Re: [Marxism] Did Trotsky urge voting for Black Democrats?

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

        I thank Louis for the kind things he said about me even as he
completely and categorically disagrees with my viewpoint, and also for
taking this so seriously that he went back to look up the original sources
that I had most inadequately referred to. Louis's enterprise shamed me to
looking through boxes of books that were still (and mostly still are) packed
up from my house being flooded last spring when a pipe broke, and I found
the Trotsky book: it hadn't been among those ruined by the flood.

        I hope a fuller reading of the material Louis cites and deeper
thinking about it will convince comrades that what I said is right.

        Not here, but on the blog, Louis quotes part, but not all, of the
passage that I referred to: 

        "If this organization puts up a certain candidate, and we find as a
party that we must put up our own candidate in opposition, we have the full
right to do so. If we are weak and cannot get the organization to choose a
revolutionist, and they choose a Negro Democrat, we might even withdraw our
candidate with a concrete declaration that we abstain from fighting, not the
Democrat, but the Negro."

        Louis presents this as proof positive that the footnote the SWP
editors of this material found necessary to add, about the candidate running
against democrats and republicans, is correct.

        But look at what Trotsky follows the "Not the Democrat, but the
Negro" with: 

        "We consider that the Negro's candidacy as opposed to the white's
candidacy, EVEN IF BOTH ARE OF THE SAME PARTY, is an important factor in the
struggle of the Negroes for their equality, and in this case we can
critically support them. I believe it can be done in certain circumstances."
(EMPHASIS added).

        Louis interprets Trotsky's talking about the candidate being "put
up" by an independent Black organization as meaning he would be on a
counterposed ballot line. But there is no reason to think that Trotsky knew
or cared how candidates were presented on U.S. ballots, which vary
tremendously from state to state anyways. 

        I interpret that "puts up" very differently, it is mainly about a
political relationship of the candidate to the movement, that he come from
and be part of the movement and struggle of Blacks *as a people* for their
rights. 

        This view is re-enforced by Trotsky's argument for not just
backhanded support, the part Louis quotes, but open support. He says the
candidacy of a Black supported by a Black rights organization "is an
important factor in the struggle of the Negroes for their equality; and in
THIS case we can critically support them." 

        He stresses that this is true even if both the Black and the white
candidate "ARE OF THE SAME PARTY." He does not at all stress a
COUNTERPOSITION of the Black candidate to the Democrat, on the contrary he
stresses they are BOTH DEMOCRATS. But if you want to read this to mean, see,
he has the Black running against a white Democrat, which means the Black guy
is running as an independent AGAINST the official Democrat candidate. But
Trotsky does not at all REQUIRE that the Black run against a Democrat, he
stresses rather that DESPITE the Black candidate being a Democrat, when the
issue is the right of Black folks to political representation, that takes
precedence under some circumstances.

        The message, as I read it, is unquestionably that, under "certain
circumstances" the question of PARTY is secondary.

        When is it secondary? When the candidacy of the Black Democrat "is
an important factor in the struggle of the Negroes for their equality." 

        Political representation of a people is a DEMOCRATIC RIGHT, one
which Black folks were denied through Jim Crow apartheid and savage
terrorism. 

        To say, we CONDITION our support to your struggle for the democratic
right to political representation to your waging this struggle OUTSIDE the
two party system is sectarian and wrong. 

*  *  *

        I think it is testimony to Trotsky's stature as a Marxist
revolutionary that he saw so clearly the national character of the movement
of Black people for equality and liberation ("national" not *necessarily* in
the sense of wanting to create a separate nation, a separate state, at any
given point in time, but in the sense of a movement "of a people," of a
nationality).

        And that he proposed to the SWP that it push for Blacks creating
THEIR OWN organization, and that he foresaw the fight for the right to
political inclusion and representation as a central axis of the struggle of
Black people for equality that such an organization would lead.

        And CONTRARY to the theory of Black Nationalism that the SWP later
developed, which was that the "overwhelmingly proletarian" composition of
the Black community made the bourgeois element of the community irrelevant,
Trotsky *understood* that by their very nature, NATIONAL movements, such as
the Black organization he was proposing, are multi-class movements, and the
job and duty of the proletarian revolutionaries is to fight WITHIN the
national movement and on the terms of the national movement's demands and
goals for proletarian hegemony.

        With no small amount of understatement, he recognizes it is entirely
possible the revolutionary working class element is NOT going to be dominant
in such a movement from the outset. Thus HE poses the issue of what to do if
the organization, the movement, puts forward a bourgeois Black politician
against a bourgeois white one. 

        I do not think it can be reasonably argued that Trotsky saw ballot
line designation and formalities as decisive in this. He stresses in the
very sentence where he is arguing one can support the Black candidate that
both the Black and white candidates might be Democrats. What he requires is
simply that "the" issue, or an overriding issue in the election, be Black
equality.

        In fact, the agenda point was Negroes and the Democratic and
Republican parties but Trotsky gives that short shrift. The question he
poses from the very outset of the discussion on this point is the right of
Blacks to political representation. 

        Trotsky did not foresee that the awakening of Black people to
independent political life would take the form of a mass movement without
clear organizational boundaries, nor that the action of the racist enemy
would compound this by murderous decapitation of the movement's most
important structured groups and the violent smashing of its most advanced
expressions through repression. 

        This makes judging when a certain candidacy is an expression of the
movement of Black people in their fight for equality more difficult, and,
arguably, less common than it might be otherwise. Certainly countless
semi-opportunists and more than a few absolutely worthless elements have
been able to USE this thrust of the Black movement to catapult themselves
into positions of privilege and comfort without lifting a finger to promote
the true interests of the community, something made possible especially by
the fact that the movement remains largely atomized. All that said, I
believe the bedrock political considerations behind Trotsky's approach in
the discussion of the hypothetical Black organization remain valid and
applicable.

*  *  *

        What brought me to reconsider the traditional SWP construction of
Trotsky's comments, that Trotsky meant, of course, that we could support the
Black Democrat against the white one PROVIDED the Black one ran as an
independent or third party candidate AGAINST his real party, the Democrats,
was not a passion for Talmudic textual analysis but a real life personal
political "crisis" I went through.

        Six or seven years ago, I started with EXACTLY the same position
Louis holds. 

        What made me change was Cynthia McKinney, and the capitalist cabal,
with heavy zionist support, and the backing of BOTH Democrat and Republican
party machines, to drive her out of Congress after 9/11. McKinney, it is
true, had an unusual position for a Democrat member of Congress: she urged
working people to organize independently of and outside the two party system
to fight for their rights and against the war drive. And she said clearly,
though not yet in so many big words in public, that the fight for Black
liberation or the rights of working people could not be carried out within
the straitjacket of the two party system. 

        That undoubtedly made it easier for me to accept the conclusion I
was coming to. 

        Which is that the politics of this were such that we HAD to defend
McKinney's right to be in Congress against the drive to purge her, even if
this drive didn't take the form of a lynch mob on Capitol Hill, or charges
and some sort of impeachment in the House, but rather the form of a Democrat
primary election.

        In the SWP school in which Louis and I were trained, it used to be
said that elections weren't fundamentally about this or that issue or series
of issues, but about which class should rule, which is why it was a matter
of *principle* that only parties that could in some sense be considered
"workers" parties could be voted for.

        We've NOW seen a couple of examples in Latin America where elections
have actually had some bearing on the question of which class should rule
(but not in settling the question, just in getting it to be posed). But as a
GENERAL proposition, the idea that elections are "really" about which class
should rule is electoral cretinism of the purest water. Bourgeois democratic
elections are precisely "about" NOT putting into question bourgeois rule but
rather guaranteeing it. And when elections can NO LONGER guarantee that due
to a combination of political circumstances, then the bourgeoisie votes with
bullets rather than ballots.

        So much for the theory, now for the practical issue. It seemed to me
absolutely wrong, obscene, from a revolutionary, or working class, or
anti-imperialist, or Black Liberation, or Latino movement point of view to
say that it was a matter of indifference to us whether McKinney got knocked
out of Congress through the primary or not. 

        Because Georgia doesn't have registration by party, and on primary
day you simply ask for either a Democrat or Republican ballot, there was an
organized effort openly discussed and widely promoted, endorsed by the most
important local ruling class organ, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, to
drive McKinney out of office by voting for her opponent in the primary, also
a Black woman by the way, but one supported overwhelmingly by white and
bourgeois forces.

        Having lived in this same congressional district for about a decade
and a half at the time, I KNEW that McKinney had the overwhelming support of
her community, and especially all the more conscious political people, and
that her opponent's base was mainly among the better off white folks in the
north of the county. It seemed to me the central issue in this Democratic
Party PRIMARY election BETWEEN two Black, women candidates was the
democratic right of the Black community of the 4th Congressional District to
political representation, to have the representative IT WANTED in Congress,
a democratic right I was much more at ease finally coming to the conclusion
I should defend because the individual involved was just so utterly
righteous.

        I don't know if at the time of the McKinney primary (August 2002) I
looked at the relevant passages in Leon Trotsky on Black Nationalism. I
don't think so. Initially I thought something like that the McKinney case
was unique, it was really something like a "defense case" (of someone
victimized by the cops or the courts for their political positions).

        What led me to re-examine my positions and thinking more broadly on
the national question and how it impinged on these sorts of issues were a
series of interconnected experiences and discussions in 2003-2004. 

        The central one was becoming a very active participant in the local
immigrant rights movement, and my collaboration in that work with
then-members of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, especially a long
time activist in the transit union, and the central leaders of the immigrant
rights movement here. A second one was comrades in Solidarity, the socialist
organization I belonged to at the time (and am increasingly inclined towards
rejoining) especially a Black woman leader of Solidarity named Theresa El
Amin. A third was discussions and postings on this list, especially by
comrade Néstor from Argentina, Louis, and via Louis the writings of James
Blaut. 

        It was in that framework that I looked again at the discussions with
Trotsky, and was *flabbergasted* to read that last discussion, as it seemed
to me for the first time, but in reality just with different eyes and life
experiences than before. I remember very excitedly writing to my friend in
FRSO quoting and discussing the section of the book. 

        I believe what I said is exactly true: That Trotsky there says that,
under certain circumstances, it is ok to call for voting for a Black
Democrat as a way of supporting the right of Black people to political
inclusion and representation. 

        Louis disagrees with this interpretation to the extent that the
candidate is an official Democratic Party candidate. I would agree that this
is a significant factor to be taken into account, but not necessarily, not
always, decisive.

        I repair again to McKinney's political vicissitudes. The woman who
defeated her in the primary in 2002 decided in 2004 to run for the Senate (I
*think* she was under the illusion that all those white Republicans voted
FOR her in 2002, rather than just against McKinney). McKinney eventually
decided to try to recapture her congressional seat, and despite efforts of
the Democrat machine and capitalist moneybags of both parties, they couldn't
get the four or five Black opportunists who also filed for the seat to drop
out of the primary and leave just one person running against her, so
McKinney won against a divided field. The political structures, traditions
and demographics of DeKalb County assured that she won the general election
also. A Black person can't win the Republican primary for Congress, and the
only kind of candidates who can win the Republican primary for Congress
cannot win the general election, especially in a presidential election year
when there is a big turnout. Most often the Republicans in Georgia don't
even field a token candidate in Black congressional districts.

        A factor in her primary victory is that there were a couple of hotly
contested Republican primary races, as well as a presidential election
(though that primary is held separately). Supposedly, you can't in the same
election cycle vote first in one party's primary for some positions and then
in a different party's primary for other positions. I'm not sure whether or
how it is enforced, but that is what they tell you when you go to vote. So
all that held down the anti-McKinney vote in the primary.

        Sure, McKinney was the "official" Democratic candidate in the fall,
but one not supported by the leadership or structures of the party. So much
so, that when she returned to Congress the Democrat caucus refused to
recognize and restore her seniority, as is usually done in such cases. 

        McKinney's case may be extreme, but I am sure it is not unique. 

Joaquin


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