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Mass Movements and the Petty Bourgeoisie: the Social Origins of ICU Leadership, 1924–19291

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Helen Bradford
Helen Bradford
Affiliation:
University of Witwatersrand
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Extract

Radical historians criticizing leaders of the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union have focused on their petty bourgeois origins. This article argues that although most organizers of the later 1920s did not derive from the working class, neither were they able to base themselves securely within the petty bourgeoisie. Instead, like lower-middle-class Africans in general, they were being forced ever further from the white bourgeoisie and ever closer to the black masses. This was apparent in all spheres of life – economic, political, cultural, social and ideological – and was also increasingly evident in protest. As racially oppressed men and women subject to proletarianization and engaged in struggle, ICU leaders do not fit neatly into schemas which stress the bourgeois nature of the petty bourgeoisie.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , July 1984 , pp. 295 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

2 University of the Witwatersrand (UW), African Studies Institute (ASI), Oral History Project (OHP), interview with C. Kumalo by V. Nkumane and H. Bradford (HB), Mooi River, 1 Feb. 1982.

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8 Between 1919 and 1924, the union was largely staffed by men who had either long been labourers, or were simultaneously lowly white-collar employees. Even after this, when most paid ICU leaders did indeed have petty-bourgeois backgrounds, unpaid positions on the elected, eleven-person branch executives were often filled by workers.

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26 Pietermaritzburg Archive Depot (PAD), Kranskop Criminal Records, Case 158 of 1928.

28 CAD, Native Affairs Department, NTS 7665, Minutes of evidence to the Native Riots Commission, 338.

27 Champion was forced to sell his landed inheritance in 1927. For Dunn's failure to make a living in Dunn's Reserve see PAD, Chief Native Commissioner, CNC 39/4, N2/8/3(27), Part II, Minutes of meeting with 57 members of the Dunn family, 14 Sept. 1931. By 1926, African-owned holdings in South Africa were less in area than ten years previously.

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37 Pass exemption was not open, for example, to most separatist ministers, to hawkers, or to the 70 per cent of Free State teachers who were unqualified. The 1927 Native Administration Act gave legislative force to the administrative practice of limiting exemption certificates.

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47 The Workers’ Herald, 18 March 1927.Google Scholar See also UW, ASI, OHP, interview with O. Mpetha by HB, Cape Town, 21 Sept. 1983. Some of Mpetha's Standard 6 associates were also involved in the Mount Frere branch, and Coka missed six weeks of Standard 8 to fulfil duties as assistant branch secretary in Vryheid.

48 Notule van die Vyf-en-Vyftigste Algemene Vergadering van die Nederduitsch Ger. Kerkvan Natal, April 1928, 57–58Google Scholar; Jabavu, D., ‘Christianity And The Bantu’ in Stauffer, M. (ed.), Thinking with Africa (London, 1928), 121.Google Scholar

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52 ICU leaders who were servicemen included Dunn, Modiakgotla, Jingoes, London and S. Bennet Ncwana. For a discussion on how their experiences and Garveyism contributed to the rise of nationalism see Pirio, G., ‘The Role of Garveyism in the Making of the South African Working Classes and Namibian Nationalism’, paper given to conference ‘South Africa in the Comparative Study of Class, Race and Nationalism’, New York, Sept. 1982.Google Scholar

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58 The Workers’ Herald, 28 April 1926.Google Scholar Champion had been expelled for organizing fellow pupils against the missionaries’ disciplinary regime, while future ICU leaders were amongst the women who burnt their passes in Bloemfontein in 1913. Amongst the future ICU officials who took a leading part in the 1918–1920 protest were Selby Msimang, Theo Lujiza, Samuel Masabalala, Jacob Sesing and Kadalie himself.

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