American Communists suppressed Du Bois’s theoretical revision of Marxism

Evidence

In 1925, one Black Marxist took stock of his society: “The slow growth of Marxism among negroes has been wholly due to the inability both of the social democrats and the Communists to approach the negro on his own mental grounds, and to interpret his peculiar social situation in terms of the class struggle. Today the American negro has evolved his own bourgeoisie, even though as yet but petty. And more and more the lines sharpen in the conflict between the white and black bourgeoisies. The negro petty bourgeoisie rallies the negro masses to him in his struggle against the more powerful white bourgeoisie, and the negro masses are permeated with the belief that their social degradation flows from the mere fact that they are markedly of a different race, and are not white… . The negro is revolutionary enough in a racial sense, and it devolves upon the American Communist Party to manipulate this racial revolutionary sentiment to the advantage of the class struggle.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2210 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Du Bois was vilified because his thought originated outside Western liberal and radical traditions; Du Bois engaged Marx directly, unmediated by Leninist orthodoxy; American socialism abandoned its Negro rights commitment after the 1901 convention (+5 more)

Related

• American socialism abandoned its Negro rights commitment after the 1901 convention (similarity 0.85)
• Du Bois first reassessed Marxian revolution theory within American Marxism (similarity 0.84)
• Du Bois rejected American communism as endangering Black people’s survival (similarity 0.83)
• Du Bois confronted Marx unmediated by Leninist doctrine, forging Black radical theory (similarity 0.83)
• Du Bois revised Marx’s theory by foregrounding mass action over class vanguard. (similarity 0.82)
• Du Bois in 1917 charged American socialists with ignoring Black American revolt (similarity 0.82)
• Black Reconstruction marked Du Bois’s turn to Marxist-inflected theoretical history. (similarity 0.81)
• Marxism failed among Black Americans because Communists ignored racial reality (similarity 0.81)
• Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction revised Marx’s theory of revolution around mass action (similarity 0.81)
• Du Bois linked Russian peasant revolution to American Black struggle without orthodox Marxism (similarity 0.80)
• Du Bois deemed Marx’s philosophy valid only for mid-nineteenth-century Europe (similarity 0.80)
• Du Bois recognized Marx had not anticipated imperialism’s transformations of capitalism (similarity 0.80)
• Du Bois located America’s revolutionary failures in its founding contradictions. (similarity 0.80)
• Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction advanced a mass-action theory of history diverging from Marx. (similarity 0.80)
• Du Bois held that Marx’s analysis required modification for the American race problem (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Both Marxists and academics suppressed Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction for decades #contradicts (0.55)
• Marxism failed among Black Americans because Communists ignored racial reality #expands (0.50) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2210
• Marxism failed to comprehend nationalism, consciousness, racism, and Black history #expands (0.35)
• Trotter’s imprisonment over the Boston confrontation pushed Du Bois toward direct political action #expands (0.35)
• Western Marxism failed as a total theory of liberation #expands (0.30)