Main Machinery: The ANC's Armed Underground in Johannesburg During the 1976 Soweto Uprising

Abstract

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 Congress's (ANC) armed struggle. It details some of the challenges they faced implementing the lessons of MCW in the practical circumstances faced in South Africa. The years preceding 1976 had seen the ANC unable to prosecute military operations within South Africa owing to the logistical challenges of launching incursions to South Africa from their bases in Zambia and Tanzania. Independence for Angola and Mozambique had made such incursions possible, but only just, as this article shows. It explains how issues of command and control in a theatre of war spread over the whole southern African region remained formidable...