Introduction We study the past to draw lessons to help us liberate the future. The young activists of today are to be commended for showing more interest in learning from earlier movements that my generation of the 60's. Even so, I want to alert you of two typical errors that occur in such studies.
1 - When looking closely at victorious revolutions in other countries, mechanically apply lessons from advanced levels of our own embryonic state.
2 - In reviewing the past struggles of the United States, we see the errors, especially as the result of misconceptions in the minds of the leaders of the time. Implicitly, so we welcome it because outstanding people who, naturally, would have had more early and would have been smarter. This approach to underestimate the material forces-like the deep white supremacy or the repressive powers of the state - which would cause the same mistakes.
This brief tale of two parties is not exhaustive or final. It is written by a participant from the same and a guerrilla, with the aim of contributing to the struggles of today.
Students for a Democratic Society
During the 1960 United States were being rough with long and tumultuous protests. SDS was an organization in the heart of the radical movement among which were predominantly white college students. Dragged a special vitality of its close relationship with the Coordinating Committee Student Non-Violent (SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), the main militant group human rights of black youth who was doing most of the fieldwork in the South. SDS also became one of the most visible of what would become a mass movement against the Vietnam War organizing the first national demonstration on April 17, 1965. At that time, it was unusual to question the "foreign policy" of "our" government, so only by making a call on this occasion and it was a radical protest, attended by 20,000 people and was quite impressive. The work for this event also led to a split defined by a SDS's parent organization, the League for Democracy Industrial (LID, League for Industrial Democracy), when they disobeyed his orders to exclude the Communists.
SDS, founded in 1960, received its first definition by the Port Huron Statement of 1962. The fundamental concept was that of participatory democracy: Beyond elect leaders, people had to participate directly in discussions and decisions affecting their lives, even in the economic sphere. The issues that were imposed were the civil rights movement and peace (as opposed to the cold war and nuclear bombs). The first set of SDS work, together with its alliance with SNCC, was the Research and Action Project Economic (ERAP). Students went to live in poor communities to "build an interracial movement of the poor." Despite the success of the organization was limited, the experience was profound.
SDS boiling with youthful vitality. Most of us would reject both the harassment of the Communists and the Soviet model of "socialism." In our conventions waving red flags (communist) and black (anarchist). We tried to apply a participatory democracy to our organization, with varying results. Question the hierarchy was liberating, even though it was often chaotic and inefficient. But there was a real problem with "the tyranny of structuralism" when decisions were made informally and irresponsibly.
The intensification of the Vietnam War and the dramatic progress of SNCC, in the summer of 1966, from civil rights black power had brought new challenges and led to some tension between the old guard, absorbed by ERAT, and newly arrived young militants. SDS was not prepared for the rapidly expanding anti-war movement, but made a radical and militant presence in a much broader coalition. Naively, SDS still defining the system as a "corporate liberalism" while we were fighting to unite our anti-racist and anti-war momentum to an economic critique.
When the Black Panther Party (Black Panther Party) made its debut on the national scene, the impact was electrifying. They armed themselves in self-defense to protect communities from police brutality and community self-help programs (free breakfasts for schoolchildren, free clinics, free schools) providing a living example of revolutionary nationalism and self-determination for the oppressed. Many other revolutionary nationalist groups, all applying the lessons of Malcolm X, emerged during this period. At the same time, were published the first photos Vietnamese children being bombarded with U.S. napalm bombs - which drove us crazy for stopping the war. SDS's slogan became "from protest to resistance", focused on militant resistance.
Meanwhile, the inspiration of the civil rights movement, energetic and key work of women within it, and the problems of sexism within the left, led to a revival of women's liberation. One such example was the first workshop of SDS devoted entirely to women in our sixth national convention. The air crackled with energy and creativity generated by women. But his report to the plenary had a raucous welcome - including catcalls and paper airplanes - by many men of SDS. Since there had been little tradition of struggle, it is not surprising that men remained fairly sexist, but outright hostility that was embarrassing for an organization that was proud of being always on the side of the oppressed. That debacle was an example of the problems that pushed many women to abandon the "left" and contributed to an unfortunate tension between anti-imperialism and feminism, which weakened both. Many women with early-strengthened by the example and leadership, often unrecognized, women of color - continued to fight on both fronts, but it cost them an effort to Amazon.
A highlight of the fight was spotted in 1968, with the powerful Vietnamese Tet Offensive and the nearly one hundred uprisings in the ghettos of the United States after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. These events inspired to SDS student strikes would bring forward that closed dozens of universities. We started naming and analyzing the system as "imperialism." Che Guevara's slogan of "2, 3, many Vietnams" indicated as a giant may finally be exhausted and defeated. The black rebellion was accompanied by the increased number of militants of the Native Americans, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans and Asians in the United States.
The government's response was a fierce campaign of disruption and violence, called COINTELPRO, a program counter (see Agents of Repression by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall). Over thirty Panthers were killed between 1968 and 1971, and over a thousand were imprisoned. Many other groups and activists were also attacked. Although this level of repression is not generally used against whites, suffer harassment, arrests and the threat of conscription in wartime. More importantly, we identified ourselves with the Panthers and had promised to stand by his side. Despite how quickly the movement had grown, were still being a tiny minority of white America. We began to think that everything that was needed was to "shake the moral conscience of America." Now we were facing the most powerful government in world history.
Under this tremendous pressure, SDS suffered a rupture along the fault line that builds white supremacy in America: between the desire to base a possible majority among white Americans and the demanding need for militant solidarity with Blacks and other struggles in the Third World. One side (appealing to a Eurocentric Marxism) said that the revolution could only be the work of the working class, and used that as an excuse the left to avoid having to fight on the side of Vietnam and the Panthers, claiming that "all nationalism is reactionary." The other side (inspired by the Marxist leadership of the struggles of third world), right, was in solidarity with national liberation a priority for any revolutionary movement that wanted to be recognized as such. However, mistakenly abandon any attempt to organize large quantities of white people, which also limited our base for anti-racist activism.
While breaking the siren sounded a real dilemma, there was a chance - although, of course, would have been difficult to achieve - to build a broad movement and workers had a greater base without having to play into the racist traditions of the unions. This strategy would have involved bringing together the growing rebellion of youth to the imperialist policies, as an alliance with the emerging women's movement.
We were too overwhelmed with stark challenges of life and death, mixed with our own inexperience and weaknesses, to implement this strategy in practice. SDS split in the year 1969/70. One result was the emergence of a number of organizations that more or less reproduced the traditional left-wing opportunism towards the white working class. Another result was the Weather Underground Organization (WUO), a group without precedent, though seriously flawed, who served six years of armed actions in solidarity with national liberation struggles.
Weather Underground Organization
In a society where each and every one of the movies and television programs show that the FBI "always manages to arrest the guilty," the Weather Underground Organization avoided being captured and held, taking action military for six years. In the white supremacist Amerika, where historically most promising radical movements that emerged among whites (populism, vote women, trade unionism) were affected with racism, WUO was better, at least, known for their solidarity with national liberation. In a world where governments "legitimate" bombing villages and murdering activists and he ruined any armed resistance as "terrorist" WUO conducted more than twenty attacks against government and corporate violence without killing anyone or having done much some scratches to a civilian.
The springboard for these developments was the historical context. The decades of 60 and 70 had no precedent in world history by the number of revolutions that occurred in a short period of time, as national liberation movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America to end colonialism and neocolonialism, it was also the height of the struggle of blacks and other Third World struggles inside the United States. These events prompted the growth of radicalism within the white people. WUO no conspiracy was formed as a small but quite the opposite, was the central point in the growing wave of antiwar activism, as the fires of thousands of military buildings and branches of Bank of America or the thousands of people engaged in demonstrations which broke windows of government, big fish derailed meetings and refused to arrests.
The exciting developments of the Weather Underground Organization coexisted with costly mistakes. The first and most obvious was during the first six months (late 69 to early 70), while still stayed in the law: our chilling and inexcusable glorification of violence, which seriously contradict the basis of our political and humanist militancy. Thereby effectively deliver a munition for those who wanted to discredit our priority with the struggles of third world and our step towards armed struggle. So far, almost all the "history" has been written about WUO has been in the habit of passing a those first six months as if it were the whole story, without looking at our correction of that error and the following six years of strong anti-imperialist action and human.
In my opinion, the basis for our first aberration was life or death crisis that divided SDS. We were middle class white kids who - witnessing the extensive bombing in Vietnam and the assassination of Black Panthers who admired - we felt compelled to make the leap to armed struggle. Instead of admitting our fear and inexperience and develop appropriate transitional strategy, we prepared mentally glorifying violence and macho challenges of courage personnel each. The frenzy was accompanied by two basic errors that were related: 1) Sectarianism - a scathing contempt for anyone not directly assist the armed struggle (Sectarianism was mutual for most of the white left vehemently sought to discredit the armed struggle .) 2) Militarism - make military prowess and daring of the group are more important than the political principles and the need to build a movement at all levels.
The sins of commission of the premature death of WUO were quite obvious. The terrible passivity of most of the white left before the first attacks on the Black Panthers gave the government signal would not have to face a large political costs to begin to fully develop the COINTELPRO campaign, which would kill and imprison scores of thousands of black activists, Native Americans and Latinos.
The WUO militarism culminated on 03/06/1970 when a desperate effort to make a bomb, weapons including mines, ended in an accidental explosion at a safe house (known as the Townhouse explosion) that ended the life of three of our young people and great comrades. This tragedy sparked an intense internal struggle that led to a qualitative shift towards use of more integrated the armed struggle in helping to mobilize and radicalize a strong mass base among white youth. Only two months later, young people are made to the street with the force of more than one million people in an angry response to the murder of four anti-war protesters from the State University Kent State, and carried out strikes thousand student campus in about an end to the other of the United States. At the same time, the critical need for antiracist direction revealed a painful unable to respond in a similar way when the police killed two black students at Jackson State.
militarism Overcoming WUO did not magically everything in perfect balance. While it was correct to see a potential base in youth culture, quickly repeat the typical mistakes based on white supremacy. For example: 1) Our little material assistance to armed groups, blacks, Latinos and Native (even in hiding, whites had much better access to resources and were less exposed to random police harassment), 2) To address youth white, we passed the "soft drugs (hashish and LSD), with a minimum assessment of drugs as a form of chemical warfare against the ghettos and barrios, 3) We fail to respond to very constructive criticism on our initial slip close of drugs and militancy that made us the Panther 21; 4) There were moments of tremendous passivity after and during the Native American occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973 and the subsequent siege of the town government.
is not surprising that more of our internal weaknesses were based on sexism, heterosexuality and class. The participation of women and their percentage of leadership were very high, but in practice, a woman should be part of a heterosexual couple to be an important leader. We had a short program about the liberation of women, and err by not being able to make a serious effort to form a necessary alliance between anti-imperialism and feminism. Infighting on sexism were very inadequate, which fits with the fact that we were part of a homophobic culture. While many gay and lesbian comrades had the strength to declare gay while we were in hiding, there was no real space for a culture L / G stated; not declared homosexuals to take over leadership positions, and we had a political agenda about issues L / G. Similarly, our middle-class home meant we did a little work to access sections of the youth belonging to the working class.
relationship problems existed in our internal life. We adopt the theory of democratic centralism, but in practice the organization was very hierarchical. The leaders tended to become manipulative and tax, as the pictures tend to ingratiate himself with them. Criticism and self-criticism is used to complete maneuvers to gain power rather than be used for construction personnel. Although key for survival was a strong organization (and the lonely fugitive must go through much more difficult situations), that actually made social ostracism a blow to political dissidents. To my knowledge, there is still no clear model and fruitful enough for the two critical needs that give rise to internal democratic process in full and narrow discipline to fight relentlessly against a State can be combined.
For me a crucial lesson is that activists must confront consciously against the powerful attraction of ego that cause us to put our leadership position and above the interests and power of the oppressed. Organizationally, we need to strive to live my politics - anti-racism, feminism, democracy, humanism - in our personal relationships.
Despite these significant shortcomings, six years of stunning success was the result obtained to implement what was right, anti-imperialism. Contrary to the deceptions of spy movies are only based on sophisticated techniques and technology, our survival in the underground was based on popular support from the radical youth anti-war movement. That was the key to solving needs such as obtaining identification documents, money and safe houses. There were times when we feel the breath of the FBI in our necks, but popular support meant that the information flowing to keep the guerrillas away from the state.
Our fight scene was the "armed propaganda", with no hope of confronting the military power yet. Instead, the purposes of the actions were: 1) Remove repressive of the heat concentrated on the black movement, Native and Latin, 2) Create an example of political leadership of white solidarity with national liberation, 3) To educate about important political issues, 4) Identify the responsible institutions oppression, 5) Encourage other people to step up their activism despite state repression. Also we provided examples of non-armed struggle (for example, spray-painted), seeking dialogue with the movement in legal writing and reading the answers in radical newspapers, and even developing our own print shop in the underground. Wrote and published the book Prairie Fire, well-developed a manifesto on the politics of revolutionary anti-imperialism.
over twenty
The WUO bombings included the Capitol building after the U.S. expand the war in Indochina by invading Laos in February 1971, the headquarters of the New York prison after the slaughter of Attica in September 1971, and Kennecott Copper Company on the anniversary of the bloody coup against democracy in Chile, 1973. Each share was accompanied by a very reasoned statement expressing political issues. While there were no 100% guarantee, we set the highest priority to avoid civilian casualties, and fortunately we got it.
The FBI never ended WUO, but between 1976 and 1977 imploding due to our own weaknesses. The collapse occurred when reverting to traditional errors white left, with the policies of the "international working class, and plan to come out of hiding in order to focus on" lead "the" American Revolution attached to the full. " These positions denied independence and the leadership role of people of color within the United States and at the same time weakened the autonomous women's formations. When these forces harshly criticized us, we - with our vitality undermined by the lack of democracy domestic - we could not take it and instead we broke up in heavy reproach.
WUO was born in the stunning birth of national liberation, as opposed to the founding of the United States based on white supremacy and behind the exciting victories of the movement that met with fierce repression. Our loss also was rooted in a strong historical realities: 1) COINTELPRO (along with our internal weaknesses) had decimated the black leadership, Native and Latin which had inspired the progressive movement among whites, 2) our sturdy base, the movement against war, was reduced dramatically after the withdrawal by the United States from Vietnam in 1973, 3) No, we realized that we had not done enough to turn awareness into a deep anti-war anti-racism and anti-imperialism.
Being studying history, we need to break with the dominant culture defines people simply as "good guys" or "bad guys", which can lead to self-deception that we are providing basic guarantees certain that all we do is right. WUO made huge mistakes as both pioneering advances. Hopefully, both are rich in lessons for a new generation of activists.
This essay was originally written for the newspaper ONSWARD (spring and summer of 2001), an anarchist publication of news, opinion, theory and strategy for the present.
In 1965, David Gilbert was the founding president of the Vietnam Committee and one of the founding members of the organization SDS at Columbia University (New York). In 1967, he wrote the first national SDS pamphlet on "U.S. imperialism." Participated in the strike at Columbia in 1968 and later went underground as a member of the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) in 1970. Is serving a sentence life imprisonment after being arrested for his supporting role in an expropriation of the Black Liberation Army (Black Liberation Army, BLA) in 1981 during the "Brinks case."
In 1965, David Gilbert was the founding president of the Vietnam Committee and one of the founding members of the organization SDS at Columbia University (New York). In 1967, he wrote the first national SDS pamphlet on "U.S. imperialism." Participated in the strike at Columbia in 1968 and later went underground as a member of the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) in 1970. Is serving a sentence life imprisonment after being arrested for his supporting role in an expropriation of the Black Liberation Army (Black Liberation Army, BLA) in 1981 during the "Brinks case."
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