Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front

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The ZACF is the most recent in a rather short line of South African anarchist organisations stretching back to the early 1990s, from which it has inherited some members. Following the merger of the International Socialist League (ISL) and Industrial Socialist League into the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) in 1921 and the destruction of the semi-syndicalist Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union of Africa (ICU) in the 1930s,[3][4] anarchism (including its syndicalist variant) only began to re-emerge as a movement in South Africa with small anarchist collectives, established primarily in Durban and Johannesburg, in the 1990s. In 1993, the Anarchist Revolutionary Movement (ARM) was established in Johannesburg; its student section included militants from the anti-apartheid movement.

In 1995, a larger movement, the Workers' Solidarity Federation (WSF), replaced the ARM. The WSF incorporated a Durban-based collective which published the journal Freedom. It also produced its own journal entitled Workers' Solidarity. The WSF was in the tradition of platformism, as opposed to the far looser ARM, and focused mainly on work within black working class and student struggles. It established links with anarchist individuals and small anarchist collectives in Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Zambia. It also helped to establish a short-lived Zambian WSF.

The WSF dissolved in 1999. It was succeeded by two anarchist collectives: the Bikisha Media Collective and Zabalaza Books. These two groups co-produced Zabalaza: A Journal of Southern African Revolutionary Anarchism,[5] which has since become the journal of the ZACF.[6] In the late 1990s and early 2000s, activists in these structures were involved in struggles against privatisation and evictions, and Bikisha was formally affiliated to the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF), with a Bikisha member serving as APF Media Officer.

On May Day in 2003, the ZACF was formed; initially as the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation. The early ZACF was essentially a regroupment of local anarchist groups, bringing together a number of new anarchist collectives in Gauteng and Durban (including a local chapter of the Anarchist Black Cross), along with the Bikisha Media Collective and Zabalaza Books.

In 2007, to strengthen its structures, the ZACF was reconstituted as the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front based on direct individual affiliation in a unitary structure, rather than the looser federal system in place. By this time, the ZACF also had members in Swaziland, and was running a small social centre in Motsoaledi squatter camp in Soweto. Effectively, in its first phase, the ZACF was built through the affiliation of groups, and members came into ZabFed through the groups, each with somewhat different structures, aims and recruitment systems. With the December 2007 restructuring, members joined the ZACF directly, and then the groups. The 2007 restructuring also saw the ZACF became South African only, with a separate Swazi anarchist group set up in 2008 that remained closely allied to, but distinct from, the ZACF. ZACF policy throughout has stressed the need for a non-racial formation, with members of all races, and opposed separate organisations on the lines of race or gender.

While committed to promoting syndicalism in the unions, ZACF work was in practice largely focused on the so-called "new social movements", formed in South Africa in response to the perceived failures of the African National Congress (ANC) government post-apartheid.[1] The ZACF was involved in the campaigns of the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) and the Landless People's Movement (LPM). It has also been involved in solidarity work with Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign.[7] In addition to such work, the ZACF is active in organising workshops and propaganda.

Following the formation of the Democratic Left Front (DLF) in 2011, the ZACF became a member organisation. However, it was critical of the mostly middle-class composition of the DLF's leadership, and of the electoral ambitions of some DLF affiliates.[8] Like a substantial section of DLF supporters, the ZACF questioned the DLF's organising processes up to, and during, the protests at "COP-17" in Durban, that is, the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which it argued were top-down and manipulated.[9] By 2012, the ZACF had effectively left the DLF.

The ZACF, as ZabFed, was part of the short-lived International Libertarian Solidarity (ILS),[10] as were its predecessors Bikisha Media Collective and Zabalaza Books.[11]

Following the disbanding of the ILS, the ZACF became part of the platformist–especifista Anarkismo network.[12] As such, the ZACF has close links to the member organisations of the Anarkismo network; particularly with the Workers' Solidarity Movement (WSM) in Ireland, Common Struggle – Libertarian Communist Federation (formerly NEFAC) in the United States, the Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici (FdCA, or Federation of Anarchist Communists) in Italy, the FAU in Uruguay, Alternative libertaire (AL, or Libertarian Alternative) in France, the Federación Anarco-Comunista de Argentina (FACA, or Anarcho-Communist Federation of Argentina), the FARJ in Rio de Janeiro, the Organização Anarquista Socialismo Libertário (OASL, or Libertarian Socialism Anarchist Organisation) in São Paulo and the Federação Anarquista Gaúcha (FAG, or Gaúcha Anarchist Federation) in Rio Grande do Sul. (The latter three are members of the Coordenação Anarquista Brasileira, or Brazilian Anarchist Coordination.) It has also had intermittent contact with the Awareness League in Nigeria and with numerous smaller anarchist collectives in Africa.[13][14] It retains contact with syndicalist unions linked to the erstwhile ILS, such as the Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT, or General Confederation of Labour) in Spain.

The ZACF publishes Zabalaza: A Journal of Southern African Revolutionary Anarchism. This journal is the organisation's theoretical journal and contains ideological and analytical articles aimed to benefit the anarchist communist movement in general, and the southern African anarchist communist movement in particular. Additionally, it publicises and promotes the official line of the ZACF as determined by the organisation's membership. The ZACF's other major publication is Zabalaza.net, the official website of the organisation.[6]

Zabalaza Books is an anarchist publishing project linked to the ZACF. It is an anarchist literature mail order project that publishes and distributes classic and contemporary anarchist books, pamphlets, music, and videos in the southern African region. It originated as an underground collective in the 1990s at the end of apartheid. The topics covered include anarchism, revolutionary unionism, women's liberation, revolutionary history, national liberation and decolonisation, and many others. It distributes much of the literature in PDF format on its website.[15]

• Official website
• Zabalaza Books
• Position Positions of the ZACF, adopted 2003
• Position Paper against "Separate Organisations" (by race, gender etc.) of the ZACF, adopted 2003
• Zabalaza: a Journal of Southern African Revolutionary Anarchism