File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-03-22.073, message 37


Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 19:55:08 -0500 (EST)
From: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena)
Subject: Re: M-I: No self-determination under capitalism?


        
Louis P writes: 

>One of the biggest confusions in the socialist movement over the last 25
>years or so has been around this question. Socialism in the abstract is
>opposed to black nationalism, feminism, gay liberation, etc. This is not
>just restricted to the Trotskyite sectarians. It was also a tendency in the
>CPUSA as well. It also argued in the 1960s that the nationalism of Malcolm X
>and the new feminist movement injured working-class unity.


Lou,  I don't know about the American socialist movement as a whole,  but I
am somewhat familiar with the position of the CP vis a vis the black
nationalist movement of the 1960s (though this was two decades before I
became a member).    And not just Malcolm X.    Nationalism, in most of its
manifestations within modern society is seen by orthodox Marxists as petty
bourgeois,  opportunistic,   and short sighted   While the party had a long
and honorable pedigree in promoting black-white unity on a variety of
fronts,  including labor and civil rights,  it,  too,  held a somewhat
jaudiced view of the 1960s black power movement.    This despite the fact
that many of its most prominent members (Angela Davis and James Jackson come
immediately to mind) had important links to the Black Panthers,  for
example.    

There were several reasons for the Party's shying away from this aspect of
the black struggle.    First of all,  black nationalists tended to identify
more with Maoist currents within Marxism-Leninism,  rather than with the
orthodox Marxian theory espoused by the Soviet Union and its satellite
parties,  including the CPUSA (which was then supporting Moscow in its feud
with China).     Second,  the endorsement by many black nationalist groups
of  "revolutionary" violence (which,  of course,  also included a lot of
petty crime,  the settling of personal scores,  and some outright extortion
of neighborhood businessmen) alienated many of those on the Left who had
traditionally supported the CP,  and who in fact,  had been an important
source of funding and legal support.    And such policies ran counter to the
above-ground legal work in electoral politics that had long been a staple of
the Party's public life.    Then,  too,  there was the growing bitterness
between black militants and more traditional civil rights leaders like
Martin Luther King,  with whom the Party was forging an increasingly close
relationship.    Of course,  state and federal police agencies like the FBI
(through its cointelpro activities) were only to glad to exploit and
exacerbate these fundamental conflicts.    

To say that this period wreaked havoc with the Party's reputation among
younger blacks,  in particular,  is merely to state the obvious.   It left
wounds from which the CP never fully recovered and which were,  in a sense
reopened by the unfortunate (and,  in my opinion,  poorly negotiated)
debacle in 1990-91.    At the same time,  the Party was largely innocent of
that shabby phrase-mongering and outright huckstering that marked many of
the left groups tailing of the black revolutionaries (and,  in the case of
the SWP,  their fading memories).    Hindsight affords luxuries those at the
time can ill-manage.    At any rate,  let's give the devil his due.

I am less clear now about the Party's position on feminism.    I do remember
sitting around in 1976 with a bunch of Harvard history professors and
students (we had circulated a petition on behalf of Herbert Aptheker in his
battle with the Yale history department) as the topic turned to the ERA.
Someone mentioned the Communist Party's position as being opposed to this
amendment,  prompting,  I remember,  Frederick Cooper to mutter something
about the Party being "a bunch of FBI agents,  anyway."    Ten years later,
when I actually came into the Party I was told that US Communists had been
unstinting in their support for feminist legislation,  including the ERA .
The CP's quarrel with American feminism revolved,  they said,  around
"issues of class versus gender".

Does anyone have any independent information about this?    I had always
considered the Party's position on womens' issues to be quite sound.

Louis Godena 



     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005