The Revolutionary Student Brigade was consolidated and launched at a recent convention in Iowa City, Iowa. But the origins of the Brigade can be traced back to 1971 when the contingent “Attica Brigade” marched in an anti-war rally. The following section traces some of the struggles and developments that occurred over the last three years which saw the Brigade develop from a contingent to a national revolutionary student organization.
Attica Brigade first appeared on November 6, 1971. On that day 800 people marched under its banner in a large anti-war demonstration in New York’s Central Park. The banners and slogans of this contingent proclaimed that its politics were anti-imperialist, that the struggles at the Attica Prison and in Vietnam were part of the same fight; the fight against imperialism. 3,000 people from the main demonstration joined the Brigade as they marched 1n a militant and disciplined manner to the Chase Manhattan Bank, where an effigy of Rockefeller was burned. So, the Attica Brigade was born: in the crucible of militant mass struggle.
At that time the organizers of the (Attica) Brigade conceived of it as simply a contingent for a particular demonstration. So after Nov. 6th, the Brigade slipped into inactivity. But the Spring of 1972 brought with it a new offensive by the Vietnamese people, along with Nixon’s increased bombing and mining of the harbors. The anti-war movement once again took to the street, and so did the Attica Brigade. On April 22nd, New York’s streets were again thronged by demonstrators. This time 8,000 people marched with the Attica Brigade. Those who wished to openly proclaim their anti-imperialist politics had grown ten-fold in a few months. It became clear to the organizers of the Attica Brigade that a permanent, anti-Imperialist organization was now possible and necessary.
The building of a permanent anti-imperialist organization proved much more difficult that the organizing of a contingent for a demonstration. Within the Attica Brigade there were many and diverse political groups and tendencies. Two major approaches for building the organization soon developed. On the one hand there were those who wanted the Brigade to be a “youth” organization, which would relate to “street people” and “youth culture”. On the other hand were the forces that thought the Brigade should become a mass student organization based on campus chapters, that would fight against the monopoly capitalist system and support the struggles of oppressed people in their fight against it. Leading the struggle for the second position was the Revolutionary Union, a national communist organization, which had played an instrumental role in founding the Brigade. By the summer of ’72, the struggle had climaxed; the Attica Brigade was on the road toward building a mass anti-imperialist student organization.
Over the summer, the basic principles of 1) support for national liberation struggles abroad, and 2) support for the struggles of all oppressed peoples at home, were developed. With the beginning of the school year in September, seven chapters began actively to get involved in the student movement.
This was the Autumn of 1972, and the presidential “race” between Nixon and McGovern was in full swing. Many anti-war activists felt that it was a clear choice – that McGovern would end the war in Indochina, and Nixon would continue the war, and for this reason, McGovern should be supported. But the Brigade felt that the Indochinese people were winning, and, aided by the people’s mass action in this country, would end the war on their own terms, and we should rely on the mass struggle and not on which politician is elected. Armed with this analysis, the Attica Brigade joined in a coalition with other revolutionary, rank-and-file and community groups. Weeks of leafletting and hard work resulted in an outpouring of 5,000 people in New York on Nov. 4th demanding “Nixon – You Liar, Sign the Ceasefire”, “End All National and Racial Discrimination”, and “End All Attacks on Working People”.
On Nov. 16th, two Black students were brutally gunned down at Southern Univ., a Black campus at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The state pigs had been called in as students demonstrated for a curriculum that would serve the community’s needs, better wages for campus workers, and the right to fly the Black liberation flag. Responding to the massacre, students all across the country marched 1n support for the Southern Univ. student strike and demanded an end to police repression, which comes down especially hard against Blacks.
December brought with it the infamous “Christmas bombings” as Nixon and Kissinger unleashed the carpet-bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong. And, as the Vietnamese valiantly defended their homeland, shooting down over 1/3 of the imperialists’ B-52 fleet in the process, the American people reacted in active outrage. The Brigade helped mobilize thousands to demand “Sign the Treaty Now!” at Nixon’s inauguration in Washington, and across the country, people poured into the streets – over 200,000 strong – in active solidarity with the Vietnamese people. One week later, on January 29th, 1973, the peace agreements were signed, marking an historic victory for the Vietnamese and the people of the world against U.S. imperialism.
The period following the Vietnamese victory over the U.S. saw a decline in many of the huge mass mobilizations that had marked the previous ten years. But the struggle against imperialism continued. At numerous schools, victory celebrations were held in honor of the Vietnamese people and the National Liberation Front (NLF). In California, the Radical Student Unions and a group called Fanshen at U.C.L.A. actively built struggle around issues and against attacks levelled at the people by a decaying imperialist system. Students at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, shut down their campus for seven weeks over cuts in financial aid and Third World programs. And the student movement began to be influenced by a developing revolutionary workers movement and the growing militancy of workers in this country. The struggles of the farmworkers and the striking workers at Farah generated a great deal of student support. And a number of politically active students formed into consciously anti-imperialist organizations; in the East and Midwest, they started linking up with the Attica Brigade.
Following a student conference held that spring, chapters were formed on several campuses in upstate New York and Boston as well as more; schools in the city. Anti-imperialist student groups from several schools in Wisconsin and Ohio had sent people to the conference, and upon their return, started discussions around joining the Brigade. On May 5, 1973, students from campuses in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois met in Madison, and out of this convention came six new Brigade chapters in the Midwest, soon followed by a Midwest-East steering committee. During the summer, members actively supported the Farah strike, picketted ships laden with Rhodesian chrome, held educational forums, and developed study groups that focused on the history and mechanics of imperialism as well as the different ways the people of the world are fighting back. That September, the Brigade began publishing a monthly newspaper, Fight Back!, to report on struggles that the bourgeois press refused to cover or distorted, to help to get our politics across to the students on our campuses, and to reach out to students in other areas of the country.
With Fall of ’73, the Brigade, now on around 30 campuses, threw itself into the fight. And slowly but surely, struggles began to be built on campuses. Throughout the East and Midwest, Farah strike support work, was undertaken, and during a “spray-painting” demonstration, $20,000 worth of scab pants were destroyed! Students at the University of Wisconsin struggled over the closing of the Afro-American and Native American centers. Marches and rallies were held in support of the Arab and Palestinian peoples in their fight against Zionist and imperialist aggression. We kicked over military recruiters’ tables when they came to campus, spent long hours writing and distributing leaflets, organized large demonstrations against Shockley when he came to our schools to peddle his racist theories, sat-in, occupied buildings, fought police and security guards, and involved thousands of students in fighting against the system. And, slowly, the Brigade grew – new chapters formed in New Jersey and more in New England and Ohio.
In January of 1974, a Brigade conference at Kent State University (which was also attended by representatives of several groups on the west coast) voted to embark on a national campaign – “Throw the Bum Out – Organize to Fight”(more on this later) – and resolved to build towards a convention for which the Brigade would put out a call to anti-imperialist student groups and individuals to start a new nation-wide revolutionary student organization. To aid in this process, several people journeyed through the South and West, talking to students, meeting with activist groups, and spreading the news about the upcoming convention.
And last spring saw an increase in activity against the system. An extensive campaign waged in Berkeley to fight against cutbacks in ethnic programs and a progressive criminology school by the State erupted into building occupations and the largest demonstrations that school had witnessed in two years! Hundreds of students occupied the library at the University of Connecticut demanding an end to cuts in Third World studies, while thousands seized the New Paltz (N.Y.) administration building in support of fired radical professors, and hundreds more confronted the ITT stockholders meeting in Seattle. On numerous campuses, the Attica Brigade held forums and movies about the national liberation struggles against Portuguese colonialism and imperialism in Africa and sponsored speakers from the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo). The Brigade also participated in the July Washington D.C. actions called by Vietnam Veterans Against the War/Winter Soldier Organization. For four days we marched, fought back against attacking cops, and rallied to demand decent benefits for veterans, universal unconditional amnesty, an end to all aid to Thieu and Lon Nol, a single type discharge for all vets, and Kick Nixon Out.