Having completed their training in Military Combat Work (MCW) in the Eastern Bloc by the early months of 1976, the first of the new generation of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) recruits were prepared for infiltration into South Africa by the mid-year. This article tells the story of the first unit to be deployed into South Africa in the new phase of the African National Co...
This article focuses on Nelson Mandela's tenure as the first commander-in-chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). It emphasises his objectives for MK as reflected in the archive of diaries, notebooks and reports that he produced at the time. It also looks at the effectiveness of his work as Commander by exploring how the army he built fared in its insurgency against the s...
This article focuses on Nelson Mandela's tenure as the first commander-in-chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). It emphasises his objectives for MK as reflected in the archive of diaries, notebooks and reports that he produced at the time. It also looks at the effectiveness of his work as Commander by exploring how the army he built fared in its insurgency against the s...
This article focuses on Nelson Mandela's tenure as the first commander-in-chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). It emphasises his objectives for MK as reflected in the archive of diaries, notebooks and reports that he produced at the time. It also looks at the effectiveness of his work as Commander by exploring how the army he built fared in its insurgency against the s...
This article focuses on Nelson Mandela's tenure as the first commander-in-chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). It emphasises his objectives for MK as reflected in the archive of diaries, notebooks and reports that he produced at the time. It also looks at the effectiveness of his work as Commander by exploring how the army he built fared in its insurgency against the s...
This article describes the African National Congress (ANC) underground in South Africa in the years immediately preceding the 1976 Soweto uprising, and it makes three main contributions to the existing literature on the topic. The first is primarily descriptive, and involves providing greater detail than has hitherto been offered on the ANC's clandestine organisati...
Was Nelson Mandela a member of the South African Communist Party (SACP) at the time that he formed Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK)? Was he dishonest in not revealing that he established MK at the SACP's behest? Did the African National Congress (ANC) ever grant Mandela the authority to launch an armed struggle? And, in leading the turn to violence, did Mandela strive to mar...
This special issue features the peer reviewed proceeds of a colloquium held at the University of Pretoria on 20 June 2016. The colloquium was an initiative of the 'Rethinking Twentieth-Century Southern Africa' research team based in the Department of Historical and Heritage Studies at the university. The team has its origins in the convergence of research interests...
South African political refugees first began arriving in Swaziland in significant numbers in the late 1950s. In the mid-1960s the ANC tried to recruit these refugees to engage in operational activities but with little success. After Swazi independence in 1968 the kingdom's rulers were too scared of South African retaliation to provide active support for the ANC's a...