Conceptualizing Peasants: The Theory and Practice of South African Socialists, 1928-1960¶
Allison Drew (1994). Conceptualizing Peasants: The Theory and Practice of South African Socialists, 1928-1960. History Workshop: Democracy, 13-15 July 1994. University of the Witwatersrand.
| Type | conference paper |
| Scope | Wider apartheid literature |
| Method | archival narrative |
| Period studied | 1928–1960 |
| Regions | Transkei, Pondoland, Zoutpansberg, Western Cape, Witwatersrand, South Africa (reserves and white farms) |
| Themes | agriculture land, resistance social movements, politics ideology elections, bantustans removals influx, mining migrant labour, comparative theory, origins segregation |
| Citation key | drew1994 |
Argument¶
South African socialists, Communist and Trotskyist, held polarized views of the peasantry and its political potential, treating it either as a homogeneous peasantry or as a rural proletariat. These views came from European Leninist and Trotskyist models and produced an oscillating practice between town and country. From the late 1930s to the 1950s, activists organizing in the reserves were pushed to revise these abstractions around migrant labour and the differentiated reserve population. Activists from both traditions, notably Tabata and Mbeki, found that reserve-based protest could be sustained longer than urban protest, because economic and political oppression converged there. The paper concludes that Communists were stronger in practice and Trotskyists in theory, and that this division hampered rural work.
Evidence and method¶
Published and unpublished socialist documents (Comintern and CPSA theses, Workers' Party, Communist League and NEUM pamphlets, Trotsky's letter), memoirs, secondary literature (Beinart and Bundy, Delius, Hendricks, Lodge, Moodie), the author's 1987 interviews with Tabata, Gool, Alexander and Jordaan, and the author's 1991 UCLA doctoral thesis. Some demographic figures come from 1949 Handbook of Race Relations chapters.
Place in the debates¶
- Lenin's proletarianization/differentiation thesis vs Wolf's moral-economy and middle-peasant thesis on rural political potential (see Resistance and liberation movements). Argues that neither fits South Africa. State-enforced stabilization of migrant labour as a permanent class cut against capitalism's usual link between urbanization and proletarianization. The 'tribal proletariat' idea anticipates Wolf's point about migrants transmitting ideas but neglects differentiation.
- Urban proletariat vs countryside as the leading site of revolutionary struggle (Leninist/Trotskyist view) (see Resistance and liberation movements). Holds that in the 1950s reserve-based uprisings showed more capacity for sustained rebellion than the fragile urban protests, which challenges the orthodox urban-primacy view.
- The Native Republic thesis and the agrarian/national question within the left (see Resistance and liberation movements). Judges the Comintern version inadequately grounded in South African conditions because it treated Africans as a homogeneous peasantry. It acknowledges that the thesis pushed Communists towards rural work.
- Land policy in the NEUM: right to buy and sell, equal redivision, or nationalization (see Resistance and liberation movements). Finds that all sides assumed too much peasant consciousness or ignored the agricultural proletariat and the differentiated migrant population. A flexible 'Land and Liberty' line could have reconciled them.
Findings¶
-
Socialists polarized in their conception of the peasantry, producing oscillating practice between town and country. (p. 3)
From the 1920s through the 1950s South African socialists held polarized views of the peasantry and its political potential, a theoretical polarity which manifested itself in an oscillating practice between town and country.
-
Racial capitalism blocked a peasantry and a stable urban working class, deflecting proletarianization to the reserves and bantustans (following Hendricks). (p. 8)
was based on blocking the development of an African peasantry and impeding the development of a stable black urban working class by deflecting proletarianization to designated rural areas, called reserves and later bantustans.
-
Labour-intensive tenant farming stayed profitable until postwar state-backed modernization. (p. 9)
But labor-intensive farming methods typically remained more profitable than capital-intensive ones well into the twentieth century.
-
In the 1930s a large share of reserve men were absent as migrants, so reserve dwellers could not be classed as self-sufficient peasants. (p. 15)
Typically, in the 1930s, a third of the total male population was absent from the reserves.
-
The Comintern's Native Republic thesis was weakly grounded in local material conditions and treated Africans as a homogeneous peasantry. (p. 15)
the version articulated by the Comintern was inadequately grounded in South Africa's material conditions.
-
Averbach's 'tribal proletariat' captured the dual proletarian/peasant character of migrants. (p. 27)
Averbach coined the term "tribal proletariat" to characterize South Africa's migrant labor force and rural proletariat
-
The 1946 mineworkers' strike showed the potential strength of organized migrant labour despite state repression. (p. 26)
the strike demonstrated the explosive character and potential economic strength of an organized migrant labor force on the mines
-
Mbeki argued that reserve-based struggle could outlast urban campaigns. (p. 35)
a struggle based on the reserves had a much greater capacity to absorb the shocks of government repression and was therefore capable of being sustained for a much longer time than a struggle based on the urban locations.
-
Reserve populations were highly differentiated (landlessness and cattle holdings), explaining varied responses and the militancy of the most proletarianized migrants. (p. 38)
In 1946, about 30 per cent of the reserve population was landless, a similar proportion had no cattle, and about 60 per cent, had a handful or less.
-
In the 1950s the reserves, not the towns, showed greater capacity for sustained uprising. (p. 37)
The prolonged state of reserve-based protests indicates that in the 1950s the reserve-based population did indeed have more capacity to sustain uprisings than urban areas
-
Urban working-class struggle in the 1950s took the form of stay-aways rather than strikes. (p. 42)
In the 1950s, the predominant form of urban black working class struggle was not the strike at the point of production but the stay-at-home
-
Communists were stronger in practice and Trotskyists in theory, which impeded rural socialist work. (p. 51)
Generally, Communists were consistently stronger in practical work while Trotskyists excelled at theory.
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interviews with Neville Alexander (Cape Town, August 1987) and K. A. Jordaan (Harare, December 1987) | interviews oral history | 1987 | Used for the difficulty of rural organising, Jordaan's critique of the 'tribal proletariat' concept, and the NEUM land-question debates. |
| Interview with R. O. Dudley, Cape Town, April 1988 | interviews oral history | 1988 | Source for the WPSA's initial reaction to Trotsky's argument on national self-determination. |
| Verbal communication from Howard Barrell, 4 April 1992 | interviews oral history | 1992 | Evidence that the ANC did not supply arms requested by Pondoland militants. |
| Drew 1991 dissertation, 'Social Mobilization and Racial Capitalism in South Africa, 1928-1960' (UCLA) | secondary literature compilation | 1928-1960 | The author's own archival research on Trotskyist, NEUM and Communist debates, cited repeatedly as the evidentiary basis for the narrative. |
| South African Communist Party 1981, South African Communists Speak: Documents (CPSA programmes, Native Republic thesis, Maliba pamphlet) | secondary literature compilation | 1915-1980 | Source for the CPSA 1924 and 1929 programmes, the Native Republic thesis wording, and Maliba's 1939 pamphlet. |
| Workers' Party of South Africa/Lenin Club documents: 'Draft Thesis. The Native Question' (1934) and Lenin Club pamphlet Workers of South Africa Awake! | union or movement records | 1932-1934 | Establishes the early Trotskyist rejection of the Native Republic thesis and the WPSA 'Land to the Natives' slogan. |
| Communist League of South Africa, Workers' Voice, 1935, 'We Smash this Bogey' | newspapers periodicals | 1935 | Shows that the CLSA's anti-imperialist first stage resembled the Native Republic thesis. |
| International Communist League (B.-L.) bulletins, 1935 and 1936, including Ruth Fischer (Dubois) remarks on South Africa | union or movement records | 1935-1936 | Records the International Secretariat's critique of the WPSA and the WPSA's statements on mineworkers. |
| Trotsky 1974, 'On the South African Theses: to the South African Section' (1934-35 letter) | secondary literature compilation | 1934-35 | Source for Trotsky's application of permanent revolution to South Africa and its influence on the WPSA and FIOSA. |
| A. Mon (M. N. Averbach), Workers' Voice Theoretical Supplement, 1944 and 1945 | newspapers periodicals | 1944-1945 | Source for the 'tribal proletariat' concept and FIOSA's position on land. |
| Bunting 1928 Comintern Congress addresses (Bunting Papers, Historical Papers, Wits) | state archives | 1928 | Shows Bunting's skepticism that the Native Republic thesis rested on a significant black rural movement. |
| NEUM and AAC conference minutes, 1948; Ten Point Programme; Tsotsi 1953 and 1954 addresses; SOYA lecture | union or movement records | 1948-1954 | Documents the Rehabilitation resistance, the Point 7 land-question dispute and the AAC majority's right-to-buy-and-sell position. |
| Tabata 1945 pamphlet, The Rehabilitation Scheme: 'A New Fraud'; AAC organ Ikhwezi Lomso | union or movement records | 1945 | Evidence of the AAC's analysis of land hunger as the root of reserve problems. |
| Govan Mbeki 1964, South Africa: The Peasants' Revolt | secondary literature compilation | 1950s-1960 | Participant account used for the claim that reserve-based struggles could be sustained longer than urban ones, and for the Bantu Authorities Act. |
| Ganyile n.d., 'Notes on the Pondo struggle against Bantu Authorities' (Ruth First Collection, ICS London) | state archives | 1947 onward | Source for the Libode resistance to Rehabilitation in 1947. |
| Ralph Bunche Collection, UCLA Special Collections (notes of Durban informant Rev. M'Timkulu) | state archives | late 1930s | Illustrates that Zulus wanted land restored rather than bought. |
| Mettler (Baruch Hirson) 1957, It is time to awake! (Carter-Karis Microfilm Collection) | union or movement records | 1957 | Basis, via Beinart and Bundy, for the hypothesis that 'middle migrants' formed the social base of Rehabilitation protest. |
| Van der Horst 1949 'Labour' and Natal University College 1949 'National Income and the Non-European', in Hellmann, Handbook on Race Relations | secondary literature compilation | 1930s (published 1949) | Provides the 1930s figures on rural population share, agricultural employment and male absenteeism from reserves. |
| Moodie 1986, 'The Moral Economy of the Black Miners' Strike of 1946'; Hirson 1986; Stein 1978 | secondary literature compilation | 1930s-1946 | Used for the AMWU, the 1946 strike and the role of tshipa absconders and home-boy networks. |
| Delius 1993 and Hirson 1977 on Sebatakgomo and Zoutpansberg Balemi Association | secondary literature compilation | 1939-1958 | Supplies the evidence on Communist rural activists (Maliba, Boshielo) and organisations. |
| Beinart and Bundy 1980, 'State Intervention and Rural Resistance: The Transkei, 1900-1965'; Hendricks 1990 dissertation | secondary literature compilation | 1900-1965 | Source for the 1946 landlessness, cattle-ownership and stratification figures for reserve populations. |
| Socialist League of Africa 1961, 'South Africa: Ten Years of the Stay-at-Home'; Lodge 1983, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 | secondary literature compilation | 1950s | Supports the account of Pondoland solidarity and the limits of the stay-at-home as a tactic. |
| Unspecified data on workforce composition in the late 1920s (African and white shares of private manufacturing employment, African professionals) | official statistical series | late 1920s | Used to argue that an African proletariat existed and that there was no African bourgeoisie. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Illustrative figures.
Intellectual and political history based on close reading of socialist writings, party documents and organisational records, supplemented by the author's 1987 interviews. Positions are compared across Communists, Trotskyists and the NEUM over time and tested against secondary empirical findings on reserve stratification. Wolf and Lenin are used as theoretical foils.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| South African socialists held polarised views of the peasantry (homogeneous peasantry versus proletariat) taken from European experience, producing an oscillating practice between town and country. (p. 3) | Close reading of CPSA, WPSA, CLSA, International Secretariat and NEUM texts, mostly via Drew 1991 and the SACP document collection. | Partial data |
| The reserves were largely populated by de facto proletarianised migrant workers, so a peasant-based revolution was doubtful and neither the Native Republic thesis nor its Trotskyist inversion fit the evidence. (p. 14) | Statistics on rural share, agricultural employment and male absence drawn from Van der Horst and Natal University College (1949) chapters. | Partial data |
| Rural activists from different tendencies converged on migrant labour and the reserves as the key site of mobilisation, reflecting empirical developments. (p. 29) | Interviews with Tabata, Gool and Alexander, movement texts (Tabata 1945, Mbeki 1964, Maliba 1939) and Delius's study. | Partial data |
| In the 1950s reserve-based protest had a greater capacity to sustain itself than urban protest, because of tactical autonomy, merged economic and political oppression, and urban tactics like the stay-at-home. (p. 37) | Mbeki and Tabata's accounts, Lodge 1983 on Pondoland, and Beinart and Bundy; no new independent data. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| The reserve population was highly differentiated (landless, cattleless, middle migrants), so Tabata's and Mbeki's picture of unanimous solidarity masked differing class aspirations. (p. 36) | Beinart and Bundy 1980 and Hendricks 1990 figures for 1946, plus Mettler (Hirson) 1957 via Beinart and Bundy; Hendricks's doubt about the 'middle migrant' stratum is noted in a footnote. | Partial data |
| The NEUM split of 1958 reflected a polarised and inadequate conception of the land question and migrant labour, with both sides ignoring differentiation and the agricultural proletariat. (p. 44) | Ten Point Programme text, AAC and Anti-CAD speeches (Tsotsi, Jaffe, SOYA), Jordaan 1959 and interviews with Tabata, Gool and Alexander. | Partial data |
| Communists were stronger in practical work and Trotskyists in theory, a dichotomy that impeded rural socialist work. (p. 51) | Synthesis of the case narratives; asserted in the conclusion without systematic comparison. | Asserted |
The author's caveats¶
The paper is marked as a workshop draft not for quotation. It mostly acknowledges its dependence on secondary studies. It notes that Hendricks doubts the existence of the 'middle migrant' stratum, and that Tabata and Mbeki's accounts understated differentiation. Interview recollections are given without discussion of retrospective bias.
Gaps in the evidence¶
The central claim that reserve protest was more sustainable than urban protest rests on participant memoirs and a few secondary works. It would need systematic comparison of protest duration, scale and participation across reserves and townships, using police, magisterial and Native Affairs Department files, which exist in the archives. The class composition of protesters is inferred from 1946 aggregate landholding figures; household or district-level data (the 1946 census, Native Affairs reports, Transkei Bunga records) could test who actually participated. The late-1920s workforce figures are unreferenced and the interview material is not public.
Replicability: Data poorly documented.