Joe Slovo
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Joe Slovo
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| In office April 1994 – January 1995 |
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| President | Nelson Mandela |
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| Preceded by | New post |
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National Executive Committee member of the African National Congress
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| President | Nelson Mandela |
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General Secretary of the South African Communist Party
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| In office 1984 – 1991 |
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| Succeeded by | Chris Hani |
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Commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe
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| President | Oliver Tambo |
| Succeeded by | Chris Hani |
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| Born | 23 May 1926 Obelai, Lithuania |
| Died | 6 January 1995 |
| Political party | African National Congress South African Communist Party |
| Religion | Atheist |
For Joe Slovo Informal Settlement in Cape Town, see: Joe Slovo (Cape Town).
Joe Slovo (May 23, 1926 – January 6, 1995) was a South African politician, long-time leader of the South African Communist Party (SACP), and leading member of the African National Congress.
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[edit] Life
Slovo was born in Obeliai, Lithuania to a Jewish family who emigrated to South Africa when he was eight. His full name was Yossel Mashel Slovo. His father worked as a truck driver in Johannesburg. Slovo 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 SACP 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, afterwards joining the Springbok Legion, a multiracial radical ex-servicemen's organization, upon his return.[1][2]
Between 1946 and 1950 he 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 SACP treasurer Julius First. They had three daughters, Shawn, Gillian and Robyn. First was assassinated in 1982 by order of Craig Williamson, a major in the Apartheid security police.[3]
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 Congress of Democrats (an ally of the ANC as part of the Congress Alliance) and was a delegate to the June 1955 the "Congress of the People" organised by the ANC and Indian, Coloured and white 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 and Abongz Mbede emerged as one of the leaders of Umkhonto we Sizwe - a military body formed in alliance between the ANC and the SACP. In 1963 he went into exile and lived in Britain, Angola, Mozambique and Zambia. Slovo was elected general secretary of the SACP in 1984.
He returned to South Africa in 1990 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 succeeded by Chris Hani who was soon murdered. Slovo was given the titular position of chairperson of the SACP.
Slovo was a leading theoretician in both the party and the ANC. In the 1970s he wrote the influential essay No Middle Road which stated that the apartheid government would be unable either to achieve stability or to co-opt significant sections of the small but growing black middle class - in other words the only choice was between the overthrow of apartheid or ever greater repression. At the time the SACP's orthodox pro-Soviet and stage-ist view of change in South Africa was dominant in the ANC-led liberation movement and figures such as Thabo Mbeki were leading SACP members.
Being Jewish and a Communist, Slovo was a demonised figure on the far right of Afrikaner society.
In 1989, he wrote "Has Socialism Failed?" which acknowledged the weaknesses of the socialist movement and the excesses of Stalinism, while at the same time rejecting attempts by the left to distance themselves from socialism. Slovo died in 1995 of cancer. In 2004 he was voted 47th in the Top 100 Great South Africans.
It was he who in 1992 proposed the breakthrough in the negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa with the "sunset clause" for a coalition government for the five years following a democratic election, including guarantees and concessions to all sides.
After the elections of 1994 he became Minister for housing in Nelson Mandela's government, until his death in 1995.
[edit] Anti-Zionism
A committed Marxist internationalist, Slovo was outspoken as a South African critic of Israeli policies, both highlighting the cooperation between Israeli administrations and apartheid-era South Africa and noting the irony of a nation of dispossessed refugees establishing a state founded on the idea of exclusion.
Remembering his brief visit to a Jewish kibbutz in Palestine during his trip back to South Africa from Europe after the Second World War, Slovo, in an unfinished autobiography published following his death, wrote:
"Within a few years the wars of consolidation and expansion began. Ironically enough, the horrors of the Holocaust became the rationalization for the preparation by Zionists of acts of genocide against the indigenous people of Palestine. Those of us who, in the years that were to follow, raised our voices publicly against the violent apartheid of the Israeli state were vilified by the Zionist press. It is ironic, too, that the Jew-haters in South Africa – those who worked and prayed for a Hitler victory – have been linked in close embrace with the rulers of Israel in a new axis based on racism."[4]
[edit] Acclaim
[edit] Civic and similar tributes
Shack settlements in both Durban and Cape Town were named after Joe Slovo by their founders. Residents of both settlements now face apartheid style forced removals in 2007.[5] Harrow Road in Johannesburg has now been renamed Joe Slovo Drive. A newly constructed Residence building at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa has been named "Joe Slovo" in honour of the man.[citation needed]
[edit] Cinema and music
Joe Slovo appears as a character in two films for which Shawn Slovo wrote the screenplay. In the award-winning 1988 movie A World Apart, he is depicted as "Gus Roth" (played by Jeroen Krabbe). He is played by Malcolm Purkey in the 2006 film Catch a Fire. A song in his tribute was written by Scottish singer-songwriter David Heavenor appearing in 1993 on the album Private The Night Visitors.
[edit] References
- ^ Slovo, Joe, and Nelson Mandela (Contributor). Slovo: The Unfinished Autobiography of ANC Leader Joe Slovo. Ocean Press, 1997. ISBN 1875284958, ISBN 9781875284955. P. 45.
- ^ Loveland, Ian. By Due Process of Law: Racial Discrimination and the Right to Vote in South Africa, 1855-1960. Hart Publishing, 1999. ISBN 1841130494, ISBN 9781841130491. P. 252.
- ^ "Ruth First: Williamson given amnesty". Independent Online (South Africa). 1 Jun 2000. http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=qw959878501885B236. Retrieved on 2009-04-08.
- ^ Slovo, Joe, and Nelson Mandela (Contributor). Slovo: The Unfinished Autobiography of ANC Leader Joe Slovo. Ocean Press, 1997. ISBN 1875284958, ISBN 9781875284955. Pp. 47-48.
- ^ Abahlali baseMjondolo | Sekwanele!
[edit] External links
- Joe Slovo – biographical sketch at the homepage of the ANC
- "Has Socialism Failed?" – article by Joe Slovo, first published January 1990
- "Old Marxist Returns, With Hope for South Africa" – article by Chris Hedges, The New York Times 17 October 1990
- "Joe Slovo: Ode to a mensch" – eulogy by friend Linzi Manicom
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