03/28/2020
Part 4: Racism | Beyond propaganda. The Soviet Quest for Multiculturalism
The soviet quest for an egalitarian society free of racism was perhaps the most publicized piece of USSR propaganda, clearly because it sharply contrasted with the state of affairs within the United States regarding race and racism during the entire Cold War period, and up until the 21st Century. The seriousness of the problem of racism in the so-called Western World in general, and in the US in particular, is far from an exaggeration of soviet propaganda. In that sense, Cold War, soviet anti-racist rhetoric was a remarkably progressive thing at the time, because it was raising awareness about the routine violations of human rights inside supposedly free, democratic countries, and also because it challenged dominant notions that had emanated from so-called scientific racial theories, notions that were being used to uphold white supremacy around the world. Moreover, and notwithstanding the instances in which reality deviated from the ideal, the aspiration for a modern soviet society free of racism was not mere discourse: rather, it was ingrained in the ideology and debates at the heart of the Party, and it was the State’s official policy, reinforced and disseminated throughout the USSR in the early years, before the Stalin era.
The USSR’s antiracist quest was also particularly real for black American activists and intellectuals who not only found inspiration in communist ideas directly, but also found a refuge in the USSR, and an ally in the Communist International in the middle of the 20th century. In fact, some of these black activists and intellectuals played an important role in shaping the soviet antiracist program themselves, criticizing it and keeping it in check. Already in 1922, the Fourth Commitern had declared its support of all black liberation movements fighting imperialism around the world, while appointing an African American, Otto Huiswood, as the head of its “Negro Bureau” as it was called. It was in part through this relationship with soviet antiracism that the notion of an African American nation was pushed forward when the 1928 Sixth Commitern Congress declared African Americans as an oppressed nation, with the right of self-determination, and at the vanguard in the worldwide fight against racial imperialism.
One of the key figures behind this declaration was another African American communist: Harry Haywood, who together with people like Otto Hall, James Ford, Ray Mahoney, and many others, would push forward the debate about the American Black Nation in the years to come, laying the foundations for the greater agenda to defend the rights of African Americans inside the US. This agenda was pushed forward and expanded to other minorities in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, heralded by the likes of Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, Malcom X, among others. The Black Lives Matter movement and its allies pledge to keep pushing this same agenda forward in the 21st century.
Today
The soviet take on diversity and antiracism really clashes with mainstream views on the same topics within the United States. Whether it’s back in the 1920s and 1930’s, with K*K and N**i rallies being held and accepted as normal on US soil, or today, when the K*K is still a thing and the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim vitriol of the 2016 Presidential campaign were able to sit a US president, it is clear that the United States has really gotten immensely behind in the race to end racism worldwide.
The Trump regime, police brutality and selectively targeted policies such as stop-and-frisk, as well as voter suppression laws that target the non-white population, all of these are proof of deeply ingrained, institutionalized racism in the United States. The school to prison pipeline and a failed correctional system used to incarcerate black and brown minorities, just add up to the stark statistics on sexual and religious discrimination, the epidemic of domestic terrorism, the effective use of plain racist rhetoric as a way to obtain political power, etc. The Cold War is effectively over. The moon landings did not age well, and white supremacy refuses to be taken out of life support. It’s time to rediscover the roots of today’s complexity, and find some inspiration beyond propaganda. From the sandbox to the seesaw. From the seesaw to the swing.
