T his chapter grounds the analysis of the emergence, ideology and politics, organisation and collective actions o f SA SO which are exam ined in the next three chapters. The focus here is on the social and higher education structure and conjuncture of the period from

the crushing of mass political dissent in the early 1960s to the re-

em ergence o f mass popular action during the early 1970s, which culminated in the Sow eto uprising of 1976/1977.