https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/index.htm
The Early Groups
The New Communist Movement emerged in the late 1960’s, as the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements became increasingly radicalized. Students and youth began to reject ’working within the system’ and lost faith in electoral politics and nonviolent tactics. These activists gravitated toward organizing in working class settings: workplaces, particularly factories; neighborhoods; community colleges, and military bases. Though many things helped trigger the emergence of a new movement of communists, four especially significant influences stand out:
– The Cuban Revolution, the Vietnamese struggle, and other national liberation movements helped many people see both the imperialist nature of U.S. global actions, and challenged a great deal of anti-communist mythology that had held the stage in the 1950s;
– The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China suddenly made it possible to think about a communist alternative to the model presented by the societies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union;
– The Black liberation struggle in the U.S. relentlessly revealed the crimes of racism and class exploitation built into U.S. society, and tore away many naive notions of an America that was upwardly mobile, inherently just, and generally affluent;
– The radical uprisings of France in May 1968 suggested that revolution might not be for Third World countries alone, and that there were possibilities, in some situations, for large numbers of people to collaborate (even in countries like the U.S.) in a genuinely revolutionary project
The SDS split is where our communist groupsucule flow chart starts to get really arrowy and a great place to start looking at the NCM's history. There are two factions involved, the Progressive Labor Party and the Revolutionary Youth Movement.
The Students for a Democratic Society held a convention that totally imploded over the issue of nationalism and whether white students in the US should be criticizing the tactics and strategy of the Vietnamese government as they were resisting a genocidal campaign.
Overview of the Convention Split:
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/bc-sds.htm
Progressive Labor Party view of the split:
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/pennington.htm
Pro RYM view of why the PL was garbage:
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/davidson-pl.htm
BPP blasts SDS:
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/sds-bpp-2.htm
PLP: A Critique
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/plp-critique.htm
The SDS was clearly unsalvageable as an organization with the PL being obsessed with attacking Ho Chi Minh and being pretty terrible on race issues, including calling the BPP "racists in reverse". This event did have a major impact on the conception of party organizing later down the line.
Up next: The Revolutionary Youth Movement
Edited by pogfan1996 ()
From now on we will not take theory, but actions as the basis for the coalitions we make. The Young Patriots are the only revolutionaries we respect that ever came out of the mother country.”
The Hillard added, “The only revolutionary force in the bourgeois mother country is the women.”
I thought this aside was interesting. The second half of the documentary American Revolution 2 is just footage of a few BPP members at meetings with this young patriots group. I haven't read much anything else about them though. They get a passing mention in Black Against Empire right before SDS shows up.
https://youtu.be/js7SIWw7yEE
Petrol posted:without reading the thread im just gonna say that i hate amercia.
buddy, let me tell ya: me too
luckily it seems all they achieved will finally be rolled back on our watch, so we might get to reinvent their wheels a little
After the Progressive Labor Party was purged from the SDS for being shitty, the two main factions in the SDS were the RYM II and the Weatherman (RYM I). Both factions shared a large degree of agreement on the most important topics facing the left at the time:
They include: the desire to concretize politics through practice and to develop cadre (see particularly “Hot Town” in REP packet #4, which was supported by the original RYM alliance); a recognition of the potential role of youth as a “critical force” in the revolutionary process (see RYM proposal, Mellen); an internationalist perspective of support for wars of national liberation against U.S. imperialism (see RYM, Weatherman, RYM II); an acknowledgement of the anti-colonial aspect of black oppression in the U.S. as well as the fact that white-skin privilege has been important in the division of the U. S. working class (see Weatherman, RYM II); a recognition that the student movement is limited by its class base and that it must be broadened (see RYM, Hot Town, RYM II); realization (as of the December 1968 National Council) that women’s oppression derives from superstructure (male supremacy) as well as from direct economic oppression (best articulated in the December 1968 NC resolution on women’s liberation, presented by Noel Ignatin and supported in a struggle with PL by the same alliance that supported the RYM proposal); and a willingness to engage in organizing in the community rather than confining organizing to the point of production (see RYM, Hot Town).
Their differences were largely in organizing and concrete political action. The Weatherman faction favored "street gang"/black bloc-esque approaches while the RYM 2 (supported by the Young Lords and BPP) favored the development of a vanguard party to build the foundation for revolution. The contrasting styles were displayed during the Days of Rage protest in Chicago in October 1969 as the Weatherman propagandized for months that they were going to be getting 20,000 people to fight the cops and spent time trying to recruit white high schoolers. A couple hundred people showed up.
In 1970, the Weatherman faction became the Weather Underground. RYM II formed the basis for many of the NCM parties that would develop,
Debates within the SDS
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/debate-sds/index.htm
Pro-RYM view of the Days of Rage:
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/davidson-weather-2.htm
SDS Action Under Fire
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/davidson-chicago.htm
Weatherman """"War Council""""
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/war-council.htm
The Weatherman controlling faction of SDS held a national “war council” here Dec. 27-30. About 400 young people showed up at the gathering-nominally SDS’s quarterly national council meeting–to practice karate, rap in regional and collective meetings, dig a little music and hear the “Weather Bureau” lay down its political line for revolution in America.
Maoism vs National Liberation: Where does RYM II stand?
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/h&srym2.htm
October anti-war actions: 3 views
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/rag-9-69.pdf
Up next: The Bay Area Revolutionary Union (RU)
The Bay Area Revolutionary Union (RU)
The RU was formed by students that were closely aligned with the RYM 2 faction of the SDS against the PL faction. The organization differentiated itself from other groups by being significantly more pro-China and focused on developing the workers movement rather than party-building. In practice this meant a high level of solidarity with strikes and raising their political consciousness rather than trying to recruit them into the newspaper sales business.
Politically, they were far more advanced than many other groups coming out of the student movement on imperialism and race. However, they also had a simplistic economistic view of the oppression of women and were heavily anti-gay.
As the organization continued developing during the early 70s, it ideologically shifted from a focus on building the workers movement to party building. A great example of this is Mike Ely's summation of coal worker organizing where the organization sent a bunch of recent college graduates to turn coal miners into Maoist revolutionaries. This strategy didn't have a lot to show for it and led to a shift in focus towards party building, which had more concrete results to show for it.
Another effect of this shift was a weakened support for the Black Panther Party and not supporting black and Puerto Rican nationalist movements as they once had. The focus became on fighting bourgeois nationalism, later on this line morphed into opposition towards civil rights struggles (like the Boston busing crisis) by claiming that they were bourgeois scams meant to discourage working class unity.
The RU turned into the RCP-USA as all the different RU-affiliated collectives decided that Bob Avakian should be deigned the Pontifex of Politics.
There were a several splits from the RU. The first was some of the student intellectuals who got mad about Stalin in the beginning of the organization's history. They are unimportant and don't matter.
The second was the Venceremos Organization because they wanted to play urban guerilla. They didn't last very long.
History of the RU
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/hamilton1.htm
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/hamilton2.htm
Red Papers 1. A paper on the principles and orientation of the RU
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/periodicals/red-papers/red-papers-1/against.htm
Red Papers 2. I suggest reading the sections on the lumpenproletariat and the United Front Against Imperialism
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/red-papers-2/united-front.htm
RU Splits over Ideology, Tactics (on the Venceremos split)
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/ru-splits.htm
Up next: RU organizing coal workers
stegosaurus posted:Frso is to some extent a survival of NCM groups in the 80s. Other than that most of the groups lasted into the early 90s at best but things had collapsed near the mid eighties.
You're telling me we got the bad ending? 
tpaine posted:*lavos roar*
came here to post this
stegosaurus posted:Op would you be interested in collaborating on a research project into the anti revisionist movement in the us to be possibly published in another more serious and less interesting venue?
Maybe after I finish my important contributions to the rHizzonE podcast
babyhueypnewton posted:This is really interesting. I know this comes at the end but I would be interested if any of these formations survived and any revolutionaries actually passed on their knowledge and historical experience. One thing I've been thinking about is the value of maintaining parties and socialist formations even if they are terrible and liberal. This is pretty obvious in the survival of Cuba, North Korea, and I would argue China compared to the disaster of rebuilding socialism in Eastern Europe but it also applies to parties like the KKE, the Communist Party of the Philippines, the South African communist party, etc. who were able to survive the worst times and are now invaluable for their respective nations in resisting the death throes of neoliberalism and fertilizing left-populism instead of right-populism. Think about how different the world would be if instead of a bunch of shitty parties and popular fronts there were historical communist parties with direct and long lasting ties to the working class that could serve as the center of resistance to the coming economic crisis. Obviously there are material reasons this didn't happen but the idea that liquidation was correct or that once revisionism has set in there can be no political reversal were supremely mistaken imo (these beliefs characterize some of the major mistakes of the NCM).
This sounds compelling, I'd encourage you to write something about. I'm sympathetic to this position, especially in light of the wild success of the Great Rectification Movement within the CPP, but I have some questions about this stance that maybe an effortpost could ellaborate.
For example, how would you quantify "long lasting ties to the working class" in a way that isn't completely subjective? Can you quantify this relationship? in the case of the CPP or the KKE this seems kind of obvious, but in other situations it gets quite grey. For example, the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) has a longer history than the Communist Party of Canada Marxist-Leninist (CPCML), yet the CPCML has more members in charge of union locals and other worker's organizations (and even that number is a paltry few). Which of these two parties would be more qualified to claim long-lasting, historical ties to the Canadian working class?
Furthermore, in the case of revisionism becoming the dominant tendency within a party, what is the appropriate course of action for anti-revisionist tendency to take? Is there an "appropriate" time to decide to split the party? What are some indicators this time has come?
Obviously the answers to these questions in many cases will be highly contextual but they might be areas worth exploring.
SparksBandung posted:the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) has a longer history than the Communist Party of Canada Marxist-Leninist (CPCML), yet the CPCML has more members in charge of union locals and other worker's organizations (and even that number is a paltry few). Which of these two parties would be more qualified to claim long-lasting, historical ties to the Canadian working class?
answer: lol
This was a decent strategy because coal miner wildcat strikes often worked in such a way that picket teams were sent to other mines. Miners wouldn't cross a picket line even if they didn't know what the picketers were there for. This allowed a grievance at one mine to become a regional or statewide issue as the pickets rippled through the area. Work stoppages happened in the coal mining areas at 10 times the rate of any other industry, making it the prime target of any revolutionary organization. The downside is that there was never a solid "core" of communist organizers, they were separated far from each other in tight-knit miner communities.
Many of the most militant coal miners weren't politically advanced. Black coal miners, which made up a substantial part of the coal miner labor force in some areas, were considerably less active in the wildcat strikes of the 70s.
And the original, somewhat naïve, assumption was that such problems could be, relatively quickly, brushed aside. ere was explicitly in the RU a saying that “taking Marxism-Leninism to the working class is bringing it home.” We were to discover that this home was well-stocked in other ideologies, and the workers were relatively attached to them"
One example is the Kanawha County Textbook controversy where thousands of white miners closed down mines across multiple states over the inclusion of sex education and anti-racist supplementary textbooks.
The original line of thinking was Labor Militancy + Marxism-Leninism = Revolution. The goal was to "create the 1905 for the future 1917." However, as repression grew more and more through the 70s this labor struggle was repressed and the RU/RCPUSA began to decline in membership.
https://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/ambush_at_keystone_coal_miners_protest_kasama_pamphlet.pdf
swampman posted:Was their speech basically "Look at me, this is what happens if you get ideas"
"i mean obama hasnt called me for like... three, four days"
From SDS, there were two currents that emerged, RYM I (the Weatherman faction) and the RYM II (which is the predecessor of many of our early NCM groups). While the RU started from the Bay Area branches of RYM II, the October League started with the Atlanta and the Los Angeles branch of RYM II in 1971. The October League became the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) in 1977.
The October League created its name from the 1917 revolution and from the month when the PRC was formed. It carved out a space in the NCM of being pro-China, highly critical of the Soviet Union, and consistently over time combated ultra-leftist influences within the party. When it came to international affairs, they basically supported anyone and anything that was seen as being in the way of the Soviet Union, even declaring the Shah of Iran to be an anti-imperialist anti-superpower force leading the Third World. This sort of degeneration of anti-imperialism lead to the group advocating for US intervention in Afghanistan to fight the USSR.
On domestic issues, they started off opposing any reforms (like the Equal Rights Amendment) but this was changed over time as the ultra-leftist tendencies were suppressed. Like the RU, they opposed non-heterosexuality as a decadent phenomena of class society that can be fixed with re-education camps.
Like many communist groups at the time, there was a drive to send cadre to the factories to recruit and agitate. From this, they participated in a wildcat strike in Atlanta at a Mead factory. The wildcat strike organized 700 of the 1200 members of the factory and won its demands.
Mead factory wildcat strike
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/gsb-mead.pdf
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/gsb-10-16-72.pdf
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/ol-pr.htm
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/ol-mead.htm
OL Documentary on the Mead packaging strike
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xex9un_wildcat-at-mead_shortfilms
OL table gets removed for the OL's position on gay liberation
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-8/rag-ol-gay.pdf
Iranian Communist critique of the OL
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/iranian.htm
they sometimes shortened it down to COReS (M-L-M)
pogfan1996 posted:If you are wondering where all the long hyphenated names are, just know that the Colorado Organization for Revolutionary Struggle (Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought) was a real thing
they sometimes shortened it down to COReS (M-L-M)
this thread finally delivers
https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1a/rwp-pb.pdf
I'm not sure if the missing apostrophe in Worker's was intentional
The Young Lords were originally a street gang that had many of its members radicalized by the urban expropriation, racism, and police repression of the Puerto Rican community in Chicago and New York. They were highly influenced by the Black Panthers and slowly made the transition from people a radical nationalist organization to organizing along Leninist lines, when they became the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization (PRRWO). Over time, they shifted from seeing the lumpenproletariat as the main revolutionary force to a more traditional, proletariat-focused Leninist organizing strategy.
The Young Lords attempted to set up a free breakfast program for children, daycare, and political education at a local conservative church. The church was left unused during most of the week, and didnt have any kind of social justice programs. Here’s a fantastic interview with the Minister of Information of the Young Lords, explaining why they chose that church and explaining parts of their ideology.
Q: Why was the First Spanish Church chosen to present your demands that they serve the community? Will you make similar demands of other community churches?
A: The First Spanish Church was chosen because it was right smack dead in the center of El barrio. it’s a beautiful locatio right in the middle of the community that has consistently closed itself up to the community. It’s only open for a few hours each week and for the rest of the week it turns into one big brick that sits on 111th St and Lexington. It’s not just the Young Lords or our political beliefs that they responded to – they don’t even deal with the anti-poverty organizations in the community.
Most of the other churches like St. Cecilia’s and Good Neighbor and some of the Catholic churches have some kind of program. TThey could do a little more brushing up, be a little more effective, but at least they try, they have something – they have kids come and play in the gym, they have head start programs or something. This church used to have 40 – 50 young people in the church. Now they’ve lost all their young people – their own sons and daughters. This church has been around for about 10 years. They had a gym and then there was a fire and they rebuilt the church and had a gym in there. They had a basement and a sub-basement and then took it out a few years ago.
The young people started coming back when we started doing our thing in the church and there’s a conflict going on in the church now between the young people and theboard of directors. The young people are also put off by us, but they know there’s nothing wrong with breakfast programs, so they’ve been helping us a lot.
Q: On Sunday you made a statement that you were unarmed and if the police came in they would be killing innocent people – are you always unarmed?
A. We believe that eventually we will have to arm ourselves, and the people will have to arm themselves, when we make our move for liberation. Right now that’s not a probability – that would be suicidal at this point because what we are right now is a propaganda unit. We’re educating the people to what it is to be born in Kenyan, what it is to be Puerto Rican, and also to the contradictions in the society. We don’t need guns to do that. We don’t have any guns in this office – to do so would be to invite the police to come in to have a massacre, to have a riot.
We know they have their agents, their spies. They’ve been checking us out. They know darn well we don’t have any guns, but they’re just trying to be funny. Last Wednesday at 3:00 PM they surrounded the office with 150 police and out here on Madison Ave police cars lined up. They were on the rooftops across the street and they just sat there for 15 minutes, just checking us out. It was to intimidate us, to have us provoke something. The people came out into the street and were behind us. They asked what are they here for and we told them what they were here for. Our explanation made a connection with what happened to the Black Panther party a week before and the people said “Why? You haven’t hurt anybody.”
So it’s obvious that what’s going down is just this mad provocation and that’s the only conspiracy. There’s a tirla in Chicago they call the “Conspiracy 8” but the only conspiracy in this country is that of a small ruling class that just puts down poor people and that’s the conspiray that we just want to move out of the way.
Q: Do you think that the concept of reparations as expressed by James Forman is a valid one for Puerto Rican people?
A. James Forman’s basic concept is that the churches have been a helping hand and a willing partner in the oppression of black people. This also holds true for Puerto Rican people, especially the Catholic church since most Puerto Ricans are Catholic.
The other issue that has been brought us is that organized religion has got to respond to the needs of the people. Now the Board of Directors and members of that church say that we imposed ourselves on them by speaking up and asking for space during their service. We say that they have imposed themselves on the community by putting their church in the middle of the community and then not opening their doors to the people. That’s the true imposition that they fail to see. Some other people and the press just like to play up this thing that we disrupted the service. We were upholding ancient Christian tradition since the time of Paul, that says anybody that comes to a service has the right to speak p. In true Christianity the rights of the minority have always been respected.
There are certain people in organized religion who have become established that feel that theirs is the only way to serve God, tos erve the people. That’s not quite right. The contradictions of an organized religion that can permite someone like Cardinal Spellman to belss the troops before they go out and commit something like the Song My massacre makesit obvious that there is no separation between church and politics.
We know that within the church there’s a small revolution going on – Ivan Illych in Mexico is a beautiful brother who’s taking care of a lot of business and educating the people and exposing the contradictions that exist in capitalism. Camilo Torres died in Latin America for what he believed in, so there are some. The hierarchy of the church has got to come down from up there in the sky and see what’s happening with the people.
Q: Can you tell me what is your relationship with the Black Panthers and the Patriot Party?
A: You see, if we’re attacked we’re going to defend ourselves. Huey Newton brought that principle up and it’s true. Anybody in the street knows that for a long time our people have been beat, we’ve been brutalized, killed, raped and the only way we’re going to stop that is by defending ourselves. Now the police came into Fred’s home and murdered him in his bed in Los Angeles – they claim the Panthers came out and started shooting. There’s 300 police surrounding the office and right away the Panthers are going to start shooting at the 300 policemen. Why? Because they’re crazy. That doesn’t make any sense.
The police obviously provoked the whole thing and started it. If you just sit there you’re going to get wiped out, and if you’re going to go down you might as well take somebody with you – you’ve got to defend yourself. That’s human instinct, survival instinct.
The Rainbow Coalition consists of the Patriot Party, Young Lords Organization and the Black Panther Party. If you’re not familiar with the Patriots, that’s a revolutionary white organization. We call it the Rainbow Coalition because it’s a rainbow of culture and colors. We also say there’s a rainbow existing in the Puerto Rican community because Puerto Ricans can be as dark as I am or have blonde hair and blue eyes – Puerto Ricans come out all different ways. But this was done mainly to educate the people. It is a revolutionary force in America today.
The Young Lords Organization is a revolutionary force moving the Latin community, the Black Panther party is moving the black community and the Patriots are beginning to move the poor white community. By us getting together and working together in this Rainbow Coalition, the people that see that, that blows a lot of their racism that’s been instituted by teh man. The lying politicians can’t use arguments that we’re really racist because if we’re all working together it’s got to be something more.
What we relate to is class struggle. We’re not interested in struggle between races or between ethnic groups. So that’s the main purpose of the Rainbow Coalition – it’s for the purposes of education. It’s also a defense and information coalition. If anything comes up with the Panthers, the Lords and the Patriots are going to go down also, and the same way for all three groups.
When we were involved in the church offensive or some of the other things that we’ve been involved in, we’ve received help and support from the Panthers and the Patriots. The Panther 21 trial is coming up December 18th and a demonstration is taking place. We’ll be down there at the rally along with the Patriots.
Q: Do you study revolutionary thinkers such as the Panthers do Mao’s Little Red Book?
A: A revolution has to take a sense of what was done before and then improvise on what’s happening in his own situation. Obviously the Chinese revolution is not going to take place in the US. The US is not an agricultural society, but it’s a highly advanced technological society. Something new under the sun is going to be done for the Second American Revolution. However there’s a lot of similarity in what’s gone down in other revolutionary situations. Lenin read Marx and Mao read Lenin and Marx, and Castro did the same thing that he was saying – then he decided to check them out. And that’s what’s happened with us. We read everybody – we read Nat Turner, Frederick Douglas, Betances and Campos – Puerto Rican revolutionaries. Puerto Ricans have a had a long history of revolution. They fought against Spain and now they’re fighting against the US. I hate somebody that makes the same mistake twice, especially when there’s no reason for it, because people wrote the earlier ones down. Yet, if you don’t take any short cuts, with things so rough already, you’re in bad shape. So we read some Mao, Marx, Lenin. We don’t let that govern us, we don’t put them up as gods. They’re revolutionaries just as we are and I respect them for that. We’re going to have to do something a little different, that’s why they in turn respect us.
Q: Do you also consider Christ as a revolutionary?
A: David Kirk from Emmanus House sent us a telegram when the police rioted a week ago Sunday in the church . It read that if Christ was alive today, we would have been a Young Lord. That’s true. We believe that. We also believe that if Christ came back today, they’d crucify him again.
Christ was saying a whole lot. The Bible is used as an instrument of oppression in the hands of the imperialists. They teach only the parts of the Bible that will mollify the people, keep them down, you know, turn the other cheek, be cool, be humble, slow up, wait. They don’t show you the parts llike when things were going bad in the temple, Christ went in and threw them out and he wasn’t non-violent – he was a pretty violent cat when he had to be.
You don’t go back into the old days of the Old Testament when everybody was doing in everybody else – jacking everybody else up. They were fighting in the name of the Lord – a Holy War which they fought with righteous feeling. And that’s why we’ve got Christ right up there next to Mao – he was a heavy cat.
Q: Do you include an education such as Puerto Rican history in your program?
A: We’re primarily a propaganda unit, a teaching agency. At this stage of the revolutionary struggle we’re educators with the true history of Puerto Rico and what it means to be Puerto Rican as our curriculum. We also expose the contradictions that exist in America and why, contrary to opinion, they’re never going to make it in the system.
We have political education classes, in the community. We send our organizers out to knock on doors and with people on the street. The people on the Board of the First Spanish Methodist Church told us that we were Satan, and that if poor people wanted they could educate themselves, and they don’t have to play numbers or drink beer. Their idea is that Puerto Rican people dig being poor, and that they made it so why can’t everybody else make it. They think that Puerto Rican women on welfare spend their money on beer, they play the numbers and that they really dig the gutter. It tok a whole lot to hold our tempers, but their sons and daughters (who were at the meeting between the Board of Trustees and the Young Lord) let them know how we felt.
The Program of the YLP
https://malheureuxmarxist.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/the-programs-of-the-black-panther-party-and-the-young-lords/
TB Testing Truck Liberation Action
https://malheureuxmarxist.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/young-lords-history-1-tb-truck-liberated/
The Trash Offensive
https://malheureuxmarxist.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/young-lords-history-2-dont-fuck-with-us-its-as-simple-as-that/
