MARXISM IN EBONY CONTRA BLACK MARXISM: CATEGORICAL IMPLICATIONS

Today, as we further enter the first decade of the twenty-first century, and especially in light of the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the Eastern European bloc of socialism, we witness stringent calls to ‘rethink’ Marxism and even proclamations to the effect that we should discard Marxism as a philosophical perspective all-together. Over the course of the twentieth century, however, African Americans committed to Marxism made substantial inroads respecting the propagation of this philosophy for African American liberation struggle. Subsequently, for a considerable amount of time, activists and scholars in the Black movement have debated the merits of Marxism and its applicability to the Black movement.1

At some juncture in their respective lives (if not for all of their adult lives), an extensive range of African Americans, from a multitude of walks of life, have advocated for Marxism as an instrument to advance Black liberation. The list includes: working class activist Lucy Parsons (Parsons 1884), historian/sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois (Du Bois 1953; Du Bois 1995), economist Abram Harris (Harris 1989), African liberation proponent W. Alphaeus Hunton Jr. (Hunton 1986), Communist leader Claudia Jones (Davies 2007), literary artist Alice Childress (Washington 2003), philosopher Eugene C. Holmes (McClendon 1983), feminist scholar Angela Davis (Davis 1998), self-trained historian Richard B. Moore (McClendon 2006), labor organizer Maude White (Solomon 1995), journalist Marvel Cooke (Baker and Cooke 1935), Marxist theoretician C. L. R. James (McClendon 2005), and so many more too numerous to record.

In the past twenty-five years, a number of scholars have documented the legacy of the Marxist tradition among Black intellectuals and activists. Several have described that tradition as ‘Black Marxism’ whereby the adjective ‘Black’ describes the race of those identified as Marxists (McClendon 1983) (Naison 1983) (Mullen 2001) (Ferguson 2003) (Solomon 1998; McClendon 2005) (Turner 2005). Additionally, there are those scholars who have opted to employ the adjective ‘Black’ not only as a racial descriptor affixed to the adherents of Marxism, but also (and more importantly for proponents of the latter viewpoint) as an indicator for a particular type of Marxism (Robinson 1983) (Gorman 1989) (Alkalimat 1990) (Dawson 2001) (Peterson 2003; Tatum 2005).

In effect, we have a demarcation where the former and latter are differentiated on the basis of what is called type/token distinction. In the former case, Black Marxists are those Marxists who are identifiable racially as Black; and in regard to political philosophy, they hold allegiance to Marxism. In a nutshell, Black Marxists are Black people who claim adherence to Marxism, just as others who are not Black make similar claims to the same philosophy. Black Marxists are herein tokens of a type of political philosophy which is identified as Marxism.

Therefore, an account respecting the number of Marxists at any given location would not assume any difference with regard to types of ancillary philosophical perspectives simply based on how many people claiming to be Marxists was either Black or White. The use of the adjective ‘Black’ in this instance of Black Marxism does not alter in substance or content that which surrounds the meaning of Marxism in its function as a definitive type of political philosophic viewpoint.

In turn, we discern that with the latter designation of “Black” Marxism what ostensibly emerges is a type of political philosophy. It is presumed that “Black” Marxism is grounded in a form of particularity that issues from the distinctive nature of the Black experience and specifically establishes itself in relationship to what is proposed as “The Black Radical Tradition.” Ultimately, for the advocates of “The Black Radical Tradition,” what transpires with “Black” Marxism is something quite fundamentally different from Marxism tout court. On this latter account, although Marxism is anti-capitalist, it is alleged that in its substantive character Marxism is Eurocentric, if not actually racist in content. In contrast to Marxism (tout court) with its Eurocentric basis, the latter group argues that “Black” Marxism, given its foundation in “The Black Radical Tradition,” remains preeminently anti-racist as well as anti-capitalist (Robinson 2000; Tatum 2005; Thomas 2005) (Gordon 2005).

I contend that this latter use of the notion of “Black Marxism” presents a host of philosophical and political issues that are categorial in the breadth of its implications. By category I mean the basic conceptual unit of analysis which becomes foundational when employed within a theoretical framework. Black in its categorial function for ‘Black’ Marxism (in the latter sense) is an adjective that describes the very foundation for defining Marxism. Therefore, when examining ‘Black’ Marxism in this form, I am specifically focused on what are the implications for gaining an understanding of Marxism as political philosophy as well as ancillary claims concerning ‘Black’ Marxism’s enhanced suitability for African American liberation (Robinson 1983 1-2).

It is precisely the distinctive uses of ‘Black’ with these two different categorial functions which remain at the heart of the type/token demarcation cited above. In African American intellectual culture the use of the word “Black” as categorial stipulation for a particular intellectual/philosophical orientation, I might add, has not been confined to Marxism. For instance, some African American Studies scholars have even argued that in terms of academic disciplines ‘Black’ intrinsically conveys specific epistemological orientations. Hence, for example, we have what Robert Staples calls the discipline of “Black Sociology” which is deemed epistemologically different from ‘merely’ carrying out the sociological analysis of the Black experience without racial qualifications regarding theory and method (Staples 1976; McClendon 1980).

The inherent epistemological claims in both instances (Black Marxism and Black Sociology) are precisely the same; namely ‘Black’ is an indicator of more than the race of the particular group of people under investigation. In effect with the second sense, Black transforms into a determinate state of being sometimes expressed in the notion of ‘Blackness.’ When Black transpires into this particular type of Blackness, what follows (to use post-modernist terminology) is that Blackness becomes a certain kind of “gaze” from which one views the world. Consequently ‘Blackness’ effectively operates as an ethical (or more general philosophical) orientation (Karenga 1988; Asante 2005). Considered in such philosophical terms, Blackness is an interesting topic on its own merits; nevertheless, in this essay, I will confine my remarks to the repercussions of the concept ‘Black’ when it is adjoined to the philosophical content of Marxism (McClendon 2005).

I submit that the aforesaid latter approach to ‘Black’ Marxism becomes essentially problematic for our efforts at grasping the very definition of Marxism itself. This is due to the fact that if “Black” is a category which serves more than as the means of identifying the race of those who are Marxists, then “Black” essentially becomes the defining characteristic of the political philosophy stipulated as Black Marxism. Thus ‘Black’ in Black Marxism or ‘The Black Radical Tradition’ explicitly operates as a categorial stipulation which is foundational to any general conception we might have of Marxism as political philosophy and it is particularly important in regards to its relevance for Black people (Robinson 1983 1-3; Robinson 1999).

Likewise according to this presumption, Marxism tout court is implicitly considered in terms of its fundamental whiteness/Eurocentricism. The result of this reasoning leads to bifurcated notions about Marxism – where based on a presupposed antithesis holding between people of African and European descent, it must follow that such racial/cultural differences mark distinctions of an essentially philosophical import for adherents of Marxism. This antithesis, which in an ontological sense is mutually exclusive at base, goes beyond the material conditions of capitalist contradictions; and it is said to be anchored either in pre-capitalist forms of racism/white supremacy and/or what are civilizations that are at root antagonistic (Dixon 1977; Munford 1996; Mullen 2001; Munford 2001).

In his text Black Marxism, Cedric Robinson argues, “The historical development of world capitalism was influenced in a most fundamental way by the particularistic forces of racism and nationalism. This could only be true if the social, psychological, and cultural origins of racism and nationalism both anticipated capitalism in time and formed a piece with those events that contributed directly to its organization of production and exchange” (Robinson 1983 9).2

It follows that the common denominator of class interests and the possibility of proletarian unity and solidarity for African Americans and Euro-Americans accordingly are relegated to the dustbin. Here the category “Black” in Black Marxism politically assumes a not so cryptic form of bourgeois nationalism and in fact it overrides proletarian internationalism as the starting-point in our analysis of strategies for African American liberation.3

Hence I propose that the alternative phrase of “Marxism in Ebony” can aid in clearing up much of the confusion surrounding the latter form of “Black Marxism.” The alternative phrase of “Marxism in Ebony” is a viable alternative due to the fact that category ‘Black’ as racial designator, particularly in its relationship to Marxism, decidedly becomes a matter directed at the surrounding experiential context in which Marxism is employed rather than positing an alteration of Marxism’s philosophical content. My position is that Marxism is neither Black nor White (African or European); rather, it is the process of dialectical and historical materialist (scientific) analysis and critique aimed at concrete conditions that may include the evaluation of social relations, practices, and institutions that are established on racist grounds within the framework of the capitalist mode of production (McClendon 2002; McClendon 2004).

On Cedric Robinson’s Concept of Black Marxism

Arguably the principal text that has popularized the term “Black Marxism” in the second sense is Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism: The Making of a Black Radical Tradition (Robinson 1983; Robinson 2000). It seems as though it was only just a few years ago that the first edition of Prof. Cedric Robinson’s magnum opus appeared via ZED Publications before the general public. The year was 1983 and Black Marxism was hot off of the press and stirring up considerable discussion. The theoretical and methodological frame for Black Marxism was not for me in any manner a surprise. Robinson had previously written a rather extensive essay on Dr. Du Bois’s historiography and the paper was titled, “Marxist Theory and the Black Savage: Du Bois’ Critique in Black Reconstruction.”

This essay later appeared in The Black Scholar, yet the published article was only a very short version of the original (unpublished) essay (Robinson 1977; Robinson 1994). In this instance, and with many more publications to follow, Robinson proved to be an adept scholar of the philosophy of African American history. In fact, Robinson’s Black Marxism has a similarity to Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk, for both texts are in various respects not only works in history but also are concerted efforts in the philosophy of history. Therefore, I submit that with Black Marxism Robinson has forged for himself an impressive place in Black intellectual culture.4

In terms of scope and substance, the magnitude and impression of Robinson’s papers as contributions to the philosophy of African American history, I suggest, shed considerable insight on and ought to be part of the required reading list of philosophers of Africana history. Though formally trained in political science, Robinson has not restricted his scholarly output to his professional affiliation in that discipline. Robinson is foremost an interdisciplinary scholar and a prototype of how Black Studies intellectuals have consciously extended beyond the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines. Consequently, over the years, Robinson has consistently intervened in, and substantially contributed to, the philosophical dimension of Black Studies (Robinson 1980; Robinson 1994; Thomas 2005 A).

In many ways, Robinson’s place within the tradition of the philosophy of Africana history is quite similar to the esteemed historian, the late Prof. Earl E. Thorpe (Thorpe 1956; Thorpe 1958; Thorpe 1969). In concert with Thorpe, Robinson’s research provides teachers in African American Studies and philosophy with resources that help students in answering the ancillary questions attached to philosophy of Black history (McClendon 1982; Peterson 2003). Robinson and Thorpe are not members of the small core of professional Africana philosophers that pursue philosophy of history. However, given their scholarly efforts at mapping new terrain in the philosophy of Africana history, I ascertain that both men have assumed a definitive place among vanguard scholars in Africana philosophy of history.5

Moreover an understanding of Robinson’s pioneering role, in his capacity as philosopher of history vis-à-vis Black intellectual history, is an important framework for comprehending his Black Marxism as a scholarly work in Black (African American) intellectual culture.6 In view of my abiding philosophical interest in his work, I will address Black Marxism from the standpoint of a philosophical reading affixed to Black intellectual culture and history with a particular focus on the debate over Marxism at the time of its initial publication. In more precise terms, my interpretation issues from the perspective of a Marxist-Leninist analysis of African American political philosophy and the relevance of Marxism to African American theoretical work and practical struggle.

To date there are very few Marxist critiques of Robinson’s book. Noteworthy efforts include Gregory Meyerson’s “Rethinking Black Marxism: Reflections on Cedric Robinson and Others” and Bill Mullen’s “Notes on Black Marxism” (Meyerson 2000; Mullen 2001). Meyerson offers an in depth review and I think he has much to say that is critically important. However one limitation in his analysis is that it is not framed within the milieu of Black intellectual culture. This is worth mentioning because Robinson’s Black Marxism is self-consciously a text that is erected out of the environment of African American intellectual culture, reflexively drawing cardinal theses and postulations emerging from it and concurrently seeking to enrich and expand upon that culture’s content and compass (Plummer 2005; Thomas 2005).

Given the sheer magnitude and extensive span of Robinson’s text, the reach of my essay does not permit me to cover all the bases. Rather I take Robinson’s Black Marxism to be paradigmatic of the prior problem concerning Black Marxism as a type of political philosophy. Consequently, Robinson’s notion is deeply at odds with viewing Marxism as a philosophy that is free of such racial qualifications.

Undoubtedly, one could read Robinson’s text as a work in history and do so with considerable justification and immense value. Nevertheless, I intend to demonstrate how Black Marxism is also a key work of tremendous philosophical worth and this becomes particularly evident when it is placed within African American intellectual culture. In highlighting African American intellectual culture as background for the text, we can foreground the crucial aspect of its philosophical dimension in conjunction with practical (political) questions surrounding Marxism in the Black liberation movement (Thomas 2005; Thomas 2005 A).

Given the aforementioned, my task in examining Robinson’s Black Marxism centers on drawing out the philosophical consequences associated with his text and their significance for the assessment of polemics over Marxism in the African American liberation struggle. I contend that Robinson’s text brings into bold relief the central problem associated with the implications surrounding “Marxism in Ebony” contra “Black Marxism.”

Robinson in Black Marxism provides not only meticulously developed empirical documentation but as well it offers (against post-modernist historicism and its accent on restricting history to local narratives) what Meyerson refers to as a “grand narrative” (Meyerson 2000 1). Robinson’s combines what constitutes a global approach with particular attention to setting forth nuanced interpretation of a plethora of factual evidence. This concern for empirical detail does not result in merely presenting a descriptive account which is ensnarled in a labyrinth of empiricist fact-finding. Although Robinson gives us detailed information, he does not overlook the need for erecting a coherent and cohesive theoretical structure. His theoretical structure, in turn, affords us the desired foundation for interpretative pursuits that far exceed the empiricist claim that facts should speak for themselves. Significantly, Robinson concludes his text with the following summation,

In light of Robinson’s thesis, the focus of my examination gravitates around the theoretical structure of Black Marxism. For it is at the level of the theoretical framework, I submit, where we can unearth the philosophical premises and presuppositions that guide the text. The covering paradigm, ‘The Black Radical Tradition’, I claim, is the upshot of the complex composite of Robinson’s philosophical postulations and background assumptions (Robinson 1983 1-3). Specifically, I focus on the pivotal nature of the debate over Marxism’s relevance to African American liberation. Of course, while this debate precedes the publication of Black Marxism, Robinson’s text decisively intervenes on the subsequent continuation of these polemics and alters the trajectory of key players on the Marxist left toward right-wing (bourgeois) nationalism.

In another vein, there are those who hold a different judgment than I have about the influence of Black Marxism on African American intellectual culture. In some scholarly circles there is the viewpoint that in spite of its many virtues, Robinson’s Black Marxism has not received the kind of reception in Black intellectual culture worthy of its merits.

Black Marxism in the Context of Black Intellectual Culture

In his foreword to the second edition of Robinson’s book, Robin Kelley presumes there emerged (and is particularly disturbed by what he sees as) virtually a silent reception of the first edition of Black Marxism.

While West’s judgment about the Black Left ought to be open to further discussion, Kelly draws on West to accent the relative silence regarding the publication of Black Marxism. Kelly’s observation about West and Harris, two African American philosophers, should not be ignored in view of my prior comments concerning Robinson’s work and its value to Africana philosophy. Yet, we must ask: did Black Marxism really fall through the cracks? Could it have been the case that in terms of Black intellectual culture the response to Robinson was quite distinct from what transpires with white intellectual culture and the protocol of the academy? Then we must ask: precisely from what cracks did it fall through? Can we ground our estimates about the influence of Black Marxism strictly on such factors as how many book reviews it collected in scholarly journals? What other venues were available to measure the impact of Robinson’s Black Marxism?

One way to establish such an alternative is to directly examine the impact of Black Marxism on Kelly’s own intellectual formation and, from there, by means of induction, to try to formulate more general conclusions. In fact, Kelly’s personal report indicates that although he did not write his intended review, this text had profound influences on him nonetheless. Kelly’s report is one of inspiration, which far exceeds the normal impulse to write a book review in a scholarly journal. Kelly’s self-description about the aftermath of his first reading tells a graphic story: “I can say, without a trace of hyperbole, that this book changed my life. Like a specter, his haunted me from the day I pulled it out of its brown padded envelope over sixteen years ago to the moment I agreed to write this foreword” (Robinson 2000 xi).

What both Kelly and West overlook is that the theoretical structure of Black Marxism gives rise to specific conceptualizations of Black intellectual culture and history, which I contend are patently influential in subsequent works by others in African American Studies. Therefore, Black Marxism is not only a text of considerable import with regard to how it facilitates a determinate paradigmatic option for African American intellectuals and activists, but also in the very process of its formulations through which it continues to shape the contours of (as well as generate traditions within) Black intellectual culture. Very few works ever come close to Black Marxism in having such influence outside of their disciplinary boundaries and professional specialization (Thomas 2005).

As to the putatively silent reception toward Black Marxism, I argue this assumption overlooks a host of pertinent questions on the matter. How many other young African American students and scholars had similar experiences, such as those which Kelly reports, on reading Robinson’s Black Marxism? What about the possibility of Black Studies courses, which may have incorporated Black Marxism into the syllabus? Of course, we know, in the first instance, this cannot be completely documented. And in the second, it has not been documented. But what is most instructive is that the penetration of a text into Black intellectual culture cannot be measured primarily on book reviews in scholarly journals (Peterson 2003; Thomas 2005).

Additionally we can pose other questions: how many book talks did Black Marxism engender? Could there have been lively debates or forums where scholars as well as activists engaged in exchanges about Robinson’s book? When we take into account the fact that Black Marxism is a scholarly work that has strong activist and ideological consequences, it becomes imperative to acknowledge that scholarly responses published in academic journals are not a sufficient measuring rod for evaluating its impact. Activist reactions, political commentary and polemics are just as vital, sometimes even stronger, than narrowly conceived forms of academic discourse. Political and ideological kinds of dialogue and polemics were especially prominent in Black Studies circles and also within the Black mass movement leading up to the time of the first edition of Black Marxism in 1983 (Allen 1974; Brisbane 1974; Butler 2000).

If Black intellectual culture is our context, we therefore must be cognizant of how social movement activity is far from being marginal to intellectual discussion. Various types of provocative intellectual exchanges in community organizations and reading groups were quite common in the Black community at that time. In this respect, we cannot overlook the fact that Robinson is both a scholar and community activist. For instance, Robinson’s alternative communication project, Third World News Review, is just one example of how his efforts in the distribution of ideas and information far exceed the boundaries of the academy (Robinson 2005). As a matter of fact, Robinson’s actual interventions as well as the cultural logic of Black intellectual and political culture are more complex and broader than discourse solely contained within the confines of the academy (Herard 2005; Plummer 2005).

Arguably, Kelly is one of the leading scholars among those focused on the Black left. Furthermore, he has considerable expertise on the history Pan-African social movements. Thus, it is somewhat of a surprise to me that Kelly would not see his own political/personal reactions to Black Marxism could possibly be more generally reflective of the nature of Black intellectual culture; the nature of which shapes African American Studies with the kind of dynamics (or dialectics) that fosters intellectual work both inside and outside of the classroom. It is precisely the dialectical character of Black intellectual culture which provides Black Marxism with the space to significantly contribute to both Black thought and action (Peterson 2003; Thomas 2005).

In African American Studies we catch sight of the fact that the elements of activism, ideology and politics extend beyond the walls of the academy and, nevertheless, remain saliently intellectual and scholarly in character (Hare 1969; Allen 1974; Alkalimat 1990). This, of course, is not something new in Black intellectual culture. African American Studies scholars Ralph Crowder and Malik Simba among others have widely documented how self-trained ‘Street Corner Scholars’ (i.e., non-academic intellectuals) have historically constituted a venerable sector within African American intellectual culture (Crowder 2006; Simba 2006).

Some of those identified as ‘Street Corner Scholars’ were early advocates of Marxism and in turn they organized quite extensively in the Black community among the rank and file. This propagation of Marxist ideas took place even when the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) tended to shy away from radical ideas such as Marxism (Naison 1983; McClendon 2006; Davies 2007).

Moreover, in the short period since Kelly’s foreword in 2000, we discover that Michael Dawson’s Black Visions: The Roots of African-American Political Ideologies entered the Black Studies arena and it retains the ostensible stamp of Robinson’s notion about a political philosophy deemed Black Marxism. Black Visions not only captures the extended non-academic yet intellectual aspect of Black political ideology but it also incorporates the concept of “Black Marxism” as an organizing (conceptual) principle. In Dawson’s chapter, “Black and Red: Black Marxism and Black Liberation,” we see Robinson’s text is not just referenced becomes the pivotal tool for articulating how the tradition of ‘Black’ Marxism is a substantial political current in contemporary African American political thought (Dawson 2001).

When we look for intellectual works where Black Marxism exercises an influential role, there are a number of notable texts that Kelly fails to consider. Additionally, when we study these works, from the viewpoint of dialectical transformations within Black intellectual culture, we uncover that Black Marxism has considerably altered the perspective of some of the mature (“leading lights”) of Africana Studies on the left (Alkalimat 1990).

The monumental status of Black Marxism in Black intellectual culture is exemplified by the fact that it anticipated Afrocentric texts such as Marimba Ani’s Yurugu (Ani 1994) while concurrently functioning as a precursor to works by Black Social Democrats. Although, for example, Cornel West’s review is critical in tone, it nevertheless, remains quite favorable (West 1993). The theoretical divide between the Afrocentrists and the various advocates of Social/Radical Democracy does not occlude the pervasive effects of Black Marxism. Each side has discovered some value in Black Marxism. While this kind of intellectual bearing is noteworthy, this is not even the crowning achievement of Black Marxism in terms of Black intellectual culture.7

In my estimation, what makes Black Marxism a pivotal text in Black intellectual culture stems from how it has decidedly reigned upon the ideological position of certain key ‘Marxists’ and putative ‘Marxist-Leninists’ in African American Studies and intellectual culture. I tender the strong claim that in Black intellectual history and culture no other anti-Marxist text has won as much favor among the ranks of ‘Marxists’ and ‘Marxist-Leninists’ as Robinson’s Black Marxism (Alkalimat 1990; Ani 1994; Wald 2003).

Other texts which have proceeded along the lines of anti-Marxism, as in the case of Harold Cruse’s The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, did not gain favor among the Black left (Cruse 1967; Kaiser 1969). Furthermore, we must ask, why is it that Cruse’s posture only resulted in fierce debates with Black leftists, while Robinson was well received by certain prominent ‘Marxist-Leninists’ active in African American Studies? If we are to answer these questions, we must compare the two texts and take under advisement the ideological context of the struggle between Marxist-Leninists and Black Nationalists in African American intellectual culture and, crucially, examine their determinate historical periods (Cruse 1967; Mayfield 1968; Gaines 2004).

Kelly and West offer a comparative analysis of Cruse and Robinson’s respective works. Kelly even brings to our attention the influence of Cruse on Robinson. Kelly states,

Kelly argues, “Robinson took up Cruse’s challenge to develop new theories of revolution where Marxism failed, but he moved well beyond Cruse’s position.” However, I must disagree with Kelly’s assessment. My disagreement does not center on his conclusion that Robinson ‘moved well beyond Cruse’s position’ but rather on what Kelly believes is the basis for the advance, i.e., how Robinson moved beyond Cruse.

Kelly seems to think that Cruse moves within Marxism through a theoretical/conceptual inversion or reformulation of Marxism; while Robinson, in turn, abandons Marxism all together. Closer scrutiny of Cruse’s works demonstrates that Cruse just as well as Robinson rejects Marxism completely and consequently is equally as strong in his anti-Marxist sentiments and conceptual framework (Cruse 1967; Kaiser 1969; Gaines 2004; Von Eschen 2004).

There is a bit of irony here about Kelly’s notion that Cruse sought to reformulate Marxism while Robinson rejected it. In my conversation with Robinson, on December 28, 2002, he indicated that my thesis (which is Black Marxism is an anti-Marxist text) would be better articulated not as anti-Marxism but rather as his addressing the problem of Marxist ‘conceits.’ Robinson’s assumption is simply that what is problematic about Marxism is the attendant ‘conceits’ which attach themselves to Marxism and not with Marxism per se (Robinson 1999 2-3).8

Of course, this squarely challenges Kelly’s argument that Robinson does not intend on remaining within Marxism. Robinson’s comment also ostensibly undercuts my claim about his wholesale adoption of anti-Marxism. Let us first review the counter-claim to my argument. If it is the case Robinson seeks the reformulation of Marxism, this could possibly serve as a justification for the position about Robinson’s legitimate adherence to a form of Marxism, which he stipulates is ‘Black’ rather than ‘White.’ Prima facie, this stipulation insures there is no real harm to the substance of Marxism, when one adopts Black Marxism.

However, I contend that despite his intention, Robinson does in fact assume an anti-Marxist posture. This can be demonstrated with an analysis of his views as to what constitutes Marxist ‘conceits.’ On Robinson’s account of conceits, conceits are what actually make up some of the fundamental principles and theses of Marxism. For instance, he argues, “One conceit is class, another is determinacy; and another is the stage-construction of history” (Robinson 1999 2-3).

Yet without these theoretical underpinnings, I posit, it follows that Marxism is effectively eroded of a good degree of its theoretical content. Given Robinson’s intentions to work within some measure of Marxism and his actual departure from it, Kelly’s conclusions about Robinson and Cruse and their respective ideological loci is far from the mark. There are certainly differences between the two but not as Kelly views them.

The differentia specifica that demarcates Robinson from Cruse is not anti-Marxism. Rather, it is that Robinson’s anti-Marxism appears as more ideologically flexible and theoretically open-ended. Robinson regards Black people who are Marxists with utmost value and accents their contributions to Black intellectual culture and the African American liberation struggle. Hence, Robinson’s flexibility issues from the fact that he preserves a space and place in Black intellectual culture for Black leftist thinkers and activists of Marxist stripe.

Cruse has a far more rigidly formulated (closed) theory of anti-Marxism than Robinson. Cruse thinks that all Black people on the left with any amount of openness to Marxism are ideologically and politically misdirected. This misdirection issues from the fact that Marxism is a foreign ideology without indigenous roots in the United States and any connection to the African American experience. In Cruse’s estimation, Marxism lacks the culturally specific grounding needed to sustain the Black struggle in the United States; a struggle that is fundamentally cultural in nature and plural in character (Cruse 1967; Cruse 1987).

Cruse argues that cultural and political pluralism is the foundation for power in this country. Given Marxism’s ostensible accent on class rather than ethnicity, Cruse thinks, Marxism completely misunderstands how political power is an outcome of culture and how all cultural agendas are rooted in ethnic values. Although Cruse argues for a particular form of Black cultural nationalism, he also stands oppose to any kind of Black nationalism which seeks to culturally return to all things that are African in nature. Just as Marxism fails to meet the (cultural/political) needs and interests of African Americans due to its foreign character, Cruse posits, the same applies to forms of African-centered cultural nationalism (Cruse 1967 420-23; Asante 2004).9

While Cruse seeks to establish his cultural theory with its basis in the United States, rather than Africa, one should not think he aims for the integration of African Americans into the white cultural/political mainstream. Cruse firmly believes that integration fails to acknowledge the cultural basis of white power and how Black cultural separation (autonomy) is based on group (identity) politics. However, Cruse affirms that this is how the political game is played in this country (Asante 2004; Kilson 2004). In turn, it is the pitfalls associated with integration that constitute the Achilles heel of Marxism for Black people. Cruse relegates Black Marxist intellectuals and activists to the status of dupes who foolishly and blindly commit to Marxist ideology and intellectually subordinate themselves to white Marxists. Pandering behind Jewish Communists, Cruse charges, they give up their group identity and cultural politics for integration into the ‘white’ working class (Cruse 1967 147-170; Wald 2003; Greenberg 2004).

Cruse’s paradigmatic conception of the history of Black struggle is a reductionist schema wherein his ‘separatist contra integrationist’ thesis is an interpretive (covering) formula which readily designates that all Black Marxists are integrationists. Issuing from this separatist/integrationist antithesis, Cruse’s rejection of Black Marxists constitutes an absolutist principle. It follows that since most Black Marxists were/are active in multi-racial and multi-national political groupings, or at least in principle they must uphold the primacy of class struggle, then they become de facto integrationists. Consequently, given this assumption, conservatives Walter White and Roy Wilkins are thought to be on political/ideological par with stalwart anti-imperialists and socialists such as Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois; this despite what are no less than fundamentally different ideological and political commitments at stake.10

Robinson offers to us a kind of anti-Marxism that stands prominently as an antithetical interpretation to Cruse’s idea of Black intellectual/political history. Robinson’s ‘Black Radical Tradition’ not only vindicates W. E. B. Du Bois, Richard Wright and C. L. R. James but it also establishes them as venerable archetypes of this tradition. Simply put, Robinson’s assures us that we need not renounce Du Bois, Wright and James merely based on the fact that they held commitments to Marxism; for theirs was an allegiance to ‘Black’ Marxism. With ‘Black’ Marxism, we can remain radical anti-capitalist activists and/or Black nationalist ideologues and at the same time fully embrace the intellectual tradition represented by left intellectuals such as Du Bois, Wright and James.

The upshot of Robinson’s thesis is that accepting the intellectual foundation of ‘Black Marxism’ (qua The Black Radical Tradition) in no way makes one a victim of ‘Eurocentric’ Marxism. Given the anchor we can have in The Black Radical Tradition, ‘Black’ Marxism never remains the same as ‘European’ Marxism. Bottom line, Marxism transforms into ‘Black’ Marxism via The Black Radical Tradition and herein resides the authenticity of all three in terms of their roots in Black/African culture (Robinson 1983 289-324, 389-396, 416-435). In effect, what separates Robinson’s anti-Marxism from Cruse’s form of it is the fact that Marxism need not in principle override Black (cultural) identity.

Polemics over Marxism and Black Marxism’s Ideological Impact

Robinson’s interpretation of Black intellectual culture qua ‘The Black Radical Tradition’ becomes all the more indispensable given the ideological polemics among Black activists and intellectuals, mainly when they emerged full-blown during the mid-1970s. For example, the ideological struggle over Marxism-Leninism versus Black Nationalism within the African Liberation Support Committee (ALSC) became a central point of departure for many in the movement. The fierce polemics in ALSC, about the viability of Marxism-Leninism for Black people’s struggle, not only swept the Black community but also entered unto the pages of Black scholarly journals (Hutchins 1974; People's College 1974).

In particular, there was considerable attention given to Marxism’s relevance to the African American struggle in The Black Scholar (Wright 1974). Black Studies intellectual Nathan Hare, co-founder of The< Black Scholar, even resigned his position from the journal due to alleged Marxist influences in the journal (1975). There is no doubt that by 1975 the debate over Marxism was quite prominent and intense in the pages of The Black Scholar.

For instance in the September issue of 1974 one finds Haki Madhubuti’s article, “The Latest Purge: The Attack on Black Nationalism and Pan-Afrikanism by the New Left, the Sons and Daughters of the Old Left,” which assailed the Marxist currents in African Liberation Support Committee. Subsequently, in the October issue there were, for example, an article from Ronald Walters in support of Madhubuti and another from S. E. Anderson in opposition to it. In the January/February 1975 edition of The Black Scholar Marx Smith defended Marxism and criticized Madhubuti for narrow nationalism. Afterward in March, educator and community activist Preston Wilcox came to the ideological aid of Madhubuti and declared Marxism-Leninism was a white ideology and that racism was more than the ideological expression of capitalism.

Additionally, there were other journals including Freedomways and Phylon which discussed Marxism and its relevance to African Americans. In fact Ernest Kaiser offered a penetrating critique of Harold Cruse’s The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual in Freedomways (Kaiser 1969); and on into the mid-1980s Phylon had an article on “Marxist Prescriptions for Black American Equality” (Fisher 1984). This question of Marxism’s relationship to Black struggle was not solely an academic discussion; in real material terms it proffered deep schisms of a political sort. Nationalist retorts to Marxist analysis and Marxist responses to nationalist criticism clearly indicated that the ideological chasm had become crucial in Black political thought as well as in the practical action of community work.

Consequently, debates around Marxism tended to assume academic as well as non-academic forms; community activists and scholars alike were strongly engaged in mapping the ideological direction of the Black liberation movement. For many the course of Black Studies as an academic undertaking was directly linked to what William H. McClendon called (following Julius Nyerere) “Education for Liberation” (McClendon 1974).

Hence, the ideological context that surrounds the entry of Black Marxism into African American intellectual culture was directly linked to real, material, political practices. For example, The League of Revolutionary Workers with its organizational work in Detroit encountered various practical problems affixed to the ideological choice between Marxism and nationalism (Georgakas 1975; Geschwender 1977; Dawson 2001; Thompson 2001).

More broadly the ideological antagonisms that stamped Black political activity, during this stage in history, was deep and formidable. Robinson’s Black Marxism aimed to broker the reconciliation of Marxists and nationalists in the Black liberation movement and particularly with the idea that nationalism would remain the dominant ideological force. Therefore, one should not be baffled that Robinson’s Black Marxism was openly anti-Marxist while at the same time it was not manifestly opposed to the tradition forged by Black Marxist intellectuals.

It goes without saying that intense ideological struggles form the backdrop to (and indicate the ideological/political significance of) Robinson’s Black Marxism upon its arrival in 1983. In direct opposition to Cruse, Robinson’s defense of Black nationalism did not require denouncing Marxists that were Black. Hence, Black Marxism gave a new gloss to Black nationalism’s anti-Marxist response. Prior to Black Marxism, Black leftist scholars increasingly exposed how various types of African American nationalism were actually based on right-wing conservatism and capitalist financing (Allen 1969).

Now it should be clear why Black Marxism had such an ideological impact on the activity of Black intellectual culture and particularly in the manner of how this culture herein came to shape the practical movement. Unfortunately, Kelly and West (along with Meyerson) overlook the crucial matter of ideological framework and how Black Marxism in its efforts at the reconciliation of oppositional ideological tendencies thus sought to undermine Marxism’s basic premises. While Cruse was unabated in his conception of how Black nationalism and Marxism were in an ideological sense mutually exclusive, Robinson’s project mandated a new strategy for anti-Marxism: the strategy of ideological reconciliation on behalf of Black nationalism (Robinson 1983 1-6).

What is central here is that The Black Radical Tradition project is preeminently an ideological one and Black Marxism has the task on the one hand of sustaining an implicit anti-Marxism and on the other of fostering the appearance of openness to some form of Marxism. These antithetical tasks, Robinson demonstrates, does not require the formulation of an abstract (grand) theory (which is what Cruse calls for in The Crisis); instead, the requirement is more a matter of having the real meat and bones, specific instances where such antithetical aims were apparently realized in history. This explains why Du Bois, Wright and James are pivotal in Robinson’s portrayal of ‘Black’ Marxism.

On Du Bois, Wright and James: Black Marxism Personified

Let us now consider Robinson’s exemplars of The Black Radical Tradition, namely the activist/scholars Du Bois, Wright and James. We cannot forget that in Robinson’s estimation the ideological reconciliation process operates strictly within the framework of his Black Radical Tradition. Hence, the ‘Black’ Marxism of Du Bois, Wright and James need not be constrained by the ideological divide between Marxism and Black nationalism. This divide is the very catalyst of Cruse’s thesis and he openly assaults W. E. B. Du Bois and Richard Wright’s intellectual ability and political insight for choosing Marxism. Given the divide, Cruse holds that one must chose between Marxism (integrationism) and Black cultural nationalism (separatism) and those who elect Marxism are to be held in contempt. Now we can see why two of Robinson’s examples of Black Marxism are in Cruse’s view simply Black intellectuals in ideological crisis. Yet we witness that Cruse is silent on James. Surely Cruse must have known that James was openly a Marxist-Leninist and arguably among the three the most consistent adherent to Marxism. Why, we must inquire, does C. L. R. James stand outside of Cruse’s line of fire?

I submit that given Cruse’s attacks on the West Indian left, we can infer that if given the opportunity, Cruse would have extended the same criticisms to the Marxist-Leninist (West Indian) theoretician C. L. R. James (James 1998). I think that Cruse overlooks him because James began his journey along the path of Marxism within the ranks of Trotskyism and was not thus associated with the Communist Party USA. I should add that although James had a different view than Cruse regarding Du Bois and Wright, it is a fact that James was almost as vehement in his own attacks on the Communist Party. James sneaks under the radar of criticism due to the stark reality that Cruse’s condemnation of Marxism comes strictly in light his disdain for the Communist Party USA, a political organization which Cruse was once a member. It can be further demonstrated that James’s omission from Cruse’s list of West Indian Marxists is related to Trotskyism; and this becomes obvious when we take into account Cruse’s detailed treatment of Richard B. Moore, a prominent West Indian member of the Communist Party. In The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, Cruse actually devotes a complete chapter to Moore (Cruse 1967 253-66).

Unlike some of his other Black Communist comrades, Moore was a staunch advocate of race pride and the study of Black history; he also promoted the idea of Black cultural autonomy (McClendon 2006). Yet Cruse decides to mock Moore by asserting that Moore ceased to be a Black militant and mellowed late in life to become a “pro-integrationist” (Cruse 1967 254). In keeping with my prior remarks about Cruse on integrationism, and especially against the reality that Moore was a proponent of Afro-American cultural identity, this judgment about Moore amounts to nothing more than personal ridicule (James 1998 348; McClendon 2006 44).11

Cruse’s intellectual history left little that could be salvaged from Black radical history, for all is lost to Marxism and integrationism. Under the banner of the putative ‘Crisis’ facing African American intellectuals, only Cruse himself comes out of the fray without any bruises or scars (Cruse 1967; Cruse 1968; Turner 1988 105). The limits of Cruse’s interpretation of African American history, the weaknesses of his conception of Black culture and the tendentiousness of his political views are not lost a number of scholars in African American Studies (Allen 1977; Stuckey 1979; Gaines 2004).

Robinson’s theory of ‘The Black Radical Tradition’ opens up the prospects for drawing on a tradition rather than just his singular insights. With Robinson’s theory, we have a theory grounded in history, which works in tandem as a philosophical anchor for Black radicalism. Cruse can only suggest to us what such a theory or philosophy ought to be established. We see that Cruse supplies a prescription without a concrete historical foundation; a theory of liberation, which lacks an anchor in past practices or traditions. From Cruse’s viewpoint, the Marxist/left tradition of Black intellectual history is merely a series of political failures fixed in its intellectual shortsightedness and subordination to an alien ideology and ideologues.

The theoretical/ideological import of Robinson’s ‘Black Radical Tradition’ resides in the fact that we can return to Du Bois, Wright and James and continue to enrich their work without getting our hands all covered in ‘Red.’ Robinson’s Black nationalism does not in a priori fashion reject those who are deemed as Marxists or even those who see themselves as Marxist within and outside the frame of Black intellectual culture and history. So therefore, we can proceed without Cruse’s nagging suspicions about their alleged ‘Marxism.’ This is because on Robinson’s account we find that Du Bois, Wright and James are all committed to a distinctive (relevant) kind of ‘Marxism.’ It is not, by any means, the same ‘Marxism’ of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels or V. I. Lenin. We can justifiably discern from them that Marxism is none other than ‘Black Marxism,’ which has been nurtured in ‘The Black Radical Tradition’ (Robinson 1983 1).

Despite its opposition to bourgeois society, Robinson argues that Marxism is essentially a product of Western civilization. And it is Western civilization, and not just capitalism, which is more essentially problematic when it comes to white supremacy (Robinson 1983 2). Nonetheless, our ‘Black Marxists’ are Marxists without Karl Marx; Marxists who have no interest in or allegiance to ‘Eurocentric’ Marxism; their ‘Marxism’ derives from an indigenous African intellectual and political tradition. Hence, Black Marxism emerges out of a long-standing ‘Black Radical Tradition’ distinct from European (Euro-American) traditions and civilization.

Robinson is aware that African people and especially those in the diaspora forged their ideologies in bourgeois European intellectual circumstances and in the material modes of capitalist/ imperialist slavery and colonialism (i.e., in a Western context). Nevertheless, he contends that from the first slave revolts and the later modern protest movements to contemporary forms of revolutionary liberation struggles, their seminal foundations were/are in African culture/civilization.

Herein reside the particular magnetic force of Black Marxism and its capacity to co-opt the ‘Marxist’ left within Black intellectual culture; for it has the power of the general anti-Marxist tradition and yet does not castigate Marxist adherents. This propels Robinson’s text outside of, and away from, the more professed rightist and conservative analysts’ condemnations of the Black left. While Albert Murray and Stanley Crouch could discern something in Cruse, which is consistent with their conservatism (Robinson 1999), Robinson attracts not only Kelly and West but also the likes of former ‘Marxist’ philosopher—now racial contractarian—Charles Mills and even Abdul Alkalimat, one of the former leading ‘Marxist-Leninists’ in African American Studies (Alkalimat 1990; Mills 1997; Mills 2002).

Why are/were so many ‘Marxists’ in Black intellectual culture attracted to Robinson’s thesis? If we return to West’s argument about the silence around Black Marxism and its relationship to the Black left, we can find some of the clues to our puzzle. West’s observation that ‘the Black left’ is simply too weak and disorganized to cultivate and sustained a ‘high-level critical exchange’ about and on Black Marxism surreptitiously points to why Black Marxism was/is so attractive to certain ‘Marxists’ within the Black left. Whereas West and Kelly both conclude there was silence and neglect, I argue that what happened was that certain ‘Marxists’ not only acknowledged Black Marxism but also, and more significantly, they followed its ideological lead.

Since West’s observation is surreptitiously applicable as a heuristic formulation, we are required to make semantic adjustments and additions to his statement. Here preceding the phrase, ‘the Black Left,’ I will insert, ‘Marxists within.’ The phrase, ‘too weak’ requires the addition of, ‘ideologically’. Thus, we have the following argument:

Now we see that Black Marxism, far from falling through the cracks, looms large on the landscape of Black intellectual culture. Afrocentrists, Social and Radical Democrats, Anarchists and even putative ‘orthodox’ Marxists and Marxist-Leninists are all under its spell (Robinson 1999). Robinson’s ability to win over Abdul Alkalimat, one of the most renowned Marxist-Leninists among African American Studies scholars, in all honesty came to me as a shock. In his leadership capacity with People’s College, Alkalimat played a most crucial and very critical role in the ideological struggle for Marxism-Leninism among African American activists and intellectuals. Arguably, Alkalimat was the foremost Marxist-Leninist theoretician and ideologue to emerge from the aforementioned ALSC ideological polemics (People's 1974; Elbaum 2002). Alkalimat’s extends an enthusiastic endorsement not only to Robinson’s text Black Marxism but also accents how the notion of Black Marxism is ‘a school of thought,’ which Black intellectuals ought to align with in African American Studies. He states, “This review is written as a call to action, a challenge to mobilize Black intellectuals to follow the road of a new school of Black Marxism, or at least a challenge to understand Black Marxism as a legitimate intellectual activity existing in tension with the two distinct traditions, Marxism and the Black nationalist revolt” (Alkalimat 1990 ).

Alkalimat’s assessment of Robinson’s book is no less than a laudatory judgment. “Robinson and has made a great contribution to Black Marxism by providing the major work so far on the issues of class and race in European ideological development, the Black radical tradition, and the bridge of a Black Marxism as the greatest extension of the Black radical tradition” (Alkalimat 1990 206) [Italics Added].13

With regard to Alkalimat’s ideological aspirations to harmonize Marxism and Black nationalism – or more strongly, in Marxist-Leninist terms, his centrist capitulation to revisionism – neglects the fact that Robinson’s Black Marxism is in substance Black nationalism, although Robinson self-consciously refines his nationalism in order to transcend the crudities we detect with nationalists such as Stokely Carmichael and Louis Farrakhan (Robinson 1999 1).14

Nonetheless, Black Marxism is only nominally Marxism. Alkalimat’s ideological vision is occluded by Robinson’s refinements of Black nationalism; Alkalimat grasps what is the appearance of Marxism, its nomenclature, and not its essence. What we have in Black Marxism is another form of anti-Marxism, a form that saliently glows and prospers in the period after the great ideological conflicts of the 1970s. The dialectical confluence of this ideological/historical context along with the notion of ‘The Black Radical Tradition’ and its apparent flexibility propels Black Marxism into its unique status in the history of Black intellectual culture.

The philosopher Charles Mills in his article, “Red Shift: Politically Embodied/Embodied Politics” in George Yancy’s The Philosophical I, gives a very lucid account of how Marxism and then later the critique of white supremacy were crucial to his own philosophical evolution. What struck me is that in Mills’ text Blackness Invisible, we also uncover the influence of Robinson’s Black Marxism. Of significance is the fact Mills references Robinson to support his critique of Marxism’s insufficiency with regard to race/white supremacy. My aim here is not to give full critique of Alkalimat or Mills (Mills 1997; McClendon 2002; Mills 2002).15

The scope of this essay does not permit me to extensively comment here on many of the Marxists or former Marxists that bought into the propositions outlined in Black Marxism. (No doubt it is the stuff for another paper or even a book.) There is, of course, the aforementioned Charles Mills and Abdul Alkalimat. In addition there is Clarence J. Munford who, I think, strikingly bares similar ideological imprints and this despite any direct citation of Black Marxism (Munford 1996). Perhaps we have in Munford an independent transition to ‘Black Marxism,’ which would accord with Alkalimat’s evaluation of Munford, albeit post facto given Munford’s more orthodox Marxism at that juncture.

Indeed, Anthony Monteiro’s favorable review of Munford’s Race and Reparations (which includes commentary on Munford’s The Black Ordeal of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the French West Indies, 1625-1715) includes many judgments and conclusions that could have been concretely applied to Robinson’s text. Monteiro states,

We will shortly see that the Afrocentrist ideologue Marimba Ani makes claims about Robinson’s Black Marxism that have a family resemblance to Monteiro’s essay review on Munford. This, in ideological terms, is both decisive and drastic since Munford, during his Marxist period, not only published a Marxist text in Black Studies but also wrote quite forcefully in defense of Marxist ideology in the pages of the Black Scholar (Munford 1973; Munford 1978).

While Alkalimat’s earlier alignment with Marxism-Leninism came by way of Mao’s influence and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Monteiro informs us that the political/ideological milieu of the Soviet Union, via the German Democratic Republic, was the point of origin with Munford (Monteiro 1999). Yet, what was formerly an ideological conflict within Marxism-Leninism, the ideological antagonisms evolving from the Sino/Soviet disputes, which generally took the form of pro-Maoist proclamations about a ‘New Communist Movement’ (Elbaum, 2002, 365) in contrast to pro-Soviet declarations, did not impede either Alkalimat or Munford from moving to the common ground of ‘Black Marxism.’

Monteiro tells us, “By the middle 1980’s, in the light of the crisis and the eventual collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe and the U.S.S.R., Munford began to rethink his previous positions. This, along with the psychological impact of the findings of Black Ordeal, compelled him to question what he would later determined were civilizational foundations of white behavior that go deeper than capitalism and in fact precede it. In Black Ordeal he discovered what he defined as sado-racism which he was only able to explain in civilizational terms” (Monteiro 1999).

I should add there is a bit of irony here because Monteiro’s glowing review essay on Munford was published in the pages of The Black Scholar. Perhaps in hindsight, it can be said that Nathan Hare prematurely decided to bail out of the ship. Surely the theses presented in Monteiro’s essay are in accord with much of what Black nationalists like Haki Madhubuti, Preston Wilcox, Stokely Carmichael and even Hare had said several years before (Wilcox 1968; Hare 1969; Carmichael 1971; Madhubuti 1974). Furthermore, Monteiro also has a history of involvement as a Marxist-Leninist in African American Studies. I think it would be safe to say that the ideas and theses of Black Marxism, which are so similar to those conveyed in Munford’s work, would also be quite attractive to Monteiro (Monteiro 1999).

From the onset, I said that this section of my paper would be only a general synopsis or first approximation of the impact of Robinson’s Black Marxism in Black intellectual culture. However, I think it has been demonstrated that certain ‘Marxists’ despite the previous period of ideological combat against Black nationalism and after their defense of Marxism-Leninism are now comfortable with Black Marxism. Citations of the relevance works of the aforementioned now suffice. What should not be lost is the unprecedented place of Robinson’s Black Marxism, for no other anti-Marxist thinker or work in Black intellectual history has had the wherewithal to decisively influence (key) representatives of ‘Marxism’ among the Black left via anti-Marxism as a mode of successful co-optation.

Black Marxism or Black Anti-Marxism?

This portion of the paper is not written with the intent to defend Marx and Marxism against Robinson’s claims. I do not challenge the veracity of Robinson’s claims or the validity of his arguments. Rather, my objective is the very straightforward process of establishing that Robinson’s position is anti-Marxist.

When we examine the title of Robinson’s book, Black Marxism: The Making of Black Radical Tradition, I submit that the mode of defining the subtitle undermines the notion there is ‘Marxism’ within the phrase ‘Black Marxism.’ (Yet I have shown how Robinson could justify Black Marxism as a particular form of Marxism, with the proviso that ‘Black Marxism’ does not accept ‘European’ Marxism without it being jettisoned of its alleged conceits.) One of Robinson’s foremost concerns is to demonstrate that Marxism is not a viable tool for people of African descent in their struggle for liberation. This is coupled with the objective of establishing how ‘The Black Radical Tradition’ is an alternative to Marxism. If the ‘Black Radical Tradition’ is an alternative to Marxism and not a tradition within Marxism, how are we to situate this tradition?

I suggest that Robinson’s notion is, on the one hand, a particular form of Black/African nationalism and, on the other hand, a leftist, yet anti-Marxist, position closely associated with putatively anti-authoritarian ideologies such as anarchism and libertarian socialism. In many ways, such an ideological kinship brings Robinson into close proximity with the libertarian socialism of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn (Epstein 2001).

Robinson does indeed indicate there is such an alignment. He states, in an interview with the journal Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, “What these anti-authoritarian traditions [anarchism and libertarian socialism] have in common [with the ‘Black Radical Tradition’] is that they confront and show the necessity of avoiding certain conceits which follow from the general theory of Marxism” (Robinson 1999 2-3) [Italics Added]. Robinson’s African nationalism, therefore, is not opposed to all forms of ‘European thought’ and indeed is self-consciously dialectical in its method.

It can be demonstrated and documented that dialectics is not alien to the African experience (Olela 1979; Obenga 1989; Diop 1991; Onyewuenyi 1994). However, philosophically what is problematic is the notion that Black Marxism can have in some way a philosophical and ideological kinship with anarchism and libertarian socialism. If it is the case that Marxism’s conceits derive from its foundation in Western civilization, and since anarchism and libertarian socialism are also products of Western civilization, then they too must have their respective conceits. Furthermore, not unlike Marxism, they are forms of Western consciousness and therefore they must, on Robinson’s account, necessarily suffer from being endemically anchored in racism. Unfortunately, Robinson does not provide us with any answers to this enigma.

Robinson articulates time and again that Black Marxism is not, in terms of its sense and/or reference, a form of the Marxism associated with Karl Marx. The scorecard on Marx and his Marxism, Robinson tells us, is not very good. Robinson’s preface (to the 2000 Edition) outlines several of pitfalls associated with Karl Marx’s analysis.

Although the variously hegemonic European ideologies from German nationalism to the ‘White Man’s Burden’ were considered odious and repugnant to oppressed people of African descent, and their intelligentsia, Robinson claims that Marxism initially appeared to have a certain universalism affixed to it. Marxism gave the impression to be more inclusive and it generality made it so attractive that it seemed as if it provided a space from which the African intellectual could share in a more global undertaking shorn of the stigmas associated with race. Robinson’s thesis is evident in William Banks’s Black Intellectuals where he describes this phenomenon as ‘The Lure of Marxism’ over Black intellectuals (Banks 1996 100-08). Yet, Robinson additionally states,

Robinson’s philosophy of history, on the one hand, views Marxism as no more than a ‘conceit [which] presume[d] that the theory of historical materialism explained history.” And on the other hand, the historic struggles of African people for liberation not only had its underpinnings in the material conditions of capitalism and imperialism but also in the cultural, spiritual, intellectual and philosophical context of Africa and its diaspora. The roots of ‘The Black Radical Tradition’ were submerged in these conditions and contexts; this tradition historically and logically came before Marxism and ultimately ‘began to emerge and overtake Marxism in the work of these Black radicals’ (Robinson 2000 xxi).

Scholars as diverse as the anthropologist and Afrocentric thinker Marimba Ani and the philosopher of racial contract theory, Charles Mills, find in Robinson a source to build their criticisms of Marxism’s alleged frailties. Take notice of the commonalities with Monteiro’s previously cited review of Munford with Ani’s comments on Robinson. In her book, Yurugu, she argues,

Ani takes from Robinson the central and primary arguments she needs to reject Marxism. She does not think, as witness in Alkalimat’s case, that Robinson’s text represents a third path toward possible ‘unity’ between African nationalism and Marxism or that it is a new school of thought. Rather Ani fathoms that with Robinson’s Black Marxism, we have the ‘apogee’ of the Black Radical tradition. Furthermore, this tradition forms into a synthesis with other African-centered critiques of European thought. On this account, Marxism, however critical it may be of capitalism, is only another branch of European thought and civilization. Ani is crystal clear that there is no Marxism in Black Marxism, only anti-Marxism at its best.

As well we can see that Charles Mills, a former Marxist philosopher, is under no illusions about Robinson’s Black Marxism. He does not seek to harvest Marxism from Robinson; instead, in a manner not unlike Ani, he aims his blows against Marxism with Robinson’s theory as ammunition. Mills the philosopher, unlike Ani the anthropologist, is philosophically astute and thus comes to Robinson on firmer philosophical grounds. Nevertheless, they both advance beyond Alkalimat’s illusions about Black Marxism as a third ideological path.16 Mills declares,

Now we must summarize the core anti-Marxist philosophical principles embedded in and under girding Black Marxism, the text, and more generally ‘Black’ Marxism, the broadly considered conceptualization. First, we have the idealist premise that consciousness, variously denoted by such concepts as culture and civilization, determine material reality. Hence, capitalism did not give rise to racism rather racism and white supremacy are endemic to European culture/civilization (i.e., European consciousness).17 Second, the thesis that racism is materially grounded in capitalist class relations, the correct Marxist position, is altered and the argument becomes Marxism reduces racism/white supremacy to capitalist class relations. Third, and moreover, granted that racism is preeminently a matter of consciousness, Marxism tout court both hypostatizes racism and concurrently reduces race/white supremacy to class relations. Fourth, there is the argument that the difference holding between African and European culture/civilization results in mutually exclusive metaphysical/ontological and epistemological perspectives. Here the principle of ontological difference is constituted in absolute terms and reified rather than dialectically rendered as the unity and interpenetration of opposites. The matter of irreducibility, which is necessarily attendant to the principle of difference (and specifically coincides with the respective cultures/civilizations of Africa and Europe), is transformed into a principle of mutual exclusion.

It therefore follows that historical materialism cannot explain African (and its diasporan) realities. Fifth, given that Marx’s theory of the class struggle emerges from a materialist analysis and race/racism transcends material conditions, the imposition of any analysis centered on class struggle, for African peoples, is a matter of Marxist ‘conceit.’ Sixth, since historical development does not reside at this juncture in class forces in contention over the future of capitalism, the alternative, given all of the above, is a confrontation of civilizations in which African peoples are at odds with Europeans and European civilization. So ultimately Robinson’s Black Marxism, despite its refinements to Black nationalism, concludes on a comparable basis with the bourgeois Pan-Africanism of Stokely Carmichael. Carmichael’s declarations from over a decade before in fact anticipate Black Marxism. Where Robinson talks in terms of ‘Black Marxism,’ Carmichael opted for his brand of Nkrumahism vis-à-vis Marxism-Leninism (Carmichael 1971; Carmichael 1973).

I have conclusively demonstrated that Black Marxism (the text) as a prototype of the general notion ‘Black’ Marxism is only Marxism in name and not in its actual content. Furthermore and crucially it is anti-Marxist in substance, wherein this anti-Marxist content functions in concert with a seemingly open-ended and flexible incorporation of variously real historical Black persons who were at various levels committed to Marxism. This in sum is the historical and ideological legacy of Robinson’s Black Marxism in Black intellectual culture.

My initial suggestion for a change in nomenclature (from Black Marxism to Marxism in Ebony) is indicative of a fundamentally different conception of Marxism, wherein Marxism is no longer encumbered by the constrictions associated with Black as signifier of a particular type of Marxism. With Marxism in Ebony, Marxism retains its place as a revolutionary philosophy grounded in the materialist conception of history and reality.

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Notes and References

1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association under the sponsorship of the Radical Philosophy Association Philadelphia, PA. December 2002. I want to extend acknowledgements to Dr. J. Everet Green in his support for this panel along with Drs. Cedric J. Robinson of the University of California at Santa Barbara, Stephen Ferguson II, then with the University of Kansas now at North Carolina A & T University, and Charles Peterson of The College at Wooster, who all participated on the APA panel, and also to Prof. Charles W. Mills, then with the University of Illinois at Chicago now at Northwestern University, for their collegial exchange on this paper and philosophical matters surrounding it. Of course, all scholarly responsibility for its content rests with the author.

2 In addition to Robinson, Cornel West also argues that racism/white supremacy is premodern (i.e., pre-capitalist.) “Winthrop Jordan and Thomas Gossett have shown that there are noteworthy premodern racist viewpoints aimed directly and indirectly at nonwhite, especially black, people. West also states “I do not believe that the emergence of the idea of white supremacy in the modern West can be fully accounted for in terms of the psychological needs of white individuals and groups or in terms of political and economic interests of a ruling class.” Read especially “A Genealogy of Modern Racism” in Cornel West, Prophesy Deliverance: An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1982) p. 49, 54. For a critique of Robinson’s argument see Bill V. Mullen, “Notes on Black Marxism” Cultural Logic V. 4, n. 2, (Spring 2001).

3 I must point out that not all advocates for “Black” Marxism (of the second type) reach the conclusive determination of bourgeois nationalism for Black Marxists. While Lott describes Bayard Rustin as a Black Marxist, Rustin is not considered to be in any form a bourgeois nationalist and in fact is presented as anti-Black nationalist in orientation. Nonetheless confusion over the definition of Marxism continues to be problematic for Lott in his essay. Read Tommy Lott, “Black Marxist in Babylon: Bayard Rustin and the 1968 UFT Strike” Educational Foundations V. 8 (Winter 1994).

4 Robert Gooding-Williams says of Du Bois’ work, “I shall maintain that Souls exhibits forms of thought and language that mark it as an essay essentially rooted in the philosophy of history.” Robert Gooding-Williams, “Philosophy of History and Social Critique in The Souls of Black Folks” Social Science Information, v. 26 (1987). p.101.

5 One notable African American academic philosopher engaged in the philosophy of history is Prof. Berkeley Eddins. See his “Speculative Philosophy of History: A Critical Analysis” The Southern Journal of Philosophy V.6, n. 1, (Spring 1976) pp.52-9 and “The Covering-Law Model as Speculative Philosophy: A Reply to Mr. Loftin” The Southern Journal of Philosophy V. 9, n. 1 (Spring 1979) pp. 92-3.

7 Here I presume that because radical democrats claim to be post-Marxist they are not Marxists but rather liberals of a new stripe. Here I think Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau are exemplary instances. I follow Lenin’s analysis with respect to the Social Democratic/Democratic Socialist tradition, stemming from the Second International, as anti-Marxist in substance. In African American intellectual culture, Cornel West claims allegiance to both the traditions of radical democracy and social democracy/democratic socialism. See John H. McClendon, “An Essay-Review of Mark David Wood’s Cornel West and the Politics of Prophetic Pragmatism” The APA Newsletter on Philosophy and the Black Experience V.2, n. 1, (Fall 2002). Also consult, John H. McClendon III, “From Cultural Nationalism to Cultural Criticism: Philosophical Idealism, Paradigmatic Illusions and the Politics of Identity” in Carol Boyce Davies, ed., Decolonizing the Academy: African Diaspora Studies (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2003) pp. 3-26.

9 Asante argues, “Because Cruse is a strict African Americanist he does not view the relationship of Africa or the Caribbean to the African American as important. Therefore, the powerful cultural analysis of Cruse is outstanding in its reach but it is incomplete… Cruse's project would have been stronger had he seen that the real issue was the lack of Afrocentricity in the African. Although we could not escape our inherent Africanity in the way we talked, walked, danced, or made music, we did not often consciously choose to be Afrocentric. Therein is the difficulty with our journey in this country.” See Molefi Asante, “Harold Cruse and Afrocentric Theory” in Jerry Watts, ed., Harold Cruse's The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual Reconsidered (New York, Routledge, 2004).

10 Consult, Penny Von Eschen, Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anti-colonialism, 1937-1957 (Ithaca: Cornel University Press, 1997) pp. 109-118. Edward E. Strong, “On the 40th Anniversary of the NAACP” Political Affairs XXIX (February 1950). John W. Preston, “Recent Developments in the Negro Peoples Movement” Political Affairs V. XXXI (February 1952). Martin Duberman, Paul Robeson: A Biography (New York: Ballantine Books, 1989) pp. 347-49. Also read Gerald Horne, Black and Red: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War, 1944-63 (Albany: State University of New York, 1986). The NAACP anti-Communism is uncovered in a more recent book review on Barbara Ransby’s Ella Baker and The Black Freedom Movement, see Bernardine Dohr, “She Challenged the Rules” Monthly Review (January 2004) V. 55, n. 8. Also on Wilkins anti-communism read Carol Anderson, Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003) pp. 159-60, 167-70, 186-87.

11 On the Moore criticisms consult Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual pp. 253-66. For Moore’s response to Cruse see W. Burghardt Turner and Joyce Moore Turner, eds., Richard B. Moore, Caribbean Militant in Harlem (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988) p.105, note 79. For a treatment of Cruse’s anti-West Indian posture, see Winston James’s Postscript to his Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia, “Harold Cruse and the West Indians: Critical Remarks on The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual.” As to Cruse’s personal vendetta with Moore, read James (p. 349, note 45).

12 Lenin offers an analysis of why and how certain elements become attracted to Marxism, especially during periods in the rapid expansion of radical social movements. While such ‘Marxists’ are often, in fact, ideologically weak and more prone to petit bourgeois ideology and philosophy, their bourgeois character becomes more apparent during periods of reaction. V. I. Lenin, “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism”, Lenin Collected Works V. 14 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972).

13 In addition to Robinson, Alkalimat includes within the ‘Black Marxism’ school Cornel West, Amiri Baraka, Manning Marable, Lloyd Hogan and Clarence Munford. Of note is the fact that his selection of Munford is based on the period when Munford’s works could be best described as ‘orthodox’ or ‘classical’ Marxism. Thus, in this respect, Alkalimat is in concert with Robinson’s theory of incorporating ‘Marxists’ of the Black left into the determinate theory of the ‘Black Radical Tradition.’

14 Arguably Carmichael’s Pan-African nationalism was not as crude as Farrakhan’s Black nationalism. See Stokely Carmichael, “Marxism-Leninism and Nkrumahism” The Black Scholar V. 4, n. 5 (February 1973) pp. 41-43. Also consult, Ernest Allen Jr., “Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Continuing Evolution of the Nation of Islam” in Amy Alexander, ed., The Farrakhan Factor (New York: Grove Press, 1998) pp.52-102.

15 Charles Mills further elaborates on his evolution to anti-Marxism in Charles Mills, From Class to Race: Essays in White Marxism and Black Radicalism (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).

16 Ani argues that Platonism is the philosophical foundation of European thought. Furthermore, Platonism’s significance resides in its materialism and consequently, the legacy of European materialism is reducible to Platonism. Of course, not only does the history of Western philosophy undermine such a foundational character to Platonism but also there is the glaring fact that Plato was an idealist. Unfortunately, Ani does not comprehend such elementary and basic points. For a more detailed critique of Ani, see John H. McClendon, “The Afrocentric Project: The Quest for Particularity and the Negation of Objectivity” Explorations in Ethnic Studies V.18, n. 1 (January 1995).

17 Marx and Engels argue, “It is not consciousness that determines life, but life that determines consciousness. For the first manner of approach the starting-point is taken as the living individual; for the second manner of approach, which conforms to real life, it is the real life living individuals themselves, and consciousness is considered solely their consciousness.” Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976) pp. 42-3. Also consult Frederick Engels, “Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy” in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Selected Works V.3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1973) p. 345.