Circle Court,Clarendon Circle, Johannesburg,33 .5 .1943 .

Dear Eddie,

Thank you very much for your letter, which

I received on Saturday, I deeply appreciate the effort

you have made in compiling the biography. The copy of gxi

the manusoript has not arrived yet, I went to Isay to

find out whether hia copy had arrived, but all he had

was a l&tter from you aimilar to the one you wrote to

me ,

You mentioned to him the coat of printing thw

book. If you cannot raiae enough to cover the coat, I

hope you will allow me to contribute something. I wiah

I could diacuae the book with you after I have read it.

We are sending particulara of the Fort Hare

buraary. For some reason we have not got the names of

those students who benefited in 1940; the letter must

have be*n mislaid.

Once again I thank you, I will send the manuscript

and the comments back aa aoon aa poaeible in order to

enable you to get on with the publication without delay,

I hope, if you are aelling the book, that you will price

it aa low aa poasible ao that it may be read by thoae

people in whoae interest Comradw Bunting gave 80 much ol

his time and energy - the native people,

I wonder what you think of this recommendation to

die'bknd. the Comintern. I think Comrade Bunting would have

b*en in full agreement with it. To my mind it is the

right move at the right time.

Kindest regards to yourself and family,

Yours sincerely

A'! /

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Circle Court, Clarendon Circle Johannesburg,30.5.1943.

Dear Eddie,

I must thanK you for the effort you have wade to

compile the biography of u*y husband, but I uiUst say you have made

a very strange approach to the subject. When I said that you did

not know Comrade Bunting I didn't imagine that you disliked him

to such an extent, otherwise you couldn’t have produced such a

document, I gave it to Buirski to read, and Issy gave his to Benny

Weinbrenn, and both of them disagree with your approach and

think that it couldn’t be printed as it stands. They are sending on

their criticisms.

Although we Uiight have disagreed with the Comintern and the

Party, we have never exposed thie to the public. Why should we do

so j/now? Who will benefit by it?. If Comrade Bunting's biography

cannot be written in any other way, perhaps it should not be published

at all, I aai convinced that Comrade Bunting would not hav* agreed

to the reopening of this controversy. We all think that the

material you have collected should be used for a biography, but do

give us a chance to rearrange it. The document as it stands could

not poscibly go to the printers because it has got so many facts and

dates wrong. Secure the paper if you can, and we will get on with it

as soon as possible.

I have not written:before becaus- I was waiting for Rrian to

come in from camp and r—ad it, I believe Moses Kotane has a copy of

the manuscript, and EuirsKi has sent him a copy of his criticism,

Brian is sending you a letter as well.

Please consider my feelings and my point of view and don't be

annoyed with our criticisms. Be patient and give us time to

rearrange it. It doesn't matter if Andrews' biography comes out

first. We will also do our best to assist with the finances.

Do write to me and let me know what you think about the

criticisms we all have made. Thanking you again,

A manuscript by Eddie Roux was given to me by Com. R.Bunting for perusal and I was asked by her to express m.y opinion on it and to make any comments I consider necessary. I was given to under­stand that it was also the writers wish to hear the opinions of the late comrades family and collaborators before the manuscript goes to print.There may be a greater difference between the writers views and my own than there ever was in the past yet I think of the writer well enough to presume that if he wants any opinions of mine at all he wants them to be expressed fearlessly, candidly and without any reservations. I hope therefore that he will not bear me a personal grudge for what follows because my criticisms are not inspired by any personal motives.I thoroughly agree with the introductory remarks which state that the life of S.P.Bunting must not remain unrecorded and his work and achievements which both the writer and myself summarise as " THE BRINGING- OF COMMUNISM TO THE AFRICAN AND THE AFRICAN TO COMMUNISM" must become written history® I further have nocriticism to offer with the largely irrelevant part dealing with Com® Bu ntings ancestors and his biography prior to the time when he became one of the leaders and at one time "THE"leaderof our own party and movement. I dont know whether the facts in this section of the manuscript are true or not, neither am I interested

My quarrel with the writer starts there where Buntings biography becomes entertwained with the history of the C.P. and in this respect I am glad to sxyxiKzS; see that the opinions of his wife and his son Bryan largely coincide with mine. The opinion can be briefly stated as follows :"IN ITS PRESENT FORI'-: THE MANUS­CRIPT IS A HIGHLY UNDESIRABLE PUBLICATION". We are all convinced that the elder son of the diceased comrade who is overseas would agree with us and more than that, we are convinced that Com 3un- €ing himself, had he been alive would strenuously oppose and refute the document.

My criticism is directed from three angles: Theparty, S.P.Bunting as individual and lastly the a ^ r E S E M mode of approach. Let us take the party first as Com. Bunting would have undoubtedly done had he lived to read the manuscript.

Whilst there is not a word in the manuscript against the ideals of the party both as far as communism and she national liberation goes (I suppose we must be thankful for that?), the w. ole work breathes hatred against the party nationally and inter­nationally. It makes the impression of one who recounts his prison experiences after getting out of jail. It sounds somewhat like this: " I, Eddie Roux, confess to my sins. Through a mista­ken sense of loyalty, for fear of OGPU discipline I was a party to all kind of villainies and conspiracies. Frequently i was a party to all kind of things I was opposed to... to all kinds of baseness and treachery.. 0 Thanks god I am imixa; at last free to tell the sordid tale to the world..." I can imagine the book reviews of the bourgeois press with headlines:"EX COMMUNIST LEA­DER# DENOUNCES C.P. . "ONCE RAND DEPORTEE REVEALS SECRETS OF COMMUNIST C O N SPIRACY". "DR.EDUARD ROUX IN STARTLING REVELLATIONS" and so on.

Not only that but unnecessarily and uncalled for he tells the world of the African students who were sent by the party to Moscow, a knowledge which he obtained in confidence. There is one thing short and that is a statement on subsidies of "Moscow g o l d " .

But apart from the unnecessary and reprehensive incidents recounted there can be no serious objections to the way old quarrels are dealt v/ith except for the fact and , that is very important, that at a time when the old wound.s are getting healed when one expelled member after another, except those who are Trotzkyites, r e b x is coming back to the party, at a time when the C.P.S.A. is getting down hard to tackle its real tasks, at a time when we all agreed to close the book on past tragedies the writer finds it necessary to spend the major and most impor­tant part of his space to open' up old quarrels, to avenge old wrongs, to uncover festering sores which have long since dried up.

A more serious thing in dealing with local party affairs is the unfavourable light in which Com. Andrews is displayed

three places: The trade Unionist and aristocrat of labour without any feeline for liberation of the African# The r .an who ran away to the Trade Union sanctuary when his pro white policy was defeated at the second party con0ress and finally the man who was meticulously paying his membership dues to the party so as not to be lapsed but was keeping aloof from all co­mmunist activity. Similarly the eulogising of Douglass wolton and Lazar Bach as the two great theoreticians in the history of the pa r t y , people who lenew all text boohs and resolutions by heart, who could and would bolshewize the party but for u n ­foreseen difficulties (such as f o l l y’s weak heart and her acci­dental becoming; a m o t h e r * , can serve no .purpose save the reopening of old healed wounds*

iiut where the manuscript shines is in dealing with the ?. O o m m i n t e m . Nothing but hatred and contempt can be found in

that part* As early as 1924 we find an undertone of it in b r i n ­ging in the Lapidsky affair whioh is totally irrelevant* The writer does the same as Prof ililliukoff ("3olshewism an inter­national danger ) and quotes Lapidsky and Gosnovick as emissaries of the Soviets in this country, whereas we all know that they were Impostors on Sosnovicks own admission and from further de­tails supplied by the musician M . C h e m j a v s k y who brought them to Durban from India* From this insignificant Jibe the writer passes on to portray the Commintern a,s a lot of doddering fools who ruined our local party which before their interfernce went from stren till to strength* He portrays them as a lot of careerists who would discuss their own petty personal affairs whilst the fate of the " >lack republic" slogan was in the balance, he portrays them as lot of criminals "with many alliases" without even bothe­ring to explain the why of these alliases* He does not even refrain from drawing attention to the fact that the head of the Anglo- American section, Bennet was really not an anglo- 3axon as suggested by the name but in reality a Russian Jew Petrovsky* kaEXXkeajtiOCally What a beautiful lmmitation of Zeesen in their blood curdling revelations about Litvlnoff, Molotoff etc** How well the review of this book if ever published would look in the columns of the Transvaaler*

Then there comes the description of the Commintern as an .organisation whose policy is not "world proletarian revolution" but protection of the Soviet Union* The Indian liberation m o v e ­ment, themovemeat of the Afrikans, the whole colonial policy of the Commintern not based on the relationship between this and the revolutionary labour movement 1 the capitalist countries (as Lenin and Stalin would haveit), but on the necessity to serve the USSR state which regarded Great Britain as its greatest enemy*

Then there are the sneering remarks about "the Commintern resolution factory", about their mechanical approach to problems relating individual countries* about the policy of the 0*P*S*A* being predetermined by a conversation between La Guma and Bucharin, about emmissaries and students going back and forth between South Africa and ' oscow and returning here with dictatorial powers**These places jreathing hatred and contempt are too numerous to mention and at the end it is crowned with a full quotation from a leaflet by our local Trotzkyites to the effect that Bunting was killed by the Stalinist boaurocracy* This statement is not contra­dicted or commented upon but quoted at the end of a book whioh

is singularly calculated to bear out this contention*

Now we come to hunting himself as portrayed by the Autor* The deceases comrade was a personal friend of the writer* The book is jirl written as a tribute. Here is the trlbutei Here is the portrait of our adored and loved comrade as seen by his nearest friendl MThe hands of a butcher... The voice of a gruff bark.* no speaker.** A m u d d l e r . ** could not make up his mind**** a slow thinker..." That is not enough the mentality of Bunting is portrayed as that of a man who is loth to part with once conceived notions.. Slow and painful progress from nonconformist to negrophil, from labourite to ievolutionary••* What are you paintin^iiddie Roux? The prtrait of a honest conservative voter or that of a great figure in the communist movement? Shame on you* ot all of us agreed with .sunting on many things but to all

of us i3 memory is that of a glan

t

/ 7Of a giant mentally and morally of a figure full of idealism and lofty thoughts• Bunting v;as a giant and not the pigmy that you are portraying him#

Finally the axjproach of the hook to the biography. As fitter as X w a s , I could not help thinking what would a biography of Lenin written by Urotzky look like* It would as it went on develop into a biography of the writer and not of the biographed one. Similarly this manuscript is a biography of Bunting until the year when Eddie Roux appears on the pollt ical scene from then it is largely a biography of the writer#

It gives the commintern as seen by the writer,^ the^local prty quarrel as seen, understood and lived through by the w r i ter..o The whole last 50 pa0 es are a biography of Eddie Roux with Bunting coming and going as an associate.

I fail to understand it» i am a sentimentalist. 1 have soft spots for comrades even when disagreeing with them, this is one of my very many f a u lts.•• I FOR ONE GOULD NEVER SUSPECT THAT A MANUSCRIPT OF SUCH DESCRIPTION SHOULD COME FROM THE PENN OF EDUARD ROUX.

Buglenajueen rd. AEondebosch ■(s June l y4J

n** i* iirlan * . ,_I have been gre a tly d istu rb s! by the tiiree documents■hic'-i came on Friday—not that I not expect ;ome critieis*. ;

hut the vehemence of the prote -ts :ln, the liscoyery of a -.trecl,•snoei-s, insults and worse in passives which I ti.oujnt were lultei ocent amazed and dum founded me. 'i;mr letter is the most’•easrmable of the three, though even you say things wxiich surpriser-r t vr horry Buirs' i has come into the picture, bectue, a-thoqhhe ha i brains* he is most h y sterica l T lbjaaneed creature mthe la t person on earth to pass sober Judgment oii a matter sucn

Pie vse und< r stand how I came to w rite this biography•; r- I was in Joh/iiwesburg 1 is£’ year I wan approached by some co'iraies (I sy Di tinonl nd others) vno is id they Uou ,ht tnerc ^ ht « bio -aphy. I thought the ^ t e r over anTdecided^totr v . There did not seem to be an yon eelse l i v e l y to do the job,

in nv r>or,session a lo t o<* docume. ts — tue f i l e s oi the I n te l- Lonal meebensi, many personal le tte r* and iirtjr «®J ; - well , ' other m aterial/“ S U S ' t a ' f t o . ^ a c k i A

$ £ £ £ * ? £ M e h » o S ^ r o b bly h nre been r»W i^ .a• ” 4 V - ?.) Also I had been in ^ ^f .ther luring “ S ^ ^ o ^ l l l i i W laemme uidmother and others would be a._>le to ,ixx in. vcorrect • iis~.tate;; ents of f ict.

II turally I oould not write a story in which I was Involved to saoh an extent wit. out S Ti a fin.*To

001111 J r lbl?0Mtent°l',did retrain Prom- concent and tried to let a considerable eJtent y _ilarge part of the book is~ r 8 - 5 * * * * * 1 “I hv - ale all this clear in the preface.

Firstly I want to deal with ray personal feeling for3. a a Your mother says that she did no ny "almost-"dislilced him • to suoban *e0th very much mlstakwu Ofcontempt "for him. I think you are jjotft 7 annoyed others,course there were times when Y as you and : y head full /hy should I not say s° people in the Party bothof theoretical stuff, like oO raw * g than «e were. In thethen md now. BantingJalJ id we wrong. In ay story end he was proved "ri ht i t..e cai ^ at Qnc eriod.I sho'/ thxt th is was so. * f * ,frongly he had been tre -ted I n ftcr iris came to re i l i - e r t f ’." Don*t you gather that .yi* to defend him openly in the pxty. w tic lu n 9 i» of whom

s - r s t r A i ’ '« r a s t s » • «

— people do not live in

a vacuum. avi+w in bior**aphy i s to quote the f etsYou say Ts-our ^ t y in +-1 1 bale of your protagonist

as you know them and to e x p la -n gurely th is i s not a l l .he would have done it himsel-. - subject. I have 0Yes let the writer explain tfco attlWie oi. htmtried to do so. and the m03 ins does explain at greaterr lain in his own w o r d s . Banting ao thlg> imd x have auoted«uid very forcibly his attitu_ _ doell not stop there.

“Strike wao iicenas T W Z ' ^ T o n of tbe bl . o ^ n i n e r ^ a s w * —

^ r c: : u« s r ^ « - t ^ i t » -

Buirski's idea is that I should describe Bunting as a sort of white knight without stain or reproach. That would not he realistic writing. All great men have their foibles, like ordinary humans, and the biographer is a fool who tries to cover them up.Do we think any the less of Lenin for knowing that he was clumsy and dropped the type? Darwin had simian features and Kant (was i t ? ) was over-fond of crystallised fruit. Samuel Johnson had bad table manhers, and you know all about Bethoven's private life. Effective biography does not refrain from mentioning such things* Come,Brian, don't lose your sense of realityI

Re Bunting's voice, physical appearance and so on, these were unusual and characteristic. Perhpps I have been clumsy in describing them. "Short" is a relative term. Perhaps I should have said "of average height". Everybody remarked about his big feet and fingers and I think the African who said "The Communist Party has big boots" deserves to be q.uoted. Creswell, to whom I went for information, referred to S.P.B's voice and tried to imitate it. He meant no harm: though he disagreed with him politically he was full of admiration for your father. Believe me,no belittling whatever was intended and I don't believe anyone who thought calmly would see in my writing anything but an attempt to give some details which would help to make the person described more real to them.

Re "tendency to dither in a crisis", here you are not querying the fact but my explanation. Jack Cope quotes Andrews, who mentions an example of this which occurred at a crucial stage in the 1?22 strike. I have ventured an explanation of this trait which seems very similar to your mother's explanation. "Affairs were complicated: one had to take the line that seemed best on the whole, realising always that there were many aspects to every problem," etc. (end of last chapter). Please read it again. This is not sneering, I protest,

So much for the character of the man. I am not an emotional type, but I probably have as great a regard for Bunting's memory as anyone outside hi3 family, Gana and possibly some of the other ■African comrades, certainly more than the volatile Buirski. Please read again and see.

How for the main bone of contention— the Comintern and its role in South Africa. I have explained in the book that both your father and mother believed land your mother does still) that all the trouble arose from the fact that Wolton, Bach, Petrovsky, etc. were vicious people. The C.I. intrinsically was not to blame: its affairs with regard to South Africa had unfortunately got into bad hands. I did not and do not agree with this view. Whatever the characters of Wolton, Bach and Petrovski may have been (and my account of them is not too flattering), the whole drive to the extreme left, the machiavellian methods, and so on, had roots far deeper than any personal aberrations of this comrade or that. Ho impartial student of Comintern liistory can deny that we are concerned here with a major tendency in C.I. policy during the late twenties and early thirties, something which manifested Itself thoughout the affiliated parties and was by no means confined to South Africa. A leading party member in Cape Town, whose loyalty is not in question, recently admitted to me that this wasso and said that others who knew the period shared his view. In any case there is abundant evidence 3ri the book to demonstrate the major responsibility of the C.I. for the campaign against "Bunting and the Right Danger in South

4frlCasinoe x wrote the ms. we have had the dissolution of the Comintern. I quote the following from the official resolution of the Praesidium (1*/5/43):"The entire course of events in the past quarter of a century as well as accumulated experteance of tne Comintern has convincingly shown that the organisation for uni bine •-Vi ■vorkfS chosen by the First Congress of the Comintern, and

• ; vrlei to the initial needs of the initial period of

"been outgrown by the movement's development and the incre complexity of its problems in separate count tie s. I t hq.« even become a hindrance to the further strengthening of the national working class parties.”

It oertainly was a hindrance to the C.P.S.A in 1928-3 6,Perhaps even the most mechanical follower of Imprecor resolutions might now admit the possibility that something mav have been wrong with the guidance we received. In the light of this resolution could not orthodox party members reconsider their attitufe to the charge of "South African exceptionalism" which was levelled against Bunting by the C.I. in 1928-31 ? A- a matter of fact the speeches of Dimitrof and others at the Seventh Congress in 1935 definitely referred to a spatejleft deviations in nearly all the leading parties. I hoped then that this would lead to an admission that the campaign against Bunting had been misconceived and that he would be reinstated and due restitution made as far as possible. Unfortunately this did not happen. The Comintern does not seem to have worked in that way.

Now that we are in a position to attempt a post-mortem examination of the Comintern, surely our Job is not to gloss things over, suppress important facts, try to distort history’. That will not help us to build a better world on the ruins of the past. The positive achievements of the movement provide valuable lessons.So also do its shortcomings and its blunders. Many mmt of the mistakes were such as might easily appear again in an international organisation or in a local party.

One of the main deflects, I think, was the fact that commands were issued from a world centre by people who, whatever their pretensions, really did not understand the local conditions. That came out very clearly in the way we were i^reated at the Sixth Congress. The domination of the C.I. by tne Russians led to the transfer to South Africa of policies, slogans and attitudes which did not suit our conditions and which in fact were harmful to the movement here. Another trouble w^s the fanaticism and ranting, untempered by any sweet reasonablfiess, ;md the fact that individuals like your father who had character and ideas of their own did not seem to "fit", while slick opportunists,who could learn new sets of phrases at a moment's notice, were preferred and rose to high places. The Comintern was so constructed that individuals who differed from the given "line", however convinced they were of the correctness of their views, had either to knuckle under or leave the party, and the latter was an alternative that all good revolutionists were loth to take because it would be interpreted as a betrayal of the oause.

You ask:"How could you think that my father, whom you grant to be a loyal party member and an honourable man, could consider, after his expulsion, forming a rival organisation?” And you ask whether I should approve of such a step. At the time (in 1932)I should not have approved, because I then believed that we should stand by the Party and the C.I. in spite of our differences with them. Looking back on events after eleven years, I feel that Bunting would hav© had. am pi 6 Justificationf both as a fightb t for friedom and as an honourable man, if he had taken the lead in forming a new party. And if he had done so I think I should eventually have joined him. I feel now that there were two loyalties at stake: one to the Russian Revolution and the Comintern; the other to the downtrodden blacks in South Africa. You will say that these two loyalties are one and the same. Other communists have told me that their loyalty is first to the Soviet Union, and if necessary the Africans must take second place. Your father was on the horns of a dilemma, because he believed in the Russian Revolution (your mother's influence was,I imagine,strong h©r e » though I do not suggest that it was necessarily the decisive factor),

o 1 an verv strongly indeed in the cause of the

black man. Now it appeared to him that "Moscow's malignant obstinacy"— to quote his own wordsF^was preventing or hindering the party from doing its work effectively among the Africans.He could not escape from this dilemma and it retained with him till he died. He did not form a new party. In suggesting the possibility that he considered doing so I may be indulging in unwarranted speculation, but I am not consciously belittling him in any way; for I would not consider such action dishonourable or c ount rr“revoluti onary.

What actually happened behind the scenes in the Thibedi- Maraphanga-Communist League affair I should very much like to know. This is one of those matters of fact which I hoped your mother might be able to clear up. My reason for "recording the few facts" was that they were the only evidence on which the C.I. representative and the Woltons based their disgusting attack, for which they brought out a special enlarged number of Umsebenzi.

Finally there is the question of whether (a) the book should be published essentially as it stands, with the necessary correction of facts, dates, etc., and with possibly a few minor alterations} or whether (b) it is possible to re-write it in the way you suggest, so as not to offend people or (as you think) ' harm the movement; or whether(%) it should not be published at all.

The second alternative (b) is, I think, quite impossible.The attempt would result in a completely unreal and distorted account, which would not deceive any except thase who wanted to be deceived or who were utterly ignorant of the left movement in South Africa. Even to the latter it would probably not ring true.It would be of no value as histojry and it would not even be good propaganda. I should not like to publish such stuff as my own writing.

As for the Party, it must be prepared, like Queen Elizabeth, to face the looking glass— to show if it can, and I think it can, that, when the debits and credits have all been added up, there will remain a positive balance on the credit side. What it has very much to its credit is that it has brought the blaok man into the socialist movement. This, of course, was largely Bunting*s doing. The Party, though it expelled him, is carrying on that work, inadequately perhaps, but still, as something to which it is irrevocably committed.

(It should be easier for the Party to look into its past and learn lessons for the future,now that the C.I. is dissolved and it must stand or fall on its own merits.)

Reactionaries of course may seize on this or that statement in the book and try to make political capital out of it. Every piece of historical writing lends itaQAf to such abuse. Must we therefore refrain from writing history? What can they say? That the Comintern, through the C.P.S.A., tried to stimulate revulutinn in South Africa? That is common knowledge. The Comintern never pretended to be anything else but an international revolutionary organisation. Its resolutions and theses were published without concealment. That Nzula went to study at the Lenin school and died there? That also was common knowledge. An obituary notice m nr published by the R.I.L.U. stated as much. That in many ways the Comintern’s methods were clumsy and inefficient? That has been demonstrated to the world on a larger field 'than South Africa. That does not mean that revolution is wrong, but °oly that revolutionaries, like other people, may make mistakes. That they treated one of their best and most loyal members very badly? That, of course, is a bad blot. But the fact that a man of Bunting's calibre remained loyal to the movement is a tribute to the movement as well as to him.

These are all arguments in favour of the first alternative 4

aWH-STAi'f KS SrSS JTS-.

br-SK 3 3 •«;and sal# they think it is indeed a eulo^vS^?r+I! haVe read the m s * to be. ^Why, otherwise did T rm+ S xJ 5®11— as 1 ®eant itthe beginning? * quotation from Browning at

s s - T r t s d s f f s & S r

S M J r , no? S t . ’T O ' ^ S r

e and struggle for them. How many of them know at,out him to-day?

s s s a ^ a ' & f s s v x ^ w *

and the true story of Bunting oan only help that * , £ £ * ? *

io&ntly the official communists wrltp Vi <round the life of Andrews, the white S ^ i o n i s ? . ?hat Js a n ™ well for them, and I think Andrews a fine m i o S . M t I a^ inelin^F to share your prejudice (and your mother's) in t h i n S L B u X w 5; ined

( £ ha fi6?r e * » ot "i stood for th^Comintera(we have hundreds of such in South Africa) but because, tat almost

tien? e ™° m d e ^ o g . Afrlean "30eiallsts" * he ehampioned the cause of

Yours sincerely

Clarendon® Circle, J ohannesburg,

August 9th. 19i§

Q»ar Eddis,

I am inclined to agree with Irene Myerson and ask you

to lcav- the publishing of the biography for after the war and

until the peace haa been won.

I really do not see who ie going to benefit by the

biography aa it atands at present. It certainly dose Bunting no

justice, not th© Party nor the C.I. It ia not enough to aay that

the Nationalists c a a’t say more than what they have said already.

Your statements will give them the support they have never hoped

to get froiu an ex — party memberri and never wind our enemies, our

friends of today way be our enemies tomorrow^ and I aw sure you

would not like to be quoted by anybody in support for allegations

against the Party,"the C.I. or the Soviet Union. Least of all would

Bunting like it.9

Bunting was asked many times to write an autobiography of

himself, but would never undertake it because he would have had to

touoh on some of thepoints you have written this biography

arouni. I am surprised that Kotane agrees X® it should be printed,

as no other member has approved of it. I sent you a letter, a

critisim of it from Morris Milner, the Secretary of t*ie Johann^a "g u t

g District, and I respect Morris1 opinion,, he is a good Communist

and a practical man^

Why not use the paper you are getting for publishing the

book you have written on the Nativeaj Struggle for Emancipation,

which you told me could not be printed because of the shortage of

paper ? You told me that most of the biography is incorporated in

that book. Would that not meet the case? I think that would be

better and it would not offend anybody. As you finish off the

biography by saying that Bunting died believing in the Party and

the Soviet Union, so lets be consistent and not bo doin^ things

that he would not have done himself.

S.

I wonder if you would have written the biography in that atrain

had you atill been a member of th© Party?

I disc uaaed it with Shochet and ho agrees that you wrote

the biography too much like a scientific docuaient and at the same

time reserve the rights to yourself to check it up. You say your

are not a sentimentalist but there is a limit to bleeitnoas, Even

in the coldest Russian winter we get the sun shining sometimes, to

give the people some natural warmth. You have entirley ignored or

failei to see in Bunting the love he had for the toiling and en­

slaved people. When you say he was slow in thinking or taking

decisions in a crisis, or that members would sometime* be irrated

by hia slowness of decision, it was not his inability to think, it

was hia desire not to spoil the case. You aa a scientist ought to

understand him better than anyone else. Bunting was always considerig

"both sides of the case, the white workers, the native workers and

the mass of the people^ He wanted a big broad , mass movement

not a aecterian little group, and that was a very difficult task as

you know,9

Y j u and others as you say were too young and inexperienced

you wanted to run away from reality and Bunting knew better. He

was always looking to the effeat decisions would have on the people

in the Party and outside the Party, and did not believe in taking

chances as you and others would have done. He always avoided aplit

s in the Party and expulsions,,

I don't know whether I have the right to stop you from

publishing it, I did not know you were even writing a biography,

until you sent the manuacript to us, but I always had the feeling

that you would not produce the biography Bunting deserves.

Now, I must correct some f^cts. Bunting did not start his_ krcV k-eS -

own business at first, he would in Cape Town for a firm of lawyers

for, a salary, where at the same time he got hia Degree of Bachelor

of Laws, Then he came to Johannesburg and again worked for a firm of

lawyers here. After that he started an office with a partner and

they wore doing quite well when he had to get out because hia partner

disagreed with lux* the part he waa taking in Labour politics, Q)nly

after that ho started on his own. He was never in good financial

o i r c Uuis t anc o s ,

3.When we wore discussing getting married two things worried him.

The difference in our ages and that he could only see six months

ahead as far as money was concerned. Bunting never made money althou

gh he always had plenty of work. He never started a wattle plantat­

ion in Natal,

On his mothers aide ae you will see by the little booklet I

sent on to you, he waa a lidgett , and her family were aeafaring

people. One Capt^4n Lidgett brought outaome 1820 Settlers to

Nataly and land was given to him to aettle thoae peop&e on , and

the farm waa named Lidgetton, Lidgetton ia on the main railway line

from Johannesburg to Durban, on our aide of Maritzburg, Moat of the

settlers failed to make good and left the farm, so the land waa ijtx|

lying idle. About forty years ago the family i» England decided

to use the land and plant it under wattle, and a cousin by the

name of John Lidgett in Johannesburg, who waa not doing too well

for himself in buainesa, was made manager and n# is still there to -

day. The whole .family all bought shares to finance this wattle

plantation and keep it going. Bunting also had a few shares in it,

not many, and was made Director at a salary of a hundred pounds a

year. He resigned the directorship in 19*2 at a Company Meeting in

London, while we were on our way home from the fourth C,I, Congress,

( I might as well tell you that he could ill aford to loee the

hundred pounds at the time0)-But he xxxixxxv thought that he could

not remain a director while he was a leading members of the Communist

Party, although the Company never paid anything more than expenses,,t

n Hands of a butcher " are a bad comparison, ae a butchers’

hands are not nedessarily big. Apart fcom that it sounds ugly, ao

please leafce out the term butcher. He did have big,heavy hands, but

on the whole he did have big bonea and big limbs. For that reason

no one would call Bunting small, aa you do. Bunting waa a member of

the Rand Club at a time of the 1913 shouting and resigned immediatel

y after the incident.

The bungalow Bunting lived in waa not corrogated iron but a

Canadian wood bungalow and was put up I believe in the Boer war as

officers quarters, and <vo lived in it, with many other comrades for

two and a half years after we were married*

On page 25 you refer to the 3upoort«ra as foreign - born Jews,d o t -

would, not coeuiopolition bo the better term? nAro- ar* harping far too

muoh on the Jews, and today it sound particularly bad, I suggest you

modify the term , On page 27 could you insert the fol >owing

One day ais tfhe end of March 1919, While coding; out of courts Bunting1/

was set upon by a lunch- hour mob.

On page 28 you spwak about"em.^isaries straight from Red

\y Moscow ", They were certainly NOT •mmeaariea, I suggest you call

th eui1 adventurer a „1 On page 32 don't say " Jewish Community H, The

Bolshevik Revolution created great enthusiiam amongst all people in

all countries.

On page 35 Ivan Jones .vent to the South of France with some

friends of his and while in trance he met Rs A k k R^ctiek with whom#

he became very friendly and it was Rhodek who invited him to attend

the second C.I, Congress in Moscow, ( or Radek)

On page 37, The strikers being anti - native never called upon

, Bunting to spoake On page 40, at the bottom you speak of legal

executions. Do you not mean illegal executions? Page 41, Bunting was

yy'in J.ail with a lot of others for two weeks, Al»i, when we left for

England we left with two sons and not one,

>y ^ Page 41,,, to crush Lenin, leave Trotsky out,,,.

Page 52, Would the biogr aphy in any way suffer if the

physical comparisons of the two.men were left out.....also do you

/ think it wise to refer to B, Andrews as the leader of the Conservati

vc opposition in view of the importance he is to the Party $oday?

Page 59, Your statement of the sjsiitxsak expulsions coming as

\ y a blow,seems to contradict the quotation from Buntings letter,

which hinted that anything could be expected at the Conference,

, y On ]jage 60, why " Communist inspired * ...... why not just an anti -

imperialist Conference ?

°-i2 c ®Q,The reasons for the Soviet interest in organising Liberation

^ KiOveiiicnta in the colonice through the C , I e 8hould be cut out or

3tated as your own personal opinion.

As a fact I know from personal talks with Ivan Jones , he was trying

his hardest to get the Comintern 'interested in S.A but ciuld not

- succeed, but when Laguma went over with Heaton Nichols book " Bifcjt$t«n

(Poetic) he had better results' ~

Pago 71. I would like to sec tho references to Buntings slow-

thinking and stato of over who lttUKiodiieee left out* as it is an

insult to Bunting to talk about him in'that way . There was only ono

thing loft for him to do in that situation, oithor split tho Party or

walk out, as others havo done when thoy could not got thofer way. So

thoro ho had to bo caroful and slow , but not because ho was not

capable of thinking or making decisions. Thoso who opposed him were

Molly,"Douglas & Bach and it is thoy who had to havo Bunting out of

tho way so that thoy could carry on.

t / Pago 85. I don't think " resolution factory" at all necessary.

^ P a g o 85, doloto tho portion in br^pk^ts,..,

v ^ a g o 86. Add that *s there was a Party group at tho Capo Flats,

when Walton stood for Parliaa.ontary elections.

% P a g © 92. Suggest you log|Vo out reference to the Moscow tclogrammo 0

Pago 1010 Again,quote on~the policy of tho Soviet Union ro Foreign

•^affairs,that it is your own personal opinion.

Pago 116. Bunting gave up his lawyers business on account of his heal*

h and on doctors* advice, and after recovering froma partial stroke,

\/ at home and in hospital, ho got work with the African Theatre Trust,

not African Broadcasting Corporation.

Please ( on the same page) leave out'agont' and * from behind the

scenes', and that Nzula and another Native wore sent to the Lonin

X school.

Pago 119. Take it from me that at no time could Bunting have be*n

^p e r s u a d e d to start in opposition to tho>arty, as some members asked

him to do again and again. Ho was never prepared to work with

Thabodi, as a matter of fact it was news to me when I saw it in the M.

V-!Also leave out the1Comu.unists have their Trotsky 1 .

Page 120. As I said befor ho toured the country wi-th tho African

Theatre Trust Co.,

^✓Walton left Cape Town for Yoitrkshiro to work on the Yorkshire Tiaiws0

Pago 126. Please leave out the reference to the Peoples' Front as

^ t h # " fashion ",

\/Pago 127, Leave out " strange things happen in the Communist Party",

t Pago 128. Bunt ing died on Monday May 25th.

Page 130. You must not reprint the last few linos of the " Spark

I moan cut out the remarks about being expelled by the stupid

I will be duty bound to expose it,

I hope you will agree with my remarks and realise that you

have been biaeed in writing . You must also realise that as the boys

and I arc still loyal members of the Party, we consider that certain

statements are harmful, but apart from this quite unnecessary.

As you sent the M.S. to us for our consideration, surely you must

respect our suggestions and our opinions.

back one day. Most likely you will receive a letter from Brian before

long. If you do decide to have the M.S. printed and take my suggestions

it will not be necessary to wait a reply from Brian, as I do not think

ho will have anything further to add to what he has already said,

I would still like to know how you are going to finance th*» printing

of the document.

Stalinist Bureauracy that must NOT appear. If you do print it

I should like to have Morris* letter and the little booklet

With u.y best regards and fraternal greetings,

Euglena i^tueen Road Rondebsoch

_ . . , 26 August 1 943Dear v#omrade Bunting,

. , . thanks very much for your letter of 9 Aug.ana also for the life of Lady -Bunting, which I found very intersst- ing ana which I will "be able to use. I am returning Morris Milner s letter.

there are still serious doubts whether the book will be published in the near future, if at all. You mis­understood me if you thought -*■ said I had obtained paper for it.I only said that I had hopes. My hopes are not as great now as they were when I last wrote to you. Rollnick believes that the G-overnment are using paper control as a political instrument. Through it they may be able to suppress matter they do not want published. Paper control may therefore continue for a long time — even after supplies of paper improve. But I am going to try to publish the book— this year, next year or some time. Ann soI want to get it into shape ready for the printer. M y book on the Black M a n s Struggle for freedom is far too long for pub­lication in this country under existing conditions (it is about three times as long as the Bunting ms.1 I hope to find an over­seas publisher for it after the w a r — whenever that will be.

In connection with the alterations you suggest, I have altered the ms. in almost every case ih the way you suggest. But there are dome exceptions where I feel that I must be allowed to have my own way. ^hey are as follows:

p.32. Reference to the "Jewish community" does not seem to me to be out of place. Everyone knows that the movement is very largely Jewish, and the enthusiasm -for the Russian revolution was found chiefly though not entirely among the Jews. I am adding the word "particularly" so that the sentence reads8-"The Bolshevik revolution had created great enthusiasm particiilarly among the Jew^3)h community."

| * p. 4 1 . I don t see why I should leave L e n i n’s name and remove Trotsky’s. T am quoting what Bunting actually wrote. This reminds me too mucji of the Soviet film about Nom. 7 . 1 9 1 7 which (so I am told) does not even mention Trotsky. During that period every one spoke of Lenin and Irotskv almost as if it were one person.

p.3 9 I have rewritten the much~dispu.ted paragraph as follows:

Collection Number: AG2722

WORKER’S PARTY OF SOUTH AFRICA, 1933-1935

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