Paper short abstract:

This paper will consider the role of various communist actors in the political transitions that took Namibia to independence in 1990 and South Africa from apartheid to democracy in the early 1990s: Cuba, the Soviet Union and the South African Communist Party.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will consider the role of various communist actors in the political transitions that took Namibia to independence in 1990 and South Africa from apartheid to democracy in the early 1990s. Cuba played a key role in the military conflict that led to the angola/Namibia accord of December 1988 that paved the way for Namibian independence, and the way in which Namibia moved to independence in turn made possible the transition in south Africa. But whereas there was no communist party in Namibia, and only a few leading Namibians retained a strong commitment to communist ideology, in South Africa the South African Communist Party (SACP) had by the late 1980s been closely tied to the Soviet Union for decades. While the Soviets, and to a lesser extent the German Democratic Republic, provided weapons and military training to the armed wings of the two liberation movements, in the late 1980s, under Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviets sought to promote peaceful settlements to the southern African conflicts. While international communism played no role in the south African transition, leading figures in the SACP were influential, in often surprising ways, in helping to shape South Africa’s political transition. This paper will try to bring out the nuances in the story of the two transitions and will offer reflections on how they were similar and different, and why.