First Published: Workers Viewpoint Newspaper, Vol. 2, No. 6, July 1977.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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We welcome the following criticism of our “Roots” article (WV News., Feb., 1977; Vol. 2, No.2). Supervision by the masses is important in our struggle to build a genuine communist party and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat in the U.S. Chairman Mao Tsetung, once wrote, “If we have shortcomings, we are not afraid to have them pointed out and criticized, because we serve the people. Anyone, no matter who, may point out our shortcomings. If he is right, we will correct them. If what he proposes will benefit the people, we will act upon it.” This is the spirit of criticism and self-criticism which we need to promote and build. Only with the correct outlook and practice of criticism and self-criticism can we become “ideologically face-to-face” with the masses, know what is on their minds and in their hearts and win them to communism.
We regret that, due to its length, we are unable to print the letter here. We will summarize the comrade’s main points.
The comrade criticizes five points in our “Roots” article.
First, he criticizes our description of the nature of slavery as confusing. The mode of production of the Slave South was not feudal but slave. “The mode of exchange was capitalist; that is, goods were produced for sale on the world market. The feudal aspect … became sharper after the emancipation and reconstruction periods ended, with the growth of the sharecropper system.”
Second, the comrade says we fail to explain how the “class alliance of the English colonialists, New England rising Bourgeoisie and the Southern feudal landowners” (pg. 26) was the basis of the Civil War. In the early days of the slave trade there was an alliance between the English commercial bourgeoisie, the New England bankers, ship-builders and ship-owners and the Southern planters. The English maritime bourgeoisie left the alliance in the early 19th century. Later a link developed between the English textile bourgeoisie and the Southern planters through the medium of cotton. Gradually most of the Southern exports went to England and most of the manufactured goods coming into the South were British, was the essential question of the Civil War. Slavery was the birth mark and standard of the South. “And thus the rising U.S. bourgeoisie shaped its struggle in opposition to slavery.”
Third, he says it is incorrect to say that slave uprisings in the U.S, failed because of the lack of a “correct revolutionary theory” (pg. 26.) “When the vast majority of these insurrections went on ... Marxism had yet to be elaborated … The period of the slave revolts was the period of the bourgeois democratic revolution. Thus if there was to be any theory or philosophy to guide the slave insurrectionaries it was to be necessarily bourgeois. There were successful slave revolts during this period, though none occurred in the U.S. For example, the Haitian revolution under Toussaint L’ Overture’s leadership. The battle cry of the French revolution, “Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite!“ was the same battle cry of the Haitian masses. ”
Fourth, it was correct for Kizzy to reject her carriage-driver fiancé. She was expressing the disdain of the “field slave” for the “house slave.” In general, “house slaves were chosen because of their docility and loyalty to their master.” “The correct approach to the house servants was not to try to win them over to any strike for freedom but rather to stay clear of them and when the rebellion erupts, if they wish to fight beside the “field niggers” then they would be welcomed. ”
Fifth, it was incorrect for the WVO to imply that there was no difference between American-born and African-born slaves. “African-born slaves were more dangerous than the American-born ... Africans born in Africa had not experienced chattel slavery as practiced in America.” “The American-born slave had never been free, where the African had. The African had lived free and thus it was no dream, yet to be experienced but a reality stolen from him… ” There was a difference between the two and the difference was that the “African-born Blacks were quicker to rebel and more certain of themselves when they did.”
“Comrades, these errors are serious and must be addressed sternly.”
1. We accept the comrade’s criticism on our presentation of the nature of slave society. Our presentation in the article is eclectic. In one paragraph we say that the pre-Civil War South was a slave mode of production, in another we say it was feudal.
In fact, the mode of production of the pre-Civil War South was slave. With the increasing importance of Cotton as an export the brutality of the slave system intensified. Slavery had its “ancient” character as long as production was for immediate, local consumption. However, with the export of Cotton, the pre-Civil War South was drawn into the international market dominated by capitalism: Thus “ancient” slavery became chattel-slavery. In other words, labor that was physically enslaved and at the same time subject to the more intense demands of capitalism.
Our error is due to our failure to do a more in-depth analysis of the laws of political economy in that period and our lack of clarity on this aspect of history. Under the pressure of press deadline, there was a lack of meticulousness toward this and other aspects of the article, reflecting our shortcomings in the organizational sphere.
2. The comrade’s point on the Civil War being fought over markets is incorrect. Although we did not explain it clearly, in the final analysis the Civil War was a struggle mainly between the Northern industrial bourgeoisie and the Southern planters over what form of labor, slave, or “free wage-labor” was best. It was no accident that slavery became the main issue of the Civil War. The destruction of slave labor was in the interest of the Northern industrialists, independent of their will (they vacillated for a while before recognizing this). Rising capitalism needs a vast pool of “free” labor and slavery was a great obstacle to its development.
The American Civil War was of tremendous importance for the developing international and U.S. proletariat. It was the pressure of the U.S. proletariat along with the Afro-American masses who forced the Northern bourgeoisie to take up its mission of advancing the bourgeois democratic revolution. And it was the English proletariat who carried out their internationalist duty by preventing the British capitalists and landlords from interfering in the war on the side of the South. The birth of the 8-hour day movement after the Civil War proves the revolutionary effect of the struggle against slavery on the development of the US labor movement. The revolutionary Lenin spoke of the “immense , world-historic, progressive and revolutionary significance of the American Civil War of 1863-65!” If we narrowly view the Civil War as a struggle over “national market” we miss its true meaning.
3. The dominant revolutionary philosophy during the period of slave revolts was bourgeois, and it was incorrect for us to say that they failed in the U. S, due to the lack of a “correct revolutionary theory”, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. This was an error of idealism, of taking ideas and theories outside of the context of time, place and the material conditions that give rise to these ideas. Why did the Haitian insurrection succeed and those in the U.S. fail? The answer lies in analysing the leadership of the various revolts, what trends within the bourgeois democratic movement they represented, what relation they had to other class forces at the time, etc. In addition, when we look at the success of the Haitian revolt, we must take into account that the French Empire was in the midst of collapse, trapped by various internal and external contradictions.
4. We disagree with the comrade’s position on house slaves vs. field slaves.
House slaves as a strata played a revolutionary role. There are numerous historical examples of house slaves poisoning their masters, of passing information between plantations, of spying on the plans of the plantation owners, of aiding in countless other ways the slave insurrections. It is incorrect to view the house slaves as a bought-off strata as the-labor aristocracy is today. Whether to unite with a particular strata or class depends on the objective class position and interests of that strata. If there is a basis for unity, as there was between house and field slaves, then true revolutionaries actively strive to unite. We cannot take a passive wait-for-the-revolution-and-see approach.
5. Kizzy’s role and its concrete effect on the “Roots” audience was not that of a “field slave” rejecting a “house slave”. One aspect of “Roots’” distortion of Afro-American history lies in the fact that it plays up the more sensational aspects of slavery such as the whippings and rapes, but downplays the more fundamental oppression of slaves – the daily toil in the fields.
Comrade, you are speculating on the “differences” between African-born slaves and American-born. This only serves the bourgeoisie. You totally disregard the fact that there are also classes in Africa, which gives rise to different responses to oppression.
What are the class effects of such academic speculation? To talk about the “differences” between the two is to com-promise with bourgeois nationalists like Stokely Carmichael, who would like nothing better than to make the Afro-American masses forget about class differences and split Afro-Americans who remember their “Africaness” from those who don’t. Academic speculation such as this provides the bourgeoisie with a theoretical justification to split the Afro-American masses in the hopes of putting off their inevitable doom.