/46 AFRICAN AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT

few colored men are employed as laborers and linemen, but not many.Here then is a situation where a quasi-public institution absolutely refuses to

let millions of citizens earn a decent living, while taxing them along with othercitizens for this public service. This compulsory exclusion is, of course, notconfmed to colored people. It is exercised against Jews; it is exercised againstvarious groups of foreign-born; it is exercised even against certain social classesamong American-born citizens. But in the case of the Negroes, we can see itopenly, just as in those chemical experiments where an artificially colored liquidreveals diffusion and reaction.

What now must Negroes do? If this sort of thing goes on, then disfranchise­ment in industry is going to be a vital factor in their elimination from moderncivilization. By consolidations and mergers, by holding companies and inter­locking directorates, the great industries of the world are becoming integratedinto vast private organizations, which means that the work of the world,~e

skilled work, the best paid work,-in the vast majority of the cases, is subject tothis social and racial exclusion; to this refusal to allow certain classes of men toearn a decent living.

It is an intolerable situation. Attempts have been made to correct it by appeal.In Chicago and in High Harlem, New York, these appeals have been effective inthe case of small store chains, and even to a slight extent with a corporation likethe Western Union Telegraph Company. But the Telephone Company remainsadamant. The Gas Company is absolutely deaf and unsympathetic.

In this case there is only one thing to do, and that is for the Negro voters withintelligence and far-reaching memory to see that by their votes no further priVI­leges and franchises are granted to these public service companies; and to seethat the work of these companies, just as far as possible and as soon as possible,is transferred to the government. Government ownership is the only solution forthis present industrial disfranchisement of the Negro.

There are, of course, many other reasons and arguments for public ownershipbeside this personal and racial reason. But all these arguments simply bringhome to the mass of people the fact that public service cannot be carried onendlessly for private advantage and private profit.

21Marxism and the Negro Problem

In the I930s Du Bois turned sharply to the left. embracing Marxism. pan­Africanism, and a more class-conscious. nationalist view of race in the United

WEB, au BOIS 147

States. Du Bois's Marxism was more analytical and less doctrinaire than that ofmany of his contemporaries. In this essay. "Marxism and the Negro Problem"(The Crisis 40 [May 1933]: 103-04, lI8). he argued that Marxism was rele­vant. but acknowledged that it needed to be modified before it could be the basisfor a solution to the problems that blacksfaced in America.

Karl Marx was a Jew born at Treves, Germany, in March, 1818. He came of aneducated family and studied at the Universities ofBonn and Berlin, planning firstto become a lawyer, and then to teach philosophy. But his ideas were too radicalfor the government. He turned to journalism, and fmally gave his life to eco­nomic reform, dying in London in 1883, after having lived in Germany, Bel­gium, France, and, for the last thirty-five years of his life, in England. Hepublished in 1867, the frrst volume of his monumental work, "Capital."

There are certain books in the world which every searcher for truth mustknow: the Bible, the Critique of Pure Reason, the Origin of Species, and KarlMarx' "Capital."

Yet until the Russian Revolution, Karl Marx was little known in America. Hewas treated condescendingly in the universities, and regarded even by the intelli­gent public as a radical agitator whose curious and inconvenient theories it waseasy to refute. Today, at last, we all know better, and we see in Karl Marx acolossal genius of infmite sacrifice and monumental industry, and with a mind ofextraordinary logical keenness and grasp. We may disagree with many of thegreat books of truth that I have named, and with "Capital," but they can never beignored.

At a recent dinner to Einstein, another great Jew, the story was told of aprofessor who was criticized as having "no sense of humor" because he tried toexplain the Theory of Relativity in a few simple words. Something of the samecriticism must be attached to anyone who attempts similarly to indicate therelation of Marxian philosophy and the American Negro problem. And yet, withall modesty, I am essaying the task knowing that it will be but tentative andsubject to much criticism, both on my own part and that of other abler students.

The task which Karl Marx set himself was to study and interpret the organiza­tion of industry in the modem world. One of Marx's earlier works, "The Com­munist Manifesto," issued in 1848, on the eve of the series of democraticrevolutions in Europe, laid down this fundamental proposition.

"That in every historical epoch the prevailing mode of economic productionand exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form thebasis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the politi­cal and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history ofmankind ... has been a history ofclass struggles, contest between exploiting andexploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class strugglesforms a series ofevolution in which, now-a-days, a stage has been reached where

148 AFRICAN AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT

the exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) cannot attain its emancipationfrom the sway of the exploiting and ruling class (the bourgeoisie) without, at thesame time, and once and for all, emancipating society at large from all exploita­tion, oppression, class-distinction and class-struggles."

All will notice in this manifesto phrases which have been used so much latelyand so carelessly that they have almost lost their meaning. But behind them stillis living and insistent truth. The class struggle of exploiter and exploited is areality. The capitalist still today owns machines, materials, and wages withwhich to buy labor. The laborer even in America owns little more than his abilityto work. A wage contract takes place between these two and the resultant manu­factured commodity or service is the property of the capitalist.

Here Marx begins his scientific analysis based on a mastery of practically alleconomic theory before his time and on an extraordinary, thoroughgoing per­sonal knowledge of industrial conditions over all Europe and many other parts ofthe world.

His fmal conclusions were never all properly published. He lived only tofmish the first volume of his "Capital," and the other two volumes were com­pleted from his papers and notes by his friend Engels. The result is an unfmishedwork, extraordinarily difficult to read and understand and one which the masterhimself would have been first to criticize as not properly representing his matureand fmished thought.

Nevertheless, that first volume together with the fairly evident meaning of theothers, lay down a logical line of thought. The gist of that philosophy is that thevalue of products regularly exchanged in the open market depends upon thelabor necessary to produce them; that capital consists of machines, materials andwages paid for labor; that out of the fmished product, when materials have beenpaid for and the wear and tear and machinery replaced, and wages paid, thereremains a surplus value. This surplus value arises from labor and is the differ­ence between what is actually paid laborers for their wages and the market valueof the commodities which the laborers produce. It represents, therefore, exploita­tion of the laborer, and this exploitation, inherent in the capitalistic system ofproduction, is the cause of poverty, of industrial crises, and eventually of socialrevolution.

This social revolution, whether we regard it as voluntary revolt or the inevita­ble working of a vast cosmic law of social evolution, will be the last manifesta­tion of the class struggle, and will come by inevitable change induced by thevery nature of the conditions under which present production is carried on. It willcome by the action of the great majority of men who compose the wage-earningproletariat, and it will result in common ownership of all capital, the disappear­ance of capitalistic exploitation, and the division of the products and services ofindustry according to human needs, and not according to the will of the ownersof capital.

It goes without saying that every step of this reasoning and every presentation

WEB. au BOIS 149

of supporting facts have been bitterly assailed. The labor theory of value hasbeen denied; the theory of surplus value refuted, and inevitability of revolutionscoffed at; while industrial crises-at least until this present one--have beendefended as unusual exceptions proving the rule of modem industrial efficiency.

But with the Russian experiment and the World Depression most thoughtfulmen today are beginning to admit:

That the continued recurrence of industrial crises and wars based largely oneconomic rivalry, with persistent poverty, unemployment, disease and crime, areforcing the world to contemplate the possibilities of fundamental change in oureconomic methods; and that means thorough-going change whether it be violent.as in France or Russia, or peaceful, as seems just as possible, and just as true tothe Marxian formula, if it is fundamental change; in any case, Revolution seemsbound to come.

Perhaps nothing illustrates this better than recent actions in the United States;our re-examination of the whole concept of Property; our banking moratorium;the extraordinary new agriculture bill; the plans to attack unemployment, andsimilar measures. Labor rather than gambling is the sure foundation of value andwhatever we call it---exploitatioIJ, theft or business acumen-there is somethingradically wrong with an industrial system that turns out simultaneously paupersand millionaires and sets a world starving because it has too much food.

What now has all this to do with the Negro problem? First ofall, it is manifestthat the mass of Negroes in the United States belong distinctly to the workingproletariat. Of every thousand working Negroes less than a hundred and fiftybelong to any class that could possibly be considered bourgeois. And even thismore educated and prosperous class has but small connection with the exploitersof wage and labor. Nevertheless, this black proletariat is not a part of the whiteproletariat. Black an4-vvMew()[k togetherJn lllanycases, and influence eachother's rates of wages''fhey have siInill!LQompli!!nts agailiSfcapitalists, save thatthe grievanceii.f tlie' Ne~Q~work51L.are_mQr.e,.t'WidaniirifiiTliifd-ml1efensible,ranging as the~dO:-'Sii1ce!I:: ~~X_QfJ~·_l!ILMarx.Jrom ,Qh~!1~.L~_~ry, iOllieworstpaid, s~0.10DTiecrand ch.e,atedlabor.inany...ciYiliz~d. . , - _._~--"\,

And while Negro labor in America suffers because of the fundamental ineqUi-lties of the whole capitalistic system, the lowest and most fatal degree of its .,\suffering comes not from the capitalists but from feIIow white laborers. It is !

white labor that deprives the Negro of his right to Yote, denies him education, IIIdenies him affiliation with trade unions, expels him from decent houses and neigh- I~ l,

horhoods. and heaps upon him the public insults ofopen color discrimination., .JIt is no sufficient answer to say that capital encourages this oppression and

uses it for its own ends. This may have excused the ignorant and superstitiousRussian peasants in the past and some of the poor whites of the South today. But...the bulk of American white labor is. neither ignorant nor fanatical. It Iaiowsexactly wh~tit Is'doinj:and:ifmeans.to-::ao::iLWilIiam Green and Mathew WoIlof the A.F. of L: have no excuse of illiteracy or religion to veil their- deliberate

/SO AFRICAN AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT

intel')tion t()J~~Q,Negroesaad.~~~s,~':.~.?t~~,:!~_~-!!~.Qf. C1Q..mm.Q!'1,labor, ina lower proletariat as subservient to their interests as theirs are to the interests ofcapital.• .Tais large development of a petty bourgeoisie within the American laboringclass is a post-Marxian phenomenon and the result of the tremendous and worldwide development of capitalism in the 20th Century. The market of capitalisticproduction has gained an effective world-wide organization. Industrial techniqueand mass production have brought possibilities in the production of goods andservices which out-run even this wide market. A new class of technical engineersand managers has arisen forming a working class aristocracy between the olderproletariat and the absentee owners of capital. The real owners of capital aresmall as well as large investors--workers who have deposits in savings banksand small holdings in stocks and bonds; families buying homes and purchasingcommodities on installment; as well as the large and rich investors.

Of course, the individual laborer gets but an infinitesimal part of his incomefrom such investments. On the other hand, such investments, in the aggregate,largely increase available capital for the exploiters, and they give investing la­borers the capitalistic ideology. Between workers and owners of capital standtoday the bankers and fmanciers who distribute capital and direct the engineers.

Thus the engineers and the saving better-paid workers.!...[lLl"IJ:1Jll.lllw pettybourgeois cl~ss, whase.interests·1lfe't5ollhauj)iY~ih:jiiosiLofthe.~capHalists andantagonistic totliOS€f'of'common liiooc-On the other hand, common labor inAmerlcaand"WliirtY'E'uroplffarfrbtri being motivated by any vision of revoltaganist capitalism, has been blinded by the American vision of the possibility oflayer after layer of the workers escaping into the wealthy class and becoming

.'-managers and employers of labor.Thus in America we have seen a wild and ruthless scramble of labor groups

over each other in order to climb to wealth on the backs of black labor andforeign irmnigrants. The Irish climbed on the Negroes. The Gennans scrambledover the Negroes and emulated the Irish. The Scandinavians fought forward next

. to the Gennans and the Italians and "Bohunks" are crowding up, leaving Ne­groes still at the bottom chained to helplessness, first by slavery, then by disfran­chisement and always by the Color Bar.

The se~Q!!tinfl.u~labor-bolhi!1 America and Europe has been thefact that tb.ll...\}~!ension of the world market b~xpaifdiiig industry hasestabli~h.~d a worTcr:WRIe-riew proletaiiiifofCOlO~erS:-·toiriliriifider theworst conditlonsof19thceIt§::~Tfalistii.Jieroea-is--slaves and seffs andfurnishing'by-tfielowesfpiiid wage in modem history llJDWls of'rawmaterial forindustry;'With--thisllirgesnne-capitalists"have'co~solidated their economic

'p'6Wer; 'nullified universal suffrage and bribed the white workers by high wages,visions of wealth and the opportunity to drive "niggers." Soldiers and sailorsfrom the white workers are used to keep "darkies" in their "places" and whiteforemen and engineers have been established as irresponsible satraps in China

~1.ti::.1 " .._~....~~:;'~~";~.,;~<,i.

WE e, DU BOIS 151

and India, Africa and the West Indies, backed by the organized and centralizedownership ofmachines, raw materials, finished commodities and land monopolyover the whole world.

How now does the philosophy of Karl Marx apply today to colored labor?First ofjl.1!.£qJQ£edJa.bel:-haS-OO--CQlJ.1.IIlOJI..g~thwhite lab.~sln1elof

technocra.ts w~tuld dOJnQ~JbJID,el'ploitcoIQ~d-Iabor'in-order-tb'raise-the status ~of whites. No revolt of a white proletariat could be stl!,rted .ifJluilij~tJ.!<:as to !--- ,-"._----------- (make black..workers their economic. political and sociat!:quals. It is for this I

reason that American socialism for fifty years has been dumb on the Negroproblem, and the communists cannot even get a respectful hearing in Americaunless they begin by expelling Negroes.

On the other hand, within the Negn>.B!P.!!ns, in the United States. in WestAfrica, in s'oiithAmencallllcCIn-t!ieWest Indies~~rge6is grOUPS arebeing evol~re4.~!itSout~!\inenCa-alliCt1le-W est Indies such wouPSdramoff skilland intelligence into thewhIie-group;anneave"the" blacnabor poor, ignorantand leaderless save for an occasional demagog.

In West Afriea:-lfNegro bourgeoisie is developing with invested capital andemployment ofnatives and is only kept from the conventional capitalistic devel­opment by the opposition and enmity of white capital, and the white managersand engineers who represent it locally and who display bitter prejudice andtyranny; and by white European labor which furnishes annies and navies andEmpire "preference." AfricattQlack labQrJIDd.hlacUJ!Pi!aLare ther~fore drivento seek alliance and commo!!.&!:Q..u!!.d.

In the-Uillted Statesalso a pettY bourgeoisie is being developed, consisting or'~clergymen, teachers, farm owners, professional men and retail businessmen. The \position of this class, however, is peculiar: they are not the chief or even large /1investors in Negro labor and therefore exploit it only here and there; and theybear the brunt of color prejudice because they express in word and work the jaspirations of all black folk for emancipation. The revolt of any black proletariat jcould not, therefore, be logically directed against this class, nor could this class Jjoin either white capital, white engineers or white workers to strengthen the coLQt/bar.

Under these circumstances, what shall we say of the Marxian philosophy andof its relation to the American Negro? We can only say, as it seems to me, thatthe Marxian philosophy is a true diagnosis of the situation in Europe in themiddle of the 19th Century despite some of its logical difficulties. But.it must.b.emodified in tbe-llnitl:.ll§!!ttes of America and especially so far as the N~g!y

group is.I:~~cemed. The Negrolsexp:totteatOii-(fegreethit~nielUls'jKiyerty,crime,~ncyand"miligelfce~:~!9~tajioli~£()l1l.es l!o~f!()?!.!l. J2lackcapitalistic_clasSOOf!!,~m ..the_whit~ capitaJi~.t!.~n~~J!~!'l!h~w.hi.tlU>!9le­tariat. His only..defense is.JY£.11Tnteriii1 organiZation as will I!rQ!~tJtiJ1l fromb~al:ties1. and such practical ec---;;OOmrcw'ignt'as wUrprevent inside tha-racegroupaiiy large-deveropmentorcapifanstice;rplOitaffo~ '-'---,--, ,-, --- -

~~--....'--------

752 AFRICAN AMERICAN POL/TICAL THOUGHT

Meantime, comes the Great Depression. It levels all in mighty catastrophe.The fantastic industrial structure of America is threatened with ruin. The tradeunions of skilled labor are double-tongued and helpless. Unskilled and commonwhite labor is too frightened at Negro competition to attempt united action. Itonly begs a dole. The refonnist program of Socialism meets no response fromthe white proletariat because it offers no escape to wealth and no effective bar toblack labor, and a mud-sill of black labor is essential to white labor's standard ofliving. The shrill cry"J)f a few. communists is noteven listened to, 1:>ecaU8\')-andsolely becaus~t!tlieeks to break down bariiersbetweenbhlckaiidYLIilte:.xMnUs_not at pres.ent the slighiest~..Qr£!lli9.riJh!lti..MaaimL~Y2jY!i.Qn.hased{lna·unitedclass.cons~ious-proretiiriat is anywhere on the American far horizon. Rather raceantagonism-aii(naboigroupnvaliY"lssti1rundiStUrDedby"worid~tastrophe. In

:\the hearts of blackJ~l>orerlLiJm!ltJ!!eref'.Q.!§ ..JiUhQ~.(,U.c;I~l! .. ofdemocracym;politics.an4.iiidust~.hichmay..in4~n:ake the workers of the world effectivedictators ofcivilization. ......-

"-'.'-

22Pan-Africa and New Racial Philosophy

The second leg ofDu Bois's new radicalism was his renewed commitment topan-Africanism. In the article "Pan-Africa and New Racial Philosophy" (fheCrisis 40 [November 1933): 247,262), in words somewhat reminiscent o/thoseofMarcus Garvey, Du Bois called upon his readers to remember that they werenot white, and that their economic survival depended on cooperation with otherpeoples ofAfrica or ofAfrican descent.

During the last ten months, we have tried in the CRISIS magazine to make are-statement of the Negro problem in certain of its aspects. We began with thequestion of health and disease among us. Then we took up in succession ourphysical rate of increase, "Karl Marx and the Negro," "The Problem ofEaming aLiving," "Marxism and the Negro Problem," "The Negro Vote," "The ClassStruggle Within the Race," "Negro Education," and "Our Problems ofReligion."

We have considered aU these matters in relation to the American Negro butour underlying thought has been continually that they can and must be seen notagainst any narrow, provincial or even national background, but in relation to thegreat problem of the colored races of the world and particularly those ofAfricandescent.

WEB. DU BOIS /53

There are still large numbers ofAmerican Negroes who in all essential partic­ulars conceive themselves as belonging to the white race. And this, not onaccount of their color, which may be yellow, brown or black, but on account oftheir history and their social surroundings. They react as white Americans. Theyhave all the racial prejudices of white America, not only against Asiatics andJews, but even against Mexicans and West Indians. In all questions of humaninterest, they would flock to white America before they would flock to the brownWest Indies or to black Africa or to yellow Asia.

This, of course, is quite natural, and in a sense proves how idiotic most of ourracial distinctions are. Here is a boy, born in America, of parents who were bornin America, of grandparents and great grandparents born in America. He speaksthe American twang, he reads American history, he gets his news from Americanpapers, and he understands American basebalL It is impossible for that boy tothink of himself as African, simply because he happens to be black. He is anAmerican. But on the other hand, as he grows up and comprehends his surround­ings, he is going to be made to think of himself as at least a peculiar sort ofAmerican. Against this, he is going to protest, logically and emotionally, anddwell upon the anomaly of a person being outcast and discriminated against inhis own home. Gradually, however, he is going to fmd that this protest has onlylimited effect; that to most white Americans of today, Negro prejudice is some­thing that is beyond question and will. It is a stark, true fact and little or nothingcan be done about it at present. In the future, the long future, things may change.But they are not going to change in the lifetime of those now living.

So long now as this is an academic question, a matter of attitudes andthoughts and spiritual likes and dislikes, we can leave it there. But when itbecomes an economic problem, a stark matter of bread and butter, then if thisyoung, black American is going to survive and live a life, he must calmly facethe fact that however much he is an American there are interests which draw himnearer to the dark people outside ofAmerica than to his white fellow citizens.

And those interests are the same matters of color caste. of discrimination. ofexploitation for the sake ofprofit. of public insult and oppression, against whichthe colored peoples of Mexico, South America, the West Indies and all Africa,and every country in Asia, complain and have long been complaining. It is,therefore, simply a matter of ordinary common sense that these people shoulddraw together in spiritual sympathy and intellectual co-operation, to see what canbe done for the freedom of the human spirit which happens to be incased in dark:skin.

This was the idea that was back of the Pan-African Congresses, started inParis directly after the war, and carried on for several years. These Congressesbrought upon themselves the active enmity and disparagement of all the colony­owning powers. Englishmen, Frenchmen, Belgians and others looked upon themovement as a political movement designed to foment disaffection and strifeand to correct abuse by force.

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