Baruch Hirson

Baruch Hirson (10 December 1921 – 3 October 1999) was a South African political activist, academic, author, and historian, who was jailed for nine years in apartheid-era South Africa before moving to England in 1973. He was co-founder of the critical journal Searchlight South Africa, and in 1991, a critic of what he referred to as Stalinist methods used by the African National Congress (ANC).

Life Baruch Hirson was born to a lower-middle class Jewish family in Doornfontein, Johannesburg. His parents, Joseph and Lily Hirson, had emigrated to South Africa to escape antisemitism in the Russian Empire. From the age of four, Hirson attended a Hebrew school in Johannesburg. His mathematical ability enabled him to study as a part-time student at the University of Witwatersrand, matriculating in 1939.

In 1940, he joined Hashomer Hatzair, the radical Zionist youth movement. Encountering organized antisemitism from the Greyshirts and those celebrating the centenary of the Great Trek, he moved towards Marxism,

In the early 1960s, Hirson organized a National Committee for Liberation, later known as the African Resistance Movement (ARM), with other Trotskyists and younger members of the ANC. The group carried out sabotage actions, and in 1964 Hirson was arrested, convicted of sabotage, and jailed for nine years.

Released in 1973, but facing a banning order and house arrest, Hirson and his family moved to England. There he found posts at the University of Bradford and then Middlesex Polytechnic where he lectured in politics, and in 1986, he enrolled for a PhD in history.

Works '10 Years of the Stay at Home', International Socialism, 1961 Year of fire, year of ash: the Soweto revolt, roots of a revolution, 1979 Yours for the union!: class and community struggles in South Africa, 1930-1947, 1989 Colonialism and Imperialism p. 7–18 in Searchlight South Africa, Vol 2, No 3, July 1991 Strike across the Empire: the seamen's strike of 1925 : in Britain, South Africa and Australasia, 1992 Revolutions in my life, 1995 The delegate for Africa: David Ivon Jones, 1883-1924, 1995 The Cape Town intellectuals: Ruth Schechter and her circle, 1907-1934, 2000 Frank Glass: the restless revolutionary, 2003 A history of the Left in South Africa: writings of Baruch Hirson, 2005