NZULA, ALBERT

Albert Nzula was born at Rouxville, a small town in the Orange Free State. His schooling began at Bensonvale in Herschel and continued at Lovedale, where he was trained as a school teacher.

PHOTO CAPTION: Nzula Albert. SOURCE: EA Library

In 1928, in Aliwal North, Nzula was one of a group of African intellectuals who joined the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa (ICU), shortly thereafter becoming its secretary. Subsequently he moved to Evaton in the Transvaal, where he taught at the A.M.E. Mission School at Wilberforce.

In August 1928, Nzula attended a public Communist party meeting. Edward Roux, in Time Longer Than Rope wrote that “He (Nzula) was much impressed that Wolton [Douglas Wolton, a white who was Party Secretary of the Communist party] had continued to address the meeting even when rain began to fall.” Writing to the South African Worker a month later Nzula claimed: “After reading through ‘Communism and Christianism’ [written by Bishop Brown, an American Episcopal Bishop). I have come to the conclusion that every right-minded person ought to be a Communist.”

Nzula gave up his teaching position and moved to Johannesburg where he worked in a night school run by Charles Baker, an English Communist who had settled in South Africa. Government spies who attended the school reported that Nzula was “inciting to hostility between the races.” Nzula was found guilty and sentenced to a month’s imprisonment with hard labour, or a fine of ten pounds. In 1929 he became General Secretary of the Communist Party of South Africa, the first African appointed to this position.

In the same year, he became Joint Secretary of the League of African Rights, organised by the Communist Party in an effort to sway African support from the African National Congress. Roux maintains that Moscow wanted the Communist Party both to remain small (to maintain its principles) while wanting the party to reach the African masses by increasing its African membership. Roux notes: “The League called upon all to join who were interested in the struggle of black men for freedom in Africa.” It sought the abolition of pass laws and land laws and the extension of the vote and free election to Africans. Despite the early successes of the League, Moscow ordered its dissolution.

Nzula continued to be a part of the more radical element of the ANC along with J.T. Gumede. In the 1930s, he went to the Lenin School in Moscow where he wrote for The Negro Worker. Despite serious problems with alcoholism, Nzula was a man of outstanding ability.

PATRICK O’MEARA