/46 AFRICAN AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT
few colored men are employed as laborers and linemen, but not many.
Here then is a situation where a quasi-public institution absolutely refuses to
let millions of citizens earn a decent living, while taxing them along with other
citizens for this public service. This compulsory exclusion is, of course, not
confmed to colored people. It is exercised against Jews; it is exercised against
various groups of foreign-born; it is exercised even against certain social classes
among American-born citizens. But in the case of the Negroes, we can see it
openly, just as in those chemical experiments where an artificially colored liquid
reveals diffusion and reaction.
What now must Negroes do? If this sort of thing goes on, then disfranchise-
ment in industry is going to be a vital factor in their elimination from modern
civilization. By consolidations and mergers, by holding companies and inter-
locking directorates, the great industries of the world are becoming integrated
into vast private organizations, which means that the work of the world,~e
skilled work, the best paid work,-in the vast majority of the cases, is subject to
this social and racial exclusion; to this refusal to allow certain classes of men to
earn a decent living.
It is an intolerable situation. Attempts have been made to correct it by appeal.
In Chicago and in High Harlem, New York, these appeals have been effective in
the case of small store chains, and even to a slight extent with a corporation like
the Western Union Telegraph Company. But the Telephone Company remains
adamant. The Gas Company is absolutely deaf and unsympathetic.
In this case there is only one thing to do, and that is for the Negro voters with
intelligence and far-reaching memory to see that by their votes no further priVI-
leges and franchises are granted to these public service companies; and to see
that the work of these companies, just as far as possible and as soon as possible,
is transferred to the government. Government ownership is the only solution for
this present industrial disfranchisement of the Negro.
There are, of course, many other reasons and arguments for public ownership
beside this personal and racial reason. But all these arguments simply bring
home to the mass of people the fact that public service cannot be carried on
endlessly for private advantage and private profit.
21
Marxism and the Negro Problem
In the I930s Du Bois turned sharply to the left. embracing Marxism. pan-
Africanism, and a more class-conscious. nationalist view of race in the United
WEB, au BOIS 147
States. Du Bois's Marxism was more analytical and less doctrinaire than that of
many of his contemporaries. In this essay. "Marxism and the Negro Problem"
(The Crisis 40 [May 1933]: 103-04, lI8). he argued that Marxism was rele-
vant. but acknowledged that it needed to be modified before it could be the basis
for a solution to the problems that blacksfaced in America.
Karl Marx was a Jew born at Treves, Germany, in March, 1818. He came of an
educated family and studied at the Universities of Bonn and Berlin, planning first
to become a lawyer, and then to teach philosophy. But his ideas were too radical
for the government. He turned to journalism, and fmally gave his life to eco-
nomic reform, dying in London in 1883, after having lived in Germany, Bel-
gium, France, and, for the last thirty-five years of his life, in England. He
published in 1867, the frrst volume of his monumental work, "Capital."
There are certain books in the world which every searcher for truth must
know: the Bible, the Critique of Pure Reason, the Origin of Species, and Karl
Marx' "Capital."
Yet until the Russian Revolution, Karl Marx was little known in America. He
was treated condescendingly in the universities, and regarded even by the intelli-
gent public as a radical agitator whose curious and inconvenient theories it was
easy to refute. Today, at last, we all know better, and we see in Karl Marx a
colossal genius of infmite sacrifice and monumental industry, and with a mind of
extraordinary logical keenness and grasp. We may disagree with many of the
great books of truth that I have named, and with "Capital," but they can never be
ignored.
At a recent dinner to Einstein, another great Jew, the story was told of a
professor who was criticized as having "no sense of humor" because he tried to
explain the Theory of Relativity in a few simple words. Something of the same
criticism must be attached to anyone who attempts similarly to indicate the
relation of Marxian philosophy and the American Negro problem. And yet, with
all modesty, I am essaying the task knowing that it will be but tentative and
subject to much criticism, both on my own part and that of other abler students.
The task which Karl Marx set himself was to study and interpret the organiza-
tion of industry in the modem world. One of Marx's earlier works, "The Com-
munist Manifesto," issued in 1848, on the eve of the series of democratic
revolutions in Europe, laid down this fundamental proposition.
"That in every historical epoch the prevailing mode of economic production
and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the
basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the politi-
cal and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of
mankind ... has been a history of class struggles, contest between exploiting and
exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles
forms a series of evolution in which, now-a-days, a stage has been reached where
 148 AFRICAN AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT
the exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) cannot attain its emancipation
from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class (the bourgeoisie) without, at the
same time, and once and for all, emancipating society at large from all exploita-
tion, oppression, class-distinction and class-struggles."
All will notice in this manifesto phrases which have been used so much lately
and so carelessly that they have almost lost their meaning. But behind them still
is living and insistent truth. The class struggle of exploiter and exploited is a
reality. The capitalist still today owns machines, materials, and wages with
which to buy labor. The laborer even in America owns little more than his ability
to work. A wage contract takes place between these two and the resultant manu-
factured commodity or service is the property of the capitalist.
Here Marx begins his scientific analysis based on a mastery of practically all
economic theory before his time and on an extraordinary, thoroughgoing per-
sonal knowledge of industrial conditions over all Europe and many other parts of
the world.
His fmal conclusions were never all properly published. He lived only to
fmish the first volume of his "Capital," and the other two volumes were com-
pleted from his papers and notes by his friend Engels. The result is an unfmished
work, extraordinarily difficult to read and understand and one which the master
himself would have been first to criticize as not properly representing his mature
and fmished thought.
Nevertheless, that first volume together with the fairly evident meaning of the
others, lay down a logical line of thought. The gist of that philosophy is that the
value of products regularly exchanged in the open market depends upon the
labor necessary to produce them; that capital consists of machines, materials and
wages paid for labor; that out of the fmished product, when materials have been
paid for and the wear and tear and machinery replaced, and wages paid, there
remains a surplus value. This surplus value arises from labor and is the differ-
ence between what is actually paid laborers for their wages and the market value
of the commodities which the laborers produce. It represents, therefore, exploita-
tion of the laborer, and this exploitation, inherent in the capitalistic system of
production, is the cause of poverty, of industrial crises, and eventually of social
revolution.
This social revolution, whether we regard it as voluntary revolt or the inevita-
ble working of a vast cosmic law of social evolution, will be the last manifesta-
tion of the class struggle, and will come by inevitable change induced by the
very nature of the conditions under which present production is carried on. It will
come by the action of the great majority of men who compose the wage-earning
proletariat, and it will result in common ownership of all capital, the disappear-
ance of capitalistic exploitation, and the division of the products and services of
industry according to human needs, and not according to the will of the owners
of capital.
It goes without saying that every step of this reasoning and every presentation
WEB. au BOIS 149
of supporting facts have been bitterly assailed. The labor theory of value has
been denied; the theory of surplus value refuted, and inevitability of revolution
scoffed at; while industrial crises-at least until this present one--have been
defended as unusual exceptions proving the rule of modem industrial efficiency.
But with the Russian experiment and the World Depression most thoughtful
men today are beginning to admit:
That the continued recurrence of industrial crises and wars based largely on
economic rivalry, with persistent poverty, unemployment, disease and crime, are
forcing the world to contemplate the possibilities of fundamental change in our
economic methods; and that means thorough-going change whether it be violent.
as in France or Russia, or peaceful, as seems just as possible, and just as true to
the Marxian formula, if it is fundamental change; in any case, Revolution seems
bound to come.
Perhaps nothing illustrates this better than recent actions in the United States;
our re-examination of the whole concept of Property; our banking moratorium;
the extraordinary new agriculture bill; the plans to attack unemployment, and
similar measures. Labor rather than gambling is the sure foundation of value and
whatever we call it---exploitatioIJ, theft or business acumen-there is something
radically wrong with an industrial system that turns out simultaneously paupers
and millionaires and sets a world starving because it has too much food.
What now has all this to do with the Negro problem? First of all, it is manifest
that the mass of Negroes in the United States belong distinctly to the working
proletariat. Of every thousand working Negroes less than a hundred and fifty
belong to any class that could possibly be considered bourgeois. And even this
more educated and prosperous class has but small connection with the exploiters
of wage and labor. Nevertheless, this black proletariat is not a part of the white
proletariat. Black an4-vvMew()[k togetherJn lllanycases, and influence each
other's rates of wages''fhey have siInill!LQompli!!nts agailiSfcapitalists, save that
the grievanceii.f tlie' Ne~Q~ work51L.are_mQr.e,.t'WidaniirifiiTliifd-ml1efensible,
ranging as the~dO:-'Sii1ce!I:: ~~X_QfJ~·_l!ILMarx.Jrom ,Qh~!1~.L~_~ry, iOllieworst
paid, s~0.10DTiecrand ch.e,atedlabor.inany...ciYiliz~d. ., - _._~--"\,
And while Negro labor in America suffers because of the fundamental ineqUi-l
ties of the whole capitalistic system, the lowest and most fatal degree of its .,\
suffering comes not from the capitalists but from feIIow white laborers. It is !
white labor that deprives the Negro of his right to Yote, denies him education, III
denies him affiliation with trade unions, expels him from decent houses and neigh- I~ l,
horhoods. and heaps upon him the public insults of open color discrimination., .J
It is no sufficient answer to say that capital encourages this oppression and
uses it for its own ends. This may have excused the ignorant and superstitious
Russian peasants in the past and some of the poor whites of the South today. But...
the bulk of American white labor is. neither ignorant nor fanatical. It Iaiows
exactly wh~tit Is'doinj:and:ifmeans.to-::ao::iLWilIiam Green and Mathew WoIl
of the A.F. of L: have no excuse of illiteracy or religion to veil their- deliberate
 ~1.ti::.1
/SO AFRICAN AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT
intel')tion t()J~~Q,Negroesaad.~~~s,~':.~.?t~~,:!~_~-!!~.Qf. C1Q..mm.Q!'1,labor, in
a lower proletariat as subservient to their interests as theirs are to the interests of
capital.
• .Tais large development of a petty bourgeoisie within the American laboring
class is a post-Marxian phenomenon and the result of the tremendous and world
wide development of capitalism in the 20th Century. The market of capitalistic
production has gained an effective world-wide organization. Industrial technique
and mass production have brought possibilities in the production of goods and
services which out-run even this wide market. A new class of technical engineers
and managers has arisen forming a working class aristocracy between the older
proletariat and the absentee owners of capital. The real owners of capital are
small as well as large investors--workers who have deposits in savings banks
and small holdings in stocks and bonds; families buying homes and purchasing
commodities on installment; as well as the large and rich investors.
Of course, the individual laborer gets but an infinitesimal part of his income
from such investments. On the other hand, such investments, in the aggregate,
largely increase available capital for the exploiters, and they give investing la-
borers the capitalistic ideology. Between workers and owners of capital stand
today the bankers and fmanciers who distribute capital and direct the engineers.
Thus the engineers and the saving better-paid workers.!...[lLl"IJ:1Jll.lllw petty
bourgeois cl~ss, whase.interests·1lfe't5ollhauj)iY~ih:jiiosiLofthe.~capHalists and
antagonistic totliOS€f' of'common liiooc- On the other hand, common labor in
Amerlcaand"WliirtY'E'uroplffarfrbtri being motivated by any vision of revolt
aganist capitalism, has been blinded by the American vision of the possibility of
layer after layer of the workers escaping into the wealthy class and becoming
.'-managers and employers of labor.
Thus in America we have seen a wild and ruthless scramble of labor groups
over each other in order to climb to wealth on the backs of black labor and
foreign irmnigrants. The Irish climbed on the Negroes. The Gennans scrambled
over the Negroes and emulated the Irish. The Scandinavians fought forward next
. to the Gennans and the Italians and "Bohunks" are crowding up, leaving Ne-
groes still at the bottom chained to helplessness, first by slavery, then by disfran-
chisement and always by the Color Bar.
The se~Q!!tinfl.u~labor-bolhi!1 America and Europe has been the
fact that tb.ll...\}~!ension of the world market b~xpaifdiiig industry has
establi~h.~d a worTcr:WRIe-riew proletaiiiifofCOlO~erS:-·toiriliriifider the
worst conditlonsof19th ceIt§::~Tfalistii.Jieroea-is--slaves and seffs and
furnishing'by-tfielowesfpiiid wage in modem history llJDWls of'rawmaterial for
industry;'With--thisllirgesnne-capitalists"have'co~solidated their economic
'p'6Wer; 'nullified universal suffrage and bribed the white workers by high wages,
visions of wealth and the opportunity to drive "niggers." Soldiers and sailors
from the white workers are used to keep "darkies" in their "places" and white
foremen and engineers have been established as irresponsible satraps in China
" . ._ ~. . . .~~:;'~~";~.,;~<,i.
WE e, DU BOIS 151
and India, Africa and the West Indies, backed by the organized and centralized
ownership of machines, raw materials, finished commodities and land monopoly
over the whole world.
How now does the philosophy of Karl Marx apply today to colored labor?
First of jl.1!.£qJQ£edJa.bel:-haS-OO--CQlJ.1.IIlOJI..g~thwhite lab.~sln1elof
technocra.ts w~tuld dOJnQ~JbJID,el'ploitcoIQ~d-Iabor'in-order-tb'raise-the status ~
of whites. No revolt of a white proletariat could be stl!,rted .ifJluilij~tJ.!<:as to !
--- ,-"._-----------
make black..workers their economic. political and sociat!:quals. It is for this I
(
reason that American socialism for fifty years has been dumb on the Negro
problem, and the communists cannot even get a respectful hearing in America
unless they begin by expelling Negroes.
On the other hand, within the Negn>.B!P.!!ns, in the United States. in West
Africa, in s'oiithAmencallllcCIn-t!ieWest Indies~~rge6is grOUPS are
being evol~re4.~!itSout~!\inenCa-alliCt1le-W est Indies such wouPSdramoff skill
and intelligence into thewhIie-group;anneave"the" blacnabor poor, ignorant
and leaderless save for an occasional demagog.
In West Afriea:-lfNegro bourgeoisie is developing with invested capital and
employment of natives and is only kept from the conventional capitalistic devel-
opment by the opposition and enmity of white capital, and the white managers
and engineers who represent it locally and who display bitter prejudice and
tyranny; and by white European labor which furnishes annies and navies and
Empire "preference." AfricattQlack labQrJIDd.hlacUJ!Pi!aLare ther~fore driven
to seek alliance and commo!!.&!:Q..u!!.d.
In the-Uillted Statesalso a pettY bourgeoisie is being developed, consisting or'~
clergymen, teachers, farm owners, professional men and retail businessmen. The \
position of this class, however, is peculiar: they are not the chief or even large /1
investors in Negro labor and therefore exploit it only here and there; and they
bear the brunt of color prejudice because they express in word and work the j
aspirations of all black folk for emancipation. The revolt of any black proletariat j
could not, therefore, be logically directed against this class, nor could this class J
join either white capital, white engineers or white workers to strengthen the coLQt/
bar.
Under these circumstances, what shall we say of the Marxian philosophy and
of its relation to the American Negro? We can only say, as it seems to me, that
the Marxian philosophy is a true diagnosis of the situation in Europe in the
middle of the 19th Century despite some of its logical difficulties. But.it must.b.e
modified in tbe-llnitl:.ll§!!ttes of America and especially so far as the N~g!y
group is.I:~~cemed. The Negrolsexp:totteatOii-(fegreethit~nielUls'jKiyerty,
crime,~ncyand"miligelfce~:~!9~tajioli~£()l1l.es l!o~f!()?!.!l. J2lack
capitalistic_clasSOOf!!,~m ..the_whit~ capitaJi~.t!.~n~~J!~!'l!h~w.hi.tlU>!9le­
tariat. His only..defense is.JY£.11Tnteriii1 organiZation as will I!rQ!~tJtiJ1l from
b~al:ties1. and such practical ec---;;OOmrcw'ignt'as wUrprevent inside tha-race
groupaiiy large-deveropmentorcapifanstice;rplOitaffo~ '-'---,--, ,-, --- -
'--------
~~-- ....
 752 AFRICAN AMERICAN POL/TICAL THOUGHT
Meantime, comes the Great Depression. It levels all in mighty catastrophe.
The fantastic industrial structure of America is threatened with ruin. The trade
unions of skilled labor are double-tongued and helpless. Unskilled and common
white labor is too frightened at Negro competition to attempt united action. It
only begs a dole. The refonnist program of Socialism meets no response from
the white proletariat because it offers no escape to wealth and no effective bar to
black labor, and a mud-sill of black labor is essential to white labor's standard of
living. The shrill cry"J)f a few. communists is noteven listened to, 1:>ecaU8\')-and
solely becaus~t!tlieeks to break down bariiersbetween bhlckaiidYLIilte:.xMnUs_
not at pres.ent the slighiest~.Qr£!lli9.riJh!lti..MaaimL~Y2jY!i.Qn.hased{lna·united
class.cons~ious-proretiiriat is anywhere on the American far horizon. Rather race
antagonism -aii(naboigroupnvaliY"lssti1rundiStUrDedby"worid~tastrophe. In
:\the hearts of black J~l>orerlLiJm!ltJ!!eref'.Q.!§ ..JiUhQ~.(,U.c;I~l! . of democracym
; politics.an4.iiidust~.hichmay..in4~n:ake the workers of the world effective
dictators ofcivilization. ......-
"-'.'-
22
Pan-Africa and New Racial Philosophy
The second leg of Du Bois's new radicalism was his renewed commitment to
pan-Africanism. In the article "Pan-Africa and New Racial Philosophy" (fhe
Crisis 40 [November 1933): 247,262), in words somewhat reminiscent o/those
ofMarcus Garvey, Du Bois called upon his readers to remember that they were
not white, and that their economic survival depended on cooperation with other
peoples ofAfrica or ofAfrican descent.
During the last ten months, we have tried in the CRISIS magazine to make a
re-statement of the Negro problem in certain of its aspects. We began with the
question of health and disease among us. Then we took up in succession our
physical rate of increase, "Karl Marx and the Negro," "The Problem of Eaming a
Living," "Marxism and the Negro Problem," "The Negro Vote," "The Class
Struggle Within the Race," "Negro Education," and "Our Problems ofReligion."
We have considered aU these matters in relation to the American Negro but
our underlying thought has been continually that they can and must be seen not
against any narrow, provincial or even national background, but in relation to the
great problem of the colored races of the world and particularly those of African
descent.
<ry""t~i/!;~~;~~;\~~~~
WEB. DU BOIS /53
There are still large numbers of American Negroes who in all essential partic-
ulars conceive themselves as belonging to the white race. And this, not on
account of their color, which may be yellow, brown or black, but on account of
their history and their social surroundings. They react as white Americans. They
have all the racial prejudices of white America, not only against Asiatics and
Jews, but even against Mexicans and West Indians. In all questions of human
interest, they would flock to white America before they would flock to the brown
West Indies or to black Africa or to yellow Asia.
This, of course, is quite natural, and in a sense proves how idiotic most of our
racial distinctions are. Here is a boy, born in America, of parents who were born
in America, of grandparents and great grandparents born in America. He speaks
the American twang, he reads American history, he gets his news from American
papers, and he understands American basebalL It is impossible for that boy to
think of himself as African, simply because he happens to be black. He is an
American. But on the other hand, as he grows up and comprehends his surround-
ings, he is going to be made to think of himself as at least a peculiar sort of
American. Against this, he is going to protest, logically and emotionally, and
dwell upon the anomaly of a person being outcast and discriminated against in
his own home. Gradually, however, he is going to fmd that this protest has only
limited effect; that to most white Americans of today, Negro prejudice is some-
thing that is beyond question and will. It is a stark, true fact and little or nothing
can be done about it at present. In the future, the long future, things may change.
But they are not going to change in the lifetime of those now living.
So long now as this is an academic question, a matter of attitudes and
thoughts and spiritual likes and dislikes, we can leave it there. But when it
becomes an economic problem, a stark matter of bread and butter, then if this
young, black American is going to survive and live a life, he must calmly face
the fact that however much he is an American there are interests which draw him
nearer to the dark people outside of America than to his white fellow citizens.
And those interests are the same matters of color caste. of discrimination. of
exploitation for the sake of profit. of public insult and oppression, against which
the colored peoples of Mexico, South America, the West Indies and all Africa,
and every country in Asia, complain and have long been complaining. It is,
therefore, simply a matter of ordinary common sense that these people should
draw together in spiritual sympathy and intellectual co-operation, to see what can
be done for the freedom of the human spirit which happens to be incased in dark:
skin.
This was the idea that was back of the Pan-African Congresses, started in
Paris directly after the war, and carried on for several years. These Congresses
brought upon themselves the active enmity and disparagement of all the colony-
owning powers. Englishmen, Frenchmen, Belgians and others looked upon the
movement as a political movement designed to foment disaffection and strife
and to correct abuse by force.