The August 29th Movement (M-L) was a Chicano Marxist-Leninist organization in the U.S. from 1974-1978, when it merged with I Wor Kuen to form the League of Revolutionary Struggle (M-L). This was made available on the web by LeftSpot:

[QUOTE ON INSIDE FRONT COVER OF PAMPHLET:]

The liberation movement of the oppressed peoples and the proletarian revolution. In solving the national question Leninism proceeds from the following theses:

a] the world is divided into two camps: the camp of a handful of civilised nations, which possess finance capital and exploit the vast majority of the population of the globe; and the camp of the oppressed and exploited peoples in the colonies and dependent countries, which constitute that majority;

b] the colonies and dependent countries, oppressed and exploited by finance capital, constitute a vast reserve and a very important source of strength for imperialism;

c] the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed peoples in the dependent and colonial countries against imperialism is the only road that leads to their emancipation from oppression and exploitation;

d] the most important colonial and dependent counties have already taken the path of the national liberation movement, which cannot but lead to the crisis of world capitalism;

e] the interests of the proletarian movement in the developed countries and of the national liberation movement in the colonies call for the union of these two forms of the revolutionary movement into a common front against the common enemy, against imperialism;

f] the victory of the working class in the developed countries and the liberation of the oppressed peoples from the yoke of imperialism are impossible without the formation and the consolidation of a common revolutionary front;

g] the formation of a common revolutionary front is impossible unless the proletariat of the oppressor nations renders direct and determined support to the liberation movement of the oppressed peoples against the imperialism of its “own country,” for “no nation can be free if it oppresses other nations” [Engels];

h] this support implies the upholding, defense and implementation of the slogan of the right of nations to secession, to independent existence as states;

i] unless this slogan is implemented, the union and collaboration of nations within a single world economic system, which is the material basis for the victory of world socialism cannot be brought about;

j] this union can only be voluntary, arising on the basis of mutual confidence and fraternal relations among peoples.

[Stalin from Foundations of Leninism]

INTRODUCTION

The August Twenty-Ninth Movement (Marxist Leninist) is extremely proud to publish this historic document. At a time when the world’s peoples are daily dealing blow after blow against the two superpowers of the United States and Soviet Union, this position stands as a signal declaration of war against U.S. imperialism in particular – a declaration from the class conscious proletariat and from the Chicano people. The national movement of Chicanos in the Southwestern part of the United States against national oppression has historically been of a profoundly revolutionary character. It is the duty of ALL communists, class conscious workers and revolutionary nationalists to fan the flames of this movement. At the same time we must be the hardest fighters for the right of the Chicano nation to political secession. The only way that there will ever be a united front of the struggle against imperialism is for communists to respect, advocate and FIGHT FOR the right of all oppressed nations to political secession. In the case of Chicanos in the Southwest, who have a history of development dating back over 200 years, there is no other just demand which speaks to their deepest aspirations than the demand for the right of self-determination (political secession). Communists anywhere and always stand for the complete equality and unity of all the oppressed peoples, and we are not advocates of secession. But every Marxist-Leninist who has ever lived has fought for the right of all oppressed nations to political secession as the only way of achieving unity of the peoples, and a voluntary union of nations based on equality.

The history of past political parties and even of communist organizations regarding their view of the Chicano movement has been shameful for the most part. Most clearly the “Communist” Party of the U.S.A. has been in the lead of attempting to take the heart out of the revolutionary character of this movement. By declaring first (in the 1930’s) that Chicanos were not an oppressed nation (with the right to political secession) because their territory was “separated by mountains and deserts” -the CPUSA chauvinistically sided with the U.S. imperialists who, of course, would agree 100% with such “logic”. The past several years have produced a number of documents on this same question – not a one of which can be called Marxist-Leninist.

In a future pamphlet we will analyze some of these positions. But what ties them all together – from the CPUSA to the October League – is the most shallow and superficial treatment of the question, a reformist solution to it, and the denial of the Chicano nation’s right to political secession.

The August Twenty-Ninth Movement (M-L) developed, in large part, out of the revolutionary Chicano national movement. We are proud of our history of striving to give that movement a CONSISTENTLY revolutionary direction. Through our years in that struggle and in joint struggle with revolutionaries from many other movements we eventually learned of the science of Marxism-Leninism, accepted this science and became communists. This document represents a concrete application of Marxism-Leninism to the struggle of the Chicanos and of the working class for liberation from the yoke of capitalism. It represents a much broader development of our political line on this most important of questions, and will contribute, we feel, in large part to the development of a revolutionary communist program – so necessary to the genuine unity of Marxist-Leninists and advanced workers into a single vanguard party of the working class. At the same time that we support and struggle to give revolutionary leadership to the Chicano national movement, we recognize that at the heart of the question is the class question and that the final “solution” to the national question, the key to the total liberation and unification of all oppressed peoples is the achievement of socialism. Under socialism every assistance will be rendered to the economic, political and cultural growth of the formerly oppressed peoples and nations.

Formerly oppressed nations will be given the right to either annex themselves to the socialist state in some suitable form, or to form their own separate state government.

But neither the right of political secession or the achievement of socialism and the dictatorship of the working class can be achieved peacefully. In order to smash the brutal rule of capitalism and to establish the armed rule of the working class and oppressed masses, the capitalist state, the entire capitalist system, must be overthrown by the armed working class. But such overthrow is impossible if the working class arid oppressed masses do not have their own leadership. A struggle against such a powerful enemy as we face requires that we have an organization of the most dedicated and staunch revolutionaries – a political party that exists for no other reason than to organize and lead the struggle of the masses for socialism and the establishment of state power of the working class. Only a Marxist-Leninist party, a party built on the basis of Marxist-Leninist theory, and practicing the self-sacrificing style of work characteristic of Marxism-Leninism historically – can lead such a revolution to a victorious conclusion. We do not now have such a party, so we must build one – this is the central and most urgent task of every communist and revolutionary in this country. We dedicate this position to the achievement of that task, to the working class, to the heroic Chicano people, and to all the oppressed and struggling peoples throughout the world.

“The proletariat cannot be victorious except through democracy, i.e., by giving full effect to democracy and by linking with each step of its struggle democratic demands formulated in the most resolute terms. It is absurd to contrapose the socialist revolution and the revolutionary struggle against capitalism to a single problem of democracy, in this case, the national question. We must combine the revolutionary struggle against capitalism with a revolutionary programme and tactics on all democratic demands: a republic, a militia, the popular election of officials, equal rights for women, the self-determination of nations, etc. While capitalism exists, these demands – all of them – can only be accomplished as an exception, and even then in an incomplete and distorted form. Basing ourselves on the democracy already achieved, and exposing its incompleteness under capitalism we demand the overthrow of capitalism, the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, as a necessary basis both for the abolition of the poverty of the masses and for the complete and all-round institution of all democratic reforms. Some of these reforms will be started before the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, others in the course of that overthrow, and still others after it.

The social revolution is not a single battle, but a period covering a series of battles over all sorts of problems of economic and democratic reform, which are consummated only by the expropriation of the bourgeoisie. It is for the sake of this final aim that we must formulate every one of our democratic demands in a consistently revolutionary way. It is quite conceivable that the workers of some particular country will overthrow the bourgeoisie before even a single fundamental democratic reform has been fully achieved. It is, however, quite inconceivable that the proletariat, as a historical class, will be able to defeat the bourgeoisie, unless it is prepared for that by being educated in the spirit of the most consistent and resolutely revolutionary democracy.

Imperialism means the progressively mounting oppression of the nations of the world by a handful of Great Powers; it means a period of wars between the latter to extend and consolidate the oppression of nations; it means a period in which the masses of the people are deceived by hypocritical social-patriots, i.e., individuals who, under the pretext of the “freedom of nations”, “the right of nations to self-determination”, and “defence of the fatherland”, justify and defend and oppression of the majority of the world’s nations by the Great Powers.

That is why the focal point in the Social-Democratic programme must be that division of nations into oppressor and oppressed which forms the essence of imperialism, and is deceitfully evaded by the social-chauvinists and Kautsky. This division is not significant from the angle of bourgeois pacifism or the philistine Utopia of peaceful competition among independent nations under capitalism, but it is most significant from the angle of the revolutionary struggle against imperialism. It is from this division that our definition of the “right of nations to self-determination” must follow, a definition that is consistently democratic, revolutionary, and in accord with the general task of the immediate struggle for socialism.” (L.C.W., Vol 21)

ON THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE OF THE CHICANO PEOPLE

There is no force on earth which can conquer a people who are fighting for their freedom from oppression. The Chicano people are just such a people – tempered over the decades in the flames of their revolutionary freedom struggle. In our own time we have seen the courage, strength, determination and will to freedom of the Chicano masses, displayed in the stormy decade of the 60’s and up until the present.

Gaining inspiration from the thousands of Chicano students throughout the Southwest and California who organized into MECHAs and UMAs, and who fought for and won the right to study their own history, their culture and their revolutionary traditions – the Chicano students of the Southwest have formed their own revolutionary fighting organization, Fuerzas Revolucionarias de Aztlan (FRA) which pledges itself to fight for the deliverance of the Chicano people from the yoke of U.S. Imperialism, for the self-determination of their people.

In southern Texas, the Chicano rural proletariat in their thousands are living up to the example of Juan Cortina as they fight the capitalist patrones and the cowardly thugs of the Texas Rangers, the sordid protectors of oppression and exploitation. These heroic farm workers are answering, arms in hand, the violence of the capitalist land-owners and their state troopers. These campesinos are proving in the crucible of fire and violence that the Chicano movement contains within itself the seeds of a violent explosion for freedom from imperialist bondage.

In northern New Mexico the campesinos are again cleaning their weapons. Faced with never-ceasing imperialist robbery of their land, the campesinso are once more voicing the slogans of the Alianza -“Tierra y Libertad” – the Alianza which took up arms in struggle for their precious lands, that earth which gives physical and spiritual nourishment to the Chicano people. These campesinos are even now developing a new form of organization and struggle – La Federacion – a united Chicano front formed for the express purpose of fighting in defense of the land of the people. This organization, which included various classes and strata of the masses, has pledged itself to this defense – by any means necessary, including armed protection of the land. Circumstances of capitalist oppression, particularly savage persecution by the puppet forces of the state are forcing the campesinos to stand with their rifles in order to defend their national rights. The anger of the campesinos, seething and boiling for decades as the imperialist aggressor robs from them the very source of their nationhood, is erupting into open armed struggle in the mountains and villages of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.

The Chicano proletariat, many of them sons and daughters of the campesinos, are moving into the forefront of the national movement. The 3000 strong Chicano workers from the Farah manufacturing Company in Texas remained steadfast for almost two years against the blows of the industrialist, the bankers and the state; this bloody coalition of reaction used every weapon in their capitalist arsenal to keep these Chicano workers unorganized. Fearing like the plague the loss of the superprofits torn from the hands of the Chicano workers from Farah (and throughout the southwest), the imperialists used foreclosures, lies, scabs, arrests, tear gas and police dogs in a fruitless attempt to break their strike. Realizing that this was no ordinary strike, but a part of a MOVEMENT for freedom, the capitalists frenziedly fought to defend their crumbling edifice of oppression – to deny to the end to the Chicano people their basic democratic rights. This denial of rights lies at the heart of the Chicano national movement. Whether to struggle be for the right to organize into unions; to speak their native tongue; to regain their land; to stop the merciless police murder of Chicano veteranos like Roto Canales, Antonio Cordova, Ricardo Falcon, Florencio Granados, Luis Martinez and many, many others; or their right to an education, to study and learn their own revolutionary history – the Chicano people are again arising like an armed and angry Phoenix from the ashes of the “fire that refuses to die” in order to fight until victory for their right to self-determination.

What remains the same is the basis of the revolutionary movement – the severe national oppression of the Chicano people, the denial of their basic democratic rights. Like the 60’s the movement will again involve every oppressed class and strata of the Chicano people – the workers, the campesinos, the students, the intellectuals, the youth, the women, etc. What will make this movement different will be its even broader scope and depth. In addition the revolutionary Chicano proletariat is more and more fulfilling its historic mission as leader of all the oppressed. This class, in unity with all American workers, is now in a position to win the confidence and LEADERSHIP of the national struggle; a position assumed in the 60’s by the students. In any case the revolutionary leaders of the Chicano people have learned the bitter lessons of the past decade – particularly the sad result of following the path of the reformist. They have learned – in the factories, in the fields, in the mountains of the southwest, on the campuses, and in the jails – that only an armed Chicano people can win liberation from imperialism. The intensified repression of current years gives this new upsurge the potentiality for national rebellion – for an armed revolt of the people in the southwest. It is the duty, the obligation, of every communist, every Chicano revolutionary, to prepare for this onslaught, to win, the course of their everyday struggles, the leadership of this movement. The deaths of the Chicano patriots must not have occurred in vain. Their blood must wipe away all illusions of the people that their struggle can occur peacefully, within the confines of the system which robs them and attacks every aspect of their national identity. Let that innocent blood act like a wind upon the fire – fanning the spark of our revolution into a conflagration which engulfs the southwest with the mass rebellion of the Chicano people.

II.

Annexations are acquired by fire and sword and the annexation of the southwest was so achieved. Historically Marxists have always held to the proposition that economically this was of a historically progressive character, i.e., that capitalism would develop the productive forces of the region, bringing the working class to the fore, the grave diggers of capitalism itself. But Marxists have historically opposed and led struggle in opposition to the brutal and violent oppression that followed the annexation. Even in its most progressive stage capitalism comes onto the scene dripping with blood from every pore – the blood of countless Indians massacred in greedy wars for land; blood from millions of Blacks kidnapped from Africa, branded and forced into brutal chattel slavery, the cannon fodder of its imperialist wars. Blood from the countless Chicanos who fought to defend their homes, their lands, their dignity.

That capitalism which was born under the slogans of “freedom”, “liberty or death”, and “all men are created equal” is today the parasite that brutally plunders and exploits not only Chicanos, but peoples throughout the world. Today as the Chicano movement surges forward, we must grasp the revolutionary lessons of the past in order to know what this movement means today and the direction in which it must proceed.

The pages of Chicano history are filled with the heroic struggles of the revolutionary people, who, despite the savage colonization of their homeland, have developed their culture, retained their language and their identity as a people. For thirty years after the annexation guerrillas roamed the southwest and west coast in open rebellion against the U.S. They fought to keep their lands, to be able to work their mines, to defend themselves from the racist terror which accompanied the colonization by the Anglo bourgeoisie. Their heroic exploits under the leadership of men such as Joaquin Murrieta, Tiburcio Vasquez and Elfego Baca set the tradition that lives to this day, a lesson we must never forget – that violent oppression must be met with armed resistance.

As the struggle continued, its scope broadened. Revolutionaries such as Juan Nepomuceno Cortina came forward. Angered by violent abuses against his people, Cortina called for a general uprising against this racist terrorism. For years his small army, with the support of the people, drove the forces of the U.S. out of south Texas until numerically superior Federal troops, under the colonel Robert E. Lee drove his troops south of the border. But even that didn’t stop this revolutionary. In Mexico he joined Benito Juarez in the fight against the French colonialists. When the U.S. Civil War broke out he organized a expeditionary army to fight on the side of the Union, in the struggle to smash the system of slavery which held power in Texas and the South. Returning to Mexico this undaunted warrior organized the early resistance against the vicious despot Porfirio Diaz. The internationalist traditions set by this revolutionary had struck roots in the movement of Chicanos against oppression.

Throughout their history, the central theme of the Chicano struggle has been the question of LAND! Whether the struggle was led by the rural proletariat against the capitalist land owners, or by the peasantry in its struggle to retain their lands, the question of control of land has been the heart of the question around which all other aspects of national oppression have evolved. The material basis for the national oppression of the Chicano nation lays in the annexation of the southwest by the U.S., the expropriation of the land and its wealth through fraud and brutal terrorism, together with the super-exploitation of the working class and the campesinos through whose toil the riches of the region and superprofits for the imperialists were realized.

But the campesinos have historically picked up their guns in defense of their lands. Las Gorras Blancas of Nuevo Mexico united with the Knights of Labor in the struggle against the monopoly capitalists whom both saw as the source of their oppression – the Knights of Labor as proletarians, Las Gorras Blancas as campesinos fighting to keep the monopolies from seizing their lands. Through their broad agitation the campesinos won the support of the masses and used armed self-defense as the basic form of struggle. To the extent that they did so they were successful in warding off the monopolies. Through this struggle they layed the basis for founding of El Partido del Pueblo. The armed struggle of Las Gorras Blancas was to continue, although sporadically, until 1926. It may be argued that the conditions for armed insurrection were not yet ripe, that their actions were premature, but this cannot in the least take away from the revolutionary character of that struggle in its early period. And this struggle has lessons for us today. First it shows us, in embryonic form, the strength of such an alliance between the Chicanos and the multinational proletariat (the Knights of Labor were mostly Anglos). But this alliance became eroded as the campesinos, in their justifiable anger against the ruling class, went from viewing the capitalists as the enemy to viewing Anglos in general as the enemy. This suspicion and hostility weakened the alliance and the struggle of both the campesinos and the workers. On the other hand the Anglo workers, still under the influence of reformist leaders, began to disassociate themselves from the movement due to the often violent character of the struggle. Secondly, the Anglo workers saw the communal land grants, not as the legitimate property of the campesinos, but as “public domain.” Under the influence of reformist illusions put forward by their populist leaders, the Anglo workers failed to recognize that under monopoly capitalism, public domain means monopoly capitalist domain. By failing to recognize this they weakened the Chicano struggle, their own struggle, and strengthened the calls which oppressed them both – the monopoly capitalist class.

The lesson to learn from this struggle is that in its struggle for liberation the movement must clearly see its enemy as imperialism and not Anglo-Americans in general; this is a political struggle for liberation, not a race war. In particular the movement must recognize the multinational working class, Anglos included, as the staunchest allies and supporters of this movement. At the same time, communists and workers of the oppressor nation must recognize the legitimate national rights of Chicanos including their right to the land, governmental unity and the right to political secession, i.e., the right to form an independent republic, if Chicanos so choose. The workers of the oppressor nation must be brought to view this question from the stand of the proletariat and not from the standpoint of bourgeois legality. As the struggle continues to intensify, as rebellions grow toward a national revolt in the southwest, communists must educate the working class of the oppressor nation as to the legitimacy of such a revolt, its wholly justifiable character and the proletariat must support this struggle, regardless of who fires the first shot. As Marxist-Leninists we take the class stand of the proletariat on this question as layed out by the greatest revolutionary of this century – Lenin:

“National self-determination is the same as the struggle for complete national liberation, for complete independence, against annexation, and socialists cannot – without ceasing to be socialists – reject such a struggle in whatever, right down to an uprising or war.”

“Socialists have regarded wars for ‘defense of the fatherland’ or ‘defensive’ wars, as legitimate, progressive and just only in the sense of overthrowing alien oppressors’…. These would be just, and defensive wars, irrespective of who would be the first to attack; and socialist would wish the oppressed, dependent and unequal states victory over the oppressor, slave-holding and predator ‘Great Powers’ .” (Lenin Collected Works, Vol. 23)

The final lesson to be learned from the struggle of Las Gorras Blancas, is on the question of electoral politics. So long as Las Gorras Blancas kept electoral politics in the background, as a subsidiary, at best a secondary, form of struggle, they were able to make gains in their struggle for the land. When EI Partido del Pueblo came to the fore as the primary form of struggle, the gains made and the struggle itself were doomed to fail. Electoral politics and mass organizations such as EI Partido del Pueblo have a role to play in the revolution, one of education and mobilization of the masses for militant political actions. But never should electoral politics come to the front as the leading form of struggle. This does nothing less than to condemn the movement to become an appendage of the very system that exploits and oppresses the people.

In the struggle of oppressed peoples we usually find a small group of opportunists who sell their people out to the oppressor nation. Such were the ricos like the Oteros of New Mexico. This class of feudal landlords became transformed into a comprador bourgeoisie, who acted as middlemen for the imperialists in selling the region’s resources and the people’s labor for super-exploitation. They developed into capitalist businessmen and traveled widely to the east coast in order to attend bourgeois schools to be groomed as puppets and to convince Imperialist corporations to exploit the resources of Nuevo Mexico for a cut of the action. Today we still find their successors in the southwest such as the Chavez’s and Mondragons. It will be the task of all revolutionaries to expose and isolate these traitors to the national movement in the course of struggle and to win the people away from their political puppets – the Jerry Apodacas, the Joe Montoyas, the Henry Gonzalez’s, whose treachery seeks to condemn the Chicano nation to perpetual oppression.

At the turn of the century, the Chicano working class was young and small. It had not yet reached the maturity to lead the national movement in the Southwest. Instead the revolutionary elements from the petty-bourgeoisie came forward with EI Plan de San Diego. This plan was drafted in 1915, while the world raged in the throes of an imperialist war when the revolutionary working class in Russia, Germany and Hungary was preparing their onslaught against the capitalist oppressors; when the great Chinese masses were raging open rebellion against their colonial masters; when Mexico seethed with the tempest of revolution. This plan set before the movement revolutionary tasks and traditions which we must never forget. They also raised, as part of their program, race war against Anglos and this aspect must be totally and firmly rejected today. But this cannot take away from the revolutionary anti-imperialist character of their program.

After pledging their lives to carrying out EI Plan these revolutionaries stated in clause 1:

“On the 20th day of February, 1915, at two o’clock in the morning, we will arise in arms against the Government and country of the United States of North America, ONE AS ALL AND ALL AS ONE, proclaiming the liberty of the individuals of the black race and its independence of Yankee tyranny which has held us in iniquitous slavery since remote times’ and at the same time and in the same manner we will proclaim the independence and segregation of the States bordering upon the Mexican Nation, which are: Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and upper California, of which states the Republic of Mexico was robbed in a most perfidious manner by North American imperialism.”

The transition of capitalism to its imperialist stage has layed the basis – The conditions for a revolutionary national movement. The Plan reflected this, the emergence of a new people, evolved under the conditions of, and struggle against national oppression. This movement called for an independent republic.

“10. The movement having gathered force, and once having possessed ourselves of the states above alluded to, we shall proclaim an INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC, later requesting (if it be thought expedient) annexation to Mexico, without concerning ourselves at that time about the form of government which may control the destinies of the common mother country.”

And so, while recognizing the special relationship with Mexico, the Plan called for an independent republic which could later decide upon its relationship to Mexico. But these revolutionaries sought not only the liberation of Chicanos as necessary but also the liberation of other oppressed peoples:

“8. The Apaches of Arizona, as well as the Indians (Red Skins) of the territory shall be given every guarantee; and their lands which have been taken from them shall be returned to them at the end that may assist us in the course which we defend.”

This plan, drafted when the capitalist world was engaged in its rapacious war for re-division of the colonies and oppressed nations of the world, stands out as a shining example to the movement, naming its army the “liberating Army for Races and Peoples.” It went on:

“11. When we shall have obtained independence for the Negroes we shall grant them a banner, which they themselves be permitted to select and we shall aid them in obtaining six states of the American Union, which states border upon those already mentioned, and they may form from these six states and Republic that they may, therefore, be independent.”

and it ended:

“15. It is understood among those who may follow this movement that we will carry as a singing voice the independence of negroes, placing obligations upon both races, and that, on no account will we accept aid, either moral or pecuniary, from the government of Mexico, and it need not consider itself under any obligations in this, our movement.” –EQUALITY AND INDEPENDENCE, San Diego, Texas January 6, 1915

Inspired by this Plan, insurgents arose throughout the Rio Grande Valley (and throughout the Southwest) engaging in raids, destruction of bridges and armed encounters with the Texas Rangers, posses and the U.S. army, (they did not, however, carry on a race war). The U.S. government responded with an orgy of violence, arresting Chicanos for treason, lynching and shooting them, jailing them, burning their homes and forcing the rural population under arms to the urban areas. During that year over half the population of the Valley was forced to leave through brutal terrorism.

But no amount of violence has stopped these heroic people from continuing this valiant struggle. No violence of any form has caused Chicanos to disappear as a people, to lose their language, their revolutionary traditions, or their culture. If anything the struggle against oppression has reinforced their determination, molded their revolutionary leaders, and so long as imperialism oppresses them Chicanos will continue to rise, with rifles in their fists to struggle for self-determination. From EI Plan de San Diego to EI Plan de Aztlan, Chicanos have recognized their legitimate right to political secession, their national rights to land and to form an independent republic. Those social-chauvinists claiming to be Marxist-Leninists who interpret these heroic struggles as the “scheme of petty-bourgeois nationalists” must be exposed as traitors, imperialists and enemies of the working class and oppressed peoples and nations. The Chicanos, A REVOLUTIONARY PEOPLE, long ago recognized their right to political independence. It is time that the U.S. communist movement break with its chauvinist past and recognize the legitimacy of this movement and demand for self-determination.

III.

We live in an era of storms and revolutions. The watchwords of the world’s peoples are “independence, liberation and revolution”. Since the end of the 2nd imperialist world war the numerous countries of the Third World have risen up in fury against their former colonial and imperialist masters. The last two years has seen the peoples of Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, and Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and other countries win their liberation in the furnace of people’s war. At the same time the fires of revolution are scorching the imperialist empires as the peoples of Zimbabwe, Azania and Namibia stand on the threshold of liberation. Elsewhere the masses of East Timor, the Philippines, Thailand, and in Latin America are engulfing their imperialist masters in the smothering embrace of revolutionary struggle.

Standing against this mighty current are the two corrupt watchdogs of capitalist reaction – the imperialist United States and the social-imperialist Soviet Union. These two bulwarks of oppression, while girding themselves for a world war with the winner becoming the supreme master of national plunder, are rushing about the world in a frenzy, attempting by hook or by crook to douse the flames of the national liberation movements.

Set against this violent panorama of wars and revolutions is the national movement of Chicano people. This movement is a component part of the world revolutionary movement. It derives its significance both from its century-long history of armed struggle and mass upsurge, and from the fact that it is directed squarely against U.S. imperialism from within the very heart of that monster.

What is the significance of this struggle for communists and revolutionary nationalists?

We are people who have dedicated ourselves the task of overthrowing imperialism. Today it is the revolutionary national movements around the world which are dealing the sharpest blows to imperialism, as they put it directly UNDER THE GUN. It is not hard to understand, for instance, the effect upon the imperialists of 200 American cities being put to the torch by the Afro-American national movement of the 60’s. As revolutionaries we know the vital importance of a national movement, such as that of the Chicano people, having a CONSISTENT HISTORY of armed struggle. As communists we stand for the interests of the revolutionary working class. This class supports any and every movement which tends to weaken imperialism. The Chicano movement does more than “tend” to weaken imperialism, it stands ready to drive a stake through the heart of U.S. imperialism. A movement with such a history of struggle, with a rapidly growing working class, with a campesino movement with such revolutionary traditions, stands as the direct ally of the U.S. working class in its struggle for proletarian revolution. It is clear that the national movement and the working class movement are already “linked” – they are linked in the sense that every blow by the Chicano people against imperialism brings the proletariat a step closer to its goal of socialist revolution. Therefore, we must FAN THE FLAMES of the Chicano revolution, support it, and strive to give it the consistent and determined revolutionary leadership that it demands from us.

Only to the extent that communists prove themselves as fighters for the genuine interests of the Chicano people, only to the extent that they fight and give consistently revolutionary direction in the struggle for land, state unity and the right of the Chicano nation to political secession, only to the extent that communists prove themselves selfless and devoted fighters in the storm of revolutionary struggles will they win the confidence of the toiling and oppressed masses of the Chicano people.

It is only in the course of revolutionary struggle that the people come to learn that it is not a lack of rights which lies at the root of national oppression, but the system of imperialism whose economic and political essence is the plunder and exploitation of nations and peoples. Only in revolutionary struggle do the people learn that capitalism which was born in the genocidal warfare with Native Americans, founded on the back of Black slave labor and which grew through the plunder, exploitation and oppression of the Southwest, it’s capitalism which is carried on the backs of the working class and oppressed masses is the root cause of oppression.

Only in the course of revolutionary struggle can communists point to socialist revolution as the final solution to the question of national oppression; to show the Chicano masses that only socialism guarantees them their full equality as a people with the unhindered right to the full development of their economy, their language and their culture. However, we must NEVER make our support for the Chicano national movement contingent on its being a movement consciously directed towards socialism. It is up to the Chicano masses themselves to decide their own destiny. While we must, in the course of the struggle, do the widest agitation and propaganda for socialism, we cannot abandon that movement, abrogate our responsibility to struggle to win the leadership of it, nor oppose it because it is not directed towards socialism. We cannot predict exactly what direction the Chicano struggle will take in the future – whether for independence, for federation, or as a part of the a direct struggle for proletarian state power. IN ANY CASE, we are duty-bound to support and to lead that movement.

IV

THE BASIC DEMANDS OF THE CHICANO MOVEMENT

The root cause of the oppression of the Chicano people is the loss of their land, its control by the Anglo-American imperialists. Control of the land gives them also control over the timber, the agriculture and the mineral wealth of the Southwest. Economic control and political control go hand-in-hand. Utilizing their political control they have been able to systematically wrest more and more land from the Chicano campesino through an oppressive system of taxes; their power of eminent domain, etc., (this in addition to outright violence and robbery of the lands, as well as squeezing many small farmers out through control of water, timber and grazing rights). In turn, with the wealth gained from the land, the oppressors can expand and strengthen their political rule which finds its expression in the denial of democratic rights to the Chicano people. To end this vicious system we must raise the following demands in the Southwest:

(1) Expropriation of the land and all natural resources of the Anglo-American capitalists as well as all those belonging to the federal and state governments. As we have pointed out the loss of their land forms the basis of Chicano oppression. Loss of their land forces the Chicano farming masses into the factories of the oppressors – to increase his wealth and, consequently, HIS POWER over the Chicano people. Land taken from the Chicano people produces tremendous mineral, timber, animal and agricultural wealth for the U.S. imperialists. This control allows these imperialists to keep the Southwest unorganized and therefore a tremendous source of capitalist superprofits – at the expense of the Chicano people, of course.

(2) State unity of the Southwest. To maintain their rule, the capitalists have systematically gerrymandered the areas of Chicano majority (roughly from Southern Colorado to New Mexico through to South Texas and Southern Arizona and possibly the southeastern part of Southern California), combining into counties huge areas of territory, much of it sparsely inhabited by Chicanos and Native Americans, with the metropolitan centers that have large Anglo majorities. To make effective the possibility of the Chicano people putting their right to political secession into force it is required to unite into one governmental unit all areas of the Southwest where Chicanos constitute a majority of the population. This is to ensure the effective democratic exercise of their right to self-determination.

(3) Right of Political Secession (Self-determination). This is our central demand in the Chicano liberation struggle in the Southwest. In order to guarantee a revolutionary direction for this movement and in order to harness the vast revolutionary potential of the Chicano masses we must raise this demand in opposition to all bourgeois integrationist schemes which preach that “hard work”, or bourgeois “education'” can win Chicanos equality. We must also oppose those forces who say that “there is no Chicano people” – that the Chicano movement is a “CIA plot”. These forces, (who refuse to make these assertions in front of the movement, or in a printed public document), claim that Chicanos in the southwest are actually Mexicanos, a part of the country of Mexico. They desire, therefore, not the right to political independence, but re-annexation to Mexico. This is the only conclusion to be drawn by thinking people. To these forces, it must seem that the Chicano people have not yet “earned” their right to be called a people – perhaps more centuries of bloodshed and suffering are required? We must also struggle against calls for “Chicano Socialism”. This cover for narrow, cultural nationalism tries to accommodate the striving of the Chicano people towards socialism with reformism and cultural nationalism.

No, against all this, as well as against those chauvinists who would deny freedom to the Chicano people because it would “split the working class” (!), we must call for the complete and unequivocal right of the Chicano people in the Southwest to exercise political control of their territory as well as to decide upon the relation between their territory and other nations, including the U.S. The right to self-determination means that the Chicano majority in its united territory exercises the right – of administering executive, legislative and judicial authority. It is presently the U.S. imperialists who control this power, the Anglo-American capitalists and land owners. They select all appointive officers, control “public domain”, levy and collect taxes and make all the laws. It is this rule which must be smashed and overthrown if self-determination is to be exercised. ONLY if the Chicano people lift the burden of imperialism off their backs, to the point of determining for themselves their national relationship with all other governments will it win real self-determination. Being that the U.S. imperialists rely, ultimately, on military force to preserve its rule we must demand that all U.S. imperialist armed forces be removed from the Southwest.

(4) The full democratic rights of all Native Americans in the southwest must be upheld and fought for, including the right to self-determination where it is applicable. They must be guaranteed the complete right to all their lands and full water rights for them.

(5) Full Democratic Rights for all Chicanos. This is our main demand in areas of Chicano concentration (or wherever Chicanos reside and are denied their rights) outside the Southwest. In the course of our work we must show that this lack of democratic rights of the Chicano people flows from the forced domination of their homeland.

V

A revolutionary armed rebellion by the Chicano people would have an electrifying effect on the other national movements here at home, as well as the movement of the revolutionary proletariat. Looking back at the 60’s we can see that the Afro-American liberation movement gave inspiration and impetus to ALL OTHER progressive movements in this country. The slogans, demands and tactics of Afro-Americans, were adapted in varying degrees to the struggles of Puerto Ricans, Native-Americans, Chicanos, students, women, veterans, and working class, etc. The Chicano movement contains this same potential for inspiration and guidance.

Particularly would the Afro-American struggle in the Black-Belt South be affected by a Chicano national revolt. Two great peoples, whose nations border in part, united by their oppression and their struggle, living in the heartland of their enemy, both with revolutionary histories, with the thread of armed resistance running throughout; both with a growing and militant working class, toiling in the major strategic industries of their enemy. No one can deny the galvanizing effect that armed land seizures by Chicanos would have on the Afro-American people in the south. Beyond U.S. borders such a rebellion would shine like a torch of freedom to all the national liberation struggles of the Third World – but most especially to those movements in the Latin American countries. These peoples share much by way of history, language, and even aspects of culture. A determined and broad Chicano revolutionary movement will give both inspiration and direction to the revolutionary struggles of all the Latin peoples of the Western Hemisphere much as did the Cuban revolution of 1959.

To no less an extent will a Chicano revolt inspire the revolutionary working class if systematic agitation and propaganda is done among them – particularly combating all vestiges of chauvinism, explaining the aims of the Chicano struggle. Lacking such work by communists the racist and reactionary politicos and trade union bureaucrats may succeed in temporarily arousing the hostility of sectors of the Anglo-American workers toward the Chicano struggle, or of channeling their sentiments towards indifference and passivity, precisely when the most resolute supportive actions will be required.

VI

OUTSIDE THE SOUTHWEST.

(1) The thrust of the struggle must be around democratic rights and equality. The areas of struggle should be within the working class, among students and against police repression. The forms of organization will arise in the course of the struggles themselves. It is not necessary to draw up blueprints or lists of demands now. The demands will flow from the character of the struggle in line with the general line of ATM.

(2) The basic demands of the Chicano movement will not be the starting point of our mass work among Chicanos. The starting point will be the immediate economic and political demands of the specific struggles in line with ATM’s program. In the course of struggle the source of the oppression of Chicanos will be raised as well as their basic demands.

WITHIN THE SOUTHWEST.

(1) The thrust of our work will be around the three basic demands. These demands are not to be raised in a preaching or artificial manner, but are to be patiently explained to the masses in the course of our everyday work with them around the various economic and political issues which they are fighting.

(2) We must pay special attention to the struggle of the Chicano peasantry for their land. These struggles have the potential to galvanize and inspire the entire movement. At the same time, they will draw forth the sharpest resistance from the imperialists, as their control of the land lies at the heart of their power. We must train cadres, as a special area of work, for this task – to be prepared to win the leadership of ALL FORMS of this struggle. Preparation and training must include a working knowledge of the history of the area, its traditions, culture – and especially what issues form the central focus of the struggle (taxes, water, timber or grazing rights, etc.).

(3) The Chicano working class in the southwest is often little more than a generation or more removed from the peasantry. As such they have a strong sense of feeling for the peasant struggle, as well as sharing the revolutionary traditions of that struggle. At the same time, they bring with them into the proletariat some of the inertia and vacillation of the campesinos. We must utilize their ties with the land to rouse them to resolute support for the campesinos. We must, as well, fight against every manifestation of national oppression which the Chicanos face as workers – denial of the right to organize, to use their native language, etc. Our basic demands must be raised in the course of leading the struggles around these issues.

(4) Chicano women are a rapidly growing sector of the industrial and rural proletariat in the southwest. They face the triple oppression of class, nationality, and sex. As such they suffer to the extreme from the yoke of capitalist slavery. We must be the hardest fighters against this oppression – championing every demand aimed against this oppression. We will be required from time to time to formulate these demands ourselves. We must do so without hesitation, combining our organizing work with broad agitation and propaganda among all workers. Chicano women must learn (especially through our work), of the indispensable role they must play in the liberation struggle of their people and in the movement of the working class.

(5) Chicano students played perhaps the largest role of any sector of the people in the Chicano upsurges of the 60’s. Due to the present capitalist crisis many of the gains that they made are being snatched back by the imperialists. We must give direction to the struggle of the students against this, arousing in the course of this work their revolutionary ferment – drawing them actively into the broader struggle of their people -particularly their strong sentiments of support for the struggles of the Chicano workers and campesinos.

(6) We must not disdain work in the various mass organizations which are (or have) arisen in the southwest. Particularly should we be prepared to work within the mass political parties (such as La Raza Unida Party) which many of the Chicano masses see as their own. We must turn these organizations into fighting organizations directed towards militant mass actions, and not allow them to become mere electoral machinery or appendages of bourgeois politicians. The tradition of political parties goes back in history to the time of Las Gorras Blancas. These mass organizations are a potentially excellent source of struggle and revolutionary education. We must not counterpose the vanguard communist party to this form of organization, as we would not counterpose the communist party to the trade unions.

Comrades, this resolution is our battle cry, our declaration of WAR against the U.S. imperialists! It is up to us to make it a living reality – to give it life by integrating its truth and direction with the historic revolutionary struggle of the Chicano people.

[1] CONFISCATION OF ALL THE LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE SOUTHWEST FROM THE U.S. CAPITALISTS

[2] STATE UNITY FOR THE SOUTHWEST

[3] THE RIGHT OF POLITICAL SECESSION OF THE CHICANO NATION

CHICANO NATIONAL QUESTION, PART II – THE NATIONAL QUESTION IN THE ERA OF IMPERIALISM

The national question in the era of imperialism differs radically from the first period. In the first period, the national question was seen as part of the general question of the bourgeois democratic revolution, an internal state question as part of the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the second period of the national question, after W.W.I and the October Revolution, the national question assumed wider scope and became a question of colonies. When it became transformed from an internal political question into a world question, it came to be considered as part of the general question of the proletarian revolution, as part of the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat. (Stalin, “Concerning the National Question in Yugoslavia”)

With the development of capitalism to its imperialist stage all the contradictions of capitalism are further intensified, including national oppression, Imperialism, characterized by the export of capital cannot exist without enslaving whole peoples. it cannot survive without exploiting and oppressing nations, this is precisely why the political essence of imperialism is the oppression of nations (LCW Vol. 21 pg. 409). This then is what changes the character of the national movements, from a struggle between the bourgeoisie of the oppressor and the oppressed nations for the “home” market into a struggle of the oppressed masses against imperialism. The conditions of national oppression under imperialism create the basis for the development of national movements, for national revolts and wars of national liberation.

In presenting a solution to a national question we proceed from an investigation of the national movement, as a movement embracing all classes and strata, in its historical development. We analyze the economic and political basis for that movement, its objective relation to imperialism and social-imperialism and what the stand of the proletariat must be. In presenting a solution then, we proceed on the basis of facts not on the basis of formulas, we proceed on the basis of what concretely confronts the proletariat, not on the basis of trying to make reality fit definitions.

In an earlier polemic with the Revolutionary Union on the national question we raised a number of valid criticisms of their position on the Afro-American National Question, and exposed them as chauvinist and revisionist (Selected Speeches 1974-75 A.T.M.). We dealt on a number of questions including their revisionist positions on imperialism (a “new third period in the national question”) and on their “new” definition of what constitutes a nation. We showed how their “new” definition was not new but simply an old attempt to liquidate the national question. This was valid but the stress of our polemic should have focused on the national question in the era of imperialism and R.U.’s distortion of Marxism-Leninism on this question. Instead, while raising this and many other questions, we zeroed in on the “definition” of a nation, on “criteria” for nationhood as laid out by Comrade Stalin in the first period of the national question. This reflected our incomplete grasp of the question at the time. Through struggle we arrived at the approach reflected in this resolution.

This is especially important to grasp today, when the principle contradiction in the world is the national question, i.e., the struggle between imperialism and Soviet-social imperialism on the one hand and the oppressed peoples of the world on the other, when the third world is the storm center of the world revolutionary movement.

CHARACTERIZATION OF THE CHICANO NATIONAL MOVEMENT

As we have pointed out, the Chicano National Movement is objectively a revolutionary movement directed at imperialism, the solution to the national oppression of the Chicano people cannot proceed except through a revolutionary struggle to overthrow the rule of imperialism and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is precisely why the movement places before the communist movement the obligation to support it and to lead it.

The character of the movement has centered around democratic demands – for land, jobs, equality of languages, an end to discrimination in housing, education and jobs, for the right to organize unions for “economic opportunities” (by bourgeois and petty bourgeois forces), etc. The struggle to attain these demands has often flared up into armed confrontations with the state, but this movement today cannot be characterized as a national liberation struggle – a struggle for secession and the formation of an independent state. Nevertheless, the question of secession has run like a thread throughout the history of this national movement from the time of the annexation to this very day and it is not now for communists to stand in the way of the aspirations of the Chicano people if they choose the path of secession. Rather it would be our task to lead that movement and connect it to the general proletarian struggle and our ultimate aim of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Over the last decade the issue of secession has been a burning question in the national movement and has been one of the main focuses of discussion at conferences and national meetings of the national movement. At no time has the national movement given up this right, but it instead has consistently upheld it time after time, even to the point of guerrilla warfare. What has been lacking is the leadership role of communists in that movement and a genuine communist party to weld the movements of the oppressed nationalities and the multinational proletariat and lead them on the path of proletarian revolution.

What has steered the movement away from a revolutionary course, down the path of reformism? It has been the social props of imperialism, the reformists and revisionists, who have exerted great influence in the national movement and who have used everything in their power to shore up the crumbling role of the imperialists. These enemies of proletarian revolution have tried different tactics and cover themselves with every ‘revolutionary’ mask imaginable to do their dirty work. We will unmask these traitors in future polemics, for now it is enough to point out their evil ways and to reaffirm the role that reformism plays in the Chicano national movement – that it represents the main danger to that movement. Leading the pack of these reformists and revisionists is the CPUSA which negates the existence of a Chicano nation, posing the ‘solution’ to the oppression of the Chicano people as a struggle for reforms. Falling in step behind the CPUSA are the “Revolutionary” Communist Party (RCP) and the October League (OL) – neither of which have much real influence in the Chicano national movement at this time – both of them raise the call for ‘regional autonomy in the Southwest’ as a way of throwing crumbs to the oppressed masses of the Chicano nation who hunger for an end to imperialist rule in the Southwest, only to tell the masses that they must await the socialist revolution to practice that autonomy and until then that they will have to be contented with the long list of reforms which these groups always raise. Only somewhat different is the ‘Communist’ Labor Party (CLP) – which does have some base in the Southwest – and which pays lip-service to ‘regional autonomy’ only to embrace the labor bureaucrats and reformists in order to concentrate on building their infamous ‘united front’ against fascism.

Within the national movement itself, the reformists have found that the growth of revolutionary consciousness among the masses has made it impossible to hold sway in the movement with their old bag of tricks. Previously it was enough to ‘denounce’ white people as the enemy to keep their leadership in the movement. Masking their reformism with nationalism and mysticism the cultural nationalists today, often attack the Marxist-Leninists who are in fact the only ones capable of leading the Chicano people out of their oppression. Some of these, the more militant reformists, even go so far as to call for “Chicano socialism” in a futile attempt to postpone the formation of a revolutionary alliance of the movements of the oppressed nationalities with that of the multinational working class. These forces even use a little terrorism (sometimes aimed at the oppressors and sometimes aimed at honest revolutionary elements which they see as a threat) to make them appear genuinely revolutionary and to make more appealing their own package of reforms. Even the poverty pimps whose very existence depends on the continued survival of imperialism often speak of revolution (“it’s just not time yet”) while telling the masses to patiently wait for handouts from their imperialist oppressors. Posing a real danger to the revolutionary direction of the movement are also the centrists and right opportunists who have become the mouthpieces of revisionism in the Chicano national movement. They claim that the Soviet Union is still a socialist country, that social imperialism does not exist, and that the movement should tie itself to this ‘natural ally.’ They praise the aggressions of this enemy of the world’s peoples (for example they laud the role played by the Soviet Union in Angola) and climb into bed with the CPUSA, offering Chicanos only a reformist line disguised with revolutionary phrases (going so far as to call for a ‘Mexican’ communist party in the hopes of weakening the genuine party-building movement and diverting the national movement from revolution). The leading proponent of this line is C.A;S.A. (Centro de Accion Social Autonomo) which tries its best to infect honest elements with its rotten line.

What is the common thread flowing through all these various lines? Reformism – the vile lie that somehow the oppression of the Chicano people can be brought to an end without the armed overthrow of the rule of the imperialists, without the seizure of state power, without the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Instead of this the reformists offer the Chicano people a long list of partial demands – which at best can only make life under imperialism ‘more bearable.’ Precisely because of this, and because of the influence which reformism holds on the national movement we say that it is reformism and not narrow nationalism that constitutes the main danger in the Chicano national movement.

It has been in spite of these forces that the national movement has upheld its right to political secession and a common thread of armed struggle to the present day, that armed struggle has however been restricted to guerrilla or terrorist tactics and as yet the national movement as a movement has not taken to armed struggle for political secession, although it has supported it within its ranks. Yet it has a history of such struggle and the conditions for a national revolt have not diminished but have increased, making the upsurge of a national liberation struggle a very strong possibility in the near future. If communists are to do their utmost for the revolutionization and building of this movement and to direct it towards socialism, they must lead the struggle against reformism and revisionism within the national movement.

PARTICULAR QUESTIONS

ECONOMY OF THE CHICANO NATION

The statistical data provided in this document shows that there exists a thin layer of small capitalists within the Chicano Nation as well as outside the Southwest and that they are into almost every area of the economy from agriculture to manufacturing and banking. However their share of the home market is fractional, $2.3 billion in annual revenues (with, the imperialists in firm control of this market). Within the boundaries of the U.S. multi-national state this is precisely what is to be expected, we are talking after all of an oppressed nation, oppressed in every sphere of social life. To make the right to self-determination contingent upon the consolidation of the home market is to fall into imperialist economism and chauvinism. If one were to be consistent on this question we would then have to reject the legitimacy of the majority of the national liberation struggles throughout the world over the last 20 years. For where would we find the imperialists and colonialists allowing the free development of the characteristic features of a fully developed nation such as common economy developed and consolidated by the colonized peoples. Nor would we find in many African countries one common language but many different languages, etc.

To hold to such an absurd proposition would be to liquidate the national question on a world scale.

When Comrade Stalin outlined the development of modern nation states in Western and Eastern Europe he showed how nations were a historical category belonging to the epoch of rising capitalism. In the second period of the national question, in the era of imperialism, the national question is broadened out to include the question of colonies and oppressed nations outside of Europe. In this new era the national question is part of the general question of the proletarian revolution, and as we pointed out above, it is no longer a struggle over the home market which characterizes the essence of the question but the struggle of the oppressed peoples against imperialism, that system which cannot survive except by exploiting and oppressing the majority of the world’s peoples – the oppressed nations and colonies.

“What significance can the competitive struggle between the bourgeoisies of different nationalities have when the national question is presented in that way? Certainly not decisive significance, and, in certain cases, not even important significance. It is quite evident that the main point here is not that the bourgeoisie of one nationality is beating, or may beat, the bourgeoisie of another nationality in the competitive struggle, but that the imperialist group of the ruling nationality is exploiting and oppressing the bulk of the masses, above all the peasant masses, of the colonies and dependent nationalities and that, by oppressing and exploiting them, it is drawing them into the struggle against imperialism, converting them into the allies of proletarian revolution.” (Stalin, “The National Question Once Again”)

An argument that some have used to restrict the right to self-determination is to claim that this right can only be exercised where capitalism has developed the nations and given rise to bourgeois and proletarian forces. Lenin viewed the matter differently: “But even with regard to colonial countries where there are no workers, only slave-owners and slaves, etc. the demand for “self-determination,” far from being absurd, is obligatory for every Marxist.” (L.C.W., Vol. 23, pg. 64)

Isn’t it clear here that Lenin is speaking of countries where there obviously is no capitalist class fighting for the home market but where the masses of the people still have the right to overthrow the alien rule of the imperialists? It was precisely for holding such views that Lenin was attacked by the social-chauvinists of his day for “inventing” cases for the application of the right to self-determination. But let’s look to see what actually exists in the Southwest. What we find is that economic cohesion in fact exists. The export of capital into the Southwest broke down the isolation and self-sufficiency of the scattered towns and villages, established commercial and manufacturing centers, trade between town and country, class divisions corresponding to the development of capitalism, transportation and communication of the towns throughout the Southwest.

The second argument raised by social-chauvinists in the U.S. in that Lenin is speaking of colonies, not of oppressed nations. Yet they cannot point to any fundamental difference in the presentation of the question of colonies and oppressed nations with regard to the right of self-determination (L.C.W., Vol. 23, pg. 21). In Lenin’s day, the social-chauvinists opposed the right of self-determination of the colonies because they were not fully developed, “civilized” nations (L.C.W., Vol. 23, pg. 23). In the U.S. today social-chauvinists reject the right of self-determination of the Afro-Americans and Chicano nations because they are not colonies (!!!) and must be treated fundamentally different. We see that social-chauvinism is very flexible, adaptable to the service of imperialism regardless of time and place.

DO CHICANOS CONSTITUTE A NATION OR A COLONY?

The period following the annexation of the Southwest found the Chicano masses under the heel of military rule. During this period Chicanos were not assimilated into the Anglo-American nation as was the case with European immigrants, (nor has this assimilation taken place today in the historical homeland of the Chicano people, contrary to the C.L.P. ‘s claim). Instead what we find is barbaric national oppression, military rule, and direct rule by the oppressor nation. Economically, the Southwest was not yet assimilated into the economy of the U.S. to any great extent. This can be characterized correctly as the time when Chicanos did in fact constitute a colony of the U.S. to some extent, vestiges of this colonialism existed until 1912 when New Mexico was admitted into the union as the 48th state.

The case today is different. Formally, Chicanos are not under military rule, they have the “legal” right to elect representatives to legislative bodies on local, state and federal levels, to serve on juries, etc. In actual fact however, what we find is gerrymandering, repression of the Spanish language and the Chicano culture, police terrorism, job and educational discrimination, robbery of Chicano lands, etc. This in fact characterizes the political relationship between the oppressor nation and the Chicano people. Economically, the export of capital to the Southwest and the consolidation of the border-region market show us that the economy of the Southwest does not represent an integral whole, distinct from the economy of the U. S. For these political and economic reasons, Chicanos do not constitute a colony but an oppressed nation within the boundaries of the U.S.

WHAT ARE THE BOUNDARIES OF THE CHICANO NATION?

This decision is not one which the communist movement can decide today. As comrades Lenin and Stalin laid out, this is to be decided by the inhabitants of the region on the basis of their common culture, economic, political and language characteristics, etc. But there are a few questions we will now raise in this regard. First, the basis for the boundaries of an oppressed nation within the U.S. borders cannot be decided on the basis of a “nose count.” To do so is to often restrict that nation to the most economically under-developed regions, depriving it of industrial center, ports, etc. The basis for the defining borders must be democratic and in the spirit of proletarian internationalism. This implies that the actual boundaries of the Chicano nation extend further than simply those areas where Chicanos or Afro-Americans constitute majorities in their historical homelands.

WHAT IS A CHICANO?

Generally this question would not arise, but one of the particularities of Chicanos is that they inhabit a border region which shares considerably with Mexico by way of history and culture. Given this, Bundist forces like C.A.S.A., have laid out that Chicanos are in fact part of the Mexican nation, and the implications flowing from this is the need for a Mexicano Communist Party in the U.S. (which of course is to be duty bound to sleep with the “C”PUSA, ala P.S.P.) and the obligation of Chicanos to organize solely Chicanos.

This preposterous proposition, whose chief exponents (CASA) are the puppets of the “C”PUSA, in the Chicano National movement, flies in the face of the historical development of Chicanos as a people and the development of the Mexican nation. The Mexican nation is the result of three revolutions – the war of independence of 1811-1821, the liberal-bourgeois revolucion de la Reforma led by Benito Juarez, and the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. Chicanos in the Southwest were not a part of these revolutions and only a handful minimally participated in the 1910 Revolution. Chicanos as a people developed under different historical conditions, those of colonization and national oppression within the borders of the U.S. The Mexican masses, for example, do not suffer from racial or national discrimination, the Spanish language is not suppressed in Mexico but is the “official” language, the Mexican culture is not systematically attacked by the State, the Mexican masses study their own history in their native language, etc. Further, the Chicano masses are much further removed from feudalism than the rural Mexican population. All of these form part of the material conditions of “life” which are reflected in the psychological make-up of a people, reflected in their culture.

These particular conditions of oppression have given rise to a distinct psychological make-up (although there are some similarities to Mexican culture), reflected culturally in their language, their art, their music, etc.

CONCLUSION

This second part of our resolution is meant to be taken together with part I of the resolution and the historical exposition of the question. We merely wanted to deal here specifically with certain specific questions which will help to put our position into proper perspective.

WE COMMUNISTS ARE CONCERNED WITH EVERY IMPORTANT QUESTION, NOT ONLY OF THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE, BUT ALSO OF THE PAST OF OUR OWN PEOPLES.

We communists do not pursue a narrow policy based on the craft interests of the workers. We are not narrow-minded trade union functionaries, or leaders of medieval guild of handicraftsmen and journeymen. We are the representatives of the class interests of the most important, the greatest class of modern society – the working class, to whose destiny it falls to free mankind from the sufferings of the capitalist system, the class which in one-sixth of the world has already cast off the yoke of capitalism and constitutes the ruling class. We defend the vital interests of all the exploited, toiling strata, that is, of the overwhelming majority in any capitalist country.

We communists are the irreconcilable opponents, in principle, of bourgeois nationalism in all its forms. But we are not supporters of national nihilism, and should never act as such. The task of educating the workers and all working people in the spirit of proletarian internationalism is one of the fundamental tasks of every Communist Party. But anyone who thinks that this permits him, or even compels him, to sneer at all the national sentiments of the broad masses of working people is far from being a genuine Bolshevik, and has understood nothing of the teaching of Lenin on the national question.

Lenin, who always fought bourgeois nationalism resolutely and consistently, gave us an example of the correct approach to the problem of national sentiments in his article “On the National Pride of the Great Russians” written in 1914. He wrote:

“Are we class-conscious Great-Russian proletarians impervious to the feeling of national pride? Certainly not. We love our language and our motherland; we, more than any other group, are working to raise its labouring masses (i.e., nine-tenths of its population) to the level of intelligent democrats and socialists. We, more than anybody, are grieved to see and feel what violence, oppression and mockery our beautiful motherland is being subjected by the tsarist hangmen, the nobles and the capitalists. We are proud of the fact that those acts of violence met with resistance in our midst, in the midst of the Great Russians; That this midst brought forth Radishchev, the Decemberists, the revolutionary intellectuals of the seventies; that in 1905 the Great-Russian working class created a powerful revolutionary party of the masses… “We are filled with national pride because of the knowledge that the Great-Russian nation, too, has created a revolutionary class, that it, too, has proved capable of giving humanity great examples of struggle for freedom and for socialism; that its contribution is not confined solely to great pogroms, numerous scaffolds, torture chambers, severe famines and abject servility before the priests, the tsars, the landowners and the capitalist.

“We are filled with national pride, and therefore we particularly hate our slavish past … and our slavish present, in which the same landowners, aided by the capitalist, lead us into war to stifle Poland and the Ukraine, to throttle the democratic movement in Persia and in China, to strengthen the gang of Romanovs, Bobrinskys, Purishkeviches that cover with shame our Great-Russian national dignity.”

This is what Lenin wrote on national pride.

“I think, comrades, that when at the Reichstag Fire Trial the fascists tried to slander the Bulgarians as a barbarous people, I was not wrong in taking up the defence of the national honour of the working masses of the Bulgarian people, who are struggling heroically against the fascist usurpers, the real barbarians and savages, nor was I wrong in declaring that I had no cause to be ashamed of being a Bulgarian, but that, on the contrary, I was proud of being a son of the heroic Bulgarian working class. Comrades, proletarian internationalism must, so to speak, “acclimates itself” in each country in order to strike deep roots in its native land. National forms of the proletarian class struggle and of the labour movement in the individual countries are in no contradiction to proletarian internationalism; on the contrary, it is precisely in these forms that the international interests of the proletariat can be successfully defended. It goes without saying that it is necessary everywhere and on all occasions to expose before the masses and prove to them concretely that the fascist bourgeoisie, on the pretext of defending general national interests, is conducting its selfish policy of oppressing and exploiting its own people, as well as robbing and enslaving other nations. But we must not confine ourselves to this. We must at the same time prove by the very struggle of the working class and the actions of the Communist Parties that the proletariat, in rising against every manner of bondage and national oppression, is the only true fighter for national freedom and independence of the people. The interests of the class struggle of the proletariat against its native exploiters and oppressors are not in contradiction to the interests of a free and happy future of the nation. On the contrary, the socialist revolution will signify the salvation of the nation and will open up to it the road to loftier heights. By the very fact of building at the present time its class organizations and consolidating positions, by the very fact of defending democratic rights and liberties against fascism, by the very fact of fighting for the overthrow of capitalism, the working class is fighting for the future of the nation. The revolutionary proletariat is fighting to save the culture of the people, to liberate it from the shackles of decaying monopoly capitalism, from barbarous fascism, which is laying violent hands on it. Only the proletarian revolution can avert the destruction of culture and raise it to its highest flowering as a truly national culture – national in form and socialist in content – which is being realised in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics before our very eyes. Proletarian internationalism not only is not in contradiction to this struggle of the working people of the individual countries for national, social and cultural freedom, but, thanks to international proletarian solidarity and fighting unity, assures the support that is necessary for victory in this struggle. The work – national proletarian solidarity and fighting unity, assures the closest alliance with the victorious proletariat of the great Soviet Union. Only by struggling hand in hand with the proletariat of the imperialist countries can the colonial peoples and oppressed national minorities achieve their freedom. The sole road to victory for the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries lies through the revolutionary alliance of the working class of the imperialist countries with the national liberation movement in the colonies and dependent countries, because, and Marx taught us, “no nation can be free if it oppresses other nations.” Communists belonging to an oppressed, dependent nation cannot combat chauvinism successfully among the people of their own nation if they do not at the same time show in practice, in the mass movement, that they actually struggle for the liberation of their nation from the alien yoke. And again, on the other hand, the communists of an oppressing nation cannot do what is necessary to educate the working masses of their nation in the spirit of internationalism without waging a resolute struggle against the oppressor policy of their “own” bourgeoisie, for the right of complete self-determination for the nations kept in bondage by it. If they do not do this, they like-wise do not make it easier for the working people of the oppressed nation to overcome their nationalist prejudices. If we act in this spirit, if in all our mass work we prove convincingly that we are free of both national nihilism and bourgeois nationalism, then and only then shall we be able to wage a really successful struggle against the jingo demagogy of the fascists. That is the reason why a correct and practical application of the Leninist national policy is of such paramount importance. It is unquestionably an essential preliminary condition for a successful struggle against chauvinism – this main instrument of ideological influence of the fascists upon the masses.

(Dimitrov, On the United Front)

HISTORICALLY CONSTITUTED COMMUNITY OF PEOPLE

The Chicano people evolved in the Southwest out of years of colonial and imperialist oppression. Their history is rooted in the history of capitalism, which as Marx teaches us emerged on to the world scene “dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.” (Capital, I, p. 760). The Chicano people were forged in the struggle against national oppression following the conquest and annexation of the Southwest by U.S. capitalism.

Spain set about to colonize the New World in hopes of finding gold and other sources of wealth, such as copper and silver. These precious metals were taken from the native peoples who were enslaved at the point of a sword to work the mines and plantations for their colonizers. It was the quest for silver and the fabled ‘seven cities of gold’ that brought the Spanish to explore and eventually colonize the Southwest. In 1536 Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca reached Mexico City on an expedition that had taken him and others from Florida across Texas, through the Pecos River, into the Rio Grande Valley and westward before they found their way back to the Spanish settlements of Sonora and Chihuahua. The tales of their expedition, and the stories they heard of the existence of villages covered with roofs of gold and jewels brought new expeditions, such as that of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in 1540. At the village of Tiguex north of Albuquerque, Coronado found that the ‘cities of gold’ were only pueblos of the natives built high in the mountains. As punishment to the natives for the reality of their way of life, Coronado burned two hundred natives at the stake – an act which the native people never forgot and which would be avenged by them in the decades to come.

The first colonization effort in the Southwest began in 1598 and grew out of the discovery of silver in Zacatecas and the founding of a mine there in 1548. The discovery of silver there and in the southern regions of what is now Chihuahua brought a demand for labor to work those mines – which meant raids on the native tribes throughout the Southwest region. Between 1560 and 1821 when Mexico declared its independence from Spain, the mines of the Americas produced $2,000,000,000 and another $2,000,000,000, in ingots which were sent to Spain. In this period two-thirds of the world’s silver passed through the port of Veracruz and 20% of the world’s silver supply came from the mines of Zacatecas alone! This plunder of the New World by Spain and by the other European nations amassed huge quantities of wealth in Europe and rapidly accelerated the development of capitalism in those countries, especially in England where Spain and Portugal had amassed immense debts. (McHenry, Short History of Mexico, pg. 51)

“The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.” (Capital, I, pg. 751)

In 1598, two hundred and fifty years before the U.S. would forcibly annex the Southwest, the first efforts to colonize Nuevo Mexico began. Juan de Onate, one of the four richest men in Mexico who had made his wealth off of the mine in Zacatecas left with 7,000 head of stock and 83 carretas (wagons) for El Valle del Rio Grande. When the Spanish entered the Southwest to begin colonization efforts, what did they find? The native peoples in the Southwest, unlike those of central Mexico, had not developed elaborate civilization or empires rich in gold and gems which the Spanish could plunder. Instead, they found in California mostly hunting and gathering peoples; only in the Rio Grande Valley and surrounding area did they find settled peoples who used farming and irrigation techniques. The Rio Grande was the life-blood of their existence.

In the south at the edge of the desert was the Seneca, at the north near the foot of the mountains was the Taos pueblo. On the east of the river, beyond the mountains lived the Gran Quivira, Manzaon and Galisteo pueblos. And to the west were the widely separated clusters, often built near the top of a prominent mesa where the residents could see any possible intruders for many miles. Here lived the Acoma, Hopi, and Zuni.

In the half dozen or so villages of the Rio Grande there were probably 40,000 native peoples living at the time of the Onate expedition with another six or seven thousand living in the mesas to the west. Surrounding the Pueblo natives were the Apaches, who roamed the vast stretches of land hunting, gathering, and raiding the settled peoples. Unlike the Apaches, the Pueblos, Hopis, Zunis, and other settled peoples lived in peace. They lived in a form of primitive communalism, that is, there were no classes in society. Instead, the villages operated on co-operation with a division of labor (based mostly on sex and age) in which all participated. The villages existed as self-contained economies and were autonomous from each other politically. Each had its own irrigated field, its own village council, and its own tools of production.

Autonomous politically, and independent from each other, the village peoples still came in contact with each other and did trade goods between themselves. Each tribe and locale had its artisans and it was these products rather than tools that were usually traded. “There was trade … which extended widely through the region, but there was no system of markets to encourage individuals or area specialization . . . The trade goods were rarely food or basic tools, but rather luxury and ceremonial items such as paints, feathers, shells, semi-precious stones, and other unique produce and handicrafts, trading was small-scaled and rather sporadic enterprise.” (Spicer, Cycles of Conquest, pg. 9)

This life changed abruptly with the advent of the Spanish. The tools and animals as well as the way of life which the Spanish brought with them would revolutionize the existence of the native peoples, bringing them from one way of life, from one mode of production – that of primitive communalism – to another, that of feudalism and class society. Even those that would keep their mode of production such as the Apaches and Comanches (who would continue to hunt and gather) would be affected, for they would now be able to raid the surrounding native and Spanish villages on Spanish horses.

When colonization efforts began in the Southwest, the Spanish brought cattle, horses, goats, pigs, barnyard fowl, and cats. From Europe, by way of Mexico, they brought the first hoes, spades, grinding stones, clamps, plows, files, and pliers used in the region, and the first wheels that turned on the soil of the Americas, as well as the first wagons. (McWilliams, North from Mexico, pg. 32) The colonizers made improvements on the farming system of the natives, showing them new techniques for irrigation (some which they themselves had learned from the natives of the interior of Mexico). They also brought to the Southwest region new crops such as wheat, orchard fruits, tobacco, and vineyard fruits.

The settlements which the Spanish developed in the Southwest needed artisans to repair and replace worn-out hoes, plows, wheels, and gears and so they trained the natives and the mestizo offspring of the Spaniards and native peoples to be blacksmiths and to construct buildings in the architectural designs of New Spain – and so the natives learned carpentry and masonry skills. They were also taught to operate gristmills, raise cattle and sheep, tan hides, make wine, shoes, soap, and candles. (Simpson, Many Mexicos, pg. 154)

And so all the productive forces characteristic of feudalism that were not already present in the Southwest were introduced by the Spaniards – “the smelting and working of iron, the spread of the iron plough and the loom, the further development of agriculture, horticulture, viniculture and dairying; the appearance of manufactories alongside of the handicraft workshops.” (Stalin, D & H Materialism, pg. 36) But it takes more than the introduction of new techniques of production to transform a society from communal to feudal, it requires a transformation in the various relations which people have in production, a transformation to a division of society based on classes. In central and northern Mexico two institutions were used to accomplish this transformation, the encomienda and the mission system. In the Southwest (then the Northwest of New Spain) the mission system was fundamental to Spanish rule and colonization.

The encomienda consisted of temporary grants made by the Crown to private individuals over territories which had been claimed in the name of the Crown. The grants included the responsibility of ‘protecting’ the natives living on or near the granted territory, instructing them in Christianity, and in general ‘civilizing’ them. In return the encomendero received from the natives tributes in the form of goods or labor services on the land granted to him. (Elliot, Imperial Spain, pg. 61) In areas of New Spain where native populations were concentrated the Spanish also used the enforced labor system of the repartimiento where natives were drafted for labor for a seasonal period to work on ranches, in mines, and sugar mills.

Originating in the Americas with Columbus (who assigned to the settlers of Hispanola a number of natives who were expected to perform labor services for them), the encomienda system was tried with lesser success in northern New Spain and was brought to the Southwest with the Onate expedition. Onate took his 400 soldiers, wagons, and livestock northward from Zacatecas up the Rio Grande to a point near Santa Fe. Several settlements were established and Onate’s principal soldiers were rewarded with encomiendas assigned on land near the pueblos where natives could be assigned to perform labor or provide tributes.

Onate’s early capitals were too close to established native settlements and so the capital was moved thirty miles south to La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco, with the country to the north designated as “Rio Arriba” the the area to the south of the capital designated as “Rio Abajo.” With the new settlements established the encomienda and repartimiento system began in the area. Through the encomiendas, the Pueblo villages contributed an annual tribute to the encomendero, usually consisting of maize and cotton blankets. Settlers living on surrounding farms and ranches made use of the repartimiento to acquire necessary labor for the growing of crops and raising of sheep and cattle.

The second major institution which had the effect of establishing feudal relations in the Southwest was the church, specifically, the mission system. The church was the educational and scientific center of Feudalism and the priests and missionaries were its Intellectuals. When the encomienda system failed to work out in northern Mexico with the Chichimecas, it was the mission system that carried through on the task of colonization. Using the missionary colleges of Jalisco and Zacatecas as a base (really as centers for training in techniques of colonization), Franciscan missionaries began establishing settlements and missions northwards. In the early 1600’s the Jesuits also came northward. The Jesuits built a line of missions which ran through the mountainous country of northern Durango up into southwestern Chihuahua and up the eastern slope of the Sierra Madre. This helped to secure the left flank of Spanish intrusion into the north and allowed the Franciscans to concentrate in the Pueblo lands and to the valleys and plains of the Rio Conchos system. (Bannon, The Spanish Borderlands Frontier 1513-1821, pg. 73)

The church ‘domesticated’ the hunting and gathering peoples in the Southwest, particularly in California, pulling the natives into subsistence in the mission lands, bringing into existence the ‘Mission Indians’ who were totally dependent on the feudal mission economy. This process was accomplished mostly by means of coercion, putting the many Indians who tried to flee into chains, and through the regular use of the whipping post.

Under feudalism, the lord “discards the slave as a laborer who has no interest in work … and prefers to deal with the serf, who has his own husbandry, implements of production, and a certain interest in work essential for the cultivation of land and for the payment in kind of a part of his harvest to the feudal lord.” (Stalin, D&H Materialism, pg. 36) How did this work with the mission system?

The strongest influence can be seen in California. There conditions giving rise to the establishment of encomiendas were practically non-existent. Instead, the friars provided the natives with cattle and sheep; with seeds for sowing and implements with which to till the soil. As soon as returns of the harvest were more than sufficient to meet the needs of the natives, they were taught to exchange the surplus for blankets, clothes, animals, tools, household utensils, etc., most of which were controlled by the missions at rates determined by them. In addition, the natives were expected to give a certain amount of their produce to the Church for its needs. (Blackwell, Spanish Institutions of the Southwest, pg. 98)

When the colonizers felt they had broken the spirit of the natives and trained them in the new ways of life (enough so that they wouldn’t run away) the new converts were given a piece of ground, a yoke of oxen, and a few farming utensils. “Their” soil remained in the hands of the Church which simply gave them the right to work it and usually the missionary or someone from the Church carefully supervised its cultivation. In addition to cultivating his own plot of land, each native worked a set amount of time (e.g. two hours a day or three days a week) on a farm belonging to the village, the produce of which went to support the Church (this is called the corvee system). (Bourne, Spain in America, pg. 305)

In the fan of settlements throughout the Southwest, the missions played the leading role in California while in New Mexico the encomienda system predominated. An important difference was that in New Mexico, the Spaniards found the natives living in already established settlements which could provide tributes or labor to their new masters. In Texas both methods were used, but with a century of effort the Spanish succeeded only in producing three sparsely populated settlements (at San Antonio, Goliad, and Nacogodches).

By 1670 the Spanish population of the upper valley of the Rio Grande was only about 2800. The priests, in order to effect conversion, ruthlessly suppressed the religions of the native peoples. Native ‘priests’ that refused to convert or help in the conversion of their pueblo or tribe and religious ceremonies not sanctioned by the Church were forbidden. Many times the natives pretended to ‘convert’ by Christianity while awaiting some chance to rally the native tribes against the Spanish. In 1680 Pope of San Juan led a revolt of the Pueblo Indians against the Spanish. Throughout the valley, tribes joined the uprising. Pope’s plan even accounted for the use of the traditional enemy of the Pueblo, the Apaches, against the Spanish. On August 10th the revolt began. Acting in unison, the Pueblos put to death 21 of the 33 Franciscan missionary ‘priests’ as well as some 390 settlers of the province. For 12 years the Pueblos were again free, having driven most of the Spanish settlers to the lower Rio Grande Valley, to a settlement near what is now El Paso.

Under Diego de Vargas the Spaniards reconquered the territory and in the early 1690’s began resettling the area. After the Pueblo Revolt the encomienda system was discarded for a new form of land distribution. The new form of land holdings really made official a process of concentration of land into the hands of a few landlords that had been taking place since the early 1600’s. Three types of land grants were now made: (1) individual grants to a few prominent or wealthy persons; (2) joint grants given to groups of individuals; and (3) community grants for groups of settlers. Through this method of distribution of land the basic feudal classes of patron and peon (lord and serf) emerged.

The individual grantees made up the patron class. Common lands used (or intended for use) by all inhabitants of the area as pasture land, were gradually taken over by two or three of the largest live stock owners in the villages and area residents became the laborers of peones on the land of the patrones. This happened because the individual plots of land which most village residents held were small, too small for succeeding generations. And all families depended on the communal lands for grazing of sheep and cattle. When these common lands were taken by the large stock owners most village residents were forced to depend on the large livestock owners to supply them with meat, wool, etc. And to get these necessities they had to work on the land of the patrones. Thus, came into existence the haciendas in the Southwest.

Another type of patron-peon relationship that existed in the Southwest was the Partido system. Under this system the peon was given a breeding herd by the patron for which he was required to return to the patron at the end of each year twenty lambs for every hundred ewes in the original group of sheep given to him. The renter (peon) would rent rams to breed his ewes from the patron and