Correction on Mandela

[I originally wrote this piece in 2014, after I was fooled by Mandela’s falsified autobiography. I revisit the issue now because of last month’s post on crypto-Communism.]

Yesterday, I wrote:

While I’m convinced that Mandela was never a Communist, his priorities were thoroughly Leninist: “The point of the uprising is the seizure of power; afterwards we will see what we can do with it.”

Today, however, I’ve learned that multiple reputable sources, including the South African Communist Party and the African National Congress itself, recently confirmed that Mandela was indeed a Communist.  His Long Walk to Freedom was deliberately falsified to hide this truth.

To be fair, if I were a Communist, I would probably maintain that Mandela wasn’t a “real” Communist.  Real Communists feign democratic credentials to gain power, then rush to take over the interior ministry and the military, ban the opposition, and impose totalitarianism.  Still, the fact remains that Mandela was not merely allied with the SACP; he was a member of its central committee.  And he lied about it, making him a bona fide crypto-Communist.

My bad.

The post appeared first on Econlib.