~ Marxism and The Negro struggle Harold Cruse George Breitman Clifton DeBerry Merit Publishers 873 Broadway New York, N. Y. 10003 First printing March, 1965 Second printing June, 1968 Printed in the United States of America ns Harold Cruse's two-part article, "Marxism and the Negro," appeared in the May and June 1964 issues of the monthly magazine Liberator and is reprinted here with its permission. A one-year subscription to Liberator costs $3 and may be ordered from Liberator, 244 East 46th Street, New York, N. Y. 10017. George Breitman's five-part series, "Marxism and the Negro Struggle," appeared during August and September 1964 in the weekly newspaper The Militant and is reprinted here with its permission. A one-year subscription to The Militant costs $3 and may be ordered from The Militant, 873 Broadway, New York, N. Y. 10003. Clifton DeBerry's article, "A Reply to Harold Cruse," is reprinted from the October 1964 issue of Liberator. Contents MARXISM AND THE NEGRO By Harold Cruse Part I 5 Part 11 11 MARXISM AND THE NEGRO STRUGGLE By George Breitman What Marxism Is and How It Develops 17 The Colonial Revolution in Today's World 23 The Role of the White Workers 29 The Need and Result of Independence 34 Relations Between White and Black Radicals 40 A REPLY TO HAROLD CRUSE By Clifton DeBerry 45 Marxism and the Negro By HAROLD CRUSE Part I When the Socialist Workers highest level of organizational Party (Trotskyist) announced in the scope and programmatic independ- New York Times, January 14, that ence in this century . In the mean- it had nominated a Negro, Clifton time, the dominant trend in Ameri- DeBerry, to run for president it al- can Marxism, the Communist Party, lows us the opportunity to discuss has declined to the low status of a in depth a question that has long weak, ineffectual sect creating a been agitating many individuals, vacuum in "revolutionary" politics friends and foes, concerning the re- which the Trotskyistsare desperately lationship of Marxism to the Negro trying to fill . But the eclipse of movement in America today . We Communist Party Marxism wenthand emphasize "today" because some in hand with the decline of labor years ago it was impossible to be union radicalism in America . White objective about this inasmuch as labor (as differentiated from black the Marxist movement as represented labor) went conservative, pro- by the Communist Party was so in- capitalist and strongly anti-Negro . dissolubly linked with practically This created a serious and a prac- everything Negroes attempted to do tically insoluble dilemma for the that it was impossible not to find a Marxist movement because the Communist or two under the bed if theory and practice of revolutionary one looked earnestly enough . Marxism in America is based on the Hence, some very relevant issues assumption that white labor, both about Marxism were distorted and organizedand unorganized, must be confused by a barrage of heated a radical, anti-capitalist force in denials and accusations about the America and must form on "alli- "Red Menace ." ance" with Negroes for the libera- Today, the relationship between tion of both labor and the Negro the Negro movement and the Marx- from capitalist exploitation . No ist movement has gone through a matter what the facts of life reveal succession of qualitative changes to the contrary, no matter what the on both sides . Today the Negro Marxists say or do in terms of movement has developed to its momentary "tactics," this is what s~- the Marxists believe, and must be- Negro movement, in orderto rescue lieve or cease functioningas a the Marxists from their own crisis . Marxist tendency . For Karl Marx's In the Fall, 1963 issue of the Inter- dictum on this question was that national Socialist Review , the "Labor cannot emancipate itself in Trotskyists, in discussing the Free- the white skin where in the black dom Now "movement," said: it is branded . " Today, the Trotsky- The present tasks of the SWP in ists consider themselves to be the connection with the Negro most "orthodox" of Marxists . struggle for liberation are: The fact that white labor in (4) To expand and strengthen the America today is clearly unsympa- party's cadre and forces in the thetic to the "emancipation" of Negro organizations and the either Negro workers, or the "petite civil rights movements, by: (a) bourgeois" Negroes, or the "intel- recruiting revolutionary Ne- lectuals," as the Marxists are fond groes and helping to train them of citing, poses, as was said, a for leadership in the party and serious dilemma for the revolution- mass movements . ary Marxists . On the other hand, Elsewhere the Trotskyists said: the Negro movement's rise to the In the same way the influence ascendancy as a radical force in of the colonial revolution . America completeIyupsets Marxian upon vanguard elements of the theory and forces the Marxists to Negro movement has helped adopt momentary tactics wh i ch they prepare the emergence of a new do not essentially believe in . I_ radical left wing . In all these short they become opportunistic . cases, it is the task of revolu- Herewe referto thewhite Marxists, tionary Marxists to seek to win the black ones are another question the best elements of this newly which is currently personified in emerging vanguard to Trotsky- the case of DeBerry . However, the ism . realities in America today force However, the real issue at stake theMarxists todeal with the Negro here is: Who is destined to be the movement as the de facto radical dominant and decisive radical force force but this doesnot lode the in America-Black Radicals or fact that the Marxist movement is White Radicals . And this is a ques- in a serious crisis . Moreover, the tion that will and must be settled greater the Negro movement be- outside the scope of any existing comes as an independent force, the "theory," Marxian or otherwise, be- more the Marxists must strive to cause there is no "theory" that ally themselves with the Negro covers this development . Sucha movement, but the deeper does the American theory (if it is ever crisis become for the Marxist move- written down will ha~~ ment itself . For the "alliance" it from blacks . Hence, we have the attempts to forge with the Negro most unprecedented situation yet must be one where the Marxists seen in the western world-a Marx- dominate in order not to be ab- ist movement with a time-honored sorbed . This "alliance" is meant to social theory which does not work build the Marxist party, not the out in life with a mass following, and a viable Negro movement of gro movement is also in a crisis de- masses in movement which is stymied spite its late achievements-o crisis because it has no social theory or which is linked to world develop- program to take it further. World ments broader than our own prob- historical trends have brought both lems and with roots in events which the old Marxist tradition and the pre-date us . new Negro movement face to face The crisis of Marxism in Europe on either side of a profound impasse . and North America has its roots in The Trotskyists, being the most the confused events of the Russian astute of all Marxists, attempt to Revolution of 1917. In the case of bridge the chasm by nominating a the Socialist Workers Party, itwos Negro for presidentl But this des- Leon Trotsky, its guiding revolu- perate gesture cannot cure the tionary thinker, who first said that Marxian crisis by enlisting the Ne- a socialist revolution was even gro potential . Moreover, it is not possible in Russia . This was in 1905 the right remedy for what really when none of the Russian Marxists ails the Negro movement at this agreed to that possibility (not even juncture . It isthe same thing as of- Lenin) . Trotsky was denounced as a fering an impoverished man with a ridiculous visionary for saying this wife and ten kids a Palm Beach va- but later won other Russian Marx- cation withsome political V .I .P .'s ists over to his thinking . Thus and all the trimmings just "to get Trotskywas actuallythe theoretical away from it all ." What'll happen father of the Russian Revolution and to the man's fami I y? These are some Lenin was the chief architect and of the reasons why the SWP's presi- leader. dential announcement caused so Marxism, as Marx himself de- much confusion, anger and suspicion veloped it, did not foresee or pre- within the ranks of the Freedom dict a "socialist revolution" in a Now Party movement concerning backwards agrarian country such as "white radical influence ." For Russia . According to Marx, the re- DeBerryalso linkedhimselfwith the volution he predicted had to come Freedom Now Party without the about in a highly industriolizedna- Party's permission to do so-a well- tion which had necessarily created known Marxian type ofmaneuver in a large, industrial class of workers, Negro affairs . well organized and well-trained in As the Negro movement stops the production skills of capitalist and gropes about for its methods of industry . The capitalist class of entering itsnext stage this question owners would get richer and more of Marxism's influence will keep compact due to monopoly growths, bobbing up in different situations . and the working class would get Hence, it is necessary for black poorer and poorer to the point radical "thinkers" (as opposed to where they would revolt and over- the "strugglers" or "street-men" as turn the system and expropriate the some proudly calIthemselves) to get owners .