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*NEW BOUNDARIES
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UNITED &^X~& y" /
PUERTORICO
sO "HAWAII
013 Large tracts of land south of our mark belong to other
native
peoples. Also the Virgin Islands, Samoa, Guam, the PanamaCanal
Zone and numerous Pacific Islands, all "territorialpossessions"of
the US will be controlled by the indigenouspeoples.
Dotted lines show approximate North American boundaries
afterimperialism is defeated and land returned to it3 rightful
owners
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NEW BOUNDARIES
Table of Contents
New Boundaries, An Introduction 1
What Is Our Philosophy? 6
Marxist Errors on Natural Resources 13
MarxismProblematical Legacy 29
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NEW BOUNDARIES, AN INTRODUCTION
Future battles will transform todayfs political map of
NorthAmerica into new, more just, boundaries like those we
depict.Present borders reflect might, not right. In North America
andworld-wide, phrases like "advanced" and "less developed"
nations
provide superficial cover for the real, fundamental
contradictionbetween oppressor peoples and their victims, the
oppressed.
Imperialist countries, headed by the U.S., control and
depletethe resources of the world, making misery, starvation,
genocidecommonplace for the exploited peoples and degrading
oppressor
peoples into living as parasites. To solve most current
problems,the fundamental contradiction must be resolved in favor of
the
oppressed. Only when imperialism has been destroyed will
ample
food, shelter, and clothing be produced; industry and
economiesdevelop in balance with the needs of people and nature;
world tradebe conducted fairly; or any genuine peace exist between
nations.
The authors of these articles are U.S. whites who see a gap
between what the world is now and what it should be. Cur map
foreshadows changes to be made by the oppressed peoples and
theirsupporters. Correct ideas will speed change while wrong ones
aregreatly responsible for losses and setbacks suffered by the
oppressedin past and present struggles.
We assess the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, the firnt
philosophy
dedicated to the process of change in human society. For thelast
century most revolutionaries have looked to the theories
andexperiences of Marx and Engels and their followers. Yet
othershave criticized them sharply. "Communism is not an ideology
suited
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for Black people, period. Socialism is not an ideology fitted
forBlack people, period, period," declared Stokely Carmichael,
BlackPower advocate. He continued, "Communism nor Socialism does
not speakto the problem of racism. And racism, for Black people in
this country(D.S"7) , is far more important than exploitation."
Studying Mr. Carmichael1s views in 1968, we believed his
condemnation applied to "revisionist" Marxism as practised in
Russia andChina but not to all Marxism. In this article, we
reexamine theproblem in light of experiences since then.
We turned to the Marxist movement drawn by its history of
actionand accomplishments, by its avowed goal of changing the
status quo.We realized that the most crucial struggles in the world
were forthe liberation of oppressed peoples, so we stayed with the
ideasof Marxism-Leninism which paid attention to these battles.
Aspiringto be Marxist-Leninists we urged others to do so, believing
thatincreased knowledge and understanding of Marxist-Leninist
writingswould lead to greater success for the oppressed peoples and
increasedsupport for them from the oppressor nations.
Through these years we learned from a U.S. newsletter
entitledHammer & Steel which always tried to evaluate ideas,
individuals,and current events in light of their contribution to
victory forthe oppressed peoples. Consistent backing of national
liberationdifferentiated Hammer & Steel from other
Marxist-Leninist publications,and over the years led to its
separation from and struggle againstvarious individuals, groups and
ideas which in practice continuedsupport to the status quo of
oppression throughout the world.
As U.S. whites who hate our own nation's role as oppressor,we
are greatly influenced by the history of U.S. Blacks. With
ahomeland in the Black Belt, Afro-Americans form a seoarate
nationoppressed within U.S. boundaries. Longtime victims of
genocidalattacks, their danger has increased because of neglect and
betrayalby the international Marxist movement. Liberation of the
Black
Belt would break up the boundaries of the main imperialist
nation,
Hammer & Steel Newsletter, occasional periodical, 1963-1975,
outof print.
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reduce its supply of wealth, provide great support to Puerto
Rican,native American, Mexican and other national liberation
strugglesworld-wide. This demand has been raised by the Republic of
NewAfrica and Hammer & Steel. Can any serious revolutionary not
supportit?
Yet attempts to win non-left white support for Blacks taughtus
the vast extent of white supremacy among our people. Unsuccessful
struggle to change U.S. Marxist demands for Black-white
integrateinto support for the right to secession demonstrated the
sell-outof our left. Attempts to discuss these topics with China
andAlbania eventually taught us the reluctance and inability of
thesocialist camp to fight imperialism on this vital front.
Consistently, Hammer & Steel spoke out in favor of
nationalliberation and against the theories of
Marxist-Leninists.Specifically, Hammer & Steel called for the
break-up of imperialistboundaries, especially in the U.S.,
supporting self-determination
for the Afro-American nation in the Black Belt and Puerto Rico
and
return of the lands stolen from Mexico; called for an
international
boycott of U.S. goods during the Vietnam war and exposed the
failure of pacifism to support the oppressed peoples. .The
news
letters attacked the pro-imperialist role played by the
"women'sliberation" movement and opposed forced population control
and
abortion as genocide. Hammer & Steel criticized the
Chinese
Cultural Revolution for its support to U.S. imperialism and
polemicized against neglect and betrayal of the oppressed
peoplesby the USSR since Stalin's death. They called for the
destructionof the State of Israel as the only way to defend
Palestinians'right to their land. Our grasp of these positions,
proven soundby subsequent events, encourages us to go on to tackle
new
theoretical problems.
We have to face counter-revolutionary world conditions, in
order to help overcome them. Imperialism's world control
becomesstronger, producing military and economic defeats for the
oppressedin great number while leftist movements provide no
explanationsor solutions. The question arises: are there some basic
errors
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in Marxist philosophy which make its followers into
vacillatingallies at best and, at worst, outright opponents of the
oppressedpeoples? The real world calls for such a reassessment of
Marxism.
We found it useful to compare U.S. imperialism with
Germanimperialism before World War II. Like the U.S., a powerful
imperialistGermany had working and middle classes whose great
majority supportedtheir ruling class's aggression. They were "led"
by a left thatmostly failed to understand the support, to prevent
the aggression,or to save itself.
Powers calling themselves Marxist, led by the Soviet Unionand
the Peoples' Republic of China, do not devote their economiesto
aiding oppressed nations against U.S. imperialism. Rather,
theycollude and compete with the U.S. They export ideological
errorsand confusion to cover up the miniscule practical aid for
Vietnam,Palestine and other anti-imperialists.
Members of oppressor nations who call themselves
Marxist-Leninists refuse to expose and correct chauvinism in their
ownpeople. Instead they urge "unity" between oppressor and
oppressedworkers. They continue to develop these theories supported
byMarxism's labor theory of value.
Do such errors result only from a betrayal or revision of
Marxism-Leninism? Why are all these forces so susceptible to
the
pressures of state power, nuclear blackmail, bribery?
One specific impetus to answer these questions came from
Soulbook:
Marx and Engels' theories focused primarily on the
largerindustrialized states of Western Europe. They regarded
largeindustrialized nations as essential to world progress.
Thoughthey decried national oppression, Marx and Engels had
littlesympathy for the demands of small nations.!They (Marx and
Engels) ignored completely the greatestrevolutionary event of the
19th century: The Haitianrevolution of 1804. Haiti, where the Black
masses triumphedover aryan oppressors.2
1Soulbook3 Volume 3, Number 10, (Spring, 1975), p. 40, P.O.
Box61213, Los Angeles, Calif. 90059, USA.2Ibid., p.7.
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With these ideas in mind, we read Accumulation of Capital1,
KarlMarx on Colonialism and Modernisation and reread Capital.
Westudied the topic of natural resources, wealth and
land.-lookingfor theoretical support in Marx's economic work for
the right ofpeople to control their own land. The lack of such key
materialfrom Marx and Engels and the failure of subsequent Marxists
(Lenin,Stalin, Mao) to supply it, helped us understand many of the
obstacle^facing today's oppressed peoples and all who desire their
victories.
Armed with correct theories, man can improve his world. Asthe
liberation struggles are inevitable, so is the developmentof
international assistance both theoretical and practical. Suchaid
will begin with efforts to exchange experiences and ideas,support
and criticism. We hope to contribute to such efforts in
the articles that follow.
in the following article we discuss the basis of our
political
orientation.
TRosa Luxembourg, Accumulation of Capital, Monthly Review
Press,New York, 1968.Shlomo Avineri, Karl Marx on Colonialism and
Modernisation,Doubleday and Co. Inc., "New York, 1969-
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6.
WHAT IS OUR PHILOSOPHY?
We need a correct, consistent philosophical viewpoint from
whichto develop our critique of Marxism. Our study begins by
reaffirmingdialectical materialism and the general framework of
historicalmaterialism as developed by Marx and Engels. It describes
howMarx and Engels used historical materialism wrongly. They
placedtheir main hopes for revolution on the workers in
industrializednations and condemned the oppressed colonial peoples
to a secondaryrole.
Developments have taken a different turn. The main
revolutionaryforce has turned out to be patriots from all classes
of oppressed
nations opposed to domination of their national resources by
imperialismespecially U.S. imperialism. It is by denying this fact
andfollowing Marx that contemporary Marxists have turned into
supportersof the status quo.
As past proponents of Marxism, we attempt a contribution
torevolutionary theory by reexamining the philosophical and
economic
foundations of Marxism. In this section we discuss and
reaffirm
the basics of dialectical materialism. Starting from its
basic
premises as outlined by Stalin, we develop our own
historicalmaterialist critique of historical materialism.
Why Dialectical?
As anti-imperialists in a world dominated by U.S.
imperialism
our constant focus is on the future, on change. The
philosophical
basis of our study cannot be "common sense" or another of the
current
1Joseph V. Stalin, History of the Communist Party of the
SovietUnion (Bolsheviks); Short Course, International
Publishers,New York, 1939, p"."105-131.
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7.
fads. Dialectics includes a formal study of the process of
change
and development in nature, human society and man's
understanding
of nature and society. Dialectics and "common sense" overlap
in
some cases. For example, it is common sense that a child's
behavior
at one stage changes into its opposite in another. This is
common
sense because it happens relatively quickly in relation to
human
life and is repeated hundreds of millions of times. But
common
sense does not tell us that the strength of U.S. imperialism
will
turn into its opposite. This requires a more formal
understandingand conscious application of dialectical
materialism.
In fact, the common sense approach says that U.S.
imperialismwill remain strong and that it is best to adapt to it
rather thanoppose it. Since such an attitude would be fatal to all
revolution
ary development, it is not common sense but dialectical
materialism
which must be our starting point.
Applied to society, the dialectical method views the worldas an
interconnected, united whole, in which everything is movingand
changing. Change is not random but reflects contradictionsbetween
what is new and growing (national liberation movements)and what is
old and dying (imperialism headed by U.S. imperialism).Today,
imperialism is strong and national liberation forces areweak. Yet
their gradual development will progress to leaps forwardand
eventual victory. Today, we cannot predict whether
thistransformation of quantity to quality will flow from a worldwar
weakening the imperialist system, from a series of "local"guerilla
wars, or from other events. We can, however, use thedialectical
method to forecast the end of the imperialist system.
The principles of dialectics are drawn from nature andobserved
in history. Applying the dialectical method meansstudying the
internal contradictions in events. Further, dialecticsis truly
revolutionary since it focuses on development andchange. Yet
conforming to the dialectical method is noguarantee of useful
discussion or an advance in theory. The resultsof such discussion
or theory must be tested for more than their
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formal recognition of contradiction. Can the theory explain
andpredict objective events? Can it be used to influence events,to
change the world?
Why Materialism?
We believe the world is material; that there exist objectivelaws
outside man's mind (or "God's will"). A materialist judgestheory in
relation to that material world. Correct theory can
predict and influence events. In turn, it is events,
socialdevelopments, which are mainly responsible for the
development (andsometimes the lack of development) of ideas:
Marx discovered the law of development of human history:
thesimple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of
ideology,that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter
andclothing before it can pursue politics, science, art,
religion,etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate
materialmeans of subsistence and consequently the degree of
economicdevelopment attained by a given people or during a given
epochform the foundation upon which the state institutions,
thelegal conceptions, art and even the ideas on religion, of
thepeople concerned have been evolved, and in the light of
whichthey must therefore be explained, instead of vice versa ashad
hitherto been the case.
In brief, materialism means that society is the main influenceon
ideas but dialectics tells us that ideas bear an
important,secondary influence on society. For this reason, we are
strictabout the preservation and development of our theory. Study
of therole of ideas in history shows that theory can become a
materialforce. It follows that the test of scientific theory must
be itspredictive power and the possibility of using the theory to
speedhistorical developments. As a result, we need to update the
theoryconstantly as the material world changes.
Why Historical?
Our review of dialectical materialism establishes that
contra
dictions within society determine its development while ideas
reflect,
Frederick Engels, "Speech at the Graveside of Karl Marx",Karl
Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works in Two Volumes,Volume II,
Foreign Language Publishing House, Moscow, 1962, p.l67.
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9.
and in turn, influence these contradictions. Of all the
social
contradictions, which is most important?
Historical materialists answer that the most important
involves
the mode of production, the method of procuring the means of
life.Productive forces and the relations of production are two
antagonistic aspects of the mode of production. Productive forces,
theleading aspect, are the inputs into production land, labor,
capital organized into a system by the relations of
production.For example, different relations of production
distinguish socialismin the USSR before World War II (state
ownership of capital) fromcapitalism (private ownership of
capital).
As developed by Marx and Engels, historical materialismfocuses
on the contradiction between relations of production
(ownership) and productive forces. Once a given social systemhas
reached a certian point in its development, its relations
ofproduction begin to restrict further development of the
productiveforces, leading to its replacement by a new and more
efficientsystem. We take from historical materialism its focus on
relationsof production and productive forces. We question its
applicationby Marx and Engels who violated dialectics by looking
only o.tEurope when using their framework to study the transition
fromcapitalism to socialism.
Critique of Historical Materialism
The founders of historical materialism believed that the
key contradiction in capitalism was between labor and
capital.The capitalist class appropriated surplus value, the
profitsremaining from sales of products after wages and other costs
arededucted. For Marx, the contradiction between the relations
ofproduction and the productive forces hinged on the
appropriationof surplus value. The contradiction over surplus value
producedthe class struggle the central contradiction according to
Marxand Engels.
As the world market expanded and brought with it increasing
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10.
scale of production, Marx foresaw that capitalism would tend
towardincreased need for raw materials- and lower wages. The former
wouldlead to a spreading of capitalism while the latter transformed
theworking class into its gravediggers. By continuing Ricardo's
labortheory of value Marx was able to make surplus value the source
ofcapital's might and the class struggle the driving force in
history.He looked for expansion of surplus value as the source of
increasedprofits.
Mgrx's view was rooted in a valid philosophical system whichwe
reaffirm. His economic analysis uncovered and dissected
thecontradiction between two important productive forces labor
andcapital and the resulting class struggle. Yet his view
wasrestricted by his times. Great though his knowledge was, both
ofhistory and of the events of his day, it failed to
encompassobvious developments outside Europe and North America,
developmentslittle influenced by the labor theory of value. For
example, whenMarx and Engels studied the transition from feudalism
to capitalismin Europe, they focused on one important feature the
factorysystem. They traced its development and its impact on rural
lifethe enclosures. In Volume I of Capital, Marx lays bare the
contribution of landstealing in England and Scotland to primitive
accumulation of capital for factories.1 But the wealth generated
fromthe slave trade in the colonies receives almost no attention.
Whenhe does write on the colonies, Marx views them as a net drain
onEurope's wealth.2 In fact, the colonial and slave systems
probablycontributed more heavily to the early accmumlation af
capital andto the defeat of feudalism in Europe tfVan did low
wages.
Appropriation of resources from all over the world is thekey to
the wealth of the imperialist countries today. As long aswealth
from the oppressed nations supports high living standardsfor
workers in imperialist nations, the class struggle between
labor
Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I, Foreign Languages PublishingHouse,
Moscow, 1961, Chapter 27.
2Karl Marx, "The British Rule in India", Handbook of
Marxism,International Publishers, New York, 1935, pp. lBO-187.
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and capital and between socialism and capitalism, will remain
amere squabble between junior and senior partners.
When he excluded non-European factors from his analysis,Marx
contradicted his own dialectical materialism. Yet dialectical
materialism helps us understand why Marx was limited. Living
inEurope as capitalism expanded, Marx indirectly participated
ineconomic and cultural developments bought at the expense of
thecolonies. He tended to see other parts of the world as
permamentlyauxiliary to Europe whether Europe be capitalist or
socialist.For him, the main battlegrounds were Europe and North
America,the main protagonists, capital and labor.
In different degrees, Lenin, Stalin and Mao advanced
somewhatover Marx and Engels in applying historical materialism
outsideEurope. On the positive side, they recognized that
capitalismdevelops unevenlyleading to a contradiction between
imperialism
and national forces (including capitalists) in oppressed
nationsthe national liberation forces. On the minus side, they
continued
Marx's primary focus on class struggle. To them, the
importance
of the Paris Commune and the class struggles in Russia far
out
weighed that of the ravages of colonialism in the Congo.
They
failed to realize that the workers in the West were
objectivelyon the side of imperialism when it came to the colonies.
It is anunfortunate fact that the present treatment of national
liberationforces as auxiliary to "socialism" in Russia and China is
basednot on revising but on following Lenin and Stalin.
In today 's world the contradiction between labor and capitalis,
along with every major development, influenced by the
maincontradiction between finance capital* headed by US
imperialism,and the peoples from whose territory it draws its oil
and othervital raw materials. For the imperialist system (relations
ofproduction) has restricted the production of food and
basicnecessities on their land (productive forces) driving
thesepeoples either to resist imperialism or to become victims
ofgenocide. Productive forces clash with the relations of
production
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resulting in wars of national liberation.
What will come of these wars? Is socialism the next stage?
In the oppressed and formerly-oppressed nations the stages
ofdevelopment differ from those of the West. In answering
thesequestions, Marxists have almost always neglected the national
andstressed the class aspects of developments in oppressed
nations.By freeing historical materialism from its crippling focus
on classstruggle we promote future answers answers to the
status-quoMarxism of Moscow and Peking.
So by returning historical materialism to its original
generalinterpretation, we develop a theory which is valid today and
ofservice to the oppressed peoples. Key elements of our theory
are:
1. reaffirmation of dialectical materialism,2. support for the
broad: interpretation, of historical-:materialism,3. refutation of
Marxism's focus on surplus value and the class
struggle,
4. focus instead on the real, main contradiction, the
oppressedversus imperialism, as key in applying historical
materialism.
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13.
MARXIST ERRORS ON NATURAL RESOURCES
During 1972, the people of the U.S. consumed approximately
30barrels of oil per capita; the people of India consumed about
3/10of a barrel per capita. About 39$ of the oil consumed in the
U.S.was producedpother countries: Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, andIran.
The 61% produced within U.S. borders was taken almostexclusively
from land rightfully belonging to either the Afro-American people
(U.S. Black Belt) or to Mexico. Now the U.S. isattempting to
extract large amounts of oil from Native Peoples'
land in northern North America.
These few facts illustrate how unjust and unequal is
theconsumption of oil in the world. For most other kinds of
wealth,the picture is the same: The U.S. and a handful of other
industrialized nations accumulate wealth far out of proportion to
their
populations, leaving very little for the peoples af Asia,
Africa,and South America, as well as Afro-Americans, Mexicans, and
NativePeoples in North America. This inequity, initiated by
colonialism,is intensified under modern-day imperialism.
Let us examine the record of Marxism on economic questions.
Historical materialism firmly grasps the contradiction
betweenproductive forces and the relations of production in human
society.When Marx used historical materialism to analyze
capitalism, he
arrived at some important and useful conclusions about
"value".We, however, focus on some of the more crucial economic
errorscommitted by Marx and scrutinize Lenin's contribution in the
samemanner.
^Figures' derived from statistics in N. H. Jacoby,
MultinationalOil, Macmillan, 1971*, p. 55.
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14.
What Marx Did and Did Not Say
Marx, with Engels' support and collaboration, built his
economictheories on what he found positive in the ideas of such
economistsas Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Marx went further than
they didtaking a position against capitalism and calling on workers
toorganize and overthrow it. To support his position, Marx
undertookwhat he believed was systematic and scientific analysis of
capitalistproduction centered on the "labor theory of value" of
David Ricardo.Marx's theory provided a useful contribution to
economics, adescription of the creation of value by human labor
under capitalistproduction, including analysis of surplus
value.
Marx's definition of value is found in the first volume
ofCapital. It can be summarized as follows: capitalist productionis
organized to produce "commodities". A "commodity" is a
thingproduced by human labor that has value for someone; moreover
someonemust be willing to exchange something for it. If it is to
beexchanged, it must have some measurable value that governs what
andhow much one gets in return. That exchange value is determined
bythe amount of labor expended in its production. In the
Marxistscheme, "value" is synonymous with "exchange value";
anything nota product of human labor is considered to have no
value.
Marxism states that the value of commodities a worker producesis
greater than the value of commodities he would need to subsist.This
extra value is called "surplus value". But the capitalist,not the
worker, owns the means of production. The capitalist isable to keep
a part of the surplus value produced by the worker for -himself by
paying wages which are less than the actual value of thecommodities
produced by the worker.
Despite these important advances, Marx's treatment alsoresulted
in some major theoretical errors that belie his
"scientific"approach. These arose mainly as a consequence of his
almostexclusive concern with capitalism as it developed in Europe.
InCapital he relied on capitalist production in England
Karl Marx, Capital, Foreign Language Publishing House,
Moscow,1961.
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15.
to illustrate his theories. He did not consider the
colonies,where capitalism was then either nonexistent or very weak,
asimportant to his economic scheme.
Marx actually supported English colonialism in India. He
wasguided by his "labor theory of value" which implied that
theproletarians in Europe and the U.S., working under advanced
capitalistconditions, were mainly responsible for the
ever-increasing wealthand capital accumulation in Europe and the
U.S. So Marx justifiedEnglish rule of India as a "civilizing"
force: English colonialrule would develop an Indian proletariat and
middle class whichcould constitute a market for English goods,
thereby breaking the
pfeudal bonds and allowing capitalism to flourish in India.
In effect, Marx treated capitalism as a strictly
Europeanphenomenon. However, Europe accumulated great wealth from
thecolonies. While European labor played an important
historicalrole in creating value, let us not forget the millions of
Africans
enslaved by Europeans and brought to the Western Hemisphere
where
they produced cotton, tobacco, sugar, and many other
substances
that were used by Europeans and white Americans, including
the
working classes. In addition, there was wholesale theft of
food,minerals, oil, and numerous other substances that were not
produceable in Europe. So much did they desire the products
of
land that the Europeans and later the Americans massacred
the
native peoples of North America, Australia, and many parts
ofSouth America, populating these areas with people of European
descent. Evidently Europe wanted land and resources badly
enoughto murder and enslave. Marx's labor theory of value
cannot
adequately explain either land-stealing or genocide. By
restricting
value to that created by labor, it precludes assigning value
tothe other main sourceland.
t
'Karl Marx, Capital, Foreign Language Publishing House,
Moscow,1961.
Karl Marx, "The British Rule in India", Handbook of
Marxism,International Publishers, New York, 19353 pp. 180-187.
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16.
Land Also Contributes to Value
Marx acknowledged that land has a price but maintained that
ithas no value (since it is not the product of human labor). Let
usremember that Marx used the term "value" Interchangeably with
the
term "exchange value". (The latter term is a theoretical tool
hedefined to measure the amount of one commodity that can be
exchangedfor another). According to the labor theory of value, over
the longrun, commodities embodying the same amount of labor should
exchangeequally.
This all seems theoretically sound until we consider land.Since
land has a price, and virtually everything people use isderived
from land, then to some degree, exchange value is notdetermined
solely by labor but by land as well, so that in theMarxian sense,
land has value. The exchange value of any commodityis composed of a
certain part labor and another part land; we arenot proposing here
a formula for calculating the percentages.
To illustrate our theory, we apply it to the economics of
oil.The U.S. imports oil from Iran, among other countries. Most of
thelabor used is highly-paid U.S. labor. The capital is drilling
andpiping equipment manufactured in the U.S. Therefore, accordingto
the labor theory of value, all the value of the oil is producedby
U.S. labor. A certain price is paid to the government of Iran
forthe oil. In Marxist theory this can only be considered rent.
Marxsaid rent is part of the surplus value produced by labor which
isexpropriated by the landlord by virtue of his monopoly on
land.Thus from the Marxist point of view it is correct to say that
thegovernment of Iran exploits U.S. workers. To the small extent
thatthe money benefits the peasants and workers of Iran, the
wholenation of Iran exploits U.S. workers. This is the attitude of
theU.S. workers themselves and it is supported by Marxist theory.
Marxis'theory says that oil production should make Iran richer arid
the U.S.poorer.
The truth is just the opposite. The U.S. becomes richer
becausethe oil has a value above its cost of production even with
rent
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17.
being paid. This value is not a product of labor but of
land.
Land has value and some land is more valuable than other
land.
By taking an extremely valuable portion of land (oil) and
shippingit to the U.S., the U.S. becomes richer.
Of course Iranians have some money which they can spend in
theworld market dominated by U.S. imperialism. But they have
lost
their oil which could have been used to power irrigation,
fertilize crops and to develop industry. In addition, they
help
strengthen their main enemy, U.S. imperialism, which
recaptures
all the money and more through loans and military sales. The
money will soon be gone and so will the oil.
Going further, there is no reason why we, as Marx did,
shouldrestrict our concept of value to "exchange value". For if we
seekto explain the role of natural resources today, the labor
theory ofvalue is unsatisfactory. It is true that many natural
resourcesare worked into finished goods by industrial labor. But It
isalso true that many, like petroleum or foods, are transferredto
industrialized countries and consumed with little labor
intervention. The point Is that the acquisition and
accumulationof these resources, and not labor, produced much of the
wealthin the advanced capitalist countries.
Use Value
In Marx's time, his emphasis on exchange value had
someapplication to Europe and the U.S. where capitalism had
matured.In the rest of the world, where capitalism was present in
limitedforms, if at all, the concept of exchange value had
littlerelevance. Such is still the case today where feudalism
survivesin many parts of the world and subsistence farming
prevails. Soto limit "value" to "exchange value" as Marx did,
implies thatmillions of people do not contribute any value and that
their mostimportant possessions have no value. Since it is the
oppressedpeoples who will play the biggest role in defeating
imperialism(especially U.S. imperialism)we must reject Marx's
one-sided opinio]
-
18.
of what constitutes "value" and develop realistic criteria.
Marx's equation of "value" with "exchange value" provided
himwith a quantitative method to measure value, only partially
correct
due to his denial of the value of land. Because of the
limitations
of the Marxist approach, we propose a more qualitative view
of"value" employing use value as broadly defined by Marx: "the
utilityof a thing makes it a use value". This view enables us to
assignvalue to the important things that Marxism belittles :
products ofland. This is not a rejection of exchange value (with
the alterationswe propose), but rather an enhanced emphasis on the
other importantkind of value.
We must also propose an alteration to Marx's stated view
inCapital on use value. In speaking of human wants satisfied by
use
values, Marx asserts that "the nature of such wants, whether,
for
instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes
nop
difference." Contrast this with the following excerpt from
thespeech at Marx's graveside by Engels, "...mankind must first of
alleat, drink, have shelter and clothing before it can pursue
politics,
science, art, religion, etc." We believe the latter to be the
moreaccurate expression of use values: the use values that
satisfy
wants springing from the stomach are the most immediate and
important.
With the division of the world into oppressor and oppressed
nations,it is generally the oppressed who have the fewest use
values tosatisfy wants springing from the stomach, whereas the
oppressorpeoples, accumulating most of the world's use values, are
able toenjoy many that spring from both stomach and fancy.
For. .example, we would say that oil and gas, most of whichgoes
to the industrialized countries, usually satisfy a want
springingfrom a fancy when used to power cars there. They would
have muchgreater use value if they were used by the oppressed
peoples in
Karl Marx, Capital, p.36.^Karl Marx, Capital, p.35.3Karl Marx
and Frederick Engels, Selected Works of Karl Marx
and Frederick Engelsa Volume II, FLPH, Moscow, 1962, p.167.
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19.
tractors for farming, in factories to develop machinery or
weapons,
or for power generation. In an era when the oppressed
peopleswill strike the main blows at imperialism, use values like
these
that can support the national liberation forces of the
oppressed,must be considered as primary. In the long run,
satisfying nationalliberation needs will serve to produce the basic
necessities ofexistence for the oppressed peoples.
Marx's Theory and the Black Economy
The needs of the Afro-American people provide a key example
of the shortcomings of the Marxist theory of value.In the
Caribbean and its surrounding areas lie many territories
which Europeans colonized by slaughtering and driving out
theIndians and importing slaves to raise a cash crop for
export.
Of these, one of the largest is the Black Belt of the
southernU.S. Black Belt cotton contributed mightily to the growth
ofcapitalism in England and the U.S.
When Marx noted imported cotton's vital roll in the
textileindustry,he treated its availability as an asset to the
class
struggle joined over value added to cotton by proletarian
labor.The value slave labor contributed was little discussed. The
value
from huge territories on which the economies of New and old
Englandfattened he declared non-existent. Yet, the industrial
system
of that day. capital and labor, could not function
withoutcolonized land and slavery.
Class-struggle blinders narrowed Marx's view of the U.S.Civil
War. He supported Emancipation as the deathblow to U.S.capitalism's
feudal opposition, yet once northern capitalism hadwon the war,
Marx had little more to say, even though Blacks werestill fighting
for land, education and political power in theSouth. The
semi-feudal sharecropper system was the result of
their setbacks.
After World War I, and especially since World War II,
Afro-Americans have been forced out of the Black Belt into the
cities
-
20.
of the North and West. Marxists and others have emphasized
thatthis was due to capitalism's need for labor and for a reserve
armyof unemployed. This hardly seems likely as immigrant labor and
afast-growing white population had always served before. The factis
that imperialism's export of capital, mechanized production inthe
Black Belt and made the Afro-Americans "surplus population" asfar
as the imperialists were concerned. Their presence on the
landbecame a threat to imperialist control, so they were driven
off.
The pill was sweetened with some jobs and some welfare so thata
violent struggle was averted. Marxists and others have picturedthis
mass migration as a step forward from feudalism to capitalism,from
sharecropper to proletarian. Marx did so in articles on theCivil
War in the U.S. and Lenin in his article, "Development
ofAgriculture in the U.S."1 We consider it a step backward,
removingBlack population centers from Black Belt land.
Marxists consider land to have no value. But U.S.
imperialismdraws cotton, timber, soybeans, peanuts, iron, coal and
oil fromthe Black Belt. Of these, oil is the most important both as
asource of large profits and for its particular use value.
Imperialismas it now exists requires large quantities of oil to
avoid a massivebreakdown in production and in bribes to its own
working class,The Black Belt today makes a major contribution to
U.S. "domestic"oil production. The oil Interests are most dangerous
to the Afro-American nation because oil production requires even
less unskilledlabor than mechanized agriculture, resulting in more
exile andgreater pressures toward genocide.
The more capitalized agriculture becomes, the more dependentit
becomes on oil companies' products and on the biggest banksas
sources of finance capital. The Black Belt land remains a
source of great profits, but the development of
"agribusiness"strengthens the control of the top and most genocidal
imperialistso-ver Black Belt land.
Vladimir I. Lenin, "Development of Agriculture in the
U.S.",Selected Works International Publishers, New York, Volume 12,
1937.
-
21.
Marxists argue that present-day imperialism, like the
capitalisrof Marx's day, needs a Black reserve army of unemployed.
In fact,Afro-American unemployment is a byproduct of finance
capital inthe South. Newspaper accounts of high abortion rates,
forcedsterilization, murder in prisons and malnutrition are
evidence thatU.S. imperialism is attempting to destroy this reserve
army beforeit can become a Black liberation army. As long as they
remainsqueezed into extremely small areas of cities Blacks will be
ingrave danger- of genocide. They depend on U.S. imperialism
forfood, water, clothing and shelter controlling neither land
normaterials for providing their own.
The land of the Black Belt has great potential value for
theAfro-Americans as well as for U.S. imperialism. Not only can
itprovide the personal necessities of food, water, clothing,
andshelter, but the necessities for nation-building as well.
Land
is needed to set up rural base areas and to feed troops in
thestruggle against Imperialism. Oil, coal, and iron will be
neededto build a machine-tool industry and to produce weapons
for
defence of independence.
Like the fruitful land from which the Black Belt draws its
name, the theory of Afro-American liberation is a fertile
fieldin which many great thinkers have labored. We believe that
clearing the land of imperialism requires clearing the
theoreticalfield of the Marxist weeds with which it has long been
overgrown.
One Century After Marx
As Marx foresaw events, wages in Europe and the U.S.
woulddecline. He predicted that capital accumulation combined
with
technological change of the instruments of production
(improvedmachinery) would tend to lower the rate of profit and
level ofwages in the long run. Lower wages, coupled with the
realizationamong the proletarians that they, the "real producers of
value"should control production, would, he believed, lead to
socialist
revolutions in the most advanced capitalist countries.
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27.
On the labor theory of value. We must assume that when he
referred
to "super-profits", Lenin was thinking of "profits" in the
Marxistsense resulting from surplus value. As we argue earlier,
surplusvalue is not the only source of profits; through its
products,
land produces profits as well. During the colonialist
period,such labor-intensive products as cotton, tea, coffee,
cocoa,
sugar, and spices were the important goods (excepting the
slavetrade) shipped from the colonies to Europe. By the
imperialistera, technological developments in the imperialist
societiesrequired oil and minerals above all and developed
machinery fortheir extraction. This shift meant the labor of the
oppressed
peoples had less use for the imperialists than before.
Productsof labor took second place in importance to products of the
land.
U.S. government statistics on direct investment bristlewith
supporting facts. For example, in 1975 we find overseasinvestment
divided between Canada and Europe (6l%) and the restof the world
(39$) roughly encompassing the oppressed nations.We look to
manufacturing investment as a prime example of labor-intensive
sources of profits and to petroleum as land-intensive.For 1975,
roughly half of the petroleum investment was outsideWestern Europe
and Canada. At the same time, this oppressedarea accounted for only
20$ of U.S. overseas manufacturing capital.In U.S. relations with
oppressed peoples, products of labor
2take second place to products of land.
Lenin states that "under modern capitalism when
monopoliesprevail, the export of capital" (from the imperialist
countries)"has become the typical feature"3. Properly, emnhasis on
theresults of capital exports suggest that today the typical
featurehas become the export of land values from the oppressed
nationsto the oppressor nations. The result is: most of the land
values
1J.V.Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, International
Publishers,New York, 1939, p.10.
Statistics from Statistical Abstract of the U.S., 1976,
U.S.Department of Commerce Bureau of the Census, 1976, Table
1396,p.328
^Lenin, Imperialism, p.56.
-
28.
of the earth have accumulated in the oppressor nations with
oilproviding today's most striking example. Emphasizing the
essentialrole of land values helps us to recognize the vital role
ofnational liberation struggles and particularly the importance
ofland in these struggles.
While major leaders like Stalin and. Mao did make
prominentpolitical contributions to Marxism-Leninism, in the main
theypracticed it as disciples, accepting the economic
theoriesuncritically. For this reason, we have limited the
discussionof economics to Marx and Lenin.
Conclusion
Our main points are: Marx's fundamental errors on colonialismand
value influenced Lenin. As a result, instead of recognisingthe main
contradiction, (between the oppressed peoples and imperialismheaded
by the U.S.), Marxist-Leninists place their greatest faithin the
workers in the industrialized West. For the last 30 years
however, the oppressed peoples have been in the forefront of
thestruggle against imperialism, while the Western working class,as
a whole, has been a bulwark of imperialism much longer than that.So
Marxism-Leninism is incorrect on the most important question
facing the world's people.What we know today *as
Marxism-Leninism encompasses a generally
reactionary theory. Those who profess to follow it,
particularlythose in state power, are apologists for the status
quo, objectivelybacking imperialism. By taking what is positive
from the economicideas of Marx and Lenin, criticizing what is
harmful, and developingnew answers to replace what is wrong, we
hope to contribute to anew theory which will help the oppressed
peoples defeat U.S.imperialism and its ideological allies, the
Marxist-Leninists.
The following chapter discusses political and historicalaspects
of our legacy from Marxism.
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29.
MARXISMPROBLEMATICAL LEGACY
We study Marxism's historical role as we would any other
drawing on the general premises of historical materialism.
Marxismis the product of historical conditions. After capitalism
developedthere was class struggle because the capitalist class
didappropriate surplus value from proletarian labor.
However, Marxism was quite incomplete. It was then the
mostaccurate analysis of proletarian-capitalist relations, but
thesewere the main relations it considered. In fact, there were
two
kinds of value accumulating in the hands of European and
U.S.capitalists: l)surplus value from proletarian (and colonial
andslave) labor; 2) value from the land of colonized peoples.
Further, there was a strong connection between the appropriation
of values from colonies and the appropriation of surplusvalue from
the proletariat. Since Marxism did not recognize valuefrom land at
all and underemphasized the role of non-proletariancolonial labor,
it presented a distorted picture. This contradiction accounts for
both the successes and failures of Marxism
as a theory and guide to action. Our discussion of Marxism'srole
in history emphasizes the socialist revolutions in Russiaand China
and their relations with oppressed peoples.
Marxism and the National Question Through 1917The world's first
socialist revolution occurred not where
capital and the proletariat were most developed, but in
Russiawhere capital was weak. Russian imperialism exploited the
Russianworking class, but also the land (as well as labor) of
otherpeoples; the land values that Marxism and Russian Marxists
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30.
ignored did flow in the Russian empire. World War I
consumedthese values leaving Russian capitalists without the
resources toforestall a revolution led by the impoverished working
class. Aclass-struggle theory fitted the situation without
reflecting itfully accurately. Marxism was able to lead the October
Revolution.
The October Revolution and the following economic
developmentprovide a great historical example of the material gains
possiblefor the masses when surplus value from proletarian and
peasantlabor is released for the social and personal use of the
producers.It showed the possibility of rapid economic development
undercentral planning, demonstrating that the capitalist had
becomeobsolete as a necessary element in production. The USSR
provedMarx's theory on these points.
While Marxism scored one big victory in the class strugglearena,
it limped along, pushed by events, on the national question.Because
Marxists could not see that oppression of other nationsand peoples
was the main source of strength of "their" Europeanand North
American imperialists in the class struggle, they viewednational
demands as something subordinate, and possible harmfulto the class
struggle.
Within the limits of Marxist economics, national oppression
meant control by an oppressor nation's capitalists over
valueproduced by labor in an oppressed nation. This view tended to
bypass most nations and peoples of Asia, Africa, South and
CentralAmerica, the Black Belt and North American Indians, who
produced
relatively little surplus value but whose lands were
pillaged.Marx paid insufficient attention to the colonial profits
he did
recognizesurplus value from laborbecause it was extracted
mainlyfrom non-proletarians not involved in class struggle.
Although colonial profits had existed since the origin
ofcapitalism, the "national question" received most
theoreticalattention when national divisions undermined proletarian
solidarityamong European nations or when necessary to the October
Revolution.Stalin's Marxism and the National Question (1913) deals
primarily
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31.
with European nations, where the Marxist idea of national
oppression
mainly through surplus value, was more accurate. Marxism and
the
National Question argues that only peoples with a
capitalisteconomy and other unifying attributes can
enjoy'solf-determinatirn. .
"A nation is a historically evolved, stable communityof
language, territory, economic life and psychologicalmakeup
manifested in a community of culture."2We agree that a nation,
according to Stalin's definition,
has the power to maintain itself economically and culturally in
a
capitalist-dominated world. However, the definition best
fitsimperialist nationsU.S. whites, Russians, English,
French,Germans,Italians, Japanese, and the dominant Han nation of
China.
This group (by monopolizing the values from the oppressed'sland)
robs them of the opportunity to develop their own unifiedand
diversified economies. Only by seizing political and
economiccontrol of their land can the oppressed nations develop
powerfuleconomies capable of providing for their people and
fulfilling
Stalin's definition. Contrary to Stalin's work, peoples who
meetthe other criteria of his defintrn9but lack a capitalist
economy,have the right to match action to their anti-imperialist
aspirations
Marxism and the National Question1918 and AfterThe October
Revolution produced a change of emphasis in
Marxism which had a strong effect on the oppressed. Before
the
October Revolution, the main revolutionary goal world-wide
wasexecuting the class struggle. After it succeeded in the USSR,a
new main problem developedstrengthening and supporting the
proletarian state. The oppressed had not received much
attention
as actors in the class struggle, but with imperialism as a
whole
the main enemy of the new USSR, the oppressed became an
ally.
Furthermore, the European proletariat had proven a weaker
allythan expected while most of the USSR's territory and borders
were
occupied by non-European oppressed nations and peoples.
J.V.Stalin, Marxism and the National Question, ForeignLanguages
Publishing House, Moscow, 1954, p.14
2Stalin, p.16.
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32.
In 1913 Stalin stated, "The obligations of Social-Democracy,
which defends the interests of the proletariat, and the
rights
of a nation, which consists of various classes, are two
differentthings."1 In 1918, he wrote, "Thus the October Revolution,
byestablishing a tie between the peoples of the backward East andof
the advanced West, is ranging them in a common camp of struggle
pagainst imperialism."
In 1918 and 1924 (Foundations of Leninism), Stalin
accusesKautsky and the Second International of limiting discussion
ofthe national question to European nations. Lenin and Stalin
themselves did just that before the October Revolution. As
dialecticalmaterialists, they should have credited their recent
politicalexperience with changing their ideas, for that is what
happened.The need for an international front to counter the
imperialists
unanimous hostility is what expanded Marxism to include the
rightof self-determination for imperialism's colonies.
The shift on the national question produced some ideas
whichcontradicted basic Marxism. Originally, Marxism's view was;
"Theproletariat has no country." But to establish the USSR,
Lenin,and Stalin had to reverse their earlier opposition to
federalismand draw internal boundaries to create national
republics. Stalin's(1924) statement supporting the Egyptian
bourgeoisie and the Emirof Afghanistan against imperialism properly
tends to negate hisideas of 1913 that class struggle is the main
task in every nation;that only industrialized, capitalist peoples
have the right toself-determination. Similarly, the presentation of
three majorcontradictions (working class vs. capitalists,
imperialism vs.oppressed, imperialist vs. imperialist) tends to
blur Marx's focus
Joseph V. Stalin, Marxism and the National Question,
ForeignLanguages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954, p.34.
2Joseph V. Stalin, The October Revolution, Foreign
LanguagesPublishing House, Moscow, 1957, p.19.
3Joseph V. Stalin, Foundations of Leninism,
InternationalPublishers, New York, 1939, pp.76-77.
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, "The Communist Manifesto",Karl
Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works in Two Volumes,Foreign
Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1962, Volume I, p.51.
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33.
on class struggle. Though Marx and Engels supported
colonialismin many instances, on the theoretical front, Lenin and
Stalinopposed all national oppression by imperialism.
No Marxist pursued the national, question to discover the
truemechanics of national oppression and bribery of theoppressor
working classes. Stalin's 1913 work on the national
question stood unquestioned along with his later work. In
short,the shift on the national question produced not
clear-cuttheoretical changes in Marxism, but contradictions within
it.
Lack of better Marxist theory on the national question
madeMarxism the failure it is today, but the post-1917
positionscontradicting previous Marxismplayed an important role
amongnationalists of oopressed nations. For the first time a
stateproclaimed opposition to all national oppression, making
majorimprovements in the lives of oppressed nationalities within
itsborders. For the first time, an established government set upan
international organization to aid national struggles and offereda
world view asserting the power and necessity of politically
conscious men to bring revolution.Mao, Ho Chi Minh and Sun
Yat-sen all described the galvanizing
effect of Marxism in state power. Marxism did not create
nationalliberation strugglesnational oppression didand its
theorytends to exclude national struggles as a force. But Marxism
was"right for the wrong reasons"; it offered hope and
organizationat a time when many oppressed nationalists were ready
to respond.From this hope and organization came the Marxist-led
struggleswhich reached their height in many oppressed nations in
che decadefollowing World War II.
On the other hand, the errors of Marxism and the USSR'sfailure
to correct them also help to explain why U.S. imperialismwas able
to defeat most of these struggles.
In the name of proletarian unity, the Soviet leaders
gavepriority to a strong central economy. The USSR would have
beenstronger had it encouraged its formerly oppressed nations
and
-
34.
peoples to develop their own national economies, placing
theirproducts at the disposal of other national struggles. Such
anemphasis might have prevented the development of the
presentimperialist economy. The CPSU leaders attempted to end
nationaloppression as they understood itrevolving around surplus
value.They used proletarian power to resolve class questions
againstboth the Russian capitalist and feudal powers, and against
capitalistand feudal exploiters among the oppressed. The surplus
valuereleased brought material and social gains to the oppressed,
aswell as to the Russians.
Yet autonomous political forms and a raised standard of livingdo
not constitute national self-determination. There was nothing
in Marxism to prevent Russian economic planners from
continuingthe imperial pattern of using crops and power from the
oppressedto supply Russian industry. The Russian proletariat took
creditfor the value of the oppressed lands' contribution to
production,in appearance subsidizing the oppressed Republics while
theoppressed really were subsidizing Russian industry. The
oppressedtook the best alternative in joining the USSR. But, using
Marxism,the USSR could not solve the problem of their economic
relationswith Russia.
Marx was in error when he wrote that capitalism from Europecould
develop capitalism in the colonies. Hence, it was impossiblefor the
Russian working class to use his theory to develop industryin its
oppressed Republicsthe values from the land cannot be intwo places
at once. If they are developing Russian industry theyare not there
for the oppressed peoples.
Even when industry in the USSR was established outside Russiafor
military or economic reasons, it was still part of the
centrally-controlled system using power and land values from
oppressed nationsin Russian industryin this case the Russian
workers came alongwith the factory. The increased Russian
population in someoppressed Republics ran counter to the USSR's
attempts to developoppressed cultures. How can their culture
flourish while the
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35.
people are denied their land base? The USSR contains
oppressed
peoples who are well off compared to most, but remain
suppliersof raw materials and buyers of finished goods with little
industrialbase of their own to guarantee their standard of
living.Ultimately, the question of control of the USSR's oppressed
peoples'land must be fought out.
Soviet planners applied Marxist theory on building Socialism
and on the national question and gave the USSR an economy
which
functions like imperialism. Especially after it grew larger,this
economy developed the same interests on a world scale
asimperialismobtaining raw materials, trading in the
internationalmarket which favors big industrial economies.
At this point the interests of the USSR and the oppressedbegan
to diverge. When the USSR was struggling to exist
againstimperialism, it weakened imperialism and helped national
liberationin spite of its Marxist, wrong, orientation toward class
strugglein Europe and North America and toward its own economy.
Later,however, the same USSR-first policy justified peaceful
economiccompetition and summit diplomacy with imperialist powers.
Itstrengthened Imperialism and directly attacked oppressed
peoples,as in the creation of Israel.
The United Front Against Fascism, World War II and the
1950'sexhibit contradictory tendencies. The earlier efforts of
theUSSR on the national question bore fruit, especially in China.On
the other hand, the USSR moved into the ruling circle of
animperialist-controlled world.
The only clear-cut alternative was a break with Marxism,putting
the national liberation struggles in first place. But,like
Europeans and U.S. whites, Russians had a great materialstake in
the status quo and in theories which justify it. Thetitles of
Stalin's main writings of those years indicate postwar Soviet
interests: For Peaceful Co-Existence, EconomicProblems of Socialism
in the USSR. A third, Marxism and
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36.
Linguistics . discussed language issues in the USSR without
mentioningthe national question.1
National liberation struggles flared up after World War
II.However, the Marxist leaders of these struggles, many of whom
had been 'encouraged by the Communist International in
earlier:times, were *unable to resolve the conflict between their
necessary activities andthe international Communist line. Today,
through the limitationsof Marxism, these leaders, their parties and
their line are partof the roadblock to a new anti-imperialist
ideology.
As a major power, the USSR has helped a handful of Marxist
andnon-Marxist leaders take power in oppressed nationsCuba,
Chile,Bangladesh, Vietnam and Angola are major examples. These
countrieshave various forms of government and different kinds of
diplomaticrelations with the U.S. and the USSR. In every case,
their economicoppression remains.
China might seem an exception. Why did Marxism succeed
inbringing a measure of economic and political independence to
China,in spite of its general failure where imperialism's victims
wereconcerned?
Marxism and China
From the long history of Marxism in China, we distill
fourimportant reasons. 1) The shift on the national question after
theOctober Revolution led Lenin, Stalin, and Mao to agree that
imperialism, not internal capitalism was China's main enemy. 2)
Thedominant Han nation had a proletariat, petty-bourgeoisie
andbourgeoisie and according to a Marxist view on the national
question,they had a right to self-determination. 3) Imperialism
oppressedthe Hans mainly through trade and industry, wringing
surplus valuefrom peasants and proletariat in a dozen different
ways; Marxistscould understand this process. The Hans' own economy
was an exception
Joseph V. Stalin, For Peaceful Co-Existence,
InternationalPublishers, New York, 1951.
, Economic Problems of Socialism In the USSR, ForeignLanguages
Publishing House, Moscow, Second Edition, 1953.
, Marxism and Linguistics, International Publishers,New York,
1951.
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37.
arar-ng oppressed nations. This is why Marxism could play a
construe-f tive role in China. But this is also why Chinese urgings
of other
oppressed to emulate them will lead only to setbacks. 4)
Finally,the USSR supported China more than it did any other
oppressed
outside its borderspartly because a Soviet China would
clearly
strengthen the USSR, partly because it could understand
oppression
of China. As a result, Marxist ideas on class struggle
andbuilding socialism were adapted to China without questioning
the
assumption that value comes only from labor.
The ideological differences which developed between China
and the USSR around i960 reflected their different positions
inthe world. The USSR was a world power with industrial might
and
diplomatic and cultural relations with imperialism.
China'seconomy was still very weak and backward and she was under
threat
of imperialist attack. The differences focused on two points:who
is the main revolutionary forcethe industrial working classor
oppressed nationsand what attitude to take toward U.S.
imperialism?
The leaders of the Peoples' Republic of China never didrenounce
the Moscow Statement of i960 (8l-Party Statement), aclass-struggle
document. In 1963 they issued a statement inMao's name confusing
the Afro-American liberation movement withclass struggle. In the
face of one setback after another for the
oppressed, they insisted U.S. imperialism was a paper tiger.
While
the ideological struggle with the USSR continued, China's
economydeveloped further. The Communist Party showed no advance
overMarxism on its policy toward the oppressed peoples within
Chinawho lacked capitalist features. As the Han economy
developed,pressure to use the other peoples' land grew.
The Cultural Revolution in 1966 was a major turning pointa
political line aimed at developing the Han economy and comingto
terms with U.S. imperialism supplanted support to the oppressed.The
Cultural Revolution ended ideological developments in China
a
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38.
which contradicted Marxism. At their best, the Chinese
Communistleaders let the contradiction between Marxism and their
idea of the
main contradiction stand without exploring its implications.U.S.
Blacks are one of many oppressed nations who have been
harmed by the ideas of Chinese Marxists. As U.S. whites who
have
supported Marxism and particularly Stalin on the
Afro-American
question, we now re-examine Marxism's role from our new critical
view.
Marxism and Afro-Americans
As we discuss above, Marx saw Black slavery and Emancipationin
I863 entirely from the perspective of the class struggle in thebig
capitalist economies of England and the USA. Slave labor andBlack
Belt land were the actual productive forces over which theCivil War
was fought, but Marx was not equipped to see the bearingthese
forces had on English and U.S. capitalism. An independentBlack
economy in the Black Belt would have weakened U.S. and English
capitalism. A Black Belt dominated by U.S. capital did just
theopposite. After the Civil War, Marx and U.S. Marxists made no
demandsfor Black control of the Black Belt because they could not
see alarge proletariat or a significant class struggle there.
In 1929, as part of the effort to include oppressed nations
in a common front against imperialism, the Communist
International2
declared the Afro-Americans an oppressed nation in the Black
Belt.
Books were written by U.S. Marxists showing how the
Afro-Americansfit Stalin's definition of a nation.
There is no doubt that between 1863 and 1929 the
Afro-Americansdeveloped a larger bourgeoisie, petty-bourgeoisie and
proletariat.To that extent the Afro-Americans "became" a nation.
However, the
main problem is with Stalin's definition of a nation. In the
absence
of a large Afro-American proletariat, great values were taken
from
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Civil War in the
UnitedStates , 3rd Ed. , International Publishers, New York,
1961.
pCommunist International, The 1928 and 1930 Cominterm
Resolutions
on the Black National Question in the United States,
RevolutionaryReview Press, P.O. Box 3408, Washington, D.C.,
1975.
-*Harry Haywood, Negro Liberation, International Publishers,
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39.
the Black Belt over that entire period. Increasingly, those
values were from the land alone, as U.S. imperialism brought
in
farm machinery to replace Black labor. Much of the new Black
proletariat was forced off the land and out of the Black Belt
to
work for not Blacky but white capital. Such a course is not
a
sign of development of unified economic life, but of
itsdestruction. Thus, becoming eligible for nationhood under
Stalin's definition was a pyrrhic victory.
There is a great apparent change from Marx in the l860'swho
neglected the possibility of Black control of the Black Belt,to
Stalin, who helped to establish recognition of Afro-American
nationhood in 1929. The practical change was not so great
since
the Communist International still did not recognize the
Black
Belt land as a source of immense values to U.S. imperialism.
Since the development of sizeable proletarian forces was
accompanied by exile and these forces were considered the
potential Black political vanguard, the Communist
Internationalresolution and practice by U.S. Marxists had no choice
withinMarxism but to emphasize Black and white proletarian unity
and
to all but ignore the "formality'' of Black rights to state
power in the Black Belt.
The International's resolution has helped
a'-~ver^few:-To^&esadvance on the Afro-American question to the
point of breaking
with Marxism. In the main, it misled by applying Marxism onvalue
and Stalin's Marxism and the National Question.
Conclusion
Marxism, partially valid as it was, was a major advance
inphilosophy, economics and political thought. It came into
being
because the proletariat could run production and play a
political
role independent from the capitalists. Capitalism restricted
the
early economic and political development of the oppressed
nations
New York, 1948.William Z. Foster, The Negro People in American
History,
International Publishers, New York, 1954, Reprinted in 1970.
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40.
As a result, Marxism reflected almost exclusively the material
view
of the European and U.S. proletariat, and later that of the
Russian
and Chinese proletariat in power, bettering themselves both
vis-a-visthe imperialists and the oppressed. All the gaps and
errors inMarxism push toward sacrificing the oppressed and
compromising withimperialism.
The partial truth of Marxism produced important
revolutionary
successes in Russia and China. And Marxism became a very
strong
ideological force in spite of blatant contradictions between
Marxist theory, socialist practice, and the needs of the
oppressednations. These glaring contradictions and the
ever-increasing
suffering of the oppressed peoples under imperialism will be
the
impetus for an ideological advance beyond Marxism, an
advance
heralding success in the struggle of the oppressed to
controltheir own lands.