Du Bois rejected American communism as endangering Black people’s survival
Evidence
In a letter to George Streator on 24 April 1935, Du Bois asserted: “I am convinced from wide contact with the working people of the United States, North, East, South and West, that the great majority of them are thoroughly capitalistic in their ideals and their proposals, and that the last thing that they would want to do would be to unite in any movement whose object was the uplift of the mass of Negroes to essential equality with them… . I regard with astonishment militarists who agitate against violence; and lovers of peace who want the class revolution immediately. It is quite possible that there have been times in the world when nothing but revolution made way for progress. I rather suspect that that was true in Russia in 1917. I do not think that it is true in the United States in 1935. But whether it is true or not, Negroes have no part in any program that proposes violent revolution. If they take part, they will make the triumph for such a program more difficult, and they will bring down upon the mass of innocent Negroes, the united vengeance of the white race. The result would be too terrible to contemplate. I am, therefore, absolutely and bitterly opposed to the American brand of communism which simply aims to stir up trouble and to make Negroes shock troops in a fight whose triumph may easily involve the utter annihilation of the American Negro. I, therefore, attack and shall continue to attack American communism in its present form, while at the same time, I regard Russia as the most promising modern country.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2196
In a letter to George Streator on 24 April 1935, Du Bois asserted: “I am convinced from wide contact with the working people of the United States, North, East, South and West, that the great majority of them are thoroughly capitalistic in their ideals and their proposals, and that the last thing that they would want to do would be to unite in any movement whose object was the uplift of the mass of Negroes to essential equality with them… . I regard with astonishment militarists who agitate against violence; and lovers of peace who want the class revolution immediately. It is quite possible that there have been times in the world when nothing but revolution made way for progress. I rather suspect that that was true in Russia in 1917. I do not think that it is true in the United States in 1935. But whether it is true or not, Negroes have no part in any program that proposes violent revolution. If they take part, they will make the triumph for such a program more difficult, and they will bring down upon the mass of innocent Negroes, the united vengeance of the white race. The result would be too terrible to contemplate. I am, therefore, absolutely and bitterly opposed to the American brand of communism which simply aims to stir up trouble and to make Negroes shock troops in a fight whose triumph may easily involve the utter annihilation of the American Negro. I, therefore, attack and shall continue to attack American communism in its present form, while at the same time, I regard Russia as the most promising modern country.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2196
Categorization
- XREF: Du Bois’s 1935 letter parallels his break with American communism and his Black cooperative commonwealth program (para 2197), both marking the waning of Black-Marxist unity in this period.
- SEED: Angle: Du Bois’s anti-communist stance as a Black survival calculus rather than ideology — his fear that white vengeance would annihilate American Negroes as shock troops of a class war.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2196