[Marxism] The fight for Black self determination is not against white people but against the US state

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, one more point.

One of the central things I picked up from Lenin is this, which is
constantly missed by sectarians and, of course, also by a lot of
nationalists from oppressed nations and peoples.

The national oppressor of the oppressed nation is not primarily another
nation, but the STATE -- as an expression of  a plundering and
exploitive ruling class. The struggle of the oppressed nationality is a
battle against the state, a battle for the smashing of its authority and
control over the oppressed nation.
This is important for the struggle in Palestine, for instance, where the
key to Palestinian liberation is not DEFEATING THE JEWS   but destroying
the STATE OF  ISRAEL.

In the United States, the Black nation is not in fundamentally in
conflict with white people but with the American state and the
imperialist ruling class that stands behind it.  Of course, to the
extent that white people or, indeed, other people, rally to their state,
they can get caught in social-political crossfire. But the fact that the
struggle is fundamentally against the state is a big part of the basis
of unity across national lines.  Along, of course, with the fact that
Blacks are workers and oppressed farmers with an interest as part of the
working people of the United States in defeating the exploiters.

To the extent that the rulers can forge the population on a basis of
privileges and racial hatred as an oppressor nation, they are of course
strengthened.  On the whole, I don't think that white people have been
successfully forged into a cohesive oppressed nation against the Blacks,
although the continuing tendencies in that direction are unmistakable.
The civil war, reconstruction, the rise of the CIO, the civil rights
movement have created strong counter-tendencies to the also quite strong
tendencies toward creating an oppressor nation as a powerful weapon
against the oppressed in their struggle against the state..

Its worth looking at the world situation from this standpoint.  The
oppressed and exploited of the oppressed nations are in a deepening and
broadening conflict with the American state, and that struggle
historically requires the overthrow of the US state.  Ultimately, if US
imperialism is not smashed, it will continue to exact a tremendous price
from the people of the whole world.  The war is not against the American
people.  This is true even though to a significant degree, the American
people -- the whole society, not just the whites or the labor
aristocracy or even just the well-off-- has a privileged material and
social position in the whole world.

The struggle against national oppression is fundamentally against the
state, and since the exploited classes also have to struggle to overturn
the state in pursuit of their class interests, the perspective of unity
as well as the possibility of conflict is built into the situation. The
more the working class is driven to fight for state power, the more the
possibility of unity with oppressed nations against the state power
arises and deepens.

In my opinion, this revolutionary thrust is a central thing sectarians
and progressive sad-sacks who bemoan "divisions" and so on miss about
the national question.  It can be source of division, but it can also be
a powerful unifier.  And it cannot be ignored.  That deepens the
divisions to a colossal and fatal degree.
Fred Feldman
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