Freedom Road looks at the U.S. domestic situation

The following is the Domestic section of the Main Political Report from the 6th Congress of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. The Economic section has been previously published, and the section on the international situation is forthcoming.

Decline of American Power, Leftward Shift Define New Period

For the past three years, the conditions shaping domestic politics in the United States have been marked by the economic crisis, a qualitative shift away from the free market capitalism of Ronald Reagan on the part of the bourgeoisie, and a leftward political shift amongst the people. The massive economic and financial crisis, which began in December 2007, and the continuing decline of U.S. imperialism globally, have come together to judge the Reagan Era and its aftermath as a failure.  The economic crisis swept from power the party of George Bush and brought into office the first African-American President of the United States–Barack Obama.

This set of qualitative changes is in part the foundation of and in part manifestations of a new period.  It is this new set of conditions which sets the context for the peoples struggle against U.S imperialism.

40 Years After his Assassination, let us Live Like Fred Hampton!

Fred Hampton was only 21 when he died on December 4, 1969. In such a short time, he distinguished himself as one of the greatest fighters for African American liberation and socialist revolution in the history of the United States. He so distinguished himself that the FBI and the Chicago Police Department found it necessary to gun him down in cold blood while he slept in his bed. Looking back, 40 years later to the day, it is important for revolutionaries and Marxist-Leninists to commit themselves to fight with the energy and tenacity that he did.

Please read this statement from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization: Fred Hampton – A Fighter for Black Liberation, Revolution and Socialism

Collected Documents on the National Question in the United States

The following is a collection of statements, resolutions, books, articles and other documents by various Marxist-Leninists which provide a theoretical analysis of the national question in the U.S. Generally speaking they are listed chronologically. This collection, though necessarily different in format, has been incorporated into the M-L Study Guide.

General

• Nationalism, Self-Determination and Socialist Revolution by Amiri Baraka of the League of Revolutionary Struggle (1982)
• Statement on National Oppression, National Liberation and Socialist Revolution by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (2004)

African American National Question

• The 1928 and 1930 Comintern Resolutions on the African American National Question
• The Struggle for the Leninist Position on the Negro Question in the United States by Harry Haywood (1933)
• The Negro Question in the United States (PDF) by James S. Allen (1936)
• Negro Liberation (PDF) by Harry Haywood (1948)
• For a Revolutionary Position on the Negro Question by Harry Haywood (1958)
• The Degeneration of the CPUSA in the 1950s by Harry Haywood (from Black Bolshevik – 1978)
• The Negro National Colonial Question by the Communist League (1972)
• National Liberation and Proletarian Revolution in the U.S. (Red Papers 5) by the Revolutionary Union (1972)
• The national question in the U.S. today (Review of Red Papers 5) by Carl Davidson (1973)
• The Struggle for Black Liberation and Proletarian Revolution by the October League (M-L) (1972)
• On the Afro-American National Question by the Revolutionary Communist League (1977)
• Build the Black Liberation Movement by the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters (1981)
• RWH on the Black Liberation Movement: Wrong Again! by Amiri Baraka (1981)
• The Development of the Afro-American Nation by the Amilcar Cabral / Paul Robeson Collective (1982)
• The Third International and the Struggle for a Correct Line on the African American National Question by FRSO (2006)
• Fred Hampton – A Fighter for Black Liberation, Revolution and Socialism by FRSO (2008)

Chicano National Question

• Chicano Liberation by the October League (M-L)
• Fan the Flames: A Revolutionary Position on the Chicano National Question by the August 29th Movement (M-L)
• The Struggle for Chicano Liberation by the League of Revolutionary Struggle (M-L) (1979)
• The Brown Beretes: Young Chicano Revolutionaries Fight Back! News interview with Carlos Montes (2003)
• May 1 and the Fight for Equality and Self-Determination by FRSO (2006)
• The Immigrant Rights Movement and the Struggle for Full Equality by FRSO (2009)
• Resolution on the Struggle for Immigrant Rights by FRSO (2010)

Indigenous Peoples

• Nationhood or Genocide: The Struggle of the Native People Against Canadian and American Imperialism by the Bolshevik Tendency (Canada) (1975)

The Debate Over White Skin Privilege

• White Blindspot by Noel Ignatin and Ted Allen (1967)
• A Critique of “White Blindspot”: A Contribution to the Struggle against a Petty-Bourgeois Line on the Question of Working Class Unity by Alan Sawyer (1972)

Claudia Jones: Marxist Pioneer of Black and Proletarian Feminism

Claudia Jones was born in Trinidad in1915 but migrated to Harlem in 1924. She became active in the Scottsboro struggle. She became a leader of the Comunist Party in the 1940’s, until she was indicted under the Smith Act (under which teaching Marxism was illegal) and imprisoned in 1955. She was then deported to London, where she lived and worked until her death 1965. She was buried beside of Karl Marx.

To get an idea of her importance, read her article, “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Women” (PDF), which analyzed the situation of black women from a Marxist viewpoint, and which was her major contribution to feminist thought.

Malcolm X on John Brown

John Brown  was a guerrilla fighter, who worked together with Harriet Tubman, and who fought and died for African American National Liberation.

Today is the 150th anniversary of militant white abolotionist John Brown’s armed raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, an important moment in the African American Liberation struggle. To mark the occasion, here is a quote from Malcolm X in 1965:

There are many white people in this country, especially the younger generation, who realize that the injustice that has been done and is being done to black people cannot go on without the chickens coming home to roost eventually. And those white people, even if they’re not morally motivated, their intelligence forces them to see that something must be done. And many of them would be willing to involve themselves in the type of operation that you were just talking about.

For one, when a white man comes to me and tells me how liberal he is, the first thing I want to know, is he a nonviolent liberal, or the other kind. I don’t go for any nonviolent white liberals. If you are for me and my problems – when I say me, I mean us, our people – then you have to be willing to do as old John Brown did. And if you’re not of the John Brown school of liberals, we’ll get you later – later.

May Day 2009: Fighting the Crisis

The following statement is from Freedom Road Socialist Organization (en español):

By Freedom Road Socialist Organization

On May 1, International Workers Day, millions upon millions will be marching against the capitalist economic crisis that has engulfed most of the world. Working people in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North America will hit the streets to protest the soaring unemployment, shorter hours and cuts in pay that are sweeping the world.

Harry Haywood: The Negro Nation

 

Harry Haywood, 1948

The following is chapter VII of Harry Haywood‘s 1948 book, Negro Liberation.

 

In the struggle against the plantation system of the South, the Negro people are necessarily the chief driving force. The liberal “remedies” which shy away from the fundamental economic changes indispensable for the democratic transformation of the South, ignore this crucial fact and, with it, they ignore the special character of the social and political struggle of the Negroes.

Congress of South African Trade Unions oppose Israeli Apartheid

The following was posted on ML Today:

Why South African Trade Unions Favor Sanctions and Boycotts Of Apartheid Israel

Address to Lenasia (near Johannesburg) Rally on Palestine 14th January 2009, by Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary, Congress of South African Trade Unions [COSATU]

From our own experience, we know how painful and dehumanizing is the system of segregation, otherwise known as apartheid. Apartheid is a system based on the assumption that one group or race is superior to others and therefore has a right to all the privileges and virtues associated with that particular status. It has a right to run and determine the lives of others, excluding them from certain privileges, merely because they do not belong to the “chosen” group.

What other definition would so fittingly define a system based on different rights and privileges for Jews and Arabs in the Middle East? The bantustanization of Palestine into pieces or strips — West Bank, Ramallah, Gaza Strip and so on — run by Israel and with no rights whatsoever for the Palestinians, is definitely an apartheid system. Israel occupied the land of the Palestinian people and created settler communities of Jews who enjoy a different lifestyle and privileges than those experienced by Palestinians. Palestinians are packed like Sardines in a tin throughout the Bantustans, with Gaza being acknowledged as the world’s biggest open-air prison.

Remembering Richard Aoki

The following was first posted on the Kasama blog. Richard Aoki, who passed away Sunday at the age of 70, was an Japanese American revolutionary, former Field Marshall of the Black Panther Party, and a leader of the historic Third World Liberation Front strike at San Francisco State.  According to Diane C. Fujino’s article “The Black Liberation Movement and Japanese American Activisim: The Radical Activism of Richard Aoki and Yuri Kochiyama” (the article is in the book Afro Asia: Revolutionary Political & Cultural Connections Between African Americans & Asian Americans, edited by Fred Ho), Aoki was “in the first couple of years of the BPP…the party member most well versed in Marxist-Leninist thought.” The video is from the trailer of a documentary about his life. 

Two Articles by Mao Zedong on the African American National Question

The following two articles by Mao Zedong deal with the African American national liberation struggle and how it relates to the class struggle and the international revolutionary struggle against U.S. imperialism. I am posting them here, on December 26, 2008, to honor the 115th anniversary of the birth of Chairman Mao Zedong.