Jan 9 2023

This in an  excellent tribute to Joe Slovo on the anniversary of him passing away

On 6 January 1995, Joe Slovo, the communist intellectual widely credited with being one of the masterminds of South Africa's revolutionary struggle and national reconciliation, died after a long battle with cancer of the bone marrow. He was buried in Avalon Cemetery, Soweto, unheard of, for a white South African. Slovo was widely admired across southern Africa, and was described as "a liberation war hero" and "African patriot completely immersed in the struggle for black freedom".

 Joe Slovo was born Yossel Mashel Slovo on 23 May 1926 in Obeliai, Lithuania, to a Jewish family that emigrated to the Union of South Africa when he was eight. His father worked as a truck driver in Johannesburg. Although his family were religious, he became an atheist who retained respect for the positive aspects of Jewish culture. Slovo was educated at King Edward VII School and left school in 1941 and found work as a dispatch clerk.

 He joined the National Union of Distributive Workers and, as a shop steward, was involved in organising a strike.  Slovo joined the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) in 1942. Inspired by the Red Army's battles against the Nazis on the Eastern Front of World War II, Slovo volunteered to fight in the war. He served as a Signaler in combat operations for the South African forces in North Africa and Italy, and on his return to South Africa he joined the Springbok Legion, a multiracial radical ex-servicemen's organisation.

 Between 1946 and 1950 Slovo completed a law degree at Wits University and was a student activist. He was in the same class as Nelson Mandela and Harry Schwarz. In 1949 he married Ruth First, another prominent Jewish anti-apartheid activist and the daughter of CPSA treasurer Julius First. They had three daughters, Shawn, Gillian and Robyn. Ruth First was assassinated in 1982 in Maputo, by order of Craig Williamson, a Major in the Apartheid security police.  In 1950, the CPSA was banned and both First and Slovo were listed as communists under the Suppression of Communism Act and could not be quoted or attend public gatherings in South Africa.

He became active in the South African Congress of Democrats and was a delegate to the June 1955 Congress of the People organised by the African National Congress (ANC) and the the Congress Alliance organisations at Kliptown near Johannesburg, that drew up the Freedom Charter.

 He was arrested and detained for two months during the Treason Trial of 1956. Charges against him were dropped in 1958. He was later arrested for six months during the State of Emergency declared after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. 

In 1961, Slovo was the founder member of the military wing of the ANC, Umkhonto  we Sizwe (MK), and regularly attended meetings of its High Command at Lilliesleaf Farm, Rivonia. In 1963 he went into exile and lived in Britain, Angola, Mozambique and Zambia.

In his capacity as Chief of Staff of MK he codetermined its activities, like the Special Operations Unit.

Slovo was a leading theoretician in both the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the ANC and wrote the influential essays in which he argued that the apartheid government would be unable to achieve stability, co-opt significant sections of the small but growing black middle class, or democratise: the only choice was between an insurrectionary overthrow of apartheid, centred on MK, or ever greater repression.

 In 1990, he returned to the country to participate in the early "talks about talks" between the government and the ANC. Ailing, he stood down as SACP General Secretary in 1991 and was given the titular position of SACP Chairperson.

 Slovo was succeeded by Chris Hani, who was assassinated two years later by a white right-winger.
Slovo was a long-demonised figure in white South African society, widely misrepresented as a "KGB Colonel" or "Russian secret agent", and attracted a great deal of press after his return. After the elections of 1994, Slovo became Minister for Housing until his death in 1995.

 Castro Khwela  Good morning fellow Compatriots!