Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front - History

History

The ZACF is the most recent in a rather short line of South African anarchist organisations stretching back to the early 1990s, from which it has inherited some members. Following the destruction of the semi-syndicalist Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union of Africa (ICU) in the 1930s, anarchism only began to re-emerge as a movement in South Africa with small anarchist collectives, established primarily in Durban and Johannesburg, in the 1990s. In 1993, the Anarchist Revolutionary Movement (ARM) was established in Johannesburg; its student section included militants from the anti-apartheid movement.

In 1995, a larger movement, the Workers' Solidarity Federation (WSF), replaced the ARM. The WSF incorporated a Durban-based collective which published the journal Freedom; it also produced its own journal entitled Workers' Solidarity. The WSF was in the tradition of Platformism, as opposed to the far looser ARM, and focused mainly on work within black working class and student struggles. It established links with anarchist individuals and small anarchist collectives in Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Zambia; and helped to establish a short-lived Zambian WSF.

In 1999, for a range of reasons, the WSF dissolved. It was succeeded by two anarchist collectives: the Bikisha Media Collective and Zabalaza Books. These two groups co-produced Zabalaza: A Journal of Southern African Revolutionary Anarchism, which has since become the journal of the ZACF. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, activists in these structures were involved in struggles against privatisation and evictions, and Bikisha was formally affiliated to the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF), with a Bikisha member serving as APF Media Officer.

On May Day in 2003, the ZACF was formed; initially as the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation/ ZabFed. The early ZACF essentially a regroupment of local anarchist groups, bringing together a number of new anarchist collectives in Gauteng and Durban, and the Bikisha Media Collective and Zabalaza Books. In 2007, in order to strengthen its structures, the ZACF was reconstituted as the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front. By this time, the ZACF also had members in Swaziland, and was running a small social centre in Motsoaledi squatter camp in Soweto.

While committed to promoting syndicalism in the unions, ZACF work was largely focused on the so-called "new social movements" formed in South Africa in response to the perceived failures of the African National Congress government post-apartheid. The ZACF was involved in the campaigns of the Anti-Privatisation Forum and the Landless People's Movement. It has also been involved in solidarity work with Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign. In addition to such work, the ZACF is active in organising workshops and propaganda.

Following the formation of the Democratic Left Front (DLF) in 2011, the ZACF has become a member organisation. However, it is critical of the mostly middle-class composition of the DLF's leadership, and of the electoral ambitions of some DLF affiliates.

Like a substantial section of DLF supporters, the ZACF was critical of the DLF's organising processes up to, and during, the protests at 'COP-17' in Durban, that is, the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which it argued were top-down and manipulated.