The 1920s were a tempestuous decade that saw the largest pre-war black labour strike, formation of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) and branches of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), as well as the mercurial rise and fall of the ICU. In addition, it saw an armed revolt by white employees literally bombed into submission and the subsequent Pact government between white labour and Afrikaner Nationalists. The decade closed with the rise of a pro-communist president of a moderate ANC. Historians have neglected 1920s ANC history, although important and enduring contacts involving Congress began to form in this decade.

During the 1920s, in the eyes of some workers, other groups overshadowed the ANC. Nevertheless, labour continued, if spasmodically, to influence a Congress that would become receptive to working-class ideas. It remained a relevant organisation for some politicised workers. In different ways, Congress presented itself to all Africans, including workers, as their organisation. Membership was compatible with their status as workers. Most ANC leaders continued to express sympathetic, if ambiguous, attitudes to workers. Their predicament was rooted in their conflicting social roles where they regarded themselves as leaders of a vast mass of oppressed people and simultaneously as leaders of a tiny “elite”. However as discrimination intensified, they sought allies amongst the workers.

Behind these developments in African politics lay substantial socio-economic and wider political developments at national and provincial levels. The 1920s, as explained in Chapter 2, saw partial industrial take-off. Based largely on the Rand, there was solid if much slower economic growth in provincial capitals. The resultant steady, if still limited and uneven, growth of the black industrial workforce offered the ANC opportunities for building support. If the general impression is that it failed to secure this support then that does not mean there was no activity within the ANC to this end, particularly at provincial level. I discuss regional events in the following pair of chapters.

Important changes were occurring in the cultural sphere: for instance, newspapers began to mushroom, and sports such as soccer grew in popularity. Urbanites formed social clubs. Expansion of newspapers, experimentation with public meetings, and a more closely-knit social life offered opportunities to political groups to network.