Andrew Mlangeni's military training in China and the eventual contact with Mao was the culmination of a political journey that had started about two decades earlier. The genesis of his political career was his graduation from Standard 6 at Pimville government school at the end of 1943, marking the beginning of his political activism and subsequent ascendency into higher ranks and eventual militarisation.

Like most primary schools at the time, the Pimville government school ended at Standard 6. This is where Sekila, his other older brother, with whom he had been staying, had enrolled him on his arrival to join him and his mother in the City of Gold – Johannesburg – and who at the beginning of 1944 enrolled him at St Peter's Secondary School at Rosettenville where he began his secondary education. The school was said to be one of the best in the Johannesburg region. Its principal was Mr DH Darling, a very tall and imposing man. Students and African teachers called him ‘Sdakwa’ (drunkard – a nickname based on his character, in a figurative way rather than literally) and ‘Mabhekaphezulu’ (one who walks looking upwards). The former referred to his temperamental nature (rigid application of school rules but frequent arbitrary decisions); the latter had to do with his physical appearance – to be exact, the way he walked, looking up and posing a gigantic presence. A strict disciplinarian and a very professional leader, Darling was jealously protective of his school, insisting that everyone else should be the same. He was selective of the institutions his school should exchange cultural and sporting activities with, to guard against its being associated with what he believed were ‘mediocre institutions’ offering inferior education and allowing ‘relaxed’ levels of discipline. He would constantly remind his staff and students that his school aimed to produce future leaders and not cheap passes to low-level professionalism. He favoured Kilnerton in Pretoria and Wilberforce in Evaton, which he respected more than any other school in the broader region of Pretoria-Witwatersrand- Vereeniging and he would threaten ill-disciplined students with dismissal and deportation to the infamous Fort Cox Agricultural School in the Eastern Cape, which he regarded as of a lower standard – this threat would send shivers up the students’ spines.