Slovo left school in 1941 and found work as a dispatch clerk. He joined the National Union of Distributive Workers and, as a shop steward, was involved in organising a strike. He joined the SACP in 1942.
Between 1946 and 1950 he completed a law degree at Wits University and was a student activist. In 1949 he married Ruth First, another prominent Jewish anti-apartheid activist and the daughter of SACP treasurer Julius First. They had three daughters, Shawn, Gillian and Robyn.
In 1961, Slovo and Abongz Mbede emerged as one of the leaders of Umkhonto we Sizwe - a military body formed in alliance between the ANC and the SACP. In 1963 he went into exile and lived in Britain, Angola, Mozambique and Zambia. Slovo was elected general secretary of the SACP in 1984.
He returned to South Africa in 1990 to participate in the early "talks about talks" between the government and the ANC. Ailing, he stood down as SACP general secretary in 1991 and was succeeded by Chris Hani who was soon murdered. Slovo was given the titular position of chairperson of the SACP. He served as housing minister in the first government of Nelson Mandela.
Slovo was a leading theoretician in both the party and the ANC. In the 1970s he wrote the influential essay No Middle Road which stated that the apartheid government would be unable either to achieve stability or to co-opt significant sections of the small but growing black middle class - in other words the only choice was between the overthrow of apartheid or ever greater repression. At the time the SACP's orthodox pro-Soviet and stage-ist view of change in South Africa was dominant in the ANC-led liberation movement and figures such as Thabo Mbeki were leading SACP members.
Being Jewish and a Communist, Slovo was a demonised figure on the far right of Afrikaner society.
In 1989, he wrote Has Socialism Failed? which acknowledged the weaknesses of the socialist movement and the excesses of Stalinism, while at the same time rejecting attempts by the left to distance themselves from socialism. Slovo died in 1995 of cancer. In 2004 he was voted 47th in the Top 100 Great South Africans.
It was he who in 1992 proposed the breakthrough in the negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa with the "sunset clause" for a coalition government for the five years following a democratic election, including guarantees and concessions to all sides.
After the elections of 1994 he became Minister for housing in Nelson Mandela's government, until his death in 1995.
Joe Slovo appears as a character (played by Malcolm Purkey) in the 2006 film Catch a Fire, for which Shawn Slovo wrote the screenplay. A song in his tribute was written by Scottish singer-songwriter David Heavenor appearing in 1993 on the album Private The Night Visitors.
Trivia
Harrow Road in Johannesburg has now been renamed Joe Slovo Drive.
Shack settlements in both Durban and Cape Town were named after Joe Slovo by their founders. Residents of both settlements now face apartheid style forced removals in 2007.[1]
A School has been named after Joe Slovo in the townships of Port Elizibeth
