letter from John M. Chappell (Newcastle, Staffs.)
Dear Sir, Thank you for sending me a copy of INTERNATIONAL. I am concerned that both your paper and its sister journal WORLD OUTLOOK a) support the Black Power movement and b) write off the struggles of industrial workers in advanced countries as worthy of only passing notice.
In the U.S.A., and to a lesser extent in Britain, black workers have been subject to severe discrimination in housing and jobs, and hounded by white racist gangs. It is understandable that their resentment of this treatment should lead many of them into the error of evolving a racism of their own, believing that their enemy is not the bourgeoisie but the white race. This is what the Black Power movement aims to do, as is most clearly expressed in Carmichael's statement in Havana that since the white man has taught us to be ashamed of being black, so we should learn to be proud of it! Any man who is proud of the colour of his skin is a racist, since by implication he considers men of other colours to be inferior. Michael X was explicit on the inferiority of the white race in describing them as "monkeys, devils and bastards", as quoted in your article, and whilst one must oppose the action of the bourgeois police in arresting him, this is a racialist statement of the crudest kind. If Powell or Colin Jordan had made the same statement about black people, you would rightly have been indignant. But then, your two authors, Messrs. Tate and London themselves seem to share subconsciously the same racial prejudice, since they insist on spelling "white" with a small "w" and "Black" with a big "B".
As to the socialist pretensions of the movement, it is significant that whilst Carmichael made an apparently socialistic speech in Havana, prominent Black Power spokesmen have advocated the growth of black capitalism in the U.S.A., thus opportunistically adapting their politics to their surroundings. Their tie-up, through such persons as Michael X, with the reactionary Black Muslims, a mystical religious sect reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan, is also very sinister.
On this issue, therefore, it is not the I.S., the United Secretariat and its affiliates are being opportunistic, and as we have seen, the S.L.L. would have had a more than adequate case if they had had the courage to accept Boutelle's challenge to a debate.
Your two authors attempt to wriggle out by a series of shallow sophisms. Firstly, it is pointed out that a large section of the white proletariat is racist, and suggested that the only alternative open to building the Black Power movement is to wait for white workers to become revolutionary. This is false; revolutionary Negroes, like white Marxists, should be "getting stuck into the job of combatting this racism by education and propaganda". This means that revolutionary sections (at present largely Negro) of the proletariat must organise not racially but on a class basis. Only in this way can black militants build a bridge to the white proletariat and win over its conservative and racist elements.
To build a black racist movement, on the other hand, can leave white workers at best indifferent and at worst exacerbate their racial hostility to their black comrades and so set up a vicious circle. To suggest that this is formal, as opposed to dialectical thinking is another sophism. To invoke the dialectic, and particularly the principle of "unity of opposites" as a pretext for doing the opposite of what is necessary is a favourite trick of Stalinists, Healyites and other pseudo-Marxist quacks. On this principle one could argue that since Wilson is pursuing an ultra-opportunistic, pro-capitalist policy, then dialectically the Labour Party will develop into a revolutionary socialist party.
The correct policy for a revolutionary party to take on Black Power is to "get stuck into the job of education and propaganda", against black as well as white racism, and to win the movement over to Workers' Power. When this is done, the foundations of a mass movement will have been laid.
WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! Yours faithfully, [signature illegible]
We are continuing the discussion upon Black Power because of the obvious confusion that exists on the left; However, in view of the danger of repetition we will have to limit further articles to those which say something new. We have asked Pat Jordan to reply to this letter, in this light.
Comrade Chappell expresses, in what appears to me to be a very direct and honest way, ideas which are very widespread on the left. It is not very often that comrades holding these views are so forthright. Hence one can value comrade Chappell's contribution much more than those who qualify their statements with "ifs" and "buts".
The fundamental fault in comrade Chappell's thinking is that he proceeds from the point of view of formal logic, as opposed to the marxist method of dialectical logic. Comrade Chappell tries to refute this but his remarks on the subject show that he has no grasp of the subject. I would advise him, most seriously, to read what Trotsky wrote on the subject in DEFENCE OF MARXISM (an essay: the ABC OF MATERIALIST DIALECTICS, page 48, Pioneer edition.) I will leave his foray into the field of grammar to others more gifted in this field. As for his charge that INTERNATIONAL considers the struggle "of industrial workers in advanced countries as worthy of only passing notice", I am astounded - he obviously has not seen our issues covering the French crisis.
Marxists do not a la Kant put things into categories which exist independent of time and circumstance. Comrade Chappell equates the feelings of Stokely Carmichael on the question of colour with those of Powell and Colin Jordan! Stokely Carmichael is a leading light of a movement which represents the aspirations of a terribly oppressed minority - Powell and Colin Jordan as the prejudices of an oppressive majority (the reflection in form of ideas of imperialist exploitation of the colonies).
But for Chappell this is unimportant: pride in one's race or colour is racist, racism is bad, therefore Carmichael and Black Power are reactionary. For him racism is something which exists in the abstract, independent of time or space - this is pure philosophical idealism.
Comrade Chappell shows this approach even more clearly when dealing with Black Power. For him "Black Power is Black Power"; he does not see it as a complex process, with contradictions, tendencies and an inner logic.
Marxists consider any set of ideas from their content and function in a particular set of circumstances. If comrade Chappell were right all national consciousness would be reactionary - because pride in one's own nationhood would imply that peoples of other nations were inferior.
Lenin combatted these kind of ideas in his writings on the national question (see THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION, etc.) Every ideology that the struggle throws up (and let us remember that the Black Power idea was born in struggle as opposed to the sterile sectarianism of the SLL, RSL and IS on this subject which arises from dogmatic contemplation) has to be considered from the point of view of its function in the particular situation. The power of the bourgeoisie rests, in the last analysis, upon its power over men's minds.
It has two particular functions: (1) to justify the status quo, and present it as the natural and eternal state of affairs; and (2) to prevent any struggle to change this "natural" state of affairs. The specific form that bourgeois ideology has taken among the black people is that of instilling into them the idea of their own inferiority. It taught them that because of this inferiority they had to accept a lower standard of life, that because of this inferiority they should not start a struggle - they would only suffer defeat - and that because of this inferiority they should restrict themselves to appealing to the better nature of the superior whites.
Black Power cut through this nonsense like a hot [knife] through butter. It has given the black [illegible] set them into motion. To [illegible] exacerbate the racial hostility [illegible] is nonsense. In fact, Black [illegible] opposite. [By] winning the respect of white workers.
The phenomenon of Black Power, therefore, must be enthusiastically welcomed at this stage by all marxists. Of course we want the ideas of marxism to grip the minds of black militants and the INTERNATIONAL's co-thinkers in the United States are doing more to facilitate this than anyone else. In fact, because marxists have a positive approach to the ideas of Black Power this is very much facilitated.
When comrade Chappell says that the black people must organise on a class basis only he is challenging their right to organise as an oppressed minority. It is an elementary principle that any sector with common interests has the right to organise in defence of those interests. That is why we have unions for special types of workers, why there are youth organisations and organisations for national minorities. Even the old people have their OAPs, would comrade Chappell deny them that right? Why does he pick on the black people, especially as they are the most oppressed of all? I would suggest that his sense of outrage is an expression of prejudice bolstered by the pressure of the capitalist press and other right wing forces.
There is no contradiction between organising as black people and organising on class lines. In the United States the overwhelming majority of black people are workers; in many big towns they are by far the majority of the working class. Where the white workers will let them in, they are in the same unions. Moreover, in case comrade Chappell has not grasped the fact, Paul Boutelle and Fred Halstead (a white) are in the same political party.
Comrade Chappell, we all stand for workers' power - but this will not come from merely re-iterating slogans. Nor does it come from "combatting racism by education and propaganda" alone. Ask the SPGB, they have been doing that for over 60 years. Workers' power will come when marxists link themselves with living struggles and win the mass of the people who want to fight for revolutionary ideas. Lecturing people who are fighting in the streets about the error of their ideas is not the way to achieve this.
The Black Power movement in the United States has put the fear of god up the ruling class (let us hope it does the same in this country!). In denouncing Black Power and advocating integration one puts one's self in the same camp with all those who have tried to hold back the struggle of the black people.