The multinational character of the proletarian population of the British state

The multinational character of the proletarian population of the British state is a tremendously positive factor for the development of future revolutionary work, offering the injection into the struggle here of the experience and example of living revolutionary traditions.

There are many thousands of people from the oppressed nations here who know what imperialism is and have experience of fighting it, including many a veteran of armed struggle.

In contrast to the slavish adherence to British imperialism by the official labour movement, the importance cannot be overstated of there being a body of people who reject the British state, do not recognise its legitimacy and place their loyalties else- where … (Keith Anderson, There is a Way Forward – let us take it, 1984)

The African diaspora and African liberation

Black Power is part of the world rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressor, of the exploited against the exploiter … It is linked with the Pan-African struggle for unity on the African continent, and with all those who strive to establish a socialist society. … Black Power gives the African-American an entirely new dimension. It is a vanguard movement of black people, but it opens the way for all oppressed masses. (Kwame Nkrumah)

The Irish diaspora and Irish nationalism

Are we struggling to bring about a free and socialist Britain – of course we are, there’s no question here. But is it our primary struggle? No sir. As the conscious Irishman, born in London, understands his primary struggle is the liberation and unification of Ireland, so too, you who are born in Britain must understand our primary struggle is the total liberation and unification of Africa. (Kwame Ture, 1983)

The Fenians of Manchester rose superior to all the whines about prudence, caution and restraint, and saw only two of their countrymen struck at for loyalty to freedom, and seeing this, struck back at the enemy with blows that are still resounding through the heart of the world… Allen, Larkin and O’Brien died that the right of their small nationality to independence might be attested by their blood — died that someday an Irish Republic might live. (James Connolly, 20 November 1915)

The Korean diaspora and the Korean revolution

The Japanese imperialists doubly exploited the Korean workers by enforcing extreme national discrimination. The Korean workers were insulted and humiliated as an ‘inferior nation’ and were paid far less than the Japanese workers doing the same work. (Kim Il Sung)

No longer able to endure the Japanese imperialist tyranny, large numbers of our fellow countrymen were compelled to leave their beloved home villages and wander about in quest of a livelihood, … or they were dragged to foreign countries as compulsorily drafted labour, or as conscripts. (Kim Jong Il)

As a people without a country, they were subjected to chauvinistic discrimination and all sorts of humiliations, were deprived of all their rights and suffered from extreme hardships in strange lands for a long time. … (Kim Il Sung)

Our 600,000 Korean compatriots in Japan … are now fighting bravely for their democratic, national rights against the unwarranted, chauvinistic persecution and contempt to which they are subjected by the Japanese authorities and they are keeping up a staunch struggle for the reunification of their country and the prosperity of the nation. (Kim Il Sung)

Domestic colonialism in imperialist societies

The African revolutionary struggle is not an isolated one. It not only forms part of the world socialist revolution, but must be seen in the context of Black Revolution as a whole. In the U.S.A., the Caribbean, and wherever Africans are oppressed, liberation struggles are being fought. In these areas, the Black man is in a condition of domestic colonialism, and suffers both on the grounds of class and colour. (Kwame Nkrumah)

The labour aristocracy

The receipt of monopoly revenues from the colonies, etc., makes it economically possible to bribe the upper strata of the proletariat, to turn them into reformists and-allow them to share in the imperialist superprofits of their ‘own’ national bourgeoisie. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916)

The imperialists make every effort to estrange the working class of the metropolitan countries from the peoples of the colonies. They manoeuvre to poison the working class with the stinking ideas of racism and national chauvinism and to disorganise the militant ranks of the working class from within by bribing the labour aristocrats with a portion of the superprofits they have raked in from the colonies. … Capitalists are very cunning. (Kim Il Sung)

The vanguard role of the most oppressed

Historically, Black people as a group have exhibited a greater potential for resistance than any other part of the population. (Angela Davis, If They Come in the Morning)

The struggle for equality is in and of itself a revolutionary question, because the special oppression of Black people is a main prop of imperialist domination over the entire working class and the masses of exploited American people. … (Harry Haywood, Black Bolshevik)

The struggle of the black people in the United States is bound to merge with the American workers’ movement, and this will eventually end the criminal rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class. (Mao Zedong, 1968)

One essential fact

One essential fact runs through this brief historical survey:

That is that the most militant, the most successful, the most insurrectionary struggles that have been waged in this island have been led by the most oppressed, the people of no property …

To understand this in its proper context it is necessary to thoroughly grasp that the British state rests on national oppression even more than on class exploitation …

Therefore when we talk of the most oppressed, we mean above all those workers who have national as well as class contradictions with the British state. (Keith Anderson, There is a Way Forward – let us take it)

Note: The above quotations are among those in a longer selection compiled by Hugh Goodacre entitled “Uphold the vanguard role of the most oppressed! Uphold Black Power!” which was circulated to participants in the March 1985 Seminar on the Juche Idea called by Mosquito Press.