Secret Party: South African Communists between 1950 and 1960

Since 1990 a rich body of autobiographical writing and interview testimony together with freshly available archival materials can support an assessment of the role played by South African communists in anti-apartheid opposition during the 1950s. Numbering only a few hundred, communists were very influential in leadership positions in the Congress Alliance and shaped programmes and actions in accordance with their own strategy of a united front. This article explores the ways on which the party established its own organisational structures as well as considering the extent and impact of its wider concerns.