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Rusty Bernstein
Lionel "Rusty" Bernstein (20 March 1920 – 23 June 2002) was a Jewish South African anti-apartheid activist and political prisoner. He played a key role in political organizations such as the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the African National Congress (ANC). He helped form the South African Congress of Democrats to bolster white participation in the ANC, and he brought its allies together to establish a Congress of the People, working closely with Nelson Mandela.
The anti-apartheid movement drew the ire of the South African government. They imposed severe restrictions on the movement, such as banning a publication Bernstein edited, banning a party he organized with, and detaining leaders including him for long periods of time. These actions culminated in him fleeing his home country after being detained following a police raid.
To participate in the first post-apartheid elections in 1994, he returned to South Africa and resumed working for the ANC. Many institutions bestowed honours on him for his activism, and he remains a celebrated figure in Africa.
Bernstein was born on 20 March 1920 in Durban, Union of South Africa, the youngest of four children of Jewish émigrés from Europe. He was orphaned at eight years of age, and brought up by relatives, after which he was sent to finish his education at Hilton College, a private boys' boarding school.
After matriculating, he returned to Johannesburg, where he started work at an architect's office, while studying architecture part-time at the University of the Witwatersrand. Bernstein was inspired by an "extraordinary third-year student", Kurt Jonas, the son of German Jewish migrants. Through Jonas, at Florian's Coffee House in Hillbrow he first learned of "the invisible world of black workers and trade unions which existed on my own doorstep." After qualifying in 1936, he worked full-time as an architect.
In 1937, he joined the Labour League of Youth. Later, he joined the South African Communist Party, where he soon played a leading role. For one year he forsook architecture to work as a full-time Party official and Secretary of the Johannesburg District of the Communist Party. In March 1941, he married Hilda (née Schwarz), an immigrant from Britain, whom he had met in the Labour League of Youth.
That year he volunteered for the South African Army and later served as a gunner in North Africa and Italy. He was repatriated and discharged from the army at the beginning of 1946. During the strike of African miners in 1946, he produced the strike bulletin. After the strike both he and his wife were arrested together with others and charged with sedition. They were ultimately convicted of aiding an illegal strike and received suspended sentences.
Over the next quarter of a century, he wrote extensively for the a number of journals, including Liberation and the South African newspaper The Guardian. He edited Fighting Talk ( which became a banned publication), a paper for ex-servicemen. This carried the same message as his other writings; that South Africa was approaching its last chance to make a peaceful transition to democracy. Once he was banned, he continued to write under several pseudonyms.
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Rusty Bernstein
Lionel "Rusty" Bernstein (20 March 1920 – 23 June 2002) was a Jewish South African anti-apartheid activist and political prisoner. He played a key role in political organizations such as the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the African National Congress (ANC). He helped form the South African Congress of Democrats to bolster white participation in the ANC, and he brought its allies together to establish a Congress of the People, working closely with Nelson Mandela.
The anti-apartheid movement drew the ire of the South African government. They imposed severe restrictions on the movement, such as banning a publication Bernstein edited, banning a party he organized with, and detaining leaders including him for long periods of time. These actions culminated in him fleeing his home country after being detained following a police raid.
To participate in the first post-apartheid elections in 1994, he returned to South Africa and resumed working for the ANC. Many institutions bestowed honours on him for his activism, and he remains a celebrated figure in Africa.
Bernstein was born on 20 March 1920 in Durban, Union of South Africa, the youngest of four children of Jewish émigrés from Europe. He was orphaned at eight years of age, and brought up by relatives, after which he was sent to finish his education at Hilton College, a private boys' boarding school.
After matriculating, he returned to Johannesburg, where he started work at an architect's office, while studying architecture part-time at the University of the Witwatersrand. Bernstein was inspired by an "extraordinary third-year student", Kurt Jonas, the son of German Jewish migrants. Through Jonas, at Florian's Coffee House in Hillbrow he first learned of "the invisible world of black workers and trade unions which existed on my own doorstep." After qualifying in 1936, he worked full-time as an architect.
In 1937, he joined the Labour League of Youth. Later, he joined the South African Communist Party, where he soon played a leading role. For one year he forsook architecture to work as a full-time Party official and Secretary of the Johannesburg District of the Communist Party. In March 1941, he married Hilda (née Schwarz), an immigrant from Britain, whom he had met in the Labour League of Youth.
That year he volunteered for the South African Army and later served as a gunner in North Africa and Italy. He was repatriated and discharged from the army at the beginning of 1946. During the strike of African miners in 1946, he produced the strike bulletin. After the strike both he and his wife were arrested together with others and charged with sedition. They were ultimately convicted of aiding an illegal strike and received suspended sentences.
Over the next quarter of a century, he wrote extensively for the a number of journals, including Liberation and the South African newspaper The Guardian. He edited Fighting Talk ( which became a banned publication), a paper for ex-servicemen. This carried the same message as his other writings; that South Africa was approaching its last chance to make a peaceful transition to democracy. Once he was banned, he continued to write under several pseudonyms.