Moses Kotane
In South Africa, Freedom Day is celebrated on the
27th of April of each year. In honour of the many heroes and
heroines that contributed to our freedom and political dispensation, the theme
for this month’s Friday Feature covers four anti-apartheid activists who, in
some way or another, contributed to South Africa’s freedom. This week, we cover
Moses Mauane Kotane.
Moses
Mauane Kotane was born in Tamposstad, Maphusumaneng
Section, in Rustenburg in Transvaal (now North West) in 1905 on
the 9th of August. He was raised in a Christian household of Tswana
origins.
Growing up, Kotane received little formal schooling
before entering the workforce; however he was an avid reader and taught himself
in various subjects. At the age of 17, Kotane began working in Krugersdorp,
there he worked as a photographer's assistant, domestic servant, miner, and
bakery worker. Around the same time, he also enrolled in the Communist-run
night school in Ferreirastown, Johannesburg, where he became known for his
ability to master the most complex writings.
Six years later, in 1928, Kotane joined the African
National Congress (ANC) but left the party, considering it weak and
ineffective. Later that year, Kotane joined the African Bakers Union, an
affiliate of the Federation of Non-European Trade Unions then being formed by
the South African Communist Party (SACP). A year later, in 1929, Kotane joined
the SACP, soon becoming a member of the party’s politburo and vice-chairman.
Three years later, in 1931, Koatne became a full time functionary of SACP.
Within the Communist Party, Kotane worked on Umsebenzi, the
party's newspaper. As a promising young party member, Kotane was sent to Moscow to study Marxism-Leninism at the International Lenin School for a year. In Moscow, Kotane studied under Endre SÃk, a Marxist theorists and 1967 recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize,
Kotane returned to South Africa in 1933, and over
the coming years he advanced through the SACP ranks to the point where he
became the Party's General Secretary in 1939. Kotane held his post as general
secretary until the Party was banned.
In 1943 he was invited by A.B. Xuma, then president-general of the ANC, to serve on the Atlantic Charter committee
that drew up African Claims, and in 1946 he was elected to the ANC National
Executive Committee, a position he held until bans forced his resignation in
1952. Following the 1946 mine strike, Kotane was subjected with other leaders
of the Communist Party to two years of futile legal proceedings, while the apartheid government tried to demonstrate its determination to deal with the
"Red Menace," as the Party was referred to. As in the late Treason
Trial, when Kotane was also a defendant, the government eventually failed to
make its case, although in the meantime the burdens on the accused were heavy.
When the Party was banned in 1950, Kotane moved
from Cape Town, which had been the Party's headquarters, to Johannesburg, where
he opened a furniture business in Alexandra Township. He was one of the first
to be banned under the Suppression of Communism Act, but he ignored his bans to
speak in support of the Defiance Campaign. In June 1952, Kotane was
arrested with one of the first batches of defiers. Occasionally critical of
cautious leadership in the ANC, he did not hesitate to thrust himself forward
as an example of militancy. In December 1952 he was tried with other leaders of
the Defiance Campaign and given a nine-month suspended sentence.
In 1955, he attended the Bandung conference of Third
World leaders as an observer and remained abroad for the better part of the
year, travelling widely in Asia and Eastern Europe. It was in 1956, that Kotane was charged with treason alongside fellow South African leaders Nelson Mandela, Joe
Modise, Albert Luthuli, Joe Slovo, Walter Sisulu and 151 other anti-apartheid activists. Kotane remained a defendant in the Treason Trial until the charges against him were dropped in November 1958. During the 1960 state of
emergency he was detained for four months; and in late 1962, he was placed under
24-hour house arrest.
In early 1963, Kotane left South Africa for
Tanzania, where he became the Treasurer-General of the ANC in exile; he held
this position until 1973. In the elections held in Tanzania in April 1969, he
was returned to the National Executive Committee; however, Kotane later
suffered a stroke and went for treatment to Moscow, where he remained until his
death in 1978 on the 19th of May.
On the 1 March 2015, Moses Kotane's remains were
returned to South Africa and he will be reburied on 14 March at Pella, North
West.
Kotane was a well-respected member of the struggle
for majority rule in South Africa by even non-communist leaders Walter Sisulu credited
him as a "giant of the struggle" because of his logical and
non-dogmatic approach. Kotane combined his strong convictions as a Marxist with
a commitment to the goals of nationalism and a firm belief in the importance of
an African leadership and initiative in the struggle for equal rights. As he
rose to leading positions in both the Communist Party and the ANC, his loyalty
to one organisation did not appear to be subordinate to his loyalty to the
other. Even staunch anti-communists in the ANC held him in high regard for his
clear-headedness as a thinker and his courage and pragmatism as a leader.
He was honoured with the Isitwalandwe Medal by
the ANC in 1975. A local municipality is named after him in North
West Province, South Africa, and has a memorial lecture in his name.
Sources:
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