Ronnie Kasrils and Fidelis Hove (eds), Comrade & Commander: The Life and Times of Joe Modise (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2024)

THE EDITORS of this book provide a summary of Joe Modise’s life and then describe it in detail through interviews with about fifty people who interacted with him in various ways. Almost all of them may be described as either part of the ANC or Modise’s family, so this is not necessarily a balanced assessment of the subject.

Modise (MK name Thabo More) rose through the ranks of Umkhonto we Sizwe to become its military commander. His early youth involved activism on public transport and fittingly he became a bus driver. A tough character who used tsotsitaal, this book denies that he was a gangster of any sort. His activism was sufficient to warrant an appearance in the Treason Trial of 1956 onwards from which he graduated to MK saboteur. Railway infrastructure and phone lines at New Canada and the Kliptown post office were his targets. His Tswana links were ideal in managing the pipeline north that enabled ANC cadres to exit South Africa clandestinely. Indeed, Botswana was the most important neighbour in sustaining the armed struggle for many years.

Military training followed in the Soviet Union, although indoctrination seems to have been equally important. Modise then arrived in Tanzania where he stabilised Kongwa camp after the malign command of Ambrose Makiwane. He is credited with keeping MK together in spite of criticism of the Wankie and Sipolilo campaigns of the late 1960s. Dissident voices that appeared in the Hani memorandum led to the Morogoro conference of 1969, the placing of MK under stricter political control and the effective demotion of Modise as MK commander-in-chief, a position he had attained in 1965. This was a period of regional if not ethnic division in the ANC: Transvaal versus the Cape. Modise was both useful to Oliver Tambo in this context as well as competent.

There is a strong strand of denial in this book; for example, that Modise benefited in any way from the rackets run by MK – Star Furniture, a bone meal factory and the extraction of liberated (that is, stolen) cars from South Africa. They were all tactically useful, but was there private profit? Mzwai Piliso appears as a neutral figure, but was a notorious torturer and there is a tendency to play down the abuses of the Angolan camps and the brutal role of the security branch, NAT. There is general unanimity about Modise’s stature as a conventional and loyal soldier and commander, and his genial personality. Indeed, he emerges as a paragon of virtue.

It is hard to know exactly what to make of this book given its multiple, largely synchronised voices, although Ronnie Kasrils has the loudest. A key, perhaps, lies in this extraordinary statement: ‘no evidence has been forthcoming that Joe Modise or the ANC at executive government level had taken bribes or connived at corruption’. This is arrant nonsense; evidence that not only right-wing populists live in a post-truth world. Historian Hugh Macmillan makes a postscript appearance, but adds little of substance and does not address Modise’s role after 1990.

Modise was the first post-apartheid minister of defence, tenure marked by considerable success such as the integration of the armed forces; but also the notorious arms deal. There is widespread agreement that it set the tone for a culture of corruption that stains ANC governments and blights the nation to this day. The tender process was heavily massaged to produce a specific outcome: purchase of British Aerospace (BAe) Hawk and Gripen planes. This was not the choice of the air force nor the most cost-efficient option, but Modise demanded a ‘visionary approach’ that disregarded cost. The committee that made the final decision lacked authority and proper minutes; while the auditor-general’s report was doctored on political orders. All the signs pointed to corruption. BAe made a donation to the MK Military Veterans Association (president Joe Modise), various shady advisors took payoffs and the ANC itself received money for its 1999 election campaign. Total covert commissions amounted to £112 million. Modise presided over this corrupt saga whether or not he trousered kickbacks himself. Ministers take ultimate responsibility. He was later involved in conflict of interest through business involvement in Conlog, which had direct involvement in the deal, and Khutele Projects with links to offset projects at Coega. The argument that he was totally innocent of corruption is impossible to sustain and insults the intelligence of readers.

This book does not benefit from the input of Kasrils, a man who glorifies war crimes. His grating voice constantly intrudes with use of the meaningless term ‘masses’ and lies about the supposed Nazi regime in Kyiv. (What this has to do with Modise, who died in 2002, is hard to comprehend.) He is no historian, but a propagandist. Those who write critically about the ANC and the arms deal, he maligns: Paul Holden, Richard Young, Stephen Ellis and Andrew Feinstein, for instance. He reserves special animus for the well-respected commentator R.W. (Bill) Johnson, whose pen he describes as ‘rancid’.

Editing and proof reading are also seriously lacking: trail (trial), charted (chartered), Kimberly (Kimberley), FLNA (FNLA), ordinance (ordnance), wining (winning), had meet (met), Pierre Stein (Steyn), Selby Bagwa (Baqwa), Bulelani Ngcuca (Ngcuka) and Neil (Niel) Barnard, for example. There is a feel of orchestration about this book and few, muted contrary voices. But above all, ahistoric views on corruption and the probability that the contributors are toeing a party line suggest it should be regarded as hagiography or whitewash and approached with circumspection.