External Mission: The ANC in exile, 1960-1990

Abstract

In Comrades against Apartheid: The ANC and the South African Communist Party in Exile (1992), Stephen Ellis and Tsepo Sechaba (a pseudonym) stated that it was ‘too soon to write a definitive history of the South African Communist Party (SACP) in exile’, and that ‘a history of the South African Communist Party and of its relationship with the African National Congress (ANC) which might appear full and satisfactory now, would seem dated in a few years’ time' (p. 1). External Mission represents an implicit response to that statement over twenty years later. A period which has been subject to much myth making has been brought to light in Ellis's important new text, one which ostensibly focuses on the ANC but could just as easily have been called ‘The ANC and SACP in Exile’ given the crucial role the latter plays in the story. Ellis threads a common narrative early on regarding the organizational challenges facing the ANC in the 1960s following its banning. External Mission is thus not a completely new story: ‘Many facts concerning the history of the ANC during its exile period are well known. Some of them, every writer regards as landmark facts … In this regard, the book is no different from the many histories of the struggle that have been published before. Yet the story I have written is rather unusual’ (p. 305). Ellis's story is ‘a history of power, centred on the ANC in exile’ (p. 306). The text gains momentum when the primacy of armed struggle takes hold and the ANC and the SACP (‘the Party’) set up their external structures both in Africa and further afield. In outlining the turn toward violent methods, Ellis shows that the ANC was keen to ‘provide proponents of armed struggle with a paper trail that would justify their change of policy’ (p. 23). The absence of actual fighting for long periods, however, would prove extremely frustrating for Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) cadres and a constant source of tension between ordinary guerrillas and the ANC leadership. International backers, such as the Soviet Union, were often baffled at the lack of military initiative.