The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-09-18
ON THE NEGRO QUESTION

equality for the Negro workers. This is the
cruX of our struggle. We must point out that
precisely at the present moment, in Gastonia
and our struggle in the South, the sharpest
struggles have developed because we began to
undermine this oppression and exploitation of
the Negro workers, and began to unity the
Negro and white workers against the capital
lists in the South. Immediately for this rea-
son the bosses made such vicious attacks
against US. The struggle for equality is in
the main a struggle against the whole capt.
talist class, in which the Negroes stand at the
very bottom of the exploited group in this
country and thus form base for the eXploita-
ton of the whole working class.
Fourthly the struggle for the political and
social equality Of Negro workers is in this
way a part of the task of organizing and
moblizng the masses of Negro workers
against capitalism and Imperialism We do
not give chauvnism its class character, how
it will affect our movement from class point
of view. Some of our comrades think that
the Negro is not a factor when they are num-
erically weak When we say the Negro work.
ers are not factor in an industry, we are
denying that the Negro workers are a factor
in the revolutionary struggle. Precisely in
Gastonia, where the Negro workers in the
textile industry consist of about l per cent to
4 per cent of the workers in the industry pre-
cisely there, we had the sharpest struggle on
the racial issue We see that the expression,
that the Negro workers are not a factor in
an industry, shows a tendency of opportunism,
a tendency Of not putting every one of our
revolutionary unions into the struggle of maxi
ing the Negro question an issue in this coun-
try. In one union because the Negro depart
ment which was organized for the definite
purpose of seeing that the union had proper
orientation to Negro work, and because the
Negro Department fought bitterly against the
opportunist tendency in the union, these Ne
groes were called black chauvinists. This is
another way to cover up incorrect policies. l
do not mean to say that there is any such
thing as black chauvinism. Black chauvinism
has been discussed by the Comntern. The
Comintern is opposed to the idea that there
is any such thing as black chauvinism. Why?
Because when we take the Negro question as
question of oppression we have had the
bourgeoisie for 100 years and more utilizing
the white working class against the Negro
worker and therefore the Negro workers are
suspicious of the white worker. Comrade Lenin
at the Second Congress said that we had to
lean back to reach them
In regard to the ANLC we do not yet see
that we must win the majority of Negro
masses and backward elements, the peasantry,
by liberation movement which must be
built among the Negro workers. The ANLC
has not gone forward properly We must
build the ANLC into a broad mass organiza-
ton. Also we have not sufficiently brought
the Negro workers into the TUUL.
Our Negro department should not be iso-
lated in general from the movement of the
Party but every section of the Party must
take steps to organize the Negro workers.
Some say that the Negro department of the
TUUL Is too much connected up with the
TUUL, that it is too much a part of the
TUUL. That is precisely what we are trying
to do is to make the Negro Department part
of the TUUL, so that every department is
ization. But at the same time we are not
trying to bring Negro workers into the organ
trying to lose the identity of the Negro De-
partment.
Now, Comrades, on the question of the Ne
gro reformist organizations in this country.
We will take up first the National Associa-
ton for the Advancement of Colored People
an organization that has been organized some
twenty years, and at that time put forth the
question of social and political equality of
Negro and white workers from a petty bour-
geois point of view At the present time
this organization is petty bourgeois organ
lzation of intellectuals which has not become
numerically very large The N.AA.CP is
the mouthpiece of this new rising bourgeois
class of the Negro and at the same time
shows its relationship with the white bour
geois class by having on its board Of directors
such fellows as Rosenwald, Rockefeller and
other millionaires. This Organization is now
openly struggling against the whole working
class. 1t is the same way with the Urban
League. This is urban organization having
as its idea, organizing the workers for Jobs
But it does not put forth wage demands of the
workers, and says that the workers should
not strike for better conditions or higher
wages, but should consider the boss their
friend. The Carney movement is a nationalist
movement, black Negro capitalist movement
Carney is putting forth the idea of black
capitalist enterprise and denying the right or
the need of the Negro workers to organize in
trade unions.
Closely connected with these reformist Ne
gro organizations is the reformst trade
union organization led by Randolph, and which
he has betrayed-the Brotherhood of Negro
Sleeping Car Porters. He betrayed this union
into the A. F. of L. and at the same time has
carried on open fascist attacks against the
organizers of the American Negro Labor
Congress, and at the present time is respon-
sible for the imprisonment of Comrade Saul
and Comrade Harper. We must make de-
termined struggle against these organiza-
TONS
Now comrades, want to take up the in
ternational aspect of our Negro question
The Negro workers in South Africa in the
West Indies are exploited in the same man.
ner as the American Negroes. In South
Africa thp basis of raact;op op,orr +Lo