Sidney Bunting

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sidney Percival Bunting (born June 29, 1873 in London , † May 25, 1936 in Cape Town ) was a South African politician. He was a founding member of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA).

Life

Sidney Bunting was born to Sir Percy William Bunting, longtime editor of the British quarterly The Contemporary Review , a liberal, social reform- oriented magazine. His mother, Mary Hyett Bunting, nee Lidgett, was a social worker in the slums of London and invited people from many countries into her home. Two mission stations in what was to become South Africa were named after his great-grandfather, Jabez Bunting, a Methodist . Sidney Bunting had a brother and two sisters. He attended St Paul's School in London. He then studied "Classical Languages" at Magdalen College in Oxford , where he won the Chancellor's Prize in 1897 . He then trained as a solicitor in a law firm .

In 1900 he volunteered in the Second Boer War . He then stayed in Johannesburg . In 1904 he obtained a Bachelor of Law from the South African College in Cape Town after private studies , so that he could henceforth work as a lawyer. He also organized concerts and worked as a music critic. In 1916 he married Rebecca Notlewitz, a Jew who had emigrated from the Baltic States .

Bunting was one of the early exponents in the South African Labor Party (SALP), which was constituted as a result of strike events from 1907 and was shaped by members of the middle class of European descent (electoral mandate in the Transvaal Provincial Council since 1914 ). There were close links to the trade union environment in the country. In relation to the differentiated demographics in the Cape Colony labor market, the SALP took reactionary and conservative positions. It promoted the privileges of white workers in gold mining and its related industrial sectors. In September 1914, under the leadership of Bunting, some members of the party turned against the participation of the South African Union in the First World War . The consequence of this was an exclusion from the party for the actors. The International Socialist League (ISL) was then founded.

Bunting co-founded the ISL, the forerunner of the Communist Party of South Africa . He supported the Russian October Revolution . In 1921 he and his wife were among the founders of the CPSA. In 1922 both attended the Congress of the Communist International (Comintern) in Moscow . Upon her return Sidney Bunting secretary of the CPSA, 1924 its Chairman (was chairman ). He tried to get black oppositionists to revolutionize . The party recruited numerous blacks; Bunting has defended many of them in court, often for no financial consideration. In 1928 he traveled again to the Soviet Union to protest against the Comintern's decision that the CPSA should support the establishment of a Native Republic (for example: " Native Republic "). The sixth Comintern Congress, however, stuck to its demands.

In 1929 Bunting stood in Tembuland in Transkei as the CPSA candidate for parliamentary elections. Despite the many black voters in this constituency, it received only 289 votes. In 1931, because of political differences, Bunting was expelled from the party as a counter-revolutionary . From then on he played the viola in the Johannesburg Orchestra . After a stroke , his fingers were paralyzed and he worked as a janitor. He died after a second stroke.

Sidney and Rebecca Bunting had children, Alfred, Agricultural Botanist at the University of Reading , and Brian Bunting .

Works

  • Res nautica apud antiquos, oratio Latina . BH Blackwell , Oxford 1897
  • Brian Bunting (Ed.): Letters to Rebecca: South African communist leader S. P. Bunting to his wife, 1917-1934 . ( Mayibuye history & literature series , volume 67) Mayibuye Books, UWC , Bellville 1996, ISBN 1868082997 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Patrick O'Meara: Bunting, Sidney Percival . In: Lawrence Henry Ofosu-Appiah (Red.) Et al .: Encyclopaedia Africana. Dictionary of African Biography . Vol. 3, Reference Publications, Algonac (MI) 1995, pp. 54-55
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i S. P. Bunting. sacp.org.za, accessed October 17, 2018
  3. ^ Allison Drew: Between Empire and Revolution: A Life of Sidney Bunting. Routledge, London / New York 2007, ISBN 978-1851968930 . Digitized version (PDF)
  4. ↑ a b Rebecca Bunting at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed October 17, 2018
  5. ^ Franz John Tennyson Lee: South Africa before the revolution? Fischer TB Verlag , Frankfurt am Main, 1973, p. 78, ISBN 3-436-01644-6
  6. ↑ a b c d portrait at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on October 17, 2018
  7. ↑ JISC: bibliographic evidence . (English, correspondence from Sidney Bunting)
personal data
SURNAME Bunting, Sidney
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bunting, Sidney Percival (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH May 25, 1936
Place of death Cape Town