Nelson Peery (June 22, 1923-September 6, 2015) earned himself an honorable and distinctive place and mention in the Marxist movement and the development of the science of society. In the 1970s Nelson became a rallying point and then a mobilizing force of a distinct post-Khrushchev Marxism-Leninism. His understanding of the social movement was shaped by the fascist policy of McCarthyism of the 1950s, and shaped his view of the conspiratorial aspects of a revolutionary organization. Peery’s philosophical approach and persistent fight for education, was aided and shaped by his wife Sue Ying. Their love, comradeship and collectivity were at the foundation of a renovated Marxism.
Peery’s renovated Marxism spoke of the new technology, robotics driven by the digital revolution based on the computer on a chip – microchip. Qualitatively new means of production calls forth and drive creation of a new social division of labor, a new social organization of labor and in a society rent with class antagonism, gives rise to a new form of the working class. Today this means a new form of the proletariat developing in correspondence with robotics, which displaces [sublates] the old form of the proletariat formed on the basis of the industrial revolution. This new form of proletariat, birthed in the wake of the robotic economy, increasingly consists of child-bearers, and is humanities future. This child-gearing sector of the new proletariat is the foundation for a new society that produces and distributes socially necessary means of life, and educates people without a demand for labor, a jobs and/or money.
Peery’s renovated Marxism took shape in a country formed on the basis of chattel slavery, successive waves of European immigrants and a bourgeois working class, birthed in unity with their capitalist-imperialist plunder of the people of earth. The US working class was always an intimate part of the genocidal wars against the original inhabitants of the land, the theft of half of Mexico’s territory and historically supported and upheld the system of exclusion and isolation of the black slave and their descendants. Consequently, there is a permanent sector of US society, our working class, that is fascists and without any redeeming qualities.
Peery’s unusual upbringing in a community where his family was the only black family in the community, and his study of the Civil War, allowed him to navigate this nasty history of conquest and murder. Peery understood in the way that only a man of his generation could understand, that a population that previously supported slavery could be rallied to fight to overthrow the slave system. He developed a love for the US working class and proletariat, born of a person who based their hope and vision on scientific Marxism and a practical understanding of what was and is possible.
Peery’s vision of hope was buttressed by reconceptualization of Marx’s concept of social revolution and the understanding that society changes qualitatively and this includes the thinking of people. Leaps occur in society as a natural process of development. Old ideological categories and modes of thought die when the foundation for the belief system is shattered and revolutionaries step forward to present new thinking and a new vision to meet the demands of new times. People become open to new idea during transitions from one stage to another and from one mode of production to the next. Peery was able to merge hope, vision and faith with the scientific law of social development and the dialectic of change.
Peery’s renovated Marxism was the product of a collective effort.
Peery’s collectives and comrades charted the rise of the robotic economy and the opening of an epoch of social revolution. This process was described in “Entering an Epoch of Social Revolution.” Peery further describes the deep change that is society being torn from its moorings in the old social order in his “The Future Is Up to Us,” and articles in the publication, Rally Comrades! which is issued six times yearly.
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/epoch.pdf
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-2/future.pdf
http://rallycomrades.lrna.org/
Peery’s philosophical view upheld materialism and the Marxist dialectic. Materialist dialectics holds that reality, matter, everything in existence, inherently moves, behaves and develops a certain way, according to a system of laws, and this law system of motion is knowable, even when we are limited by our understanding of the world around us.
Peery’s life experience gave him the courage to renovate the dialectic of the leap, the place of antagonism in development and the leap (transition) from an old quality to a new quality. He pushed and urged the younger comrades to develop a fundamental understanding of causality, a subject somewhat neglected by his generation. His love of education fought to preserve the Bolshevik conception of the role of an organization of propagandists.
Peery saw things different.
In my view, Peery’s contributions are displayed in works such as “The Negro National Colonial Question,” “Dialectics of the Development of the Communist League,” “The Comintern position on the Negro Question,” “African American Liberation and Social Revolution,” “Entering an Epoch of Social Revolution,” and several articles, interview and videos of him presented on this Facebook page and in the pages of the Peoples Tribune, over the past 45 years.
Peery seems to be the author of the 2008 article, “African American Question Takes on New Meaning,” although the article has no by-line. This article is ground breaking in its treatment of the color line and the role of black Americans in American history.
“African American Question Takes on New Meaning,” was one of Nelson’s intellectual doors I passed through in understanding his peculiar presentation of the color line.
Peery and the Peery polarity outlined the process wherein the segregated black community was destroyed and replaced by majority black neighborhoods. Segregation backed up by state, extra-legal and illegal violence, held the old black community together as an entity. Once legal segregation was dismantled, those with money moved out of the black community and aligned themselves with peoples of all colors that were their economic equals and counterparts. The black community disintegrated, along with most local black businesses, which had serviced a segregated market, and in its place stood the “hood” – large predominately black urban neighborhoods!
A historically evolved people and community imply the existence of all classes living together with a certain amount of economic activity between them to stabilize and develop their community on its own basis. As the black community was shattered and replaced by black neighborhoods, these black neighborhoods became more integrated with people of all colors. This process is highly developed in Detroit, but was first described in its theoretical components by Nelson Peery. “New meaning” is a must read for its underlying theoretical concepts.
http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/articles/v18ed1art6.html
Today we have vast formerly black communities that are increasingly integrated, majority black hoods (neighborhoods) governed based on the police state – fascism. These majority black neighborhoods tend to be home of the new bleeding proletariat and their children – proletarian slums.
“New Meaning” reaffirmed my conviction to never use race and racism as analytical tools. There is only one race, the human race. The historically evolved social position of blacks in America is not a racial question, but part of the general colonial shape of development. The colonial shape of development of the industrial revolution, assumed the face of the color factor in world history. The color factor was a feature of the transition from agriculture to industry.
Peery’s approach to the science of society, Marxism, was a gift to the proletariat to which he dedicated his life. His approach does not belong to any individual and is not the property of an organization. No individual or group can “steal Nelson’s line” or claim the Peery polarity as property. Yet, around him developed a form of Marxism General G. Baker Jr. dubbed, “Our Marxism.”
Peery was the living link between three generations of communist revolutionaries. He was the continuity within a pole of US Marxism, shaped by V. I. Lenin and the Third Communist International. Peery’s legacy is his distinct presentation of a retooled Marxism.
“To the forge, Comrades! Strike where the iron is hot!,” conjures an image of beefy armed industrial laborers and the blacksmith of the last stage of manufacturing. Peery taught revolutionaries to “grapple with” complexity and spoke of “the objectivity of,” of existence and matter in motion. “Marx said prosperity is the death of revolution,” “line of march,” and a host of aphorisms those who knew him best could describe. I did not know Nelson Peery in any personal way or sense, but became familiar with his writings and mode of thought.
My personal Peery quote comes from, “The Future is Up to Us”:
“When fundamental things change, everything dependent upon them must also change. This does not imply that results of change are direct or immediate. However, scientific thinking demands that we find the motivation for change, place such changes in their proper context and make some estimate of their consequences.”
Peery’s approach to the science of society, Marxism is a gift to the proletariat to which he dedicated his life. His approach does not belong to any individual and is not the property of an organization. No individual or group can “steal Nelson’s line” or claim the Peery polarity as property.
The Peery polarity made the first public steps of an organization that sought to shed the industrial form of Marxism and doctrines that corresponded to society completing transition from agriculture to the factory system and large scale industry.
As practical politics, the Peery polarity is summarized in the program of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America (LRNA), and this general program is an excellent starting point for an agreeable general line of the world communist movement. Peery often spoke of the role of the Marxists. Our role is to help humanity create a new vision of a classless society and outline the operations of a robotic economy, while educating our proletariat in the science of society.
http://rallycomrades.lrna.org/2014/08/program-league-revolutionaries-new-america/
Nelson Peery’s passing occurred on the same day as General Gordon Baker Jr.’s date of birth, September 6, and in my mind this link both individuals together in eternity. General G. Baker Jr., an intellectual of enormous gravity and practical leader of organized revolutionaries saw in Nelson Peery a leader steeled in military combat, with a disciplined approach to the study of Marxism. Nelson and General shared a love of learning and the ability to embrace the new, and discover the landscape of the undiscovered country.
Nelson and General’s names are linked in history and express the intertwining of the revolutionary process and the US Marxist movement. Their moment of history was one when US society completed its industrial revolution and began its leap (transition) from electro-mechanics to the robotic economy driven by the microchip. The microchip is the foundation of the digital revolution.
Individuals matter. Nelson Peery’s legacy matters.
