Call Us to Intensify Communist Fight Against Racism and Nationalism
January 2014—Boeing Machinists rally against a proposed eight-year cut-back contract
USA— “My generation and those younger are rejecting capitalism,” said a millennial friend, “as they view society through the lens of systemic and structural racism.” He and his friends apply this lens broadly, from climate change to the struggle of the global working class, from migration to the need to smash all borders.
Masses of young workers and students have developed a thoughtful analysis and hatred of capitalism. Some identify as communists and have joined the ICWP. As active communist organizers, they are committed to the fight of our one international working class. They reject nationalism, an anti-communist bosses’ ideology.
This is not good news for the U.S. ruling class. Hence the re-emergence of a pseudo-revolutionary ideology critiquing what it calls “settler colonialism” (SC).
SC repackages an old anti-working class, anti-communist nationalist mindset that has plagued the communist movement for more than a century. This analysis rejects a class line on racism and imperialism, providing a cover for capitalism.
In many countries, ruling-class intellectuals try to use it to deter the development of new communist organizers. It has spread from elite universities to high schools and mass media. SC is rewriting ethnic studies in California (US) to remove a class line.
A South African comrade points out that “settler colonialism” distorts what should be viewed as capitalist expansion. The South African decolonization movement should include getting rid of capitalism.
A U.S. comrade thinks that ongoing colonization (Settler Colonialism) includes simply remaining on land that is colonized. Those who are not indigenous are settlers. They are perpetuating colonialism by being on this land. “Maybe I’m confused because I’m not familiar with settler colonialism as an ‘ideology,’” she said.
Another comrade responded that when we go beyond just ending capitalism, and fight for communist revolution, we open new possibilities. Both comrades agreed that land will not be owned but will become the collective resource of the international masses.
Fake-Revolutionary Intellectuals Use Marxist Rhetoric to Mask Attack on Proletariat
Sakai, SC’s theoretical guru, asserts that “Euro-Amerikan” workers benefit from capitalism-imperialism. According to his distorted analysis, the “Euro-Amerikan class” will always side with imperialism abroad and oppression at home. The interests of this so-called “white working class” form the material basis for the oppression of Black, Latinx, immigrant and “third-world” proletarians. He twists history to fit his nationalist, anti-working class politics.
Sakai’s critics point out that white workers have often united with those they supposedly oppress to fight the real enemy: the capitalists. For example, millions joined in the multi-racial rebellions against racism, xenophobia and sexism last year.
Faced with these facts, SC theoreticians claim such unity can only be tactical, not strategic. They assert “minority” workers are being used in this class struggle to advance “settler interests.”
Despite using Marxist terms, SC is riddled with anti-communism, as nationalism always is. Its whole point is to make us believe that huge sections of the working class are irredeemable. Sakai openly attacks communist parties as representatives of “settler interests.” He says they can never promote the revolutionary interest of the “true” proletariat.
1932—Black and white veterans of World War I march on Washington to demand compensation for their military service, attacked by the US Army and fighting back.
Communists search for the material basis that drives political and social development. Under capitalism, racism and nationalism are driven by the wage system. The ruling class (bosses) must super-exploit sections of the working class. They must keep them divided from other workers to maintain the bosses’ profits.
Racism and nationalism are not the result of human nature, but of capitalism’s nature and needs.
Turn to the International Proletariat
Communist revolution will destroy the wage system. We will work together for our collective needs. Anchored among the working-class billions, the ICWP, built on a foundation of communist relationships, will wage a mass struggle to end the evils of capitalism.
A comrade who is training to be a high school teacher calls on us to answer these counter-revolutionary slurs by intensifying the communist fight to end racism and nationalism now.
“As a prospective social studies teacher, I am only supposed to teach students their ethnic and racial history and nothing about the abolishment of the institutions which have affected working class students’ lives,” he reports.
He rejects the idea that “freedom comes from knowing their own history of white supremacy.” Instead, his idea of a useful education revolves around working class solidarity and destroying capitalism with communist revolution.
The consciousness of the masses has shifted. Capitalism is broadly hated. One way the ruling class has responded is by dredging up the failed ideology of settler colonialism.
The chorus of The Internationale, a communist anthem, ends with the profound prediction that in communism “The international working class shall be the human race.” When we sing this at ICWP events, these are more than just words. We are building one international party to mobilize the masses for communism. There is no place for national and racist divisions and the revisionist doctrines that support them.
Each new member of the ICWP speeds the demise of racist capitalism and its anti-working class, nationalist lies. Every close personal and political relationship our members make amid class struggle hastens the day the words of The Internationale become a reality.
Read our pamphlet:
“To End Racism, Mobilize the Masses for Communism”
here
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