Hammer and Sickle
A Distant Clap of Thunder Book issued to mark the Fortieth Anniversary of the 1946 Mine Strike <http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=4727> A Salute by the South African Communist Party to South Africa's Black Mine Workers Published by the South African Communist Party, 1986 Part 12 Aftermath On Sunday, cold and windswept, perhaps as few as a hundred people assembled at the Market Square, again outnumbered by the police. Even many of the Union organisers and strike committee were absent. There was desultory chat; no one tried to formally open the meeting. In their hearts everyone knew that a signal had been given - and received. The Mines Strike was ended. And yet still its aftermath rumbled on. On Monday, in the early hours before daylight, when the first queues were beginning to form at the bus and train depots in the black townships, there were still a few, diehard attempts to persuade people to stay at home for a general strike. But not even the diehards had their hearts in it. The people wavered, and then in response to the general mood, boarded the buses and drove off to work. That morning, Monday, police raided the offices of the Johannesburg District Communist Party and removed caseloads of documents. The District Secretary, Danie du Plessis, was arrested and taken away. Three days later, the entire Johannesburg District Committee of the Party was arrested; they included Dr YM Dadoo, who was brought from a distant prison where he was serving a three months sentence for earlier Passive Resistance to the Group Areas Act - 'the Ghetto Act'. On Monday August 26th, the whole Party committee, together with all the men and women, Union organisers and volunteers, who had assisted the strike, were brought to court together in Johannesburg - 52 in all, of all races. They were formally charged with conspiracy to commit sedition - an offence which carried a capital penalty. The case opened a week later, with the accused seated in the court's public gallery, as no dock could be found large enough to hold them all. The charge of conspiracy had been extended to include alternative charges under the Riotous Assemblies Act, and a charge of aiding and abetting a strike which was illegal in terms of War Measure 1425. After some weeks of evidence by police, Chamber of Mines Officials and compound managers, and the introduction of some hundreds of documents, there was a short adjournment while the prosecution offered the defence a 'plea-bargain', as it is known in America. If the accused would plead guilty to the charge under the War Measure, all other charges would be dropped. By that time the conspiracy allegation against the accused had been turned on its head. The state witnesses had, between them, provided evidence of a conspiracy - but one by State and Chamber of Mines against the miners - a conspiracy to deny the miners even the recommendations of the Lansdowne Commission, and to ignore, harass and persecute the Union in the hope that it would die; and finally, when the strike inevitably erupted, a conspiracy to use draconian force to drive the workers back to work regardless of their wishes or legal rights. With some differences of opinion, the accused accepted legal advice to accept the deal. They had, in any case, no intention of denying that they had deliberately aided the miners in their strike - and would, given the same circumstances, do so again. All pleaded guilty - including Dadoo who had been in prison throughout the period, and Bram Fischer, a member of the Communist Party's District Committee, who had been on holiday in the Game Reserve throughout. Judgment was reserved till October 4th, when the Communist Party members and James Majoro, the AMWU secretary, were each fined £50 or four months hard labour - half suspended for a year on condition they do not participate in a strike during that period. The remainder got £15 or three months, two thirds similarly suspended. But by that time the central stage had shifted. On September 21st, between the close of the case and the passing of judgment, the police had carried out simultaneous raids throughout the country on homes of political and union activists of all kinds, and on the offices of many organisations - including the Communist Party's Central Committee in Cape Town and all its District offices, on the newspaper The Guardian, the ex-servicemen's organisation the Springbok Legion, the Natal Indian Congress, and almost every black or racially mixed trade union in the country. The strike certainly was ended; the AMWU had been weakened almost to the point of extinction. The clap of thunder had passed. And still the rolling reverberations of its passing rumbled across the country. From: http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?ID=2626 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
