Land and liberation: the South African national liberation movements and the agrarian question, 1920s–1960s

Abstract

This paper asks how the national movements viewed rural issues between the 1920s and 1960s, what attention they devoted to rural mobilisation, and how their perceptions and efforts altered over time. It suggests that, given a society which saw wars of conquest and territorial dispossession in the 19th century, given the Land Acts of 1913 and 1936, and given the different forms of expropriation and exploitation historically visited upon peasants, labour tenants, farm labourers and migrant workers, the agrarian question has not been accorded the theoretical or practical attention one might have anticipated.