The first organised Trotskyist organisation on the Witwatersrand was an ephemeral Communist League of Africa, founded in 1932 by Thibedi, followed by a succession of small Trotskyist groups in Johannesburg. In the Western Cape, which was to become the historical stronghold of South African Trotskyism, the first organisation was the Lenin Club, which was formed in 1933. It split soon after, with its majority faction joining with Johannesburg-based groups to form the Workers' Party of South Africa in 1935, and the remainder forming the Communist League of South Africa. The South African Trotskyists were, from the start, characterised by centrifugal tendencies, and were also disunited in their response to the two-stage theory of the Communist Party of South Africa.
From the guide to the Workers' Party of South Africa, 1936-1944, 1936-1944, (Institute of Commonwealth Studies)
