Publisher's Synopsis
'Written from inside the movement of which it is so critical, McKinley's book is
eloquent testimony of the continuing vitality of the South African left' Modern African Studies
'Dale T. McKinley's succinct critical biography of the ANC offers the reader much food for thought. Written from a Marxist theoretical perspective, it examines the leadership strategies of the ANC from its birth through to the formation of the Transitional Executive in the lead up to the first deomcratic elections of 1994... McKinley's argument is throrough and rigorous, and raises many important questions for supporters of the ANC and similar liberation struggles around the world ... A valuable book.' Left Republican Review
'A critical Marxist analysis of ANC strategy and tactics over the past decades...This
will be a controversial book, but one which should help refine the debate around the
ANC's performance in government.' Mail and Guardian (South Africa)
The African National Congress, the ANC, negotiated a transition of government and power in South Africa in the early 1990s and gained widespread respect and legitimacy when Nelson Mandela was voted in as President in 1994.
In this controversial and radical critique of the ANC and the struggle for liberation in South Africa, Dale T. McKinley challenges conventional public perceptions of the organisation and its celebrated rise to power. McKinley offers the first detailed analysis of the ANC's leadership, tactics and strategies from the 1920s, through the years of exile, to the 1990s, focusing on its close alliance with the South African Communist Party. he reveals that the organisation, despite historical claims to the contrary, failed to stay in touch with the south African masses. The ANC made fundamental compromises to gain political power, and in so doing has ensured that the economic power-base of the ruling elites in South Africa remains essentially unaltered.
