The Afro-American struggle is not only a struggle waged by the exploited and oppressed Black people for freedom and emancipation, it is also a new clarion call to all the exploited and oppressed people of the United States to fight against the barbarous rule of the monopoly capitalist class.[1]
The Afro-American people’s struggle, together with that of the millions of other nationally oppressed people in the U.S., constitutes a powerful anti-imperialist army of fighters who have nothing to lose but their chains. In close alliance with the U.S. working class, the two forces together form the basic components of the anti-imperialist united front in this country; meaning the most consistent and revolutionary forces among the American people. On the basis of their militant unity, it is possible to forge the broadest united front against the monopolists, uniting all who can be united to oppose the imperialist ruling class and its policies of war, aggression and fascism.
The Afro-American struggle while taking on a national form is in essence a class question. While it is true today that the overwhelming majority of Black people are workers, there are millions of non-proletarian Black people who also suffer daily from the imperialist policies of national discrimination and oppression.
To provide an overview of the economic status of the Black population, we are printing the following statistics, taken from “Blacks and the American Economy,” an article by Lloyd Hogan appearing in the Nov., 1974, Current Histories:
On the basis of the 1970 Census Special Reports and the 1969 Census “Survey of Minority Owned Businesses,” it is estimated that there are not more than 4,000 Black families, consisting of some 15,000 individuals, who own viable commercial farms or business firms and whose main livelihood derives from profits, interests, dividends, rents and so on earned from ownership of these enterprises.
It is also estimated that not more than 200,000 Black families, consisting of some 650,000 individuals, are self-employed in small and marginal farms and businesses. For these families, the income derived from these businesses consists primarily of wages for their own labor. They employ little, if any, paid labor outside their own families.
The remaining six million Black families, consisting of some 21.7 million individuals, earn their living primarily from the sale of their work skills. Thus, the laboring Black population consists of more than 96% of the total Black population.[2]
It is because Afro-American people constitute an oppressed nation and are all to one degree or another the victims of national oppression, that each class–the proletariat, the peasantry, the urban petit-bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia, and even sections of the bourgeoisie, etc.–is drawn into the national movement for their own reasons with their own views about the character and aims of the struggle, each one trying to influence the character of the national movement.
Therefore it is necessary for the working class to build and lead a BLACK UNITED FRONT, that can unite the masses of Black people who are opposed to imperialism and its policies of national oppression. This united front must be built in the closest alliance with the movement of workers of all nationalities which can finally end the rule of the monopoly capitalists. This Black united front is part of the fundamental alliance for proletarian revolution in the U.S., which is made up of the proletariat and the millions of oppressed nationalities.
The Black working class, who make up 90% of the Black population, must constitute the main and leading force within the Black united front. While promoting first and foremost the interests of the working class, the proletariat must also raise demands of other strata within the Black nation in order to insure unity between the proletariat and non-proletarian forces.
Within the Black united front the proletariat must oppose all attempts to limit the struggle for Black liberation to simply the struggle for reforms. While uniting with many forces who oppose particular policies of imperialism, the proletariat must point out that national oppression is inherent in the capitalist system and can only be ended with imperialism’s downfall.
In addition, the proletariat must oppose the view that white workers are the enemy of the Black liberation movement as well as all other forms of narrow nationalism.
This requires that a sharp class struggle must be waged within the Black united front for proletarian leadership and a revolutionary outlook. This struggle must be aimed primarily at elements of the Black bourgeoisie, who will enter the united front based on their own class interests and attempt to exercise leadership over the movement.
The proletariat must also wage a consistent struggle against those sectarians who would limit the Black liberation movement to only Black workers, and would divide the proletariat from its allies among the other classes. This sectarian line can only lead to isolation of the proletariat and liquidation of the broad national character of the Black liberation struggle.
Following is a basic, general analysis of the strata making up the Black united front.
The national movement of the Afro-American people and the general movement of the U.S. working class have a common interest and a common destiny. Both movements have the same enemy, the monopoly capitalist ruling class. Neither one can be victorious without the other and without the defeat of the imperialists throughout the entire territory of the U.S. The Black workers stand as a bridge between the movements of the nationally oppressed peoples and the general workers’ movement. Black labor is a key force in bringing about the alliance and merger of the two movements.
Of the 25 million Afro-American people in the U.S., 90% are working people. They constitute the main and leading force in the Black united front. They are a significant percentage of industrial proletarians, especially in the basic areas of auto and steel, where they comprise up to 40% of the workforce. Black workers also fill the small sweatshops in the South and the North where the wages are the lowest and working conditions are the worst. In addition, large numbers of Black workers fill the ranks of the unemployed, many of them permanently. Among Blacks, the unemployment rate is consistently twice as high as among whites. During the recent crisis, Black unemployment has been estimated at 30%. Often forced onto welfare, these Black workers are used by the imperialists as a surplus labor force.
The Black proletariat puts forward an internationalist perspective within the national movement. Its aim is to bring about, first and foremost, unity of the working class and proletarian revolution. This outlook was described by Lenin:
While recognizing equality and equal rights to a national state, it (the proletariat, ed.) values above all and places foremost the alliance of the proletarians of all nations, and assesses any national demand, any national separation, from the angle of the workers’ class struggle.[3]
In the past decade, the struggles of the Afro-American workers throughout the country, often combining the struggle against national oppression with the day-to-day demands for better wages and working conditions, have pushed forward the entire movement of the working class, adding militancy and a higher level of political consciousness to it. Organizations and caucuses of Black workers have often been a motive force in building class unity and pushing the entire working class movement forward.
Outstanding examples of such struggles in the last few years are the strike at Oneita Knitting Mills in South Carolina and the shutdown at the Chrysler Jefferson Assembly Plant in Detroit. Both of these workers’ straggle united Black and white workers to oppose oppressive conditions and national discrimination. The participation and leadership of the Black workers gave these struggles added strength and militancy, giving inspiration to workers’ struggles throughout the country.
More and more white workers are joining their fellow minority workers. For them it is either this or standing with the boss. Examples of the class unity of various nationalities within the labor movement are increasing, especially where communists are present to point the way. Rank-and-file organizations of a multi-national character are springing up and, most importantly, unity between communists of various nationalities is being forged organizationally. As Lenin pointed out:
On the boards of joint-stock companies we find capitalists of different nations sitting together in complete harmony. At the factories workers of different nations work side-by-side. In any really serious and profound political issue sides are taken accordingly to classes, not nations.[4]
In the U.S. today, there are approximately 50,000 Black farmers, 168,000 Black farm laborers, and 250,000 pulpwood cutters, 70%-80% of whom are Black. In addition, there are many thousands of Black rural dwellers who live in a semi-proletarian existence, working only seasonally in industry and supplementing their income through truck farming or sharecropping. There are approximately 9 million non-urban Black dwellers, 5 and a half million of whom live in rural (non-town or city) areas. These people, overwhelmingly concentrated in the Deep South, are what remains of the Black peasantry, who only 40 years ago made up the majority of Black people in the country.
Due to the ruthless imperialist policies of forced migration–including both economic pressure and political terror–the majority of Black farmers left their rural surroundings in search of jobs in industry, to escape the Ku Klux Klan, and because it was all but impossible to make a living under the primitive sharecropping system in the South.
For the thousands of small Black farmers who continue to till the land in the South, these brutal policies exist today, much as they have existed for almost 100 years, as the huge agricultural monopolies swallow up land in the South.
The well-established policy of giving first preference to wealthy white farmers in buying or renting land continues to be the order of the day. Where Black farmers do own land, they are subject to the discrimination that is built into the federal agricultural program which determines the quantity and prices of many crops. For example, in 1971, the most affluent 20% of farmers being aided by the USDA cotton program received 3/4 of all federal benefits, leaving the remaining 80% of the poor farmers with only one-fourth of the federal money!
The huge food monopolies, such as Stokely Van Camp, Coca-Cola, and Tropicana continue to expand their control over land in the South. Where they have expanded, they control the local market completely, keeping prices low, and systematically forcing out the small farmers, who cannot compete. Many of these huge corporations allow small farmers to rent or share-crop their land. They pay these farmers rock-bottom prices for their produce, and often even cheat them out of this.
It is not surprising that the numbers of small Black farmers have continued to decrease. Between 1959 and 1969, they decreased by 68%. Today, there are 80% fewer Black tenant farmers than there were in 1964. While many of these people who have been driven off their land have migrated to cities in the South and North in search of jobs in industry, many thousands have become employed as farmworkers for the large food corporations. These Black farmworkers are subject to the lowest pay, longest working hours, and worst working conditions, similar to the farmworkers of the Southwest. They are denied the basic rights of unionization and job security.
In recent years both Black farmers and farmworkers have engaged in militant struggle. Black farmers have begun to form associations to fight the land-stealing of the big corporations. Black farmworkers have taken part in the movement to organize the United Farm Workers Union in areas throughout the South.
The Black farmers as a class, though small in numbers, are of strategic importance within the Black liberation struggle. It is in the remnants of the semi-feudal sharecropping system, which still exists as a way of life for thosands of Black farmers, that the stench of the slave market and the old plantation system is the strongest. The just demands of the Black farmers for their land, and the rebellion of the Black farmworkers against their semi-slave existence are demands of immediate importance in forging the basic alliance between the Black liberation movement and the general working class struggle.
In many ways the students and youth have provided the spark for the resurgence of resistance to national oppression over the last decade. They are an important force in building the Black united front.
The sit-ins in the South led by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the early 1960’s provided a catalyst for the mass civil rights movement against Jim Crow racism. This movement, originating in the South, soon spread throughout U.S. society. As the movement grew, students and youth were among the first to reject the passive strategy of peaceful assimilation, raising the militant cry for “Black Power.” Developing close identification with other oppressed nationalities in the U.S. and the struggles of Third World peoples, organizations such as SNCC, the Black Panther Party, and African Liberation Support Committee grew up along anti-imperialist lines. On nearly every college and university campus and in many high schools, Black student organizations were formed. These organizations fought against racist policies in admissions, classroom procedures and curriculum. The imperialist policy of using the few college-educated Blacks to act as a buffer between them and the Black community was challenged with many campus rebellion. A case of this was the February, 1968 struggle in Orangeburg, South Carolina, involving students from South Carolina State, a predominantly Black college. A fight against segregation in the city of Orangeburg, concentrating on a bowling alley near the campus resulted in a confrontation which left 3 students dead and 27 wounded. Similar struggles took place at Jackson State, Southern University, Cornell, Columbia and a host of other campuses.
The ruling class consistently attempts to isolate the students from the masses of poor and working people. Within the Black liberation movement, this often takes the form of promoting bourgeois nationalism and elitism among Black students. Much of this is being combatted with the important rise of a Marxist-Leninist trend within the Afro-American student movement. This trend has pushed many students to build close ties with the masses of working people and combat the influence of bourgeois ideologies.
In regards to the general struggle of Black youth, the resistance of young Blacks to the draft and to U.S. imperialism’s efforts to colonize the Indochinese people played an important role in building opposition to the U.S. war efforts. In addition, the militant resistance of Black GI’s within the armed forces to racism and the war led to a general rebellion in the U.S. military establishment. Black youth were an active force in the rebellions of the 60’s which shook the foundation of U.S. imperialism and showed decisively that the national oppression of Black people had not been solved through the method of “reforming” imperialism.
The youth have taken up the struggle for equal and quality education, and against unemployment and police repression.
The working class and its party must provide leadership to the struggles of Black youth. What is our attitude towards the revolutionary potential of Afro-American youth?
How should we judge if a youth is revolutionary? . . . There can be only one criterion, namely whether or not he is willing to integrate himself with the broad masses of workers and peasants and does so in practice.[5]
The Afro-American youth have demonstrated their willingness to unite with the working people. In our work with them we must strive to closely combine their demands with those of the masses of Afro-American people, the entire working class, and the world-wide anti-imperialist movement. The recently formed Communist Youth Organization adopted positions for self-determination and democratic rights.
Organizations such as this which teach Marxism-Leninism, and student organizations of an anti-imperialist character are important forms for revolutionary youth to join and build.
Black women face triple oppression because of race, sex and class. They constitute 45% of the Black labor force. They have been forced into the lowest paid jobs and more often no jobs at all. The vast majority of Black women, along with Black men, other minorities and women, are the first to go, suffering, as a result, the highest unemployment rate of any group, first to go, as a result, suffering the highest unemployment rate of any group. In workers’ struggles over the past few years, Black women workers have played a key role in fighting against these horrible conditions–for their national rights, for better wages and working conditions, and for the right to unionize.
In addition to their oppression at the workplace, Black women have been deliberately forced onto the welfare rolls, denied childcare and medical treatment. They have been the targets of systematic genocide. This is not to mention the denial of decent education, of their history and their culture.
It is the imperialist system which is the enemy of Black women. Black women should unite with real friends (Black men, other oppressed nationalities, the working class and the majority of American people) to fight their common enemy.
In order to overthrow this enemy, communists must recognize that Black women are an important part of the general workers’ movement, the Black liberation movement and the Black united front. Black women within the Black liberation struggle, just as women within the united front against imperialism, hold up half the sky. For this reason, communists must struggle against any manifestations of male chauvinism within the Black united front. Each of the above movements must speak to the special oppression Black women face in order to actively involve them in the struggle.
The movement for women’s emancipation must take a stand against the national oppression of minority women.
This class includes intellectuals, professors, lower governmental functionaries, preachers, small businessmen, small landowners, landlords, professionals, etc. They are basically divided into three sections–relatively well-to-do, self-supporting, and the failing petit-bourgeoisie. In general, it can be said that the whole Black petit-bourgeoisie gained from the reforms granted during the upsurge of the civil rights movement and the rebellions of the 1960’s. Certain educational and job opportunities were opened up to them, and many large businesses, banks, etc., were forced to change their “white only” policies on hirings, loans, etc. to the benefit of the Black petit-bourgeoisie.
The first section of the Black petit-bourgeoisie is the relatively well-to-do. This section contains businessmen, professionals, etc., who are relatively successful and expanding their wealth through investment. These people tend to be afraid of “rocking the boat” and, while giving some support to civil rights, they are not favorable towards the revolutionary movement and could be said to constitute the right wing of the Black petit-bourgeoisie. The main concern of this section of the Black petit-bourgeoisie is to become part of the Black bourgeoisie.
The second section of the Black petit-bourgeoisie consists of people who are simply economically self-supporting. They make enough to get by on. This section contains some people who, for example, own one gas station, or a beauty shop, or have a relatively good teaching position. At the same time, the deepening crisis of imperialism, with its inflation, high prices and the like, are forcing these people to work harder and longer hours just to make ends meet. Some of these people may cling to some far-off aspirations of becoming rich, but this is almost impossible for them.
The third section of the Black petit-bourgeoisie consists of those people who are failing and being driven into the ranks of the proletariat. They may be people who have had a small “mom and pop” store and have been driven out of business by the large chain supermarkets. Others may be intellectuals with college educations, who, due to discrimination, are unable to get positions other than low-paying manual work.
These people are being devastated by the current imperialist crisis. Their tiny businesses “go under” as fast as they come onto the scene. Objectively these people are close allies of the working class. Daily, their debts mount and their lives become more and more miserable. When the Black liberation movement is in the period of upsurge, mostly all of the Black petit-bourgeoisie can be mobilized to one extent or another in the struggle. The proletariat, however, must wage a relentless struggle against certain ideological weaknesses, such as narrow nationalism, individualism and pessimism, which are often found among petit-bourgeois people.
In its struggle for capital, the Black bourgeoisie suffers the effects of national oppression. Like the bourgeoisie of every nation, it seeks to build itself, consolidate its national market, and establish hegemony over other classes among Black people. The fact that the Afro-American nation is oppressed and located in the most advanced, monopolized country in the world has meant that this desire cannot be realized. The Black bourgeoisie is small, scattered, disunited, and has a very small economic base as compared to the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie.
The Black bourgeoisie has, as a result of this, a dual nature. Its class nature leads it to aspire to develop Black capitalism as the solution to national oppression. Relying on the myth of the “free enterprise system,” the Black bourgeoisie looks to the “liberal” wing of the imperialists for concessions and handouts to help them achieve this goal. Thus their class outlook leads them to push reformism as a method of struggle for Black people, relying on the “liberal wing” of the Democratic Party. A definite section of the Black bourgeoisie has become completely allied with the imperialist class. Acting as spokespersons for the ruling class both among Afro-Americans and internationally they serve as a comprador element. (A recent example being A. Phillip Randolph and Roy Wilkins’ defense of Israel in the United Nations.)
At the same time, the Black bourgeoisie’s struggle to “capture the home market” often leads them into pitting Black workers against white and to spread narrow nationalism among the masses. This is the nature of the Black bourgeoisie. Whether pushing assimilationism or separatism, its goal is ultimately building capitalism. Because of this, it is the most vacillating element in the Black United Front; though it desires to have its “own” market, to use the struggle of the Afro-American people to advance its own class interests, its methods of struggle (reformism) and its class nature (vacillation) make it the least consistent of all class forces in the Black united front. Their inconsistency, vacillations, and lack of determination to thoroughly destroy the racist system of imperialism have led to many defeats and sell-outs.
But this does not mean it has no influence among the masses. Even given its small size, because the Black bourgeoisie includes the educated Blacks and the few with any influence at all among the ruling class, Black workers have many times looked to them for guidance and leadership, as articulate representatives of the Afro-American people who could translate their national aspirations into words. Bourgeois nationalism, while emanating from a class that is small in numbers, has often been the most influential force within the leadership of the Black liberation movement.
The Black proletariat stands firmly opposed to the attempt of the Black bourgeoisie to promote bourgeois nationalism among the masses. As Lenin said:
The principle of nationality is historically inevitable in bourgeois society and, taking this society into due account, the Marxist fully recognizes the historical legitimacy of national movements. But to prevent this recognition from becoming an apology of nationalism, it must be strictly limited to what is progressive in such movements, in order that this recognition may not lead to bourgeois ideology obscuring proletarian consciousness.[6]
It is on this basis that the Black proletariat can unite with the Black bourgeoisie, i.e., on their opposition to certain aspects of discrimination and national oppression. However, when the Black bourgeoisie promotes its own national privilege–Black capitalism and narrow nationalism–the proletariat’s attitude must be one of struggle.
Insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations fights the oppressor, we are always, in every case, and more strongly than anyone else, in favor, for we are the staunchest and most consistent enemies of oppression. But insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressor nation stands for its own bourgeois nationalism, we stand against it. We fight against the privileges and violence of the oppressor nation, and do not in any way condone strivings for privileges on the part of the oppressed nation.[7]
There are some who say that by supporting the right of the Afro-American people to self-determination we are “giving play” to bourgeois nationalism. But it must be pointed out that our upholding the right of self-determination doesn’t mean that we can’t agitate against secession or narrow nationalism. Finally, as Lenin pointed out to those who denied the right of oppressed nations in Russia to secede under the guise of “opposing bourgeois nationalism:” “denial of the right to secede is ’playing into the hands’ of the most thoroughly reactionary Great-Russian nationalism!”[8]
These people are the by-product of the decadent imperialist system. They tend to vacillate and many of their characteristics serve the bourgeoisie–they deal in drugs, steal from the working class, engage in prostitution, etc. The lumpen-proletariat should not be confused with the large number of Black people, who, due to national oppression and the use of Blacks of a surplus labor force, are unemployed or on welfare. The lumpen-proletariat has become de-classed, driven into the decadent position of parasitic “hustling.” They don’t produce any wealth and therefore live off the working class. This is how they’re tools of the imperialists and generally are not friends of the working class.
This class and the material basis for its existence will disappear after the revolution. While they suffer from the system and can possibly be good fighters, we have to guard against their destructive and adventuristic tendencies. Whenever communists have the opportunity, we should try to do political education with them, to try to make them part of the proletariat. “Brave fighters, but apt to be destructive, they can become a revolutionary force if given proper guidance.[9]
The bourgeoisie through movies, magazines and so forth, often try to prettify or romanticize the lumpen. Movies such as “Superfly,” “The Mack,” or “Sweet Sweet Back” put forward dope pushers, and pimps and prostitution as positive images. This barrage of bourgeois propaganda is mainly directed towards the youth.
Communists must make a special effort to combat this bourgeois ideology. In its place we must develop revolutionary culture, which emphasizes the revolutionary aspect of Black history and Black culture in general, and the Black working class in particular. In this way we present an accurate portrait of Black people in opposition to the degrading and destructive image presented by the U.S. ruling class.
[1] Mao Tsetung, op. cit.
[2] Lloyd Hogan, Current Histories, November, 1974, p. 222.
[3] V.I. Lenin, “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination,” (CW Vol. 20, p. 411).
[4] V.I. Lenin, “Critical Remarks on the National Question,” (CW Vol. 20, p. 32).
[5] Mao Tsetung, “Orientation of the Youth Movement,” (Selected Works, Peking, Vol. 2, p. 246).
[6] V.I. Lenin, op. cit., p. 34.
[7] V.I. Lenin, “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination,” (CW Vol. 20, pp. 411-12).
[8] Ibid.
[9] Mao Tsetung, “Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society,” (Selected Readings, Peking, p. 17).