Negroes on the March, by Daniel Guerin

[p033] NEGROES ON THE MARCH by Daniel Guerin. Paper cover 7/6, hard cover 12/6, postage extra). New Park Publications, 266, Lavender Hill, London, S.W.11 Because nearly all the colonial countries are inhabited by dark-skinned people and nearly a!l the imperialist coun- tries by people with white skins, the movement for colonial freedom, which is today sweeping the globe, is often repre- sented as a clash of colour. This movement is a tre- mendous exptosive force, threatening the very existence of imperialism. But to see it simply as a clash of colour is to see only one aspect of the picture and that not the most significant. The United States of America is not, traditionally, a colonising country. When it emerged as a world power, im- perialism had already developed to the stage where the export of capital had superceded the conquest of capital as its main feature. But within the United States itself we find a faithful reproduction of imperialist-colonial relationship in the atti- tude of the industrial North to the more backward Southern States. The Negro people of the United States have suffered all the indignities and exploitation which are the lot of col- onial people everywhere. In this account of the struggles of the American Negro, the well-known French writer, Daniel Guerin, has employed to the full the Marxist method. This has enabled him to dig below superficial appearances and to expose the underlying causes of social phenomena. Part I gives us a vivid picture of racial oppression and demonstrates that it is part and parcel of capitalist oppression as a whole “and one of its most virulent and repulsive forms.” In Part II the author examines the question: “To what extent and in what ways the Negro people are likely, first of all, to take their emancipation into their own hands, and then, to ally themselves with the labour movement for the common liberation of all the oppressed, white and black.” He first of all asks the question: “Where does race pre- judice come from?” Is it instinctive? A type of mental sick- ness? If the latter, how was it caused, by whom and why? He examines the various theories put forward and then estab- lishes beyond argument the fact that race prejudice had its origin in economic exploitation. To justify the “right” of one race to exploit another you must, first of a'l. establish that there are “superior” and “inferior” races. This Herrenvolk mentality is not, of course, confined to America. It was the underlying motive of Hitler’s racial creed and is the justifi- cation of apartheid in South Africa today. On the foundations of economic exploitation was raised the super-structure of “racial folk-lore . . . grounded on centuries of irrational instincts and mental habits and which finally sank into the depths of the subconscious.” These pre- judices of centuries cannot be wiped out overnight by a single ruling of the United States Supreme Court. In the course of his study, Guerin shows that “race pre- judice is not born spontaneously but has been artificially and svstematically manufactured: by the subtlest and most diaboli- cal methods, by a constant mass propaganda comparable to that put forward by European Fascism.” Tracing the historic origins of the Negro question, he comes to the conclusion that racism was born with modern capitalism and colonialism. “It was one of the fruits of the proletarianisation of labour. The servitude of the Negroes... had as its counterpart the subjugation of the white workers.” At the end of the Civil War, the Negroes were freed from chattel slavery. For a time they enjoyed full citizen’s rights. But, with the complicity of the Supreme Court, these rights soon came to be mere scraps of paper. Above all, American capitalism was afraid of unity between the Negro and white workers. This had to be avoided at all costs. A gulf had to be created between whites and Negroes—this gulf was segregation. Northern industrialists joined forces with Southern ex-slavers to impress upon the minds of the people that the Negro was an inferior being, fit only for helotry and the most vicious exploitation. By legal means (“Grandfather Clause,” poll tax, etc.) and by terror (Klu Klux Klan), the barriers between the races were erected. Negro children were separated from white chi'dren in special schools where they received an inferior education. Admission to higher education was virtually barred to all but a few favoured Negroes. Racial prejudice, like disease, knows no frontiers. Once the climate of hatred is established, it spreads rapidly. Not only Negroes, but Irish, Poles, Italians, Jews, Japanese, Chinese and Mexicans, all became victims to race and religious prejudices. As with other imperial powers, “divide and rule” became the favourite method whereby the American ruling class maintained itself in power. Having analysed the historic origins of the Negro ques- tion, Daniel Guerin next goes on to discuss the various move- ments which have been thrown up in the course of the struggle for emancipation. The “back-to-Africa” movement of Marcus Garvey in the early nineteen-twenties; the spurious slogan of ‘Independence for the Black Belt” which was the contribution of the American Communist Party during the “Third Period” of the nineteen-thirties and which was dropped overnight when the party switched over to “Popular Frontism” and sought an alliance with Roosevelt; the movements of the Negro liberals, which culminated in the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of the Coloured People (N.A.A.C.P.). Each of these movements contributed something to the cause of Negro emancipation but it was not till organised labour began to turn its attention to the millions of Negro workers that real dents began to appear in the edifice of racial prejudice. ~ As economic exploitation is the foundation of racial hatred, so the joint struggle of. the Negro and white workers

[p034] against their common exp!toiters points the road to the final soiution of the “Negro problem.” As a product of capitalism, it will disappear from the face of the earth only when capital- ism itself is destroyed. Negro and white workers, marching side by side, will accomplish this task in the United States. “Negroes on the March” is indispensable reading, not only for those who wish to understand the problems con- fronting the American Negro but aiso for those who want a brilliant example of the application of the Marxist method of investigating and analysing social phenomena. It is a book which should be on every socialist’s bookshelf and in every public library. C.v. G.