SIZWE (1961) “Manifesto of Umkhonto we Sizwe, Leaflet issued by the Command of Umkhonto we Sizwe, 16th December 1961”, available at URL: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mk/manifesto-mk.html [1/4/06]
UMKHONTO WE SIZWE (1963) “Operation Mayibuye: Document found by the police at Rivonia, 11 July 1963”, available at URL: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mk/mayibuye.html [1/4/06]
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ALDER, C. The Rise and fall of the South African Security State.London: Macmillan Press, 1996.
GERHART, G. M. Black Power in South Africa: The Evolution of an Ideology.Berkley: University of California Press, 1978.
KARIS, T.G. “Black Politics: The Road to Revolution.” In Apartheid in Crisis, edited by Mark A. Uhlig, 115. New York: Vintage Books, 1986.
NORTH, J. Freedom Rising. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1985.
TATUM, L, ed. South Africa: Challenge and Hope. Toronto:Collins Publishers, 1987.