People who see the struggle against racism in a nationalist light despair of the white working class in the U.S. They believe that the contradiction between capital and labor, described by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao, is no longer the driving force toward socialism in this country. They have no comprehension of the historical destiny of the working class; hence, they have no confidence in class struggle. As we have seen, this non-Marxist approach manifests itself in positions and programs which distort or ignore material class interests.
For one thing, the pro-nationalists feel, like Kautsky, that U.S. imperialism is too strong for the working class. While Kautsky embraced imperialism itself, the latter-day pessimists instead look to the national question to “soften up” U.S. imperialism for the workers.
Our political outlook can be summed-up–“The state of the United States is very powerful and as a united whole cannot be overthrown. The over-throwal of this state is possible only if it is first–or in the process– dismembered.” (People’s Tribune, 6:7, July 1974, p. 2.)
The Communist League is to be thanked for its crude and blunt exposition of anti-working-class views that more sophisticated groups merely imply. Although anti-imperialist struggles weaken the imperialists, this idea that liberation of oppressed nations is a prerequisite to proletarian revolution in the imperialist country does not come from Lenin or Stalin.
Those who transform the national question into a prerequisite of socialist revolution complete their anti-working-class view of class struggle and imperialism. Once you have decided that white workers benefit from imperialism and you have invented nations which do not exist, it is an easy step to conclude that working-class revolution depends on national liberation struggles. It is the petty-bourgeois conclusion to a petty-bourgeois train of argument.
As Mao Tsetung pointed out, the main trend in the world today is towards revolution and socialism, and even those who repudiate class struggle cannot remain unaffected. The liberals who think a better world would be nice; the cynics who dream of social systems but hate the people; the opportunists who jump on the bandwagon of mass struggle–all these types,–in a revolutionary era, might find some use for advocating “socialism.” Since for them the working class is not the driving force to socialism, they must find another. All three types have found the “national question.”
Worship of the national question as the main revolutionary force in the world today takes two forms. We have been speaking of one throughout, the theory of “internal colonies” and the “national question” of racial minorities. Before summarizing the effect of this “internal nationalism” on the working-class movement, we must examine liberal views about imperialism and the working class in general.
Some people who feel that the U.S. proletariat is not revolutionary, but who feel like a revolution would be nice, throw all their eggs into the national liberation basket. They create national questions at home where none exist; they also tail legitimate national liberation movements abroad and refuse to educate the working class about imperialism.
This is the second form of worship of the national question, the idea that struggles such as that in Indochina will force the U.S. proletariat to overthrow U.S. imperialism. The underlying theory is that U.S. workers actually benefit from imperialist plunder of the colonies and only national liberation struggles put workers in a position where they have nothing more to lose by revolution. This anti-Marxist view of the working class is exposed in The New Voice pamphlets Imperialism Today. An Economic Analysis and Three Articles on the Bribe. The U.S. proletariat receives no benefit from imperialism at any time, is hurt daily by U.S. imperialism, and has immediate economic interests in fighting imperialism. Despite the worse conditions of colonial peoples, the formula “most oppressed = most revolutionary” is not always true; U.S. workers have their own class interests for opposing imperialism and uniting with national liberation struggles.
Can the liberals believe in the slogan, “Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World, Unite”? If we look at the liberals’ agitation a-round the war in Vietnam, we find they do not believe in that slogan at all. The imperialist war of aggression in Indochina presented U.S. Marxist-Leninists with a perfect opportunity to conduct all-round education among workers on the nature of imperialism. The task was not primarily to support the Vietnamese people, although we all participated in anti-imperialist struggles and activities for that purpose. The task was not primarily to report the latest news from the battlefront or the negotiations table, although class-conscious workers could learn much from an understanding of those aspects of struggle. The task of communists was primarily to explain the interests of the U.S. proletariat in national liberation struggles, raise class consciousness by exposing imperialism as a whole, and lead the proletariat in anti-imperialist struggles.
From the pro-nationalist left, however, we heard appeals to morality. When one does not think that workers’ interests lie with U.S. defeat in Vietnam, one cannot explain those interests. Appeals in support of national liberation must take another tack. The Communist League, the Revolutionary Union, and the October League, in line with their position on national struggles of minority workers in this country, failed completely to appeal to the class interests of U.S. workers throughout all their analysis of Vietnam.
The October League displays its general pessimism over the working class and its own ignorance of class struggle when it states, “While Nixon’s stalling and lying hasn’t fooled the Vietnamese, it has fooled a lot of people here in the U.S., as seen in Nixon’s overwhelming victory in the election.” (The Call, 1:3, December 1972, p. 3.) Apparently, had McGovern won, it would have proven the U.S. people are not so fooled after all! At any rate, the O.L.’s belief that the U.S. proletariat lags far behind national liberation struggles is clear.
The Communist League tells us that workers will lose their bribe in this country because their “overwhelming drive for peace” will bring fascism down upon their heads. And on what is this drive for peace based? On morality! “But the people of the U.S.N.A. are a moral people and are sick and tired of imperialist wars. In order to continue their wars abroad and silence the working class at home, the U.S. imperialists must have FASCISM.” (1973 leaflet, “Down With the Fascist Moves of the Nixon Government.”)
Finally, the Revolutionary Union steps forward to take the prize for speaking the most and saying the least about national liberation in Vietnam. In a leaflet celebrating the signing of the peace agreement, the R.U. devotes four-plus pages to a meticulous examination of the agreement and why it is a victory for anti-imperialist forces. We assume they published this document for the working class and see it as an attempt to raise class consciousness around Vietnam. If so, their definition of class consciousness is military and diplomatic maneuvering. They speak so much a-bout the give and take on the battlefield and at the conference table–and in fact tail those developments slavishly–that they forgot one small detail. In all those pages and words they did not mention the U.S. working class once! Instead, they issued spirited calls to “mobilize the people,” “advance the people’s movement.” And around what?–perhaps an anti-imperialist understanding within the anti-war movement? Hardly. The purpose of all this “advancing” and “mobilizing” was nothing more than enforcing the peace agreement. “But the final defeat of U.S. imperialism in Indochina, and the prevention of re-intervention can only be won by mobilizing the American people to force the government to live up to the agreement and to stop its interference in the affairs of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.” (Undated leaflet, “Vietnam: A Great Victory, The Struggle Advances To a New Stage,” p. 4.)
Is it unreasonable to expect that a communist organization would point out the class interests of workers in this country? Is it distorting the R.U.’s line to say it leaves us with the impression that the U.S. revolution will be fought in the colonies, that the working class here can sit back and wait for imperialism to fall, colony by colony? In all this activity, the U.S. workers’ sole task is to help enforce the appropriate peace agreements.
If only enough colonies can liberate themselves to force U.S. workers into a revolutionary position! If only we can build enough support on any basis to help them do it! No wonder these liberal daydreamers are reduced to appeals–or should we say pleas?–to U.S. workers such as, “U.S.N.A. workers, hold high the banner of proletarian internationalism! Do not ally with the imperialists in their aggressive and counter-revolutionary schemes. Unite with the workers and oppressed peoples all over the world who are struggling to overthrow imperialism! ” (People’s Tribune, 5:6, July 1973, p. 14.) “Marxists” in the U.S. beg the working class to support national liberation struggles and defend peace agreements. They cannot agitate around the class interests of U.S. workers because they do not understand them. The problem does not lie with the working class or its ability to recognize its interests; the problem lies with a “vanguard” which can see nothing beyond the action of the moment.
In the U.S., the action for the moment of the I960’s was the civil rights movement. Many students and liberals were drawn into the political arena because of concern over obvious forms of racial discrimination. In fact, the political movement of those years quickly got into the habit of tailing the civil rights movement out of liberal guilt and sympathy. Even when some went over to the belief that the whole society had to be changed, they never considered that correct civil rights demands against discrimination were being pursued with anti-working class and reformist politics.
Instead of struggling against these politics, the liberals integrated them into their view of imperialism and designated them an internal “national question.” They postulate that racial minorities suffer the same as colonial peoples; they, of all U.S. workers, can fight imperialism now. In doing so, they will lead the rest of the working class into battle.
There [Detroit rebellion, 1967] the participation of Southern Anglo-American workers from the Negro Nation was, for the ruling class, a terrible harbinger of the future. Detroit showed that the struggle not only linked the Anglo-American working class to the Negro national struggles, but through the Negro people’s movement to the whole of the colonial world. (Negro National Colonial Question, p. 38.)
According to the Communist League, the ruling class quakes in its shoes–not because white and black workers fought racism side by side in their class interests but because a rebellion in Detroit linked white workers to the “colonial world”! The Communist League does not offer an explanation of what basis forged that link, and we can understand why. They would be hard put to explain in nationalist terms what can only be explained in class terms.
Many black workers will be in the vanguard of the U.S. revolution. But they will be there as black workers, not as representatives of a mystical national liberation struggle or as idealistic bridges to the colonial world. The U.S. working class has its own class interests for fighting imperialism and racism! That is the basis for its alliance with colonial struggles for national liberation. To postulate that national liberation forces will lead the proletariat inside the U.S. stands all Marxist theory on the national question on its head. In the colonies, the proletariat leads the national liberation movement. In the U.S., we are told, national liberation forces lead the proletariat. “But today, these Third World workers are rising up, linking the national struggle with the class struggle, and raising the whole working class with them.” (Red Papers V, p. 55.)
We need say no more about the pro-nationalists’ complete repudiation of class struggle as the revolutionary force in this society. They formulated the struggle against racism in national terms because they had to find some way to exempt the civil rights movement in its new stage, minority nationalism, from their general pessimistic view of the U.S. working class. Now, strikes are replacing ghetto rebellions as the primary force of upsurge of the U.S. working class. Characteristically, the pro-nationalists respond to strikes from a perspective that is either sectarian (strikes seek to capture a bigger bribe) or economist (immediate issues are sufficient when workers are in struggle). Nothing else was to be expected, for these people have found their road to revolution in minority nationalism. They see no need to act as communists among the rest of the working class.