Source: "Pen Pictures of South African Communists: Ruth First", in Umsebenzi, organ of the South African Communist Party, vol. 2, no. 2, 1986; page 8.
Ruth First, born in Johannesburg in 1925, was a lifelong Communist and a formidable foe of the apartheid regime. Her parents were founders of the Communist Party. Ruth joined the Young Communist League in her teens and soon proved to be a dynamic speaker and organiser. She carried on the underground work of the Party after its banning in 1950, became a prominent figure in the ANC-led liberation alliance, and made an outstanding contribution as a journalist, writer and theorist. She served on all the movement's newspapers from The Guardian to New Age, was instrumental in exposing the farm labour scandal, and edited Fighting Talk.
Together with her husband, Joe Slovo, she was a Treason Trialist (1956-60) and after a period of solitary confinement was forced into exile in 1964. She wrote and edited several books, including 117 Days, an account of her detention. She became an international authority on South Africa, a leading campaigner for the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the ANC. In 1979 she was appointed Director of Research in the Centre for African Studies in Maputo.
Loved and respected by our people, she was feared by the Pretoria regime who assassinated her in Maputo on 17 August 1982. Heroine of our Party and liberation movement, her life serves as an inspiration to all.