Tom Lodge Research Articles

A century of the SACP: national democracy and revolution in the Global South

This paper argues that Tom Lodge’s Red Road to Freedom is a milestone in South African history and a model of historical writing. The author reconstructs the history of an underground revolutionary movement in all its complexity mobilizing a huge array of sources. He details the role the protagonists played, provides a wealth of information, and delves into local politics without ever losing sight of the bigger picture. Lodge demonstrates that the South African Communist Party (SACP) made “national democracy” and the alliance with ANC its cause and rallying cry effectively taking ownership of post-Stalinist Soviet political theory. Thus, he compels historians to delve into the actual materialization of international ideological currents in the global South.

The freedom to love, move and organize

The late Tom Lodge’s magisterial Red Road to Freedom will surely become the standard text on communism in South Africa, definitively re-assessing the sociological development and historiographically-contested political arc of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA). The book, nevertheless, is squarely focused on the South African public realm, eliding the important private experiences of individual CPSA members and significant transnational interchanges with the broader Southern and Central African region. Early CPSA leaders were often strikingly restrictive about the kinds of relationships available to members; had a complicated, often hostile, relationship with immigrant workers; and were opposed to organising across colonial borders. For marginalised groups, these examples prompt difficult questions about what ‘freedom’ meant to communists and where the early CPSA’s Red Road was ultimately headed to.

In memory of Tom Lodge

In memory of Tom Lodge

Tom Lodge, Red Road to Freedom: A History of the South African Communist Party, 1921–2021. Woodbridge and Rochester NY: James Currey (hb £70/US$105 – 978 1 84701 321 7). 2022, 626 pp.

Tom Lodge, Red Road to Freedom: A History of the South African Communist Party, 1921–2021. Woodbridge and Rochester NY: James Currey (hb £70/US$105 – 978 1 84701 321 7). 2022, 626 pp. - Volume 93 Issue 2

Continental Collaboration: Consulting, Institution Building, and Mentoring Across Africa

Continental Collaboration: Consulting, Institution Building, and Mentoring Across Africa

Red Road to Freedom: a history of the South African Communist Party 1921-2021 by Tom Lodge, and: Precarious Power: compliance and discontent under Ramaphosa's ANC by Susan Booysen

Reviewed by: Red Road to Freedom: a history of the South African Communist Party 1921-2021 by Tom Lodge, and: Precarious Power: compliance and discontent under Ramaphosa's ANC by Susan Booysen Roger Southall (bio) Tom Lodge. 2020. Red Road to Freedom: a history of the South African Communist Party 1921-2021. Johannesburg: Jacana. Susan Booysen. 2020. Precarious Power: compliance and discontent under Ramaphosa's ANC. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. South Africa unravelled Synonyms for the word 'superlative' include 'excellent', 'magnificent', 'glorious', 'marvellous', 'consummate', 'outstanding', and 'remarkable'. I am happy to settle for any of these to describe these two books, which fit very neatly together for review. Probably no-one else other than Tom Lodge, who is so thoroughly versed in the details as well as the grand trajectory of the popular struggles against colonialism and apartheid in South Africa could have written what will become the gold standard of histories of the South African Communist Party (SACP). I find it difficult to imagine that it can be bettered, even if release or discovery of further documents may nuance its arguments in future. Apart from anything else, it is quite simply a gripping read. Meanwhile, there is no other author who has done more to analyse the internal dynamics of the African National Congress (ANC) since the party moved into power in 1994 than Susan Booysen, with this latest tome being her latest of three volumes on the subject. Students of South Africa are very fortunate indeed to have two such highly knowledgeable and proficient chroniclers of this complicated country's political twists and turns. [End Page 180] Unravelling communism in South Africa There are no surprises in the way that Lodge has organised his account. Separate chapters are provided on the pre-history of the party before its formation in 1921; the early history of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) 1921-26; the turn to the 'Native Republic' strategy 1927-32; and the turbulent period of the 1930s with its 'factions and fronts' 1932-1939. These are succeeded by treatments of the CPSA's 'Patriotic Unity' moment during the 1940s; the party's retreat to underground activity after its banning in 1953; its history and development in exile 1965-1977; and its 'Mayibuye iAfrika' period during 1977-1990 when its activities became increasingly influential within the internal struggle against apartheid. All this is wrapped up with an incisive discussion about the role of the SACP in the post-apartheid and globally 'post-communist' period. Lodge's ability to combine survey of grand direction, debate with other historians, and intimate detail of the party's ups-and-downs, shifts and survival against odds is truly exemplary. Because he provides valuable summaries of the major developments covered in each of these chapters, it is possible to capture the gist of the text in a relatively economical fashion. The communists early days The introductory chapter, headlined 'Just like Russia', spells out what Lodge terms 'the genealogy of South African communism' (64). He highlights four dimensions which have needed greater emphasis than provided in previous accounts of the party's history. These are, first, its debt to anarchist syndicalism, drawn from the ideas of the Russian historian and revolutionary, Peter Kropotkin, as well as other sources imported by successive waves of immigrant workers from the English-speaking world; second, the evolution of a working class politics that, albeit inconsistently, broached issues of race and class-communal solidarity; third, the particular influence of Jewish immigrants, notably those with previously acquired familiarity with revolutionary networks and ideas current in the Russian Pale; and fourth–a crucial theme–is that of how South Africa's embryonic history was shaped by black individuals who re-shaped 'exotic visions' and a 'foreign lexicon' to their own circumstances and experiences of colonial conquest and domination. Once the disparate Marxist groups which sprung up in South Africa came together to form the CPSA in 1921, South African communists were confronted by key questions: What was the role of the white working [End Page 181] class, whose apparent anti-capitalism was combined with a very evident racialism? Furthermore, given that the white working class was mainly black and...

Review – Tom Lodge, Red Road to Freedom, A History of the South African Communist Party 1921–2021, Jacana, Johannesburg

In the year of the South African Communist Party’s centenary, Tom Lodge’s in-depth, scholarly work is a landmark achievement. The account is particularly strong in tracing the ideological currents that shaped the party and the changing and diverse sociology of its membership. The influential role of the party in helping transform the African National Congress into a mass-based campaigning formation from 1945 is a central focus. Lodge also traces the critical role of the party in the re-building, at first largely in exile, of a weakened ANC following the major strategic setback of the liberation movement in the mid-1960s. There is less focus on the reciprocal impact of the ANC upon the party, especially in the context of the practice of “dual membership” in both formations. This neglect is one factor in weakening the analysis of the post-1994 period in which the ANC has been the ruling party.

Paul L Allan

Paul Allan, a respected Edinburgh radiologist died suddenly at home on 12 January, aged 64, only a few months before he was due to retire. He was born and raised...

Africa’s Avuncular Saint

Mandela: A Critical Life by Tom Lodge Oxford University Press, 2006 Tom Lodge, a former politics profes sor at South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand, has written a biography of South Africa’s first democratically-elected president, Nelson Mandela, that follows three earlier biographies by Fatima Meer, Anthony Sampson, and Martin Meredith. Lodge seeks to shed more light on the role of Mandela’s childhood in shaping his leadership qualities; he assesses Mandela’s role in ‘leading from prison’, examines the mythical cult that was consciously developed around his iconic status, and analyses Mandela’s ‘messianic’ leadership of South Africa’s democratic transition...

Mandela: A critical life, by Tom Lodge

Lodge's ‘life’ is different from the others of Mandela that I have read, providing a thorough examination of how Mandela's character developed and how this determined the political decisions that he took. His approach has produced a much shorter book, but one giving more direct access to relevant events without sometimes having to trawl through coverage of fringe activities. Compared with most black South Africans, Nelson Mandela enjoyed a very privileged life, the first period of which was in the Transkei and Ciskei ‘black peasant reserves’ where he experienced something most unusual for a black person in South Africa: ‘the absence of intimidating or humiliating encounters with white people’. This began with his upbringing as the ward of a Thembu regent in the Transkei, where he learned ‘about the importance of defeating one's opponents without humiliating them’, continued in two Methodist secondary schools where he ‘absorbed principles of etiquette and chivalry that remained important precepts through his public life’, and ended in Fort Hare, the only black university in South Africa, where he met Oliver Tambo. Mandela was expelled in 1940 for refusing to take up his position on the Students Representative Council in protest against the ‘dreadful food’ and returned to the regent's Great Place, where he found that marriages had been arranged for both himself and the regent's son. They rebelled and fled to Johannesburg in 1941.

Tom Lodge. Politics in South Africa: From Mandela to Mbeki. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. vi + 314 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $19.95. Paper. - Gillian Hart. Disabling Globalization: Places of Power in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. xi + 385 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $21.95. Paper.

Tom Lodge. Politics in South Africa: From Mandela to Mbeki. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. vi + 314 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $19.95. Paper. - Gillian Hart. Disabling Globalization: Places of Power in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. xi + 385 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $21.95. Paper. - Volume 47 Issue 2

Politics in South Africa: From Mandela to Mbeki, by Tom Lodge. Oxford: James Currey, 2003. vi + 314 pp. 14.95 paperback. ISBN 0-85255-870-8 (paperback).

Journal Article Politics in South Africa: From Mandela to Mbeki, by Tom Lodge. Oxford: James Currey, 2003. vi + 314 pp. £14.95 paperback. ISBN 0-85255-870-8 (paperback). Get access James Myburgh James Myburgh St Antony's College, Oxford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 103, Issue 411, April 2004, Pages 318–319, https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adh035 Published: 01 April 2004

Politics in South Africa: from Mandela to Mbeki by TOM LODGE Cape Town: David Philip, 2002. Pp. 314. £19.95 (pbk.).

<b>Politics in South Africa: from Mandela to Mbeki</b> by T<scp>OM</scp> L<scp>ODGE</scp> Cape Town: David Philip, 2002. Pp. 314. £19.95 (pbk.).

How the South African Electoral System was Negotiated

Extracted from text ... 71 VOLUME 2 NO 1 HOW THE SOUTH AFRICAN ELECTORAL SYSTEM WAS NEGOTIATED By Tom Lodge Professor Tom Lodge is Head of the Department of Political Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, P O Wits 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa Tel: +27 011 717.4369; Fax: +27 011 403.7482; e-mail: lodget@social.wits.ac.za SOUTH AFRICA'S ELECTORAL SYSTEM Since 1994 South Africa's National Assembly and its nine regional legislatures have been elected on a list-based system of proportional representation. Proportional representation is a constitutional requirement. Elections for the Assembly and the legislatures are held simultaneously, though this is not a constitutional stipulation. Voters ..

Election '99 South Africa (review)

The modestly bound and rapidly produced volume Election '99 South Africa, edited by Andrew Reynolds, deserves more than a quick look. The thirteen chapters written posthaste by perceptive and experienced scholars that span the generations, do far more than describe South Africa's second democratic multiparty election of June 1999. Description alone would not be much of an achievement. The basic electoral data, after all, can be viewed on the Internet, by anyone who taps in < http://www.agora.stm.it/elections>. This book, however, goes further, and merits solid praise. It offers analysis, depth, and perspective on the birth and evolution of a sometimes troubled but miraculously democratic government. The authors review how far the country has moved since its momentous transition to majority rule just five years ago. The April 1994 elections, South Africa's first under a universal franchise, attracted thousands of international observers (among whom this reviewer was one). The outcome was no foregone conclusion, for there were up-to-the-wire concerns that it might be aborted by a possible refusal to participate by the Inkhata Freedom Party, or be subverted by violent attacks from white extremists setting off occasional explosives shortly before the vote. The first national election was held under a transitional government still largely staffed by the apartheid President F.W. de Klerk. Therefore, in 1994, just holding elections was a great achievement, permitting Nelson Mandela to become President of a Government of National Unity that included de Klerk, until he withdrew in 1996. The fine tuning was still to come. The 1999 vote deserves even more attention, for it marks the budding maturation of a democratic government. It evolved after leaders of a bitterly divided people made a pact that allowed an interim constitution to capture tumultuous, indeed revolutionary changes, and institutionalize them into a new framework, filled with extraordinary creativity, and marked by an elaborate bill of rights, a "power sharing" National Executive, three levels of national, provincial, and local government, and a Parliament with a new second house, the National Council of Provinces. These structures are bolstered by several state institutions supporting democracy--including the Constitutional Court, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which is avidly studied in other deeply divided societies seeking to find their way out of violence and struggle. The constitution is supreme, and guided the nation through five years of breathtaking change. As a result, the [End Page 158] government of Nelson Mandela left a precious legacy of peaceful change and rule of law to his chosen successor, the current President Thabo Mbeki. In the book, a brief but comprehensive chapter by Richard Calland tells how South Africa found its own style of government as the 1999 Parliament took office with a turnover of a quarter of the seats. David Pottie discusses the first five years of sometimes tentative and often controversial provincial government. A fascinating presentation of voter preference surveys by Robert Mattes, Helen Taylor, and Cherrel Africa shows the sophistication of South Africa's polling organizations, and demonstrates that while the ANC managed to improve its majority over the 1994 elections, nevertheless the victory margin of 66% (a smidgen short of a 2/3 majority) was not foreordained. For voting was characterized by considerable differences in viewpoint that cut across divisions of race, gender, and geography, as well as party. This bodes well for the future of a multiparty system. There are six illuminating party studies, by mature scholars of South Africa, including Tom Lodge on the ANC, David Welsh on the Democratic Party, and Willie Breytenbach on the New National Party. Sipho Maseko and Jessica Piombo present fresh analyses of the minority parties that challenged the ANLC majority. The media and the gender issues receive good attention. And, in his solid concluding chapter, Andrew Reynolds presents a comprehensive account of the results, marked by an 89 percent turnout, considers how alternative electoral systems might have worked, and briefly examines future prospects. There is...

POLITICAL CORRUPTION IN SOUTH AFRICA

Public opinion suggests that political corruption is entrenched in South Africa. Comparative experience does not indicate that the historical South African political environment was especially likely to nurture a venal bureaucracy; as a fairly industrialized and extremely coercive state the apartheid order may have been less susceptible to many of the forms of political corruption analysts have associated with other post-colonial developing countries. Democratization has made government less secret, inhibiting corruption in certain domains but through extending government's activities opening up possibilities for abuse in others. Today's authorities argue that the present extent of corruption is largely inherited and indeed certain government departments, notably those concerned with security and the homelands, as well as the autonomous homeland administrations themselves, had a history of routine official misbehaviour. After describing the distribution and nature of corruption in South African public administration this article concludes that a substantial proportion of modern corruption occurs in regional administrations and certainly embodies a legacy from the homeland civil services. A major source of financial misappropriation in the old central government, secret defence procurement, no longer exists but corruption is stimulated by new official practices and fresh demands imposed upon the bureaucracy including discriminatory tendering, political solidarity, and the expansion of citizen entitlements. Though much contemporary corruption is inherited from the past, the simultaneous democratization and restructuring of the South African state makes it very vulnerable to new forms of abuse in different locations. MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE that widespread political cortuption exists in South Africa. In a survey published by IDASA in 1996, 46 percent of the sample consulted felt that most ofiicials were engaged in corruption and only six percent believed there was clean government. 1 In another poll conducted by the World Value Survey, 15 percent of the respondents were certain that all public servants were guilty of bribery and corruption and another 30 percent thought that most officials were venal.2 The IDASA survey indicated that 41 percent of the sample felt that public corruption was increasing. Most recently, Transparency International, an international monitoring Tom Lodge is a Professor in the Department of Political Studies, University of the Witwatersrand. 1. IDASA Public Opinion Service, POS Reports, No. 3, February 1996, 'Parliamentary Ethics and Government Corruption: Playing with Public Trust'. 2. Summary Report of World Value Sur?vey: South Afrzca, 1996, pp. 37-41.

Election '94 South Africa: The Campaigns, Results, and Future Prospects

The road to democracy, Robert Mattes the African National Congress and its allies, Tom Lodge the National Party, Hermann Giliomee the Inkhata Freedom Party, Georgina Hamilton and Gerhard Mare the White Right, Johann van Rooyen the Democratic Party, David Welsh the Pan-African Congress and AZAPO, Saths Cooper the media, Daniel Silke and Robert Schrire the US looks on, Timothy Sisk South Africa goes to the polls, Benjamin Pogrund analysis of the results, Andrew Reynolds prospects for the new South Africa, Arend Lijphart.

The UN in western Sahara: running into the sand?

compromise. It remains also to be seen how far it will be possible to transform the institutions and personnel of the state in a way that is congruent with democratic mass politics. Finally, it will be necessary to develop electoral procedures and political institutions that can withstand the organised irregularities and threats of violence of 1994. As Tom Lodge observed, on the eve of voting,

All, Here, and Now: black politics in South Africa in the 1980s by Tom Lodge and Bill Nasson, with Steven Mufson, Khehla Shubane, and Nokwanda Sithole London, Hurst, 1992. Pp. x + 414. £11.50 paperback. - Adapt or Die: the end of white politics in South Africa by Robert Schrire London, Hurst, 1992. Pp. viii + 243. £9.95 paperback.

All, Here, and Now: black politics in South Africa in the 1980s by Tom Lodge and Bill Nasson, with Steven Mufson, Khehla Shubane, and Nokwanda Sithole London, Hurst, 1992. Pp. x + 414. £11.50 paperback. - Adapt or Die: the end of white politics in South Africa by Robert Schrire London, Hurst, 1992. Pp. viii + 243. £9.95 paperback.

Reviews

Beyond Apartheid: Human Resources for a New South Africa. James Currey Ltd., Islington, London, David Philip Publisher (Pty) Ltd., Claremont (South Africa), and Heinemann Educational Books Inc., Portsmouth (USA), 1991. x plus 132pp. including tables, notes and appendices. £7,95. Paperback. Occasional Papers on the Irish in South Africa by Donald H. Akenson. Institute of Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 1991.96pp. The Organisation of African Unity: An Analysis of its Role by Gino J. Naldi. Mansell: London and New York, 1989. ix plus 228pp. including appendices. £40,00. Place, Migration and Development in the Third World. An Alternative View by Lawrence A. Brown. Routledge, London and New York, 1991. xx plus 252pp. including figures, tables, appendices, notes, references and index. Hardback. Urban and Regional Change in Southern Africa edited by David Drakakis‐Smith. Routledge (London), 1992. xviii plus 227 pp. including figures, tables, notes, bibliography and index. The Making of the Colonial Order: White Supremacy and Black Resistance in the Eastern Cape, 1770–1865 by Clifton C. Crais. Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, 1992. 284pp. R60,00. Paperback. Bounds of Possibility by B. Pityana, M. Ramphele, M. Mpumlwana and L Wilson. David Philip, Cape Town, 1991. R35,50. Paperback. All, Here, and Now: Black Politics in the 1980s by Tom Lodge, Bill Nasson, Steven Mufson, Khehla Shubane and Nokwanda Sithole. David Philip, Cape Town, 1991. x plus 414 pp. including figures, appendices, bibliography and index. R44,95. Paperback. Spirit of Africa: The Healing Ministry of Archbishop Milingo of Zambia by Gerrie ter Haar. Hurst & Company, London, 1992. x plus 286 pp. including map illustrations, notes, bibliography and index. £9,95. Paperback. Striking Back: A History of COSATU by Jeremy Baskin. Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1991. xv plus 488pp. R32.95. Economic Development That Lasts: Labour‐intensive Irrigation Projects in Nepal and the United Republic of Tanzania by Bertin Martens. International Labour Office, Geneva, 1989. xvii plus 191pp. including maps, figures, tables, appendices and bibliography. Swiss francs 27,50. Paperback. South African Review 6: From “Red Friday” to CODESA edited by Glenn Moss and Ingrid Obery. Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1992. xxi plus 508pp. including figures, tables and notes. Paperback. Black Youth in Crisis: Facing the Future edited for CASE by David Everatt and Elinor Sisulu. Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1992. xii plus 89pp. including figures, tables and notes.