If there has been the tendency to bodily lift the u.f.a.i. from the third world struggle and plant it here as a “new strategy” it is nowhere made clearer than in the absurdities and fog it has created in dealing with the national question inside this country.
During the 60’s, very early the analogy was drawn between black people inside this country, and many of the external colonies of imperialism. In fact, it became more than just an analogy, it gradually began to be taken literally, namely, that black people actually were an internal colony.
The most recent and dressed up version of this idea is the R.U. conception of the proletarian nation of a new type – as a description of the black people in this country.
This conception is borne of two considerations: on the one hand, the notion of the direct applicability of the u.f.a.i. to this country, and therefore trying to fit black and other national minorities into the mold of oppressed nations and, on the other hand, being at least acquainted with Marxist writings on the national question, which militate against classifying black people as a nation at all.
Therefore we have a nation of a new type, and what is more, not a nation of peasants, but a proletarian nation.
The absurdity of this notion has been pointed out even by many whom otherwise uphold the anti-imperialist strategy. Black people by no means conform to Stalin’s definition of a nation, the definition which has long been accepted by Marxists. They possess neither a common territory nor a common economy. They are ”dispersed” as the R.U. admits, but to admit they are dispersed is to admit they are not a nation. The Jews were the most persecuted national minority in the Russian empire, and yet neither Lenin nor Stalin admitted them a nation, precisely for this reason. Persecution and discrimination and oppression do not decide the question of nationhood. The Puerto Rican people in the northern city ghettos do not form a nation either. Puerto Rico is a nation, an oppressed nation. But the Puerto Rican people here are a national minority, just as are the Irish or the Italians. They differ from the Irish and the Italians in having been the subject of a much greater degree of persecution and discrimination, on account of being people of color, and therefore having “assimilated” to a much lesser degree. Nevertheless, even among the Puerto Ricans there has been a certain amount of assimilation, small though it may be. But the situation of the black people in a northern ghetto is in no basic way different than a Puerto Rican ghetto. Why then is one a nation and the other not? In fact they are both national minorities.
Adding the word proletarian to nation to somehow acknowledge that black people are not composed mostly of peasants, as is the case in most third world countries, only makes the whole thing even more ridiculous. Black people are no more composed of proletarians exclusively than is say England. England – a proletarian nation of an old type?
As we said above, there are those who criticize this even from the point of view of the anti-imperialist strategy. Some acknowledge that blacks are a national minority in the northern cities, but say they are a nation in the Black Belt. However, it seems that in this case, the R.U. gets the better of the argument. For the last fifty or more years blacks have been emigrating from the Black Belt areas they occupied to both the northern and southern cities. They do not by any means form any kind of compact majority in the Black Belt any longer. After the Civil War, it appeared that black people were moving in the direction of nationhood in the Black Belt, at least approximately and to some degree. This was the basis for Lenin and later Stalin and the Comintern classifying the black people as a nation at that time. But the further development of capitalism changed this situation and began systematically draining the Black Belt of black people (although by no means completely, even to this day). Economically black people were integrated into the developing capitalist economy. They were kept at the bottom of the ladder, it is true. They were always persecuted and ostracized, and politically disenfranchised to one extent or another, but, even in the case of black people, they were drawn into the national economy, and this was undoubtedly progressive and is one of the causes of the present day militancy of the black community.
In this latter case, it seems that some have not paid any attention to the changes that have taken place since the time of Lenin and the Comintern resolution – changes which have largely undone the conditions which led the Comintern to classify black people in the Black Belt as a nation.
Also, even at the time of the Comintern resolution, it was stressed that the struggle for full social and political equality must remain the principle slogan and struggle. But it now happens that some drag in the slogan of self-determination even in the case of Boston, when they do not at all mean secession – thereby completely confusing the whole issue and the Marxist meaning of the word self-determination – which means the right of secession.
Finally, there arises the case of some black nationalist groups which demand a separate territory, a separate nation, and a separate state – independence. Certainly we have to categorically oppose any kind of black Zionism which seeks its home elsewhere than in the U.S. because it seeks liberation at the expense of someone other than the oppressor nation. But in the case of those that demand a separate nation and state for black people in the Black Belt, we have to say this: if it were ever to become the demand of black people, of a majority, or perhaps even a very large minority – we would support their right to this demand. True it would involve the artificial creation of a nation. But there are precedents for such things – Israel is a notorious reactionary precedent. But there is also another precedent, the Jewish Autonomous region of the Soviet Union which was formed back in 1928, where Jews from the Soviet Union and the world over were free to go and live. It never acquired a very large Jewish population because Jews within the Soviet Union enjoyed full equality and freedom from persecution under Lenin and Stalin, and for other reasons it never acquired one from the rest of the world. Nor was this a separate state – only autonomous. But it does illustrate our point in regard to nationhood, it does illustrate the concept of the artificial creation of a nation.
But in any case this is not the central point. It is but taking care of a possibility, perhaps a remote one.[1]
What we are left with is that the central struggle of black people in this country is for full social and political equality, the struggle against any form of inequality and discrimination and segregation.
But we feel that, while absolutely necessary, even this formula is incomplete at the present time. It is no longer just a case of black people struggling against inequality and discrimination. A much more sinister element has crept onto the scene. There has been a growing tendency among reactionary forces to portray black people as the cause of the mounting problems of our society to white working people, and in addition there has been a growing tendency for spontaneous conflicts to develop around the edges of the ghettos and in the central cities which tends to reinforce this impression among white working people.
In a word, black people are being set up as number one scapegoat for the mounting crisis which is developing in our society. The attention of white working people is thereby being diverted from the true causes of this mounting crisis.
This is precisely something that has developed and changed since the 60’s. During the 50’s and 60’s, the economy was still on the upswing, still developing. Since the late 60’s, the economy has been heading into increasingly heavy waters, and now it seems to be taking a real plunge. It is no longer just black and third world people who are coming under heavy attack, although black and third world people still suffer far the sharpest attacks. Now white working people are faced with a drastic decline in their standard of living. In order to head off a growing militancy among white working people, the rulers of the country are increasingly finding it necessary to divert the wrath of white working people from themselves to the third world, especially black people. This is the ideological cornerstone of a growing fascist movement in this country.
The anti-imperialist strategy has served to blind the left to current realities in this regard. First by trying to force black people into the national mold, second, by pushing the question of self-determination into the foreground indiscriminately and inappropriately. And lastly, by obscuring the fact that what is really new and significant is not the mounting attacks on black and third world people (which is real) but, the mounting attacks on white people as well (which is new!). The least useful thing the left can do these days is to just simply continue giving support to third world struggles as in the 60’s. The only real support is to acknowledge the fact that the white working class is waking up because it is coming under attack, and to try and see that as it wakes up, it turns its wrath on the rulers of the country and not on the black and third world people – thereby destroying working class unity to the detriment of both white and black.
[1] It is important to take this possibility into account. If the reactionaries succeed in making big inroads into the working class, if even greater outrages against black people occur, nationalism could very well take a much stronger hold of the black community than is the case now. The demand for a separate territory and state could then become very strong. Is it for Marxists to say: “No, you don’t have the right”?