NEGRO STRUGGIE SHAKES PARTY ALIGNMENTS IN U.S.
By Evelyn Sell
As the election campaign in the U.S. goes into its final weeks, it is apparent that the Freedom Now struggle has had =~ and will continue to have -- profound effects.on the make-up of the two major political parties. The expanding demands of the Negro struggle are foroing the professional politicians out of their "business as usual" ruts, Splits and new coalitions within the parties and between them will continue to occur as the various groupings seek to adjust to the new social realities created by the civil-rights movement.
The most obvious indication of this process is the Goldwater candidacy whereby the nouveaux riches western oil and war-contract millionaires hope ‘to climb into the summits of political power on | the backs of Southern racists and the loudly proclaimed “white backlash" which Alabama's Governor Wallace scared up during his recent election bids in the Northern primaries.
. Especially significant: is the impact of the Freedom Now struggle on the Democratic party coalition which was brought together by Roosevelt in the 1936 election, The economic crisis of the thirties introduced a strange assortment of political bedfellows: the Dixiecrats, the big city political machines-in the North, organized labor and urban Negroes, This coalition endured through a world war, cold war, "police" actions in various parts of the world, recessions, inflation, automation and the witch=hunt. The myth was spread that this coalition would endure forever, nothing could break it up -especially since the few challenges to this structure failed to disrupt the alignment of forces, Today, however, the hammer blows of the Negroest battles for equality and. dignity are pounding the. Democratic party into a new shape.
The Northern party machines have long been able to reach satisfactory arrangements with the Southern political bosses and they would continue their mutually profitable association if the Negro struggle would allow them to +-- but the unrelenting pressure of the Negro revolt does not-lJeave much room for any more comfortable accommodations. The wedge of civil rights has been thrust between ‘these two wings of.the party and each freedom battle pounds that wedge in ever deeper, The Southerners cling desperately to Jim Crow because their political power is dependent on a disenfranchised Negro
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population, The Northern "liberal" wing is dependent on the urban votes and the Negro is fast becoming the balance of power in the nation's major cities, These different bases of political strength. will inevitably lead to newer and deeper clashes between these two... sections of the Democratic party, ; a
Labor, the other major partner, is also being affected by the Negroes! demands and activities, The political arm of organized labor has been frozen within the Democratic party. The challenging demands of the Negroes are the first tingling sensations which indicate a return of warmth and life, The amalgamation of organized labor and Southern reactionaries has provided winning tickets for the Democrats at election time but it has also provided a source of inevitable friction and crisis within the party. The Freedom Now struggle aggravates that unstable relationship. by. continuing to press for job equality and economic gains,
Union activities in the South inevitably run: smack into. the fist of the antilabor racists who control the economic, sgcial and | political life of the area, As long as organized labor remains tied: to the Northern wing of--the Democratic party it cannot take up a militant struggie against its Southern political associates, The Dixiecrats are an embarrassment to the liberal labor Democrats and the labor allies are a pain in the. neck to Southern politicians, Despite their basic conflicts,.labor and the Dixiecrats have. been. held together with the glue of Northern Democratic machine polities.
The Negro struggle is dissolving that glue.
The "liberals" and their labor partners are using the threat of a Goldwater victory to help whip dissatisfied workers into line. Before the Republican convention there were a number of Negro threats about swinging black votes to the Republicans, The flagrantly evident racist support to Goldwater, however, has blocked any significant movement of Negroes into the ranks of the Republican party. As a matter of fact, long-time Negro politicians within the New York Republican party are refusing to campaign for the presidential nominee of their party.
Caught between the Democratic frying pan and the Republican fire, many Negroes state their intention to "go fishing" on eleotion day (i.e., abstain from voting). The more advanced sections of Negroes are taking the first steps toward creating a genuinely oeffective alternative to the two capitalist parties. The most developed expression of this tendency is the Freedom Now party, organized in the North last summer after the mammoth March on Washington.
‘The withdrawal of significant blocks of Negro: votes: from the labor-endorsed candidates in the North -- either through abstentionism or independent political action ~~ will necessarily create a deep crisis in the labor-Democratic machine partnership. The labor bureauerats may want to cling to the Democrats but they wontt be wanted if they can't deliver the very important Negro vote!
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The shock waves of the Freedom Now struggle are thus rattling the teeth of the labor bureaucracy and the Democratic party big-wigs. How is the struggle affecting the political consciousness and activi-~ ties of the rank and file? The loudest, most publicized reactions have come from the most conservative sections of the working class, The main body of the white working class has not been heard from yet. The obvious political messages of the Freedom Now struggle are thrust repeatedly at the white workers immobilized within the Democratic party. The very existence of a Freedom Now party on the Michigan ballot breaks through the fairy-tale argument that "We mist stiok to the Democrats. We can't do anything on our own." If a small group of Negroes oan create a party, get on the ballot and fight in their own interests, then why can't the much more numerous, rich and power-= ful labor movement?
The Negroes! political activities are a preview of what the white workers will be forced to undertake once they start to move ~~ and they will move; they have no choice in the matter, just as the Negroes had no choice but to struggle against their conditions, of life, The political activities of Negroes today have far-reaching consequences in terms of breaking up the long sustained political alignments within the capitalist parties and in terms of providing rich lessons to help educate the working class as a whole for their next major struggle: the construction of an independent political organization which will challenge ‘the -capitalist. system.
DR. PERERA VS, LEON TROTSKY
In Colombo, on July 15, the former