Sectarian Marxist disputes diverted Black radicals’ energies from the mainstream
Evidence
- Vincent Harding recalled: “One of the things I remember with a combination of sadness and humor was a long conversation that C. L. R. and Harry Haywood had in our house in Atlanta. It was focused to a large degree—and I just found it somewhat ironic and, as I said, somewhat sad, even though a lot of the development of the conversation also had its humor to it—to see these two really experienced and gifted Black men literally arguing about which expression of Marxist ideology and organization was really best. I think with that experience it took both of them out of the mainstream of so much of Black life, and took their strengths away from that mainstream. I just have the feeling it would have been so much healthier if both of these men might have found some common ground and might have found ways of using their energy beyond those kinds of arguments that grew out of the experiences of the late twenties and thirties, that for them were very fresh wounds and very hard experiences … it was just very hard to feel the real significance of some of those ideological arguments that they were carrying on at that time.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2455
Categorization
- XREF: This echoes the earlier Frankfurt School material about sectarian Marxist infighting diverting exile intellectuals; and resonates with the broad arc question of what weakened/divided the Black radical tradition.