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AGAINST LIBERALISM IN THE U.S. NEGRO QUESTION     307

Propaganda of the slogan of self-determination means that such reforms are demanded since we stand for a revolutionary solution of the Negro problem and consequently "we stand for such a programme of reforms which will also be directed against the opportunists." (Lenin "The Disarmament Slogan"). Only such "utopian" reforms guarantee equality. Only when such reforms have been passed can the Negroes be asked as to whether they do or do not want to use their right to self-determination.

How can one counterpose the slogan of self-determination to that of equality, regarding self-determination of "minor and secondary importance," and refering to John Reed?

In one of this articles Comrade Shick quotes John Reed's speech at the II Congress of the Communist International as follows: 

"The Negroes do not demand national independence... they consider themselves Americans and feel at home in the United States." (Re-translated). Since when has John Reed a talented artist of the October Revolution, become the exponent of the yearnings of the Negroes?

One cannot ignore such things as an American solider, a policeman, the lynch court, the brutalities of the Ku-Klux-Klan, the domination of the landlord, the bank agent, etc. who rule over the Negroes. 

SOME CONCRETE QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE POSITION OF THE NEGROES.

Comrade Shick, regarding the Negroes as a race, does not want to see that the racial problem has in the South essentially become a national problem.

Is it right to compare the Negroes with the Jews in Czarist Russia, as done by Shick? No it is not. 

"The Jews have no broad sections bound up with the land which naturally consolidates a nation not only as a basis but also as a 'national' market. Of the five or six million Russian Jews only 3 or 4 per cent are in one way or another engaged in agriculture. The remaining 96 per cent are engaged in trade, industry, town institutions, living generally in towns scattered throughout Russia, and do not constitute a majority in any of the provinces. Thus, existing as national minorities in territories of other nationalities the Jews chiefly serve 'alien' nations as manufacturers, as people of free professions, who adapt themselves to 'alien nations' with regard to language, etc. All this leads in connection with the regard to language, etc. All this leads in connection with the evolution of nations as a result of capittalist development to the assimilation of Jews. The abolition of the ghetto can only hasten this process." (Stalin "Marxism and the National Problem").