ABSTRACT

To trace the development of the Communist position on the Negro question, we must roam far afield in both the Negro and Communist past. The earliest American unions excluded Negroes more often than they admitted them, or else they organized Negroes separately. The first important national trade-union federation, the National Labor Union of 1866-72, recognized the need for breaking down the barriers between Negro and white workers but accomplished little against the separatist tendencies on both sides. In American Negro history, the central aim of the struggle for Negro liberation has always been the achievement of full social, economic, and political equality. The American Negro problem sporadically arose for discussion in the Comintern and the American party. The theory of Negro self-determination in the South represented the boldest effort ever made by the Russian party and the Comintern to demonstrate that they understood the dynamics of American society better than the Americans did.