Subject: [SocialistWorker.org] The centrality of the Black struggle
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Speech: C.L.R. James
======== THE CENTRALITY OF THE BLACK STRUGGLE ================================
September 7, 2012
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With this first installment, SocialistWorker.org is introducing a new weekly
feature--classic articles, essays and other documents from the Marxist
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Trinidad-born socialist C.L.R. James is probably best known for his seminal
book on the Haitian Revolution, /The Black Jacobins/ (1938), and his writings
on Marxism and self-determination, based in part on his collaboration with
the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotksy. In December 1948, James delivered the
following speech, "The Revolutionary Answer to the Negro Problem in the
United States," before a conference of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party. The
text here is republished from the Marxists Internet Archive [1].
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THE DECAY of capitalism on a world scale, the rise of the CIO in the United
States, and the struggle of the Negro people, have precipitated a tremendous
battle for the minds of the Negro people and for the minds of the population
in the U.S. as a whole over the Negro question. During the last few years
certain sections of the bourgeoisie, recognizing the importance of this
question have made a powerful theoretical demonstration of their position,
which has appeared in /The American Dilemma/ by Gunnar Myrdal, a publication
that took a quarter of a million dollars to produce. Certain sections of the
sentimental petty bourgeoisie have produced their spokesmen, one of whom is
Lillian Smith. That has produced some very strange fruit, which however has
resulted in a book that has sold some half a million copies over the last
year or two. The Negro petty bourgeoisie, radical and concerned with
communism, has also made its bid in the person of Richard Wright, whose books
have sold over a million copies. When books on such a controversial question
as the Negro question reach the stage of selling half a million copies it
means that they have left the sphere of literature and have now reached the
sphere of politics.
We can compare what we have to say that is new by comparing it to previous
positions on the Negro question in the socialist movement. The proletariat,
as we know, must lead the struggles of all the oppressed and all those who
are persecuted by capitalism. But this has been interpreted in the past--and
by some very good socialists too--in the following sense: the independent
struggles of the Negro people have not got much more than an episodic value
and as a matter of fact, can constitute a great danger not only to the
Negroes themselves, but to the organized labor movement. The real leadership
of the Negro struggle must rest in the hands of organized labor and of the
Marxist party. Without that, the Negro struggle is not only weak, but is
likely to cause difficulties for the Negroes and dangers to organized labor.
This, as I say, is the position held by many socialists in the past. Some
great socialists in the United States have been associated with this
attitude.
We, on the other had, say something entirely different.
We say, number one, that the Negro struggle, the independent Negro struggle,
has a vitality and a validity of its own; that it has deep historic roots in
the past of America and in present struggles; it has an organic political
perspective, along which it is traveling, to one degree or another, and
everything shows that at the present time it is traveling with great speed
and vigor.
We say, number two, that this independent Negro movement is able to intervene
with terrific force upon the general social and political life of the nation,
despite the fact that it is waged under the banner of democratic rights, and
is not led necessarily either by the organized labor movement or the Marxist
party.
We say, number three, and this is the most important, that it is able to
exercise a powerful influence upon the revolutionary proletariat, that it has
got a great contribution to make to the development of the proletariat in the
United States, and that it is in itself a constituent part of the struggle
for socialism.
In this way we challenge directly any attempt to subordinate or to push to
the rear the social and political significance of the independent Negro
struggle for democratic rights. That is our position. It was the position of
Lenin thirty years ago. It was the position of Trotsky that he fought for
during many years. It has been concretized by the general class struggle in
the United States, and the tremendous struggles of the Negro people. It has
been sharpened and refined by political controversy in our movement, and best
of all it has had the benefit of three or four years of practical application
in the Negro struggle and in the class struggle by the Socialist Workers'
Party during the past few years.
Now if this position has reached the stage where we can put it forward in the
shape that we propose, that means that to understand it should be by now
simpler than before; and by merely observing the Negro question, the Negro
people, rather, the struggles they have carried on, their ideas, we are able
to see the roots of this position in a way that was difficult to see ten or
even fifteen years ago. The Negro people, we say, on the basis of their own
experiences, approach the conclusions of Marxism. And I will have briefly to
illustrate this as has been shown in the Resolution.
First of all, on the question of imperialist war. The Negro people do not
believe that the last two wars and the one that may overtake us are a result
of the need to struggle for democracy, for freedom of the persecuted peoples
by the American bourgeoisie. They cannot believe that.
On the question of the state, what Negro, particularly below the Mason-Dixon
line, believes that the bourgeois state is a state above all classes, serving
the needs of all the people? They may not formulate their belief in Marxist
terms, but their experience drives them to reject this shibboleth of
bourgeois democracy.
On the question of what is called the democratic process, the Negroes do not
believe that grievances, difficulties of sections of the population, are
solved by discussions, by voting, by telegrams to Congress, by what is known
as the " American way."
Finally, on the question of political action, the American bourgeoisie
preaches that Providence in its divine wisdom has decreed that there should
be two political parties in the United States, not one, not three, not four,
just two: and also in its kindness, Providence has shown that these two
parties should be one, the Democratic Party and the other, the Republican, to
last from now until the end of time.
That is being challenged by increasing numbers of people in the United
States. But the Negroes more than ever have shown--and any knowledge of their
press and their activities tells us that they are willing to make the break
completely with that conception.
As Bolsheviks we are jealous, not only theoretically but practically, of the
primary role of the organized labor movement in all fundamental struggles
against capitalism. That is why for many years in the past this position on
the Negro question has had some difficulty in finding itself thoroughly
accepted, particularly in the revolutionary movement, because there is this
difficulty--what is the relation between this movement and the primary role
of the proletariat--particularly because so many Negroes, and most
disciplined, hardened, trained, highly developed sections of the Negroes, are
today in the organized labor movement.
First the Negro struggles in the South are not merely a question of struggles
of Negroes, important as those are. It is a question of the reorganization of
the whole agricultural system in the United States, and therefore a matter
for the proletarian revolution and the reorganization of society on socialist
foundations.
Secondly, we say in the South that although the embryonic unity of whites and
Negroes in the labor movement may seem small and there are difficulties in
the unions, yet such is the decay of Southern society and such the
fundamental significance of the proletariat, particularly when organized in
labor unions, that this small movement is bound to play the decisive part in
the revolutionary struggles that are inevitable.
Thirdly, there are one and a quarter million Negroes, at least, in the
organized labor movement.
On these fundamental positions we do not move one inch. Not only do we not
move, we strengthen them. But there still remains in question: what is the
relationship of the independent Negro mass movement to the organized labor
movement? And here we come immediately to what has been and will be a very
puzzling feature unless we have our basic position clear.
Those who believed that the Negro question is in reality, purely and simply,
or to a decisive extent, merely a class question, pointed with glee to the
tremendous growth of the Negro personnel in the organized labor movement. It
grew in a few years from three hundred thousand to one million; it is now one
and a half million. But to their surprise, instead of this lessening and
weakening the struggle of the independent Negro movement, the more the
Negroes went into the labor movement, the more capitalism incorporated them
into industry, the more they were accepted in the union movement. It is
during that period, since 1940, that the independent mass movement has broken
out with a force greater than it has ever shown before.
That is the problem that we have to face, that we have to grasp. We cannot
move forward and we cannot explain ourselves unless we have it clearly. And I
know there is difficulty with it. I intend to spend some time on it, because
if that is settled, all is settled. The other difficulties are incidental.
If, however, this one is not clear, then we shall continually be facing
difficulties that we shall doubtless solve in time.
Now Lenin has handled this problem and in the Resolution we have quoted him.
He says that the dialectic of history is such that small independent nations,
small nationalities, which are powerless--get the word, please--powerless, in
the struggle against imperialism nevertheless can act as one of the ferments,
one of the bacilli, which can bring on to the scene the real power against
imperialism--the socialist proletariat.
Let me repeat it please. Small groups, nations, nationalities, themselves
powerless against imperialism, nevertheless can act as one of the ferments,
one of the bacilli which will bring on to the scene the real fundamental
force against capitalism--the socialist proletariat.
In other words, as so often happens from the Marxist point of view from the
point of view of the dialectic, this question of the leadership is very
complicated.
What Lenin is saying is that although the fundamental force is the
proletariat, although these groups are powerless, although the proletariat
has got to lead them, it does not by any means follow that they cannot do
anything until the proletariat actually comes forward to lead them. He says
exactly the opposite is the case.
They, by their agitation, resistance and the political developments that they
can initiate, can be the means whereby the proletariat is brought on to the
scene.
Not always, and every time, not the sole means, but one of the means. That is
what we have to get clear.
Now it is very well to see it from the point of view of Marxism, which
developed these ideas upon the basis of European and Oriental experiences.
Lenin and Trotsky applied this principle to the Negro question in the United
States. What we have to do is to make it concrete, and one of the best means
of doing so is to dig into the history of the Negro people in the United
States, and to see the relationship that has developed between them and
revolutionary elements in past revolutionary struggles.
For us the center must be the Civil War in the United States and I intend
briefly now to make some sharp conclusions and see if they can help us arrive
at a clearer perspective. Not for historical knowledge, but to watch the
movement as it develops before us, helping us to arrive at a clearer
perspective as to this difficult relationship between the independent Negro
movement and the revolutionary proletariat. The Civil War was a conflict
between the revolutionary bourgeoisie and the Southern plantocracy. That we
know. That conflict was inevitable.
But for twenty to twenty-five years before the Civil War actually broke out,
the masses of the Negroes in the South, through the underground railroad,
through revolts, as [Marxist historian Herbert] Aptheker has told us, and by
the tremendous support and impetus that they gave to the revolutionary
elements among the Abolitionists, absolutely prevented the reactionary
bourgeoisie--(revolutionary later)--absolutely prevented the bourgeoisie and
the plantocracy from coming to terms as they wanted to do.
In 1850, these two made a great attempt at a compromise. What broke that
compromise? It was the Fugitive Slave Act. They could prevent everything else
for the time being, but they could not prevent the slaves from coming, and
the revolutionaries in the North from assisting them. So that we find that
here in the history of the United States such is the situation of the masses
of the Negro people and their readiness to revolt at the slightest
opportunity, that as far back as the Civil War, in relation to the American
bourgeoisie, they formed a force which initiated and stimulated and acted as
a ferment.
That is point number one.
Point number two. The Civil War takes its course as it is bound to do. Many
Negroes and their leaders make an attempt to get incorporated into the
Republican Party and to get their cause embraced by the bourgeoisie. And what
happens? The bourgeoisie refuses. It doesn't want to have Negroes
emancipated.
Point number three. As the struggle develops, such is the situation of the
Negroes in the United States, that the emancipation of the slaves becomes an
absolute necessity, politically, organizationally and from a military point
of view.
The Negroes are incorporated into the battle against the South. Not only are
they incorporated here, but later they are incorporated also into the
military government, which smashes down the remnants of resistance in the
Southern states.
But, when this is done, the Negroes are deserted by the bourgeoisie, and
there falls upon them a very terrible repression.
That is the course of development in the central episode of American history.
Now if it is so in the Civil War, we have the right to look to see what
happened in the War of Independence. It is likely--it is not always
certain--but it is likely that we shall see there some anticipations of the
logical development that appeared in the Civil War. They are there.
The Negroes begin by demanding their rights. They say if you are asking that
the British free you, then we should have our rights, and furthermore,
slavery should be abolished. The American bourgeoisie didn't react very well
to that. The Negroes insisted--those Negroes who were in the North--insisted
that they should be allowed to join the Army of Independence. They were
refused.
But later Washington found that it was imperative to have them, and four
thousand of them fought among the thirty thousand soldiers of Washington.
They gained certain rights after independence was achieved. Then sections of
the bourgeoisie who were with them deserted them. And the Negro movement
collapsed.
We see exactly the same thing but more intensified in the Populist movement.
There was a powerful movement of one and one quarter of a million Negroes in
the South (The Southern Tenant Farmers' Association). They joined the
Populist movement and were in the extreme left wing of this movement, when
Populism was discussing whether it should go on with the Democratic Party or
make the campaign as a third party. The Negroes voted for the third party and
for all the most radical planks in the platform.
They fought with the Populist movement. But when Populism was defeated, there
fell upon the Negroes between 1896 and about 1910 the desperate, legalized
repression and persecution of the Southern states.
Some of us think it is fairly clear that the Garvey movement came and looked
to Africa because there was no proletarian movement in the United States to
give it a lead, to do for this great eruption of the Negroes what the Civil
War and the Populist movement had done for the insurgent Negroes of those
days.
And now what can we see today? Today the Negroes in the United States are
organized as never before. There are more than half a million in the NAACP,
and in addition to that, there are all sorts of Negro groups and
organizations--the churches in particular--every single one of which is
dominated by the idea that each organization must in some manner or another
contribute to the emancipation of the Negroes from capitalist humiliation and
from capitalist oppression. So that the independent Negro movement that we
see today and which we see growing before our eyes is nothing strange. It is
nothing new. It is something that has always appeared in the American
movement at the first sign of social crisis.
It represents a climax to the Negro movements that we have seen in the past.
From what we have seen in the past, we would expect it to have its head
turned towards the labor movement. And not only from a historical point of
view but today concrete experience tells us that the masses of the Negro
people today look upon the CIO with a respect and consideration that they
give to no other social or political force in the country. To anyone who
knows the Negro people, who reads their press--and I am not speaking here
specially of the Negro workers--if you watch the Negro petty
bourgeoisie-reactionary, reformist types as some of them are in all their
propaganda, in all their agitation – whenever they are in any difficulties,
you can see them leaning toward the labor movement. As for the masses of
Negroes, they are increasingly pro-labor every day. So that it is not only
Marxist ideas; it is not only a question of Bolshevik-Marxist analysis. It is
not only a question of the history of Negroes in the U.S.
The actual concrete facts before us show us, and anyone who wants to see,
this important conclusion, that the Negro movement logically and historically
and concretely is headed for the proletariat. That is the road it has always
taken in the past, the road to the revolutionary forces. Today the
proletariat is that force. And if these ideas that we have traced in American
revolutionary crises have shown some power in the past, such is the state of
the class struggle today, such the antagonisms between bourgeoisie and
proletariat, such, too, the impetus of the Negro movement toward the
revolutionary forces, which we have traced in the past, is stronger today
than ever before. So that we can look upon this Negro movement not only for
what it has been and what it has been able to do--we are able to know as
Marxists by our own theory and our examination of American history that it is
headed for the proletarian movement, that it must go there. There is nowhere
else for it to go.
And further we can see that if it doesn't go there, the difficulties that the
Negroes have suffered in the past when they were deserted by the
revolutionary forces, those will be ten, one hundred, ten thousand times as
great as in the past. The independent Negro movement, which is boiling and
moving, must find its way to the proletariat. If the proletariat is not able
to support it, the repression of past times when the revolutionary forces
failed the Negroes will be infinitely, repeat infinitely, more terrible
today.
Therefore our consideration of the independent Negro movement does not lessen
the significance of the proletarian--the essentially proletarian-leadership.
Not at all. It includes it. We are able to see that the mere existence of the
CIO, its mere existence, despite the fakery of the labor leadership on the
Negro question, as on all other questions, is a protection and a stimulus to
the Negroes.
We are able to see and I will show in a minute that the Negroes are able by
their activity to draw the revolutionary elements and more powerful elements
in the proletariat to their side. We are coming to that. But we have to draw
and emphasize again and again this important conclusion. If--and we have to
take these theoretical questions into consideration--if the proletariat is
defeated, if the CIO is destroyed, then there will fall upon the Negro people
in the U.S. such a repression, such persecution, comparable to nothing that
they have seen in the past. We have seen in Germany and elsewhere the
barbarism that capitalism is capable of in its death agony. The Negro people
in the U.S. offer a similar opportunity to the American bourgeoisie. The
American bourgeoisie have shown their understanding of the opportunity the
Negro question gives them to disrupt and to attempt to corrupt and destroy
the labor movement.
But the development of capitalism itself has not only given the independent
Negro movement this fundamental and sharp relation with the proletariat. It
has created Negro proletarians and placed them as proletarians in what were
once the most oppressed and exploited masses. But in auto, steel, and coal,
for example, these proletarians have now become the vanguard of the workers'
struggle and have brought a substantial number of Negroes to a position of
primacy in the struggle against capitalism. The backwardness and humiliation
of the Negroes that shoved them into these industries is the very thing that
today is bringing them forward, and they are in the very vanguard of the
proletarian movement from the very nature of the proletarian struggle itself.
Now, how does this complicated interrelationship, the Leninist
interrelationship express itself? Henry Ford could write a very good thesis
on that if he were so inclined.
The Negroes in the Ford plant were incorporated by Ford: first of all he
wanted them for the hard, rough work. I am also informed by the comrades from
Detroit he was very anxious to play a paternalistic role with the Negro petty
bourgeoisie. He wanted to show them that he was not the person that these
people said he was--look! he was giving Negroes opportunities in his plant.
Number three, he was able thus to create divisions between whites and Negroes
that allowed him to pursue his anti-union, reactionary way.
What has happened within the last few years that is changed? The mass of the
Negroes in the River Rouge plant, I am told, are one of the most powerful
sections of the Detroit proletariat. They are leaders in the proletarian
struggle, not the stooges Ford intended them to be.
Not only that, they act as leaders not only in the labor movement as a whole
but in the Negro community. It is what they say that is decisive there. Which
is very sad for Henry. And the Negro petty bourgeois have followed the
proletariat. They are now going along with the labor movement: they have left
Ford too. It is said that he has recognized it at last and that he is not
going to employ any more Negroes. He thinks he will do better with women. But
they will disappoint him too...
Let us not forget that in the Negro people, there sleep and are now awakening
passions of a violence exceeding, perhaps, as far as these things can be
compared, anything among the tremendous forces that capitalism has created.
Anyone who knows them, who knows their history, is able to talk to them
intimately, watches them at their own theatres, watches them at their dances,
watches them in their churches, reads their press with a discerning eye, must
recognize that although their social force may not be able to compare with
the social force of a corresponding number of organized workers, the hatred
of bourgeois society and the readiness to destroy it when the opportunity
should present itself, rests among them to a degree greater than in any other
section of the population in the United States.
/Originally published in Fourth International, December 1948. Republished in
Scott McLemee (ed.)/, C.L.R. James on the "Negro Question,"/' Jackson, Miss.,
1996, pp. 138–147. Transcribed by Daniel Gaido. Marked up by Einde
O'Callaghan for Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line/.
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[4] http://socialistworker.org/2012/09/14/why-the-working-class
