Govan Mbeki Was a Brilliant Pioneer of African Marxism
Govan Mbeki spent more than two decades in prison for his role in the struggle against apartheid. As a leader of South Africa’s Communist movement, he was also an important theorist who creatively applied Marxist ideas to South African society.
Govan Mbeki insisted that both African nationalism and the Communist movement in South Africa should take the country’s peasants and migrant workers seriously. (Walter Dhladhla / AFP via Getty Images)
There were many facets to the life of Govan Mbeki. He was an intellectual who wrote about South African economics and politics for sixty years; a dedicated teacher, who cheerfully acknowledged his school-masterly ways; and a journalist, researcher, and analyst.
Most prominently, he was a political activist, a member of the African National Congress (ANC) from the 1930s and subsequently of the South African Communist Party (SACP), and he emerged as a leader in both organizations by the late 1950s. When the ANC decided to take up arms against the apartheid regime, he became part of its armed wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), overseeing a program of underground mobilization in Port Elizabeth before heading a sabotage unit in the same city.
In July 1963, Mbeki was captured along with fellow activists such as Walter Sisulu and Ahmed Kathrada at a farm in Rivonia. He was one of those prosecuted at the famous Rivonia trial the following year and served twenty-four years as a political prisoner before his release in 1987.
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