Introduction; writing South African socialist history; The international and national origins of South African socialism; 'Rather a strange gospel': socialism in South Africa, 1900--1917; 'The Word was made flesh': the impact of the Russian Revolution on South Africa; Searching for the socialist road: the Rand Revolt and the turn to black labour; The one best way: the Comintern's hand and the Native Republic thesis; The New Line: fighting the scourge of Buntingism; A new prophet, a new prophecy: the origins of South African Trotskyism; Inquisition and recantation; Illusory visions: black unity and left unity in the 1930s; 'Wars and rumours of wars': socialists confront the Second World War; 'Not in word, but in power': socialists and black protest during the war; 'Peace; and there was no peace': the Cold War and the suppression of socialism; Conclusion: the burden of history and the burden of choice.

This title was first published in 2000: This book considers the fortunes of socialism in South Africa from the doctrine's arrival around 1900 to its legal suppression in 1950. Socialism's universal claims had to come to terms with South Africa's singular national experience.