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23 - Anarchism and Syndicalism in Southern Africa

from Africa, Asia, Latin America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2022

By
Lucien van der Walt
Edited by
Marcel van der Linden
Marcel van der Linden
Affiliation:
International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
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Summary

Anarchism emerged in southern Africa from the 1880s, and revolutionary syndicalism became a significant factor from the early 1900s. These movements faced the challenges posed by colonial racism, rapacious capitalism, state violence, and a large but fragmented working class. Although the pioneers were white immigrant workers and exiles, the movement set down local roots and assumed a more cosmopolitan character, developing a significant influence on local black African and Coloured/mestiço populations, local Indians (south Asians), and some Afrikaners. The current’s heyday was before the 1930s, but it revived from the 1990s, reappearing in several countries by 2010.

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The Cambridge History of Socialism , pp. 553 - 576
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Further Reading

Capela, José, O movimento operário em Lourenço Marques, 1898–1927 (Porto: Centro de Estudos Africanos da Universidade do Porto, 2009 [1981]).Google Scholar
Emmett, Tony, ‘Popular Resistance in Namibia, 1920–1925’, in Lodge, T. (ed.), Resistance and Ideology in Settler Societies (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1986), pp. 6–48.Google Scholar
Maisiri, Leroy, Nyalungu, Phillip, and van der Walt, Lucien, ‘Anarchist/syndicalist and independent Marxist intersections in post-apartheid struggles, South Africa: the WSF/ZACF current in Gauteng, 1990s–2010s’, Globalizations 17, 5 (2020), pp. 797–819.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mantzaris, Evangelos, Labour Struggles in South Africa: The Forgotten Pages, 1903–1921 (Windhoek and Durban: Collective Resources Publications, 1995).Google Scholar
Penvenne, Jeanne Marie, ‘João dos Santos Albasini (1876–1922): the contradictions of politics and identity in colonial Mozambique’, Journal of African History 37, 3 (1996), pp. 419–64.Google Scholar
Raftopoulous, Brian, and Phimister, Ian, Keep on Knocking: A History of the Labour Movement in Zimbabwe, 1900–1997 (Harare: Baobab Books, 1997).Google Scholar
Rey, Guillaume, Afriques anarchistes. Introduction à l’histoire des anarchismes africains (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2018).Google Scholar
van der Walt, Lucien, ‘Anarchism and syndicalism in an African port city: the revolutionary traditions of Cape Town’s multiracial working class, 1904–1924’, Labor History 52, 2 (2011), pp. 137–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van der Walt, Lucien, ‘Bakunin’s heirs in South Africa: race, class and revolutionary syndicalism from the IWW to the International Socialist League’, Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies 30, 1 (2004), pp. 67–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van der Walt, Lucien, ‘The first globalisation and transnational labour activism in southern Africa: white labourism, the IWW and the ICU, 1904–1934’, African Studies 66, 2–3 (2007), pp. 223–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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