Communist Party of China
Excerpt from Peking Review January 26, 1968, pp. 15-17
Irresistible Surging Tide of American People's Struggle
In the United States the people's struggle has surged to a new high in
the past year. The mounting and furious struggle of the Afro-Americans
against racial suppression has echoed, and was interwoven with,
the American people's broadening and intensifying struggle against
the war of aggression in Vietnam, and with the workers' spreading and
growing strike movement. Occurring one after another, these struggles
presented a magnificent picture of the people's broad, irresistible
movement. U.S. imperialism, which is being badly mauled on the Vietnam
battlefield, is thus at the end of its rope on the home front as well
and finds itself in unprecedented isolation and in an extremely backward
position.
Our great leader Chairman Mao Tse-tung pointed out long ago that "to start
a war, the U.S. reactionaries must first attack the American people. They
are already attacking the American people--oppressing the workers and
democratic circles in the United States politically and economically
and preparing to impose fascism there. The people of the United States
should stand up and resist the attacks of the U.S. reactionaries. I
believe they will." The all-round upsurge of the American people's
struggles in 1967 has fully borne out Chairman Mao's brilliant thesis. In
order to continue and expand its war of aggression against Vietnam, the
U.S. reactionary ruling group has intensified its attacks on the American
people politically and economically and has tightened its fascist rule at
home. However, these attacks on the American people have aggravated the
class contradictions in the country; they have speeded up the awakening
of the American people, especially the Afro-Americans, the youth and the
workers, and have stimulated them to stand up courageously and strike
back against the onslaught of the reactionaries.
"Afro-Americans' Raging Struggle Against Racial Oppression"
The toiling masses of the Afro-Americans who have long been suffering
in the depths of social injustice, are not only the victims of ruthless
racial discrimination and oppression, but are also bearing the brunt
of U.S. imperialist policy of aggression against Vietnam. That is
why their resistance is the most bitter and their struggle the most
resolute. Last year, Afro-American struggles against racial discrimination
and for freedom and equal rights stormed more than 100 large and small
U.S. cities. Their scope and intensity have surpassed all such previous
struggles in the history of the United States. According to obviously
watered-down U.S. official figures, 75 large-scale Afro-American armed
struggles against racial oppression occurred in various parts of the
United States in the ten months of 1967 as against only 21 in 1966
and 5 in 1965. In their struggles, the Afro-Americans have displayed a
highly militant spirit and great courage. In the armed struggles against
racial oppression last summer, the most outstanding of which took place
in Detroit, there appeared large numbers of Black snipers and sniper
squads which even used machineguns. The fascist troops and police were
badly knocked about and a number of cities were paralysed. Thrown into
a panic by this raging storm, the U.S. ruling group cried out in alarm
that the violent struggles of the Afro-Americans were "the number one
problem in the United States today" and the "gravest domestic crisis"
in more than a century.
What is particularly heartening is the fact that in their struggles
more and more Afro-Americans have begun to realize that the invincible
thought of Mao Tse-tung is their most powerful ideological weapon for
achieving their liberation. Some young Afro-American intellectuals who
have taken an active part in the armed struggle against racial oppression
have begun to study Mao Tse-tung's thought.
Stokley Carmichael, a young Afro-American leader, pointed out last August
that many Black Americans taking part in the struggle had in their hands
the red-covered Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung. He added that
Chairman Mao's thesis that "political power grows out of the barrel of
a gun" and other teachings are helping to awaken the Black Americans. In
the fierce class struggle, the more advanced among the Afro-Americans have
come to understand Chairman Mao's brilliant teaching that "in the final
analysis, national struggle is a matter of class struggle." They have
come to realize that, to gain liberation, they must fight shoulder to
shoulder with the oppressed peoples and nations of the world, including
other oppressed people in their own country, to smash the imperialist
system and its principal bulwark, U.S. Imperialism.
Under these circumstances, the deceptive tricks like "civil rights,"
"racial integration" and "non-violence" which the U.S. reactionaries
tried to pull off during the Afro-Americans' armed struggles last year
have become increasingly bankrupt in the eyes of the broad masses
of the Afro-Americans. The idea of armed struggle against racial
oppression and the slogans of "Black power" and "violent self-defence"
are taking root in the hearts of the people. Armed struggle against
racial oppression is gradually becoming the main form of struggle waged
by the Afro-Americans. This new awakening of theirs is bound to push
their struggle to an entirely new stage.
Vigorous Upsurge of the Movement Against Aggression in Vietnam
The Afro-American struggles and the struggles of the American people in
other fields are supporting and giving impetus to each other. With the
constant "escalation" of the U.S. war of aggression against Vietnam,
the American people's movement against the war has experienced an
unprecedented upsurge. In the past year, mass organizations opposing
this war and opposing conscription have mushroomed in cities, in rural
areas, in universities and high schools, and in the ghettos of the
Afro-Americans. In April and in October of 1967, the broad masses of
the American people carried out two mammoth protest campaigns against
U.S. imperialism's policy of aggression in Vietnam.
In the struggle, more and more people, especially the youth, have seen
through and rejected the hoax of "pacifism" and "legalism" preached by the
reactionary authorities and their henchmen; they have raised clear-cut
militant slogans and waged a brave and determined struggle. During last
October's mammoth demonstration in Washington, the demonstrators shouted
unequivocally: "The enemy is Lyndon Johnson." They besieged the heavily
guarded Pentagon. A group of youth, disregarding their personal safety,
charged into the building and fought against the reactionary troops and
police, showing a dauntless spirit in face of brute force.
A new development in the American people's movement opposing the
U.S. war of aggression against Vietnam last year was that more and more
young men have firmly refused to fight and die for U.S. imperialism's
policy of aggression and war, and have taken daring actions against the
draft measures of the reactionary authorities. They have brought about a
vigorous upsurge in the anti-draft movement of the American youth. During
the past year, large numbers of young men in various parts of the United
States, openly defying the threats of the reactionary authorities,
boldly burnt their draft cards, besieged army induction centres, and
drove away the war recruiters. Some of them prevented the trains carrying
draftees from going to the docks by sitting on the rails. Their heroic
actions threw the reactionary authorities into a panic. The press of the
U.S. monopoly capitalists had to admit that today the young Americans'
"open resistance is greater than any time" in more than a century.
[MC5 comments: This article shows that once again, the Progressive Labor
Party was not able to cover up the basic facts of the U$ situation
with fairy-tales of industrial worker radicalism. The article states
that the Black struggle is "most bitter and their struggle the most
resolute." It is not the industrial worker struggle that is most reliable
and resolute. This much the Chinese comrades could see clearly. The
fact that the Chinese analysis was still in the throes of conflict with
the PLP is demonstrated by continued references to "Afro-Americans" and
the inevitability of a white worker rising. On the other hand, with the
policy of "seek truth from facts," the Chinese did not just consider the
Black struggle a prelude to revolution. The Chinese comrades called it
the most significant of all struggles in U.$. history thus far. That is
why it was not difficult for MIM to take what the Chinese Maoists were
saying, dump the PLP albatross and come up with its own line basically
in continuity with Mao's.
As the PLP went deeper into the industrial working class, the more it
had to dump the Peking Review line on integration expressed above. Not
surprisingly, the PLP finally broke with Mao in 1971. That is also a
matter of "seeking truth from facts." It is high time to sum up the
damage of industrial worker fallacies.
Also important to note is that at the time, the Chinese thought the
U.S. imperialists would not withdraw from Vietnam and would keep up
wars of aggression that would wind them up in hotter water. Thus,
they instructed us here to prepare for fascism and the final desperate
moves of the oppressor. The revolutionaries thought it was very possible
U.S. imperialism would bring itself to an end in a few years.]
