ABSTRACT
Existing scholarship on African National Congress (ANC) underground organisation suffers from an over-reliance on documentary resources, which has tended to conceal its texture, complexity and detail. This chapter covers an early part of that experience, reinterpreting some literature on the ANC's M-Plan as well as using oral evidence to throw light on its meaning and impact. The underground political operative has to be invisible in order to achieve success. The reconstitution of the Communist Party of South Africa as the South African Communist Party (SACP) has importance for the later development of the ANC as an underground organisation. Many of the leading figures in the ANC underground were also members of the Communist underground. All but one of the Rivonia accused, are now known to have been members of the SACP, most in the leadership of the organisation.
