Breitman Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main Page
From The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 27, 5 July 1948, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
One of the more degrading spectacles in recent weeks was the appearance at the Republican convention of representatives of various Negro organizations, appealing to the Platform Committee for the inclusion of planks on behalf of Negro rights. They will attend the coming Democratic convention to do the same.
I call it degrading for the same reason that I would call it degrading if a man who had just been kicked in the teeth went up to the bully who had kicked him and asked him to please sign a piece of paper promising not to do it any more. In my opinion the comparison is quite fitting. The Republican Party, by its behavior in the 80th Congress, has certainly kicked the Negro people in the teeth. Only people with a strong yen for the taste of leather would come back asking for a second helping.
What difference does it make what kind of promises are made in the Republican and Democratic platforms? They don’t keep those promises anyhow, just as they don’t enforce pro-Negro laws on the rare occasions when they are forced to enact them. The Republicans included a bunch of fine promises in 1944 – in favor of an FEPC, against the poll tax, against lynching, and so on. But although they had full control of Congress for the last year and a half, they didn’t pass one of them. What reason is there to think they will act differently next time?
As a matter of fact, I can see certain distinct advantages resulting if the Republicans and Democrats would not include promises in their platforms that they don’t intend to keep or fulfill. In that case the voters would know where matters really stand and they would be able to take measures on the political field to really protect their rights. In a fight you are always better off if you can see who your enemies are, and what they are up to.
And a fight is just what is called for now. Nothing at all is going to be accomplished by wheedling or whining. As part of its preparations for war, the capitalist class is cutting down and taking away the few democratic rights remaining to the white workers. It is the height of lunacy to expect that at such a time they are going to voluntarily grant new rights to the Negro people.
There is only one way to make the capitalist rulers grant concessions, and that is by opposing them so militantly that they will be mortally frightened by the consequences of their failure to grant them. You can’t do that by getting down on your knees and asking them to please write down a few more promises in their platform. No, the way to do it is by serving notice on them that you are determined to fight them to the death until you get your rights.
The best way to serve such notice is by breaking once and for all with capitalist politics and capitalist parties and capitalist candidates, and by joining with the labor movement in the establishment of an independent Labor Party. The foes of the Negro people will listen a lot more attentively to the demands of fighting rebels than they will to the piteous pleas of servile stooges.
Breitman Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 2 November 2022