The point in communist theory is not to understand how groups interact, but how the working class should understand social reality in order to win power and build socialism. What you are doing, Mike is to conflate the scientific class conflict theory of Marx and Lenin with the idealist, group conflict theory of Max Weber--who is in no hurry particularly to get anywhere and certainly has no great impulse to build socialism nor to unite the working class against the capitalist class.

That's why you would never see Max Weber writing an article like Marxism and the National Question, which is a very anti-nationalist document because it wants to see socialism created--not little bantustans for each race group created to keep their middle classes happily exploiting their own.
That's why Lenin and Stalin established very strict criteria for national status that did NOT include the very dubious, neo-Weberian notion that races can be considered, all by themselves, nations. That's why the primary impetus of their article is to show that nations are made up of many races, and it does no good to conflate race with nation, because it feeds the selfish desire of the middle class to exploit their own.

As you and many others on this list are doing--conflating the two when the two categories should remain separate.

Self-correction: the 1913 document is not anti-nationalist: it's merely against phony, false nationalism by which the middle class of each race attempts to become a capitalist class or bureaucratic caste in their own right.

@Mike

Good. I agree with nearly all of this.

MIke E. is using his prerogative as moderator to join with sks in racist-baiting me. That is not moderate. That is bias, as is the ridiculous claim that by me saying that blacks in America are an oppressed race not a nation--and agreeing with Lenin and Stalin--I am being racist. How is it racist to say that a race is being oppressed, but that they do not fit the criteria of nation? By that token Lenin himself was a racist.

If you have any comradely notion, Michael, you will turn off the messaging to my inbox declaring a new post to this thread. I want no more part of this. You are biased, yet posing as a moderator.

You can't resist, can you Tom?

MikeE was actually toning things down, but now you have to up the ante and divert again.

(I attribute it to some special training Sparts go through of how to be uncivil and tone deaf. Nearly every Spart I'm ever talked to is like that, and normal people aren't. And that's meant as a joke, sort of...)

The problem, in my view, is not the holding of positions. People have all sorts of positions on these matters, formed and unformed, good ones and bad ones and lots in between.

I fault you here when you, as a radical leftist from the 'Great Nation,' aim your main blow on this matter at the nationalism and the nationalists among the oppressed. That will get you in a nasty tangle nearly every time, however pure at heart you may or may not be.

This illustrates what I mean: Mike has differences of substance with the national analysis of Blacks in the USA and the political consequences of this, but he is not a denialist, at least in my definition: he recognizes this is not something pulled out of thin air, by non-marxists or pseudo-marxists, but a complex idea that is both independent and intertwined with Marxism as it relates to the USA, and furthermore, to other revolutionary traditions and perspectives.

While in disagreement, we can agree that our reality is shared and problematic and developing and historical (that is, dynamic). I see not such things in Tom's argument - and I do not think I am personalizing in saying so.

I do agree my first (delete) posting was not good, but I disagree with the later snipping and its characterization as a personal attack. But hey, when in Rome do as the Romans...

There's a lot of intereting information in this discussion, but what has bored me to tears is the acceptance of Stalin's definitions of nations.

Who made Stalin an expert? Who made Lenin an expert? Why are we supposed to merely accept these definitions <i>carte blanche?</i> No one has proved a thing falling back on these explanations. Could they have been wrong? Could they have been only correct for Russia?

There is no life in that discussion. It's all dead, dry, lifeless, sterile. The dynamic, messy reality of human existence is entirely missing. The Swiss are not a nation according to that definition. Neither are the Indians. But, according to that definition, the Arabs are one nation, and so would many nations in Central and South America. Nations come into being, they split, merge, and disappear. And they do so in their own particular ways. The methods by which the French or German nations were constituted is not the same as the method by which the Haitian nation was constituted, nor the Indian nation. Who says people cannot be part of more than one nation <i>at the same time?</i> I've met people who call themselves part of the Yugoslav nation, even after that country and people were ripped apart by imperialism.

@Cheglitz:
1) I don't see how the Swiss don't qualify. Yes, the native Americans probably do not--they really don't have a separate territory--it's just a bunch of scattered reservations. Like the bantustans in the old South Africa, or the West BAnk and Gaza are in Palestine. They're far better off aiding their fellow workers fighting for socialist in the U.S.: just like it's far better for the Palestinian workers to demand a single state solution that would have to involve Arab-Jewish workers unity.
Saudi Arabia is a different nation from, say, Egypt, because although they share language, they have a different territory, economy, and culture. Same with Central and South America. It's not just language.
2) Socialist science is a hardfought victory. Lenin and Stalin did the spade work here. They defined nationalism in such a way that was good for revolutionary socialists, against social democrat reformists like Martov and Adler and the Bundists. Those are the positions we start with. If there's a third position, you need to go back to that debate and enter it "into the lists," and show how it is superior to Lenin's and Stalin's position, and somehow different from Austrian Social Democratic theory/Bundism. I really don't see any difference. And Lenin and Stalin soundly REFUTE that theory.
Otherwise if you just leave it up to the people themselves--you're leaving up to somebody OTHER than the socialists and the workers. You're letting the middle class hucksters, like Garvey, get a theoretically free ride. They get to speak for the black masses, and we just accept that. So what we accept then is the destruction of any possibility of socialist revolt in these racist United States.

I was not aware that Mike was reigning things in--my apologies to Mike and my thanks for his moderation. And I understand Mike has his opinion, and I accept that he has a right to his opinion. I consider him a comrade with whom I can have an intelligent conversation.

But I would counsel him once again to think about who exactly represents the "African American people," and what exactly is the agenda of the black middle class who lead nationalist movements.It is certainly not racist to call attention to this selfish agenda, behind the attempt to transform "race" into "nation."

Sks has charged that W.E.B. Dubois was a black nationalist when he wrote The Souls of Black Folk. First of all there is no mention of a black nation in this book. Second of all, Dubois was one of the first black Americans to comment on the treacherous nature of the black middle class. Third, while Dubois did toy with separatism, at the end of Black Reconstruction, he seems equally interested in integration and equality.
Here is some interesting stuff from wikipedia about the very hostile relationship between Dubois and Garvey--and the cosy relationship Garvey established with the KKK (just as Farrakhan, according to the Workers Vanguard, has struck up a friendship with Tom Metzger and conducts joint land deals with him!)

While W. E. B. Du Bois felt that the Black Star Line was "original and promising",[28] he added that "Marcus Garvey is, without doubt, the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America and in the world. He is either a lunatic or a traitor."[29] Du Bois feared that Garvey's activities would undermine his efforts toward black rights.[citation needed]

Garvey suspected Du Bois was prejudiced against him because he was a Caribbean native with darker skin. Du Bois once described Marcus Garvey as "a little, fat black man; ugly, but with intelligent eyes and a big head."[30] Garvey called Du Bois “purely and simply a white man's nigger" and "a little Dutch, a little French, a little Negro … a mulatto … a monstrosity.” This led to an acrimonious relationship between Garvey and the NAACP.[31] Garvey accused Du Bois of paying conspirators to sabotage the Black Star Line to destroy his reputation.[32]

Garvey recognized the influence of the Ku Klux Klan, and in early 1922, he went to Atlanta, Georgia, for a conference with KKK imperial giant Edward Young Clarke. According to Garvey, “I regard the Klan, the Anglo-Saxon clubs and White American societies, as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together. I like honesty and fair play. You may call me a Klansman if you will, but, potentially, every white man is a Klansman, as far as the Negro in competition with whites socially, economically and politically is concerned, and there is no use lying.”[33] Leo H. Healy publicly accused Garvey of being a member of the Ku Klux Klan in his testimony during the mail fraud trial.[20]

After Garvey's entente with the Klan, a number of African-American leaders appealed to U.S. Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty to have Garvey incarcerated.[34]
************************************************************************************************
Garvey is a sterling example, as is Farrakhan, of what happens when we accept middle class leaders of black nationalism as the genuine article, as the true representative of the black consciousness of the masses. We must not.

Ok, I get it now. Switzerland is not a country because they speak more than one language? Ok, let's just remove language as one of the criteria. So Stalin was wrong on that one. Doesn't change anything important. Doesn't mean race = nation.

@ CG, who says:

<blockquote>Who made Stalin an expert? Who made Lenin an expert? Why are we supposed to merely accept these definitions carte blanche? No one has proved a thing falling back on these explanations. Could they have been wrong? Could they have been only correct for Russia?</blockquote>

The short answer is no one 'made them' experts, and hardly anyone here is arguing for 'cart blanche' acceptance of anything. To the contrary, a number of us have made the point of starting from an examination of conditions and people's thinking.

But you're right that the discussion has been tedious at times, largely due to points being ignored or repeated.

In any case, if we are to continue this, engage the discussion with fresh views of your own.

Take a look at the wikipedia article on Marcus Garvey--I had a lengthy quote from it in a post I tried to send twice--perhaps because it was so lengthy.

Dubois hated him. "Marcus Garvey is, without doubt, the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America and in the world. He is either a lunatic or a traitor."[29] Du Bois feared that Garvey's activities would undermine his efforts toward black rights.

29: Dubois, "The Crisis", Vol 28, May 1924, pp. 8-9

So much for sks' assertion that Dubois was a nationalist. He did toy with separatism at the end of the penultimate chapter of Black Reconstruction but wavered between this and his old demand for full equality and integration.

Garvey was also very friendly with the Ku Klux Klan:
Garvey recognized the influence of the Ku Klux Klan, and in early 1922, he went to Atlanta, Georgia, for a conference with KKK imperial giant Edward Young Clarke. According to Garvey, “I regard the Klan, the Anglo-Saxon clubs and White American societies, as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together. I like honesty and fair play. You may call me a Klansman if you will, but, potentially, every white man is a Klansman, as far as the Negro in competition with whites socially, economically and politically is concerned, and there is no use lying.” Leo H. Healy publicly accused Garvey of being a member of the Ku Klux Klan in his testimony during the mail fraud trial.

After Garvey's entente with the Klan, a number of African-American leaders appealed to U.S. Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty to have Garvey incarcerated.

Switzerland is not so hard to figure out. It calls itself the 'Swiss Confederation' for a reason. It's a multinational country (Mike is right on the distinction between country and nation) formed by several nationalities at a time when the nation-state and modern nations were just beginning to take shape. Here's Wikipedia on the matter:

<blockquote>The traditional ethnic composition of the territories of modern Switzerland includes the following components:

The German-speaking Swiss (Deutschschweizer), i.e. Alemannic German, historically amalgamated from the Gallo-Roman population and the Alemanni and Burgundii, including subgroups such as the Walser. "Swiss" from the 16th to 18th centuries referred to this group exclusively, and only with the expansion of the Swiss confederacy following the Congress of Vienna was the term applied to non-Alemannic territories. Closely related German-speaking peoples are the Alsatians, the Swabians and the Vorarlbergians.

the French-speaking Swiss (Romands), traditionally speaking Franco-Provençal dialects, today largely assimilated to the standard French language (Swiss French), amalgamated from the Gallo-Roman population and Burgundians (the historical Upper Burgundy). They are closely related to the French (especially those of Franche-Comté).

the Italian-speaking Swiss (Svizzeri italiani), traditionally speakers of Lombard language (Ticinese variety) today partly assimilated to the standard Italian language, amalgamated from Raetians and Lombards. They are closely related to the Italians (especially Lombards and Piedmontese).

The Romansh, speakers of the Romansh language, settling in parts of the Grisons, historically of Raetic stock.
</blockquote>

Belgium is another multinational country, with two nationalities, the Flemish and the Walloons--the former speaking Dutch and the later French.

In fact, uni-national countries are the rarity, as Mike noted. Japan comes close, save for the small grouping of Ainu and Korean migrants, Korea is another

In a few weeks, our local Beaver County peace group will have a table up for a week-long street celebration in the town of Ambridge called 'Nationality Days', which has been observed for decades. In addition to various European-American nationalities--Greeks, Poles, Italians German, Irish and so on--I assure you African Americans will have booths, and more recently Chinese-American and Mexican Americans have been putting them up, too

I have a suggestion for Tom, though. If he's ever in western North Carolina, in the little town of Cherokee. he might want to visit the Museum there, and attend the live pageant the Cherokee people do to teach about their claim to the Smokies, and the injustice of their removal in the 'Trail of Tears' It was fought vigorously in the Congress back then, with Andy Jackson winning by only one vote. The opposition to the forced removal of the Cherokee went on to become one core of the antebellum abolitionist movement. Some of the Cherokee never left, hiding out in the hills. Others returned to their 'homeland' from Oklahoma over the years.

Tom dismisses Native American claims to nationhood because they are now on 'small reservations.' That's hardly the point, Tom. In the case of the Cherokee, their claim to nationhood precedes their removal by the white supremacist Jackson regime. And as for 'small,' the Navajo area is quire large, and any road you take into it marks the borders with 'You are now entering the Navajo Nation.' You might pay a visit there, too, and ask people how they view themselves. I visited it two years back, and learned a lot.

And if you are in the Southwest, also study up on Reies Tijerina and the history of La Alianza, a claim to the land in New Mexico held by Indo-Hispanics going back to Spanish Land Grants. They were there long before the Mexican War, in which the U.S. seized half of Mexico. Indeed, our borders have never been held 'sacred'--some folks have always wanted to stretch them, and they may indeed need some adjusting at a future time.

And you're still sticking with 'four' criteria rather than five. At this point, I'll just take it that you don't agree with the one you always skip over, that a nation is a historically constituted community of people. Instead, you tend to think that 'nationhood' is simply something belonging to governments, regardless of history--and that will nearly always get you tangled up on the wrong side of things.

There is no such thing as a "multinational country" according to Stalin and Lenin. I see no reference to that in the text. I also see no distinction between country and nation, Mike. Where does that come from? Where did you get that?

The document does mention "nationalities" in several instances, referring to the Magyars, and the Austrians, etc. But...these aren't races, and the document discourages socialists from taking up the cause of each and every oppressed "nationality" to the point where they advocate "cultural-national autonomy" from each other. Why? Because the cult of national autonomy

"...not infrequently passes from a "system" of oppression to a "system" of inciting nations against each other, to a "system" of massacres and pogroms. Of course, the latter system is not everywhere and always possible, but where it is possible – in the absence of elementary civil rights – it frequently assumes horrifying proportions and threatens to drown the cause of unity of the workers in blood and tears. The Caucasus and south Russia furnish numerous examples. "Divide and rule" – such is the purpose of the policy of incitement. And where such a policy succeeds, it is a tremendous evil for the proletariat and a serious obstacle to the cause of uniting the workers of all the nationalities in the state."

"But the workers are interested in the complete amalgamation of all their fellow-workers into a single international army, in their speedy and final emancipation from intellectual bondage to the bourgeoisie, and in the full and free development of the intellectual forces of their brothers, whatever nation they may belong to."

@Carl, we're not talking about Cherokees. We're talking about the very dubious proposition that blacks in America form not just an oppressed race but an oppressed nation.
@Mike E. He wrote the following:

"Similarly, Black people in the U.S. have had a common territory historically (until their dispersal in the great migration)."

They shared that "Black Belt" territory with whites, and the culture, and the economy. Thus it was never a "nation," by Stalin's original definition: not even potentially a nation. Any more than the Jews in the Pale were or could be a nation.

I would like to refer comrades to Max Shachtman, Race and Revolution, ed. by Christopher Phelps, Verso Press, 2003. This was originally titled Communism and the Negro, and was circulated within the SWP in 1933 while Shachtman was still a Trotskyist. Pages 66 - 96: "The Communist Movement and the Negroes" is particularly relevant. It is too bad this is not, to my knowledge, in the Marxist Internet Archive. It is a SOLID refutation of black nationalism and the Stalinists adaptation to it, based upon Lenin's and Kautsky's original criteria for oppressed-national status.
If comrades would like to read this with me, that is fine, but otherwise I will have to demure from any more conversation on this thread--it is pointless to try to discuss this without your having read Shachtman's pamphlet.

For starters, here is a review by Bryan D. Palmer--a confrere of mine in the hard Trotskyist Left (i.e. coming out of the Revolutionary Tendency in the SWP which gave rise to the Spartacist League, the Socialist Equality Party, the Bolshevik Tendency, the Internationalist Group: I.E. NOT a Pabloite-Mandelista)--of Shachtman/Phelp's RACE AND REVOLUTION (COMMUNISM AND THE NEGRO--1933). My own opinion is that the introductino by Phelps, who is a Solidarity member, really sucks, but many of you would probably like it--because it's into this fool autonomist jive. anyway, here is the link. Once again, I urge comrades to ADD THIS BOOK TO YOUR COLLECTION AND READ AT LEAST THE SHACHTMAN PORTION:

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/llt/54/palmer.html

From Palmer: quotes from James Allen vs. Max Shachtman:

James S. Allen's Negro Liberation (1932), its cover adorned with a United States map, the Black Belt sharply demarcated in red, commences:

In the light of a full moon a group of Negro croppers gathered at the rear of a a cabin in Sumter County, South Carolina, intently studying a map roughly sketched on the ground. They had come from the surrounding plantations to hold a stealthy meeting of what was then just the beginnings of the Croppers Union. A Negro worker stood in the center of the group explaining the meaning of that rough map. He had sketched a map of the United States in the earth with a twig and marked off those sections of the South in which the Negroes were in a majority. The croppers were greatly amazed. For the first time they realized that not only in Sumter County, S.C., do the Negroes make up more than half the population but that there is a continuous stretch of land extending like a crescent moon from southern Maryland to Arkansas in which Negroes outnumber the whites.39

It is this passage, indeed, that the irascible Left Oppositionist polemicist, Max Shachtman, ridiculed mercilessly in his "Communism and the Negro," a direct rejoinder to the Communist Party's Black Belt nation thesis:

this little narrative is sufficient to lay bare the thoroughly ludicrous nature of the new Stalinist theory on the American Negro question.... Can a situation be imagined in which it would be necessary for an agitator to penetrate to the home of the most backward peasants in Ireland in order to draw a map of the country... and prove that there not only is such a place as Ireland but that its inhabitants should be sovereign in it? Or Poland? Or Korea? Or in the homeland of any genuine nation? (78–79)

God grief, Tom, listen to yourself again...

<blockquote>There is no such thing as a “multinational country” according to Stalin and Lenin. I see no reference to that in the text.</blockquote>

If it's not in the text, it can't be in reality. "In the beginning was The Word..." I rest my case on your NeoPlatonic method, as opposed to the method of Marxism, the ABC of which is to start with conditions.

Besides, you'll find innumerable references to Russia as a 'prison house of nations'. What is that if not a multinational country?

Then you have this Zinger:

<blockquote>They shared that “Black Belt” territory with whites, and the culture, and the economy. Thus it was never a “nation,” by Stalin’s original definition: not even potentially a nation...'</blockquote>

Once again, you keep importing 'separate' into Stalin. He talks about 'common' territory, not separate or exclusive. That's your trip, your 'value added', so to speak.

Finally, you watch to cite Schactman as an expect of this matter? Please...

<blockquote>@Cheglitz:</blockquote>

chegitz, no capitals, no l. It's not hard to type.

<blockquote>1) I don’t see how the Swiss don’t qualify.</blockquote>

The Swiss speak three main languages (4 actually, but one is small enough to be ignored). If you refer to a German speaking Swiss person as a German, they will be highly offended. They are not Germans.

<blockquote>Saudi Arabia is a different nation from, say, Egypt, because although they share language, they have a different territory, economy, and culture. Same with Central and South America. It’s not just language.</blockquote>

And yet, if you told both an Egyptian and a Saudi that they were not Arabs, you would offend them both. Arab nationalism exists throughout the Arab speaking world ... except in Malta. They speak Arabic, but to not consider themselves Arabs. There is an Arab nation. But within that nation, there are individual nationalism. They are separate and the same. Dialectics.

As for Central America and parts of South America ... do they <i>really</i> have separate economies? They may have separate currencies, but their economies are all tied to the Empire, and interconnected.

<blockquote>2) Socialist science is a hardfought victory. Lenin and Stalin did the spade work here. They defined nationalism in such a way that was good for revolutionary socialists, against social democrat reformists like Martov and Adler and the Bundists. Those are the positions we start with</blockquote>

We who? Prove your assertion. Why are Lenin's and Stalin's definition from 1912 about Russia the only definition communists in the Empire in 2012 should consider? I'm not religious. I don't worship at the altar of dogma. Prove your case. Don't argue from definition like some kind of religious fanatic.

From my own reading of the history, Lenin and Stalin defined nationalism in a particular way, not because of "science," but because they were trying to win the revolutionary groups oppressed nationalities within the Russian Empire to the Bolshevik faction, away from the Mensheviks. The Mensheviks, like you, were arguing that the different nationalities in the Empire were not true nations. The Bolsheviks, unlike you, were arguing for self-determination of nations, seeking to show that these groupings of people did have the capacity for independence.

But, that was in a prevailing ideology of nationalism, in which every nation was entitled to its own state, and no state was entitled to more than one nation. Nations are artificial constructs, each and every one. Three hundred years ago, there was NO English nation. There was an English speaking people, united under a sovereign. Their loyalty was not to England, but to <i>Queen Anne.</i> In the 18th Century, German philosophers, specifically, Herder, were the first to articulate that nations existed, that there were these groupings of people with a shared history, land, language, culture, etc. But that was not true. Someone from Kent spoke a different language from someone from North England. They were barely intelligible to each other.

Nations had to be created. A common grammar and spelling and pronunciation had to be established. Common traditions had to be created. Histories had to be written with particular heroes and villains. All of this was, and is, part of the nation building project. Nations have no objective basis. They are nothing more than a group of people who have a sense of being a nation together. They, and they alone determine whether or not they are a nation.

Thus, the question as to whether African Americans are a nation is an unsettled question, because African Americans themselves have not made a decision. The nation building project within the African American peoples stalled, but is continuing. At the same time, they are pulled towards the American national project.

The problem you have, is that you are taking a particular definition, from a particular time and place, created for a particular purpose, and universalizing it. This is the mistake nearly all Leninists, whether Stalinist, Trotskyist, or Maoist make with anything written by Lenin. It is a method Lenin himself never practice, nor Marx. It is philosophical idealism, not science at all.

Lenin write that every revolution is different. There is no blueprint for the revolution. This is true of nationalism as well. Each nation comes into existence under its own conditions, with its own particular rules. They can have a common language or many languages. They can have a compact territory, or, like Europe's Jews, no territory at all. They can have a shared history of thousands of years, or mere decades. They can have one state, multiple states, or no states. And individuals can be part of more than one nation. A person could be both Italian and American at the same time, because of how wach nation defines itself. A person could be both Black and American.

But you have your Bible, and surely will continue to thump it.

And if the black middle class nationalists suddenly decided to declare that U.S. blacks are all from the Planet XYZ, would you say we have to accept that, too?
After all, Farrakhan has said that the Mother Ship is coming.... I guess from outer space.
Better get ready, folks.
Bow down and worship whatever the black MIDDLE CLASS say about the black masses and their objective position within the U.S.
Fuck Marxist objective social science. Fuck the standpoint of the international proletariat. That's for the birds.
Or maybe not. Maybe we as socialists have the right and the duty to THINK OBJECTIVELY about who is and is not a nation, based upon the accumulated workers science of the past. That includes Kautsky's, Lenin's, and yes, even Stalin's ideas--Shachtman's pamphlet too.
I don't have the time to type it into this blog, and I cannot possibly do justice to the brilliance of his argument. Go get the book and read it, please. Then we can talk.

From the Stalin (Lenin) 1913 pamphlet:
"The right of self-determination means that only the nation itself has the right to determine its destiny, that no one has the right forcibly to interfere in the life of the nation, to destroy its schools and other institutions, to violate its habits and customs, to repress its language, or curtail its rights."

This is the key passage on national self determination. Nota bene: it does not offer carte blanche, a nationalist "do it yourself" kit, to each and every oppressed RACE or PEOPLE to declare THEMSELVES a nation. That is NOT what the right national determination means. It is only meant for those groups that can actually be proven to meet the four criteria for an historic national community established earlier in the pamphlet. Otherwise the pamphlet makes no sense. But in fact it makes perfect sense, because Lenin ghost wrote it or intensely supervised it:

People have accused me of thumping a bible, and in a sense I do, because I am involved in propagating a faith, or a theory, and that theory is socialism.

But why is it a bad idea for socialists to go around PROMOTING national identity where none exists? Because national oppression is something to be gotten out of the way--not an end in itself for socialists. Why?

From the 1013 pamphlet: "Nationalism diverts the attention of large strata from social questions, questions of the class struggle, to national questions, questions "common" to the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. And this creates a favorable soil for lying propaganda about "harmony of interests," for glossing over the class interests of the proletariat and for the intellectual enslavement of the workers."

National separatism, when the proletariat see it as their own struggle, divides the international working class.

And further:

"the policy of persecution …not infrequently passes from a "system" of oppression to a "system" of inciting nations against each other, to a "system" of massacres and pogroms. Of course, the latter system is not everywhere and always possible, but where it is possible – in the absence of elementary civil rights – it frequently assumes horrifying proportions and threatens to drown the cause of unity of the workers in blood and tears."

"…"Divide and rule" – such is the purpose of the policy of incitement. And where such a policy succeeds, it is a tremendous evil for the proletariat and a serious obstacle to the cause of uniting the workers of all the nationalities in the state."

"The workers therefore combat and will continue to combat the policy of national oppression in all its forms, from the most subtle to the most crude, as well as the policy of inciting nations against each other in all its forms"

But not where it doesn't exist. Where it is simply RACIAL oppression the working class must combat RACIAL oppression--not promote divisive SEPARATISM!

You still don't get it, Tom. There are no humans in this modern world, including you, that do not have one 'national identity' or another as part of their psychological makeup. We uphold proletarian internationalism, but we each do it largely from within our own national realities. So did your deified Russian revolutionaries. But you are blind to your own, thinking 'class' has replaced it, and then aim your fire at the national identities of the oppressed in your own oppresor nation. As a result, you can't see a distinction between self-determination and separation, ie, as in having the right to divorce as part of your marriage, and divorce itself.

This is not 'you' personally, but the personal implications of your positions on the matter.

It's a classic deviation, the 'left' liquidation of the national question. We're repeating ourselves at this point, but at least the differences are crystal clear, or seem to be IMHO, to everyone, even yourself, but from the other side.

Leon Trotsky on the Centrist contempt for theory and principle:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1934/02/centrism.htm

In the sphere of theory centrism is impressive and eclectic. It shelters itself as much as possible from obligations in the matter of theory and is inclined (in words) to give preference to “revolutionary practice” over theory; without understanding that only Marxist theory can give to practice a revolutionary direction.

It is not a rare thing for the centrist to hide his own hybrid nature by calling out about the dangers of “sectarianism”; but by sectarianism he understands not a passivity of abstract propaganda (as is the way with the Bordiguists) but the anxious care for principle, the clarity of position, political consistency, definiteness in organization.

The right liquidation is done in the name of reformism, tailing the more conservative approach to racial and national oppression of the union leaders and more conservative Blacks. Tom takes the opposite tact, of aiming ruthless struggle and merciless blows against radical nationalists and their allies in the name of revolutionary intergrationism and class struggle.' That's what makes it 'left.'

When Lenin debated with Luxemburg about Polish nationalism it was understood by him that "the central and determinant source of revolutionary politics" within the Russian Czarist Empire was the Russian working class. Deciding on what stance to take towards Polish nationalists was more a matter of ironing out some important technical details than of replacing the Russian proletariat by some other revolutionary agent. Most of all it was a question of determining what the party line of advanced revolutionary leadership should be, rather than of deciding who would play the role as "the central and determinant source of revolutionary politics." The latter was not in doubt.

In the USA after WWII many debates have simply been skewed by the fact that a long period of capitalist prosperity (1945-70) was followed by an era of growing stagnation in which massive crashes of the kind which used to be a norm in the 19th century are still largely avoided. That leaves many would-be socialists throwing their hands with the cry "who is the revolutionary agent?" In the context of an apparent vacuum, some have a reflexive tendency to respond with "It is the black people who are going to be the revolutionary agent!"

In the late 1970s and 1980s a whole plethora of Maoist, Trotskyist, Hoxhaist, Stalinist, Cliffite, Marcyite, whatever type, groups went streaming into many black neighborhoods with the idea that if they had the right party line then they should be able to pick up a bunch of recruits. Well it didn't really work out so well. Basically a good rule of thumb here in the USA is that if you want to seriously build a socialist party of some kind then you should be prepared to gather at the ballot box about 25 million white working class votes nationwide for a clear-cut socialist ticket. If and when that happens then one can expect an ample supply of black people showing at the party office to find out more about membership.

But until something like this has been realized, would-be socialists who hang around black neighborhoods are basically also-rans. They may be treated in a very friendly way as really cool guys. But a simple rule of thumb followed by the majority of black people says that as long as a substantive body of white workers are voting for Ronald Reagan, then you don't vote for anything too much to the Left of Bill Clinton. That just is the predominant attitude among most black people. It won't be changed by any specific party line which any socialist follows. What will have to change is a massive shift to some form of socialist Left by a significant body of white workers, and then one can expect a new kind of feedback from the black sector.

This is an issue which always hangs in the background behind most such debates among avowed socialists. I think more important than attempting to determine according to some abstract notion whether or not black people form a distinct well-defined nation in the USA (in my judgment they don't, but that's secondary) is simply grasping the fact that black people became tired a long time ago of various Leftist attempts to recruit as a replacement for the white proletariat. Whether your party line is about "a black nation" or "revolutionary integrationism" or some other version, most black people are simply not interested until you have something to show them.

If this is meant to be a debate about what is the right party line to draw in a maximum number of black recruits while the white workers are off voting for Rick Santorum, then it's a meaningless debate. This was never even considered as an issue when Lenin brought up the matter of national self-determination a century ago. The debate then had a different meaning and was not based upon substitutionalist premises.

Gee wiz Carl, thanks for the compliment. i LIKE IT! But I might revise it a little. How's this?:

"aiming ruthless struggle and merciless blows against MIDDLE CLASS nationalists and their CENTRIST allies in the name of revolutionary intergrationism and class struggle."

@Patrick, take heart, mon ami, Leninism is still relevant now, and voting is NOT RELEVANT. And workers, white or black, by and large don't vote. Black workers vote more, but they vote for Democrats. They're the 50% that get left out.

Now more than ever we need a Leninist Party that thinks outside the ballot box.

The simple fact is that promotion by "Leftists" of interracial hostility and separatism in the U.S. in not revolutionary. It is middle class-posturing,-parasitism, and adaption to same, out of what is basically a centrist petty moralism.

We should be for the liberation of blacks in the U.S.. That must involve sociailst revolution, which in turn must involve workers interracial unity and integration.

"National self-determination" is not liberatory, because it GETS IN THE WAY of such unity. It gets in the way of building an integrated Leninist party.

If you think you're doing black people a favor by demanding that we recognizing a delusion promoted by their divisive middle class nationalist FRINGE--well, you're certainly not doing them any favors. You're not winning for them some kind of fantastic prize. You're leading them down the primrose path to division and perdition--to continual second class status within capitalist society. Thanks, but no thanks, they should say. And often do.

Since a lot of importance is placed on what Lenin thought of the subject (Tom's allegation that Stalin's later enthusiasm for Black nationalism was a "degeneration" Lenin's original wisdom) and since today was Lenin's birthday, I just want to include this series of texts Lenin wrote before his death (as part of the documents commonly referred to as his "last will and testament" which many hard-line Stalinists dismiss as forgeries even though they are equally as critical of Trotsky, Bukharin, et al)

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/autonomy.htm

Happy birthday, Vladimir Illyich
Ghan, he was not EQUALLY critical. He wanted to make Trotsky premier. Unfortunately, Trotsky repeatedly turned him down.
He wanted Stalin REMOVED as General Secretary.
That's not equal.
And Trotsky thought he had Lenin poisoned. See Trotsky's bio of Stalin.
Stalin's later position on black nationalism is a clear REVERSAL of Lenin's and his position, for purely self-serving, opportunist motives. Just as was his slogan "Socialism in One country."
Long live the memory and program of Lenin!

Mike E, writes,

<blockquote>If we choose to define "nation" as a historically constituted community of people who have the material basis for actual independence… (as was the definition for much of communist history), then a people can consider themselves a nation (by THEIR definition), and yet not be "a nation" by our communist definition.</blockquote>

I do not accept, as a given, "our communist definition." I do not accept a socially objective basis for nationhood. At the time in which Lenin and Stalin were writing, perhaps it appeared to them, in the part of the world where nationalism and the nation state were most advanced, that there were common, objective chracteristics that all nations shared. But history is under no obligation to stick to our definitions. Socialism hardlly turned out the way we expected.

When trying to decide if a group is a nation or an ethicity or a race, etc. I am reminded greatly of the discussion on what is a planet that SKS mentioned. The discussion was oriented towards a predetermined end. They didn't want certain bodies to be planets, they they created a definition that excluded them. I see this with the discussion on nations. Rather than looking at the things themselves, and trying to understand the phenomenon, our communist definition starts with a desired end, then crafted a definition to get us there.

Rather, I think we should look at how nations came into being and for what purpose. In a sense, that presupposes a definition of nation, for how can we look at them to understand how they came into being if we don't know at what we are looking. But I think we can safely say that we know that there are some entities that we all agree are nations: the French, the Germans, the English, the Irish, etc., and starting from these, we can unfold an understanding of nations. But that's a bigger task than can be developed here and now.

For now, let me simply assert that nations are creations of the bourgeoisie. For Tom to assert that Black people aren't a nation because the Black (petty) bougeoisie are the ones trying to create it is like trying to assert the Moon isn't a planet because it is round. Why was the nation building prject necessary? Before the rise of capitalism, the loyalty of a people was not to a nation, but to a sovreign. As Louis XIV famously said, <i>"L'État, c'est mo."</i> With the abolition of the absolute monarch, with the rise of the bourgeoisie as the new ruling class, to whom were the people loyal? To their bosses? To the state, something which barely existed? Something new had to be created: the nation.

At the same time, by declaring a people a nation, a bourgeoisie could set off a group of workers, a specific piece of territory, a market, as theirs, exclively. To say there is an English nation is to say that this island, these people, belong to the English bourgeoisie.

So there's a duel purpose at work, forging a people together so that the ruling class can dominate them, and keeping away foreign capitalists. And though, at some point, the bouegeoisie may not have been conscious of this process, though they may have even drunk their own koolaid quite often, they were also quite conscious of what they were doing much of the time. Samuel Johnson's dictionary, for example, was a deliberate attempt to create a common Enlish language, something that did not exist until that time. Ancient traditions were created. To jump nations for a moment, the kilt was created in the 18th Century. National flags were created. National histories were created. Boudica becomes a national hero of the English, even though the English had nothing to do with Boudica, as she was a Celt, and the English are largely Germanic (she should be the national hero of Wales).

And we see this process occur again and again, around the globe. And sometimes nations spring into being seemingly overnight where they didn't exist before. Canadians trace the birth of their nation to the U.S. invasion in 1812. And though, for all intents and purposes, Canadians are very similar to Americans, their nationalism, their national identy, is based on an antoagonism to the United States, that they are NOT Americans (in the national, not continental, sense). American nationalism was stunted for the first 80 years of the U.S. state. It was the common struggle of the Civil War that forged an American nation, where people's loyalty shifted from Viginia and Illinois. We see it in Palestine, where Arabs who were once Syrians (the whole region from Turkey to Egypt, from the Mediterania to Mesopotamia, was Syria, until torn apart by Britain and France) become Palestinians on the basis of a struggle against a foreign invader.

It is this process that creates nations, not "objective" factors, which create nations. Just as money only becomes capital when it is engaged in a particular process, a group of people are only a nation on the basis of a process.

<blockquote>The injection of the word "offended" (repeatedly) into matters of scientific analysis is rather fashionable on the U.S. left — but in its very nature confuses what is popular conception with what is real. (And the assumption is that it has somehow/somewhere become a major crime to offend anyone — which, if you think about it, would be absurd for communists in America… since our very existence is offensive to some.)</blockquote>

Granted, but if nations are not based on arbitrary definitions, but rather on a shared sense of identity, then offense ... while not proving that a specific identity exists, at least sets off warning bells, that there is something we should consider. On the flip side, however, I once offended a neo-Nazi (which nearly cost me dearly) by denying the exitence of Aryans (at least as blue eyed, blond haired demigods).

<blockquote>chegitz raises an important question when he writes:

"As for Central America and parts of South America … do they really have separate economies? They may have separate currencies, but their economies are all tied to the Empire, and interconnected."

No one in the communist discussions of nationality and liberation actually assert that any nation (or country) literally has a separate economy. The question (in the historic discussion of nations) is if they have a sufficiently distinct economic life to form the basis of a national market. (And we all know that all national markets in history are not strictly autonomous, just relatively so. And with imperialism they become entwined in new and deepening ways.)

There are both national markets and also economic intertwining — and one of our tasks as communists is to understand where that process is. Not just because it impacts the nature of national independence in our world, but also because it impacts how and whether we can create relatively autonomous socialist economies within a generally capitalist world.</blockquote>

I was, perhaps, being too quick here. But what does it mean to have a seperate economy? Does Cuba have a seperate economy, dependent as it is on the gifts of foreign countries to keep it running? Is there an economic basis for an independent Palestine or Puerto Rico? Could California be a nation, since, if it seceded from the U.S., it would be the tenth largest economy in the world (leaving aside the question of the Mexican minority for the moment).

I think this point of insistence is rather dated. It was much easier to speak of national economies in 1912 than it is today. The world is far more interconnected today than it was then. What does the material basis for independence mean?

"to assert that Black people aren't a nation because the Black (petty) bourgeoisie are the ones trying to create it"

I don't wish to assume what Tom's opinion on this, but I must say that I have never seen any evidence of a real attempt by black bourgeoisie to create a separate nation. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, Spike Lee, Wendy Williams, Oprah Winfrey, none of these people are engaged in trying to create a black nation. That is positively absurd. They are dedicated to integrating themselves into the social structure.

That fact by itself should not be the basis of any criticism. One can't use it as the basis of criticism unless one first accepts the thesis of a black nation. Then one could criticize such leaders for not seeking a black nation. But the fact is that they are not. If you called what such figures do "black nationalism" then every household which puts up an Irish flag would be "Irish nationalist" according to some definition.

The fact is that there has been no serious attempt among the black bourgeoisie to build a black nationalist movement. Sure there are thump-speeches which may be given by some black politicos to black audiences which seek to draw upon a sense of oneness. That's politics as usual. There are all sorts of speeches given by politicians everywhere to all varieties of audiences which serve as a way of crafting coalitions. But that's different.

The last serious effort by any honest notable black leader to formulate issues in terms of a black nation was by Malcolm X up to about a year or two before he was assassinated. Even he abandoned the idea before his death. But no one significant since then has taken the idea seriously.

For the most part the black nation idea has largely disappeared from real life and become something that is sustained among small groups of usually white Leftists. What generally defines all of those Leftists who keep this idea around is mostly a sense of exasperation with the white working class. Supporting the idea of a black nation becomes a way of sticking it back to a working class which has apparently failed.

But in terms of real practice, it would be virtually impossible for me or anyone else to go out marching here in central Florida with demands for the formation of a black nation and not come off sounding like a representative of the Ku Klux Klan. Those are the types who are more likely to think of these things than any of the ordinary black employees at the numerous restaurants and stores in this area. But it should also be mentioned that another jackass slogan made up by the Spartacist League was "Finish the Civil War!" That, too, is something which could easily be mistaken as the slogan of a bunch of Confederate flag-wavers.

One of the many problems with your viewpoint, Tom, is that it doesn't allow for the fact that nationalism of the revolutionary sort often arises from the workers of the oppressed of their own accord, without instigation from 'middle class misleaders', (a weird formulation in any case that has more uses than aspirin).

My guess is that someone with your perspective would wind up attacking the whole 'League of Revolutionary Black Workers' battles that emerged in Detroit and spread elsewhere in the late 1960s and 1970s.

There was nothing 'middle class' about them, but my guess is your position would find some way to stick that label on them. That's how you would divide the working class with a 'left' deviation of the matter, that would dovetail with the opposition coming from the more backward element of the 'white' labor aristocracy. The popular term back then was 'left' in appearance, right in essence.

I agree with what PatrickSMcNally wrote. I'm agnostic about the existence of Black nation, and in as much as nations are created by a bourgeoisie for their own purposes, I would be inclined to accept that no separate Black nation exists in the United States, as yet.

However, there were several waves of nationalism, and at a certain point, the idea took on a life of its own. There's definitely a Black nationalism, and contrary to Tom's assertion, it is not solely the realm of the Black (petty) bourgeoisie. While genuine Black bourgeois show little to no interest in separating from the American nation, and the last serious attempt was by Marcus Garvey in the 1920s, the idea has some traction in the urban Black population, where, as Carl Davidson correctly remarks, it found fertile ground among the Black proletariat.

Which is more proof of the messiness, not the simplicity, of nations and nationalism.

Some interesting ideas raised here--largely having to do with how and why we need to be what I would call "classicist" with regard to socialist theory and the history of our theory. I will respond to these later. Just for now--we're in the same position Lenin describes in What is to be Done--surrounded by bourgeois ideology. That's why we MUST stick to the old theory--or come up with a damn good reason why we should revise it. I haven't seen it.

Response to Patrick--yes nobody really takes this stuff seriously. It's about turf, and about these middle class misleaders getting their own piece of the capitalist pie. Fully agreed with you there (again, bro look me up on fb; I teach at BMCC, let's talk. Let me know if you have a problem finding me.)

Just got from Against the Current a copy of Joel Jordan's excellent article, BLACK LIBERATION OR BLACK SEPARATISM, Against the Current, old series, Fall 1980. People should try to get a hold of this--I know it's in the Tamiment library, and it may be in your local university liberary. Or you could try Dave's patience--don't tell him I told you :-(

My very concise 2 cents worth:

• A nation-state, a country, or a social formation consists of all the classes that constitute it historically. Further, it is the relations between classes that constitute the historical structure of class struggle. These relations between classes are concrete and determinate, and are not at the same level in all social formations. For example we can identify the US social formation, the French social formation, the Greek social formation.

• The relations between classes determine the social relations in a society, a country or a social formation. This brings us to the process of production, which is the historical key of the correspondence between the base and the superstructure, and which explains the determinant role of the economy (production relations) in any social formation, nation state or country. For example, we can identify the US as an imperialist social formation, Greece as a dependent capitalist social formation, and Haiti as a dependent and dominated (with an added element of being occupied) social formation.

Our ongoing appropriation of a social formation is the primary condition to construct an ongoing political line. Ongoing in the sense that the social formation is dynamic and always in a process of reproduction.

If we go by some of the theoretical definitions of a country posted here… this can lead to a dangerous path in constructing a political line. These theories justify the possibility for the KKK to demand their own nation, those of Irish descent in the US to do the same, as well as LGBT or any other “social group”.

I have argued that African-Americans are not a national minority, and that the forced migration of Africans to the US was for the interests of the capitalist mode of production, and with its racist undertones was a contradiction or a contradictory process that bourgeois democracy/dictatorship has not yet been quite able (or willing) to fully address. Bourgeois democracy/dictatorship may not be willing to resolve it, but they are not incapable of doing so. In fact, contrary to other social formations (such as Cuba and Haiti), the American bourgeoisie promptly, and mainly successfully, tore away the umbilical cord of the Americans from Africa that had connected them to their origins. There is nothing nationalist about wearing a Dashiki or having an afro. These are cultural statements at best, but politically a narrow pseudo-folklorism.

I would argue as well that the theories of Lenin /Stalin on the subject are no longer applicable (specifically for imperialist social formations), except (maybe) for social formations such as Chile and Nicaragua, where national minorities exist. By the way, there is a little known text by Lenin, ”Capitalism and the Migration of the Working Class” that is worth reading, and may even contradict some of his theories on national minorities.

Our approach should not be to keep Marxist theories intact at our disposal, but rather to deepen the theory. The proletarian organizations become the machine of production of theory.

@Jan

'Historically constituted' matters a great deal.

To put it it bare bones terms, the peoples captured from Africa and broight here in the 1600s were diverse. They couldn't even understand each other, depending on which part of Africa their tribes were based. They held a variety of religions and cultures. Over the years, in their capitivity and even among the few who became 'free,' they acquired new common characteristics--a new language, a new religion and so on. In short, they became a new people.

Where they simply English subjects? Or later, Americans? Yes and no. They were an oppressed people living within a larger country drawn from various nationalities, but held apart by the law rooted in the color line. The dominant nationality held them apart and beneath, simply as n*ggers, a people 'with no rights a 'white man' was bound to respect.

So they were Americans and not Americans at the same time--and that's exactly how they debated the matter among themselves--and still do, although to a lesser extent these days.

Where they a 'race.' Not in any scientific sense, unless you want to call the Irish a 'race' or the Scots a 'race,' and so on. 'White' is not a 'race' either, but a social construct aimed at social control. Biologically, there is only one race.

Were they divided into classes aomg themselves? Yes, from the very beginning. Most were slaves, then Freedmen, who became sharecroppers and farmer. A growing proportion were workers, until that became the majority class. But there were always preachers, undertakers, barbers, teachers, doctors, inventors and so on, soe trading entirely within the Black community, and some with the larger society as well.

Was their a distinctiveness to their new culture? Absolutely, and a very creative and dynamic one that helped shape American culture as a whole. I recommend Amiri Baraka's 'Blues People' on the matter. What made it distinctive? The slave experience.

Where did this people come into being? Mainly in the slave states of the Deep South, even as they later dispersed throughout the country, and even when they did, they tended to live in compact communities--sometimes by choice, but mainly not.

I think every thinking person, certainly every Marxist, should not have any problem agreeing with every point made above, at least this far. They are all matters of historical fact.

The question remains: What do you want to make of it? Not just in theory, but as the matter arises in political life. When a group raises the demand, 'Self-determination for Black America!' or 'Black Power!', meaning they want the Black masses and their allies to hold the political power in their areas, what stand will you take toward it?

I was on the 'March Against Fear' in Mississippi when Stokely raised the 'Black Power' slogan. I saw it electrify churches full of poor sharecroppers with revolutionary determination against the 'white power structure,' as it was called then. And when I came back North, I faced all sorts of liberals and even leftists fearful of the notion as somehow 'racist' and 'divisive'. There wasn't anything all that special about me, but I could clearly see the revolutionary implications, and theat if we couldn't get this matter straight, we weren't going anywhere. So I set myself the task of dispelling those fears of 'Black power', and encouraging people to welcome what it meant.

Soon after U came back North, my mother asked me what it was like in Mississippi. I thought about sitting in those Black churches in the Black Belt, and said 'It's like being in another country, Mom, a poor and Black one.' A year or so later I happened to read Harry Haywood's 'Negro Liberation,' and it made perfect sense to me, even if a little dated. But that was based on my own experience. Until then I had never even heard of the Comintern, let alone read anything by Stalin

So does the concept on 'nation' and 'nationality' make sense here? I think so. I've yet to find a better one. But the future is open. Maybe someone else will somewhere done the pike. Until then, I'll use this one as a decent working hypothesis.

Jan has raised some very thoughtful points. Jan you sound like you have read Poulantzas and are influenced by him--have you. I invite you, too, to look me up on facebook: Thomas Smith, teaching at BMCC in the Social Science Dept.

Of course, I disagree with you about the idea that Lenin's and Stalin's ideas--largely centering on the impossibility of the Jews in Russia being a nation-- are irrelevant to the U.S. because it is an empire.

Jan, so was Russia, an empire! And if you're going to say the U.S. is a different kind of empire, you need to show how that difference in the social formation MAKES Lenin-Stalin's ideas irrelevant. Don't just throw out that it's "different."

Now a general response.

It would be one thing to say that the old definition of what and who and is and is not a nation established by Lenin and Stalin for socialists and socialist revolution does not apply to blacks in the United States, like it does to Jews in Tsarist Russia. Of course, it still does, and blacks simply do not meet the criteria anymore than did the Jews.

It is a whole other thing to do what Mike E. has been doing: to say we don't need those definitions any more because they don't produce the results we want--in order to be somehow politically correct.

This is not socialist science, comrades. It is impressionism and opportunism.

Socialist science is a carefully built up achievement over generations. Beset on all sides as we are by bourgeois ideology and cynical petty bourgeois consciousness and agendas, it is the temptation of every new generation to people-please and adapt and in the process throw out our time tested theory and definition--to go with the flow rather than stick to our scientific principles that have been hard won, and evaluate social reality by THEM, not by our fleeting impulses, momentary pangs of white middle class guilt (or black middle class ressentiment) or whatever.

The 60s were a time when theory basically went out the window, in the name of "real life." Well, whose "real life"? What principles do we need to analyze real life? We need to be conservative about theory. We ought not to touch it until we have a DAMN GOOD REASON for revising it.

The whole process that Mike E. and others have discussed at great length that blacks have undergone here in the U.S., is fully encompassed and comprehended by the concepts of an "oppressed race caste" or racial people, who have developed an awareness of their common racial oppression.

No one of the genuine Marxists who have written on this subject, no revolutionary integrationist, such as John Reed, Max Shachtman, Daniel Guerin, Oliver
C. Cox, James Cannon, Richard Fraser: have EVER denied this, and they have all in fact written eloquently ABOUT it.

So why do they need to be a "nation," in Mike's and Carl's view?

Because, I assume, they think this conceptual OBFUSCATION will make black people happy.

The black masses don't really care--unless they have been deluded by either Leftists or black middle class wannabees--about being a "nation." They care about ending their racial oppression and achieving equality and integration. We the Left, black or white or whatever, need to exercise responsible LEADERSHIP to do our part to help them achieve this. This does not involve making up categories or revising them to people-please or be politically correct. And we should all cease and desist this endless semantic, breast beating and wrangling and get down to the actual task of developing a TRANSITIONAL PROGRAM that can intersect the consciousness of black and white workers to help them seem the path toward socialism. This means looking at the Black and Red document by the Spartacist League in the 60s, and also discussing Lewis Mumford and Catherine Bauer's ideas about Decentrism of the black ghettos to garden cities where there can be full employment. Eugene McCarthy actually brought this up in his Democratic Party campaign in 1968--Bobby Kennedy race baited him for it. if a leading Democrat could have brought this up--why shouldn't the Left?!

And I gotta tell you, endless rhetoric about how whites are "privileged" won't bring white workers over to socialism. (I don't really think it will encourage black workers to do so either. Their attitude might be instead, "Ok, so what? So nu? Yea, whites are asses. What do you want us to DO about this? Except throw up our hands and get more pessimistic about the possibilities of common political action?")

We need to talk about how it is becoming in their COLLECTIVE SELF INTEREST to GIVE UP their racism and unite with blacks. We need to talk about how the economic crisis is screwing every worker. Sure, we should talk about how the crisis INITIALLY encourages a tendency among white workers to move toward more intense racist attitudes. But we need to show how that's wrong and discuss ways we can expose the stupidity of that attitude. As Joel Jordan and Robert Brenner did in the pages of the old style Against the Current when they were in Workers Power.

@Carl, Dude, I got nothing against "Black Power." I don't deny it is electrifying or was electrifying. I don't know any of my favorite RI thinkers who have anything per se against the slogan black power. But I don't see why it should be associated with "black nationalism." Certainly there were advocates of black power who were black nationalists. But there is no intrinsic relation between the two concepts. That's a little verbal legerdemain you just engaged in

There's 'no intrinsic relation' between 'Black Power' and 'Black nationalism or Black national consciousness? Really? How odd. Perhaps you had to have been there. Is this a new theory you just made up? Assertions aren't arguments. As for 'socialist science,' my inclination is to think there is just science vs ideology, and your position is rather tangled up in the latter. We're at the point of repeating ourselves. Time to wrap it up--the differences have been clarified.

No one here needs to prove Lenin and Stalin's ideas irrelevenet. The fact that these two asserted something did not make it true. You are the one that needs to prove why their ideas on nationalism in the Russian Empire were true and univerally applicable.

So I decided to go back and read Stalin's, <i>Marxism and the National Question.</i> I see no proof, scientific or otherwise. What I see are a set of assertions and some bland platitudes. In some instances, it openly states it's an opinion, such as in this passage, "Such, for instance, are the Russian, Galician, American, Georgian and Caucasian Highland Jews, who, <i>in our opinion, do not constitute a single nation." (My emphasis added.) The importance of this pamphlet has been greatly overstated.

It's mainly useful as a summation of widely scattered views and polemics of the Bolsheviks on the matter, mainly Lenin's views. But one key point in it is the imperative to study the matter concretely, in your own time, place and circumstance. Start with facts over definitions.

Cheglitz,
They don't merely "assert" their opinions. They back it up with arguments. These arguments are for socialists, intent upon workers revolution. Not for centrists, eager to adapt to the latest trend in racialist hostility.

Their basic argument--for us-- Is that national oppression is something that certainly should be taken seriously by the proletariat. But it is certainly NOT an end in itself, because it can easily lead to a) fratricide and b) a successful "divide and rule" policy for the ruling class, as well as "the lie of the harmony of interests" between capitalists and workers.

Thus we should fight against national oppression WHEN IT IS ACTUALLY THERE. But we need precise definitions, which these comrades provide, for knowing who is and who is not a nation. And when there is national oppression, we must not simply take direction from the nationalist bourgeoisie or petit bourgeoisie, but instead, attempt to LEAD the nationalist struggle in our favor, wrest control of the movement out of the hands of the bourgeoisie whenever possible.

And since what we are trying to avoid nationalism as an end in itself, we MOST CERTAINLY DO NOT WISH TO INVENT NATIONS AND NATIONALLY OPPRESSED PEOPLES WHERE NONE EXISTS--AND SEE THE PETIT BOURGEOIS LEADERSHIPS OF THESE BOGUS "NATIONS" AS "ALTERNATE VANGUARDS" WHO CAN VERY WELL BE LEFT TO LEAD "their" proletarian masses without our--the socialists'--help.

Now those are the arguments. Deal with them--don't engage in blanket dismissal and say all they did was to assert something. No they did not, Cheglitz. They gave very precise definitions and very convincing arguments to back up those definitions. If you want this conversation to get anywhere, you will address their arguments.

Carl, are you really trying to tell me that when masses of black people were "electrified" by the slogan "black power," what they really were responding to was the concept of a black nation?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm sorry, I find that just a wee bit tendentious.

Even the Spartacist League, decidedly anti-black nationalist, supported the slogan with a certain codicil:

"By 1966, civil rights organizations such as the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee [SNCC] came out for “black power,” which shocked the liberal establishment. After some internal struggle and clarification, the Spartacist League fought to pose the demand for “black power” IN CLASS TERMS [my emphasis--ts] and warned that otherwise it would be a bridge to reconciliation with the Democratic Party"

Workers Vanguard, May 12, 2006, "Class Struggle and the Fight for Black Liberation," at http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/870/blacklib.html

You just don't get it, Tom.

While the church I was in when the Black Power slogan 'electrified' everyone was mainly filled with sharecroppers and their families, it was also comprised of Black workers, teachers, students, everyone in the Black community. It was seen as a call for the Black masses of all classes, along with their allies, to hold the political power in theirs hands, as opposed to the 'white power structure' of the white owning classes and their allies, ie, it was a demand that took a revolutionary nationalist form, and it was aimed at the proper adversary.

Whether all these folks thought of the Black Belt region as the homeland of an African American nation is not directly the point--although you might be surprised if you took a survey on the matter at that particular time. Even if they are integrationists, many African Americans continue to call the area 'Down Home' for a reason, ie, that is where they were historically constituted as a distinct people.

Not long afterward, in Lowndes county, Alabama, a majority Black area in the Black Belt, the Lowndes Country Freedom Organization, armed with shotguns as well as newly won voting rights, got on the ballot with the 'Black Panther' as its symbol, and threw out the sheriff of the 'white power structure' and replaced him as one of their own. As we know, the notion spread widely to the revolutionary-minded Black youth in urban centers across the country.

Emancipate your mind, and your position on the matter, from all that old Shachmanite dogma.

Tom, you can say "they," i.e., Stalin, did something until you're blue in the face, but you've provided no proof, no examples of this so-called science. I read the part of the work the dealt with the definition of nations. There is only assertion and arguments that take those assertions as a given.

That is NOT how science works. There was no attempt to prove the initial assertions, thus, the arguments themselves cannot be considered valid, because the initial premise remains unproven. It's as if you're stuck at Newton, arguing that Einstein must be wrong because Newton said gravity was something different, or that atoms can't be composed of smaller particles, because Democritus, the one who came up with the concept, said that atoms, by definition, were indivisible.

That is not science. And it's not socialism. It's religion. It's faith. It's dark ages thinking. That type of thinking has completely failed the communist movement. It's why we are where we are today.

Chegitz:

Help me understand your argument.

First, in my view, the discussion over "is it a nation?" is rooted in the question: can this particular people objectively create an independent country? If they can, then independence is a possibility during the socialist revolution (and they should have the right to decide). If this oppressed people cannot (for objective reasons) form an independent country, then (in our political programs) we have to imagine and craft other forms for the alleviation of their national oppression.

So that is my understanding of the issues that the Bolsheviks were grappling with. In their view, nationalities like the Poles, Lithuanians, Finns, Georgians, Azerbaijanis, etc. <em>were</em> capable of an independent existence (if they chose). Any examination of those conditions also shows that the nationalities (in the Caucasus or eastern Europe) were intermixed in major ways, and the separation (of nationalities) into separate and independent countries was a major problem. But they concluded that it was (for material reasons) <em>possible</em> for those people to choose an independent nation state.

Meanwhile the Bolsheviks also believed (after investigation and analysis) that Jews did not form a community of people able to form an independent nation state. I think it is clear (to any of us with knowledge of them) that the Eastern European Jewish people of the Pale and surrounding areas <em>did</eM> form a distinct Yiddish speaking people, with a distinct (quite remarkable culture).

In many areas of Europe, Jewish people had a caste-like existence unified by a common religion. I.e. they were not allowed (by feudal laws in much of Europe) to own land, and were confined in specific ghettos etc. And so, often, became merchants and were associated with trade, artisan crafts and usury. (Usury, i.e. money lending, was forbidding by many forms of Christianity, so it was common for the social function of lending money to go to pockets of Jewish and Muslim merchants within Euro-feudal society). And so often, Jewish people were dispersed to the various towns of medieval Europe where Yiddish speaking pockets emerged.

But in the Jewish <em><a href="/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement" rel="nofollow">Pale of Settlement</a></em>, there was a rural population as well -- Jewish farmers (as portrayed famously in the musical <em>fiddler on the roof</em>.) And there was the small town life of shtetls. And so there emerged a distinct territory, with differentiated classes among Jewish people. And so the Pale (and its major nearby cities of Minsk and Lvov etc.) were part of a territory associated with Jewish people (who numbered many millions despite the large out-migration to the U.S. before World War 1.)

You write:

<blockquote>"What I see are a set of assertions and some bland platitudes. In some instances, it openly states it’s an opinion, such as in this passage, “Such, for instance, are the Russian, Galician, American, Georgian and Caucasian Highland Jews, who, <em>in our opinion</EM>, do not constitute a single nation.” (My emphasis added.) The importance of this pamphlet has been greatly overstated."</blockquote>

But isn't that opinion of the Bolsheviks based on two things: a) an assessment of what objective conditions are required for oppressed people to form an independent country, and b) a specific assessment of the conditions of Jewish people within the Russian empire?

It is an opinion (sure), but one rooted in a particular (and explicit) set of conceptual arguments and then in a set of specific assessments of conditions.


I'm not sure if it is true that Jewish people (or that section living in the Pale) were incapable of self-determination and independence. Perhaps because <a href="/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_showing_percentage_of_Jews_in_the_Pale_of_Settlement_and_Congress_Poland,_c._1905.png" rel="nofollow">they didn't constitute a <em>majority</em> on any part of i</a>t. (It was a significant part of the Black belt argument that there were hundreds of <em>contiguous</em> Black-majority counties in the south forming a compact territory.)

Certainly there were millions of Jewish people suffering a common oppression with a very distinct culture -- enough so that the future Soviet government created a homeland republic for them in the Far East (where conditions were terrible, and far removed from historic Jewish areas, and so was an experiement that ultimately didn't take root).

Dare I wonder, because it would have been explosively controversial (in Tsarist Russia) even for communists to suggest that Jewish people should have a right to govern themselves in the middle of the former Russian empire, on territory inhabited by majorities from other then-dominated people (Poles and Lithuanians etc.)?

* * * * * * * *

But having laid this out, chegitz, can you explain why (to you) there is nothing scientific of such analysis? And why we (in the U.S. today) should make an analysis for our conditions?

Why would it be wrong to differentiate between oppressed people <em>capable</em> of independence and those oppressed people who (for various objective reasons) independence doesn't appear to be a viable option?

In a revolutionary process, literally riddled with many diverse national conflicts and demands (certainly a big deal in the Russian or Austro-hungarian empire!) isn't that a viable set of questions when creating socialist programs and movements?

Is it wrong, for example, to point out that when some Chicano nationalists talk about making an independent Mexicano state in the Southwest, that there are many other oppressed people living there (African American people in compton, Navajo people in Four Corners, Asian immigrants in the sweatshops and ghettos, etc.)?

Or when forming communist organization for example -- doesn't it make sense to say "The revolutionary struggle in Puerto Rico is likely to involve a movement for independence, so that communist organization formed there should be separate from organizations formed on the mainland -- in keeping with the different tasks and pace of struggle that might emerge?"

And would it be wrong to make further analysis on the mainland, saying that some nationality groups (pick immigrant Quebecois workers living in Maine or the Boston area, or pick immigrant workers from St. Croix living in Brooklyn, just to have particular examples), are unlikely to have the basis to take a road of independence (for their particular nationality) <em>within former U.S. borders</em> (since they have never existed there as a distinct nation with a common territory etc.) -- so envisioning a unified multinational communist movement (and a future multinational state formation) makes sense in their case.

These seem important considerations for any serious movement in a highly multinational state.

I am against being mechanical about it -- or proceeding (in some fundamentalist way) from the definitions of a previous communist movement.

But... isn't there value in examining the <em>particular</em> oppressed nationalities in the U.S. -- and examining how <em>in particular</em> their history of oppression can be lifted by a new socialist society, and examining whether independence (from the larger socialist country) is an option?

Can we simply say "the socialist revolution will promise to accommodate independence for any group that democratically demands it?" Isn't that demagogery in the case of some groups (i.e. for example nationalities who have no territory)? And isn't it an invitation for reactionary secession in other cases (white survivalists in Idaho, or Cuban rightwingers demanding an independent Miami)? In other words, I don't think your earlier argument that "a nation is whoever declares they are a nation" (if I understood it correctly), recognizes that there are <em>objectively</em> certain necessary conditions for forming an independent country and just because some grouping declares it wants that right doesn't mean that they have a basis (in objective reality). And on some level, our politics must be based on what is objectively possible, right?

To Thomas Smith:

Poulantzas is an intellectual who contributed a great deal to proletarian theory, especially during a period when we are observing atrophy and stagnation of our theory. But contrary to proletarian revolutionary combatants who have been embedded and immersed in the revolutionary struggle of the only class capable of offering a genuine alternative to capitalism, Poulanztzas’ contributions were made outside the working class movements. Still, I think his contributions should become the collective property, at the theoretical level, of the proletariat.

During the time of Lenin and Stalin, Russia was not an imperialist social formation, in the sense of a higher stage of capitalism. Then Russia did become an imperialist social formation. Economist errors committed under the leadership of both, especially Stalin, opened the door to that deviation.

But if Russia was an imperialist country, then both Lenin and Stalin would have been wrong in creating a theory of national minority. Russia during the period of the Bolshevik revolution was very backward compared to other social formations in Europe. The feudalist mode of production was very strong, even when it was in regression. And capitalism did not develop, in all its forms of concentration of capital, as a fully mature capitalism that could even at that time be identified as imperialism.

For me, two elements are needed to identify a social formation as an imperialist social formation: A) the internal contradictions B) the relations with other social formations, determined by the historically hegemonic form of concentration of capital internal to the dominant social formation.

The source of any theory is objective reality, and our appropriation of objective reality must lead us simultaneously toward constructing a political line to tactically either bring some changes/reforms to that reality, or to radically transform it. We must not confuse/fuse the phenomenon we call objective reality with tendencies that are historically being constructed inside that objective reality, because the dynamic inside any reality is detectable by the law of contradictions.

BTW, I do generally agree with your response.

In imperialist social formations (not only specifically the US but in general), a series of contradictions are being addressed and resolved because of the material conditions of imperialism, even when the capitalist class is doing its utmost best at the superstructure level to deform these inherent tendencies. These tendencies are forming, in an embryonic form and under their domination, the material conditions for a communism of movements. The notion of a “melting pot,” where many cultures are able to co-exist and even sometimes fuse (contrary to racist propaganda), is one of the tendencies that blossoms under proletarian leadership, and gives us an element of a communist social relation for when the proletariat takes power. Even when these tendencies are being constructed right under the noses of the capitalists, their class instincts are telling them to deform them -- to introduce, with the help of impressionist, opportunist and populist elements of the petit bourgeoisie (and even workers under the influence of bourgeois and petit bourgeois ideologues), ideology, legal and judicial measures (superstructure) to hinder or deform these tendencies which are constructed by the material conditions of an imperialist social formation. This is the reason I would argue that in an imperialist social formation, where the material conditions of communism are inherently being constructed, the notion of a national minority is incorrect. I would argue differently in a social formation such as Nicaragua or Chile.

But. also we must question, radically question, the theory of self-determination for a national minority. I am not saying it is wrong, but we need to be scientific and non-partisan. For example, Tibet is not self-determined. The relation of China (even when the proletarian line was dominant) with Tibet is not what I would call one of self-determination. I could be wrong. A lot of ink needs to be spilled in order to construct unity on the validity or non-validity of the theory of self-determination.

More than 200 years ago the revolutionary slaves of Haiti took positions that were far more advanced than some expressed here -- this how retrograde and reactionary these positions are. A regiment of Polonaise (Polish) soldiers sent to Haiti to crush the slaves’ rebellion broke with the French army and joined the revolutionary army. They were all declared Haitians, and their descendents still live in a town called Kazal. Their cultures totally integrated and became part of the historically constructed Haitian culture. They still dance the Polka.

Again, I will insist that theory should not be an inert tool at our disposal, which we can quote at any given time or try to fit to another objective reality. We can at least draw general conclusions from previously elaborated theory so we can instead produce our own, along the same path of our predecessors, IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF A WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT.

Some sectors of the left in the US really think that their reality is the only reality that exists. This is really a problem. The Africans landed on many shores. Many struggles of resistance were organized in many places, with the most advanced form of it in Haiti, where a revolutionary struggle was waged and a new social formation was organized. It was not a black nation state, as bourgeois and petit bourgeois ideologists claim. It was a country/social formation shaped by class struggle.

The fundamental difference between Lenin’s contributions[ not Stalin] is Lenin was not simply in opposition to capital but his theories at all level contributed in the construction of an alternative to capitalism and most of Lenin contributions, with all limitations, still remains current. Nowadays, some sectors of the left are simply in opposition to capitalism, even are coming out has the other side of the coin, and are unable to offer a genuine alternative to capitalism thus our atrophy and stagnation..

Now that's just great. Carl you make a claim which is obviously not true, conflating black power with black nationalism. Mike E. claims that no one made the claim that Carl did. And they accuse me of not "getting it' and creating a straw man.
I guess the only way I can get it, Carl, is if I agree with you. Sorry, not interested--unless and until you actually make sense.
When you people want to be serious just let me know.
Will follow up with quotes from Stalin-Lenin and from Shachtman disputing Mike E.'s claim to Cheglitz that Jews were a nation.

Comment 171—Mike said:

<blockquote>What was clear (at the time) that the shift (from the specific <i>liberal conception of integration </i>to the militant demand for Black power) was that African American people were moving, as a people, and feeling themselves as a people, and raising demands (not for an individual civil right, in the bourgeois legal sense) but for power as a people to determine their destiny, in opposition to “the white power structure” (which defines this America, since it is both a capitalist power structure, but simultaneously and necessarily a powerstructure enforcing white supremacy.) [itals. M. Ahead]</blockquote>

What does that mean? “liberal conception of integration”?

@Tom, who says

<blockquote>Now that’s just great. Carl you make a claim which is obviously not true, conflating black power with black nationalism. </blockquote>

Tom, what is obvious to everyone but you and a handful of Spartacists, is that the 'Black Power' demand and consciousness that came out of SNCC in the Deep South, was part and parcel of a Black nationalist consciousness and emerging revolutionary nationalist movement. Later, it morphed into different trends, but that was the core of it. If you can't see it, it's because your perspective is blocked by dogma and the white blindspot.

We're repeating ourselves, to no avail. The differences are clear enough. Let's hang it up.

<blockquote>Obviously the destruction of legal segregation was a huge victory for the struggle of oppressed people — but the liberal vision of what should emerge left major oppressive structures (of defacto inequality and capitalism) in place. </blockquote>

Not to denigrate any of the important movements (not revolutionary in nature, like the Bolshevik revolution) that have changed the status quo and history at different points, I am hard-pressed to think of any movement thus far, and that includes the Black Liberation struggle, which was bolstered and sparked by the notion of “Black power” that has not in fact left “major oppressive structures (of de facto inequality and [especially] capitalism) in place.”

Carl, in Comment 178, addressing a different angle, spoke of revolutionary nationalism morphing into different trends. And one of those trends, which surprisingly—certainly at that time and considering the source—was the BPP putting forward Black capitalism (with Black owned and run businesses). Many of us involved were flabbergasted (and disheartened) that dollar signs and U.S. dollar bills were plastered all over the front page of the Panther paper.

In other words, it wasn’t just Allard Lowenstein (who in the scheme of things was a very minor player). E.g., there was controversy and debate amongst some of the more established Black organizations and leaders, e.g., the NAACP, Bayard Rustin, MLK, the Urban League, CORE, etc. etc., who were not ready (or even willing) to make the leap, to another level.

In the early 60s, when Malcolm X said that the struggle for Black (and the oppressed) people’s liberation was not a question of “civil rights” but of “human rights” this powerfully changed much of the dynamics, and Malcolm X influenced an entire generation, even though he was going through big changes himself.

But in 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man, and move to the back of the bus, and although Ms. Parks was already involved in a burgeoning civil rights movement via the NAACP, her powerful action—as one person put it -- was not so much about the law (i.e. Jim Crow), but defying a whole “custom.”

IMO, people like Rosa Parks revitalized and put the fight for <i>human dignity </i>squarely on the map; however, if one looks at Parks in a superficial way, they surmise that she was just strictly a liberal, into civil disobedience, and going up against Jim Crow.

Maybe it is baffling to a lot of people, that if we think of a whole movement as limited to some sort of “liberal” one, concentrated (or limited to) <i>southern strategy</i>, overturning such draconian laws (and system) as Jim Crow, or strictly fighting for voting rights (something a lot of people take for granted), or for assimilation, or getting a piece of the pie, that it might be hard to fathom or explain, the phenomenon of Detroit, Watts, Newark, et al. IMO, Detroit, Watts, Newark, or even in some ways Pan Africanism, Black power, revolutionary nationalism, self-determination, etc. were an understandable outgrowth of and in answer to the understandable frustration to the limits of a struggle for civil rights (“legalistically-speaking”). But the Civil Rights Movement, even if confined to certain particulars, was warfare nonetheless.

But all along, the overturning of these heinous laws represented a whole lot more. And it should be obvious, that the people and more conscious forces do not automatically move from A to Z, without stopping along other letters of the alphabet in between.

(Before “Black power” there was “Black is beautiful” which had great social and political impact, and a mind-set that carried over to all sections of the people.)

Not to be coy, but my original question was posed in order to hopefully ask for a little more flesh to the bones of “a liberal conception of integration,” and I do thank Mike E. for his reply.

However, having said that, my initial (and perhaps knee-jerk) reaction was—“liberal” has become such a pejorative moniker, without bothering to look at some real historical context, that I imagine it would be rather facile for some to simply dismiss an entire powerful movement, where people of all nationalities, but most especially African Americans, made such incredible sacrifices; and which movement had such an overwhelmingly powerful impact on what was to come.

Nor do I necessarily agree that “Black power” was the first time that Black people, were moved and mobilized as a people, and in turn moved and mobilized thousands of others.

Not that I think Mike E. in particular is saying this, but his one small statement in an entire comment might have been misconstrued. In an historical context (which is even present today and will be until a more sweeping and thoroughgoing liberation), seems to me that it is not particularly helpful to simplify things by initially painting things (or “conceptions”) given all the complexities, with a “liberal” brush.

To overturn Jim Crow and outright segregation laws – which does not imply that racism and national oppression has been swept away—is and was a very powerful part of the overall struggle for the liberation of Black and all oppressed people. Besides the obvious, it wasn’t until the mid-60s, that people were even “legally allowed” to inter-marry.

(In another context, as recent as 2003, “sodomy laws” – and sexual relations between same sex partners—was and is still being debated, and in fact is still in place in at least 4 states in the U.S. But is the fight against sodomy laws strictly a legal fight, or is it part of something larger?)

And in today´s world, do people think that the majority of Black people and others identify more with the first Black POTUS, or with Trayvon Martin…even if some mobilized around “justice” for Trayvon Martin are simply focusing on the reversal of the “stand your ground” law as some end all be all, or the elimination of racism and national oppression?

“We are repeating ourselves, to no avail. The differences are clear enough. Lets hang it up,” said Carl Davidson to Tom. I value exchange and struggle for the objective of consolidating unity, but in this case I agree with Carl. This debate is a dialogue of the deaf. I really doubt if any unity is possible.

I think in many of these debates we are engaging in are, indeed, dialogues of the deaf unless a silent majority is following them and ready to align and unify with a position. No one will know for sure.

While I was reviewing the different comments and trying to figure out one way in which unity could be plausible, I had an epiphany. This is not only a dialogue of the deaf, but also the manifestation of a fundamental difference. This is a two-line struggle between a reformist line and a revolutionary line -- to be more specific, a revolutionary proletarian line.

Let me explain. I disagree with some revolutionary predecessors on the question of national minorities, (such as Stalin, who I think was reformist and a pragmatist). But as Lenin elaborated a theory to construct a proletarian line for addressing “oppressed groups” of people inside a social formation after the taking of power by he proletariat, we must understand that the prerequisite of that proletarian line was the taking of power. Certainly Lenin was not a reformist. He clearly understood the level of political unity between the revolutionary proletarian line and a reformist line, as well as their fundamental differences.

The demand for a Black belt State, or for African-Americans to become a national minority, can only become a reality under two conditions:

1. This demand can be granted under the domination of the capitalist class. Even if the conquest of this demand resulted from a popular mobilization, this victory would be integrated into bourgeois law, just like civil rights and the right of women to vote. Therefore, even if this demand was articulated from a theory of self-determination, it would inevitably be reduced to bourgeois democratic rights, with the only result being the enlargement of bourgeois democracy/dictatorship and the popular masses of the Black State or National Minority will be under the domination of the black bourgeoisie aided by the black petit bourgeoisie.

Since reformism was not a dominant political tendency of Lenin, we can assume that the theory of national minorities that he elaborated could only be achieved under the proletarian democracy/dictatorship. One of the tendencies of the reformist and dogmatic orientation of the radical petit bourgeoisie is constantly trying to apply a theory totally out of context and all the necessary prerequisites. Regarding the question of power, and the struggle to organize the masses (all pigmentations included) in the training to actually take power, they will put the cart {the conclusion of a theory) before the horse (the tedious work of organizing the masses, under class leadership, to take power -- which is scientific socialism).

My error, it is now clear, is that before it’s possible to implement any one of these solutions, the question of POLITICAL POWER[ class power] needs to be addressed and resolved.
2. The proletariat, under proletarian democracy/dictatorship in the construction of socialism, can grant this demand. This will require revolutionaries in the US social formation to organize for the purpose of revolution, and during that process define and determine the specificity of the situation of African-Americans. Since African-Americans will be part of the revolutionary process (which will include the masses in the imperialist social formation addressing all problematic of their struggle for the sole objective of defeating capital) I hope that during that process, all contradictions within the peoples camp, including racism, will be addressed and in the process of being resolved. And if during the revolutionary process the masses, under proletarian leadership, have not quite resolved racism in the people’s camp, then decisions would have to be made, collectively and democratically, inside all the organized structures of the fundamental masses. This can not be worked out by an elite in their ivory tower deciding for the masses.

For me, bourgeois democracy/dictatorship is incapable of fully addressing or correcting any deviations, and the notion of the integration of African-Americans can only be the historical task of the proletariat. So to address this important question revolution is the first step.

Jan writes:

<blockquote>"I think in many of these debates we are engaging in are, indeed, dialogues of the deaf unless a silent majority is following them and ready to align and unify with a position. No one will know for sure."</blockquote>

No one expects that Tom or Carl will change their politics. And that is really not the point of substantive discussion with and between people who have highly developed views.

The point is exactly to enable a far wider audience to have access to controversies of the revolution -- an access that people don't otherwise have.

You write, Jan, that "No one will know for sure." On the contrary, it is quite possible to identify (and even quantify) the audiences following such discussions. This thread (that you and I are writing within) has been read over 2,500 times.

and it is certainly possible to have a sense of people aligning and unifying (presumably in different ways) in the course of such discussions.

Further new issues keep coming up that are of value to pursue. You write, for example:

<blockquote>"Therefore, even if this demand was articulated from a theory of self-determination, it would inevitably be reduced to bourgeois democratic rights, with the only result being the enlargement of bourgeois democracy/dictatorship and the popular masses of the Black State or National Minority will be under the domination of the black bourgeoisie aided by the black petit bourgeoisie."</blockquote>

This is a major (and for me, somewhat strange) claim -- especially since the main point here is the attempt to envision how racist oppression would be ended in a future<em> socialist</em> state. You seem to imagine the future of Black people as being inherently under "the domination of the Black bourgeoisie." That seems pessimistic and unjustified.

Such matters have (of course) been historically discussed in some detail, but many people are not aware of those discussions and controversies. And here they come again. For a new generation to consider, under new conditions.

Mike wrote with regard to Jan's comments:
"This is a major (and for me, somewhat strange) claim — especially since the main point here is the attempt to envision how racist oppression would be ended in a future socialist state. You seem to imagine the future of Black people as being inherently under “the domination of the Black bourgeoisie.” That seems pessimistic and unjustified."

I don't think that that is at all is what Jan is saying. Mike, you are assuming what you have to prove--that "black self determination" would be a PART of socialism in the U.S. What Jan (and I) are saying, I think, if I an speak for Jan, is that such "self determination" is HOSTILE to the project of socialism in the U.S.: it is an attempt to CO-OPT black militancy into the selfish agenda of continued domination and then actual exploitation of the black masses by the black middle class, and thus poses itself as an OBSTACLE to the unity required for socialism.

But yes I certainly agree with Mike that this has become a very interesting discussion. I was particularly interested in the history recounted by "Miles Ahead."

Have yet to get the time to go through a thorough discussion of Mike and other's, well, what I consider "volkist" claim that a mere MINORITY OR EVEN MAJORITY CONCENTRATION of a racial or religious people within a territory (i.e. the Jewish Pale, where, as my chart from wikipedia showed, the Jews only at best numbers 17+ %, or the Black Belt--BACK IN THE DAY--where Stalin and his statisticians created a "nation" out of a relative handful of counties where blacks were found to number in the majority) gives them the right to "national self-determination."

But just for starters--what happens to everybody else? Trotsky himself, when he was [deplorably and going against everything Lenin argued in 1913 with Stalin] trying to entertain the possibility of a black nation in discussions with his SWP party comrades, said, something like well, who cares about the whites who lives there? we're not going to bother our heads too much about them" But isn't that a recipe for "ethnic cleansing"?! Isn't that what the Zionists finally got around to do in Palestine?--we are a concentration here so we're going to kick everybody out--or put them in concentration CAMPS?!

Of course there is NO possibility that such a ridiculous fantasy of ethnic cleansing of whites could ever happen in the U.S. But what such destructive fantasies actually accomplish is to help THE RULING CLASS SPLIT THE WORKING CLASS and DISEMPOWER THEM.

Daniel Guerin, in his NEGROES ON THE MARCH, discusses the fact that it was corporations like U.S. Steel--before the Cold War when de jure segregation became an embarrassment to multinational U.S. capital--that financed the campaigns of cracker politicians in the South who opposed anti-lynch laws in Congress.
why? Because U.S. Steel had factories in Atlanta, GA and didn't want unity among their black and white workers, to prevent unions from forming.

By sucking up to the PETIT-bourgeois black nationalist leaders, we submit to THEIRS, and their CORPORATE BOURGEOIS masters' agenda of "divide and rule"!

I'll close with a quote from my music teacher, Leonard Lehrman's, translation of Bertolt Brecht's (with composer Hans Eisler) Solidarity Song (1930):

"Our various lords and masters welcome our disunity. They divide us up, those bastards, But one day we shall be free!"

@Jan, who says:

<blockquote>...with the only result being the enlargement of bourgeois democracy/dictatorship and the popular masses of the Black State or National Minority will be under the domination of the black bourgeoisie aided by the black petit bourgeoisie.”</blockquote>

Aside from this being a matter to being determined in the course of struggle, so what? Any number of individuals from these classes have played an excellent role, and paid a heavy price, ML King and Malcolm among them. This is an old difference among us, too, but your understanding of democracy, bourgeois or otherwise, and its importance to the oppressed, is too narrow.

@ Mike
My point is exactly that. If a Black State is won under bourgeois democracy/dictatorship, it will become a bourgeois democratic right.
Under socialism, in an imperialist social formation, a Black State is a backward political step and point 2 on my post 180 clear that out. I think the revolutionary process would create the conditions to unify and solidify the people’s camps.