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Tested by legacies of colonialism and apartheid
STEVE ANDREW recommends a comprehensive and revealing narrative about the most significant communist party in Africa
CPSA leadership meets in Cape Town in 1930. (L to R) bottom row: Bill Andrews, WH Harrison, Sidney Bunting. Johnny Gomas holds Lenin portrait. Second row: Gana Makabeni (above Harrison), Rebecca Bunting (third row fourth from right), Douglas Wolton (top row fourth from right)
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A New Awakening: Adventures In British Jazz 1966 - 1971, G3, and Buck Owens
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Red Road to Freedom: A history of the South African Communist Party 1921-2021
by Tom Lodge
James Currey £70
BUILDING on earlier seminal texts such as RE Simons’s voluminous Class and Colour in South Africa and Michael Harmel’s more celebratory account Fifty Fighting Years, Tom Lodge’s latest work is a monumental, fascinating and painstakingly researched book that provides by far the most up-to-date and comprehensive history of the South African Communist Party.
Unlike liberal and Trotskyist commentators, Lodge also emerges as a critical but undoubtedly sympathetic observer who skilfully captures a dramatic and compelling story that has film-like qualities.
Lodge kicks off his book by demonstrating how the organised left in South Africa can effectively date its history back to the 1890s, a period in which a myriad of socialist, anarchist and syndicalist organisations began to be formed.
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