In the years between 1950 and 1953 the differences between liberal and radical whites took organisational shape. White opposition to the Nationalist Party (NP) rose to a level that would never be seen again, with tens of thousands of whites joining night-time marches organised by the Torch Commando. Bearing torches and symbolic coffins and using antifascist/ anti-Nazi slogans they opposed the removal of coloured (and some Indian) voters from the electoral roll. A scattering of whites also joined the Defiance Campaign, a passive resistance campaign organised by the Congress Alliance to highlight the increasingly repressive apartheid laws and bolster the profile and membership of Congress.

In November 1952 the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Indian Congress (SAIC) attempted to capitalise on white anti-NP sentiment and called for the creation of a ‘parallel white organisation’ to work with them. But divisions among whites opposing the NP ran deep – deeper, certainly, than ANC leaders expected. Liberal and radical whites differed over universal suffrage, relations with ex-communists, participation in a multiracially structured Alliance as opposed to a single organisation for people regardless of race, and the efficacy of extra-parliamentary opposition – a clutch of issues that would separate them throughout the 1950s. White radicals, including a number of former members of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), formed the South African Congress of Democrats (SACOD), while liberals remained within the United Party (UP) fold until after the 1953 election, when one strand of liberal opinion broke away to form the Liberal Party (LP).

For the black population the period after 1948 was one of unremitting repression, falling real wages, and personal and employment insecurity. But for whites, South Africa was a different country. The legislative bedrock of apartheid was laid between 1949 and 1953, with the Group Areas Act, which enforced residential and business segregation; the Population Registration Act, which embedded race classification; the Separate Representation of Voters Act, which ultimately disenfranchised coloured voters; the Separate Amenities Act, which entrenched the principle of unequal amenities for different races and the Suppression of Communism Act, which gave the government an armoury of repressive powers. The 1948 election was followed by a reduction in capital inflows and a balance of payments crisis that peaked in 1949. But by 1950 the economy was showing real growth, which the opening of new gold and uranium mines promised to sustain.