South African Communist Party

The CPSA was founded in 1921 by the merger of the International Socialist League and others under the leadership of William H. Andrews, and joined the Comintern. It first came to prominence during the Rand Rebellion, the white miners' strike of 1922, and the sources disagree about its stance: the English-language source says it supported the strike as a struggle between the working class and the capitalist class but distanced itself from racist slogans, while the Afrikaans-language source says it called on the "workers of the world" to "unite and fight for a white South Africa". The party then turned to organising black workers, and by 1928 1,600 of its 1,750 members were black. The Comintern had it adopt the "Native Republic" thesis, which regarded South Africa as a country belonging to the native population; the English-language source dates this to 1928, the Afrikaans-language source to 1924. The party officially abandoned the policy by 1948.

In 1946 the party joined the ANC in the general strike that grew out of the African Mine Workers' strike, and many members, Bram Fischer among them, were arrested. When the National Party, in power from 1948, prepared the Suppression of Communism Act, the party according to the English-language source voted by a majority to dissolve itself and was then declared illegal in 1950; the Afrikaans-language source says it went underground when it was banned in 1950. In 1953 former members launched the South African Communist Party (SACP), which remained aligned with the Soviet Union. Black members were encouraged to join the ANC and seek leadership positions in it, while white members formed the Congress of Democrats within the Congress Alliance. The party helped draft the Freedom Charter adopted by the Alliance. Moses Kotane served for many years as treasurer of the ANC.

In 1961 leaders of the SACP and the ANC formed the armed organisation uMkhonto weSizwe (MK, "Spear of the Nation"). Joe Slovo was its chief of staff (the Afrikaans-language source calls him its commander from 1961), and his wife Ruth First was its leading theoretician. After the leaders were arrested, the liberation movement came under an exiled leadership, and communist states supplied money and arms. Slovo became general secretary in 1984. On 2 February 1990 the government lifted the ban on the SACP, the ANC and others; in 1991 Chris Hani, former MK chief of staff, succeeded Slovo as general secretary, but he was assassinated in Boksburg on 10 April 1993 by the white extremist Janusz Waluś.

In 1994 the SACP did not stand on its own but entered parliament on the ANC's lists, and Nelson Mandela appointed Slovo Minister for Housing. Tensions grew within the alliance as the ANC government left capitalism in place and relied on foreign investment. According to the English-language source, the ANC confirmed after Mandela's death in 2013 that he had been an SACP member and had served on its Central Committee. The SACP opposed the policies of Thabo Mbeki (1999–2008), helped bring about his removal as ANC president in 2007 and his recall as state president in 2008, and backed Jacob Zuma. It stood under its own name for the first time in municipal by-elections in Metsimaholo in 2017, winning three proportional seats, and in December 2024 decided to field its own candidates in the 2026 local elections.