First Published: Theoretical Review No. 8, January-February 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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What is the nature of the economic, ideological, and political oppression suffered by Blacks and other minorities in this country? How do we, as communists view the tasks confronting us in the struggle against racism?
Scientific answers to these questions do not yet exist. The rallying cries of “Fight Racism!” and “We say no, we say no...to racism!”, while so often invoked, certainly mean little without the prior comprehensive theoretical analysis and the development of a political line necessary to guide our practice/intervention in this struggle. This analysis necessitates a Marxist-Leninist understanding of the nature of the production and reproduction of any ideology in a social formation, its relationship to the economic and political levels, and the mechanisms by which an ideology may intervene through forms of ideological and political practice to act as a material force in the class struggle.
However, given the basis for spontaneous, i.e., non-communist, fightback under capitalism, the entire span of the Left has often proceeded to develop all sorts of political lines and strategies to combat racism, even without the required revolutionary theory. While the revisionists have tended to rely on legislation, the courts, and alliances with “respectable” bourgeois leaders (liberal whites and minorities) in order to build their “broad fronts”, the dogmatists have isolated themselves through various sectarian/opportunist practices ranging from the Revolutionary Communist Party’s (RCP) anti-busing position to the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)’s (CP M-L) “no unity with revisionists” line. Moreover, there have obviously been numerous Black and national minority organizations which have taken up the struggle guided by all variations and mixtures of reformism, nationalism, adventurism, and socialist/nationalism. As yet however, we still lack both the organizational form and the Marxist-Leninist analysis needed to wage a concerted struggle against all manifestations of “racial oppression”.
In this period of party building, in which theoretical work is increasingly coming to be recognized as a crucial, if not the primary, aspect of our work, a fresh and critical review of our past practices at all levels in this struggle (theoretical, ideological, political, and economic) must be made. In the process of scientifically analyzing the concrete conditions of the existence of racist ideology, we must re-analyze our concepts, our analytical tools, and especially critique the theoretical premises with which we have become so complacent.
As Marxist-Leninists we often pay our lip service to being scientific. But to be scientific is not a mere knowledge of the classics and contemporary polemics. Marxist-Leninists, as scientists, must wage a continual battle against all tendencies toward complacency, against all encroachment of bourgeois ideology; and we must continually work to advance the science in correspondence with the changing material conditions. Thus we must ask: Is the concept “racism”, as we presently understand it, scientific in the sense of it being a useful tool for analyzing the range of discriminatory social practices under capitalism? What is the relationship between the struggle against racism and the fight for socialism? These questions must he answered in their specificity with regard to the concrete conditions and balance of class forces in the present U.S. social formation.
To critique the concept of racism is not to deny its existence in the colloquial sense of the term; to be sure, “racism” pervades all aspects of our society. Marxist theory, however, has little to do with colloquialisms; on the contrary, it strives to break through vague formulations and to develop rigorous terminology – not for rigor as an end in itself but in order to begin to be able fully expose the complex social relations under capitalism.
For instance, it was necessary for Marx to break with the abstract (ideological) conception of labor as put forth by the economists of his time. He had to transform this conception by creating (defining/elaborating) scientific concepts which now provide the basis for an historical materialist understanding of capitalism, e.g., labor power, concrete labor, abstract labor, etc. While Marx may have used many of the same words as we do colloquially, he attempted give them a theoretical (conceptual) meaning which laid the basis for scientific analysis.[1]
By developing scientific concepts Marx was not simply giving a stricter definition to what was already known. Rather, lie was breaking through the veil of bourgeois ideology to expose the true relations of production under capitalism, i.e., that labor power is a commodity like every other, except for its value creating ability.[2] Hence, in order to be truly useful in the exacting analysis required to guide our intervention, as communists, in the social formation, and in order to seriously combat bourgeois ideology, our terms cannot be equivocal they must embody a rigor and be well-defined.
The purpose of this article is to begin to rectify some of our conceptual tools with regard to the analysis of and the struggle against racism through a critique of the main deviations which have historically plagued the Marxist-Leninist movement. The three main deviations may be characterized as economism, voluntarism, and dogmatism. As will be shown, they are inextricably linked and Marxist-Leninist organizations usually do not just suffer from only one of these three. Thus when organizations are used to exemplify certain deviations or deficiencies, we shouldn’t avoid deepening the critique in other areas; for deviations from Marxism-Leninism must be understood at all levels.
Economism, in the Marxist theory of racism, can be generally characterized as reducing racist ideology (and ideology in general) to the needs of the economy. In this sense, racism is historically seen as necessary, coinciding with the development of capitalism. (In fact, Marxist, and even bourgeois academics have even attempted to scientifically distinguish the racism of capitalism from the ethnocentrism and intolerance of pre-capitalist modes of production).[3]
Racism and capitalism are seen as inextricably linked such that whatever happens in the base is seen as requiring and determining a corresponding change in the superstructure. This view is similar to the theoretical construct of Hegel’s essentialism; that is, the form (ideology) is simply the expression r in one of the many possible forms – of the eternal inner essence (the economy).[4] This deviation is also a fundamental philosophical tenet of the Stalinian view of the role of productive forces and the corresponding changes which take place in the superstructure as a result of the advances in technology/forces of production. In this way, dialectical materialism is reduced to a mere straight line determinism. While there should be no implication here of denying the necessary effects of the economic on the ideological; the connection between the two must be understood in a far more complex fashion than action/reaction. As Engels states, “According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase.”[5]
This conception of the economy being determinant only in the “last instance” (Althusser) can obviously be interpreted in many ways; but if we at least approach from the point of the economic level setting the terrain for the struggle at the superstructural levels, and not simply determining the latter’s forms and conditions, we will have a more scientific basis for our analysis of racist ideology.[6] For now, the dialectical relationship between the economic and ideological may be summed up as one of relative autonomy a concept which will be discussed (schematically) later in this article.
Drawing out the analysis inherent in the economist point of view, we find the almost universally accepted (in the contemporary Marxist-Leninist movement) thesis that capitalism needs racism in order to survive. For instance, given capitalism’s built-in requirement for a surplus population (as scientifically developed by Marx) a common view sees this economic need creating corresponding ideological forms (racism) which in turn guarantee the proper stratification along racial lines so as to fulfill this requirement. It must first be pointed out, however, that often this does not even correspond with reality since no racial minority constitutes one class or fraction of a class (reserve army). This view is also hard put to explain capitalism’s ability to survive the assaults on segregated workforces and partially victorious struggles since World War II to integrate racial minorities into the workplace and higher class strata, i.e., the determinist mode of stratification has not been truly realized.
This simplistic view also ignores four crucial areas: 1) the potential/actual contradictions that arise between certain economic needs of capitalism and certain ideological forms; for example, the need to increasingly exploit the working class and the desire to super-exploit racial minorities and women, hits hard against notions of bourgeois democratic rights and the prevalent ideology of equality and justice for all 2) why, or whether, capitalism really needs racism, i.e., can it survive the mass assaults and still function with a racially integrated workforce, surplus population, and higher class strata, 3) the specific and complex analysis to account for a coincidence of race and class (or class strata) if such does occur at particular times, and 4) a scientific analysis of the modes of oppression (ideological and political) of the working class and minorities, aside from the economic exploitation of the workplace.
A major political line which flows from the “capitalism needs racism” premise may be summarized as follows: if racism is a necessary product of capitalism and a necessary condition of its maintenance, then “logically” political struggle to overcome racism is doomed to failure, or else such struggle is a diversion from the main class struggle to eliminate capitalism, the fall of which will also entail the elimination of racism.
We have to look no further than the RCP to find the consequences of such a view in practice. In their support of the Farah strike, little or no emphasis was placed on the fact that the strikers were predominantly Chicanas and what that meant for their lives beyond the factory gates. Demands were keyed only to the status of their being “workers” and not to the specific oppression(s) suffered by those workers due to their race and sex. It is assumed that struggle at the level of production relations will automatically express itself at other levels. Only the most simplistic analysis of “boss versus worker” and “Chicano robbed of land and culture” is put forth without any attempt at scientific specificity.[7] In short, there is no analysis behind the political line being put forward.[8]
This denigration of the anti-racist struggle obviously reached its most disastrous point in the RCP busing position. In the interests of “working class unity”, the RCP objectively condoned the racist views of many white workers. Thus in addition to avoiding any serious analysis of Black oppression in the educational system, they extended the position to advocating against the cause of rectifying some aspects of that oppression. It was at this point that many Marxist-Leninists finally abandoned the RCP charging them with “opportunism”, “class collaboration” and sometimes even “economism”. While the charges were correct, they often only hit at the ultimate manifestation of an economic determinist philosophy, without analysing its roots.
Sadly enough, we have an example of this in our own movement. Certain forces within the Organizing Committee (OC), and Philadelphia Workers Organizing Committee (PWOC) in particular, have opposed super-seniority as a method of rectifying some of the institutionalized racism of the unions. Once again a mythical “working class unity” is invoked as the fruit of the sacrifice of the “diversionary” anti-racist struggle.
Voluntarism typically reduces ideology in its origin, development, and/or practice to the political will of the ruling class. Racism is viewed as a product of a deliberate and contrived effort by the bourgeoisie to “divide and rule” the working class; it is the tool wielded by the bourgeoisie to maintain its hegemony.
A voluntarist view is often the counterpart to the economist conception described above since even the economic determinist must account for the practice of the ideology that the economy has “determined”. In the absence of an understanding of the dialectical interaction between the economy, politics, and ideology, and without a framework for understanding the material conditions which determine the “play” of the class struggle, the voluntarist assigns the individual the task of translating the economic needs into political and ideological practice.
The ruling class and its agents are pictured as having the free play to determine the ruling ideology; the concept of race is seen as a myth devised by a conniving bourgeoisie in order to divide an objectively united working class.
Ideology, however, is a field of class struggle; that is, any ideological form is determined by the particular balance of class forces in struggle at a particular moment at every level of the social formation. While “bourgeois ideology” certainly acts to misrepresent our real relation to the conditions of our existence, this is only to reaffirm that the bourgeoisie ultimately maintains ideological hegemony over other classes under capitalism. This should not be interpreted as saying that ideology is a static weapon in the hands of the bourgeoisie; rather, ideology, like capital, exists as a social relation.
What Poulantzas states with regard to the state, can equally be applied to ideology: “it is shot through and constituted with and by class contradictions.”[9] The bourgeoisie is severely limited in its ideological practice by the particular strength of all classes (including the various fractions of its own class) at a particular time. Hence, while it is commendable to incorporate what is loosely referred to as the “subjective factor”–will and consciousness, into an analysis and practice, to fail to understand the entire structure of a social formation and the limits that structure presents for the intervention of the various class forces is to ultimately see “being” determined by whim and fancy.
Examples of such analyses are unfortunately abundant in the Marxist-Leninist movement. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) provides only the most blatant of these analyses in their documents on divisions within the working class. For example, they state, “Racism is the bosses’ key weapon...to keep workers divided and unable to challenge union misleadership and exploitation of all workers – Black and white”,[10] and “Since the old method of just misdirecting workers with racism is sometimes insufficient, the bosses now try to misdirect Black workers through nationalism”[11] and “They (the bosses) have also dredged up the Communist Party-Socialist Workers Party (CP-SWP) pacifist cabal to ensnare many in liberal-type pap.”[12] One might imagine that given this view of the bosses (whomever this united bloc might be) unlimited power the class struggle would be far more difficult for communists than it already is!
But for PLP, voluntarism on one side can be countered with voluntarism on the other. “Though workers hung back in the 60’s, they will soon take over the leadership of much of the emerging mass movement ... ”[13] “The fact that our party is slowly beginning to gain in numbers and influence in the working class is the most important development in our country.”[14] PLP’s tactics in the anti-racist struggle carry out this voluntarist attitude. The most recent example is their adventurist attack on the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Boston’s City Hall Plaza – substituting themselves for the class and their action for the mass movement, PLP aims to “Fight Racism” to the death. The lack of any scientific analysis of the historical moment, their class consciousness of the masses, and the nature of racism’s hold in Boston never seems to slow PLP’s “revolutionary” pace.
The RCP’s view of busing as a plot by the bourgeoisie to divide the workers also neatly complements their economist view analyzed above.
Both within and without the new communist movement, nationalist variants of politics implicit within this economist/voluntarist dialectic have developed. In this case, instead of reducing the race to the class, as the RCP above, the race is substituted for the class as the vanguard of the revolution. Under the economist/ spontaneist banner, “most oppressed, most revolutionary” groups like the All African People’s Revolutionary Party and the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee liquidate the multi-national struggle of the U.S. working class.
It should be noted that general coincidence of race/class oppression in many sectors of the U.S. have provided a material basis for instinctual analyses of this sort; yet as our struggle against racial oppression has shown, the nationalist variant provides neither a sounder basis nor a more scientific policy to guide political action than do the other approaches mentioned above. The nationalist view often posits the improbability, if not the impossibility of Blacks working with the “white left” or more importantly, it involves the underestimation (if not subjective liquidation) of the revolutionary potential of the white working class. Of course, very real antagonistic relations have developed between white and black on the left as both sides are prey to and exist under the same social relations and ideological pressures as the rest of the population. These antagonisms unfortunately only lend credence to the nationalist/separatist views.
Dogmatist views are embodied in both the economist and voluntarist premises. Characterized by the failure to understand the nature of scientific analysis and its relation to the development of a political line; attempting to apply the generalized hack formulas and definitions of the past to a complex and varied material reality, dogmatism is incapable of guiding the movement to establish a genuine communist party.
One aspect of this dogmatism in theory is the failure (as discussed at the beginning of this article) to analyze, elaborate and rectify the fundamental tools of Marxist analysis. In typically empiricist fashion, analysis usually consists of merely “applying” Marxist-Leninist theory to concrete conditions. The assumption here is that Marxist-Leninist theory is a fully understood and complete body of principles which is imposed on material reality. As Bettelheim states, however, “Saying that theory is ’complete’ means no longer permitting anything but commentaries on it, and thus means putting forward a metaphysical proposition which forbids any elaboration or further research. It means trying to sterilize theory and cause it to wither, for if theory fails to advance it must retreat.”[15]
Hence we must refer back to the question with which we began, “Is the concept of racism scientific in the sense of it being a useful tool for analyzing the range of discriminatory social practices under capitalism?” For instance, does racism imply, as a number of Marxists have stated, an ideology which appeals to discrimination on the basis of only “biogenetic criteria”! Oliver C. Cox, a Marxist academic, alleges that superiority in the Roman Empire was not racist because it was not premised on biogenetics) but rather based on cultural-class discrimination.[16] If so then how are we to analyze the South African bantustan policy which appeals more to the ethnic nationalist differences in its expressed ideology, then to a pure racism?[17]
Further, abstract dogmatist “analyses” lay no basis for understanding the development of the function and practice of racism in the U.S., in its specificity, i.e., what are the particular relations between the economic, political and ideological levels and what are the potential areas for significant communist intervention given the balance of class forces at each level.[18]
For example, where is the scientific analysis upon which we have developed our holy line on the inability of capitalism to withstand the demise of racism? Certainly it is apparent that the monopoly capitalists profit from a working class divided along racial (and sexual) lines, but to assert or discover that capitalism’s incredible resilience includes an ability to survive significant victories on the anti-racist front should not in any way denigrate that struggle for Marxist-Leninists. On the contrary, if this is so, the sooner we are able to attain those victories, the sooner the class question will lay itself bare. Such struggles would be a factor if not a precondition to defeating narrow nationalism and raising the level of working class consciousness.
While the potential for developing scientific analyses is greater in the anti-dogmatist/anti-revisionist party building movement than anywhere else in the Marxist-Leninist arena, the present level of analysis and debate shows we still have a long way to go. The Union of Democratic Filipinos (KDP) a group with key individuals in the Bay Area Guardian Club recently had a two part series in the Guardian on the anti-Bakke struggle.[19] The series is a good example of what we mean: They correctly target the dogmatist sects and expose their sectarian lines and sterile rhetoric. Yet the entire series is premised on the same notion that we saw has yet to be scientifically demonstrated, that of the insoluble link between racism and capitalism. In fact they go so far as to state, “Today it is more clear than ever that the struggle against racism is a revolutionary struggle to overthrow capitalism and replace it with socialism.” (emphasis added) We are left to faith in our dogmatist predecessors to provide the basis to this assertion; moreover, there is no explanation as to why the change of historical conditions makes it “more clear than ever” and its implication for communist intervention. Yet it would seem that to question this revolutionary assertion might place oneself, in the eyes of the KDP, outside of the revolutionary arena.
The rest of the series is composed of only the most generalized formulas on the united front. There is no concrete discussion of the actual class forces that would comprise the united front and in what capacities, the significance of the Bakke case in terms of the developing contradictions within the various levels of capitalism (especially the legal realm); and significantly what is the nature of and potential for communist leadership at the present moment.
To the KDP’s credit, they ask some important (though general) theoretical questions at the conclusion of the series (e.g., “What is the nature, history, and ideological content, of racial oppression past and present.”). However, the raising of such questions does more to expose the generality of the rest of the piece than to lay any basis for developing theoretical and strategic solutions.
The Guardian itself has exhibited certain deficiencies in this realm of analysis. While definitely playing an important role in covering the anti-racist movement and aiding in the building of a new communist party, it remains at a level of superficial/descriptive analysis and offers little in terms of a concrete line to guide our practice. A recent Viewpoint entitled “Fighting Racism in All its Forms”[20] provides a good example in both title and content. As the Guardian consistently enumerates all the “forms” of racism, we are left without concrete knowledge of racism’s origins, conditions of existence, and weak links. As Althusser states, to recognize an issue is not to have knowledge of it. Perhaps, Viewpoints are not meant to serve as theoretical analyses but only as ideological points; the question then arises as to where and when the theory will be developed, especially given that the Guardian has recognized theory’s primacy in the present period?
The complacency with the already established analyses of racism also arises in terms of the “nation thesis”. Stalin’s criteria usually form the starting point of most any Marxist-Leninist analysis – but not in terms of a critique of their validity, the political context in which they arose, their mechanistic application to the U.S., and/or the ideological role the thesis has played in the struggles in the Communist Party, U.S.A. (CPUSA) and the new communist movement – rather they are seen as the principles to be “applied” to the concrete conditions.[21]
Finally, another evident problem exists in the confusion between a political practice’s racist effect and the nature of the practice’s origin. Many Marxist-Leninist groups, and particularly those of a nationalist orientation, are quick to give the label “racist” to any social practice which has a discriminatory result, as if it were a direct expression of a philosophy of racial antipathy. This is not at all to deny the exploitative and oppressive consequences of such practices, but to say that the automatic assumption of “racism” may serve only to blur the particularity of the practice and how to combat it scientifically.
In short, to call for advanced theoretical work while remaining uncritical of the problematic in which we have so complacently operated only serves to keep us tied, at the crucial instance, to dogmatism.
As a start, we must begin to study and elaborate the concept of the relative autonomy of the ideological level from the economic. As Michael Rosenthal states in his excellent article on relative autonomy and the analysis of film:
It is therefore incorrect to pose the idea of relative autonomy as if it were somewhere intermediate on a spectrum between total determination by the economy or ruling class interests, and total freedom from these determinations. Relative autonomy is not an “escape” from determinism, tied down by the “last instance”; it is the specific form through which determinism is exercised.[22]
If racism cannot be accounted for by mere economic need or by voluntarist activity on the part of the ruling class, then we must begin to consider racist ideology as a development of specific ideological practices with its own conditions of existence and contradictions. On the other hand, it is certainly evident that racism is not to be seen as solely restricted to the ideological level; its relationship to other aspects and forms of ideological practice as well as the political and economic levels of the social formation must be analyzed in depth.
Creative theoretical development can only occur on the basis of a critical review of our past premises; that is, we aren’t simply throwing away the old – rather we are reevaluating it in a Marxist-Leninist light and scientificizing/specifying what those premises are. Ultimately, this implies the fuller development of a theoretical framework which breaks totally with economism, voluntarism, and dogmatism.
What is at stake here is the future of our movement and, in the long run, the struggle for socialism. Economism, voluntarism, dogmatism, and other bourgeois ideologies cannot solve the problems posed by capitalism and racism. At present we are lost in a sea of abstract formulas, descriptions of the current situation, and quotes from the classics. However, we do have a number of resources at our command: first, the past experience (positive and negative) of the Marxist-Leninist movement involved in the anti-racist struggle, modern theoretical investigation dealing with issues of ideology, the state, and the economic level, and a (slowly) growing number of cadre in our movement committed to genuine theoretical work.
As a whole, the anti-dogmatist/anti-revisionist communist movement has recognized the need for advance theory; the question remains as to whether we are willing to take up the challenge in the complex and concrete fashion the conjuncture requires of us.
[1] See Louis Althusser’s “Theoretical Work: Difficulties and Resources,” originally published in La Pensee No. 132, April, 1967. Available in English from the Theoretical Review.
[2] See also Marta Harnecker’s excellent summary of the labor/labor power distinction in Elementary Concepts of Historical Materialism in Theoretical Review #7, p. 32.
[3] See Oliver C. Cox, Caste, Class and Race, Monthly Review, 1970; Ruth Benedict, Race and Racism, Routledge, 194-2. For a critique of Cox’s work and some seminal ideas for this article, see John Gabriel and Gideon Ben-Tovim, “Marxism and the Concept of Racism”, in Economy and Society, Vol. 7, No. 2, May, 1978.
[4] See Althusser’s For Marx, in New Left Books, especially “Marxism and Humanism” and “Contradiction and Overdetermination” for a discussion of how the early works of Marx suffer from the same Hegelian conception.
[5] Engels to 3. Bloch in Konigsberg, Sept. 21-22, 1890 in Marx and Engels, Selected Works (in 3 volumes), Vol. 3, p. 4-87, Progress Publishers, 1970.
[6] For an example of how Marx viewed the importance of superstructural factors and did not succumb to economic determinism, see the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.
[7] “Farah Strike; A Single Spark Fanned into a Prairie Fire”, Red Papers #6, June 1974, pp. 116-21.
[8] For an analysis of the relationship between theoretical analysis and political line, see the TMLC’s “The Primacy of Theory and Political Line” in Theoretical Review. #7.
[9] Nicos Poulantzas, as cited in “Ideology, Determinism and Relative Autonomy”, by Michael Rosenthal, Jump Cut No. 17.
[10] Progressive Labor Party, Revolution Today, USA, Exposition Press, 1970, p.335.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid. p. 350.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid. p. 352.
[15] Charles Bettelheim, “The Great Leap Backward”, Monthly Review, July-August 1978, p.82.
[16] As cited in Gabriel and Ben-Tovim, Op. cit.
[17] As one South African minister put it, bantustans are to preserve the “cultural treasure of a people” as cited in Gabriel and Ben-Tovim, op. cit., p. 131.
[18] For an example of abstract programs, see the Program of any of the dogmatist parties.
[19] Guardian, June 21 and 28, 1978.
[20] Guardian, October 4, 1978.
[21] A notable exception to this uncritical acceptance of the nation thesis is the Racism Research Project, “Critique of the Black Nation Thesis”, Berkeley, 1975.
[22] Rosenthal, op. cit.