Category Archives: C.L.R. James

C.L.R. James: A History of Pan-African Revolt

C.L.R. James’s A History of Pan-African Revolt is a concise survey of Black freedom struggles in the United States, the Caribbean, and on the African continent from 1739–1969. A product of two periods in his life and work, his first British years (1932–38) where he emerged as the author of The Black Jacobins, the classic history of the Haitian Revolution; and his second American sojourn (1969–79) where he was a mentor to Black Power activists who had been members of SNCC, the Black Panther Party, and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers; this book documents famous and obscure race and class struggles in two parts written from the vantage of 1939 and 1969 respectively.

Attachments


A History of Pan-African Revolt

C.L.R. James: Every Cook Can Govern

C.L.R. James, 1956
Direct Democracy

The Greek form of government was the city-state. Every Greek city was an independent state. At its best, in the city state of Athens, the public assembly of all the citizens made all important decisions on such questions as peace or war. They listened to the envoys of foreign powers and decided what their attitude should be to what these foreign powers had sent to say. They dealt with all serious questions of taxation, they appointed the generals who should lead them in time of war. They organized the administration of the state, appointed officials and kept check on them. The public assembly of all the citizens was the government. Continue reading →

Facing Reality

Writing in collaboration with Cornelius Castoriadis and Grace Lee, James examines the practical process of social revolution in the modern world. Inspired by the October 1956 Hungarian workers’ revolution against Stalinist oppression, as well as the wildcat strikes of U.S. workers (against Capital and the union bureaucracies), James and his co-authors looked ahead to the rise of new mass emancipatory movements by African Americans and anti-colonialist/anti-imperialist currents in Africa and Asia.

“Springing forth from the utopian flames of self-emancipation kindled by the workers councils of the Hungarian Revolution, this pivotal book offers a socialist indictment of the miserabilism of state capitalism and calls for the ongoing rejection of both vanguardism and the bureaucratic rationalism of state power.”
– Ron Sakolsky

Attachments


C.L.R. James: Facing Reality

Umbutho we Industrial & Commercial Workers’ Union (I.C.U.)

Umbutho we Industrial & Commercial Workers’ Union (I.C.U.)

Umbhali ngu: C.L.R. James (1936)
Umtoliki ngu: Bulelwa Mafu (2010)

uMzantsi Afrika uphawulwe ngodidi olutsha lwezopolitiko, aliphawulwanga ngodushe phakathi kwentlanga kwoda ngo qhanaqalazo lwabasebenzi. Ngaphezu kwe Sierra Leone ne Gambia, I South Africa ikwazile ukudibanisa intlanga ezahlukeneyo kwimizi yemveliso, emigodini nendlela abaqeshwe ngayo ibonakalisa ukuba ibasa kumbutho wabaphangeli. Kwaye kukho nefuthe lwe Russian Revolution. I African Communinsit Party yasekwa ngomnyaka ka 1924, kodwa yayisuka komnye umbutho owawusewusekiwe ngomnyaka ka1920. Yayisebenza ngokuxokisa uluntu olumnyama. Kodwa e Sierra leone nase Gambia abantu abafundileyo abamnyama bathetha kakhulu bengenzi nto ebonakalayo, kodwa uMzantsi Afrika wona uqhubela nezo zikhona zimbalwa kumlo. Iimfazwe ezidlulileyo nemeko zemali nopolitiko zango 1919 zaqalisa umbuthe we Industrial and Commercial Worker’s waseMzantsi Afrika. Continue reading →