C. L. R. James and the Race/Class Question

See George Breitman, ed., Leon Trotsky on Black Nationalism and Self-Determination (New York, Merit Publishers, 1967), passim.

Many of James's works contain biographical information. In addition, a biographical sketch can be found in Martin Glaberman's introduction to the C. L. R. James Special Issue of Radical America (Vol. IV, No. 4, May 1970). I am grateful to Mr. Glaberman for allowing me to obtain copies of publications by James which are out of print and difficult to come by, and for not appearing to be importuned by my many questions. Mr. Glaberman is a long-time political associate of Mr. James.

Since the famous Fifth Pan-African Congress held at Manchester in 1945, the term 'Pan-Africanism' has increasingly been applied to the question of political unity on the African continent. Its original meaning (which included both the above usage and the idea of a community of interest among African people all over the world) still enjoys wide currency. See, e.g., Stokely Carmichael, 'We Are All Africans', The Black Scholar (Vol. I, No. 7, 1970), pp. 15-19. James himself reflected this resurgence of the original Pan-African outlook when he reprinted his A History of Negro Protest (London, 1936) as A History of Pan-African Revolt ( Washington, D.C., Drum and Spear Press, 1969).

C.L.R. James , World Revolution, 1917-1936-The Rise and Fall of the Communist International (London, Secker and Warburg, 1937).

C.L.R. James , The Black Jacobins ( New York, Vintage, 1963; first published 1938).

Leon Trotsky on Black Nationalism, passim.

James's own account of the tribulations surrounding his deportation can be found in his Mariners, Renegades and Castaways-The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In (New York , published by C. L. R. James, 1953 ).

Leon Trotsky on Black Nationalism, p. 21.

Johnson-Forest Tendency, Balance Sheet: The Workers Party and the Johnson-Forest Tendency (n.p., pub. by Johnson-Forest Tendency, August 1947), p. 8.

The date of re-entry into the S.W.P. is erroneously given as 1951 in Ivar Oxaal, Black Intellectuals Come to Power, q.v. for much biographical information on James (Cambridge, Mass. , Schenkman, 1968), p. 77. The 1951 date of final exit is given by James himself in J. R. Johnson, Letter on Organization (Detroit, Facing Reality Publishing Committee, n.d.), p. 3.

See C.L.R. James , 'Dr. Williams's Trinidad: An Attack', Venture (January 1966).

C.L.R. James , 'African Development', Speak Out, journal of the Facing Reality Publishing Committee (Vol. II, No. 4April 1969), p. 4.

The date given here for the formation of the Bureau is 1935. The date usually given is 1937. Also, the formation of the I.A.S.B. is usually credited solely to Padmore. For more on the relationship between Padmore and James, see C. L. R. James, 'Document: C. L. R. James on the Origins', Radical America (Vol. II, No. 4 July-August 1968), pp. 24-7, and J.R. Hooker , Black Revolutionary: George Padmore's Path from Communism to Pan-Africanism ( London, Pall Mall, 1967), passim.

'Document : C. L. R. James on the Origins', op. cit., p. 24.

Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana (London, Nelson, 1959), p. 36.

'Document: C. L. R. James on the Origins', op. cit., p. 26.

Ibid.

See C.L.R. James , Black Power: Its Past, Today, and the Way Ahead (Detroit, Facing Reality , 1968),

passim; and Facing Reality Publishing Committee, The Gathering Forces (Detroit, Facing Reality, 1967), pp. 65-7. This was a draft of a statement to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution in the Soviet Union. It was a collective effort. Mr. Glaberman indicated to me the passages written by James.

Williams, in his autobiography, says he gave up an opportunity to visit Nigeria in order to confer with James in London in 1956 on his party's draft programme and Trinidad's draft constitution. Padmore and West Indian economist W. Arthur Lewis also participated in these discussions. See Eric Williams, Inward Hunger (London, Deutsch, 1969), p. 143.

Black students in London organized a 'C. L. R. James School' recently—Bumbo (journal of the West Indian Students Union in London, n.p., n.d., c. April 1970); a recent case of James's participation in protest activities of black students in London can be found in the Trinidad Guardian (18 August 1967), p. 1. The occasion was the banning of Stokely Carmichael by the British and Trinidad governments.

James's major works on Marxist theory are World Revolution; State Capitalism and World Revolution (Detroit, Facing Reality, 1969, first pub. 1950); and Facing Reality (Detroit, Correspondence , 1958).

Black Power, p. 12.

J.R. Johnson , Letters on Organization ( Detroit, Facing Reality, 1963), p. 14.

Black Power, p. 12.

Black Pacobins, p. 283.

C.L.R. James , 'The Revolutionary Solution to the Negro Problem in the United States', Radical America (Vol. IV, No. 4, May 1970), p. 18. The date given for the resolution here is 1947. James gives it as 1948 in C. L. R. James, Perspectives and Proposals (Detroit, Facing Reality, 1966), p. 31.

Especially in Black Skin, White Masks ( New York, Grove Press, 1967).

E.g. in Ghana.

J. Saunders Redding , The Lonesome Road ( New York, Doubleday, 1958), p. 227.

C.L.R. James , Beyond A Boundary ( London, Hutchinson, 1963), p. 40.

Ibid, p. 39.

See, e.g., Elliott Bastien , 'The Weary Road to Whiteness and the Hasty Retreat into Nationalism', in Henri Tajfel and John Dawson, eds., Disappointed Guests (London , Oxford University Press for the Institute of Race Relations, 1965), p. 44;

Austin Clarke , 'Harrison College and Me', New World Quarterly (Vol. III, Nos. 1 and 2, Barbados Independence Issue, Dead Season 1966 and Croptime 1967), pp. 31-5.

J.R. Johnson , Marxism and the Intellectuals (Detroit, Facing Reality, 1962), p. 14.

Conversation with Trotsky in Leon Trotsky on Black Nationalism, p. 26.

J.R. Johnson , Down With Starvation Wages in South-East Missouri (Local 313, UCAPAWA-CIO, n.d.), p. 5.

C.L.R. James , Modern Politics (Port-of-Spain, P. N. M. Publishing Company, 1960), p. 45.

Leon Trotsky on Black Nationalism, p. 38.

Marcus Garvey , 'The Negro, Communism, Trade Unionism and His [?] Friend', in Amy Jacques Garvey, ed., The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (London, Frank Cass, 1967), Vol. II, p. 70.

J.R. Johnson , Why Negroes Should Oppose the War (New York, Pioneer Publishers, for the S.W.P. and the Young Peoples Socialist League, n.d.), p. 26.

Leon Trotsky on Black Nationalism, p. 26.

Ibid., pp. 24, 25.

Ibid., p. 51.

Ibid., p. 52.

The Balance Sheet, p. 12.

'The Revolutionary Solution to the Negro Problem ...', op. cit.; for a later statement of James's group on the race question see 'Negro Americans and American Politics', in C. L. R. James, Every Cook Can Govern (Detroit, Correspondence, 1956), p. 19ff.

Marxism and the Intellectuals, p. 29.

Black Power, p. 9.