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Red Road to Freedom: A History of the South African Communist Party 1921 – 2021
Longlisted for South Africa's 2022 Sunday Times Non-fiction Award
Definitive and gripping narrative history of the Communist Party of South Africa.
Renowned historian Tom Lodge has written an immensely readable and compelling sweep of history, spanning continents and the last hundred years, producing the first comprehensive account of the South African Communist Party in all its intricacies. Taking the story back to the party's pre-history in the early 20th century reveals that it was shaped by a range of socialist traditions and that their influence persisted and were decisive. The party's engagement in popular front politics after 1935 has been largely this book supplies fresh detail. In the 1940s the author shows how the party became a key actor in the formation of black working-class politics, and hitherto unused archival materials as well as the insights from an increasingly candid genre of autobiographies make possible a much fuller picture of the secret party of 1952 to 1965. Despite its concealment and tiny numbers, its intellectual impact on black South African mainstream politics was considerable. On the exile period, the author examines the activities of the party's recruits and more informal following inside South Africa, as well as the scope and nature of its broader influence. In 1990, a year in which global politics would change fundamentally, South African communists would return to South Africa to begin the work of reconstructing their party as a legal organisation. Throughout its history, the party had been inspired and supported by the reality of existing socialism, state systems embracing half of Europe and Asia, in which the ruling group was at least notionally committed to the building of communist societies. With the fall of Eastern European regimes and the fragmentation of the Soviet Union, one key set of material foundations for the party's programmatic beliefs crumbled and its most important international alliances in the global socialist community in Eastern Europe and Russia would end. Finally, Lodge brings the story up to date, assessing the degree to which communists both inside and outside government have shaped and influenced policy in successive ANC-led administrations, particularly during the popular resistance to apartheid during the 1950s, which was underpinned by the party's systematic organisation in the localities that supplied the ANC with its strongest bases.
Africa, India
Definitive and gripping narrative history of the Communist Party of South Africa.
Renowned historian Tom Lodge has written an immensely readable and compelling sweep of history, spanning continents and the last hundred years, producing the first comprehensive account of the South African Communist Party in all its intricacies. Taking the story back to the party's pre-history in the early 20th century reveals that it was shaped by a range of socialist traditions and that their influence persisted and were decisive. The party's engagement in popular front politics after 1935 has been largely this book supplies fresh detail. In the 1940s the author shows how the party became a key actor in the formation of black working-class politics, and hitherto unused archival materials as well as the insights from an increasingly candid genre of autobiographies make possible a much fuller picture of the secret party of 1952 to 1965. Despite its concealment and tiny numbers, its intellectual impact on black South African mainstream politics was considerable. On the exile period, the author examines the activities of the party's recruits and more informal following inside South Africa, as well as the scope and nature of its broader influence. In 1990, a year in which global politics would change fundamentally, South African communists would return to South Africa to begin the work of reconstructing their party as a legal organisation. Throughout its history, the party had been inspired and supported by the reality of existing socialism, state systems embracing half of Europe and Asia, in which the ruling group was at least notionally committed to the building of communist societies. With the fall of Eastern European regimes and the fragmentation of the Soviet Union, one key set of material foundations for the party's programmatic beliefs crumbled and its most important international alliances in the global socialist community in Eastern Europe and Russia would end. Finally, Lodge brings the story up to date, assessing the degree to which communists both inside and outside government have shaped and influenced policy in successive ANC-led administrations, particularly during the popular resistance to apartheid during the 1950s, which was underpinned by the party's systematic organisation in the localities that supplied the ANC with its strongest bases.
Africa, India
636 pages, Hardcover
Published March 18, 2022
6 people are currently reading
86 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 12, 2025
Reading Red Road to Freedom: A History of the South African Communist Party 1921-2021 is especially useful right now, as the country debates whether the SACP should finally contest elections on its own. The book gives you the full story—from its founding, through the struggle against apartheid alongside the ANC, to its role in government over the last 30 years. It doesn’t give you a simple answer, but it provides all the history and context you need to understand the party’s long journey and to think more clearly about this big political question. If you want to move past the shouting and understand the roots of the debate, this history is a great place to start.
June 6, 2022
A masterful history of the emergence and history of South Africa's Communist Party.
Unlike a great deal of the published texts on this subject, Tom Lodge has no political axe to grind. He is not fighting either the Cold War nor some internal South African struggle of one or other type. Instead, basing himself on meticulous research he presents a highly detailed, nuanced, and very well argued argued account of the SACP's 100-year history. The Party's successes and failures, its internal contradictions and limitations are evaluated with scrupulous honesty. Most illuminating is Lodge's deeply nuanced account of the evolving relationship between the SACP and the ANC. He lays to rest both the Party's own hagiographic history and the array of conspiracy theories about how it "controlled" and "manipulated" the ANC, to show that the truth is infinitely more complex and contradictory.
A must read for anyone interested in history of the anti-apartheid struggle and the parlous state of current South African politics
Unlike a great deal of the published texts on this subject, Tom Lodge has no political axe to grind. He is not fighting either the Cold War nor some internal South African struggle of one or other type. Instead, basing himself on meticulous research he presents a highly detailed, nuanced, and very well argued argued account of the SACP's 100-year history. The Party's successes and failures, its internal contradictions and limitations are evaluated with scrupulous honesty. Most illuminating is Lodge's deeply nuanced account of the evolving relationship between the SACP and the ANC. He lays to rest both the Party's own hagiographic history and the array of conspiracy theories about how it "controlled" and "manipulated" the ANC, to show that the truth is infinitely more complex and contradictory.
A must read for anyone interested in history of the anti-apartheid struggle and the parlous state of current South African politics
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews