A hero of South Africa
Ronald Segal
SLOVO: THE UNFINISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY Hodder, f 18.99, pp. 253 In January last year, Joe Slovo, revolu- tionary, died and was given, in all but a few formalities, a state funeral in South Africa. He was white, but blacks in their tens of thousands lined in tribute the long route to the graveside. Many whites, who had' once regarded him as archdemon in a conspiracy to capture the country for communism, now mourned him. Former ministers in the government of apartheid, whose agents had accomplished the assassination of his wife, Ruth First, and had ceaselessly sought his own, heaped public praise on his memory.
None of this was unaccountable. As key figure in the African National Congress Communist Party alliance and as chief of its military operations, he had become a hero of black resistance politics. Yet it was Slovo who had persuaded the initially hos- tile governing body of the ANC to accept such principles of compromise as a term of power-sharing, and this had in turn made possible a relatively rapid transition to the country's first ever democratic elections. Then, as minister of Housing in the Gov- ernment of National Unity, he had devel- oped policies with a combination of purpose, urgency and pragmatism as had reassured black and white alike.
Through his performances at meetings and on television, he had communicated his optimism, ebullience, humour and charm. With the red socks that he wore as his substitute flag, he had made even his continuing commitment to communism, albeit revised in the light of events, a wide- ly acceptable quirk. Yet, from the middle of 1991, when doctors had diagnosed bone marrow cancer, he had known he was dying. As news of this had gradually spread, the respect he had earned was accompanied by gathering sympathy and affection.
Apart from the opening chapter, which deals with his visit in 1981 to the Lithuani- an village where he had spent his early childhood, and references, sometimes extensive, to events after he left South Africa for the movement in exile, his auto- biography ends in 1963. Regret that it goes no further is the greater for the richness of the material it already affords Slovo had a wry, essentially Jewish, sense of humour. The sketches of his fellow resi- dents at the boarding house where he stayed at the age of 14, and of some col- leagues in the Communist Party which he joined as a probationary member two years later, are often very funny and seldom beside the point.
Benny was a keen amateur actor who helped run a Party-inspired theatre group called the African National Theatre (ANT). They were always scratching around looking for stage props, and to the chagrin of his grandmother, Benny often disappeared with bits and pieces from his own home. On one memorable occasion the person who was to preside at the City Hall steps meetings was unable to come and a comrade was delegated to ask Benny to come as a replacement. His grand- mother answered the phone: `Is Benny there?'
`Is he ever here?'
`Please, Mrs. Sischy, if he comes soon tell him we want him' to take the chair at tonight's City Hall steps meeting.'
`Look, lady,' burst out his long-suffering grandmother, 'not anodder shtick forniture is going out this flat.'
Slovo had had only a few months of sec- ondary education when he left school to find a job because his father could no longer support him. He eventually got to the University of the Witwatersrand through army service in the second world war and a five-year scholarship to study law under a special scheme for demobilised soldiers. He proved to be a brilliant How many smiles has it done?' student, graduating with distinction, and then practised successfully as a barrister.
Predictably, he specialised in political cases, but ranged widely, as when he defended, in a blaze of publicity, the madam of a leading Johannesburg brothel against the prosecution instigated by her principal competitor. His account of this and other cases, with lively reminiscences of clients, colleagues, witnesses, cross- examinations, reveals the liking he had for the law, along with the loathing for that racism which it existed so largely to secure.
Law and politics increasingly overlapped, to the point where he became both one of the accused and a member of the defence team in the infamous Treason Trial that followed the arrests of December 1956. The autobiography provides a dramatic narrative of this, as of major stages in the development of the resistance movement: the Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign; the events leading up to the outlawing of the ANC; the shift to a strategy of armed struggle by revolutionaries who could not initially produce a single pistol in their col- lective possession.
Slovo did not evade the issue of his long unswerving support for the Soviet regime. He recorded that, in the light of the revela- tions at the 20th Congress, he and Ruth First had 'lost our innocence'. Yet he sub- sequently continued to deny or ignore, as Ruth did not, the intrinsic violence done to civil and human rights in the post Stalin Soviet Union and its satellite system. In one of the last interviews he gave to a jour- nalist, the report of which is republished in the book, he confessed that he had accept- ed official disclaimers; and, not altogether consistent with this, added that he had had doubts, from the mid-Sixties onwards, but had chosen to remain silent, after see- ing how Ruth had been 'sidelined by the movement' for her own outspoken criticism.
The autobiography is candid about the conflicts in the marriage and alludes to the relationships with others that each of them had from time to time. Yet it makes elo- quently evident how crucial to both their own basic relationship remained. Close friends know how overwhelming was the loss he felt at her murder, 12 days short of their 33rd wedding anniversary.
Helena Dolny, who gave him a second marriage of less turbulent happiness, was right to require the inclusion of tributes in the book, not as padding but as postscripts, which recall his achievement beyond the point at which the autobiography stops and evaluate his impact. Mandela's foreword is no mere pro forma testimonial but brims with affection. The memorial service speeches from Barney Simon and Harold Wolpe, both of whom had died since, are deservedly included. Above all, Helena's own epilogue, describing Joe's last two days, was originally written as a private let- ter to friends. It is as moving now as it was when first I read it.
Previous page
