History Making and Present Day Politics - Stolten's African Studies ...

h i s t o r y m a k i n g a n d p r e s e n t d a y p o l i t i c s
during the last 25 years of the anti-apartheid struggle. At the University of
the Witwatersrand, academic engagement with popular history developed
within the History Workshop, which explored and published “counter-histories”.
Committed “people’s history” and “history from below” distinguish
these works, which moved the boundaries of historical materialism. 51 Luli
Callinicos’ books, for example, can be seen as expressions of a development
that many radical historians underwent during the 1980s. The first volume,
Gold and Workers, is an undisguised, class-based counter-history. The second,
Working Life, analyses social structures by means of an in-depth, experiencebased
methodology without forgetting the class point of view. These and later
volumes were used as alternative teaching material by local union education
committees, amateur history writers, and teachers in need of meaningful and
relevant learning material in the classroom. 52
Radical history changed considerably during late apartheid, partly because
of the influence from modern social history. Social history, on the other
hand, was transformed through the increased interest in the history of working
class organisations, as Murray has established. 53 The fact, that South African
labour history soon developed a broader understanding, can be seen as
a realisation of the close relationship between economy and politics: the black
trade unions were forced to operate within a broader social framework and
were frequently organised outside the workplaces in order to survive. Social
history, with its emphasis on popular culture and group solidarity across class
and race barriers, was, in some ways, more in harmony with the growing
political mobilisation.
It is still debatable to what extent the historians of the radical-revisionist
school have managed to put over their original ideas successfully. It was Bozzoli’s
opinion that large scale syntheses, which, taken together, could constitute
a new South African historiography, would require many in-depth,
51. Saunders, Christopher, “Radical History – the Wits Workshop Version – Reviewed”,
South African Historical Journal, Vol. 24, 1991, pp. 160–166.
52. Callinicos, Luli, Gold and Workers, 1886–1924. A People’s History of South Africa,
Vol. 1, Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1981; Callinicos, Luli, A People’s History of South
Africa, Vol. 2. Working Life 1886–1940. Factories, Townships and Popular Culture,
Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1987; Callinicos, Luli, A Place in the City. Rand on the
eve of apartheid. A People’s History of South Africa, Vol. 3, Johannesburg, Ravan Press,
1993.
53. Murray, Martin, “The Triumph of Marxist Approaches in South African Social and
Labor History”, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. 23, 1988.
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