Joe Slovo Passes On

On 6 January 1995, Joe Slovo, the communist intellectual widely credited with being one of the masterminds of South Africa's revolutionary struggle and national reconciliation, died after a long battle with cancer of the bone marrow. He was buried in Avalon Cemetery, Soweto, unheard of, for a white South African. Slovo was widely admired across southern Africa, and was described as "a liberation war hero" and "African patriot completely immersed in the struggle for black freedom". Joe Slovo was born Yossel Mashel Slovo on 23 May 1926 in Obeliai, Lithuania, to a Jewish family that emigrated to the Union of South Africa when he was eight. His father worked as a truck driver in Johannesburg. Although his family were religious, he became an atheist who retained respect for the positive aspects of Jewish culture. Slovo was educated at King Edward VII School and 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. He then joined the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) 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. He served as a Signaler in combat operations for the South African forces in North Africa and Italy, and on his return to South Africa he joined the Springbok Legion, a multiracial radical ex-servicemen's organisation. Between 1946 and 1950 Slovo co