Date: 23 May 1996 14:50:14 EST
Subject: CLR JAMES, MARXISM, RACE



          Life  is  too short  to address Ralph Dumain's article on Marxism
          and race.  Given (1) that he acknowledges some work has been done
          by,  for example, Oliver Cox, and  (2) that he hasn't read it,  I
          suppose the short course would be  a recommendation that he do so
          ASAP  and chill out about how Trotskyists "lie" about  C.  L.  R.
          James's thinking on black liberation.  (For "lie," here read  "do
          not agree with Ralph Dumain").

          While editing C. L.  R. JAMES ON THE "NEGRO QUESTION" (University
          Press  of Mississippi, forthcoming in Sept.), I started to ponder
          a  line  of inquiry about American Marxism and theories of  race.
          There  would  seem  to  be  two  sets  of discussions shaping the
          problematic in  which  U.S.  Marxist analyses of  black movements
          have been carried on.  One is "the Jewish question," the other is
          the  analysis  of  Irish  struggles.   Both  were  formative  (at
          different stages) for Marx and Engels; and both were  of interest
          to Lenin.  In  one  of  the documents by  James reprinted in  the
          collection  cited  above,  he  quotes  extensively  from  Lenin's
          analysis of  Irish nationalism.  And around the  same  time  that
          James  was working, the Palestinian Trotskyist Abraham  Leon  was
          writing ON THE JEWISH QUESTION.  It seems to  me that an analytic
          treatment of James's thinking in  this arena would profit from  a
          close comparison with Leon.

          In  any  case,  that  would  seem  a  better activity        than
          hurling invective.  My introduction to James's writings is  a lot
          more biographical than analytical; in  a later paper, I  want  to
          return to  the  line  of questioning just described, and  have  a
          considerable body  of notes comparing James's work  to Cox's.  In
          any case, the analysis of  the history of Marxist interpretations
          of black movements isn't exactly starting in 1996.

          Scott McLemee             23 May 1996



     --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---