Notting Hill, London, May 17, 1959, just after midnight. Having had his finger, which he had broken at work, re-plastered at the local hospital, Kelso Cochrane was walking home. He was quite near the house in which he shared a room with his partner Olivia, when a gang of white youths surrounded him. They called him many insulting names, punched, pushed, thumped and then stabbed him. When he collapsed they ran away.
Two black men walking nearby rushed over. A taxi stopped. Cochrane was picked up and put in the cab but by the time they reached the nearby hospital he had stopped breathing. Someone called a reporter at the Sunday Express and said ‘three white youths have stabbed a darkie named Cochrane’.’
The first official “Notting Hill Carnival” was held in London in 1964 – the year Claudia Jones travelled to China to meet Chairman Mao (twice) and then to the Soviet Union to receive advanced (free) medical care for her ailing heart condition. By the time the Notting Hill Carnival manifest on the streets of London – the cultural imput and drive of Claudia Jones had moved to issues of personal health and survival (a battle she would lose). My reference for this – and other observations – is taken from Carole Davies’ (2008) book entitled “To the Left of Marx – The Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones“. Jones did not found the Notting Hill Carnival per se – but through the influence of her “West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News” – she did instigate “fore-runners” to this event in London. Oswald Moseley had not been properly dealt with a a far-right agitator leading up to WWII. He was kept safely in prison and did not participate in the defence of the UK during WWII. He, and his thugs, were allowed to resurface under Churchill’s second stint as Prime Minister in the 1950s, and it is believed that he may have been behind the Race Riots in Notting Hill in 1958 and the racially motivated murder of Kelso Cochrane in 1959.
Jones, as a Marxist-Leninist, responded to these manifestations of right-wing (monochrome) “Nationalism” in Britain with (multiracial) “Internationalism” as she perceived it within the West Indies (a former British colonies). Non-White people, by the very fact that their homelands had been forcibly invaded and occupied by (unwanted) White people, were by their very definition “Internationalist” by default. Even reactionary Black people possessed “no choice” other than to submit to this dialectical reality. Jones understood this and decided to use one of these “affects” peculiar to British imperialism against the (White) British people in their homeland. Looking at the ebbing and flowing narratives and counter-narratives, it seems clear that many (White) British people living in England remained blissfully ignorant of the effects of British imperialism on the non-British (and non-White) peoples of the world – and were not willing (or able) to take responsibility for it. The British working-class, as oppressed as it was and is, was asked to take responsibility for what the bourgeoisie had done around the world and in its name.
Jones saw this contradiction, as a non-British person, and decided to ideologically attack this weak-point as a fight-back against White racism (a very “Maoist” thing to do). During November 1958, Jones – through her newspaper – established the “Caribbean Carnival Committee”. This was a working committee established to investigate the possibility of establishing in the UK a mirror-image of the “Trinidad Carnivals”. This type of carnival ran from 1958-1964 (many sources state from “1959” – but Davies’ disagrees) – under the direct control of Jones until the death (it was after her death in 1964 that a different [but related] group of people – Rhaune Laslett, Leslie Palmer, Sam King, Russell Henderson and Duke Vin in the UK – formulated what is today known as the “Notting Hill Carnival” – although Jones is often cited as a member of this group due to her previous inspirational role). An interesting quirk is that these events were held (mostly in-doors) in the often freezing months of November-March in the UK – the exact (hot) months the carnivals were held across the Caribbean (out-doors). The point was to express a material “Solidarity” of West Indian (and non-White) people in the face of White racism – across the world. Whereas “White” Communists in the US and UK accepted White culture as the de facto mode of communication and interaction within society (treating non-White culture as “subordinate” or “irrelevant”) – Jones challenged this monochrome interpretation of Marxist-Leninism (the USSR was comprised of 15-multiracial countries).
Indeed, even within the modern context, we have found the various so-called “Communist” gate-keepers to retain exactly same “White” racist attitudes that Jones encountered in the early, mid 20th century. Nothing has changed. We tried to “fit-in” with this White monochrome tyranny – but in the end it just becomes what it is – leftist racism. The problem is that White racism remains unchallenged in its depth by the dialectic of Marxist-Leninism – which if it was permitted to be unleashed fully – would totally uproot this last bastion of Eurocentric chauvinism. This is why Maoism remains so important for both truly progressive Whites and non-Whites together. In the thought processes of Mao Zedong there is a saving “Internationalism” that develops Marxist-Leninism to its ultimate conclusion. Until racism on the left is firmly dealt with – non-White (and progressive Whites) will be “alienated” by the very Communist ideology that is designed to save them. Finally, Davies mentions that there are “Black” alternative versions of how the carnival began – linking it to non-Communist migrants of the Windrush Generation. Even here we can see the watering-down of the “Communist” inspiration. This reminds me of how bourgeois leftists align themselves with the “Internationalist” working-class effort during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) – which was armed and financed by the USSR – whilst simultaneously claiming that “Communist” ideology had little (or nothing) to do with the world-wide opposition to fascism.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 