SAHO Links
Organisations: South African Communist Party
Politics & Governance: The Congress of Democrats and the Freedom Charter
Outside Links
Treason trial to Rivonia - Rusty (Lionel) Bernstein, website: rusty-bernstein.com
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Lionel Bernstein, website: wikipedia.org
Sources
From Protest To Challenge, Political Profiles Volume 4, p6
Names: Carneson, Fred.
Date of Birth: 1920.
Date of Death: September 2000.
Gender: Male
In Summary: Leader of the Communist Party of South Africa and defendant in the Treason Trial.
Early Life:
A leader of the Communist Party of South Africa and defendant in the Treason Trial, he was the business manager of New Age. Born in 1920 into a white working-class family; his formal education ended early. During World War II he fought with the South African Army in North Africa. He was secretary of the Cape Town district committee of the Communist Party from 1945 to 1947, when he was elected to the party's central committee. Africans elected him their representative in the Cape Provincial Council in 1949, but he was expelled in 1952 because of his affiliation with the Communist Party, which by then had been banned.
Career:
In 1963, when he was a writer for Spark, he was banned from publishing, and in 1965 he was detained. He was subsequently charged with sabotage and organizing for the underground Communist Party. Though acquitted of the first charge, he pleaded guilty to the second in order to prevent the government from bringing pressure on his colleagues to give evidence. He was jailed for five years and nine months. After his release in 1972 he left South Africa for Britain. He returned to South Africa with his wife in 1991.
Later Life:
Carneson died in September 2000.