BY LEON TROTSKY  
TROTSKY: The point of view of the American comrades appears to me not fully convincing. The right of self-determination is a democratic demand. Our American comrades counterpose the liberal demand to this democratic demand. This liberal demand is, moreover, complicated. I understand what political equality means. But what is the meaning of economic and social equality within capitalist society? Does that mean a demand to public opinion that all should enjoy the equal protection of the laws? But that is political equality. The slogan “political, economic, and social equality” sounds ambiguous and is thus false.

The Negroes are a race and not a nation. Nations grow out of racial material under definite conditions. The Negroes in Africa are not yet a nation but they are in the process of forming a nation. The American Negroes are on a higher cultural level. But since they are under the pressure of the Americans they become interested in the development of the Negroes in Africa. The American Negro will develop leaders for Africa, that one can say with certainty, and that in turn will influence the development of political consciousness in America.

We of course do not obligate the Negroes to become a nation; whether they are is a question of their consciousness, that is, what they desire and what they strive for. We say: If the Negroes want that then we must fight against imperialism to the last drop of blood, so that they gain the right, wherever and however they please, to separate a piece of land for themselves. The fact that they are today not a majority in any state does not matter. It is not a question of the authority of the states but of the Negroes. That there are and will be whites in areas that are overwhelmingly Negro is not the question, and we do not need to break our heads over the possibility that sometime the whites will be suppressed by the Negroes. In any case the suppression of the Negroes pushes them toward a political and national unity.

That the slogan “self-determination” will win over the petty bourgeois more than the workers—that argument holds good also for the slogan of equality. It is clear that those Negro elements who play more of a public role (businessmen, intellectuals, lawyers, etc.) are more active and react more actively against inequality. It is possible to say that the liberal demand as well as the democratic one in the first instance will attract the petty bourgeois and only later the workers.

If the situation was such that in America common actions took place involving white and black workers, that class fraternization already was a fact, then perhaps our comrades’ arguments would have a basis (I do not say that it would be correct); then perhaps we would divide the black workers from the white if we began to raise the slogan “self-determination.”

But today the white workers in relation to the Negroes are the oppressors, scoundrels, who persecute the black and the yellow, hold them in contempt, and lynch them. If the Negro workers unite with their own petty bourgeois, that is because they are not yet sufficiently developed to defend their elementary rights. To the workers in the Southern states the liberal demand for equal rights would undoubtedly mean progress, but the demand for self-determination, even greater progress. However, with the slogan “equal rights” they can be misled more easily (“according to the law you have this equality”).

When we are so far that the Negroes say “we want autonomy,” they then take a position hostile toward American imperialism. At that stage the workers will already be much more determined than the petty bourgeoisie. The workers will then see that the petty bourgeoisie is incapable of struggle and gets nowhere, but they will also recognize simultaneously that the white Communist workers fight for their demands and that will push them, the Negro proletarians, toward communism.

The petty bourgeoisie will take up the demand for equal rights and for self-determination but will prove absolutely incapable in the struggle; the Negro proletariat will march over the petty bourgeoisie in the direction toward the proletarian revolution. That is perhaps for them the most important road. I can therefore see no reason why we should not advance the demand for self-determination.

I am not sure if the Negroes in the South do not speak their own Negro language. Now, at a time when they are being lynched just because of being Negroes they naturally fear to speak their Negro language; but when they are set free their Negro language will come alive again. I would advise the American comrades to study this question very seriously, including the language in the Southern states. For all these reasons I would in this question rather lean toward the standpoint of the [Communist] party; of course, with the observation that I have never studied this question and that I proceed here from general considerations. I base myself only upon the arguments brought forward by the American comrades. I find them insufficient and consider them a certain concession to the point of view of American chauvinism, which seems to me to be dangerous.

I also believe that the demand for equal rights should remain, and I do not speak against this demand. It is progressive to the extent that it has not yet been realized. Comrade Swabeck’s explanation in regard to the question of economic equality is very important.  
 
 
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