MAJOR CRAIG WILLIAMSON (SAP-SB AGENT RS167):

“THE PAST IS NEVER DEAD. IT ISN’T EVEN PAST.”

(Talk given at Afriforum Theater on 2 April 2025)

Abstract: South African Police Security Branch master spy, Major Craig Williamson (agent RS 167) spoke on the 2nd of April 2025 about the ever-present need for espionage and gave background about SAP-SB secret operations such as “Operation Daisy” and the infiltration of the SACP-ANC Alliance.

Keywords

Bill Andrews (Comrade Bill)
Bram Fischer
Col. Johann Coetzee
D/W/O Gerald Ludi or Q018
Geheime Dienst of the Zuid-Afrikaanse Republiek
International Socialist Commission
Joe Slovo
Lenin
Lilliesleaf Farm in Rivonia
Marxism
MK Luthuli Detachment/ ZIPRA
Nelson Mandela
Operation Daisy
Operation Vula
President’s Council
SACP/ANC Alliance
Section 4 / Seksie 4 (Successor of Republican Intelligence; covert section in the SA Police)
South Africa in the 1960’s
South African Communist Party (SACP)
SP Bunting
Stalin
Third International, an alliance of all Communist party’s worldwide – the Comintern.
Transvaalse Geheime Politie
Trotsky,
TW Thibedi
Umkhonto We Sizwe
Yusuf Dadoo

The advert:

“Craig Williamson, alias RS 167, was ’n Suid-Afrikaanse meesterspioen gedurende die apartheid-era. Hy het hom voorgedoen as ’n anti-apartheid-aktivis en die ANC geïnfiltreer terwyl hy vir die veiligheidspolisie gewerk het. Dit het gelei tot die ontmaskering van verskeie ANC-lede en hulle planne. Hy was verantwoordelik vir verskeie suksesvolle geheime operasies. Die operasies het gelei tot die teiken en uitskakeling van verskeie ANC-aktiviste. Ontmoet Craig en vra vrae na die tyd. Alle fondse word geskenk aan die Stigting vir Gelykheid voor die Reg. Kaartjies is aanlyn te koop vanaf Maandag 24/03/2025 by Afriforum teater.”

RS 167 delivering his speech. Photo by Mr Len Dekker,

THE TALK: “THE PAST IS NEVER DEAD. IT ISN’T EVEN PAST.”

Mr Chairman, ladies & gentlemen

The title I chose for my talk tonight is William Faulkner’s famous quote “The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.”

At the outset I must make clear that my purpose tonight isn’t to justify what my colleagues and I did during the so-called ‘struggle’ years, it’s to explain the reasons and context.

Many people think that the reason for the armed revolutionary struggle waged by the SA Communist Party, ANC and others from 1961 until 1992 was because there was no effective legal way for them to oppose apartheid laws and to bring about a democracy. The fact of the matter is that there was plenty of legal political, social, economic and cultural opposition to government policies of the day and that even within the ANC leadership there wasn’t unanimous support for the SACP’s decision to declare war against the State. It was Nelson Mandela’s support for the SACP plan which tipped the scale and Umkhonto We Sizwe and armed struggle became official ANC policy.

In my opinion that was a tragic mistake, and it meant that the political future of South Africa became inextricably linked to whatever the outcome of the Cold War would be. The SACP/ANC tied themselves firmly to the socialist bloc led by the Soviet Union. That is not to say that the Soviet Union dictated to the ANC through the SACP. That was not necessary. They had a common ideology. Marxism with its protagonists such as Trotsky, Lenin and Stalin set out the map for achieving a socialist world order through revolution and they guided their plans internationally through the Comintern, an umbrella organisation for all likeminded revolutionary communist party’s all over the world.

The plan to overthrow the SA government through a violent revolutionary struggle didn’t just occur to the SACP on 16^th December 1961. So, what led up to this declaration of war against the State? I’m sure that many here tonight don’t realise for how long there have been efforts to install a Marxist socialist state in SA.

After I was recruited to work with Section 4 in 1971, I met then Col. Johann Coetzee. He was probably the foremost expert SA has ever had in the tactics and strategy of Marxist-Leninists and the SACP. We spent time together during evenings in his house in Brixton and he educated me in the history of the Marxist revolutionaries in SA on how they worked and on how to get close to them.

The CPSA founded in 1921 and it’s successor the SACP founded in secret in 1953 are two of the oldest communist party’s in the world. Interestingly the forerunners of the SAP SB, the Transvaalse Geheime Politie of 1877 and the Geheime Dienst van die Zuid-Afrikaanse Republiek of 1895 are two of the oldest intelligence organisations in the world.

In 1907 a number of left-wing groups in Capetown merged and formed the Labour Representative Committee, the LRC with Comrade Bill Andrews as President. In 1910 with SA becoming a Union the LRC and the SDP succeeded in uniting all left wing and socialist parties into the SA Labour Party. The Marxists and the SD’s were an uneasy alliance but Comrade Bill was elected to parliament in 1912 and the LRC even won a one seat majority in the Transvaal Provincial Council in 1914. Throughout these years Comrade Bill and his Marxists focused on organising white militant left wing trades union and used strikes, violence and intimidation enforced by their so-called pickaxe brigade. All this type of political action was imported from and influenced by British left wing political thought, particularly the ‘syndicalist’ trade union movement in the UK which was responsible for large scale industrial unrest, and which sought to exacerbate tensions between capital and labour.

WW1 disrupted relations between the Social Democrats and Comrade Bill’s Marxists as the SDP was pro PM Louis Botha’s support for the war and Comrade Bill was against. So, in 1915 the antiwar faction formed the International Socialist League of SA with Comrade Bill as Chairman. This was the forerunner of the CPSA and for the first time the Marxists began organising non-racial unions, although their main focus was still white workers.

The ISL immediately sought affiliation with the International Socialist Commission. This group under the leadership of Russian exile Lenin became the Third International, an alliance of all Communist party’s worldwide – the Comintern.

The situation changed dramatically when Lenin and Trotsky took control of Russia in 1917 and embarked on an aggressive expansionist foreign policy which encouraged revolution worldwide including in SA. Comrade Bill had been in Europe during the Russian Revolution and returned to SA in 1918 all fired up with enthusiasm for a worker’s revolution in SA. The government realised that the ISL was aiming at bringing about a Marxist society and the Police Act of 1917 established the Special Branch responsible for security and intelligence.

Marxist agitation amongst white workers continued and in 1919 striking workers briefly occupied municipal offices in Durban and Johannesburg and raised the red flag. In 1920 the Communist Party of Great Britain was formed which became an important source of support and finance over the years for the Communist Party of South Africa, which was formed in 1921 and led by Comrade Bill, after the first congress of the 3^rd International.

The CPSA believed firmly in the idea that white workers would be the catalyst for the revolution in SA and this resulted in the failed 1922 rebellion by 5000 mineworkers. Jan Smuts used military force to quell the attempt and 4 ringleaders were hanged. Others were shackled and put on a ship back to Britain.

Comrade Bill was elected to the leadership of the Comintern and left SA. SP Bunting took over the CPSA leadership and, after the dismal failure of the party to gain much support in the 1924 elections, Bunting persuaded them to drop the slogan “Workers of the world unite for a white South Africa “. Bunting raised the issue of paying more attention to black political and trade union issues and by 1926 the CPSA had decided to increase their influence within the ANC and to follow Lenin’s twin revolution theory. This strategy was a key to the success of the Russian Revolution whereby a first bourgeois democratic revolution was followed by the socialist revolution. In 1926 the CPSA financed a night school in Ferreira’s town run by the hardcore Marxist TW Thibedi who very successfully produced a new generation of dedicated black Marxists. Then in 1928 Stalin shocked the CPSA leadership by issuing his Black Republic decree which instructed that the party leadership should be black and that it should strive to achieve a black Republic. Since then it has been the CPSA/SACP policy to support the first bourgeois national democratic revolution whereafter the socialist revolution will follow, thus a dual phase revolution – first political liberation to be followed by economic transformation.

The CPSA worked diligently throughout the 1930’s embedding supporters into all sorts of political and cultural community organisations and promoting cross class political alliances. At the outbreak of WWII the party initially opposed any support for the war effort due to the Nazi-Soviet pact signed by Hitler and Stalin in 1939 but when Germany invaded Russia the CPSA reversed it’s stance on the war and people like Joe Slovo served in the allied forces.

After the war and the National Party victory in the 1948 general election CPSA activities increased to such a degree that the government passed the Suppression of Communism Act in 1950 and the CPSA dissolved itself, just to go underground and emerge in 1953 as the SACP. After 1948 the CPSA/ANC worked together promoting mass political resistance and increased black membership. This strategy culminated in the Defiance Campaign of 1952/3 and ultimately the ANC was banned shortly after the Sharpeville shooting in 1960. The SACP influence on the ANC through the Congress Alliance that a group of ANC members broke with the ANC and formed the PAC.

From that time both the SACP and ANC worked clandestinely towards igniting a mass revolution through mass political and armed resistance. MK as the armed wing of the SACP ANC was officially launched on 16^th December 1961 but as most people are aware, most of the SACP ANC leadership, including Nelson Mandela and SACP leader Bram Fischer were imprisoned by 1963 to 1965 after the security branch discovered their secret HQ at Lilliesleaf Farm in Rivonia and after it turned out that a key Johannesburg SACP member was Security Branch officer D/W/O Gerald Ludi or Q018.

So, by 1965 the leadership of the SACP ANC were either imprisoned, exiled or otherwise restricted and the organisations strategy and tactics relied on the external leadership mission. In London Joe Slovo, Ronnie Kasrils and Yusuf Dadoo became key figures working towards resurrection of the ANC SACP MK. Besides the abortive joint MK Luthuli Detachment/ ZIPRA foray into Rhodesia from Zambia the ANC SACP access to SA borders was limited and ANC SACP activity inside SA was largely restricted to propaganda leaflets etc. The situation changed with the so-called Carnation revolution in Portugal in 1974 and independence for Angola and Mozambique in 1975. The ANC SACP could establish bases in Angola and facilities in Maputo just in time to take advantage of black student exiles leaving SA after the 1976 Soweto student uprising.

Story of Operation Daisy.

So, I hope that I’ve given some idea if the different interests, motives and hidden agendas that have swirled around SA politics for the past 120 or so years. It is an undeniable fact that the Comintern and international communism worked on exploiting political discontent wherever they found it. It is also an undeniable fact that the CPSA & SACP enthusiastically adopted the Lenin two-stage or twin revolution theory and Stalin’s idea of a black Republic with the ultimate aim of establishing a totalitarian socialist state run by the party. And the SACP had no objection to any of the excesses of Stalin or the CPSU. They regarded the killings as necessary to rid society of undesirable elements. These included CPSA members Maurice and Paul Richter executed for moving in circles hostile to the party. Another member Lazar Bach was sent to a gulag where he died. His crime was disruptional factionalism.

One example of SACP duplicity which we must never forget Is their ‘Operation Vula’ attempt to prepare for a violent insurrection during the CODESA-negotiations.