Notes on African-American History Since 1900
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- Toward Pan African Liberation
1944 Adam Clayton Powell Jr., was elected to Congress – New York, became second Northern City to send an African American to congress. Oct. 1944: Mechanical cotton picker put in use which begins the mechanization of southern agriculture, each replaces 50 workers. Whereas “civil rights organizations like the NAACP had lost prestige in the context o the 1930’s communist Party’s fight for the Scottsboro boys, they now reclaimed the initiative on behalf of African American rights. The NAACP rapidly expanded under the impact of wartime mobilization. The number of branches increased from 355 in 1940 to over 1,000 by war’s end. The number of members rose from over 50,600 to over 500,000. The organization continued to work through the courts to end lynchings, the poll tax, the white primary, and unequality in teachers’ salaries.181 April 12, 1945 Roosevelt died. Harry Truman, vice president under Roosevelt, becomes President. During World War II, once again the U.S. needed African-American labor to close the gap between war production needs and military depletion of the white labor force. African-Americans migrated North to find jobs in industry despite white labor’s resistance. Segregation continued at home and in the military. During the war, African-American demands won a Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) and softening of segregation in the armed forces, and in some labor unions. White reaction fanned even by these minor concessions caused several severe fierce rebellions. As after World War I, when World War II was over, African-Americans lost most of the better jobs. The FEPC was disbanded in 1946. However, the setbacks weren’t as sudden as World War I because of the new international situation. Black political consciousness was sharpened by exposure to international events and military struggle. There was stronger out-cry against the hypocrisy of fighting for freedom against fascism when African-American life exposed similarities between the U.S. and axis imperialists. 1945 -World War II ends. United States drop two Atomic bombs on Japanese civilians. -Jackie Robinson signed with the Montreal Royals farm team for Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team. -Fifth Pan-African Congress held in Manchester England under guidance of George Padmore and his mentee Kwame N. Krumah, Aziwee from Nigeria and Jomo Kenyatta from Kenya are also present. The Congress calls for positive action for the immediate independence of Africa. Attendees eventually go home and escalate independence movements. Toward Pan African Liberation No black person is free until all black people are free. Black liberation is impossible until there is world liberation and all vestiges of white power are destroyed. The revolution in the world and in America, are all interdependent upon one another. In order to achieve power, the third world peoples (black underclass) must realize their oppression is of an international order and they must organize to destroy and overthrow it internationally. The black underclass cannot achieve peace, justice and world harmony until the existing white power forces, worldwide, are completely removed from political, economic, social and cultural positions of power. People in Africa, Asia, South Central and African America will remain under the yoke of neo-colonialism until they organize independently, internationally forming a world force, a world united front The African in America holds the key to breaking white imperialist, neo-colonialist holdings and maneuverings in Africa by engaging in a massive international action movement inside the United States. The strategic residing of Africans the world over could give Africa a balance of position of world power, more so than if it had a hundred atomic or hydrogen bombs; if it appealed to the revolutionary internationalist feelings of the vast masses of the black world. If Africa does not do this, it and all Africans abroad, face neo-colonialist rule and possible extermination soon. The black underclass must make decisions for themselves; one thing is evident from present neo-colonialist and imperialist control of Africa: The black revolutionary must become more aggressive and bold in terms of national liberation and self- determination. Black revolutionaries must create a condition that will mobilize all third world people to support the world revolution. National liberation and control of a revolutionary state will be set back or destroyed if not surrounded by other bases of revolutionary action that are constantly harassing the enemy, not allowing him to focus on the particular liberation force. The whole world must be seen as one large battlefield in the world revolution and given land areas viewed as liberated or colonialized zones in a world wide protracted war to out-maneuver the enemy. Control of nation states becomes part of world liberation tactics rather than ends in themselves, in the strategy of the black underclass to free itself of world racism. Pan Africanism or Revolutionary Black Nationalism obtains a new dynamism, that of international consciousness, that of achieving international consciousness, that of achieving international, world power for the people. Control of the formation for a world state that represents and works for the benefit of the world’s majority, the black underclass, becomes the ultimate focus of Pan-Africanism, Revolutionary Black Nationalism, Black Power or Revolutionary Internationalism. National liberation of nation states is an intermediate period for the creation of a world union of People’s Republic. It becomes evident that black people must organize for power internationally. In order for the African world to win it must develop a battery of African thinkers who develop revolutionary ways to reeducate and train the millions of African youth worldwide for revolutionary power. There is a great need for an international Peoples’ Guards movement. The African world must have a power base that must exist outside of any state governmental structure, so that its base couldn’t be zeroed in on. Revolutionary internationalists must form revolutionary internationalist parties that are part of an International Peoples’ Congress. The International Peoples’ Congress must be a mass movement, organizing national, regional, and local congresses serving as non-governmental international means of third world peoples communicating with one another. All Africans at home and abroad must realize their fate is inter-connected with the fate of Mother Africa. All Africans at home and abroad must become revolutionary internationalists in their approach, using their technical skills gained in the oppressor’s world to build a United People’s Republic of Africa. The principal contradiction in the world is between imperialism, particularly U. S. imperialism, and the colonies, between the haves and have-nots. This contradiction manifests on both a class and race basis. In the present situation there’s a dialectical relationship between race and class because the exploitation of the have-nots by the haves, though initially perpetrated on class lines is reinforced on race lines. It becomes pertinent to analyze the present state and to draw a clear line for the future. In order for this contradiction to be resolved, imperialism and capitalism must be destroyed by the have-nots. The destruction of these systems will mean the end of class exploitation and will also mean the end of racial exploitation. The European forces have consolidated along racial lines and maintain their exploitation on the basis of racial lines. The world revolution will be a racial/class war between the haves (the imperialists) and the have-nots (the third world majority of the world). At the same time it will be a class war between the black underclass and the white over-class. The line of revolutionary internationalists is that the black underclass is the vanguard of the world revolution. The European ruling class (bourgeoisie) duped the European the European middle class (petty bourgeoisie) and the European working class (proletariat) into believing that it was to their interests to oppress peoples in the colonies (Africa, Asia, South and Central America and enslave Africans in America in the form of chattel slavery. They did this so that the European middle class and European working class would not see the class contradictions and antagonisms in Europe and to keep them from uniting with the have-nots and seize power. The European working class chose and continues to choose to reap the profits of super exploitation of the colonies. The European working class in not dealing with the cultural (racial) contractions of the world, became a tool of imperialism, revisionism, and other counter-revolutionary forces. Lenin, the architect of the October Bolshevik Russian Revolution, proposed that the European working class being racist had allowed the bourgeoisie to consolidate capitalism internationally, to develop “Imperialism.” Lenin developed the thesis that the principal contraction was between oppressing nations and oppressed nations. Lenin pleaded for the European working class to rally to the support of the oppressed nations before working class unity broke down. This he described vividly in the Right of Nations to Self-Determination. Lenin’s hope was for the European working class to rally to support the October Russian Revolution. Even Lenin could not deal thoroughly with the racial contractions, for at the Second Congress of the Communist International held in Moscow in 1920, M. N. Roy of India challenged and debated Lenin on the future world revolution. Roy’s position was that the revolution was going to come from Asia and the European proletariat would be lead by colonial revolutions while Lenin, a European, did not foresee the hopelessness of the European proletariat. As far as he was concerned, Roy had taken the matter a little too far. Lenin stated that he saw and recognized the emergence of national bourgeois revolutions in the colonies (Asia, Africa, etc.), but did not see where they would become the vanguard of the world revolution. (M. North, Roy’s Mission to China.) Roy and Lenin debated for hours to a draw. Although the Second Congress of the Communist (third) International approved and adopted both Roy’s and Lenin’s thesis, Roy’s was seldom referred to and little heard of. History has proven Lenin wrong. The initiative came from Asia. Stalin likewise followed in Lenin’s shoes of remaining indifferent to racial contradictions. While Stalin wrote on The National Question he manipulated the American Communist Party to use the Afro-American Liberation struggle to benefit Russian European Nationalism. The American Communist Party opposed Marcus Garvey, who refused to be controlled by them. By helping to crush Garvey, they helped no one but the European Bourgeoisie because Garvey threatened its control over Africa and other colonies. The American Communist Party later dropped the “Negro struggle” to form a united front against fascism. They urged everyone to support Roosevelt (orders coming from Stalin who had a pact with Roosevelt after Hitler attacked Russia). The Communist Party even opposed A. Philip Randolph’s proposed March on Washington in 1941 against job discrimination against African Americans in Federal Government contracted work. Time and time again the American Communist Party sold the African-American out for the “Mother Country.” George Padmore’s disillusionment with Stalin came while he was head of “Negro Affairs” in Moscow. He saw Stalin make opportunistic maneuvers with the African Liberation Movement in order to “save the Mother Country.” In China Stalin made disastrous blunders which almost cost the lives of the entire Chinese Communist movement. All black (Africa, Asia, South, Central and North) movements were set back and suffered many losses at the expense of Russian nationalism. Padmore attempted to deal with the racial contradictions by organizing the Fifth Pan African Congress held in 1945 in Manchester, England. Padmore’s experiences were similar to the experiences other brothers suffered with the European Communists, particularly between the French Communists and African and Asian revolutionaries. The racial contradictions began to manifest more when the Chinese Communists came to power in China. Long struggling against the social chauvinism (racism) of the Soviet Union, the emergence of Revolutionary China began to polarize racial and class contradictions within the world, in both the bourgeoisie imperialist camp and also in the European bourgeoisie Communist-Socialist camp. The modern European socialist societies that have sprouted from the weak spots in European capitalism, though eliminating major class antagonisms, have not done away with racial antagonisms. They have but established new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of old ones. The failure of European socialism and its vanguard, Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky, to deal comprehensively with the international racial curtain formed by capitalism in its highest stage, imperialism, has helped consolidate the chauvinistic cultural aspects of capitalism in all parts of the western world and has led to revisionism among the European Communist countries. The European working class has thus sold out to the western bourgeoisie. Objectively, the European working class must either unite with the black underclass, the vast majority of the world or perish with the European bourgeoisie and revisionist Marxist leaders in the world revolution. Brother Lin Piao stated in Long Live People’s War: Taking the entire globe, if North America and Western Europe can be called ‘the cities of the world,’ then Africa, Asia, and Latin America constitute’ the rural areas of the world’… In a sense, the contemporary world revolution also presents a picture of the encirclement of cities by the rural areas. In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the African, Asian and Latin American peoples who make up the overwhelming majority of the world’s population. An International racial curtain has been formed by capitalism’s advanced stages, colonialism, imperialism, and neo-colonialism. Frantz Fanon stated in Wretched of the Earth, “When you examine at close quarters the colonial context, it is evident what parcels out the world is (to begin with) the fact of belonging to a given race, a given species. In the consequence; you are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich.” The colonized become a new class, “a thing-nigger, chink, spick” all lumped together. All become one Black Underclass oppressed by all of European society, both its bourgeoisie and its proletariat. Though class antagonisms exist within the Black Underclass, among its bourgeoisie, middle class, working class, peasantry and unemployed, they are secondary to the racial (nationalist) antagonisms or contradictions between the colonized and the colonizer, the haves and the have-nots. This racial system has been established for a period of four hundred years and is embedded as a way of life in European society and transplanted throughout the rest of the world. The essence of world revolution being a total “social revolution” is not just the elimination of the reactionary political and economic institutions of the old order, but also the social and cultural institutions, of the old order. The international racial system predetermines all relations between dark peoples and European, regardless of class (economic and political), status or position. Class becomes interlocked with race. In order for black peoples to revolutionize the world, we must destroy the racial system, European racial “cultural” superiority, at the same time destroying the class system since, “In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African, and Latin American peoples who make up the overwhelming majority for the world’s population,” the world revolution takes on a different character. It takes on a racial character or nature of being largely a world “black” revolution that is primarily of the black underclass. The world revolution is a new democratic revolution of the world’s majority rising up, seizing power and destroying the international racial system created by the oppressor. At the same time it destroys the foundations of capitalism, the class system. This stage is the first step for the transformation to a world communalist society. The world revolution is different from all others. It must be a revolution against the international racial system, imperialism, capitalism and neo-colonialism. It must be led by the non-white masses of the world under the leadership of the black peasantry, working class element of the black underclass. The world revolution embraces in its ranks all classes within the black underclass for a final showdown with imperialism. M. N. Roy of India in the Second Congress of the Communist International held in Moscow in 1920 stated that the proletariat and revolutionary movement in Europe was dependent upon the course of the revolution in Asia; if the Western European working class was going to cause a revolution, they would in essence do it in order to save their own skins. In stating this Roy in actuality repudiated Marx’s theory that “the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class.” Roy saw that white workers benefited from oppression in the colonies and semi-colonies and were not about to give up those benefits. Lenin also saw this but failed to see that the revolutionary initiative in the world was not in the hands of the European working class but the black underclass. Trotsky failed to see this because he, like Lenin, thought the “permanent revolution” was coming from Europe. Lenin saw clearly what Marx, having died before Imperialism attained its zenith, was unable to foresee; namely, the gradual corruption of the European Socialist movements through “Bourgeoisification.” The capitalist system, which Marx had so brilliantly analyzed, had, in Lenin’s lifetime, reached out into the remotest corners of the earth—into Asia and Africa—drawing the great continents into its tentacles and squeezing super profits from the toil of hundreds of millions …Lenin’s saw that Western Capitalism had become converted by international monopolies which had established, on a world scale and whole continents and countries, Indonesia, Burma, Indo-China, etc., that had been reduced to colonies and economic dependencies of European nations. The financial and military strength of the Great Powers rested upon the continued exploitation of the colored people and the super profits derived from colonial spoliation enabled the ruling classes of the West to corrupt the white workers of the metropolis and blunt their revolutionary ardor. Lenin stated in the Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination, that, “the proletariat must demand freedom of political secession for the colonies and nations that are oppressed by its nation. Unless it does this, proletarian internationalism will remain a meaningless phrase; neither mutual confidence nor class solidarity between the workers of the oppressing and oppressed nations will be possible.” Though Lenin even admitted that, Marx was thinking mainly of the interests of the proletarian class struggle in the advanced countries, but could not see the incorrectness in Marx’s thesis on revolutionary initiative and what made up the vanguard of the world revolution. He, therefore, could not understand that M. N. Roy was correct on both the national and international questions. Roy correctly analyzed tactics to be used in the colonial revolution when he developed the theory for revolutionaries to only cooperate with bourgeois nationalists when necessary primarily in the initial stages and with caution, develop working class parties which would organize workers and peasants and inspire them to revolution “from below.” Lenin’s thesis was the use of tactics primarily from the vanguard but the debating over the issue was so great between him and Roy at the Second Congress of the Communist International that Lenin compromised and met Roy half way, and the Congress adopted a dual thesis for the colonial situation, that of organizing from above and below. Marx thought that socialist revolutions would occur in Western Europe in countries where capitalism had developed to a high level and where the proletariat was organized and strong. Instead, revolutions occurred in essentially underdeveloped countries where capitalism was just developing and where the proletariat was basically unorganized and weak. According to the present world situation, the European proletariat is no longer a revolutionary class. This proletariat, due to the opportunism of a European labor aristocracy, has refused to unite with the international third world proletariat to demand its right of self-determination. They are acting as the counter-revolutionaries for the Western bourgeoisie by supporting their regime’s domestic and foreign policies. So, as Lenin foresaw but did not thoroughly deal with Proletarian Internationalism has remained a meaningless phrase and there is no mutual confidence nor class solidarity between the workers of the oppressing and oppressed nation. Proletarian internationalism has been superseded by Revolutionary Internationalism (the unification of peoples of Asia, Africa, Afro., South and Central America). The black underclass becomes the revolutionary class within the world with the black working class-the peasant element being its most revolutionary sector. The first stage of the struggle for liberation of the black underclass against the white over-class is a national struggle. The black underclass must struggle against the particular imperialist power that is directly oppressing it nationally, but it must be remembered that behind all imperialism today is U.S. Imperialism. Therefore, while waging a war of liberation against its immediate oppressor, it must also wage war against U. S. imperialism internationally. Since the end of the second imperialist war, U.S. Imperialism has become the leader of world Imperialism. As Mao Tse-Tung observes, “Like a vicious wolf, it is bullying and enslaving various peoples, plundering their wealth; encroaching upon their countries’ sovereignty and interfering in their international affairs. It is the most rabid aggressor in known history and the most ferocious common enemy of the people of the world. Every people or country in the world that wants revolution, independence and peace cannot but direct the spearhead of its struggle against U.S. Imperialism… The U.S. Imperialist’s policy of seeking world domination make it possible for the people throughout the world to unite all the forces that can be united and form the broadest possible united front for a conveying attack on U.S. Imperialism…” Lin Piao. Successful movements of the black underclass against the white over-class since the end of the second imperialist war have taken the form of “people’s war,” better known as guerilla war. The nature of these people’s war are protracted wars that mobilize the mass of the “black underclass to form national democratic revolutions” to violently overthrow or throw out the oppressor. The revolution embraces in its ranks, not only workers, peasants, and the urban petty bourgeoisie, but also the national bourgeoisie and other patriotic and anti-imperialist democrats, but is led by the black working class peasant element of the black underclass. Marx stated in the Communist Manifesto “every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of the oppressing and oppressed classes.” In today’s world society, the oppressing class is the white over-class and the oppressed is the black underclass, therefore, the world revolutionary initiative and leadership is in the hands of the black underclass. Revolutionary internationalists constantly struggle through various stages of their national movements against colonialism, capitalism, imperialism and neo-colonialism but always emphasize that without the correct international perspective, national liberation movements can fall prey to neo-colonialism. Revolutionary internationalists are the ávant guard’ of the black underclass in every country: they act as catalysts, vanguard and theoretical clearinghouse in national revolutions. The immediate aim of revolutionary internationalists is the formation of the black underclass into a powerful national liberation movement, overthrow of colonialism, imperialism, and neo-colonialism and the conquest of the world political power by the black underclass. While revolutionary internationalists are at the same time revolutionary nationalists in their own countries, they understand that “the world is the people’s land” and a world government under the democracy of the black underclass is the ultimate solution of the world revolution. The question of a democracy of the black underclass opposed to the theory of a dictatorship of the proletariat (the working class) is a historical question. To be a revolutionary internationalist is to admit the need for the democracy of the black underclass. The democracy of the black underclass is the central issue of the ideological differences between third world internationalists and reformists. The theory of the black underclass democracy is the only means capable of putting an end to the universal slave-master, the capitalist’s evil, cruel system and his exploiting nationalists’ movements and their leaders. It is not enough to see the necessity of eliminating entirely the European’s rule, influence and control over the world by the establishment of a democracy of the Black Underclass. This is what constitutes the most profound difference between revolutionary internationalists and others. This is the birthstone on which real understanding and recognition of revolutionary internationalism is to be tested. The question of the democracy of the third world underclass should occupy a special place in revolutionary internationalism because without the seizure of political power, without the democracy of the third world underclass, there can be no victory for communalism. The third world internationalists’ theory of the establishment of a society without race, class and gender exploitation would remain wishful thinking if the third world underclass and its Revolutionary Internationalists’ Movements did not concentrate their efforts on what is most decisive, the seizure of power to reorganize society along communal lines. The International race system has produced two nations internationally—the black nation (oppressed nation) and the white nation (the oppressing nation). There are two types of nationalism. One type suppresses or oppresses, i.e., a nation or particular group reaps profits or advances materially at the expense, exploitation, slavery or torture of another group of nations. In this nation and in the world today, this nationalism is considered “white nationalism” or the cooperation of the white western nations to keep the new emerging oppressed world in bondage. This is capitalism or reactionary nationalism. The other type of nationalism is to liberate or free from exploitation. That is the binding force of a nation or particular group to free itself from a group or nation that is suppressing or oppressing it. In this country and in the world, this is considered revolutionary nationalism. We can see that revolutionary nationalism is the opposite of white nationalism-revolutionary nationalism being innovative and white being reactionary. We can see that the international perspective in the world today is built on internationalist interests, dividing the world into two international nations: the white nation and the black nation. The present world scene is one of chaos and turmoil caused by white nationalism (white power). The vast majority of the world, the black underclass, knows that they can only achieve peace and harmony through a world revolution that demolishes white power. Only then can the world be in “universal” harmony and revolutionary internationalism will then prevail. The need for national boundaries and barriers will be eliminated. National sovereignty will still be respected, but the need for nationalism in its aggressive form will be eliminated. When white counter-revolutionary nationalism is completely annihilated, a “United World People’s Republic,” a new level of social order, can be created. The world revolution brings with it a new world society. It also brings with it the concept of universal law and order.182 In 1947 the NAACP won a major case which declared the white primary in political parties unconstitutional in Smith vs. Allwright in Texas. Directory: Documents -> Finder -> Black%20Liberation%20Disk -> Black%20Power! Documents -> The great global switch-off Documents -> Nonprofit grant application Documents -> The Truth about the Rwandan Genocide Documents -> Annual InStructional unit plan Documents -> Chaos equipment included Black%20Power! -> The Need (Importance) for Student Activism in the 21st Century Black%20Power! -> When and how I wrote toward black liberation part I and malcolm X and the black liberation movement Black%20Power! -> Notes on African-American History Since 1900 Download 3 Mb. Share with your friends:
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