Early American Communists dismissed Black racial consciousness as ideological backwardness

Evidence

In its beginnings, the American Communist movement required no special policy with regard to Blacks. Having been constituted from the rebellious Left Wing of the socialist movement did not signify for these communists a departure from the presumption that Blacks were simply a segment of the unskilled working classes. Moreover, with the American socialist movement drawn predominantly from immigrant ethnic and national minorities, the notion of class solidarity was of substantial importance to the movement, theoretically and practically. It provided a category of political activity through which the diverse social elements of the revolutionary movement—ethnics and nationalities, workers and intellectuals—could be reconciled, transcending their several particular interests. The absence of such a class consciousness among Blacks, and in its stead the presence of a racial consciousness, was seen by early American Communists as both an ideological backwardness and a potential threat to the integrity of the socialist movement itself. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1028