In South Africa the Communist Party has a one-hundred-year history of
contesting elections, making it the oldest electoral campaigner in Africa.
South Africa’s elections were increasingly racially restrictive and segregated
until 1994. Even so, from the mid-1920’s the Party began to focus on the
concerns of its black membership though it continued to seek support from
white workers. This article explores the Party’s reasons for continuing
to participate in elections, and the circumstances that helped it achieve
occasional victories at the polls. It also considers the effects of electoral
participation on an ostensibly revolutionary movement.