Hall and Winston: Fighting Racism

The experience of the Communist Party of the United States has shown that the struggle for black/white solidarity is key for revolutionary struggle. Two leaders stand out in the clarity of their analysis, Henry Winston and Gus Hall. Unfortunately, their books are not available on the Internet, but an excerpt is available from an article about Henry Winston and from Gus Hall's book Fighting Racism.

Winston recalls that Marx spoke out against racism: "Marx wrote long ago that 'labor in a white skin can never be free so long as labor in the black skin is branded.' This profound observation points up the fact that racism is the consciously employed weapon of the white imperialist oppressors, who use it to create division in the ranks of the working class. And Marx correctly suggests that white workers must take the lead in the struggle against racism. This is the path which can lead to unity of Black and white workers in struggle, which can achieve Black equality and a real improvement in the conditions of all workers."

Hall starts from the effects and origins of racism based on slavery against African-Americans in the United States, but a similar analysis can be applied to racism in different forms against other peoples and in other countries. "African Americans suffer many-sided discrimination ... in jobs, in housing, education, etc." "The inequalities suffered by the other nationally oppressed components of our working class take different forms. But they are all based on the system of racism against the African American people, which goes back to the very beginnings of our country, some 400 years ago. Thus, the racism against Black America feeds the national oppression, discrimination and chauvinism against Chicano, Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, Native American Indian, Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and other Asian Pacific peoples. There are Dominicans, Jamaicans, Haitians and others who, to one degree or another, are all victims of racial and national oppression."

He indicates why racism is encouraged by the capitalists, 1) to divide and weaken working class struggle; and 2) to provide superprofits which come from paying lower wages to racially-oppressed people. "Corporations pay minority workers less than white workers, achieving two things -- greater (super) profits and pitting workers against each other." As he points out, racism ultimately hurts the white worker as well as the black worker: "In reality, by keeping wages of Black workers lower, the boss also keeps white workers" wages lower."

He points out that racism is based on the false science of "superior and inferior peoples" as well as on the history of genocide and slavery (and, one may add, colonialism). This is similar to other false scientific claims about "human nature" that are used by the ruling class to justify their power and exploitation.

Hall concludes that "the alliance between the working class, which is itself multiracial and multinational, and the over 65 million racially and nationally oppressed peoples, is a key ingredient in all fields of struggle -- economic, political, social and ideological."

In revolutionary practice this means that special efforts must be made at all times to maintain multiracial and multinational unity. Despite the difficult circumstances under which it has always worked, the Communist Party of the United States, under leadership of people like Henry Winston and Gus Hall, have always followed this in practice as well as in theory.

The struggle for solidarity and against racism and intolerance is essential to revolutionary organization and unity in the 21st Century.

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