February 4 was the birthday of Black Communist Harry Haywood, one of the great Marxist-Leninist thinkers, leaders and revolutionaries of the 20th century. Although Haywood was born over 100 years ago and has been deceased for over 30 years, his contributions to Marxism-Leninism and the struggle for Black Liberation and self-determination remain central in the fight for revolutionary socialism. Haywood, a leader of the Communist Party (CPUSA) and member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), developed and popularized the theoretical concept known as the Black Belt thesis, which explains that Black people in the U.S. make up an entire nation that is nationally oppressed by capitalism and U.S. imperialism.V.I. Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet Union until his death in 1924, recognized African Americans as a distinct, oppressed nationality. In 1920, he wrote that there is a “clear distinction between the oppressed, dependent and subject nations and the oppressing, exploiting and sovereign nations.Although the Black Belt Republic never came to be as an autonomous republic, and the CPUSA abandoned the idea by 1934, the concept of African Americans being in the vanguard of the coming Communist revolution, continued to hold sway long after the 1930s.And even todayThe majority-Black Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Ala., are now fighting for a union, which would be the first ever Amazon union in the U.S. There is no doubt that if this union drive wins, it would have a ripple effect, with Amazon workers unionizing countrywide and worldwide, tearing a hole through the seemingly impenetrable armor of Amazon
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/o-ye-drybones-archive--6500709/support.
