Marxist IQ: African American History Month

 
BY:Communist Party USA| February 2, 2021
Marxist IQ: African American History Month

 

1. Marxists and Communists in the U.S after WWI defined the question of African American Liberation (then called “Negro Liberation”) as

a. a moral and ethical question.
b. necessary to provide equality of opportunity under capitalism.
c. central to the liberation of the working class as a whole and the establishment of socialism.
d. one that should be de-emphasized because it would cause a backlash by the white working class.

 

2. Which of the following is a central principle that Communists have developed over the last century, in both the CPUSA and the larger working-class movement?

a. The struggle against racism should be led by the Black “middle class,” business owners, and professionals.
b. It is the duty of white Communists to fight all manifestations of racism in the CPUSA and of white workers to fight all manifestations of racism in the ranks of the working class.
c. Racism would cease to exist once socialism was established.
d. Communists and the working class should pursue “color blind” policies.

 

3. Applying Marxism directly to its analysis, the CPUSA sees racism under capitalism as which of the following?

a. A means to create extra profits for capitalists, by both paying African American workers less and playing African American workers off against white workers, thus reducing wage and salary rates.
b. A means to restrict the development of a free labor market, which is bad for capitalist development.
c. A cultural phenomenon with no economic effects on capitalism.
d. Something that can only end with the globalization of capitalism.

 

4. W. E. B. Du Bois, the world-famous African American revolutionary scholar and intellectual and Communist, in his classic work Black Reconstruction, argued that

a. a united front between former slaves and poor whites was in the process of development.
b. the KKK and similar groups were in essence a Confederate “counter-revolution” against these developments.
c. the failure to break up the great plantations and redistribute the land to the former slaves, advocated by Thad Stevens and other radical Republicans, was the most important cause of the defeat of reconstruction as a revolutionary democratic process.
d. All of the above

 

5. Although mainstream, aka capitalist, media ignore Martin Luther King’s doctrine of “positive peace” and see him as a champion of nonviolence, serious students increasingly see the concept of “positive peace” as

a. a concept of peace based on economic and social justice influenced by the world socialist movement.
b. a philosophy of self-help like the “power of positive thinking.”
c. a traditional pacifist philosophy.
d. an empty political phrase, like “free world” or “Reagan revolution.”

Answers here.

 

Comments

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    The Communist Party USA is a  revolutionary working-class  political party founded in 1919 in Chicago, IL. The Communist Party stands for the interests of the American working class and the American people. It stands for our interests in both the present and the future. Solidarity with workers of other countries is also part of our work. We work in coalition with the labor movement, the peace movement, the student movement, organizations fighting for equality and social justice, the environmental movement, immigrants rights groups and the health care for all campaign. But to win a better life for working families, we believe that we must go further. We believe that the American people can replace capitalism with a system that puts people before profit — socialism. We are rooted in our country's revolutionary history and its struggles for democracy. We call for "Bill of Rights" socialism, guaranteeing full individual freedoms.

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