On Black Nationalism and Self-Determination

by Leon Trotsky

Drawing on the rich lessons of the October 1917 Russian Revolution, Trotsky explains why uncompromising opposition to racial discrimination and support for the right to national self-determination for Blacks are essential to unite the working class to make a socialist revolution in the United States.

Photos, notes, index. Appendix: Trotsky on National and Racial Oppression (excerpts).

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Theory, Philosophy

96 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 1978

About the author

See also Лев Троцкий

Russian theoretician Leon Trotsky or Leon Trotski, originally Lev Davidovitch Bronstein, led the Bolshevik of 1917, wrote Literature and Revolution in 1924, opposed the authoritarianism of Joseph Stalin, and emphasized world; therefore later, the Communist party in 1927 expelled him and in 1929 banished him, but he included the autobiographical My Life in 1930, and the behest murdered him in exile in Mexico.

The exile of Leon Trotsky in 1929 marked rule of Joseph Stalin.

People better know this Marxist. In October 1917, he ranked second only to Vladimir Lenin. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as commissar of people for foreign affairs and as the founder and commander of the Red Army and of war. He also ranked among the first members of the Politburo.

After a failed struggle of the left against the policies and rise in the 1920s, the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union deported Trotsky. An early advocate of intervention of Army of Red against European fascism, Trotsky also agreed on peace with Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. As the head of the fourth International, Trotsky continued to the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, and Ramón Mercader, a Soviet agent, eventually assassinated him. From Marxism, his separate ideas form the basis of Trotskyism, a term, coined as early as 1905. Ideas of Trotsky constitute a major school of Marxist. The Soviet administration never rehabilitated him and few other political figures.

Reviews

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enlightening in both a modern and historical context. It's probably petty of me, but I found it immensely satisfying to see Trotsky laying into the deadwood of bourgeois white American presumption — ie to remind participantstthat the aim of the SWP was to raise consciousness, not to direct it in the way that might seem most palatable. Notes on the Dem/Rep candidates within the context of a socialist program or greater equality in general were and still are worth mulling over (these are at the end).

In terms of understanding the abstract theories and their historical development, I find it far easier to follow this format (ie actual discussion) than later summaries or all-at-once information. This way I can follow the development of modern argument.

Interesting also to see CLR James (Trinidadian author of "The Black Jacobins") putting forward his original propositions and later amendments based on his own investigations into the uniquely American Black experience.

[Sky Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting debate and I was glad to see CLR James do a crossover episode.

Highly contextual and the language was jarring but that's the time unfortunately

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book, however, detailed more plans of implementation and in place of black self-determination in the Socialist Workers Party than discussion of the material. Greater amount of material of Trotsky extracts in appendix would have been good.

[James Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished reading On Black Nationalism and Self-Determination by Leon Trotsky. Good book. Many of his ideas were later incorporated in the thinking and writings of Malcolm X.