Jane Starfield
REVOLUTIONS IN MY LIFE=20
by Baruch Hirson=20
(Witwatersrand University Press, R86,15)
SOUTH African historical writing is low on=20 Trotskyists. Although there have been several=20 eminent Trotskyist politicians (for example, Gana=20 Makabeni and Max Gordon), Baruch Hirson is probably=20 our most famous (under the old government, read=20 “notorious”; they banned his first book for years)=20 Trotskyist historian. Reading his version of the=20 past 70 years is, refreshingly, like hearing Mozart=20 played by Murray Perahia when one has, for years,=20 been trapped in the performances of Wilhelm Kempff.
His chief works are Year of Fire, Year of Ash, on=20 the Soweto uprising, and Yours for the Union, a=20 history _ from the inside _ of the trade union=20 movement in South Africa. His autobiography is a=20 welcome addition to his oeuvre, being a powerful=20 evocation of his personal growth, against the=20 background of his perception of signal events in=20 our history since the 1930s. This is social history=20 at its finest and Wits University Press can be very=20 proud of the quality of its production,=20 photographs, copy and all.
One of Hirson’s chief attractions as an historical=20 writer is that he is self-taught. Personal=20 experience in the unions and in prison gave him a=20 grounding which more formal education as a=20 physicist and mathematician could not quite match.=20 So, while school and university made Hirson a pure=20 scientist in the first part of his life, prison=20 (that much tougher school) and the worker movement=20 turned him into an historian and social analyst in=20 the second part of his life. This, in spite of the=20 fact that many of his more formally trained=20 historian contemporaries may have cocked purist=20 snooks at his passionate, committed writings, makes=20 him an historian to wrench off the bookshelves and=20 read with pleasure.
For Hirson, unlike many contemporary historians, is=20 inspired by Marxist inquiry, by Engels and by=20 D=81hring. Many Marxist historians whose ardour waxed=20 in the 1960s and 1970s have seen it wane in the=20 pragmatic 1980s and 1990s. Not so Hirson. He=20 remains committed to a style and method of analysis=20 that Marx and Engels, via their interpreter=20 Trotsky, would be proud of. Even while teaching=20 physics, maths and a little Japanese history at=20 Damelin College (before it cornered the matric=20 market), he saw the necessity of being=20 theoretically as well as practically charged.=20
Incidentally, it was his search for fresh=20 perspectives on his areas of teaching and studying=20 that led him to meet his future wife, Dr Yael=20 Sherman, and thence to one of Hirson’s less=20 passionate assertions: “Romances are not born of=20 statements of intent, nor did one response bring us=20 immediately together, but it did lead to a kiss and=20 the start of an increasingly intimate friendship=20 that grew into marriage.”
One should add that Hirson and Sherman had already=20 met each other and gained insight into political=20 analysis in the Zionist movement. Not, need it be=20 said, the bourgeois Zionism that flourished in=20 South Africa in groups such as Habonim and Betar,=20 but in the less widespread, left-wing Hashomir=20 Hatzair, which bound the Marxism of his political=20 devotion together with the Zionism that would have=20 been difficult to avoid in the years before and=20 just after World War II.
When Hirson returned to university, he did so as a=20 mature student, having already devoted much time=20 and effort to Hashomir, to the Workers’=20 International League, to the Fourth International=20 Organisation of South Africa (FIOSA) and the=20 Progressive Trade Union (PTU) group. In the early=20 1940s, he was deeply involved, among other actions,=20 in the Milling workers’ strike, from the platform=20 of FIOSA and the PTU. His allies were, initially,=20 people like Vincent and Lilian Swart, Hosea Jaffee=20 and Roman Eisenstein. He writes: “I had not joined=20 it because of any group dynamism, or because there=20 was significant political development in the=20 socialist movement in South Africa, but because of=20 a world perspective that drew me towards the ideas=20 of Leon Trotsky.” He went on to become a lecturer=20 in physics at the University of the Witwatersrand,=20 while remaining politically involved.
Being a Trotskyist in South Africa was not easy.=20 Firstly, there were so many other political colours=20 one could nail to one’s mast. Secondly, there were=20 groups within groups: an Africanist wing of the=20 ANC, for example; a socialist wing of the PAC, and=20 so on. There was even a small but stalwart group of=20 Maoists, whose voices became increasingly=20 vociferous as the 1940s progressed. And to proclaim=20 oneself a Trot did not give one sole purchase on=20 the appellation. Max Gordon, Fanny Klenerman (of=20 the Vanguard Book Shop) and her husband, Frank=20 Glass, were all Trotskyists of somewhat different=20 hues from Hirson’s own. Furthermore, being a=20 Marxist did not automatically index one somewhere=20 between Bram Fischer and Eli Weinberg. At times, it=20 seems as if to be a Trotskyist means to go it alone=20 _ breaking with other Trots, especially if their=20 views differ from one’s own.
The circumstances of Hirson’s arrest and jailing=20 are fairly well-known. On his release after nine=20 years inside, he was faced with two alternatives: a=20 lonely existence under a stringent banning order=20 and house arrest, or exile. Taking his young=20 family, his wife and his own needs into account, he=20 chose the latter, even though it was extremely=20 difficult to find work in England in the mid-1970s.
Hirson’s book makes fascinating reading as an=20 intellectual history of the South African left. It=20 is also a tribute to the freer spirit of the times=20 we live in now that such a book can be published,=20 and is not, like his first book, immediately draped=20 in banning orders. It is riveting to find that more=20 than one version of the South African past exists=20 and is tolerated.=20
I remember a party at Hirson’s London home in the=20 mid-1980s, at which many of his former jail-mates _=20 many non-Trotskyists _ were in attendance as well=20 as some English academics with whom Hirson had, by=20 this time, struck up a strong alliance. A large=20 chocolate cake emerged as the party’s somewhat=20 allegorical focus of attention and the former jail- mates went into a serious huddle over how the cake=20 was to be cut. I paused, before fleeing to the=20 kitchen, to hope that the Trots would go on arguing=20 with the Zionists, Communists and ANC members over=20 this metaphorical cake, not because it was turning=20 into a grown-up Nusas meeting, but because=20 difference of opinion is always healthy, especially=20 when dispute is entered into in such amicable=20 terms.