Black people in the United States suffer under a special yoke of oppression. Whether in Birmingham, Watts or Harlem, Black people are subject to discrimination, segregation and police persecution, in addition to the other hardships of capitalist exploitation.
1. The exploitation of the Black Nation is the material basis for the special oppression of Black people. In a specific part of the former slave-owning territory of the U.S., known as the Black Belt South, a nation exists, enslaved by U.S. imperialism. This oppressed 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.” (Stalin, Marxism and the National Question, Proletarian Publishers, 1975, p.22). Since the suppression of Reconstruction in 1877, U.S. imperialist oppression of the Black Nation has been the basis for the oppression of all Black people throughout the U.S. In the Black Nation, where Black people still comprise the great majority of people in many counties. Blacks are still victims of segregation, Jim Crowism, and a lack of political rights. Although sharecropping and peonage no longer exist widely in the Black Nation, these political and social reflections of the survivals of a semi-feudal, semi-slave mode of production are widespread. Blacks who have been pushed out or have fled the Black Nation because of fascist terror and for economic reasons constitute a national minority in the Northern, Western and Eastern parts of the U.S., where they suffer similar oppression.
Thus, the oppression of the Black people is not a “racial” question, but a national question. National oppression results from the exploitation and plundering of a subject people by the imperialist states, which deprive them of their economic and political self-determination and restrict their political rights. Racism (white supremacism) is an ideology used by the imperialist U.S. ruling class to divide the working class and to justify the enslavement of the Black Nation. White supremacism in any form is an attack upon the unity of the multi-national working class.
We fight for the closest association and solidarity between Black and white workers and all progressive classes and strata. We oppose all attempts to segregate or divide our class and its allies by nationality or race, in any institutions such as unions, schools or mass organizations, or in any body of the communist party or of the united front in the Black Nation.
A privileged position for the people of any nationality cannot be tolerated. Equality of democratic rights between Black and white people is essential to the unity of the working class and the victory of the national liberation and socialist revolutions. We stand for full and equal democratic rights for all Black people throughout the U.S.
2. To abolish the system of national oppression and hasten the advent of socialist revolution in the Black Nation, we advance the demand for the right of self-determination, up to and including secession. The struggle for the right of self-determination includes the following:
A. All the means of production (land, natural resources, factories and ports) will be confiscated from the capitalists, labor aristocrats and white large landowners. A part of these means of production will be distributed for the benefit of all the oppressed masses in the Black Nation. This means that white small farmers, workers, as well as Native American, Chicano and other nationalities, will share in the redistribution of wealth.
B. Establishment of state unity, which paves the way for the exercise of the right of self-determination. ”If the right of self-determination of the Negroes is to be put into force, it is necessary wherever possible to bring together into one governmental unit all districts of the South where the majority of the settled population consists of Negroes. Within the limits of this state there will of course remain a fairly significant white minority which must submit to the right of self-determination of the Negro majority.” (Resolution of the Communist International on the Negro Question in the United States, 1930, Revolutionary Review Press, p.30).
C. Exercise of the right of self-determination, up to and including secession. “This means complete and unlimited right of the Negro majority to exercise governmental authority in the entire territory of the Black Belt, as well as to decide upon the relations between their territory and other nations, particularly the U.S.” The struggle for the right of self-determination, which is the guarantee of full democratic rights for Black people, necessitates unconditionally the overthrow of the rule of U.S. imperialism in the Black Nation. (Resolution of the Communist International on the Negro Question in the United States, 1930, Revolutionary Review Press, p 301
The overthrow of U.S. imperialist rule in the Black Nation and the exercise of the right of self-determination will only be realized through armed struggle and seizure of state power by the working class of the oppressed Nation and its allies. The struggle for the right of self-determination demands the organization of the oppressed masses in the Nation. The League of Struggle for Negro Rights was a shining example of the type of organization needed to guide this struggle.
3. To unite all revolutionary peoples within the Black Nation in the struggle for self-determination, we work for the formation of a united front. The goal of this front will be to lead the overthrow of U.S. imperialist rule in the Black Nation.
The proletariat of the Nation will be the leading and main force in the united front. While participating in the united front, the communist party will maintain its ideological and organizational independence and will carry on agitation for a rapid transition to socialism.
The struggle for national liberation and the overthrow of U.S. imperialism in the Black Nation may be victorious at some time before the proletariat seizes power outside of the Nation. The struggle of the people of the oppressed Black Nation for national liberation and socialism is a strong ally of the U.S. multinational working class in its struggle for socialism. Each struggle must support the other. Their alliance will spell the death of U.S. imperialism at the hands of the united multi-national working class of the U.S.
4. The deepening of the general crisis of capitalism, due to the loss of former colonies and neo-colonies by U.S. imperialism, and the effort by the imperialist bourgeoisie to throw the burden of this crisis onto the backs of the working class and oppressed nations, has brought about intensified exploitation and oppression of the Black Nation. What is ‥new” about the South today is the steady increase in fascist terror, the growing impoverishment of the masses, and the presence of a representative of the Southern landlord class in the White House.
Currently in the Black Belt South, the infamous “right to work” laws are being expanded and violently defended. The apparatus of the state is being consolidated and deepened under the Presidency of Carter. Fascist organizations are increasing their written, verbal and physical attacks on Black people and against the working class and its organizations. The Ku Klux Klan, as the foremost representative of this reactionary trend, is openly holding demonstrations and recruiting members all over the country. The bourgeoisie is preparing for a return to an open reign of terror over the people of the Black Nation, who have suffered these conditions many times in the past. The Klan, and other fascist groups like the National State’s Rights Party, are shock troops for the bourgeoisie in its fight to retain state power. We oppose all acts of terror against Black people and the multi-national working class, and fight to destroy all organized fascist groups and trends. We support actively the right of Black and white working class people in the Nation, and amongst the national minority, to defend themselves with arms against attack and lynching. The organization of armed self-defense for Black communities is an important aspect of our leadership in the oppressed Nation.
Everywhere, urban and rural, the oppressed Black masses and poor whites are stepping forward to fight against national and class oppression. Important inroads toward Black and white unity are being forged. The old reformist leaders are being steadily exposed, as the proletariat begins to step forward toward the leadership of the Black liberation movement.
The heroic struggles of Gary Tyler and the Dawson Five are living examples of the revolutionary national and class struggle now being waged in the Black Nation. Slowly, but inevitably, Marxist-Leninists are stepping forward to assist and lead this mighty curxent of national liberation. The growth and development of the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee in the Black Nation represents for the first time in forty years, the rise of Marxist-Leninist leadership of the spontaneous struggle of the masses. This is the same path charted by Lenin, Stalin, and the Communist International.
It is the obligation and duty of the Marxist-Leninist Organizing Committee to provide every possible assistance and spam no effort to correctly mobilize, educate, organize and lead the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed Nation. The struggle for the right of self-determination for the Black Nation is as much a question of internationalism as was support for Vietnam. This struggle requires the attention of all Marxist-Leninists and class conscious workers. Therefore we:
RESOLVE to fight on all fronts of the class struggle for the right of self-determination for the Black Nation, up to and including secession.
RESOLVE to fight for full democratic rights for the oppressed Black national minority throughout the multi-national state.
RESOLVE to ally the revolutionary struggle against national oppression and for the liberation of the Black Nation with the class struggle of the multi-national working class foi socialism.
RESOLVE to boldly lead the revolutionary masses in the Black Nation in opposition to the imperialist bourgeoisie and all their designs to place the burden of the general crisis of capitalism upon the backs of the working and oppressed people of the Nation.
RESOLVE to take up and lead the struggle against white chauvinism in all of its forms within the ranks of the multi-national working class.
RESOLVE to lead the revolutionary masses in the fight against all fascist organizations, individuals and ideologies, especially against the Ku Klux Klan. We support the establishment of organized groups for the self-defense of all those attacked by these fascists. Death to the Klan!
RESOLVE to pay special attention to the development of the work of the new communist party in its growth and development in the Black Nation.