Huey P. Newton on the lumpenproletariat

[AndreasB]

I am looking for some articles where Huey P. Newton discuss the revolutionary nature of the lumpenproletariat.

Does any comrades know of some articles on the web?

[Mather]

Sadly I don't.

Besides Newton, which other revolutionary theorists (from either marxist or anarchist schools of thought) saw or worked upon the potential of the 'lumpenproletariat'?

[mikelepore]

Note: The title of Franz Fanon's book 'Les Damnes de la Terre' is sometimes translated into English as 'The Damned of the Earth', but more often as 'The Wretched of the Earth.' The phrase comes from the first verse of the French lyrics to the Internationale.

[Kléber]

Fetishizing on the lumpen proletariat is a dead end. Marx's warning that criminal elements can easily be turned into the paid servants of capital came very true in the tragic case of the BPP. Not because they were from a colonized population, but because the BPP repeated a mistake of the Russian and Chinese Communists: they invited criminal elements into the party, thinking they could control them and use their expertise, when in fact these types formed secret and self-interested cliques within the revolutionary organization, with criminal and not revolutionary aims, leading to the death (at least as revolutionary parties) of all 3 parties I described.

In certain historical situations, the most oppressed and marginalized layers can take power with their own strength, one example is the Khmer Rouge seizure of power in Cambodia. But look how they were easily made into the unwitting dupes of imperialism and how they massacred a good part of the industrial working class along with the bourgeoisie. The Nazis recruited heavily among the unemployed and used them as shock troopers against the Marxist workers; these lumpenproletarian mercenaries put up little resistance afterward when purged in the "Night of the Long Knives." We should always keep up propaganda among the unemployed and "lumpen" elements, but the essential revolutionary task - that of collectively seizing the means of production - is the task of the workers involved in production. They have to do the revolution themselves, and take over their own workplaces.

[Robocommie]

Personally I feel the task of seizing the means of production must be carried out by an armed cadre of revolutionaries, a guerilla army. Workers may be able to seize their own workplaces successfully but without massive and unprecedented coordination the coercive power of the state will crush any such revolt, as happened in Pullman, Illinois.

I think in the long term, the lumpenproletariat can contribute very much to this effort, as they are themselves the victims of capitalism. Much crime is the toxic byproduct of capitalism, and I think therefore it is a question of the class consciousness of the individual criminal. Some can be revolutionaries, others will resist, perhaps out of despair if not outright disdain.