"RACES AND RACISM"


 


The Essence of Racism:


The races of man, having developed from a single stock---primitive man--are, from a strictly scientific point of view, biologically similar subspecies divisions. As far as their evolution is concerned, none of the races stands higher or lower than the others in its level of physical development. It is precisely the oneness of their origin that accounts for the races being basically identical, not only in the specifically human peculirities of their physical structure, but even in many tiny details. When compared with this overall similarity, the few racial differences that exist are of less than secondary importance from the standpoint of biology or in the anatomic-physiological sense and in many cases serve merely to identify members of the same, or a related, tribe.

There are, however, scholars who regard racial peculiarities as being those of a species or even of a genus, who allot those peculiarities an exaggerated taxonomic significance and try to show that there are profound differences between the races. In the opinion of these scholars, the races descended from different ancestors; this is the polygenetic theory of the origin of man. By ignoring facts they strive to show that the races of man are groups of people that differ very greatly in their morphological, physiological and psychological features, that they are not in any way related and inimical to each other. When the supporters of such ideas admit the common origin of man they maintain that they are "rapidly developing, higher" races and "backward, lower" races. The former are progressive and it is their vocation to rule over the latter who are doomed to substantiation, slavery and extinction. The raison d'etre of racism is the substantiation and defence of the false idea of the biological inequality of the races of man.

The racists usually consider the "white" race to be the higher and the "coloured" ('black' and 'yellow') races to be the lower. Some scientists, especially in Germany, Britain and the USA, support the "Aryan" theory, according to which some one group of North European race is declared to be the "higher race"*.

The racists maintain that the few "higher" races have created all culture and civilization, employing the slave labour of the "lower" races. The "higher" races, they say, are "active" and play a leading role in history, while the "lower" races, being "inactive", play a subordinate role. The majority of racists are of the opinion that the development of society does not affect racial peculiarities, but, on the contrary, the biological, innate qualities of a race determine the progress or retrogression of human social groups. In this way the false idea of the physical and psychological inequality of races becomes the racial theory of the historical development of mankind.

The racists not only sanction this unsubstantiated biological explanation of history, they also regard as identical such categories as race and nation, although the former is a purely biological category and the latter belongs to sociological science. It is a serious error to confuse the concepts of race and nation.

Anthropologists provide us with numerous facts that are definite evidence against the concept that culture is created only by some "higher" race. The racists, it will be remembered, make the level of cultural development dependent upon the greater size of the brain. One of the most convincing refutations of this concept is the development of a high level of culture among ancient Egyptians. According to the of the German anthropologist E.Schmidt, the volume of the Egyptian male cranium was 1394 cc and that of the female cranium 1257 cc. From this it follows that the brain of the Egyptian was smaller (i.e. less than the average) than that of neighbouring peoples who were at a lower cultural level. Anthropological data also prove that there is no connection between the shape of the head and the level of culture.

The Germanic peoples present a good example showing that culture is independent of race. Their ancestors were barbarians at the time the Roman state reached its highest level. Later, when the Germanic peoples found themselves in conditions more favourable to development, they reached a high cultural level while retaining their racial peculiarities. Culture, therefore, has nothing to do with racial features but is determined by social and economic factors. In the course of man's development from savagery to barbarism and later, racial features were of no significance.

Why do the racists insist on their false views? The answer is a simple one. The theory of "higher" and "lower" races, of the right of one race to dominate over another, justifies war between nations--- it is the ideological mask concealing imperialist politics. Or in some cases it justifies separatism and racial hatred with false nationhood.

The racists equate the class struggle in human society with the class struggle going on in the animal kingdom; they make use of the reactionary theory of social-Darwinism that developed in the latter half of the nineteenth century. This theory states that modern human society is governed by biological laws that are the same as those that operate in the animal kingdom--- the brute struggle for existence, the survival of the fittest, the extinction of the unfit. The racists, like the social-Darwinists, amintain that the division of human society into classes is the result of biological inequality and is due to natural selection. In this way racism attempts to use the laws of nature to explain social inequality in capitalist society.

The racists developed the theory of social-Darwinism and maintained that people belonging to a certain class possess certain racial features. The advocates of this theory assert that rich people belong, in the majority of cases, to the dolichocephalic type while the poor are mesocephalous or brachycephalous. One has only to examine the facts to see that this assertion is without any basis. In an investigation of recruits called up for service in the Swedish army it was established that both among the well-to-do (bourgeois) and among the poor classes (workers and peasants) the cephalic index was the same, i.e. 77. The same investigation showed that the average height of the better-off recruits was 173.1 cms and that of the poorer, 171.9 cms. The difference in the length of the body, however, has nothing to do with race and is explained by the better food habitually comsumed by the former group. These facts are sufficient to show that the concepts race and class must not be confused. In studying the history of the development of human society the really existing class struggle must not be replaced by an invented "race struggle".

From the above it may be seen that it is typical of racism to confuse the biological category of race with other categories of social character, such as nation and class. The unprincipled way in which racism identifies race with nation or class depending on whether it is necessary to justify war between nations or exploitation or separatism within one nation, shows clearly that racism is unscientific and reactionary.

The racists, fulfilling the social demands of the ruling class of exploiters, distort the truth to such an extent that they even attribute a racial character to languages as the outcome of racial spirit.



Race and Language:

The similarity of languages of the European peoples has frequently led to the idea that they might be related. Many linguists have made an ardent search for the "common ancestor" from whose language the similar European languages developed. At one time it was thought that scholars had found this "first language" in Sanskrit, the language of the ancient Indian manuscripts. It is true that a number of Indian languages and the Iranians languages show some resemblance to the European languages which gave rise to the name of "Indo-European" for the whole group of languages.

It is believed that in the distant past India and Iran were invaded by tribes from other part of the world, tribes that spoke Indo-European languages, who conquered those countries. The conquerors declared themselves a "higher" race than the local population whom they had enslaved; they gave themselves the name of "Aryan" from the Sanskrit word "arya" meaning noble-born.

The Indo-European languages that have roots similar to the languages of the inhabitants of India and Iran have been called "Aryan" by some writers. Later the name "Aryan" was applied to certain racial groups and the findings of the linguists were given an unscientific, racist colouring. Many racists regard only the tall, blue-eyed blonds of modern North Europe as being "true Aryans"--- these peoples have been given the name of the "Nordic race".

If language is the offspring of the race spirit, the peoples speaking Indo-European languages should possess the features of the northern, "Aryan" race. But this is not so. The Kurds, and many other peoples who are Indo-European in language, have skin and hair that is much darker; light-eyed individuals are rare among them. Aryan languages are typical of South Europe where the majority of the people are dark eyes and hair and do not in any way resemble the mythical "Aryans".

The tall, light-eyed and light haired Finns and Estonians, on the other hand, are close to the North European type in their racial features; the languages of the finns and Estonians, however, have nothing in common with the Indo-European languages.

Thus the theory of an Indo-European or Aryan "first language" and "common ancestor" with all the features of the "Aryan race" is refuted, and at the same time it is obvious that no race has the right to call itself
"Aryan"--noble-born.

Peoples speaking the same language are not racially homogeneous and, as a rule, consist of representatives of a number of anthropological types. Six such types are to be found in Germany, for example.

In Africa the Negroid peoples speak their own languages, in North America they speak English and in South america they speak Spanish, etc. Thus groups of one race that enter into composition of various peoples and nations, speak different languages.

All this goes to show that language is independent of race and disproves the unscientific theory that language is the offspring of a mysterious "race spirit" in some way "biologically inherent" in a race. Language depends entirely on the development of society, it emergers, lives and dies as peoples develop; it has no causal relation with the race as a biological group.

By M. Nesturkh



Races of Mankind:


I. Negroid (Equatorial) Great Race:

1. Negroid (African) Race:

(i) South African (Bushman)
(ii) Central African (Pygmy)
(iii) Sudanese (Negro)
(iv) East African (Ethiopian)

2. Austroloid (Oceanic) Race:

(i) Andaman (Negritos)
(ii) Melanesian
(iii) Australian (aborigine)
(iv) Kuril (Ainu)
(v) Ceylon-Zond (Veddah)



II. Europeoid (Eurasian) Great Race:

1. South European (Indo-Mediterranean) Race:

(i) South Indian (Dravidian). ------- "C"
(ii) Anterior Asian
(iii) Mediterranean-Balkan
(iv) Atlanto-Black Sea. ------- "C"
(v)  East European --------"C"

2. North European (Atlanto-Baltic) Race:

(i) Atlanto-Baltic
(ii) White Sea-Baltic



III. Mongoloid (Asio-American) Great Race:

1. North Mongoloid (Asian Continental) Race:

(i) Urals ------- "C"
(ii) South Siberian ------ "C"
(iii) Central Asian
(iv) Siberian (Baikal)
(v) Arctic
(vi) Far Eastern (East Asian)

2. South Mongoloid (Asio-Pacific) Race:

(i) South Asian
(ii) Polynesian -------  "C"

3. American (American Indian) Race:

(i) North American
(ii) Central American
(iii) Patagonian



"C" -------- contact or transitional group

By N. Chebroksarov