Moses Kotane

Moses Mauane Kotane was born on August 9, 1905, in Tamposstad, western Transvaal. Starting work as a cattle herder, he taught himself to read at age fifteen, working in bakery and mining jobs before joining the African National Congress and the Communist Party in 1928.

Studying at the International Lenin School in Moscow, Kotane returned to become General Secretary of the SACP in 1939. He brilliantly indigenized Marxist theory, insisting that the national liberation of the African majority was the supreme precondition for socialism. As ANC Treasurer-General and close confidant of Chief Albert Luthuli, he attended the historic 1955 Bandung Conference. Indicted in the 1956 Treason Trial, he directed the liberation underground in exile until his death in Moscow.