With regards to the domestic situation in the U.S., WMS’s assertion of the end of superprofits for the U.S. leads directly to opportunism, to denying the material basis for revisionism, social-reformism and social-chauvinism.
Let us refer back to Lenin for a moment to help make our point.
In Imperialism, Lenin lays out the far reaching implications of monopoly capitalism’s ability to reap super-profits:
Imperialism, which means the partition of the world, and the exploitation of other countries besides China, which means high monopoly profits for a handful of very rich countries, creates the economic possibility of bribing the upper strata of the proletariat, and thereby fosters, gives form to, and strengthens opportunism. (Lenin, Imperialism, page 125)
Imperialism’s superprofits are used to bribe a section of the proletariat, to divide the proletariat, to foster opportunism. A section of the proletariat “become bourgeois” and “permits itself to be led by men sold to, or at least, paid by the bourgeoisie”. (Engels quote by Lenin, Imperialism, page 129) A section of the proletariat sides with imperialism and ceases to be revolutionary.
Chairman Mao recognized the distinction between the nature of the proletariat in imperialist and colonial and semi-colonial countries in his essay, The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party:
The Chinese proletariat is more resolute and thoroughgoing in revolutionary struggle than any other class because it is subjected to a threefold oppression (imperialist, bourgeois, and feudal) which is marked by a severity and cruelty seldom found in other countries. Since there is no economic basis for social reformism in colonial and semi-colonial China as there is in Europe, the whole proletariat, with the exception of a few scabs is most revolutionary. (Vol. II, page 324, emphasis added)
Scientific revolutionaries should have no illusions as to why a small section of the proletariat in imperialist countries, a small, but significant section nonetheless, will support “their bourgeoisie”, will be “imperialist minded”. Lenin comes straight out and says:
Out of such enormous superprofits (since they are obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their “own” country) it is possible to bribe the labour leaders and the upper stratum of the labour aristocracy. And the capitalists of the “advanced” countries are bribing them; they bribe them in a thousand ways, direct and indirect, overt and covert.
This stratum of bourgeoisified workers, or the “labour aristocracy,” who are quite philistine in their mode of life, in the size of their earnings and in their entire outlook, is the principal prop of the Second International, and, in our days, the principal social (not military) prop of the bourgeoisie. For they are the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working class movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class, real channels of reformism and chauvinism. In the civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie they inevitably, and in no small numbers, take the side of the bourgeoisie, the “Versaillese” against the “Communards”.
Unless the economic roots of this phenomenon are understood and its political and social significance is appreciated, not a step can be taken toward the solution of the practical problems of the “Communist movement and of the impending social revolution. (Lenin, Imperialism, page 9-10)
The appreciation of the “political and sociological significance” of “this phenomenon” means to fully grasp the ability of the imperialist bourgeoisie to temporarily weaken the revolutionary capabilities of the working class, but even more so, to actually win over sections of the working class who will die in defense of the bourgeoisie. Small sections of the multi-national proletariat, especially certain sections of the white workers, are bribed “in a thousand different ways, direct and indirect, overt and covert”, through economic means (exclusive trade unions, higher wages, benefits, etc.), through ideological means (national chauvinism and racism and other forms of bourgeois thinking through education in the schools, the media, the news, “entertainment”, etc.). While the section of the proletariat that is actually bribed and will die for imperialism is small in actual number, there is no brick wall between this sector and the rest of the class, and thus imperialist ideology can spread to many sectors of the class. Consequently, for Marxist-Leninists to fully appreciate this phenomenon means not only to recognize this in words but to deal with it in fact: to propagandaize against and expose social chauvinism and opportunism; to fight tooth and nail against the division of the class by the imperialist-mind sections of the proletariat; to comprehend that a section of the class sides with imperialism, and a clear line of demarcation must be driven between them and the revolutionary proletariat. Only in this way will the great masses of the working class actually be able to carry out their historic task of leading the proletarian revolution.
But what has WMS done? They declare that U.S. imperialism has lost it ability to make superprofits, and from this we must conclude that imperialism can no longer divide the class, bribe a sector of the class, etc. And thus WMS draws this observation:
While it’s true that some white workers get higher pay and better positions than some Third World workers, the contradictions between them as part of the single multi-national working class and the bourgeoisie still exist and are still antagonistic. The petty privileges that some white workers get are given to them as concessions by the bourgeoisie as an attempt to pacify them. But these privileges are still petty ones, especially now with the economic and political crisis heightening.
No part of the working class benefits from national oppression. Anytime a section of the working class is kept down, discriminated against, and paid the lowest wages, the living standards and the fighting capacity of the rest of the workers is also held back and weakened. (WMS, “Reactionary Line”, page 6, emphasis added)
Instead of recognizing that a sector of the class is “bribed” in a “thousand different ways”, we get WMS’s (and the RU’s) “petty privileges” and “some white workers get higher pay”; instead of recognizing that the “labour aristocracy” is “the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the labour movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class, real channels of reformism and chauvinism” we get the idea that the entire working class is revolutionary. Instead of recognizing that a sector of the working class will die in defense of imperialism’s “right to oppress” we get WMS’s “no part of the working class benefits from national oppression”.
The fact is that a small part of the working class does recognize they do benefit from national oppression “in a thousand different ways” not just economically but politically. WMS tries to prove to the working class that imperialism is not profitable to the working class because national oppression doesn’t bring economic benefits – but the imperialists use exactly the same approach to deceive the working class, and they are much more convincing than WMS. The bourgeoisie also appeals to the very narrowest of interests of the working class, as WMS/RU does, (i.e., the pocket book of the working class, wages, etc.) and show that war does create jobs, that subjugation of oil producing countries will bring cheaper gas, etc. (in addition to the whole arsenal of all the ideological arguments the bourgeoisie has). These are all bourgeois lies but the fact that the imperialists are able to temporarily convince large sectors of the working class to their side is because a small sector actually does benefit from national oppression.[1]
Has this phenomenon gone unnoticed before by other Marxist-Leninists? Certainly not. Lenin quotes Engels as saying:
The English proletariat is becoming more and bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy, and a bourgeois proletariat as veil as a bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is, of course, to a certain extent justifiable. (letter from Engels to Marx in 1858, Lenin, Imperialism)
And again:
You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy? Well exactly the same as they think about politics in general. There is no workers’ party here, there are only Conservative and Liberal Radicals, and the workers merrily share the feast of Englands’ monopoly of the colonies and the world market. (letter from Engels to Kautsky, 1882 Lenin, Imperialism, page 129)
The above observations by Engels and Lenin concentrate on the relationship between imperialism internationally and opportunism in the domestic workers’ movement. But can it be said that there is a relationship between domestic national oppression and opportunism in the working class movement? Yes, there certainly is. Stalin noted:
The imperialists groups introduce in their own country methods of enslaving nationalities learned in the colonies and thus become the natural allies 6f the landed aristocracy. They are followed by the petty bourgeoisie, a section of the intellegentsia and a section of the upper stratum of workers, who also share the spoils of robbery. (Stalin, Selected Works, “Report on the National Question”, page 95)
The masses of oppressed nationalities in the U.S. suffer doubly as members of an exploited class and as members of a distinct nationality. This national oppression includes superexploitation. Thus, one can say that the labor aristocracy, the counter-revolutionary section of the working ’class, is bought off by the superprofits made by the bourgeoisie’s robbery of oppressed nationalities internationally as well as domestically.
WMS and the RU, however have gone to extreme lengths to try to deny this fact. The RU has gone so far as to throw out Lenin’s and Stalin’s lessons on defining the national question and its solution by concocting its own formulation of a ”dispersed proletarian nation of a new type” and “the national question in the third period”.
A good expose of the opportunist nature of these formulations surprisingly enough comes from the RU itself. In Red Papers 7, the RU describes the Soviet Revisionist’s position on the national question in the Soviet Union. The RU correctly points out that national oppression has been restored through the restoration of capitalism and the forcible assimilation of the nationalities in the Soviet Union. This has all been done in the Soviet Union under the justification of developing new theories of what are nations. The RU points out that the error the revisionists make is “imperialist economics” or “redefining the nation in almost purely economic terms”. But then the RU quickly tries to dissociate itself from the revisionists by saying:
To some forces in the U.S. revolutionary movement, it may seem strange for the RU to attack the Soviet revisionists for negating Stalin’s criteria for a nation, since we have made considerable analysis, and engaged in lengthy polemics (for example, in Red Paper 5 and 6) to show that the Black nation in the U.S. today does not strictly conform to Stalin’s definition. But our analysis and the class stand on which it is based, is the direct opposite of that of the Soviet revisionist “theoreticians” on the national question.
Their purpose is to liquidate the national question, in the service of the imperialist policy of forcible assimilation of nations. Ours is to uphold the revolutionary national struggle by making a concrete analysis of the actual character and material basis of the Black liberation struggle today...
The RU’s “purpose” (intention) maybe different but the result is the same: liquidation of the national question. The RU as the revisionists “redefine a nation in almost purely economic terms”. This is the ideological basis for their formulation of a “proletarian nation” based solely on the fact the Black people are “overwhelmingly proletarian”. The revisionists and the RU both liquidate the essence of national oppression – i.e. the special and distinct oppression of certain nationalities by the exploiting class.
WMS and RU also try to liquidate the national question by relegating it to the realm of an ideology of discrimination. But national oppression is more than just prejudiced ideas, it includes systematic material oppression of political, cultural and economic lives of the oppressed peoples. It is ideological and material oppression in a thousand and one different ways. This history includes the centuries of chattel slavery of Black people, the violent annexation of the Mexican people’s lands, the systematic genocide of the Native Americans and the semi-slave contract labor system imposed on the Asian peoples. The remnaants and legacy of this capitalist brutality exist today in the various manifestations of national oppression: in the depressed living conditions, unstable job situation, racism, police suppression, etc. All of which can only be eliminated through the socialist revolution. National oppression is certainly more than a result of “prejudice”, “discrimination”, and “tricks and lies handed down by the capitalist class”.
And yet, it has been common to reduce the struggle of the oppressed nationalities to one of just “educational” work. Progressive Labor (PL) liquidated the national question (i.e., reduce national oppression to one of Just discrimination) in their slogan of “Fight Racism” meaning fight all ideas that speak of races or nationalities. This led them to actually oppose the leading forces combatting national oppression – the national struggle themselves.
While Progressive Labor has generally been discredited through their self-exposure in calling for the overthrow of the proletarian dictatorship in China, their ideas on national oppression persist still today.
The Revolutionary Union for example in National Bulletin #13 reduces national oppression to one of just belonging to the realm of ideology: to the “white supremacist ideas or racism” of white workers. They say, “The U.S. bourgeoisie recognizing the strong material basis for unity, works, overtime to foster, further and maintain discrimination and other forms of national oppression, to promote white chauvinism and bourgeois nationalism among the oppressed nationalities – to disrupt and hold back the unity of the class”. (NB 13 page 12, RP 6) WMS says, “If it isn’t lies and trickery posed by the capitalists that has divided the class for all these years, what is the real reason for the division in the class?” They both consistently make every attempt to raise the old simplistic concept of racism as a tool of the ruling class to divide the working class, a concept which fundamentally negates the actual material division of the class along national lines, a concept which helps perpetuate the division because it is a distorted view of reality.
This leads us directly into the question of the role of Communists in building multi-national unity. We feel that to build multi-national unity, the battle against opportunism and chauvinism and white supremacy is a serious task. It is not enough to talk about discrimination and prejudice, but the Marxist-Leninist movement must lead the working class to understand the material basis of national oppression, the long standing and deep rooted causes of revolt of the oppressed nationalities, and that these revolts are a great force in the common battle against the monopoly capitalist class. Within the national movements Marxist-Leninists must lead these struggles and direct them against the perpetrators of national oppression, the bourgeoisie.
We feel that the vast majority of the white working class can be won to such an understanding as long as there are Marxist-Leninists who will take up the historic task. Hiding behind the excuse that the “material unity of the class has never been greater” WMS and the RU do a great disservice to white workers and the movement as a whole by glossing over the divisions in the class and the tasks of communist to educate the working class about the nature of imperialism, (quote from Red Papers 6, page 11)
The basis of their error is an economist analysis of what constitutes multi-national unity, a gross underestimation of the consciousness of the working class, and racist and social chauvinist ideas stemming from an incorrect world outlook.
[1] Now there are benefits and there are benefits. In one sense no one “benefits” from imperialism because imperialism for example fosters murder and even the bourgeoisie is afraid to walk the streets at night. This is not a “benefit” for them. The last emperor of China said he didn’t “benefit” from feudalism because he was always surrounded by court officials and court regulations, so he was never “free” and couldn’t associate with whomever he wanted. WMS here uses the term “benefits” in an economic sense and so do we, but we also point out the “ideological” and political “benefits” and “privileges” sectors of the working class receive since these in some ways are more serious and more difficult to combat.