George Padmore in his classic book of Pan-Africanist philosophy, Pan-Africanism or Communism (1958), postulates that the heroic mode Clements Kadalie represented in modernity was a continuation of a lineage that Dingane had made so exemplary within traditional societies. This comparision by the great Trinidadian Pan-Africanist bespeaks to the historic importance of Kadalie having founded the ICU (the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union) in January 1919 and its subsequent preeminent role in African politics in the decade of the 1920s to its demise in 1929. It is its significance as a New African workers' union, a 'New Labour Union Movement', that enabled it to feature so prominently in C. L. R. James' The History of Pan-African Revolt. Clements Kadalie's role in this labour movement has positioned him historically as a premier New African political leader within the New African Movement. The political and intellectual profile of the New Africanism of this Malawian-born nationalist fits in with that of other New Africans from Walter Rubusana to H. Selby Msimang: similar with Allan Kirkland Soga for instance, he saw deep historical affinities between New Negoroism and New Africanism, and consequently and respectively both became foreign correspondents for New Negro newspapers, Colored American Magazine and The Messenger; similar with Pixley ka Isaka Seme, the founder of the ANC, he was virulently anti-Communist, to the point of expelling from the ICU in 1925. It was in A Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen's The Messenger (a workers' newspaper of the Harlem Renaissance) that Clements Kadalie published his major ideological statements on the New African labour movement. In this third major contribution to the newspaper, Kadalie made the following observations: "The African Native of to-day is a new man and is therefore quite different from his fore-fathers whom the white man found there some two hundred years ago and they duped. The most peculiar man ever created by Dieu is an African Native. He takes no heed to the white man's mischievous propaganda, he has lost hope in white man's leadership anf his religion. To determine to frighten him by writing or otherwise at this juncture is to weld him closer together. Thus we find that with the advent of our official organ The Workers' Herald and the strenuous propaganda as carried on at present, the African workers are responding as one man" ("Black Trade Unionism In Africa", vol. 11 no. 11, November 1924). What Pixley ka Isaka Seme had intended to achieve by founding the ANC, Clements Kadalie sought to do likewise with the ICU. Two years before the demise the ICU, in a statement to British Trade Union in London, Clements Kadalie had occasion to reflect on its founding moment: "When the real proletariat of South Africa was thus left unorganised, the idea was conceived towards the close of 1918 of organising them into a Union, and on January 17th, 1919, the first meeting was held at Cape Town with this object in view. Here the Union which was destined to play an important role in the South African Trade Union Movement was established with a membership of 24. . . . The most remarkable thing in the Trade Union Movement in South Africa is that the white Unions have made no attempt in the past to absorb the black woekers' Union. It is no exxaggeration to state here, that white Trade Unionists have stood aloof from the black workers' movement. The ICU for instance has received neither direct nor indirect support from officials of white Unions. . . . Thus a rapid change is taking place in the Trade Union Movement in South Africa. It must be acknowledged that the black workers have made a large contribution towards this new atmosphere" ("Smashing the Colour Bar: Statement to the British Union Congress", The Workers' Herald, August 15, 1927). In other words, the Workers' Movement was instrumental in the construction of South African modernity or New African modernity. Although Clements Kadalie occupies an ambivalent position in South African political and intellectual history, he has been held in high esteem by some of the New African intellectuals. It is very surprising  that Clements Kadalie never merits recognition in Z. K. Matthews' mammoth series of New African portraits which appeared in Imvo Zabantsundu from June 3rd to November 21st, 1961. But in the decade of the 1920s Clements Kadalie was unavoidable as a historical phenomenon, as evidenced by the testimonial of two major New African intellectuals: H. Selby Msimang and R. V. Selope Thema, both of whom were the leading intellectual voices in Umteteli wa Bantu newspaper. H. Selby Msimang commended Clements Kadalie in effect for having succeeded in implanting among the workers the political consciousness of New Africanism: "It is gratifying to note that several Bantu leaders are beginning to realise the importance of the necessity to organise Bantu workers into unions for the purpose of mutual bargaining for better conditions of labour and better pay. . . . Nothing can do more good at present than to call together Bantu workers and impress upon them the great truths which demand that we we should once more organise for self-preservation, if for nothing else. But to beneficially organise Bantu workers is a problem which has baffled the greatest men of our race, because its solution cannot be found in the doctrines of trade unionism as understood and propounded by the white workers" ("Organisation of Bantu Workers", Umteteli wa Bantu, February 14, 1925). In R. V. Selope Thema's estimation, the achievements of Clements Kadalie in organizing the ICU was part of the making and creation of a 'New Africa', in which 'civilization' must overcome and conquer 'barbarism': "Africa is changing; it is no longer the Africa of darkness, but the Africa which is rapidly coming out of the darkness of paganism. The jungle is giving way to settlements and civilisation. The Sahara desert, which has through the roll of ages been the greatest barrier between civilisation and barbarism is being overcome. Railway and telegraphic communications are being built across the once formidable enemy of African progress. . . . For there is a revolt among the younger generation of Africans against the old order of things. Tribalism is fast passing away. It is no longer a barrier to the unity of the tribes. There are forces to-day in Africa working towards the realisation of African unity. . . . A decade ago nobody knew that a Central African Native could organise and lead thousands of South African Natives. What has brought about this change?. . . The supreme task of those whose duty it is to direct the destinies of this continent is to guide these new forces that they may bless and not curse a people. These new forces cannot be stultified by means of repressive legislation" ("The New Africa", Umteteli wa Bantu, October 29, 1927). Although both H. Selby Msimang and R. V. Selope Thema embraced Clements Kadalie as representing the new forces of modernity, they were critical of the way he was participating in its making. Within a few years this criticism was to become the judgment of history. In his autobiography, My Life and the ICU, written in 1946 and published in 1970, Clement Kadalie evinces a lack understanding of the true dimensions of his role in the making of South African modernity.