ABSTRACT
The political life of Africans was perforcedly carried on in a myriad of small-scale transactions, confrontations and conflicts, often generating a momentum over wide areas of the country and stirring large groups of people into action. These small-scale conflicts often energised political movements, reviving dormant associations or giving rise to new ones. The interest of the communists also stimulated the intervention of white liberals in African politics and union affairs. The Joint Council movement itself was partly a response to the threat of a radicalised proletariat in the cities. The prospect of a communist take-over of the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union resulted in William Ballinger, a Scottish trade unionist, coming to the country at the invitation of the liberal novelist Ethelreda Lewis to establish a non-communist African union movement. The African political groups and movements intensified their efforts against racial laws.
