Description

'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

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.