THE STALIN-MALAN PACT
Students of history know about hinge-points where leadership and quirky factors could have led to very different outcomes. For instance, if Winston Churchill had never been born or had died earlier, would Britain have prevailed against Nazi Germany?
Alternative histories are interesting, answering questions like what if the Soviet Union had won the Cold War. Communists in South Africa are remarkably self-righteous given their past support for appalling tyrannies that murdered millions. They bewailed the fall of the Berlin Wall, a great liberation event that also allowed a reformist South African prime minister to release Nelson Mandela and negotiate with the ANC.
History is full of ironies as illustrated by this alternative history that is not quite beyond the bounds of possibility:
In 1948, the Afrikaner Nationalists under DF Malan won an unexpected election victory over Jan Smuts' United Party. They were quite unprepared for power, but determined to hold on to it for as long as possible. The enemy was not just the hated British and local English-speakers, but also the majority black population. There was a long cabinet debate about foreign policy.
British Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee and American President Harry Truman were not natural allies. Prime Minister Malan resented the British naval base at Simonstown, and was aware of the strategic value of the Cape sea route.