RE: [Marxism] Did Cannon have a "liquidationist" position on theBlack question in the U.S.?

["Wayne S. Rossi" <felianan@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Joaquín Bustelo <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Note that: a *national,* not "nationalist question" as Wayne Rossi
> would have it. I know there's been some movement in academia to
> liquidate the *national* question of Blacks as a people into a purely
> subjective phenomenon of "nationalism," of whether or not there are
> strong "nationalist movements."
>
> That is the wrong way to approach it. The starting point must be
> whether Black people are *a people,* separate and distinct from white
> Americans, and specifically a people oppressed by white Americans.
> That is what must be challenged and disproved; otherwise Cannon is
> quite simply and flatly wrong.
>
> This is the reality that Rossi and others *refuse to recognize*.
> Saying "The 'nationalism' of the CP in the Third Period era was a
> very different monkey from the nationalism of the 1960s" shows a
> complete lack of understanding of this underlying reality, that
> Blacks are a separate and distinct people oppressed by imperialism.

I am not a liquidationist or any sort of integrationist; I hold a line
of complete and total self-determination for Blacks in the Leninist
sense.  *But* the CP view on the Black national question was
objectively premature in 1929.  The grounds on which you are condemning
Cannon are essentially mechanical:  the Black nation existed and Black
nationalism was appropriate in the '30s because that is what Leninists
are supposed to do.

One thing that's bothered me for a while is a line of Trotsky's in
those discussions of Black nationalism:

"I am not sure if the Negroes do not also in the Southern states speak
their own Negro language."

Now, I am a Trotskyist, and unashamed of that label.  But Trotsky was
arguing based primarily on a very basic knowledge of the realities of
the Black issue; this line struck me -- Trotsky was speaking from the
generalities and ignorant of the specifics.  The "Black Belt" theory
was trying to create a Black nationalist movement by *fiat*, a
completely artificial and fake "nationalism" that didn't match the
realities on the ground.  That is the very important part of the 1930s
experience that you neglect in your rush to indict Cannon - as a
slogan, it was suspended in midair, and was only useful in that it
generated *actual* politics which were militant anticipations of the
larger civil rights movement.

The Black struggle, in and of itself, was a reality in the '30s, but it
had only taken on the most halting and imperfect nationalist forms.
Cannon *recognizes* this in hailing the CP's work on Black liberation
in the Third Period era and after.  But he views the "Black nation"
demand -- not just the general self-determination demand that you and I
would probably agree upon, but the very specific demand of a new Black
nation -- correctly as an ultraleft question in 1930.  By 1965, it was
a completely different question, since a militant Black national
movement had emerged and become a major force in politics.

But the deeper problem is revealed in the part of my email you haven't
addresed -- specifically, what is Solidarity going to do about Black
nationalism?  The difference between your approach and mine is that I
view the Black national question as one of objective movements and
forces, while you treat it as an ideological problem.  What you're
trying to do is not to reposition Solidarity as a player in the
forefront of the Black national movement; you are attempting to score
ideological points in an abstract playing field.  You're indicting
Cannon, not becaue he acted wrongly -- in fact, you have to admit that
he was correct when it came to interacting with the real Black
nationalist movement when that became possible -- but because his
ideological views in 1959 were incomplete or imperfect.  Your demand is
not just for the support of real nationalist movements, but for
abstract support of nationalism no matter what the state of things on
the ground.  I find this a very bad approach to the national question.

-Wayne

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