Category: 1900s

1900s, 1910s, 1920s, Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union of Africa (ICU), Industrial Socialist League (IndSL), Industrial Workers of Africa (IWA), Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) - 1910s, International Socialist League (ISL), Other Syndicalist Unions

Peter Cole & Lucien van der Walt, 2011, “Crossing the Color Lines, Crossing the Continents: Comparing the Racial Politics of the IWW in South Africa and the United States, 1905-1925”

Peter Cole & Lucien van der Walt, 2011, “Crossing the Color Lines, Crossing the Continents: Comparing the Racial Politics of the IWW in South Africa and the United States, 1905-1925,” Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, January 2011, 69-96 PDF is here ABSTRACT: In two of the planet’s most highly racialized countries, South Africa and the United States, … Continue reading Peter Cole & Lucien van der Walt, 2011, “Crossing the Color Lines, Crossing the Continents: Comparing the Racial Politics of the IWW in South Africa and the United States, 1905-1925”

SAASHA
1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1990s, 2010s, Mozambique, South Africa

Analysis (in French): Patrick Marcolini, “L’anarchisme en terre africaine:Les composantes africaines du mouvement libertaire”

L’anarchisme en terre africaine:Les composantes africaines du mouvement libertaire par Patrick Marcolini (OLS) From here L’absence en France d’histoires du mouvement libertaire qui englobent sa composante africaine pourrait laisser croire que l’anarchisme est un phénomène occidental. Pourtant, des organisations ont tenté de faire vivre l’idéal anarchiste et syndicaliste révolutionnaire sur la terre africaine. Les premières organisations anarchistes et syndicalistes révolutionnaires africaines apparaissent à la fin … Continue reading Analysis (in French): Patrick Marcolini, “L’anarchisme en terre africaine:Les composantes africaines du mouvement libertaire”

Lucien van der Walt
1900s, 1910s, Industrial Socialist League (IndSL), Industrial Workers of Africa (IWA), Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) - 1910s, International Socialist League (ISL), South Africa

Syndicalists in South Africa, 1908-17 – Baruch Hirson, November 1993

Syndicalists in South Africa, 1908-17 by Baruch Hirson

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The following 1993 text by the late Baruch Hirson, South African Trotskyist, provides some insight into the South African syndicalists of the early twentieth century. A reader can quibble over the focus on Archie  Crawford and Mary Fitzgerald (whose ideas were always rather mixed), as well as regret the closing in 1917 (many of the most important developments took place in the late 1910s). But credit must be given where credit is due: Hirson played an unmatched role, over many years, in recovering the history of South African left traditions ignored or caricatured in the South African Communist Party and academic accounts. Although his interest was in the Communist Party and the Trostkyists that emerged subsequently, his work also touched on the anarchist and syndicalist tradition, as this interesting paper shows. Continue reading “Syndicalists in South Africa, 1908-17 – Baruch Hirson, November 1993”

SAASHA
1900s, 1910s, 1920s, Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union of Africa (ICU), Industrial Socialist League (IndSL), Industrial Workers of Africa (IWA), Other Impacts, Other Syndicalist Unions, Social Democratic Federation (SDF), South Africa

“Anarchism and Syndicalism in an African Port City: the revolutionary traditions of Cape Town’s multiracial working class, 1904–1931” – by Lucien van der Walt, 2011

Click here for PDF This paper examines the development of anarchism and syndicalism in early twentieth century Cape Town, South Africa, drawing attention to a crucial but neglected chapter of labor and left history. Central to this story were the anarchists in the local Social Democratic Federation (SDF), and the revolutionary syndicalists of the Industrial Socialist League, the Industrial Workers of Africa (IWA), and the … Continue reading “Anarchism and Syndicalism in an African Port City: the revolutionary traditions of Cape Town’s multiracial working class, 1904–1931” – by Lucien van der Walt, 2011

SAASHA
1900s, 1910s, 1920s, Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union of Africa (ICU), Industrial Socialist League (IndSL), Industrial Workers of Africa (IWA), Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) - 1910s, International Socialist League (ISL), Other Impacts, Other Syndicalist Unions, South Africa

“‘Sifuna Zonke!’: Revolutionary Syndicalism, the IWA and the fight against racial capitalism, 1915-1921” – Lucien van der Walt / BMC, undated

“Sifuna Zonke!” by the Bikisha Media Collective

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Revolutionary syndicalism – the strategy of bringing about a stateless socialist society through a revolutionary general strike in which organised labour, through its trade unions, seizes and places under self-management the means of production – played a central, but today, largely forgotten, role in the early twentieth-century South African labour movement.

Before the 1920s, it was revolutionary syndicalism, which is rooted in the classical anarchism of Mikhail Bakunin, rather than the dry Marxism of the Second International, which dominated the thought and actions of the radical left in South Africa. And so it was, ultimately, classical anarchism that pioneered labour organising and anti-racist work amongst workers of colour in South Africa: the nationally oppressed Coloured, Indian and African proletariat. Continue reading ““‘Sifuna Zonke!’: Revolutionary Syndicalism, the IWA and the fight against racial capitalism, 1915-1921” – Lucien van der Walt / BMC, undated”

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