Sept. 18 is the 85th anniversary of the birth of the great African revolutionary leader Kwame Nkrumah.

The late president of Ghana was an internationally recognized Marxist thinker, author and fighter. The following is excerpted from his 1970 book, “Class Struggle in Africa."

A non-racial society can only be achieved by socialist revolutionary action of the masses. It will never come as a gift from the minority ruling class. For it is impossible to separate race relations from the capitalist class relationships in which they have their roots.

South Africa again provides a typical example. In the early years of Dutch settlement, the distinction was made not between Black and White, but between Christian and Heathen. It was only with capitalist economic penetration that the master-servant relationship emerged, and with it, racism, color prejudice and apartheid.

The position was crystallized and reinforced with the discovery of gold and diamonds in South Africa, and with the employment of cheap African labor in the mines. As time passed, and it was thought necessary to justify the exploitation and oppression of African workers, the myth of racial superiority was developed and spread.

In the era of neocolonialism, “underdevelopment” is still attributed not to exploitation but to inferiority, and racial undertones remain closely interwoven with the class struggle.

It is only the ending of capitalism, colonialism, imperialism and neocolonialism and the attainment of world communism that can provide the conditions under which the race question can finally be abolished and eliminated.

(Reprinted from Workers World)

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