Du Bois, Dark Princess, and the Afro-Asian International Mullen, Bill, 1959- positions: east asia cultures critique, Volume 11, Number 1, Spring 2003, pp. 217-239 (Article) Published by Duke University Press For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/pos/summary/v011/11.1mullen.html Access Provided by Rutgers University at 07/20/12 3:01PM GMT Du Bois, Dark Princess, and the Afro-Asian International BillV.Mullen AtlastIndiaisrisingagaintothatgreatandfatefulmoralleadershipoftheworld whichsheexhibitedsoofteninthepastinthelivesofBuddha,MohammedandJesus Christ,andnowagaininthelifeofGandhi....Thismightyexperiment,together withtheeffortofRussiatoorganizeworkanddistributeincomeaccordingtosome ruleofreason,arethegreateventsofthemodernworld.TheblackfolkofAmerica shouldlookuponthepresentbirth-painsoftheIndiannationwithreverence,hope andapplause. —W.E.B.DuBois,Crisis,1930 Hail,darkbrethrenofmine, Hailandfarewell!Idie, Asyouarebornagain,burstingwithnewlife. —W.E.B.DuBois,“ISingtoChina,”1959 positions11:1©2003byDukeUniversityPress positions11:1 Spring2003 218 W.E.B.DuBois’slifelongadvocacyfortheliberationandindependenceof Asiancountriesisboththeleastappreciatedaspectofhispoliticalcareerand theoneperhapsmostcentraltoitsleftisttrajectory.Betweenhissupportfor Japan in its 1904 war with Russia and his second and final trip to Maoist China in 1959, Asia was for Du Bois a literal and figurative site of his intellectualevolutionfrom“fabiansocialist”(AdolphReed)torevolutionary 1 Marxist. AsiawasthetwinpoleofDuBois’sblackintellectualworld:after 1900,heimaginedtheU.S.“colorline”asthe“worldcolorline,”extending intoChina,Japan,andIndia,andheconsideredPan-AfricanismandPan- Asianism as mutually constituting global struggles. Du Bois’s attention to and support for radical Indian political movements near the turn of the centurywaslikewisehisfirstseriousintellectualidentificationwithMarxian politics.ThusitisnotsurprisingthatduringandafterWorldWarI,DuBois foundhimselfinthemidstofanational,andinternational,debateoverthe relationshipofAsiaandAsiannationalmovementstotheWest,including Africa. Indeed by 1921 Du Bois had become the target of and impetus for arguments within the United States over two vitally linked discourses envelopingthisdebate:orientalismandEurocentricracetheory,ononehand, andbolshevismandanticommunismontheother. ThisessaywillexploreDuBois’swritingsduringthisperiodasameans ofmeasuringhisroleinandcontributiontothesedebates.Inparticular,it willexamineDuBois’s1928novelDarkPrincessasasymbolicconfiguration ofDuBois’spoliticalengagementwiththreecentralmovementsandevents of the interwar era: the Indian home rule and national movements, the emergence of black radicalism in the United States, and the role of black and Asian radicals in revising Soviet policy on both “Negro” and Asian liberationduringtheformationofthethirdInternationalafter1919andthe crucial 1922 and 1928 Cominterns in Moscow. Dark Princess, I will argue, isDuBois’sattempttosynthesizetheseeventsastheyunfoldedinMoscow, Berlin, China, India, and the United States, the sites most prominent on DarkPrincess’sgeopoliticalmap.Inaddition,thenoveldemonstratesDuBois transforminghisfamousmetaphorof“doubleconsciousness”intoatropefor themosthotlydebatedpoliticalquestionsofhistimeforradicals:proletarian internationalismandtheroleandfunctionofthenation.Finally,itreveals how Du Bois’s conception of orientalism was wedded to a patriarchal or Mullen DuBois,DarkPrincess,andtheAfro-AsianInternational 219 paternalideologyinflectedbycontemporarydebatesaboutfemalesubalterns intheUnitedStatesandIndiainparticular,andbyDuBois’sownromantic conceptionsoftheAsiatic. The significance of Du Bois’s political project in Dark Princess is thus several-fold.First,itmarksacontinuationanddepartureinthehistoryof AfricanAmericanintellectualengagementwiththediscourseoforientalism, an engagement crucial for later generations of African American radicals and intellectuals. Second, it demonstrates the scope and depth of African Americanparticipationininternationalistpoliticaldebatesduringandafter WorldWarI,ahistoryrecentlybeginningtobere-revealed.Third,itpre- dictsaseriesofpoliticaldecisionsandmaneuversbyblackandAsianradicals away from the trajectory of an “American century” toward a deliberately miscegenatedinternationalistpoliticsthatanticipated,amongotherthings, theshapeofanticolonialmovementsofthe1930s,1940s,and1950s.Fourth, it centralizes the place of Marxism and Marxian views on international- ismforAfricanAmericansbeforethecataclysmofthedepression,andthus foreshadowsthewholesaleturnbydozensofblackintellectuals—DuBois amongthem—towardaMarxismthatwouldbecomebytheendofWorld WarIIdecidedlyinternationalist.DarkPrincessthusstandsasacentraltext inAfricanAmericandiscursiveengagementwiththeAmerican,Asian,and internationalleftinthiscentury,anditconstitutesakeytextforunderstand- inghowresistance,particularlytoEurocentricdiscoursesofrace,ledtothe radicalrecastingofAfro-Asianrelationshipsascentraltotwentieth-century worldrevolutionarystruggle. DarkPrincessculminatednearlythirtyyearsofDuBois’sactiveintellectual sympathyforthecontemporaryriseofPan-AfricanandPan-Asianpolitics. Both earned his serious attention after the 1885 partition of Africa at the BerlinConferenceandtheformationoftheIndianNationalCongressthe same year. It was specifically the first Pan-African Congress in London in 1900, which Du Bois attended as secretary, that turned his attention to linkagesbetweenAfricanandAsianliberationmovements.DuBois’sspeech “To the Nations of the World” announced his famous color line thesis by referenceto“thequestionastohowfardifferencesofrace...aregoingto positions11:1 Spring2003 220 bemade,hereafter,thebasisofdenyingtooverhalftheworldtherightof sharing to their utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of modern 2 civilisation.” Four years later, after Japan’s 1904 victory over Russia, Du Boisconcludedthat“TheRusso-Japanesewarhasmarkedanepoch....The awakeningoftheyellowracesiscertain.Thattheawakeningofthebrown andblackraceswillfollowintime,nounprejudicedstudentofhistorycan 3 doubt.” In1907,inacolumnforHorizon,DuBoiscitedamilitantspeech attheIndianNationalCongressasmarkingAsianuprisingasamodelfor Pan-Africanandothercoloredrebellions:“Thedarkworldawakenstolife 4 and articulate speech. Courage, Comrades!” Prior to World War I, Du BoisviewedthecongressasIndia’s(andoneofthe“colored”world’s)best opportunitiesfornonviolentoverthrowofcolonialism;thesocialdemocrat inhimalsoadmireditsattemptsatparliamentaryinclusiveness—in1937he wouldciteitasapossiblemodelfortheNationalNegroCongressformedtwo yearsearlier.TheIndianNationalCongressmayalsohaveinspiredDuBois tohelporganizethe1911UniversalRacesCongressinLondon,attendedby representativesofbothPan-AsiaandPan-Africa.There,DuBoispresented “The Negro Race in the United States of America,” a statistical survey of BlacklivingconditionsintheUnitedStateslinkedtothoseofthe“darker races”aroundtheworld. TheUniversalRacesconferencelikewisedeepenedDuBois’sinterestin andsupportforIndianswaraj,orhomerule,amovementwhosefeaturesalso influencedtheplotofDarkPrincess.Thisinterestgrewwiththeformation oftheGadar(Arabicfor“revolution”or“mutiny”)PartyinSanFranciscoin 1913.GadarwascreatedbynationalistIndianémigréstotheUnitedStates.In 1913itformedthenewspaperGadar,withHarDayalservingaseditor.The GadarMovement,asitcametobeknown,attemptedtocoordinateefforts with Indian nationals in Berlin to use German support to send arms and ammunitiontoassistindependencestrugglesathome.Theeventsresultedin the“Indo-GermanConspiracyTrial”inSanFranciscofromNovember1917 5 toApril1918. In1915,LalaLajpatRai,afounderoftheHindureformist movement, Arya Samaj, began a five-year exile in the United States. Rai 6 became Du Bois’s fast friend and mentor on Indian politics. In 1917, Rai helped to found the Indian Home Rule League of the United States and formedthejournalYoungIndia.In1921,DuBoisreportedpositivelyonthe Mullen DuBois,DarkPrincess,andtheAfro-AsianInternational 221 7 nationalconventionoftheFriendsofFreedomforIndiainNewYorkCity. In1922,DuBoiswrotehislongeststatementinsupportofswarajinanarticle fortheCrisistitled“GandhiandIndia.”Thearticlereportedfavorablyon Gandhi’s1920motiontotheIndianNationalCongress(carriedbymajority), callingforrefusalofallBritishtitlesandoffices;aboycottofBritishfunctions; theestablishmentofIndiannationalschools;theboycottofBritishcourtsand English-madegoods.DuBoiscitedGandhi’sprogramofnonviolenceasan “outstandingfactor”inhisproposal:“Itkillswithoutstrikingitsadversary,” hewrote.Gandhiis“amanwhoprofessestolovehisenemiesandwhorefuses 8 totakeadvantageoforembarrassgovernmentinacrisis!” Finally,inthe sameyearasDuBois’sarticle,theSovietCominternhostednumerousIndian nationals,amongthemtheBengaliBrahmanM.N.RoyattheCongressof thePeoplesoftheEastatBaku,andheldvigorousdebateonthe“Eastern” questionattheComintern.Royhadbeenactivebetween1914and1916with theIndianRevolutionaryCommitteeinBerlinlinkedtoGadar,andhehad livedbrieflyonthecampusofStanfordUniversitybeforefleeingtoMexico aftertheoutbreakofWorldWarI.Roywouldposeaseriouschallengeto Lenin’sthesisonnationalismatthe1922Comintern,aneventwhich,Iwill show,wouldeventuallybecomepartoftheallegoryofDarkPrincess. Moreimmediately,thissequenceofevents,incombinationwiththeout- breakofWorldWarI,helpedtoigniteafervoroforientalistdiscoursewithin theUnitedStates,withwhichDuBoisalsobecameimmediatelyengaged.In fact,hewasinpartresponsibleforitsemergence.In1922,threeyearsafter theendofWorldWarIandfiveyearsaftertheBolshevikRevolution,the American historian Lothrop Stoddard published The Rising Tide of Color against White World Supremacy. Stoddard’s book openly owed two debts: thefirstwastoCountArthurdeGobineau,thenineteenth-centuryeugenics theoristcitedbyEdwardSaidasapioneerofEuropeanorientalism.DeGob- ineau’s 1853 Essai sur l’inegalité des races humaines [Essay on the inequality ofthehumanraces]describedastarkracialhierarchyofAryansupremacy andAsianandNegroinferiority.InRisingTide,StoddardevokedGobineau in order to interpret the decimation of Western Europe in World War I as a tragic white holocaust. Ideologically, Stoddard’s book was a sequel to fellowGobineaudiscipleMadisonGrant’s1916eugenicisttomeThePassing oftheGreatRace,orTheRacialBasisofEuropeanHistory.Stoddard’sbook positions11:1 Spring2003 222 primarily deviated from Grant by fixing its scientific racism hypothesis to 9 eventsof1917. InhisintroductiontoRisingTide,Stoddardlinkedtheend of the war and the Bolshevik Revolution: “Now that Asia,” he wrote, “in the guise of Bolshevism with Semitic leadership and Chinese execution- ers, is organizing an assault upon western Europe, the new states—Slavic Alpine, with little Nordic blood—may prove to be not frontier guards of westernEuropebutvanguardsofAsiaincentralEurope.”“Bolshevismis the renegade,” he wrote, “the traitor within the gates, who would betray thecitadel,degradetheveryfibreofourbeing,andultimatelyhurlarebar- barized,raciallyimpoverishedworldintothemostdebasedandhopelessof 10 mongrelizations.” Stoddard’sseconddebtwasincomplementtothefirst,andofevenmore directsignificancetothisessay:RisingTideincludedanattackonDuBois’s 1915 Atlantic Monthly essay “The African Roots of the War,” which had appearedoneyearearlier,inrevisedform,as“TheHandsofEthiopia”in Darkwater.“TheAfricanRootsofWar”revisedDuBois’s1903colorlinethe- sis,viewingthewarasanexaggerationofthedividebetweenwhiteWestern Europeandthecoloredworld.Europeancountries’supportofcolonialism drew Du Bois’s condemnation and a call for “the trained man of darker 11 blood”toorganizeagainstEurope. Therevisedessayalsoinvokedbiblical andnineteenth-centuryimagesofEthiopia,with“handsofhelplessnessfor anagonizedGod!”(74).TheresurrectionofAfricawassymbolizedbythe ascenttothethroneofQueenNefertiti,who“redeemedtheworldandher people”(74).In“TheDamnationofWomen,”publishedforthefirsttime inDarkwaterin1919,DuBoisreturnedtotheimageofdefiantblackwom- anhoodinantiquity:“TheprimalblackAll-Motherofmendownthrough the ghostly throng of mighty womanhood, who walked in the mysterious dawnofAsiaandAfrica”(165).Theall-blackMotheristheprogenitorof darkandduskyheroinesofhistory—Cleopatra,Candace,SojournerTruth. DuBoisnamesthisfigureas“Isis...thetitulargoddess,”whosespellstill pervades the land of Africa. Du Bois’s final formulation is a global family treedescendingfromaprimalmomentofAfro-Asiancommingling:“The father and his worship is Asia; Europe is the precocious, forward-striving child;butthelandofthemotherisandwasAfrica”(166). Mullen DuBois,DarkPrincess,andtheAfro-AsianInternational 223 AsAlysWeinbaumhasperceptivelyargued,the“primalAll-BlackMoth- er”imageinDarkwaterbespokeDuBois’seffortstocritiquebothorientalist eugenicstheoryandthespecificU.S.culturalpracticeofdenigratingorex- 12 cludingblackwomenfromits“nationalgenealogy.” DarkPrincesswould latersignalthesetwingoalsbyascribingimagesofblackmaternitytoboth thebiologicalmotherofprotagonistMatthewTownsaswellasthePrincess Kautilya. Du Bois’s efforts to revalue and reevaluate Afro-Asian mater- nity also reflected his critical engagement with orientalist representations ofIndiainbookslikeKatherineMayo’s1916MotherIndia.Mayo,aliberal American feminist, offered a statistical indictment of reproductive risks, child-bride customs, and paternalism in Indian society, patently essential- istandcolonialistinherrefusaltoaccountforimperialism’sroleinIndia’s 13 social development. Both Du Bois and Lajpat Rai responded separately 14 and angrily to the book in their 1920s writings. At the same time, Du Bois’sromanticandbiologicalessentializingofAfricanandAsianmaternity in Darkwater reflected his own vulnerability to a tradition of what might be called Afro-orientalism. It invoked what Wilson Moses calls Du Bois’s “unilinearconceptionofprogress”drawnfrompopularnineteenth-century Afrocentric notions that “the great civilizations of the past were Hamitic 15 andthereforecreationsoftheblackAfro-Asiaticrace.” Withthenotable exception of Anna Julia Cooper, this tradition generally depended on an exoticessentializingofAfro-Asianvitality,usuallyassociatedwiththefem- 16 inine,andanuncriticalglorificationofblackantiquity. Variationsonthis thememaybefoundintheworkofnineteenth-centurywriterslikeEdward WilmontBlydenandAlexanderCrummell,aswellasinthewritingsofDu Bois’scontemporaryMarcusGarvey.AlsomediatingDuBois’stendencyto romanticizeAfricanandAsianantiquitywastheever-competinginfluence ofhistoricalmaterialismandsocialistideology.Ashewouldlaterwritein TheWorldandAfricaonthesametopic,“Africasawthestarsofgod;Asiasaw thesoulofman;Europesawandseesonlyman’sbody,whichitfeedsandpol- 17 ishesuntilitisfat,gross,andcruel.” Indeed,itwasinTheWorldandAfrica thatDuBois,morecommittedtoananticolonialismrootedinhistoricalma- terialist analysis, attempted to overcome and rebalance his own orientalist tendency to diminish Africa’s potential as her partner in world liberation: “Despitethecrudeandcruelmotivesbehindhershameandexposure,her positions11:1 Spring2003 224 degradationandenchaining,”hewrotethere,“thefireandfreedomofblack Africa,withtheuncurbedmightofherconsortAsia,areindispensabletothe fertilizingoftheuniversalsoilofmankind,whichEuropewouldnorcould givethisachingearth”(260). Interestingly,thesuperchargedrhetoricofpublicresponsetoDarkwater discloses each of these aspects of Du Bois’s developing ideas on Asia and Africa:inadditiontoStoddard’sphlegmaticreactiontothebook,theTimes LiterarySupplementofLondonsaidDarkwaterrevealed“thedarkdepthsof 18 apassionateandfanaticalmind.” ThePariseditionoftheNewYorkHerald devotedaneditorialtothebooktitled“BlackBolshevism.”InDarkwater,the paperwrote,DuBoisis“intoxicated”bycolonialself-determination,which 19 “partakesoffrenzy”and“representsthespreadoftheBolshevistmadness.” Infact,inrealpoliticalterms,DuBois’swritingsinDarkwaterwerebyfar hismostmilitanttodate.Thejust-concludedworldwar,hewrotein“The SoulsofWhiteFolk,” wasprimarilythejealousandavariciousstruggleforthelargestsharein exploitingdarkerraces.Assuchitisandmustbebutthepreludetothe armedandindignantprotestofthesedespisedandrapedpeoples.Today Japan is hammering on the door of justice, China is raising her half- manacledhandstoknocknext,Indiaiswaitingforthefreedomtoknock, Egyptissuddenlymuttering,theNegroesofSouthandWestAfrica,of the West Indies, and of the United States are just awakening to their 20 shamefulslavery. Typical of his color line formulations of this period, Du Bois perceived Asia as the probable forerunner to African and black U.S. liberation. Yet Darkwater also featured a new characterization of black U.S. life, which becamegraduallymorecentraltoDuBois’slong-termassessmentofhemi- sphericstruggle.Intheessay“OfWorkandWealth,”DuBoisdescribedthe ongoingblackmigrationtotheNorthandthehorrificeventsofracistattacks in1917and1919as“theoldworldhorrorcometolifeagain:allthatJews sufferedinSpainandPoland;allthatpeasantsaresufferinginFrance,and IndiansinCalcutta”(95).DuBois’snewconceptionofAmericanblackness invokedastagistviewofmaterialstruggle,whichhaddepositedAmerican Negroesinavanguardposition: Mullen DuBois,DarkPrincess,andtheAfro-AsianInternational 225 Thereisnotonlytheindustrialunrestofwarandrevolutionizedwork,but thereisthecallforworkers,thecomingofblackfolk,andthedeliberate effort to divert the thoughts of men, and particularly of workingmen, into channels of race hatred against blacks....the American Negroes standtodayasthegreateststrategicgroupintheworld.Theirservicesare indispensable, their temper and character are fine, and their souls have seenavisionmorebeautifulthananyothermassofworkers.Theymay winblackculturetotheworldiftheirstrengthcanbeusedwiththeforces oftheworldthatmakeforjusticeandnotagainstthehiddenhatesthat fightforbarbarism.(97) DuBois’slargelyunremarkedonrevisionhereofthe“souls”ofblackfolk asanuntappedtouchstoneofinternationalistraceandlaborconsciousness was grounded in a new apprehension of black labor as a motive force in history.“OfWorkandWealth”positsblackworkers’“culture”asAfrican America’smostseductiveofferingtotheworld,adownwardmobilizingof the“kingdomofculture”inhismorefamous1903formulationinTheSouls ofBlackFolk.Too,thecultureofblacklaborcarrieswithitthebloodmessage of ancient wounds suffered across the colored world, the stigmata of eco- nomicexploitationfromIsraeltoCalcutta.DuBois’span-internationalism inDarkwater,thatis,assumedaneconomistrhetoricabsentfromhisprewar writings.ThistransformationoftropesandideasinDuBois’sworkismost fullyapprehendedthroughaclosereadingofhis1928novelDarkPrincess, a book encapsulating and dramatizing the events between 1917 and 1928, whichreconfiguredbothhislaterviewsonAfro-Asiaandthecolorlineas wellasthecolorofhisownpoliticalideas. Subtitled“ARomance,”DarkPrincess’sstorylineisbothsimpleandcom- plex:MatthewTowns,atwenty-five-year-oldblackAmericanmedicalstu- dent,exileshimselffromtheUnitedStatesin1923afterbeingexcludedby racefromregisteringforobstetricsattheUniversityofManhattaninNew York.HearrivesinBerlin—whereDuBoishimselfattendeduniversityin 1892—andonedayintervenesonbehalfofastrikingyoungIndianwoman after a white American accosts her with a racist expletive. The woman is the twenty-three-year-old Kautilya, Princess of Bwodpur, daughter of the 21 maharaja, “the last of a line that had lived and ruled a thousand years.”