Remembering Moses Mabhida: Forty Years On

Remembering Moses Mabhida: Forty Years On

“Our (party’s) alliance with the national liberation movement has stood the test of time and the strains of illegality. There are not significant differences of policy or strategy between us, we are comrades in arms, share a common purpose, confront the same enemy and are committed to a single goal, the overthrow of the racist autocracy and the achievement of a people’s democracy under majority rule.” – Moses Mabhida (ANC Youth Conference, August 1982) –

Forty years ago, 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. Mabhida was buried in Maputo 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 as Chairperson of the African National Congress (ANC) Working Committee in Natal, he also served as secretary of the ANC Pietermaritzburg Branch in the mid-1950s, and had a close working relationship with ANC President, Inkosi Albert Luthuli. During that period, he was also Chairman of the Durban District Committee of the Communist Party. Mabhida became a member of the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) around 1956, and in 1958 – 1959 was Acting Chairperson of the Natal ANC.

A week after the declaration of the 1960 state of emergency, Mabhida was sent abroad by SACTU to represent the organisation internationally. For the following three years he organised international solidarity activities in Prague with the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), and with the developing African trade union federations.

In 1963, following his re-election to the NEC at the ANC’s Lobatse Conference in October 1962, he was asked by Oliver Tambo to devote himself to the development of the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). Mabhida then underwent military training, and as MK Commissar he became the Chief Political Instructor of new military recruits, and later served as the Commander of MK. Mabhida’s repeated re-election to the NEC, his appointment to the Revolutionary Council (RC) on its creation in 1969, and later to the Politico-Military Council (PMC) which replaced it, reflected his popularity among ANC members and MK Cadres.

After the Morogoro Conference of the ANC in 1969, he was instrumental in setting up the ANC’s Department of National Intelligence and Security. Between 1969 and 1981, the department was of an ad hoc nature with staff drawn mainly from MK, with its primary role being that of security and counter-intelligence. There were four main functions of the new department. The first was to prevent infiltration of the ANC and its military wing by members of apartheid South African security services. Secondly, it was to gather information about the apartheid regime’s intentions and strategies. Thirdly, was to minimise the damage that may have occurred from the infiltration by agents of aparthid security services. And finally, to assist in the reconnaissance of facilities and entities inside South Africa which could be developed into potential targets for operations.

Mabhida was elected General-Secretary of the Communist Party in November 1979, replacing Moses Kotane, who had died the previous year. In the 1980s, he continued his work with political and logistical planning for Umkhonto we Sizwe, based at various times in Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland. In 1985, while on a mission to Havana, Mabhida suffered a stroke, and after a year of illness, died of a heart attack in Maputo and was buried there in March 1986.

“Moses Mabhida was a man tried and tested in a thousand battles during the course of the national liberation struggle. He was known, loved and respected throughout the movement for his steadfastness and determination, for his far-sightedness and wisdom, for his steadiness under fire, for his loyalty and consistency. Placing the interests of his people and his class above self, he devoted his life to the cause of emancipation, never sparing himself, ready to answer any calls made on him by his comrades. He was a gentle man but possessed of an iron will. He was not only an African nationalist and patriot, but also a proletarian internationalist, convinced by his readings of Marxism-Leninism as well as by his own experience of the indestructible link between the forces of national liberation and the international communist movement” (SACP Central Committee).

During the State Funeral with Full Military Honours of Moses Mabhida in Maputo, on 29 March 1986, ANC leader, Oliver Tambo said, “We have gathered here today to bid farewell to a warrior. We have converged from all corners of the globe to pay homage to a revolutionary. We have convened on this grieving piece of the earth to salute a patriot. We who have walked with the giants know that Moses Mbheki Mabhida belongs in that company too…We who have fared among the ranks know that he was proud to count himself a foot soldier. A colossus because he was supremely human, Moses Mabhida has departed from our midst…a product of the stern university of mass struggle and the life experience of the exploited and downtrodden workers and peasants of our country…”

For the occasion a brochure with flags and symbols of the ANC, the SACP and SACTU, together with the statement, in both English and Portuguese, was issued by the President of the ANC, Oliver Tambo, which read: “Ours is not merely a paper alliance, created at conference tables and formalised through the signing of documents and representing only an agreement by leaders. Our alliance is a living organism that has grown out of struggle.”

Sources:
Wikipedia.
South African History Online (SAHO).
Obituary, “Hamba Kahle Comrade Moses Mabhida”, Sechaba, May 1986.
SACP Central Committee, “Hamba Kahle Moses Mabhida: Farewell Message from the SACP Central Committee”, The African Communist, No. 106, Third Quarter 1986.
Jack Simons, “Three Streams of the Liberation Struggle”, The African Communist, No. 106, Third Quarter 1986.

Castro Khwela
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