the anc became dormant in the mid-1920s. during that time, black people were also represented by the industrial and commercial workers’ union and the once white-only communist party. by 1927, j.t. gumende (president of the anc) proposed cooperation with the communists in a bid to revitalise the organisation, but he was voted out of power in the 1930s. this led to the anc becoming largely ineffectual and inactive, until the mid-1940s when the anc was remodelled as a mass movement.