The Problem of Race (1960)

From the February 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

As Socialists, we recognise race as a field of genuine scientific investigation. What we emphatically repudiate are the doctrines of racialism, which deliberately ignore or misuse the findings of science, and seek to convince by clothing themselves in a mantle of scientific jargon and primitive emotionalism.

What is Race?

In attempting to divide the human species into races the scientist bases his investigations, as has already been stressed, upon physical characteristics. The more important of these are skin, hair, and eye colour; shape of head; hair formation (straight, wavy or woolly); shape of nose (broad or narrow nostrils, high or low bridge, etc); and stature. There are also numerous other features like lip-formation, shape of face, bone-formation, etc, which are of comparatively minor importance. Using these various physical traits, either singly, or, as is more often the case, in groups, scientists have, according to their own particular interpretations, divided mankind into races. 

And it is here that we encounter our first stumbling-block. For when these scientists, logically and scientifically, and with the available evidence before them, try to distinguish between the various races of mankind, they find themselves in difficulties. Their investigations are quite dispassionate; for the most part they have not the slightest desire to bolster up any pre-conceived theories; yet, whenever they have ventured to put forward estimates even of the number of races of human beings in the world, they have been quite unable to come to anything like general agreement on the question. The great majority of them wisely make no attempts at estimating; they realise the uselessness and absurdity of doing so. Despite the fact that they, more than any others, are in possession of the fullest evidence obtainable, despite the fact that they have often made a life-time study of the subject, and despite the fact that, like all human beings, they are anxious to see some definite result emerge, if possible, from their labours, we find the conclusions of the scientists are tentative, their observations cautious and non-committal, and their whole attitude guarded and reserved.

One thing is obvious; physical differences between people do exist. This cannot be denied. We may go further and say that certain groups of people do possess physical traits in common, which serve to distinguish one group from another. We may be even more explicit and distinguish three main groups, the White, the Black, and the Yellow. We may also forestall a probable objection and extend the list to include a further group, the people with Brown skins. But how much further than this can we go? To be quite honest with ourselves, we cannot even afford to be dogmatic about the few statements we have already made, because, when all is said and done, we have only divided our groups on the basis of skin colour alone, and there are many other physical differences between people besides this. To classify mankind rigidly on the basis of skin-colour alone is manifestly absurd. One has only to note the different physical characteristics of the inhabitants of one’s own street to realise this. They may all be possessed of white skins, but what differences exist between them in other respects! Even their skins vary, from chalky-white to swarthy, with numerous shades in between. As Whites, we notice all the differing traits of people whose skins are the same colour as our own, but fail to notice all the many variations that occur in other groups. To us, most Negroes look alike; we notice only their black skins. Yet we are surprised to learn that the great majority of Africans are not pure Negroes at all, but are, in fact, a varying mixture of Negro and Arab stocks. 

Race mixture

Why is it so difficult to divide the human species into races? 

Unlike the other creatures of the earth, man is no longer the plaything of natural forces. Through the countless years of his evolution from the first primitive state, he has gradually made himself the master and controller of nature. He is no longer its slave; through generations he has made himself capable of withstanding and overcoming many of the hostile forces with which he has to contend. By virtue of his superior brain development, he has learned to make and control fire; he has learned to temper the rigours of harsh and bitter climates by means of artificial clothing and shelter; he has learned to fashion tools; and through this increasing control over his environment, he has been able to spread his species over almost the whole of the earth’s surface. He has migrated everywhere; into the cold, barren, inhospitable wastes of the sub-Arctic regions; into the hot, arid deserts of the five continents; into the humid forests of the Equatorial lands. 

Wherever he has gone, he has, in course of time, adapted himself to the most varied of environments. And, moreover, most important of all from our point of view, wherever he has wandered he has interbred. The process of interbreeding has gone on as long as man himself has existed on the earth. With the possible exception of the Pygmies of Central Africa, a small isolated group that has bred within itself for generations, there is no “pure race” in existence in the world to-day.

Race and Nationality

Probably the most common of all errors is the assumption that race is identical with nationality. Reference is frequently made to the “British race”, the “German race”, the “Japanese race”, and so on, in the belief, we must presume, that the existence of certain frontier lines and political boundaries determines the racial make-up of the people living within them. This belief is utterly false. To talk, for example, of the “British race”, is to render the term devoid of all meaning. The inhabitants of Great Britain possess all manner of varying physical characteristics. They vary through the widest extremes of colouring from very fair to very dark; in stature they range from very tall to very short; they are straight-haired and wavy-haired; thin and thickset; long-headed, medium-headed, and broad-headed; they eyes may be brown, blue, yellow or green; in short, they constitute a great mixture, a “hotch-potch” of different racial types.

“Thus from a mixture of all things began

That heterogeneous thing, an Englishman”

                (Daniel Defoe, The True-born Englishman.)

It is only necessary to take a very cursory glance at British history to see the truth behind the gibe of Defoe. During its history, Britain has received all kinds of peoples, and all of these, whether they arrived as invaders, immigrants, or refugees, have left their mark upon the present population. Most of these peoples have been thoroughly absorbed into the general population

Race and Language

Race is often also confused with language. For example, people often talk of the “Latin Races”, the “Celtic Races”, the “Slav Races”, and in doing so use terms which are, strictly speaking, self-contradictory. To take an instance, the use of the phrase “Latin Race” can only be taken to refer to those peoples who speak a language originally derived from Latin. Countries whose inhabitants speak such languages are France, Italy, Spain and Roumania, and their various offshoots and colonies, if they have any. No person in his senses would attempt to link up all these people on a racial basis, but the use of the term can imply this. Most of us use these phrases more in ignorance than by design, but it is as well to remember that they have, on more than one occasion, been used by various governments as cloaks for nationalistic ambitions. Such was the so-called “Anglo-Saxon” movement in England during the nineteenth century, and as though to offset this there also developed in France the cult of “Celtism” in which certain people professed to find the true source of the so-called “French spirit”. Similarly, the idea of an empire which would comprise the whole of the “Slav races” has long been a catch-cry of Russian governments whether the character of the ruling class be Tsarist or “Communist”. 

The most notorious example, however, of the deliberate misuse of a linguistic term to cover the propagation of false racial theories is the word Aryan, which was seized upon by the Nazis in Germany, and was so distorted by them that in time it came to be synonymous with non-Jewish. The word Aryan is a linguistic term. Used in the sciences which deal with the study of the development of languages, it describes a huge group of languages which are thought to have originated from a common stem. This group, to which is also applied the description “Indo-European”, includes languages as far apart as English, Latin, Greek, German, the Slav grant and Sanskrit. It has absolutely nothing to do with race.

As far as race and language are concerned, then, there is no argument but that they are both distinct and independent of each other. The factors which go to form the physical make-up of an individual are passed on from parents to offspring; they are hereditary traits. Language, on the other hand, is learned and acquired after birth and the capacity to learn it is in no way affected by the racial composition of the individual.

The Nazis

The use to which the Nazi regime put their race theories stands as a warning to the working-class of the dangers they fall victim to when they lend a willing ear to them. The Nazis, coldly and deliberately, step by step, adapted their theories according to the needs of the occasion. They so defined "Aryan", a distortion in itself as we have already shown, to include every German who was not also a Jew. After the signing of the treaty of alliance with Italy and the subsequent formation of the “Rome-Berlin Axis”, they carefully amended their doctrines to include their new allies, though according to their former ideas the Italians belonged to an inferior racial group. The most amazing example of their contempt for fact was when they “squared the circle” to provide the necessary racial basis for their alliance with Japan. To do this, they had to specifically exempt the Japanese from the ranks of the non-Aryans and by other devious, doubtful, and unconvincing means, they attempted to wriggle round the glaring contradictions between their theory and their practice.

With the Nazis the doctrines of racialism reached their logical and inevitable conclusion: the complete and utter prostitution of the true facts to the false theory. The absurdities of previous racialists appear sensible when compared with the efforts of their counterparts in Nazi Germany. As for the results of these doctrines in terms of human suffering and misery, they defy description. Millions of human beings finally fell victims to the Nazi’s policy of racial extermination.

Extracts from The Racial Problem. Published by the Socialist Party of Great Britain.