The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-04-14

example, the world famous Scottsboro case,
which has represented one of the major political
achievements of the Communist Party in the
last period. How impossible it would have been
to rouse the Negro masses in the United States
in millions to the support of the Scottsboro
boys; how impossible to have joined with them
millions Of white toilers and middle classes;
how impossible to have stirred the entire world,
as was done-if the scottsboro case had been
taken up from the ral-humanitarian point
of view or if it had been approached from the
narrow social-democratic viewpoint The
Scottsboro case stirred America to its depths,
not merely because nine friendless Negro boys
were threatened with an unjust death, but be-
cause their cause was brought forward clearly as
symbol of the national oppression of twelve
million Negroes in America, because the fight
for their freedom was made the symbol for the
fight of the Negro farmers for their land of
the fight for the self-determinaton in the Black
Belt of the fight against lynchings, against Jim
Crowism against the smallest determinations
for unconditional social and political equality
for the Negroes.
Only the Bolshevik understanding of the Ne
gro question makes possible such an effective
fight for the smallest advance for the Negroes
to realize their smallest demands; that is why
historically it was left for the Communist Party
to be the first to raise effectively on a national
scale. the slogan of Negro liberation, since the
almoSt-forgotten days of the Abolitionists
The Communists Internationally reject the
social-democratic approach of the Second In
ternational to the Negro question and to the
national question generally, which under the
guise of a strictly working class" evaluation
of the Negro question, in actuality carries
through the capitalist class program of national
oppression. That does not mean, however, that
the Communist Party ignores the class divisions
among the Negroes or that it is indifferent to
what class influences and leads the Negro
masses.
The Communist Party points out that the
Negroes also are divided into classes; that in
addition to the class Of Negro farmers there
is considerable and growing proletariat, a
Negro middle class and a Negro bourgeoisie
The Negro bourgeoise, also subjected to the
special oppression of the Negro people as
whole, has been corrupted into accepting this
position of inferiority and even capitalizing
upon this inferior position for its own class
gain. This Negro bourgeoise has become the
thorough-going agent of the white ruling class
1t maintains pitiful superiority" to the Ne
gro masses by means of the condescending sup
port offered to it by the white ruling class.
1t capitalizes a share OF the double rents ex-
tracted from the Negro masses by the white
landlords through the system of Jim-Crow seq
regation; 1t earns these concessions from the
white ruling class by energetically exhorting
the Negro masses to be patient and long-suf-
fering, to realize their own inferiority to under
stand the position of white capitalists and land
lords as their rulers as an unacceptable visitation
inflicted upon them by an all-wise God.
AS the Negro masses begin to revolt against
this position of inferiority, the Negro bour-
geoisie begins to develop srecial means of head
ing off and controlling this revolt. They specu-
late upon the distrust and suspicious created
among the masses against the white workers
generally through generations of oppression
They appeal to the Negroes to make a virtue
out Of their segregation to voluntarily isolate
/ themselves, not to trust any white man. to rely
upon themselves alone; they bring forth all
sorts OF utopian schemes, such as the BACK
4 TO-AFRICA movement, the SUPPORT me
4 GRO-BUSINESS movement the so-called Paci-
\ fic (pro-Japanese movement and so forth to
create the illusions of some possible way out
of their misery without direct conflict with the
white ruling class All Of these ideas tenden-
( cles and moods are what We identify collectively
as bourgeois nationalism, or national-reform-
ism Such q nationalism contributes nothing
to the national liberation of the Negro people;
/ on the contrary, it is an instrument of the
WHITE ruling class, just as is white cflauvinism
10 Keep the white and Negro masses separated
and antagonistic to one another, and thereby
to keep both enslaved.
/ We have had a thousand practical examples
OF how this Negro bourgeois nationalism works
out In practice. We saw it in the Scottsboro
case when all the bourgeois Negro leaders held
up their hands in horror because white and
Negro Communists joined hands together to
rouse the masses to save the Scottsboro bows
They declared that the Scottsboro bows were In
danger, not from the white ruling class whose
hearts could not be touched by quiet humani-
/ tartan pleading, but that they were in danger
rather from the prejudices raised against them
i by the fact that masses were demanding their
release as part of the demand for national
lloeratlon 1t was clearly revealed that the
bourgeois proposal that the Negroes stand on
their own feet was merely proposal to keen
separate from the white workers but to throw
themselves on the mercy of the white ruling
class.
From all these facts flows the Communist
position on the Negro question. The Comm,,-
nists fight everywhere against white chauyinisn.
against all ideas of Negro inferiorty. against
all practical discrimination against the Negroes.
especially the Communists fight against white
chauVlnist ideas in the ranks of the workers.
ana above all against any white chauyinist in
Huence penetrating the ranks of the Conmu-
nlst Party. The Communists declare that the
white workers must stand in the forefront of
the struggle for Negro rights and against white
chauyinism. At the same time, the Communists
nght against Negro bourgeois nationalism which
is only the other side of white chauyinisn Tn
this tight against Negro nationalism it is especi-
ally the Negro Communists who have to be