The production of the literature on the “Red Peril” and total “Onslaught” in twentieth-century South Africa.

Wessel Visser

South Africa

 

SUMMARY

 

For much of the twentieth century South Africans, and Afrikaners in particular, were fascinated by the historical phenomenon of communism. This fascination, in which communism was often perceived as a “threat” or “peril”, went through several phases and was also reflected in literature on anti-communism. The general public’s awareness of communism, or “Bolshevism” as it was initially referred to, was stimulated by the so-called “Red Revolt” on the Witwatersrand in 1922 which followed in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. In the 1930s and 1940s the communist “Red Peril” was equated with the “Black Peril”, when communists were depicted as proponents of racial equality and internationalism. The “Red Peril” was also equated with the “Jewish Peril” as many communist trade union leaders of Jewish origin vied with Afrikaner cultural entrepreneurs to gain the support of the Afrikaner working class. From the 1930s to the 1980s Afrikaner churches contributed vigorously to the increasing production of anti-communist rhetoric. The avowed atheism of communism was perceived as a “deadly threat” to Christianity in South Africa and in this regard even liberalism was hailed as a so-called “Fifth Column” of communism. From the 1950s onwards production of literature on the “Red Peril” reflected a pre-occupation with a presumed Soviet and Red Chinese “onslaught” against South Africa. With the establishment of the Institute for the Study of Marxism at the University of Stellenbosch in 1980 communism as a historical factor also drew serious academic interest. This article investigates the phases in the production of literature on the “Red Peril” and “Total Onslaught” in twentieth-century South Africa.

 

 

Introduction

 

In 1958 an American observer travelling through Africa, Edwin S. Munger, made the following comment: “Communism is a word kicked around in South Africa almost as readily and loosely as communists like to kick ‘democracy’ and ‘liberty’ around to score their own goals”.[223] During the twentieth century a whole corpus of anti-communist literature was produced, mainly by Afrikaners. The South African anti-communist movement found fertile intellectual soil in Europe and America. In Britain in the 1930s and 1940s, for instance, Winston Churchill became a model for the anti-communist struggle. Also in the United States of America an established anti-communist tradition prevailed during the twentieth century. Communism as world phenomenon was studied by a number of intellectual forums such as Radio Free Europe, the Heritage Foundation, the Committee on the Present Danger and the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace and the journal Problems in Communism. Even ordinary liberal Americans manifested a profound rejection of communism.[224]

To date apparently no historiographical study on the history of anti-communism in South Africa has been published. One notable exception, though, was Mia Roth’s critique of the orthodox versions of the history of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) as portrayed in various so-called pro-communist publications.[225] This article attempts to analyse the production and dissemination of twentieth century anti-communist literature in South Africa and to investigate the rationale behind it. It must, however, be stressed that the discussion is predominantly focused on the Afrikaner perception of anti-communism. Afrikaner intellectuals and cultural leaders perceived anti-communism as a striving to combat the values and practice of communism per se and was not as a strategy directed against anti-apartheid groups. Also Afrikaner academic institutions would become involved in such endeavours. The Institute for the Study of Marxism at the University of Stellenbosch played a significant role in the shaping and the manifestation of these perceptions and thus forms an integral part of the investigation.

 

Early perceptions of communism

 

Socialism (as well as its offshoots, such as “Bolshevism” and “communism”) was imported mainly from Europe into South Africa.[226] After the discovery of diamonds and gold towards the end of the nineteenth century socialism took root on a limited scale via immigrant artisans and, in conjunction with a nascent local labour movement, in the newly emerging South African industrial centres. Various socialist parties and societies, some Marxist orientated, were founded between 1903 and 1909.[227] Apart from press organs established by labour and socialist parties, for the greater part of the first two decades of the twentieth century no serious attention was given in South African literature to the phenomenon of socialism or communism.

The first South African reference to communism appeared in July 1910 in the socialist weekly Voice of Labour – a paper that was run from 1908 to 1912 by a Scottish socialist immigrant, Archie Crawford, and his Irish-born partner, Mary Fitzgerald. Voice of Labour published a learned article by WH Harrison (a prominent Cape Town socialist who would become a founding member of the CPSA in 1921) in which the notion of “anarchistic communism”, as a socialist school of thought, was discussed.[228]

The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia and the general strike of 1922 in South Africa, or the Rand Revolt, however, generated a new and wider South African interest in communism. Prime Minister Jan Smuts, English mining capital and its media became concerned about the presumed “evils” inherent to communism. In an attempt to de-legitimise the 1922 strikers and their leaders the Smuts government and the media that supported it erroneously depicted the strike as a “Red Revolt”, “Red Terror” and a “Red” or “Bolshevist conspiracy”. Smuts was concerned about the “danger” if Bolshevism should take root among the black population. He contended that what had begun as a purely industrial dispute had deteriorated into something reminiscent of the French Revolution. This transformation, according to Smuts, was precipitated by the capture and eventual replacement of the indigenous labour movements by “forces of violence and anarchy” that wished to establish a soviet republic in South Africa. As some Jewish immigrants became involved in local labour organisations, and a small number actively supported the 1922 strike, accusations were also made that the strike was masterminded by “Bolshevik Jews”.[229]

In the wake of the 1922 strike Hedley Chilvers, a journalist, published a pamphlet[230] that reiterated many of Smuts’s and the mining press’s contentions about communism, or “Bolshevism”, as it was referred to at that stage. Chilvers begins by painting a terrifying picture of how a “red crime” was committed when the Russian Czar and his whole family were assassinated by Bolsheviks in 1918 and how Bolshevism was ruining Russia. He then proceeds to make white South Africans aware of the “evil” of Russian Bolshevism and “how earnestly the South African ‘Reds’ are endeavouring [as they did during to 1922 strike]…to reproduce Russian conditions in this country” by, among other things, “red schemes of intrigue among the natives”. Chilvers unveils to his readers subversive activities among some of the well-known South African communists of the period, such as David Ivon Jones, Bill Andrews and Sidney Bunting. Therefore he contends “that the ‘Red’ danger is imminent”. Also, in South Africa, local Bolsheviks endeavoured to foment revolution among blacks as part of a ”Red world conspiracy”.[231]

The decision by the CPSA in 1925 to shift its focus and organisational activities from the white to the black proletariat, as well as its 1928 resolution, directed by the Comintern in Moscow, to pursue the goal of establishing a “Native” republic in South Africa, bolstered notions in the white establishment that the communists were fostering a black upheaval against white rule.[232]

 

Afrikaner nationalism and communism.

 

In South African history the 1930s and 1940s are characterised in particular by the advent of Afrikaner political hegemony. Afrikaner literature of that period also reflects a reaction to the presumed “threats” of communism towards Afrikanerdom.

By the 1930s a fundamental tenet appears in the growing corpus of anti-communist literature produced by Afrikaner intellectuals in particular. Communism was increasingly being seen as a threat to white supremacy, and especially the continuation of white trusteeship. Blacks themselves were not regarded as the source of a possible disturbance of the paternalistic order of race relations. The real danger lay, so it was believed, with predominantly white communist agitators who could incite blacks against whites. Thus four themes emerged in the development of Afrikaner nationalism’s production of anti-communist literature in the 1930s and 1940s. Firstly, the “Red Peril” was equated with the “Black Peril”. Communists were depicted as proponents of racial equality and internationalism, and their principles were regarded as irreconcilable with Christian beliefs. Secondly, there was the danger of divisions among Afrikaner workers. Thirdly, given the role of a few prominent Jews within the CPSA and in labour organisations, the “Red Peril” and the “Black Peril” were also equated with the “Jewish Peril”. Lastly, in their turn all these “perils” were equated with the danger of Soviet world domination.[233]

These themes were reflected in a concerted attempt of the National Party (NP) and other Afrikaner nationalist organisations after 1936 to present a unified conception of the “communist menace” to the Afrikaner people and to volkseenheid, and to attack communism’s influence in the white labour movement. The background to this initiative was the formation of the South African Trades and Labour Council (SAT&LC), a trade union federation to which such important trade unions as the Mine Workers’ Union (MWU) and the Garment Workers’ Union (GWU) were affiliated. The SAT&LC facilitated the exposure of white trade unionists, including Afrikaners, to militant socialist ideas. Some of these Afrikaner workers were even sent to the Soviet Union in order to experience the benefits of a workers’ state for themselves. Encouraged by the Comintern, left-wing labour organisations such as the SAT&LC were by the mid-1930s supporting the formation of the United People’s Front (UPF) against Fascism, which was to include all members of the working class. This movement actively propagated the breaking down of racial barriers among the working class and promoted the inclusion of Afrikaans-speaking workers in the Front.

Given the prejudice of some Afrikaner intellectuals against the “threat” of non-racialism propagated by the communists, the events related above provided a trigger for the formation of Christian-nationalist alternatives to “communist” trade unions. Leading young Afrikaner cultural entrepreneurs such as Piet Meyer, Nico Diederichs, Eric Louw and Albert Hertzog – all members of the NP and the elitist Afrikaner Broederbond (AB) – returned from extensive stays in Europe and America, where they were exposed to extreme forms of anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic sentiments. They became the leading proponents of the idea that Afrikaner workers should be protected against the “threats” of liberal-capitalism and communism. Under the guidance of Hertzog the Nasionale Raad van Trustees (NRT) was created in an effort to purify unions such as the MWU and the GWU of their “communistically inclined” Jewish leadership and to “save” Afrikaner workers from the “baneful influence” of communism and non-racialism.[234]

Consequently, anti-communist literature was produced to support these endeavours. AJG Oosthuizen, a minister of the Nederduits Hervormde Kerk (NHK), wrote a booklet entitled Kommunisme en die Vakunies in support of the NRT’s initiatives.[235] Oosthuizen wrote of the “dangerous ideology” of “Russian godlessness”. The aim of the booklet was “to make our people [Afrikaners] aware of a great [communist] danger threatening us”. Therefore the NRT’s struggle against the GWU and its general secretary, Solly Sachs, a “communist Jew”, was supported by the NHK. Oosthuizen inveighed against Die Klerewerker, the organ of the GWU, for inciting a class struggle between (Afrikaner) employees and employers. The Soviet Union was the centre of the “evil of communism” from where a world revolution against the existing (white) order, directed by the “Red Army”, would be instigated.

In South Africa the communists, it was claimed, aimed at destroying religion, confiscating private property, overthrowing the state and creating a black republic where blacks and Coloureds “would be boss and govern”. The danger lay particularly in “communist” trade union federations such as the SAT&LC and in its affiliated unions for miners, garment workers and builders that represented many Afrikaner workers. In conjunction with the CPSA these organisations tried to bring about equality between black and white. To fight communism a classless volksosialisme, which was “inherent in the character of the Afrikaner people”, should replace the “evil” of exploitative capitalism. Therefore volkseie Afrikaner trade unions, such as those propagated by the NRT, should be established to counter all the above-mentioned evils.[236]

For Nico Diederichs, political science professor at the University of the Free State and future NP Minister of Finance, communism also implied the annihilation of the existing (capitalist) world order and represented an urge to destroy human institutions such as patriotism, privacy, the family and religion. To him it was clear that the spirit of the communists was the spirit of “Lucifer”. According to Diederichs, many individuals, “mostly from the lower and illiterate classes”, were already leavened with communist ideas - probably without knowing it. This state of affairs was encouraged by “agitators” who propagated the spread of “communist poison” among black and white.[237] Chapters of Diederich’s book were also published in Die Huisgenoot, a popular Afrikaans magazine. In the 1930s the literary contents of this weekly made it a highly esteemed publication as it was regarded as maintaining sound intellectual and academic standards, and in some Afrikaner circles it was even regarded as the “poor man’s university”.[238]

The “Red” and “Black Peril” themes repeatedly surfaced in the anti-communist publications of the period. F.J. van Rensburg, the leader of the Ossewa-Brandwag (OB), a fascist Afrikaner cultural movement that gained short-lived popularity among Afrikaners in the 1930s and 1940s, emphasized that the OB, with its authoritarian ideology, offered the Afrikaner an alternative to the policies of racial equality espoused by communist ideology.[239]

By 1944 Piet Meyer, secretary of the NRT who was in later years to become the president of the AB and board chairman of the state-sponsored South African Broadcasting Corporation, toyed with the idea of a distinct form of Afrikaner socialism as an effective counter to the threat of communism.[240]

Also the NP often linked the “Red Menace” and the “Black Peril”. Early in 1943 Eric Louw wrote a pamphlet entitled The Communist Danger in South Africa. In this document Louw set out the party’s objections to communist ideology. Communists believed in racial equality and miscegenation. Moreover, they were atheists and were spreading their propaganda among blacks. Thus communists were a threat to the survival of both white civilisation and Christianity in South Africa.[241] The NP premises were put into practice after the party came to power in 1948. Louw, who became South Africa’s Foreign Minister in 1948, was instrumental in the closing of the Soviet consulates (established in 1942) at Pretoria and Cape Town, and in unilaterally severing diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. According to Philip Nel, the “Black Peril” thus finally fused with the “Red Peril” in official thinking.[242]

The accounts of the role of prominent leaders of the CPSA in the freedom struggle that appeared in published biographies and reminiscences from the 1940s onwards also strengthened anti-communist perceptions of communist subversion and agitation intended to foment revolt among blacks against white rule.

An interesting effort to counter the anti-communist rhetoric was a CPSA pamphlet by an Afrikaner communist, Danie du Plessis.[243] Du Plessis was the secretary of the Paper Workers’ Union and the organiser of the Building Workers’ Union. Because of the widespread unemployment during the Great Depression of the early 1930s he became disillusioned with capitalism. For Du Plessis capitalism’s only intention was to exploit black and white workers and to prevent worker solidarity through racial segregation. In order to generate maximum profits industrial capitalism introduced poll and hut taxes in the black reserves, which had the effect of forcing rural blacks to seek employment in the cities as “cheap slave labour” under the oppressive pass laws. Therefore black workers were not the white workers’ enemies but rather their allies. According to Du Plessis, the Afrikaner’s religion was not threatened by communism as the church “still existed” under communist rule in Soviet Russia. Afrikaners would only be able to maintain and strengthen their language and culture by forming a non-racial working class in South Africa.[244]

 

Afrikaner churches and communism

 

The avowed atheism of international communism understandably touched a raw nerve in the Christian-nationalist ethos of the traditional Afrikaner churches, which in turn stimulated a plethora of studies on communism from an ecclesiastical perspective. These studies reveal the construction of a volkslaer discourse. The church would act as a vanguard to shield the Afrikaner people from the “Red Peril” and its offshoots.

Afrikaner cultural entrepreneurs who endeavoured to Afrikanerise certain trade unions and purify them from “communist” influences found staunch allies in the traditional Afrikaner churches. In May 1937 the NHK appointed a special commission of inquiry to report on communism and its activities in the South African trade unions. Eventually Dr H.P. Wolmarans, an ordained clergyman of the church and Professor of Theology at the University of Pretoria, compiled a brochure on the findings of the commission of inquiry, entitled Kommunisme en die Suid-Afrikaanse Vakunies.[245] Wolmarans came to similar conclusions on the trade unions as Reverend Oosthuizen had done in Kommunisme en die Vakunies. The SAT&LC connived with the “Moscow-ordained” UPF to promote communism and these “pro-soviet” organisations planned to deliver the South African people to Russia. Affiliation to the SAT&LC would imply very negative consequences for the interests of Afrikaner workers, “all” of whom were members of the Afrikaner Protestant churches. Wolmarans’s publication was very defamatory about Solly Sachs of the GWU. Sachs was accused of being the main instigator of the SAT&LC and the pro-Soviet front in South Africa, as well as of manipulating and alienating Afrikaner female members of the GWU from their people.[246] Sachs, however, sued Wolmarans for slander and the latter settled out of court for £300 damages.[247]

In a booklet dedicated to female social workers of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) Norval Geldenhuys revisited the history of the destruction of Russian Christianity under communism, also briefly dealt with in the writings of authors such as Chilvers, Oosthuizen and Diederichs.[248] For Geldenhuys the two “most explosive danger points” in the existence of the Afrikaner people were the poor white problem and the “native problem”. The church had a duty to carry out the social upliftment of the Afrikaner poor. Neglect of this duty had already resulted in many female Afrikaner workers joining the ranks of the “communist” GWU. Geldenhuys was also of the opinion that the church and the Afrikaner people should “convince” the black population that the whites’ policy of trusteeship and racial segregation “honestly” catered for their social needs. If the church failed in this mission, “unscrupulous communist agitators” would succeed in turning black against white.[249]

From the 1940s onwards the Afrikaner churches – the DRC, the NHK and the Gereformeerde Kerk – would organise a flurry of anti-communist conferences and symposia to try and investigate the perceived threat of communism to Christianity in South Africa and to find ways to combat this. In October 1946 the Anti-kommunistiese Aksiekommissie, or Antikom, was founded at an ecclesiastical congress on communism held in Pretoria under the auspices of the DRC. Apparently this initiative was conceived within the ranks of the NRT. Some of the most prominent and influential Afrikaner political, cultural, intellectual and church leaders would serve on Antikom. The constitution of Antikom entailed the following, among other things: combating the communist way of life; the promotion of Christian-nationalist trade unionism among the white workers of South Africa; and influencing the black population in the religious, social, educational, economic and other spheres of life in order to woo them to the Christian-nationalist viewpoint on racial apartheid and to combat ideologies opposing such views.[250]

In April 1964 Antikom organised a Volkskongres in Pretoria, attended by 2428 delegates, on the theme “Christianity against Communism”. The object of the Volkskongres was to alert all whites, not just Afrikaners, to the alleged perils of communist subversion in South Africa. The 1964 Volkskongres established a standing body, the National Council Against Communism. In 1966 the National Council sponsored an “International Symposium on Communism”, held in Pretoria. The chairman was the Reverend J.D. Vorster, the Moderator of the DRC and brother of B.J. Vorster, who would succeed H.F. Verwoerd as Prime Minister of South Africa. The main speaker was Major Edgar Bundy, executive secretary of the Anti-Communist Church League of America. Another Antikom symposium on communism was held in Port Elizabeth in 1968. Antikom also regarded its calling in combating communism to be educational. Therefore published conference proceedings and other works were commissioned for public dissemination. In this way the “Red Peril” theme was kept alive.[251]

The 1964 congress sported a very striking emblem – a hand grasping a dagger (representing the Volkskongres) stabbing a red hammer and sickle octopus draped over South Africa. Even before the congress started fierce polemics broke out in both the English and Afrikaans press as to whether the event, which was referred to by some papers as “religious McCarthyism”, should be held at all. In an effort to demonise communism speakers at the congress concentrated on a theological analysis of the “lies” of communism, communist “brain-washing”, the “communist onslaught” on the church and how communism was “devouring” and “enslaving” free nations on a world-wide scale. In South Africa the “danger” of communism was not the intention to destroy the church, but rather to infiltrate it and other institutions in the broader society, as well as the youth and the education system in order to transform them into “tools of the communist revolutionary programme”. An “onslaught” was directed especially against Afrikaner churches, which represented the majority of South African whites, in order to render them “defenceless” against “liberal” and “communist indoctrination”. South Africa was therefore caught up in a “death struggle” against communism and it was the task of the congress to find a “remedy” against it. In reaction to the critique in the liberal press, - namely, that the congress would be the prelude to a witch-hunt of communists, - some speakers retorted that such a critique showed that the communists were leading the press by the nose.[252]

As mentioned above, the 1966 symposium concentrated on communism in an international context. Speakers came from France, Hungary, Cuba and the USA, among other places. Three major themes were discussed. Firstly, the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party’s (SACP) insurgence and sabotage activities to overthrow the white government were dealt with by Major-General H.J. van den Bergh, Chief of the South African Security Police. A second theme dealt with methods, strategies and actions by Soviet Russia to take over countries such as Hungary and Cuba.

Thirdly, the 1960s were the heyday of verkramptheid (arch-conservatism) in Afrikaner politics. Within this context, as in 1964, the Reverend J.D. Vorster repeated his attacks on liberalism for its “tolerance” of communism. Liberalism was pointed out as a so-called “Fifth Column” of communism. In addition, Vorster attacked what he called “decadent art” and castigated new progressive developments in Afrikaans literature. These liberal tendencies should all be combated, Vorster emphasised, because they undermined moral values that would make the Afrikaner people susceptible to communism.[253]

Vorster was also the keynote speaker at the 1968 Antikom symposium on communism. He asserted that the church was “sentenced to death” by this ideology. Vorster again fulminated against liberalism for doing “valuable pre-labour” on behalf of communism. He even reproached the South African Academy for Science and Arts - the elite academic institution of the Afrikaner establishment - for awarding literary prizes to liberal Afrikaner writers whose work “softened” Afrikaners towards communism.[254] Other papers dealt with how communism subtly attempted to infiltrate areas such as labour movements, education and the media. Conference resolutions were adopted, inter alia, to support the underground church behind the Iron Curtain and to request the government to promulgate legislation against multi-racial trade unions.[255]

Other Antikom publications followed in similar vein. In the 1950s Piet Meyer published a pamphlet containing a concise history of communist activities in South Africa. The cover page displayed the ominous spectre of a Bolshevist looming like a giant over a Christian city in South Africa. Wielding a hammer and a sickle the giant went about destroying the city. Meyer illustrated how the SACP’s policy was repeatedly defined and dictated by Moscow. According to Meyer, the Russian consulate, established in Pretoria in the 1940s, was undoubtedly the centre of “a communist campaign in the Union [of South Africa]”.[256]

In the spirit of the resolve of organisations such as Antikom to inform and educate especially Afrikaners on the “communist threat” to South Africa, Fred Schwarz’s popular book, You Can Trust a Communist (to be Communist), was also translated into Afrikaans by Timo Kriel.[257]  Schwarz’s work was originally published by the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade in America.[258]

During the 1970s Antikom’s publications also started to concentrate on what was called the “Yellow Peril”, Chinese communism, in Africa. At the time 15 000 Chinese “communists” were constructing the Tanzam railway line between Tanzania and Zambia and “tried to control black African states”. By means of material assistance and military aid communist countries in Europe and Asia were systematically attempting to influence African countries north of the Limpopo in the direction of communism. White South Africa was the ultimate goal of this Soviet-led communist world strategy. Therefore it was the “responsibility” of Christians in South Africa to combat the threat of this “communist onslaught”. On behalf of all the people of Africa communism was to be prevented from controlling southern Africa and therefore also the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and South Africa’s mineral wealth.[259]

By this time the Theological Seminary of the DRC at the University of Stellenbosch and that of the Gereformeerde Kerk at the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education had started to produce brochures of lecture series to theology students and church ministers on Marxism and Soviet-communism.[260]

At times Afrikaner churches went to absurd lengths in their quest to demonise communism by means of the public dissemination of anti-communist literature. In 1983 Biblecor, a subsidiary of the DRC, published a Bible correspondence course compiled by P.J. Rossouw. This 68-page booklet purported to present to correspondents a “survey of communism, its doctrine, aims and how it functioned in everyday life”. However, its contents reflected superficial and random information on Karl Marx, Lenin, communist ideology, Soviet economic policy and the SACP, and was a very poor attempt to diffuse instant knowledge on communism. Interspersed with Biblical texts and references, as well as photos of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, a general meeting of the Russian Communist Party and even of a Russian anti-ballistic missile paraded on Red Square in Moscow, the purpose of this reader was to guide correspondents to the inevitable conclusion that “atheist communism” should be combated as there could be no peace between the latter and Christianity. It was also based on the contentious supposition that, having completed the course, correspondents would have “a [reasonable] knowledge of communist ideology and policies in Russia and South Africa” and be able “to unmask the lies of communism”. Correspondents would also be able to “explain the calling of the church regarding communism and its breeding-ground in South Africa and how to contain it”.[261]

Henry Pike, a conservative American Baptist missionary who had lived in South Africa for ten years, wrote A History of Communism in South Africa published by Christian Mission International of South Africa.[262] Pike states emphatically on the dust cover and in his introduction that he was “totally opposed to the left…and every shape, form and fashion of Marxism-Leninism”. He categorically declares that it was impossible to write about South African communism from an objective point of view as the “hellish anti-God philosophy” of communism “is inimical to all forms of decent human society”. He makes no apologies for these statements, Pike continues, and only regrets that more of the Bible’s message of hope could not have been woven into the narrative. The book was intended “primarily for purposes of instruction and education regarding the subject of communism in South Africa and related events”. It did not purport to be a definitive, scientific analysis of the South African communist movement. Therefore the book would be “a pure delight to the conservative Christian”. Pike also declared that to “seek communism as the answer to the system of apartheid is to slide from the smoke and pain of the mythical purgatory to the fires and damnation of Hell”.[263]

 

South Africa and the internationalisation of Soviet-communism

 

From the 1950s onwards, as the Cold War became hotter, South African anti-communist rhetoric gradually shifted from an internal focus on the danger of the “Red Peril” to Afrikaner and white interests towards the threat posed by international Soviet communism in Africa on a global scale and South Africa in a regional context. As in the case of the ecclesiastical publications, anti-communist literature also began to refer to the “Yellow Peril” that posed a threat to Africa and to South Africa in particular. Soviet Russia, however, remained the central focus of the international approach to communism.[264] Against this background the NP government and its Afrikaner supporters were only too eager to align themselves with Western powers such as the United States and Great Britain as an indispensable link in the anti-communist and anti-soviet phalanx after the commencement of the Cold War.[265]

In his 1954 publication on the future of the Afrikaner[266] the renowned Afrikaner historian and journalist, G.D. Scholtz, pointed out that international Soviet policy posed “a danger of Communism in Africa sweeping from Cape Town to the Mediterranean”. In this context Russia also presented a “great threat” to Western Europe. In any conflict between democratic and communist powers Africa maintained a strategically important flank position on behalf of the democratic powers in Europe. The Afrikaner’s fatherland was an “outpost” of Western civilisation in Africa. As such the future might demand from Afrikaners that they fight Russian communists side by side with Western Europeans in order to protect their European heritage in Africa.[267]

Scholtz was fascinated with the power of the Soviet Union and the world-wide expansion of the communist ideology that diametrically opposed the Afrikaners’ nationalist and apartheid ideology. Following on Het Die Afrikaanse Volk ‘n Toekoms? he published a comprehensive 561-page book entitled Die Stryd om die Wêreld.[268] The book expounds on the struggle for world domination between East and West in which, according to Scholtz, the fate of the Afrikaner was intimately involved. Scholtz pitches Soviet communism against non-communist countries in Africa, Asia and Europe, and states that the non-communist counties under the leadership of America should make an all-out effort to check the advance of communism.[269]

The 1960s was a productive period for literature on the “Red Peril”. Christian-nationalist-orientated publications by academic pedagogues, intended to inform and educate Afrikaners about “unmasking the falseness of communism” and to prepare them for the “struggle” against this ideology, were still being produced.[270] Likewise anti-communist rhetoric from a Christian-nationalist pedagogical perspective was produced in dissertations at Afrikaans-speaking universities[271]; in extreme cases these studies sometimes bordered on absurdity. For instance, the Faculty of Education at the University of Stellenbosch produced an MA thesis on Marxism and South African school cadets.[272]

But the 1960s was also a period of intensifying conflict in South Africa. After the suppression of communism by law and the dissolution of the CPSA in 1950, the so-called Treason Trials of dissidents accused of committing high treason or sedition against the state commenced in 1956. The police shooting of anti-apartheid demonstrators from the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) took place at Sharpeville in March 1960. Partly as a result of this incident the PAC and the ANC were declared illegal organisations and they consequently went underground to join banned communists in the armed liberation struggle against the apartheid regime. In May 1961 South Africa became a republic. In August 1962 Nelson Mandela and other prominent leaders of Umkhonto we Sizwe - the underground military wing of the ANC-in-exile - were captured. At the Rivonia Trail Mandela and others were sentenced to life imprisonment on conviction of sabotage against the state.

In 1964 the security police managed to infiltrate the underground SACP and secured the conviction of Bram Fischer, a communist leader and member of a prominent Free State Afrikaner family. And in September 1966 H.F. Verwoerd, the Prime Minister, was assassinated in Parliament.[273] In addition to these events that so startled the white establishment, the security police succeeded in the sensational capture of Yuriy Loginov, a Soviet KGB agent, in 1967.[274]

Developments such as these nurtured the creation of a “spy psychosis” in South Africa and stimulated the production of anti-communist literature with a “Red conspiracy” theme. Pretorius’s study, for instance, devoted a chapter to the training and modus operandi of the “Red [Russian] Spy” and to the inner workings of the KGB.[275] The central motive behind these works seemed to be to demonise organisations in the armed struggle against apartheid, especially the ANC, and to portray them as puppets directed by the initiatives and tactics of the SACP.

In his book The Red Trap. Communism and Violence in South Africa (appropriately provided with a red cover to illustrate the point)[276] Chris Vermaak, a South African Security Police officer, asserted that a Soviet-inspired communist plot was being hatched to foster anti-apartheid sabotage, subversion and revolution in South Africa. Agents of the CPSA infiltrated organisations such as the National Union of South African Students, the South African Indian Congress, the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe, the PAC, the anti-apartheid Congress of Democrats (COD), the South African Congress of Trade Unions and even the South African Jewish Board of Deputies.

 

The objectives of the Freedom Charter, drawn up at Kliptown south of Johannesburg in 1955 by the so-called Congress of the People – a gathering of anti-apartheid organisations – carried “the unmistakable stamp of Communism” as the SACP acted in “international cohesion with Russia”. According to Vermaak, the communists instigated the 1946 strike of the African Mine Workers’ Union and the 1952 Defiance Campaign against apartheid. They also tried to incite the Bantustans against white authority. And at the 1956 Treason Trials Bram Fischer, in accordance with his communist convictions, succeeded in obtaining acquittals for the defendants.[277] A security police document also maintained that liberation movements such as the ANC were controlled by the SACP, but emphasised that the latter was “subservient to international [meaning Russian] communism”.[278]

An interesting “Red plot” revelation was Gerard Ludi’s Operation Q-18.[279] Ludi was a South African Secret Service agent who had infiltrated the SACP and even managed to visit the Soviet Union to attend the Moscow Peace Congress in 1962. He was also one of the key witnesses who unmasked Bram Fischer as a communist, which led to the latter’s successful conviction. According to Ludi, the ANC was “Moscow run”, while Poqo, the military wing of the PAC, operated “under the aegis of Peking” (the capital of communist China).[280]

The focus of anti-communist literature was adjusted once again in the post-1960s era. From the 1970s onwards many senior South African security and military officers underwent training in strategic studies at military institutions in Western countries such as Britain. From a military point of view South Africa was now being perceived from its strategic global position vis-à-vis Soviet and Chinese strategic intentions. For this purpose geo-political academic institutions were also established in South Africa such as the Centre for International Politics at Potchefstroom University, the Department of Strategic Studies at the University of Pretoria and the Department of Political Science at the Rand Afrikaans University.[281]

The military assessment of South Africa’s changing strategic position in relation to communist intentions also permeated “civilian” anti-communist literature in the 1970s, as was already evident from Antikom’s publications in that period.[282] In their rivalry with the USA and Western Europe for world domination Soviet Russia and Red China were focusing their attention on Africa to gain a strategic foothold in various countries. South Africa’s control of the Cape sea route was regarded as “of the utmost importance” to her Western European trading partners. The country was portrayed as an anti-communist bastion of democracy in Southern Africa which was feeling the pinch of the “approaching” communist influence.  Therefore the discourse of the anti-communist publications of this period shifted accordingly from the “Red Peril” inside South Africa to the “Soviet” and “Red Chinese Menace” and expansionism in African states bordering white South Africa.

Furthermore, the gist of this literature suggested that, as South Africa dominated the African sub-continent south of the Sahara because of her vigorous economy, tremendous mineral wealth and vast industrialisation, and because of her position on East-West sea routes, she became important to Soviet and Red Chinese strategic intentions in that region. As a result of the Rivonia Trial the SACP’s and the ANC’s military potential to challenge South Africa internally was virtually neutralised and the ANC-in-exile established its headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia. Soviet Russia and Red China adjusted their tactics accordingly to invest millions of dollars in military and humanitarian aid, or “Trojan horses”, in sub-Saharan Africa. From “Soviet-” and “Chinese-friendly” countries such as Tanzania, Zambia and Botswana insurgents, who intended liberating Mozambique, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Angola and South West Africa (Namibia) from colonial oppression could be supported. The latter were buffer states that served as a buttress against the “subversive intentions” of the SACP and the ANC. By materially supporting the armies of the anti-colonial liberation movements Soviet Russia and Red China intended to bring about the downfall of these buffer states, which would clear the way for the “Red surge” towards its ultimate goal, South Africa.[283]

In similar mode the anti-communist point of view was that, apart from physical aggression, international communism also “threatened” South Africa by means of a “psychological onslaught”. In an effort to “undermine” South Africa and bring her to her knees, the country’s racial problems were internationalised by communists via the media in order to influence world opinion negatively.[284] Against the background of the fall of the Portuguese colonies in Angola and Mozambique in 1974, Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 and increasing black unrest and ANC acts of sabotage inside South Africa since, P.W. Botha’s NP government thus became convinced that an internationally co-ordinated “total onslaught” was being directed against the country on all fronts: politically, economically and militarily.[285]

From the mid-1980s South African literature showed a marked deviation from the anti-communist rhetoric of the previous decades and from the attempts to demonise organisations such as the SACP and the ANC. Academics began to analyse the policies and relationships between the SACP and the ANC in a more sober and objective manner in terms of the historical realities of South Africa. Soviet intentions towards South Africa were treated more realistically as support, via the SACP, for the black population’s legitimate struggle against racial discrimination and political oppression, rather than as an aggressive “Red Menace” poised to force the country into a communist empire. Likewise the ANC was portrayed as a national liberation movement in its own right rather than as a puppet of the SACP.[286]

 

The University of Stellenbosch’s response to communism

 

Given the South African fascination with communism over such a long period, it follows that this phenomenon would eventually also attract serious attention from academic historians. Already as early as the 1964 Volkskongres on communism A.M. van Schoor, editor of Die Vaderland, an Afrikaans daily, advocated the establishment of chairs at (Afrikaans-speaking) universities “to study world politics with special reference to Communism”.[287]

The University of Stellenbosch would be the only Afrikaans-speaking university to heed Van Schoor’s call and which considered communism a serious enough threat to demand particular academic attention. From 1976 Dirk Kotzé, history professor at the University of Stellenbosch, began to lobby for the establishment of an “Institute for the Study of Marxism”. Kotzé’s reference to the term “Marxism” should however be understood within the context of the anti-communist tradition that had been developed and nurtured historically in Afrikaner circles up to that point. Kotzé used the word “Marxism” in a generic sense to describe all variants of what he perceived to be part of the broad concept of “communism” including “Leninism”, “Stalinism”, “Trotskyism”, “Maoism”, “neo-Marxism”, etc. By the late 1970s and early 1980s Kotzé was a prominent member of the Afrikaner intellectual establishment. Not only was he an acquaintance of General Johan Coetzee, the then head of the Security Police, but in 1985 he also became a distinguished member of the President’s Council in the Tricameral Parliament.

At that stage (1976), Kotzé argued, communism was an extremely topical issue for South Africa. In order to “combat” it effectively, a “thorough knowledge of communist theory and tactics” by way of a scientific approach was essential. At the time no institute existed in South Africa where material on communism could be collected and studied in a systematic and comprehensive manner. According to Kotzé, the Department of History at Stellenbosch was at that stage the only academic institution of its kind in South Africa to offer extensive courses, at both under graduate and post graduate level, on communism and on the histories of the Soviet Union and Red China. In addition, the departments of Philosophy, Political Science, Economics, Theology, Africa Studies and Sociology also dealt with aspects of communist ideology in their syllabi.  For Kotzé, therefore, the University of Stellenbosch was the most suitable academic institution in South Africa to launch the proposed institute.[288]

Dirk Kotzé was probably the most prolific South African historian on the subject of communism. He became intrigued by communism as a historical phenomenon and sought to explain its nature as a “destructive force” by scientific research and analysis. From 1954 to 1956 he studied communism and nationalism as forces shaping history at the Vrije and Gemeentelijke Universities of Amsterdam under the renowned Dutch Marxist historian Jan Romein. He also studied at the Universities of Bonn and West Berlin, and in 1964 he studied Marxism and socialism at the Institute for Social History in Amsterdam.[289] In Die Kommunisme Deel 1: Die Klassieke Marxisme Kotzé wrote biographies on Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and explained classic Marxist philosophy.[290] In 1970 Kotzé published his third volume on nationalism as a historical factor, entitled Nasionalisme en Kommunisme. In this book he explains how nationalism was “used” by communism to advance its own cause in Soviet Russia, Yugoslavia and Red China.[291] This was followed by a booklet, Soeklig op die Kommunisme, which focused on the origins of Marxism, the basic principles of communism, Soviet and Chinese communism, and Soviet interest in South Africa, and provided a concise history of communism in South Africa.[292]

Kotzé also wrote a two-part series on the history of communism in South Africa for the journal of the South African Academy for Science and Arts.[293] In 1979 Kotzé produced Communism and South Africa, which was an augmented version of his 1977 Afrikaans publication Kommunisme Vandag.[294] Here Kotzé discusses the nature of communism, orthodox Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, neo-Marxism, the relations between the Soviet Union and Red China as well as communism’s attitude to war and peace, religion, nationalism and Pan-Africanism.[295]

On 1 April 1980 the Institute for the Study of Marxism at the University of Stellenbosch (ISMUS) was officially launched. Professor D. J. Kotzé was its first Director. Dr J.S. Bergh, also from the University’s Department of History, became the Institute’s first researcher. After two years Bergh resigned to return to the Department of History. He was succeeded on 1 April 1982 by Philip Nel, a former intelligence officer at the Military Intelligence Section of the South African Defence Force.[296]

According to its introductory brochure, ISMUS intended, inter alia, “to stimulate systematic, interdisciplinary research”. Its aims were related “to the conviction that in the academic community in South Africa in general there is a lack of reliable, non-partisan research on Marxism and its relevance for the South African situation”.[297]

ISMUS’s objectives, among others, were to collect source material on Marxism and communism in general; in depth research of communism in Southern Africa through interdisciplinary research projects and to serve the state and approved institutions in supplying scientifically controlled information on communist theory, strategy and tactics.[298]

Although ISMUS claimed to have a neutral approach towards the study of communism, some members of the multi discipline Board of Control[299] still adhered to the stereotyped anti-communist paradigm. Kotzé, for instance, regarded Soviet and Red Chinese expansionism in Africa and influence among liberation movements in Mozambique, Angola and Zambia as a prelude to world domination. Therefore communism presented “essentially a national danger” to South Africa.[300] According to Kotzé communism could effectively be combated by means of a counter-campaign involving a national security strategy. Knowledge of the aims, strategies and characteristics of communism was the key to combat this ideology. The forces of all South African population groups “fundamentally opposed to communism” should be mustered and the non-communist world should be approached to prevent the total international isolation of South Africa.

Kotzé was also of the opinion that the state had to take a firm stand against communist activities, for instance, by disrupting communist organisations and front organisations by prohibiting the dissemination of communist propaganda and by taking action “against those who incite others to revolt against the laws of the country”. There should be more sincere and responsible contact with, interest in, education for, and assistance to “those who usually take their refuge in communism”. At that time it was Kotzé’s sincere conviction that the world could not be understood without understanding what were to him the two dominating ideologies, namely communism and nationalism.

 Kotzé, who belonged to a newer generation of so-called verligte (enlightened) Nationalists, suggested that the white government should acknowledge and readily accede to the just demands of (black) nationalistic groups. This would do much to “vitiate the communist onslaught”. Black leaders should be well informed on the facts of communism. They should be made aware of the fact that “communist theory cannot stand up to the test of scientific examination and that history has proved it false”. Lastly, blacks should be encouraged to value principles that communists regarded as “major obstacles to their cause”: individuality and personal freedom, religion and the Church, nationalism and a strong country with loyal citizens. Thus he came to the conclusion that communism could only be combated by nationalism.[301]

The Faculty of Education’s representative on ISMUS’s Board of Control, Dr A.J. Basson, published a Christian-nationalist perspective on the “degenerate” influence of communism on learners and school education.[302] During the 1980s this publication was a compulsory textbook for education students at the University of Stellenbosch. According to Basson, there were “theoretical similarities” between liberalism and communism. Liberalism and communism were “allies” in the sense that both ideologies contained anti-religious and egalitarian tendencies and were “subversive” with respect to discipline. Therefore educators should be wary of the “pernicious” influence on children of communism via liberalism as they would become “victims” in the hands of a communist. Knowledge, religion, nationalism and democracy were the educator’s “weapons” to combat the influence of communism on education.[303]

In pursuance of its stated objections ISMUS also launched a few major research projects. The first project, sponsored by the Human Science Research Council (HSRC), entailed a survey of sources on communism in South Africa by Elizabeth Böhmer. The aim of the project was to compile a research aid on communist sources for academic scholars.[304] In 1984 Böhmer, a temporary researcher at ISMUS, submitted her thesis. This voluminous 1250-page thesis included approximately 8000 references to books, pamphlets, articles, court records, and local and foreign dissertations on communism.[305]

After its inception ISMUS’s library vigorously began to collect and purchase literature and source material on communism and Soviet Russia; in addition to its acquisitions from various organisations and individuals, this meant it housed a unique collection compared to any other library in South Africa. By 1988 the library had 3062 reference works, monographs and pamphlets, 193 current journals and 188 microfilms.[306] Among these was the remaining portion of the SACP’s former library in Cape Town, which was donated to ISMUS by the South African Public Library.[307]

Another major ISMUS research project was the history of the communist movement in South Africa. Launched in 1982, this project initially received a substantial grant from the HSRC.[308] Apart from dealing with the first phase until 1921, it was also envisaged that the project would eventually produce a comprehensive history of the communist movement in South Africa, including the period from 1921 until the Second World War and the post-war period.[309] However, the scale of the project proved to be too ambitious and ran into all kinds of difficulties. In 1985 Professor Kotzé resigned from the University of Stellenbosch and as Director of ISMUS to become a member of the President’s Council. A perusal of ISMUS’s minutes suggests that Kotzé, probably as a result of an immense workload at the President’s Council, was under pressure to complete the research project.[310] Eventually, in 1987, Kotzé produced a two-volume report on the history of the communist movement in South Africa to 1921.[311] However, as an academic research publication it had serious shortcomings.[312] By this time Kotzé had become the victim of Alzheimer’s disease of which he died in 1992.[313]

Given the particular and emotional interest in the phenomenon of communism, the Afrikaner churches became intimately involved with the activities of ISMUS right from the beginning. Apart from a few individuals and other organisations, these churches and ecclesiastical institutions such as Antikom became ISMUS’s major and most consistent financial donors. In particular, various DRC structures such as congregations, the Theological Seminary at Stellenbosch, the Sinodale Kommissie vir Sending onder die Kommuniste and the Sinodale Kommissie vir Leer en Aktuele Sake sponsored ISMUS with substantial amounts on an annual basis.[314]

The church’s involvement and ISMUS’s constant need for donations to fund its research activities, however, put the latter in a predicament. Professor W. Esterhuyse, chairperson of the Board of Control, raised his concern that the majority of ISMUS donors were institutions of the DRC, which, according to him, could create the impression that the Institute was an appendage of the church.[315] Indeed, the Sinodale Kommissie vir Sending onder die Kommuniste specifically donated money for the appointment of a part-time librarian at the ISMUS library.[316] The DRC’s intimate involvement with ISMUS was also reflected in the request by one of its synods that the church’s representation on the Board of Control be increased from one (the Theological Seminary) to two persons. Kotzé, when he was still Director, diplomatically turned down the request by stating that “almost all” members of the Board were also members of the DRC or would be ”religiously acceptable” to the DRC.[317]

In another instance members of the Board of Control raised their concerns over the relationship between ISMUS and Antikom, whose outspoken and conservative anti-communist rhetoric could become an embarrassment to the former. It was therefore decided that the Director of ISMUS would clearly communicate to Antikom that acceptance of its annual donations should under no circumstances be interpreted as an ISMUS association with the objectives of Antikom. The Board also resolved that in future ISMUS would become more cautious about accepting donations that might tarnish its public image.[318] Similarly, Philip Nel, the Institute’s senior researcher, refused to associate ISMUS’s name with the contentious Biblecor publication Die Christen en Kommunisme because of its factual errors, misinterpretation and misrepresentation of communist ideology.[319]

Until 1984 a historical focus predominated in ISMUS’s research priorities.[320] At that stage, however, Nel was already convinced that the real motives behind Soviet involvement in Southern Africa were completely obscured by prominent South African political and cultural leaders as well as the media’s “simplistic” utterances on the so-called “Soviet onslaught” against South Africa. The increased Soviet involvement in Southern Africa since 1975 became a “handy tool” to explain South Africa’s internal problems and conflict potential as the result of a carefully planned Soviet blueprint for domination. This premise led to a total overestimation of Soviet intentions and capabilities and to the birth of the concept of a “total onslaught” against South Africa. Such overestimation of the “Soviet threat”, together with the “total onslaught” rhetoric, created a “dangerous illusion” that South Africa’s socio-political problems were directly caused by the Soviet Union. Nel argued that certain diplomatic initiatives clearly suggested that the Soviet Union was not surging with unstoppable momentum towards total domination of the African sub-continent, but was rather subjected to various important restrictions. The South African “obsession” with the “Soviet threat” was not backed up with any real knowledge of Soviet history, policy-making procedures or global priorities.

In a scathing accusation Nel also criticised the Afrikaans-speaking academic community for having “disgracefully failed” to generate a corpus of expertise on the Soviet Union that could evaluate Soviet capabilities, restrictions and aims in a more balanced way. The name, “Institute for the Study of Marxism”, generated misconceptions among the general public. On the one hand, there were those who thought that ISMUS promoted Marxism and communism. On the other hand, others were under the impression that it served as an “institution to combat communism”. According to Nel, the latter misconceptions were backed by “utterances and conduct of former personnel” who prior to his appointment “tried to steer the Institute in that direction”. Therefore, as a result of the de facto global political situation, a name change to the “Institute for Soviet Studies” was essential. The primary focus, based on contemporary, problem-solving research, would be the Soviet Union. Nel’s only concern was that the DRC donors to ISMUS might raise objections to the proposed changes.[321]

In 1986 ISMUS’s name change to the Institute for Soviet Studies at the University of Stellenbosch (ISSUS) was ratified by the university authorities.[322] In the same year Nel was promoted to Director of the Institute.[323] In 1985 ISSUS launched the Soviet Revue, a bi-monthly current report on Soviet trends in policy towards Africa and elsewhere.[324] The old ISMUS publication, Studies in Marxisme, was terminated at the end of 1986.[325]

However, severe cuts in government subsidies to tertiary institutions towards the end of the 1980s prompted a reconsideration of the continuance of all institutes at the University of Stellenbosch and the university authorities contemplated the closure of ISSUS.[326] In 1989 Nel resigned as Director of ISSUS to become Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science.[327] Finally it was decided to scale ISSUS down to the Unit for Soviet Studies within the Centre for International and Comparative Politics at the Department of Political Science from the beginning of 1990. Eventually the ISSUS library collection was also transferred to the main university library.[328]

 

Conclusion

 

A perusal of the history of twentieth-century anti-communist literature reveals a predominant Afrikaner fascination with communism that stimulated the production of a distinct “Red Peril” and “Total Onslaught” historiography. Apart from cultural leaders and academics, the Afrikaner churches also vigorously contributed to this history production. Even more striking is the fact that many Afrikaner authors, whose forefathers had received active and moral support from the Russian people only a few decades earlier during the Anglo-Boer War, wrote with so much passion and conviction about the “evils” of the Russian communists and the “Red Menace” of a supposed Soviet onslaught towards South Africa. Ironically, most of these so-called “experts” had never set foot in a communist country, but gained their “authoritative expertise” from American and European anti-communist publications. Afrikaner political leaders’ firm belief in their own rhetoric became epitomised in PW Botha’s “total onslaught” paradigm of Soviet intentions towards South Africa.[329] Thus a distinct historical construction, nurtured by fears of a prevalent “menace” to Christian Afrikanerdom, was built upon preconceived anti-communist beliefs.

Philip Nel offers a possible rationale for what he calls the “excessive pre-occupation with a presumed Soviet onslaught”. Due to a prolonged period of international isolation during the twentieth century, white South Africans became used to worn-out stereotypes and propaganda about the Soviet Union. The apartheid regime’s lack of legitimacy and its growing feeling of insecurity gave rise to the perception that South Africa’s beleaguered position in the international community and the spreading of internal resistance to the apartheid system could be ascribed to a co-ordinated international communist onslaught. The result was that the average white South African, especially during the period 1974-84, was imbued with the psychosis of a fear of a world-wide communist threat.[330]

The perceived communist danger had also been kept alive in an earlier period. The CPSA became the first “white” party that took an interest in the welfare of blacks. Therefore many whites who were afraid of the so-called “Black Peril” dragged in the “Red Peril” as an intellectual and moral justification for support of the policy of apartheid.[331]

It is clear, however, as was illustrated in the introduction to this article, that South Africans in the twentieth century were no exception in their vigorous reaction to communism. On the contrary, it could be argued that in the early 1950s, the era of McCarthyism in the United States, the response to communism was much more extreme. White South Africans’ notion of communism was influenced by the strong anti-communist tradition that emerged in the West in reaction to the Stalinist era in the USSR and they perceived their country to be a very important bulwark of the free world’s defence against communism. Dirk Kotzé and ISMUS’s endeavours to study communism and Marxism scientifically had their counterparts in Western countries suc