He was a leading member of the struggle against apartheid and a friend of both Joe Slovo and Nelson Mandela.
His legal work was centrally connected with the South African struggles until his arrest in 1963 - much of it concerned with political detainees.
He was an important member of the illegal South African Communist Party (SACP) and was engaged with the ANC (which was banned after the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960).
Wolpe is best known for the theory that cheap labour in South Africa was sustained by the articulation of capitalism with subsistence economies in rural areas.
Apartheid and other segregation regimes were kept in place to prevent the formation of a stable urban proletariat and ensure continued sub-reproduction labour costs, as those unable to work could be deported to the bantustans, and workers did not create stable families in the cities.