The Russians, The Boers And My Ignorance

Anglo Boer War

How ignorant and how skewed can one’s view of the world become through socialisation and the media. I was shocked to my core after reading a number of books on communism and the Red Danger (as it was known in South Africa) to find that the Russians actually came to the assistance of the white South Africans during the Anglo-Boer War. Although I had studied Marx, Engels and Lenin, their communism and socialism certainly did not tally with the awfulness of Stalin and Mao’s communism, or the communism that the National Party was so determined to keep out of South Africa’s borders.

Why did I never think further than my nose? I knew about the horror of living under Stalin’s rule and I knew about the Soviet ties with the ANC and the South African Communist Party. I knew that cadres were being trained in Cuba and in other communist countries and that they were coming over our borders to disrupt the Nationalist government. I knew that the children were fed up with being forced to study in Afrikaans and were burning the schools; I knew that Winnie Mandela was going to set the country alight with her matches and her tyres. And I knew that the communist countries were helping the ANC. I also knew that no one had the right to tell anyone else that they could or could not do something based on the colour of their skin. This I also understood was wrong. And while I supported the ‘struggle’ for equal rights, I was convinced that if the communists took over we would be in big shit. At the time, I did not know about the alliance between the SACP and the ANC. I only knew about the PAC and the ANC. The very thought of the SACP did not even enter my head. Surely, if the National Party would give everyone equal rights, they would ensure that the communists stayed out of it. Well, that was my belief. I never once wondered why the communists would want to help the ANC.

Now that I am mature (I don’t like to say old), I have been reading and researching as much as I can about communism, what it was like to live under the rule of communism and how communism eventually fell away. I am trying to understand that if history has shown how abusive communism is to human rights, why are we still be so involved and tolerant of the SACP? I am trying to understand how it is possible that group rights (communism) are more important than individual rights? I am trying to understand if it is at all possible for individual and groups rights to co-exist. I personally think that it is mutually exclusive and cannot co-exist so that groups and individuals have rights. If group rights are emphasised, then individual rights are abused and vice versa.

I digress … Russian politics has been muddled up with South African politics for much longer than most of us realize. I did not know that Russia (under the Tsar) sent the Russian Red Cross to the aid of the Boers during the Anglo Boer War, nor did I know that Russian volunteers, and one in particular, played such a large role in helping the Boers fight against the English. In fact, the Anglo-Boer War was the starting point of direct relations between the two countries. There are political parallels between the Soviet ties to the ANC and the SACP and the help that Russia sent to the Boers. The second would not have taken place without the foundation that was laid by the first. The fierce anti-communism of the apartheid government has made it difficult for South Africans to associate with Russians, or even to admit association in the distant part. It is my opinion that the demise of both communist Russia and apartheid South Africa has been a blessing. Both political standpoints were barbaric in every sense.

One of the most remarkable Russians who came to the aid of the Boers, first as a Russian war correspondent from the Russian paper Novoie Vremia who swopped his pen for a revolver, was the Deputy Commander of the foreign volunteers, Colonel Maximov. A Belgium nurse, Alice Bron, wrote about Maximoff during those days in May 1900. People get to know one another very quickly when in close contact during war. “…He was brave even to rashness, as all his men told me, while he delighted in relating incidents which showed the indomitable bravery of his Dutch followers…At one point the colonel ordered his men to attack a position. They hesitated; thinking that the attempt was sure to fail. The colonel, exclaiming, “You’ll see I am right,” dashed forward, and his men followed him. The colonel was wounded in the foot, shoulder ear and temple. The temple wound dropped the colonel and his men gathered around him, opening fire to protect him. This incident shows the bravery of both officer and his men. (Davidson, A and Filatova I, The Russians and the Anglo-Boer War, 1998, p68).

After the death of Commander Villebois, President Steyn appointed Maximov commander of the European Legion. His greatest battle was that of Thaba Nchu where he shot the English Captain Towse at almost point blank range. He lost only two men, while he was one of five seriously wounded. Maximov was taken to Kroonstad where Nurse Alic Bron found him on 12 May, 1900, just hours before the British troops entered town. The day before, he had ridden (wounded) to Pretoria and spent the day with President Steyn. When he returned to Kroonstad the Boers had already left town and blown up the bridge. The nurse tried to persuade Maximov to leave. He relates his argument against leaving as such; “Never, never have I run away from an enemy.” They eventually left Kroonstad, with the colonel on horseback while his secretary, “boy” and nurse rode in a kind of dog-cart. She described him as bold as a lion but as obstinate as a mule.

After Thaba Nchu, De Volkstem wrote that he was a very brave officer and had faced the enemy at twenty paces. When it was found that his wounds were too severe (fractured skull) for him to continue to act as veggeneraal, Maximov proposed that the command be handed over to P Blignaut, son of the state secretary of the Republic of the Orange Free State. The official handing over was held on the 22 May 1900 in the Hollandia Hotel in Pretoria.

Maximov attended the last session of the Transvaal Volksraad before he returned to Russia. President Kruger and General Smuts personally thanked him for his services to their country and for the blood he had shed in its defence.

The Russian public saw the Boer struggle against the British as a battle between David and Goliath. The pro-Boer sentiment weakened Britain and also served domestic interests by distracting public attention away from the social and political inequalities at home. Perhaps the most important reason for the Russian pro-Boer attitude was the growing gold-mining industry. The Russians would have been interested in the methods and know-how of the Transvaal gold miners for their own newly born gold-mining industry of Siberia and the Ural Mountains. The increasing Jewish emigration from Russia to the Transvaal also provided a further reason for Russia to establish close ties with South Africa. Even though the Jews were fleeing due to political pogroms, the Russians were quick to turn this to their advantage by realizing the advantages of having Russian speaking people in South Africa. This served as a network between Russia and South Africa, along which flowed money, people and information.

I doubt that many South Africans even know about the involvement of Russia in helping the Boers, let alone the unbelievable bravery of Colonel Maximov. In Russia, Maximov is almost completely forgotten. Even his grave in Manchuria is forgotten. Such insignificance is given to a particular Russian individual’s fate because the ordeals of Russia’s people have been so terrible during this century that those who lived either did not care or were too afraid to care about the memory of so many of the dead. If Maximov had belonged to another nation, his heroism would have been celebrated with pride.

Perhaps the underlying involvement of the Communist Soviet state with the ANC and the SACP was nothing more than a way in which to take control over South Africa’s enormous environmental wealth and the “equal rights struggle” just a means to that end.