It's Very Simple: The True Story Of Civil Rights
Chapter Eight: The United Nations
By Alan Stang
Suppose that you're a Communist and you want to capture the United States. You've already succeeded in setting every sort of person against every other sort of person: Jews against Christians, Negroes against whites, Mississippians against New Yorkers, women against men--all of course according to plan; and you're doing very well in what Lenin called "the battle of the streets." Even your war of national liberation is beginning to take shape. But the United States isn't Czechoslovakia. It isn't Albania. At this point in those countries you could almost forget this annoying nonsense about "humanity" and turn to the last step: that of killing people. The United States, however, is the fountainhead of capitalism, and therefore the last bastion of fascism. Adn, also unlike Albania, it's a huge country containing millions of fascists and armed nazis, all vicious. Even the women are vicious. So it's obvious that you can't just crawl out of the American's plumbing with your two hundred goons and announce that you're here to capture his country. You are fully aware that if he didn't believe he'd simply laugh himself sick, and if he did he would rise up against you with the rest of the Americans, black and white, man and woman, Mississippian and New Yorker, butcher, baker, candlestick maker and industrialist--and that when it was all over there wouldn't be enough left of you to put under a microscope. So--if you were a Communist--what would you do? Well of course, you would call in the United Nations--if you were a Communist. Why? "One resolution after another protesting new colonialist trends which America's rulers support and the racist practices they endorse, emerges from the Human Rights Commission of the General Assembly of the United Nations," says Communist official William L. Patterson. "Notice must be taken of this historic fact, for herein lies an international bond of the liberation movements of progressive mankind."2 (italics added) And, says William Worthy, "Negro nationalists" are noticing it: ". . . Negro nationalists have already begun to 'bypass the American government and to look upon the Afro-Asian bloc in the UN as their representatives, as a Negro writer asserted in Correspondence magazine last year."3 The point is--if you are a Communist--that you would orchestrate your strategies; you would combine the "liberation movements of progressive mankind," all bound by the "international bond" that is the United Nations--with the civil rights and national liberation movements in the United States. But the question at once arises: Didn't the UN oppose "self-determination" when the province of Katanga tried to apply it? Because of course, when Katanga seceded from the Congo, the United Nations got nasty. In fact, the United Nations got brutal, as the bombed-out hospitals there will attest. The answer of course is that since President Tshombe of Katanga is an outspoken enemy of communism, then what he was doing couldn't possibly be a war of national liberation--simply because, as Communists insist, anyone who opposes communism is a fascist. As you will recall, both Lenin and Stalin emphasized that the tactic of the "war of national liberation" is exactly that: a tactic, to be used only when tactically profitable: . . . A people has the right to secede, but it may or may not excercise that right, according to circumstances. Thus we are at liberty to agitate for or against secession, according to the interests of the proletariat, of the proletarian revolution. Hence, the question of secession must be determined in each particular case independently, in accordance with existing circumstances . . .4 If, in short, a Communist faction secedes from a non-Communist country, that is a war of national liberation. But if a non-Communist province secedes from a Communist country, that's morally wrong, that's fascist exploitation of the laboring masses. And of course, you'd apply this strategy--as we have seen--to the United States: The right of self-determination does not necessarily imply separation. It means the right to separate, if the citizens of the proposed new republic so choose, and it means the right to remain a federated part of the United States, if that suits the interests of the Negro people better, which depends on the circumstances. For instance, under conditions of capitalism in the United States today, when they are ground under by the heel of Yankee imperialism, the Negros would achieve immeasurably greater freedom of separation. Should there, on the other hand, be a truly workers' and farmers' government in the United States today, the real interests of the Negro masses would be served best by federation with such a government, as is shown by the position enjoyed by the numerous formerly subject nationalities in the Soviet Union.5 So the point is--if you are a Communist--that you would apply the internationalist power of the world's "liberation movements" throughout the UN--as in the case of Algeria--to the national liberation movement within the United States, with the aim of breaking up the huge territory of the United States, so that, as James Baldwin has mentioned, it would become more manageable. How can we be sure that this is true? Well, the Communists say so. The National Negro Congress was a Communist operation.6 ". . . The crowning achievement of the communists was their getting A. Philip Randolph to serve as first chairman of the NNC," writes William A. Nolan.7 In May 1947, the National Negro Congress published "a petition to the United Nations on behalf of 13 million oppressed Negro citizens of the United States of America."8 Dr. Max Yergan, then a Communist,9 is listed in the pamplet as president. Revels Cayton, also a Communist,10 is listed as executive secretary. The "Proof in Support of the Petition" is presented under a heading called "The Oppression of the American Negro: The Facts," by Dr. Herbert Aptheker. Dr. Herbert Aptheker is identified as: "Ph.D. Columbia U., Member American Historical Society."11 He is not identified as a Communist, though he has been a leading one for years. The pamphlet begins with the following paragraphs, in an attempt to establish that the UN has jurisdiction to act within the United States: 4. Reference: Article 55, Sec. 1 (c), Charter of the United Nations. The petition asks that the UN do as follows: 2. Make such recommendations and take such other actions as it may deem proper with respect to the facts herein stated, to the end that "higher standards" in the field of human rights may be achieved in the United States of America and "discrimination and other abuses" on the grounds of race and color, may be "checked and eliminated." Now remember, we are not arguing here about whether or not "the oppression of the American Negro" should be brought to an end; all men of good will are against oppression--real oppression. We are simply trying to show how the NNC is trying to internationalize the tragic American problem by bringing in the UN. And since the UN has jurisdiction only over international disputes, it is implicit, is it not, that the dispute is between the Negro "nation" and the United States. There are many . . . signs, of course, of the developing national consciousness of the American Negro people [said William Z. Foster]. They are building up many movements that are definitely of a national liberation character. They are also closely identifying themselves with the national liberation struggles of colonial peoples all over the world. They feel a kinship with these movements. Very significant in this general respect was the demand made by the National Negro Congress to the United Nations to take up the grievances of the Negro people in this country . . . Such an act was essentially that of a nation appealing over the head of the American government to the peoples of the world for justice, much as almost any other colonial or oppressed nation might do.14 (italics added) In December, 1947, the NNC was merged with the Civil Rights Congress, which was also a Communist operation.15 In 1951, the Civil Rights Congress issued its own petition: We Charge Genocide, The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief from a Crime of the United States Government Against the Negro People.16 The editor of the petition is identified as William L. Patterson, who is not only still a top Communist official, but is the same William L. Patterson who was seen enjoying the rally at which Jesse Gray called for "100 skilled black revolutionaries who are ready to die." The staff for the petition includes Richard O. Boyer, Howard Fast, Dr. Oakley Johnson, Leon Josephson, and Elizabeth Lawson, all Communists. The petitioners include Isadore Begun, Richard O. Boyer, Benjamin J. Davis, Jr., Howard Fast, James Ford, Abner Green, Harry Haywood, Arnold Johnson, Claudia Jones, Albert Kahn, Elizabeth Lawson, William L. Patterson, Pettis Perry, John Pittman and Paul Robeson, all Communists. Nowhere in the petition does it say that the Civil Rights Congress was a Communist operation. But in the introduction by Communist William L. Patterson, who is there identified as national executive secretary of the CRC, we read as follows: It is sometimes incorrectly thought that genocide means the complete and definite destruction of a race or people. The Genocide Convention, however, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1948, defines genocide as any killings on the basis of race, or, in its specific words, as "killing members of the group." Any intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, racial, ethnic or religious group is genocide, according to the Convention. Thus, the Convention states, "causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group" is genocide as well as "killing members of the group." You will recall that the U.S. Supreme Court said in Brown v. Board of Education on May 17, 1954, that segregated schools produce in the Negro child "a feeling of inferiority as to his status." This would imply not only that those Americans who want segregated schools are guilty of genocide, but that the genocide convention, can somehow intervene to forbid segregation. We maintain, therefore, that the oppressed Negro citizens of the United States, segregated, discriminated against and long the target of violence, suffer from genocide as the result of the consistent, conscious, unified, policies of every branch of government. And Mr. Patterson is correct. According to international law, and according to our own law, the Genocide Convention, as well as the provisions of the United Nations Charter, supersedes, negates and displaces all discriminatory racist law on the books of the United States and the several states Such as the Constitution of the United States. . . . The General Assembly of the United Nations, by reason of the United Nations Charter and the Genocide Convention, itself is invested with power to receive this indictment and act on it. The United Nations, in short, already has the right to send an army of "neutral" troops--from Ghana, Indonesia, India and Burma--to the American South, just as it did to the Congo. The NAACP also got into the act: This question then, which is without doubt primarily an internal and national question [wrote W. E. B. DuBois, who later became a member of the Communist party] becomes inevitably an international question and will in the future become more and more international, as the nations draw together. In this great attempt to find common ground and to maintain peace, it is therefore, fitting and proper that the thirteen million American citizens of Negor descent should appeal to the United Nations and ask that organization in the proper way to take cognizance of a situation which deprives this group of their rights as men and citizens, and by so doing makes the functioning of the United Nations more difficult, if not in many cases impossible. According to the New York Journal-American of July 1, 1964, page eight, Malcolm X warned that "if necessary, he would take the plight of the U.S. Negro to the United Nations." You will recall that on July twelfth Malcolm arrived in Cairo to attend a meeting of the council of Ministers of the Organization for African Unity. What he said there, according to the New York Times of July 14, was, as we have seen, that he would acquaint the Africans "with the true plight of America's Negroes and to show them how our situation is as much a violation of the United Nations Human Rights Charter as the situation in South Africa or Angola." You will also recall the famous rally at which Mr. Gray called for "guerrilla warfare." At that rally Mr. Gray announced yet another rally for the next day, to be held at the UN, to demand UN intervention "in the police terror in the United States."18 "I do believe police brutality in this city, Mississippi and other such places should be an issue placed before the United Nations," says James Farmer, national director of CORE.19 Because this is still a free country, it is perfectly possible for Mr. Farmer, and for Mr. X, Mr. Gray and even Mr. Patterson, to say whatever they like, even something this fantastic. But that's no proof we're going to get it. Or is it? On March 9, 1964, journalist Robert S. Allen reported: The same administration attorneys who drafted the civil rights program are engineering White House backing for an international court to enforce "civil rights" as stipulated under a treaty being prepared at the United Nations. The sinister fact is that "the treaty and the international civil rights court are part of a backstage State Department paln to link the racial problem in the U.S. with that in Africa, and then put final jurisdiction under the UN."20 The Communists are busy in Puerto Rico, as they are everywhere else. On November 20, 1964, according to the New York Times, a UN committee took the first step toward forcing a United Nations discussion of independence for Puerto Rico. Mr. Dwight Dickinson, the American member of the "Special Committee on Colonialism," told his colleagues that their decision was "shocking--I repeat, shocking."21 Dear Mr. Dickinson! Surely you aren't going to make any wild charges!
1. Leslie Morris, "National and Democratic Revolution in French Canada," World Marxist Review, vol. 7, no. 9 (September 1964), p. 19. 2. William L. Patterson, in Negro Liberation, A Goal for All Americans (New York, New Current Publishers, July 1964), p. 51. 3. William Worth, "The Red Chinese American Negro," Esquire, vol. 62, no. 4 (October 1964), p. 176. 4. Joseph Stalin, Marxism and the National and Colonial Question, p. 64. Speech delivered at the seventh all-Russian conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labor party (April 29, 1917). 5. James S. Allen, "Negro Liberation," International Pamphlets, no. 29 (New York, International Publishers, 1932), pp. 21-22. 6. Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States, appendix IX, Special Committee on Un-American Activites, House, 78th Congress, second session (Washington, D.D., Government Printing Office, 1944), pp. 1284-1295. Also, Hearings Regarding Infiltration of Minority Groups, vol. 3, House, 81st Congress, first session (Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1949), p. 2148. 7. William A. Nolan, Communism Versus the Negro (Chicago, Henry Regnery Company, 1951), p. 134. See also Hearings Regarding Infiltration, p. 511, referred to in footnote 6 of this chapter. 8. Pamphlet, National Negro Congress (New York, May 1947). 9. Wilson Record, The Negro and the Communist Party (Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1961), pp. 189-190, 197-198. 10. Senator James O. Eastland (D., Miss.), speech, Congressional Record (July 22, 1964), pp. 16037-16038. Discussing a "human rights" march in San Francisco on July 12, 1964, Eastland said: "A man named Revels Cayton, who was a member of the California Communist Party State Committee back in 1946, was one of those active in organizing the march. Cayton has been identified in sworn testimony as one of the top Communists on the Pacific Coast in the trade union movement during the days of the maritime federation." 11. National Negro Congress, pamphlet, p. 8. See note 8, this chapter. 12. Ibid., p. 5. 13. Ibid., p. 7. 14. As quoted in "The Communist Position (1947)," pp. 14-16. See footnote 16, chapter 3. 15. Report on the Civil Rights Congress, House Committee on Un-American Activities (September 2, 1947). 16. We Charge Genocide, The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief from a Crime of the United States Government Against the Negro People (New York, Civil Rights Congress 1951). 17. This position of DuBois is contained in a pamphlet by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, "An Appeal to the World!" (New York, NAACP, 1947), pp. 13-14. 18. New York News (July 20, 1964), p. 18. 19. New York Journal-American (July 20, 1964), p. 4. 20. Marietta (Georgia) Journal. 21. New York Times (November 21, 1964), p. 2. | |