Joe Slovo

Joe Slovo (born Yossel Mashel Slovo; 1926 – 1995) was a South African politician and revolutionary leader. Emigrating from Lithuania as a child to escape poverty and antisemitism, Slovo studied law at the University of the Witwatersrand and fought in the Allied forces in World War II.

As a senior leader of both the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the African National Congress (ANC), Slovo co-founded the armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe with Nelson Mandela in 1961, serving for years as its chief of staff from exile. During the tense 1992 negotiations to dismantle apartheid, Slovo made the decisive breakthrough by proposing the 'sunset clauses'—guaranteeing civil service pensions and power-sharing for five years—which averted white right-wing sabotage and paved the way for the historic 1994 democratic election.