Left communist on the Black Panthers

I know the Panthers were influenced by Maoism, and saw themselves as a 'vanguard.' But I'm still drawn to them because of their achievements and examples they set up (ie breakfast for children, free health clinics, armed struggle).
What do the left communist here make of the Panthers?

We see attempts to organise along racial lines as divisive to the working class, and completely reject ideologies like black nationalism. Objectively we see organisations like the BBP doing the bosses work in dividing the working class just as the KKK does.
Devrim

Ok yeah, that makes sense. And Black Nationalism is definitely my biggest problem with the Panthers.

However, what of their actions (ie breakfast for children, free health clinics, armed struggle). If these were to have been free of racialism, would left communist support what the Panthers did?
I know when I read the "10 Point Program" if you were to replace the word "black [people]" with "the [people]" I'd wholly agree with it.

Also where did left communist of the time stand in relation to the Panthers?

Thanks Devrim.

However, what of their actions (ie breakfast for children, free health clinics, armed struggle). If these were to have been free of racialism, would left communist support what the Panthers did?

It is a big 'if', isn't it? How would the IRA have been without Irish nationalism?

To try to answer your question, the communist left rejects what is termed 'armed struggle':

Terrorism is in no way a method of struggle for the working class. The expression of social strata with no historic future and of the decomposition of the petty bourgeoisie, when it’s not the direct expression of the permanent war between capitalist states, terrorism has always been a fertile soil for manipulation by the bourgeoisie. Advocating secret action by small minorities, it is in complete opposition to class violence, which derives from conscious and organised mass action by the proletariat.

The other things that you mention are a sort of social work. Activities similar to these are practised by many groups to a greater or lesser extent from anarchists in Ankara to Hezbollah in the Lebanon. They are not bad things in themselves, but neither are they a substitute for political activity.

I know when I read the "10 Point Program" if you were to replace the word "black [people]" with "the [people]" I'd wholly agree with it.

I have just read through that programme, and to me it seems very much like a Trotskyist transitional programme, something that they knew was unachievable in capitalism.

Also on another point, for us it is about the working class, not some amorphous mass called the 'people'.

Also where did left communist of the time stand in relation to the Panthers?

The same position, for more information you could contact the ICC in the US here:http://en.internationalism.org/contact

I believe that they still have some people who were around at the time, and probably could respond in more detail on America issues than I could.

Devrim

We see attempts to organise along racial lines as divisive to the working class, and completely reject ideologies like black nationalism. Objectively we see organisations like the BBP doing the bosses work in dividing the working class just as the KKK does.
Devrim

To be blunt comrade to compare the BBP with the KKK in terms of their role in society and relationship to the bourgeoisie is asinine, to say the least. Of course Black Nationalism should be rejected, but the BBP were not racist reactionaries like the KKK or Neo-Nazi groups. The fact that their politics emphasized Black identity was understandable given the communities they arose from and worked in. Racism and nationalism will certainly be consigned to the dustbin of history a long with the socio-economic model that perpetuates them, but I would like to think communism would strengthen and encourage cultural diversity amongst the peoples of the Earth.

I think that it should be noted that many of the leaders of the Black Panthers did eventually come to reject black nationalism.

"Our ten point program is in the midst of being changed right now, because we used the word 'white' when we should have used the word 'capitalist.'" - Fred Hampton

To be blunt comrade to compare the BBP with the KKK in terms of their role in society and relationship to the bourgeoisie is asinine, to say the least.

I don't think so. I think that they do play the same role that of dividing the working class.

but the BBP were not racist reactionaries like the KKK or Neo-Nazi groups.

But I don't think that the UK Labour party comes across as as racist and reactionary as the BNP. It is a much more dangerous anti-working class party though.

The fact that their politics emphasized Black identity was understandable given the communities they arose from and worked in.

I think that it shows that it wasn't communist. The whole idea of identity politics is alien to communism.

but I would like to think communism would strengthen and encourage cultural diversity amongst the peoples of the Earth.

This is a very different topic, but I would like to think that communism will complete the task of destroying feudal culture.

Devrim

I think that it should be noted that many of the leaders of the Black Panthers did eventually come to reject black nationalism.

"Our ten point program is in the midst of being changed right now, because we used the word 'white' when we should have used the word 'capitalist.'" - Fred Hampton

I am not sure what real change there was. I don't think that they rejected black nationalism at all.

Devrim

There's no room for "Black Panthers" and Malcomn X or on Proletarian Field. They were not proletarian by their methods ("urban guerrilla") or their "program" (nationalism without connexion with internationalism or communism, or international working class). Even M X were united to islamic reactionary groups and only in his last year of life he tought that some groups of white people (workers) weren't absolutelly enemies.

Black people only can remove their particular opression in the context of Proletarian World's Revolution (without racial distinction).

@ TabooTounge:

What the other comrades have said concerning the nature of the BPP is more or less true. There is one thing I would point out though-- there is no denying the fact that the Party was an organic expression of the working class' opposition to capitalism. The founding members-- Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Bobby Hutton (to name some off the top), and whoever else I forgot were no doubt proletarian.

I too have looked up to the Panthers in the past. There are many things about the Party that are worthy of looking up to. However, it would be wrong to consider them as anything greater than that. You are keen to pin-point the ideological differences in the party. I don't know about any "breaks" from Black Nationalism, but there was certainly differences in ideology amongst members of the Party.

Eldridge Cleaver for example, was more blatantly racist/sexist. Fred Hampton seemed to be reading more Lenin than anyone else. He kinda "got it" if you know what I'm saying. Maybe thats why he was so viciously targeted and assasinated. Who knows.

There is no doubt that the struggles of the Black Panther Party have in the long term benefitted the American citizen, their before-school breakfast programs went on to be adopted by the State. As to whether or not they were genuinly proactive in the class struggle remains to be debated.

There is an ex-Panther named Ashanti Alston. He was in prison for quite sometime for his involvement in armed "peoples requistitions and expropriations" aka Bank Robbery. While in prison he tackled many of the ideological issues of the BPP and realized the effect racism and sexism had on their organization. He now considers himself an Anarchist, which is a whole 'nother schmeel but his analyses are interesting to say the least. Heres the link http://www.anarchistpanther.net/ . Youtube him, search around...he's an interesting guy.

I know the Panthers were influenced by Maoism, and saw themselves as a 'vanguard.' But I'm still drawn to them because of their achievements and examples they set up (ie breakfast for children, free health clinics, armed struggle).
What do the left communist here make of the Panthers?

The Black Panthers tended to be more or less "anti-revisionist" or Maoist. However, what people supported about the BBP generally tends to be those community based programs, which could just as well be done without the Stalinist clenched fist saluting and "revolutionary" posturing. Even for the anti-revisionist influenced Black Nationalist politics of the late 60s and early 70s the Panthers were quite backwards in many areas. Their class composition tended to draw heavily on a black middle class leadership. As opposed to an anti-revisionist group like the League for Black Revolutionary Workers, which was oriented towards proletarians.

The PLP website even has a text of the infamous BPP speech made in front of SDS where the representative of the BPP makes his famous quote "the position of women in the movement is prone". The entire text of the speech is probably the most sexist diatribe against allowing women to participate in a social movement that I have ever read. The fact that the white lefties of SDS mostly just sat there and let him talk like this to them shows how unquestioned the BPP was by the left at large as few in the anti-revisionist oriented sixties left had the guts to challenge it. Ironically for the BPP, after all the men were jailed, with some 27 or so leaders being straight out killed--the women ended up running the party. The party dissolved for the purpose of entering into local politics back in the early eighties, which fit in perfectly with their community based reformism.

The BPP is the party that gets the attention. Other black militant groups of the period generally get ignored, like the LBRW. Militant nationalist rhetoric combined with a reformist program was quite easy for the ruling class to destroy.

The BPP became the model for lots of other militant groups, like the Young Lords Party, and there was even an Appalachian nationalist movement inspired by the BPP and Maoism. Militant rhetoric plus reformism is still reformism. Many of those former Panthers ended up like other leftists, sucked into the bowels of the Democratic Party to politically die.

George Jackson, one of the Soledad brothers was one of the more famous militants to question this BPP nationalism. The BPP, in its worst moments was not above harrassing and possibly killing one of their own internal critics.

This information is important: have you written anything more on this elsewhere?

I was active in PL for a little over a year and I heard about that one incident a lot. I remember being told that the PLers (PLM at the time) walked out on him...

Recently, I have been participating in debates with ICCers about taking place in community programs like the ones the panthers did. I got a lot of crap for it, and theoretically I'm beginning to see why.

But maybe we could discuss the pros/cons of BPP like programs?