In this section of the paper we will focus specifically on their methodology. Why is it important that we take this up separately? What is at stake here? We believe that to truly “rectify” the communist movement’s incorrect general political line and its specific line on racism, we must go beyond a mere rejection of the political errors most obvious in the realm of practice. We must analyze the political history of these errors and the theoretical basis for the reproduction of these errors in order to root out the material bases for these political errors in the communist movement. Part of this rectification process is critically analyzing the underlying theoretical methodology which often times may be the “root” cause of a particular deviation.
We think that there is a serious tendency towards dogmatism and empiricism in the conference papers. Although dogmatism and empiricism are distinct theoretical deviations from Marxism-Leninism, we will address them not just in their specificity but also their interrelationship.
The most serious theoretical error the papers’ authors commit is that of dogmatism. The tendency towards dogmatism is apparent throughout the papers, but we will focus on how it is exhibited in the first paper.
One aspect of their dogmatism is manifested in an uncritical acceptance of certain concepts which have become central to the entire “national question” framework. These concepts have dominated the new communist movement’s approach to this question. In the first section titled “A Materialist Approach to the National Question,” there is a brief exposition of what they consider to be a nation. They correctly point out that a “full understanding of the concept of ’nation’ is the foundation for clarity on the national question...” (page 8) Yet the discussion of this critical concept, nation, begins and ends with merely the repetition of Joseph Stalin’s “famous definition” of a nation which they state is a “useful starting point.” They then proceed to buttress this concept of a nation with two short quotations from Stalin’s 1913 polemic, Marxism and the National Question, to show that 1) a nation has four common features (language, territory, economy and culture) and, 2) a nation is a category belonging to the period of capitalism. Although Stalin did clearly state that a nation is a category corresponding to the period of capitalism, the authors of the conference papers turn Stalin’s already rigid conceptualization into an absolute, universal characteristic of a nation.
What is wrong with this approach? First, it upholds the absence of any critical evaluation of Stalin’s concept of a nation within the body of Marxist-Leninist thought on the national question. This legacy includes the fact that Stalin’s definition of a nation was never used by Lenin to analyze whether a nation had the right to self-determination, or that Stalin’s characteristics of a nation contradicted Lenin’s concept of a nation.[1]
Second, although this subsection is entitled a “materialist approach to the national question,” their approach actually borders on idealism. They posit an apriori “definition” of nation which is not produced from a historical materialist analysis of the dialectical development of nations through the history of class societies. Rather than making such a historical materialist analysis, they first posit a static and eternal “definition” of a nation locating it solely in the period of capitalist mode of production. They proceed to explain the three historical stages of the “national question” which are capitalism, imperialism, and socialism. This schematic periodization of the history of nations, is merely an allusion to history to provide some historical substantiation for their definition of a nation. History is used by them not as the material basis for their theories, but as a cloak with which to wrap their “categories” and “definitions” so as to provide them with some legitimacy.
The fundamental flaw of their approach is that they uncritically accept a definition of a nation from a Stalin essay from 1913 rather than deriving their concept from a historical materialist analysis of history. In our view the method of Marxism is based on historical materialism which is the science of human societies and class struggle. Historical materialism recognizes that class struggle is the motor force of history and that human societies are a complex totality of contradictions (not just class contradictions, but also racial, national and sexual contradictions). Marxism is materialist because it recognizes the primacy of material reality, which includes human society and its class struggle, over ideas and philosophies. Of course Marxism, as distinct from mechanical materialism, recognizes the existence and importance of ideas, theories and philosophies, but only as subordinate to material reality. The critical point is these theoretical interpretations of material reality are scientific only if they correspond to the actual state of material reality. “Theory” is not scientific if history has to be rewritten or abridged to conform with dogmatically accepted concepts.
This scientific approach was briefly expounded by Marx in a letter from 1846. Although this letter was a polemic against Pierre Proudhon, the father of modern anarchism, and concerned the question of political economy, Marx’s point in regards to where “categories” (concepts) derive from is instructive:
He (Proudhon – ed.) has not perceived that economic categories are only abstract expressions of these actually existing relations and only remain true while these relations exist. He therefore falls into the error of the bourgeois economists, who regard these economic categories as eternal laws and not as historical laws which are valid only for a particular historical development, for a definite development of the productive forces. Instead, therefore, of regarding the politico-economic categories as abstract expressions of the real, transitory, historic social relations, Mr. Proudhon, owing to a mystic inversion, regards real relations merely as reifications of these abstractions.[2]
Although Marx is making a point in regards to political economy, it is equally valid for our study of the history of nations, national oppression, and racial oppression. The importance of what Marx wrote over a century ago for us today is that our concepts have to be understood as theoretical abstractions corresponding to actual social relations and these concepts cannot be transformed into eternal, ahistorical laws.
In the case of the papers, Stalin’s definition of a nation, which was developed in Eastern Europe in the period of the dissolution of feudalism and the emergence of capitalism is transformed into a universal, eternal category which is mechanically applied to different societies at different levels of development. For the authors of the conference papers, the common characteristics of a nation (stable community of people, economy, territory, language, culture) become universal characteristics which are an absolute requirement for a people to be a nation and have the right to self-determination.
Another aspect of this dogmatic approach is the tendency to make unsubstantiated assertions of what the papers’ authors consider to be historical “facts.” They often times make these assertions without any kind of documentation, verification, or even logical argumentation. Their assertions are presented as historical “facts,” to be simply accepted by the readers as truth – or dogma.
One example of this dogmatic approach is in the section on racial oppression where the authors of the conference papers assert that “slave labor was responsible for almost all of the surplus-value produced in the colonies.” (page 15) Despite the obvious ambiguity in the statement (which historical period, which colonies, etc.), this is a rather incredible statement to make without any documentation or verification whatsoever. The authors of the paper should have known that this is not a commonly accepted view and would be controversial. Yet they proceeded, without even a footnote to a reference source, to present this unsubstantiated assertion as accepted historical “fact.” (The merit of this particular assertion will be discussed later, but for our purposes here, it is representative of the many sweeping generalizations present throughout the papers.)
Although the authors of the papers may take the view that all the footnotes in the world will not convince the informed skeptic, they fail to recognize the importance of a theory being grounded with a proper historical basis.
It would seem that this failure to provide historical documentation (which often takes the form of footnotes and references) does not just represent sloppy scholarship on the part of the authors. It represents the deeper problem of the dogmatism in their methodology – the failure to derive their theoretical concepts and political assertions from a historical materialist analysis of the history of racism and national oppression in this country. Their political assertions (which combined form a political line) are presented in the papers as historical fact and truth – or dogma – which the reader has no choice but to accept as such. What they fail to mention is that these are controversial political questions which are being debated among Marxists as to whether they actually correspond to objective historical reality.
There is not just a tendency towards dogmatism in the conference papers, but simultaneously there exists a tendency towards empiricism. Although these theoretical deviations, dogmatism and empiricism, are often seen as contradictory and mutually exclusive phenomena, in the conference papers the dogmatism on the level of abstract theoretical concepts leads to empiricism in the application of their theoretical framework to concrete questions they analyze in the U.S.
The authors’ dogmatism on the level of theory is a result of their failure to creatively develop the Marxist theory of national oppression. There is a gap between their theory (which is uncritically accepted, for the most part, from essays written by Stalin in the early part of this century) and the reality which they are trying to analyze – a complex advanced capitalist society like the U.S. We feel the theory of the national question in its present form is not applicable to understand the complexity of the situation in the U.S. Consequently, we feel the papers’ authors are unable to critically analyze new empirical information and transform it into scientific knowledge through the process of theoretical production. What results is empiricism – the simple assimilation into theory of empirical observations from the appearance of things. However, these empirical observations cannot simplistically be incorporated into Marxism without their transformation into scientific facts through the enormous labor of theoretical production necessary to produce scientific knowledge.
For instance, the Conference Committee’s analysis of slavery in the antebellum South suffers from a serious tendency towards empiricism. In a following section of this paper we will offer a more detailed critique of their position that Southern slavery was actually capitalist. Suffice it to say that they arrived at that position by only looking at the appearances or superficial features of Southern society (e.g., that commodities produced by the slaves were sold on the world capitalist market, northern finance capital was injected into the Southern economy, etc.). They conclude that since the Southern economy had capitalist features, then it must be a capitalist mode of production.
This analysis of Southern slavery is empiricist because they do not develop a theory of modes of production and social formations which would enable them to critically analyze the empirical phenomena and transform it into scientific knowledge of a concrete social formation.
Another example of their tendency towards empiricism is their analysis of what they refer-to as “racial privileges” and “white racial interest group.” As we state later on in this paper, we do not dispute the fact that white people (including white workers) have derived benefits from racism in this country. But if we stop our analysis at the level of empirical observation, it is easy to conclude, as the authors of the conference papers have, that white people are “privileged” since it is obvious that whites have a higher standard of living than minorities and have some “racial interest” in maintaining those “privileges.” Again, what the authors of the papers fail to do is develop the theoretical concepts with which to make a scientific analysis of the underlying causes of racism in this capitalist society. As we explain later in our paper, if they went beyond a simple empirical analysis, they could recognize that the benefits derived from racism are not only relative but are produced by the capitalist system which is not in the interest of any particular racial group.
In summary, we must conclude that there is a serious tendency towards dogmatism and empiricism in the papers. These methodological errors have a definite effect on their political conclusions. Of course the deviations of dogmatism and empiricism are not just present in these conference papers, but have plagued the communist movement for decades. The other major force in the anti-revisionist, anti-dogmatist trend to attempt a broad analysis of racism and the national question was also unable to break with the dogmatism and empiricism in the communist movement.[3]
In this section of the paper we will state our key theoretical and political differences with the papers’ analysis of racial and national oppression. For the purposes of clarification, we will focus on our differences with their analysis while only making note of our agreements. Our main differences are with their conception of a nation, the right to self-determination, races, the relationship between racism and capitalism, the “white racial interest group” and its “privileges,” and of Blacks as a “racially oppressed people.”
As mentioned before, the authors of the conference papers uncritically accept Stalin’s definition of a nation as a historically constituted, stable community of people with a common language, territory, economy, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture. The nation is also created by capitalism and had no existence prior to capitalism. (See pages 8-9 of the conference papers.)
The debate which has raged over the concept of nation in the U.S. anti-revisionist communist movement has assumed a rather abstract character which makes the whole question seem rather irrelevant to the political reality of the world today. So we will begin our discussion of the national question not with an abstract discussion of what a nation is, but with a concrete presentation of the political importance of developing a scientific theory of the national question. After discussing the question of the right of nations to self-determination and our critique of their distortion of this Leninist concept, we will then take up the question of what a nation is.
The theoretical question of what a nation is presented by the concrete political problem of whether an oppressed people is a nation with the right to self-determination (i.e., the right to secede and establish a separate state). This political question is one which faces not only the U.S. communist movement, but the communist movement internationally. The success, or failure, of many social revolutions is dependent on the correct handling of the national question.
For Lenin, recognizing the right to self-determination for nations was a central demand of the revolutionary party of the working class because of its importance in the struggle against imperialism. The advancement of this demand also served to build proletarian internationalism within the international working class and among peoples, and combat bourgeois nationalism and the strength of the national bourgeoisie in oppressed nations. But Lenin’s position was not commonly accepted in the “social democratic” movement of his day, or even within the Bolshevik Party.[4] His position was criticized by the revisionist leadership of the German and Austrian social democratic parties, and by the revolutionary left represented by Rosa Luxemburg, the revolutionary Polish social democrat. Luxemburg’s differences with Lenin will be discussed later in this section.
The authors of the conference papers adopt the traditional position on the national question that “Marxist-Leninists demand the right of self-determination for oppressed nations (whether colonies, neo-colonies, or oppressed nations within a multi-national state) and equal rights for oppressed national minorities.” (page 11) But they expand on this position when they assert that the “right of self-determination applies only to oppressed nations... because only nations have the material basis to exercise self-determination.” (page 12, their emphasis) Although they do not explain in any detail what they consider to be a sufficient material basis for the exercise of self-determination, they give some indication as to the direction of their analysis. They explain that a nation must have an “all-sided national life” or else it would be unable to exist “independently” and “would inevitably fall under the sway of some oppressor class or nation.” This “all-sided national life,” for example, would include the nation having a “distinct capitalist economic structure, a class structure that has produced a common language and culture, and which occupies a distinct common territory.” (page 12)
In this section of their paper they have introduced the additional consideration that oppressed nations must have a material basis (capitalist economy and class structure) to exercise their right to self-determination. We will contrast the position expressed in the conference papers and Lenin’s alternative understanding of the evolution of nations and their right to self-determination.
In marked contrast to the Marxists of the Second International, Lenin was the first Marxist to make the demand of self-determination for nations central to Marxist politics. But in contradistinction to the authors of the conference papers, Lenin had a more dialectical conception of the evolution of oppressed nations from feudalism to capitalism. In a polemic against Rosa Luxemburg, “The Right of Nations to Self Determination,” Lenin stated that “the best conditions for the development of capitalism in the Balkans are created precisely in proportion to the creation of independent national states in that peninsula.”[5] He was making the point that the nations of the Balkans, Bulgaria, Hungary, what is today Yugoslavia, etc., which were still in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, did not first have to develop into capitalist nations before having the right to establish a separate national state. In fact, Lenin thought that it was their being able to exercise their right to self-determination which would hasten the development of a capitalist economy and class structure in those rather backward nations.
But, for Lenin, the right to self-determination was equally important for nations which were oppressed by imperialism, even if those oppressed nations would become dominated by another imperialist power. Lenin wrote in 1916,
The fact that the struggle for national liberation against one imperialist power may, under certain circumstances, be utilized by another ’Great’ power in its equally imperialist interests should have no more weight in inducing Social Democracy to renounce its recognition of the right of nations to self-determination than the numerous cases of the bourgeoisie utilizing republican slogans for the purpose of political deception and financial robbery...[6]
The political principle that Lenin established sixty-five years ago was that a nation’s right to self-determination cannot be denied or compromised because of its low level of economic development or its potential dependency on imperialism.
However, clearly the world situation has changed since Lenin wrote those essays in 1914 and 1916. Today, capitalism and imperialism have matured, socialism has been established in many countries, and most of the colonized nations have achieved political independence (while still remaining dependent on imperialism). Yet, how do we analyze the history of the national liberation movements and the emerging nations since World War I?
If a historical materialist analysis is made of the development of nations over the last several centuries, we will see, especially in what is referred to as the “Third World,” that many of the emerging nations have not yet developed entirely distinct capitalist economic and class structures. And their cultures and languages were certainly not produced by these supposedly capitalist class structures which the authors of the papers asserted were conditions for the material basis to exercise self-determination (see page 12). Many of these developing nations are complex social formations where a combination of modes of production, often times capitalist and feudal, exist within one society.[7] These societies also have the class structures corresponding to those modes of production, i.e., a proletariat and a bourgeoisie, a peasantry and an aristocracy, etc. These different modes of production and classes do not exist in isolation from one another, but actually condition one another and form a complex totality so that one contradiction cannot be resolved without a certain maturation of the other contradictions. For instance, Russia in 1917 was an extremely complex society. There existed both capitalist and feudal modes of production with their corresponding array of classes. The contradiction between the proletariat and bourgeoisie was only resolved in October of 1917 because of the maturation of the other contradictions in Russian society between the peasantry and aristocracy, between the Russian and German imperialists, etc.
Why is this a critical question? Because the development of nations, national liberation movements, and socialist revolutions in these emerging nations cannot be understood solely in terms of those societies’ capitalist structure and the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Although this class contradiction may be the primary contradiction in those societies, it would be undialectical to define a nation’s right to self-determination only to the extent of development of capitalism in those societies. This is an important political question because the working class in oppressed nations can only successfully lead a national liberation movement (and ultimately the socialist revolution) if it establishes alliances with other classes (e.g., peasantry, petty bourgeoisie, etc.) and devises a political strategy which will be able to include, under the hegemony of the proletariat, the broadest social forces in the struggle against capitalism and imperialism.
It would seem that the authors of the conference papers, while recognizing the importance of economic development to the life of a nation, succumb to economic determinism by requiring that nations have an economic “material basis” to exercise their right to self-determination. This is a potentially 1iquidationist line on the national question because many oppressed nations (as a result of the existence of precapitalist modes of production and the dominance of imperialism) have not yet developed a sufficient “material basis” to exercize their right to self-determination as defined in the conference papers. The struggle against economism as manifested in the realm of the national question is not a new one. Lenin waged this struggle for years against the economist/liquidationist line of Rosa Luxemburg. It is this debate, and its historical parallels for today, that we will address next.
In the early 1900’s, there was a raging debate over whether nations actually had a right to self-determination and political secession. The two main figures in this debate were Lenin and Luxemburg. Luxemburg opposed the right of nations to self-determination because, in her view, the whole idea of such a right was a meaningless abstraction which was Utopian in character. She believed that nations do not and cannot have any kind of abstract or absolute rights. She recognized only the ’rights’ of classes and not nations since the demand for self-determination for a nation did not serve the interests of the working class. In her view, the party of the working class should only recognize the right of the working class to self-determination.[8] This part of Luxemburg’s program was class reductionist in that it denied that the working class (in addition to other classes) suffered from national oppression (in addition to class oppression and exploitation) while recognizing only the class contradictions under capitalism.
Yet there was another aspect of Luxemburg’s position on the national question that Lenin polemicized against and which the authors of the conference papers seem to have adopted. Luxemburg opposed the creation of independent nations because they would not necessarily be economically stable given the driving forces of capitalism which result in the amalgamation of people and the creation of larger states.[9]
Lenin opposed Luxemburg’s position by arguing that self-determination was a democratic political demand which was a relative but not absolute demand. It is not absolute in the sense that every nation, at all times, has the right to secede. Lenin argued it was a political question that had to be determined concretely and with the full recognition of the long range interests of the working class. Lenin stressed the political importance of the demand because of its importance in the struggle against national chauvinism in the oppressor nations, bourgeois nationalism in oppressed nations, and a part of the struggle to build solidarity between the working class of the oppressor nation and oppressed peoples – proletarian internationalism. Lenin emphasized that, above all, the national question was a political (and not just an economic) question, because Lenin recognized that although our final goal is the merger of all nations this can only be achieved “by passing through the transition period of complete liberation of all oppressed nations, i.e., their right to secede.”[10]
In this vein, Lenin explicitly criticized Luxemburg’s argument that “the right to self-determination of small nations is made illusory by the development of the great capitalist powers and by imperialism.”[11] Lenin argued that “for the question of the political self-determination of nations and their independence as states in bourgeois society, Rosa Luxemburg has substituted the question of their economic independence.”[12]
Lenin recognized that “not only small states, but even Russia, for example, is entirely dependent economically, on the power of imperialist finance capital of the ’rich’ bourgeois countries.”[13] So Lenin concludes that the question of a nation’s economic dependence “has nothing whatever to do with the question of national movements and the national state.”[14]
Although the Conference Committee’s position is not identical with Luxemburg’s, they are committing the same basic error that she made – reducing a political question (the right of nations to political self-determination) to an economic one (level of economic development and dependency on imperialism). Clearly today the developing capitalist nations are at least as dependent on imperialism, if not more so, as they were in Lenin and Luxemburg’s time. The further development of capitalism and imperialism speaks against the position expressed in the conference papers and in favor of Lenin’s position that the struggle for self-determination of oppressed nations is a critical struggle against imperialism.
Although Marx did not develop a general theory of national and colonial oppression, his writings on this question, particularly in the period of the International Working Men’s Association (the First International), are still very instructive. Yet Marx’s writings are entirely ignored in the conference papers. Since Marx’s writings were ignored and seem to contradict their position, we will briefly recount what Marx’s position was.
Marx clearly recognized the right of oppressed peoples and nations to political independence as a central feature of building an international workers movement. In an article Marx wrote in 1866, “What Have the Working Classes To Do With Poland?”, he recognized the importance of the ”old democratic and working class tenet as to the right of the great European nations to separate and independent existence.”[15]
Marx’s recognition of the importance of political independence for the international working class’s struggle for social ism led him to firmly support the struggle of Ireland for independence from England, even though England exercised complete “dominion over Ireland.” More importantly, Marx recognized that the English working class support for independence of Ireland would not only hasten social revolution in Ireland. Marx proclaimed that “to accelerate the social revolution in England is ... the most important object of the International Working Men’s Association. The only means of accelerating it is to bring about the independence of Ireland....It is the special task of the ... (International – ed.) to arouse the consciousness in the English working class that for them the national emancipation of Ireland is not a question of abstract justice or humanitarian sentiment but the first condition of their own social emancipation.”[16] For Marx, even though Ireland was economically dependent on England and would no doubt remain so after independence, the political demand of independence was important in the struggle to raise the political consciousness of the English working class.
Marx also took particular interest in the demand for the reunification and independence of Poland after its partition by three Eastern European powers: Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Marx explained that the International’s support for the independence of Poland grew out of their “sympathy for a subjugated people which, with its incessant and heroic struggle against its oppressors, has proven its historic right to national autonomy and self-determination. It is not in the least a contradiction that the international workers’ party strives for the creation of the Polish nation. On the contrary, only after Poland has won its independence again, only after it is able to govern itself again as a free people, only then can its inner development begin again and can it cooperate as an independent force in the social transformation of Europe.”[17] The essay, from which this quotation is taken, shows that Marx had a dialectical understanding of how national oppression retards the development of a nation (as it did in Poland’s situation), while this subjugation creates a “subjective desire” (gives rise to nationalism) among an oppressed people for self-determination. Yet until an oppressed people obtains independence for their nation, their national development will be stymied by foreign domination. But Marx clearly recognized, as did Lenin fifty years later, that political independence is a necessary condition for a nation to develop an independent life.
Unfortunately, the authors of the conference papers address few of the burning political questions facing the international communist movement today in regards to the national liberation movements and their struggle against imperialism. But the authors do make a very revealing statement about Israel’s becoming a nation. We will examine their position on this question because it reveals the potentially 1iquidationist character of their economist conception of the national question.
In the section of the first paper on “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination” they explain that “nation building is an objective process which cannot be accomplished by a people’s “subjective desire” for nationhood, (page 12) But they proceed to admit that with the support of imperialism, “the state of Israel has been produced and may eventually become a nation should it continue to exist for decades more.” (page 12) They do not explain the historical process which may give rise to the nation of Israel and what the political consequences would be of “Israel becoming a nation,” so we will furnish a line of reasoning flowing from their theoretical framework which would provide a rationale of their position.
Flowing from their theoretical framework, the Jewish people who live in what is known as Israel would become a nation because they occupy a common territory (what historically has been Palestine), have a distinct capitalist class and economic structure (common economy), and a common culture and language. Although some people might disagree on this last point of a common culture and language, Israel is no less homogeneous than some other nations in the world.) It seems that Israel would then have the common characteristics for nationhood (economy, language, territory, and culture), but is not yet a nation because the Jewish people presently occupying Israel have yet to evolve into a historically constituted, stable community of people. But it seems that this condition will be met in the next several decades according to the authors’ framework.
Therefore, if Israel does become a nation, it will have the right to self-determination over its common territory (Palestine). What are the political ramifications of their position that Israel may become a nation with its concomitant right to self-determination? The logical conclusion from their framework would be that the Palestinian people would become a national minority within Israel. The Palestinian nation would have been dispersed by imperialism since the Palestinians, no longer would have a common territory, common economy, or a material basis to exercise the right to self determination. Would the Palestinians at least be able to establish an independent nation on the West Bank? According to their analysis, such a nation state would not be economically viable in the long run and would probably become dependent on external (foreign) support.
The political result of the position expressed in the conference papers is that the Palestinians would no longer have the right to self-determination since Israel would become a nation based on the territory where the Palestinian nation existed. So the Palestinian people, who have been waging a national liberation struggle against Zionism and imperialism for the last fifteen years, would be a national minority whose struggle should be for equal rights and not self-determination.
In regards to the struggle of the Palestinians for self-determination, the authors of the conference papers’ line would become a liquidationist one – denying the right of Palestinians to self-determination. There are other examples of national liberation struggles in the world today, for example, those of the Eritreans in Ethiopia and the Moro’s in the southern Philippines which would not “qualify” for self-determination under the Conference Committee’s criteria for nationhood. These peoples’ struggle for self-determination would also be liquidated as a result of the paper’s authors line, but for our purposes here the example of the Palestinians is the most illustrative of the potentiality of their line.
For the authors of the conference papers, nation building is an “objective process” which is not dependent on the “subjective desire” of a people for nationhood. This position is derived from Stalin’s essay, Marxism and the National Question.[18] Although Stalin underestimated the importance of nationalism and its progressive role in national liberation movement struggle, they take Stalin’s analysis one step further by seeing nation building as solely an “objective process.”
The papers’ authors tend to neglect the critical role that the ideology of nationalism assumes in the constitution of the nations and in the development of national liberation movements. Of course, we do not think that just because a people ideologically believes they are a nation that they automatically have a right to self-determination. What we must do though, is strive to understand the dialectical relationship between the development of peoples and nations and the development of the ideology of national ism. Nation-building is not solely an “objective process” which does not affect a people’s ideology; nor can it be just a “subjective process” depending only on a people’s considering themselves to be a nation.
The authors of the conference papers make the former error of just seeing nation-building as an objective process. This would imply a conception of ideology which is somehow an entirely distinct level of society which has no connection to the economic and political levels – an idealist conception of ideology. In our view, ideology, as much as economics and politics, is a part of a society and a people’s existence. Cut the ideological level of a society is relatively autonomous from the economic and political levels in the sense that it is not identical with those other levels. Marx recognized the importance of ideology and the “subjective factor” in the constitution of nations as he wrote that the Polish people were “a subjugated people, which, with its incessant and heroic struggle against its oppressors, has proven its historic right to national autonomy and self-determination.”[19]
Although we cannot embark on an extended discussion in the paper of the role of ideology in capitalist societies, suffice it to say that Marxists, while recognizing that ideologies generally obscure the underlying relations in a society, do not deny the existence of ideologies or their role in the class struggle. Marxists strive to scientifically understand the mediating role that these ideologies play in capitalist societies. The papers’ authors neglect of the entire question of the role of nationalist ideology, not just in national liberation movements in the “Third World” but in the struggles of oppressed peoples here in the U.S., is a serious weakness in their papers. Their simple statement that nation-building is an objective, not subjective, process is woefully inadequate.
In the preceding section we discussed when a nation has the right to self-determination and how our conception of self-determination differs with that of the Conference Committee. We have also discussed the methodological problems flowing from their dogmatic acceptance of Stalin’s concept of a nation. In this part of our paper we will critique their conception of what a nation is (or isn’t).
Generally speaking, their analysis of a nation is rather superficial. The section of the conference paper on the nation (pages 8 & 9), certainly a critical section of a paper focusing on racial and national oppression, consists of only about a page. Their “analysis” of a nation begins and ends with an affirmation of Stalin’s definition of a nation.
Stalin’s definition of a nation contains five elements (although they refer to them as four characteristics): 1) historically constituted, stable community of people, 2) common territory, 3) common economy, 4) common language, 5) a psychological makeup manifested in a common culture.[20] Yet in their view, a nation not only must contain all these elements, but it is a “historical category belonging to a definite epoch, the epoch of rising capitalism.”[21]
We disagree with the way in which they articulate the character of those elements and their interrelationship.[22] We are also in fundamental disagreement with their ideological assumption which underlies their articulation of those elements which are necessary and sufficient for nationhood. That underlying conception is the ideological notion that nations are produced only during capitalism by the bourgeoisie.
The fundamental flaw of their analysis is a mechanical materialist approach towards understanding the historical development of nations. They take the characteristics of a modern nation in advanced capitalist societies and transform them into universal characteristics which are mechanically applied to societies at different stages of development. Those characteristics are relative, specific to advanced capitalist nations, but they are transformed by the authors of the conference papers into transhistorical elements which possess an immutable nature. For them, the nation is a product of the bourgeoisie’s generalization of capitalist commodity exchange which requires the consolidation of an internal market. But they do not even explain why these four or five elements are the focal point of the modern capitalist nation, or how a specific territory becomes the “space” for the expansion of the bourgeoisie’s internal market. Does the nation correspond to the territory occupied by a people? Or is it determined by the economic and political power of the bourgeoisie relative to other classes? These questions, among others, remain unanswered in the papers.
These “immutable” characteristics of a nation (capitalist economy, etc.) are then applied by the Conference Committee to precapitalist or developing capitalist societies, or in their language, “social groupings,” to show that these formations are not yet nations. Why can’t these pre-capitalist social formations be nations, according to their analysis? First, they do not have all the necessary characteristics of a nation. But more importantly, they cannot be nations because “the nation is the unit of the formation/organization of classes under capitalism and therefore is the terrain of the class struggle in the capitalist epoch;” whereas, the unit of pre-capitalist modes of production are either the “commune” (primitive communism), “estate” (slavery), or the “domain” or “fief” (feudalism). (page 9)
Besides the circular character of their reasoning (the nation is the unit of capitalism, therefore pre-capitalist social formations cannot be nations), their logic fails because of their identification of national categories (nations, national minorities, peoples, etc.) with categories appropriate to modes of production (commune, estate, domain or fief). The concepts of commune, estate, domain, or fief should derive from the theory of the mode of production (how goods are produced in a particular society). In actuality, the categories of commune, etc. are only local units of production.
In our view, a mode of production is the economic level of a society which is formed by an articulation of the relations and forces of production. The basic unit of capitalism, if we adopt the Marxist understanding which sees its inner dynamic as the exploitation of surplus value from the labor power of the proletariat, is where that exploitation occurs which is in the production process. That production process may be broken down into local units which take different forms, i.e., the factory or other workplace. So the modern capitalist nation cannot be reduced to the basic unit of production in the capitalist mode of production, as the papers’ authors assert. But it is actually much broader and occupies the “space” in which the social relations of a society are reproduced.
We also believe that the life of the modern nation, generally speaking, is intimately bound up with the development of the capitalist state. In capitalist social formations, the capitalist state assumes the specific character of a national state. The capitalist state, in contrast to states in pre-capitalist modes of production, plays a critical role in the consolidation of the political territory of the modern nation. However, the nation is not identical with the capitalist state. Although there is a historical tendency (but not an absolute, universal law) for the capitalist state to define the modern nation, there is a countervailing tendency of capitalism towards the internationalization of capital which is accelerated in the era of modern imperialism. But this internationalization of capital does not lead to the dissolution of nations or the lessening of national tensions. That is why the national question is as important today, if not more so, as it has ever been in the era of imperialism – which requires us to develop a correct understanding of the national question and consciously struggle against potentially 1iquidationist lines.
If pre-capitalist societies cannot be nations, then what form, in the papers’ authors view, do these “social groupings” assume? In one of the few statements they make on this issue, they refer to these pre-capitalist “communities of peoples” as either being “tribes, racial groups, classes, or city-states.” In our view, none of these categories are adequate concepts. First, the city-state was a political form and is clearly inadequate. Second, classes, as every Marxist knows, exist in pre-capitalist and capitalist societies and are defined as a group of people who occupy of definite position in a mode of production. In pre-capitalist societies, as in capitalism, there existed several classes. The concept of class, which is a scientific Marxist concept, is clearly inappropriate here. Third, although we believe that racial groups did objectively exist before capitalism, this is a broader concept which is not only a biological/genealogical category but includes different peoples and nations.
The other category in their framework, tribes, can mainly be used to describe localized bands of people in primitive societies. But this category is also woefully inadequate to assist us in our understanding the complexity and variety of those pre-capitalist formations. Many precapitalist societies had a long history of extensive social and political organization with varying degrees of economic cohesion. These pre-capitalist nations cannot be just reduced to being a tribe, city-state or racial group. Marx and Engels, along with many-Marxist historians and anthropologists since their time, have recognized the existence of nations before capitalism while utilizing the term “modern nation” to describe the specific form of nations in capitalism.[23]
The authors of the conference papers objectively capitulate to national chauvinism by denying the historic existence of nations, such as China, Egypt, Japan, Korea, India, and many others. We would not deny that these nations, at least in their pre-capitalist period of development, did not have all the characteristics of the modern capitalist nations of Europe and North America. But it is national chauvinist to adopt as the defining characteristics of all nations those of the advanced capitalist nations in North America and Europe. Although they would exclaim that this is the most scientific way of defining a nation because it is somehow “objective,” it is actually not scientific because it ignores the centuries-long history of those nations and peoples which did not follow the same path of development.
The incorrectness of their political line on the national question is easily seen by locking at the political consequences of their line for the national liberation movements in the “Third World.” Since these liberation movements developed in societies which were not capitalist before the intervention of colonialism and imperialism, those societies could not have been nations, in their view, with the concomitant right to self-determination. This would put the Conference Committee in the precarious political position of not recognizing those societies’ right to self-determination until they were transformed into (capitalist) nations by imperialism and colonialism. Their analysis results in what can only be termed a political “Catch-22”: these peoples would not have the right to self-determination until imperialism intervened when suddenly they would have the right to self-determination which they could exercise against the imperialists. This political contradiction can only be justified in their theoretical framework by adopting what is, in our opinion, an erroneous theoretical position. Briefly stated, that thesis is that imperialism transforms pre-capitalist societies into capitalist ones because the commodities produced by those pre-capitalist modes of production are exchanged on the international capitalist market.[24] What underlies this specific dispute is a differing conception of modes of production and social formation. We will address this specific issue in the next section of our paper, but in the context of slavery in the U.S. South.
They extend their “capitalist nation” logic to the U.S. when they declare that the U.S. did not become a “full-fledged nation” (with the concomitant right to self-determination and political independence from Britain?) until the “late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries” when the national economy had developed to the extent that “two main bourgeois centers, the Northern merchants and industrialists and the southern slave capitalists,” (page 25).
In their view, the country’s need for capital accumulation required the establishment of a stable and unfree labor force to insure the most rapid development of plantation agriculture. This led to “slave labor produc(ing) virtually the only surplus-value in the colonies.” (page 25, our emphasis) In order to remain consistent with their theory that nations (and racism) developed with capitalism, they have to argue that Southern plantation slavery was actually capitalist. As they well know, this thesis is a point of serious contention within the Marxist movement around which a well-publicized debate has raged for a number of years. Yet they act as if this is a settled question which is resolved by a slight of a pen rather than an open theoretical debate and political struggle.
Their unsubstantiated thesis is a product of their empiricist approach towards analyzing U.S. history. They dogmatically uphold the central features of the “national question” theoretical framework of the new communist movement. They do not even attempt to develop a theory of slave mode of production, or the capitalist mode of production for that matter, no less apply such a theory to the concrete situation in the U.S. As we have explained in the earlier section of our paper on methodology, their approach is empiricist because their analysis consists of identifying the “capitalist features” of the Southern economy (exchange of commodities on the international capitalist market, existence of banking system, etc.) and concluding that it must be capitalist since it has these features. This empiricist error was not made by Marx who recognized that Southern slavery was capitalist “only in the formal sense, since slavery of Negroes precludes free wage-labor, which is the basis of capitalist production.”[25]
Their view of Southern slavery leads them to completely ignore in their conference papers one of the most important events in U.S. history, the Civil War. The Civil War shaped the future development of capitalism in the U.S. since it led to the destruction of the slave mode of production and the expansion of the capitalist mode of production into the South and Southwest. If they would have addressed the Civil War, they would have analyzed it as a class conflict between the Northern industrial/financial bourgeoisie and the Southern slaveholding bourgeoisie for the political control of the entire country. But Marx recognized the Civil War for what it was, the expression of the class struggle “between two social systems, between the system of slavery and the system of free labor.’[26] It was this realization by Marx – the Civil War was between two distinct social systems, one capitalist and the other slave – which led him to push the International Working Men’s Association to support the industrial capitalist North against the slave South. Marx supported the Northern bourgeoisie against the Southern slaveholders nut just because of his abhorrence of slavery, but because capitalism was a more advanced and revolutionary mode of production over the slave mode of production.
To ultimately resolve this question, it will be necessary to construct a theory of the slave and capitalist modes of production and make a concrete historical materialist analysis of Southern slavery. Clearly, their papers fall short of this task. In this section of our paper, we will outline an alternative theoretical framework for analyzing Southern slavery.
We will tentatively define a mode of production as the economic level of a social formation - a specific combination of social relations of production and forces of production where the class struggle determines the relations of production and the level of the development of the forces of production. But the character of a mode of production – slave or capitalist – can only be understood in its specificity or particularity.
In a capitalist mode of production, the mode of appropriation of surplus labor occurs through commodity exchange where the capitalists purchase the labor power of the workers, which is a commodity itself, in exchange for wages. Appropriation of the workers surplus labor takes the form of surplus value, while the social distribution of the surplus product is determined by the capitalists who own and control the means of production. Since the capitalists own the means of production, the labor power of the direct producers (workers) takes the form of a commodity as the direct producers must sell it to the class of non-laborers (capitalists). But as Marx explained in Wage-Labour and Capital, “labour-power was not always a commodity (merchandise). Labour was not always wage-labour, i.e., free labour. The slave did not sell his labour-power to the slave-owner, any more than the ox sells his labour to the farmer. The slave, together with his labour-power, was sold to his owner once and for all. He is a commodity that can pass from the hand of one owner to that of another. He himself is a commodity, but his labour-power is not his commodity.”[27]
As Marx explained in Wage-Labour and Capital, slavery is defined by a different ensemble of social relations of production. In our view, those social relations of production are determined by: First, a specific form of property and legal definition of the agents of production (slaves, freeman, and slave owners). The direct producers (slaves) are the legal property of the non-laborers (slave-owners). As chattels, the slaves have no independent legal or social existence. This legal condition is as important to the slave mode of production as the wage form is to capitalism. This legal status enables the slaveowners to use direct physical coercion against the slaves. Marx wrote that the “slave system...is not promoted by a process of circulation but by the natural appropriation of outside labor power through direct physical compulsion.”[28]
Second, slaves may exist in different societies, but in the slave mode of production they occupy a central, not peripheral, position as direct producers in the production process. The slave-owners own not just the slaves, but also the necessary instruments of production, raw materials, and means of subsistence for the slaves. The slave-owner has effective possession of the slave because he has the capacity to set the means of production into motion through the use of the slave’s labor power.
Third, the entire product of the slaves is appropriated by the slaveowners. The slave-owner owns the entire product of the slave just as he owns the slave, whereas under capitalism the wage laborer sells to the capitalist the commodity labor power which is paid for in the wage form under the guise of the exchange of equivalents.
These three aspects of slavery clearly distinguish for our purposes the characteristics of the slave and capitalist modes of production. It is our contention that if we apply this theoretical framework to Southern slavery, we will conclude that it was a slave mode of production, and not capitalism which was dominant in the South. 1) Generally, slaves in the South were the legal property of their owners who used direct physical coercion against the slaves. 2) The slave-owners owned the means of production and set them into motion through the use of slave labor in the production process. 3) The entire product of the slave’s labor power was appropriated by the slaveowners. The most distinguishing characteristic between the capitalist North and the slave South was the sale of the slaves themselves as commodities, while in the North the workers sold their labor power as a commodity. Therefore, we conclude that the dominant social relations of production in the South were slave which, with a certain level of the development of the forces or production, constituted a slave mode of production.
What are the arguments against our position that the slave mode of production was dominant in the South? In the past, several arguments have been made against this thesis. Briefly stated they are: First, slavery in the South was entirely different from that which existed in the ancient societies (Greece, Rome, etc.). Although we cannot go into an extended discussion on this argument here, suffice it to say that we do not deny that historical differences exhibit. The point is that the slave mode of production has taken on different forms, with varying characteristics, in different historical periods. What we must recognize is that capitalism has been able to bring pre-capitalist modes into its orbit. Slavery in the U.S. was grafted onto capitalism and became intimately connected with the world capitalist system, such as it existed then. It was this adaption of slavery which accounts for its unique characteristics, but these characteristics did not alter the basic social relations of production.
However, the main argument against our thesis is that the slaves produced commodities for exchange on the world capitalist market which generated a profit or surplus value for the plantation capitalists (slave-owners). We recognize that the exchange of slave-produced goods on the world capitalist market produced profits not just for the slave-owners in\the South but also raw materials for the industrial capitalists. The importance of Southern trade led to England’s initial support for the Southern confederacy, but this was changed through the political activity of the English working class. Our response is that the proponents of this argument confuse the fundamental difference between relations of exchange (trade of goods on the market) and relations of production (as defined by the elements discussed above). Marxists define a mode of production by its social relations and forces of production, not by relations of exchange which occur outside the production process.[29] By failing to develop a scientific theory of mode of production, the proponents of this argument end up capitulating to bourgeois ideology by adopting a thesis of bourgeois political economy – the relations of exchange established in the market are dominant over the relations of production.
Why have we belabored an obscure historical point which seemingly has little political relevance for today? Because the thesis of capitalist slavery in the South is an essential foundation for the Conference Committee’s theory of racism and racial oppression and its relationship to capitalism. For them, “racial oppression occurs within a single capitalist class structure...not between two different societies” (page 24). Since they see Blacks as only a racially oppressed people, they must defend the capitalist slavery thesis, or else their entire theory of racism in this country will crumble.
In the next section of the Conference papers, the authors explain their concept of what a national minority is. They write that an “oppressed national minority is not a nation, but a grouping of people who originate from a nation who are oppressed within another nation by an oppressor national majority.” (page 15) However, their concept of national minority is limited to those peoples who immigrate from a distinct nation. They expand the traditional concept of national minority to include “indigenous” peoples from pre-capitalist communities an those people forcibly annexed into another nation (e.g., Mexicans in the Southwest who were annexed into the U.S. in the nineteenth century).
Although we would agree with them that peoples from pre-capitalist communities (or nations) may become national minorities in another nation, we must still point out the apparent contradiction within their own logic. That contradiction results from their denial of the existence of pre-capitalist nations, while recognizing the existence of national (not just racial) minorities in the U.S. (e.g., Indian peoples, Chicanos, and others) who have not immigrated to the U.S. from distinct capitalist nations. As they admit, these peoples were incorporated or annexed into the U.S. from “pre-capitalist communities,” which means these people were nationalities before becoming national minorities when forcibly amalgamated or integrated into the U.S. nation.
They also admit that some Indian peoples in the U.S. “once had an all-sided historically developed, economic, cultural, territorial, and linguistic life and which still have a distinct socio-economic formation and common territory.” (page 12) Yet they fail to draw the necessary theoretical conclusion from their empirical observation of the reality of U.S. history – that conclusion being a recognition of the possibility of the existence of pre-capitalist nations. Why don’t they draw that clear theoretical conclusion from their historical analysis? Because it would contradict the underlying thesis of their dogmatist national question framework – that thesis being that nations (which are the only bodies with the right to self-determination) are created only during capitalism.
Why is this such a critical question? Because the Indian peoples movement in the U.S. has put the question of self-determination on the political agenda of the U.S. communist movement, which has failed to seriously analyse this question and develop a strategy which would correspond to the history and oppression of Indian peoples. This is a political question (do Indian peoples have the right to self-determination, regional autonomy, or just equal rights?) which can only be answered with a concrete theoretical analysis of the social conditions of existence on Indian peoples. This would involve seriously looking at whether certain Indian peoples constituted nations before their conquest, whether they continue to be nations, or whether they have evolved into nations in the U.S.
The approach of the conference papers is clearly inadequate on this question. Their political inadequacy results from their theoretical dogmatism (there are no such things as pre-capitalist nations so therefore Indian peoples could not constitute nations) and their economism (their analysis substitutes the productive forces for the class struggle as the motor force of history). We have already examined their dogmatism in terms of their automatically rejecting the existence of precapitalist nations which leads to a liquidationist line on the national question. Here we will examine their economism, in particular how it’s manifested in their understanding of national minorities in the U.S.
One example of their economism is their explanation of what they perceive as the “political backwardness” of national minorities in the U.S. They explain that capitalism “produces amalgamation and assimilation internal to each capitalist formation” which, as a result of “the laws of capitalist accumulation,” lay the “material basis for their (national minorities’ – ed.) assimilation or amalgamation” which is a “necessary condition for full participation in the class struggle.” (page 13) In their view, the “only way” national minorities can avoid their own assimilation is through economic isolation which “condemns the national minority to economic hardship and political backwardness as it means their isolation from socialized forces of production, the nationwide class struggle and modern culture.” (page 14)
This analysis is economist because it assumes there is a direct correlation between a people’s participation in “socialized forces of production” and their political development. It is also economist because it assumes that the class struggle is produced by these socialized forces of production and that national minorities in economically isolated or undeveloped areas somehow do not participate in the class struggle. This reflects a narrow and economist understanding of the development of the class struggle which reduces it simply to the level of the development of the productive forces.
The political history of the struggles of national minorities in the U.S is the best refutation of their view that national minorities are “politically backward” because they have not been integrated into the socialized forces of production. The Indian peoples have had a long history of militant struggle against the U.S. government which has taken on international implications. Although there may be some limitations imposed on their struggle due to the economic isolation and underdevelopment of Indian reservations, this has not prevented Indian peoples from building militant political movements in opposition to U.S. imperialism.
Another example is that of the struggle of Chicano people in Northern New Mexico. Chicanos have been a stable community of people for centuries with their own culture, language, and common territory where they are a majority over Anglos. But this particular area is economically undeveloped and backward in comparison to the rest of the national capitalist economy. Yet this economic isolation and backwardness did not prevent the development of a militant Chicano movement, an example of which was La Alianza which, in the late ’60’s took up arms against the local arm of the U.S. capitalist state apparatus.
The above examples are illustrative of the militant political history of national minorities – of which all have been, in varying degrees, economically isolated from the development of U.S. capitalism. The position of the Conference papers declaring these national minorities to be “politically backward” actually borders on national chauvinism.
Another serious problem is their explanation of the distinction between national and racial oppression. Although we would agree it is important to make such a distinction, we think the papers’ authors’ approach is mechanical rather than dialectical. For example, the statement that ”the existence of the national minority is dependent upon the existence of an origin nation (or a distinct indigenous economic formation).” (page 24) But, as we have seen, Chicanos and Blacks have remained unassimilated to a degree and developed into distinct peoples with their own culture, language or dialect, etc. even though there is not a specific Chicano or Black nation.
The papers’ mechanical approach is further amplified in the view that the oppression of national minorities involves language, culture, citizenship, and immigration but “not low wages, working conditions, etc., per se” (page 14, our emphasis). The particularity of the oppression of national minorities is defined not by economic discrimination but by discrimination against their language, etc. In our view this is incorrect because the oppression of national minorities is characterized by economic discrimination and exploitation, in addition to other forms of discrimination. The papers narrowly take one aspect of national minority oppression (while neglecting the experience of internally developed national minorities) and utilize only the defining characteristics of language, culture, citizenship, and immigration. We feel this criteria is inadequate to explain the complexity of national minority oppression in the U.S. Additionally, this shallow analysis contributes to the confusion surrounding the political question of Native American or Indian peoples’ right to self-determination.
In this section of our paper, we will address their conception of racial oppression in the U.S. Although we may have differences with them on several points, we recognize that many of their conceptions are an advance over those of the dogmatists, who have resurrected and still adhere to the old “Black Nation” thesis (albeit in different forms). This thesis has lingered on within our trend. For example, PWOC holds that a Black nation existed in the Black Belt but was dissolved in the 1950’s, transforming Blacks into a national minority.[30]
The Conference papers are also an advance over PWOC’s strategy for the struggle against racism in society as a whole and in the communist movement. Briefly, PWOC holds an economist conception of racism as resulting from the bourgeoisie’s super-exploitation of minority workers – the superprofits theory. This economist conception of racism in society as a whole was combined with a voluntarist conception of how to struggle against racism within the communist movement where ideological struggle among communists became the primary means of combatting white chauvinism in the communist movement.
We would also agree with the stated purpose of the conference papers that it is absolutely essential for the U.S communist movement to begin to develop a systematic theory of racism which would elaborate a revolutionary political strategy to unify the working class and guide the anti-racist struggle. Racism has been the “Achilles heel” of the U.S. working class, and also, the U.S. communist movement. Having a correct understanding of racism is central to the elaboration of a correct general line to guide the U.S. communist movement. More often than not, the U.S. communist movement has underestimated the strength of racism in this capitalist society, and thereby, has either downplayed the struggle against it, subordinated the struggle against racism to the “class struggle,” or outright liquidated the struggle.
Although we may have unity with the authors of the conference papers in regards to the critical importance of this question, we have specific differences with them on the nature of races, the relationship between racism and capitalism, the specificity of the oppression of Black people in the U.S, the concept of the “white racial group” and racial “privileges,” and the implications of their strategy for the struggle against racism.
To more clearly bring out some of our differences we will trace the development of their line on racism as contained in Section II of their paper on “Racial Oppression in the United States.”
The analysis begins by rejecting the national oppression framework as having any relevance to the oppression of Blacks in the U.S. (In their view, since Blacks have never constituted a nation, they cannot be a national minority.) In opposition to the national question framework, they posit an alternative framework for understanding the oppression of Blacks in the U.S. as solely racial oppression. In their view, racial oppression is distinct from national oppression since racial oppression is “internal to the development of U.S. capitalism and the U.S. nation,” (page 16) and national oppression is external. Although we would agree with their rejection of the Black Nation thesis and its corresponding theoretical framework, we are not entirely convinced that Blacks in the U.S. suffer solely racial oppression and not also some form of national oppression.
The authors of the Conference papers proceed to explain the particularity of racial oppression through a discussion of what they refer to as racial groups. They criticize the “pernicious myth” that 1) racial groups are inherent in nature, and 2) that Blacks and whites have been at each others throats eternally. They correctly criticize the racist logic behind the bourgeois ideological concept of race which classified as Black anyone with a drop of “African blood,” while someone was white only if there was no trace of “African blood.”
The bourgeois ideological concept of races and racial groups is indeed socially determined and inherently racist. Although the bourgeois ideological concept of race has changed in the last century, it has not qualitatively changed because it still reflects the dominant racist ideology in society. Although the authors of the conference papers correctly realize that “racial categories in the U.S. are a product of social practice,” they take their analysis one step further than is necessary to critique the bourgeois concept of race. They declare that “racial categories and racial groups are...not natural biological imperatives that transcend history.” (page 17). Further more, they state in a later section that “racial groups always exist in antagonism with one another ...” (page 23, our emphasis).
Our criticisms of this analysis of races and racial groups are the following: First, they confuse the bourgeois misunderstanding of race, which is a racist logic dressed up in scientific garb and proclaimed “natural,” with a scientific understanding of race. Just because the dominant concept of race in the U.S. is socially determined and justified by an allusion to the bourgeois notion of a natural state of human kind, the possibility of developing a scientific and objective theory of races cannot be automatically rejected. As materialists, we must recognize that this area is one which needs a thoroughgoing objective and scientific investigation, free of bourgeois ideological conceptions. This area needs investigation because it would seem that physical differences (skin color, etc.) among groups of people (races) are passed from generation to generation through history and across different modes of production. That is not to say that physical racial differences are absolutely immutable and unchanging, but that they are certainly not entirely determined by social conditions. It would be idealist to substitute our idea of what races are (or are not) for what exists objectively in actual material reality.
Second, it is a serious capitulation to bourgeois ideology to believe that “racial groups always exist in antagonism with one another.” It seems the authors of the conference papers have actually adopted the underlying bourgeois ideological myth that races have always been at odds with one another and will always be.
Bourgeois ideology distorts the underlying social relations of capitalism by making them appear to be “natural phenomena.” In contradistinction to bourgeois ideology, Marxists, as materialists, believe that the ideological antagonisms which have developed between races under capitalism is not a “natural” state of affairs. In fact, the conference papers make the point that racism only developed with capitalism. So how do they reconcile these two seemingly contradictory statements? In their view since races do not objectively exist, white and black “racial groups” are socially determined by capitalism and exist in an inherently antagonistic relationship. They only exist in antagonistic relationship to one another since “racial groups” are social relations only. This view of races, combined with their general economic determinism, will probably lead to the conclusion that once capitalism is overthrown and socialism is instituted, by the nationalization of the means of production, racism will disappear. In our view, although races have always existed, racial antagonism (and racism) have not. The struggle against racism will have to continue under socialism given the continued existence of capitalist features under socialism and the ideology of racism.
Third, it is historically inaccurate to state that “racial groups do not exist in isolation from one another, but only as interconnected poles of the oppressive social relation of racism.” (page 23) This is certainly the case in the capitalist U.S. and other racist societies, but it has not always been the case. Historically, in precapitalist social formations, different races actually did exist isolated from one another or separate societies, or else in a non-antagonistic relationship.[31] Different forms of oppression and chauvinism existed in those societies between racial groups but it was not necessarily of a racial character. It wasn’t until the development of European colonialism that racial oppression and racism began to develop. In our view, nations and races existed before the development of capitalism, although in different form and in a different relationship to one another.
In the next section, the authors of the conference papers explain their conception of the relationship between racism and capitalism. For them “racism is an oppressive social relation produced and reproduced within the U.S. capitalist mode of production as a special aspect of the capital vs. labor relation.” This special aspect is the “racially differentiated process of proletarianization whereby a “coerced labor reserve” or “racially oppressed section of the laboring people” is created.
They explain that the origin of racism is inherent within capitalism and existed in the colonies from the beginning of their existence. They trace the development of racial oppression through the enslavement of Blacks in the antebellum South, their transformation into sharecroppers after the Civil War and the defeat of Reconstruction, and ultimately their transformation into a racialized section of the working class and reserve army of labor during the twentieth century.
In their view, “racial oppression occurs within a single capitalist class structure. It is a polarization within capitalist society, not between two different societies;” in contradistinction to national oppression which is an external relation.
The specific form of racism of the U.S did in a sense develop “internal” (within) to the U.S., although we would posit that the dynamic of that racism was based in the slave mode of production of the South. Historically, in its most general sense, racial oppression and racism did not just develop internally within a capitalist society. Racism actually developed over a long historical period corresponding to the development of European colonialism and the conquest and brutal exploitation of “colonial” peoples. This period in its broadest sense extended from the 1500’s to the 1800’s.
This historical process which produced racism did not occur solely internal to the European colonial powers or solely with the development of capitalism. First, the development of colonialism, and subsequently racism, was an expansion “external” to European societies. It was “external” in the sense that it involved the plunder and exploitation of other societies and peoples not “internal” to the respective European colonial power. Although the impetus for the colonial development may stem from the “mother” country, the racist ideologies which correspondingly developed were not originally produced for an internal stratification or proletarianization process.
Second, the relationship between the creation of racist ideologies and the development of capitalism is a complex one which is a subject of much debate among Marxist theorists. The rise of racism as a specific ideology generally corresponds with the development of colonialism and capitalism. But the creation of the former cannot automatically be reduced to the latter. For instance, in the 1500’s there was a “great debate” among the Spanish colonialists, in particular between Sepulveda and Las Casas, over the nature of the Indian peoples in the Americas and whether or not they have souls. Although couched in religious language, the debate represented the growth of a specific form of racist ideology.[32] Although racism began to develop in its most virulent forms in the 1800’s, its origins lay in the colonial expansion of European countries. Although this colonial expansion generally coincided with the development of capitalism, capitalism developed across Europe unevenly, consolidating first in countries like England. The transition from feudalism to capitalism was a complex process which took several centuries. This was not a simple transition, as there were a series of transitional conjunctures existing between these two historical periods.[33] Nor was colonialism always a direct product of capitalism. For example, Spain was a colonial power in that period; but feudalism was dominant in Spain and it was the feudal monarchy, not the mercantilist capitalists, who propagated the colonial policy.[34]
In our view, racial oppression is a specific form of oppression, related to but distinct from the class contradiction underlying capitalism. It is this specific relationship, the interconnection between racial and class oppression, which must be addressed more systematically in order to unravel the complex history of racism and racial oppression in this country.
Yet the authors of the conference papers posit a rigid framework for understanding racial oppression as occurring “within a single capitalist class structure” with the creation of a “specially oppressed group of laboring people.” Such a rigid framework prevents them from being able to make a dialectical analysis of the complex interaction between racial and class oppression (among other forms of oppression such as that of women and national minorities) and the role of racist ideology in mediating the class struggle in this society thereby insuring the hegemony of the bourgeoisie.
Although the authors are correct in asserting that racial oppression in the U.S. is a social relation, they fail to understand this relation as complex totality. They fail to explain the specificity of racism on the economic, political, and ideological levels of U.S. society and how these different aspects of racism interrelate. Certainly the goal of their analysis is commendable to provide a material basis for understanding the production and reproduction of racism in our society. But they must be judged not by their motivations or their stated goals but by the actual contribution they make towards understanding racism and elaborating a strategy which will enable us to unite the broadest possible forces to lead the struggle against racism.
Unfortunately, in their attempt to provide a material basis for understanding racism, they tend to reduce it to its effects on only the economic level, while also utilizing bourgeois ideological concepts (such as “white racial interest” and “racial privilege”) which prevent them from coming up with a scientific explanation of even the material benefits derived by white workers from racism. These questions of whether there exists “white racial interest” and “privileges” will be discussed in the last section of our paper.
As we have said, the authors explain their conception of Blacks in the U.S. as a racially oppressed people who suffer only racial oppression. According to their logic, Blacks have never been a nation, so they cannot be a national minority or suffer national oppression. They maintain that national minorities can only result through immigration from an already existing nation – with the notable exception (and within their theoretical framework, a major inconsistency) of “indigenous” peoples from “pre-capitalist communities.”
For the authors of the conference papers, the status which Blacks have achieved in the U.S. is that of “peoplehood.” (page 20) Although they do not explain this concept in any detail, the concept is generally understood as the forging of African slaves from different tribal groups into a distinct people during slavery in the antebellum South.
According to their analysis, Black “peoplehood” emerged in the early nineteenth century (1800’s). They explain that the key to this process “was their integration into the U.S. economy as a racially oppressed labor force that forged them into a people.” (page 20, our emphasis) In our view it was actually Blacks’ “segregation” into a distinct slave class in the South, along with the corresponding development of the most virulent form of racism in the Americas to keep them in that position, which forged Africans into a distinct people. We believe the actual “integration” of Blacks into the U.S. capitalist economy did not really occur until the beginning of the twentieth century (1900s) with the massive migration of Blacks out of the Black Belt and into the industries of the North.
If Blacks had not been originally “segregated” into a distinct slave class in the Southern social formation rather than being “integrated” into the capitalist northern economy, they may not have developed into a distinct people as they did. This is, of course, not to deny that Blacks have been a part of shaping the U.S. nation since their forced migration to the U.S.
Although the authors of the paper correctly reject the old Black nation thesis, they have failed to creatively develop the Marxist-Leninist theory of national oppression. What they have done is retain the old “national question” theoretical framework, while rejecting the product of its application to the U.S. (the Black nation thesis). Since they do not develop the theory of national oppression or attempt to creatively apply it to the U.S., the only way they are able to explain the oppression of Blacks in the U.S. is solely through the use of racial categories.
He would agree that Blacks and other minorities in the U.S do suffer racial oppression, however we think there are several problems with their analysis.
The underlying problem of their analysis of racial oppression is their “class reductionist” conception of the nature of racial oppression. They correctly recognize that “all Black people in the U.S. have faced racial oppression....” They further recognize that “racial oppression impacts all Black people regardless of class. This commonality of racial oppression is the principal basis for their formation into a people.” (page 20) Yet they go on to state that the “essence of racial oppression is the formation of a specially oppressed group of laboring people on the basis of ’race’ or color that is politically and economically vulnerable to do special duty for capitalism.” (page 22)
Racism and racial oppression may be an integral part of the U.S. capitalist system, but the oppression of a racial minority cannot simply be reduced to the oppression of a class or section of a class. Racial and class oppression are distinct from of oppression, although under capitalism there is an inextricable link between them. In an attempt to mechanically produce an “essence” for racial oppression under capitalism, they reduce racial oppression to the oppression of a “group of laboring people” (i.e., class section). Certainly different classes within racial and national minorities suffer racial oppression in varying degrees – Black workers suffer racial oppression in varying degrees – Black workers suffer the effects of racial oppression more than the Black petty bourgeoisie or Black bourgeoisie do. But this does not mean that racial oppression can just be reduced simply to the oppression of a specific class under capitalism. The structures and conditions necessary for the reproduction of racism are not identical with nor can they be reduced to the capital/labor contradiction.
Although this may be a seemingly minor point which could obscure the “class basis” of racism, it is a critical point in terms of political strategy. The political consequences of this “class reductionist” analysis of racism are: 1) the non-recognition of class differentiation within minority communities (and the subsequent loss of potential allies in the anti-racist struggle) and 2) the reduction of the struggle against racism to “revolutionary” struggle against capitalism (containing the potential for liquidating the struggle against racism).
By reducing racism to an “essence” which is simply the oppression of a single class of minorities, the authors block their own ability to understand the complex interrelationship between race and class, and racism and capitalism in the U.S. The reduction of the struggle against racism to simply the struggle against capital negates the specificity of the anti-racist movement as an autonomous social movement which must be combined with other movements to overthrow capitalism.
Another problem with their analysis is their identification of the oppression of Blacks in the U.S. as solely (and in the case of other minorities as principally) racial oppression. Although we would agree that Blacks do primarily suffer from racial oppression and do not suffer oppression as a nation (since they are not now nor have they ever been a nation), we think their analysis suffers from an overly rigid, mechanical application of racial and national categories to the oppression of Blacks and other minorities in the U.S.
As we have explained, by failing to creatively develop the theory of the “national question,” they rely upon the old categories of “nation” and “national minority” which we feel do not explain the objective conditions of Blacks in the U.S.
We do not believe that the authors of the conference papers deal adequately with the question of the interrelationship between racial and national oppression in the U.S. There seems to be some confusion in their understanding of the specific relationship between the oppression of Black people as a distinct people with their own history, culture, and socio-economic conditions of existence in the U.S., and the oppression of other “black” peoples who are national minorities from other nations (Jamaica, Haiti and others). For instance, they correctly state that a “racial group may consist of people from several different nations or nationalities.” (page 23) But they go on to state that “among Black people there are people of Jamaican, Puerto Rican, Latin American, African as well as U.S. origins.” (page 23) It is unclear from this statement whether they consider “Black people” in the U.S. as a broader racial group, or a distinct people.
This may just be confusion over terminology resulting from the loose usage of certain words, but it seems that the authors are failing to clearly draw the distinction between the “black race” (for the lack of a more scientific term), which would include different “black” peoples - Jamaicans, Haitians, African peoples, and others – and Black people in the U.S., who may be a part of a broader black racial group but are still a distinct people. All black peoples in the U.S. suffer racial oppression, but they suffer different kinds of discrimination, repression and prejudice depending on whether they are national and/or racial minorities.
More specifically, some of these other black peoples face both racial and national oppression in the U.S. For example, Haitians and Jamaicans suffer from racial oppression as blacks, and national oppression as national minorities from their respective nations. The complex relationship between racial, national, class (and sexual Oppression is not easily unraveled, but it is important to understand the specific character of each of these kinds of oppression while still grasping their interrelationship under U.S. capitalism. A failure to do so will prevent us from developing a political strategy which would enable us to unite these diverse social movements into an effective united front.
While Black people in the U.S. suffer from racial oppression as do other “black” peoples, they have also evolved into a distinct people with their own culture, dialects, and a common social and political life which characterizes Black communities across the country. These characteristics are different from those of other “black” peoples in the Americas and Africa, and other racial and national minorities in the U.S. Yet other national minorities in the U.S. (Chicanos, Asians, Indians, Puerto Ricans and others) have the same type of characteristics (culture, specific dialects or languages, social life, common communities, etc.) as Black people do. Even though the authors of the conference papers recognize the existence of “peoplehood” for Blacks in the U.S., they fail to draw out the political implications of this concept. The absence of a discussion of the political implication of Black “peoplehood” raises a series of questions. What is the political significance and ramification of the concept of “peoplehood?” How is peoplehood distinct from the condition of existence of other national minorities in the U.S. (for instance, Chicanos and Indian peoples who developed as distinct peoples within North America)? Are the common characteristics of Black people in the U.S. just racial characteristics, or are they national characteristics? More importantly, what are the consequences for the formulation of strategic demands for the Black liberation movement such as demands for equal rights, democratic rights, and autonomy?
As long as these questions remain unanswered or unexplained, we must express our limited support for their position that Blacks are solely a racially oppressed people. Although their analysis of the oppression of Black people is an advance in many areas over previous work in our trend, their rigid, one-sided analysis will place a serious limitation on their ability to elaborate a revolutionary political strategy to guide the anti-racist movement.
One of the more controversial sections of the Conference papers is the section on the “white racial group” and “racial privileges.” Given the controversial nature of this section, we will elaborate their position in some detail to avoid any possible confusion.
The authors of the Conference papers state that there is a “contradiction between the white racial group and the Black racial group (actually all non-whites).” But, even though “there is a white community of interest does not mean that all white people share in it equally, nor is it equivalent to the class interest of all the individuals who happen to be white. In fact, the white racial interest runs directly counter to the class interests of those white people who are part of the working class. Racial interest and class interest completely coincide only for the white bourgeoisie.” (page 20, their emphasis) But they admit that “there is a definite gradation in “the extension and realization of racial privilege” since “the majority of U.S. white workers...materially benefit relatively little from racism.” (page 21)
Getting to the “heart of the matter,” they correctly state that the “white racial group as a special interest group is a reactionary conception that obscures the class struggle and serves to unite white people across class lines under the leadership of the white bourgeoisie.” (page 21, our emphasis) Yet in their summation of this critical section, they declare that “there is a white racial interest opposed to that of Blacks and other minorities and which is not the same as the class interests of whites. The political rule of the bourgeoisie depends on whites putting their racial interest above their class interest. The interest of minorities and the multi-racial working class is in white workers taking up their class interests and rejecting their white racial interest.” (page 21)
As explained before, the authors of the Conference papers are attempting to provide a material basis for the understanding of the production and reproduction of racism in this society. This is a laudable effort. It would certainly be idealist to believe that racism is just “bad ideas in peoples heads” which can be eliminated just through ideological struggle, or that racism has existed for centuries without some material basis for its continued reproduction. They have also rejected the more vulgar voluntarist/instrumentalist conceptions of racism which simply reduces racism to a tactic used by the bourgeoisie to divide the workers. But, in their attempt to provide a material basis for the understanding of racism and racial oppression, they express that “material basis” in terms of the economic privileges which white people receive from racism.
This notion of white racial “privilege” is not an original contribution, although they add a new twist to it, but has a history in the U.S. communist movement. The “white skin privilege” line first emerged in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the 1960’s as a result of its eclectic politics. It has continued to be associated with political groups which evolved out of SDS, notably the Sojourner Truth Organization (STO) in Chicago and the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee. STO has been the most articulate defender of the “white skin privilege” line, which became the object of serious criticism throughout the ’70’s from both Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary nationalists. Although the “white skin privilege” line was politically defeated in the ’70’s, its ideological basis (that ideological basis being the absence of a scientific Marxist analysis of racism and racial oppression) has obviously not been entirely rooted out.
At the Conference, members of the Conference Committee and the Line of March attempted to distinguish their position from that of STO’s. To compare the line expressed in the Conference papers with that of STO, we will quote from a recent pamphlet by STO, White Supremacy and the National Question. STO wrote that a major aspect of the white supremacy is the “establishment of a system of relative advantages for white people. All white people, specifically white working people, participate in an equal manner.”[35] The function of white supremacy is the “development of white racial solidarity as a bulwark against and diversion from multi-national unity....Although white supremacy is not in the class interests of white workers – either in the short or long run – it is based upon a system of relative advantages which are shared, though unequally, by all white people. The strategic implication of their view is “the communist’s goal is to sharpen the contradiction between class interest and white group interest...”[36]
Although there may be some important differences between the Conference Committee and STO (particularly on the character of the oppression of Blacks in the U.S.), there does not seem to be substantial difference between STO’s and the Conference Committee’s conception of “privilege.” One difference is over terminology - STO uses “white skin” while the Conference Committee uses “white racial” to describe the people who have obtained those “privileges.” But this is not a substantial difference, as they are both referring to the same group of people. One of the differences though, is that STO stresses (at least in its more recent version of the line) the relative character of these “privileges,” whereas the Conference Committee neglects to strongly bring out this critical point. Even with these slight differences, the attempt of the Conference Committee to distinguish their position from that of STO is actually a distinction without a difference.
Regardless of the similarity between their position and that of STO, we will still offer a substantive critique of the specific notions of the “white racial group” and “racial privileges” expressed in the Conference papers.
We would certainly agree that racism is one of the “pillars” of U.S. capitalism which will only ultimately be eliminated with the destruction of capitalism, although a continuing struggle against racism will be necessary to eliminate its final vestiges after the socialist revolution. We also recognize that devising a correct strategy to guide the anti-racist struggle is central to the elaboration of a general political line for the U.S. communist movement.
Since racism has produced the primary division within the working class along racial lines, the task of unifying the working class will require an uncompromising struggle against racism given its pervasive influence within the working class. But this ideological struggle against racism will only be successful as a part of a more general political strategy which will be able to take advantage of the ideological, political and economic contradictions produced by racism and capitalism. The strongest aspect of the Conference papers is their grasp of the centrality of the struggle against racism. We do not disagree that the struggle against racism is central for the forging of a revolutionary vanguard in this country. What we disagree with is their specific conception of the material basis of racism and the strategic implications flowing from their analysis.
Our criticism will focus on what we perceive as the three main weaknesses of their analysis. Those weaknesses are: First, the absence of a concrete analysis of the class structure in the U.S. and the effect of racism and national oppression on that class structure. Second, their misconception of the material basis of racism as the “racial privileges” of the “white racial group.” And third, their “left” sectarian strategy for guiding the struggle against racism. This third point is addressed in our strategy section.
Concerning the first point, their entire analysis of racism and class struggle in the U.S. is weakened by the near absence of a concrete class analysis of the U.S. social formation. Although they use terms also used by Marxists, e.g., bourgeoisie (although they use the term “white bourgeoisie” thereby “racializing” the concept of class), proletariat, etc., they do not employ these terms in a theoretical analysis of the concrete class structure in the U.S. Although they nominally acknowledge the capitalist class structure, their “class analysis” consists mostly of sweeping generalizations (e.g., “there is a significant and powerful strata of stable, skilled, well paid workers whose position is highly dependent on racism.”) (page 21) This does not really provide us with a concrete understanding of the distinct classes and their stratifications. What are the different sections in the bourgeoisie? What are the relative strengths of those different sections? What is the petty bourgeoisie composed of in this country? How is the working class defined and what are its different stratifications and sections? How have imperialism, racism, and sexism affected the development of the capitalist class structure? What section of the working class constitutes the “labor aristocracy?” What ideological, political, and economic considerations go into determination of what section of the working class constitutes the labor aristocracy? These are just some of the questions which would need to be addressed in making a class analysis of the U.S.
We are obviously not in a position to even begin to answer those questions in this paper. What we can do is point out that their analysis is limited by the absence of a theoretical analysis of the U.S. class structure. Their analysis actually rests upon unsubstantiated ideological assumptions about the U.S. working class rather than a concrete theoretical analysis. Since they have not concretely demonstrated how white workers are “privileged,” etc., then it becomes an ideological question as to whether people unite with this “well known fact,” rather than the theoretical and political question which it actually is.
Secondly, we disagree with their formulation that all white people “are extended certain racial privileges” which creates a “white racial interest” or “white community of interest” in all white people. Although they may be describing an objective material phenomena, i.e., the material benefits derived by whites from racism, we believe that they fail to make a scientific analysis of this phenomena relying instead upon bourgeois ideological concepts such as “racial privileges” and “racial interests.”
We do not disagree that whites (including, but to a different degree, white workers) have derived material benefits from racism. Racism has also produced a material differentiation within the working class which has provided a material basis for the reproduction of the bourgeois ideology of racism. In the U.S., whites have generally a higher standard of living than racial and national minorities. Minorities suffer from not only economic discrimination at the workplace, but they are also confined to the worst housing, schools, health care, etc. Minority workers generally earn less than white workers because of years of discrimination and segregation into the lowest paying sectors of industry. These sectors are usually the most dangerous for workers’ health. There is also a disproportionately high number of minorities in the ranks of the unemployed. Over the last decade the unemployment of minority male workers has averaged over twice that of white male workers, but more recently, official unemployment statistics have shown that unemployment among Black youth is an astounding 50%.
Although gains were made in the 1960’s in narrowing the income gap between Blacks and whites, this trend has reversed itself and the income of Blacks in relation to whites has declined. Even with the current economic crisis and Reagan’s social austerity program, the attacks on all working people’s standard of living has a disparate impact on minorities. Even if some of these attacks are not necessarily racially inspired, minorities are usually hit the hardest and suffer more from these attacks than white workers do.
It is also not just whites in the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie who have derived benefits from racism. Most white workers have also derived material benefits from racism. The institutionalized racist segregation in industry, craft unions, and professions have resulted in white workers obtaining material benefits at the expense of minority workers. These economic benefits, along with the general social consequences of racial oppression, have allowed whites to secure better social benefits, such as housing, schools, etc., than minorities. But this material differentiation within the working class is not a simple but a complex process. The Conference papers focus too one-sidedly on the racial aspect of this differentiation process. Although racism may be the primary stratification within the working class, it is not the sole stratification or material differentiation. Sexism, gay oppression, national oppression, and imperialism also have an important effect on the stratification of the working class and its consciousness. The Conference papers undialectically reduce this complex differentiation process to a single aspect, its racial component, which results in their unscientific notions of “racial privileges” and “interests.”
A critical difference between ourselves and the Conference Committee is our understanding of the relative character of the material benefits derived by white workers from racism. In what way are those benefits relative? First, it is the bourgeoisie which actually exploits minority workers (in addition to white workers) and makes a profit off their labor power. White workers, who, for a variety of reasons, are able to secure a better bargaining position than minority workers and may secure benefits which minority workers aren’t able to, do not exploit directly the labor power of minority workers. The material benefits secured by white workers pale in comparison to the enormous economic profits and political power acquired by the bourgeoisie as a result of racism. This is in contradistinction to the Conference Committee’s position that the basic contradiction of racism is between the white bourgeoisie and racial minorities. However, they focus their analysis on what they see as the secondary contradiction, “between the white racial group and the Black racial group (actually all non-whites).” (page 20) Secondly, we feel although white workers do receive economic and social benefits from racism, they continue to be exploited by the bourgeoisie, though the rate of exploitation may be different for minority workers.
And finally, those material benefits are relative because the working class as a whole is weakened as a result of the divisive effects of racism (and other ideologies). The political position and economic bargaining power of the multi-national/racial working class is reduced by the effects of racism, sexism and national chauvinism. Since minorities are the ones who suffer racial discrimination and national oppression, it is they who arc directly hurt by racism. But as studies have shown, white workers, as part of the working class, are also hurt in the most general sense by racism because the political and economic position of the working class is lower qualitatively. [37] Yet white workers do receive immediate material benefits from racism and ideologically embrace racism in its various forms, so how is it possible to say they too are hurt by racism? Because racism (and the material differentiation it produces) is not just in opposition to the long-term interests of the working class (white and minority workers), but in the past and present has seriously affected the political and economic standing of the working class in the U.S.
Only by recognizing this key contradiction – the relative character of white workers’ benefits - will we be able to elaborate a political line which will be able to exploit that contradiction and win white workers over to the anti-racist struggle. We have no illusions about the difficulty of this task or the actual state of the political consciousness of white workers. But that recognition makes it even more critical that we have a correct orientation on this question or else the working class will become even more “polarized” along racial lines and the anti-racist struggle will be weakened.
We agree that white workers do receive material benefits from racism though we would stress their relative character. However, we would not, in opposition to the Conference papers, describe these benefits as “racial privileges” which create a “white racial interest group.” We believe that in order to develop a correct political line to guide our anti-racist practice, it will be necessary to make a scientific analysis of the basis of racism and its effects on the working class. While recognizing the fact that bourgeois ideology holds sway over the working class, we must not allow bourgeois ideological notions to enter into our scientific Marxist analysis. If such notions are not replaced with scientific Marxist concepts, our resulting political line and practice will be flawed.
The authors of the Conference papers consciously use the terms “racial privileges” and “white racial interest” to describe the material benefits we have described above. Yet they admit that the “white racial group as a special interest group is a reactionary conception that obscures the class struggle and serves to unite white people across class lines under the leadership of the white bourgeoisie.” (page 21, our emphasis) The absence of a framework for understanding ideology in their analysis leads to their uncritical integration of (admittedly) “reactionary” bourgeois ideological notions of racial “privileges” and “interest.” This is not just a semantic difference between ourselves and the Conference papers, but is a critical theoretical difference which leads to their incorrect political line on this question.
The authors of the Conference papers fail to scientifically analyze the role of racist ideology in the conditioning of white people in this country. Racist ideology conditions whites to perceive these benefits as their “own” which are threatened by the struggle of minorities for equal and democratic rights. Furthermore, racist ideology conditions whites to believe that they all have some “interest” in maintaining those benefits at the expense of minorities who are seen as responsible for their own oppression.
As Marxist-Leninists we must strive to understand the social structures which produce those ideologies and the mediating role which these ideologies play in obscuring the underlying class struggle. But while recognizing the objective existence of these ideologies and their dominant influence in this society, we must reject those bourgeois ideological concepts which obscure rather than lay bare the underlying class contradictions of this society.
One of those bourgeois ideological notions is that of “racial privileges,” which the authors of the Conference papers utilize to explain the material differentiation within the working class. In our opinion, it is unscientific to characterize those material benefits as “racial privileges” for the following reasons: First, the use of this term actually is a negative concession to racist ideology which would tend to reinforce the reactionary conception that whites are entitled to these “privileges” by virtue of their race.
Second, by referring to these benefits as “privileges” which are “extended” by the bourgeoisie to white workers, reflects a simplistic and non-dialectical understanding of the complex process by which gains won by the working class through the class struggle are distributed to white and minority workers. Certainly unions have consciously discriminated against minorities in an attempt to protect the benefits that their members have won. But many of these benefits, seniority rights, forty hour work weeks, health and safety regulations, etc., have been won by the working class in the class struggle against the bourgeoisie. Although racism may determine, to the clear detriment of minority workers, how these benefits are allocated, these benefits and gains themselves are not therefore turned into “racial privileges” themselves.
Third, referring to those benefits as “privileges” leads to the conclusion that these benefits “must therefore be smashed” and that these benefits must be “reject(ed)” by the workers, (page 22) This whole analysis leads to a onesided and moralistic approach in communists’ anti-racist work in the working class. It is onesided because they fail to see that there is a progressive aspect to workers fighting to maintain their standards of living when there is a reactionary capitalist offensive to reduce the living standards of the working class as a whole. This is not to deny that certain sections of white workers may have to make “sacrifices” for minority and women workers (e.g., reverse layoff plans which may limit the established seniority rights of white and male workers, who, as a result of decades of racial and sexual discrimination by the company or union, usually have higher seniority than more recently hired minorities and women). Communists will have to struggle against the resistance of white workers in these instances while recognizing that this resistance will only be overcome through prior propaganda and agitation. Even though white workers may blame minorities for the decline in living standards, this does not make the general struggle of white workers to maintain their standard of living a reactionary and racist one.
Finally, the focus of the anti-racist struggle on the “racial privileges” of white workers, rather than on the capitalist system which has produced racism, will lead to the misidentification of the main enemy of the anti-racist struggle. Although the struggle against racism among white workers must never be liquidated or sacrificed for some abstract “class unity,” it must be integrated as the central feature into an overall strategy-to lead the struggle against this racist capitalist system.
The Conference papers also conclude that these “racial privileges” afforded to all whites create a “white racial interest” which runs “directly counter to the class interests of those white people who are a part of the working class.” In our view, even though most whites, including white workers, have derived material benefits from racism, it does not mean that they then have a “racial interest” in maintaining those benefits.
In our opinion, their conception of a “white racial interest group” is unscientific for the following reasons: First, races are natural, biological categories which do not have any particular economic or political interest, as classes do. The “white” race has no more inherent interest in maintaining a racist system than any other race would. Bourgeois ideology obscures the underlying contradictions in this society and makes it appear as if racist inequalities are the product of different races natural abilities and that races have an interest in defending their respective positions in society. The authors of the Conference papers believe there is a “white racial interest” because, in their view, “racial groups” only exist in an antagonistic social relationship to one another. We have discussed the merit of their ideological conception of races in an earlier section, but it is on this question that we concretely see the political ramifications of their erroneous conception of race.
Second, we object to their formulation because stating that whites have a “racial interest” in maintaining those material benefits would actually reinforce, rather than explode, the bourgeois line that whites have an “interest” in maintaining this racist capitalist system. This “racial interest” line would objectively play into the hands of those reactionaries who are trying to exploit white workers’ fears which are being aggravated by the current economic crisis.
Third, as we argued above, the material benefits derived by white workers from racism are relative in character. Their relative character prevents white workers from developing an “interest” in those benefits. As we explained, white workers may derive some immediate economic benefits, but generally they also lose (obviously they do not lose or suffer as much as minorities do) as a result of the working class’s weakened political and economic position. It is upon this contradiction, among others, which communists must creatively develop a political strategy to bring out and explain its underlying causes to workers.
We hove attempted to demonstrate that our differences over the question of “racial privileges” and the “white racial interest group” are not just semantic, but reflect theoretical differences over the nature of racism in a capitalist society. The ramifications of our theoretical differences will be more clearly seen when we analyze the political strategy which flows from their theoretical framework.
We will focus our critique of their political strategy for the anti-racist movement on two key questions. First, the political ramifications of their conceptions of “racial privileges” and the “white racial interest group” for the struggle against racism within the working class. And second, the more general political ramifications of their conception of the role of reforms and class alliances in the anti-racist movement.
Concerning the first question, since they believe that white workers have a “racial interest” in maintaining their “racial privileges,” they conclude that white workers must “reject” those “privileges” or else communists will have to “polarize” the working class around those “racial privileges.” What is wrong with their general strategy for fighting racism within the working class?
First, their proposed strategy of demanding that white workers “reject” their privileges in the midst of a serious capitalist crisis would result in communists adopting a moralistic, condescending approach towards fighting racism among white workers which would generally be ineffective. Second, their call for “polarizing” the working class (which is already “polarized” along racial lines as a result of racism) is a “left” sectarian line on this question which would actually weaken the struggle against racism by alienating the potential allies of minorities. Although we unite with their emphasis on the importance of an uncompromising struggle against racism within the working class, polarization would actually further divide the working class and weaken the anti-racist movement.
We believe that the current restructuring crisis of U.S. capitalism presents us with an opportunity to forge new alliances, but this will only occur if we creatively develop new strategies which will combine the central struggle against racism with other important social movements. In the history of the U.S. communist movement there have generally been two deviations on this question of how to lead the struggle against racism within the working class. The first, and most serious deviation which has plagued the U.S. communist movement, is the political line which overemphasizes the common class interests of all workers in the struggle against capitalism while minimizing or liquidating entirely the racial and sexual contradictions within the working class. This deviation is a “right” opportunist or “liquidationist” line on the struggle against racism.
The second general deviation on this question is the political line which one-sidedly focuses on the differences or contradictions within the working class while downplaying or neglecting entirely the degree of commonality of interest among workers in the struggle against capitalism and racism. It seems that the Conference papers have overreacted to the liquidationist deviation, which admittedly has been the more serious of the two, and adopted a “left” sectarian approach which focuses on the “privileges” of white worker and calls for a further polarization of the working class.
Our task is to creatively develop a strategy which will overcome these two deviations. In our view, a political line to guide the struggle against racism within the working class must combine a scientific understanding of the centrality of racism while still recognizing the commonality of class oppression/exploitation. The fact is that the working class as a whole loses as a result of racism and has a common interest (although clearly a relative one on the part of the white workers) in the struggle against racism. The current political and economic assault on the working class from the bourgeoisie opens up new possiblities for combining the struggle against racism with other struggles (against economic attacks on the working class, sexism, homophobia, among others) while still raising the anti-racist consciousness of workers.
Finally, we have differences with their political strategy for the anti-racist movement. Their line on the struggle for reforms and the possibility of class alliances reflects a tendency towards “left” sectarianism. They state that the “principal content of the day to day struggle against racism is the struggle against racial inequality” but that the struggle for equality and democratic rights is a reform struggle. This is because inequality and denial of democratic rights are only aspects of racism, not the essence of it. Thus while this struggle is crucial to making revolution in the U.S., it is not a real solution to racial oppression.” (page 21) They proceed to define the “essence” of racism as the “aggressively expansive and exploitative character of capital itself.”
Although we would agree that racism will only be ultimately eliminated after capitalism is eliminated, that does not mean that the revolutionary struggles for reforms in the struggle against racism are not an integral part of the revolutionary process to overthrow capitalism. The conference papers, in a typically “left” sectarian fashion, tend to counterpose the struggle for reforms, on the one hand, and the struggle for revolution, on the other. Rather than just dismissing the critical struggle for equality and democratic rights for minorities as a “reform struggle,” the communist movement must develop a strategy which will provide revolutionary leadership to the struggle for reforms and integrate the reform struggles into the revolutionary process. Their line on reforms also reflects their tendency towards a class reductionist conception of racism which simply reduces it to its “essence” – capitalism. This line has a potential for actually liquidating the struggle against racism as an autonomous social movement by reducing it to simply the revolutionary struggle against capitalism. In this situation their “left” sectarian line would become a liquidationist line just as the right opportunist line is.
On the question of class alliances, they recognize that “all Black people in the U.S. have faced racial oppression” and that “racial oppression is the principal basis for their formation into a people.” (page 20) But they proceed to conclude that the Black bourgeoisie “are not allies in the revolutionary struggle against racism.” (page 22) How is it possible for the Conference papers to arrive at such a seemingly-contradictory position? Primarily, because of their “left” sectarian conception of the reform struggle which they mechanically separate from the revolutionary struggle. Secondarily, because of their general class reductionist analysis of racial oppression, their conception of reforms leads them to see the Black bourgeoisie as part of the struggle for reforms, but not as part of the revolutionary struggle against capitalism. These two distinct tendencies in their analysis of racism, “left” sectarianism and class reductionism (both of which were discussed earlier in this p3per), are integrated into their strategy for the anti-racist movement.
Although there is no detailed explanation of the Conference Committee’s strategy in the working papers, their initial formulations would result in the isolation of the anti-racist movement from white workers, the Black bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, and the struggle for reforms. The effect of this would be to weaken and isolate the anti-racist movement which could possibly lead to its ultimate defeat by the bourgeoisie. That is why we reject their analysis and strategy in its initial formulations as being an incorrect orientation for the anti-racist movement.
[1] Stalin’s notion of “common psychological make-up” which is one of the necessary conditions for nationhood, was a legacy of Otto Bauer’s “psycological theory” of nationhood which was explicitly criticized by Lenin. See Lenin, “The Right of Nation’s to Self-Determination,” Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 398. 20.
[2] Marx to P.V. Annenkov, Dec. 28, 1846, Marx and Enqels: Selected Correspondence, Progress Publishers, p. 36. 21.
[3] See PWOC, Black Liberation Today: Against Dogmatism on the National Question.
[4] Not everyone in the leadership of the Bolshevik Party supported the slogan of the right of nations to self-determination. The phrase “self-determination” was actually removed from the Bolshevik program at the Eighth Party Congress in 1919, although the right of secession was left in. See Davis, Toward a Marxist Theory of Nationalism, Monthly Review (1978) pp. 66-63.
[5] Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, Progress Publishers (1953), pg. 12.
[6] Lenin, “The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination (Theses),” Lenin on the National and Colonial Questions, Foreign Languages Press (1970) pp. 8-9.
[7] See Ernesto Laclau, “Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America,” Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory, New Left Books (1977) pp. 15-50.”
[8] See Rosa Luxemburg, The National Question: Selected Writings, Monthly Review” (1976).
[9] Ibid.
[10] Lenin, “The Socialist Revolution and the Right, of Nations to Self-Determination (Theses),” op. cit.
[11] Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, op. cit., pg. 10.
[12] Ibid., pg. 11.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Karl Marx, ̶What Have the Working Classes to Do with Poland,” in Fernbach, Ed., Karl Marx, The First International and After, Vintage (l974), pg. 383. 25.
[16] Ibid., pp. 159-70.
[17] Ibid., pg. 391.
[18] See Stalin, “The Nation,” Marxism and the National Question.
[19] Marx, “For Poland,”(1875) in Fernbach, Ed., op. cit pg. 391.
[20] Stalin, “Marxism and the National Question,” Marxism and the National-Colonial Question, Proletarian Publisher (1975) pg. 22.
[21] Ibid, pg. 28.
[22] The characteristics of a nation listed in Stalin’s Marxism and the National Question and quoted approvingly in the Conference papers are, in our opinion, not universally applicable to all nations. For instance, the characteristic of “common economy As we demonstrated in the section of this paper or, “Pre-Capitalist Nation?” not all nations have fully developed capitalist economies and class structures Other nations, e.g. Korea, no longer have a “common economy” as a result of the intervention of imperialism (there exists a socialist economy in “North” Korea and a capitalist economy in “South” Korea). Does this mean that there are now two separate Korean nations which both have the right to self-determination over different territories? Certainly, a mechanical application of Stalin’s characteristics to Korea would objectively support U.S. imperialism’s plans for Korea. That is why we must grasp the Leninist principle that the right of nations to self-determination is a political demand not an economic question.
We believe there are serious problems with other characteristics from Stalin’s definition. As mentioned before, Lenin was critical of the entire notion of a “common psychological make-up” of a people (See footnote 1). We also have questions about some of the other characteristics. Tor example, common language, although seemingly a necessary requirement, does not exist in all nations. The nation of Belgium is a bilingual country. There are also many developing nations, especially in Africa, where there may exist numerous local languages in a nation even though they may be developing a national language.
[23] Marx, “What Have the Working Classes to Do with Poland?,” op. cit.
[24] See Laclau, “Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America,” op. cit.., for a lucid discussion of the political significance of the effect of imperialism on pre-capitalist societies.
[25] Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, Progress Publishers, Pt. II, pg. 303 (our emphasis).
[26] Marx, “The Civil War in the United States,” Karl Marx, On America and the Civil War, Padover, Ed., McGraw-Hill (1972) pg. 93.
[27] Marx, Wage-Labour and Capital, International Publishers (1969) pp. 19-20.
[28] Marx, Capital, Progress Publishers (1974) Vol. 2, pg. 483.
[29] See Marx, Capital, International Publishers (1957) Vol. 3, pg. 337, where Marx wrote “The first theoretical treatment of the modern mode of production – the mercantile system—proceeded necessarily from the superficial phenomena of the circulation process as individualized in the movements of merchant’s capital, and therefore grasped only the appearance of matters.... The real science of modern economy only begins when the theoretical analysis passes from the process of circulation to the process of production.”(our emphasis)
[30] See PWOC, Black Liberation Today, op. cit.
[31] See Eugene Genovese, “The Slave Systems and their European Antecedents,” The WorId the Slaveholders Made, Vintage (1969).
[32] Ibid.
[33] See Resnick and Wolff, “The Theory of Transitional Conjunctures and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism in Western Europe,” Review of Radical Political Economics, Fall, 1979, Vol. II, No. 3, pp. 3-22.
[34] Genovese, op. cit.
[35] Sojourner Truth Organization, White Supremacy and the National Question (1976) pg. 4.
[36] Ibid., pg. 20.
[37] See Michael Reich, Racial Inequality: A Political-Economic Analysis, Princeton (1981).