No problem , comrade :>). Of course the time period you were discussing was
complex ( what time isn't complex ?), and you said a lot more than what I
commented on. You may have been referring to "right after" the NNLC, the
TULC period, not the NNLC, etc. And , also, of course, there was white
chauvinism "in" the CPUSA, as it would be impossible not to be. I just
focussed in on that little part because I think, looking at the situation as
a whole, and by the whole I mean ALL of racism in US history , which is a
really big whole, I think the CPUSA did an incredibly, nay extraordinary,
"exemplar" in your word, historic job of opposing racism within its ranks
and outside. No other white majority organization ,political or otherwise,
came as close to overcoming racism.
Here's the irony of my saying this: When Angela, Charlene Mitchell, Kendra
Alexander , Herbert Aptheker, Mark Solomon and the rest of us left in 1991,
there were issues of white chauvinism, but when , again, you look at the
history of the Party as a whole in comparison to the rest of US society, the
racism is miniscule. Gus Hall's _Racism: The Most Dangerous Pollutant_ or
whatever the title is, has got to be the best anti-racist, working class
consciousness thing by a white person there is.
Also, I wanted to highlight "for the record" that NNLC was a CP "front" ( I
use that term as a compliment), and that Coleman Young was a member of the
CP, because those facts could get lost in history. Ironically, the custom
of keeping partymembers' identity quiet, a necessity because of state
represssion, now threatens to understate the achievements of the Party to
future generations. As famous as Coleman Young is in Detroit, very few
people know that he was a CPUSA official. When the House UnAmerican
Activities Committee called him before it, they had the right one, baby. He
was a top Red. And he chased them out of town and they never came back. It
was like Jack Johnson beating up those Great White Hopes in front of
thousands of screaming racists. One little , sweet, symbolic victory in a
sea of lynching and apartheid.
These small facts may play a role in inspiring the Communists of the future,
who knows. So, I want to spread the word, open up the "classified" files of
the working class movement.
I may have mentioned before the book by Mark Solomon ( who is there in
Boston with Jim F.), _The Cry was Unity: Communists and African Americans
1917-1936_ It chronicles Comintern relation , etc. I don't know if he would
characterize the Comintern as forcing that position on the newly born CP. I
often wonder how the Comintern could force anything on the CP, way over
there in Moscow. How could they force people thousands of miles away, with
the U.S. military between them and hostile to the Comintern ? Maybe I'll
reread what Comrade Solomon chronicled on this and report. The question is
what does all that teach us for what we have to do with...The Million Worker
March Movement and fighting the Detroit chamber of commerce ? You know that,
I know.
By the way, what Solomon told me is one reason I know Coleman was in the
Party. They went to classes together that were members only.
I think I have a copy of that "Negro Liberation" compilation. In general, I
think it was and is difficult to say what was and is the precisely correct
position on Negro Liberation in that era and this one. But here's a good
place to knock it around. There still seems validity to me, in the CPUSA
concept that African -American liberation is central to working class
revolution in the U.S.
Maybe I can find my Roscoe Proctor pamphlet too. Black workers are
inherently more militant, but not necessarily more class conscious...
Charles
Waistline2 :
(This phase of history of the trade union movement is bound up with the
white chauvinism and wrong orientation of the CPUSA and the SWP - and
government attack and penetration, that allowed for the political vacuum of
the time.)
^^^^^^
CB: The National Negro Labor Council "was" the CPUSA. Coleman Young was a
leading member of the CPUSA, as were the main organizers of the NNLC.
Reply
This is what was stated:
>>>After the House un-American Activity Committee basically destroyed the
National Negro Labor Council with Coleman Young destroying its membership
list,
rather than submit (this famous and historical presentation is available on
line by plugging in Coleman Young Jr.). The next organizational expression
of the
fight to desegregate the UAW - not the workplace, was the Trade Union
Leadership Council (TULC). <<
The political vacuum refereed to is the emergence of TCLC, and then the
LRBW.
The work of the NNLC was honorable and occupies an important chapter in our
history, as does Coleman Young Jr. and much of the practical activity of the
CPUSA.
In the context of our history and those groups calling themselves communist
and Marxist, the CPUSA (from roughly 1928 and the first Comintern document
forced on the party until 1967 Detroit, the political juncture in my opinion
- was
exemplar in comparison. Some Marxists view the definitive political juncture
as the Watts Rebellion of 1965 and consider Gus Hall's 1951 pamphlet on the
Negro Question as one of the highest theoritical expresses of the party on
this
question. (Gus Hall, Marxism and Negro Liberation (New York, New Century
Publishers, 1951)
It is perhaps a mistake and not well thought out on my part to lump the
CPUSA
with the SWP. This is perhaps an unfortunate tendency on my part in trying
to
explain some of my past activity and organizational affiliations outside the
historic polarity that was the CPUSA and SWP. On practical activity I
cannot
recall any disagreements with individuals members of the CPUSA.
Theory discussion tend to confuse a historic and fundamental unity as
activity. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the overthrow of its property
relations might even make the old Stalin Trotsky political polarity
irrelevant for
today.
On the other hand theorists such as the Trinidadian CLR James and his
writings on the Negro People is an affront to common sense and the
generation of
communist workers I am a part of. Nothing he has written on this question
comes
close to Gus Hall's 1951 article, Claudia Jones, Harry Haywood, John Pepper,
Petis Peery, James Allen ("Negro Liberation," International Pamphlets no. 29
(New
York, International Publishers, 1932), or even William Foster, whose
position
of a "nation within a nation" strikes me as strange.
In terms of my use of the concept of "political vacuum" some would see the
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists as a continuation of the NNLC. This is
not my
personal point of view because the NNLC was not conceived as a trade union
organization composed of employed trade unionists. Yet there is a political
continuum that exists, no matter what I personally think. However this is a
subject never really discussed in the open or raised by even myself.
In the time it took to write this I will reconsider lumping the CPUSA with
the SWP since this is like comparing apples and automobile tires in respects
to
the historical curve of the African American Liberation Movement.
Sorry.
Waistline
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