Mythology of the White-Led "Vanguard" [Archive]

Black Dagger

11th May 2005, 19:55

That whites and blacks should work separately in all-white/all-black groups? Well, sorry but I don't think so. We should be united, black and white, against racism.

Of course everyone should be united to fight racism, i think that quote refers specifically to the civil rights movement of the time. Where white involvement with militant black movements or the seeds of such movements, often led to the co-option of such movements, a similar effect to what bourgeois participation in revolutionary movements can have.

anyway, "race" is entirely a social construct. There is no such thing as "race". Of course there are different ethnicities, but not "races".

Whilst i agree that race is a social construct, race is a very real concept and source of identity for people who are opressed on racial grounds (so perceived), ie. white opression of black, latino etc. It's problematic to tell a black person to ignore 'race', when they are constantly confronted and opressed on these grounds by society. It's easy for a white activist to identify as a communist etc. and not as a white communist or even to include 'white' as a part of their own identity, because their 'whiteness' is rarely challenged and carries little to no significant stigma in society.

I completely support the idea that minority groups as well as women, should be able organise independant collectives/organisations exclusive to their group. However, these groups (and this is something that Malcolm X stated also), they should still work with multi-ethnic or white-dominanted organisations/collectives.

Severian

11th May 2005, 20:39

Originally posted by Black [email protected] 11 2005, 12:55 PM
Of course everyone should be united to fight racism, i think that quote refers specifically to the civil rights movement of the time. Where white involvement with militant black movements or the seeds of such movements, often led to the co-option of such movements, a similar effect to what bourgeois participation in revolutionary movements can have.
Right. Malcolm X was talking about the white liberals joining the civil rights organizations, and the need for all-Black organizations. One of the major civil rights groups, SNCC, even expelled its white members as part of moving in a more radical direction.

It's out-of-context and misleading here; Malcolm X wasn't necessarily hostile to far-left parties just because they were mostly-white or because they refused to be all-white......it's just that most of them were hostile to him, in his lifetime. He's become a lot more popular since he's dead.

The article as a whole is just race-baiting: this group of anarchists can't put together a serious critique of the RCP (Christ, it shouldn't be hard!) so they attack 'em for being mostly white.

There's a lot of legitimate criticism that could be made of the RCP, so I don't know why these anarchists have so much trouble making 'em....maybe that anarchists are also prone to a lot of these stunts, like leaving the main march to start confrontations.

They also take the side of Ward Churchill and "native American elder" Russel Means against the RCP. Both Churchill and Means were willing to work with Washington in support of Nicaraguan contra groups, Means is a former Libertarian candidate, and has been engaged in unprincipled factional operations against the American Indian Movement for many years. So it's hard to see why this group of anarchists would take their side...except, white people bad, non-white people good.

Who knows if most of the particulars, about the RCP's actions and statements, are accurate or not.

guerillablack

11th May 2005, 21:25

Like Black Dagger, you can't tell people to ignore their race, even though it is a social construct, it is a reality. Tell my grandparents who had to sit in a colored section that race is just a social construct. Yeah,ok. Second we must realize and accept the fact that the oppressor will not give up his power easily. There is a power structure and the white male is on top. Even though there was alot of white fighting for the rights of blacks, there was even alot more not fighting for the rights of blacks. I'm referring to the active racists and the passive racists both.

Black Panther Party was an all black group, however, also worked with other white organizations and other organizations for a bigger common goal.

The plights of minorities will not be led by an all white organization ever.

El_Revolucionario

11th May 2005, 23:04

Originally posted by [email protected] 11 2005, 08:25 PM
Like Black Dagger, you can't tell people to ignore their race, even though it is a social construct, it is a reality. Tell my grandparents who had to sit in a colored section that race is just a social construct. Yeah,ok. Second we must realize and accept the fact that the oppressor will not give up his power easily. There is a power structure and the white male is on top. Even though there was alot of white fighting for the rights of blacks, there was even alot more not fighting for the rights of blacks. I'm referring to the active racists and the passive racists both.

Black Panther Party was an all black group, however, also worked with other white organizations and other organizations for a bigger common goal.

The plights of minorities will not be led by an all white organization ever.
They had to sit in that section because the society they lived in had set up "race" as the construct, that was exactly my point, the idea of "race" has been constructed in our society in order to oppress non-whites.

Raisa

11th May 2005, 23:25

Alot of times racial and class views get sort of alligned. Well in the usa at least....

A white person has a better chance of being inherantly reactionary then a black person does in the usa. He also has a better chance of being born into a class that is inherantly reactionary. And a man has a better chance then a woman to be inherantly reactionary, because of the way society works and because of how people get set up in soceity....and because of the fact that more white people are enjoying the "benifits" of capitalism then blacks, and that more men are then women they people are more likely to be more conservative and see less wrong in the system. Since things like race and gender have been historically confined into classes......even if they are breaking out of them now... alot of times they can come with a very general class view.

Vallegrande

12th May 2005, 00:15

The Revolution will be fought by people of all ethnicities, united against capitalism and the machine of oppression. black, latino, white, asian, all leading the fight against oppression.

That was Malcolm's dream when he said in the press, that he didn't care if one was white, black, whatever color, just to take up arms and fight back, together. He died shortly afterward.

guerillablack

12th May 2005, 02:36

Originally posted by El_Revolucionario+May 11 2005, 10:04 PM--> (El_Revolucionario @ May 11 2005, 10:04 PM)
[email protected] 11 2005, 08:25 PM
Like Black Dagger, you can't tell people to ignore their race, even though it is a social construct, it is a reality. Tell my grandparents who had to sit in a colored section that race is just a social construct. Yeah,ok. Second we must realize and accept the fact that the oppressor will not give up his power easily. There is a power structure and the white male is on top. Even though there was alot of white fighting for the rights of blacks, there was even alot more not fighting for the rights of blacks. I'm referring to the active racists and the passive racists both.

Black Panther Party was an all black group, however, also worked with other white organizations and other organizations for a bigger common goal.

The plights of minorities will not be led by an all white organization ever.
They had to sit in that section because the society they lived in had set up "race" as the construct, that was exactly my point, the idea of "race" has been constructed in our society in order to oppress non-whites. [/b]
Yes, i agree that it is a contruct, i agree thatit was a tool for white supremacy, however that does not make it not reality. Because it is reality and that is why we have to battle it. White people, especially white males are privledged, whether you choose to recognize it or not. Why do people fight equal oppurtunities, affirmative action,civil rights?Because it threatens their priveledge and way of life.

I'm not putting my faith in a white led vanguard for the revolution.

El_Revolucionario

12th May 2005, 16:51

Originally posted by guerillablack+May 12 2005, 01:36 AM--> (guerillablack @ May 12 2005, 01:36 AM)
Originally posted by [email protected] 11 2005, 10:04 PM

[email protected] 11 2005, 08:25 PM
Like Black Dagger, you can't tell people to ignore their race, even though it is a social construct, it is a reality. Tell my grandparents who had to sit in a colored section that race is just a social construct. Yeah,ok. Second we must realize and accept the fact that the oppressor will not give up his power easily. There is a power structure and the white male is on top. Even though there was alot of white fighting for the rights of blacks, there was even alot more not fighting for the rights of blacks. I'm referring to the active racists and the passive racists both.

Black Panther Party was an all black group, however, also worked with other white organizations and other organizations for a bigger common goal.

The plights of minorities will not be led by an all white organization ever.
They had to sit in that section because the society they lived in had set up "race" as the construct, that was exactly my point, the idea of "race" has been constructed in our society in order to oppress non-whites.
Yes, i agree that it is a contruct, i agree thatit was a tool for white supremacy, however that does not make it not reality. Because it is reality and that is why we have to battle it. White people, especially white males are privledged, whether you choose to recognize it or not. Why do people fight equal oppurtunities, affirmative action,civil rights?Because it threatens their priveledge and way of life.

I'm not putting my faith in a white led vanguard for the revolution. [/b]
I don't know how many of the RCP are actually white, and I don't know how the site would know the ethnic composition of the group's members, and I agree I wouldn't let them lead the revolution for many reasons. But this article tries to paint all of them as racists or something, and I must say that is completely false. Bob Avakian may have a bit of an ego, but here are the words of a well-known RCP member, Sunsara Taylor in her blogger profile.

Sunsara Taylor has emerged as an important leading voice of a new generation dusting off the dream of revolution and picking up communism as it is being creatively re-envisioned by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party. She fiercely believes humanity is capable of a morality flowing from principles which guide an ongoing struggle to uproot all vestiges of male supremacy, to promote and base ourselves on science and truth, to value people around the world as much as ourselves, to overcome the brutal history and present reality of racism, and to construct a whole better world in the process.

Severian

12th May 2005, 20:21

Originally posted by [email protected] 11 2005, 02:25 PM
There is a power structure and the white male is on top.
Abstraction. Which white males? Am I higher in the social system than Condoleeza Rice or some Black Coke exec?

Even though there was alot of white fighting for the rights of blacks, there was even alot more not fighting for the rights of blacks

Frankly, that could be said of a lot of Black people too, though the proportion of fighters was larger. And of course there are Black liberals who are just as phony in their fight against racism as white liberals, and Black nationalist groups who are just as pseudo-revolutionary as the RCP.

The plights of minorities will not be led by an all white organization ever.

I agree. So why call for far-left parties to become all-white and deal only with combating racism in the "white community"? It's unlikely that a group that followed this approach would remain militantly anti-racist; most likely it'd degenerate into white-guilt navel-gazing.

Let's be clear here, no Black nationalists or in this case, anarchists, would have a problem with the far-left parties if they were really all-white. They have a problem with 'em to the degree they're multi-racial parties which are part of antiracist struggles...and therefore competition for the Black nationalist groups. (Malcolm X was bigger than this petty crap though.)

In this case, anarchists frequently attack the RCP because they're both ultraleft, confrontation-oriented groups competing for the same recruits and, so to speak, ecological niche. In another example, Black nationalists have attacked the SWP...because it publishes Malcolm X's speeches. Which few of them have ever bothered to do.

Anyway, the real debate is separate all-Black, all-white, etc. parties vs a multinational working-class party. IMO all-Black (or all-other oppressed nationalities) groups have a role as mass organizations, but a revolutionary party can get past that. If its composed of the best elements of the working class, from all nationalities, the people who are prepared to fight against racism among other things.

Raisa

12th May 2005, 21:03

"Abstraction. Which white males? Am I higher in the social system than Condoleeza Rice or some Black Coke exec?"

Condoleeza Rice and Black Coke exec;s are exceptions to the rule.

Why do some other comrades try so hard to over look this shit?!
That shows a white bias in our own movement when even communists want to over look the racial siutations in society. That is why the black panthers had to do things they way they did them. That right there is why people cant have faith in a movement led by a bunch of white people.

In order for condoleeza rice to be where she is, she is working behind a white man who only works basically for the interests of other wealthy white men. Sure you can suceed if you play along. And sure, a proliterian can suceed as long as he forgets where he is from. This is simple shit, people....

Minorities can suceed in America. What is your point? Alot of times they will suceed on white terms only.

Severian

12th May 2005, 21:38

Depends what you mean. Yes, on average more Black people are workers and fewer are bosses. No, Rice and others are not just individual exceptions; there is a layer of Black exploiters. A growing layer, even as conditions get worse for Black working people. The U.S. government serves their class interests; they have more in common with white capitalists than with Black workers....just as white workers have more in common with Black workers than with white capitalists.

Are they suceeding "on white terms"? Only if you define capitalism as inherently white, which is circular reasoning. They are succeeding on capitalist terms.

My intent is not to deny that national oppression is real; but to point out that class is more fundamental.

Abstractions about "the white man" serve to cover up the class divisions.

workersunity

12th May 2005, 22:57

fuck the rcp and bob avakian, they are so daaamnn paranoid, oh look theres a revisionist kill him. its all bullshit, i dont know about the whites from any class is true but if it is, that is bullshit, and fuck them they arent communists, they are bourgeois socialists, avakian having went to berkely and it doesnt seem to diverse. and check their front page, it says "Our leader is Bob Avakian" Communists dont have leaders, they are fucking stupid.

Eastside Revolt

13th May 2005, 19:56

Originally posted by Black [email protected] 11 2005, 06:55 PM
It's easy for a white activist to identify as a communist etc. and not as a white communist or even to include 'white' as a part of their own identity, because their 'whiteness' is rarely challenged and carries little to no significant stigma in society.

I can tell you from experience as a man of european decent that this statement is utter bullshit.

It seems the only time that white people ever want to consider me "white" (or equal) is when I express concern for the issues of other ethnicities(edit: and even then they say I should shut my mouth because I'm "white"). Otherwise I'm just a "wigger", who's views deserve no consideration.

bolshevik butcher

13th May 2005, 21:56

We're communists, we are all untied in the same class struggle.

shadows

13th May 2005, 22:22

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2005, 07:21 PM
If its composed of the best elements of the working class, from all nationalities, the people who are prepared to fight against racism among other things.
It's important to recognize the centrality of the struggle for revolutionary integration and of the African-American component of the U.S. working class. Revolutionary communist parties must represent the entire class, and fighting for Black liberation benefits the entire class, white, Black, et al. Only socialist revolution is able to bring true equality and justice.

flyby

18th May 2005, 21:29

brief introduction by flyby
Guerillablack posted the piece by Greg Jackson, and recommended it.

I am posting here an answer to Greg Jackson, by an RCP supporter called Naxalite.

It is useful to "compare and contrast" Jackson's method and the answer by Naxalite, an RCP supporter.

repost beginns here:
---------------------------------------------------------

My 2 cents on old lies
An Answer to Greg Jackson's MWLV
by naxalite
(originally posted on 2changetheworld.info)

I hope to be relatively brief, mainly because I don't want to waste our discussion or bandwidth on this.

The charges raised by Greg Jackson in " Mythology of the White-Led Vanguard" (MWLV) are literally "old news" -- both because they deal with twenty and thirty-year-old events, and also because have been refuted many times.

************************************************** ***
Basic Thesis 1

MWLV makes a basic charge: "these fools and con artists [meaning the RCP, you get the tone!] are disruptive to any real campaign designed to help people… they are incapable today of organizing anything on their own of substance due to a distinct lack of social skills and a deep down dislike and distrust of poor people of all colors; which is self-evident to anyone who has spent any time around them."

All I can say is that every word here is ridiculous.

The history of the RCP (which I won't even pretend to sum up) is a rich, exciting, impressive history of organizing the peole for struggle and revolution.

This is a party based on huge and lofty conficence in the "poor people of all colors" .

This is a group that is serious about radical change -- with a plan and a leadership focused on making real change in the world. And THAT is what is "self-evident to anyone who has spent any time around them."

************************************************** **********
Basic Thesis 2

MWLV's main thesis comes out when it tries to distort the experience of the 1980s antiwar organization No Business As Usual. This was a effective innovative radical youth movement of resistance during the Reagan years of Cold War.

Everything in the MWLV summation of NBAU is upside down. And lots of it is simply made up. (MWLV simply INVENTS a supposed split in the RCP: "Within the RCP there existed two warring groups: the pro-NBAU side… and the anti-NBAU people...")

MWLV tries to invent persecution of anti-authoritiarian forces in NBAU -- when this was, in fact, a rich experience of unity and common action.

But, if you read it closely, the line of MWLV's attack is revealingly rightist: the RCP is accused pubishing an article on armed revolution and of recruiting people who want to become communists. Hmmmmm. Where is the crime here?

And then the fundamental thesis of MWLV comes out: "Ultimately, the fundamental point of conflict between the two groups [[I.e. anti-authoritarian forces and maoists]] is one that has haunted humanity since time began."

To the author of MWLV the differences between communists and other forces are "fundamental" -- in fact reach back into the beginning of time (!!)

Unity (according to MWLV) is impossible and undesirable. Division and conflict is inevitable and desirable.

In fact, the history of this RCP (and of the larger struggle) shows exactly the opposite: that it is possible to do revolutionary work and also have principled unity to build resistance. It is possible to have both unity and struggle -- to form coalitions even while important debates also need to take place over overall goals and "road."

************************************************** *********

Distortion: On Militancy

MWLV, after a discussion of the Weatherman faction in the SDS leadership writes: "Bob Avakian, then chairman of the Revolutionary Union, argued that the actions of SDS’s central leadership were “adventuristic” and “suicidal”… It’s interesting that almost 20 years later, the very street fighting they called the Weathermen “adventurist” for, is now advocated by current RCP members."

This is exactly wrong factually. Within SDS (in1969) Avakian argued against a split with Weatherman (for all their mistakes). And (need we say?) Avakian never denounced street-fighting.

In fact, Avakian's stand brought RU forces into conflict with Michael Klonsky (future leader of the October League) who was the one making rightist and social-pacifist attacks on weatherman.

In other words, the arguments MWLV attributes to Avakian are actually the position he opposed in the debates within the Revolutionary Youth Movement 2 debates in SDS.

What Avakian opposed as "revolutionary adventurism" were proposals (made after the breakup of SDS, within many groups including the Panthers and the RU itself) to move the movement onto a war footing with the system: i.e. to engage in campaigns of military actions under conditions when a war could not be won.

Avakian rejected this, and the correctness of his approach was shown by the quick isolation and irrelevancy of the Venceremos organization and the "Weather Underground."

The RU never opposed street militancy (in fighting the war in Vietnam and in the urban rebellions, in later movements including the struggles over globalization) -- anyone who knows anything about the RU (and the later RCP) is that their position on that has been consistent.

************************************************** **********

Distortion: On Organizing the Working Class

MWLV writes that: "Avakian and the RU maintained that only the industrial workers could be the basis of revolutionary struggle... the RCP of today now claims that the backbone of a revolutionary struggle in the US will be those “with nothing to lose but their chains”; meaning not only poor people of color, but also whites of any class background... [After 1974] The newly formed Revolutionary Communist party, USA had claimed in their literature that by this time they had made significant gains in support from unionized industrial labor, yet in reality what occurred was that former student members of the RU had gotten jobs at factories… "

Half truths pieced together to make lies.

The RU (and Avakian) argued that it would greatly strengthen and radicalize the social movements of the 60s (the antiwar and Black liberation and women's liberation movements) if the multinational proletariat developed a powerful role, with its own voice, in its own historic interests.

To go from resistance to real possibility of revolution, they argued for spreading radicalism from campuses into working class communities, and from the powerful storm centers of the Black ghettoes into other sections of the working class. And they went to work doing just that!

This was a correct and revolutionary thing to do. And (without repeating the RCP's own detailed summations of these years) the experience was rich -- both in the struggles the Revolutionary Communists led among the workers of this period, in the process of forging a real party with deep roots and in the lessons they learned from this.

Through experience and internal line struggle, the RCP summed up the importance of going "lower and deeper" in the working class, and being rooted in those sections of the working class that truly "have nothing to do but their chains."

It is hard to imagine learning this, deeply, without a process of actual experience.

Deepening its understanding of the class structure and class struggle in the U.S. -- through both practice and internal debate -- is part of the maturation of a real revolutionary party.

Let me just ask a basic question: Isn't it an important and positive thing for revolutionaries to seek to win over white working people to opposing racism and the system itself? Isn't it a good thing, for the liberation of African American people and people all over the world, if revolutionary forces seriously do revolutionary work among all the nationalities of the working class in the U.S.?

Continued in the next post...

flyby

18th May 2005, 21:31

continued from last post

Distortion: The Bogus Charge of "White Led"

MWLV argues that multinational organizations are "white" organizations. Much has been said here in 2changetheworld about this issue -- about Bundism and Identity Politics.

There has long been a view, among radical nationalists in the U.S. that each nationality should have its own party, and that a loose coalition of such parties can lead social change. Maoists have argued that this is not practical or necessary -- in a multinational country, with a multinational proletariat, and need for a single revolutionary process, it is important to develop a single revolutoinary party to represent the communist approach and programme.

That debate will goes on. However, that debate is very different from MWLV's divisive method -- which is just dismmissive namecalling.

When the RCP, a multinational revolutonary communist party, is called a "white" or a "white-led" organization -- I can only ask, "and what are the Black members and leaders of the RCP? Bystanders?! And what about Asian and Latino members and leaders? Etc.

The twenty-year-old article "Second Harvest" is brought up. I won't waste time on this except to point out three simple facts:

1) The RCP published its own detailed criticism of this article shortly after "Second Harvest" appeared -- twenty years ago! Read their criticism of this article.

2) The RCP has a long and firm history of supporting the national liberation struggles of Native American people -- going back decades, and including standing with the Mohawk uprising in Quebec and important strugles in many other areas.

3) In addition, the RCP has elaborated its view on the liberation of Native American peoples in its new Draft Programme and that speaks for itself.

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Distortion: Rumor and Unverified "Incidents"

There are a bunch of "incident" stories in MWLV -- which as others have pointed out -- are sketchy on many levels... unverifiable or distorted (probably both).

Let me just touch on one important one: the MWLV disses the prominent role the RCP played in some important struggles in New York's Lower East Side -- for the demands of homeless people and in defense of the radical community that was under assault there.

The RCP supporters were involved in taking over a building as a base area of the struggle, and in the militant defense of Tomkin Square Park.

Typically, MWLV paints everything the RCP did as sisnister, ignores the real unity that developed in this struggle and in the streets -- and also MWLV (typically) doesn't even address some of the important line issues that arose within that movement.

Among these issues: the RCP argued that the struggle should target the "main enemy" (i.e. the capitalist interests running New York and the society) and should seek to connect up with homeless struggles throughout the city. Meanwhile, some (hardly all) anarchist forces wanted to make the middle class forces being moved into the Lower East Side into the main target of the struggle. (You could call this the "die yuppie scum" controversy -- with the RCP opposing that approach of pointing the spearhead of struggle at the middle forces.)

I'm not gonna waste time on shameful charges: In one paragraph, MWLV writes "Some activists have claimed that RCP members are police provocateurs…." Later it suggests comparing the writings of Bob Avakian to Hitler(!!). This method speaks for itself.

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An Anti-Communist Attack on Radical Coalitions

MWLV writes: "During the War in the Persian Gulf, the RCP’s front organization Stop the US War Machine Action Network was expelled from coalition after coalition all across the country for repeated attempts at imposing the party’s ideological line and slogans." This is, typically, not true. Different coalitions formed in different cities around different lines. There were different lines between the different coalitions, and some lively necessary debate over approach. One important controversy was over firmly opposing the war -- with some coalitions supporting the Democratic Party-line of endorsing military embargo, and also with some forces falling into a trap of claiming to "support the troops" when the fighing broke out.

MWLV denies these issues of line, protrays important debates as empty power struggles -- while in fact, the point of this account is to promote divisiveness.

On a larger point of line: The use of the words "front organization" throughout MWLV needs to be called out. This term is a hallmark of anticommunism -- used by the rightwing over decades (starting in the 1920s). The red-baiting of calling something "a communist front organization" is used for isolating revolutionaries and creating division within progressive movements. It is literally the language of McCarthyism, and assumes the false and paranoid logic of McCarthyism.

That anticommunist "logic" is: If communists are involved in a coalition etc. the group as a whole is accused of being "their front" -- i.e. Any organization or coalition that includes communists is a "communist front organization." The proof that something is a "front organization" is simply contamination -- that open communists are involved, or that communists help found it, or that communists help lead it, or that communist newspapers report favorably on it etc. If something is labelled a "front organization" it is a charge that this can't be a real democratic organization with a decision-making process and life of its own. Any non-communists are baited as "commie dupes" simply for participating in such "front organization" -- the assumption is that they can't be influencing the coalition, they can't be sincerely fighting for a just cause. And the real-world basis of unity of the coalition is said to be just a cover for the "hidden agenda" of the communists.

Virtually every major progressive movement in U.S. history has been accused of being a "front organization" for communists -- the National Lawyers Guild, the antiwar movement in Vietnam, the civil rights movement in the 60s, the trade union movement in the thirties -- and more recently coalitions and organizations involving supporters of the RCP. This whole thing of redbating various organizations -- who does THAT serve?

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The MWLV ends with the following words: "I could very easily go on and on, but I think its best to stop here and let the reader decide if what i say is true."

This is exactly how I feel about the lies in MWLV. And I will just repeat those words: "I could very easily go on and on, but I think its best to stop here and let the reader decide if what i say is true

flyby

18th May 2005, 21:37

The previous two posts were an answer to Greg Jackson's piece.

i hope you took the time to read both greg jackson's piece, and the answer i have posted here.

(This piece by Greg Jackson gets posted and reposted on the internet by people who are hostile to communism and the RCP. I want to urge everyone to post Naxalite's answer "My 2 Cents on Old Lies" wherever Jackson's piece appears.)

The use of crude and dishonest attacks is not just something that happened in the past -- it is something that will happen at every stage of our revolutionary struggle. And it is important to train ourselves to see through the bullshit.

romanm

19th May 2005, 02:18

For people interested in exploring this question in a deeper way. I recommend taking a look at Harry Haywood's book _Black Bolshevik_ and also John Sakai's _Settlers: the mythology of the white proletariat_.

Severian

19th May 2005, 10:27

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2005, 02:31 PM
The use of the words "front organization" throughout MWLV needs to be called out.
I criticized "MWLV", as this post calls it, on a number of points, primarily its race-baiting as a substitute for principled debate.

The use of "front group", however, is sometimes accurate and not necessarily McCarthyist.

This usually refers to another group which is organizationally controlled by a party, often including few people beyond that party's members and sympathizers. Essentially, another name for a party to operate behind. A distinguishing mark is that members of competing tendencies are excluded, while actual coalitions usually involve representatives from different left tendencies, as well as unaffiliated people and other organizations.

You don't have to be a McCarthyist to want to be able to see behind these fronts...you just have to want to know what's actually going on.

The best-known example of this approach is Workers World...indeed it's so good at it, that it's fronts become more than just fronts, with sizable other forces involved. Groups like IAC and ANSWER remain organizationally controlled by Workers World, however...to the point where a recent split in Workers World led to a coalition semi-split, with ANSWER run by the split-off faction and Workers World now mostly promoting IAC instead.

The CPUSA once had legions of different front groups, often involving no significant new forces...basically just a way of putting a liberal face on. And sometimes a way of packing conventions of broader groups.

Back to the subject at hand, the RCP...it's not real heavy on 'em, but it's not above the use of front groups at times. Refuse and Resist might arguably be classified as an RCP front, for example. It does seem to attract some other young people beyond the RCP's periphery. But it certainly is organizationally controlled by the RCP.

redwinter

21st May 2005, 00:43

Well I can't speak for other groups, because I'm not as familiar with the way they work, but I'm pretty sure that Refuse and Resist is not controlled by the RCP. You can find the organizational structure of R&R on their website, and sure enough, there are RCP supporters and members (like C. Clark Kissinger) that work with the organization, but many people in R&R who are not RCP supporters, including (if you look on their website at the leadership) those who lead the organization.

I'm interested in knowing how you came to the "certain" conclusion that the RCP controls R&R, and why any time communists work with other people in broad based organizations the organizations are labeled "front groups" for communism.

1949

25th May 2005, 04:34

A guest poster posted the following on AWIP today. I'm reproducing it here because I think it has some relevance.

"...this piece is decades old at this point - and from what I understand, Jackson has since somewhat recanted his criticisms of the RCP, and spoken to how the party supported him during a trial he had.

"The refutation that flyby posted was really good. There are other incidents alleged in that or another piece by Jackson, including about how sometime in the 90s, I believe, that the RCP marched into the Black community where they supposedly had no base. I know from personal experience that the Party had been doing political work in that area for decades at that point -- and definitely had strong ties.

"On a persoanl note, I know that neighborhood, I went to school there, and had lots of friends there."

I also think it would be valuable to reproduce something else from AWIP, which Flyby wrote a few months ago. It deals with some of the issues with Native Americans which are brought up in that nasty Jackson article, in more depth than the refutation by Naxalite:

"There has been a trend (after the decline of the 60s movement) for a resurgence of "traditionalism" among Native People (including among many who had been quite radical in the AIM movement.)

"Now "traditionalism" was a major departure from the revolutionary nationalism of AIM (which, as its name suggests, was a movement that crossed "tribal" lines, and focused on a common struggle).

"Traditionalism, as a movement, has often raised the central goal of Native people as reclaiming and returning to their "traditional" culture, and their "traditional ways." And this has, in many ways, been counterposed (directly and openly) to a common revolutionary movement in the U.S., to overthrow capitalism, take the communist road, and (as a key part of that process) liberate the many oppressed nationalities within the U.S. from the racist treatment they have suffered.

"At one point, Russel Means (a once prominent leader of AIM) published a work attacking marxism as a european ideology, called "Same Old Song." He insisted that from the traditionalist point of view there was essentially no difference between communists and capitalists .

""Now let's suppose that in our resistance to extermination we begin to seek allies (we have). Let's suppose further that were to take revolutionary Marxism at its word: that it intends nothing less than the complete overthrow of the European capitalist order which has presented this threat to our very existence. This would seem to be a natural alliance for American Indian people to make. After all, as the Marxists say, it is the capitalists who set us up to be a national sacrifice. This is true as far as it goes.

""But, as I've tried to point out, this 'truth' is very deceptive. Look beneath the surface of revolutionary Marxism and what do you find? A commitment to reversing the industrial system which created the need of white society for uranium? No. A commitment to guaranteeing the Lakota and other American Indian peoples real control over the land and resources they have left? No, not unless the industrial process is to be reversed as part of their doctrine. A commitment to our rights, as peoples, to maintaining our values and traditions? No, as long as they need the uranium within our land to feed the industrial system of the society, the culture of which the Marxists ARE STILL A PART."

"This view accompanied a profound political disorientation -- so that Means became notorious for opposing the Sandinista government of Nicaragua (at the same time the Reagan backed Contra deathsquads were waging a war of destabilization.)

"Now there are a lot of things one can say about Means' arguments (for example, the RCP opposes the continued military use of uranium under socialism.)

"At the time, a polemic was written in the RW, that argued that it was not possible to return to "traditional ways of life" -- that hunting and gathering society was not superior to socialism. And that you can't return to the "traditional" ideas in any full systematic way, if the material base of society was not also traditional. It argued for a joint struggle for socialism, and for a socialism within which Native people would have autonomy, and where the progressive aspects of their culture would flourish.

"In the course of that polemic, the authors pointed out how hard traditional hunting and gathering societies had been (short lives, starvation, intense and constant warfare between peoples). And as a symbol of that scarcity, they mentioned that archeological digs had shown that some native peoples stored their shit in caves so that in times of starvation they could recover corn kernals and survive. This practice highlights how intense and difficult life is when humans live without agriculture and can't store a surplus for hard times.

"When this article appeared, it was immediately criticized by the RCP leadership. Because the use of "second harvest" as a metaphor could be seen as insulting to native cultures, and also because the piece in question had a mechanical approach to viewing pre-capitalist societies.

"A critical article appeared in the RW describing what the RCP saw was wrong in the Second harvest article.

"There was an ongoing controversy about this, because Ward Churchill edited a book (called "Marxism and Native Americans") where he reprinted the original "Second Harvest" article, and treated it as a concentration of the RCP's line on native people. He did not (at the time) mention that this piece had (in fact) been repudiated by the RCP. And, even after this was pointed out to him, he has allowed the book to be reprinted -- without including the RCP's repudiation of that article, or even mentioning that (in fact) the article does not (and did not) represent the RCP's actual position on these matters.

"That in a nutshell is the controversy.

"It is also worth pointing out, that these issues were at the heart of an exchange between Bob Avakian and Bill martin.

" http://rwor.org/a/1267/avakian-martin-part3.htm

"In particular, Chairman Avakian takes up a critique of the views within marxism that (in a mechanical way) saw capitalism as an advance over hunter-gathering, and even thought of the advance of capitalism as a one-sidely positive thing because it represented the advance toward communism.

"I won't try to condense or characterize the discussion -- but I think it is worth digging into it. Especially if you want a sense of what the RCP really thinks about these matters."

1949

14th June 2005, 22:47

Originally posted by Severian+May 12 2005, 11:21 AM--> (Severian @ May 12 2005, 11:21 AM)
[email protected] 11 2005, 02:25 PM
There is a power structure and the white male is on top.
Abstraction. Which white males? Am I higher in the social system than Condoleeza Rice or some Black Coke exec? [/b]
I'd be curious to know what your definition of a nation is.

Stalin, in his monumental 1912 work Marxism and the National Question, defined a nation as “a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.” (full work available online at: http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/MNQ12.html)

The modern MLM definition, which is based fairly closely on what Stalin elucidates (hope that's the right word for what I'm trying to say) in the above-mentioned quote and work, says nothing about genetics. So I believe it is perfectly possible for someone in the U.S. who is genetically descended from Africans to move out of the African-American nation if they lack one or more of the four features of the nation--and even join the European-American nation (and its imperialist bourgeoisie) if they possess all four features of that nation. I believe this is the case with Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell and Black executives in imperialist corporations like Coca Cola.

I don't think it is quite correct to say, as Guerilla Black does, that "There is a power structure and the white male is on top," because that lays too much emphasis on individuals and not on nations, genders and classes as a whole. It is fundamentally the European-Americans as a nation who dominate this country and enforce national oppression over Blacks, Chicanos, Native Americans, etcetera. It is fundamentally males as a gender who dominate this country and enforce the oppression of women. And it is fundamentally the imperialist bourgeoisie as a class that dominates this country and enforces exploitation of the proletariat and other oppressed masses.

I hope this is not too jumbled; these are just some spontaneous thoughts that came to my mind yesterday when I was reminded of your (Severian's) remark on Condi Rice. It's not by any means a complete bundle of ideas. What do you think?

Severian

15th June 2005, 09:39

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2005, 03:47 PM
I'd be curious to know what your definition of a nation is.

Stalin, in his monumental 1912 work Marxism and the National Question, defined a nation as “a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.” (full work available online at: http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/MNQ12.html)

That's good I reckon; is that the article that was written under Lenin's close supervision?

Black people are a nationality not a nation however; there's no defined territory or area where they're a majority. (Contrast with Quebec.)

So I believe it is perfectly possible for someone in the U.S. who is genetically descended from Africans to move out of the African-American nation if they lack one or more of the four features of the nation--and even join the European-American nation (and its imperialist bourgeoisie) if they possess all four features of that nation. I believe this is the case with Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell and Black executives in imperialist corporations like Coca Cola.

Oh get real. Black people cannot become white (or colorless, if they left one group without joining the other?) in America today. Maybe Rice, Powell, etc, would like to, I don't know. But they can't.

As Malcolm X said, "What does a white racist call a Black Ph.D?" "N****r." The folk wisdom in the Black community on this question is accurate I think: "no matter what you do, you will always be a n*****."

It is not even like Brazil or someplace where there are many gradations of socially constructed race. Powell could be mulatto or something if it was. But this is the USA, which has the one-drop rule. Which is socially constructed, not genetic. He's Black. I don't know that he's even lacking Black culture or whatever. (He's certainly not lacking the common language of the Black nationality...that's English. Please don't tell me you believe in Ebonics.) That hasn't stopped him from joining the imperialist bourgeoisie, which is partly a change from the past. But it does stop him from being white.

Why the desire to prove the U.S. ruling class is mono-national? Many ruling classes in the world aren't. There were Black (or mulatto, anyway) slaveowners and Black overseers. Why can't there be a Black capitalist?

Are you sure white is a nation, BTW? Isn't it more of a catchall category, melting together various European nationalities, defined by non-membership in the oppressed Black, Chicano, etc. nationalities? There's been a bunch of "whiteness studies" by people like Noel Ignatieff which is interesting on this. And who says "European-American", other than Patrick Buchanan?

If you're interested in these questions, you might find "Leon Trotsky on Black nationalism and self-determination" interesting. It's...prescient.

It is fundamentally the European-Americans as a nation who dominate this country and enforce national oppression over Blacks, Chicanos, Native Americans, etcetera. It is fundamentally males as a gender who dominate this country and enforce the oppression of women. And it is fundamentally the imperialist bourgeoisie as a class that dominates this country and enforces exploitation of the proletariat and other oppressed masses.

No, it is the capitalist class and their state and their system which is responsible for racist and sexist oppression, as well as class exploitation. "Whites" in general or "males" in general, are not the enemy. White workers do not benefit from racism or male workers from sexism - though there are material reasons why some think so. But those divisions run totally counter to our fundamental class interests, which demand unity. Which can only be achieved by fighting for the oppressed.

The opposite approach - whites and males are the oppressors - pits every sector of the oppressed and exploited against every other, argues that every sector must wage a struggle against the others as well as against the ruling class. It's the identity politics approach, which has led to so much navel-gazing, infighting, and race-baiting (that is, unfounded accusations of racism as a political weapon; or labelling political positions "racist" as a substitute for refuting them.)

It's interesting to note on this, that none of the RCP responses in this thread have opposed race-baiting on principle. That's a particularly glaring admission since the RCP was in a sense founded on race-baiting. (That is, in the split in SDS, the faction ancestral to the RCP made a lot of hay out of accusing PL of racism, because of PL's failure to endorse Black nationalism. The headline in (their faction's) New Left Notes announcing the split read "Convention expels racist PL" or something very close to that.)

Naturally the RCP doesn't like being accused of racism itself, as in the article linked at the beginning of this thread. But does it have any principled opposition to such attacks against others?

1949

16th June 2005, 04:05

First of all, I think you are partially right about the last thing from my post that you quote. As I concluded my post saying, it was a bit muddled and spontaneous. My effort was not to prove that white proletarians were somehow enemies of Black proletarians, but merely that they, regardless of how exploited and oppressed they are, benefit in certain ways that Black proletarians don't. You say "White workers do not benefit from racism or male workers from sexism", but in the very same sentence go on to say "though there are material reasons why some think so"--implying the exact opposite of what you previously said (that whites and males are slightly materially better off than non-whites and females). When you say the first part of that sentence, are you merely trying to say that white and/or male workers are not free from being exploited? Because if so, I am in complete agreement with that.

Second of all, you might be right that "white American" is not a nation. I haven't really studied the national question in the U.S. as sufficiently as I should have before making posts like that. Also, I was not aware that "European-American" is only used by extreme reactionaries. I just figured it sounded more scientific than "white", and I was using the similar term "African-American," so why not say it?

Third, I do not know if Marxism and the National Question was written under Lenin's supervision or not. I do seem to remember Lenin having said somewhere that it was the greatest Social-Democratic work on the national question he had read.

Fourth, I think Flyby and I made some very principled denunciations of reactionary forms of nationalism in this thread (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=35064). You shouldn't try to act as if my line is a concentration of the official RCP line, though; I am not an RCP member, and I am much younger and less exerienced than Flyby, who probably better represents the RCP line (though he/she is probably not a member, either). Also, I made a good post in the CC yesterday about why you can't just take the exact same approach to oppressed nations and oppressed nationalities race-baiting whites that you take to the opposite of that. I might reproduce some of that later.

I'm not really satisfied with what I wrote previously. I don't really know how to defend my own thesis that "Americans genetically descended from Africans can potentially join the white American nation", so I shall retract it for now. I hope Flyby comes around soon and chimes in with some more enlightened ideas on this.

romanm

16th June 2005, 04:58

Check out John Sakai's book _Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat_.. it is must reading for anyone seriously trying to make revolution.. Also MIM in my sig..

Revolutionaries in Amerikkka are "behind enemy lines" like the DP song says..

Amerikkka is like NAZI Germany.. White Amerikkka is NOT a proletariat, it's not gonna make revolution. Revolution has to be imposed on Amerikkka by a joint dictatorship of the proletariat and oppressed nations!

Agitating on behalf of PIG Amerikkkans just does the spade work of fascism.. as Comrade Stalin would say..

shadows

16th June 2005, 08:23

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2005, 03:58 AM
Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat_

Amerikkka is like NAZI Germany.. White Amerikkka is NOT a proletariat

Comrade Stalin
Sakai, from what I recently read, refused MIM rights to his tome. Sakai's personal background was in the '70s/'80s urban armed struggles, derived from WUO factions. Divorce of the struggle from the masses is no virtue, and WUO certainly was separate from the masses. Then, as did splinter groups, to justify this divorce from the masses by calling U.S. workers bourgeois is anticommunist.

That the U.S. is somehow like Nazi Germany derogates the holocaust of the Jewish people and foreshortens one's perspective of struggle against real racism built into the U.S. power structure by blinding one to avenues of struggle still open to the masses.

Is Stalin a comrade, or a gravedigger of revolution? Wasn't it Stalin who forbade the German party from uniting with the Social Dem base to combat Hitler's ascendancy? Didn't this disarm the potential for struggle against Naziism?

romanm

16th June 2005, 10:11

Sakai has promised his book to another organization when he dies. MIM has distributed Sakai's book in the past (for free!) and highly recommends it. They have an online MIM Theory (pdf) that has their analysis of Sakai. MIM cnsiders Sakai-followers in the proletarian camp.

I don't really want to raise the issue of Sakai here, because the same issue is being discussed on another forum and in greater detail. If you are interested, you can check the links in my sig for the forum. Plus, an all out Sakai discussion would be off topic.

Severian

16th June 2005, 19:53

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2005, 09:05 PM
You say "White workers do not benefit from racism or male workers from sexism", but in the very same sentence go on to say "though there are material reasons why some think so"--implying the exact opposite of what you previously said (that whites and males are slightly materially better off than non-whites and females).
Relative privilege is not the same as absolute privilege. Of course relative privilege exists. But it is outweighed by exploitation, and the role of racism and sexism in intensifying class exploitation.

Workers, including white workers, are paid less in the southern U.S. than elsewhere. Why? It's an aftereffect of segregation and its role in weakening the labor movement. So clearly white workers did not benefit from Jim Crow. That's even more true of racism as a whole.

It can sometimes seem otherwise; because relative privilege can be defended by trying to exclude specially oppressed workers from sections of the labor market - as "SocialismIsCentrist" is arguing for in a thread on immigration right now. Wages in a skilled trade sometimes drop when women break into it. But this is ultimately a self-defeating strategy, even on its own terms. Maybe one could argue it benefits the labor aristocracy, but not most white workers.

Third, I do not know if Marxism and the National Question was written under Lenin's supervision or not.

OK, in any case, it was written when Stalin was a Bolshevik and expressing the party's line.

Fourth, I think Flyby and I made some very principled denunciations of reactionary forms of nationalism in this thread (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=35064).

I'm referring to something more specific here. What I said near the beginning of this thread: "The article as a whole is just race-baiting: this group of anarchists can't put together a serious critique of the RCP (Christ, it shouldn't be hard!) so they attack 'em for being mostly white."

It's just kinda peculiar that none of the RCP posters in this thread, not just you, said anything about such race-baiting being wrong in principle, not just when applied to the RCP. So I was curious if the RCP did have any position against it.

If you don't know, in a way that's an answer; that it's not a high priority, anyway, to educate against this destructive practice, which can render any rational discussion or thought impossible (if an opposing view is instantly demonized as racist).

red_orchestra

16th June 2005, 21:04

Not all Socialists are united in the spirit of Marxist Ideology...one needs to see the facts for what they are. South African Socialism started pretty much white only...no joking.

red_orchestra

16th June 2005, 21:04

If memory serves me well, in the late 20's in South Africa there were several Socialist movement which were "white only".
There slogan was:"Workers of the world, unite for a White South Africa". When more scholarly Marxists came from Eastern European countries that attitude vanished as it promoted racial disharmony and class discrimination.

flyby

17th June 2005, 01:16

Originally posted by Severian+Jun 16 2005, 06:53 PM--> (Severian @ Jun 16 2005, 06:53 PM)
[email protected] 15 2005, 09:05 PM
You say "White workers do not benefit from racism or male workers from sexism", but in the very same sentence go on to say "though there are material reasons why some think so"--implying the exact opposite of what you previously said (that whites and males are slightly materially better off than non-whites and females).
Relative privilege is not the same as absolute privilege. Of course relative privilege exists. But it is outweighed by exploitation, and the role of racism and sexism in intensifying class exploitation.

Workers, including white workers, are paid less in the southern U.S. than elsewhere. Why? It's an aftereffect of segregation and its role in weakening the labor movement. So clearly white workers did not benefit from Jim Crow. That's even more true of racism as a whole.

It can sometimes seem otherwise; because relative privilege can be defended by trying to exclude specially oppressed workers from sections of the labor market - as "SocialismIsCentrist" is arguing for in a thread on immigration right now. Wages in a skilled trade sometimes drop when women break into it. But this is ultimately a self-defeating strategy, even on its own terms. Maybe one could argue it benefits the labor aristocracy, but not most white workers.

Third, I do not know if Marxism and the National Question was written under Lenin's supervision or not.

OK, in any case, it was written when Stalin was a Bolshevik and expressing the party's line.

Fourth, I think Flyby and I made some very principled denunciations of reactionary forms of nationalism in this thread (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=35064).

I'm referring to something more specific here. What I said near the beginning of this thread: "The article as a whole is just race-baiting: this group of anarchists can't put together a serious critique of the RCP (Christ, it shouldn't be hard!) so they attack 'em for being mostly white."

It's just kinda peculiar that none of the RCP posters in this thread, not just you, said anything about such race-baiting being wrong in principle, not just when applied to the RCP. So I was curious if the RCP did have any position against it.

If you don't know, in a way that's an answer; that it's not a high priority, anyway, to educate against this destructive practice, which can render any rational discussion or thought impossible (if an opposing view is instantly demonized as racist). [/b]
i'd like to dig into this.

on a couple of levels:

first, i think when discussing various ideologies around the national question it is important to be rather precise.

For example, the conservatives have allkinds of knee jerk responses about "oh, you are just using the race card." Etc. You guys know what i'm talking about.

And so, when we criticize nationalist views (even rather hostile, petty and reactionary nationalist views) that are rooted among Black people -- it is important to be clear about what we are saying and not saying.

I agree that Greg Jackson's remarks can be boiled down you "You fucks are just a bunch of white guys." And (since there are all kinds of chicano, asian, Black, arab, puerto rican, etc comrades among the RCP) these kind of nationalist arguments have to pretend that those other comrades don't exist, or are flunkies for a "white led" group or whatever.

And i think it needs to be unraveled and criticized. Such views are rather influential (unfortunately) -- even while they are (once you strip them down) a rather moronic mix of white baiting and anecdotes.

Then onto some other questions:

I think the question of privilege is complex. Clearly white workers are exploited. And i think that it is true (if controversial) that Black proletarians have more in common with white proletarians than they do with the Black bourgeoisie. And bringing that out, in a living way, and creating a powerful revolutionary and antiracist force among white proletarians would be a huge contribution to the overall revolutionary struggle and preparations.

On the other hand, interests are complex. Did white workers "benefit" from Jim Crow? Well on one level (a fundamental level), no, they didn't. The divisions and ideologies of Jim Crow were fundamental for all workers staying under wage slavery. On another level (a more petty and immediate level) there were all kinds of "benefits" and privileges that were real -- access to jobs, resources etc. withinthe overall context of the existing system (both the plantation system and the larger capitalist framework).

I think people (including classes) don't simply have "interests" that are cut-and-dry and simple. They have contradictory interests -- they have higher and historic interests of making revolutin together, but they also have the lower and meaner interests that arise from what capitalism makes of us, sellers of our labor power in a market where our own brothers and sisters are "competing" objectively.

So there are complexities to interests. And it is not like reactionary ideas SIMPLY arise from "false consciousness" -- they often arise from that complex interplay that capitalism imposes on people struggling to survive in a dog-eat-dog world.

Third point:

Overall, the Bolshevik approach to nations, nationality and self-determination is an important basis for communist thinking. Stalin's work is very important, in its methods and points. But at the same time, we don't want to crudely take "formulas" and treat them as formulas -- or even correct marxist analysis becomes its opposite (dogma).

In particular, the RCP thinks that Stalin's approach (which was lenin's approach too) is overall correct. But that there is a particularly to the Black nation.

It developed, as a nation, in the Black Belt south (where it has a historically developed community of people with a common culture, language, economy, and territory.) Black people were then dispersed. But not assimilated.

It is the estimation of the RCP that this (still relatively recent) dispersal has not destroyed the existance of a Black nation. And that (in particular) the possibility of national self-deterimation (including independence in the Black Belt) cannot be simply ruled out as a possibility -- and as a possible demand among Black people as a road to the resolution of their oppression.

Revolutionary communists generally think that it would be preferable (for the larger proletarian revolution, and also for the chances of successfully ending the oppression of Black people) to form a revolutionary movement to overthrow imperialism and build a single socialist state on as large-a-territory-as-possible in the former U.S. But the essense of saying "Black people still form a nation in the U.S. today" is the view that it is not inconceivable that Black people could (under extordinary and perhaps still-unforseen circumstances) fight for the formation of an independent state on their former national territory.

And this approach has important implications and consequences.

flyby

17th June 2005, 01:26

on this point:

The national question within the U.S. is rather complex.
It is broken down in some detail here in the Draft Programme of the Revolutionary Communist Party (http://rwor.org/margorp/a-nat.htm)

But just to throw out some things:

Over the existance of the U.S., immigrants and settlers from Europe were forged into a dominant euro-american nation. It is dominant (an oppressor nation) in a way loosely analogous to the way the Russian nation was the dominator nation within its empire. This does not mean that there are not oppressed people who are white.

In fact, in a structure marked by different nations and nationalities, and marked by national oppression for many people in the U.S., there is also (objectively) a single multinational working class within the U.S. (with common and historic interests in making revolution in the service of the people of the world, and fighting forward toward a global communist society).

That is part of the complexity of it all. And the complexity of U.S> history, and its present.

Puerto Rico forms an oppressed nation -- oppressed as a colony by the u.s. under the mascarade of "commonwealth" and U.S> citizenship.

Black people form an oppressed nation, but one that has always been internal to the U.S. social formation (and not been a colony in the sense of Puerto Rico).

Chicano and Mexicano people form a large and important oppressed nationality, but has never been forged into a single nation (within the U.S.) in the same sense that Black people were (though Mexican poeple, obviously, form a nation in Mexico).

And all of these things have an impact on how the revolution is build, on how revolution ends the intense and intolerable oppression of these nationalities, and how the unity of the revolutionary people will be forged under proletarian leadership.

there is more, but i will leave it there for now.

1949

17th June 2005, 01:42

Flyby, I am curious: do you think I was correct in my original thesis that it is possible for Americans genetically descended from Africans to leave the Black nation in the U.S., and perhaps even join the white nation?

I was sort of pushed towards that idea by some RCP documents (including works by Bob Avakian himself) I read that suggested it was possible to unite with the Black bourgeoisie. I sort of figured, "If that is true, then this "Black bourgeoisie" is probably not the same bourgeoisie which Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice are a part of." I also thought I saw a post by Kasama at AWIP a long time ago that hinted that Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice were part of the white nation.

flyby

17th June 2005, 02:34

Originally posted by [email protected] 17 2005, 12:42 AM
Flyby, I am curious: do you think I was correct in my original thesis that it is possible for Americans genetically descended from Africans to leave the Black nation in the U.S., and perhaps even join the white nation?

I was sort of pushed towards that idea by some RCP documents (including works by Bob Avakian himself) I read that suggested it was possible to unite with the Black bourgeoisie. I sort of figured, "If that is true, then this "Black bourgeoisie" is probably not the same bourgeoisie which Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice are a part of." I also thought I saw a post by Kasama at AWIP a long time ago that hinted that Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice were part of the white nation.
well let me deal with each of these points:

first, there has always been a section of Black people who started to "pass" and became part of the white nation. Black people in the U.S. are a people developed out of mixed european, indian and African ancestry (mainly descended from kidnapped Africans, but with a grim and bitter history of rape by slave owners, and then also a history of intermarriage of many kinds).

So there are Black people who "pass as white" and this has always been a whole phenom.

But black people who become middle class are not "becoming white." They are still part of the Black nation, and still suffer national oppression (which also influences their consciousness, political activity and potential).

Colin Powel is a descendent of recent Jamaican immigrants -- so in many ways he is not part of that "community of people" who form the African-American nation or people. Though in racist America, all people with dark skin and african ancestry experience a lot of similar treatment and discrimination.

He is not part of the "black bourgeoisie" at all, but is a political representative of the U.S. imperialists (that is his class nature) -- the same is true of Con. Rice.

The Black bourgeoisie is a different class -- and refers to those forces that form the upper part of the Black nation, and (as a class) are often held down, dispersed and driven into bankrupsy by the larger U.S. ruling class (and then are sometimes propped up and financed by the U.S> ruling class, to serve as a buffer.)

There has been historically a Black bourgeoisie (centered in places like Atlanta, and then Chicago) where Black-owned newspapers, insurance companies, even manufacturers etc. existed. But often this class of Black capitalists is very small, very poor, and in the main only employes small numbers of people. In some cities the biggest Black businesses are funeral parlors and car dealerships -- which gives a sense of the weakness and fragility of this class. It has existed (in many ways) as an "aspiring Black bourgeoisie" -- that has had great difficulty actually "getting over" and has called on Black people to support those efforts ("Be Black, Buy Black!")

Severian

17th June 2005, 10:46

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2005, 02:04 PM
If memory serves me well, in the late 20's in South Africa there were several Socialist movement which were "white only".
There slogan was:"Workers of the world, unite for a White South Africa". When more scholarly Marxists came from Eastern European countries that attitude vanished as it promoted racial disharmony and class discrimination.
To a degree this kind of thing was true of the U.S. as well....pre-Russian Revolution. The reformist wing of the Socialist Party was outright racist. The revolutionary wing, like Debs, were not racist, but didn't think any special struggle against racism was needed either. They simply treated the "Negro worker" like any other worker, as if the problem of segregation and racist oppression could be postponed til socialism.

One of the Bolsheviks' great services to the world workers' movement was their policy on the national question. They had taken a strong policy of actively fighting all the national oppression in the tsar's empire - and there was a lot of it - in order to organize working people into united revolutionary action and a single communist party. Part of this policy was support to self-determination up til independence if a people wanted it.

So when revolutionaries around the world asked how the Bolsheviks had successfully led a revolution, part of the answer they got was, the revolutionary opposition to national oppression - including a policy of agitating for revolution in the colonies.

Even fire-eating anti-Leninists often show a great influence of Lenin's ideas in this respect.

Severian

17th June 2005, 11:17

Besides the traditional Black bourgeoisie, (http://www.salon.com/books/sneaks/1999/02/04sneaks.html) (some of whose businesses have actually been hurt by the end of Jim Crow, since they no longer have a captive market guaranteed by segregation), there's a growing layer of middle- and even upper-class Black people. They've been expanding for the last few decades precisely at a time when conditions of life for Black workers have gone down the toilet.

But they're not any less Black, and perhaps even less snobbishly (and skin-color consciously) disconnected from the Black masses, than the traditional Black bourgeoisie. Consider the guy who founded BET: it's a very traditional Black business in a way, targeted at a Black market, programming that's based in Black culture or a commercialized sterotypical version of it...then he sells it for $3 billion to Viacom and stays on as CEO.

flyby

18th June 2005, 17:21

I agree that one of the important phenomena of the last generation is the (artificial) creation and propping up of a professional stratum among Black people, and their separation (in many ways) from the masses of black people themselves.
And then all the contradictions of how that stratum is itself then "torn down" (or driven down) in so many ways by the system -- while the poverty of the "most poor" has been deepening (rapidly and radically). All of these are trends that are rarely discussed in the mass media and the official political arena -- but which are very important for revolutionary process (and revolutionary potential).

For people interested in some of the sharp trends of development it might be worth looking at this article written toward the end of the Clinton years: MAJOR TRANSITION AND UPHEAVAL--THE IMPACT ON BLACK PEOPLE (http://rwor.org/a/v19/910-19/910/baobj7.htm)

"I think it was James Baldwin who once said, if you are Black and conscious in America you go around in a constant state of rage..... if you are among the inner city core of people in particular, but even more broadly if you are part of Black people with their history in the U.S., there is a very strong perception--which has a great deal of reality to it--that every time it seems like you are getting anywhere by playing by the rules, they fucking change the rules...

"The masses of Black people were locked in the lowest jobs and in the segregated ghettos, and they still are. They have been systematically prevented, by force as well as everything else, from breaking out of this. And even those Black people who did attain "middle class" employment and income, could not escape segregation (including "re-segregation" in suburbs), discrimination, continual racist insults and attacks, and police brutality. (For Black people, possessing some of the "perks" of middle class life, such as a relatively expensive car, may well not mean prevention from attack by the police--but rather may be taken by the pigs as a "provocation" and an invitation for them to attack.)"

I also noticed that this article (written seven or more years ago) calls out the danger of intensifying religious bullshit including among the Black masses and underscores the importance of communism doing active atheist work among the people. (A situation and a need that has only intensived over the last five years!!)

also
I've been agonizing over the queston: How does revolution actually end the oppression of Black people and other oppressed nationalities? What perspectives, approaches, methods and understandings need to guide us (now, but also importantly AFTER the revolution?)

And I found this article, which I've been trying to dig into: After the Revolution: Dealing with "Racial Divisions" (http://rwor.org/a/v19/940-49/941/ask.htm)