As it happened, during the short stay of the I.S.L. in that area, Cape Town was favoured by two supposed emissaries from Bolshevik Russia, following the revolution in that country the year before (1917). The S.D.F. had been in touch with the revolutionary elements in Russia since the rising there in 1905 under Father Gapon, when the peasants made simple political demands to the Czarist authorities, and were shot down in cold blood before the Winter Palace.

Surgis Reiger came to South Africa then to collect funds on behalf of the Russians, and the S.D.F. aided his mission and organised his meetings with some success.

The revolution of 1917 had a different meaning on the ground of war strategy as well us the revolutionary change of the social and economic system. The revolution happened in Russia before the war was completed, and the world was told that Lenin, Trotsky and others were conveyed by secret train through Germany to create the revolution in Russia, and so withdrew the forces that were fighting against the German Army, which would allow them to give more attention. The Allies on the other fronts. Anything, therefore, that smelled of Bolshevism was anathema to every Allied supporter, in addition to those who abhor revolution.

However, the two gentlemen who arrived were definitely from Russia, but they were not sent here for propaganda purposes, as so many assumed - the Cape Times and, it appears, the authorities included. In fact they had met in transit here from, I think, India. Their names were Lapitsky and Sonsnovik. The former was a Minister in the Kerensky Government. The latter was more than anything on a health trip, as Dr. Forsyth told me he suffered with tuberculosis. They certainly both favoured the Russian Revolution. Both were well-educated men who could speak fairly fluent English, but they preferred their own language on the platform. A. Z. Berman, being Russian born and also having had a good education there and in Germany, was able to act as interpreter, as also did Buirski.

Maitland Park was then editor of the Cape Times, and he, like Vere Stent of the Pretoria News, welcomed controversy and would allow us his columns to ventilate our opinions. Berman took the opportunity to glorify the headquarters of the I.S.L. as a meeting place for our distinguished visitors, which, of course, brought everybody there from all parts of the town.

Maitland Park made his first thrust by describing the I.S.L. as a gang of Russian Jews, which gave reason for them supporting the Russians, but that was only one of his ways of creating opposition. They were supported by the whole Left-wing movement of Cape Town. The Cape Times deplored the fact that such respectable people as Dr. Forsyth, M.L.A., and the Rev. Ramsden Balmforth were to be found on the same platform, and also made much of a speech I made at one of their meetings, saying that the means employed in Russia to check counter revolutionaries might be necessary if a revolution happened here.

The Government, we may suppose by such reports, decided to take action and made provision for their departure. In the meantime they were carefully chaperoned by detectives and also given free railway travel and hotel expenses until a suitable ship was found to give them a free passage back to Russia. All this inspired Mrs. Lapitsky (who accompanied her husband) to say to Labour Member Boydell that she had heard much about the liberties we enjoyed in South Africa, and that she would tell all her friends in Russia of our general benevolence. They had never visited such a free country before.

The departure of these supposed emissaries of the Russian Revolu­tion was in April, 1919. They caused quite a stir in the editorial departments of the Cape Argus and Cape Times. These both published leading articles about them on several occasions. They were always headed as "Bolshevist Emissaries." The Times had one on April 15th, 18th and 22nd. The Argus on April 18th, 1919. The latter read thus:

"With scant regard for the feelings of Colonel Creswell, who championed his cause in Parliament, M. Lapitsky threw off the mask completely when he addressed the small mob of revolutionary Socialists, largely foreigners, who gathered at the docks yesterday on the occasion of his departure with his wife and a pet monkey." (The "foreigners" who gave the farewell speeches were Shaw, McKillop and myself, all born in the British Isles.) It continues, "Not only did this contemptible humbug fail to support Colonel Creswell's suggestion that he was not really a Bolshevik, but he belauded the Russian Bolsheviks as the advance guard of the world." The Cape Times of the i8th and 22nd April contained articles on A. Z. Berman and myself respectively, showing the people of South Africa what terrible company we kept. They told Berman they "had no intention of reporting his speech at the Cape Town City Hall on the Russian situation."

The Russian Revolution was only going through its initial stages then, and was suffering the attacks of the counter revolutionaries, therefore Lapitsky and Sonsnovik could not give us much detail of their ways of administration, but were firm in their belief of the Socialist purpose behind their whole effort.

The Cape Times editor, of course, kept the Cape Town public well advised and described them in their columns as "propagandists of a dangerous and execrable political creed." Berman and I did most of the correspondence to that paper in their defence.

Subsequently a ship arrived in Cape Town Docks called the Mozambique, on which the Government politely asked them to go aboard with all their belongings, and they would give them a tree trip back to Russia-another bit of evidence to show how benevolent governments are when it suits them. The Cape Times painted every­thing red; they said, when Lapitsky made his farewell speech at the docks, he assumed it might not be long before he was back to help paint Cape Town that colour. That is over a quarter of a century ago and he hasn't returned yet.

Berman, in a letter ridiculing the idea that they were supported only by Russian Jews, asked if the names of McKillop, Shaw and Harrison, the only speakers at the farewell gathering at the docks, "were not strange names for them." The Cape Times in a lengthy footnote to that letter said: "Of the twelve Ministers then in the Lenin Administration, eight of them were Jews." The news in the daily Press is, of course, called "public opinion," and most people are guided by it. Therefore those of us associated with the Lapitsky and Sonsnovik visit were afterwards described as "Bolsheviks" and the Russian Revolution as "Bolshevism," though few knew what the word meant, except by the caricatures of the Capitalist Press, who pictured them as long-bearded Russian barbarians with a gun.

I remember A. Z. Berman agreed to lecture on Russia to help clear the air. The Banqueting Hall was hired for the occasion, with D. L. Dryburgh as chairman. Both appeared in evening dress- I suppose to show our respectability if they couldn't show the Russian'.

Berman could, of course, talk on Russia, as he can about almost anything, but it was difficult even for him to tell the people what they wanted to know about it, so the controversy continued and everything we touched was contaminated by that creed.

Following the exodus of our two Russian comrades the Industrial Socialist League found, as we in the old S.D.F. predicted, that when the tea parties finished so would their crowds, and they returned to more central Cape Town, occupying a room above a cafe at the corner of Plein and Longmarket Streets. Here, in conjunction with the Jewish Socialist Society, they put some enthusiasm into the propaganda work and ran a paper called The Bolshevik, of which I still have a few copies. This was edited by A. Z. Berman, and once, it not more, they were indicted by the court concerning its contents. Their exodus from the S.D.F. was, of course, unnecessary, as I warned them before they went there was nothing they could do-nor did they-that could not be done by the party they left. However, they drifted back bit by bit. Finding little response to their propaganda efforts in District Six, they asked the S.D.F. it they could speak from our rostrum in Adderley Street if they held their meeting one hour previous to our own. This we granted them. They then split amongst themselves. A few of them wanted to appear more advanced by describing themselves as "The Communist League" to make themselves feel more like the new Russia.

J. Pick and C. F. Glass were the most prominent amongst them. Berman about this time was very active in the Cape Town Federation of Labour Unions, of which Bob Stuart was general secretary and Berman treasurer. At the congress of the Federation in April, 1921, they agreed to affiliate with the Third International. In those days they had well-known Socialists as members-Comrades Stuart, Murphy, Berman, Tinker, F. Lopes, Blunkell, etc. S. Murray, who presided, was rather moderate type, I'm a very sincere man, who conceded any advance movement, if he was not very advanced himself. He was the father of N. Murray, now a Cape Town Councillor.

Berman subsequently became a Town Councillor and as such was often criticised by the others, who thought themselves more "red," and considered he was getting too respectable for the Communist movement. Personally, I have never lost faith in Berman as a Socialist. In fact, I believe he has published a book on "Municipal Socialism." I am not sure of the title, but he was talking to me about it one day and asked me to review it, but I have never seen it. He joined the Forces soon after the outbreak of the recent war and was a major in an engineering corps. He now finds himself in company with three others who were elected as Communists. But both their political programme and the tactics they have employed on the Council since have not said much, it anything, about Communism, but rather about the Council's treatment of the Native and Coloured communities.

South African Labour Party Conference held in Johannesburg, 9th, 10th, and 11th October, 1909

It is very courageous of them to take up the cause of the most needy, but they seem to clash with some of the other Councillors in doing so, and, whatever concession they may gain for them, means only another reform to help purify, rather than destroy, the Capitalist system, and has embittered many against Communism because they are known as Communists, who ought rather to show people what Communism means. It was ever thus. Most people who call themselves Socialists or Communists are much more concerned about many other things that have nothing to do with Socialism or Communism, if there is any difference in what those two words fundamentally mean. There is certainly considerable difference between a Communist and a Socialist from a propaganda point of view. I shall refer to this question in later pages. To assume that improving the conditions of the poor is a means to the end Communists wish to accomplish they might as well belong to the Salvation Army, for they not only aid the social life of the poor here, but promise them a heaven hereafter.

Following the Russian Revolution in 1917 there has been a complete change in the outlook of the revolutionary movement. The early Marxians were purely a religious body before they became corrupted by the political machinery. It was the biggest mistake they made to associate with it. In the first place, when a position of privilege is offered it always attracts the ambitious, who would choose the ranks of Socialists if that would exalt them, therefore that would be more their purpose than their religious enthusiasm for the cause. Further, they, and even the most revolutionary enthusiasts for Socialism, would find themselves compelled to deal with the many diversions of the Parliamentary machinery, and so would become involved and lost to the cause. Every man is instinctively attached to his own nation, therefore international conflicts have ruined the international cause by the Socialists choosing in preference their own national purpose. In Germany always notorious in political conflicts) the national spirit amongst the Socialists in the 1914 conflict was most conspicuously shown. That, with the Noske and Scheidman Administrations under the guise of Socialism, gave cause for getting back to the more Marxian Communism, therefore the Communist Party. The Third International and the Twenty-one points became the name, the purpose and the principles of the modern the revolutionary movement, and South Africa having collected all its Left-wing element, became part of that world revolutionary movement accordingly. As a consequence the I.S.L. finally arrived as a deputation at one of the S.D.F. business meetings and agreed to again throw in their lot with us, with the Communist League included. We were always in communication with, though not exactly affiliated to, the I.S.L. in Johannesburg. We also con­tributed to and were the Cape Town agents of their paper The International- -as I have previously shown-and we subsequently agreed with them to form the Communist Party of South Africa. Our first conference was held in Cape Town on July 30 th , 1921, at which about thirty delegates attended, half a dozen of which came from Johannes­burg, including W. H. Andrews and Sidney Bunting-the only two amongst them who could give proper expression to their purpose.

However, we did not expect them to excel us as Marxian propagandists, as the old S.D.F. had then been twenty years before the public of Cape Town doing nothing else. Andrews was elected secretary of the congress and in his precise way put things in proper order. D. L. Dryburgh was chairman, an office he has always held at every conference he and I attended, whether in Johannesburg or Cape Town. At the time I was the secretary of the S.D.F., to which office they transferred me when we became a branch of the Communist Party of S.A. It was decided that the headquarters of the party should be in Johannesburg, with Andrews as full-time general secretary, and for a few years things went on successfully, something often coming our way to keep us fairly active. In fact the few years that followed our first congress gave opportunity for us to show ourselves as a strong propaganda force.

Following our congress we had a packed meeting at the City Hall of about 2,000 people. D. L. Dryburgh was in the chair, while Blunting, myself, Andrews and C. F. Glass followed respectively as speakers. Bunting was an M.A. (Oxon.) with always plenty of matter, and sometimes, I thought, rather long-winded. He was also a very monotone speaker. The gallery crowd there did not seem to appreciate Bunting's heights of Communist ideology. Notes were in the meantime sent to me to introduce a few fireworks to liven the proceedings and get a little nearer their own thoughts, which is another incident to show what mass psychology means. Therefore I only had to touch on a few Capitalist stupidities in a humorous way, telling them how they made first-class things for their masters, wore third-class things themselves and rode in third-class carriages, while their masters, who did nothing of material value, rode first class and consumed all first-class things.

I remember that was loudly applauded, but Bunting's dialectics of Marxian Communisin, as a ways and means of changing those con­ditions, sent them to sleep. Andrews, who I thought, with that crowd, should have been the first speaker, followed, and I thought he implied that when he said he could not go into sufficient detail at "the tail end of the meeting."

However, as a whole, it was a successful initiation of the Communist Party of South Africa. The first congress was held in the most appropriate place, Cape Town being the mother city of the Socialist movement in South Africa, and I can truthfully boast that I am the father and the only one of the original founders left. I have often despaired at our lack of progress, but I, with most people now, am assuming that the world cannot continue under the present system. The only alternative is the social ownership and control of industry, aided by a world of federal nations, giving us an equitable supply of the raw materials, which will therefore give no reason for territorial or industrial gain, and will eliminate the possibility of war.