Published: The Revolutionary Youth Movement newspaper, n.d. [1969]
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Submitted by the minority of the National Interim Committee, SDS from Mike Klonsky and Noel Ignatin
The resolution passed by the SDS national convention in June called for a militant, broad-based action against the U.S. imperialist war of aggression in Vietnam and its fascist repression of the black and Latin peoples at home. The main theme of the resolution was to take the antiwar movement to the working people and to unite proletarian organizations in the action. Very clearly the resolution called for special effort to gain black and brown participation in the action.
The main task for our organization, around which the national action was called, is to unite the struggles of oppressed and exploited people in this country with the struggles of the Vietnamese. The anti-imperialist movement must serve the people. Only in this way can we bring the mass of people in this country to oppose U.S. aggression and fascist repression.
The resolution and the convention never conceived for a moment of building a “white movement.” The aim was an anti-imperialist movement. The resolution called for the building of a mass movement, and for elevating it to a higher level of militancy through expansion of the working class base and leadership. Such was the line of the resolution passed by the national convention.
What has happened under the leadership of the present national office and the weatherman faction of SDS?
No proletarian organizations are supporting the action.
No Afro-American or Latin American organizations are supporting the action.
No work has been initiated by the weatherman – nothing toward reaching out to G.I.’s or to the mass of working class people who are suffering from this war. Instead of the action that was approved by the convention, the national office leaders have openly stated that they are building for a “white action” to demonstrate that there are whites militant enough to taunt the pigs. They have said recently that the purpose of the action is to increase the level of militancy in the “white movement.” They have counterposed this goal to that of building a mass demonstration which could involve thousands of working people, including black and brown working people.
How can we let the mass movement against U.S. imperialism fall under such leadership?
We can’t. We won’t.
We will not place our fate in the hands of “leaders” who ignore the mass of working people and who pursue a line guaranteed to exclude black, brown and white proletarian organizations and individuals from even participating, much less leading the anti-imperialist movement.
At the present time, when U.S. imperialism’s loss of the war to the Vietnamese people has taught so many about the hateful nature of imperialism, at a moment when there exists the greatest potential for building a mass, militant anti-imperialist movement, we cannot follow “leaders” who bend every effort toward preventing the development of that movement.
The roots of the weathermen’s positions lie in their understanding that the masses of U.S. working people benefit so much from the wealth of imperialism that it is in their interests to side with the imperialists against the people of the world. This denial of the class struggle has led and will lead them time and time again to oppose the people in the name of being more “left” than anyone else. This is the heart of it. The weathermen would have the anti-imperialist movement oppose the people’s struggles for a better life, instead of serve them.
This is a strategy of imperialists and of their miserable tools; not of revolutionaries.
We must realize that the “weather bureau” is simply a “radical” version of the anti-working class viewpoint that has been part of SDS since its outset. The struggle against this tendency varies in intensity from region to region but we must understand that to expose it in its sharpest form where its destructive consequences are most obvious will do the entire movement a service.
In the name of giving material aid to the black liberation struggle, they are building an action which excludes the oppressed minorities from participation. In the name of materially aiding the Vietnamese, they are substituting the egocentric actions of a few intellectuals for the mass movement which can really aid the national liberation struggle of the Vietnamese people.
In the name of being more “left” than anybody else, they are willing to turn over the masses against the war to the unholy rightist alliance of the trotskyites and the CP revisionists. To the very forces who seek to reach the working people through the liberals and labor bureaucrats in order to build the anti-war movement as a “loyal opposition.”
Now that PL has been run out, we have a new PL. PL attacked the black liberation movement; weatherman has abandoned its responsibility to mobilize the masses of white workers in support of that movement. PL attacked the women’s liberation movement; weatherman says that the struggle for full equality is irrelevant, that the only question is to revolutionize the family and smash the state. PL attacked the NLF; weatherman tells the American workers that the subjugation of Vietnam would provide more cars, more TV sets and more Holiday Inns. PL said that to participate in the daily struggles of the people was to create illusions about capitalism; weatherman repeats this verbatim, and adds in the kicker that fighting for the living conditions of the U.S. people is only expanding U.S. imperialism’s exploitation and plunder of the third world.
Weatherman’s basic contempt for the masses of people is the real source of its open justification of adventurism. Bill Ayres says that if “. . . the basic struggle in the world today is the struggle of the oppressed peoples against U.S. imperialism, then it is the case that nothing we could do in the mother country could ever be adventurist.” Adventurism is bound to separate revolutionaries from the people, and lead, if persisted in, to attacking the people themselves. Hence, weatherman’s ability to find merit in the slogan “Fight the People.” (See NLN, 9/12/69) and their glorifying of a picture of a 5-year-old boy who has just derailed a passenger train.
We must have a clear strategy for the anti-imperialist movement, and we must struggle to see that strategy implemented in practice. What can such an overall strategy be? To unite all who can be united against U.S. imperialism; to fight for proletarian leadership of the movement; to link up the struggles of the U.S. people with those of the colonial and dependent nations. The key to achievement of these tasks is the assault on white supremacy through repudiation of the white skin privilege, as well as male supremacy and all forms of anti-proletarian selfishness.
A key part of such a strategy is the building of a strong youth movement which must be in the forefront of the struggle against U.S. imperialism. The building of such a movement requires an all-out, ruthless and determined struggle against both the opportunists-revisionists who would lead the movement away from revolutionary struggle down pacifist lines, and against the narodnik-weathermen who would lead -y it away from struggle by scorning the masses.
We refuse to let the weathermen” determine the course of the national action in October. We invite all proletarian organizations and individuals to organize for the national action in Chicago; the mass movement belongs to them and to the people. We call on the youth of this country to join in organizing for Chicago for three days of programs which will link the struggle against the war with the other struggles of the people against imperialism – for food, housing, clothing, equality for women, equality for black, brown, and all oppressed minorities, for decent educations and against the daily exploitation and harassment which tortures the life of the people. We call for a struggle against the fascist repression which is directed against the staunchest fighters for the people, and against the entire oppressed minorities.
We call for those who were opposed to or boycotting this action because of its reactionary leadership to join with us in reclaiming it for the people – for the oppressed and exploited people of this country and of the world. We seek to jointly call for a massive demonstration involving black, Latin, and all working people.
At this action we will not stand for provocateurs, whether they be conscious agents or childish petit-bourgeois intellectuals. RYM II will function as an organized caucus within SDS to help in the coordination and implementation of the above programs.
This action will be one step more in the building of a massive movement against U.S. imperialism and its criminal attacks on the people of Vietnam and here at home.
UNITE WITH REAL FRIENDS AGAINST REAL ENEMIES!
U.S. GET OUT OF VIETNAM, RECOGNIZE THE P.R.G.!
END FASCIST REPRESSION IN THE BLACK AND LATIN COMMUNITIES!
FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!