South African Communist Party: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

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The South African Communist Party (SACP) was founded in 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa. The SACP is a partner of the Tripartite Alliance which consists of the African National Congress and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).

The Communist Party of South Africa first came to prominence during the armed Rand Rebellion by white mineworkers in 1922. Despite having opposed racialism from its inception, It supported the miners in their call to preserve wages and the colour bar with the slogan "Workers of the world, unite and fight for a white South Africa!", given the Comintern policy of supporting working-class revolutionary movements. With the failure of the rising, in part due to black workers failing to strike, the Communist Party reoriented itself at its 1924 Party Congress towards organising black workers and "Africanising" the party. By 1928, 1600 of the party's 1750 members were Black. In 1929, the party adopted a "strategic line" which held that "The most direct line of advance to socialism runs through the mass struggle for majority rule".

The CPSA was declared illegal in 1950. The party went underground and, in 1953 relaunched itself as the South African Communist Party. The party was not "unbanned" until 1990.

Prominent leaders of the SACP have included Joe Slovo and Chris Hani.

See also: List of Communist parties