First Published: In National Steering Committee Bulletin, #1, April 1980.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Whereas the OCIC has committed itself in principle through its 11th and 12th principles of unity, to a “thoroughgoing struggle against national divisions in the working class” and to “a principled struggle against every manifestation of racism” as part of its commitment to build a “single multinational vanguard party”;
Whereas the development of the OCIC has shown the need “to focus real attention on strengthening our grasp of the reality of national oppression, in its various forms and manifestations, and the correct method to combat it” (A Brief Statement on the Struggle Against Racism);
Whereas the SC has committed itself to the development of “a programmatic approach to deepening the knowledge and practice of all its member organizations, study groups and individuals in the struggle against racism” (A Brief Statement on the Struggle Against Racism);
Whereas the OCIC in its Resolution on the OC’s First Year has committed itself to “strengthen”(ing) the OC’s grasp of the centrality of racism, particularly in relation to the forms in which racism expresses itself in the communist movement”;
Whereas in its document “The OC’s First Year” the OCIC states that its own process of internal consolidation increasing our grasp of the centrality of the struggle against racism is second only in priority to the 18 point curriculum;
Whereas the OC commits itself to a process of study “focusing on the historical development of racism and national oppression, the centrality of the struggle against this oppression historically and its most salient manifestations in the U.S. today”;
Whereas it is the special responsibility of white communists to take up and lead the struggle against white chauvinism;
Whereas the struggle against every manifestation of white chauvinism it; a precondition to multi-national unity and an indispensable pre-condition for the emancipation of the workers of the oppressing nation;
Whereas the OCIC is predominantly white in composition and therefore has a special responsibility to lead in the struggle against white chauvinism;
Whereas the influence of white chauvinism within the OCIC is the main obstacle to our developing a firm commitment to the struggle against racism and a practice based on a firm understanding of the centrality of the struggle against racism and to laying the foundations for genuine multi-nationality;
Whereas the struggle against white chauvinism within the ranks of communists is predominantly carried out by ideological means and is a task ideally suited to a process of centralized ideological struggle; and
Whereas there are many lessons to be drawn from the historical experience of the communist movement in the U.S. for the struggle against white chauvinism and “the thoroughgoing Marxist-Leninist analysis of white chauvinism made by Communist writers stands in the front rank of American political writing” (William Z. Foster, The Negro People in American History, p. 54)
Be it therefore resolved that the SC and its Anti-Racism Task Force unite and promote an ideological campaign against white chauvinism which draws upon this “thoroughgoing Marxist-Leninist analysis” in order to lay bare the roots and manifestations of white chauvinism and methods for combatting it; and that this education campaign be conducted in the spirit of internationalism so as to allow us to further elaborate the theory of white chauvinism to our concrete conditions and lay the basis for more widespread propaganda and agitation on this question in the tendency and among advanced workers in particular.
Submitted by D.W. of the SCALC Dec. 10, 1979.
Amended and adopted by the SC March 16, 1980.