The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

‘Headquarters’ of APDUSA and UMSA, and of his meeting with Tabata (“Comrade
Chair” in the text) and Jane Gool (the “grande dame”). Anthony’s book also examined
the subsequent disillusionment that had engulfed him after he had crossed the border
illegally to face not only a number of obstacles, but to find an ineffectual, severely
weakened, decaying organisation, which sustained itself through a corrupt leadership. 138
This novel was an account of Anthony’s (Comrade B’s) loyalty to his organisation, of
long held political relationships either sustained (such as with Bobby Wilcox, or
“Comrade R”) or soured (such as with Kader Hassim, or “Moonsami”). But mostly it
was a tale of his reverence for Tabata, and the fate of this reverence as he made his way
to encounter Tabata in the flesh. In joining the New Unity Movement, Moonsami had
chosen to break out of the orbit of his one‐time patron, Comrade Chair. Moonsami had
been widely considered at one stage to be “the heir‐apparent”, and had even modelled
“his bearing, his presentation, even his voice” on Comrade Chair. Yet after his release
from Robben Island, Moonsami depicted him as “an unmitigated dictator” who had
“destroyed all its notable leaders”. All Comrade Chair had left around him were “four
or five lackeys who do his bidding”. Comrade B’s immediate response to this
representation was anger at Moonsami, an “ambitious impostor” and “shrewd crook”,
who had “dared to speak in pejorative terms about one of the bravest and most steadfast
living revolutionaries”. 139
Comrade B had “never met a revolutionary approaching the skill, the single‐mindedness
of purpose, the tenacity and the durability” as Comrade Chair. Comrade Chair was a
man “born of the conditions of our country and drenched in it”. He was a “revolutionist
without equal”. He epitomised a “concretisation of revolutionary consciousness” and
was the “dialectical synthesis of the universal and the idiosyncratic”. 140 In Comrade B’s
memory of a political meeting in the City Hall, Comrade Chair was
138 Frank Anthony, The Journey: The Revolutionary Anguish of Comrade B (Johannesburg: Ravan Press,
1991).
139 Frank Anthony, The Journey, pp 33‐34, 40‐44.
140 Frank Anthony, The Journey, p 150.
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