13 Facts About Solly Sachs

Solly Sachs was born in 1900 in Kamai, Lithuania to Abraham Saks and Hannah Rivkin.

Solly Sachs left school in Standard 5 working as shop assistant and aside from organising a union for shop assistants he studied for his matric.

Solly Sachs had an interest in politics and was drawn to socialism joining the Communist Party of South Africa in 1919 and the Communist Youth League in 1921.

Solly Sachs encouraged the Afrikaner women to become activists and organisers.

Solly Sachs managed two GWU general strikes in 1931 over wage negotiations and again in 1932 when the over wage negotiations broke down.

Solly Sachs help form a fund for unemployed clothing workers who had been excluded from the Unemployment Insurance Fees enacted in 1939, their inclusion would only occur later in 1946.

In 1946, Solly Sachs joined the South African Labour Party and by 1952 he had become their national treasurer.

Solly Sachs was ordered to resign from the GWU in 30 days and banned from various organisations and secondly he was restricted to the Transvaal and from attending meetings.

Solly Sachs had not been a member of the CPSA for many years when he and many others had been purged from the party in the 1930s.

Solly Sachs went into exile to England on 30 January 1953.

Solly Sachs took up a two-year fellowship at the University of Manchester and a years research post at the University of London.

Solly Sachs ran unsuccessfully as a Labour candidate in Sheffield.

Solly Sachs continued to protest against the South Africa government in London after his son Albie was arrested and demonstrated again in 1961 against the Sharpeville massacre.