Prometheus Research Series 3

In Memoriam

Richard S. Fraser

An Appreciation and Selection of His Work

$6.00 ^egy? Prometheus Research Library August 1990 Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2013

http://archive.org/details/inmemoriamricharOOkirk In Memoriam

Richard S. Fraser

An Appreciation and Selection of His Work

Prometheus Research Library New York, New York August 1990 Prometheus graphic from a woodcut by Fritz Brosius

ISBN 0-9633828-5-3 Second Printing, March 1994

Prometheus Research Series is published by Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 Table of Contents

I. Introductory Materials

Richard S. Fraser 1913-1988 3

Memorial Meeting for Richard S. Fraser, 8 January 1989 5

Revolutionary Integration: Program for Black Liberation, Introductory Note by the Prometheus Research Library 19

Fraser and American Scholarship on the Black Question, by David Dreiser 20

II. Documents by Richard S. Fraser

San Diego Farm Strike Is Crushed, 20 February 1937 23

New NMU Hall—Facade to Hide Union Retreat, 8 July 1944 25

Soldiers Cheer Striking Workers, 15 December 1945 27

The Negro Struggle and the Proletarian Revolution: Two Lectures given at the Friday Night Forum, Los Angeles, November 1953 29

Contribution to the Discussion on the Slogan "Send Federal Troops to Mississippi," 10 March 1956 51

Communist Party Internal Discussion: Report to the District Negro Commission, 1956 56

Resolution on the Negro Struggle, 25 May 1957 61

Summary Remarks on Negro Discussion, June 1957 68

On Federal Troops in Little Rock, 10 October 1957 71

On the SWP and the Vietnam Antiwar Movement, 13 December 1965 72

Why We Left the Socialist Workers Party, June 1966 78

A Letter to American Trotskyists: Too Little, Too Late (Memorandum on the Problems of Building a Revolutionary Party), 1974/75 83

On Transitional Organizations, 29 May 1983 93

To the Democratic Socialists of America, 18 June 1983 95

On "Color Caste," 15 January 1984 102

On Libya, 21 March 1986 105

III. Appendix

Bibliography of Works by Richard S. Fraser 106 This bulletin is dedicated to

Dave Dreiser, good friend and long-time collaborator

of Dick Fraser Richard S. Fraser 1913-1988

Richard S. Fraser, a veteran Trotskyist and member of the SWP's National Committee. In the tenacious fighter for black freedom, died in his Pacific Northwest Fraser won several members of sleep on November 27 at the age of 75. For the the Communist Party in Seattle to Trotskyism last several years Dick fought to overcome many following the 1 956 Hungarian Revolution and the painful and debilitating illnesses, mustering the Khrushchev revelations. That Seattle was the courage to face endless operations, so that he place where the SWP had its most significant suc- could continue his research and literary work on cess in cracking the Stalinists is a testament to the question of the revolutionary struggle for the persistence and political capabilities of black liberation in America. Comrade Fraser was Richard Fraser. not only a cherished friend but a theoretical men- Through his involvement in black freedom tor of the Spartacist League. struggles and experience in SL National Chairman Jim the recruitment and subse- Robertson has acknowledged quent loss of hundreds of his considerable personal po- black workers from the SWP litical debt to comrade Fraser. following World War II, Dick Dick Fraser was a co-re- came to believe that the porter on the black question American communist move- at our founding conference in ment had failed to come to 1966. His work was pub- grips with the question of lished as part of our Marxist black liberation in this coun-

Bulletin No. 5, "What Strategy try. Although lacking much for Black Liberation? Trot- formal education, he dedi- skyism vs. Black National- cated himself to the study of ism," and he was a close col- the black question. Criticizing laborator in our work to the SWP for underestimating establish organizations of the revolutionary challenge labor/black defense. As the to American capitalism posed Labor Black League for Social by the integrationist strug- Defense in the Bay Area gles for black equality, in wrote in memoriam: "Richard 1955 he submitted his docu- Fraser was our teacher, the ment "For the Materialist author of 'For the Materialist Conception of the Negro Conception of the Negro Question." Here Fraser coun- Question' that lights the road terposed revolutionary inte- to black freedom through the gration to the SWP's turn to- program of revolutionary integration, the assimila- ward a separatist "self-determination" ideology tion of black people into an egalitarian socialist (associated particularly with George Breitman), society." which would become a theoretical cover for its Fraser joined the Trotskyist movement in abstention from the mass civil rights movement in 1 934, recruited on a cross-country Greyhound bus the early 1960s and subsequent full-blown trip by a member of the newly formed Workers capitulation to black nationalism. Party—the product of a fusion between the Dick came into disfavor with the SWP leader- Trotskyist Communist League of America and A.J. ship when he opposed the party's adoption of the Muste's American Workers Party. For close to 30 call for federal troops to protect Southern blacks. years he was an organizer of the Socialist In his "Resolution on the Little Rock Crisis" Workers Party on the West Coast in Los Angeles Fraser tore apart the SWP's support to Eisen- and Seattle; for at least 20 years he was a hower's introduction of federal troops in Little Rock in 1957, powerfully pointing out that the working papers. In turn Dick's collaboration was end result had been the crushing of local black invaluable in elaborating a perspective for self-defense efforts. In the 1960s Fraser along rooting the SL among militant black workers and with other SWP spokesmen was propelled out of youth. Fraser's formal membership in other or- the party as it plunged from centrism to refor- ganizations obviously stood in contradiction to mism. As he wrote in a letter to his son: "It was his fervent political beliefs, a contradiction which

I who initiated the split from the SWP by publicly was resolved in his last years. Sharing our out- attacking its Personal Representative, my old rage over the U.S. bombing of Libya, he distanced friend Asher Harer, whom I had recruited in himself from the DSA. 1935, for the SWP stand on the Vietnam War, and Addressing the SL/U.S. Seventh National proclaiming that the way to 'BRING THE TROOPS Conference (1983) on the question of the organi- HOME' was for the Viet Cong to drive them into zation of labor/black leagues, Dick spoke the South China Sea." movingly:

Fraser went on to found the Seattle-based "I've had some discussions with many comrades,

Freedom Socialist Party. Cut off by a split in the which have been very gratifying, and I am humbled

FSP, Dick went into the New American Movement by the knowledge that things that I wrote 30 years hoping that he could influence and educate some ago, which were so scorned by the old party, have of these young New Leftists in the old Leninist had some important impact, finally." school. With the fusion of NAM and the Demo- Dick's last political act before his death was his cratic Socialist Organizing Committee Fraser was endorsement of the November 5 Mobilization that subsequently carried into the Democratic Social- stopped the Klan in Philadelphia. That satisfying ists of America. mobilization of the power of integrated labor was Over the years we had our disagreements a testament to our comrade Richard Fraser who with Dick. Neither of u r *ned to hide these, but in endorsing identified himself as a "historic we were always happy to bend the stick in favor American Trotskyist." That he was, and his loss of the areas of profound political agreement will be keenly felt. between us. In his later years Fraser was handi- capped by the loss of his Marxist library, which Adapted from Workers Vanguard the SL sought to replenish, and of his personal No. 466, 2 December 1988 Memorial Meeting for Richard S. Fraser

On 8 January 1989 the Spartacist League held a memorial meeting in Los Angeles

to honor the life and work of Richard S. Fraser. Some 85 people came out to pay tribute to Fraser, from old comrades and friends going back over 50 years when Dick joined the Trotskyist movement to a younger generation which included many mem- bers of the Spartacist League. Also present was his son Jonny, whom Dick cherished.

A beautiful display of photographs and other materials illustrating Dick's life was assembled by comrades from the West Coast, many of whom had worked with and cared for Dick during his last years as he courageously fought many painful and

debilitating illnesses to carry on his life's work. The speeches and messages to the memorial meeting were as rich and diverse as the man they remembered.

The International Communist League is fortunate to be the heir to an unbroken revolutionary tradition which goes back to Lenin and Trotsky's Communist Interna-

tional. Dick Fraser was an important part of that continuity and it is in this spirit that we are reprinting in full the speeches and messages to his memorial meeting, originally serialized in Workers Vanguard Nos. 469-471 (20 January, 3 February and 17 February 1989).

Trotskyist, who died today, 27 November 1988. Karen Wyatt Richard Fraser was our teacher, the author of Los Angeles Spartacist League "For the Materialist Conception of the Negro We're here today to honor the life of Richard Question" that lights the road to black freedom Fraser. Dick joined the Trotskyist movement at through the program of revolutionary integration, the age of 21 in 1934 and was an active partici- the assimilation of black people into an egali- pant in the socialist movement until his death on tarian socialist society. November 27, 1988. The attendance here today Richard Fraser, the theoretician, was above

I think is a testimony to his deep and lasting all an organizer and a tireless fighter for freedom friendships as well as the political impact he had for black Americans and all the working people. on his own and on younger generations. We'll His courageous struggle in his later years to have seven speakers as well as twelve messages overcome his many painful illnesses in order to from comrades and friends who couldn't attend complete his historic work on the black question today. After that we will conclude with the sing- is only one recent example of his exemplary ing of the Internationale. Now you're all welcome tenacity. to stay following that. The bar will be open and Comrade Fraser rejoiced in and endorsed our you can look at all the displays that have been victorious labor/black mobilizations that stopped done. We'll also be playing music that Dick partic- cold the Ku Klux Klan's intended provocations in ularly liked. Included in this is some music that Washington, D.C. on November 27, 1982 and our was written, orchestrated and played by Dick's recent satisfying victory against these fascists on son Jonny who is here today. Dick's love for his November 5, 1988 in Philadelphia. The labor/ son was very great. Even after eleven hours of black mobilizations are in life the verification of surgery the mention of Jonn/s name would light Richard Fraser's historic contribution to history: up his eyes, and he was very proud of his music. for revolutionary integrationism as the road to Don Andrews the emancipation of the American proletariat- white and black—as opposed to the dead end of reading statement of the Bay Area Labor Black black nationalism. From its inception the Sparta- League for Social Defense cist League's adaption of Richard Fraser's pro- We in the Labor Black League for Social De- gram of revolutionary integrationism has been fense salute Richard S. Fraser, historic American the cornerstone of Spartacist's program of black liberation through socialist revolution. Our literature. We had choral groups and we heard organization, the Labor Black League for Social recitals at our socials. We formed drama groups Defense, grew out of the SL's successful Novem- and Dick among others gave much here. ber 27, 1982 mobilization that stopped the KKK. There was a kindliness and generosity in Dick We honor our friend and teacher Richard that surmounted even the bitterness of the fac- Fraser most of all by continuing his fight. For- tionalism that marked the socialist movement and ward to the Third American Revolution to Finish that asserted itself, despite the torturous pain he the Civil War! Hail Richard S. Fraser, fighter for was suffering. And this kindliness and generosity, black freedom! as so often happens, called forth kindliness and generosity in turn in those he touched, whether Charles Curtiss briefly or for long periods of time. There is who knew Dick Fraser for 55 years and was Los guidance in this thought. Dick in his integrity, his Angeles organizer of the Communist League of giving of himself without stint in the daily work America when Dick joined for socialism, his respect for clarity and knowl-

I am here in two capacities. From the Los edge in the realm of thought, his artistry, his

Angeles Socialist Party I bring condolences to the magnanimity, was a forerunner of the person of family, friends and comrades of Dick Fraser. But the human future of associated labor in which the I'm also here in a personal capacity, for the ties free development of each is a condition for the that link Dick Fraser and me go back more than free development of all. a half century. On counting back it was about 55 As I visited him in the last months of his life, years ago that I first met Dick in San Diego. We and these visits were harrowing for he was very were obviously considerably younger then. sick, I bear witness that he remained true to the Together we studied the fundamentals of interna- ideals and goals and values he consciously tionalist socialism, the class struggle and its final adopted 55 and more years ago. The thoughts of outcome in socialism. We pondered over the youth were for him long, long thoughts. With all sources of surplus value, class exploitation and its the setbacks of the intervening years and with all termination in a socialist society of abundance for the pain of his illnesses, Dick stood fast as an all with production for use not profit. internationalist socialist to the very last day of his We analyzed the cruelty and the absurdity of life. This memory he left us and it is precious. unemployment, of want and suffering in the midst Myra Tanner Weiss of plenty. This was in the very depths of the former longtime member of the Socialist Workers Depression. We probed the economic and political Party sent the following greetings roots of war and imperialism, and how to eradi- cate them and establish an economic order inter- Dick Fraser lived his whole life as a socialist. nationally where the antagonism between classes However important the differences we had be- vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another tween us, we shared the desire for a socialist will come to an end. society and Dick struggled always to organize the We learned and we were also active. We working class and to raise its political conscious- fought against fascism in demonstrations. We bat- ness. My special sympathy for our loss goes to tled in discussion with individual members of the those of you who not only lost a comrade but a Communist Party and its supporters against Sta- close political collaborator and friend as well. He linism and for the internationalist essential of can never be replaced in your hearts. Dick was socialism as against the monstrosity of the theory always certain of the socialist victory for which of "socialism in one country." And he, we, re- he devoted his life. And so are we. In revolu- sponded "present" with enthusiasm on picket tionary solidarity. lines, as volunteers in supporting union efforts, Dave Cooper in backing the movements of the unemployed and member of Socialist Action who first met Dick the oppressed segments of our society for human Fraser in the SWP in Minneapolis in 1938 rights.

Dick had a constant and loved companion— I was listening to a tape recording this his fiddle. He was a sensitive musician, a talented morning of the history of the IWW. Now Dick and devoted violinist. For it is well to remember was never a member of the IWW. But if you knew that we, young people, many of us in our teens, Dick Fraser you knew that his roots were in the

brought into the socialist movement music and IWW. What do I mean by that? I mean, Dick may not have had a penny in his pocket, but he might wouldn't do. I was telling Karen when I talked to have heard that there was a contact a hundred her that if the office had to be cleaned up, Dick miles away. And Dick knew how to go the would clean it up. If there was a strike to go to, cheapest way—thumb or railroad. Dick would go and provide whatever leadership.

One of the comrades I talked to, Asher Harer, If there was a struggle, any type of struggle of the who was recruited by Dick, said they had a peace working class, you could depend on Dick to be demonstration where Asher went to school, and there. who showed up but Dick Fraser. And when he And that was one of the reasons that I showed up, Asher said, "Do you have any wanted to speak. Because in this tradition of a money?" "Hmm, yes," he said, "I have five number of comrades that have left us— I must tell dollars." Now he had to go about 150 miles, but you that I talked this morning to a woman who he heard that there was a peace demonstration was one of the leading comrades on the East and there might be a possibility of a recruit. So Coast and she said, "What have we achieved? wherever there was a possibility of recruiting, We've had Dick and Max [Shachtman] and wherever there was a possibility of participating [James] Cannon and all these people. Where are in a strike, wherever there was a problem in the we now?" And I smiled to myself as I said to her working class you could expect Dick to be there. on the phone: Where was the working class in

Now I lived in Minneapolis. I went to the 1917? Where is the working class of the world university during the great strikes. And we were today? Where is the capitalist class today? It's in sitting around with Max Geldman—unfortunately a blind alley. These comrades left us with a great this has been a period where we've lost a number and a historic tradition and we will link up with of the comrades that have had 50 years in the the revolutionaries of England, France, of Africa, movement or more. A good part of that generation— Latin America. I'm glad I'm a lot younger—but a good part of Yes, great were the contributions that these that generation has left us. But we were sitting comrades made and we will live to see younger around the table, Max Geldman had just come comrades coming in, taking up the cudgels and from the convention in '38, which was the found- becoming part of that fight. And you young com- ing of the Socialist Workers Party. He was much rades who are not part of the movement yet, you wealthier—he took a bus or a train, I don't re- must take up where Dick and many of the others member. And about three or four days later, in left off and carry this struggle on. Because there came Dick. A knock at the door and this man with is no question, there is a socialist vision and there a gentle face, as he's been described by Charlie, is a socialist movement. And if you believe in the 5 5 '10" or '11", I guess, came in. And I said, socialist vision, you must become a part of that "Well, how did you get here?" He said, "a very socialist movement. Thank you. cheap form of transportation." I asked him what Dorothy Ray Healey it was and he said, "Well, I found that the boxcar of the Democratic Socialists ofAmerica sent the fol- and the thumb were one way you can get almost lowing statement dated 28 December 1988 anywhere in the country." That was Dick Fraser.

I didn't meet Dick again—although I heard I don't remember what year it was when I that he had become a seaman, he was a seaman met Dick Fraser. I do remember, however, how it for about four years—until I came to Los Angeles. came about and what we discussed. He phoned,

I had heard from Asher the story that Charlie told said he listened to my radio program on KPFK, you, about the fact that Dick had been a violinist, was a former member of the S.W.P. and suggested that he was with the San Diego symphony orches- we get together for a visit. Both of us were tra for a period of time. People wanted him to go amazed at how much the S.W.P. and the C.P. re- on to study with leading musicians. But once he sembled one another in their organizational had seen the vision, the socialist vision, once he methodology even as each was proclaiming the had seen the idea of internationalism, of an inde- other as a chief opponent. When I told him how pendent working class, of a type of party that was Les Evans, then a member of the S.W.P. had told necessary to make a revolution in this country, me of his being present at Jim Cannon's home Dick put away his violin and joined the socialist watching the TV news report of the 1962 Cali- movement. fornia elections and how Cannon exulted in Pat

And in Los Angeles, the thing that I remem- Brown's defeat of Richard Nixon for governor, ber about Dick is that there was no task that Dick Dick commented that way down deep many Trot- skyists did recognize that there was a difference United States. Dick said, "My book will be written between Republicans and Democrats. He said that for scholars, teachers, students and for anybody in 1939 when Cannon and other leading Trotsky- who wants to read the book." ists visited Trotsky in Mexico, they discussed Fraser sent me to my history book when he electoral policy with him and asked what the po- said, "After the election of Thomas Jefferson as sition should be if an Afro-American was running president and he (Jefferson) made the Louisiana as a Democrat. According to Dick, Trotsky Purchase, everything went along smooth for the replied: "We support the men not the party." slave holders." Jefferson's presidency (1801-1809) Dick's pamphlet, "An Open Letter to American was the beginning of the now Democratic Party.

Trotskyists" is one of the few examples I know of Thomas Jefferson being president of the where a critical and self-critical analysis of past United States (his occupation listed as a planter) policies was made public. It was no surprise to and a big slaveholder was a founder of the now anyone who knew of Dick's focus on a proper "friend of labor" Democratic Party. This is why policy for Marxists toward the "national question" the workforce, black and white, should break for his pamphlet to attack the racism involved in away from the Democrats, for a party started by the S.W.P.'s policy in the 1930's toward Harry wrong people cannot be changed. You destroy Lundberg, head of the Sailors Union of the this wrong party and build a new party free of Pacific. slaveholding policies. He joined the New American Movement and Dick Fraser sent me a copy of his writings was active within it until his illness curtailed his entitled, "Two Lectures on Black Liberation," mobility. But each time I visited him at the hos- which was delivered in 1953 at the Militant Labor pital or his home I was impressed by his will- Forum at Los Angeles. One of the subtitles is, power and his determination to overcome his "The Negro Struggle, Capitalist Politics and the physical ailments and the mental clarity with Labor Movement." Enclosed are five sentences which he surveyed the world. from the above:

I am grateful to all of you for the solicitude 1. "But it must be remembered that if it was the and care you gave him until the day he died. Democratic Party which created the semi-fascist

southern system, it was the Republican Party Cliff Carter which voluntarily turned the South over to the a longtime union activist in the Tidewater area of Klan." Virginia and a friend of Dick's sent the following Dick was talking about the Compromise of 1877, message dated 28 December 1988 when arrangements were made between Southern

Today I went to the public library and looked Democrats and Republicans to give the 1876 in the Books in Print titled "Authors," and presidential election to Republican Rutherford B. searched for Richard S. Fraser. Dick's name wasn't Hayes (loser in the popular vote), in exchange for there and I felt a little bad about this; but then withdrawal of federal troops from the South.

I had a very good feeling that in the near future 2. "The Democrats, it is true, are the main his name will be listed with the "Authors" with upholders of white supremacy." the completion of his book titled, "The Struggle With this coming from Dick over 30 years ago, Against Slavery in the United States." why are labor and black leaders still today trying Some time ago, around the end of November to tie the workforce with the Democratic Party?

I received a call from a friend that said Fraser To preserve white supremacy and maintain passed away in his sleep 27 November 1988, the segregation among the workforce. same day the Spartacist League and friends 3. "Votes don't determine or control anything of stopped the Klan in 1982. great importance in the South."

I met Dick in 1985 and had a couple of talks This is true because the working people have with him concerning a book that he was in the never obtained anything at the voting polls ex- process of writing. At the time, the title of the cept another politician to mess up things some book was "The Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," more. but was changed in June 1986, because a Senator 4. "Without the overthrow of prejudice unionism Wilson used the same name about a century ago. itself is always in danger."

In our conversation, Dick told me that I This reminds me of November 27, 1982 when the would be surprised how many black people do Spartacist League along with unionists from the not know the complete truth about slavery in the East Coast stopped the Klan from marching in ,

Washington, D.C. The very first workday on the tionary Integration is destined to become one of job, fake local union heads tried to bring the the most powerful weapons in the arsenal of U.S. stoppers of the KKK up on charges of inciting radicals. It has already left an indelible mark on a riot. A Klan sympathizer is the same as a our organization, helping to shape it into a multi- Klansman. racial party with deep respect for the materialist 5. "The low wages of the South are a constant roots of the vanguard role of Blacks in the fight pressure upon all unions throughout the for socialism. country." The FSP parted ways with Dick in a serious, The capitalist uses the South to set the standards bitter and well-known struggle over women's as far as prices are concerned. Cheap labor can rights. Still, we pay respect to him today for his always be found in the South for the Northern positive contributions to the movement as writer, factories. speaker, teacher, historian and leader who never

While looking through my files, I came across relinquished his socialist goal. His long life a note-type letter that was never mailed to Dick encompassed a host of jobs and talents. In the Fraser: To Dick Fraser: You said, "Discrimination '30s he supported himself in Seattle by selling The and prejudice in the rest of the United States Militant on Skid Road; he later became a mer- derives directly from the southern system, feeds chant seaman, a carpenter, and a plastics techni- upon it, and like racial discrimination throughout cian. He was a violinist and a gourmet chef. And the world is completely dependent upon it." In he devoted his life to Trotskyist politics. As the another paragraph you said, "But since discrim- son of a railroad worker, he was always a highly ination in the North and West derives from the class conscious worker and unionist. He never southern system, it will never be eliminated until finished high school but became a consummate the southern system is uprooted and destroyed." worker-intellectual; his agile mind soaked up ide-

My comment to Dick: I like this, Dick. This ology like a sponge. is important to remember for everybody who is He left us two chief legacies: theoretical against discrimination and prejudice. If you want work which guides our daily practice, and his to destroy the two (discrimination and prejudice) jazz musician son Jon who is creating the music you start at the source, the beginning. Go to the of a new and better society in the belly of the old South Land, the origin of the hell fire. one. And we salute this unique legacy, this incen- Dick told me he joined the Socialist Workers diary mixture of jazz, Black history and revolu- Party in 1934. With the decay of the SWP, and tionary socialist theory! Dick's last performances prove that the actions of Charles Du Bois he is the same Trotskyist in 1988 as 1934. a friend and comrade of Dick's since 1974 The worthwhile people die too quick.

This is very beautiful here. I find these things Monica Hill out about Dick that I never suspected. He was not reading statementfrom the Freedom Socialist Party a braggart, obviously. I first heard about Dick National Committee Fraser through reading "The Materialist Concep-

The Freedom Socialist Party extends its sym- tion of the Negro Question." I was about 18 years

pathy to Jon Fraser and to the comrades and old, this is back in 71. I was impressed with the friends of Dick Fraser gathered here today. document, and it had a profound impact on my Dick made a lasting contribution to our development and understanding of American movement and to the Black liberation struggle politics and especially the black question, since

through his collaboration with Dave Dreiser, I had come from being a black nationalist, Clara Fraser and others in originating and devel- Maoist, kind of.

oping the Revolutionary Integration position. So I was in awe of his name, you know, Rich- Dick spoke brilliantly on Revolutionary Integra- ard Kirk [Fraser]—well, who is this guy, he's pret-

tion, many times from the pulpits of Black ty good. Of course, I didn't know that about a churches. And his grasp of history, economics, year and a half later we'd be sharing the same

and politics was widely admired. He is remem- couch. I was on the couch first, I was staying at

bered for his scholarly talks on a host of issues, Ted and Gayle Fagin's house, and I was sleeping his energetic organizing, and his stinging barbs on the couch, and he needed a place. He had

at the bourgeoisie. seniority, so he got the couch and I got the floor.

Fraser's profound Marxist analysis in Revolu- So I finally said, this is Dick Fraser and, legends I

10

don't quite fit the mental image or expectations— with Dick Fraser. But when I reread the "Materi- came from this Maoist background and they have alist Conception" after I met him, I had read it these bigger-than-life leaders, you know, Lenin's before and I always read it again, but it's kind of got bulging arms and stuff—this is Dick Fraser, funny reading it now, because you read his wow. But he was "bad." Size don't count. polemical barbs and I know how he looks, or how

When I met him, he was on some kind of he looked, and could sort of see the twinkle in rebound. He was not one to talk about a lot of his eye like he's kind of saying this stuff. It's kind his problems, and I wasn't the kind of person to of fun to read, yeah, Dick. get nosy with something somebody didn't want to I don't know what emotional cost he had to talk about. But since I had met him, I guess some- pay in terms of the constant rebounds he was time around '72 or '73, he was on some kind of having to make, politically, personally and then rebound. I guess it was some years later where he in terms of his health. But the man, he never actually ended up soliciting me for a place to quit. And I'm just very glad to say that he was stay, but it was a privilege that I was able to help able to witness the impact of what his contribu- him out. Myself and the Spartacist League and all tion actually has meant, in terms of the mobiliza- people in the socialist movement are indebted to tions that have stopped the Klan. That he was this man for his contribution. able to witness that and see that what he stood

What we were doing, while I was a member for was not just a good idea and he's pretty sure of the Spartacist League, was collaborating with he's right, but he knew he was right, and that the him on doing archival research into the SWP last act that he did do, the last political act work in the '40s. See, he never mentioned a lot [endorsing the November 5 Mobilization that of this stuff that he had written before—we were stopped the KKK in Philadelphia], this is very going into the '40s, so he pointed us in the right gratifying that he was able to see that carried direction, but he didn't tell us. Of course, he had out. a hard time speaking, too, so I guess he had to And what I can say is that Dick Fraser did save his words. But I was very surprised to see a not surrender to the bourgeoisie or bourgeois ide- lot of this stuff and hear all these stories. I mean, ology. People have said it, he died a communist.

I never knew all this stuff about Dick. And we owe a lot to Dick Fraser, we're gonna

But one thing I could not understand at the miss him. time was that he was giving us all this informa- Larry Levinson tion and helping us out, pointing us in the right a Spartacist comrade who sent the following direction, and telling us stories, like how the SWP message, dated 30 November 1988 looked and what it was doing, or how it lost its Dear Comrades and friends, members, how it gained them, what the organiza-

tion in Detroit looked like as far as he could I am sending this letter to share a few

recall. But he was in NAM [New American Move- thoughts on my impression of Richard Fraser. I

ment], and you know, this was a political oppo- was privileged to help take care of him while I

nent, an organizational opponent. See, I didn't was still living in Los Angeles. Looking back at

have it then, you know—political opponents, this I can see that I was carrying out an important

organizational opponents, I didn't quite get the duty as a young communist in assisting Richard. differentiation, you see. And it was painful for For me being with Dick was my chance to have him to talk, but he was giving us all this stuff, a real link with a socialist from the old revolu-

and I couldn't figure it out. Well, I got it figured tionary SWP. A generation of militants that I out now. would only know through the program and the He really cared for revolutionists, and people written word they left behind. Although most of

that wanted clarity and respected history and the time I spent with Dick was involved with wanted to study. And that above all was what the basic survival tasks for him, a few telling facets man was about. He wanted to teach. And your of this man stood out. organizational affiliation wasn't necessarily the First and foremost Dick was a tenacious man. thing that was going to color what he did and The medical battle he waged not only against his how he did it. The man was very, very generous. condition but also against the wretched world of

I knew that, and hearing these people that knew doctors and hospitals would daunt anyone. Dick the man, really knew the man, yes. kept on fighting and at the same time kept an So we have a great loss here, a great loss ironic slant on all this. Dick could tell you the 11

most horrible things that happened to him and itself, but the total of Dick's work, in particular have you laughing and crying at the same time. his work on the black question, is a valuable con- It was a bittersweet task to take care of Dick. tribution to Trotskyism. That Dick was able to continue contributing Message from the Chicago Spartacist League, politically was a real testament to his history as Spartacus Youth Club and Chicago Labor Black an organizer and leader in the SWP. Where I Struggle League mainly saw this was how he would continually overcome the latest adversity to strike him so as Long service and tenacity as a partisan of the to be able to keep on following world events and working class and oppressed demand the greatest most importantly write down his thoughts. The admiration and respect from we who come after. most important possessions he had were his His contribution to be realized in the struggle for books, his television and his typewriter. black liberation and proletarian power that will The other thing that sticks in my mind is how be the American socialist revolution. Richard's eyes would light up when he mentioned Frank Krasnowsky two other things important to him. These were a longtime comrade of Dick's who collaborated his son and music. Richard's voice would get that with him for over 20 years in the Seattle branch of tone of pride when he mentioned his son. And the Socialist Workers Party and the Freedom So- one nice memory that will stay with me was when cialist Party, and as editor of Revolutionary Age we were able to take Dick to a concert of the L.A. Philharmonic. We've got all these young people up here Dick was a charming man who had wards of today. I'd like to thank you for the invitation to nurses of numerous hospitals in the greater Los speak here, and particularly I want to thank those Angeles area caring for him as their favorite of you who took care of Dick in these last years, patient. The only patient I had ever seen who had and made his last years so productive and as a typewriter in his room. pleasant as possible.

I end this by saying that I will always be When I was asked to speak, I was kind of proud for having been a part of helping Dick in pleased with the idea that I would finally get a his later years and always a little sad that I didn't chance to get even with all those people who know and learn more from him. ignored Dick over all the years, you know. And

I worked out a wonderful talk that I was going to Jim Stark give down here. I was going to go through the a Spartacist comrade, sent the following whole history of his ideas and present them to contribution you here. And talk a little about the way he Dick, in spite of being in bad health during worked with others and confronted with others,

the last years, and when I helped care for him in to talk a little bit about the way I and Clara Fra- Los Angeles, was always willing to draw on his ser and the Seattle branch worked together with

own array of political experience to help us with him in developing his ideas. Then after all that I

our work. (In hindsight, he laughed at some of was told that I should try to keep it to ten them.) minutes. So you don't know how lucky you all

I remember in particular the good advice he are here today. gave me at the first national SL conference after No, I'm not really going to talk too much

he found out that I was doing work among black about the contents of his writings, because those workers in the South. He told me that in addition are all available. We've printed them out, particu-

to having a revolutionary program, because of the larly in two publications which I edited, in the history of segregation, it would be necessary to Revolutionary Age, in the work "Revolutionary find ways of achieving social interaction with my Integration," and "Crisis and Leadership," which black coworkers. He suggested that if necessary, were the major works we published. join clubs or associations where one could estab- I'd rather talk a little bit on the way Dick

lish these kind of relationships, but that I would worked, that is how he managed to enrich his have to find out how to do it in my own way. It own ideas and to test them in the class struggle, was good advice on his part, as we have learned and to help others develop their own thinking from doing communist work among the black and their own understanding. Dick, as you know, working class in the Deep South. and as has been described here to you, was never This example is probably a small thing by what you'd call an ivory tower radical. He was a 12

constant activist. But he used all the material on of the political material presented, and transform- hand, both in the form of data and the knowledge ing the conference into an active workers confer- and experience of others in developing his own ence. Now there was in that no confrontation of ideas. He was particularly astute in drawing peo- ideas, no way that he could draw from any of ple out and getting them to express their ideas that. and in trying to get his ideas over to them. Fortunately, there were better places for him It wasn't mentioned here, but Dick for a cou- to develop his ideas and his inspiration. Dick took ple of years worked as an engineer at Weyer- every opportunity that was offered to him to talk haeuser in Seattle. Now you know he didn't have and discuss with revolutionary black leaders his a college degree or anything, but one of the peo- ideas on revolutionary integration. Anybody who ple who worked with him, who was a doctor in came to the Northwest got stuck, that is about physics at the University, said that he thought what it came down to. Maybe there was one or that Dick was the greatest engineer that he ever two of us who would talk to them in the after- met. And I asked Dick, "How'd you get a reputa- noon, but by the time it was over they were over tion like that?" at Dick's for ten to twelve hours and all night Well, what happened is, if he ever had a long, discussing and talking. And I'm not talking problem or a puzzle, he would head straight for just about this or this Joe, it didn't matter to Dick the University of Washington, talk to all the pro- who he talked to, but among the people who he fessors who were involved in that field, bring caught were William Worthy, James Farmer, together all their knowledge, and then use it. This Gibson, Victoria Gray of the Mississippi Freedom was a great talent. And he'd use that same talent, Democratic Party, Robert Williams. of course, as a Marxist thinker and a writer. In I can't recall all that were there, but we had this respect he received, I would say, constant a session with Dick Gregory in which together we help from our Seattle branch and of many indi- organized a whole meeting in the black com- vidual comrades in Los Angeles and throughout munity, of a very conservative black community, the country. in support of the Southern struggle. Dick could

This may step on some people's toes, but I talk with him. And these weren't just little dis- have to say it anyway—he got almost no help from cussions, they were a complete confrontation of the official party to which he had devoted his ideas, one to the other, in which he hoped to entire life. Neither in the form of support for his teach and he hoped to learn. And I don't remem- ideas on black liberation, nor what would have ber any of them ever being angry about having been important for him as well, in the form of an participated in it. honest confrontation of ideas. In 1957 when the But I'll tell you, visitors could escape with Southern movement was first beginning to break maybe ten or twelve hours of discussion. That out, and when his ideas were getting their first wasn't true of the rest of us in the branch. In real test in life, we went to the '57 convention of Seattle we had a man named Waymon Ware. He the Socialist Workers Party with a resolution and was a young man then, of course. Waymon Ware were answered, rather strangely, with a demand was probably the leading person in the black by the National Committee that we provide a vote movement in Seattle. He was also a member of of confidence in the National Committee in our group. And Dick was constantly in conversa- opposition to his resolution. I had never heard tion with Skip Ware. And his wife, who was not that before in the party. in our organization but was a leading community Again in '63, where we put together all of the activist, also suffered, enjoyably, constant probing experiences of the Southern movement, we came and discussions of her ideas. in with the resolution and for the first time in the And not only, and this may strike people as history of the party, equal time was not provided some kind of a violation of some myths about to the opposition. There was an hour and a half democratic centralism, but not only did he con- given to the majority, a half hour given to Dick's front them with his ideas, but our document that position and to our position, and the bulk of the was in preparation, called "Revolutionary Integra- discussion consisted of an organizational attack tion," was carried by these people into the South upon our branch. And finally in '65 when we for their discussion. The columns appeared in presented the document, it was called "Crisis and SNCC and in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Leadership." After it was all over we received Party. They were sent out so people could study instructions from the presidium not to discuss any them, to look at it, write back to him, so we 13

could build up our resolution with people who go on too far, of the kinds of experience and were serious about our ideas. work that went into the concepts that Dick But ideas alone do not make a Marxist move- presented and developed in our movement. The ment, or a Marxist theory. You have to take your rejection of which I can say quite bluntly, since ideas and put them into life, to test them, to it involved the rejection really of the revolution reformulate, so that you know your ideas are in the United States, led very much to the degen- rooted solidly in Marxism at the same time that eration of the organization that we built earlier, they deal with all of the newest and most modern of the Socialist Workers Party. developments in society. The Seattle branch of And one last thing in conclusion. In the '60s, the Socialist Workers Party took every oppor- I had a little talk with Jim Cannon. I'm just drop- tunity it could to participate in the black libera- ping names now. Actually, I didn't know Jim that tion movement. I'm not going to go into now well, he was a different generation than mine. what had happened before Dick came, but we Actually it was something which I realize now were very active when he arrived. But in the '60s was something that bothered me much more than we were already central to the whole organiza- it bothered him. But every time I came through tion of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Los Angeles, we'd have coffee, Ann and I, at his Committee. We were involved in the training of house, and have a little discussion for several cadres, we helped send people down. In fact, one hours with him and Rose [Karsner]. And this time of the announcements we got from the South, he was sitting there and studying two books. One from the people who were participating, was that was a book by James Boggs, The American Revolu- the people from the Northwest were those best tion, and the other was Harrington's The Other equipped mentally to participate in the struggle America. And he commented to us, "Why is it that down there. two non-Marxist writers can write a brilliant Incidentally, we also sent two people down analysis of what is going on in the United States from the Seattle branch, one our only Spartacist in the nature of class relations, and even propose member, and I think you may know of that a political program, and the pages of our maga- around here somewhere, who spent about six zine, the Fourth International, are completely months at least in the South during that period. sterile?"

We didn't discriminate in the branch, if different Well, it was a rhetorical question, but I political opinions, if they were helping to build decided I'd try to answer it anyway. And I said, the organization. So that even those in the end well, if you really want to get original thinking who weren't in the SWP and who went down to in the SWP, you're going to have to read the the South that were not in our organization came internal bulletins. And that was about the way it back with the experience that we provided them, appeared to me. That many of the people who with the knowledge we provided them, and added had been studying and thinking had been sup-

a new mass of experience for the development of pressed by what I considered a sort of a bureau- our ideas for the next cadres that could go down cratic centralism, not democratic, in which people and carry out the fight. with all kinds of ideas found that they didn't have

I'm going to tell you a little story. I don't a way to express their opinions. And I really think think anybody knows this here. But in 1964 for that that's one of the great tragedies of the the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, my movement.

former wife Ann Krasnowsky took a carload, actu- I have some optimism out of this whole meet-

ally it was a van, of black women and SNCC lead- ing. I will say that I came down here a little ers to the convention, with a resolution for the depressed, and much of that is overcome already

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which con- by the people here. But I think that the great demned the whole racist role of the Democratic tragedy really of the movement in the past is not Party in the South, and called for the unseating just that we lost for a while, because we can win of the Mississippi Democratic white delegation again. But the number of fine minds, fine think-

and the Alabama delegation. And I want to tell ing and the rest that have not found the way to you, we were a little surprised when we heard express themselves, that got confined in this myth over the radio that almost precisely the wording that everybody must hold the monolithic idea and of his resolution was presented by the black cau- not open criticism, and not think about things cus at that convention. anymore. The party should be, an organization of Now, this is just an inkling, I'm not going to the left should be an extra group that strengthens 14 your ideas, that builds you, that makes you better Lenin, and Liebknecht and Luxemburg who were able to deal with the class struggle as you go on. murdered 70 years ago this year. In so doing we

It's for that reason that I truly thank the peo- pay tribute to all those, like Comrade Fraser, who ple who organized this memorial, who are part of died at their posts, fighting for a socialist future. an organization with which I have had many dif- ferences, but then I can't think of one that I didn't Dave Dreiser have differences with, if to get many you want a friend and comrade of Dick's who knew him for down to it. But at least for rescuing from extinc- many years tion the work of one of the truly great Marxists and Trotskyists of our era, and for helping him to Before I make a few remarks about Dick, I live and last as long as he was able, and to make feel deeply constrained to make some related new contributions in the struggle for which he comments. Several years ago, Dick became be- lived. Thank you. friended, very deeply and very meaningfully, by the comrades of the Spartacist League and espe- Statement of the Central Committee of the Spar- cially, although not exclusively, those in their Los tacist League/Britain, section of the interna- Angeles group. Without this help that they gave tional Spartacist tendency [after May 1 989 called him, Dick would not have been able to have the International Communist League (Fourth maintained his life, more or less normal, within Internationalist)] the constraints of his physical condition, living in his own apartment with his library, his correspon- Comrades, dence, his telephone and his word processor. We would like to add our salute to the They took him to the hospital, they took him memory of comrade Dick Fraser. A number of us back from the hospital. They provided medical had the honour of meeting comrade Fraser, which consultation. They helped him with his household serves to underline our deep sense of loss. We arrangements. stand on the shoulders of those who have gone Finally, four days before he died, when he before us. As Marxists and internationalists we made his last trip home from the hospital, they deeply appreciate the work he did, in particular provided a 24-hour-a-day, three-shift guard at his "For the Materialist Conception of the Negro house, helping him with his feeding apparatus, Question." This contribution is not narrowly con- helping him with the difficult life that he was liv- fined to enunciating the crucial elements for ing then in his last hours and last days. They did black freedom in the United States through the this with no hope or any intent of any profit, or programme of revolutionary integration. By clar- any political gain. They did it because it was the ifying a Marxist methodological approach, he honorable thing to do. And they did it with con- aided us in building our international on a firm siderable difficulty. I don't want to give away any basis. Our capacity to address the national trade secrets, but they're not a large group in this question and situations such as Ireland where the town. And these people have other lives to live, problem of interpenetrated peoples must be con- they have jobs, they have family, and they have fronted owes a great deal to the Bolsheviks, but other responsibilities. But with total loyalty and also to such contributions as comrade Dick's. total devotion, they performed these duties. And Comrade Fraser already has an epitaph in his I just felt I had to express this here. contributions, and we are sure that he, like any Dick Fraser was a musician, a merchant sea- revolutionary, would feel his memory can best be man, an aircraft worker, a lumber worker, pattern honoured by carrying the work forward for world maker, plastic mold maker, working-class. He revolution. never had a middle-class job in his whole life. He made his living as a worker and no other way. Message of the Trotzkistische Liga Deutsch- But more, Dick was a restless organizer, an invet- lands [now the Spartakist Arbeiterpartei Deutsch- erate propagandist, a "boss-hater" in the Wobbly lands] and the Ligue Trotskyste de France, tradition, and still more. He was a socialist and sections of the international Spartacist tendency a worker-scholar in the finest tradition. You study, you learn, and you teach. We share with you the loss of anti-racist He studied the Reformation, gave a series of fighter and historic American Trotskyist Richard lectures in Los Angeles. He studied the colonial Fraser. In January we also honor the "Three L's," period of American history, and gave a series of 15

lectures, perceptive, revealing. How the Indians Greetings to the memorial meeting from the taught the colonists to survive, gave them not Spartacist Group of Japan, dated 18 only the technology but the communal social December 1988 organization which was necessary to the continu- ance of their existence. He went to Seattle, We join you today in honoring the life of organized a branch. Went to the south side of Los Richard S. Fraser, a "historic American Trotskyist" Angeles, organized a branch. and a tenacious fighter for black liberation. He studied about the rise and fall of the slave Although few of us knew Comrade Fraser person- power in the United States and about the Recon- ally, we salute his years of struggle against the struction period. And he asked the question, how special oppression of blacks in North America and did the race relations in the United States today his unique contributions to a Marxist understand- originate? What was their connection with the ing of how to end it. slave system and its aftermath? The Old Man The black question is the question of the [Trotsky] said, if you don't want to regard the American revolution. Comrade Fraser's historic issue of black liberation as a national question, 1955 document, "For the Materialist Conception then determine what it is. Dick struggled with of the Negro Question," is a sharp refutation of that question. As before, he studied, then gave a black nationalism and all its variants in favor of series of lectures, in Los Angeles in 1953. The revolutionary integrationism. This conception elaboration of this question became his life's lives on today in our American comrades' work to work. He codified his thoughts in the resolution build Labor Black Leagues in the major urban "Revolutionary Integration" in 1963 in Seattle. centers. Our most recent victory in stopping a fas- His work on this question has been republished cist provocation in Philadelphia on 5 November and forms the programmatic basis of the Sparta- 1988 was a powerful display of the black and red cist League and other sections of the Trotskyist social components that will lead the third Ameri- movement today. can revolution. In later years, Dick turned back to the history Richard Fraser's major work, centering on a of the slave power and the struggle against slav- Marxist perspective to end the vicious oppression ery, and has authored a book, in the form of of blacks in the U.S., has important ramifications abstracts. He also authored his autobiography, internationally. Here in Japan, we seek to build mainly a study of his long struggle with cancer a party that sees its workers revolution ending and the after effects of the debilitating surgery the centuries of women's oppression as well as which he underwent. "How I Came to Love My the institutionalized discrimination against Kore- Carcinoma" is a tale of dark humor, pathos and ans, Chinese, Japan's indigenous minorities, the tragedy. Ainu and burakumin, and the Japanese bourgeoi- Dick was a speaker and an educator, first and sie's newest victims, immigrant labor from the foremost. And to have been handicapped in his Philippines and Southeast Asia. speech was the crudest of blows. But to the last Dick Fraser's insistence that only a proletar- day of his life Dick remained optimistic, fretting ian revolution can end the horrid plight of cap- over his illness but planning the continuation of italism's oppressed minorities is an important his work on slavery. As little as four days before component of the international Spartacist ten- he died, he was discussing these issues. dency's program today. From the other side of the Well, there were other sides to Dick, personal Pacific we embrace our American comrades who sides, his undying love for his son Jonny, which have lost a "cherished friend and theoretical he constantly expressed. The inventions, that by mentor." the patent laws of the United States were stolen by his employer, but were of considerable sig- nificance. His undying love of music and knowl- Sam Hunt edge of it. You may not know it, he was even a a comrade of the international Spartacist tendency little bit of a card player. We'll reserve those who sent the following letter topics for informal discussion. We are left with the memory of a worker, a rebel, a restless organ- Dear comrades and friends, izer, speaker, worker-scholar. And we have to say

good-bye to our old friend. The world's a poorer Like all of you, I was saddened to hear about

place without him. Dick Fraser's death. I am grateful that I knew 16

Dick pretty well during the last years of his life. Jim Robertson

I first met Dick in a hospital room in Long Beach National Chairman of the Spartacist League of the in 1981, but also spent a good deal of time with U.S. him when he was home and lucid as hell. I would often stop at Dick's apartment on my way home Like comrade Frank Krasnowsky, I, too, from work when I lived in L.A. He lived near would be happy to take about 30 minutes on the Hollywood Park and the horse races that he technicalities of the decomposition of the SWP loved. It was here that I received an education on until it ends up as a Barnesite organization. But life in the SWP in the 1940s and '50s. Trotskyist I, too, am bound by the ten-minute limit. leaders, especially black leaders like C.L.R. James I first ran into Dick Fraser about 31 years and Edgar Keemer, became far more than histor- ago, and he was my last personal teacher. Frank ical names. has mentioned what happened in Seattle when

The height of black recruitment to the Ameri- you got around Dick Fraser. Well, I stayed at his can Trotskyist movement came during WWII when house, so I got it day and night! the Stalinists and social democrats betrayed the But it came at just the right time, because fight against Jim Crow. The SWP's courageous our theoretical mentors, the both of us, he of an stand for black civil rights during the war had a earlier generation than me, had been formed out profound impact on Dick who lived through these of the arguments that C.L.R. James, Jimmy John- events. When the SWP veered on a black nation- son that is, and E.R. McKinney had been having alist course Dick fought hard against this anti- in the SWP and in the Shachtman Workers Party

Marxist stance and this culminated in his historic then. I could not understand how black national- 1955 document. Dick's interest in this question ism could be analogous with a European national was no idle intellectual venture but a life-long oppressed minority. And having broken with the commitment to black liberation. Shachtmanites, and even before that, I knew that The Workers Vanguard article about Richard's there was something terribly wrong, simply look- death importantly notes that his last political act ing at the history and reality of American social was to endorse our Partisan Defense Committee relations, with the idea that a kind of militant rally to stop a KKK provocation in Philadelphia on reformism was going to eliminate the race November 5th. This is very special to me, as the question in America. day Dick endorsed our demonstration was also So I was really quite ready to run into com- the last time I saw him alive. While weak and rade Fraser's presentation and historical founda- resting in bed, he was quite animated in his tion, that one can achieve the abolition of racial desire to get a full report on what was going on. division in this country only through a profound, He followed the events leading to the November pervasive, far-going social revolution in which the

5th demonstration very carefully and in his last working class comes to power. So I walked away days the fire of class struggle still burned in his quite thoroughly recruited. And with some, I eyes. I had many disagreements with Dick over think, continuing personal affection throughout the years but our WV obituary underlined our the rest of those years between us. bending the stick in the direction of our program- This led me to think in preparing to talk here matic agreements. Dick's endorsement of our today, why Fraser? I can offer some elements, but

November 5th demonstration in Philadelphia I also have a suggestion, because it's rather soon epitomizes this agreement and I'm glad Dick died and we only have some of his papers available. with his boots on. Perhaps on the first anniversary of his death we

In closing, I have to commend my comrades could have a symposium on his central political and friends in L.A. who worked tirelessly to pro- thought, its development, in the context of his long this valuable communist's life and I'm glad life and his work. I will offer a few ideas about

I could help this effort. I'm sorry I can't be with how it is that this particular man in a given set you today and must pay my respects from afar. of circumstances could make what I consider to Dick's exemplary struggle to overcome his be a fundamental contribution to the program of debilitating physical ailments gives new meaning Marxism, growing out of the particularities of the to the words courage and tenacity. Dick was a American racial relations rather than national communist to the end and I'm going to miss his relations. sense of humor and zest for life. He was my I don't think that comrade Fraser could have friend and I'll never forget him. done this work if he hadn't been a Trotskyist. 17

Because if his head had been filled with ideas of ment), later the DSA, and especially from Dorothy

"socialism in one country," or support for bour- Healey, who helped him a great deal. And I geois political formations, which were character- believe that this understandably slowed down his istic of the other socialist groups, it would not approchement with the SL, although we had been have been possible. In a striking way, C.L.R. in loose association with many disagreements for James had a great influence when he arrived in a long time, comrade Fraser even having attended the United States in 1939, evoking also a reaction our founding conference in 1966. See, I could and a certain paralysis, theoretically, on the part take off now about the SWP, Tom Kerry and of the SWP. those guys and what they did, but I really don't Then Fraser spent four or five years in the have time for that. National Maritime Union. The SWP's cadres were Most of my other few remarks have already concentrated in the Sailors Union of the Pacific been picked up by others. I think that comrade [SUP], which was completely racially exclu- Fraser found a great deal of satisfaction in offer- sionary, unlike the National Maritime Union. And ing guidance and advice, especially with the yet Dick was very prominent in the NMU. This Labor Black Leagues sprouting around the coun- contrast in the work of the two fractions obvi- try, and with our members and the younger com- ously had to be a source of stimulation and rades in general. All the rest of my notes are thought. more of that polemical stuff that I think is histor-

Finally, I believe that he was a genuine ically important, but not now. native genius. And I think that somewhere in this Finally, I would like to thank those who have matrix you will find the start of the process that prepared this memorial, who worked very hard took several years to percolate and really only and very well, and also the materials that have came into fully rounded form in the early '50s. By gone into the memorial display. A very good the later '50s, beginning with the Little Rock cri- thing. sis, when Eisenhower sent the troops to the South Ed Swabeck and the SWP said, Hail the American troops to a comrade of Dick's who worked with him in the the South, they're going to be the saviors—already SWP and its maritime work and, later, on a major political departure—I think that the first Revolutionary Age theoretical verification of Fraser's views had been obtained. The first time I met Dick Fraser was in 1941,

A few other remarks. Dick Fraser is supposed when I got to the coast again to try to ship out. to have said, "One of the best things I ever did in Later on, on the East Coast, we—that is, Dick, I my life was sit Jim Robertson down at a kitchen and many other Trotskyists—participated in a table and pound at him for a few nights." Well, great general strike in maritime of 1946. it's funny, because I'd just said, across the country The Seafarers International Union objected at the same time, "The last guy that ever con- to the buck-passing of the ship owners and the vinced me of anything in an argument was Dick War Shipping Administration. This time the Fraser." That does not mean that program is fin- former, that is the ship owners, wanted to give in ished. There's an exchange between Cannon and to postwar contractual improvement demands, Shachtman to that effect. Cannon is supposed to but the latter, the War Shipping Administration, have said, "We have a finished program," and played hard cop. Shachtman said, "Yeah, it's finished." The Manhattan Center meeting hall of the

I believe that through time that program must general strike committee of all the unions

change and develop, even though I believe that involved was decorated with huge banners, very little that is fundamental can change within spread right across the damn hall, to greet the

the framework of capitalism since it took its sailors and others from up and down the coast

essential shape in 1848. But I believe that com- participating in this meeting. The banners said, rade Fraser is one of those who found a particular "An injury to one is an injury to all! United we set of conditions in the North American continent stand, divided we fall!" And another one, "For

and made a Marxian, materialist analysis of it. collective bargaining and against government

I would also like to note that comrade Fraser interference!" received, on arriving in L.A. after Seattle, in a The strike of AF of L unions was general, all pretty battle-fatigued condition, a great deal of right, pulling the pin with the seamen and their fellowship from the NAM (New American Move- unions, the longies—the longshoremen—tugboat, 18

all maritime trades, and railroad men, and the Later on, on the West Coast, Dick and Arne Teamsters too. That coast was bottled up, particu- Swabeck, my father, collaborated in the struggle larly the island of Manhattan. At that time some for a revolutionary workers party of the working

of the sailors around said, boy, this is a revolu- class. We had our disagreements. I remember I tionary situation! Well, many of us thought, we had one with Dick about shipping, it was about don't know if we're going to take over the gov- how best to operate a ship, run an old liberty ernment like the days of the October Revolution ship without popping the boilers and throwing and the Bolshevik October. But what we wanted the safety valves all over the place, while running to do, and what we did, and what was achieved, the U-boat wolf packs down in the torpedo junc- was to give the War Shipping Administration, the tion. Well, there were others. They were all set- government's outfit, a swift kick in the ass. tled through democratic centralism, as good com-

The ILA [International Longshoremen's Asso- rades should. And I say this, that his passing ciation], Marine Firemen and SUP held the fort therefore is to be deeply regretted.

in the Pacific ports. The CIO unions, like the I want to say one other thing. When Dick

NMU, followed later, radical socialists of the rank came around to the house a couple of times, I

and file, urging towards the Debs and Wobblyite was playing music. And he says, "Damn it, have ideal of revolution. And make no mistake, that you got that stuff by that guy that plays 'The was led by Trotskyists, such as Dick Fraser and Lemon Tree'?" I say, "Oh, you mean Herb like-minded rank-and-file Bolsheviks. And to Alpert?" He says, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, with that

carry—I think I got one in my pocket somewhere, 'Tijuana Taxi' and so forth." And I said "Sure, I'll

that I dug up since I learned about this meet- play it." And he liked that. I don't know if he ing—to carry that strike clearance card, the gen- liked the music that we were playing before, that

eral strike clearance of 1946. I carried two of Brahms thing or I don't know what, sort of sleepy

them, one from the CIO because we went, a lot funereal kind of stuff. I know damn well he liked of comrades went, after the AF of L was out on a rousing singing of the Internationale*. The red, strike, went out to support in solidarity with the Bolshevik Internationale]

CIO unions. So Dick and I were a part of that

scene, and I wanted to mention this as one of the big achievements of the Trotskyists' maritime frac- The memorial meeting concluded with the tion, comrades like Dick. singing of the Internationale. Revolutionary Integration: Program for Black Liberation

Introductory Note by the Prometheus Research Library

When, as a young Trotskyist activist, Dick Civil War. To understand the Civil War is to Fraser became convinced that American Marxism understand the character of U.S. society and its had not come to terms with the question of black fatal flaw of racism. As Dave Dreiser, Fraser's liberation, he made a life-long commitment to long-time collaborator and friend, writes in his study of the question. Although he was hampered 16 April 1990 letter to Jim Robertson (see be- by little formal scholarly training, his Marxist low), for decades the academic racists of the understanding and his broad experience in mili- William Dunning school of U.S. history legiti- tant struggles with black workers sharpened his mized the racist status quo. Their "interpreta- insight into the lessons of history. His dedicated tion" was popularized in the movies Birth of a study sprang from his conviction that in order to Nation and Gone With the Wind. forge a program for black liberation, it is neces- The outbreak of the civil rights movement in sary to study the social forces that created the the 1950s and 1960s and the struggle for black American institution of racial oppression. Fraser equality inspired a new generation of historians, turned to the writings of the militant fighters for who began to reexamine central issues of Amer- black equality during the Civil War and Recon- ican history, in particular the Civil War and struction and to the pioneering studies by black Reconstruction. The distinguished James M. Mc- academics such as E. Franklin Frazier and Oliver Pherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Cromwell Cox. To Fraser, understanding the Civil War Era and The Struggle for Equality: roots of black oppression in the United States Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and was no armchair activity; he carried his theory of Reconstruction, is only one of the many scholars Revolutionary Integration into struggle. who have documented the heroic struggles of With the publication of this bulletin we are this revolutionary period. Eminent scholars who honoring Fraser's fighting scholarship. In the past have studied southern slavery, the Civil War and few years Trotskyism has lost three scholar-mili- Reconstruction also include Eugene Genovese, tants from the generation brought to revolution- Kenneth Stampp, C. Vann Woodward and Eric ary consciousness by the combative class strug- Foner. gles of the 1930s. George Breitman, who died in Today the empiricist/ racist brand of "schol- April 1986, was as a proponent of black "self- arship" represented by Harvard historian Robert determination" Fraser's main political opponent Fogel, author of Time on the Cross, is the aca- within the SWP on the black question. He was demic reflection of the American ruling class's also the Pathfinder Press editor responsible for renewed war on the black population. In 1965 the publication of the works of Leon Trotsky and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then an assistant secre- James P. Cannon. And in July 1990 the Trotsky tary at the Department of Labor, wrote The Negro scholar Louis Sinclair died. As the author of Leon Family: The Case for National Action, in which he

Trotsky : A Bibliography (Hoover Institution Press, outrageously argued that the "fundamental prob- 1972), Sinclair performed an invaluable service lem... of family structure" was responsible for to the revolutionary movement in documenting the intensification of poverty, joblessness, and collecting Trotsky's writings in many lan- segregation in housing and lack of education guages. Now the tradition of revolutionary schol- suffered by the masses in the big city ghettoes. arship so honorably exemplified by Richard Fra- Bourgeois-empirical sociology (accompanied by ser, George Breitman and Louis Sinclair must be pages of charts and graphs) served to provide a carried on by a new generation of Marxists. pseudo-scientific cover for the old "blame the The U.S. capitalist class and its minions victim" lies. In 1970 Moynihan coined the term would like to forget this country's modern origins "benign neglect" to describe the federal policy in the Second American Revolution that was the signalling the rollback of the token gains of the

19 20

civil rights movement. Federal funding for Little Rock, Arkansas school integration crisis, is poverty programs dried up; the government un- also omitted. Fraser's position is well represented der Nixon, Carter and Reagan dismantled civil in two other, shorter documents which we have rights legislation and destroyed even the minimal included, "Contribution to the Discussion on the plans for busing to achieve school integration. Slogan 'Send Federal Troops to Mississippi'" and Dick Fraser's Marxist scholarship utterly re- a letter, "On Federal Troops in Little Rock." jected the manipulation of history to justify the Those wishing to read further are directed to racist status quo. At the time of his death in 1988 the bibliography of Fraser's writings included Fraser, with Dave Dreiser, was actively working here as an appendix. All of these materials are on notes and abstracts for a book, The Rise of the available at the Prometheus Research Library. Slave Power, the result of over 40 years of study. Editorial Note: As a member of the Socialist The book was to be a Marxist analysis of the rise Workers Party and the Freedom Socialist Party of the southern slavocracy, the class antagonisms Dick Fraser often used the name Richard Kirk. which exploded in the 1861-1865 Civil War be- The bibliography distinguishes all documents tween the capitalist North and the slave South written under the name Kirk with an asterisk. and the leading role of the militant abolitionists Our introductions give the source and some back- in the destruction of black chattel slavery. ground for the documents, which have been While his primary area of study was the edited to correct minor errors and inconsisten- black question, Dick Fraser was active in many cies. Some purely personal material in the letters arenas of struggle. In selecting the documents for has been cut out. The PRL has added brief expla- this bulletin we have sought to show the breadth nations to clarify references when necessary; of his work. Of documents omitted from this these appear in brackets. Footnotes and paren- collection there are two worthy of special note: thetical material are by Dick Fraser. The second "For the Materialist Conception of the Negro printing restores the page from "To the Demo- Question" is not published here only because it cratic Socialists of America" previously unavail-

is readily available in the Spartacist League's able to us and corrects errors in the first printing. Marxist Bulletin No. 5R, "What Strategy for Black Liberation? Trotskyism vs. Black Nationalism." The 1958 "Resolution on the Little Rock Crisis," Prometheus Research Library in which Fraser sharply exposes the SWP policy July 1990 of calling for federal troops to intervene in the [reprinted March 1994]

Fraser and American Scholarship on the Black Question

Academic scholarship regarding U.S. history blame. These reactionary and pro-Southern views has gone through several phases. After the failure of U.S. history dominated the academies and of Reconstruction, scholarship went through a formed the basis for the teaching of U.S. history very reactionary period. Beginning in the 1890's, in high schools and universities for decades William Dunning of Columbia and a host of his following. students spread the view that Reconstruction was The Civil War was regarded as some terrible the shame of U.S. history and represented mili- mistake in which the issue of slavery was minor. tary despotism, the evil of "Africanization," and Abolitionists had been self-seeking rabble-rousers unrestrained corruption against which a noble whose comments on slavery and the politics of but defeated South tried to defend itself. Claude their day can be ignored. The defamation of the Bowers' The Tragic Era (1929) was the most radical Republicans, Charles Sumner, Thaddeus influential work of this ilk. Stevens, etc., as power mad psychotics became Ulrich Phillips presented a view of slavery as a cottage industry. relatively benign. Slaves were well treated and Even in those days there were other voices. well fed, and the system was productive. Justin In 1913 John R. Lynch, former slave and later Smith presented a view of the Mexican War in congressman from Mississippi, wrote The Facts of which the arrogant Mexicans were totally to Reconstruction in which he tried to tell some 21

truth, but his excellent work was lost in a sea of vard history student if the slaves' own view of racist "scholarship." A few words from the slavery might not paint a different picture of how introduction to a reprint of his book are well off they were. Patiently he explained to me instructive: that the slaves' stories were largely taken down "These scholars contended that the Reconstruction by abolitionists, and of course nothing they wrote governments in the South were controlled by base, can be believed! How, one might ask, could the power-hungry carpetbaggers and scalawags who words of slaves hold up to data manipulated by cynically used the newly enfranchised blacks to gain a computer? One might also ask in studying the power and to sustain their debauchery in office. Holocaust if it would be permissible to consider Without the votes of naive and illiterate Negroes, the recollections of the survivors, whose views were easily led to the polls to vote the Radical who would obviously be biased, or only the views of ticket, these scoundrels would never have had an the guards and administrators who ran the opportunity in any of the states to plunder the public camps? treasuries and incite blacks against whites, according Thirty years of new scholarship haven't had to the Dunning-school historians. effect the of history taught in "Therefore the fundamental mistake in the Radical much on views our or congressional plan of Reconstruction was the en- schools, although there has been some correction. franchisement of the freedmen. Happily, however, For instance, students of Mexican history at Stan- according to the established version of the story, ford U. are now taught that the Mexican War was during the mid- 1 870's decent whites in both sections started with an unprovoked attack by U.S. forces of the nation rose in indignation over the spoliation ordered by President Polk. Well, that's true, but of the Southern states, and through the heroic efforts it is not enough. What were the class forces that of local Democrats the Radical Republican regimes caused the Mexican War? The new scholars not were overthrown and good government restored." only fail to answer such questions, but consider After 1960 a new wind blew in the colleges such a question improper. and a number of honest scholars began to chip The best academic scholars are committed to away at the mountain of pro-Southern reactionary a view of history that regards any kind of eco- propaganda that still dominated. C. Vann Wood- nomic determinism as quaint. History is regarded ward, Eugene D. Genovese and James M. McPher- basically as narrative. There was no bourgeois son are prominent. Other outstanding names are revolution in England. The French Revolution Kenneth Stampp, George Fredrickson and Herbert had many causes, but it was not a clash between Gutman, not to mention John Hope Franklin, A. class forces. The view that struggles between Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Henrietta Buckmaster, classes is a determining factor in history is and other black scholars. Marxist fantasy. In fact in the sense that Marx So what is missing? Hasn't everything been meant, there are no classes. straightened out? I don't believe so. Let's take the This crass empiricism did not always domi- issue of the nature of slavery. In 1974 a Harvard nate U.S. scholarship. There used to be at least a scholar, Robert Fogel, wrote Time On the Cross: counter-current of materialism that had legiti- The Economics ofAmerican Negro Slavery, a study macy as in Charles Beard's day. But, if anything, of slavery based on "cliometrics" which is a methodology has deteriorated since then. For computerized technique of examining statistical instance, Kenneth Stampp has written The Era of data. Fogel concluded that slave labor was more Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1965) as a total revi- efficient than free labor and hence more produc- sion of the Dunning school. His work is excellent tive. The slaves were well off and better fed than in many ways, but he says, "DuBois's attempt at free workers in the North. Fogel has written a a full-scale revisionist study, Black Reconstruction new work in 1989 expanding on this theme. (New York, 1935), is disappointing. Though rich C. Vann Woodward has reviewed Fogel's new in empirical detail, the book presents a Marxian book and seems at a loss to know how to criticize interpretation of southern reconstruction as a it even if he seems uncomfortable with Fogel's proletarian movement that is at best naive. The conclusions. Marxist historian James S. Allen in Reconstruc- In the meantime, Fogel and his new toy, clio- tion: The Battle for Democracy, 1865-1876 (New metrics, are the rage in academic circles and a York, 1937) offers an interpretation that is more new generation of scholars using the technique credible but equally schematic." are collecting their PhDs at Harvard and are It is no longer necessary to refute Marxism fanning out around the country. I asked a Har- which is simply dismissed as naive, quaint and 22

schematic. In spite of this I believe a thorough altogether legitimate practice. His view happens class analysis has been written regarding Recon- to be fairly conservative. Dick wanted to make struction by Eric Foner. His Reconstruction: Amer- reasonable use of available scholarship to express ica's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 (1988) is a point of view about U.S. history. Marxist in content if not in name and meets the Briefly, Dick's view was that after the inven- most strict demands of scholarship. tion of the cotton gin the slave system took on Who has spoken in like voice for the ante- new life and the compromise between the plant- bellum period? Dick felt no one has, that is no ers and the merchant capitalists in the North and one lately. Charles Beard was accused of being a expressed in the U.S. Constitution fell apart. The Marxist in his economic interpretation of the planters wanted state power for themselves, and Constitution, but he replied that if so, then so effectively won it with the election of Andrew was James Madison from whom he drew much of Jackson. In the main, they controlled the presi- his "economic" view. In like manner Dick's and dency and Congress from then until 1860. Their my view of the period between say 1776 and power was based on a class alliance between 1860 is drawn very largely from Horace Greeley, themselves and the free farmers of the North who Charles Sumner, John A. Logan (The Great Con- had similar interests on some questions such as spiracy: Its Origin and History [1885]), Henry soft money and low tariffs. Wilson, Benjamin Lundy (The War in Texas This alliance operated to stunt the growth of [1836]) and other radical Republicans and aboli- capitalism. The power of the planters was ex- tionists. I submit that their penetrating analyses pressed through their control of the Democratic of the events of their day have never been re- Party. The Whig "opposition" was about as futed, but have been dismissed and forgotten. effective as the Democratic opposition to the Even today the abolitionists are regarded in Republicans today. The subservience of the Whigs scholarly circles with great suspicion. People gave the planters effective state power. committed to a cause cannot be objective observ- When the abolitionists spoke of the Slave ers or commentators, it is said. Black scholars Power they were not being inflammatory but have largely tackled the issue of restoring the role analytical. of slaves and black leaders to proper perspective. The Republican Party was a revolutionary A class analysis has largely been absent. In a party which led the nation through the Civil War sense Dick wanted to restore the views and to an overthrow of planter power and the ascen- scholarship of the radicals of those days. That is dency of the capitalist state. The failure of that not an unworthy purpose. social revolution to proceed through Reconstruc- A brief word about "revisionism" may be tion to a resolution of the land question in the needed. Kenneth Stampp regards himself and South by giving land and the franchise to the other post-1960 liberal scholars as revisionists, freedmen set the stage for the racist nation we that is compared with the Dunning school. But, have inherited. Dunning a generation before had considered him- Dick would have wanted to cover a broad self a revisionist of the views of the mid- 19th sweep going on to the aftermath of Reconstruc- century. Robert Fogel might be called a new tion, but that is all over with his passing. But, revisionist of the revisionists of the revisionists. certainly it is appropriate to finish his beginning

I think it is better not to use the term. treatment covering the ascendency of the Slave

I know that a lot of "Marxists" in our move- Power. ment have tended to take scholarship lightly. I further believe that the best of current Substituting theory for research, they generalize academic scholars have not told Dick's story. They at the drop of a hat. However, it is not always have made a major effort to reduce the blatant necessary for research to be original to be used racism that dominated the academies for 80 in a valid general analysis. For instance Edward years, but in method, empiricism is today more Diener is a U. of Illinois scholar who wrote a dominant in the study of history than ever before. commentary on U.S. history (Reinterpreting U.S. History [1975]). The book is not annotated and makes no pretense of original scholarship. His David Dreiser book just expresses a point of view which is an 16 April 1990 San Diego Farm Strike Is Crushed

"Popular Front" Engineers Fatal Truce Which Smashes Celery Strike

From California Labor Action, 20 February 1937. Edited by James P. Cannon, Labor Action was an agitational organ of the Trotskyists in California during the 1936-37 entry into the Socialist Party. Dick Fraser was active in the Southern California Trotskyist movement from 1934 to 1938.

The pathetic end of the San Diego celery of the stable and militant leaders of the union strike is another picture of betrayal and deception were either discredited or entirely out of the reminiscent of Orange County. It is a picture of ranks of the union. a Mexican Consul, some local politicians and their One principal reason for the former stability stooges and a couple of incompetent labor leaders of the union was the fact that its leadership never who helped these agents of the employers to permitted the Communist Party to get a foothold. maneuver the striking unions into calling a two This time the Stalinists took the cue from the em- day "truce" in picketing just as the Shipper- ployers' attacks upon the union and started one Growers were beginning to feel the pressure of of their famous "build-ups" around a second-rate the strike, thus breaking the backbone of the demagogic politician. He turned out to be an workers' offensive. ideal stooge for either the bosses or the Stalinists, The picture was painted by the Farmers' being absolutely ignorant of the meaning of the Protective Association, framed by its agents labor movement in any of its forms except per- within the unions, and nicely glassed in by a haps as a sublimation of religious experience. clique of Stalinites. At the same time a vile campaign against The unions of San Diego County up until a Jose Espinoza was initiated, and to make it sure, week ago were the pride of the state, the shining just before the strike was to begin Jose was light of unionism in agriculture; today they are thrown in jail in Orange County on his old va- nothing but another menacing blot, marking the grancy charge along with Velarde of the CUCOM. spot where another strike was broken, and this The united front of the bosses and the Commies one without a struggle. Six months ago the San (is this the People's Front in action?) then forced Diego unions boasted of good contractual rela- out Lillian Monroe and Castillo, leaders of last tions with the growers; their leadership was clear year's successful strike along with Espinoza. and their perspectives sound; their ranks were Thus the unions entered the strike with the filled with militant union men; they have given membership considerably demoralized by the re- to the labor movement such men as Jose cent turn-over of militants and little confidence Espinoza. in the leadership. Nevertheless, after a very fair But such events as the Orange County citrus walkout on January 27th a militant picket-line strike, Los Angeles, Salinas, etc., had long ago succeeded in tying up considerable of the celery planted a firm determination in the Shipper- crop. Grower Associations to wipe out the existing The idea that under the best conditions these unions in agriculture and the unions in San Diego unions might have been able to deal with the in particular. Celery Growers' Association as a whole (tributary to the Farmers' Protective Association) is at best Attack Leaders overly optimistic. A good chance for partial vic- The first and most important line of strategy tory lay, however, in concentration of the work- followed by the growers' agents in the unions was ers' forces in such a way as to enable the unions to undermine the authentic leadership of the to break off one after another several Shipper- Mexican union with a vicious campaign of lies Growers from the Association. and slanders so that by the time of the strike all The sixth day of the strike found the

23 24

Association in the agony of a sure split as a result a last great reflex the pickets attempted to return of well concentrated workers' forces. The power- to life and sweep like a hurricane through the ful apparatus of the bosses, both inside and out- county, clearing fields from which the green gold side the unions, sprang into immediate action. was being taken. Disorganized and frantic the The County Supervisors threatened to pass an picketing finally petered out, its leaders were anti-picketing law effective in "all unincorporated arrested and that was all. The fields filled up as districts" (the agricultural areas) of the county. quickly as they were cleared. Another flare-up Without consultation with the Central Strike occurred the next day but by this time the Committee a meeting was hastily prepared where- leadership had lost sight of everything but saving in a supervisor was to present a "plan" for "set- its own face. The picket lines dwindled away and tling" the strike. died. So the puppet-stage was set and the puppets However, the overwhelming majority of the under the puppet mastership of Chet Moore striking men stayed out of the fields faithfully jerked on their strings, and the strike was in the awaiting the decision of the union although all hands of the bosses. realized that to carry on further would be folly. The politician, Bellon, smiled and ogled and The question then took perspective: here had told how workers must use "strategy" in order to been a good strike situation, a militant picket-line win. This strategy, said the politician, consists in and a healthy spirit in the unions,—but the strike removing your picket line for two days in order is lost. All at once it occurs to the leaders of the to save us poor politicians the embarrassment of fiasco, to the politicians, to the Stalinites and passing an anti-picketing law at the insistence of stoolpigeons, to the Mexican Consul, to everyone the Farmers' Protective Association. No one was who had a hand in the sell-out: where to dump taken in at first, some of the workers actually the responsibility? So on the night when the laughed in his face, but the stage was well set. At strike was formally to be called off another Bellon's right sat our two-bit, build-up leader and frame-up was staged. his trusty Stalinite builder-upper, also two local The Stalinite-boss combination went to nitwits, stooging for the politician, and a repre- elaborate pains in order to shift responsibility to sentative of the San Diego County Building one individual against whom all the anti-labor Trades Council. They were all pleading for the forces in and out of the unions could unite. They agricultural workers to help them fight the anti- had a well-drilled cheering section supplemented picketing law, directed at the celery strike—by by some misguided workers plied with liquor removing the pickets from the celery fields. At until they were rolling drunk and quite irre- Bellon's right sat the crafty Mexican Consul sponsible. The best Stalinite provocateurs were giving silent but effective support. available. One member of the cheering section "Discussion" started and the Stalinists yelled was unfortunately placed near me and admitted "charge" while beating a hasty retreat to the that he did not know who, nor where the "trai- protective shelter of impotence. Stalinite Roscoe tor" was nor what he had done. After attacking (AIWUA) yelled that "we are not afraid to make him as a "microbe" with all weapons, doing a sacrifice." Delgado called upon his fellow everything in their power to create a good witch- workers to show that agricultural workers can burning spirit among the workers, those who "discipline" themselves, and urged them on to originally sold out the strike were able to muster break their own strike! only 27 votes out of 300 strikers present for The Mexican Consul (Castro) blandly said expulsion of the present writer from the meeting. that he was glad that the workers were "doing This alone is a final condemnation of their entire the right thing." The politician and the boys had course and an indication that the victory of the a few uncomfortable moments when the present forces of reaction within the union will be short writer spoke but the stage was too well set and lived. the militants were caught unawares, going home The path of the California agricultural heavy hearted and with a choking feeling in their workers in the state has constantly been beset by throats, knowing that their strike had been sold betrayals of this same character. The local out. American union is small and young and could not Three days later the men began to feel the be expected to stand up alone under heavy fruits of militant struggle gradually melting away pressure, but it will take more than the non- and the strike slipping through their fingers. In sensical yapping of the Stalinists to explain how 25 the proud Independent (Mexican) Union of La- the workers from their legitimate leaders and borers and Field Workers of San Diego County projecting them into a strike helpless as a ship could, with one small puff of a politician's sugary without a rudder. breath, fold up like a tent in a gale and permit These unions are isolated from the main body itself completely and utterly to be seduced by its of organized labor in the state and must depend own leaders into selling its own strike. upon their own resources in any situation. These In the first place it must be recognized that resources are very meager. Local politicians and these unions were fighting a statewide organ- labor fakers find in these independent unions ization, whereas every tendency to attempt to easy prey, in that they stand and fall alone and localize the problem was played up by the em- cannot rally to their support their legitimate allies ployers, the Stalinites and the politicians, so that in the ranks of organized labor. the membership and the leadership of the unions The salvation of these unions rests on a State was kept from a correct understanding of the organization for agriculture in the A.F. of L., and nature of the enemy. The bosses had an intelli- it is with hope that these workers receive from gent machine working in and about the union the State Federation of Labor a conference call that time after time succeeded in blocking a cor- sent to all agricultural unions for the purpose of rect position. The Communist Party clique dove- beginning the unification of unionism in agricul- tailed exactly into the machine of the employers. ture on a sound basis. This vicious combination succeeded in isolating

New NMU Hall—Facade to Hide Union Retreat

From the Socialist Workers Party's Militant, 8 July 1944. Dick Fraser sailed out of the port of New York as a member of the National Maritime Union from 1943 to 1948.

The new hall of the National Maritime Union It was not until the great maritime strike of in New York City is now open and in full opera- 1934, which culminated in the San Francisco gen- tion after a big National Maritime Day dedication eral strike, that the seamen took the first step ceremony. This is reputed to be the most elabo- toward regaining union control of the hiring hall. rate union hall that American seamen have ever In the strike of 1936-37, the 99-day strike on the owned. It has an illuminated dispatchers' board, Pacific Coast, the seamen were finally able to recreational facilities including a bar with free force the shipowners to sign written agreements beer on occasions, upholstered benches and, as embodying recognition of the union hiring hall. President Curran promised, sweet music while the For seamen, union control over the hiring seamen wait for their next ship out. A good union hall meant an end to the vicious system of hall is a good thing to have. All militants, of blacklisting by which the government and the which the NMU has its share, are in favor of good shipowners victimized union militants; it meant and better things for the seamen; that is why they an end to discrimination, favoritism, miserable built the union in the first place. working conditions, low wages, and a condition After the government smashed the seamen's of sea-slavery. It meant, above all, the independ- unions after the last war (in 1921) and herded ence of the union, free from domination or con- the "heroes in dungarees" into government fink trol by the shipowners or their political agents in halls, crimp joints, and shipowner controlled the government! The unions formulated their employment offices, the seamen conducted an un- OWN shipping rules based on the principle of remitting struggle to establish their own hiring rotary shipping. Union members who violated the halls. shipping rules, the union contract, union working 26 conditions, were disciplined by the democratic who permits himself to become so involved can action of the union membership. The union hiring get little protection against the stringent RMO hall for seamen became the symbol of free, rulings. This divides the crew and always leaves independent unionism in the maritime industry. the company with a few stooges on the ship. With It is against this background that seamen a divided crew a seaman willing to fight for must assess the value of either old or new hiring conditions finds himself fined. Because of the halls. What are the conditions that go with the short shipping card he will then get, along with new NMU hall? During the last two years the other possible penalties, and the unwillingness of shipping rules have been "modified" until there the Patrolmen to back him up, even a good union is little left of the rights of members. For man becomes reluctant to fight. example, the "Wartime Shipping Rules" of the The end result is that bad conditions get NMU for the port of New York contain the worse and there is no way to stop it. A seaman is following provisions: cajoled or threatened into taking a job where he must sleep in a crummy bunk on a lousy ship, Wartime Regulations while the shipowner gets praise for keeping it in 1. "All men between the years of 18 and 38 operation. who persist in turning down ships without any When a seaman comes in from a trip, he is good reason that they can substantiate, will have confronted in the Union Hall with all the red tape their names turned over to the Draft Board by the of a first rate government agency. On the con- Agent and the Dispatcher as not being bonafide veyer belt of this red tape he gets pushed from seamen." pillar to post and from office to office, and finally 2. "All men over 38 years of age who persist lands in the Trial and Rules Committee which, to in turning down ships without any good reason save time, will read him the rules and give him a that they can substantiate, will have their names trial at the same time. turned over to the War Manpower Commission as Enforcing the RMO rulings is the job of the not being bonafide seamen." RMO and not of a union. However, the NMU offi- These provisions in the shipping rules mean cials even use the practice of reporting violations that the union officials have become finger-men of RMO rulings to the RMO and Selective Service for government agencies upon whom they depend officials! to enforce the union shipping rules! The union The Union Hall is no longer a place where a shipping card has been abolished and in its place union man can expect to find protection and just there has been substituted the RMO (Recruitment representation against a shipowner or a govern- and Manning Organization of the War Shipping ment bureaucrat. On the contrary, this system by Administration) time allotment card with the which the Union has undertaken the functions of union's name on it. These measures, only a few the WSA, the RMO and the Selective Service of a number of other like measures that have System makes going to sea just like being in jail, been put into effect by the Curran-Stalinist only more efficient. It is hardly surprising, leadership, serve to undermine union control over therefore, that the shipowners eagerly accept the hiring hall. And flowing from these, there when they are invited into the Hall and are arise certain vicious practices, especially a system received with open arms. of favoritism. At the April 27 membership meeting Curran Shore-time allotments run from four to thirty boasted: "For the first time in history personnel days. This inequality in shipping cards makes representatives of 60 shipowners were sitting in

rotary shipping impossible, forcing a man, say, the Hall, talking cooperation. I told them that for with a ten-day card to compete with others with seven years we've been fighting to keep them out thirty-day cards. A seaman is doubly penalized for of the Hall, and now we're fighting to get them quitting even a ship on which the worst condi- in." Shipowner Taylor of the Merchant Marine tions prevail. First, he has to take a short Institute dedicated the new Hall. An evil omen for shipping card. Second, he incurs disciplinary the future! measures by the union for getting off without a Among the fruits of Curran's "fight" is this, replacement. that, as everyone knows, recently there has been A most vicious practice has resulted from this. an epidemic of seamen shipping off the dock The ship's officers and company officials have through company offices and on unorganized fostered a system of favoritism whereby a seaman lines (Standard Oil, Isthmian, etc.). National Vice- 27

President of NMU Meyers has complained to the The policies of NMU leaders in supporting War Shipping Administration that seamen do this the government and its bureaus become so op- in order to escape and evade the shipping rules pressive that seamen are driven away from the of the NMU. The Pilot, official weekly of the Union Hall to the protection of—the shipowners Union, reported on May 5: "The union has even and their crimps. This is virtually what the Pilot gone so far as taking drastic action against men itself says. who violate our shipping rules... after the union This is the price that the seamen pay for the takes this action however its hands are tied support their officials give to Roosevelt and the because the individual... is free to go to any one war machine. This is the price of the new Hall. of the few unorganized lines..."

Soldiers Cheer Striking Workers

From the Workers' Forum section of the Militant, 15 December 1945. Dick Fraser worked briefly with the Socialist Workers Party's Newark branch at that time.

A couple of days ago we were distributing the an elevated track right by the plant. And just at Militant on a corner close to the Hyatt Plant in this time along came a troop train from New York Harrison, N.J. The pickets in front of the plant loaded with GI's who had debarked from Europe were marching in file with their placards raised and were on the way to separation centers. As the high. There was a meeting of the union to be train passed the plant the GI's threw open the held shortly and the workers were either just windows and gave a tremendous cheer, as only arriving or standing around before going into the the GI's on their way home can, and waved to the meeting. Besides this group, the Crucible Steel pickets. The pickets waved their placards back, Local was to have a meeting about a block away. and an answering yell rose up from the workers This made quite a crowd of workers along the across the street near the hall. street, and what with the pickets marching, and The striking workers got a great kick out of my comrade and me distributing the Militant, and this event and I wish that all G.M. strikers could the workers milling around, there was quite a have witnessed it. And the next best they can do little activity. is to read about it in the Militant which is why I Now the Pennsy (Pennsylvania R.R.) runs on am writing this. 28

Cover of original August 1954 SWP Discussion Bulletin containing "The Negro Struggle and the Proletarian Revolution"

^

A-19 August, 19 51* Contents

THE NEGRO STRUGGLE AND THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION

By R. S. Fraser Page. Introduction 1

Two lectures given at the Friday Night Forum, Los Angeles, November, 1953-

I. Race and Capitalism 10 1. The Transformation of the Negro Question 11 2. Exploitation of Skin Color Race and Relations 2: The Origin of the Race ConceDt 15 5. The Form of Race Relations 18 6. International Aspects of the Race Question 20 7. The U.S. as the "Melting Pot" 22

II. The Struggle for Equality 2lf 1. The Southern Social System 25 2. The Industrialization of the South 26 3. The Struggle for Equality 27 *+. Race Consciousness 32 5. The Question of Self-Determination 6. The Question of Prejudice 37 7. The Negro Struggle, Capitalist Politics and the Labor Movement ko 8. Socialism and the End of the Race System ^3

Published by the

SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY 116 University Place New York 3, N.Y.

50* The Negro Struggle and the Proletarian Revolution

From SWP Discussion Bulletin No. A-19, August 1954. Fraser delivered these two lectures in November 1953 at the SWP Friday Night Forum in Los Angeles.

I. Race and Capitalism

Not long ago a friend of mine with his family with the American social structure, might be to made an automobile trip to his ancestral home in such a situation. A naive Englishman or French- the South. In a discussion of his trip I asked him man might honestly reply to such a situation: how he got along on the road. He is a former of- "You have rest rooms of different color? Very ficial of the NAACP, a militant fighter against interesting, I am sure. What color are they?" segregation and discrimination and knows the When placed in this context, the racial divi- score just about any way he may be required to sion of society shows up primarily as an American add it up. I knew that any incident which the disease of the social structure. For in the social southern Jim Crow system insisted upon bother- structure of none of the advanced industrial ing him with would be amply repaid. countries is it possible to find anything approach- No, he hadn't any trouble to speak of. Only ing the American system of race relations, with one small incident occurred at a gas station in the the single exception of Germany under the Nazis. beautiful state of Arkansas. They drove into this These are two important themes in the anal- gas station, asked the attendant to fill the tank ysis of the Negro question and you will find them and prepared to go to the rest rooms. The atten- apparent in each of the following subjects with dant told them gently but firmly that the colored which we shall deal tonight: rest rooms were around at the back. My friend 1. The transformation of the Negro question put on his best dead-pan expression and in his from the days of Booker T. Washington to most casual conversational tone replied: "That's the present day. interesting. What color are they?" 2. The exploitation of skin color. And while the attendant was gasping for 3. What is race and what are race relations? breath and trying to keep from fainting, the fami- 4. The origin of the race concept. ly made its unhurried way to the regular rest 5. The form of race relations. rooms. 6. International aspects of the race question.

This episode, small and personal though it 7. The Negro question and the oppression of

may be, reveals two important truths which I will national minorities in the U.S.

try to illustrate tonight and next Friday when I 1. The Transformation of the Negro Question complete this discussion of the race question. First, it illustrates the complete irrationality of the No inhabitant of our planet is permitted to division of society into groups according to skin ignore the power of American capitalism today. color. What my friend was saying to the gas Its military might, its financial rulership, its station attendant was that to any rational human monopolistic national power and apparent politi- being there should be no more significance to dif- cal equilibrium are everyday facts of life for all ferences in the color of people than to differences the oppressed peoples of the world. This strength in the color of rest rooms, and that the fact that of American capitalism was born in the Civil War, the attendant was the proprietor of rest rooms of the Reconstruction and the consolidation of

different color was mildly interesting, but no power following it. more. But that contrary to all reason and logic, In 1860 the capitalist class had shared the all of American society is disfigured by this power with the dominant slaveowners for sixty artificial and fantastic division into races. years. Throughout this period the capitalists were Secondly, the episode brings to mind what thwarted economically and humiliated politically. the reaction of an ordinary European, unfamiliar Economically they were injured by the constant

29 30

reduction of tariffs which brought cheap British which the Negroes acceded to the terms of defeat. goods onto the domestic market. Their need for In his famous Atlanta speech in 1893, Wash- westward expansion was thwarted because the ington formally renounced the struggle for slaveowners would permit westward development equality. only on terms favorable to their interests. But since this defeat in the last quarter of the The capitalists were humiliated politically by 19th century there has been a fundamental a series of congressional compromises. In these change in the material conditions surrounding the compromises the slaveowners invariably came off Negro struggle. The defeat of the Negroes was the victors, even when the Whig Party of the the defeat of an almost exclusively agrarian capitalists held congressional majorities and people in a backward agrarian society. Today the controlled the executive as well. Negroes are largely city dwellers, and even in the Through the Civil War the capitalist class South, industrial capitalism has been forced to overthrew the slaveowners and took the whole break up the old agrarian pattern. national power for itself. The victory of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1890's During the ensuing Reconstruction in the was made possible because the Klan was able to South, the capitalists permitted a short and incon- isolate the Negroes and to separate them from all clusive struggle of the Negroes for equality. These their allies among the other working masses of were the glorious days when a white and black the country. Today, the Negro movement emerges peasantry ruled the South. It was then that the as a movement of national scope with powerful Negroes achieved the social, political and eco- contingents in every city in the country. The nomic destruction of the old enemy class. But as growth of the CIO has reflected the re-establish- soon as this destruction had been accomplished, ment of the alliance of black and white in the the capitalists turned against the Negroes. To- industrial working class. gether with a new capitalist plantation aris- The program of Booker T. Washington was tocracy, the capitalists drove the Negro people one of humility and acceptance of second-class back into the social conditions that accompanied citizenship. Today the Negro community is alive slavery. with a great movement which has as its funda- This defeat of the Negroes formed the basis mental aim the achievement of full economic, for the modern political system in the United political and social equality. Substantial gains States. The stability of the so-called two-party have been made. There has been, in fact, a com- system, where the capitalists rule unquestioned plete transformation of the movement of the through either one of two similar political Negro people during the past twenty-five years. cliques, was based upon the disfranchisement of This occurred at a time when the whole the southern workers. American working class stood on the threshold of This political system enabled the capitalist growth into political consciousness. In the great class to exploit mercilessly the western farmers, awakening struggles of the 1930's the working amass tremendous aggregations of capital class gained the elementary class solidarity of through this exploitation and through the looting unionism. Today the conditions are maturing un- of the public domain and the public treasury. der which it will move forward towards full class Capitalist economic dominance and political consciousness and a struggle for political power. equilibrium made it possible for the United States The rejection of race prejudice in favor of to expand into the world market, to engage in class solidarity has been a consistent phenome- two world wars of imperialist expansion, and to non ever since the beginnings of the CIO. Its rise from an insignificant power at the beginning fulfillment will be the mark of the full maturity of this century to its present exalted position as of the American working class movement. leader of the entire capitalist world. All this was The struggle of the Negro people for equality done without serious political interference by any is one of the great dynamic forces of the labor other class in American society. struggle itself. The purpose of these lectures is to In part, therefore, the economic well-being analyze this struggle and to show how it will find and the political stability of the capitalist class its completion in the socialist society of the rest upon the renewed degradation of the Negro future. people after the Civil War. 2. Exploitation of Skin Color It was this degradation that brought forth Booker T. Washington. He was the instrument by We will now consider the fact that the 31

fundamental element in discrimination against customs of their European background, runs as Negroes in the United States is special exploitation a persistent theme throughout the history of the through stigmatization of skin color. Never in United States. history until the rise of capitalism had the world The voyage of the Negroes to North America witnessed the division of society by color. was not a migration, however, but the process of The special exploitation of Negroes bears the slave trade. The slave traders, in their some similarity to the exploitation of the colonial devastation of African life, did not bring to world by the imperialist nations, and also to the America a homogeneous population but represen- domination of the small and weak nations of Eu- tatives of a thousand different tribes. rope by the rich and powerful empires. The simi- The transition from African tribal life to larity exists in this one fact: that the Negroes as exploitation on American plantations was suffi- a social group are subject to discrimination and ciently abrupt, terrifying and protracted to break super-exploitation above and beyond the elemen- virtually every important bond which held the tary exploitation of wage labor by capital, or the slave to his former life and cultural background. oppression of the small capitalists by the large The rupturing of the cultural chain which might ones. The Negro people as a whole including all have held the Negroes together in some African classes are subject to this discriminatory cultural homogeneity was further helped by the oppression. slaveowners, who would generally refuse to buy This is the similarity of the exploitation of more than one slave from the same tribe or Negroes in the United States to that of colonial nation. peoples and other oppressed nations. But there Thus living as slaves, who came to know no are also important differences, and these differ- other homeland than the United States, knew no ences are more striking than the similarities. other language than English, held no foreign Czarist Russia conquered Poland and sub- allegiance, the Negro people are among the jected it to a classical national domination. Great oldest of all the immigrant groups. They are Britain's subjugation of India was equally repre- essentially American. sentative of colonial oppression. Here we have For two and a half centuries, the Negroes the oppression of whole nations. But the Negroes were the only stable labor force in that portion are not a nation. Imperialist exploitation subor- of the North American continent which became dinated the national economy of the weaker and the United States. All other sections of the more backward countries of the earth to that of population were drawn into the fluidity of classes the dominant nations. This exploitation is made which characterized the period of westward possible through the vast differences in historical expansion of the capitalist economy. The slaves development of different areas of the world. remained enslaved from generation to generation. Neither cultural difference nor national pecu- In this position, the Negroes developed a liarity sets the Negroes apart in American society. powerful folk culture. But this culture did not American capitalist society is a composite of im- take the road of an independent national devel- migrant groups of diversified national origin. The opment. Because it was virtually the only real emergence of the American nationality as one of American folk culture, the slaves' music, "accent," the distinct peoples of the world is made possible folklore and religion filled a cultural need for the by the subordination of these immigrant groups American people as a whole. First the slave cul- to the dominant Anglo-American culture and their ture inundated the original Anglo-Saxon culture assimilation into it. Of all the immigrant groups, of the South, virtually destroying it. From there the Negroes were historically the best prepared to it went on to fuse with the whole national culture assimilate. until today those aspects of the national culture Europeans coming to North America, whether which are considered to be "typically" American voluntarily as colonists or as temporary inden- are largely the result of Negro influence. tured servants, had a natural protective tendency This is true in song and dance, in folktales, to group themselves together into closed com- the romantic crooner, blues singer, jazz man and munities in which they could perpetuate the hep-cat; in all popular art, in fact, and in nearly national peculiarities of language and custom every other field in which the needs, aspirations characteristic of their homeland. The existence of and frustrations of people are expressed through large foreign-speaking groups, even entire cities a social medium. and towns having newspapers, foods and other Cultural differences are one of the important 32

symptoms of traditional national and colonial op- ity was stripped from the race concept, it could pression. However, it should be obvious that not stand, for this idea was fundamental to the cultural difference can have no bearing upon the very idea of racial division. Within the last few special kind of exploitation to which the Negro years in a series of brilliant studies a small group people are subjected. On the contrary, Negroes of scientists has destroyed the basic theory and have been a constant instrument of modification method of physical anthropology. That is to say, of the basic Anglo-American culture. This attests they have made it quite clear that there is no to a process of mutual assimilation with the scientific basis for the contention that society can dominant cultural group. be divided into races upon the basis of visible In spite of the stigma of the black skin, physical characteristics. therefore, the mutual assimilation of Negro and Even while destroying the foundation of the Anglo-American appears as an overriding law of race myth, however, most of these scientists are American historical development which defies the still in its power and continue the search for laws of segregation, the prejudice of skin color, some means to justify racism. But the objective and the customs and social relations of the Jim result of their destruction of the old race concept Crow system. has been to make any race theory scientifically untenable today. 3. Race and Race Relations What they have proven in reality is that there The historical peculiarity of such a system of is no justifiable biological category such as "race" special exploitation based upon skin color re- into which to divide humanity. quires a fundamental analysis of the race system Nevertheless, in defiance of this advance in of social organization. The first question which science, skin color and Jim Crow laws continue arises is: what is race and what are race relations? to go hand in hand. Color supremacy and color Until a few years ago it was universally exploitation continue to persist, not only in the agreed among scientists and laymen alike that United States but throughout that part of the race was a legitimate biological category. That is, colonial world dominated by Anglo-American that the visible physical differences of skin color, imperialism. And the recent discovery that there hair texture, etc., which are apparent among is no such thing as "race" seems not to have people formed an adequate scientific basis for the affected the existence of exploitative relations biological division of the human species into sub- between people which are in fact organized categories generally called "races." Indeed for the around skin color or "race." past century all of physical anthropology, which "Race" is therefore a reality in spite of the is supposedly a branch of science, has been fact that science reveals that it does not exist. In devoted exclusively to the demonstration of the order to discover the relation between "race" as race concept. a concept of physical anthropology and "race" as No two schools of this so-called science were a fact of social existence, it is necessary to ever able to agree upon what the fundamental enquire into the origin of both. yardstick was for determining race. None agreed 4. The Origin of the Race Concept precisely as to whether race was really a desig- nation of subspecies. None agreed as to how How did the idea of race come into being? many "races" exist. Some said one hundred, There was no conception of race before capital- others said three. Fundamental to all of them un- ism. Of all the antagonisms between peoples of til recent times was the idea of superiority and the ancient and medieval world not a single one inferiority. They all agreed that these obvious had as its focal point the different appearance of physical characteristics were somehow related to peoples. On the contrary, older civilizations were fundamental biological characteristics which ex- struck with the basic identity of people as human pressed themselves in different capacities and beings independent of the differences in skin functions of the human mind. color, hair texture, etc. A more recent school of liberal anthropolo- To be sure, ever since the division of society gists overthrew the concept of biological supe- into classes, the owning classes have held those riority and inferiority. They retained however the that they exploited in contempt. But in ancient basic concept of racial division. This was the times the claims of superiority of ruling classes theory of the biological equality of separate races. never took on a racial character. But once the idea of superiority and inferior- The first time in the known history of human a

33

society that difference in skin color was the society in the West Indies and North America subject of fierce antagonism between people was proper began to divide itself, as social relations the direct product of colonial and United States degenerated under the slave system. First the chattel slavery created under the impulse of the black skin was despised because it was the mark development of European capitalism. of a despised mode of production. But this It was a peculiar combination of historical despised mode of production was the creator of accident and necessity by which the Negroes be- untold wealth and prosperity, and capitalist come the slave class of this modern slave system. society cannot despise riches for long. So they The climate, soil and location of the southern turned the whole matter on its head. United States, the West Indies and Central Amer- The slaves were in an inferior position eco- ica were suitable for the production of certain nomically. Gradually, white slaveowning society crops. These crops could only be produced in constructed a wall of color: that it was not the marketable proportions by the use of large scale mode of slave production which was to be de- cultivation methods. With a wide abundance of spised, but the slave: that the reason the black free land, however, available to all, free labor skin was the mark of the slave was that it was could not be held on the land of others. It was first the mark of human inferiority. therefore necessary to create a system of compul- In this manner the class problem of slavery sory labor. The system of chattel slavery is quite became complicated and confused by the color inefficient and wasteful. But in this part of the question. The slaves, besides being an exploited western hemisphere the low cost of maintenance social class, became, in the perverted thinking of of labor made it possible to utilize slavery the dominant society, an inferior race as well. profitably in spite of its wastefulness. It was upon this foundation that the "sci- The native labor supply of the American, Car- ence" of physical anthropology built its structure. ibbean and other West Indian tribes was neither In service to the American planters, the interna- extensive enough nor so easily adaptable to tional slave traders and colonial exploiters, fake agriculture as to provide an adequate working scientists and politicians took a set of perverted force of plantation labor. European peasant labor social relations based upon a discarded social sys- was inefficient in the sub-tropical zone and tem and made them into the foundation stones of expensive to maintain and replace. Labor from a science. They justified slavery as natural and Africa, on the other hand, was plentiful, accus- completely desirable for those with a colored tomed to agriculture and efficient in the heat of skin. the sub-tropical zone. And they had great need for such a justifi- Furthermore a slave trade had been going on cation. At the beginning of the slave trade the in Africa for years, organized by the Arabs. It was idea of spreading Christianity to the heathen was by no means an extensive trade but it could serve sufficient justification for Negro slavery. Slave as a starting point. traders were the missionaries and the slaveowners Another advantage of African labor was that the priests of a crusade to bring the word of God as a chattel slave—i.e., a piece of property— to heathen "savages" who would otherwise be Negro could be identified by his skin. doomed to eternal torment in their awful Chattel slavery was a system of production ignorance. which had been outgrown by European society But the revolutions in Britain, America and because it was a system of low productivity and France stripped away the veil of religion from wastefulness. Therefore, the very existence of a knowledge and initiated the age of science and mode of production based upon the absolute rationalism. Social relations could no longer be ownership of one human being by another, after explained by reference to God. So a fake "scien- it had been so long outgrown, was repulsive to tific" explanation of the social relations of slavery progressive people. Particularly when the world grew up to justify them. This is the actual foun- was bursting with revolutions proclaiming the dation of the science of physical anthropology. equality of all men. This slave system became so Slavery itself was overthrown in the Civil repulsive in fact that only weird and perverse War and Reconstruction. But the needs of the social relations could contain it. To despise the American capitalists for compulsory agricultural black skin as the mark of the slave was the princi- labor in the South remained. A new semi- pal and focal point of these social relations. capitalistic mode of agriculture grew up in which Thus, around the question of skin color, the semi-slave condition of the freed Negroes was 34 made permanent by the re-establishment of the domination, but not fundamental. social relations of slavery: color discrimination With or without segregation the special buttressed by segregation and race prejudice. exploitation of colonies would continue upon the Race thus became a fetish of American capi- basis of the economic, military and political talism, a system of special exploitation based power which the U.S., Great Britain, France, etc. upon the social relations and customs of a wield over the colonial world. previous mode of production, which had itself The completeness and rigidity of segregation been an abomination to society. Stripped of in the United States is demonstrated principally scientific justification, what then remains of race? at the points where it tends to break down. The Race is a relation between people based upon the most ticklish problem of such a system as the needs of capitalist exploitation. The race concept American race system is inevitably—what to do in anthropology grew out of the social relations with the children of mixed marriages; or, more of slavery. It was congealed by the adaptation of precisely, how to determine racially people of these obsolete social relations to the needs of mixed parentage. Marriage between Negro and capitalist production. white is illegal in the majority of states. But the The concept of race has now been over- offspring of illegal marriage is nevertheless taken thrown in biological science. But race as the care of by far-seeing lawmakers. In some cases, keystone of exploitation remains. Race is a social anyone with so much as one-sixty-fourth Negro relation and has only a social reality. ancestry is a Negro. This illustrates the completeness of the segre- 5. The Form of Race Relations gation system in the U.S. It demonstrates in the The basic form of race relations is segrega- first place one of the important differences be- tion. In the colonial countries it is expressed by tween race relations and other social relations the voluntary self-segregation of the white agents under capitalism. of empire. But it would be an error to judge race In no other system of social relations is relations as a whole by their expressions in colo- segregation the principal form. There are rela- nial exploitation. Race relations in the colonies tions between nations of many different varieties are derived primarily from the existence of the based upon the international rivalry for markets, race question in America and particularly in the and upon other points of international conflict. United States. However, throughout history it has only been In the colonies the question of race is de- necessary for an individual or group to adopt the pendent upon the specific needs of colonial ex- language and customs of another nation in order ploitation. In the United States special exploi- to become a part of it. tation is dependent upon race relations. In the Among classes it is only necessary to change colonies race is dependent upon exploitation, but economic status to pass over class lines. The here the exploitation is dependent upon race. worker can accumulate money, invest it in a capi- In this country race relations take the form talist enterprise and find the road to the capitalist of the compulsory segregation of Negroes. The class. The capitalist who loses his capital and intensity of segregation and of all the secondary must work for another to support himself de- race relations which flow from it determine the scends to the working class. extent of the special exploitation. By and large, While in the present stage of monopoly capi- in the North and West, where segregation is less tal there is greater class rigidity than in the early intensive than in the South, the degree of special days, and it is now virtually impossible for a exploitation of Negroes is far lower. Without worker to become a capitalist, still it is funda- segregation, discrimination and race relations mental to capitalist society that it provide means would soon disappear. for the passing over from one class to another as It is different in the colonies. Here, the economic development requires. In the United special colonial exploitation to which the masses States the worship of this machinery is a national of Asia, Africa and South America are subjected creed with the constant reiteration that anyone is dependent primarily upon the financial, mili- can become a capitalist, anyone can become tary and political control which the imperialists president. are able to maintain. The establishment of race The caste system of India represents a de- relations reflecting the concept of white su- cayed stratification of occupational groups within

periority is an important instrument of this classes. Yet it provides the machinery both for 35

individuals to change their caste station either 6. International Aspects of the Race Question upward or downward in the social scale and for The system and ideology of white supremacy whole castes to change their social standing. It is is an important weapon of western imperialist only race relations which are formally immutable domination of the colonial countries of Asia, and absolute. A Negro cannot become white. Africa, Asia Minor and South America. Spe- In this comparison it is obvious that race cifically, it is those areas dominated by either relations are in a separate category from the other Britain or the United States where race is a most basic social relations of society. prominent feature of colonial exploitation. It is The caste system was the necessary product important to note also that it was Britain in the of the stagnation and decay of Indian feudalism. 19th and the U.S. in the 20th century which rep- National relations are the inevitable product of resented the most effective and ruthless system of the development of production. Class commodity oppression of the darker peoples of the colonial relations are the inevitable result of the break-up world. of primitive communism and the establishment of There is no international rigidity in the private property. All of these have the historical application of the international system of white justification of economic necessity, are firmly supremacy, as there is in the United States. It may intertwined with great historical epochs, and are take the violent form of terrible oppression of the inseparable from them. Bantu in South Africa, or the comparatively But race relations have no such firm foun- benevolent form of white domination through dation. racial structure of American society The ostensible equality as in Hawaii. But in all is a disease of the social system and has neither circumstances it retains fundamental features in historical justification nor economic necessity, in common which reveal its role. the sense that capitalism has existed for centuries The idea of white superiority in China of a in other countries without the disfiguration of few years ago or in India is certainly believed to race antagonisms. impress the "natives" with a sense of their own Any attempt to classify the Negro question as inferiority, and therefore a willingness to accept a caste or national question serves only to con- exploitation and humiliation by the white oppres- fuse it. For such a classification lends to race sor as a law of nature. There is, however, no relations some of the stability and historical evidence of great success in this field. justification of the centuries upon centuries of On the other hand it is quite evident that the Indian civilization, or the worldwide development main value of the ideology of white supremacy of nations. Race relations are products only of is in a situation where a thin stratum of white capitalism, and specifically of American capi- agents is required to maintain social homogeneity talism, and will disappear entirely without leaving while administering the affairs of the imperialist of a trace, much with the disappearance of the rulers. It is necessary to foster among them a capitalist mode of production. racial contempt, even hatred, for the subject The absurd stringency of laws which state populations. Without color prejudice, the inevi- that a person six generations removed from Negro table tendency of such colonial agencies is to ancestry is a Negro, when in actuality a Negro is become absorbed into the population and to only a person with a dark skin, signifies the develop sympathies and allegiances in contradic- instability and artificiality of the system and the tion to their function as agents of empire: they extent to which fantastic and artificial measures would tend to sympathize with the oppressed. are required to maintain its form— segregation. Today in the twilight of imperialism the For it is not the purpose of the law to keep ideology of racial hatred assumes even greater a visibly white person of one-sixty-fourth Negro importance than during the heyday of the "white ancestry in the ghetto in segregation with dark man's burden." Today questions are being settled people, but to prevent social contact between not by administrators supported by a police with white and black in the beginning of such a family a small military force held in reserve, but by large descent by stigmatizing the offspring of mixed armies of occupation and subjection whose mo- marriages as black. It is in the United States that rale and social homogeneity must be maintained the form of race relations reveals its basic content whether in actual warfare as in Korea, or in and absurdity: this is the naked or pure form of preventive occupation as in Japan. The problem the race question. in the U.S. Army is considerably complicated by 36

the presence of Negro soldiers who do not accept race relations occupy only a secondary and sup- the specific doctrine of white supremacy. Never- porting position in special exploitation and are theless, race prejudice remains an important subordinated to the national oppression of the condition of the stability of imperialist rule by the native Africans, these race relations have a firmer United States throughout the world. This condi- foundation than in the United States. tion indicates the delicate equilibrium upon During the days of chattel slavery where race which all imperialist stability rests. relations were the expression of a special mode Throughout the colonial world we see expres- of production, they enjoyed such a greater sta- sions of racism. However, in every case they are bility. The slave was the object of special ex- derivative phenomena dependent upon the Ameri- ploitation primarily because he was a slave, sec- can system of race relations. ondarily because he was a Negro. Today, it is not

It is only in the United States that race because he is a worker that a Negro is Jim-

relations assume a pure form. That is, it is only Crowed but because he is black. here that skin color alone, independent of cul- Thus in the economic aspects of exploitation, tural difference, geographical remoteness or the race question in the United States demon- national identity, forms the basis for discrim- strates its fundamental character. In every other ination and special exploitation. instance racial exploitation merely serves as an In the Union of South Africa race relations auxiliary weapon to fortify national or colonial assume the most violent and brutal form. A white exploitation or some combination of the two.

European minority of two million exercises domi- Elsewhere it is accompanied by wide differences nation over eight million Africans. However, the in economic and cultural development. racial structure of this society is considerably That the Negro question in the United States newer than its American counterpart, and its stands out nakedly as a simple matter of skin builders have always looked to the United States color indicates in the first place the extremely for guidance and inspiration. unstable foundation upon which it rests. But race As late as 1877 only one-tenth of the conti- antagonism is fundamental to the United States nent of Africa was under imperialist domination. social structure under capitalism. The unstable It is mainly from this date forward that white foundation of the Jim Crow system thus reveals supremacy has asserted itself. For all the violence one of the weaknesses of the whole social of race relations there, it is only recently that the structure. rulers of South Africa have made the final attempt In the second place, as derivative forms of to "purify" the race question along American lines racial discrimination, white supremacy in other by the exclusion of mulattoes from the electorate parts of the world is dependent upon the Ameri- along with the blacks. can pattern. And just as when American imperial- The main concern, however, of the Bantu, as ism is overthrown and replaced by a workers of the mulattoes, is not one of color but of their state it will remove the last props from the col- colonial-national status. The struggle of the lapsing capitalist structure throughout the world, native inhabitants of Africa for emancipation will so will the end of the Jim Crow system in the on the other hand probably take the form of a United States cut away the groundwork from color struggle, as did the 18th century revolution white supremacy and race relations in the in San Domingo which established the Republic colonial world. of Haiti. But its essence will be that of a national 7. The U.S. as the "Melting Pot" struggle against colonial oppression.

In the African colonies, as in all colonial It is finally necessary to consider the problem countries, the race question, however severe, is of Negro equality and assimilation into American subordinated to the needs of these peoples for society in relation to the United States in its national emancipation and the end of all colo- function as a "melting pot" of nationalities. nialism. The cultural differences between the The original strength and vitality of American European and African population, when express- capitalism from its inception in the 18th century ing the relation between oppressor and op- was founded upon two pillars. First, the capitalist pressed, take on an economic and socially antag- nature of the impulse of the British colonization onistic character which is only reinforced and of the eastern seaboard. This established capital- stabilized by the doctrine of white supremacy. ist and semi-capitalist enterprise as the basic and Thus in the Union of South Africa, where original mode of production, unfettered by feudal 37

restrictions. Second, the uniting of the colonies against any country in the world without concern by a single language and a single Anglo-Saxon for the national origins and therefore susceptibili- culture. ties of important sections of its population. Scores of European nationality groups have Some of the conditions imposed by the ruling been more or less successfully assimilated into the class upon immigrant groups seem calculated to American nation. The difference in the problems have the opposite effect of assimilation. They are of these nationalities and those of the Negroes is herded into more or less isolated and segregated easily discernible upon examination. slums and subjected to discriminatory conditions From the very beginning other nationality of exploitation. Undeniably, this process in part groups attempted to retain their national identity, encourages tendencies toward the retention of as I have mentioned before. But the American rul- national homogeneity of the immigrant group. ing class ruthlessly thwarted them all. First, by However, this is only the method by which the cutting away the economic groundwork upon ruling class sets down its terms of assimilation: which a national minority might stand and devel- that the foreigners are welcome, that they may op an independent national system of commodity and must become Americans, but only in the posi- production and distribution. Second, by forced tion of highly exploited laborers in the great assimilation or "Americanization." industrial establishments of American capitalism. Anglo-American domination received a great Discrimination against these nationality impetus by the victory of the first American groups prevails in different sections of the revolution. As the capitalist class came into country for different periods of time. It is accom- undisputed control of the national state power in panied by "native" contempt, bigotry, intolerance the 1860 elections and the Civil War which fol- and prejudice. The fundamental source of this in- lowed, it developed the doctrine of "Americanize tolerance is in the capitalist intolerance of any the aliens." alien culture which threatens to break up the or- As the United States entered upon the impe- derly pattern of commodity production and distri- rialist epoch in World War I, forced assimilation bution, and the political unity of the state. It is of alien groups began to be transformed into their directed against the language and customs of the exclusion. United States imperialism could no foreign group with the object of eliminating longer afford the time required for Americaniza- them. tion. It always required at least from one to two This national intolerance is part of the generations to complete the process of assimila- process of the assimilation of the national minor- tion. And during these two generations the for- ities. It is, in effect, the demand by American cap- eign groups were subject to great disaffection italism upon the Germans, for instance, to cease from the capitalist class, either in the direction of being Germans and become Americans. "Speak embracing the working class movement, or in lack English! Talk American!" are the slogans of this of enthusiasm for the national chauvinism and intolerance. bigotry required to whip up the war spirit against While the demand upon the foreign nation- a rival empire. alities to assimilate is at the root of this national The latest manifestation of this transfor- intolerance, the direct opposite is the case when mation in national policy from forced assimilation we deal with racial discrimination. The object to to exclusion is the McCarran Act. be gained in the case of the Negroes is precisely Forced assimilation arose out of the national to prevent their assimilation. needs of capitalist production and distribution The race concept itself arose out of the need which require a nation, with a common culture to demarcate the Negroes as slaves and to build and language and a political unity, as the frame- upon that difference in skin color a wall sepa- work of its development. rating them from the rest of society. Without The more modern hysteria over "aliens" racial separation in the United States, there

dating from World War I results from the imperi- would be no possibility of maintaining the alist epoch in which the United States ruling class discriminatory social and economic practices begins to confront enemies: the working class or- which are fundamental to the economic and ganized in opposition to it at home, and on the social well-being of American capitalism, and its other hand its international imperialist rivals. The role in the world today. aliens are a danger in both cases. The American As we have seen, in many fundamental as- capitalist class wants to be prepared to go to war pects of United States culture: language, folklore, 38

etc., there is a constant mutual assimilation of the in its most general aspects. The nature of the various characteristics of the Anglo-American concept of race, its history and development, and with those of the Negro. But this process of as- its relation to other social phenomena under cap- similation is halted by economic and social rela- italism. Next Friday night we will consider it in tions adapted from slavery whenever it touches its actual existence: the Jim Crow system in the the possibility of economic, political or social United States, its roots and branches, and how to equality. eliminate it. We will show the only possible way So far we have considered the race question in which the goal of equality can be achieved.

II. The Struggle for Equality

Last week we discussed the nature of race, a subordinate racial position in American society. and the nature of race relations, their origin, Although we cannot recognize the existence history and significance. We concluded that there of races as a biological fact, still we must is no scientific basis for the subdivision of recognize the existence of races as social groups, humanity into races. Secondly, we noted that so organized by the ruling class for the purpose American society is, nevertheless, divided into of capitalist exploitation. races, and is disfigured and distorted by this We will now discuss the actual political, division. social and economic roots of the American system Dr. Du Bois has stated that the problem of of race relations under the following specific the 20th century is the color problem. It is quite headings: obvious that he was referring to the division of 1. The southern social system. the world between the white exploiting nations 2. The industrialization of the South. of the West and the colonial countries, inhabited 3. The Negro struggle and the demand for by people of darker skin color. equality. Dr. Du Bois was only partially right. It is true 4. Race consciousness. that imperialism is the most significant politico- 5. Stalinism and the question of self- economic development of this century. It is equal- determination. ly true that imperialist exploitation largely takes 6. The nature of prejudice. the form of domination by the so-called white 7. The Negroes and the labor movement. world over colored peoples. This exploitation, 8. Capitalist politics. however, is not based upon color but upon the 9. The final solution of the problems of superior military, economic and political power discrimination. which one part of the world wields over the 1. The Southern Social System other. The skin color of the enslavers, whether they are British, Spanish or Japanese, makes no We have demonstrated previously how the difference so long as it is backed up by military United States is the worldwide center of the sys- and economic might. The imperialist exploiters tem of racial discrimination. It is necessary now maintain their rule over the colonial peoples not to investigate the specific source of the racial sys- on the basis of color, but by their power. They tem in the United States. In other words, what do, of course, try to reinforce their rule by are the social and economic forces which prevent imbuing their colonial subjects with a sense of the assimilation of Negroes into American inferiority. They are aided in this by the fact that society? the imperialist overlords, with the sole exception The practice of discrimination in the United of the Japanese, are of the white-skinned race, States has its focal point in the southern social while those they rule over are all peoples with structure. At the end of the Civil War, having black, brown or yellow skin. However, it is only neither land nor political rights, the Negro agri- in the United States that color, by itself, plays a cultural population was forced into the peonage real and dominant role in social relations. Here, of sharecropping. A social system was built the Negro people, a group of darker skin than the around this arrangement. average, are subjected to special exploitation, The capitalist class has had a four-fold discrimination and segregation, merely because motive for perpetuating this system. First, share- of their skin pigmentation, which assigns them to cropping made it possible to maintain the planta- 39

tion system in southern agriculture, even after the founded upon the destruction of the glorious destruction of chattel slavery which was its revolutionary movement of the Reconstruction fundamental basis. If the Civil War and Recon- and the subsequent failure of the Populist revolt. struction had succeeded in breaking up the large The wealthy whites could not possibly have plantations the creation of an independent small subdued these movements with their own small farmer class would very probably have produced numbers. A mass support in a significant segment diversified farming. of the population was necessary to organize the By means of the southern Jim Crow system, Ku Klux Klan and to elevate the ruling classes to the capitalist class was able to prevent the their present position. This mass base of support development of free farming and retain the was to be found primarily in the white middle plantation. classes of the southern cities and towns, and the Second, the degradation of the Negro, his better-off section of the small farmers. loss of political rights and all means of economic One striking feature of the South under defense, has made it possible for the capitalist slavery was the absence of the commercial and class, in conjunction with the plantation owners, industrial towns which were so characteristic of to extract tremendous super-profits from under- the North. This was quite normal in an agrarian paid Negro labor, not only on the plantations but society dominated by huge plantations, which in the many industries of the South. provided no basis for a rich internal market.

Third, the Negro has always been the symbol Without towns it follows that there was no of southern labor as a whole. Hence the greater sizable urban middle class. degradation of all labor there and the consequent Commercial towns arose during the Recon- lower standard of living for all workers. struction under the impulse of capitalist economy This degradation of labor has enabled the in agriculture. The development of these towns capitalist class to extract extra profits through the produced a middle class. ruthless super-exploitation of a whole geograph- Everybody knows something of the fierce ical segment of its working class. competition which goes on among the middle The fourth stake which American capitalism classes all the time. They must compete not only has in the perpetuation of the southern Jim Crow against each other, but also against big business

system is that it is fundamental to the political which has more efficient and cheaper ways of stability of the nation under capitalism. doing things. The South is the only area where politics is But the middle class of shopkeepers, farmers, in no degree dependent upon the people, where independent artisans, doctors and lawyers—small the minority of wealthy Bourbons and capitalists businessmen of all kinds—furnishes the only rule directly and nakedly. Through the southern avenue of escape from wage slavery into the Democratic Party the capitalist class is at all times ranks of the capitalist class. Consequently, the able to carry out its basic interests. Every social lower the middle class the more intense and crisis has revealed this political dependence of the feverish is the competition for survival.

capitalist class upon the southern Democratic It is not hard to see that a tremendous Party which doesn't have to answer to labor for advantage would be gained by a section of the

its actions. actual or potential middle class if it could arbi- The Taft-Hartley Act and the McCarran Act, trarily exclude half of the population from the two of the most vicious pieces of pro-capitalist, right to compete with them for these occupations. anti-labor legislation in the history of Congress, Immediately after the Civil War privileged were not the result of a Republican majority, but poor whites established themselves in middle of a balance of power achieved by the southern class occupations. They made of these positions Democrats. a white monopoly by the organized terrorism of These are the main features of the southern the Ku Klux Klan. One of the most important

system and make it necessary to conclude that achievements of terrorism during the later days Jim Crow is a fundamental and integral part of of the Reconstruction was the complete exclusion American capitalism. of the Negroes from the general middle class. The wealthy white classes could not attain such It was principally this movement of the mid- total power as they wield in the South by their own dle class organized into the Klan, channelized and forces alone. controlled by the capitalists and landowners, The Bourbon rule of the South today is which gave to these new rulers complete political 40

control over the South. The object of terrorism is to make them more The white monopoly of privileged middle profitable workers. In the case of the Jews the class positions tended to extend down into the object of the Nazis was not to put the Jews "in higher skilled sections of the working class itself, their place" but to exterminate them. gaining additional points of support for the rule 2. The Industrialization of the South of the new Bourbons. A further expression of the privileges held by We said at the beginning of last week's the white middle class of the South is to be found lecture that the material conditions surrounding in their traditional exploitation of domestic the Negro struggle have undergone a funda- servants. mental transformation since the days of Booker It has been usual in the South that for a T. Washington's Atlanta speech. couple of dollars a week, carfare and old clothes The change is to be seen not only in the a white family can have a maid. And for slightly great migration of the Negroes northward and more, a gardener or a cook. westward which has created a new environment In this way, due to the extreme degradation in the basic industrial sectors of the nation's of labor, it has been possible for the southern economy. Principally, the change has occurred in middle class to live in a condition of luxury and the South itself. freedom from all domestic labor which is found The most notable facet of the present eco- only among the ruling classes of other social nomic picture in the South is the entry of monop- systems and the colonial agents of imperialism. oly capital into all phases of economic life and Thus, the mass base of the naked rule of the the industrialization which has taken place in this capitalists and landowners is revealed as a privi- once exclusively agricultural area. leged middle class and labor aristocracy which In search for cheaper labor markets, and to owes its special position to the racial division of accommodate the needs of the war economy, American society. American capitalism has been forced to abandon Herein is revealed the sociological and histor- its earlier conception of the agrarian South as ical antecedent of German fascism. The Nazi Party mainly a source of raw materials and very limited and the Storm Troopers are almost the exact pro- industrial development. Modern industry has totype of the Bourbon Party and the Ku Klux pushed some of its most advanced developments Klan. The Nazis, like the Klan, were essentially of into the very heart of the cotton belt. the middle class. They served the basic interests In building its new industrial empires in the of the large capitalists while defeating and de- South, however, big capital goes all the way. The moralizing the working class and creating the new developments tend to become large mass basis for the totalitarian dictatorship, just as the production units, organized around monopolistic Klan operated against the Negroes and the white company-dominated industrial towns. In these Populists. The principal ideological weapon of towns the worker is born in a company shack, both was racism and their principal organi- buys his groceries at the company store, works in zational weapon, terrorism. the company sweatshop, and is buried in the

It is well known that the Nazis sent official company graveyard. and unofficial observers to the United States to In all fields of the modern South monopoly study and learn American methods of racial takes over. The recent hearings during the half- discrimination and segregation to be applied to hearted anti-trust action against the A&P monop- persecution of the Jews. oly revealed the process by which the free But the comparison of the South with Nazi farmers are being exterminated. In merchandis- Germany must take account of two important dif- ing, as in everything else, it is the same story: big ferences. First, the white middle class had a business invades the South. And there is no room genuine advantage to exploit in the southern for a white privileged middle class in this scheme states in maintaining a racial monopoly of its of things. privileges. In Germany the "Aryan" middle class Furthermore, the development of modern found only complete destruction and humiliation industry has destroyed the role of the artisan and by the capitalists after the destruction of the labor skilled worker. movement and the Jewish people was completed. The mass base of the southern capitalist The second difference is that Negroes are a dictatorship has thus been undermined by the fundamental part of the southern working force. very process of capitalist production. 41

The next remarkable feature of the present- Capitalism has thus itself created in the South all day South is the tendency for the functions of the of the conditions for the emergence of the class lynch mob to be taken over by the police, the struggle and the revival of the age-long struggle military and individual terrorists. This is in- of the Negroes for equality, spelling the doom of terpreted by many people to be a sign of the capitalism. strength of the southern social system; that now 3. The Struggle for Equality at last the lynchings can be done "legally" and the State takes official responsibility for them. So far we have been concerned mainly with But in reality, this condition reflects the the objective nature and history of the race weakened power and reduced social weight of the question. It is now time to consider the direction white middle class. It is no longer able to of the actual struggle of the Negro people against maintain its traditional function of mass terrorism discrimination. against the Negroes. The increased capacity of the The Negro struggle has been historically con- Negroes for resistance by their concentration in ditioned by two main factors. First, the basic industrial centers has come hand in hand with social and economic need of the U.S. ruling class this weakening of the white middle classes. to prevent the development of any cultural or Thus capitalism, by the logic of its own devel- economic base upon which independent nations opment, has undermined the very social foun- might arise. Second, by the very nature of seg- dation upon which it depends for support and at regation. This is the means by which the assimi- the same time increased the ability of the lation of Negroes is prevented and their special oppressed to defend themselves. racial exploitation maintained. Both German and Italian fascism were raised The interaction of these two factors has to power and stabilized by the terrorism of the created the two poles of the Negro struggle: middle class against the working class. But after separatism and assimilation. achieving power, the fascist leaders, as represen- The European emigrant groups were required tatives of monopoly capital, could give nothing to only to assimilate and to become "Americanized." the middle class. The mass base was dissipated by But the Negroes, the most completely "Ameri- the disillusionment of the middle class, and the canized" section of the population, have been rulers maintained their positions with only the prevented from exercising American citizenship, support of the police and the military force. This and thus are deprived of the right of assimilation. was characterized by Trotsky as a Bonapartist On the other hand the economic development of military-police dictatorship. the country has prevented such a segregated While the economic situation remains rela- group from developing any economic and social tively quiet this type of rule gives the illusion of base by which they could take advantage of their

great strength. But it is really a regime of ex- segregation to develop the foundation for an tremely unstable equilibrium, as was shown in independent national economy. both Italy and Germany where under conditions At every point, the ruling class has calculated

created by World War II these military dictator- to maintain this factor of racial separation. And ships fell easily. In Italy, under the pressure of the conversely, the basic advances which the Negroes first revolutionary waves of the revival of the have made through the entire historical period workers movement. In Germany, by the military from the founding of abolitionism in the 1830's pressure of the Allied armies. until the present day have been achieved in the So, also, the South today is revealed as a struggle against separation, and essentially for semi-military police dictatorship, its mass base the right of assimilation into American society.

undermined and dissipated by the very logic of I want to trace briefly the historical devel-

capitalist development. It too will fall under the opment of the relation between separatism and first serious blows as the southern workers mass assimilationism as the main two poles of the movements will arise in the period ahead. Negro struggle. Other far-reaching effects of the indus- During the first decades of the last century trialization of the South undermine the rule of there was one and only one organized movement capitalism. The proletarianization of poor agrar- in the United States concerning itself with the ian and middle class whites by modern industry Negro question: the American Colonization So- has created a clear identity of interest between ciety. This was an organization founded by slave- white and black as exploited industrial workers. owners and basically expressing their interests. 42

Though this society was international its in the interest of American industrial enterprises. most important base was among the middle class This colony, nominally an independent republic, humanitarians of the northern cities of the United is today owned for all practical purposes by the States. The whole first half of the 19th century Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. was an era of insecurity and unrest for the urban Neither the slaves nor the free Negroes middle classes. The long depressions brought would have anything to do with this plan for about by the fundamental cycles of capitalist deporting them to Africa. They contended that production, partially by the constant reduction in they were Americans as much as any and more so tariffs by the slave power, kept the middle classes than most and demanded the rights accorded to in a state of constant crisis which resulted in a all other Americans. To the slaveowners' demand hysteria for reform. for the deportation of Negroes, the slaves It is characteristic of the middle class, how- counterposed the demand for immediate and ever, that because they have no independent class unconditional emancipation. This was the genesis position in society they cannot find the solution of the abolitionist movement and the program to their problems in terms of their own class which the slaves and free Negroes fought on interests. Today middle class hysteria born of throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction. economic insecurity finds its expression all the This early conflict between colonization and way from religious revival to support of fascist- abolition expresses the conflict between separa- type movements. tism and assimilation which have been the basic During the first half of the 19th century, the problems of the Negro struggle ever since 1830. middle class attached itself to a number of This conflict appears today between those who panaceas, which it felt might solve its problems. struggle for immediate and unconditional eco- They became preoccupied with temperance, with nomic, political and social equality, and those money and land reform, with Utopian socialist who will make some concession or adaptation to movements; some attached themselves to nature, the demand of the ruling class for segregation. others to the uplift of women and factory In most instances the Negroes have found workers; but the most powerful magnet of their most bitter foes ranged on the side of attraction for this middle class was the Negro separatism, and have achieved their advances question. along the opposite line. In this historical context They felt, and quite correctly, that somehow the Garvey movement appears in its true light as the Negro question concerned their own insecu- the abortive result of the decades of horrible rity. The truth was that the source of the terrible reaction and the complete isolation of the Negro crisis of the middle class of this period was in the people which followed the Reconstruction. Sep- fact that the slave power, representing class in- aratism in the Negro movement is an adaptation terests hostile to capitalist development, was the to the segregation imposed by the ruling class. In dominant force in the nation, and inasmuch as the case of the Garvey movement it was the only the future of the middle class was tied up with channel through which the mass discontent of the the future of capitalism in general, the slave- Negro people could express itself. owners were their enemies and the slaves were The Stalinists thus find in their advocacy of the only group in society with the power and separatism an embarrassing contradiction to their position to overthrow this hostile class. support of struggles against segregation. But the slaveowners were able at first to The ruling class now proposes the spurious control and channelize this middle class discon- solution of "separate but equal." But the Negroes tent through the agency of the American Colo- are quite aware that separation is the condition nization Society. The program of this organiza- of discrimination, not of equality. They counter- tion was to solve the Negro question by the pose the demand for unconditional and immedi- colonization of all free Negroes in Africa. ate equality to all the doctrines of separation. Among the achievements of this society was 4. Race Consciousness the founding of the colony of Liberia. Some 25,000 Negroes at one time or another were Now we come to the question of race con- deported there, mostly against their will, and sciousness. Many people wrongly assume that formed a ruling and privileged group in the race consciousness among Negroes is a sign of colony. For more than a century they have ruled their desire to create a society and state of their and exploited the African native population there own, or, as the Communist Party puts it: for 43

National Self-Determination. the ruling capitalist class of the United States. To

Race relations are the artificial product of be sure, this class is lily white, but it is not their capitalist exploitation in the United States. They color which distinguishes them from the rest of do not flow from the basic economic relations of society, rather their great wealth, and the control production but are superimposed upon the class which they exert over all finance and industry. It structure. In the disfiguration of American society is not the race consciousness of capitalists which by the scar of race antagonism we see that it comes to the fore in their relation with Negroes, fortifies and tends to stabilize the structure of but their class consciousness: they are able to American capitalism by dividing the population take advantage of the racial structure of American into hostile racial groups, who find it difficult to society to extract super-profits from Negroes get together in defense of their common interests through capitalist production. against the master class. It is principally among the white workers and Race consciousness is one of the products of farmers of the South that white race conscious- this arbitrary division of society into races. It ness asserts itself. But I believe I have shown that bears some similarity to other forms of social the great majority of these white workers and consciousness, and yet it is different. farmers are victimized by the racial division in Class consciousness, for instance, has a society nearly as much as are the Negroes. Race thoroughly material foundation whether it be of prejudice, which is the form of white race con- the capitalist class or among the workers. For sciousness, is one of the means by which the either workers or capitalists, class consciousness extreme exploitation of white workers themselves is the recognition that because of economic is maintained. It is in direct opposition to their position in society a person has certain basic material interests. We are therefore justified in problems which are common to all those of the maintaining that there is no material foundation same economic group. for race consciousness among the white working In this case, the mode of production divides class: it is just a matter of prejudice, which goes society into economic classes, and class con- against their material interests. sciousness is the inevitable product of this But it is different with Negroes. The racial division. Class consciousness corresponds to the structure of the United States produces a race real relations of production. consciousness among Negroes which corresponds But there is nothing in the mode of produc- directly to the special exploitation and dis- tion itself which divides society into races. This crimination against them. It does not derive from division is the result of the disfiguration of the their African cultural heritage or from an inde- capitalist mode of production in the South by the pendent cultural development in this hemisphere, influences of chattel slavery. It is maintained only but simply from their position in American society by force and violence and is accompanied by prej- as the immediate and principal victims of the udice, special exploitation, extreme ignorance and American system of race relations. cultural barrenness. Race consciousness reflects Nor is race consciousness in the United States in one way or another the distortion of the mode the same as race consciousness in Africa, or of production and the violence and prejudice of among the Chinese. In these cases race exploita- the race system. tion is the by-product of colonial oppression and In the southern system and the race relations is controlled by the national aspirations of these which derive from it, all Negroes are the victims colonial peoples, though these may take the form of discrimination. But except for a minority of of racial aspirations. It is related that the slaves capitalists and privileged middle class people, the of San Domingo, in their secret religious rites, white population as such does not derive benefit chanted this song: "We swear to destroy the from it. On the contrary, the white worker and whites and all that they possess; let us die rather farmer are as much the objects of class exploita- than fail to keep this vow." This is the voice of tion as are the Negroes. A majority of the workers the slave aspiring to emancipation—a class strug- and farmers in the South are white. But their gle which took the form of a race war. Finally, in standard of living and general social condition is San Domingo the whole revolution for the inde- directly determined by that of the Negroes. pendence of Haiti took the form of a racial Therefore, while the dark race is the direct conflict. victim of discrimination, the group which gains Race consciousness among Negroes in the from it is not the lighter skinned race but a class: United States is primarily their consciousness of 44 the desire for equality, and the universal ex- these discoveries and studies. pression of it is apparent in the militant struggle However, race pride among Negroes does not to achieve this equality. This is at the root of at all mean that they want either to return to every important movement either of the masses Africa or to found an independent nation here in or of the Negro intelligentsia which has arisen the U.S. It is rather another means by which during the past twenty-five years. It is different Negroes justify their demand for full equality in from the manifestations of race consciousness in the United States. the colonial world, as for instance the anti-white 5. The Question of Self-Determination struggle in Kenya unfolding before us. The demand for immediate equality has been There are expressions of race consciousness the cornerstone of the NAACP, was the premise other than in the various phases of the struggle of the March on Washington Movement, of the for equality. There is an expression of Negro race movement against discrimination in industry, on consciousness which has a purely capitalist foun- the job and in the labor unions. Above all, it is dation, in a small section of Negro businessmen the basis of the Negroes' recognition and support who hold economic advantage by maintaining a of the CIO. racial monopoly of certain commercial enter- Thus in contrast to the Africans, where race prises. It is to the advantage of this small group consciousness inevitably expresses nationalism, to maintain the basic features of segregation. the primary expression of race consciousness by Booker T. Washington expressed the needs Negroes in the U.S. is the demand for the right of of this social group in his doctrine of acceptance assimilation into American society. of the Jim Crow system. However, for the mass Race consciousness may take the form of race of Negroes this doctrine has a different signifi- pride. In the white population this is a vicious cance. It provides a means by which individuals tool of reaction, for race pride among whites is or groups may express a willingness to cease the primarily the prejudice and chauvinism of white struggle for equality and accommodate them- supremacy. But among Negroes, race pride may selves to the requirements of the white ruling and usually does take an extremely progressive class. course. For race pride is the Negroes' conscious- Booker T. Washington appeared on the scene ness of equality, and expresses itself in struggle at the termination of the Reconstruction, when against the capitalist system of inequality, and the Negroes, having engaged in revolutionary may express itself in the demand for the right to struggle for thirty years, had met final defeat at struggle jointly with white workers against the the hands of the Klan. His exhortation to the bosses, thus giving unionism an additional racial Negroes to humbly submit was inspired by the point of support. master class. The Negroes accepted it, not be- Or this race consciousness may take the form cause it expressed in any way their immediate of a sympathy with the colonial peoples who are desires or interests, but because in defeat and also the victims of white supremacy, though in a isolation they had no alternative. different form. This instinctive racial sympathy Out of this isolation and defeat there finally with the darker peoples of the colonial world by emerged, after thirty years, a militant movement which American Negroes strike back against their of struggle against suppression: the Universal own racial oppression is in reality a great Negro Improvement Association, led by Washing- demonstration of internationalism, and a forerun- ton's disciple, Marcus Garvey. ner of the mutual sympathy and understanding Garvey's was the only major movement in the which will characterize the relations of different whole history of the Negro struggle since the peoples after capitalism has been destroyed. This Civil War which led a militant struggle while internationalism is a great thorn in the side of accepting segregation. This organization disap- imperialism. peared as rapidly as it arose. It disappeared Again, race consciousness may take the form because of the sharp contradiction between a of the vindication of the history of the darker militant struggle and the acceptance of segre- peoples. Under the stimulus of Negro historians, gation. Garvey's program of "Back to Africa," for African society, for so long expurgated from the the promotion of Negro commercial enterprise, official history of the world, is revealed as an his acceptance of the Washington creed, were important source of all modern civilization. All inadequate for the forces which his movement society advances scientifically and culturally by unleashed. 45

In this respect the Garvey movement was a of a Negro nation. transition from the abject acceptance of segre- It is equipped with boundary lines, an inde- gation to the modern struggle for equality which pendent culture, a state power and all the was made possible by the emergence of the CIO. attributes of nationalism. But there just isn't As a transitional movement it was transitory in its anybody there. The Negroes will have nothing to existence. The CIO, expressing the interests of the do with it. most exploited industrial workers, inevitably In the comparison of the Negro movement expressed the fundamental truth of the race with the nationalist movements of Europe, their question, that the interests of the working class differences are clearly revealed. In every im- and of the Negro people are identical, not portant case of national oppression in Europe in antagonistic. modern times, assimilationism on the part of The fundamental content of the demand for sections of the oppressed nation, usually its upper full equality is the right of assimilation into classes, was the sign of accommodation to op- American society. The idea that this primary pression. Conversely, nationalism and the demand expression of race consciousness will probably for self-determination was the expression of the express itself in the form of nationalism as the struggle against oppression. struggle unfolds is false. It is based upon the With the Negro movement it is the precise mechanical identification of the Negro question opposite. Historically, since the foundation of in the United States with the national question in abolitionism, every militant struggle against Europe and the colonial world. oppression, with the single exception of the The Communist Party has been the agent of Garvey movement, has demanded the right of as- more confusion on this question than any other similation. The acceptance of separatism has been group in the country outside the outright par- characteristic of accommodation to oppression tisans of the southern system. and renunciation of struggle. The adoption of the After belaboring the Negroes unsuccessfully separatist doctrine is the means by which Negro for eighteen years with the proposal that they leaders seek peace with the enemy. organize an independent nation in the cotton The Negro struggle arises from the position belt, the Stalinists came to the conclusion in 1946 of Negroes in America, not from that of the Poles that the Negroes weren't smart enough to see in Czarist Russia. Polish nationalism was the how wonderful this kind of segregation would be. means by which the workers and peasants of Po- So, say the Stalinists, when the Negroes get land had to begin the solution to their problems. smartened up they will realize that they are really But the various theories of Negro nationalism and an independent nation and demand self- the idea of self-determination for Negroes have determination and the Communist Party will be the effect of justifying the system of racial vindicated. segregation, without which discrimination could This is a complete fantasy. This nation which not exist. the Stalinists have dreamed up for the Negroes The Negro question is revealed as historically reminds me very much of the white man's heaven: unique. This flows from the unique "purity" of a story taken from the folklore of the slaves the race question in the United States. Militant which features Jack, the immortal hero of this assimilationism under the slogan of Full Equality mythology. is the driving force of a movement which can be The story says that one morning the master fulfilled only in the struggle against capitalism related to Jack that he had dreamed about the and for socialism.

Negro's heaven. It was a miserable place, dirty, There are hypothetical historical circum- sloppy, uncared for and generally run down. Jack stances under which, however, the Negro move- made little comment about this dream, but the ment might become transformed into a national next morning informed the master that he too struggle, or a struggle for racial independence had had a dream. He dreamed of the white man's along national lines. As a matter of fact the heaven. It was a marvelous place to behold. separatism of both Washington and Garvey had Green grass, great buildings, marble statues, an embryonic nationalism which, if the isolation fountains and pools and gardens. Everything of the Negroes from the working class as a whole spotless. The only peculiar thing was that there had been maintained in the form in which it was nobody there. existed in the 1920's, might have developed much That is the condition of the Stalinists' dream further. 46

Leon Trotsky enumerated two such historical people to achieve this emancipation by whatever possibilities. First: "Under the condition that road they choose without giving up our own Japan invades the United States and the Negroes basic program for immediate full equality. are called upon to fight—they may come to feel 6. The Question of Prejudice themselves threatened first from one side and then from the other, and finally awakened, may Now we must go over to the question of the say, 'We have nothing to do with either of you. nature of race prejudice and its role in the We will have our own state'." American system of race relations. The American Trotsky said this in the period immediately philosopher and pragmatist John Dewey has preceding World War II. It revealed his concern stated that "anything that obscures the funda- over the Negro question in the United States, and mentally moral nature of the social problem is his insistence upon considering all variants of the harmful...." Gunnar Myrdal, who edited an historical process. But this is now an historical enormous book on the Negro question for the impossibility. Carnegie Foundation, is a devout follower of Secondly, he said, "There is another alter- John Dewey. In this book An American Dilemma native to the successful revolutionary one. It is he uses this idea as his guiding principle: that possible that fascism will come to power with its social problems are fundamentally moral in racial delirium and oppression and the reaction nature. of the Negro will be toward racial independence .... We are familiar with the application of this A 'privileged' condition will be created for the theory to other fields. In the case of the exploit- American white workers on the backs of the ative evils of capitalism, it is claimed that the Negroes." exploitation of wage labor by capital results from But Trotsky did not grant the defeat of the the greed of the capitalist. The inference is clear, American workers by fascism, and neither do we. therefore, that as long as people are greedy, and On the contrary, the American working class in they have always been so, exploitation of man by alliance with the Negroes has the power to man will continue. overthrow the rule of Wall Street and set up a Karl Marx proved conclusively, however, that workers government which will completely fulfill it was not greed but property relations which the needs of the Negro people for full equality. make it possible for exploitation to exist. As an oppressed racial minority having no When applied to the Negro question, the homeland other than the United States, the theory of morality means that the root of the Negroes find driving force in their struggle for problem of discrimination and white supremacy emancipation in the demand for full equality: the is prejudice. This is the reigning theory of right to complete integration and assimilation American liberalism and is the means by which into American life. the capitalists throw the responsibility for the Jim Revolutionary socialists stand squarely upon Crow system upon the population as a whole. If this program: for immediate and unconditional people weren't prejudiced there would be no economic, political and social equality. An im- Negro problem. This contention is fundamentally portant part of this stand is to reject and con- false. demn every proposal for the solution of the Negro The position in which the Negro people are question through racial separation, whether it be placed in U.S. society is the direct result of the the vicious segregationism of the bosses' doctrine system of color slavery. Color prejudice under of "separate but equal" or the more subtle pro- slavery resulted from the degraded position of the gram of the Communist Party for "self-determi- Negro. The Negro was virtually the entire nation" for the Negro people. Both of these can southern working force and color prejudice only buttress the basic social system of Jim Crow reflected the degraded position of labor as a whose main pillar of support is segregation. whole in society. The greatest humiliation that We declare, however, with Trotsky that in the white men in the old South could undergo was unlikely event that history should take a different being forced to do productive labor. course than the victory of the revolution in this In this society before the Civil War, dis- epoch, and in consequence, the Negro movement crimination thus had the advantage of being might be pushed back into isolation again, appended to a peculiar and special mode of bringing forth the movement for emancipation production in which servile labor appears natural, along different lines, we will help the Negro and is in fact the basic labor of society. 47

The Garrisonians claimed that slavery was disfranchised along with Negro labor and the only a moral question. And while their militant standard of living of the white sharecropper or actions were in violation of this concept, they factory hand is little better than that of the maintained that all that was necessary was to Negro. show that it was morally wrong and slavery Discrimination and prejudice in the rest of would cease to exist. But the Garrisonians were the United States derives directly from the wrong. Because slavery was a matter of a social southern system, feeds upon it, and like racial system, a mode of production, tremendous wealth discrimination throughout the world is completely amassed by its ruling class, and state power to dependent upon it. The capitalist class adapts to protect it. They were also proven wrong by its needs the fundamental features of the history, where war and revolution, not moral southern system. In every possible way it suasion, were necessary to end slavery. perpetuates the division of the working class by Now, we know from a study of the history of establishing throughout the entire nation the capitalist development throughout the world that basic reciprocal relations between discrimination, one of the important aspects of the emergence of segregation and prejudice which are so successful capitalism is the creation of the free labor market, in the South. where the laborer has nothing but his labor Discrimination within the working class itself power to sell, and may go and come through the is due to the adaptation of the labor aristocracy country in search of a buyer for this commodity. to the southern system as a means of preserving However, the triumph of capitalism in the craft and bureaucratic privileges in industry and South brought not the free labor market, but the in the union movement. But in the North and adaptation of the plantation system of color West the basic social system of the South and its discrimination and compulsory labor to capitalist heritage from the past are missing. Therefore in property relations. In this contradiction between these regions the Jim Crow system tends to break the tendency of capitalism to operate with a free down under the forces generating working class labor market and the reality of semi-slave labor, solidarity. all the weird social relations and prejudices which The basic identity of interest of the industrial originated under slavery were intensified by the working class and the Negro people is revealed victory of capitalism. in the alliance between the Negroes and the Prejudice is not the cause of discrimination, white workers in the CIO. Craft unionism with as the liberals claim, but is the product of the few exceptions was lily white during the 1920's. reciprocal relation between discrimination and The emergence of the CIO was testimony that segregation. At the foundation of the southern unionism in the mass production industries system are the great economic, political and social cannot exist upon either a craft or racial advantages which capitalism derives from color foundation. exploitation, and the advantages accruing to a But since discrimination in the North and small white middle class. The principal prop of West derives from the southern system, it will this system of discrimination is segregation. never be eliminated until the southern system is Without segregation the racial division of Amer- uprooted and destroyed. Similarly with prejudice. ican society is meaningless and withers away. Education against prejudice has its importance in Segregation is maintained basically not by prej- the Negro struggle. But only the destruction of udice but by force and violence and the legal the economic and social foundation upon which structure of the South. prejudice is built will eliminate it. This will be Prejudice is the product of this complex social accomplished only by the socialist revolution. relation. But although it is directed immediately 7. The Negro Struggle, Capitalist Politics against the Negro, its object is the working class and the Labor Movement as a whole. Through discrimination and segrega- tion, Negro labor is degraded and its wage falls I believe that I have already demonstrated to the bare subsistence level. But this sets the how completely integrated the Jim Crow system pattern and controls the conditions of labor as a is with American capitalist production and its whole. political superstructure. Nevertheless even after Color prejudice thus reflects both prejudice agreeing with many or even most or all of these against labor as a whole and the degradation of facts there are still some who cling tenaciously to the southern worker. In the South white labor is the false idea that in some way or another there 48

is room for considerable progress towards the pendent party of labor with no compromise on solution of the problem of racial discrimination the basic question of civil rights. within the framework of the capitalist parties. However, equality is not enough, either in The police state of the South is administered the North or South. The Negro has the right to by the Bourbons through the Democratic Party ask: "What is it to be equal to the under- machinery under the protection of the national nourished white sharecropper in South Carolina? government. But it must be remembered that if it What is it to be equal in the disease-infested was the Democratic Party which created the semi- slums of Detroit?" fascist southern system, it was the Republican Southern workers are the victims not only of Party which voluntarily turned the South over to the racial division of society which intensifies the Klan. capitalist exploitation. They are also oppressed by The Democrats, it is true, are the main an historically outmoded system of land tenure. upholders of white supremacy. But it was the Southern agriculture is still suffering from the Republican Party which, during its purge of the inability of the Civil War and Reconstruction to Black Republicans during the 1890's, caused the break up the landed estates of the slaveowners. coining of the epithet "lily white." Along with the demand for full civil rights must The so-called struggle between the Repub- come the demand to destroy the plantation licans and Democrats in the South is essentially system, and an end to tenancy and sharecropping a struggle between two capitalist political cliques through the nationalization of the land. The for the allegiance of the most reactionary section nationalized land must be divided among those of southern political society, the Dixiecrats. who work it and operated either as independent Whatever the ups and downs of this struggle, the diversified farms or as state-operated industrial basic political structure will remain intact until farms controlled by the workers. In this respect the working class, jointly with the Negro people, the problems of plantation labor in the United vanquishes and destroys the Republican- States are hardly less severe than they are in Democratic dictatorship. India. One of the main struggles of the Negro In the North and West, equality of Negroes movement in the South since World War II has as wage workers can never become a reality been directed towards achieving the right to vote. under capitalism. For capitalism is a system of

This has had some success. However, it would be scarcity, and the Negroes, the last to be hired by a mistake to assume that the mere addition of an modern industry, will continue to be the first increasingly larger number of Negroes to the victims of the periodic spasms of unemployment voters list will materially change social conditions which characterize capitalist production. in the South. Votes don't determine or control What would equality bring to the Negro anything of great importance in the South. middle class at a time monopoly capital is The battle for the vote is an absolutely squeezing out the white middle class? A hundred necessary part of the Negro struggle in the South. years ago it would have had meaning. But today

But as long as it finds expression merely in the equality, even if possible under capitalism, which right to support one or another wing of the ruling it is not, would be only the equality of destitution Bourbon dictatorship, its scope is extremely which is the future of the middle class of the limited, and it will change nothing essential. United States. There is no progressive tendency in the Each of these examples demonstrates that reactionary southern dictatorship. The Bourbons discrimination against Negroes in the United enjoy sending their "liberals" to Congress as a States is so ingrained in the social structure that malicious joke on the nation. But at home they only complete destruction of capitalism can lay are united on the fundamental questions. To the the foundation for the solution of the Negro Negroes' demand for equality they unanimously question. reply with the doctrine of "separate but equal," A hundred years ago Karl Marx, in urging the for they well know that there is no equality with American workers to support the struggle of the segregation. slaves for emancipation and to support the The effectiveness of the struggle for the right northern cause in the Civil War, proclaimed the to vote in the South will remain limited until it following truth: "Labor cannot emancipate itself is coupled with the struggle for the right of the in the white skin where in the black it is southern workers to establish their own inde- branded." This is just as true today in the modern 49

context of racial discrimination as it was during the form of undermining and limiting the labor the struggle against slavery. movement. But in times of social crisis it can At each point, the fundamental interests of become the backbone of a great reactionary the industrial working class and of the Negro movement. people are tied together. At no point is this The open-shop Jim Crow South is therefore revealed more strongly than in the problems of lifted as a Sword of Damocles over the head of unionism. the labor movement. But the example of the city

Working class solidarity is a mighty antidote of Birmingham proves that it is by no means to race prejudice. Without the overthrow of impossible to organize in the South. prejudice unionism itself is always in danger. This Nevertheless, the CIO has failed in all its is demonstrated in the great struggles against the major attempts. This can only be explained by the giant corporations of auto, rubber, steel. Here the limitations of the program of the union working class was forced, in spite of prejudice, to bureaucracy. present a united front to the employers or meet The organization of a labor movement in the sure defeat. This action was the beginning of the South among the basic industrial and agricultural overthrow of race prejudice, just as it was the workers there must take its point of departure beginning of industrial unionism. from a break with capitalist politics and capitalist

But this is also demonstrated in the heart of parties. It must recognize that a whole social the South where unionism in Birmingham, system must be overthrown before democracy and through the agency of the coal miners and unionism will be possible. A social system steelworkers, has thrust an imposing salient into involving a privileged middle class which, though the semi-fascist Bourbon empire. weakened by capitalist development, is still the The street-car conductors of Birmingham are dominant social force, involving an archaic land one of the groups whose function it is to main- tenure and a semi-fascist police state. tain the traditions of segregation. In the turbu- As adherents of the Democratic Party and lence of Birmingham, which is just an overgrown partners of American big business the union U.S. steel "company town" in many respects, the bureaucrats operate as partisans of the Bourbon street-car conductors are armed, or at least they Party of the South regardless of their wishes in used to be. It was common to shoot scores of the matter. Negroes every year to maintain segregation on 8. Socialism and the End of the Race System the cars.

But during the period of the organization of In concluding, I want to summarize my thesis the utilities, one day six Negro powerhouse on the question of racial discrimination in the workers struck against injustice, and within two struggle for equality. hours every single street car was idle due to the The racial division of society was born with action of solidarity of the white street-car crews capitalism and will die only with the death of this with the six Negroes. This action illustrates the last system of exploitation. Before capitalism way that capitalist exploitation levels out the there was no race concept. There was no skin working class until finally the workers begin to color exploitation, there was no race prejudice, shed even their race prejudice in the interest of there was no idea of superiority and inferiority class solidarity. based upon physical characteristics.

If industrial unionism could not exist upon a It was the advent of Negro chattel slavery in racial basis, neither can it be maintained on a the western hemisphere which first divided regional basis. The low wages of the South are a society into races. In a measure the whole su- constant pressure upon all unions throughout the premacy of western capitalism is founded upon country. Furthermore, the Bourbon dictatorship this modern chattel slavery. The primary accu- is the most consistent and steadfast of all the mulation of capital which was the foundation of sources of anti-labor reaction in the country. the industrial revolution was accrued largely from The central role of the southern Democrats the slave trade. in all the anti-labor legislation in Congress The products of the slave system in the early through the years is too well known to require colonies formed the backbone of European comment. mercantilism and the raw materials for industrial During times of economic stability the capitalism. The three-cornered trade by pious pressure of the southern reaction may take only New England merchants, consisting of rum, slaves 50 and sugar cane, was the foundation of American taste of the ruthless contempt that the American commerce. Thus Negro slavery was the pivotal rulers hold for the darker people of the colonial point upon which the foundations of the U.S. world. The introduction of "Luke the Gook's Cas- national economy were hinged. tle" into official military and journalistic As the last surviving slave system in the geography attests to the persistence with which modern world, U.S. Negro slavery in the first half the U.S. military spreads "the miasma of race of the 19th century was a worldwide center of prejudice," as Trotsky called it. reaction. The myth of racial superiority based But if the United States spreads race upon skin color was adopted by the western prejudice it also provokes a reaction against it. imperialists as a means of stabilized colonial rule. Throughout Europe the U.S. holds capitalism to- They have never failed to justify their practices in gether in defiance of the wishes of the over- the colonies by reference to the American system. whelming majority of its people. The European The American plantation system was transported peoples have no intention of becoming the battle- to India and was introduced by American slave ground for World War III. Their justified sus- drivers. Attempts of the British to introduce the picion of Yankee imperialism is expressed, in part, color concept into the castes of India made by their refusal to accept the doctrine of white constant reference to the American system of supremacy and their demonstrative acceptance of white superiority. American Negroes on the basis of equality. Having become the imperialist leader of the In Asia, if the doctrine of race is necessary to capitalist world, the U.S. exports race prejudice maintain a large military force intact, it also as naturally as it does death and destruction to stimulates and fortifies the determination of all the colonial world. Europe was virtually free of Asian peoples to struggle against imperialist color prejudice until the white American army domination. The great Chinese Revolution began its indoctrination of the "American Way." emerges in this respect as a body blow to the There is hardly a soldier, sailor or seaman whole system of white supremacy. who went through the campaign for the Solomon The "Negro Question" in the United States Islands who will ever forget his first entrance into exists because of the failure of the capitalist class the harbor at Tulagi after it was established as to solve the most elementary problems of the the principal P.T. base in the islands. As the ship democratic revolution in the South: the problems slowly winds its way through the inlets and of land tenure and democratic rights. Thereby it channels leading to Tulagi, surrounded by a has left the social heritage of color slavery intact beautiful and idyllic jungle, all at once a gigantic as a malignant feature of social life. and shocking sign looms into sight. A sign twice But capitalism, even in the southern United or even three times the size of an ordinary States, has created the conditions necessary for

roadside billboard, as I remember it. its own destruction. It has disrupted the old A black background with enormous white agrarian pattern, undermined the privileged white letters. The sign screamed the jingoism of World middle class, thus weakening the whole fabric of

War II: "Admiral Halsey says: 'Kill Japs! Kill Japs! social repression. It has created great industries, Kill more Japs! If you do your work well you will proletarianizing white, urbanizing black. This help to kill more of the little yellow bastards!'" process has centralized the Negro community in And in this way a little spot of the U.S.A. was positions of great strategic advantage in large city carved out of the jungle, and the GIs knew they communities, whereas before they were dispersed were at home; with the Ku Klux Klan and the over the countryside. Capitalism has likewise fiery cross and the black and white symbols. And created the conditions for the overthrow of race this is only one of the many ways that they were prejudice by working class solidarity. never permitted to forget that they were fighting It falls upon the shoulders of the proletarian for the restoration of white supremacy in Asia, revolution, in which the American workers will regardless of the humanitarian talk from the join together with the Negro people in the White House. abolition of capitalism, to uproot the Jim Crow In the Korean War the wholesale destruction system. It is our task to build the party to lead and massacre of civilians gave the world a fore- that revolution: the Socialist Workers Party. Contribution to the Discussion on the Slogan "Send Federal Troops to Mississippi"

As the civil rights struggle grew in the South, the 17 October 1955 Militant called on the federal government to send troops to Mississippi. This demand precipitated debate within the Socialist Workers Party: National Committee member and Buffalo branch leader Sam Marcy wrote a letter criticizing the slogan, which was then extensively discussed at Political Committee meetings on 9 and 13 February 1956. Marcy's letter and the transcript of the PC discussion were printed in SWP Discussion Bulletin Vol. 18, No. 12 (October 1957). Dick Fraser's contribution to the discussion, written from Seattle, Washington and dated 10 March 1956, was published in the subsequent Bulletin (Vol. 18, No. 13, October 1957).

The first P.C. discussion of Comrade Marcy's general demand, which it really has become now: point of view on the slogan "Send Federal Troops "Send Federal Troops to the South for the to Mississippi" revolves largely around the purpose of defending the Negroes against ter- questions of consciousness, transitional vs. im- rorism and establishing democratic rights." This mediate demands, etc. These are rather exhaus- is how it is understood by the Negro leaders who tively discussed without serious consideration have raised it, and it is apparent from our dis- being given to the concrete objective effects of cussion and use of the slogan in the paper that the use of Federal Troops in the South, regardless we do also. of the ostensible reason for their being sent there. Under either Eisenhower or Stevenson, the

I feel that this is a weakness in the discussion, most probable condition under which the Federal and that this aspect of the question has a priority Government will send troops to the South will be in the discussion. For the objective result is the that the Negroes hold the initiative in the strug- final test of the principled nature of a slogan. gle. As long as the white supremacists have the Concretely, it is highly probable that Federal initiative and the lid of repression is clamped on Troops will be sent to the South some time tightly, the social equilibrium is not upset by a during the coming period whether we ask for lynching or other terrorist actions. When the Ne-

them or not. The social antagonisms are too great groes take the initiative it is a "race riot" and the to be indefinitely contained by the traditional public security is threatened and an excellent terroristic police regime, and sooner or later the reason is given to the government to intervene. troops will be called in. Any analysis of the When the Negroes hold the initiative it will problem should begin with this probability. be the function of the Federal army to restore law Troops most probably will be sent to the and order on the basis of the existing social sys- South under quite different conditions from those tem, and will involve severe repressions against envisioned by the P.C—at a time when the Negro the Negroes. There hasn't been a "race riot" in masses are in motion. If we advocate that the this century in which troops were used that they Federal Government send them there, we will didn't do just that—and there is not likely to be bear political responsibility for the consummation one. of the demand. At such a time we might be able to stop We have advocated a broad movement involv- short, and reassessing our dangerous position, re- ing a March on Washington for the purpose of verse direction and demand that "No Federal effecting the demand. This will take time. The Troops be sent to the South." But it would be im- movement will be removed from the specific cur- possible to reverse the direction of a mass move- rent situation and will have the character of a ment led by people who are convinced that U.S.

51 52

troops could have a beneficial effect upon the dous strike wave as its probable focal point. South. There can be no doubt about what the role

I do not believe that it can be demonstrated of the Federal Troops would be in this circum- that there is a qualitative difference in our use of stance. They would become strike-breakers and this slogan as compared with the Stalinists calling the conditions of civil war which would accom- upon the use of troops during the Little Steel pany the strike wave would force the army into Strike. They were, after all, only calling upon the a firm alliance with the white supremacists and government to enforce the right to organize and the equilibrium of the traditional southern system bargain collectively. A right that had been written would be restored by the use of Federal Troops. into the laws of the land. In the comparison of The high probability of such a series of these two cases, I don't think that there is a dif- events is one reason that it appears most unlikely ference in the objective actions of the troops, or that the government would risk the consequences a difference in the kind of illusions which will be of this kind of "cold" occupation of the South. fostered, nor even a substantial difference in More probable is that the government will use political responsibility. the agitation in favor of sending troops to the South to do so under conditions of "public emer-

gency." The government can indeed claim that it

So far, I have considered the problem only on is acting to protect the Negroes, but the logic of the assumption that troops would be sent to the events and indeed the class character of the army South as a result of the need to protect the status will impel it to protect white supremacy against quo from a powerful movement of the Negroes the Negroes. which would upset the social equilibrium. It must, of course, be considered from the opposite as- sumption as well. Although unlikely, it is not In the first P.C. discussion, Comrades Dobbs, theoretically excluded that given sufficient social Stein and Hansen analyze the question of slogans pressure in the North, the government might be in general, the nature of transitional demands in forced to make a move with troops ostensibly to general, and the question of principle involved in prevent a lynching, enforce a court order, or upon setting the capitalist army in motion under any some other occasion which would place the conditions whatever. And in so doing they cor- troops at the inception of the move in opposition rectly take issue with Comrade Marc/s exposition to the apparatus of the southern system. In such of some of these matters, although none of them a circumstance there would be an appearance of touches the heart of the question. conflict between government and capital, as we In this respect Marcos document has a one- saw during the war when the government took sidedness and contains a schematism and formal- over industrial plants during labor disputes. ism which detracts from and tends to obscure a Such an action would tend to create, at least fundamentally correct position: that irrespective momentarily, a relaxation of the oppressive of the question of consciousness, the slogan is machinery which maintains the South in its wrong; essentially because it leads to strike- fascist-like police state. The temporary enlarge- breaking and other repressions. ment of the area of struggle thus made possible For instance, Marcy contends that because of would be an immediate signal for a social explo- the class character of the capitalist state and its sion on both the political and economic front. army, to put it into motion in any manner at all In the present stage of the struggle only the is wrong. Therefore, it is wrong to call for it to most elementary democratic demands are being be sent to the South. This is an oversimplification pushed by the southern masses. This is only be- of the problem and is a formalistic schema. A fact cause there is an insufficiently wide area of strug- which others have observed. The real reason that gle to permit the consideration of other demands. it would be wrong to use this slogan is to be However, it is the super-exploitation of labor found in the relationship between the southern which is at the foundation of the southern system social system, American capitalism and its state. and the immediate result of any relaxation of the Marcy makes his excellent analysis of this relation traditional agencies of repression which might subordinate to his schema of the state, and this follow, temporarily, the interposition of Federal is a misfortune. Troops between these agencies and the Negro Even the most elementary democratic demand people would be a social upheaval with a tremen- which is general in form tends to transcend the 53

limits of American capitalism. In this sense while 1. That it is motivated around the question it is true that the demand for equality put forward of consciousness of Negroes of the North and by the Negroes is a democratic demand in the his- West for the solution of a question involving torical sense, it is at the same time a very good directly only the Negroes in the South. I think example of Trotsky's definition of a transitional that this is substantially correct, irrespective of demand. For racial equality transcends the south- the fact that some middle class southern leaders ern social system and consequently American are apparently in favor of the demand. capitalism. 2. That it arose in the Negro petty bour- The South is a fascist-like police state and its geoisie and corresponds perfectly, not so much to social relations can be contained in no other. their illusions about the Federal Government, but

Therefore, any general demand put forward in the to their fear of the Negro masses. That is, as op- South today tends to become transitional in con- posed to the tendency of the workers toward tent for there will be no general alleviation of mass actions, the petty bourgeois proposes a conditions there under capitalism. (It would be legal-military solution. To the demands by the wrong to confuse a general demand with specific workers upon the petty bourgeoisie for leadership democratic demands which may not necessarily in the struggle, the middle class attempts to get by themselves be anything more than an immedi- the masses off its back by turning the whole thing ate demand which has at least a theoretical over to the government. possibility of being realized. I refer to such Regardless of the fact that there are sections demands as "justice to the lynchers of Emmett of the Negro working class movement which do Till," the present boycott demands, this or that and will continue to support middle class slogans individual problem of integration, specific strike and leadership, there is a very strong current demands, etc.) among the workers both North and South, of Any one of the general grievances of south- hatred and fear of the U.S. Army. They have ern workers, moreover, leads immediately to the never seen or heard of the army doing anything others, so closely interwoven are the democratic, to the advantage of the Negroes. In such economic and racial problems there. Once the groupings, any illusions which may exist about movement breaks out of the pressurized circle of the Federal Government do not extend to its the police state, around one question, all others armed forces. will spring forward demanding solution. Under The Negro leaders envisage a re-enactment these conditions, the presence of the U.S. Army of the Reconstruction in their proposals to refuse in the South during such a period could lead only to seat congressmen and to send troops. While we to disastrous consequences for the southern work- could easily find a formula to support the former ers. This would be particularly true if the demand, we have no business supporting the presence of the troops was initially welcomed by latter. During the many strikes during the NRA the northern supporters of the movement, for this [National Recovery Act] period we never once would tend to disarm the southern workers and called for the use of troops to enforce Section 7a, prevent them from making whatever plans they although we certainly supported the act of in- could to defend themselves against this army in serting this clause into the law. (And incidentally, its inevitable role. the question of an FEP [Fair Employment Prac- So actually, in spite of its formalism, Com- tices] with enforcement provisions has nothing rade Marcy's statement needs but a slight altera- whatever to do with a general appeal to the tion to fit the situation quite well: The nature of government to send troops to the South.) the southern social system and its relation to In connection with the historical aspect of

American capitalism dictate that the army would the question, therefore, it would be wrong to play only a reactionary role in the South. Further- overestimate the progressive uses to which the more, the nature of the Jim Crow system and its U.S. Army was put during Reconstruction. Besides relation to capitalism seem to me to justify the factors which Comrade Marcy has already Marcy's criterion of transitional demands when mentioned, there are two others which should be dealing with the South. recalled as modifying the progressive character of the military occupation of the South during Reconstruction. Two peculiarities of the "troops" slogan. The One is that the question of the success or slogan reveals the following contradictions: failure of the Reconstruction was in some cases 54

influenced not by the presence of the U.S. Army a mass March on Washington from the South. in general, but specifically, of Negro troops. On They would justifiably feel that this would be a more than one occasion the demand of the white means of removing the most militant sections of supremacists was not for the removal of troops the population from the scene of struggle. And altogether, but specifically for the removal of the inasmuch as it is the March on Washington which Negro troops. If there were today a completely is the present active feature of the campaign, it segregated army, the Negro community would be can have little significance for southern workers. responsive and unafraid of the demand to send I was rather surprised that the paper did not the Negro regiments to the South. And such a develop the idea (once commented upon) of a slogan would tend to have an altogether different "March on Mississippi." Such a slogan contains social content than the one proposed. This is a direct transition to the Workers Defense Guard. obviously not possible, as it would cut across the It corresponds to the requirement of the northern main line of the struggle for equality— it would workers to do something to express their solidar- be, in effect, a demand for segregated units in ity with the struggles in the South. the armed forces. It is perhaps further removed from the agita- The second recollection of the Reconstruction tional stage than the "troops" slogan principally which pertains to the discussion is that on many because neither the Negro petty bourgeoisie nor occasions, the southern Republicans and the Ne- the labor bureaucracy have picked it up— nor are groes, both through the Republican Party and they likely to. Propagandistically, however, it has independently, requested, pleaded and agitated some rather substantial advantages. It provides for Federal Troops to protect them in given areas, the framework for explaining the real nature of only to have the government turn a deaf ear... the southern social system and its relation to until the Negroes began to arm and protect them- American capitalism; it counterposes mass action selves. In these instances the army, even in this to the legal-military type solution of the NAACP revolutionary period, was brought into action lawyers, just as we counterposed mass picketing only when the masses gave evidence of being pre- to the use of troops to enforce Section 7a, a gov- pared to embark upon an independent solution to ernment arbitration award, an NLRB order, etc. their problems. The audacity of the slogan is a means of reveal- While the generally progressive character of ing the depth of the social crisis in the South. the occupation of the South during the Recon- This slogan or one like it would be necessary struction is not questioned, at the same time it in any consideration of the problem of union or- must be recognized that one important feature of ganization of the South. Pending an overturn of this occupation was the frustration of the inde- the southern system by the workers of the South, pendent action of the masses in the solution of the union movement cannot hope to achieve the their problems. Theoretically, the main tangible degree of democracy consistent with the require- reason that the Reconstruction failed so miserably ments of a mass union movement short of mas- in the end was precisely because of the sive intervention from the organized working bureaucratic-military control which the presence class of the North and West. of the Union Army enforced over the revolution. (I am aware that the P.C. is planning a sep- arate discussion on this question, and it is not my intention to attempt to divert this discussion to The problem of elaborating correct slogans that one ahead. However, the intimate connection for the present situation is obviously a difficult between all the social problems involved in the one—principally because we are dealing with Negro question will break through somewhere in several different layers of consciousness. 1. The any discussion, and sometime we will have to Negro petty bourgeoisie in the North and West. integrate these separate problems. In this case, it 2. The labor bureaucracy. 3. The Negro petty seems impossible to ignore completely the rela- bourgeois leadership in the South. 4. The Negro tion between the use of the "troops" slogan and masses. 5. The organized working class. the problem of labor organization in the South, The "troops" slogan obviously pertains not only for the specific reason mentioned above, largely to the need of the northern Negro move- but secondly, because the slogan is incompatible ment to do something in support of the actions of with union organization in the South.) the southern masses. For instance, the southern A Workers Defense Guard—a giant flying workers would tend to be hostile to the idea of squadron half a million strong—corresponds to 55

the needs of the objective situation, is easily sciousness. They have been preoccupied with the explained and justified, will find response in the business of self-defense ever since World War II. working class, and would be a means of disso- Comrade Dobbs has pointed out their tendency ciating ourselves from the legalistic approach of to create defense guards when the situation the middle class reformers, and unless we are permits. However, they do not possess the prepared to do this we are going to postpone necessary legal organizations to develop defense indefinitely the building of a left wing movement guards. in the Negro community or specifically in the However, the idea that they are thrown upon NAACP. the necessity of self-protection, because nobody "March on Mississippi" coupled with the else is going to protect them, is very strong demand on Congress that it purge its bodies of among the Negro masses of the South. This repre- the Jim Crow congressmen and senators would at sents a very advanced stage of consciousness — far least give us an active position in the present in advance of the slogan of "Federal Troops to situation which would not be in violation of Mississippi." It would be wrong in my opinion to principle. We demand of Congress that they do advance this slogan for this reason alone. Even if the legal end of it and leave enforcement to the it did correspond to the consciousness of the people. The March on Mississippi would guaran- whole mass of Negroes in the North, and even if tee the legal elections and the other democratic it were not wrong in principle, it still would be rights contained in the anti-slavery constitutional wrong to try to send the consciousness of the amendments. southern militants backward for the sake of their It is difficult if not impossible to develop at northern allies. On the contrary, our slogans this time general action slogans for the southern should flow from and reflect the most advanced movement itself. I don't think that the southern thinking of the Negro masses, rather than the Negroes require a slogan in order to create fearful and treacherous thinking of the petty defense guards, for this is already in their con- bourgeoisie. Communist Party Internal Discussion

As an SWP militant, Dick Fraser intervened in the Stalinist movement, seeking to win its best elements to Trotskyism. As part of that work in Seattle in 1 956 he wrote thefollowing document, which was distributedby SWP supporters in the Communist

Party. As Fraser commented in a 1 October 1 983 letter to Jim Robertson, "I wrote

it for one of our fractions in the CP, who had the two members of the District Negro

Commission. . ..I don't know if it will be of any value to the Labor/Black operation, but it would probably be nice for your archives." Parts of this document are duplicative of "Resolution on the Negro Struggle," section VI, "The Communist Party" (see page 65). To avoid repetition we have ex- cerpted the beginning, followed by section 3 ("The question of Civil Rights legislation at the 84th Congress"), where Fraser exposes the CP's West Coast newspaper, the People's World, for covering up the anti-civil rights conspiracy in Congress, and the conclusion.

The undersigned members of the District Committee have committed us to. Negro Commission in consultation with rank and The following examples of this tendency will file members of the party have drafted the be examined in detail: following report for the consideration of the 1. The support of the Louisville Plan. District Negro Commission. This report does not 2. The question of the Louisiana "Right to represent the opinions of the Negro Commission, Work" law. but only the views of those who have signed this 3. The question of Civil Rights legislation at document and the opinions in whole or part of the 84th Congress. those they consulted with. 4. The support of the "moderate white Due to the fact that this is a pre-convention supremacists." discussion period we have decided to mimeograph 5. The question of prejudice. and circulate this report among the general membership as a contribution to that discussion. V.J.D. S.O.I. 3. Civil Rights in Congress. The history of congressional legislation since the Supreme Court Report to the decision of 1954 [Brown v. Board of Education] District Negro Commission reveals that one of the important factors in the unanimity of the decision by a court which in- The surprising front page headline of the cluded both Republicans and Southern Bourbons

People's World of Sept. 21, entitled "How Inte- was that it provided a formula for keeping the gration Won in Louisville," forces us, now that issue at least temporarily off the floor of the election campaign is over and the pre- Congress. convention discussion period has begun, to This was highly desirable to the Republicans review critically the effects of the turn of the because Eisenhower had categorically promised party toward the Democrats upon our relations during the 1952 campaign that he and his party with the Negro community. would fight the Southern filibuster and get rid of The support by the P. W. of the Louisville Plan Rule 22. for "voluntary integration" (which the Negroes It was completely acceptable to the Demo- call "voluntary segregation") is only one of a crats because every time the Civil Rights issue is series of gross violations of the principles and debated it threatens to tear their party apart. tradition of militant struggle against Jim Crow Chief Justice Warren's formula was further which various party leaders and even the National acceptable even to the Bourbons in principle be-

56 57

cause it lacked implementation and the clear per- crats could permit the Civil Rights bill to reach spective was to turn enforcement over to the the floor of the House was if they could be as- Southern states themselves. sured in advance that it would be killed in the This attempt to remove the Civil Rights ques- Senate. The only way that the Republicans could tion as a whole from the responsibility of the agree to kill it in the Senate would be to keep it legislative branch of government and to turn it off the floor, because Eisenhower's promise to over to the courts was fairly successful for the fight the filibuster was still fresh in the minds of first three years of the Eisenhower administration. at least a considerable section of the Negro An occasional futile face-saving gesture on the leadership. part of the few ADA [Americans for Democratic Consequently, it was with great deliberation Action] congressmen did not make a ripple in the and planning that the bi-partisan opponents of sublime peace between the capitalist political Civil Rights engineered the elaborate series of factions around this question. Even the occasional maneuvers to kill the Civil Rights bill in the 84th outbursts of indignation and resentment in which Congress. Representatives [Adam Clayton] Powell and The object from the beginning must have [Charles] Diggs expressed the feelings of the been to make the Judiciary Committee be its Negro people failed to de-rail the congressional grave. And the plan could never have worked with- conspiracy of silence on the Civil Rights question. out the concurrence from the beginning of the so- The Democrats in the North and West fol- called "liberal bloc" in both houses. lowed the policy of concentrating a great deal of Following are the maneuvers which were propaganda and some action on the state level necessary to carry out this betrayal of the Civil around the Civil Rights question. The object of Rights struggle. Steps in which all factions played this apparently over balanced campaign on the their assigned parts: state level of politics was to establish in the A. Delay in the House until closing hours of minds of labor and in the Negro community that the Congress. the Democratic Party stood for Civil Rights in B. Uncontested referral from the floor of spite of the fact that this party was united in a the Senate to the Judiciary Committee. conspiracy to keep the question off the floor of the C. Locking the bill in the Judiciary national Congress, and to keep it out of the 1956 Committee. election campaign. Delay in the House. The role of all major The mounting pressure of the Negro protest characters in the Punch and Judy show is demon- and discontent could not be denied, however, and strated by the action of the House Rules Com- in spite of all that a bi-partisan anti-Negro mittee. On June 21 after innumerable delays of Congress could do, it spilled over onto the floor which this episode is representative, the House of the House of Representatives. It took the form Rules Committee was committed to clear the bill of rather innocuous proposals by the administra- for a hearing on the floor of the House. Those tion for a bi-partisan committee to "investigate" that played the role of "Civil Rights supporters" violations of Civil Rights and work through the had a clear majority on the committee. But 20 president. It further set up a bit of legal Southern congressmen appeared to testify against machinery to enhance the prestige and authority the bill. Under cover of this semi-filibuster, the of judicial actions against violations of Civil Civil Rights supporters absented themselves from Rights. There was reference neither to FEP [Fair the Committee until there was no longer a

Employment Practices] , segregation nor lynching. quorum. At this point Rep. Colmer (Dem. Miss.) Nevertheless even this very mild Civil Rights bill called for a quorum, and Chm. Smith (Dem. Va.) placed both capitalist parties in the same dilemma declared the hearing adjourned. This automati- as before the Supreme Court decision: the great cally postponed it for another week at a time majority of congressmen of both parties were when minutes were precious. committed in advance to promises to the Negro The capitalist press said that the Civil Rights people, yet the capitalist bosses of both parties supporters had been "caught napping." were committed to the maintenance of the status Referral to the Senate Judiciary Committee. quo in the South as a fundamental condition of The extra week's delay in the House permitted their profits and the political stability of capitalist other legislation to precede the Civil Rights bill rule. in the House and so it was not finally passed The only condition under which the Demo- there until July 23. It was abundantly clear to the 58

most casual observer that it was unimportant Democratic president), Buchanan (the incoming what happened in the House by this time. It was president) and Taney (Chief Justice of the understood that the bill was headed for the Supreme Court). The object of this conspiracy Senate Judiciary Committee where it was sched- was to make a niche in Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska uled for oblivion. The New York Times of July 20 bill into which the Dred Scott decision could be reported that the debate in the House was "car- placed. ried on, despite the intensity of the fight, with a The analogy which Lincoln made in his large measure of good humor... the whole strug- speech "A House Divided" is particularly appli- gle was exposed in argument as being a futile cable to the present case. He said: "We cannot operation... it was evident the House Members absolutely know that all these exact adaptations had made it a vehicle for putting themselves in are the result of preconcert. But when we see a the record for their own campaign." In other lot of framed timbers, different portions of which words, the Civil Rights bill was being used as a we know have been gotten out at different times political football by the liberal congressmen. and places and by different workmen—Stephen So the bill was cynically voted on and passed (Douglas), Franklin (Pierce), Roger (Taney) and on July 23. Then it went to the floor of the James (Buchanan), for instance—and when we Senate. The only possibility of keeping the bill see these timbers joined together, and see they alive would have been an objection from the floor exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all to its being referred to [James] Eastland's the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and... Judiciary Committee. But some strange coinci- adapted to their respective places, and not a piece dence took Senator Hennings (who was largely too many or too few—not omitting even scaffold- in charge of strategy for the Civil Rights Senate ing—or, if a single piece be lacking, we can see consideration) off the floor of the Senate at the the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared strategic moment, and according to the NY Times to yet bring such piece in—in such a case, we find (July 24) he "was not on the floor to object it impossible to not believe that Stephen and ....Someone of the civil rights group was caught Franklin and Roger and James all understood one napping, and the bill went quickly and firmly another from the beginning, and all worked upon under the jurisdiction of the Eastland panel." a common plan or draft drawn up before the first Locking the bill in Committee. The basic lick was struck." device by which the bill was locked in committee The scuttling of the Civil Rights bill was such was this: those senators playing the role of Civil a structure of "framed timbers... gotten out at dif- Rights supporters, although they had a majority ferent times and places and by different work- on the Committee, agreed not to report out this men"—Howard (Smith), James (Eastland), Tom particular bill except by unanimous vote of the (Hennings), Lyndon (Johnson) and Herbert (Leh- entire committee. man). And when we see these timbers joined to- To obscure this particular piece of treachery gether so perfectly in the construction of a series on the part of the "liberal" Democrats sitting on of maneuvers which succeeds so smoothly in get- the Committee and to attempt to camouflage their ting rid of the one piece of legislation which role as the "caught napping Civil Rights support- could upset the political equilibrium of the ers" on the Senate floor, Senator Lehman on July country and expose the capitalist politicians as 24 moved to discharge the bill from committee. fakers, we are quite as justified as Lincoln in This was brushed aside on technical grounds by believing that the whole thing must have been Senate Majority Leader [Lyndon] Johnson and cooked up before hand and that "all worked upon defeated. a common plan or draft drawn up before the first This conspiracy against the Civil Rights bill lick was struck." in the 84th Congress deserves to be placed beside This is to be expected from the capitalist that conspiracy by which the question of popular politicians. It is quite in keeping with the tradi- sovereignty, through the Dred Scott decision, tions. But when the People's World conceives it to opened the door to the nationalization of slavery be its job not only to support the treacherous in the last years before the Civil War. Lincoln's "supporters of Civil Rights" up and down the line, contention, which he proved in public debate, to become a partner in their betrayal by covering was that a conspiracy against free choice by the it up from the left, then conditions in the leader- people had existed from the beginning between ship of the party have indeed become grave.

Stephen Douglas (Dem. 111.), Pierce (the outgoing The P.W. history of the Civil Rights fight in 59

Congress is: Democrats as did the People's Daily World. Mar. 29: "Civil rights bill pushed in House": While the capitalist press as exemplified by "A civil rights bloc of Congressmen Wednesday the New York Times at least reported the relevant launched a drive to pass a far-reaching bill facts, the P.W., by ignoring some (such as the striking down discrimination...." "caught napping" episode) and over-stressing Apr. 16: "Demo Senator tells Ike: Stiffen others, creates an idealistic picture of the "Civil stand on civil rights": "Thomas C. Hennings..., Rights bloc" waging a brave though losing battle chairman of the Senate Civil Rights Subcommit- against tremendous odds: "the Senate was chal- tee, charges that the Administration program ... of- lenged to stay in session and pass the measure" fers only a fraction..." etc. (by virtue of the "smashing House victory" which Apr. 23: "Key test for civil rights bill was more accurately described by the Times as a Tuesday": "Rep. James Roosevelt..., a leader of game of political football) (P.W., July 24). the House civil rights bloc, warned today that fast P.W., July 25: "Liberal Demo Senators action is essential..." etc. blocked in fight for civil rights bill." This was two June 13: "Civil rights bill showdown today": days after they had been "caught napping." more accurate would have been the substitution "Liberal Northern Democrats were blocked Tues- of "sellout" for "showdown." day in an effort to save the House-passed civil The P. W. is building up the liberal Democrats rights bill from certain death in the Senate as determined fighters at this stage. As the con- Judicial Committee headed by Sen. James O. East- spiracy unfolds, the P.W. serves as a left covering land . . , leader of Senate white supremacists." No . for the betrayal. mention of the "liberal" majority on Sen. East- When the transfer of the bill from the House land's Committee. Judiciary to the House Rules Committee took two P.W., July 26: "GOP, Dixie allies dump civil months instead of two days, the P.W. claimed that rights." In thus summarizing the scuttling of the it was because "Southern members of the House bill, the P.W. on the following day analyzes the Judiciary Committee wanted to file a minority one element which "was not foreseen" by an report, and they took their time in writing it." otherwise farsighted Civil Rights bloc: that "the The P.W. does not mention that the majority Administration would desert the fight." holds all the basic rights if it chooses to exercise So, instead of exposing the real culprits— them. those liberal congressmen whose seats in Con- When the Rules Committee finally got ready gress depend upon labor and Negro votes, but to vote on the bill and the liberals absented who use the Civil Rights question as a political themselves to permit another stall for lack of football, betraying the struggle at every decisive quorum, the P.W., instead of exposing the liberal turn—the P.W. makes the whole thing merely a betrayal, fulminated against the "Dixiecrats": piece of Democratic Party election propaganda.

"The long-delayed civil rights bill may come up That is, the P.W. also uses the Civil Rights fight as for still another test this coming Thursday after a political football. having been sidetracked by a Dixiecrat The new "coalition" apparently requires that parliamentary sneak play last Thursday" {P.W., we attach ourselves as a left covering to this gang June 25). of conspiratorial fakers on Civil Rights. No reference is to be found in the P.W. of the curious absence from the floor of the Senate of Sen. Hennings at the time the bill landed there, nor of the failure of any member of the group of spurious "Civil Rights supporters" to say one Conclusion word in objection to its being sent to Eastland's Committee. Nor is there a mention of the liberal It is thus demonstrated that the new "coali- senators' agreement not to report the bill out of tionism" as illustrated by the Democratic Party Eastland's Committee without unanimous vote. orientation during the past months resulted in

As a matter of fact it is probable that at the placing the party in disgraceful positions before conclusion of the congressional carnival, there the Negro people. It has led us toward GRADUAL- was probably not a single capitalist paper in the ISM on the question of integration, at the same country which went to such pains to cover up the time that we have a very correct article rejecting betrayal of the Civil Rights bill by the liberal gradualism ("Enough of Gradualism," P.W.). .

60

It has made our policy a tail-end to the labor a turn toward realistic revolutionary participation bureaucracy and the liberal betrayers of Civil in the Negro struggle and in the support of its Rights. true objectives, the following program of action It has brought us into actual support of should be elaborated and implemented. "moderate" white supremacy. 1 Truthful and factual exposure of the role It has taken us toward liberalism in our ap- of the liberals in the fight for Civil Rights. proach to prejudice. This is no "mainstream"; it 2. All-out campaigns of support by the party is a muddy back-wash of reaction and directly and by our forces in the unions and other compromise! mass organizations for the heroic struggles now We feel that the District Negro Commission going on in the South: the Montgomery and Tal- has a special responsibility in addition to the lahassee boycotts, etc. These fighters, far in ad- general responsibility of members and leaders to vance of the general working class, are conduct- demand that this preconvention discussion take ing a vanguard struggle against American capital a serious and critical review of our work along which demands that we do everything in our the lines of this report, and that the coming na- power to assist, support and spread their struggle. tional convention be prepared to rectify the great 3. A return to the practical day-to-day strug- harm which has been done to the party and its gle against discrimination on the neighborhood reputation in the Negro community as the result and local union level, unfettered by whatever re- of the policy of the past period. lations we may have with the capitalist politicians In the meantime, to begin the task of making and in the spirit of the struggle of the masses. a

Resolution on the Negro Struggle

From SWP Discussion Bulletin Vol. 18, No. 11 (September 1957). Fraser's

document, dated 25 May 1 957, was submitted/or discussion at the SWP's 1 7th

National Convention. It was counterposed to "The Class Struggle Road to Negro Equality," sponsored by the SWP Political Committee and largely written by Farrell Dobbs.

I. The Permanent Revolution in America destruction of the whole Southern system. Short of this there can be little change and few The objective conditions have matured for democratic rights for anyone. the eruption of the class struggle in the South. However, the permanent revolution in Amer- The task of this struggle will be to overthrow the ica reveals itself in the following manner: the fascist-like yoke of white supremacy. Southern system represents massive survivals of Since the destruction of popular government chattel slavery. These survivals take the form of in the South at the close of the Reconstruction, great social problems unsolved by the Civil War the Southern Bourbon oligarchy, in close alliance and Reconstruction: an antiquated system of land with the whole American capitalist class, adapted tenure, the absence of democratic rights, segre- the social relations of chattel slavery to the gation and racial discrimination. The solution of requirements of property relations and capitalist these questions was the responsibility of the production. capitalist class when it took the national power The capitalists and planters achieved this Jim from the slaveowners in 1860. But they proved system by a which has been copied Crow method incapable of this. So these survivals of an antique by all the imperialist ruling classes of the world. system of exploitation have become integrated the into hostile They broke up working masses into the capitalist structure and form a com- racial groups by the use of organized murder and ponent part thereof. terrorism against the Negroes and all who would Capitalism could not solve these problems stand side by side with them. They degraded during its youth and virility, even under con- labor the of the through enforced peonage Ne- ditions of waging a bitter war against the slave groes. They created a white middle class which power. Now, when amidst the decay and death privileges the of derived special from degradation agony of capitalism, these problems have become labor in general and the Negro in particular. They integrated into its very structure, the capitalist eliminated popular government substituted and class will positively not prove able to solve them. privileged, the rule of a small minority of the the This circumstance leads to the inescapable con- rich, supremacists. the powerful: the white clusion that although the tasks of the liberation By creating a living hell for the Negro people, of the South are of an elementary democratic the ruling classes were thus able to achieve a nature, they have no solution within the frame- super-exploitation of all Southern labor, bringing work of American capitalism: they become a part in profits which could be compared with those of the socialist struggle of the proletariat to from colonial exploitation. overthrow the whole capitalist system of Thus, a whole social system became organ- production. ized around the degradation of the Negro— The second manifestation of the permanent system which became an integrated and indispen- revolution lies in the question of leadership of sable part of the economic, social and political the Negro struggle. The goal of the Negro strug- structure of American capitalism. gle has been determined historically: the elimina- The emancipation of the Negro people tion of racial discrimination lies through the through social, political and economic equality is struggle for economic, political and social equal- the fundamental condition for this liberation of ity. The axis of this struggle is the fight against all the oppressed in the South. This requires the segregation. At the present time the leadership of

61 .

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this struggle is in the hands of the middle class. (2) The undermining of the mass base of the This Negro middle class suffers social, economic Southern system through the partial destruction and political discrimination because of skin color. of the white middle class and the proletarianiza- It is a far more terrible discrimination than is the tion of large contingents of this former mass usual lot of privileged layers of an oppressed petty bourgeoisie. group. This circumstance has produced a great This changed relationship of forces results in galaxy of Negro scholars who have brilliantly the inability of the white ruling classes to crush analyzed and plumbed the depths and sources of at will the aroused and organized Negro masses. racial oppression. The magnitude of the Negro struggle, reaching But, at the same time, the position of the mid- national and even international proportions, has dle class as a whole derives from and feeds upon rendered the U.S. government helpless to segregation, the axis of the social force which intervene decisively in behalf of the white oppresses them as Negroes. supremacists. This conflict between their racial and class These objective conditions have been rip- interests causes the middle class leadership to act ening for decades and provide the groundwork in a hesitant and treacherous manner. They will for the outbreak of the Montgomery masses. The prove totally incapable of giving adequate lead- immediate factor preparing the masses for the ership to the movement as it develops on to actual struggle was the [Emmett] Till case and its higher planes of struggle. aftermath, which demonstrated to the Negroes But the Negro workers have no such conflict that the Federal Government would do nothing of interest. They receive no such economic priv- against the Jim Crow system, that any feeling ileges from segregation. On the contrary they are that the Negroes had an ally in the national super-exploited at the point of production and in capital was an illusion, and that if anything was all economic spheres. Discrimination against them to be done they would have to do it themselves. as Negroes is intimately connected with their ex- The struggle is now beginning to unfold. As ploitation as workers. Finding themselves below it develops, all the resources of the American the standard of living of even the white workers, capitalist class will be aligned against it: all the they must of necessity open up a struggle for forces of reaction, all agencies of government, the racial equality as the key to raising their standard army, the avenues of information and the schools, of living as workers. churches and courts. Yet, the victory of the So as it falls to the American working class masses will be assured under two conditions: as a whole to solve the basic contradictions of 1 That the struggle of the Southern workers, American society, so does it fall upon the led by the Negroes, will rekindle the fires of the shoulders of the Negro proletariat to take the class struggle throughout the country and bring lead in the struggle for equality. into play the great powers of the American proletariat in solidarity with them. II. The Significance of Montgomery 2. That the Southern masses will produce a The successful struggle of the Negroes of revolutionary socialist leadership fully conscious Montgomery shows a changed relationship of of its aims, the road of struggle, the magnitude forces in the South. This is the first successful of the task. sustained mass struggle of the Negroes of the The Montgomery boycotters forecast the

South in nearly seventy years. It demonstrates the unfolding movement which will take the lead in decay and disintegration of the power of white the emancipation of the Southern masses. supremacy and reveals that the situation is We support the courageous internationalism ripening for the liberation of the people of the of their sympathy for and self-identification with South from the Jim Crow system. the struggles of the dark-skinned colonial masses. The changed conditions have been brought This kinship arises from the common bond forged about by the industrialization of the South and by years of common struggle against white su- the deepening of the penetration of monopoly premacy. It is our elementary duty, however, to capitalism into all spheres of life. The salient warn the Negro people away from Gandhi's pro- features of this change have been: (1) The urban- gram of "passive resistance" as a means of their ization of the Negro population which now finds liberation. its center of gravity shifted from the dispersed This program, fostered by the Indian rural areas into powerful mass forces in the cities. bourgeoisie, paralyzed the action of the masses 63

of people, kept the Indian capitalists at the head is a constant mortal threat to the entire labor of the movement for Indian independence and movement in the U.S. Every factor of political and made it possible for the native bourgeoisie to economic life shows that the extension of union- reap all the rewards of the struggle against ism into the open-shop South is a life and death imperialism at the expense of the masses. question. In the United States this program has been But unions cannot exist on any mass scale in super-imposed upon the struggle in Montgomery the total absence of elementary democratic rights. by its petty bourgeois leadership. By thus iden- On the other hand labor unions will grow hand tifying a dynamic struggle with "resistance in the in hand with the successes of the Civil Rights spirit of love and non-violence" they blunt the movement. Consequently the labor movement consciousness of the masses who require a must dedicate itself to the destruction of white program which corresponds with the reality of supremacy as the only way to assure the exten- their militant actions. sion of unionism into the South. We hail the emergence of the proletarian We call upon the officials of the AFL-CIO to militants in the Montgomery struggle. They are begin the campaign to organize the South with the coming leaders of the struggle of all the a repudiation of their political alliance with the Southern masses. It is they who have nothing to liberal Democrats who are the protectors and de- lose and the world to gain. Their class position fenders of the Southern Bourbons. We call upon gives them courage and insight, for it is they who them to take the next step in the Southern drive: have the fundamental stake in the struggle to declare for the formation of a political party of against the Jim Crow system. labor which would become the political and or- We salute the women of the South both black ganizational center of the struggle against Jim and white for their heroic role in the struggle. Crow. The unbounded revolutionary energy of the IV. The Advanced Position of the Negro Movement triply oppressed Negro women is making itself manifest in the initiative and leadership which The struggle for racial equality is an integral they have given to the movement in its initial part of the struggle of the American working class stages. for socialism. The connection between these two The decay of the Southern system which goals is so fundamental that one cannot be en- foretells its doom is expressed by the defection of visaged without the other. the white women away from the forces of white This connection has been implicit from the supremacy and by their organized appearance in very beginning of the anti-slavery struggle and greater and greater numbers in joint struggle with found clearest expression in Karl Marx's dictum the Negroes. This is the proof that they recognize to white American workers: "Labor cannot eman- that they, too, are the victims of the system of cipate itself in the white skin where in the black white supremacy. They understand that the so- it is branded." The consistent logic which led called "chivalry" of Southern tradition degrades many abolitionist leaders such as Douglass and them: that the pedestal of "sacred" white Phillips to embrace socialist principles confirmed womanhood is in reality a prison for chattels this connection. which denies independence, the rights of citizens The power of the ruling class and the perni- and the status of human beings. cious influence of the Southern system has kept They are aware that the myth of "sacred" the American working class divided along color (i.e., segregated) white womanhood is one of the lines for long periods of time. However, the past focal points of the ideology of white supremacy twenty years have demonstrated again in life the and ties the struggle for the emancipation of identity of interest which had been implicit all women directly to that of the Negroes. along. Other large sections of the white population The close connection between the Negro hide their disgust with the Southern system in struggle for equality and the labor struggle be- fear of reprisal. We recommend the example of came one of the paramount features of the great the women and urge them to give organized struggles of the 1930's. One of the greatest support to their courageous struggle. achievements of unionism during this stormy up- surge was the successful conclusion of the long III. The Labor Movement struggle to build the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car The existence of the Southern social system Porters. This achievement was capped by the 64

emergence of the CIO which represented the first movement to the aid of the Negroes struggling in mass joining of the two movements in modern the South and to connect and integrate the times. struggles. Together during the 30's the two movements But the decisive force in determining the made giant strides. But with the preparation for future course of events, and relations of the

World War II they diverged: the CIO under the Southern fighters with the labor movement in the pressure of a newly created bureaucracy capit- North and West, is the Negro movement itself. In ulated to the bosses and the government and it this vital movement just unfolding there is great wasn't long before the Communist Party did like- attractive power: in the relations between the Ne- wise. Together they sacrificed the interests of the gro movement and the labor movement the Negroes working class to the needs of the U.S. imperialist hold the initiative. But only a proletarian leader- war machine. But the Negro movement, under the ship of the Negro movement will be able to util- stimulus of workers arising from great depths of ize properly this strategic advantage and to draw super-exploitation, refused to be taken in or the labor movement into support and interven- intimidated by the patriotic hysteria. tion. Such a leadership will grasp the political Ever since the beginning of 1941 the unions significance of the situation. have taken one backward step after another and Above all, the Negro movement must beware the bosses have followed through with body of the "isolationist" feeling that if the labor blows. Although the labor movement was able to movement doesn't seem to move, and if, as a con- mobilize briefly in 1946 for a successful defense sequence, the working class as a whole appears when mortally threatened, it soon gave in again unmoved by and unconcerned with the heroic and as a result has endured a never ending string struggle in the South, then the Negro movement of humiliating repressive measures inflicted on can turn its back and go its way alone. Such a them by the government and the employers. course would be disastrous, would end in the But all through this period and even at the crushing defeat of the Negroes and retard the height of the worst wave of reaction which has whole labor struggle. been unleashed against the American workers in Such proposals arise from an underestimation many decades—the Negro movement has regis- of the task ahead and from the dangerous illusion tered steady advances. The source of this dif- that racial equality can be achieved without the ference in achievement lies in the divergent lines overthrow and complete destruction of the South- of development which were laid out in 1941 ern social system. In this struggle, the Negroes when the Negroes were organizing for a March will be the initiators, because of their super- on Washington in defiance of the needs of the exploitation and advanced consciousness. But the government for domestic tranquility at the very fight can be won only by the united struggle of time that the labor bureaucracy was giving no- all toilers. strike pledges to this same government. The Ne- V. What Political Road? groes were able to withstand the patriotic pres- sure upon them and to see through the lies of The advanced consciousness of the Negro American imperialism because of their advanced movement expresses itself politically. First, by consciousness derived from super-exploitation and their refusal to be taken in by patriotic war prop- discrimination. aganda. Second, by their willingness to launch Upon this background the Montgomery up- broad struggles in spite of the reaction. This rising propels the Negro movement into a greatly political understanding also encompasses the advanced position which, coinciding with the ebb knowledge that the problem of civil rights is tide of the labor movement, approaches isolation. neither a moral question, one of law, or of the And this poses a dual danger: First, that this "hearts and minds of men," but that it is a great movement may remain isolated and be political question which must be fought by means crushed for lack of needed support from the labor of political party. movement. Second, that such a defeat inflicted The Negroes are also quite aware that the upon this dynamic sector of the working class Democratic and Republican parties are their ene- would set back the development of the labor mies, and that serious advancement of the strug- movement. gle for equality is impossible through these It is the duty of all socialists to spare no channels. energy in rallying the working class and the labor But the Negroes are the captives of the labor 65 bureaucracy: the alliance between labor and the was in alliance with the Soviet government. Be- Negro people finds its degenerate expression in trayals of a like nature have followed the various the captivity of the Negro middle class leaders in twists and turns of policy until the Negro the Democratic Party. We have every sympathy militants have become completely disaffected. with the Negroes in this political bondage and A second cause for the dissipation of the with the dramatic move of Roy Wilkins, shortly influence of the CP has been the persistence with followed by Representative [Adam Clayton] which it clung to the erroneous idea that the Powell, to the Republican Party, as signifying a Negroes constitute a nation and that their con- protest against the hypocrisy of the liberals and sequent political development would lead them the labor leaders rather than support to the to assert the right to nationhood and national Republican bankers. self-determination. The authors of this doctrine But this situation dictates bolder action by envisaged that their theoretical contribution was, the Negro leaders: the isolation of the Negro therefore, to prepare the ground for this inevi- movement demands that it give full scope to its table separation. advanced position to raise the workers in the This whole line of thought is in diametric labor movement toward it: we call upon the Ne- opposition to the real nature of the Negro strug- gro leaders to reject the degenerate alliance with gle and its historical tradition. It is segregation by the labor fakers in the party of the Bourbons as skin color which is the traditional and present well as the ineffectual bolts to the Republican enemy of the Negroes, not national oppression. Party. We urge them to join with the Socialist The movement of the Negro people is the Workers Party in the demand upon the labor oldest social movement in existence in the United unions that they form a party of the working States. It is over 300 years old, and since 1818, class. the beginning of the struggle against the American We call upon them to emulate the qualities Colonization Society, this movement has had a vir- of leadership of a Frederick Douglass, who was tually uninterrupted existence and onefundamental not afraid to break even with William Lloyd Gar- direction: integration. Ever since then, the funda- rison and to split the abolitionist society when an mental course of the Negro struggle has been to opportunity appeared to prepare the way for the reject the demand of the ruling class that they coming political party of emancipation. become a separate subordinate nation, through segregation, and to demand the full rights of VI. The Communist Party American citizenship and nationality. It will take The Communist Party, at one time the most a social catastrophe, more devastating than any successful of the socialist organizations in attract- yet visited upon the Negro people, to change the ing Negro militants, has by now dissipated its fundamental course of their struggle. influence in the Negro community and lost the The Negroes considered that it was impudent, large majority of its once powerful Negro cadre. stupid and against their interests for the Stalinists This cadre was won by the prestige which the arbitrarily to brush aside this great tradition of Russian Revolution commanded among peoples struggle and say to them in effect: "You'll take who seriously wanted a social change, and by self-determination and like it. When you develop years of devoted work by the rank and file of the out of your great political backwardness, the CP party. will be vindicated." The Negroes replied that they The basic reason for the present isolation of already had segregation which was their worst the Communist Party in the Negro community lies enemy, and that the plans for a segregated social- in the following political circumstance: the ism didn't appeal to them. In spite of this almost leaders of the CP have never hesitated to sacrifice universal reaction in the Negro community, the the interests of the Negro people to the interests Stalinists blindly hung on to this theory. of maintaining alliances with privileged sections Another consequence of this theory was that of the white population who might temporarily it created an almost gravitational attraction be of use in furthering the interests of the Soviet between the CP and sections of the Negro middle bureaucracy. class. This was the only social group in the Negro This was most horribly demonstrated during community in which there seemed to be any ex-

World War II when the CP openly denounced pression of nationalism. This nationalism took the struggles of the Negro people as being disruptive form of a willingness to accept segregation, the of the "war effort" of American imperialism which economic foundation of the Negro middle class 66

and to confine the struggle to gaining improve- projected "anti-monopoly coalition." (See Political ments for its position within the framework of Affairs, June 1956.) But this group is just as com- segregation. pletely anti-Negro and anti-union as the rest of Even during the "left" periods, this alliance the Southern Bourbon politicians. between the CP leaders and the Negro middle The support of these reactionary policies by classes resulted in the frustration of efforts of the the leaders of the CP disqualifies them completely rank and file communists, both white and black, from speaking with any authority on the civil to undertake serious struggle. rights struggle. We call upon them to repudiate The present policy of "peaceful co-existence" these policies and join with us in a united front is similar to the World War II jingoism in its of action in defense of civil rights and the Negro betrayal of the Negro struggle. We call the struggle around the following propositions: attention of the Communist Party to the following 1. That we jointly memorialize Congress to actions and policies of the past year which tend refuse to seat the Southern Bourbon poli- to place the whole radical movement in bad ticians, and continue to so refuse until it repute in the Negro community: has been demonstrated that their elections 1. Support of the "Louisville Plan." This are not carried out in violation of the civil reactionary scheme to compromise the demand of rights of the people of the South. the Negroes for immediate desegregation of the 2. That we demand of the president of the public schools, through "voluntary segregation," U.S. a second Emancipation Proclamation, was blatantly supported by spokesmen for the proclaiming the workers of the South free Communist Party. (See frontpage illustrated story from the white supremacist rulers and People's World, Sept. 21, 1956.) proclaiming an immediate and uncondi- 2. Support of the Louisiana right to work law. tional end to all segregation, discrim- This amended version of the original law was ination, terrorism, etc. condemned by the National Agricultural Union 3. For joint action in all local struggles and other spokesmen for Negro workers in Loui- against discrimination. siana as a measure which gave to the largely 4. For a joint program for all socialists in the white skilled workers certain immunities from the trade union movement on the civil rights law at the expense of the Negroes and other agri- question: cultural, lumber, processing, etc. workers. The a. Demand of the international unions leaders of the CP committed the party to its sup- that they conduct a campaign in their port as an example of a "peoples' anti-monopoly Southern locals to bring them into coalition" and even placed this support in its conformity and support of the Negro Draft Program. (See Draft Resolution for 16th struggle. National Convention of CP presented by NC, page b. For the elimination of all Jim Crow lo- 32, 1956.) cals and other discriminatory practices. 3. Support of the liberal betrayal of the civil c. Against the extension of wage differ- rights struggle at the 84th Congress. This betrayal, entials and the privileges of skilled now exposed by Rep. Powell and many others, workers bought at the expense of the consisted of devices whereby the liberal Demo- unskilled. crats could guarantee the Bourbons that nothing d. For a campaign to solve the discrim- would come of the Civil Rights legislation, but ination inherent in the fact that Ne- that the liberals should be permitted to appear as groes are the last hired, first fired. This partisans of the legislation. In order to do this, discrimination is perpetuated and fro- however, they needed a smokescreen. The Daily zen in most prevailing seniority sys- Worker and the People's World provided this tems. Seniority lists can be revised to admirably for them, and every time the liberals advance the seniority of that number betrayed by giving in to the Bourbons, the CP of Negroes required to maintain an leaders provided the smokescreen by endless ful- equitable proportion of Negro workers minations against Eisenhower or the "Dixiecrats." in a plant at any given time, as is the 4. Support of the "moderate" wing of White policy of the International Union of Supremacy. The so-called moderate wing of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers. Southern white supremacists, represented by such e. For all-out aid to the Southern strug- figures as Lyndon Johnson, is also part of the gles and to demand that the labor 67

movement intervene directly, linking We call upon all socialist-minded Negroes to the problem of the organization of the take advantage of the ideological ferment in the South to the struggle against white general socialist movement around the question supremacy. of the regroupment of socialist forces. This discus- 5. To prepare for the overthrow of the sion holds forth the possibility of clearing the Southern system by a continued democrat- political atmosphere and creating the foundation ic discussion of all issues at stake in the for a more powerful socialist party through the socialist movement with the object of cre- regroupment of the revolutionary currents. ating a new revolutionary socialist party We call upon them to participate in the dis- which is the only assurance of victory. cussions which are taking place. They will bring to these discussions the militance, realism and VII. Negroes and the SWP character of the Negro struggle and at the same The Negro people have long been preparing time broaden their own understanding of it for the opportunity to open up the final struggle through a heightened consciousness of socialist against white supremacy. Their preparations have ideology. been, in the South, painstaking and systematic. As The Negro militants have the following ulti- their opportunity comes closer in time and more mate responsibility in this situation: to determine tangible in form, they must review their prepara- the program which corresponds to the objective tions and consider what element is lacking or in needs of the whole struggle and to make it theirs. insufficient quantity or inadequate quality. We call upon the militant Negro workers to They must consider that they are a vital part join the Socialist Workers Party, the party of the of a great world revolutionary process which has American revolution. We stand before them as the as its goal the reorganization of the whole globe party of the proletariat, of the poor and oppres- along lines of complete equality for all, through sed. We stand upon no economic, political or socialism. social privilege, but consider that the oppressed They must recognize the crisis of this world of the world must act together to gain peace, revolutionary movement: that while the masses prosperity, security, equality; with abundance for of the world have demonstrated their willingness all but special privilege for none. This is the only to struggle for this aim, the leadership has not way to save the world from the catastrophes responded in kind, and therefore the movement unleashed by decaying capitalism. fails to fulfill its historical goals. This has resulted The SWP stands before the Negro people as in the historical crisis of leadership which is the the only party in the U.S. which has never under basic problem of our epoch. any circumstances forsaken or subordinated the The critical point of all preparation for strug- needs of the Negro struggle in the interests of gle in this era is the creation of adequate leader- alliance with privileged groups or enemy classes. ship. The struggles of all peoples and all classes We call upon the Negro intellectuals to cast require the organization of leadership into a polit- their lot with the proletariat. This is the class ical party. This is the means by which leadership which will lead the Negro struggle to victory. But can be tried and tested and is the means for this means, first of all, to adhere to the program unifying program with practice, leadership with of revolutionary socialism—which is the only road ranks—and keeping them all in proper balance. of the victorious proletarian struggle. Summary Remarks on Negro Discussion

From SWP Discussion Bulletin Vol. 18, No. 14 (October 1957). Dick Fraser

debated George Breitman at the SWP's 1 7th National Convention, held 7-9 June 1957. The Convention adopted the Breitman resolution with 54 delegate and 33 consultative votes in favor, although a number of delegates recorded objections to its support for "self-determination" and for the slogan "Federal Troops to the South." Five delegate and five consultative votes were cast for the Fraser resolution.

A study of the first discussions of the Negro The national struggle is characterized by the question in the American political movement re- desire for self-segregation, the desire to withstand veals that the question which was originally quite the pressure of the dominant nations to force simple has become extremely complicated. The them to assimilate, give up their economy, give Negro struggle for equality was an obvious type up their language, their culture and their religion. of movement, as viewed by the IWW, a matter of All of the militant tendencies of the nationalist equality for all workers. They would not tolerate movement stress the requirements of the nation any ideas of segregation. They would go into the to organize itself and to segregate itself from the deep South and hold integrated meetings there. nation that oppresses it. The conservative, concil- It was simple, but incomplete. It required iatory elements are on the side of assimilation Marxism to clarify the question. and integration. That is absolutely characteristic Of recent years, since the introduction of the of the national struggle. That is one of the fun- nationalist conception of the Negro question by damental characteristics with which Marxists the Stalinists, the problem has revolved around were historically confronted. the question of what is the nature of the Negro This was the problem in dispute between question. Dan [Roberts] says it is a national Lenin and Luxemburg, and Lenin and everybody question and it isn't a national question. So, if it else who dealt with this problem of nationalism. isn't a national question, what is it? It is a racial It is the precise opposite of the Negro struggle. question. It is a question of racial discrimination. From the very beginning of the modern Negro This is a unique category of special oppression struggle 150 years ago, all tendencies of a mili- which is different from national oppression. tant, revolutionary, progressive nature in this Religious oppression, which Dan relates it to, struggle have tended to find as the axis of their is closely associated with national oppression. It struggle a resistance against racial separation is oppression of a part of the culture of a people; because this is the weapon of racial oppression. but that is not what the Negro question is like. Comrade Dan, you say that you want to leave The Negro question is only like itself. That is, it the door open for self-determination at some fu- is a unique phenomenon arising fundamentally in ture time. Will you not permit the Negroes a self- the United States, and emanating from there in determination now based upon 150 years of various forms throughout the world. struggle? Everything points to this fact. They do Color discrimination is a unique problem and not want to be designated a nation. Why do you requires an analysis of its own. Upon close exami- demand to place this designation upon their nation the first thing which you find in the Negro struggle? It is not a national struggle. It is a question is its diametric opposites to the national struggle against racial discrimination. That's from question. Not in the whole history of the national whence it derives its independent and dual char- struggle of Europe or Asia, did you ever see a acter, i.e., its independence from and identity national minority or a nation, whose fundamental with the class struggle. struggle was the right to assimilate into the domi- It is the feature of the permanent revolution nant culture. You never saw it. It is the diametric in American life. What is involved is the vestigial opposite of all the national struggles. remains of color slavery, an antique social system

68 69

unsolved by the capitalist revolution in the Civil differentiation, that this is the differential force War and Reconstruction. These vestiges, the in the Negro movement; and that's not true. The social relations of chattel slavery, color segre- S.L.C. is just another wing of the petty-bourgeois gation, color discrimination, white supremacy leadership. This is not the decisive differentiation. adapted to and integrated into the whole eco- The differentiation will come as a result of our nomic, political and social life of capitalism, being able to inject the revolutionary proletarian become one of the important driving forces of the program into that struggle. And the struggle will movement for socialism because capitalism can no not have its over-all religious character then, as longer even be considered as a possible ally of the the workers take the power in the Negro Negro people in the solution of this question. The movement. capitalist class has decided this long ago. They Comrade Jones says we are not, never have, integrated their system with the Jim Crow system, and never will be separatists. We had a resolution it is one and the same thing now. in 1939 which Comrade Breitman said was the Consequently, the Negro struggle for equal- guiding line of the party for 10 years, which is ity, in its independence, arises out of racial essentially a nationalist document on the Negro oppression, attacking a Southern social system question. It is entitled "Self-Determination and which is the result of these vestiges incorporated the American Negroes." And it is organized in the capitalist system. This struggle begins on around the concept of self-determination. That the plane of elementary consciousness. Equality was the program adopted by the 1939 conven- is an elementary democratic demand which has tion. "It is not improbable, therefore, that the no solution under capitalism and therefore be- bulk of the Negroes have absorbed their lesson comes, because of its nature, a transition to the far more profoundly than is superficially apparent struggle for socialism. and that on their first political awakening to the Comrade Dot accuses me of accusing the P.C. necessity of revolutionary activity, the first of being pro-Stalinist and pro-reformist. political awakening, they may demand the right

of self-determination, that is, the formation of the (Note by Kirk: The following interchange Negro state in the South." was not picked up in the transcription. I The 1939 Resolution analyzes the Garvey have reconstructed it as it occurred movement as representing the desire for a Negro according to my memory: state, and speaks about the opponents of the Ne- Interruption from the Presiding Committee: gro state as follows: "The opposition to a Negro That what you said yesterday? state comes mainly from the articulate and vocal Kirk: That's not what I said. but small and weak class of the Negro intellectu- Presiding Committee: Then you implied it. als concerned with little else besides the gaining Kirk: I implied nothing of the kind. of a place for themselves in American capitalist Presiding Committee: Let's have plain society, fanatically blind to its rapid decline." speaking here. This is the characterization in the resolution of Kirk: I say that your program is an the theoreticians of assimilationism who have adaptation to reformism.) been now vindicated by the whole course of the That means that you do not differentiate your- Negro struggle. That is a wrong formulation and selves from the reformists in the Southern move- it has not been vindicated by the course of ment. The critical problem of the moment, the events, but nevertheless this is an important part crisis of leadership in the Negro movement, of our history and it is wrong to say that it never revolves around the question of reformism or existed. revolution, and the resolution does not differ- Now, Comrade George Lavan accuses me of entiate between these two tendencies. If it did we twisting words when I say the resolution desig- would have a different situation today in the nates the Negroes as a national minority. That's convention. I would not have written another what it says and Comrade Dan agreed that it did; resolution. he said, what are you going to call it if you

The resolution does not differentiate. It don't? supports the basic line of the religious pacifist Comrade George says that there is no such leadership of the Negro movement in the South. movement as I described as quoted in the Militant Comrade Breitman and the resolution say as a movement of Southern women. There's no that the Southern Leaders Conference is the movement, there's no struggle. There is! The item 70

in the Militant is only one aspect of it, only one "They set secret time bombs and went back to their facet. There is a movement which has been in needle work, serenely awaiting the blast. Their time continuous existence since 1930, in overt struggle bombs consisted of a secret under-ground propa- against the system of segregation. ganda movement which was developed from mothers to daughters and through the years spreading out A very exceptional book on the movement in to encompass vast sections of the white female popu- the South, Lillian Smith's The Killers of the Dream, lation. And so degraded was the position of women describes this organization and what role it plays in Southern society that white men of the South there. She speaks about the Southern and women could not conceive of their women having ideas and what their stake in this struggle is. She describes had no inkling of the insurrection until it happened. them as follows: "Culturally stunted by a region "The lady insurrectionists gathered together one that still pays nice rewards to simple mindedness day in one of our Southern cities. They primly called in females they had no defenses against blandish- themselves church women but churches were forgot- ment. The gullied land of the South, washed out ten by everybody when they spoke their revolution- and eroded, matched the washed-out women of ary words. They said calmly that they were not the rural South whose bodies were often used as afraid of being raped and as for their sacredness, they could take care of it for themselves. They did ruthlessly as the land; who worked as hard as not need chivalry or a lynching to protect them, they animals; who were segregated in church, sitting did not want it. Not only that—they continued that in separate pews from the men; who were not they would personally do everything in their power thought fit to be citizens and vote until three to keep any Negro from being lynched and further- in states in decades ago and who, some the more, they squeaked bravely, they had plenty of South, cannot own property except in their hus- power and this was the foundation of the Associa- band's name. Who even now cannot officiate as tion of Southern Women Against Lynching in 1930." ministers in most of the churches though they are It began a struggle against segregation, as the the breath of life of the church." fundamental hereditary enemy. They claimed that These women, she says, decided to make a the Lord's Supper was a holy sacrament which war upon their oppression. These "lady insurrec- Christians cannot take without sacrilege unless tionists," she calls them, they also break bread with fellow-men of color. "these ladies went forth to commit treason against They systematically set out to break down one of Southern tradition. It was a purely subversive affair the most important conventions of segregation but as decorously conducted as an afternoon walk and engaged in inter-racial feeding. taken by the students of a female institute. It started been in continuous stealthily in my mother's day. Shyly these first This organization has women sneaked down from their chilly places, did existence since that time, has been active and has their sabotage and sneaked back up, wrapping inno- now become a tremendous factor developing cence around them like a lace shawl. support of the movement against segregation. On Federal Troops in Little Rock

Attachment to Socialist Workers Party Club Executive [Political Committee] Minutes No. 18, 5 November 1957. On 10 October 1957 Fraser wrote this letter from Seattle, Washington to the SWP Political Committee, protesting the Militant's call for federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas.

The editorial on the action by the Federal crucial stage in the fight for the enforcement of government in sending troops to Little Rock, the rights they now possess on paper, the Negro published on the front page of the Militant of people will be in a position to demand federal September 20th, brings the dispute over this intervention if they need it...." question into sharp focus. If they need it? Who is to determine if they This episode has posed the fundamental need it? The editors of the Militant seem quite question point-blank: shall the struggle in the willing to take the word of the middle class South be waged in abject dependence upon the leadership whether the Negro people need government, or independently by the masses? Federal soldiers—and this leadership will continue The entire Negro community of Little Rock, to prefer governmental action to mass action, as numbering 25,000, was poised and ready for has been their tradition. action. Their eagerness to participate in the This perspective for the struggle is justified struggle at times overflowed in dramatic eruptions, by the Militant in the following manner: "The as testified to by the Negro press. Moreover, this resulting political pressure... can blow the mass eagerness occurred within a favorable rela- Republican-Democratic political monopoly sky tionship of forces. high." Such a formula provides a political The Negro middle class leaders refused the justification for continued dependence on the masses any part in the struggle, demanding that government and for perpetuation of the policy of they cease aspiring to act and to accept a passive no organization of the masses. role meekly. Having betrayed the masses' desire Spokesmen for the P.C. convention resolution for action, the leadership appealed instead to the have repeatedly claimed that one of its central government to solve the crisis. points was the question of mass action vs. The demand for Federal Troops to the South dependence on the government. The editorial in is revealed in action, not as an adjunct to but as question, however, illustrates the contradictory a substitute for the organized action of the character of the resolution which at one and the masses and is counterposed directly to it. same time calls for a class struggle policy in the The editorial sees in this situation a Negro movement, but also endorses parts of the "Valuable Precedent"—"For the use of federal consciously collaborationist and anti-revolu- troops in Little Rock constitutes a precedent for tionary program of the middle class leadership. the Negro people that the capitalist politicians- I request that this letter be circulated to the much as they will squirm and try to weasel out N.C. as soon as possible. of—will never be able to get away from. At each

71 On the SWP and the Vietnam Antiwar Movement

From an unnumbered Socialist Workers Party Internal Information Bulletin, "Material on the Kirk-Kaye Split," dated July 1966. Dick Fraser addressed this 13 December 1965 letter from Seattle, Washington to the SWP Political Committee. In February 1 966 he was censured by an SWP National Committee (NC) Plenum for circulating the letter to non-NC members. The SWP leadership then began an "investigation" of the Kirk-Kaye tendency, precipitating its split from the SWP in April 1966.

The policy of the PC in the antiwar move- unproved and unfounded assumption that the war ment had its final result at the Thanksgiving Con- can be stopped by mass peace pressure on the ference in Washington. Here the party and youth government. This is an illusion unworthy of carried on an unprincipled, disruptive and politi- revolutionists. cally reformist struggle against the entire left The Militant has been saturated with this line wing of the antiwar movement. They disrupted for many weeks. Comrade Halstead's articles con- the conference around tertiary organizational stantly refer to the "millions of lives" which are demands and ended in isolation and national dis- at stake in the decision of the peace movement grace. They established an indelible and deserved on the "single" versus the "multi-issue" question. record for political conservatism and dead-end The Nov. 29 Militant editorial of "The Anti- factionalism. They also emerged as the only war Conference" gives the line fairly clearly. "The tendency present able to ignore and snub the civil war in Vietnam cannot be ended solely by the rights movement. activities of local committees. A powerful national This episode constitutes a political catas- movement will have to be built." trophe for the SWP of a magnitude never before This concept is even more emphatically stated experienced by American Trotskyism. If immediate in a fantasy called "A Draft Perspective for the steps are not taken to counteract the effect of this Antiwar Movement." After advocating the single- performance, the reaction to it will render the issue-national-membership-organization policy, party and youth as contemptible among honest the Draft concludes: "We are convinced that an militants as was the CP during its worst days. organization can be built in this country on the This can be prevented only by an abrupt change basis of the program outlined above, that can be of policy and a public repudiation of the course the decisive factor in bringing an end to the followed by the party and youth in the antiwar genocidal war in Vietnam." movement during the past three months. Comrade Britton, in a youth communication, The party and the youth entered the con- describes this Draft as one "passed by the ference armed with two "principles": Washington Heights CEWV, an upper Manhattan 1. To imprison the antiwar movement in the community-based committee in collaboration with U.S. in the single issue of peace in Vietnam. individuals, mainly our comrades, in the other 2. To manufacture a centralized national New York committees listed. It has been circu- membership organization of the independent lated in the New York antiwar movement to serve committees on a Peace Only program, to super- primarily an education function in preparation for sede the present united front arrangement. the Washington convention.... Hopefully, the

I contend that such "principles" are alien to representatives at the November 18 meeting will revolutionary program and tactically impossible approve this statement or a modified version of to implement given the actual composition and it...." mood of the living antiwar movement. The PC, having utterly failed to make a general analysis of the politico-economic I. The Programmatic Problem conjuncture for the SWP convention, has the 1. Can the Peace Movement Stop the War? totally false impression that the capitalist class The policy of the PC is based upon an has no fundamental stake in this war, and would

72 73

pull out of it in response to a little more pressure. and maturingof this development—the process of While it is true that some of the lackey- a fused vanguard stimulating the working class columnists close to the administration are as- into struggle at the point of production —are the signed to give that impression, it is only a ruse. only political realities that Johnson & Co. can The ruling class is desperately attempting to respect. create large new investment opportunities and No matter how radical the slogans and broad views South Vietnam as a key to the exploitation the composition of the peace movement, it will be of East Asia and India. Furthermore, it regards politically ineffective until it links with the Negro Vietnam as essential to its preparations for an radicals and the working class. To a Trotskyist, eventual war with China. under capitalism, "There Is No Peace!" This war is fundamental to the economic and political interest of U.S. capitalism. No powerful 3. Towards Coalition Politics national "Withdraw the Troops" movement alone can stop this war. If a "properly organized" peace movement can stop a war, then we have been erroneously 2. How Can the War Be Ended? fighting Stalinism and pacifism on this issue for The Militant says, "Bring the GIs Home." But 30 years. And if we were correct then, and are this only raises another question—how? The party still correct now with the new "tactical" line and youth line is that an enlarged peace because times have changed, then the PC is movement can do it by nationally directed indeed guilty of the old revisionist habit of pressure and agitation. reversing a principle because of supposed tactical In reality, a more tangible and quicker necessity. possibility for the withdrawal of U.S. armed This "tactical" excitement is a new shocker in forces from Vietnam could be accomplished if the SWP practices. Has the party forgotten that the National Liberation Front can drive them into the tenacity with which previous peace movements

China Sea. This is the active revolutionary clung to reformism was rooted in part in the solution to the question. But there is no hint of liberal-Stalinist compulsion to isolate war and recognition in our literature that this is the most peace from the other great social problems? And favorable alternative. don't they similarly isolate civil rights from the

The party and youth leave it to others who questions of war and peace, poverty, imperialism? are bolder to be partisans of the NLF, others who The upshot of this traditional limitation of may lack something in program, theory or expe- the antiwar movement to peace only and the civil rience, but make up for it in the revolutionary rights movement to civil rights only has been the spirit of solidarity so dismally absent from the incarceration of both movements inside the Dem- pages of the Militant. ocratic Party, for only the interrelation of all the

It is doubtful that this war can be ended on great social problems makes it possible to identify domestic initiative by anything else than the capitalism as the cause of any of them and lay the proletarian revolution. However, short of such a groundwork for independentanti-capitalist polit- basic explosion, the only force on U.S. soil ical action. capable of pressuring the capitalist government Now that for the first time in the modern era, out of Vietnam is the proletariat, in the course of militant antiwar youth and militant southern Ne- its prosecution of the class struggle. To promise groes are seeking to broaden the concept and and advocate anything else is to sow an scope of both the antiwar and civil rights move- opportunist illusion. ments by integrating their aims and directing an The Negro movement represents that section appeal to the proletariat, the party and youth of the proletariat which is presently in motion claim that such youth are sectarian splitters of and has the initiative. The virile youth movement the united peace front! linking up with the Negro movement would The capitalist class is profoundly fearful of together comprise a formidable force, agitating the possibility of the Negro movement identifying sections of the proletariat into action. itself with the colonial revolution and linking up Out of this process will emerge a new fused with the antiwar movement around the issue of and regrouped revolutionary party composed of Vietnam. Every time a Negro leader opens his radicals from the socialist, antiwar, and civil mouth on Vietnam or colonialism, the entire capi- rights vanguard organizations. The appearance talist press rakes him over the coals with a line 74

quite similar to that of the party and youth: "It's II. Tactics and Organization Forms all right for Negroes to build their own movement 1. A Radical Peace Movement and a Conservative on their own grievances, but you only injure the Youth Movement cause of civil rights by taking positions on other social problems, because that will alienate your The "single" vs "multi-issue" position of the supporters." party and youth is not only wrong politically, but What they mean is that a break from the tactically blind, revealing a complete lack of Democratic or Republican parties would be the knowledge of the actual political condition of the next logical step and this must be prevented at movement, which is far more sophisticated and all costs. advanced than the party and youth comprehend. Larry Laughlin, one of the prominent co- The party and youth have now been active in chairmen of the militant Berkeley VDC [Vietnam this movement for a few months, and in some Defense Committee], said in his speech to the cases a few weeks. Yet they presume to dictate to Seattle committee three weeks ago: "We are disil- the movement a scheme for stopping the war lusioned with protest. We are going to enter poli- which has no plausible chance for success and tics. We are going to run radical candidates on which the antiwar militants had two years ago, the twin issues of war and civil rights. We plan a but have now discarded, realizing that they must frontal attack on the Democratic Party which is integrate the antiwar movement with the colonial calculated to break it up. We consider it our duty revolution, the Negro struggle, economic prob- to shake-up the labor movement to a realization lems of the working class — in short, make a class- of labor's responsibilities." struggle internationalist movement of it. The It is quite true that this is not the whole party and youth demand that they return to their story, that there is a lot of confusion about what political infancy of two years ago and wait for the a "frontal attack on the Democratic Party" means, masses to catch up. and that for many it includes running candidates Those who have led the antiwar movement in the Democratic primaries. And, to be sure, during the past two years in protest marches and danger of coalition politics exists. However, the demonstrations are nowcomingto the realization proposed treatment prescribed by the party and that the White House and Pentagon are impervi- youth does nothing to counteract coalition ous to any amount of protest or public opinion, politics. intend to stay in Vietnam until every square foot The party and youth claim that if we permit of soil has been churned by bombs, every leaf of issues other than peace to enter into the present foliage laid to waste and every man, woman and movement the Stalinists will utilize the circum- child murdered, if necessary. The ruling class is stances to take the movement into the Democratic clearly prepared to go to any lengths of domestic Party. This argument not only stands the thing on policing and terror to prevent obstruction of the its head, but fails to grapple with the reality. war. The antiwar militants now understand that In the first place, the antiwar movement is something more basic than even powerful single-

going into politics whether we like it or not, and issue routine protest must be organized. its only chance to avoid the trap of people's The Washington Conference represented ob- frontism is not to avoid politics, but precisely to jectively an attempt by newly radicalized youth relate the war question to the other social to begin reaching general anti-capitalist conclu- problems and create an over-all anti-capitalist sions derived from the past two years of protest. political philosophy. Even the newest CEWVs [Committee to End the The newly radicalized elements, many of War in Vietnam] are ripe for revolutionary con- them politically naive, are still people moving clusions. The rapid leftward development of large rapidly leftward who desperately require the sections of this movement clearly opened up the intervention of revolutionary socialists on the big perspective for the creation of a mass revolu- political questions to aid their development. tionary youth movement in this country. In so far as the youth movement is successful The main and only responsibility of the revo-

in confining the movement to peace only, it will lutionary socialists at this conference was to at- insure a strong development of people's frontism, tempt to broaden and deepen and generalize the because a movement which is orientated ex- anti-capitalist sentiments — to raise the political clusively to the peace issue inevitably winds up level of the movement. supporting "peace" Democrats. This task was undertaken by the left wing of 75

SDS [Students for a Democratic Society], PL [Pro- out of tune with the mood of the newly radi- gressive Labor Party], the May 2nd Movement calized youth who have a healthy mistrust of and other non-Trotskyist currents, but especially centralized organizations and of becoming by the Spartacist and Bulletin forces. Our youth over-concerned with problems of organizational movement resisted and disrupted the attempts to structure, except to maintain some local auton- draw general radical, socialistic conclusions, and omy—until they have found out for sure where became in fact the right wing of the conference, they are going politically. in objective programmatic alliance with the To make matters worse, the proposal itself is established peace addicts on the "Peace Only" entirely without objective political merit because issue, and no amount of compensatory righteous- it is maneuveristic and violates the principle of ness over the "withdrawal" versus "negotiate" the united front, the cornerstone of our mass issue can obscure this fact. work. The party and youth are thoroughly isolated 3. The United Front in their irrational resistance to the universal desire among militant sectors of the antiwar As against Stalinist attempts to subject in- movement to reach out to the civil rights move- dependent organizations to a single minimum is- ment. A high point of the convention was the sue or program, or all embracing organization, powerful and militant plea of the delegation from Trotsky enunciated over and over again the the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party for a principle of the united front of different organiza- recognition of the unity of purpose between the tions, which were free to maintain their autono- antiwar movement and the civil rights movement. my and independence. To subordinate independ- Ignoring this plea the SWP rejected this alliance ent organizations to a single minimum program for supposed "tactical" considerations, but it is and permanent organization is people's frontism. clear that the chief reason is the party position on A stated motivation of the policy of a new black nationalism, i.e., Negroes should keep their peace-only national membership organization is movement separate from whites, and Negro goals the aim of cutting off the development of SDS in are not yet the business of the peace movement. a socialist direction.

The reality of antiwar politics is that it has 2. The Unity Splitters pushed the left wing of the SDS into the forefront The party and youth under the hypocritical of socialist politics. The left wing of SDS today slogan of "unity" of the peace movement raised represents the most important, largest and most the demand for a single membership organization militant radical youth movement in the U.S., rap- as the central vehicle for the struggle against the idly moving towards an open socialist program. war in Vietnam. This demand proved to be the Our youth movement, an essentially conser- vehicle to amaze, appall, demoralize and disrupt vative organization, instead of welcoming this the conference. development and encouraging it, views it com-

Irrespective of the merits of the proposal, the petitively with alarm and hostility. They fear it experience of the previous weekend at the Bay and are jealous of it. Feeling that they do not Area Conference demonstrated conclusively that have the ideological or political equipment to this demand was a divisive rather than a unifying compete with it, they want to maneuver it out of issue, and that the main militant tendencies in the existence. Our youth say, in effect, to the SDS, antiwar movement would not go along with it "Socialism is not your business—you are only under any circumstances. To continue to press rightwing peaceniks. Dissolve yourselves in a this issue at the Washington Conference indicated single issue peace movement. You can be useful a preconceived plan on the part of the party and there. But leave socialism to our movement, youth to divide and splinter the movement while which is ordained to be the only young socialist shouting "unity." organization in the country." This organizational demand cannot find The approach of the youth and party leaders acceptance. It is an organizational gimmick which to the SDS and other leftward developing cur- would tend to freeze part of the movement at the rents has a childish-sectarian nature not seen in present stage and force other sections back to a the radical movement for decades, but returning previous stage of development. The tactical stu- now with a vengeance. pidity of this proposal for a centralized national At the Washington Conference, the National organization stems from its unreality; it is totally Coordinating Committee issued proposals which 76

contained the essence of the principle of the III. Significance united front. As opposed to this, the party and 1. Intervention and the "Holding Operation" youth exploded a frantic 4-day factional assault around the Stalinistic demand for a national The young activists pledged at the last SWP membership organization, on the spurious convention that they would cease their sectarian, grounds that they represented the "masses" or the do-nothing, abstentionist policy. The various mi- "independents." norities urged them to intervene in the living The NCC, understandably indignant but anx- movement—to intervene ideologically and ious to prevent a split, revised its proposals politically. closely in accordance with the specific demands The present disruptive organizational "inter- of the youth movement, retaining only the basic vention" is the diametric opposite of the political unity front structure rather than the totally un- intervention needed, and merely constitutes an- acceptable national membership organization for other form of the "holding operation" wherein all independents. non-trade-unionistic areas of struggle are re- However, the party and youth forces were ar- garded as historically unimportant and thereby rogantly deaf to the concessions of the NCC and fair game for contemptuous raids and any old blindly pressed on towards virtual split. A new policy. policy of attack, raid and the hell-with-everyone- 2. The Political Direction of the Present Current else has replaced Trotsky's united front for action. What is revealed in this episode is a rapid 4. Defeat movement towards reformism by the youth lead- ership. The youth movement is an essentially The party and youth went into the conference petty-bourgeois formation without serious con- with very little real knowledge of the composi- nection with the working class either theoretically tion, political character or mood of the antiwar through Marxism or directly through contact or movement. They were steeped in fanciful pre- organization. It has now broken out of its pre- conception and errors, but they had the oppor- carious condition of total isolation and insulation tunity to learn something about the real move- from the mass movements of its time, and come ment. They rejected the chance. They didn't even into contact with the essentially middle class attend the conference proper, except when and antiwar movement. Its conservatism on the draft where their petty organizational proposal could question, its reluctance to become the champions be pushed. The great moments, the political dis- of the NLF, its refusal to face programmatic cussions and mood, the discussion in the various questions all demonstrate an affinity with the workshops, the evidence of leftward trends, all more conservative layers of the peace movement. this they missed, as they raced around organizing Sensitivity to the conservative elements of a essentially a counter-conference which in the end middle class movement has apparently impelled turned out to encompass only themselves and a the youth group itself in a rightward direction few bewildered followers. with great speed, at the very time that the major All that the party and youth participants can sectors of the movement are moving rapidly report about the Washington Conference is what leftward. was done and said in their various sectarian Inasmuch as the youth nationally represents caucuses. the principal base of the party, the velocity of this When one after another of their previous petty-bourgeois, essentially reformist, current allies publicly dissociated themselves from our tends to sweep the party along with it. youth movement and denounced it, the party and 3. What Is the Source of Policy? youth forces were soundly defeated. Refusing to abide by majority decision they convoked a pre- The policies which led to the Thanksgiving planned dismal rump convention which set a goal disaster were the subject neither of SWP conven- of creating the new organization they had been tion debates nor documents, and discussion can- unable to sell at the conference. Like the Stalin- not be summarily refused because the issues were ists of by-gone days, our troops incurred the "decided by the convention." Furthermore, the wrath of an originally friendly mass movement peace movement policy has not been recorded in and managed only to capture themselves. The any comprehensive form in any PC minutes. The disgrace is now part of the SWP's public record. source of policy in this matter is not precisely clear. 11

On the contrary, during Comrade Dobbs' tour both to the party and youth and to the antiwar stop in Seattle, we reported our local activity and movement, I believe it should adopt the following line in the antiwar movement (which have, inci- emergency propositions: dentally, met with considerable success), in both 1. To require the national leaders of the public and closed branch discussions. We stated youth to disband their National Caucus of Inde- that our emphasis has been the broad politicaliza- pendent Vietnam Committees to set up a new tion of the movement towards revolutionary so- national organization. cialism, connecting it with the civil rights 2. To issue directives to all SWP branches to movement, the colonial revolution, and seeking do everything in their power to prevent the youth a relationship with the proletariat. from carrying out its threat to begin to promote Comrade Dobbs indicated no point of dis- its national organization in the local Vietnam agreement with this policy whatsoever, and it committees, a threat, which if carried out, will appeared that our local approach corresponded plunge these committees into turmoil on subordi- to the majority decision of the convention: to nate organizational questions and result only in politicalize and radicalize the antiwar movement. the deeper isolation and disgrace of the youth, Yet two days after Comrade Dobbs' visit, the the weakening of the committees, and an open youth organizer received a letter from the youth door for the Du Bois clubs to leadership of the national office that included a criticism of local antiwar movement. work for being against the "national policy" of 3. To instruct all branches contemplating or peace only. executing disciplinary measures against comrades What evidently happened in the party was as a result of this situation, to hold such actions that some branches were actually mobilized as in abeyance until the whole situation has been factions in the local peace organizations before reviewed by the party. the rest of the party—or Seattle alone!—was in- I am sending under separate cover, the min- formed of the line. utes of an all-night meeting of the delegates from Who is responsible for our single-issue- the South to the Washington Conference which national-membership organization program? The are essential reading material for all NC members. NC as a whole has a right to know. The occasion for the meeting was as follows: the The present crisis of policy is sufficiently delegates from the South were bewildered by the acute to warrant an immediate special plenum of political chaos created largely by the party and the NC to begin to extricate the party, and if youth organizational program. Many wanted to possible the youth from a dangerous drift in both leave for home. An all-night meeting was held at organizations. which Staughton Lynd was assigned by the NCC

I request an immediate poll of the NC on the to attempt to get them to stay on. holding of a special January plenum. Although some NC members may have had

If the PC has any inclination to begin un- access to this document, I think it should be sent doing the momentous harm that has been done out to all members. Why We Left the Socialist Workers Party

From an undated pamphlet issued by the Freedom Socialist Party. Richard Fraser co-signed this June 1966 document with Clara Kaye, Frank Krasnowsky, David Dreiser and Waymon Ware.

On behalf of the former Seattle Branch of the equality is a unique and central phenomenon of Socialist Workers Party, and other SWPers who the class struggle in the United States, integrally supported the Marxist evaluation of the Negro connected with the proletarian struggle for Question developed by Richard Kirk, we present socialism. this statement explaining why we left the SWP— The SWP Espouses "Black Separatism" that party to which most of us have devoted our entire lives since our youth. The SWP leadership rejected the interconnec- tion of the Freedom Now and socialist move- Origin of the Kirk-Kaye Tendency ments. The ease with which the SWP slid over Our political group, known within the SWP from adaptation to Rev. King to glorification of as the Kirk-Kaye tendency, was formalized at the Mr. Muhammad expressed the basically false 1957 convention of the party, when we opposed theory—inherited from the Communist Party—that the unprincipled adaptation of the SWP to the the Negro Question in the U.S. is only a variation pacifist-reformist leadership of the Negro strug- of the National Question in Eastern Europe. gle. Adulation of Dr. King replaced a revolution- This theory maintains that the Negro problem ary approach to the question within the party, can be solved by "self-determination" and racial and heralded a process of degeneration which separation. Thus, all policy problems of the Negro reached a decisive stage at the 1963 national movement can be solved without strenuous analy- convention of the party. sis and thought, for the SWP leadership says in In that year, the SWP proclaimed a boycott effect that whatever the Negro leadership does is of the southern struggle; condemned leftward- good enough for the Negroes and good enough moving SNCC as "reformist/integrationist," and for the SWP because whatever policy is most turned toward Elijah Muhammad and the Black prominent at any stage has been "self- Muslims as the "most dynamic" section of the determined." Negro movement. The SWP's confusion of the mood of black In regard to other areas of the class struggle, nationalism with the politics of separatism bore the 1963 convention rejected the perspective of bitter fruit when Malcolm X engineered a split in socialist regroupment and deepened its hostility the Black Muslims. Malcolm was clearly oriented towards all the new leftward-moving organiza- toward combining the ghetto struggle with the tions on the political scene; the perspective of southern movement and with socialism. He de- political revolution in China was reaffirmed; party nounced the Muslims for their basically reac- organizational procedures were formally "tight- tionary character, and consequently felt the wrath ened up" while an ongoing purge of critics of the of Mr. Muhammad's goons. The SWP, supporting leadership was accelerated. Muslim unity, was caught in its own trap. It Our tendency opposed this course. We partic- became both the supporter of Malcolm and the ularly resisted the slanderous identification of the defender of his enemy and probable murderer. southern militants with "tokenism," and the all- The SWP, now discredited in the Negro com- out support of Negro separatism. munity, presents the ludicrous spectacle of an all- Our counter-resolution to the convention, white party with a black nationalist program. "Revolutionary Integration," called on the SWP to Our Perspective on the permit its Negro cadre to intervene in the living Unfolding American Revolution struggle for equality with a Marxist program. We developed our thesis that the Negro movement for The logic of the SWP's position on the Negro

78 79 struggle led to a de facto isolation of the party exist was denied in a new Organizational Reso- from the struggle, for black nationalism itself lution submitted by the leadership and adopted stands aside from the main thrust of the Negro by the convention. struggle—the fight against segregation. We now The majority simply refused to debate the felt impelled to publish within the party an issues in dispute and discussion was effectively analysis of the basic reasons for the party's proscribed. Instead, we were threatened and sectarianism on this and other vital questions. denounced over local administrative practices. Since 1957, we had responded to severe This type of unprincipled politics was fast changes occurring in the party program by for- becoming characteristic of the party leadership. mulating our own position on a number of We concluded from this experience that the domestic and international issues. We believed SWP had become a doctrinaire party, mired in a that the party was departing from the dynamic "holding operation," i.e., a prolonged state of course dictated by the spirit and letter of suspension based on the assumption that nothing Leninism and Trotskyism, and that it was significant can happen until the revival of the stagnating into conservatism. trade unions and the emergence of a Labor Party. In what proved to be a vain effort to arrest The SWP was ossifying around conjunctural eval- this general drift, we submitted to the 1965 uations of 25 years ago, and neither changes in national convention an extensive Political Res- national or world conditions, the isolation and olution dealing with the current stage of the crisis disasters resulting from its own mistakes, nor the of U.S. imperialism and the consequent strategy loss of its basic cadre of revolutionary Negroes, and tactics needed for the realization of our rev- women, unionists and intellectuals could shake olution. We sought to orient the party toward the its complacency. Negro struggle as the crux of the American Revo- lution, and toward China as the key to the colo- The Last Struggle—Over Anti-War Policy nial revolution and the major policy-problem of the international revolutionary movement. The The policy of the SWP leadership in the anti- Resolution also called attention to the essentially war movement brought our differences to the anti-capitalist nature of the struggle of women breaking point. and youth today, and concluded that the road to After standing aside from the anti-war move- the American Revolution did not lie directly ment during its critical formative stages, the SWP through the trade union movement, but followed decided in mid-1965 to plunge in—for an organ- the course of the struggles of the most oppressed izational raid. wherever they broke out. We said it was the des- We made one last attempt to prevent a tiny of these struggles outside the labor move- disaster for Trotskyism in the U.S. ment to become the vitalizing currents that would We protested against the single-issue, anti- eventually move the labor movement and become political policy of SWP and YSA, which led them the vanguard of the revolutionary movement as into the presumptuous demand that the Thanks- a whole. giving NCC [National Coordinating Committee] We called for a commitment to the struggles conference in Washington, D.C. center its delib- of women under capitalism, and for the formation erations around the party's peculiar and confus- of a truly independent revolutionary youth ing organizational proposals, rather than around movement. questions of program and principle. This course was unprecedented in our movement. We denied The SWP Becomes Monolithic the SWP characterization of the left wing of the The convention rejected our perspective and anti-war movement as "Stalinist." We condemned tactics. Indeed, rank and file consideration of our their fearful refusal to proclaim clear support to Resolution was virtually impossible as the long- the National Liberation Front and their super- honored internal democracy of the party had by cautious and outdated policy on the draft, which then been destroyed by a protracted "tightening prevents effective opposition to it. up" campaign. The majority was hostile to all We advocated a proletarian anti-war policy criticism and any new proposals emanating from that would solidarize the party with the revolu- outside the leadership. The proletarian principle tion in Vietnam, with working-class Negro youth of minority representation on all leading bodies who are the key victims of the draft, and with the was abandoned and the very right of factions to radical wing of the anti-war movement. 80

The SWP Substitutes Organizational cals. We believe this to be the indispensable Attacks for Political Debate formula for the foundation of a genuine revolu- tionary socialism in this country. The party's policy in the anti-war movement had never been subject to rank and file discus- sion. Comrade Kirk, a member of the National Committee for 25 years, requested a debate on Our Program the issue within the N.C. He flew to New York to participate in it, and discovered that the chief The following is the gist of the program we results of his protest were punitive organizational have developed and fought for within the SWP measures directed against him personally, against for many years. We are presenting it now publicly the Seattle Branch as a whole, and against other for the first time for the consideration of all supporters of the tendency. Such measures are revolutionary socialists and all mass movement understood within the party to be a prelude to militants and radicals. expulsion. I. For a Revolutionary Marxist Approach Under such circumstances, the resignation we to the Negro Struggle had contemplated for some time became inevitable. The connection between the proletarian The SWP's estrangement from the Negro struggle for socialism and the Negro struggle for struggle and its refusal to intervene politically in equality is INTEGRAL and proclaims the unfold- the anti-war movement or in the present rebirth ing of the permanent revolution in the U.S. of interest in socialist thought have removed it for The fascist-like police states of the south are this period from the epicenter of revolutionary structurally basic to the capitalist political econ- activity and ideology in the U.S. We would wel- omy of the U.S. The struggle against segregation, come a turn which would reverse this tragic therefore, threatens the entire nationwide social degenerative process, but we cannot wait for this system. This fact demonstrates the impossibility possibility. There are more vital things to do in of achieving equality under U.S. capitalism, and the class struggle than conduct a futile and it further transforms the demand for integration debilitating internecine organizational struggle into a transitional revolutionary demand. This over tertiary administrative issues. Since every in turn guarantees the emergence of a revolution- political difference and discussion is now mud- ary left wing that will contend for leadership died and prejudiced by an organizational smoke- against the reformist/tokenists in the civil rights screen thrown over it by the party leadership to movement. obscure the principled issues in dispute, the party The development of all-black organizations can no longer contain critics. And revolutionaries expresses and cultivates the pride and self- who are not critical cannot maintain for long reliance of the most oppressed, and opens new their revolutionary quality. avenues in the struggle for freedom. But these so- called "nationalist" formations do not result from Our Objectives any inherent drive toward national separatism, In resigning, we reaffirm our commitment to but from organizational needs and from an inter- Marxism, to Leninism and to Trotskyism, and we nationalism that identifies the Negro struggle have set forth these immediate objectives: with the colonial revolution. The demands of the

(1 ) To join with other independent socialists essentially proletarian masses express the historic in the Pacific Northwest in the creation of a new needs of the working class as a whole in the strug- revolutionary socialist party here. gle against capitalist exploitation. (2) To continue collaboration with our col- No amount of all-black independence can leagues throughout the country, with the object overcome the terrible isolation of the Negro of making our views known to the various compo- masses from the white working class and the nents within U.S. radicalism. socialist movement. What is revealed here is the (3) To advocate, support and participate in backwardness of the labor movement and the a revival and regeneration of Marxism in the U.S., theoretical bankruptcy of the established left. and in a fundamental reorganization of socialists This isolation is a mortal danger both to the in a new revolutionary socialist party, able to freedom struggle and to the struggle for social- unite the Negro vanguard with the socialist radi- ism, since each is impossible without the other. 81

The Negro struggle is the central question of helped to re-cement the power of the bureaucrat- the American Revolution and the Negro move- ic caste in the Soviet Union. ment is the vanguard sector of the entire working The CPC stubbornly maintains Mao's theory— class. That is why the Negro movement is the first not fundamentally different from Stalin's—that target of reaction: racism and the southern system the national revolution in colonial countries can are the launching pads of American fascism. be carried to fruition by a joint dictatorship of The Negro movement must be encouraged to the proletariat and the native bourgeoisie—in develop a Marxist program and cadre that can spite of the CPC's own experience which refutes unite the ghetto masses with the southern strug- this theory! gle into a powerful revolutionary force, and there The disastrous results of the policy flowing can then be forged a working alliance among the from this theory are to be seen in Indonesia. The Negro vanguard, socialist revolutionaries and the Chinese leadership must share responsibility for militants in the white working class. the policy followed by the Indonesian Communist This is the key to the American Revolution. movement, a policy in no way distinguishable from that of the CP in China in the twenties in II. For Solidarity with the Chinese Revolution respect to the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek, The Chinese Revolution upset the interna- and a policy that produced the identical end: tional class peace agreed to at Potsdam and massacre and utter rout. Teheran. This great revolution confirmed once The CPC's favorable references to Stalin again the validity of Trotsky's thesis of permanent result from this chronic contradiction in both revolution by demonstrating that the national their theory and practice. revolution in backward countries cannot achieve China's internal life, however, differs sharply its goals of national independence, national from the Soviet model. Clearly absent is the im- unification and economic growth without going mense privileged bureaucracy, wielding arbitrary over to the stage of socialist revolution. authority through an all-powerful secret police. China's experience (not lost on the Cuban The concentration camps and blood purges that revolutionaries) established China as the key to are the hallmarks of Stalinism are also absent. the colonial revolution and the principal target of The expanding role of the workers and peasants world imperialism. in economic planning and control has resulted in At first in practice, and then in an ideological a consistent economic growth and a realistic polemic against the Soviet bureaucracy, the Chi- potential for greater proletarian democracy. nese CP opposed the policy of class collaboration The Chinese Communists are sensitive to the with world imperialism as expounded and prac- growth of bureaucracy in China. But they cannot ticed by both Stalin and the current Soviet leader- ultimately prevent its growth so long as they ship. The international debate which ensued, remain blind to its origin and history in the forcing world Communism to examine the issues, USSR. While the very symbol of bureaucratic began the creation of revolutionary tendencies privilege and tyranny—Stalin—continues to be who opposed the reformist leaderships through- idolized in China, they will hover on the verge of out the Communist movement. The necessary retrogression and degeneration. prerequisites were thereby established for an Likewise, their Stalinist heritage prevents the international revolutionary regroupment. CPC from playing a decisive role in the reorgani- Still, the progressive character of the zation of a worldwide revolutionary international. international role of the Communist Party of III. For Serious Politics in the Anti-War Movement China is severely limited by the residue of Stal- inism. The Khrushchev revelations about Stalin at The capitalist class has a fundamental stake the 20th Congress of the CPSU revealed the in the war in Vietnam and will not withdraw cracks in the Soviet bureaucracy which might short of a military/political defeat or virtual civil have been exploited by the Soviet workers to the war at home. The only way that the American point of political revolution against the entire people can stop this war is through a mass regime and the reinstitution of proletarian democ- political movement of the working class. racy in the Soviet Union. But the Chinese Com- Vanguard elements of the anti-war movement munist Party by its public adulation of Stalin and feel their isolation from the working class to be Stalinism struck a severe blow at the democratic a basic weakness of the movement; they seek alli- aspirations of the Soviet proletariat and thus ances with the proletariat and specifically with 82

the Negroes, that section of the working class themselves and for all other victims of discrim- already in motion. As a consequence of a serious ination. effort to stop the war, anti-war militants are The feminine mystique, along with racism, groping for fundamental solutions to social prob- remains the Achilles heel of the labor movement lems. They seek to unite Negroes, the poverty- and a significant factor in the history of union stricken, draft resisters, radical unionists, so- degeneration. Women's equality must be raised cialists, etc., into a broad political movement. as a transitional slogan whose dynamism flows Revolutionary Marxists should help them find from the pivotal location of the Woman Question the correct road to political unity by demon- in U.S. life, where the oppression and special strating the necessity of independent anti- exploitation of women is a burning injustice that capitalist politics that connect the war to the intersects with every other political question and other evils of the system. Political ventures short social movement. of such a program are doomed to eventual capitu- V. For Revolutionary Unification and the lation to the Democratic Party and other forms of Regeneration of Socialist Thought class collaboration politics. The liberal plea for "Negotiations" with the Conditions for a meaningful discussion of Vietnamese Revolution must be exposed; the only Marxist ideology and for the creation of a united principled slogan is "Withdraw U.S. Troops Now." revolutionary socialist party have rarely been as But a demand for withdrawal that is devoid of a favorable as they are today. meaningful economic analysis of the cause of The essentially anti-capitalist character of the war, even this slogan fosters the illusion that the Freedom Now and anti-war movements draws the anti-war movement by itself will pressure the U.S. militants from both movements together in a out of Vietnam. The notion that simply more search for political unity. The end of the Stalin activism and more protesters can end the war is era and the current Sino-Soviet dispute have an essentially pacifist proposition. This unrealistic weakened old prejudices and created an atmos- and anti-political approach is a dangerous con- phere favoring political discussion in the socialist servative barrier to the political development of movement. The crisis of capitalism, demonstrated the anti-war movement. by the permanent war policy of the Democratic administration and its hypocrisy in civil rights IV. For a Revolutionary Approach and anti-poverty, has forced one-time liberals and to the Woman Question pacifists into a serious consideration of Marxism. We place the struggle for women's emanci- An entire generation of radical youth, disgusted pation on the level of a first-class theoretical and by its inheritance, and enthused by the courage programmatic question. and determination of the colonial revolutionists As the first tendency in the history of abroad and the Freedom fighters at home, is American radicalism to formally incorporate this seeking more effective methods and ideas for the question into our basic program, we proclaim our struggle against capitalism. resistance to the creeping paralysis of male su- Revolutionary Marxists must accelerate and premacy which by now has become an ingrained help give form to this growing need for a new practice in the entire labor and socialist socialist movement. We must add to the energy, movement, and a growing danger in the civil inventiveness, and boldness of the New Left the rights movement. most important qualities of the Trotskyist Old The leading role of women in the fight for Left: Marxist ideology, a proletarian orientation, civil rights, in the anti-war movement, in civil experience in the class struggle, and the recog- liberties campaigns, etc., is not accidental, but nition of the need for a centralized, disciplined results from the special dynamic developed by and thoroughly democratic revolutionary party. women as an oppressed sex, seeking liberation for A Letter to American Trotskyists TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE (Memorandum on the Problems of Building a Revolutionary Party)

From Revolutionary Age Vol. 3, No. 4 (1974/75). Revolutionary Age was the

irregular journal of Fraser's supporters after the 1 968 split in the Freedom Socialist Party.

It would be redundant to independent radi- not only to the formally adopted resolutions, but cals to observe that the movement is dispersed. to the daily life and work of the organization, its

Nevertheless, I must say it, because that is the leadership and organizational principles. starting place of this memo. This condition is SOCIAL BASE. That social sector from which brought about by the degeneration of its major the organization derives its basic support and to parties, the Communist Party and the Socialist which it has its main sensitivity. The extent to Workers Party, the disintegration of SDS [Stu- which it successfully seeks that social base in dents for a Democratic Society], and the ebb tide non-privileged sectors of the proletariat will be of the class struggle. At the same time, the radi- decisive to its development. calization of the '60s, principally in the ghetto Any one of these categories can become de- and on the campus, has left a residue of high cisive in determining the direction of motion and social consciousness. Dozens and perhaps hun- the final product, because all are interacting. dreds of revolutionary-minded groups, grouplets, The CP Degenerates to Reformism leagues, and thousands of unorganized individual radicals, are seriously debating what to do next. For instance, the Communist Party after This condition objectively demands a massive 1929: Despite its developing mass influence and regroupment of revolutionary forces and the for- militancy, it had come under the complete domi- mation of a new party. This memorandum is de- nation of the Soviet secret police (GPU), and signed to be a contribution to the discussion of found its social base in the Soviet bureaucracy. how this may be accomplished. The first consequence of its change of social base The evolution of an aspiring revolutionary was the erosion of theoretical concepts, and wild party is determined by the reciprocal relations of strategic gyrations. The strategic failures on an four basic elements: international scale led to defeats (Germany, THEORY. The understanding and ability to Spain) which strengthened the reactionary char- use creatively Marxist political economy and his- acter of the social base—the Soviet bureaucracy. torical/dialectical materialism. The outcome of this process led finally to pro- STRATEGY. The foresight and ability to put grammatic degeneracy, eventually to reformism; the organization in a position to struggle effec- in no way qualitatively different from Social tively for political hegemony over the proletariat Democratic reformism. in a constantly changing situation. From strategic The interrelationship between these cate- concepts flow most of the decisive tactical ele- gories is elaborately demonstrated and developed ments: fusions and splits, the United Front, op- in the founding documents of the Trotskyist ponents work; support and critical support, movement: "Criticism of the Draft Program," "The entries or partial entries, etc.; mass organization Strategy of World Revolution," etc. (contained in orientation. The Third International After Lenin). PROGRAM. The political program. The eval- The Socialist Workers Party uation of current political problems facing the working class and proposed solutions, designed More pertinent to those seeking to profit to heighten political consciousness. This applies from the problems of the past is to examine the

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history of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) from the death"—with the Longshoremen (ILWU), the the criteria outlined above. More pertinent, be- Marine Cooks and Stewards (MC&S) and finally cause the SWP was a native movement, and be- the National Maritime Union (NMU). cause it was the best of the Marxist-oriented The Lundberg machine which effectively ran formations to emerge from the turbulent class the SUP was based on three semi-privileged struggles of the '30s. It had, however, basic de- groups of coastal seamen. 1. The Matson Shore fects at the time of its formation in 1938, which gang: seamen who stayed in San Francisco and it is necessary to examine. For this, I will have to did maintenance work on the large Matson fleet. rely on my recollections. I entered the Trotskyist 2. Steam schooner sailors: working the coastal movement shortly after the fusion of the (Trot- trade bringing lumber from the Pacific Northwest skyist) Communist League of America and the to California (steam schooners were being rapidly (Musteite) American Workers Party (AWP), replaced by modern ships, however the trade re- forming the Workers Party of the U.S. in 1934. tained its designation). 3. The Alaska run, largely At the time of its formation the SWP had a based in Seattle. After the 1936-37 strike these dual social base: 1. Middle-class intellectuals. sailors, working a short season (approximately 2. Two white craft unions: the Sailors Union of May to October) made fabulous wages loading the Pacific (SUP) and the Minneapolis Teamsters cargo from the Alaska canneries—overtime, (eventually designated Local 544). In this discus- double-time and triple-time, etc. They could sion I shall ignore the question of the intellec- usually make much more in five to six months tuals' influence, because this was solved in the than an off-shore sailor could make in a year. 1940 split when the Shachtmanites left: solved Most of them were in home port half the year only for the period under consideration, however, and frequently during the season. as the SWP has lost its working-class orientation The relative stability of these groups gave and become essentially petty-bourgeois in both them a preponderant influence on the affairs of composition and social base. the union, at the expense of the off-shore sailors, The 1934 Teamsters' strikes in Minneapolis who represented the majority of the union. These were, in terms of elementary class struggle, conditions also applied to the Marine Firemen classics. The General Strike, masterminded by (MFOW). V.R. Dunne and J. P. Cannon, combined a well In many of the issues of the struggle of the planned and brilliantly executed civil war with a SUP against the CP, the former demonstrated a phenomenal rise in social consciousness. This superior militancy on the elementary level of strike put the CLA on the political map and union issues. However, its fanatical anti-Stalinism created the magnetism which drew the Musteites sounded more like and- communism, and had dis- and the Socialist Party militants toward it, tinctly reactionary connotations. The SWP was a developing new strategic possibilities. political spokesman for the SUP, and our com- The 1936-37 Maritime strike (its West Coast rades became experts in the struggle against segment) gave us the opportunity for decisive Stalinism in the unions. intervention in support of the militant struggle of Expertise at Anti-Stalinism the SUP against the conservative policies of the Stalinist-led unions. Most prominent in this field of expertise was Regardless of the militance and even his- Tom Kerry. In support of SUP policy, he led the torical significance of these episodes, the narrow fight against Walter Stack and the CP group in social base which they supplied the SWP at the the MFOW, finally driving them from the offices time of the emergence and turbulent development they held. He accomplished this largely in the of the CIO was to produce devastating conse- capacity of editor of the West Coast Fireman. He quences in other categories—Theory, Strategy, was also associated with the West Coast Sailor

Program—as I shall demonstrate. and the Seafarers' Log. After coming to New York he guided a "progressive" opposition to the Sta- The Sailors Union and the Teamsters linist leadership of the Painters Union, which was Both of the unions of our social base were successful in dislodging them. pitted against the CP. In Minneapolis, the Sta- By pursuing our specialty we came to the linists weren't a real danger, as we were power- edge of disaster twice in the Auto union. fully situated. They were mainly a political Both of the unions of our main social base nuisance. But in the SUP there was a struggle—"to were strongly committed to the AFL—partly 85 because the CP was the dominant political force Clarke and Cochran came into that NC in the CIO. In this circumstance we drifted rather meeting a minority, but finally Jim [Cannon] unconsciously, I think, into a kind of pro-AFL supported them and the day was saved. attitude which obscured to the party the funda- Generally speaking, our criterion for political mentally dynamic quality of the CIO. This preju- advancement among the militant and progressive dice was sustained until 1940-41 when the workers was anti-Stalinism. The idea was that Minneapolis Teamsters, under fire from the high progressive unionism combined with anti- bureaucracy, went over to the CIO. It must have Stalinism was by itself an almost automatic been partially this prejudice, plus a growing transition to socialist consciousness. Stalinophobia, which was responsible for our first The conception found its theoretical expres- crisis. sion in the erroneous perspectives of our labor When we got our first foot-hold in the UAW, party propaganda during the entire period from we offered our services to Homer Martin, Presi- 1938 to 1948. It was postulated by Dobbs that dent, in his struggle against the Stalinists. But the labor party, based on the trade unions, begin- Martin was headed straight for the AFL, where he ning as a reformist party, would become so jolted soon went, attempting to set up a dual union. by crises and the radicalization of the workers Cannon tells (in The Struggle for a Proletarian that it would take power, nationalize the means Party) how V.R. Dunne and other men in the field of production and, in effect, establish the extricated our Auto group from this disgraceful dictatorship of the proletariat. policy in 1938, by challenging the central leadership in New York. Theory and Strategy But we were in for yet another "bloc" crisis. The strategy of the Trotskyists before 1938 For most of World War II, Walter Reuther, as may justifiably be characterized as flexible. The head of the General Motors division of the UAW, fusion with the Musteites (1934) and the entry had played a better role than most others, partic- into the SP (1936), whatever the ultimate con- ularly the CP; and after the war we sometimes sequences of the latter, represented a serious joined forces with him. evaluation of political trends and efforts to face However, after the strike wave of 1945-46 them realistically. Reuther took a right turn, and we found ourselves in his caucus as he was carrying a reactionary war We Are the Party! against the controlling Thomas-Addes caucus which was energized by the CP. This struggle However, at the time of the formation of the pointed toward the campaign by the CIO hierar- SWP (1938) Cannon proclaimed new doctrines. chy to wipe out all CIO unions which were under As we left the SP Cannon said: This is our last the influence of radical elements: Farm Equip- maneuver, barring the possibility of a labor party ment Workers, Mine Mill and Smelter, United development. We shall have no further orienta- Electrical Workers, etc. tions toward other political tendencies. We are It is to the credit of Clarke and Cochran that the one and only party. The Stalinists are finished. we were able to reverse this policy and pull out We don't have to worry about them—just fight 'em. of the Reuther caucus. A continuation of this At this time the CP still exercised a clear policy would have hopelessly compromised us. I political hegemony over the radical working class recall that during the National Committee debate in both the mass production industries and in the summer of 1947 which broke the bloc with Marine Transportation! Reuther, Clarke remarked (in comment upon We had registered important trade unionistic eulogies about our successful struggles against successes in the SUP, the MFOW, and the Mid- the Stalinists in past years), "Yes, we fought the west Teamsters, and in these areas we had Stalinists well in the MFOW and elsewhere, but politically discredited the CP. However, the

I have a feeling that perhaps we fought them too contradiction between union militancy and politi- well." (Among all the progressive and militant cal conservatism, and the great successes on a bureaucrats for whom we did our sanitizing jobs narrow social base, seemed to warp Jim s judge-

against the CP, I don't recall one who didn't turn ment, and induced him to negative strategic con- against us once the Stalinists were whipped. They clusions. He thereby elevated tactics to a pre- were to wind up more often than not in the camp eminence over strategy, and congealed the party of reaction.) in a rigid mold of "we are the one and only," a

86

which denied us the flexibility necessary to take down his life for the SUP. He fiercely hated the advantage of opportunities in the CP milieu: the shipowners, the government and the "Commies." temporary left turn of the CP in 1940, the devel- He never hesitated to tie up a ship on a half-way opment of the New York Labor Party and the Pro- reasonable beef. He was fearless on the picket gressive Party, and the crisis created by the line and a tough negotiator—and he had a sense Twentieth Congress and Khrushchev's revelations. of humor.* Lundberg had built the SUP in a split and a Organizing the Revolution war with the AFL International Seamen's Union The second of Cannon's proclamations stated (ISU). When he was refused a national charter by that ours was only the task of organizing the rev- the CIO, who gave it to the CP-controlled NMU, olution, Theory and Program had been all worked he negotiated an agreement with the Executive out and laid down by the Masters. It was finished. Committee of the AFL to take over the remains of It was not our responsibility to make new analy- the moribund ISU and re-charter it as the Sea- ses of the changing reality, but to follow the farers' International Union (SIU). As he was blueprint and organize the revolution. We all signing the Charter, William Green said some- understood that this meant that the problems of thing to the effect that "we are taking a chance meeting new realities theoretically was not so with you, Harry, you know, you've been no much a matter of concrete analysis, but of angel"; to which Lundberg replied, "I did not applying formulae. Thus we began to replace know that the Executive Committee of the Amer- Theory with Doctrine, and took a further step in ican Federation of Labor vass composed of destroying Strategy by elevating the Organization angels." question along with Tactics to this exalted level. But his racism was most pronounced. At one Although we worshipped at the shrine of Theory, time Revels Cayton, Secretary of the MC&S, came it was the theory created by others—principally to the Sailors Hall, apparently on a conciliatory Trotsky—and which provided us with a Doctrine. mission. He was met at the door by Lundberg,

A Cult of the Organizer arose (of which I must who threw him bodily down the stairs with the admit I was a charter member), which had the following (approximate) salutation: "Get out and sad consequence of creating the super formula- stay out—nigger black son of a bitch!" organizers among the young Shachtmanites who The hostility between the two unions, which had come with us from the SP. lived together in isolation aboard ship, brought

I might say parenthetically that the ultimate on racial tensions in which the racism of the product of this school of formula-theorizing and Sailors and Firemen was usually present. formula-organizing was Jim Robertson. Having a In the whole history of our West Coast

strong personal liking for him and a high regard Maritime group, I never heard of anyone in the

for his ability, I must nevertheless say that group having a friend or "contact" among the Robertson and his organization (Spartacist black MC&S. Various speculations were expressed League) have only appropriated these worst as- as to why the CP had all the influence there. The pects of Cannonism and Shachtmanism and most peculiar of these views, apparently generally drawn them to their final, ultimate and logical accepted, was that this circumstance was of no but utterly ludicrous conclusion. consequence because inevitably the Cooks and Stewards, mostly black, were historically bound Origins of Racism and Male Chauvinism (as a kind of peasantry) eventually to follow the in SWP Support to the Sailors Union "proletariat" represented by the deck-hands and In the struggle against Stalinist influence black gang (firemen). among seamen, the SUP and finally the MFOW Transportation workers in general and par- pitted themselves most viciously against the ticularly seamen have always been among the MC&S, a predominately black union. There is no most outspoken and habitual male chauvinists in denying that most of the Syndicalists, with whom we were allied and whom we supported uncriti- * negotiation session, after the shipowners had laid cally, were racists, including Lundberg, the In a down proposals for tightening up working rules, penal- unquestioned leader. ties for violations, etc., Lundberg arose and quickly took Lundberg was—at least in these early days— down his pants, revealing his penis. The opposing nego- tiators were taken aback and he explained: "If ve going militant and a consistent one in the framework of to work like horses, ve gonna look like horses," craft unionism. He would probably have laid fracturing the session. 87

the working class. This is probably made inevi- were—one way or the other—kept silent. Evelyn table because of the segregated male character of Reed, an amateur anthropologist who dabbled in the industry, combined with political backward- politics, and who had consistently supported the ness. Among seamen this was aggravated by the male chauvinism of the SWP leadership against long periods of segregation and the semi-itinerant women concerned with the development of revo- nature of their employment. Their characteristic lutionary theory on the "woman question," was term for woman was "bag"; their principal female suddenly projected into a position of political contacts, prostitutes. leadership. Given the uncritical support which we gave The SWP therefore could approach the wom- to the SUP and its Syndicalist leading core, plus en's liberation movement only from a purely the overwhelming pressure not to appear "differ- opportunistic standpoint. It consistently placed ent" from the working class in spite of being itself at the service of the liberal wing of the political, it is understandable how, in the absence women's movement in opposition to every at- of brutally clear theoretical training and under- tempt to give it a revolutionary, proletarian or standing, some of even the worst characteristics socialist orientation. Its cadres thus served as the of seamen would mold themselves into our mem- socialist cover for the reformists. This corre- bers. And by virtue of the importance of this sponded to the SWP's conviction that the woman milieu as one of our main points of social question was only a liberal reformist issue and support, many of these characteristics began to that the main task was to recruit a few women rub off on the party membership generally. from the movement to socialism, rather than to One of the consequences of this negative evo- advance the movement toward socialist and class lution was the eager acceptance of the 1939 Res- consciousness. olution on the Negro Question proposed to the It must not be imagined that J. P. Cannon did National Convention by Johnson. It was an in- not become aware of the sad state of affairs in tensely nationalistic document, advocating the the party created by the anti-theoretical doctrine most extreme forms of self-determination and which he had advanced. In a conversation with racial separation. Although it was not adopted by him dealing with problems of our maritime work, the Convention but referred to the National Com- I mentioned the resistance we were encountering mittee, where it was somewhat modified, the in moving West Coast seamen to the East Coast party was substantially indoctrinated by this where they were desperately needed. His only re- resolution. mark was "We didn't make communists out of There was, from the beginning, a tendency to them." ignore the problem of the emancipation of wom- Jim tried to begin a remedy in the creation en. One of the products of our maritime policy of the Trotsky School, designed to dignify Marxist was to exacerbate and crystallize this tendency, scholarship in the party. Every year a group of whereby the party completely turned its back on leading activists were to be selected for a six- this question and virtually adopted the theory and month study course—full time and at party ex- practice of male supremacy. pense—on the fundamentals of Marxist Political At a later time, their dedication to women's Economy, Dialectics and Historical Materialism. liberation that was probably the principal reason Beginning in 1946, it was, indeed, a fine

the Weiss group was driven out of the party. Marxist school, but it was allowed to degenerate Of course, when the movement for women's into an indoctrination seminary and then quietly

liberation burst forth, the party was willing to passed on. It had no profound effect on the party; jump on the bandwagon; but it brought with it it was too little and too late. All it accomplished an opposite tradition and inadequate theory. was to create a few malcontents who, after a By the time the women's movement got un- rigorous study of the first volume of Capital and derway, every theoretically capable woman leader the method of Historical Materialism and re- in the party who had not already submerged search, realized the shallow and non-Marxist herself to purely organizational and/or family method of virtually the whole party leadership.

duties had been driven out of the party or quit. It had a profound effect on me, however, and

The party had effectively avoided any dis- I became one of the malcontents. This resulted in cussions of the woman question, and those a fourteen-year struggle to "reform" the party

women who had been concerned with the subject which, along with others, I gave up as hopeless. 88

From Leadership in Black commission in the Navy on the basis of his Liberation to Failure professionial qualifications, never having seen him. When he went for induction the Navy took The first disastrous effects of the degen- one look at him and told him it was all a mistake. erative process I have described were to be felt His draft board then ordered him inducted into during the period from 1942 to 1948 around the the Army. He put up an historical fight against it problem of assimilating black workers into the and, with our support and help, won the case. party. He became our foremost spokesman in the

During World War II the Trotskyists were the black community, and wrote a regular column in only ones who did not desert the black struggle. the Militant under the name Jackson. He built a Most prominently the CP, which had always held tremendous black SWP in the Detroit ghetto, a large influence in the ghetto, was most treach- composed principally of militant workers. I don't erous in its fanatical support of the war, the know if anyone knew how many members he government and the demand for domestic peace. had, but I heard estimates as high as "over 200." They renounced and even condemned all struggle In any event, he wasn't satisfied that the except for a second front and to sell war bonds. propagandistic life of the SWP, supplemented by Black workers were demanding a piece of the union politics, was adequate for this formation, war industry employment, defending themselves which was beginning to assume the charac- militantly against police and racist attacks in the teristics of a mass movement. In 1946 he came to northern cities and around southern army bases, the Political Committee with the proposal to and resisting persecution and discrimination in create a new and independent black movement the Army and Navy. Almost alone among the so- for the day-to-day struggle for equality. The cialist parties, the SWP militantly defended them. Political Committee referred the problem to the Consequently the SWP newspaper, the Militant, Trotsky School (held at the Grass Lake Summer became a popular paper in the ghetto, and soon Camp near Detroit), plus all N.C. members black workers and some professionals began to visiting the camp or in the area. stream into the party. We never had it so good. There was some justification for this change The party faced two basic contradictions as of venue, as there were several members of the it attempted to cope with this development. The N.C. at the school (including myself), the director first was in Theory and Program. The party of the School, William Warde [George Novack], leadership had been indoctrinated in the 1939 was a member of the P.C., and there were always resolution, which was arrogantly nationalistic, N.C. members visiting the Camp. However, it was calling for self-determination and separation, and characteristic of the SWP that the central characterizing the struggle for equality as refor- leadership almost invariably chose to have very mist, and implicitly anti-revolutionary. But the little to say on black liberation, abdicating this blacks coming into the party were militant inte- responsibility to "specialists." grationists and had enough of separation, and The meeting was quite a gathering. Jackson rightly considered the demand for self-determina- made his proposal and the roof fell in on him. All tion to be a justification for segregation. the brains at the meeting landed on him with the The second contradiction was in the realm of following line: We predicted correctly in the early Strategy and Tactics. The SWP, having substituted '30s that, as the working class began to come to tactics for strategy, developed a trade-unionistic union consciousness, it would first come to the conception of the black struggle. We had been traditional and established organizations in the skillful and successful in trade union work, and AFL. They did just that, and the CIO was formed in the absence of a concrete analysis, the tactical first within the AFL. While we had a correct and strategic problems of any mass struggle evaluation of the problem, the CP was hung up should follow the trade union blueprint. with their dual-union policy of Red Trade Unions.

I shall discuss this second contradiction first, So, they said, the Negro movement will because if we had solved this strategic-tactical inevitably go to the NAACP first, and your problem as it was offered to us, it might have proposition is equivalent to the Stalinist Red eventually overcome the deficiencies in Theory, Trade Union policy. You must take your militants Program and Social Base. and go to the NAACP. The problem arose in this way: A prominent There were three black members at the black doctor in Detroit had been awarded a School, but none of them nor myself had a word 89

to say. Myself, because I didn't know enough Later that year, when I had had time to think

about it to have an expressible position. The the thing out a bit, I made a protest of the policy

black comrades, Joe Morgan, Milton Richardson to the School. I was greeted with silence. Too and Ernie Dillard, were probably intimidated by little and too late. the force of the attack. Nearly twenty years later Jackson came to a

I was very uncomfortable during this social event in New York during our National discussion and the trade-unionistic tirade by the Convention in 1963. This was at the height of the smart ones, and determined to get to the root of popularity of the Black Muslim movement, which

the problem, which I found could be done if you the SWP was courting. I recalled that Grass Lake just try a little. The fallacy of the majority opin- meeting to him, saying that I wished we had

ion—although it should be obvious— I will sum- accepted his proposal, particularly in light of the marize here: Muslim development, which merely filled the 1. The trade union movement is an exclu- vacuum created by our failure. He said, "Yes, it sively class movement. The movement for black is a shame. We could have had all that." liberation is multi-class, and the classes have Theory and Politics different and sometimes opposing interests. 2. The working class movement of the 1930s Our movement held itself together through was a movement of a class just coming into ele- years of adversity and persecution by the pro- mentary consciousness for the first time in fundity of Trotsky's writings, the best expression modern history. The movement for black libera- of Marxist theory of the era. tion has been in almost continuous existence in However, we were never able to open up one form or another on a massive scale for long Marxism to the black revolutionaries. When con- over a century. In modern times witness the fronted with our proposition that the problems of

Garvey movement, the World War II March on race relations in the U.S. could be solved through Washington Movement, the Black Muslims, CORE. racial separation, they said—if that's Marxism, it's None of these messed with the NAACP. not for me. 3. The NAACP is and always has been a So, even while many were coming in, many middle class movement which rarely represented were always going out. the working class except in court. (It did, Black Nationalism Abets however, during the class upheaval of the '30s, White Chauvinism establish a good reputation among auto workers when Walter White—then president of NAACP— However, the nationalist theory had other pulled the black workers out of the Ford- negative results. It would be no discovery to ob- Dearborn plant: an action which effectively broke serve that the white working class is saturated the back of the corporations' resistance to union with race prejudice. However, on occasion, either organization.) In spite of the untiring work of in the necessity of class solidarity in struggle or Herbert Hill in building a labor department, the in profound conviction of the need for revolution- NAACP was and remains the property of and ary change toward socialism, the militant white instrument of the black middle class. worker is prepared to rid himself of this obnox- It was exclusively concerned with legal prob- ious and self-destructive prejudice. But when you lems and opposed to mass action. All attempts to tell him that racial separation is a necessary part "reform" it (mostly by radicals) ended in disaster. of the class struggle, this gives him an opportu- It took the Montgomery bus boycott to shake it nity to hold on to his prejudice as a virtue. This up somewhat, but even then it was totally inad- has happened. equate for a mass movement. This is why Ran- Probably the most disastrous of all the con-

dolph bypassed it in the formation of the March sequences of the nationalist theory was in the on Washington Movement. problem of interracial marriage. The party operat- In 1946 the militant workers refused to go to ed upon the following theorem: If the black the NAACP; and, although Jackson had an entire- movement will, when it matures, become a ly legitimate proposal, and had the forces to nationalist-separatist and anti-white movement

begin it, at least on a local scale, he was (like the Garvey movement), any black revolu- overwhelmed by the obvious majority pressure tionary who marries whites will be ostracized. and gave up. He left the party soon after this and During the years under consideration, 1942- his movement dispersed. 48, ours was an interracial party, and in these 90

circumstances close personal relations developed Party had encountered and failed to solve. While interracially, both in the organization and its being objectively a refutation of the 1939 resolu- periphery. Such relations sometimes easily devel- tion, it didn't say so; we never disassociated oped into marriage. The leadership did everything ourselves from this horrible document. Conse- it could to discourage this practice, from friendly quently most of the leadership and the old timers reasoning, to pleading, to pressure and social in general, who had been indoctrinated in the old ostracism. resolution, saw in the new one only a temporary Milton Richardson, our candidate for Gov- tactical compromise with the overwhelming mili- ernor or Lieutenant Governor in one of our post- tancy of the movement demanding equality. war elections in New York, married white. She There were, too, a few statements in the new one was socially ostracized and he was highly pres- justifying this view. sured. He finally left the country a broken man. Because of this, I at one time erroneously Joe Morgan was hounded out of the Party. laid our failures to this resolution. At any rate, it Louise Simpson, candidate for New York also was too little and too late. The SWP returned Lieutenant Governor in about 1944, married a almost to its original pristine purity with a few white sympathizer. When persuasion was to no dark-skinned members for window dressing. avail, harassment began, and became so intol- The leadership was constantly plagued with erable that the husband threatened to go to the demands to explain the loss of its large black NAACP with a grievance. Jim finally told one of cadre. The leaders replied with a series of bro- the offenders in the leadership to for Christ's sake mides which explained nothing and were, of leave those kids alone. Finally, at the 1949 course, at the expense of the dear departed. How- Convention, an announcement was made by the ever half-true some of these explanations may

N.C.—through the presidium—that the SWP does have been, the problems and experiences I have not oppose interracial marriage. The damage, related contain the basic truth. however, had already been done. It was just too The Bitter End little and just too late. When Dobbs' daughter married Clifton The substitution of Doctrine for Theory, Or- DeBerry and finally moved to New York, they ganization for Strategy, Tactics for Program, and were, of course, tolerated, and probably escaped the continued narrowness of social base had a the pressures exerted upon other like couples. cumulative effect on the SWP. In the mass move- However, this occurrence did not ameliorate the ment we rarely had an independent policy, and problem in New York to any appreciable degree, the prolonged blocs with anti-communists— even spreading westward when Tom Kerry Lundberg, Paul Hall, Reuther, Curran, Roerback, invaded Los Angeles in the '50s—witness the case etc.—led us into opportunistic phases. of E. Banks. Adventurism soon followed, destroying our Under the impact of all of these factors, our forces as we tried to extricate ourselves from black membership eroded. False strategic con- compromising positions. The notable exception cepts, false theory and program made it impos- was in the UAW, where opportunism continued sible for the SWP to change its social base, a unabated. Cochran, the mentor of this work, suc- factor which might have prevented the ultimate cumbed to the prevailing tendency of the old-time degeneration which eventually overcame it. militants of the '30s to continue to maneuver As a result of accumulated grievances and between power blocs and take it easy politically. frustrations the last substantial group of black This led to the formation of a politically liqui- members left in anger at the 1948 Convention. As dationist tendency which destroyed our UAW

Dobbs expressed it to me (as I was negotiating to work in a split. get one of them back), "They shit on the floor as These cycles of opportunism and adventurism they left." One of the ironies of this situation was resulted in eventual disaster in the mass move- that it was at this convention that the first res- ment and had a conservatizing political effect on olution on the black struggle which made any the Party policy, which finally came to rest in its sense was adopted. Johnson had just come back present condition: political opportunism, a fetish to us and had modified his 1939 position drasti- for legalism, and a demand for conformity and cally and produced a fine literary document. respectability replaced the class struggle. However, it was superimposed upon the Party, The national disaster was intimately related and bore no relation to the real problems that the to the collapse of the Party's revolutionary inter- a

91

national outlook, as revealed most of all by its Vietnam and China approach to the Chinese Revolution. This The total misunderstanding of the Chinese revolution was the longest and most bitterly Revolution could not help but reflect itself in the contested civil war of the modern era, beginning practical work of the Party. This was most obvi- as a proletarian revolution (1925), retreated into ous in the SWP's refusal to give public support to an anti-imperialist war with the Japanese the Vietnamese Revolution. The SWP/YSA invasion (1931), but re-emerging in a victorious expended enormous energy in the service of paci- proletarian revolution in 1949. fism around the slogan "Bring the Troops Home Mao Tse-tung was in both overt and covert Now." But they would never face up to the basic opposition to Comintern policy, beginning in question of whose side are you on? They flatly 1927 (he was thrice expelled or suspended from rejected the proposition that it was our political the Central Committee). Finally, in 1935, he duty to proclaim that WE ARE FOR THE VIC- gained ascendancy and finished a process of re- TORY OF THE NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT, making the Communist Party along Leninist lines. THEIR CAUSE IS JUST. Among other objections, This was the formula for the final victory—an they said it would be against Trotsky's "Pro- essentially de-Stalinized Communist Party. letarian Military Policy," worked out for World

However, the SWP, unable to analyze theo- War II. retically and concretely the revolutionary current I recall a heated debate on this subject. I in the U.S.—black liberation—was hardly in a don't remember whether it was at the 1965 Con- position to do so with far-away China. Thus it vention or at the N.C. Plenum where they boiled was forced to rely upon doctrine. Its guide was me in oil. I tried to explain that we couldn't fall the Resolution of the founding Congress of the back on the old doctrine for WW II because this

Fourth International (1938) on "The War in the was a different kind of war. I was refuted by M. Far East and the Revolutionary Perspectives." Alvin, who accused me of trying to make WW II

However, this document, not written by look good (implying that I was moving toward

Trotsky, was basically false, including gross the Stalinist supportive position on WW II). I misrepresentations of the actual developments in mention this because it was typical of the SWP China. Alleging that the "Stalinist" leaders had leadership, when confronted by political criticism, turned this grandiose agrarian movement, despite to label or insinuate something sinister about the

its historic battles, back into the fold of the criticism and the critic.

Kuomintang, the key passage is as follows: It was proposed by a minority in 1966, I "What remained of the Chinese Communist believe, that we adopt Lenin's policy of revolu- Party after Chiang Kai-shek's forceful liquidation tionary defeatism, which would demand that we of the peasant Soviets, has publicly surrendered come out openly for the victory of the NLF. They

the last remnants of its revolutionary policy in would have none of it. However, I am not over- order to enter a 'People's Anti-Japanese Front' come with sympathy for this formulation. In real- with the hangman of the Chinese revolution. The ity the situation was not so complicated. When Chinese Stalinists have formally liquidated 'Soviet workers are on strike and the National Guard is China,' handed over to Chiang Kai-shek the called in, one doesn't have to be a Marxist-

remnants of the peasant Red armies, openly re- Leninist to determine whose side one is on. All it nounced the agrarian struggle, explicitly aban- requires is a little bit of class solidarity. doned the class interests of the workers. Publicly Likewise, when an imperialist army invades embracing the petty bourgeois doctrines of Sun a colonial country struggling for independence Yat-sen, they have proclaimed themselves the and freedom, it is over-dignifying the shabby gendarmes of private property and, in conformity politics of the SWP to have to go to doctrine to with Stalinist practice everywhere, the enemies of become a partisan of the NLF. All that is required the revolution." to take this elementary dignified course is more The monstrous lies and distortions of this key elementary, and a quality that the SWP has lost— statement are too obvious for comment in this sense of solidarity with the oppressed. article, and, irrespective of the fact that its Many young revolutionaries who have experi-

author, John Liang [Frank Glass] , later essentially enced the SWP only in its recent years of degen- repudiated this thesis, the SWP has remained eration didn't like the way the Party operated glued to it in their constantly-reiterated Hate organizationally (they certainly have a point China campaign. there), and tend to concentrate their attention on 92

this aspect of the problem. members, educational principles and methods, the This is a one-sided approach, however, the sanctity of leadership, and all the criteria of organizational question being basically derivative. organization, deserve special examination.

The fate of SDS should sound a warning. I do not There is one thing for sure, however. Nearly mean to say that the organization question will every Marxist-oriented organization claims to solve itself, and will flow automatically from operate on the basis of Leninism: democratic higher principles. There is much legitimately to centralism. But in all cases every principle of be said about what we want a new party to look Leninism has been turned upside-down and like organizationally, especially in contrast to the wrongside-out, until its basic tenets have been old ones. Problems of freedom of discussion and buried. Leninism must be re-discovered and—if criticism, the right to challenge, public discussion found adaptable to our problems and conditions- of party problems, personal relations between adapted and used. On Transitional Organizations

This excerpt from a 29 May 1983 letter written to Spartacist LeagueAJ-S.

Central Committee member Deborah Maguire is taken from the SL's Internal Discussion Bulletin whole No. 41, August 1983.

A few days ago I wrote one letter on the the black workers, when they reached a social

Black/Labor project and discarded it. I had been consciousness, would move to the NAACP—just as confused about what, essentially, this first the working class first moved to the AF of L as experimental stage is. I was misled by the idea of they developed consciousness. a "transitional," multi-ethnic organization. The three black comrades—Milton Richard- The organization adheres to the full party son, Joe Morgan, Ernie Dillard—and myself just program. This is too narrow a base for a transi- sat there like wooden Indians selling cigars. If tional organization, except in a very narrow learning from failure and error is really so great, sense. A transitional organization, in the sense I ought to be smartened up pretty good, for I that the Old Man taught, requires a transitional have had my share of both. My failure at that program. We start from the present mass con- time was largely just ignorance, but also partly a sciousness, with its immediate demands, and too great respect for my betters, so to speak. build a programmatic bridge toward the ultimate That episode disturbed me. I had an ugly demands. Labor/Black may be adequate for the feeling that everybody except Keemer had been present, because it obviously reflects what you wrong, but I didn't know why. I decided to try to have. But if you intend a multi-ethnic organiza- analyze why I had that feeling, and when I real- tion that designation will not attract the Latino ized that the brains had, indeed, been wrong, I militants. brought it up in the school, asking that we find To me, what it adds up to is that you are some way of getting the decision against Keemer really assembling a non- (party) membership black reversed. I didn't get much response, but George cadre. This is not a bad first step. The radical Novack finally agreed to present my ideas to the blacks are the key to a broader really transitional P.C. Of course, nothing came of it. organization. Virtually the entire black cadre disappeared We were on the verge of such a development within a very few years. This was partly because in 1946. During the war and immediately after, of the fundamentally nationalist-separatist feel- we never had it so good. The CP had deserted the ings of most of the leading white people, who field, and could not come back except with the had been indoctrinated by C.L.R. James in his na- Progressive Party. So, we had the black cadre, at tionalist period. After he changed his mind, he least in New York, where I was organizer of the hadn't admitted an error, but just quietly slid Chelsea Branch off and on for some years, Los over into the opposite, as though there were no

Angeles, and Detroit. I was able to spend 2 sum- contradiction. Consequently, the indoctrination mers at the Grass Lake Camp which is near De- remained intact. The desertion of the black com- troit, where we had a fabulous black movement. rades was also caused by the fact that the strictly It was led by (Dr.) Ed Keemer (Jackson in the political activity of the party was too narrow a Militant). He proposed to the Political Committee framework for them—they required action on that he be authorized to launch an independent pressing problems. organization to fight against discrimination, It wasn't until years later that I realized that racism, etc. The question was referred to a group the basic element in the NAACP argument, which of NC members in the Midwest, and to the had been put forward by all the leading people, Trotsky School, which contained 3 NC members. was that they couldn't believe or admit to the Keemer made his proposal, and the brains maturity of the existing consciousness among the went to work on him. The principal argument hundreds and thousands of blacks, who were mil- with which they destroyed his proposal was that itantly pressing toward integration. They con-

93 94

sidered blacks to be still without consciousness sure exerted by the demands. They did not take until they developed a nationalist consciousness. kindly to much of the integrationist achieve- Nearly 20 years later Ed Keemer showed up ments. They have adopted a spirit of passive at a social function during the 1963 convention resistance to school integration, for instance, in New York. The Black Muslims were at the asking only for bi-lingual teaching, while the height of their popularity, and that was what the Indians loudly advance counter-proposals. convention was all about. Needless to say, my A not unimportant factor in this conflict is resolution on Revolutionary Integration didn't get the fact that blacks had been awarded most of the much of a play. That's putting it mildly: I was social service jobs in minority communities. The slaughtered. Latinos were thus deprived of being serviced by

I talked to Ed Keemer, told him how I had their own, which handicapped them in their rela- felt about having remained silent during the dis- tions with the agencies. Not only that, but those cussion of his proposal in 1946. He said, rather jobs were considered to be plums in the ghetto wistfully, alluding to the void that the Black Mus- and barrio. lims had stepped into—"We could have had all The lack of sensitivity to black problems is that." illustrated by the most prominent Chicano candi-

If he was correct in 1963, and I suspect that date for City Council in the local election here, he was, similar prospects may be in store today. who has as his campaign manager the fellow who However, the problem is more complex. At that was attorney for the Bus Stop organization a year time, the black workers were about the only ones or so ago. in motion. Today the key to organization of the I recall one experience I had here in LA

oppressed minorities, lies principally between before I left for Seattle in 1956. The CP had an black and Chicano, here in the West, and I sus- organization a little similar to the one that you pect that a similar relation problem exists with propose, called the Southeast Interracial Council,

Puerto Riquenos. I think. It was about evenly divided between

In this situation, while it may not be possible black and white, the whites being either CP func-

to build a genuinely multi-ethnic organization tionaries or middle-class types. I became active in

right away, it is wrong to close the door on it, it in about 1955, and remained so until I left.

which I believe the Labor/Black designation does. Their interest was mainly in legislative matters. The problem of Black/Chicano relations is We went on lobbying trips to Sacramento to pro- complicated by matters of principle. Chicano con- test racist and McCarthyite bills before the As- sciousness developed very late, but having lain sembly and Senate. Other local actions largely quiescent for so long, it came on strong. This pertaining to legislative problems. My principal consciousness has been and will probably con- interest was to pick up a couple of contacts,

tinue to be somewhat nationalistic—as is the case which I did. I had planned that once integrated

with native Americans. in the organization, I would begin an opposition While there is quite sufficient common to their absorption with legislative matters, etc.,

ground to make a unified movement possible, but I left for Seattle before I could do that. I there are important points of conflict. When the contacted the (black) secretary of the organi-

Chicano movement began to assert itself, it was zation after I returned here in 1969 (?). They are confronted with the results of the years of pres- immersed in the Southside Democratic Clubs. To the Democratic Socialists of America

This 18 June 1983 letter to Stanley Aronowitz, a leading supporter of the DSA, is edited from a xeroxed copy found in Dick Fraser's personal papers. Fraser sent a xerox of the letter to DSAer Dorothy Healey. Here we include a page of the manuscript which we were unable to locate for the first printing of this bulletin.

According to the eminent existentialist phi- entertaining lecturer, but that you had a deep losopher Walter Matthau, the greatest thing in insight into contemporary problems, and had an

life is winning at the horse races. (That's the extraordinary knowledge of Marxism. Well, Marx Gospel according to Damon Runyon Chapter 1:1. and Engels didn't think that way about the Refor-

For myself, it is real greatness when the horse is mation. I have lost nearly all of my old library,

one that nobody else likes; everybody thinks he's but I believe that the whole subject is dealt with a dog and he goes off at 10 to 1 or better.) at least in the Marx-Engels correspondence, if Matthau goes on to say that the next greatest nowhere else.

thing in life is losing at the horse races. (Ch. 1:2.) What you say may have been one of the mo- However, for those of us who are a bit politically tives of the Lutheran Reformation, exemplified inclined, and don't get to the track all that often, by the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. if the greatest thing in life is listening to Stanley However, there was little or no practice of this Aronowitz lecture on Marxism, the next greatest doctrine in the actual German Reformation,

thing is when he makes an error. And since I am which failed miserably. Luther left religion in the a fan of yours, the next greatest thing should be tender hands of the petty princes, Protestant and if you are able to point out the error (or errors) Catholic, who devastated Germany for a couple which I now will do, to find out if it is indeed the of centuries in the religious wars, in which the third greatest thing in life. religion of the miserable subjects was automati-

I choose the first time I heard you speak: cally changed with the victory of one or another something about ideological trends, and your prince. There was no religious privacy in that most recent talk on the crisis of Marxism. Reformation. The first one is memorable for me, not only According to Marx and Engels you are wrong because the error, though a minor one, has stuck essentially. The historic task of the Reformation in my mind for these several years, but also was to break the international stranglehold of the

because it was the occasion on which I formally Church on all European society, which prevented introduced my dear friend Roberta to our way of the emergence of autonomous national states to thinking. She had been through feminism a few serve as vehicles for the production and distribu- years ago, was something of a mystic, and was tion of commodities. The Calvinist Reformation

becoming a nurse. It is my good fortune, that did just this: it first achieved mastery at Geneva; having spent the last six years under the rule of there followed the great Dutch Revolution, creat- the medical profession in its present barbaric ing the first capitalist state in Europe; overthrew

state, that I can number among my few personal a "barbaric feudalism" in Scotland; unsuccessful friends some of the nurses who have had to put in France, the Huguenots nevertheless forced a

up with me in the various hospitals in which I break with the Pope and permitted France at least have been confined. You may be gratified to to achieve political autonomy; established the know that since that lecture, Roberta has become parties of the Great Rebellion in Britain, which more than a casual sympathizer of our way. in turn laid the foundation for the French Revo-

At any rate, the point is, that during the lution, which did not end the international sov- course of your lecture you asserted that the ereignty of the Pope, but assured the victory of function of the Reformation was to make religion the bourgeoisie.

a private matter. I was shocked, because I had When I studied the Reformation, I found very come to realize that you were not only our most little of the making of religion a private matter in

95 96

the Calvinist church. The main feature of that economic decline may accumulate crises which church was its function as a revolutionary ma- become the motive forces of revolution. But in chine. It comprised the total organization of the opposition to this normality, some historical population against Popery and in nationalism and transformations have come about because of for capitalist morality. All piety and morality, far national historical peculiarities. This will from being private matters, were rigidly moni- probably be the case in the U.S. The most impor- tored by the church hierarchy. tant peculiarity—and the one which reveals a basic weakness and contradiction here—is racial structure, which overlays the class structure,

Now, for your thought-provoking lecture on distorting it. the crisis of Marxism. I found myself in basic Marxism has given virtually nothing to this agreement with the main thrust of your thesis as problem which would enable us to understand

I understood it. Whether it is a crisis of Marxism and cope with it. It is not that Marxists have had or a crisis of Marxists and their organizations, I nothing to say on this question. On the contrary, confess I haven't made up my mind. It is quite our libraries and bookstores are loaded with what true that neither classical Marxism nor the Marx- Marxists have had to say. The limitation of Marx- ism of Lenin and Trotsky has given anything to ists has been that on the basic theoretical level, many of the critical problems which have arisen they have, for the most part, written little but today, and around which new movements tend to worthless claptrap. They have done more to ob- arise. I believe that this is both because of the scure the nature of the problem than the authors particular stage of capitalist decline in which we of the racist doctrine. live and because of historical peculiarity. On the Well, under separate cover I am sending you other hand Marx, in adapting Hegelian logic to what I wrote 30 years ago on this matter. May I materialist philosophy, political economy and say with becoming Trotskyist modesty that it was history, has given us quite fine methodological and remains the only definitive materialist anal- tools—the best that I know of—to deal with social ysis of the whole race question in the U.S. It reality. represents what a working person (a "raw work-

In my opinion the trouble with Marxists has er" as Rose Karsner categorized me when I first been that they have refused, or have been unable, joined the movement) who became a largely self- to use these tools in concrete analysis. They have educated scholar can do with the tools which the become largely dependent upon existing doctrine, masters have left.

and attempt by deductive logic to determine the Partly because of some experiences I had had,

shape of existing reality. Existing doctrine, as you after 1946 I became dissatisfied with everything have observed, doesn't treat with many present- that both the Communist movement and ours had day problems. This does surely bring in a crisis of to say on this subject, and this challenged me to

doctrine, but I don't believe it overthrows the find out the truth. I ignored everything that methodology which has been left us by the Marxists had written on this subject. They had

masters if we choose to use it. for me done already too much to obscure it. I

I am mainly concerned with one specific studied the black scholars, of whom there was a problem which illustrates the limitations of whole galaxy in the early part of this century. I

modern Marxists. I was disappointed that in your merely attempted, and I believe successfully, to description of the areas of present social conflict synthesize their basic thoughts, adding only a which have precipitated an upsurge of semi- little of my own and of my one collaborator. I proletarian movement in the country (and to an did not document the work— I wasn't enough of extent in the world generally), areas where a scholar for that— but that is its only defect. No guidance from Marxism is lacking, you did not black militant has ever read it or given me an single out the question of race as the most critical audience who has not identified with it. Not

—which I believe it to be. many white radicals think much of it, because Modern history has demonstrated, particu- they seem to have been steeped either in Stalin's larly in the great Russian and Chinese revolu- bureaucratic edict for a black state in the cotton tions, that great historical transformations in the belt or C.L.R. James' Marcus Garveyism of 1939.

present capitalist world may be achieved not I have found the black nationalism of white because of the orderly evolution of capitalism and radicals to be a most poignant expression of the the class struggle. The advancement of capitalist theoretical poverty of the movement. 97

Anyway, I would appreciate very much if you letariat was in control, Lenin was confident of would take time to read it and honor me with a maintaining the revolution. In 1921 he described comment. the situation in this way: "We have a workers state with bureaucratic appendages." But after his death, the bureaucracy was able

In that lecture there were two statements, to inundate the party itself. Although I have lost

entirely peripheral to the main thesis, which got most of my old library, I recall that Trotsky in- to me like a sharp stick in the eye. cluded the statistics in The Revolution Betrayed.

I. You discussed the bureaucratic degener- At the time of the revolution, the party member- ation of the Russian Revolution, saying words to ship was about 115,000 members. In spite of the effect that you didn't know what caused severe erosion during the Civil War, it had in- it — but that Trotsky's analysis had been wrong. creased to perhaps 500,000 in about 1921. By You didn't elaborate that, which makes it difficult 1924, however, Stalin as General Secretary had

to cope with, but I believe you meant it seriously, been able to flood the party with 240,000 new

so I have to take it at face value. members, largely recruited from the privileged

By no means do I subscribe to everything that section of the population, composed of bureau- Trotsky wrote or said. However, his analysis of crats of an alien class origin [the "Lenin Levy"]. the process of bureaucratization of the Party, This was at a time when the proletariat had been Soviet and the Comintern is probably the most virtually destroyed. important thing that he ever wrote except The After consolidating its power, the bureaucra-

History of the Russian Revolution, and I don't cy forever after was concerned primarily with think deserves to be brushed off by a more or less maintaining its privileged position. It gradually off-hand remark. crystallized into a privileged caste. The bureauc- This analysis described the phenomenon (a ratization of the party was followed by that of classical one) of the triumph of the counterrevo- the Soviets and finally the Comintern. lution in the name of the revolution. Over the The first decisive politico-economic turn years Trotsky compared in detail the successive made by the new ruling stratum was to search stages of the reaction with that of the French for a non-proletarian social base, and they turned Revolution, identifying the rise of Stalinism with to the peasantry with the dictum "enrich your- the fall of Robespierre and the destruction of the selves." This created the kulaks. When the Jacobins, and the stages of reaction—the Director- wealthy peasants staged their bloodless uprising ate, First Consul, Napoleon's Empire, and finally in 1929, Stalin abruptly turned to their extermi- the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. There nation and decreed forced collectivization, the was a controversy surrounding the final product combination of which destroyed agriculture and of the Russian reaction: did not the final restora- created horrible famine. tion in France indicate the road that the Soviet In foreign policy, the bureaucracy turned to Union was traveling—toward the restoration of rapprochement with the imperialists and the capitalism? Trotsky defeated this argument with colonial bourgeoisie, particularly in Britain and the demonstration that the restored monarchy China. The trouble arose not because of renewed had been an essentially bourgeois monarchy and diplomatic relations and trade agreements, which did not represent a restoration of feudalism. He were absolutely necessary for survival, but be- showed that the Soviet Union, in retaining the cause bureaucratic instinct demanded that the basic conquests of the Revolution, must continue Communist parties of the world base their poli- to be defended. cies upon these diplomatic arrangements. In this The coup by which Stalin consolidated power way, through purges of leading Communist cad- was made possible by the devastation caused by res, the Comintern was eventually degraded into the Civil War. The first major political problem a mere arm of Soviet foreign policy. Already, by that the Soviet state faced was obviously: who is 1926, when Britain and China were in revolu- going to run the country? The vast illiteracy of tionary turmoil, the hands of both parties were the masses of people dictated that the personnel tied to the capitalist class. In Britain, this was of a bureaucracy be recruited largely from people accomplished through subservience to Ramsay of privileged classes of the old regime, including MacDonald as he betrayed the general strike. In the Czarist bureaucracy. However dangerous this China, although Trotsky had initiated the entry

may have been, as long as the party of the pro- of the CP into the Kuomintang in perhaps it was 98

1922 or '23, he and Zinoviev both realized the The popular front comes next for the Interna- limitations of coalition with the class enemy and tional. Totally disregarding Lenin's thesis on the demanded an end to it as the revolutionary peri- united front of the working class, it was such a od approached, but the bureaucracy was too relief from the Third Period madness, that Com- comfortable with Chiang Kai-shek and couldn't munists everywhere embraced it joyfully, hook, break. The CP was all but physically destroyed. line and sinker, and have never recovered. This Regardless of the fact that the Trotsky- permanent coalition with the capitalist class led Zinoviev analysis of the problem in 1926-27 was directly to the defeat of the Spanish working not adequate to encompass the later unfolding of class, the abandonment of France to Hitler and the Chinese Revolution under different condi- the emasculation of the parties everywhere. I am tions, at that time, it was quite correct. If it had weary of hearing over and over again that the been considered by the Comintern in time, it Spanish tragedy was caused only by German and could have meant the difference in the outcome Italian bombers, etc. It's nonsense. The die was of the whole history of China. cast before Franco ever landed in southern Spain The Soviet economy was first organized in an with his Moroccan troops. exclusive, bureaucratic manner. Just divide the Trapped in a coalition government with the branches of industry among the available com- capitalist class, the working class parties were munists. Trotsky's proposal to create a planned powerless to secure adherence of Moroccan na- economy was rejected as "super-industrializa- tionalists or the southern peasantry. Abd el-Krim, tion." When the old method had utterly failed to the legendary leader of the Rifs, went to the revive the economy, Stalin finally agreed to the Popular Front and assured them that even an principle of planned economy. However, by this emancipation proclamation would prevent Franco time, all democracy had been stripped from the from recruiting an army there, but the Spanish Soviets, and if there is one thing in history which capitalists were the imperial masters of the Afri- completely validates your present criticism of the can colonies. Likewise with the peasants. The lack of democracy in the Soviet countries, it is capitalist class was the biggest landlord in Spain, that lesson. Without some democratic control the having taken all the Church lands and some more nationalization of the means of production loses during the revolution of 1931. This was a fact a great deal of its vitality—principally its ability that even Felix Morrow, our best propagandist, to adjust to new circumstances. That was the failed to understand in his otherwise fine analysis problem with the five-year plans. Unrealistic of the Spanish Civil War. planning preceded bureaucratic bungling of exe- Every international catastrophe brought more cution. And it went on like that. It took roughly purges at home. This time they reached into the 50 years to unravel the tangle in the economy ultimate defense of the Soviet Union, the Red created by that early history of planning without Army, where the cream of the officer corps was democratic responsibility. I doubt that even now ripped off. Even a careless scan of the phony Hit- the industrial planning is fully rationalized. ler diaries would have revealed their fraudulent The international defeats of the 1920's nature as Hitler is imagined as commending brought on, as a conditioned reflex, the night- Stalin for his execution of Tukhachevsky. He mare of the Third Period. Stalin's giant intellect would never have said that in private—he would produced the theory of social fascism and the have gloated over it and ridiculed Stalin for united front from below, characterized the Social falling into the trap, for it was the Gestapo which Democracy as only one variety of fascism, prohib- framed the general of the Red Army, precisely to iting any approach to the united front of the weaken the Soviet Union militarily. working class. Hitler marched through Germany I can't force myself to belabor this question by the path created by this division in the class, longer. Trotsky's analysis of this evolution of without which he could never have come to pow- bureaucratization of the Soviet political economy er without civil war. This catastrophe brought on and its product were complete and proven suffi- the Moscow Trials, as if to demonstrate to the ciently to require more consideration than the old world that everyone but Stalin was responsible cliches. for the failures. During the purges of that period Is all this only ancient history, to be forgotten every single surviving member of Lenin's Political along with everything that is either unpopular or

Committee, save one, I think, was murdered or distasteful? I don't think so. I don't see how we executed. can possibly understand either the Soviet Union 99

today or the Communist movement of Europe held by Stalin. The disastrous twists of the Com- without knowing its origins. Furthermore, I have intern were particularly cruel to the Chinese. found that analysis and the refreshing analogy to Particularly the Third Period. The theories that the Thermidorian reaction in France to be ex- designated the Social Democracy as fascistturned tremely helpful in understanding the rise of the in China into the theory that the nationalist Slave Power in the 19th century U.S. —which bourgeoisie was not capitalist at all, but feudal, brings us closer to home because the whole and even after the Japanese invasion, was the problem of race relations today is intertwined main enemy and had to be constantly fought mili- with what happened in the early part of the 19th tarily. Needless to say this precluded any possible century. Without that revealing insight into the united war against the Japanese. To take this sit-

French Revolution, I don't know if I would have uation from bad to impossible, Stalin conceived been able to understand what seems most impor- the idea that the Chinese nationalists were pre- tant to me today. paring a war against the Soviet Union and that "apocalyptically" (John Rue) the Chinese Revolu- tion must be sacrificed for the defense of the

Just yesterday I received from a friend the Soviet Union. Socialist Review which contains the second of Overlaying these sources of conflict was the your pieces on Socialism and Beyond. I haven't fundamental one involving the peasantry. Stalin had time to study it yet, but a cursory reading of refused to admit that his policies had led to the it allows me a brief comment. In all respects it is utter defeat of the revolution in 1927. The the most important thing that I have read con- Chinese proletariat, a smaller minority of the cerning the problems of the left in general and population than even the Russian workers at the our movement in particular. Many of your time of the revolution, had been mauled by thoughts have been on my mind a long time, but Chiang Kai-shek probably worse than Hitler was

I have seldom had an opportunity to say them. to maul the German proletariat. Mao seemed to understand this and proceeded to ignore when- ever possible the constant directives from Moscow

One of the greatest ironies that I know of is to attack the cities where the proletariat was that it was precisely the exceptional analytic ready to revolt again. achievements of the Old Man that made for the All through this dismal period Mao ignored, sectarianism which was part of the failure of the resisted, defied and struggled against every policy SWP. We used all the arguments which could be of the Comintern, and for that was expelled three derived from his writings, and used them con- times from the Central Committee, barely retain- tinuously. We proved and predicted on a global ing Party membership, imprisoned once and put scale. We became hypnotized by our propagan- under house arrest once. dist^ successes. Then came the Minneapolis When Ch'en Tu-hsiu, the founding leader of strikes which became one of the major achieve- the Party, was expelled in 1929, Li Li-san was ments of the modern labor movement before the placed in the leadership of the Central Commit- CIO. We got the feeling that all we had to do was tee, and took charge of Stalin's policy of exter- to hold on to the doctrine, ready-made for us and mination of the kulaks (which was simply absurd perfect— that is, hold on to every jot and tittle, when bureaucratically transplanted to China) without even the slightest alteration. The purity and the Third Period, both of which were or- of doctrine coupled with Cannon's trade union dered by the VI Congress of the Comintern. Li expertise was a sure formula for winning 'em all. was unable to pursue either policy effectively, When the Old Man was killed, the fountain dried nor was he able to completely defeat Mao's peas- up. The ideological cupboard was bare and we ant policy and his resistance to the policies of the were left with the formula, which was totally Comintern. He was summoned to Moscow, which inadequate for the changing world. was second best to expulsion, and the regime of II. Mao's Stalinism. Just another peripheral the 28 Bolsheviks was inaugurated. They were point. I was a bit stunned by your remark that young Communists who had been sent to Moscow Mao was a Stalinist. Again without any elabora- to study. (I was acquainted with two Communists tion. That is not quite true. After 1927 at least who had attended the Lin School in Moscow until the Long March Mao was in constant oppo- during that period. They returned to the U.S. sition to the Comintern which had become tightly anti-Semitic and anti-Trotskyist in the extreme. 100

They were no less hostile to Browder principally cies after he went into open opposition. However because they claimed he was a Jew.) after Ch'en's final expulsion, the Central Com- A long and bitter struggle between Mao and mittee condemned open discussion in the Party of the Central Committee which nearly devastated his "liquidationism" as "extreme democratiza- the Party ensued and caused Mao's third expul- tion." It is of interest that this was a primary sion and his imprisonment in 1934. However, charge against Mao by Li, and continued to be for within a year, operating from a strong base in the several years. Army, he succeeded in overthrowing the 28 Bol- A misleading notion of the internal life of shevik Central Committee and reorganizing that the Party is given by both Edgar Snow and Agnes Committee. He then organized the 7th Plenum of Smedley as a result of their interviews with Mao the Central Committee, which had not met since in 1936 and '37 in which he makes no mention 1928, at the Tsun-yi Conference [1935] which of the struggle with Li from 1928 to 1934 which adopted his complete political, military and was the central axis of the internal life of the organizational policy, which was subsequently Party. adopted by the 7th Congress of the Party. By then While Mao seems to have completely avoided the Comintern was powerless to interfere to any written reference to his disagreement with and extent in the operation of the war. struggles against Stalin's and the Comintern's The long internal conflicts, the abrupt basic lines, he had this to say about their changes in policy, the extensive purges and the organizational policy and the purges which he final complete defeat of the Comintern greatly witnessed both in China and in Moscow: they weakened its authority in China. This was fol- "invariably attached... damaging labels to all com- lowed by the Long March, in which its basic rades in the party who, finding the erroneous line policy was scrapped, and World War II and the impracticable, expressed doubts about it, disagreed dissolution of the Comintern, all of which left with it, resented it, supported it only lukewarmly, or

Mao able to pretty much go his own way until his executed it only halfheartedly. Labels like 'right final victory over Chiang and the consolidation opportunism, "line of the rich peasants,'... 'line of of Soviet power in China. conciliation,' and 'double dealing'... waged 'relentless The [1929] expulsion of Ch'en Tu-hsiu was struggles' against [them] as if... they were criminals precipitated by his open confrontation and chal- and enemies. Instead of regarding the veteran cadres valuable to party, the sectarians persecut- lenge to Stalin's whole policy in his "A Statement as assets the ed, punished, and deposed large numbers of these of Our Views." His expulsion ended his effective veterans in the central and local organizations political career in the Chinese Revolution. This I Large numbers of good comrades were wrongly view as one of the tragedies of the revolution. indicted and unjustly punished; this led to the For he was not only one of the most able and most lamentable losses in the party Comrades devoted of the old leaders, but was the finest who upon investigation are proved to have died scholar among them, having been able to as victims of a miscarriage of justice should be modernize the written language and other absolved from false accusations, reinstated as achievements. party members, and forever remembered by all Mao evidently took his demise as a warning comrades." and chose not to follow his path of confrontation Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, with Stalin. He masked his non-Stalinism by Vol. IV, pp. 206-207 dissimulation. For instance, in describinghis own Mao thus survived Stalinism by dissimulation works, he states that he has "developed Lenin's and is somewhat reminiscent of Claudius, who and Stalin's theses on the revolutionary move- survived a whole series of the most brutal Roman ment in colonial and semicolonial countries, as Emperors by pretending to be a moronic dunce, well as Stalin's theses on the Chinese revolution." and of Khrushchev, who lived through Stalin's But he goes on to describe only his own ideas, reign of terror by playing the role of a willing referring to Stalin only in regard to a thesis of and obedient clown. the later period of the first united front with the John Rue in his remarkable book, Mao Tse- Kuomintang (circa 1923). But nowhere does he tung in Opposition: 1927-1935 (Stanford U. state that Stalin's later positions were correct. Press, 1966), gives an intricately detailed and (See "Resolution on Some Questions in the elaborately documented study of the struggle History of Our Party," 1945.) between Mao and Stalin's agents. After the war he Mao probably never supported Ch'en's poli- appears to have made his peace with Stalinism. 101

However Rue, having made a definitive study of in the Kremlin. Such an examination is of general the history of the relations between Mao and interest as an example of the use of sophisticated Stalinism, says in his introduction that Mao verbal camouflage by relatively weak groups who need to conceal their opposition status under the "fought his way to the chairmanship of the CCP in conditions created by a tightly disciplined and the face of continuous and determined opposition highly centralized international party regime." from Chinese party leaders appointed and supervised by agencies of the Comintern. He consolidated his So what is the final product of his remark- power over the party in spite of everything its former able political odyssey? Mao undertook a brief leaders could do to overthrow him. He developed his sally into internationalism in his fine polemics

political, organizational, and military lines in against [Palmiro] Togliatti in 1964. For this, I opposition to the lines the Stalinists expounded was misled into writing (along with my former when they were in command of the central organs wife, Clara) in our resolution to the SWP conven- of the CCP: he developed his ideological line in his tion the following year that "China was realign- struggle to maintain his position of leadership on ing the old Third International against the the Central Committee. So by 1945 Mao had few Kremlin." Whatever Mao's intention at that time, ideological commitments to Stalin. After that year this did not come about. He received very little relations between the two were dictated by their response to that try and back into his relative power positions. Mao, as the leader of the one went party controlling the weaker state, occasionally shell. He personifies the one big defect of the had to bow to the authority of Moscow, but even Chinese Revolution: he became crystallized as a under great pressure he maintained intact the national Communist, head and shoulders above essential features of his special position. Stalin's nationalism, in which, however, there are similarities. As for Euro-Communism, having "A careful examination of the revised edition of taken over much of the heritage of Social Democ- his works, which was published between 1951 and 1953, will illustrate the many problems Mao faced racy in their concern for the national welfare of in denying the correctness of certain aspects of the various countries in which they practice, I

Stalin's theory and practice to a Chinese audience agree completely with yourcharacterization. I am while simultaneously maintaining officially correct tempted to call these Communists Communo- and cordial relations with the omniscient dictator Democrats. On "Color Caste"

From Spartacist League/U.S. Internal Information and Discussion Bulletin whole No. 43, March 1984. Dick Fraser addressed this 15 January 1984 letter from Los Angeles to Jim Robertson.

During the comrades' recent visit, we had a thinkers, many of whom were Socialist/Commu- lively discussion triggered by my lectures on black nist-minded militants, and synthesize them into lib of 1953 in which I put a knock on the proposi- a scientific Marxist doctrine. In the process, I was tion that blacks are a caste. This would, of able to cull valuable hints from the erudite course, apply equally to color caste, a view which display of C.L.R. James. Dave Dreiser was very

I still hold. The discussion having been opened, helpful. it seems reasonable that I should continue it with If I had found a single hint or suggestion in you. all that, that the idea of caste could be applied to

First, I must abstract from color caste, which blacks, I would have investigated it, but that is derivative, to get to the basic caste alone—for whole body of thought is devoid of any such sug- if it is admissible to consider blacks as a caste in gestion. Such a proposition is to be found in the any way, color caste would, of course, be valid. book by Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish sociologist The opposite would also be true. who was hired by the Carnegie Corporation to

I discussed this briefly in Oakland last solve the "Negro Question" for the ruling class. summer, and when I observed that Oliver Crom- I had decided from the beginning to be wary of well Cox's analysis of this question would have to white bourgeois scholars, as well as the Socialist be confronted before a legitimacy for designating and Communist theoreticians, whom I decided blacks as a color caste could be established. It had made a mockery of Marxism with pseudo- was argued—and this argument continues to sur- theories of black lib. face—that Cox refers to color caste only in an off- I claim little originality in my final work hand footnote and that therefore it is not (first in a resolution designed for the National important to confront him. This is a counterfeit Convention written in 1952, then the lectures) argument in which it is attempted to circumvent except for the synthesis of the key thoughts of the fact that Cox spent at least 1/3 of a compre- the black scholars and the views of the black hensive scholarly work demonstrating that blacks workers who I was fortunate enough to have as in the U.S. are not a caste of any kind. I found friends. I think that the only original contribution

Cox's analysis to be absolutely conclusive, and I of mine was the end product of the following cannot see how it can be dismissed. sequence: 1. The race concept of biological supe- My view of the race question, first publicly riority/inferiority has been destroyed: the race expressed in 1953, derived in large part from a concept has no biological reality. 2. Nevertheless study of the works of the black writers and the phenomenon race exists. Proof: try to tell scholars, principally of the first half of the black people that there is no such thing. (I went century, which was a period of a great outpouring through a period trying that.) 3. The reality of of profound thought on race relations from the race is that it provides the form for social black community. discrimination. 4. Race, therefore, much like

I read everything I could get my hands on in value, is a social relation.

the writings of W.E.B. Du Bois, E. Franklin Fra- Next, I attempted to demonstrate that the zier, Alain Locke, Richard Wright, Ralph Bunche, racial structure and race relations in the U.S. are Charles H. Thompson, James Weldon Johnson, historically unique. That no society has ever been Kelly Miller, Oliver Cromwell Cox, and others founded upon a division based exclusively upon whose names escape me. superficial physical characteristics. There is, of

I sought to take the important basic concepts course, a similarity between social relations in the of race and race relations expressed by these U. S. and South Africa. However, the oppression

102 103

of blacks there bears a basically national character— of the centuries which separates him from the the oppression of the Bantu and other African white man in the evolution of human history" nations by the Afrikaners. (from "As to the Leopard's Spots: An Open Letter Further, that the fundamental historical ten- to Thomas Dixon, Jr." by Kelly Miller). There is dency of the relationship between black and no race concept incorporated into the Indian white is towards mutual assimilation as evidenced caste system, and the attempt to equate black by the interactive and reciprocal cultural devel- oppression in the U.S. to the castes of India only opment which has been an active phenomenon tends to transfer the stability and relative per- almost from the beginning of black and white manence of the age-old Hindu caste system to the populations living side by side during slavery. race system, which questions its fragility. This However, this mutual assimilation, which under fragility is one of the most important factors to any other circumstances would have produced a consider when dealing with the possibility of its more or less unified and homogeneous people disappearance—a problem of vital concern to after a period of time, was thwarted, first by the blacks. This fragility of racism is one of the great Anglo-American racist mentality fostered by the contradictions of U.S. capitalism and is its slaveowners, and then by the requirements of Achilles heel. capitalism for the control of the working class: I have found that it is not uncommon for with a united working class capitalism will not white liberals and radicals, having realized that survive. This is demonstrated in the stormy and the race concept—even its modified version in uneven history of working class struggle. modern anthropology—is a gigantic fraud, to try Mutual assimilation is a powerful social to find some way to eliminate race from the force. Racism is an irrational institutionalized vocabulary. But race is nevertheless a social condition—in its extreme form individual or mass reality, and the search for a way to call it insanity. That capitalism must use racism to sur- something which it is not is fruitless. vive, cutting across and violating this powerful Blacks generally ignore this idiosyncrasy, and social force towards assimilation, reveals that socially concerned blacks go about the task of

however imposing its history and however univer- building racial pride, which I have called race

sally it shapes life and social relations, it is consciousness, an important stage in political de- fragile. It will be overthrown with the overthrow velopment. Would you take this away from them,

of the capitalist class, and only by that. (Perhaps substituting a caste pride? If you would, it's just

this was the original thought.) not in the cards. I recently reread Ralph Ellison's

It is argued that defining blacks as a caste or introduction to his Essays, and it is impossible to color caste is justified by its similarity to the caste imagine that he should forsake racial pride as is

system in India, where it is said the lower castes indicated by your insistence on the color caste. are of darker skin color. This may be true, but the When you consider this, you run into all

upper-caste Hindus I know would be designated kinds of difficulties, for if you are to be con- black in South Carolina if not clearly advertised sistent in relating race to Indian caste, the as foreigners, and are recognized by the Third analogy must be that blacks relate to the Un-

World as part of the darker peoples. touchables, and I think you would agree that It would be reasonable that the Hindus might there is little there to encourage caste pride for have color consciousness without racism, how- black Americans. Furthermore, once having desig- ever, even the factor of color consciousness seems nated blacks as a caste, you are logically required to be minor and unimportant. Cox states categor- also to designate at least White Anglo-Saxon ically that viewing the various gradient castes "no Protestants as another caste, and perhaps a grad-

sense of physical distinction need be aroused." It ed hierarchy of intermediate castes. Although you

maybe that the Hindu castes exhibit darker color don't want to do this, I believe that this is a

as they descend the social scale, but that in itself necessary extension of the color caste theory. I does not qualify them as a parallel to U.S. race have stated that the racial structure of American relations. society overlays the class structure, blurring and

The race concept has been expressed many distorting it. On the other hand, the theoretical times by many people, but none better than construction of a caste system would tend to Thomas Dixon, Jr.: "no amount of education of replace the class structure, nullifying the class any kind, industrious, classical or religious, can struggle.

make a Negro a white man or bridge the chasm When I was writing about "The Materialist 104

Conception of the Negro Question" in 1954, 1 was This is integral to "The Materialist Conception of concerned mainly with Nationalism. That was the the Negro Question." ground of the argument with Breitman. I was The Communist Party in the '30s had a great aware of the existence of caste as one of the burden to carry in the theory of Negro National- facets of the problem, but there didn't seem to be ism and Self-Determination of the Black Belt. The any urgency to deal with it. It was inconceivable CP was militant enough and sound enough on then, as it is today, that the idea of caste could practical matters of racism, that blacks disre- ever be given currency among blacks, even in its garded this theoretical and programmatic fault, derivative form, color caste. If I had considered it, and joined and assimilated into the party in large in absence of the necessity of replying to an op- numbers. Your theory of the color caste will not ponent, I would probably have merely referred to prevent black workers from supporting and Cox's work, which on this subject is complete and joining Spartacist and the Labor/Black League, definitive. but you will repel many intellectuals, whom you

However, had I been confronted with an would otherwise get. Ultimately, you cannot af- argument such as I have had recently, I would ford to be anything but scientifically correct all have written pretty much what I have said today. the way. On Libya

From Spartacist LeagueAJ.S. Internal Bulletin whole No. 49, January 1988. Dick Fraser addressed this 21 March 1986 letter to Jim Robertson.

One of my failings has been a reluctance to being aware of it, there has been a considerable apply energy to analysis of International problems— revolution going on there. Libya is the only Arab usually until the problem virtually hits me in the country where the oil revenues are shared by the face. Such is the case with Libya, to which I have people. The Libyan workers and peasants have paid only the attention due to newspaper articles. the highest standard of living of all Arab

While in the hospital in January, I happened countries. A revolutionary step towards women's upon a broadcast interview with Qaddafi. It is liberation has taken place. Libya is the only Arab possible that due to your travels you missed it, country which has almost completely violated although it was reported in full in the LA Times, Moslem orthodoxy in this area. In the metropol- so I will recapitulate my recollection of the itan areas they claim to have approximated memorable parts. equality of women. Showed women in the armed

First, I must say that he makes a good forces in combat training. There is resistance to appearance. Serious and firm, occasionally a little this in the interior from the orthodox hierarchy. emotional, but subdued. For the most part spon- I presume that you have given some thought taneous, as opposed to the studied and rehearsed to Qaddafi, as the Healyites seem to have had and posed delivery of our aging juvenile actor. some dealing with him. However, I was very im-

Very early in his presentation he talked about pressed with what I heard and read, and I would Reagan's tirades, calling them "stinking crusader- suggest that either yourself or some member of ism," which I thought was a nice way of putting your International apparatus in Europe inves- it. He went on to talk about the sanctions, saying tigate getting an interview. that they were not hurting Libya, and if they It becomes clear to me now why Reagan is so should do so, "we'll go Communist. That's what afraid of that man. He is not afraid of the Soviet happened to Cuba. Castro wasn't a Communist Union, but is merely awaiting the time for a first but you made him go that way." strike capability. But Qaddafi he is afraid of be- He made a telling point on Reagan's anti- cause in spite of the fact that he is somewhat iso- Semitism in his dealings with the Arabs. lated in the Arab world, principally because of his

Only a few hours later, I caught a semi- flouting of orthodoxy, he has nevertheless be- documentary on Libya from PBS. Without my come a principal spokesman for the Arab world.

105 Appendix

Bibliography of Works by Richard S. Fraser

Most of the documents written by Richard S. Fraser during his membership in the Socialist Workers Party and in the period immediately following were published and circulated under the pseudonym Richard Kirk. We have indicated

these documents with an asterisk following the title. Documents included in this

bulletin are marked with a double dagger (4).

This bibliography is necessarily partial; for example, we were unable to locate all ofFraser's extensive correspondence with other individuals. The Prometheus Research Library would appreciate notification about any additional materials.

Articles and Documents

"Labor Skate Disbands Militant San Diego City Labor "Resolution on the Negro Struggle,"* (May 25, 1957; Council," New Militant, February 8, 1936, 1 p. presented to the Seventeenth National Conven- "Crisis In Fields At San Diego," Labor Action tion), SWP Discussion Bulletin, Vol. 18, No. 11, (California), December 19, 1936, 1 p. September 1957, pp. 1-114 "Wage War on Union in San Diego," Labor Action "Presentation in Support of 'Resolution on the Negro (California), December 26, 1936, 1 p. Struggle' at the Seventeenth National Conven- "San Diego Farm Strike Is Crushed," Labor Action tion,"* (June 1957), SWP Discussion Bulletin, Vol. (California), February 20, 1937, 1 p4 18, No. 14, October 1957, pp. 3-11. "New NMU Hall—Facade to Hide Union Retreat,"* "Summary Remarks on Negro Discussion at the Sev- Militant, July 8, 1944, 1 p4 enteenth National Convention,"* (June 1957), "Soldiers Cheer Striking Workers,"* Militant, SWP Discussion Bulletin, Vol. 18, No. 14, October December 15, 1945, 1 p4 1957, pp. 12-154 "Some Problems of Branch Organization,"* The Party "Editorial Changes to 'Resolution on the Negro Strug- Builder (Internal Bulletin of the Socialist Workers gle',"* (September 21, 1957), SWP Discussion Party), Vol. Ill, No. 2, July 1946, pp. 13-14. Bulletin, Vol. 12, No. 11, September 1957, p. D. "On the Negro Question,"* (June 7, 1952), SWP Inter- nal Bulletin, Vol. 14, No. 1, June 1952, pp. 1-6. "Statement on the Edited Version of the P.C. Resolu- "The Negro Struggle and the Proletarian Revolution. tion on 'The Class Struggle Road to Negro Equal-

Introduction and Two Lectures given at the ity',"* (September 22, 1957) , SWP Discussion Bul- Friday Night Forum, Los Angeles, November, letin, Vol. 18, No. 14, October 1957, pp. 1-2. 1953: 1. Race and Capitalism 2. The Struggle for "To the P.C.,"* (October 10, 1957), attached to Club Equality," SWP Discussion Bulletin, A-19, August Exec. Minutes, No. 18, November 5, 1957, 1 p. 1954, pp. 1-444 (on Little Rock crisis)^ "For the Materialist Conception of the Negro "Resolution on the Little Rock Crisis,"* (submitted to Question," (January 3, 1955), SWP Discussion the January 1958 Plenum of the National Com- Bulletin, A-30, August 1955, pp. 1-24. Reprinted mittee), SWP Discussion Bulletin, Vol. 19, No. 1, in Marxist Bulletin No. 5R (Spartacist 1958, pp. 1-11. League/U.S.), September 1978, pp. 2-16. Farrell [Dobbs],"* co-authored with Clara Kaye, "Contribution to Discussion of NAACP,"* (September "To (January 22, 1958), attached to Club Exec. Min- 2, 1955), SWP Discussion Bulletin, Vol. 18, No. utes, No. 2, January 23, 1958, 5 pp. (on Com- 14, October 1957, pp. 20-25. "Contribution to the Discussion on the Slogan 'Send munist Party and Gatesites) Federal Troops to Mississippi' (Letter from Fraser, "Plenum Discussion of Cuban Question. Part II—Dis- Seattle, March 10, 1956)," SWP Discussion Bul- cussion from Floor,"* SWP Discussion Bulletin, letin, Vol. 18, No. 13, October 1957, pp. 4-94 Vol. 22, No. 2, February 1961, pp. 15-17.

106 107

"To the Political Committee,"* (June 1, 1962), SWP Permanent Membership Organization," co- Discussion Bulletin, Vol. 23, No. 9, October 1962, authored with Waymon Ware, Arthur Mink, Glo- pp. 10-14. (on crisis of leadership in civil rights ria Martin, Frank Krasnowsky, Fred Berg and Gus movement) Carlson (Executive Committee, FSP), July 1966, Motion made at June 14-17, 1962 National Commit- 2 pp. tee Plenum Discussion on World Movement*; "Report of an Observer: First National Conference of later withdrawn, 1 p. Spartacist League Marked by Seriousness and "Plenum Discussion of World Movement. Part 3,"* Youth," The Freedom Socialist, Vol. 1, No. 2, SWP Discussion Bulletin, Vol. 23, No. 6, November 5, 1966, pp. 8-9. November 1962, pp. 7-12. "Greetings Delivered to the Spartacist Conference," "Plenum Discussion on Negro Struggle. Extended The Freedom Socialist, Vol. 1, No. 2, November Remarks,"* SWP Discussion Bulletin, Vol. 23, No. 5, 1966, p. 9. 9, October 1962, pp. 15-22. "In Defence of the Chinese Revolution,"* co-authored "Plenum Discussion on Negro Struggle. Summary,"* with David Dreiser and Frank Krasnowsky (for SWP Discussion Bulletin, Vol. 23, No. 9, October the Freedom Socialist Party of Washington), 1962, pp. 40-41. January 1967, 10 pp. "To the Editor of The Militant"* (January 30, 1963), "Program of the Freedom Socialist Party (Adopted at

attached to P.C. Minutes, No. 1, January 25, Founding Conference, July, 1966)," co-authored 1963, 4 pp. (on seniority and black workers) with Waymon Ware, July 1967, 8 pp. "Revolutionary Integration—Draft Resolution on the "Revolutionary Integration: the Dialectics of Black Negro Struggle,"* SWP Discussion Bulletin, Vol. Liberation,"* Revolutionary Age, Vol. 1, No. 1, 24, No. 28, June 1963, pp. 1-45. 1968, pp. 13-57. "Political Resolution submitted to the 21st National "The Emancipation of Women,"* co-authored with Convention of the SWP, 1965, adopted by the Clara Kaye, Revolutionary Age, Vol. 1, No. 3, Seattle Branch,"* co-authored with Clara Kaye, 1968, pp. 17-25. SWP Discussion Bulletin, Vol. 25, No. 8, [1965], "Crisis and Leadership. Part One: The Crisis,"* co- pp. 1-62. authored with Clara Kaye, FSP pamphlet, 1969, "Radical Laborism versus Bolshevik Leadership, The 76 pp. Organization Problem of the S.W.P.,"* co- "Socialism and Black Liberation,"* co-authored with authored with Clara Kaye, SWP Discussion Ian Parry, Revolutionary Age, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1974, Bulletin, Vol. 25, No. 14, [1965], pp. 1-28. pp. 25-52. "To Ed [Shaw], National Office, SWP,"* (July 13, "A Letter to American Trotskyists: Too Little, Too 1965), attached to P.C. Minutes, No. 8, July 16, Late (Memorandum on the Problems of Building 1965, 2 pp. a Revolutionary Party),"* Revolutionary Age, Vol. "To the Political Committee,"* (December 13, 1965), 3, No. 4, 1974/75, pp. 17-434 SWP Internal Information Bulletin, July 1966, "Marxist Perspectives on Black Liberation," 1970s, pp. 11-204 29 pp. "To: Comrade Ed Shaw and the National Committee, "For Rebuilding CAPA on a Mass Base," mid-1970s, SWP," by Seattle Branch, SWP, and the national 1 p. (on the Coalition Against Police Abuse in Kirk-Kaye Tendency, (March 8, 1966), SWP Los Angeles) Internal Information Bulletin, July 1966, pp. "Preface to the First Edition of the First Volume of 32-35. the Documents of Black Revolt," October 1978, "Statement of Resignation from the S.W.P.,"* co- 3 pp. authored with 27 others, (April 9, 1966), SWP "Prospectus and Attachment: IV. The Economics of Internal Information Bulletin, July 1966, pp. Slavery," (undated), Spartacist League/U.S. Inter- 51-61. nal Discussion Bulletin, Whole No. 42, August "Why We Left the Socialist Workers Party,"* co- 1983, pp. 10-15.

authored with Clara Kaye, Frank Krasnowsky, "Once Again Caste," with I. Parry, April 21, 1984, David Dreiser and Waymon Ware, June 1966, 9 pp. 8pp4 To 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, U.S. Courthouse, San "Call to a Conference of the Freedom Socialist Party Francisco, May 7, 1987, 1 p. (demanding release of Washington to Reconstitute the Party as a of Geronimo Pratt) 108

Letters

To Richard, undated, 2 pp. (on social composition To Dave, September 19, 1983, 3 pp. (on the woman and the working class) question and SWP) To William Warde, June 19, 1951, 2 (on SWP pp. To Jim, October 1, 1983, 1 p. (on SWP work around plenum) CP ca. 1956) To Jean [Blake], October 19, 1957, 1 p. (on Militant To Jim, January 5, 1984, SL/U.S. Internal Information article on Little Rock) and Discussion Bulletin, Whole No. 43, March To Dave [Dreiser], November 10, 1959, 2 (on pp. 1984, p. 63. (on service workers unions; M.L. Caste, Class, and Race by Oliver C. Cox) King) To Jean, August 12, 1962, 6 pp. (on June 1962 To Jim, January 15, 1984, SLAJ.S. Internal Informa- plenum) tion and Discussion Bulletin, Whole No. 43, To Murry [Weiss], March 19, 1963, 1 p. (on the SWP) March 1984, pp. 64-67. (on color caste question To Jim [Robertson], August 14, 1966, 1 p. (on in U.S.):}: attending SL conference) To Jim, October 19, 1984, 2 pp. (on 1953 Los Jim, To January 10, 1967, 2 pp. (on Maoism and Angeles lectures) relations with SL) To Jim, October 26, 1984, 2 pp. (on color caste) To Jim, February 12, 1967, 1 p. (on China and To Dave, June 13, 1985, 2 pp. (on Uncle Tom's Cabin) relations with SL) To Jim, July 26, 1985, Party Builder (SL/U.S.), No. 4, To Dave, July 23, 1969, 3 pp. (on SDS and PL) June 1986, p. 39. (on SL internal education) To Frank [Krasnowsky], [January 1972], 2 pp. (on FSP) To Cliff Carter, July 31, 1985, 1 p. (on 1953 Los Angeles lectures) To Dave, February 15, 1978, 3 pp. (on 1963 Resolu- tion on Revolutionary Integration) To Jim, September 9, 1985, SLAJ.S. Internal Bulletin, Whole No. 45, November 1985, 5-7. (on To Jim, June 14, 1978, 4 pp. (on National Maritime pp. Union) 1983 SL convention) To Murry, June 30, 1978, 3 pp. (on dispute with FSP) To Dave, August 1, 1985, 2 pp. (on Abstract) To Jim, July 9, 1978, 2 pp. (on relations with SL; To Dave, August 2, 1985, 2 pp. (on Abstract) Stanley Aronowitz) To Jim, August 11, 1985, 3 pp. (on Earl Ofari) To Sam Deaderick, Editorial Board of Freedom To Earl [Ofari], August 11, 1985, 2 pp. (on radical Socialist, [1978], 2 pp. (on black liberation) liberals)

To Jim, October 15, 1978, 1 p. (query on Alice Bryant To Dave, August 29, 1985, 4 pp. (on Melville's of Cotton Club) "Benito Cerino") To Dave, April 24, 1982, 2 (on slavery) pp. To John Sharpe, December 11, 1985, 2 pp. (on notes To Debbie [Maguire], May 11, 1983, 3 pp. (on on Reformation) Abstract on history of slavery) To Debbie and Jim, December 12, 1985, 1 p. (on To Debbie, May 29, 1983, SLAJ.S. Internal Discussion relations with SL) Bulletin, Whole No. 41, August 1983, pp. 30-32. To Jim, March 21, 1986, SLAJ.S. Internal Bulletin, (on SWP and black transitional organizations)^ Whole No. 49, January 1988, pp. 5-6. (on To Dorothy [Healey], April 21, 1983, 6 (on black pp. bombing of Libya)$ liberation) To Cliff, April 4, 1986, 1 p. (on Nat Turner) To Dave, May 19, 1983, 2 pp. (on Abstract) To Jim, April 27, 1986, 1 p. (on relations with SL) To Dorothy, June 10, 1983, 2 pp. (on the SWP) To Earl Ofari, August 24, 1986, 2 pp. (on DSA and To Stanley Aronowitz, June 18, 1983, 11 pp. (on black nationalism) Stalinism and Maoism)^ To Jonny, March 16, 1987, 7 (on political history To Dave, June 27, 1983, 8 pp. (on Abstract) pp. in SWP and FSP; Middle East) To Debbie, July 22, 1983, 4 pp. (on Abstract) (on Lenin's Testament To Jim, July 24, 1983, Sl/U.S. Internal Discussion To Jim, March 17, 1987, 2 pp. and glasnost) Bulletin, Whole No. 41, August 1983, pp. 33-35. (on CP and work in the South) To Jim, June 20, 1987, 2 pp. (on racial structure of To Jim, August 6, 1983, SLAJ.S. Internal Discussion U.S.) Bulletin, Whole No. 42, August 1983, pp. 25-26. To Jim, September 13, 1987, 1 p. (on relations with (on Nicaragua and the USSR) SL) 109

Manuscripts

"The Problems of Social Composition as it relates to "Notes Towards Revolutionary Perspectives in Theory, Strategy, Program and Tactics," undated, Britain," ca. 1975, 5 pp. 12 pp. "To: Pasadena Community Information Center," ca. Notes for three lectures on the Reformation, 1940s, 1976, 9 pp. (proposal for class series on the 82 pp. struggle against slavery)

Notes for presentation on history of U.S. radical or- Autobiographical Manuscript, "How I Learned to ganizations' approaches to black struggle since Love My Carcinoma," 1978-1984, 315 pp. 1917, ca. 1954, 19 pp. "Abstract of: The Struggle Against Slavery in the

"Report to the District Negro Commission," 1956, 12 United States. I. The Rise of the Slave Power and

pp. (critique of CP on civil rights movement)}: Its Ascendancy II. The Fall of the Slave Power "Notes on 'Zionism Racism' and the Mid-East Crisis," and the Aftermath," co-authored with Dave undated 1970s, 5 pp. Dreiser, mid-1980s, 154 pp. "Critical Notes on Cannon's Conception of the Revolu- tionary Party," ca. 1973, 13 pp.

Lectures and Interviews on Cassette

The Civil War and the Black Question in American On the SWP and the Fight Against Black Oppression, History, lecture series at the SWP West Coast interview with Charles Du Bois and Carl Lewis, Vacation School (incomplete), 1949 April 22 and May 5, 1977, 3 hours The Chinese Revolution and the Russian Bureaucracy, On SWP History, discussion with Jim Robertson, lecture, [1961?] September 8, 1983, 1.5 hours On the SWP's Work in the National Maritime Union, interview with Gene Herson and Carl Lewis, March 2, 1975, 2 hours

Revised August 1990

Black History and the Class Struggle A Spartacist Pamphlet Series

No. 1 Black History and the Class Struggle No. 6 Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution $.25 (16 pages) $1 (32 pages) Includes: Includes: • John Brown and Frederick Douglass: Heroes of the Anti-Slavery Struggle • Mumia Abu-Jamal Speaks from Death Row No. 7 Glory: Black Soldiers Fight for Freedom No. 2 On the Civil Rights Movement $1 (40 pages) $.75 (32 pages) Includes: Includes: • Glory—A Review • King's Liberal Pacifism Bourgeoisie Celebrates • How Mississippi Burning Rewrites History • Malcolm X: Courageous Fighter for Black Liberation No. 8 South Africa and Permanent Revolution • SNCC: "Black Power" and the Democrats $1 (48 pages) Includes: No. 3 Massacre of Philly MOVE • South Africa: Razor's Edge $.75 (32 pages) • Mandela Released Articles from Workers Vanguard detailing the • Smash Apartheid! For Workers Revolution! grotesque racist bombing of Philly MOVE, signature No. 9 There Is No Justice in Capitalist America of the Reagan years. $1 (56 pages) No. 4 Black Soldiers in the Jim Crow Military Includes: • Outrage Over Racist Acquittal of Cops in $.75 (32 pages) Rodney King Case Articles dealing with the military question and black • L.A. Upheaval Shakes America oppression. • Education U.S.A. —Separate and Unequal No. 5 Finish the Civil War! No. 10 Malcolm X: The Man, the Myth, $1 (32 pages) the Struggle Articles on the continuing struggle to finish the Civil $1 (48 pages) War and fulfill the promise of black freedom. Includes: Includes: • Activists Remember the Civil Rights • Claude McKay: From Harlem to Moscow— Blacks Movement and the Black Power Era and Bolsheviks • Imperialism Starves Africa • The Killing Floor—A Review • Moscow: African Student Murdered by Chicago 1919: Racism and Union-Busting Yeltsin's Cops

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Complete and accurate English translation of 1921 Comintern A memorial to comrade Richard S. Fraser (1913-1988), who Resolution from final German text. Includes, for the first time in pioneered the Trotskyist understanding of black oppression in English, the reports on and discussion of the Resolution at the the United States, fighting for the perspective of Revolutionary Third Congress. With introduction by Prometheus Research Integration. Library staff. $7 (includes postage) 110 pages $6 (includes postage) 94 pages No. 4: Yugoslavia, East Europe and the No. 2: Documents on the Fourth International: The Evolution "Proletarian Military Policy" of Pabloist Liquidationism Includes rare materials from the Trotskyist movement in the Covers the internal discussion within the Fourth International U.S. and Europe during World War II, as well as an analytical over its flawed response to the Yugoslav Revolution and the introduction by the International Executive Committee of the 1948 Tito-Stalin split and includes rare documents from the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). period. $9 (includes postage) 102 pages $7 (includes postage) 70 pages

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