Jews And Communism In South Africa – Part 4

For the most part, the Jews had come to South Africa from Lithuania at the turn of the century. They had been popular at first, but by the mid-1930`s this was no longer the case. The Jews had become heavily urbanized. In Johannesburg, they constituted 17 per cent of the population and were sufficiently conspicuous so that the metropolis was sometimes referred to, not as Jo burg, but as Jewburg. They aroused envy and some rancor during the years of depression because they controlled a large part of the business of Johannesburg and other cities. Anti-Semitism was fed by the economic discontent. A perhaps more important ingredient was the prominence of South African Jews in finance, mining and the other economic command posts of the nation, on the one hand, and in revolutionary and racial reform movements on the other. From the outset, the Jews had been prominent in the Communist Party and its various fronts. They were equally conspicuous in the various movements that sought to break down the barriers separating the White from the non-White population. South African anti-Semitic propaganda depicted the Jew as a deracinated element who sought to destroy White civilization and nationalism with the twin weapons of Communism and international finance. Given the visible prominence of Jews in both areas, this doctrine fell on receptive ears.

The famous Rivonia Trial of the 1960`s resulted from a raid on a farm near Johannesburg in which many of the top leadership of the Communist party were detained. The defendants were virtually all Jews, including Dennis Goldberg, a civil engineer who served as commander in a Communist camp that trained young guerrillas, and Lionel Rusty Bernstein, the only prisoner to be acquitted. A Johannesburg architect, Bernstein  admitted to having been a Communist for 25 years, but successfully alleged that he had left the party, without, however, changing his revolutionary convictions (Weyl pp 122-3). Amongst those implicated during the trial were the Jews Joe Slovo and his wife Ruth First, Bob Hepple and Michael Harmel. Operation Mayibuye [a plan for guerrilla warfare, armed invasion of South Africa and Communist conquest of the country] was drafted by Arthur Goldreich, perhaps the most important of the men captured by the South African Police at Rivonia. Goldreich managed to bribe his way out of prison. During the trial, Goldreich was referred to by Nelson Mandela and other defendants as a military expert who served as an officer in the Israeli war for independence. Goldreich`s plan was modeled on the guerrilla strategy of the Chinese Communists. Goldreich`s notebook shows constant preoccupation with the practical details of revolutionary war. He goes into the types of explosives  ...

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