Govan Mbeki is a pre-eminent member of a generation of New African intellectuals who enormously from the political and cultural intersection of two historical vectors: New Negro modernity and New African modernity, Marxism and African Nationalism. The historical agent, who enabled Govan Mbeki to dialectically synthesize these historical and cultural tendencies, was the New Negro intellectual Max Yergan, who had come to South Africa in 1921 to establish chapters of the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Associations). In this decade, Yergan also organized various chapters of the Students Christian Associations (SCA) in the most important Training Colleges in Natal, Ciskei and in the Transkei (including Lovedale and Amanzimtoti Institution later known as Adams College). He also organized Conferences for students in these institutions. In an article which appeared in Imvo Zabantsundu, Max Yergan explained the ideological purposes of these Conferences and the SCAs: “For what purposes have these meetings been planned and with what results? The answer to this question will be seen in a brief description of some features common to each of the conferences. In the first place, these students hace been called together for definite religious purposes. In no uncertain manner were they reminded of the need for a real and deepened spiritual life. To the extent that it was thought necessary, care was taken in the addresses given to help students in some of their religious difficulties. Students themselves had likewise a very definite share in this part of the conference programme for there was taking place throughout  the meetings a real spiritual fellowship. In this connection one would refer to the early morning prayer meeting which were led by delegates to the conferences. In these meetings one was assured of the depth of religious reality to be found today in Native Educational Institutions. But inspiring and helpful as were these addresses delivered on such subjects as the Reality of God, Spiritual, Experience, The Holy Spirit, Triumphant Power, and Prayer, it was very apparent that the most helpful portions of the conferences were those spent in the discussion of three subjects which constituted the principal part of the agenda and each gathering: these subjects were (1) Bible Study (2) Ways and Means of strengthening the organisation of the Student’s Christian Association and (3) Social Services” (“Native Students’ Christian Associations”, May 5, 1925). In its sweep in the attempt to bring African American experiences of modernity to Africa, this essay by Max Yergan is a continuation of the majestic tradition established by Alexander Crummell’s great essay of 1861, “The English Language in Liberia” (in The Future of Africa, Charles Scribner, New York, 1862). In an Editorial, D. D. T. Jabavu praised the work of Max Yergan in South Africa, in the following terms: “To attend one of these conferences is truly an occasion for spiritual benefit and ennoblement and the personal influence of Mr. Yergan in this connection is a real power and there is no doubt but that through his work the next generation of the Bantu will have a large number of leaders with a balanced mentality and noble aims in life inspired by a lofty character” (“Max Yergan”, Imvo Zabantsundu, April 27, 1926). Govan Mbeki was one of these young New African intellectuals who gained something concrete from his encounter with Yergan. But Mbeki encountered Yergan when the New Negro intellectual had shifted his allegiances from Christianity to Marxism. To be precise, it would seem that it was Max Yergan who facilitated the conversion of Govan Mbeki to Marxism. Despite the fact that Yergan later was to renounce Marxism, in his influencing Mbeki towards Marxism, he contributed profoundly to South Africa’s political and intellectual history. One of Govan Mbeki’s immediate and central tasks in his interpretation of Marxism within the South African context, was the initiation, upon becoming the editor of Inkundla ya Bantu [The Bantu Forum] (then as Territorial Magazine [Ipepandaba Lezifunda]), of a rewriting of African history by Africans for Africans from an African perspective. He initiated a section in the newspaper called Gallery of African Heroes which consisted of portraits of prominent figures who had either resisted the intrusion of European imperialism in Africa or those who were African modernizers. In reviving and contuing on the tradition of writing biographies as articulations of history, Govan Mbeki in the early 1940s was continuing on a lineage that had been given fundamental shape by F. Z. S. Peregrino in his newspaper South African Spectator in the early 1900s. In his retrieval of U-Hintsa as a great historical figure exemplifying resistance and revolutionary action, Mbeki writes, among numerous isightful observations: “The making of big historical events is usually not confined to one locality. Hintsa, the son of Gcaleka, was a contemporary of Napoleon, belonged to the big Trio of African kings---Moshoeshoe, Tshaka and Hintsa. The chief of the Xhosas, Hintsa, lived and ruled at a time when Britain was feverishly forging her empire with iron and fire. . . . Little is known of his life as a young man and when we begin to hear of him it is when he is already a chief. He was a well built man, physically developed and respectful. What we may today call his administration was founded on the natural democratic principles which are to be found more amongst the less developed societies of mankind. This man whose eyes flashed as though ‘they were lightning’ according to the descriptive lines of the poet in Ityala lama Wele naturally bore those looks which might have been interpreted as indicative of cruel nature. Such looks were but natural to a man whose public role was not only to reign, but also to rule, and was also charged by the gods with the duty of leading his people in military operations against those who violated the integrity of his sphere of influence. We have one example of his life as the guardian of the personal security of every individual. The case of Babini vs Wele in Ityala lama Wele by Rune S. Mqhayi (the national poet) reveals how thorough their judicial investigations were, how uninfluenced their judgment by any other motives than those which customary law had long established. According to the customary law he was the supreme ruler yet he exercised his powers most humanely. The case of Babini vs Wele depicts this great hearted ruler as an embodiment of the established law of his people. He is present at the court but the trial of the whole case is in the hands of his counsellors. Whatever might have been his opinion he takes the verdict of the jury---the verdict that satisfied both the complaint and the defendant because it was passed after many days of thorough examination by the people in their own Inkundla. Hintsa was the guardian of the people’s traditions and their democratic institutions. . . . Hintsa was a lover of peace. The fact that his fellowmen across the Kei were often locked in mortal struggle with the British troops who always sought the extension of their own boundaries and in that encroaching on the land of the Xhosas did not lead him to taking up arms. It was not until the impetuous Sir Harry Smith disregarded his national pride that the end of this great man was at once to come. . . . The choice was now between betrayal of his people and facing death. In order to avoid the stigma of shame that would have long after been associated with his name, he made a dash for freedom and he was shot dead and his body mutilated. Such is the end of those who love freedom, for freedom is God’s greatest gift to mankind. He was born in a land of freedom, he lived and breathed the free air in a free land. When his freedom and that of his people was threatened there was nothing else left for him but to risk the British bullets and the risk proved fatal, but Hintsa died free that his people might have freedom and have it more abundantly” (“U-Hintsa: Past and Present”, Inkundla ya Bantu, May 1941). Like Hintsa, Govan Mbeki, in his struggle for the freedom of the African people, spent over 25 years in prison on Robben Island for political activities with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada and others. But, more immediate and fascinating is Govan Mbeki’s appropriation of Mqhayi’s poetics in order construct a new African historiography. Besides associating Marxism with historical reconceptualizations, Mbeki also understood historical materialism as engaged with the political struggles of the present. The political struggles of the present were a quest for social justice against the exploitative capitalist relations of production. The exploitative relations had created the poverty and the desperate conditions in the Transkei. From the moment of his articles which appeared in the New Outlook magazine in late 1938 on this region, the social conditions in the Transkei were to preoccupy his historical imagination for decades of his intellectual activity. These essays were praised in the following manner in The Territorial Magazine: “The articles were so enthusiastically received by the public that requests were made that the author should compile them in a book form. Since then, however, very important chapters outlining the conditions in the Transkei in a manner that shows the way in which the writer has observed and studied conditions in those Territories have been added. Although this booklet which will be released from the Press for public consumption shortly is primarily concerned with economic conditions, and the life generally of those Territories, it certainly has far wider application and woulf cover the conditions in all Native Reserves in and outside the Union”
(“Transkei in the Making: A Well of Information in Essay Form”, Anonymous, August 1939). The conditions of African people in the Transkei was in actuality the conditions which affected all Africans in South Africa. The Transkei was still at the center of his intellectual imagination twenty years later, as a major essay on the region which appeared in Liberation made evident. In this essay of 1956, Govan Mbeki examined the impact of the Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 which created ‘Bantustans’ on ethnic basis. As to be expected, the 1951 Act aggravated further the living conditions of the African people: “Against a bleak economic background where for more than a quarter of a century three million people have year after year struggled for survival under the shadow of starvation, where the absence of body-building foods has rendered sterile young women in their thirties, where death has taken heavy toll of both animal and human life, where preventible diseases have maimed thousands, where the social effects upon family life of the migratory labour policy have ruined family life. Where despair is threatening to destroy the purpose of living, so that men cling to life only because it is instinctive to do so---against this background we must examine the alleged millenium of Bantu Authorities announced by Verwoed. . . . The Bantu Authorities are to be saddled with the responsibility of carrying out a land policy which the people have opposed so strongly that the Government with all its show of strength through armed police has failed to achieve” (“The Transkei Tragedy”, Liberation, no. 22, November 1956; no. 23, February 1957). It is not surprising that the oppressive and exploitative capitalist relations of production eventually led to the great Pondo revolt and uprising of 1961, which unsurprisingly, Govan Mbeki was to capture the nature of its historicalness in his classic book: The Peasants’ Revolt (1963). The many years spent in prison on Robben Island have not broken the spirit of this extraordinary man if we can judge from several powerful books which Govan Mbeki has published since his release in 1987: The Struggle for Liberation in South Africa (1991), Learning from Robben Island (1993), Sunset at Midday (1996). His commitment to Marxism, liberty, justice and freedom has never wavered. The present Vice-Chancellor of the University of Witwatersrand, Colin Bundy, is completing a biographical study of this great South African Communist. Without a doubt, its publication is going to be a major intellectual event in South Africa. A senior member of the African National Congress (ANC), South African Communist Party, founder member of the High Command of Umkhonto We Sizwe, Govan Mbeki is one of the last major figures of the New African Movement who is still alive today in the 2000.