The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

formation of APDUSA in January 1961 after a secret Head Unity Committee meeting
on the Chapman’s Peak mountains followed on the identification by the NEUM
leadership that “a qualitative change” had occurred in the mood of urban and rural
people, one aspect of which was that NEUM ideas, it seemed, “had taken root amongst
a significant section of the population”, resulting in “a new level of political
consciousness”. Deemed to be necessary in order to “[harness] revolutionary
potential” ‐ which the NEUM itself could not accomplish, as a federal body with no
direct membership ‐ APDUSA’s task as a non‐racial, unitary organisation, was to serve
as a “conduit for channelling together the struggles of both the rural oppressed and
the urban working class within its organisational structures”. Through APDUSA, the
NEUM would “win mass support amongst rural dwellers”, and as a “broad‐based
mass movement”, APDUSA would be able “to direct their struggle towards the
achievement of national liberation”. Once the masses had been mobilised for the
attainment of national liberation, the radical demands of the proletariat “would
provide the impetus for a socialist revolution” that would extend beyond the borders
of South Africa. 59
Kayser (with Adhikari) also examined the minutiae of rural organising by APDUSA in
the 1960s. In spite of the state of emergency, APDUSA “gained footholds” in Lady
Frere and Centani, and drew support from Makhuluspan, the rural movement which
protected rural dwellers of Tsolo, Qumbu and Matatiele from stock theft. With its
influence spreading, APDUSA developed a “significant following” in
Sekhukhuneland, Lehurutse and eastern Pondoland, where its growth was strongest.
With “concerted efforts”, APDUSA activists won the “trust” of the peasants of
Pondoland and “at the very least several hundred” joined APDUSA in the early 1960s.
Moreover, in the 1960s, APDUSA was “the only liberation movement to operate in
Pondoland”. From this base, members were recruited in other districts of Transkei and
on the Natal south coast. In 1964, APDUSA also extended its influence into rural
book on resistance in the 1960s, Kayser has perhaps enabled the major purpose of the Collection’s
deposit in an academic archive to be realised as an archival legacy to the youth.
59 Robin Kayser and Mohamed Adhikari, ‘“Land and Liberty!”’, pp 2‐6.
315