The Debate around Adoption of the Armed Struggle: Part 1
On 2 June 1961, at a meeting of the Working Committee of the African National Congress (ANC) National Executive Committee (NEC), Moses Kotane, who did not attend the South African Communist Party (SACP) Annual Congress in December 1960, wherein the document “South Africa What’s Next?”, which was developed by Michael Harmel, interjected when Nelson Mandela raised the contents of the document on the need “to create an armed force to prepare for a new phase”.
Moses Kotane’s interjection was that the matter could not be discussed as the time had not yet arrived for the armed struggle. According to Kotane, “Because of the severe measures taken by the government you are unable to continue in the old way. The difficulties have paralysed you and you now want to talk a revolutionary language and talk about armed struggle, when in fact there is still room for the old method that we are using if we are imaginative and determined enough. You just want to expose people, you see, to massacres by the enemy. You have not even thought very carefully about this.” Mandela was not supported by anybody in the meeting, including Walter Sisulu, to whom he had confided extensively about this proposal.
Later on, in a private meeting with Sisulu, Mandela criticised him for not having supported him in the Working Committee meeting. Sisulu instead laughed at him, saying that it would have been a foolish attempt to fight ag
