Moses Mabhida Passes On
On 8 March 1986, Moses Mbheki Mncane (Baba) Mabhida, trade unionist, political revolutionary, former Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Political Commissar and General-Secretary of the SA Communist Party (SACP), died of a heart attack in Maputo, Mozambique, and was buried there in a temporary grave on 29 March 1986. In 2006, Mabhida’s remains were transferred to South Africa by the South African government for reburial at his home in KwaZulu-Natal, at Harry Gwala Stadium, on 2 December 2006.
Mabhida was born on 11 October 1923, in Thornville, Natal, to Stimela Mabhida and a Phakathi mother, as the fourth of five children in a peasant family which was later forced off the land. Mabhida was drawn to trade unionism by the late Harry Gwala, then a teacher, an ardent unionist and member of the SACP. Mabhida, too, joined the Communist Party in 1942. After many unionists were banned in 1952 – 1953, his colleagues in the newly revived underground Communist Party urged Mabhida to undertake full-time union work.
In the 1950s and early 1960s, Mabhida organised scores of workers in Natal. He worked for the South African Railways and Harbours Union (SARHU) and was paid £25 a month – collected from political sympathisers, as the union had little money. He was a central participant in the development of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) and was elected as one of the four vice-presidents at its first congress in 1955.
While Mabhida was serving
