ABSTRACT
This chapter reveals that given the depth of the country's racial divisions, there tended to be different black and white responses to fascism. The Nazi seizure of power elicited a movement of protest and boycotts from mainly white leftist, liberal and Jewish organisations in South Africa. A rash of violent fascist organisations sprang up in the country, and were faced with physical opposition from left groups in the major cities. Black South African political activists responded strongly to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, leading to significant worker solidarity actions. The war years saw a remarkable success for a mass movement of white soldiers, the Springbok Legion, which defined itself as anti-fascist. But after the Second World War, this political surge eventually foundered on complex issues of racial politics. The oppositional movements’ reading of apartheid as simply a continuation of fascism was flawed in its strategic implications.
