Article

RACE CLASS and ORGANISATION

by SA WSF

(We recently observed a very fruitful discussion on race and class on the internet, particularly around "black" anarchism, special oppressions and the desirability of separate organisation.

One of the best and most comprehensive posts came from a member of the Workers Solidarity Federation of South Africa, an anarchist/syndicalist group with a majority African component, which while personal, reflects their politics and positions on these matters.

Interest in anarchism is growing throughout the world. There are active groups in most parts of the world, with the exception of the Indian subcontinent, Antarctica and as far as we know the Chinese dictatorship. This process will no doubt accelerate and there is a challenge for us to make our ideas accessible.

But as our South African comrades point out below, "it was the ability of anarchism to provide alternatives and to pay special attention to the specific needs of these different sections of the working class in order to unite the whole class that made the success (of the Cuban anarchists and IWW) possible" not "a revision of anarchism to accommodate nationalism".

RACE CLASS and ORGANISATION

It is claimed that Anarchism as currently constituted is unable to attract Black people, and other specially oppressed minorities. It is therefore argued that we should thus endorse separate Black-only anarchist/ community organisations that may in some (vague and unspecified) cases associate with "white" groups - "white" groups should "work among" "their own" people etc.)

These arguments are wrong or lacking in clarity.

Firstly, class struggle anarchism has historically proved quite capable of attracting massive numbers of people of colour. In fact, one could claim that historically most anarchist movements have been based in Third World countries. For example, anarchism dominated the revolutionary movement in China in the 1910s and early 1920s. In the First World, Anarchist movements historically attracted specially oppressed national minorities, for example, the IWW attracted thousands of Black workers in the USA Deep South. Even today, groups such as the WSF (SA) and the Awareness League of Nigeria have almost entirely Black memberships . The key to this success was a consistent class struggle programme that combated all manifestations of oppression. For example, the Cuban Anarchists mobilised both Afro-Cubans, creoles and Spaniards in massive integrated anarcho-syndicalist unions because they opposed racist practices like apprenticeship laws, because they supported the anti-colonial struggle against Spain and because they provided a class struggle answer to the questions facing all sections of the working class. It was not a "revision" of anarchism to accommodate nationalist paradigms that made the breakthrough- it was the ability of anarchism to provide alternatives and to pay special attention to the specific needs of these different sections of the working class in order to unite the whole class that made the success possible. Anarchists did not capitulate to nationalist ideas- they combated them- they did not organise separately, they organised as Anarchists on a class struggle basis.

Even today, the Anarchist groups emerging in Third World countries like Nigeria and South Africa base themselves on a class programme- we have seen the end results of nationalism and we oppose it (although obviously we defend peoples right to choose to believe in it, and even if we recognise grassroots nationalists as progressive fighters against racism etc.). This does not mean that we downplay imperialism or racism- on the contrary we pay specific attention to these key questions, but we subject them to class analysis and advocate class struggle strategies against them.

Black nationalism and/or separatism is not the only thing that can fight racism or attract Black people and workers to organisations. Even in South Africa, the Communist Party was the main mass organisation throughout the 1930s and 1940s and dwarfed the nationalist groups like the ANC; in the 1920s the main mass organisation (aside from the Communist Party) was the quasi-syndicalist Industrial and Commercial Workers Union. In Harlem in the USA in the 1930s, the CPUSA was able to win Black workers away from Garveyism on the basis of a consistent defence of the unity of White and Black workers.

While Anarchists should unconditionally defend the rights of specially oppressed sections of the working class to organise separately, they should not necessarily promote it except in certain conditions (see below). I think that we should separate out the issues of the right to organise separately from the issues of the usefulness of this mode of organisation. Some people have stated uncritically that we should support people's right to organise separately etc., but in a vague sense, not always clarifying or thinking through the implications of this position.

We simply cannot take it for granted that separate organisations are necessarily progressive or travelling the same road as we are. We defend the right of Blacks, women [etc.] to organise separate / special organisations where they feel this is necessary. This is because we defend the democratic right of free association.

Nonetheless, separate organisations are not necessarily progressive - in some cases they are clearly reactionary and a backward step, in others they are poor strategy.

For example, separate organisation in the workplace is not acceptable in any case where industrial unions of all workers exist. The logic of trade union organisation is to unify different categories of workers, who can only find strength in their unity. To set up a separate women's union not only weakens the existing unions, but puts the women themselves in a weak and unsustainable position due to their limited numbers, as well as in direct conflict with the existing union, thus creating a dynamic that can lead to the destruction of union organisation in the plant as a whole. Where the unions exclude categories of workers, these workers should be organised into separate unions as a transitional step, but in all cases United front action between the different union should be promoted because its strengthens struggle, and because it helps lay the basis for merger and unification. Maximum unity on a principled basis is always desirable, supported and fought for. Black!-only unions are a recipe for failure where Black people form a minority in the working class (obviously the situation is different in South Africa where the Black working class is the majority- but more on this later). How can one even launch mild forms of industrial action without the support of most workers?

Furthermore, separate organisation is only admissible in cases where workers face a special oppression. We do not support Zulu-only unions like UWUSA (in South Africa) because Zulus do not face a special oppression as Zulus, they are instead being organised into a ethnic/tribalist reactionary union sponsored by capital, the semi- fascist Inkatha Freedom Party and the previous (apartheid) government to break the non-racial,integrated COSATU unions.

Separate organisation that is not on a class struggle basis is dangerous insofar as it lays the basis for multi-class alliances which are unable to defeat capitalism and the State because they include the class enemy and thus became hitched to the class projects of capitalists, bosses and power-hungry would-be rulers. A case in point is the Nation of Islam in the US.

Separate organisation is not innately progressive. It can be used as a tactic to roll-back worker struggles and undermine the left. For example, the nationalist-minded liberal middle-class Black leaders of the mass Industrial and Commercial Workers Union in SA in the 1920s used arguments that the Communist Party was a "White" institution to expel socialists from their ranks and had the union over to (White!!) liberals like Ballinger who opposed anything other than simple bread and butter, non-political orthodox trade unionism, as opposed to the ICU's previously semi-syndicalist positions. In French West Africa in the anti-colonial struggle, arguments about the "Black Soul" were used to split African unions from the French unions (the CGT in most cases), delivering them to authoritarian bourgeois-nationalist parties whose first act in power was to crush the working class.

Separate organisations can divide the working class into competing and even hostile sections to the detriment of all. For example, the Black Power movement in the US in the late 1960s almost entirely opposed any alliances with Whites, including White workers and trade unionists. In Detroit, it even organised separate Black-only unions like DRUM which undercut the United Autoworkers (to which most Blacks still belonged), refused to build alliances with progressive Whites, and ultimately collapsed in large part because of the inability of a radical union amongst a small section of the working class to make the revolution on its own. Without allies, the small Black minority (about 12% of the US population) was unable to weather the storm of repression that gathered in the early 1970s. At the same time, the White workers failure to defend the Black movement ensured that they too were unable to withstand the bossesÕ "free market" assault that began in the late 1970s; i!t is no accident that the US has the weakest unions and worst welfare conditions of any First World country. Contrary to the beliefs of some, it is impossible for such a small minority to overthrow the massive power of the US State and ruling class on its own. Instead it needed allies. In the same way that an isolated revolution or anti-imperialist struggle cannot survive without international support and revolutionary resistance, no one fraction of the working class can win.

Arguments for separate organisation often prioritise non-class identities like sex or race (e.g. "Whites should work in their own communities" - Malcolm X)- but in fact class is a key divide in society- all societies.

The WSF therefore only advocate separate/special organisations insofar as they are:

(1) class conscious in organising specifically amongst working class people

(2) work in alliance with other working class and left formations out of recognition of the common interests of the working and poor people and the necessity of class struggle

(3) do not undermine the unions, but on the contrary work with them, defend them and promote them

(4) take up arguments about the need for anti-racism etc. with other sections of the working class

(5) helps prepare that group for the coming revolutionary class struggle

We need to point out that workers unity is in the interests of all workers, and that special oppressions are not in the interests of any workers In other words, we should not promote separate organisations uncritically, we should recognise there may be a need to have special organising committees, sections etc. amongst working class women, gays etc. These should be seen as "wings" of the working class movement, not as separate groups who reject co-operation with other groups, or as go-it-alone formations who can make the revolution on their own.

Whether or not the women's or Black's section [etc.] decides to include men [etc.] is up to it.

A perfect example of this approach was the Mujeres Libres group in Spain which worked alongside the Anarchist/Syndicalist youth, union, community, and political organisations, organised on a class struggle basis, and took part in the revolution of 1936.

STATE, CAPITALISM AND RACISM: ONE ENEMY, ONE FIGHT

We should not just talk about separate/special organisations in the abstract, we need to clarify why and how racism, class struggle and the need for revolution are linked.

We argue that racism is the product of capitalism and the State, created to justify slavery, colonialism and the super-exploitation of Black workers. Capitalism and the State are inherently racist: they always generate new forms of racism (e.g. against immigrants). The social inequalities created by racism can only be dealt with by the removal of capitalism and the State to allow for projects of redress, reconstruction etc. Therefore the fight against racism is a fight against capitalism and the State

Only the working class can make the anti-state, anti- capitalist revolution because only this class is productive (and therefore does not need to exploit), has no vested interest in the system, has power by virtue of its role in the workplace as producers of wealth and is facilitated in its struggle by concentration in factories etc. The Black middle class, capitalists etc. will defend capitalism and the State against the workers despite the fact that this means they are defending the system that creates racism. Therefore the fight against racism requires a class struggle and a workers revolution.

The struggle against capitalism can only succeed if it is anti- racist. We can only mobilise the whole working class if we fight on all fronts, against all oppressions that affect us. Insofar as workers can only be mobilised and united on the basis of programmes that opposes all oppression, insofar as working class Blacks etc.,. are the main victims of racism etc. (they cannot hire lawyers, move to private schools etc.), and insofar as the majority of people affected by racism are working class, it follows that anti-racism etc. are class issues. Therefore the fight against capitalism and the state requires a fight against racism.

No sections of the working class gain in real terms from the special oppression of Backs, colonial people etc. In the west, White workers may have slightly less unemployment etc., but they are still the majority of the workers and the poor. Racism worsens conditions for all workers because it divides workers struggles and resistance and ability to destroy the system. At the same time, the doubly oppressed groups like Blacks etc. require allies amongst the White working class. Without them, they lack the numbers, strategic position, or strength to actually defeat racism at the roots. In South Africa, this situation is somewhat different. Clearly, the defeat of racism in South Africa does also require a class struggle and a workers revolution (as elsewhere). But here the Black working class is the majority of the population, the most radical, combative and organised force in society. Thus the question of Black workers presents itself in a different fashion here as it is obvious that the Black working class will be the force that makes the SA revolution.

What then of then of White/Black worker unity? This unity was remote in the extreme in the apartheid years- it was extremely unusual for White workers to join the struggle of the Black working class under apartheid, precisely because of their extreme level of privilege (although some did, mainly from the Communist Party). So, in contrast to the situation in the West, White workers here actually did benefit from racism. Nonetheless, interracial workers unity (on an anti-racist platform) would have been advantageous even under apartheid because it would have weakened the armed power of the State (most Whites were at some or other point soldiers and were and are workers). With the demise of formal apartheid and the move to a formally non-racial bourgeois parliament, the prospects for such unity are far better. The economic crisis, the removal of job reservation and other legal privileges, the breakdown of the alliance between Whites of different classes that underp!inned the racist regime all make a workers alliance and unity more feasible.

Thus we have a situation where literally tens of thousands of White workers and historically White unions have actually joined the non- racial integrated COSATU unions; the main historically white union federation, FEDSAL, has also begun co-operating with COSATU in negotiations and even demos (although White worker attendance is quite poor). We should support this unity, so long as it is on an anti-racist basis, and so long as the general layers of activists remain broadly representative of the mainly Black unions. In other words, workers unity is good, if only in terms of our proletarian internationalism and non-racialism, but the basis of that unity must still be the struggle against racism as well as capitalism. In any case, it is clear that the Black working class will still be the battering ram that destroys the system (the possible participation of White workers as reliable allies notwithstanding).

Therefore, class unity on a principled anti-racist basis (with the provisions for special organisations outlined above) is the key to freedom.

This is why we say
"Black Liberation Through Class War"
"State, Capitalism, Racism: One enemy, one fight"

L. from the Workers Solidarity Federation (South Africa)

(The WSF dissolved at the end of 1999.)