The Solidarity Requisite

Emancipation in Radical Political Thought:

Why is it that freeing demographics out from under oppression must be done universally and unanimously between the oppressed?

Specifically examining some of the points made in the works of Karl Marx, Angela Davis, and Vladimir Lenin, I want to address the ‘solidarity requisite’ of radical theory in reference to emancipating oppressed classes. The major theoretical strokes behind Marx’s writing, combined with the more modern and explicitly intersectional examples of race and gender in regards to abolitionism and women’s rights strike me as a basis for understanding the problem of self-emancipation versus universal emancipation from oppression. I aim to explain the tension between these two concepts, and why singular, piecemeal movements of emancipation carry much less weight than those brought about with solidarity.

One of the major themes of radical political theory is that of the requisite for solidarity in freeing the oppressed. This requisite appears in and across radical texts in many forms including interclass and intraclass solidarity. Much of the reasoning behind this requisite can be tied back to the earliest texts of Marx, but it has developed as more intersectional groups face more complex forms of oppression. This article will examine the reasoning behind such a requisite, as freeing diverse groups of the oppressed who face these complex issues is one of the largest problems faced when attempting to stage any kind of universal emancipation. First exploring Marxist fundamental theories of solidarity, this report will examine how it has developed through the progression of radical political theory through Marx and Lenin’s advocacy for collective and unanimous actions as well as Davis’ account of American history and race relations.

Why is this a problem? What issues does the need for solidarity create?

Intersectionality and history

In Women, Race and Class, Davis explains a good deal of the history and nuance behind both the abolitionist movement as well as the desegregation movement in the context of women’s rights. There are a few important details in Davis’ discussion in relation to the role of white women, wherein she expands upon instances of the political rights of women and Black liberation being intrinsically linked. As pointed out in the abolitionist lectures of the Grimke sisters, political action by women of the time towards abolitionism also created a political space for white women (Davis, Chapter 3). The solidarity in this case was inherent in the movement itself, in that one — the fight for Black liberation — solidified the arena of another — political agency of women. These battles were inextricable despite the separate forms of oppression each demographic faced. As Davis puts it, the Grimke sisters in particular “recognized the dialectical character of the relationship between the two causes” (Davis, Chapter 3). Their understanding of solidarity ties in directly with Marx’s idea of universal emancipation, as their goals were best phrased when Angelina Grimke said, “Until [the Black man] gets his rights, we shall never have ours” (Davis, Chapter 3).This is a crucial point that many contemporaries missed in their exclusionary behavior. Such exclusion led to a significant amount of inconsistencies amongst abolitionists and their goals.

As was earlier examined, much of the women’s liberation movement was disconnected with the abolitionist movement. For example, Elizabeth Cady Stanton did not share the ideals of the Grimke sisters, and was less than interested in the liberation of Black people in America than she was what their liberation could do for the women’s movement (Davis, Chapter 4). Stanton was not alone. Some of the racist attitudes still prevalent amongst these groups made collective action not only difficult, but impossible to sustain as leaders and supporters did not hold onto the same ideas. The concept of intersectional solidarity between oppressed women and oppressed Black people — men and women — was not one that transcended all social groups.

Another example of failure to take into interclass oppression was the Seneca Falls Declaration. The Seneca Declaration of 1848 dedicated its focus to the oppressive nature of marriage for women in the time period. This included the economic disadvantage, dependency, and lack of freedom for women to remove themselves from a marriage with divorce or separation. However, Davis points out that the rights advocated here were in specific reference to conditions of middle-class white women, and that “the Declaration all but ignored the predicament of white working-class women, as it ignored the condition of Black women in the South and North alike” (Davis, Chapter 3). A crucial point to understand here is that in discussion of these criticisms, it is not to say that one focus of rights is inherently bad or insignificant. The point of the solidarity requisite is that each focus is linked in a way that should not be severed for the sake of one over the other. The idea of universal emancipation is, naturally, universal, and Davis is not disparaging the advocacy of these rights for women in their marriages. But the issue here lies in the Seneca Declaration’s limitations. “In other words,” Davis writes, “The Seneca Falls Declaration proposed an analysis of the female condition which disregarded the circumstances of women outside the social class of the document’s framers.” (Davis, Chapter 4). Universality is about acknowledgment of the whole picture, no matter how nuanced, and an inclusion of more than one predicament for the sake of advocacy. Considering the Seneca Declaration was just that — a declaration of sentiments, and not a piece of legislation — and therefore had even more reason to outline ideals. Failure to do so created a conspicuous discrepancy between many of the leaders’ goals for the Seneca Falls, and those of pro-abolitionist figures even reaching beyond the Civil War.

How to “solve” the problem of collective action?

In the face of these complexities that make the “universal” aspect of universal emancipation so difficult to achieve, we can posit the counterfactual of simply ignoring it. What if radical political theory cut out the need for solidarity? If it’s too difficult to elevate all oppressed classes, does it not make sense to lower the ideological standard, and simply focus on one class at a time to free from oppression? The implication here being, that dividing identities and solving their issues piecemeal should work just as well. For example, take an advocacy network focused solely on women and women’s issues. This network could develop resources and improve access for women to services such as healthcare. It’s a nominally direct goal — “providing healthcare for all women” is simple and encompassing, and not a complicated way to phrase a task, even if it is an idealized one. However, what happens when a woman walks into one of these healthcare providers and is turned away on the basis of race, sexuality, or identity? There is a contradicting logic here in which advocacy networks that focus on women ostensibly include all women — with a given definition of “all.” To provide healthcare for “all women” would inherently include women of color, LGBTQ+ women, women living in poverty, and other marginalized or disadvantaged identities and situations. The issue here is that these identities under the umbrella of “women” still face unique challenges and forms of discrimination separate from that first identifier. There is no disentanglement of these intersecting identities, but each still provides more than one basis for oppression. The counterfactual here simply doesn’t work, because it is inherently contradicting. Even if “all” means “all”, it’s impossible to chop people up into the different parts by which they are discriminated against. Simply ignoring the solidarity requisite within identities is an utterly ineffective and self-contradicting way of resolving the issue of collective action for change.

What’s an alternative solution?

The alternative proposal for clearing this problem of “universality”, of needing to take into account all oppressed classes would be cutting out the inter-class solidarity requisite. Intersecting identities do not always apply to oppressed classes, and removing the necessity of defining “all” excludes the contradiction of separating identities. For example, in the context of Davis’s account of desegregated education, there is the examination of why working class white men learned alongside black women, without necessarily a common identity between them (Davis, Chapter 4). The commonality was in their need for education — or, in other words, their commonality was the oppression of being excluded from education. This once again circles back to the point of recognition of common need that appeared in the struggle for political liberation. Common need, here, could be considered as a stand-in for what Marx and Lenin discuss as a class consciousness. This idea will be expanded upon, but this commonality in turn, allows a common result of progress. This all to say, the removal of this requisite would not be the same contradiction as a separation of intraclass demographics, but would still be negatively impactful for the common oppression that these classes face. In the context of the example, should Black women have excluded white working men from the school, it would not solve the problem of lack of education — it would exacerbate it. In this sense, exclusion between oppressed classes who are seeking the same specific type of freedom is similarly ineffective as intraclass exclusion.

Lenin and collective consciousness

These issues, as outlined, are not ones that can be solved with broad and singular actions. Collective action is difficult to maintain without concrete incentives — incentives that ideals simply do not always provide. As Vladimir Lenin describes in his landmark piece What is to be done?, radical social upheaval that requires solidarity also requires strong connections between the oppressed social groups. Similar to Lenin’s the creation of collective class consciousness via widely spread newspaper, strengthening of social ties between oppressed groups is crucial to their connected emancipation (Lenin, What is to be done?). Collective consciousness, according to Lenin, is born of shared ideas and ideals, and when those connections are strong, they are more likely to lead to collective movements. It establishes a more cohesive sense of unity that transcends what Lenin thinks of as spontaneous action, as this kind of action operates on stable and shared ideas rather than solely emotional upheaval. Though much of Lenin’s work does focus specifically on the intraclass dynamic of workers, shared ideals and information could also apply across identities of the oppressed.

This kind of organization does in fact appear in some of Davis’ descriptions of some of the more successful solidarity movements for women and Black liberation. The proliferation of pamphlets and the organization of shared space events often featured both Black and white speakers on the subject of liberation and equality — it was the inclusive events that spawned inclusive thought. For example, Sojourner Truth’s recurring and unforgettable presence at National Conventions of the 1850s and onwards, her constant reminders to racist white women that Black women were rightful and deserving of their place there infused Conventions with “a fighting spirit” that had a significant influence on attendees (Davis, Chapter 3). Though Truth’s place was sometimes questioned on the basis of blatant racism, her inclusion should be noted as the creation of a space in which Black and white women were able to share their ideals and ideas, and ultimately made progress in spreading them to a further audience. Without first the inclusion in the informative step of advocacy, there can’t be substantive reform or action. As discussed earlier, the common need can serve as that link to stand in for a unified consciousness, but it needs expansion and articulation. This is the basis of Lenin’s call for cohesive information networks, and this is the basis on which more cohesive intersectional advocacy can be taken.

It is difficult in any pursuit of emancipation to wholly and holistically assess every single nuance of oppression. Davis’ historical account offers just a glimpse of social divisions and contradictions that wracked the women’s liberation and abolitionist movements, and those discussions were confined largely to only the American sphere of societal norms. The basic political rights this article has discussed are a cornerstone of her discussion, true, but they’re just the tip of the metaphorical iceberg of rights that have been sectioned and pulled apart on the basis of identity. The solution of encouraging more shared ideals is not a simple or an easy one, and even less so with misinformation and deeply-rooted discrimination. However, there isn’t a second step without a first one; there isn’t a plan without planning one; there isn’t a conversation without somebody speaking. Solidarity is something that happens between people and groups, and even if it’s difficult to maintain, it’s still necessary for the kind of complete reform that doesn’t leave people behind. Communication alone cannot and will not solve every problem presented by collective action challenges. Still, the establishment of shared ideals via inclusive communication is something that still offers a more stable basis upon which build foundations for solidarity.

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