Marx on the Black Panther movement

[stozart]

I have been doing some reading about the Black Panther movement, in the USA, and its role in universities during its operational time. The book I am reading is saying that Karl Marx would not accept there violent uprising, however, I believed that Marx would be in support of violence during an uprising because it would be the only way for change. My question is how would Marx react to the use of violence during the Black Panther movement, and why would he condone or oppose it?

Thank you Stozart

[Jimmie Higgins]

I have been doing some reading about the Black Panther movement, in the USA, and its role in universities during its operational time. The book I am reading is saying that Karl Marx would not accept there violent uprising, however, I believed that Marx would be in support of violence during an uprising because it would be the only way for change. My question is how would Marx react to the use of violence during the Black Panther movement, and why would he condone or oppose it?

Thank you StozartWell who knows, but Marx was certaintly not against people arming themselves for defense or people rising up. I'd guess that his major problem with the BPP would not be their specific methods but some of the underlying assumptions or poltical points of the group which may have informed their specific use of some tactics. Basically, IMO Marx would have criticized the BPP for focusing on the most marginal members of the black community rather than the black workers - and the urban black working class at that point, though still subject to racism, were on much more stable footing in the days of the BPP than today (when I think actually organizing a lot of the permanently unemployed youth in black communities would be a necissary part of a movement against modern racism and capitalist power). THis argument wouldn't be on moral grounds but on missing an oppotuinity for radicals with trust among black workers and a high profile in organizing in areas that don't have as much potential for worker's power when workers could have been drawn to radical organizing at the docks and trains among other vital industries where blacks made up a sizable part of the workforce.

I think he probably would have criticized them for some of their more adventurist and substitutionalist tendencies as well. But I think he would have been delighted to see people fighting both racism and the system which keeps it cemented in place.

[jookyle]

I don't think Marx would have really disapproved. He mentions the violant overthrow of capital many times, not to mention direct violant means to be used against your oppressors. He probably would have been critical at their original goals of black nationalism, but by the time they moved out of Oakland they had accepted a general more marxist position with black liberation at the forefront of their minimal programme goals.

[Prometeo liberado]

not accept there violent uprising,

What violent uprising are you talking about here? When, where and how did they condudct an "uprising"?

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Yeah I don't know about them ever having an uprising. They seem to be kind of unique for that period since had a pretty clear understanding that any power they might have had came from their community, not the fact that a few dozen militants had armed themselves. They had a couple shootouts with the cops but those were always instigated by the police themselves.