Re: [Marxism] correction on: Did Cannon have a "liquidationist"position on the Black question in the U.S.?

[Nick Fredman <srcsra@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I've got a few comments, in general and in 
relation to Australia, about the relation between 
national and ethnic/racial questions. Be warned 
that as this is related to my academic concerns, 
I'm interested in definitions (or rather theory), 
not just political strategy.

Joaquín [in relation to the 1913 Stalin pamphlet 
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1913/03.htm 
and its definition "A nation is a historically 
constituted, stable community of people, formed 
on the basis of a common language, territory, 
economic life, and psychological make-up 
manifested in a common culture" ]:

> I'm not really very concerned with the right "definition" of the term
"nation." That Blacks don't fit the classic 
definition of "nation" only means the classic 
definition is inadequate<.

Well this is completely circular. Blacks are a 
nation because Blacks are a nation. Surely if 
there's some great importance in defining the 
black question as a national question, you've got 
to have some idea of what a "nation" is. You seem 
to be implying something along the lines of the 
Otto Bauer definition of a nation, that Stalin 
was polemicising against, that nations were 
"aggregates of people bound into a community of 
character by a common destiny." It was Michel 
Lowy's agreement with this sort of definition 
that led him in his book /Fatherland or Mother 
Earth?/ to define African Americans as a nation, 
but this leads to all sorts of difficulties, e.g. 
Lowy by the same token sees Jews as a nation.

What reason is there for seeing Blacks as a 
nation, rather than an oppressed racial caste, 
besides the view national questions within an 
imperialist country being supposedly inherently 
more important than racial questions. But why 
can't the struggle against racial oppression be 
absolutely central to the class struggle in the 
US, even if it isn't a national struggle per se?

Joaquín:

> In August, 1914, it was seen that all his claims 
> that there was no "common culture" in the 
> already developed, capitalist nations between 
> the working class and ruling class were false<

I'm glad you pointed this out, because it hadn't 
struck me before that Stalin's pamphlet so 
underestimated the strength of imperialist 
bourgeois nationalist ideology. But why does this 
in itself undermine the definition of the nation 
he presents? Especially when Lenin, who fully 
agreed with this definition of a nation, was, 
even in 1913, much more correct on the generality 
of bourgeois nationalist ideology:

>  *[A]ll* liberal-bourgeois nationalism sows the 
> greatest corruption among the workers and does 
> immense harm to the cause of freedom and the 
> proletarian class struggle. This bourgeois (and 
> bourgeois-feudalist) tendency is all the more 
> dangerous for its *being concealed* behind the 
> slogan of "national culture". It is under the 
> guise of national culture-Great-Russian, Polish, 
> Jewish, Ukrainian, and so forth-that the 
> Black-Hundreds and the clericals, and also the 
> bourgeoisie of all nations, are doing their 
> dirty and reactionary work ... The *elements* of 
> democratic and socialist culture are present, if 
> only in rudimentary form, in *every* national 
> culture, since in *every* nation there are 
> toiling and exploited masses, whose conditions 
> of life inevitably give rise to the ideology of 
> democracy and socialism. But *every* nation also 
> possesses a bourgeois culture (and most nations 
> a reactionary and clerical culture as well) in 
> the form, not merely of "elements", but of the 
> *dominant* culture. Therefore, the general 
> "national culture" is the culture of the 
> landlords, the clergy and the bourgeoisie 
> [emphasis in original]

Critical Remarks on the National Question, 1913, 
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/crnq/2.htm#v20pp72-023

Recently in Australia the penchant of the 
conservative government for the racial dog 
whistle has highlighted the complex interactions 
between ethnicity and nation. There's been lots 
of dark talk about whether Muslims don't fit in 
with "Australian values", they should ship out. 
An almost chemically pure example of the way 
"Australian" has usually been coded White was 
given by the Health Minister,  Tony Abbott, often 
dubbed the "Mad Monk" for his name and 
rightist-clerical views, in parliament on 
Tuesday. He was commenting on a pre-selection 
struggle in the Labor Party, branches of which 
are sometimes dominated by particular migrant 
ethnic groups (due to patronage networks related 
to "branch stacking" as well as where folks 
happen to live). He said:

> I read in the Australian [newspaper] last Friday that he still has the
Greek branches but he has lost the Spanish branches,
the Vietnamese branches as well as the Cambodian
branches. I could not help but think, 'Are there any
Australians left in the so-called Australian Labor Party
today?'<

He was clearly drawing on strong connections 
between what people mean by "Australian" and 
"Anglo" or Anglo-Celtic, or white, etc. However 
there's two sides to this. Ordinary people use 
the tern "nationality" and what categories come 
under this term very loosely, and differently 
depending on context  - also Anglos tend to use 
it somewhat differently to Anglos. If you asked 
someone in a multi-ethnic working class community 
what "nationality" they were, they might say 
"Serbian" or "Vietnamese", even though they were 
born and educated here, mainly use English etc, 
and they would categories their friends 
accordingly, including, often, calling their 
Anglo friends "Australians". Of course like in 
the US everyone who's background isn't white and 
Anglophone is given (and is generally not 
uncomfortable with) a double-barreled "national 
identity", Vietnamese Australia, Aboriginal 
Australian etc.

But on the other hand when non-white, 
non-Anglophone people (including Indigenous 
people) are excluded from the term "Australian" 
by some white politician, they can be mighty 
pissed off. The "national" aspect of all this is 
about *exclusion* from full participation in the 
nation. To put in another way it's about the 
contradictions between the material changes in 
the nation through mass immigration and the 
ongoing force of a nationalism based largely on a 
White identity (notwithstanding liberal "official 
multiculturalism", now very much out of favour). 
This race-inscribed nationalism strongly affects 
social relations (access to education, services 
and jobs, harassment in the workplace etc) and 
not just ideas per se. BTW I think Stalin's 
definition of a nation is just dandy as long as 
we incorporate an understanding of imperialism 
and in general of how nations change (he did say 
nations were "historically constituted", not just 
consisting of four eternal categories).

You might think the Indigenous struggle in 
Australia, as opposed to more general anti-racist 
struggles, is a "national" struggle. While 
Indigenous people might demand the right to 
organise autonomously and their might be aspects 
of "self-determination" in a general sense in 
their demands and needs, such as return of land, 
control of their own communities, a treaty to 
recognise their rights, resources to enable their 
cultural traditions to survive etc, migrant 
communities often have not dissimilar demands and 
needs (to organise autonomous, for meeting 
cultural needs), and both struggles are 
fundamentally about oppressed groups fighting for 
a place within the Australian nation. The high 
points of the Indigenous struggle, such as the 
Freedom Rides to integrate country towns, the 
Gurindgi strike to be treated the same as white 
workers (and to be returned land), and the 1967 
referendum to remove any special status for 
Indigenous people in the Constitution, have been 
generally "integrationist". Like in other spheres 
gains and losses can be made, but the nation 
can't be disentangled from racism this side of 
socialism.

In short there's nothing in Stalin's definition 
and general method that excludes an understanding 
of imperialism, of how nations changes, of the 
continuing strength of bourgeois nationalism, of 
the central importance of struggles against 
racial oppression in countries where there's been 
colonised Indigenous communities, ex-slave 
communities and/or immigrant communities, and 
that oppressed groups have the right to organise 
independently.
--
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