A leader of the 1920s S.A.C.P. and the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union, Ndobe who was deported from South Africa shortly before this article, led the short-lived Independent African National Congress.

‘Capitalist Terror in South Africa’ by Bransley R. Ndobe from The Negro Worker. Vol. 4 No. 2. April, 1932.

I am writing from Basutoland, a British Native Territory where I have been exiled by the South African Nationalist Party of Hertzog and Pirow under the Immigration Act which declares me as an “undesirable” inhabitant of the Union of South Africa. I am giving a brief account which lead to my deportation for the benefit of the readers of the “Negro Worker” in America and the West Indies, so that they may know how the Africans are persecuted.

Negroes Murdered with Impunity.

In 1927 I became interested and took part in the struggle for the uplifting of the African toilers who are suffering bitter oppression. The African native is treated worse than a dog. He is discriminated, hated, and despised in every walk of life in the land of his fore-fathers from the time of landing of the first white imperialist. Up to now the African is still haunted with a rifle. When a white capitalist or landlord murders a Kaffir, it is not considered a serious crime, as the charge of murder is always reduced to culpable homicide or common assault. The murderer gets off with a small fine of 50 or six weeks, and so, the killing of Kaffirs (natives) goes on every day, especially on the farms of the Dutch landlords.

In 1927 at a place called Paarl which is about 36 miles from Cape Town a Dutch Constable killed three natives with a revolver for no reason other than a quarrel over a coloured girl. Myself and two others organized a meeting of protest, with the result, that each of us was put in gaol for three months under an Act of 1927 known as the Native Administration Act, Section 9. This was the first time that I personally experienced capitalist terror.

Police Raids in Durban.

In June 1929, while General Smuts, the leader of the South African Party–the party of the industrial bourgeoisie, which has shed a lot of blood during its regime–was busy making speeches in England on the African question the black masses were making themselves heard.

The centre of the agitation was in the city of Durban. At that time the Industrial and Commercial Union started a boycott on the Municipal Native beer-halls. The movement led to raids upon these beer-halls and severe reprisals from the officials, aided by white fascist bands. At the time of these happenings I was in Cape Town, where the masses were agitating against the attitude of the government and their black and white agents. As a result of this campaign myself and four other comrades were arrested under the excuse that we were promoting hostility between the Europeans (the capitalists–Ed.) and the Natives, under the Native Administration Act. However, before the court all the other comrades were acquitted. I was the only one who was found “guilty” and was given 18 months suspended sentence.

What is “good behaviour” for the imperialists? Submitting to their bloody oppression. Following these beer-hall riots, the Government introduced a bill authorising the minister of Justice, Pirow, the South African Mussolini, to deal with “seditious” propaganda. Apparently, before the bill was enacted, another even more serious incident occurred at Durban in October, when 12,000 African workers flatly refused to pay poll tax.

Urged on by the ultra-reactionary Afrikanders, Pirow finally decided to raid the native compounds and in the latter part of November wholesale raids were carried out by the armed forces of the state with the aid of gas-masks and tear gasbombs.

Over 600 natives were arrested. These raids had the effect of driving over some of the reformist Native leaders into the militant campaign. Pirow wanted to increase European fears so as to enable his party to railroad through Parliament legislation, depriving the Africans of the freedom of speech, assembly and the right to organize. In this he succeeded.

Anti-Labor Laws.

For in the 1930 Riotous Assemblies Amendment Act was placed in the Statute Book. Ever since Pirow has acted as the worst type of torturer and executioner of the native peoples and revolutionary workers.

Already ten persons have been dealt with under the Riotous Assemblies Act, seven being African natives. They are:

Kadalie (Independent S.L.P.), Champion (I.C.U. base Natal), Tonyeni (Independent A.N.C.), Malkinson, Becker and Eddie Roux (white communist leaders). The last mentioned is still before the courts law. Roux was also recently imprisoned for a period of two months’ hard labour, for defying the order of the dictator Pirow who ordered him not to be present in Durban for a period of a year within 7 days and after receipt of the order. This shows that the white revolutionists are fighting and suffering for the Africans while some of the so-called big Negroes especially Professors Thaele and Jabavu are licking Pirow’s boots.

On the 6th November 1931 another damnable law has been gazetted, called the Natal Native Code. This gives the Minister of Native Affairs, another torturer by the name of Jansen, one of the chief lackeys of Pirow, the right to imprison a native “agitator”, i.e. one who demands equal rights for natives with Europeans, to a period of three months, without trial. Persons arrested under this law shall have no right to protest. This is how the much boasted about British democracy operates in South Africa.

The Urban Areas Act has also been amended and the 1930 amendment compels African women to carry passes and also deals with the prohibition of meetings. The enforcement of this law has also led to the imprisonment of some members of the Independent A.N.C. at Middlebury Cape, which was very much resented by the masses who stormed the magistrate court, and other public buildings.

Appeal for International Solidarity.

We want the workers in England, America and the whole world to know that every attempt on the part of the Africans to organize for better conditions is being met with police violence and imperialist terror of the vilest form. Not only this:

The government has on its side a big force of African agents and reformist lackeys, whom the officials called “good boys”. These black traitors are paid by the capitalists to side track the masses from following a revolutionary way out of their misery, which is the only road to emancipation. We are faced with a complete state of illegality. The Nationalist government has departed from all pretense of bourgeois “justice”. It is an open fascist dictatorship, headed by two ignorant Dutch men, Hertzog and Pirow.

First called The International Negro Workers’ Review and published in 1928, it was renamed The Negro Worker in 1931. Sponsored by the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW), a part of the Red International of Labor Unions and of the Communist International, its first editor was American Communist James W. Ford and included writers from Africa, the Caribbean, North America, Europe, and South America. Later, Trinidadian George Padmore was editor until his expulsion from the Party in 1934. The Negro Worker ceased publication in 1938. The journal is an important record of Black and Pan-African thought and debate from the 1930s. American writers Claude McKay, Harry Haywood, Langston Hughes, and others contributed.

Link to full PDF of issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/negro-worker/files/1932-v2n4-apr.pdf