"Black Bolsheviks” and Recognition of African-America's Right to Self-Determination by the Communist Party USA

The U. S. Communist Party's support for the notion of a “Black-Belt Nation” in the South has generally been seen as an aberration, attributable to the ultra-leftism of the Comintern's Third (or “class against class") Period. This interpretation underestimates the role of “Black Bolsheviks” — many of them of Caribbean origin — in the early history of the CPUSA, and fails to grasp the full significance of the campaigns waged by Communists and other anti-racists in the 1930s. Whether or not the establishment of a “Black-Belt Nation,” as envisaged by the Comintern's 1928 “Resolution on the Negro Question,” was a realistic objective for Black Americans, African-America nevertheless has a right to self-determination that merits respect and recognition.