Could the Rand Revolt have succeeded?

[Marius]

This month marks the 100th anniversary of the Rand Revolt in Johannesburg and surrounds.

It was an uprising by white mineworkers - the rebellion's roots lay in strikes which began in opposition to proposed paycuts and which would have seen black workers brought in to do work that was formerly reserved for whites.

The uprising resulted in a major military mobilisation with the only instance of the South African Air Force ever dropping a bomb on South African soil being recorded (incidentally, on my hometown, Benoni).

Could a Johannesburg Soviet have been established and Johannesburg and surrounds have come under the control of white workers? What would this mean for Jan Smuts? It's probably the end of him and his government if he loses control of Johannesburg.

Could this have become a wider civil war and where would the Soviet Union have sat?

And what would have meant for black South Africans (the strikers were explicitly racist with one of the slogans of the strike being 'Workers of the World Rise Up! And UNITE for a white South Africa)?

Could Johannesburg and surrounds have become a workers' republic or is this a complete non-starter?

Background:

When South Africa’s city of gold bled red

In 1922, Johannesburg’s white workers united on a scale not seen before or since, unleashing violence against Black miners and destroying their potential to become an organised force.

www.dailymaverick.co.za

Rand Rebellion - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Charles EP M.]

It sounds like "no" as long as the army is happy to shell the place: the rebels can't withstand it and have nothing similar to shoot back with. So you'd first need a reason for enough soldiers to refuse

 

[SenatorChickpea]

Maybe start with earlier strife, to get a more divided South Africa- something to do with the Maritz rebellion, possibly. You don't need it to go anywhere, just for it to provoke a heavy handed response. Get the Dominion spooked, so it passes a (more?) heavy handed set of emergency powers during the war. Maybe they don't get set aside too fast in 1918 either.

Hmm. Maritz gets the government worried about Afrikaner rural areas, but doesn't make the situation in the cities too much worse- you need something to turn up the temperature even more.

Maybe something to do with rights for the Africans? Let's say that in the aftermath of this alt-Maritz, there's a worry in the imperial government that the post 1902 settlement really hasn't succeeded in its objectives. You don't even need those worries to lead anywhere- just let the whisper go around in the 1920s that someone's pushing for more voting rights for Africans. Maybe, just maybe, there's a rumour in the armed forces that after being bled white in Europe, Britain's interested in raising armed units of the Zulu.

Again, doesn't need to be true, you just need to keep upping the atmosphere.

Then when the Rand revolts, some of the local units join- piecemeal, but some armouries fall. The loyalist troops fall back.

I dunno, I still think this ends in Adolphe Thiers and Bloody Week, but at least you have something on a much bigger scale.