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Revolutionary Union

Red Papers 5: National Liberation and Proletarian Revolution in the U.S.


BLACK LIBERATION: A PROLETARIAN QUESTION

What do all these figures prove? They demonstrate clearly that the Black people today are not mainly rural farmers and farm laborers, but, even in the south, overwhelmingly urban workers. They show that in the Black belt, the historic homeland of the Black people in the U.S., the Black population, while not decreasing in absolute numbers (if the adjacent areas are included) is decreasing relative to the number of whites in the area; that, in fact, a majority of the Black Belt’s people today are white, not Black. They indicate decisively that the key to the Black liberation struggle lies not in the southern farmlands, but in the northern–and southern–urban industrial centers; that, in short, the national question for Black people in the U.S. today is in essence a proletarian question.

All this underlines our differences with the theory that the struggle for Black liberation today revolves around the establishment of an independent, new democratic Republic in the Black Belt. In Red Papers 2, we pointed out that those who cling to this theory are forced into a dogmatic twisting of reality and of Marxist analysis, what Mao Tsetung once described as “cutting the toes to fit the shoes.”

For example, some of the groups which insist that the Black Belt is still the key to Black liberation, try to deal with the (for them) uncomfortable fact that whites now make up a majority there. They decide that the whites, too, are part of the same “Negro Nation” as the Blacks in the Black Belt. At the same time, they insist that the people of the Black Belt–both the Black Negroes and the “white Negroes”–form a nation according to the definition formulated by Stalin in Marxism and the National Question (1913):

A nation is 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 ... It must be emphasized that none of the above characteristics taken separately is sufficient to define a nation. More than that, it is sufficient for a single one of these characteristics to be lacking and the nation ceases to be a nation. (Stalin, Vol. 2, p. 307.)

Can anyone seriously argue that the white people and the Black people in the heart of the south have a “common . . . psychological make-up manifested in a common culture”! Were the whites subjected to centuries of chattel slavery? Were they the direct victims of a whole structure of white supremacy and its ideological prop, racism and white chauvinism, even after the end of chattel slavery? After the Civil War, as we have already shown, the oppression of Black people took a qualitatively different form–as well as being much more vicious–than the oppression of white farmers and laboring people.

In sum: the whole history of the Black people’s oppression and resistance in the heart of the south, while, of course, interrelated with the experience of whites in the region, is completely distinct and forms their historical basis as a separate nation. In fact, the heart of the south, like the rest of the country today, is inhabited by at least two nations: the Black nation and the dominant white-European nation formed out of several nationalities.

But today the Black nation is overwhelmingly working class: the Black workers, south and north, are members of the single U.S. working class. Those who try to ignore or distort this in order to cling to analysis that correctly–or partially–reflected reality in 1880 or 1930, but not reality in the 1970’s, violate the Marxist-Leninist method which Stalin himself repeatedly emphasizes in dealing with the national question:

The solution of the national question is possible only in connection with the historical conditions taken in their development. ... To repeat: the concrete historical conditions as the starting point, and the dialectical presentation of the question as the only correct way of presenting it–such is the key to solving the national question. (Stalin, Vol. 2, pp. 325, 331.)

As we pointed out in Red Papers 2, those who insist that independence in the Black Belt and “land to the tiller” are the essential demands for the Black people actually gut the heart out of the Black liberation struggle and “play down the potential power of the Black people’s movement.”

Instead of emphasizing the driving force that the Black liberation struggle provides for the revolutionary struggle of the entire working class–the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism throughout the whole country–these groups try to roll back the wheel of history to the time when the Black people were concentrated as peasants in the Black Belt and did not occupy such a powerful, strategic position in society as a whole.

They insist that Black people not only have the right to secession, but that they must actually secede, they must form an independent state, if only for a short time. In taking this line, they go beyond the Marxist-Leninist position on the right of self-determination, and so turn this position into its opposite. They promote separatism in the name of Marxism-Leninism. These forces try to justify this line by saying that only if the Black people actually form a separate state can they really choose to then become part of a single socialist state.

This is bourgeois logic, pure and simple. Through the course of struggle, the masses of people decide political questions by fighting for the political program that they recognize as serving their highest interests. If we communists do our work correctly, this will mean a single proletarian revolution in the U.S. and a single, unified, multinational socialist state.

It is not necessary for Black people to first form a bourgeois republic before they can decide they want socialism. And if the independent state is not going to be a bourgeois, but a proletarian state–then why send the best Black Marxist-Leninist leaders to the Black Belt to lead the struggle for a proletarian state in that area only, when they can and must give vital leadership to building a proletarian state throughout the U.S.? This larger socialist state will provide a much stronger material base for meeting the needs and demands of the Black people; and Black people certainly have won the right, many times over, to share from the very beginning in the benefits of a socialist U.S.

Those who insist that Black people first form an independent state refer to Lenin’s comparison of the national question with the divorce question. The right to divorce, says Lenin, does not undermine marriage, but makes possible the only really strong bond–one based on equality and voluntary union. The same principle applies to the right of secession and multinational proletarian unity, Lenin points out.

Yes, but to examine this analogy a little more closely, Lenin would never have said that all marriages must be first broken up, that women must all divorce their husbands before they can enter into equal marriages. To take that position would be to pass from Marxism to metaphysics–from promoting the unity of the proletariat to undermining that unity. Once again, the same principle applies to the right of secession.

This error of insisting on separation stems from an attempt to mechanically lift the national question from the peasant nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and superimpose it on the proletarian Black nation in the U.S. In the semi-feudal, semi-colonial Third World countries, because of the overwhelmingly peasant population and the backward character of the productive forces as well as the relations of production, the revolutionary struggle must first pass through a New Democratic stage before it can advance to the socialist state.

In the U.S. today, to try to promote a “new democratic revolution” runs counter to the development of society and even if it could be accomplished–even if historical development could be reversed and tortured to fit this mold–it could only be a step backward.

While it is the duty of Marxist-Leninists to uphold the right of an oppressed nation to determine its own affairs–including the right to take a step backward–“Marxist-Leninists” who advocate such steps backward actually violate the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism and do a disservice to the revolutionary movement. Such “Marxist-Leninists” divorce the national question from the concrete conditions of society and erect it as some kind of category, superior to every other question.

This is unforgiveable for Marxist-Leninists, for whom the class question, the victory of proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, is the highest principle to which every other question must be subordinated in the final analysis. (More on this later.)

These forces (and fortunately they are not large or influential) violate the dialectical method fail completely to grasp the underlying material forces giving rise to the transformation of the Black nation–the long-delayed introduction of intensive capitalist methods in agriculture in the south. In “Capitalism in Agriculture,” Lenin points out that the southern U.S., with its semi-feudal survivals, lagged far behind the rest of the country in developing capitalism in agriculture. This remained basically unchanged until after World War II.

Since that time, however, all the indexes capitalist production in agriculture clearly demonstrate that southern agriculture is rapidly catching up with agriculture in the north and west. The transformation of southern farming begins in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s; the change accelerates in the last half of the 1950’s, continuing through the 1960’s. In 1945, for example, only 14.3% of southern farms had tractors; by 1959 the figure had jumped to 54.9%. In absolute terms, the number of tractors on southern farms went from 400,000 in 1945 to 900,000 in 1959–more than a 100% increase. During the same period the number of tractors in the north went up only from 1.4 million to just over 1.5 million. (The number of tractors on western farms is far less, though the percentage of farms with tractors, 78.2% in 1959, was still well above the figure for the south.)

In the years 1954-59, the number of regularly hired farm laborers went up only in the south, and there by more than 30% overall. As we pointed out earlier, this indicates that the class divisions characteristic capitalism were rapidly developing as semi-feudal relations were rapidly being eliminated–specifically sharecropping. In the years 1950-70, the south followed the same pattern in agriculture as the county as a whole: a large drop in farm population and in the number of farms, coupled with a large increase in the average farm size and in the number of farms that employ regularly hired labor (workers who remain on the farm more than 150 days out of the year).

During this same period, for the country as a whole, including the south, monopoly capitalist domination of farming increased, not only because the big corporations and banks bought into more farmland and also made vast profits from loans to smaller farmers, but also because of their increasing control of the market for farm products. In the 15 years 1955-69, the marketing bill for farm products–the difference between what the consumers paid for farm products and the part of this the farmers themselves received–rose consistently.

This applies to the south as much as the rest of the country since farm production in the south, like the rest of the country, is overwhelmingly production for the market. In 1969, for example, the total value of southern agriculture was nearly $14.5 billion; $14.1 billion of this in receipts from marketed farm goods, and only $3.5 million worth of products consumed in the homes where they were produced.

The increasing monopoly capitalist domination of farming, with the greatest increase coming in the south in the 1960’s, has meant the steady growth of capital–intensive, in place of labor-intensive, farming. Concretely, in the south in the 1960’s the number of farm workers actually fell, after the initial sharp increase in the 1950’s.

The reason is that in the 1950’s, for the first time capitalist relations became widespread and finally broke up the long-standing pattern of semi-feudal relations in the agricultural south (sharecropping). But in the 1960’s, with capitalist relations fully dominant, the next step was the introduction of large-scale mechanization of agriculture. This means, simply, more machines and fewer workers on the farms.

Reviewed briefly: 1950’s–capitalist farming almost completely replaces semi-feudal agriculture in the south, bringing a dramatic decline in sharecroppers and small farmers and a sharp (though not equal) increase in hired laborers on the southern farms. 1960’s–capitalist farming in the south intensifies, agriculture comes even more under monopoly capitalist domination, eliminating all but a small percentage of sharecroppers and small farmers, but also displacing farm laborers, driving them into the urban areas.

Today, for the first time, in agriculture as well as industry, and for Blacks as well as whites, the productive forces and the relations of production are essentially on the same level in the south as in the rest of the country.

From 1950 to 1970, the south had the greatest increase in the average value of land and building per acre of farm real estate. The south now spends nearly as much money on fertilizers and other plant nutrients as the north (and much more than the west). And the south, which accounts for 31% of the U.S. population, produces about 30% of the value of all farm products sold in the U.S. The south is about equal to the north in field crops, lagging behind only in dairy and livestock.

These figures for the south include Texas and Florida, which are largely outside the Black Belt and are significantly more advanced in agriculture than the rest of the south. But even in the heart of the Black Belt, the development of capitalism in agriculture is very rapidly accelerating. For the period 1950-69, the greatest increase in crop production per acre was in the southeastern states; the greatest reduction in man-hours of labor used for farmwork was in the southeast and southern delta states, while the second greatest increase in farm output per man-hour was in the delta states (the greatest increase being in the southern plains).

Although these figures indicate rate of change, and do not indicate that the Black Belt is still behind the rest of the country in absolute terms, there is no mistaking the fact that, increasingly and irreversibly, farming in the Black Belt is advanced, capital-intensive agricultural production.

These fundamental changes in the agricultural system in the Black Belt have been accompanied by large-scale growth and transformation in the industry of the area. For the period 1939-70, the increases in capital invested in industry, in value of output and in employees on manufacturing payrolls have all been far greater for the Black Belt states than for the industrial heartland of the country (the east north central states–Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan). In these thirty years, the increase in manufacturing employees, for example, was only 83% for Ohio (the highest of the east north central states). For Virginia it was 110%; Georgia, 144%; Mississippi, 206%; Tennessee, 186%; Arkansas, 254%.

Again, while these figures indicate rate of increase and not absolute numbers, the Black Belt states are unmistakably catching up to the rest of the country in industrial development. Tennessee, for example, which has the 17th largest population in the country ranks 13th in manufacturing employees (466,000); South Carolina, 26th in population, ranks 18th in manufacturing employees (340,000); Alabama, 21st in population is 19th in manufacturing employees (325,000).

Today, with the growing economic crisis, many large companies are closing plants in the north and moving them to the south, to take advantage of the backward state of the workers’ movement there. This backwardness has its roots in the history of regional backwardness in the south, which, in turn, has been based on the national oppression of the Black people.

The “runaway” of large plants to the south has re-occurred since World War II, with each successive overproduction crisis and down-turn of the economy (“recessions”). But the latest wave of runaways occurs ’under significantly new and different conditions and has new and added political significance.

Many of the same large companies that are now running away to the south (as well as to colonial areas, and even industrial countries outside the U.S.) hired Blacks for production jobs in large numbers in the mid 1960’s for the first time (since World War II). The boost the Vietnam war gave temporarily to the economy made it possible to do this. The growing militancy and mass uprisings of the Black masses made it necessary.

The owners hoped to take advantage of the fact that these Blacks were “new” to the working class, and that many were still fresh off farms in the south. The bosses expected that these Blacks would be docile, “grateful” for a regular job with a “high wage.” But this has turned into its opposite. Over the past five years, these Black workers have become a powerful, militant spark in generating the, struggle of the industrial working class, as the extension of the war and other factors has drained the economy and intensified the basic contradiction between worker and capitalist, as well as the contradiction between the Black nation and the ruling class.

Faced with this economic and political crisis, one of the main tactics of the monopoly capitalist is to run away to the south, the historic area of oppression of the Black nation. But the south of today is not the south of 30 years ago. The Black liberation struggle, in the south as well as the north, has been transformed into a powerful engine driving forward the struggle of all the workers. If the south is still more backward, if the workers are even more exploited and oppressed than in the north, the south is also ripe for resistance, for a powerful workers’ movement, linked with the Black liberation struggle.

In the Black Belt and the whole south, as well as the rest of the country, and for Black people as well as whites, the industrial working class is the key to the revolutionary struggle for political power and control of the means of production. The land question remains important, but more than in any other country it, too, has become a proletarian question. It is now possible in the U.S., with the seizure of power by the proletariat, to move directly to farm collectivization, and very quickly to socialization (direct state ownership) of agriculture) without first taking what Lenin described as the “progressive but undoubtedly capitalist” (bourgeois democratic) step of dividing the land among the peasantry. The remaining small farmers will, of course, not be immediately and forcibly expropriated, but politically won over and gradually absorbed into collective life by the victorious, ruling proletariat. But this will be made far easier by the overwhelming socialization of agricultural production that has already been developed, in the final stages of capitalism.

It should be clear that mechanically applying Stalin’s Marxism and the National Question cannot solve the national question in the U.S. In this pamphlet Stalin points out the differences between the national question in Austria and the national question in Russia at that time (1913), and he emphasizes that, as important as the national question was:

It is not the national but the agrarian question that decides the fate of progress in Russia. The national question is a subordinate one. . . And so we have different presentations of the question, different prospects and methods of struggle, different immediate tasks. (Stalin, ibid., pp. 330-331.)

A mechanical application of Stalin’s Marxism and the National Question is not only the failing of those who cling to the line of “Black Belt independence is key,” but also of those who swing all the way to the other side and dogmatically insist that there is no national question in the U.S. There may have once been a Black nation in the U.S., they argue, but exactly because of the transformation of the Black Belt and of the Black people who were once concentrated there, that Black nation no longer exists: today, the Black people simply suffer class oppression plus racism, they say.