We have already examined the first point in detail. With regard to the second point, the crucial question comes down to: is there still sufficient internal cohesion for the Black people to form a nation? Specifically, is there still the class structure and inter-relation of class forces among the Black people to make possible the establishment of a separate Black state? We are convinced that the answer is yes.
While Black people are spread throughout the country, they are also concentrated in the inner-cities. Within the Black communities of these inner-cities, there are still class divisions, and, to a limited degree, an economy-within-an-economy: ghetto businesses which, although integrated into the overall economy of the country, service the Black communities exclusively. The owners of these Black businesses largely form the Black bourgeoisie, which, as the bourgeoisie of an oppressed nation, is very weak and underdeveloped– and, in this particular case, fragmented. The existence of these Black businessmen differs from white small businessmen in that the Black ghetto capitalists are completely dependent on the market of the ghettos, especially in the field of services, where Black business has fared better than in goods. (White businesses in the ghettos actually greatly outnumber the Black businesses, but as a group, the white small businessmen do not operate mainly in the ghettos; they are not wholly, or largely, dependent on the existence of the ghetto market.)
In recent years, the Black ghetto businessmen have been going out of business. In fact, one of the ironic consequences of the civil rights movement in its thrust against segregation has been the partial destruction of the ghetto market for the “independent” Black businessmen. At the same time, the Black petit-bourgeoisie has actually grown in the same period, as the ruling class tries desperately to foster illusions among the masses of Black people and create a “buffer stratum” of Blacks, to act as a brake on the surging Black Liberation struggle. (“I made it in America,” screams James Brown, “so can you. Stop your rioting!”)
The greatest growth has been among Black professionals, who increased by 41% in the four years 1961-64. Another section of the Black middle classes–including some businessmen who are bought out or who themselves buy into franchises or corporate chains–is being absorbed into the big white-owned corporations as a managerial stratum. Today, nearly 25% of the “non-white” labor force is composed of professionals, engineers and other technical workers, managers, officials and proprietors. Among this broad group there are different interests, and therefore splits and divisions. But, however weak and disunited, significant petit-bourgeois and bourgeois forces continue to exist and exert influence among the Black people–and they exist as a Black bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie solely and exactly because of the concrete forms of the national oppression–and the national resistance–of the Black people.
From among these forces, the bourgeoisie of a separate Black state could still be formed. They are mainly merchant capital; but merchant capital has historically provided the basis for the development of industrial capital, especially once the question of a territory functioning as a national market is solved. For these reasons, the question of self-determination, of the creation of a separate Black state, is still a real–and not imaginary–question.
On the other hand, the Black bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie–even the managerial stratum that has been promoted by the (white) monopoly capitalists–is dominated by the monopoly capitalists and suffers under the rule of U.S. imperialism. For this reason, if the correct position on the national question is upheld, these sections can be united in struggle against U.S. imperialism. And the correct position means upholding the right of self-determination, including secession.
Some people answer this last point by arguing that among the Puerto Rican and other Latin-American peoples, as well as the Asian-Americans, and even in the Irish, Italian and Jewish communities, there are small businesses that rely on these “ethnic” working class neighborhoods for their market and are held down by monopoly capital. There is today (the argument runs) no separate Black economy, any more than there is for these other nationalities. Therefore (the argument concludes) there is no basis today for a separate Black state.
This argument does not take into account the fact that Black people in the United States have a national development distinct from these other nationalities: Black, people have historically constituted a nation within the U.S. None of these other nationalities has ever constituted a nation within this country (leaving aside here the Mexican-American people of the southwest).
In the Black Belt, following the reversal o Reconstruction, the Black people were firmly welded together into a modern nation. We have stressed several times that the development of that nation, an especially of its capitalist class, was distorted by the particular conditions under which it arose, so that even at the height of the concentration of the Black nation there was never a separate Black economy in the Black Belt. (As we pointed out, even during slavery production in the Black Belt was for the world market; it was “commercial exploitation.”) There was, however, and is still today, a basis for forming a separate modern economy in the Black Belt, and therefore for forming a separate nation-state.
This is exactly why separatism–represented most forcefully by the Muslims-still has an influence among all sections of the Black people, even among the workers. The Muslims demand a separate state for the Black people, although they do not fix the actual site of this state. On the other hand, there are Black groups–such as the Republic of New Africa–which are attempting to organize Black people throughout the country around the demand for a separate Black state in the heart of the south.
The demand for self-determination arises today among the Black people (and also among the Mexican-Americans)–and not among the Italian-Americans, the Irish-Americans, the Jewish-Americans, or even the Puerto Rican. Native American and Asian-American peoples in the U.S., because these nationalities have never constituted a nation within this country. The Black people have historically constituted a nation, and. once again, this historical basis of nationhood has not been destroyed, but transformed.
One example on this last point. In Marxism and the National Question Stalin cites the Jews as an example of a national minority that never constituted a nation in Russia (or in the other states Jews were dispersed within) and could only artificially be created into a nation. In fact, today, the state of Israel is the realization of the Jewish separatists who dreamed of artificially creating a Jewish nation-state, and were finally able to do so with the backing of the imperialist powers. After World War II the Zionist settlers in Palestine organized a systematic campaign of terror (aided by British and U.S. imperialism), drove large numbers of Palestinian Arabs out of their homeland, and, at the point of a gun, established Israel as a Zionist state. Since then, they have continued to expel the Palestinian people from their homeland, and to subject those who remain–along with darker skinned Jews–to vicious caste-like oppression.
Under these conditions, can we say that the Palestinian people no longer have the right to self-determination in their historic homeland? We don’t believe that any genuine revolutionary would take this position. And we are just as firmly convinced that the correct stand for genuine revolutionaries in the United States is to uphold the right of self-determination for the Black people who have been driven from the Black Belt through a combination of economic compulsion and the terrorism of the state and “private” fascist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan.
The fact that large numbers of white people–who now outnumber Black people in the Black Belt–would have to be re-located in order to form a separate Black state there, is not unprecedented and does not eliminate the right to self-determination. The Palestinian people recognize that, in their struggle for self-determination, they must now work out a solution involving the Jewish settlers. The same approach would have to be taken in establishing a Black Republic in the south.
We have emphasized the right of the Black nation to self-determination because, although it is not at the heart of the Black liberation struggle, it is one current, and a mishandling of this question can only set back the unity of the working class and its revolutionary struggle for socialism. This does not mean that we advocate separation. In fact, we uphold the right of separation because it is a genuine right, and in upholding this right we create the conditions for proletarian unity in opposition to bourgeois separatism. This is the Marxist-Leninist position when the national question is once more a particular and internal state problem, even under new conditions.
Lenin and Stalin insisted that, when the national question is an “internal state problem,” when there is the direct possibility of a single proletarian revolution throughout the entire state, the right of self-determination was a negative demand. Lenin compared it to the question of religion: Marxists are against all forms of religious persecution, but they are also against religion. So we are against all forms of persecution of oppressed nationalities, but we are also against the separation of the working class along national lines.
As an “internal state” question, we uphold the right of self-determination exactly in order to unify the proletariat of all nationalities. As Stalin put it: “The obligations of Social-Democracy (Marxism), which defends the interests of the proletariat, and the rights of a nation, which consists of various classes, are two different things.” (Stalin, Marxism and the National Question, Vol. 2, pp. 321-22.) The point of unity is that the most thorough and determined fight against all forms of national oppression is in the highest interests of the proletariat.
Under our present conditions, what does it mean to uphold the right of self-determination for Black people? It means actively fighting for the national rights of the Black people, actively opposing the forcible suppression of their national aspirations. As a part of this general task, white communists, especially, must oppose every attempt by the ruling class to suppress the Muslims, the Republic of New Africa, or other Black organizations in their efforts to propagandize for a separate Black state or to organize the Black people to gain control of the institutions where they are concentrated–whether it is community control in the ghettos, or seizing control of the land and institutions from the Eastlands and Stennises in the Black Belt.
Let’s imagine a discussion at a plant gate, involving a Black worker, a white worker and a Black separatist. The separatist approaches the Black worker and tells him: “Hey, brother, I’m from the Republic of New Africa; we’re building for a new Black Republic in the south to get away from this whole white man’s madness.” The white worker interjects: “Now look, there are a lot of white people in the south, too. What right do you have to set up a Black country down there and force all the whites off their land and out of their homes!” Then the separatist (with justifiable anger) runs down the whole history of barbaric oppression of Black people, and their long history of resistance right down to today. He sums it up by saying that this all proves the need for separation.
The class-conscious Black worker will not agree with the separatist; he will oppose separation, and he will understand that for the Black people to win real freedom, it is necessary to unite with white workers. But he will not say all this in front of a white worker who has just denied the right to separation for Black people. The Black worker will not have confidence in this white worker and will hold back from uniting with him–for good reason!
But what if the white worker is also class conscious? Then his position will be: “I think the answer to all of our problems, whether Black or white, is to get together and fight against the rich businessmen, to fight them when they steal our bread, and to fight them when they brutalize and discriminate against the Black people or other nationalities. I think we need a government run by the whole working class–Black, brown and white, all of us together. But I know that I have not suffered the brutal treatment and discrimination that Black people must still fight today. And so even though I think we should all join together as class brothers and fight for a government that represents our class interests, I know damn good and well that it’s up to the Black people to decide whether or not to separate, and you certainly have the right to do it.”
If the white worker is consistent in this position and actively fights for it, he will win the respect of the Black worker, and a great obstacle in the path of working class unity can be knocked aside. The leadership of working class forces and working class ideology will be strengthened among the Black people and greater sections of the Black people will be united in struggle against the monopoly capitalist ruling class. The basis will be strengthened for linking up this Black united front with the broader united front of the American people, and for establishing the leading role of the proletariat and its communist vanguard in this United Front Against Imperialism.
We are convinced that white workers can be won to this kind of understanding and that it is the duty of communists–especially of white communists–to win them to it.
But haven’t we said that separation would be a step back for the Black people and the whole working class, and shouldn’t we therefore oppose separation? The answer is yes, under any presently conceivable circumstances it would be a step back and communists, especially Black communists, should politically oppose separatism. The only real liberation for the oppressed and exploited people in the U.S. lies in the overthrow of monopoly capitalism, and this requires the unity of the entire working class. But, once again, the dialectics of the situation are that by upholding the right of self-determination for Black people, we strengthen our case against separation. Stalin explained it this way:
The right of self-determination means that a nation may arrange its life in the way it wishes. It has the right to arrange its life on the basis of autonomy. It has the right to enter into federal relations with other nations. It has the right to complete secession. Nations are sovereign and all nations have equal rights...
This of course, does not mean that Social-Democracy (Marxism) will support every demand of a nation. A nation has the right even to return to the old order of things; but that does not mean that Social-Democracy will subscribe to such a decision if taken by some institution of a particular nation. (Stalin, Marxism and the National Question, Vol. 2, p. 321.)
Since we are dealing with a nation of a new type, the writings of Lenin, Stalin and Mao (as well as Marx and Engels), while they are the foundation for our understanding of the national question in the U.S., do not deal with the new and unique conditions of the Black nation in the U.S. today. It is the duty of communists in the U.S.–and in the last analysis, of the eventual multinational Communist Party–to develop the theory and practice to deal with the historically unique conditions of the proletarian Black nation.
This Red Papers is our first attempt to begin any detailed development of the question. While we are convinced that our basic position is correct, we recognize that our present understanding is only a beginning. Further, in formulating this position, it has become clear that we are limited by the formulations, and even the vocabulary, of Marxism-Leninism in dealing with the national question in earlier historical periods. These writings have boiled the question down to its essence for those situations, but don’t strictly apply in every detail to our conditions.
We have held to the formulation of the Black people as a nation because of the historical basis of nationhood and the present situation of Black people which continues to bind them in a very close national union, and because of the importance of upholding the right of self-determination, including secession, which has been firmly established on the basis of the long history of the Black people in the U.S.
But the important question is not the particular word–“nation”–as opposed, say, to “national minority.” The crucial question is to understand the historical and present material conditions of Black people and the essential thrust of the Black liberation struggle today that flows from those conditions.