Walter Sisulu

Although hailed, alongside Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, as one of the ANC’s holy trinity, Walter Sisulu has remained a relatively neglected figure in the historiography of the struggle for liberation in South Africa. Modest and unassuming, Sisulu was always content to stay in the background in a way that has belied his importance. This nuanced and highly original biography of Walter Sisulu, drafted by political historian Tom Lodge before his untimely death, provides a powerful corrective. Lodge pronounces Walter an exceptional organiser, the most influential planner of the ANC’s mass campaigning during the 1950s, a principled but undoctrinaire communist, and alongside Mandela an advocate of the necessity of armed struggle. He also served as the careful navigator of the ambiguous relationship between the ANC and Umkhontho we Sizwe, and Lodge details how Sisulu’s exceptional grasp of this enabled him to confound the prosecution when he later played a lead role as a defendant in the Rivonia trial. Sentenced to life imprisonment with his fellow trialists, Walter’s became a calming influence amidst the divisive ideological debates which took place on Robben Island, as well as a constant source of strength and support to Mandela. Then, after his release from jail – ahead of Mandela – in 1989, he again demonstrated his prowess as the chief organiser of the ANC as it re-established itself prior to the 1994 elections. In this powerful account of his life, completed by Roger Southall, Lodge provides the detailed analysis of his commitment and contribution to South African freedom that Walter Sisulu deserves.

Tom Lodge was a pre-eminent chronicler of the struggle for liberation of South Africa. His books included Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (1983), Mandela: A Critical Biography (2006), Sharpeville: An Apartheid Massacre and its Consequences (2011), and Red Road to Freedom: A History of the South Africa Communist Party, 1921–2021 (2021). Between 1978 and 2005, he worked at the University of the Witwatersrand where he was Professor of Political Studies from 1997, before becoming Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Limerick in Ireland. He died in 2023 before he completed the manuscript. Roger Southall is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand. His books include Imperialism or Solidarity? International Labour and South African Trade Unions (1995) and Smuts and Mandela: The Men who Made South Africa (2024).