The idea behind this book is simultaneously simple and profound: that because of its necessary lack of visibility to scholars during the years of struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the history and presence of the ANC underground has been underplayed. According to conventional historiographies of the post-1948 ANC, the history of the organisation has tended to be chopped up into fairly discrete periods: of growing militancy but overwhelmingly legal struggle during the 1950s; heroic resistance during the years of brutal clampdown by the government during the early 1960s, followed by suppression, silence, absence, imprisonment and flight; exile, disconnection from South Africa and even irrelevance during the early 1970s, until the movement proved capable of capturing the momentum provided by Black Consciousness activists, the Durban strikes of 1973 and the Soweto uprising; and finally the independent rise of the United Democratic Front as a surrogate presence for the ANC during the 1980s through to the negotiations.

In contrast, Raymond Suttner is concerned to stress that such divisions are artificial, that reality is more blurred, and that there was much more continuity between these broad phases than has customarily been allowed: ‘There were ruptures in continuities and continuities within ruptures, which means that history needs to be seen in a more fluid way without rigid separations between phases’ (p. 17). In short, he argues that clandestine activity was by its very nature unseen, and that throughout all these periods underground and above-ground activities co-existed to varying degrees. Importantly, we need to broaden our understanding of what ‘underground’ means to incorporate activities of individuals who – sometimes without any formal connection to the exile movement – were inspired to thoughts and acts of resistance by historical memory and their being suffused within a political culture of loyalty to the ANC. In this conception there is embedded a highly flexible understanding of what ‘being a member of the ANC’ means, for whereas an institutional perspective might require an idea of formal belonging (through payment of a subscription fee, or participation in meetings), this was largely impossible for ordinary people after the ANC was banned. However, for Suttner ‘being ANC’ is clearly something much more personal, much more embedded in a notion of personal being. He does not make the point, but such a conception may help us to understand why the ANC continues to secure large majorities in general elections even while manifestly failing to deliver on so many of its promises.

The literature on the ANC is continuously expanding, and Suttner is at pains to stress the important contributions to our more nuanced understanding of ‘struggle history’ by the outpourings of biographies and historical projects such as that undertaken by the South African Development Education Trust, which are now able to access vast treasure troves of documentation in ANC archives. However, he makes a convincing plea for the importance of oral history, of tapping into the memories of former underground activists. Much of what they did was never written down, many of them are now getting old and many have already died. As a result, his analysis is based upon his having conducted sixty-odd interviews. Interestingly, one or two were conducted with people popularly depicted as collaborators, but who in fact assisted operatives of the South African Communist Party (SACP) or Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). It is important, he avers, that their contributions should be acknowledged, and the complexity of the sociology of the struggle recognised.

Suttner's challenge to conventional historiography starts with his rebuttal of interpretations of the Mandela (or M) Plan, which was adopted by the ANC in 1953 to enable the organisation to prepare for the possibility of being declared illegal, by continuing to operate through of a cell system – although, unlike a classic Leninist vanguard underground, this was conceived as a way of enabling a mass movement to operate in illegal conditions. Whereas most historians have written off the M Plan as having had little influence on the ANC, Suttner argues its importance in laying the ground for the forced shift to underground activities in the 1960s. To be sure, he recognises its unevenness across the country (although he suggests it may have played a role in the peasant risings in Pondoland and Sekhukuheland). Yet even if unevenly implemented, the M Plan became embedded in people's consciousness, and formed the basis for organising underground units after 1960 (p. 29). Likewise, in opposition to the common view that the ANC underground has historically been dominated by communists, Suttner proposes that while the development of the SACP as an underground organisation had a major impact on the ANC, it was the turn to mass politics initiated by the latter's Programme of Action in the early 1950s that created the basis for an alliance between the two organisations as key components of the national liberation movement, structured around convergence on the theory of South Africa as embodying ‘colonialism of a special type’, which fused the struggles for national liberation and socialism. Indeed, the ANC's existence as a real political force limited the independence of the SACP, which was henceforth to remain under the ‘overall command of the ANC’ (p. 55).

Suttner goes on to propose that, while little armed activity took place immediately after 1964, the SACP engaged in patient rebuilding of its underground structures. Even if much of its effort was geared to sending young people out of the country as recruits for MK, its careful work gradually developed a sea within which MK guerrillas were able, in later years, to operate. Meanwhile, whereas many historians have stressed the independent generational origins of Black Consciousness (BC), Suttner argues that while some BC leaders dismissed the ANC and its rival Pan-Africanist Congress as irrelevant, others drew strongly from the history and traditions of the former, often guided by ex-Robben Island prisoners, individuals like Albertina Sisulu and Winnie Mandela, and not least from the political education offered by members of the ANC underground. In short, while Suttner does not go so far as to argue that the ANC initiated the Soweto uprising, he suggests that it was there in its own right and as a presence within BC. It was the slow and patient reinsertion of the ANC into the country, taking advantage of the loyalty and sympathy of veteran members, that ensured that when the time came, the ANC would emerge as the pre-eminent anti-apartheid force (p. 83).

Following interesting and important discussions of the character of underground work, of how the ANC underground was gendered (throwing up distinctive models of manhood and femininity), and of subtleties and difficulties of the relationship between individuals and the underground revolutionary movement, Suttner concludes with a chapter on how and why the ANC proved able to re-establish itself as an hegemonic force after 1976. This was never inevitable or pre-ordained, but the ANC had proved able to weather storms that had threatened its survival. That it did eventually triumph was due to the way in which it had inserted itself into the cultural consciousness of the people, which enabled it to take advantage of spaces that were opened up for public opposition to apartheid in the 1980s. This was a product, inter alia, of the amount of time and effort it had taken in organising underground structures, its ability and willingness to respond (and channel) mass activity (e.g. around housing, forced removals or strikes), its symbolic presence (via flags, the Freedom Charter and the legitimation of Mandela as the leader of the people of South Africa), and, importantly, the growth of popular acceptance of MK as an army and symbol of people resisting the apparently invincible forces of apartheid. Ultimately, its hegemony arose from a variety of sources – its underground actors, the political prisoners on Robben Island, the movement in exile, MK, and the decisive entry of popular forces from the late 1970s.

Overall, Suttner's case is convincing. Certainly, he provides a text which will serve as a powerful corrective to the standard historiographies he is contesting, and its nuanced understanding of what the ANC represents to ordinary people makes a major contribution. Yet its heavy reliance upon oral history brings with it new dangers of potential overstatement, while a fuller understanding of the role and impact of the underground must, one would think, require further excavation of ANC archives. There is also a curious silence about the role of South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), whose response to the emergence of the independent trade union movement ranged from outright hostility to exaggerated claims of its own influence.

Nonetheless, this is an important book which becomes required reading for those interested in understanding the history and present nature of the ANC.