International Socialist League (South Africa)

The International Socialist League of South Africa was a syndicalist group, influenced by the Industrial Workers of the World and Daniel De Leon.

Formed in September 1915, it would establish branches across much of South Africa (excluding the western Cape), and form the first black African trade union in the country, the Industrial Workers of Africa, in September 1917. It also formed a number of other unions amongst people of color. While its founders were mainly drawn from the radical wing of the white working class, the movement would develop a substantial black African, Coloured and Indian membership.

A notable feature of the International Socialist League was that it insisted on the need for a specific political organisation with clear and unified policies, in addition to the syndicalist unions.

The International Socialist League merged into the Communist Party of South Africa at the latter's founding in June/July 1921, providing many notable early figures. The Industrial Workers of Africa, meanwhile, merged into the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union or ICU, in 1920, one reason that union was influenced by syndicalism. The ICU would play a major role in rural South Africa, as well as spread into several neighbouring countries.

See also

• Anarchism in South Africa

Further reading

Articles

• van der Walt, Lucien, Bakunin's Heirs in South Africa: race, class and revolutionary Syndicalism from the IWW to the International Socialist League, Politikon journal, 2004, Vol 30, number 1, pp. 67–89.
• van der Walt, Lucien, The First Globalisation and Transnational Labour Activism in Southern Africa : white labourism, the IWW and the ICU, 1904-1934, African Studies journal, 2007, Vol 66, Issues 2/3, pp. 223–251.

Books

• Bradford, Helen, A Taste of Freedom: the ICU in rural South Africa, 1924-1930. Raven Press, Johannesburg, 1987.
• Drew, Allison, Discordant Comrades: Identities and Loyalties on the South African Left. University of South Africa Press, Pretoria, 2002.
• Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt, Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism (Counter-Power vol. 1), AK Press, 2009.