Continued from left column

Two peculiarities of the “troops” slo­gan. The slo­gan reveals the following contradictions:

1. That it is motivated around the question of consciousness of Negroes of the North and West for the solution of a question involving directly only the Negroes in the South. I think that this is sub­stan­tially correct, irrespective of the fact that some middle class southern lead­ers are apparently in favor of the demand.

2. That it arose in the Negro petty bour­geoi­sie and corresponds perfectly, not so much to their illu­sions about the Federal Gov­ern­ment, but to their fear of the Negro masses. That is, as opposed to the tendency of the workers toward mass ac­tions, the petty bourgeois proposes a legal-military solution. To the demands by the workers upon the petty bour­geoi­sie for lead­ership in the struggle, the middle class attempts to get the masses off its back by turning the whole thing over to the gov­ern­ment.

Regardless of the fact that there are sections of the Negro working class movement which do and will continue to support middle class slo­gans and lead­ership, there is a very strong current among the workers both North and South, of hatred and fear of the U.S. Army. They have never seen or heard of the army doing anything to the advantage of the Negroes. In such groupings, any il­lu­sions which may exist about the Federal Gov­ern­ment do not extend to its armed forces.

The Negro lead­ers envisage a re-enactment of the Recon­struc­tion in their proposals to refuse to seat congressmen and to send troops. While we could easily find a formula to support the former demand, we have no business supporting the latter. During the many strikes during the NRA [National Re­cov­ery Act] period we never once called for the use of troops to enforce Section 7a, although we certainly supported the act of inserting this clause into the law. (And incidentally, the question of an FEP [Fair Employment Practices] with enforcement provisions has nothing whatever to do with a gen­eral appeal to the gov­ern­ment to send troops to the South.)

In connection with the historical aspect of the question, therefore, it would be wrong to over­es­ti­mate the progressive uses to which the U.S. Army was put during Recon­struc­tion. Besides the factors which Comrade Marcy has already men­tion­ed, there are two others which should be recalled as modifying the progressive character of the military oc­cu­pa­tion of the South during Recon­struc­tion.

One is that the question of the success or failure of the Recon­struc­tion was in some cases influenced not by the presence of the U.S. Army in gen­eral, but spe­cifi­cal­ly, of Negro troops. On more than one occasion the demand of the white supremacists was not for the removal of troops altogether, but spe­cifi­cally for the removal of the Negro troops. If there were today a completely segregated army, the Negro community would be responsive and un­afraid of the demand to send the Negro regiments to the South. And such a slo­gan would tend to have an altogether different social content than the one proposed. This is obviously not possible, as it would cut across the main line of the struggle for equality—it would be, in effect, a demand for segregated units in the armed forces.

The second recollection of the Recon­struc­tion which pertains to the discussion is that on many occasions, the southern Republicans and the Negroes, both through the Republican Party and inde­pen­dently, requested, pleaded and agitated for Federal Troops to protect them in given areas, only to have the gov­ern­ment turn a deaf ear...until the Negroes began to arm and protect themselves. In these instances the army, even in this rev­olu­tion­ary period, was brought into ac­tion only when the masses gave evidence of being prepared to embark upon an independent solution to their prob­lems.

While the gen­erally progressive character of the occu­pa­tion of the South during the Recon­struc­tion is not questioned, at the same time it must be recognized that one important feature of this oc­cu­pa­tion was the frustration of the independent ac­tion of the masses in the solution of their prob­lems. Theoretically, the main tangible reason that the Recon­struc­tion failed so miserably in the end was precisely because of the bureaucratic-military con­trol which the presence of the Union Army en­forced over the revolution.

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The prob­lem of elaborating correct slo­gans for the present situation is obviously a difficult one—prin­ci­pally because we are dealing with several different layers of consciousness. 1. The Negro petty bour­geoi­sie in the North and West. 2. The labor bureauc­racy. 3. The Negro petty bourgeois lead­ership in the South. 4. The Negro masses. 5. The organized working class.

The “troops” slo­gan obviously pertains largely to the need of the northern Negro movement to do something in support of the ac­tions of the southern masses. For instance, the southern workers would tend to be hostile to the idea of a mass March on Washington from the South. They would justifiably feel that this would be a means of removing the most militant sections of the population from the scene of struggle. And inasmuch as it is the March on Washington which is the present active feature of the campaign, it can have little significance for southern workers.

I was rather surprised that the paper did not develop the idea (once commented upon) of a “March on Mississippi.” Such a slo­gan contains a direct transition to the Workers Defense Guard. It corresponds to the require­ment of the northern workers to do something to express their solidarity with the struggles in the South.

It is perhaps further removed from the agi­ta­tional stage than the “troops” slo­gan prin­ci­pally because neither the Negro petty bour­geoi­sie nor the labor bureauc­racy have picked it up—nor are they likely to. Propagandistically, however, it has some rather sub­stan­tial advantages. It provides the frame­work for explaining the real nature of the southern social system and its relation to Amer­ican cap­ital­ism; it counterposes mass ac­tion to the legal-military type solution of the NAACP lawyers, just as we coun­ter­posed mass picketing to the use of troops to enforce Section 7a, a gov­ern­ment arbitration award, an NLRB order, etc. The audacity of the slo­gan is a means of revealing the depth of the social crisis in the South.

This slo­gan or one like it would be necessary in any consideration of the prob­lem of union organ­iza­tion of the South. Pending an overturn of the southern system by the workers of the South, the union movement cannot hope to achieve the degree of democracy consistent with the require­ments of a mass union movement short of massive in­ter­ven­tion from the organized working class of the North and West.

(I am aware that the P.C. is planning a separate discussion on this question, and it is not my intention to attempt to divert this discussion to that one ahead. How­ever, the intimate connection between all the social prob­lems involved in the Negro question will break through somewhere in any discussion, and sometime we will have to integrate these separate prob­lems. In this case, it seems impossible to ignore completely the relation between the use of the “troops” slo­gan and the prob­lem of labor or­gan­iza­tion in the South, not only for the specific reason men­tioned above, but secondly, because the slo­gan is incompatible with union organ­iza­tion in the South.)

A Workers Defense Guard—a giant flying squad­ron half a million strong—corresponds to the needs of the objective situation, is easily explained and justified, will find response in the working class, and would be a means of dissociating ourselves from the legalistic approach of the middle class reformers, and unless we are prepared to do this we are going to postpone indefi­nitely the building of a left wing movement in the Negro community or spe­cifi­cally in the NAACP.

“March on Mississippi” coupled with the demand on Congress that it purge its bodies of the Jim Crow congressmen and senators would at least give us an active position in the present situation which would not be in violation of principle. We demand of Congress that they do the legal end of it and leave enforcement to the people. The March on Mississippi would guarantee the legal elections and the other democratic rights contained in the anti-slavery con­sti­tu­tional amendments.

It is difficult if not impossible to develop at this time gen­eral ac­tion slo­gans for the southern movement itself. I don’t think that the southern Negroes require a slo­gan in order to create defense guards, for this is already in their consciousness. They have been preoccupied with the business of self-defense ever since World War II. Comrade Dobbs has pointed out their tendency to create defense guards when the situation permits. How­ever, they do not possess the necessary legal organ­iza­tions to develop defense guards.

However, the idea that they are thrown upon the necessity of self-protection, because nobody else is going to protect them, is very strong among the Negro masses of the South. This represents a very advanced stage of consciousness—far in advance of the slo­gan of “Federal Troops to Mississippi.” It would be wrong in my opinion to advance this slo­gan for this reason alone. Even if it did correspond to the consciousness of the whole mass of Negroes in the North, and even if it were not wrong in principle, it still would be wrong to try to send the consciousness of the southern militants backward for the sake of their northern allies. On the contrary, our slo­gans should flow from and reflect the most advanced thinking of the Negro masses, rather than the fearful and treacherous thinking of the petty bour­geoi­sie.

The first P.C. discussion of Comrade Marcy’s point of view on the slo­gan “Send Federal Troops to Mississippi” revolves largely around the questions of consciousness, transitional vs. imme­di­ate demands, etc. These are rather exhaustively discussed without serious consideration being given to the concrete objective effects of the use of Federal Troops in the South, regardless of the ostensible reason for their being sent there. I feel that this is a weakness in the discussion, and that this aspect of the question has a priority in the discussion. For the objective result is the final test of the principled nature of a slo­gan.

Concretely, it is highly prob­able that Federal Troops will be sent to the South some time during the coming period whether we ask for them or not. The social antagonisms are too great to be indefi­nitely contained by the traditional ter­ror­istic police regime, and sooner or later the troops will be called in. Any analysis of the prob­lem should begin with this probability.

Troops most prob­ably will be sent to the South under quite different con­di­tions from those envi­sioned by the P.C.—at a time when the Negro masses are in motion. If we advocate that the Federal Gov­ern­ment send them there, we will bear po­lit­ical respon­si­bil­ity for the consummation of the demand.

We have advocated a broad movement involving a March on Washington for the purpose of effecting the demand. This will take time. The movement will be removed from the specific current situation and will have the character of a gen­eral demand, which it really has become now: “Send Federal Troops to the South for the purpose of defending the Negroes against terrorism and establishing democratic rights.” This is how it is understood by the Negro lead­ers who have raised it, and it is apparent from our discussion and use of the slo­gan in the paper that we do also.

Under either Eisenhower or Stevenson, the most prob­able con­di­tion under which the Federal Gov­ern­ment will send troops to the South will be that the Negroes hold the ini­tia­tive in the struggle. As long as the white supremacists have the ini­tia­tive and the lid of repression is clamped on tightly, the social equi­lib­ri­um is not upset by a lynching or other ter­ror­ist ac­tions. When the Negroes take the ini­tia­tive it is a “race riot” and the public security is threatened and an excellent reason is given to the gov­ern­ment to intervene.

When the Negroes hold the ini­tia­tive it will be the function of the Federal army to restore law and order on the basis of the existing social system, and will involve severe repressions against the Negroes. There hasn’t been a “race riot” in this century in which troops were used that they didn’t do just that—and there is not likely to be one.

At such a time we might be able to stop short, and reassessing our dangerous position, reverse di­rec­tion and demand that “No Federal Troops be sent to the South.” But it would be impossible to reverse the di­rec­tion of a mass movement led by people who are convinced that U.S. troops could have a bene­fi­cial effect upon the South.

I do not believe that it can be demonstrated that there is a qualitative difference in our use of this slo­gan as compared with the Stalinists calling upon the use of troops during the Little Steel Strike. They were, after all, only calling upon the gov­ern­ment to enforce the right to organize and bargain col­lec­tive­ly. A right that had been written into the laws of the land. In the comparison of these two cases, I don’t think that there is a difference in the objective ac­tions of the troops, or a difference in the kind of il­lu­sions which will be fostered, nor even a sub­stan­tial difference in po­lit­ical respon­si­bil­ity.

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So far, I have considered the prob­lem only on the assumption that troops would be sent to the South as a result of the need to protect the status quo from a powerful movement of the Negroes which would upset the social equi­lib­rium. It must, of course, be considered from the opposite assumption as well. Although unlikely, it is not theoretically excluded that given sufficient social pressure in the North, the gov­ern­ment might be forced to make a move with troops ostensibly to prevent a lynching, enforce a court order, or upon some other occasion which would place the troops at the inception of the move in opposition to the apparatus of the southern system. In such a circumstance there would be an appearance of conflict between gov­ern­ment and capital, as we saw during the war when the gov­ern­ment took over industrial plants during labor dis­putes.

Such an ac­tion would tend to create, at least momentarily, a relaxation of the oppressive machin­ery which maintains the South in its fascist-like police state. The temporary enlargement of the area of struggle thus made possible would be an im­me­di­ate signal for a social explosion on both the po­lit­ical and economic front.

In the present stage of the struggle only the most elementary democratic demands are being pushed by the southern masses. This is only because there is an insufficiently wide area of struggle to permit the consideration of other demands. However, it is the super-exploitation of labor which is at the foun­da­tion of the southern system and the im­me­di­ate result of any relaxation of the traditional agen­cies of repression which might follow, tem­po­rari­ly, the interposition of Federal Troops between these agen­cies and the Negro people would be a social up­heav­al with a tremendous strike wave as its prob­able focal point.

There can be no doubt about what the role of the Federal Troops would be in this circumstance. They would become strike-breakers and the con­di­tions of civil war which would accompany the strike wave would force the army into a firm alliance with the white supremacists and the equi­lib­rium of the traditional southern system would be restored by the use of Federal Troops.

The high probability of such a series of events is one reason that it appears most unlikely that the gov­ern­ment would risk the consequences of this kind of “cold” occu­pa­tion of the South. More prob­able is that the gov­ern­ment will use the agi­ta­tion in favor of sending troops to the South to do so under con­di­tions of “public emergency.” The gov­ern­ment can indeed claim that it is acting to protect the Negroes, but the logic of events and indeed the class character of the army will impel it to protect white supremacy against the Negroes.

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In the first P.C. discussion, Comrades Dobbs, Stein and Hansen analyze the question of slo­gans in gen­eral, the nature of transitional demands in gen­eral, and the question of principle involved in setting the capitalist army in motion under any con­di­tions whatever. And in so doing they correctly take issue with Comrade Marcy’s exposition of some of these matters, although none of them touches the heart of the question.

In this respect Marcy’s document has a one-sidedness and contains a schematism and for­mal­ism which detracts from and tends to obscure a fun­da­men­tally correct position: that irrespective of the question of consciousness, the slo­gan is wrong; essen­tially because it leads to strike-breaking and oth­er repressions.

For instance, Marcy contends that because of the class character of the capitalist state and its army, to put it into motion in any manner at all is wrong. Therefore, it is wrong to call for it to be sent to the South. This is an oversimplification of the prob­lem and is a formalistic schema. A fact which others have observed. The real reason that it would be wrong to use this slo­gan is to be found in the rela­tion­ship between the southern social system, Amer­ican cap­ital­ism and its state. Marcy makes his excellent analysis of this relation subordinate to his schema of the state, and this is a misfortune.

Even the most elementary democratic demand which is gen­eral in form tends to transcend the limits of Amer­ican cap­ital­ism. In this sense while it is true that the demand for equality put forward by the Negroes is a democratic demand in the historical sense, it is at the same time a very good example of Trotsky’s definition of a transitional demand. For racial equality transcends the southern social system and con­se­quently Amer­ican cap­ital­ism.

The South is a fascist-like police state and its social relations can be contained in no other. Therefore, any gen­eral demand put forward in the South today tends to become transitional in content for there will be no gen­eral alleviation of con­di­tions there under cap­ital­ism. (It would be wrong to confuse a gen­eral demand with specific democratic demands which may not necessarily by themselves be anything more than an imme­di­ate demand which has at least a theoretical possibility of being realized. I refer to such demands as “justice to the lynchers of Emmett Till,” the present boycott demands, this or that individual prob­lem of inte­gra­tion, specific strike demands, etc.)

Any one of the gen­eral grievances of southern workers, moreover, leads imme­di­ately to the others, so closely interwoven are the democratic, economic and racial prob­lems there. Once the movement breaks out of the pressurized circle of the police state, around one question, all others will spring forward demanding solution. Under these con­di­tions, the presence of the U.S. Army in the South during such a period could lead only to disastrous consequences for the southern workers. This would be particularly true if the presence of the troops was initially welcomed by the northern supporters of the movement, for this would tend to disarm the southern workers and prevent them from making whatever plans they could to defend themselves against this army in its inevitable role.

So actually, in spite of its for­mal­ism, Comrade Marcy’s statement needs but a slight alteration to fit the situation quite well: The nature of the southern social system and its relation to Amer­ican cap­ital­ism dictate that the army would play only a reactionary role in the South. Furthermore, the nature of the Jim Crow system and its relation to cap­ital­ism seem to me to justify Marcy’s criterion of transitional demands when dealing with the South.

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