The Lie of Soviet Anti-Semitism

(A few preliminary words: V.I. Lenin was right: "Shame on those who foment hatred towards the Jews!" Down with the lie that equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism! Zionism is reactionary bourgeois nationalism that upholds Israel's state policies of aggression in league with the forces of Wall Street imperialism. "It is U.S. imperialism which has bolstered and dominated the Israeli economy and has supplied Israel with arms (and billions in grants, credits and cash). It has followed such a policy because it accords with the interests of the dominant sections of U.S. finance capital in the Middle East, with their desire to use Israel as a weapon against the Arab liberation movement and its threat to U.S. oil investments."--Hyman Lumer. )

Gus Hall, Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party of the United States, said that "Zionism is an unmitigated force for reaction and deadly enemy of the Jewish (and Palestinian) people." Instead of condemning the Zionist expansionist imperialist state policies of the aggressive Israeli ruling class, capitalist propaganda screams that Jews were persecuted in the former socialist Soviet Union! The USSR is slandered as the land of anti-Semitism. But this lie, as Gus Hall expressed eloquently, "turns historical facts on their head!" Victor Perlo noted that "such propaganda is forced to nitpick at dubious or marginal cases (in order to) distract attention away from the massive and continuous expressions of anti-Semitism and racism in the United States and other capitalist countries, as well as the racist actions and anti-Semitic actions--stoning of synagogues, etc., which have no counterpart in the USSR." Gus Hall, the great Communist, tore through the lie about the USSR: "the truth is there is anti-Semitism. But it is in the capitalist world. And, like racism, it is on the rise right here in the United States." (Victor Perlo, Economics of Racism USA, 1980, Third Printing, International Publishers; Gus Hall, "The Big Lie and the Jewish-American Community," in Anti-Semitism and Zionism, First Printing, 1987, International Publishers)

Before the October Socialist Revolution of 1917, anti-Semitism was whipped up and frenzied chauvinist mobs attacked Jewish communities. The Tsar used anti-Semitism as a weapon to divide working class, peasant and oppressed peoples in order to carry out a monstrous robbery of the people. The great Communist leader V.I. Lenin, an enemy of anti-Semitism, spoke out: "Shame on accursed Tsarism which tortured and persecuted the Jews. Shame on those who foment hatred towards the Jews!" And Lenin ripped the smokescreen off of anti-Semitism: "Capitalists foment hatred towards the Jews in order to blind the workers, to divert their attention away from the real enemy of the working people--capital." (Lenin, Anti-Jewish Pogroms, 1919)


(V.I. Lenin: ’It is not the Jews who are the enemies of the working people. The enemies of the working people are the capitalists of all countries.’)
Socialism in the former Soviet Union, by smashing capitalism’s material basis for racism, achieved unprecedented gains for Jews and masses of distinct nationalities. Anti-Semitism, rotten in every fiber, was a "throwback to the past" days of an exploitative society and, as Hall revealed: "Soviet socialism completely wiped out the degrading oppression, the poverty-stricken, pogrom ridden ghetto existence of the Jewish people under czarism." Henry Winston, a deceased African-American militant with the Communist Party USA, witnessed the gains made by oppressed peoples in the USSR and spoke out boldly: "the Soviet Union (was) a multi-racial, multinational society born out of a struggle based on the solidarity of the Russian working classes of more than 50 oppressed nations and peoples." The great Communist Gus Hall was indignant: "The Soviet Union is accused of anti-Semitism but it (was) the only country in the history of the world that had pursued a policy of affirmative action, the Leninist policy of equality and justice for all peoples and nationalities!" And in the former socialist Soviet Union, racist, nationalist and anti-Semitic propaganda and actions were illegal. (Henry Winston, Strategy for a Black Agenda; Gus Hall, "The Big Lie and the Jewish-American Community," in Anti-Semitism and Zionism, First Printing, 1987, International Publishers)

Jews were educated, not persecuted, in the working class' first homeland of socialism. A book which examined the socialist countries reveals that "more Jews attended college in the USSR than in Israel, despite the fact that the Jewish population of the USSR was smaller than that of Israel. The percentage of Jews among Soviet college students (was) twice as high as the percentage of Jews in the Soviet population as a whole." And "according to Soviet sources, the USSR (had) a greater proportion of college graduates per 1,000 Jews than any other country in the world." (Erwin Marquit, The Socialist Countries, 1981, Third Printing, MEP)

Capitalist America, not the former Soviet Union, is a cesspool of anti-Semitism. As Gus Hall said, "the Jewish people in the U.S. (overwhelmingly working class) are subjected to discrimination in employment, housing and other aspects of life. And they are a chief target of the fascist ultra-Right." We must fight against anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish discrimination in the United States! We also have to speak out in America, along with progressive Jewish people, against Zionist "bourgeois nationalism" that is "a base of support to Israel’s policies of aggression." Down with the Zionist lie that equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism! Zionist government policies make Israel U.S. imperialism’s expansionist watchdog in the Middle East, oppressing Arab peoples and "separating Jewish working people from other workers and (tying) them to the Jewish capitalists." As Black Communist Henry Winston said: "Zionism is imperialism; it is racism." (Gus Hall, Our Nation’s Crisis and How to Solve It; Henry Winston, "Against Apologists for Imperialism, Zionism, Racism," Anti-Semitism and Zionism, First Printing, 1987, International Publishers)

Also posted on the Central Valley Communists blog!

Racism: Instrument of Capitalist Class Rule, Weapon of Big Business

The United States of America has it’s first African-American president, Barack Obama, but we ain’t "overcome" the terror of racism yet. Racism is a weapon of capitalists to split the working class and produce superprofits. Working class African-Americans are the prime victims of the scourge of racism. American monopoly capitalism, rotten to the core, kicks working class Black people in the teeth.

V.I. Lenin’s words ring true today: "Shame on America for the plight of the [African-Americans]!!" Economic crisis, the loss of manufacturing jobs and racism in employment, wages, education and healthcare deals the heaviest blows to working class African-Americans. Capitalist robbery in the form of wage differentials cost Black workers over $275 billion in income every year. The Black median family income is about half of whites. 50% of young Black men are part of the growing army of the unemployed. Poverty, spreading like a plague, stalks the Black community. 1/3 of African Americans live in poverty and 53% live in starvation conditions. Black women, especially mothers, triply exploited and oppressed--as women, as workers and as Black folks--bear the brunt of the rotting capitalist society. There is one law for the capitalist class and another for the working class. The imprisonment rate for Black men is higher in the US than in South Africa. And, to add to the outrages caused by the obsolete capitalist system, "monopoly [capital], " as Black militant and Communist Henry Winston said, "ceaselessly generates racist ideology to, as [Karl] Marx put it, ’deform’ the class struggle." (Facts cited in Victor Perlo’s Economics of Racism II; Winston, Class, Race and Black Liberation, 1977, International Publishers)

"Historically, " Gus Hall, the Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party of the United States said, "racism in this country originated with slavery. Only with a racist ideology, bigotry and prejudice, could the slaveholders attempt to justify and rationalize such a monstrous, inhuman institution. Today the basic cause of racism is monopoly capital--the giant corporations that dominate the economy, the government, the media and educational institutions of our country. It is the corporations who mainly benefit from racism--who maintain it, stir it up, and use it for making huge super-profits and to divide and rule." (Gus Hall, Basics, 1980, International Publishers)

Gus Hall exposed that "the corporations make billions each year by paying artificially low wages to racially oppressed workers." This holds down the wages of all workers, including the white working class. Hall, a founder of the Steelworkers union, gave an example: "In a plant, racism is used to pit one group of workers against another. It is an instrument of dividing the trade union and labor movements and to hold back the whole working class movement. It [racism] is an instrument of [capitalist] class rule. Racism is a weapon of big business." (Gus Hall, Basics, 1980, International Publishers)

(V.I. Lenin’s words ring true today: "Shame on America for the plight of the [African-Americans]!!")

White working class people are also major losers from racism against Black and Latino workers. Racism, an instrument of rule for the parasitic capitalist class, lowers the wages and living conditions of the white working class. Capitalism, a system of legalized robbery of the working class, uses racism as an offensive against the entire proletariat. Victor Perlo, a Communist economist, said that "racism facilitates anti-labor legislation." The South, the "traditional stronghold of racism" has anti-union ’right-to-work’ laws. Adding that racism is linked to blood-stained Wall Street imperialism abroad, Perlo says, "Racism favors militarism and aggression." And the scourge of racism, a weapon of the capitalist class against working class unity, is connected to the exploiter class’ wringing of extra profits from workers at home. "Racism [and anti-Communism], " explains Perlo, "have been the main political weapons used by reaction to divert, weaken, or wholly eliminate the positive social directions chartered by New Deal reform policies." Racism, a tool of big business, attacks the entire working class’ right to work at living wages, with unions, good education and medical services, decent housing. (Victor Perlo, Economics of Racism USA, Third Printing, 1980)

"Marxism-Leninism shows that racism is an obstacle to class unity, " said Henry Winston, a former Black Marxist-Leninist with the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). And he was exactly right that both "white and Black workers have a material stake in removing this obstacle to progress." Karl Marx hit the nail on the head way back in 1867: "Labor cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded." White workers have a heavy, special responsibility in the fight against racism, in the struggle to wipe out every form of material and social inequality. In the United States, as Winston pointed out, this is a "Marxist-Leninist principle." (Henry Winston, Class, Race and Black Liberation, 1977, International Publishers; Karl Marx, Capital)

We need to fight back! The government should take over and nationalize businesses who discriminate! Hire Blacks in proportion to their numbers in an area’s population! No free speech for racists! Make all racist propaganda and actions a felony! Slash the military budget! End imperialist war and occupation! Pass a law against layoffs! Jobs or Income Now! Nationalize basic industries, tax the rich and create a public works program! Wage War on Poverty, Not the Poor! For an independent working class political party that will fight racism! Gus Hall expresses the Communist attitude: "taking on monopoly capital is a big job. But there’s no way around it. Without an all out united fightback against the monopolies there’s no way the problems can be solved." (Gus Hall, Basics, 1980, International Publishers)

The working class must fight racism tooth and nail today. But only socialism will completely eliminate racism, national oppression and discrimination. Socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat destroys the roots of racism and holds down the chauvinist beasts. And, as the great Communist William Z. Foster said, "The [African-American] people will be the greatest gainers under socialism" because of the super-exploitation, monstrous oppression and brazen outrages that they suffer under capitalism. (William Z. Foster, The Negro People in American History, 1954, International Publishers)

What a Communist Party is Good For

Gus Hall, the Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), hit the nail on the head in Our Nation's Crisis and How to Solve It: "Today life confirms more vividly than ever the need for a Marxist-Leninist Party. Only such a Party is a truly viable instrument of progress and socialism." A Soviet book said that "the Party's role is particularly great in the imperialist era where the socialist revolution becomes a direct, practical task. (V. Afanasyev, Marxist Philosophy)

The Marxist-Leninist Party is the organizer and leader of the proletariat's class struggle. Stalin called the Party "the political leader of the working class." Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, in the "Communist Manifesto", theoretically substantiated the Marxist party's vanguard role. A Marxist-Leninist Party, the advanced, conscious and organized detachment of the working class, is capable of being the vanguard of the proletariat because it wields the weapon of Marxist-Leninist theory and applies it to the world. The highest form of proletarian class organization, the Party gives leadership to the working class' struggle and combines all of it's forms into an assault on capitalism. Without the leading vanguard role of a Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, socialism cannot be won.

Communists bring Communist consciousness to the working class and fight for the purity of the Marxist-Leninist world outlook. "The Party constantly develops the people's socialist consciousness and protects the working class from the influence of corrupting bourgeois ideology; the Party wages an implacable struggle against any attempt to falsify or 'revise' Marxism. It develops Marxist theory in the light of the latest scientific achievements and the practical experience of society." (V. Afanasyev, Marxist Philosophy)


(V.I. Lenin: We need an "organization of revolutionaries.")
From capitalism to socialism, the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party must be the vanguard of the working class. "By educating the workers' party," V.I. Lenin said, "Marxism educates the vanguard of the proletariat which is capable of assuming power and of leading the whole people to socialism, of directing and organizing the new order, of being the teacher, the guide, the leader of all toilers and exploited in the task of building up their social life without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie.' (Lenin, State and Revolution, 1917)

After the victory of socialism, as the great Communist William Z. Foster pointed out, "the leader and organizer of the proletarian dictatorship is the Communist Party." (William Z. Foster, Toward Soviet America, 1932)