Richard S. Fraser
Encyclopedia
Richard S. Fraser was an American Trotskyist
and the principal theoretician of the doctrine of revolutionary integrationism
in the 1950s within the Socialist Workers Party (US), against George Breitman
's advocacy of support for black nationalism
. He joined the Trotskyist movement in 1934, and was a founding member of the Socialist Workers Party (US). He made a study of the black question in the late 1940s, after the Party began to lose hundreds of black recruits. This was due not only to the rise of McCarthyist repression of the SWP, but also, of the party's burgeoning opportunism on the question of black nationalism. Informally, the leadership had even begun discouraging white and black members from forming interracial couples. In the 1950s, Fraser disputed the notion that blacks in the U.S. were a nation, pointing to the fact that they lacked a separate culture, language, and especially, geographic territory and autonomous market economy: the requirements for nationhood. The struggle for equality had always been the main goal and task of blacks in the U.S., argued Fraser in speeches he made and internal documents he wrote for the SWP. Nationalism was the product, not of hope for blacks, but arose during periods of despair and disillusionment when whites—capitalists during Reconstruction, trade union bureaucrats in the 20th century—betrayed them. In these writings and speeches, Fraser also carefully analyzed the historical, post-Civil War class structure and dynamics of the U.S. South and the U.S. in general, in the process updating W. E. B. Du Bois's Black Reconstruction. Fraser disputed the slogan of the SWP majority calling upon the U.S. to "Send Federal Troops to Mississippi," arguing that this was a reformist slogan building illusions in the benevolence of the U.S. ruling class and its state, and a capitulation to the middle class reformist black leadership of the Civil Rights movement.
Though he disagreed with them about the nature of the Cuban workers state, Fraser was a theoretical father figure to the SWP's Revolutionary Tendency
led by James Robertson and Tim Wohlforth: later expelled when the RT opposed the reentry of the SWP into the USFI. Fraser himself left the SWP in the mid 60s after the SWP refused to call for solidarity with the Viet Cong, and instead called for "Troops Out Now," a liberal slogan. With his wife Clara Fraser
, Fraser formed the Freedom Socialist Party
, but left as the result of a divorce/custody battle with Clara. He died in 1990.
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
and the principal theoretician of the doctrine of revolutionary integrationism
Revolutionary integrationism
Revolutionary Integrationism is an analysis, philosophy, and program for resolving the "black question"--the problem of the superoppression of blacks, and their liberation—in the United States.-Origins:...
in the 1950s within the Socialist Workers Party (US), against George Breitman
George Breitman
George Breitman was an American communist political activist and newspaper editor. He is best remembered as a founding member of the Socialist Workers Party and as a long-time editor of that organization's weekly paper, The Militant. Breitman also supervised and edited several important...
's advocacy of support for black nationalism
Black nationalism
Black nationalism advocates a racial definition of indigenous national identity, as opposed to multiculturalism. There are different indigenous nationalist philosophies but the principles of all African nationalist ideologies are unity, and self-determination or independence from European society...
. He joined the Trotskyist movement in 1934, and was a founding member of the Socialist Workers Party (US). He made a study of the black question in the late 1940s, after the Party began to lose hundreds of black recruits. This was due not only to the rise of McCarthyist repression of the SWP, but also, of the party's burgeoning opportunism on the question of black nationalism. Informally, the leadership had even begun discouraging white and black members from forming interracial couples. In the 1950s, Fraser disputed the notion that blacks in the U.S. were a nation, pointing to the fact that they lacked a separate culture, language, and especially, geographic territory and autonomous market economy: the requirements for nationhood. The struggle for equality had always been the main goal and task of blacks in the U.S., argued Fraser in speeches he made and internal documents he wrote for the SWP. Nationalism was the product, not of hope for blacks, but arose during periods of despair and disillusionment when whites—capitalists during Reconstruction, trade union bureaucrats in the 20th century—betrayed them. In these writings and speeches, Fraser also carefully analyzed the historical, post-Civil War class structure and dynamics of the U.S. South and the U.S. in general, in the process updating W. E. B. Du Bois's Black Reconstruction. Fraser disputed the slogan of the SWP majority calling upon the U.S. to "Send Federal Troops to Mississippi," arguing that this was a reformist slogan building illusions in the benevolence of the U.S. ruling class and its state, and a capitulation to the middle class reformist black leadership of the Civil Rights movement.
Though he disagreed with them about the nature of the Cuban workers state, Fraser was a theoretical father figure to the SWP's Revolutionary Tendency
Revolutionary Tendency
Revolutionary Tendency was the name of at least two internal factions within Trotskyist organizations in the United States.*Revolutionary Tendency which developed within the Socialist Workers Party in the early 1960s....
led by James Robertson and Tim Wohlforth: later expelled when the RT opposed the reentry of the SWP into the USFI. Fraser himself left the SWP in the mid 60s after the SWP refused to call for solidarity with the Viet Cong, and instead called for "Troops Out Now," a liberal slogan. With his wife Clara Fraser
Clara Fraser
Clara Fraser was a feminist and socialist political organizer, who co-founded and led the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women.-Early life:...
, Fraser formed the Freedom Socialist Party
Freedom Socialist Party
The Freedom Socialist Party is a socialist political party with a unique program of revolutionary feminism that emerged from a split in the United States Socialist Workers Party in 1966. It is currently a working class organization that works towards creating social justice and order for all...
, but left as the result of a divorce/custody battle with Clara. He died in 1990.
External links
Important writings and speeches of Richard S. Fraser- contains a lot of autobiographical material and a lengthy critique of the SWP.
- "The Negro Struggle and the Proletarian Revolution"
- "For the Materialist Conception of the Negro Question"
- "to the Discussion on the Slogan 'Send Federal Troops to Mississippi'"
- "Resolution on the Negro Question"
- "Dialectics of Black Liberation," in Revolutionary Integration: A Marxist Analysis of African American Liberation Red Letter Press 2004.