the year is 1952, and this tale takes place in apartheid south africa. anticommunism are raging in the NATO alligned countries and paranoia of "die rooi gevaar" or the "red danger" is especially prevalent in south africa. nelson mandela has been arrested for the first time as a result of violating the newly passed "supression of communism" act.
liberalism tends to forget the greatest black freedom fighters were inspired by communism -- notable examples being fred hampton, malcom x and the afformentioned nelson mandela. nelson mandela, in fact, often discussed maos works with comrades while eating umvubo, and a high ranking senior of the anc, walter sisulu, had often travelled to mao's china to discuss miltary tactics, to which the chinese people's liberation army officials replied with (this next quote being massively simplified) "revolution is not to be played or experimented with", much to sisulu's dissapointment.
moving over to the continent of america, fred hampton, an african american marxist leninist had fought against the segregation reigime. fred hampton had believed that in order to liberate black people everywhere, black people would have to intergrate self determinism with maoism (or as it was called then, mao zedong thought.) tragically, fred hammpton was killed at the early age of 21 by the fbi, but fred hampton and nelson mandela will forever have the legacy of developing and adapting the works of mao zedong to fit the ideas of black liberation.
what we can learn from fred hampton and nelson mandela, is that marxism and "tankies" have always played a role in black power -- claiming that marxism-leninism is authoritarian is insulting to the legacies that these people had fought for, and we can not discuss the anti-segregation / apartheid movement without discussing marxism leninism, and vice versa.
"we say you don't fight capitalism with black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism" -- fred hampton
"the struggle of the black people in the united states... is a component part of the general struggle of all the people of the world against u.s. imperialism" -- mao zedong