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July 26, 2002
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July
26, 2002
Thinking About the Weather (Underground)
by Ron Jacobs
The Weatherman/Weather Underground Organization
derived from a frustration inside the U.S. Students for a Democratic
Society (SDS) with the seemingly endless protest against the
war in Vietnam and the racism endemic to U.S. society. Formed
by some of the brightest and most committed members of the organization
during a fractious national SDS convention in June 1969, this
group hoped to build a revolutionary army of white youth. They
were not alone in this desire: one of the other factions after
the split, RYM 1, also hoped to do this. The two factions worked
together for a few weeks, building for a week of demonstrations
in Chicago. Unfortunately, both groups perceived their political
differences to be too great and, in August of 1969 they ended
their joint efforts in a bout of name-calling. Both then went
on to organize separately for two separate rounds of actions
in Chicago during the same week in October. Weather's became
the more well-known. After a summer of organizing for mass demonstrations
in Chicago a little more than a year after the police riot during
the Democratic Party convention, Weather and its followers met
in Chicago the second week of October 1969. Although the numbers
who gathered were far less than the tens of thousands the Weatherman
leadership had predicted, the group caught the attention of the
radical movement, law enforcement and much of the nation with
its violent street fighting tactics and oftentimes maniacal determination.
Despite this attention, or perhaps because
of it, by December 1969, the group decided to go underground,
forming tight "focos" in the Guevarist style of guerrilla
warfare. The first actions undertaken by these cells included
the firebombing of police cars in response to the Chicago police
murders of Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark and the
firebombing of  the home of the
judge overseeing the conspiracy trial of twenty-one Panthers
in New York City. After a bomb-building mishap in Greenwich Village
that resulted in the deaths of three Weather members, the organization
dug even deeper underground while re-evaluating their program
in light of what they would term the "military error"
that led to the deaths.
Over the next several years, Weatherman
would change its name to the Weather Underground, form all women
cells, bomb the Capitol building, the Pentagon (among other attacks),
and release several communiques. Some of these described their
reasons for a particular action or series of actions; some cheered
on youth and black insurrections; some memorialized fallen revolutionaries
such as George Jackson and Ho Chi Minh; and some discussed the
organization's theoretical approach and/or its role in the anti-imperialist
movement. The organization finally imploded in 1976-1977 after
a series of splits and recriminations which came in the wake
of its attempts to re-define itself after the 1975 Vietnamese
victory. Despite its small size, Weather influenced many a conversation
and, ultimately, the direction of the New Left in the late Sixties
through the mid-Seventies. Although some would argue otherwise,
they were not responsible for the destruction of the New Left.
In fact, their attempts to adjust to the post-Vietnam reality
of the mid-Seventies showed the weaknesses of the movement while
pointing (in writing, at least) a possible direction the Left
could have gone in order to not only maintain its relevance,
but become a potentially powerful force in U.S. politics.
Let me divert this train of thought for
a minute to provide some context. There was a lot of revolutionary
sentiment among new leftists throughout the world in 1969. As
you may know, the world was turned upside down in 1968: the TET
offensive in Vietnam that showed the world that the US wasn't
winning the war, the student rebellions around the world (which
were joined by workers in France, Italy and Mexico), the continued
(and intensified) black rebellion in the United States, the continuation
of the cultural revolution in China, the assassinations of MLK
and RFK in the US, and the list goes on. The intensity of this
year's events led many on the left to conclude that revolution
was near and all that was needed was an organization dedicated
to fomenting that revolution. Weatherman was but one of many
of such groups internationally. Some of the revolutionary sentiment
was based on the objective reality of the time and some was fantasy.
Of course, in retrospect, it's easier to tell which was which
then it was then-in the thick of it.
The major contribution of Weatherman/WUO
to the Left in the United States was its insistence on the importance
of racism in the U.S. experience and a persistent emphasis on
internationalism and its complement, anti-imperialism. While
not alone in this, Weather was probably the only white organization
for which this was the underpinning of its existence. The Left
continues to maintain the importance of these phenomenon on the
American mindset. The existence of past and present solidarity
movements in support of Nicaragua, South Africa, and El Salvador,
Palestine and Chiapas, to name a few, while clearly evidence
of an internationalist analysis, also seem to underscore the
belief that fundamental changes in the United States will occur
only when enough of its neo-colonies have fallen. This perception
was a basic tenet of Weather's founding statement, You Don't
Need a Weatherman....
Although corporate and government attacks
on the labor movement since the Nixon regime have increased substantially
since 1977, some Left activists still continue to ignore in their
organizing the necessary role labor must take in order for change
to take place. While issues of imperialism, race, and gender
cannot be dismissed if we are to effect true change in this country,
neither can the workers. Weather's distrust (some might call
it contempt) of the U.S. working class led it to conclude wrongly
that labor support was unnecessary to bring about fundamental
social change. Their analysis and practice in this area resulted
from their experiences in the new Left -- a Left movement derived
from a different constituency than the old U.S. Left it tried
so hard not to imitate. Also apparent was a failure to recognize
early on that the U.S. workforce was no longer just white males
in the mold of the TV character Archie Bunker (from the CBS show
All in the Family).
By the time the early Seventies arrived,
however, it was apparent that labor support was essential. Recognizing
this, groups like the Revolutionary Union and the October League
came to romanticize the caricature of the workers represented
by Archie Bunker while, on the other hand, Weather, the Yippies,
women's groups, and other New Left organizations, maintained
their anti-racist, anti-sexist (and, ultimately, anti-worker)
platform developed in the sixties and seventies. Neither exclusivist
strategy worked. Although Weather did recognize the changing
makeup of the workforce by the time its aboveground organization,
the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, helped organize the Hard
Times Conference in the winter of 1976 it, too, continued to
focus its organizing energies on the more reactionary elements
of that class. Another aspect of this anti-labor approach surfaced
in Weather's statements regarding those in the military. By mistaking
them for the enemy, they further ensured that there would be
no revolution in the U.S. (especially one which included them).
There has never been a successful revolution that did not involve
a considerable part of the military siding with the revolutionary
masses, either by refusing to fire on the civilian populace or
by actively joining them. You can't stop an imperial army by
confusing its lower ranking members with its generals. Weather
realized this a bit too late.
The earlier Weather argument against
workers recalled Lenin's admonitions against the German and British
communists in the early 1900s. His statements on their disavowal
of trade unions as hopelessly reactionary have relevance to the
U.S. Left in the sixties and today. Lenin acknowledged that reactionary
elements exist among workers, and wrote that organizers needed
to keep this in mind when organizing, and struggle with those
attitudes. This is similar to what Weather suggested in their
New Morning communique of December 1970 in their comments about
the existence of sexism and racism in the counter culture. It
was in that context that they called for stepped up organizing
among youth to be conducted, but conducted critically. Weather
and the New Left's championing of issues of race and gender was
a welcome and necessary departure from the Eurocentrism of earlier
Leftist theory. Although that emphasis enhanced their internationalist
perspective, it did so at the expense of U.S. labor and class
issues. This denial of the worker's role in the revolutionary
movement (expressed in its most extreme version by Weather),
and the deepening division between labor and the Left helped
prevent truly fundamental change from occurring. It also prevented
both labor and the Left from drawing the essential connection
between the export of industry to the Third World and the loss
of jobs and benefits in the United States. Events since then
have made this connection apparent on a very real level, as the
very same corporations moving their operations overseas blame
"overpaid unionized workers" and foreign governments
for the loss of jobs in the United States.
In addition to all this, a contest to
be the most revolutionary got in the way. Oftentimes, this was
expressed by extolling violence, no matter what the reason or
cost; others competed in the contest by spouting 'revolutionary'
rhetoric. This contest, diversionary as it was, occurred throughout
the Left and alienated many potential revolutionaries. At its
worst in Weather during the organizing for the Days Of Rage and
up to the townhouse explosion, the organization never completely
overcame this tendency. Antagonisms between the armed movement
and the mass movement played into the hands of government agents,
providing them with an ideal means to widen existing divisions.
In fact, the final split in 1976-77 in the Weather organization
revolved around similar dynamics. Ultimately, what is the most
revolutionary is that which results in revolutionary change.
In the United States, this seems to require not just electoral
politics, mass movements, or armed action, but probably some
combination of all three. Weather, like most of the New Left,
did not realize this soon enough. Their actions, from the Days
of Rage to the final bombing, often substituted bravado and the
bomb for the movement. In so doing, the momentum faltered. These
tactics, along with the already existing differences, resulted
in increased factionalism on the Left. This created a situation
where the ruling elites' interests were served, ensuring them
of continued dominance and the increasing impotence of any opposition.
The power elites were also able to manipulate
(with the cooperation of many of the culture's adherents) the
potentially revolutionary counterculture into one more subculture
of consumption. This was in part due to the New Left's failure
to realize earlier the political potential of the culture. Unlike
the African-American culture and those of other non-whites in
the United States, the counterculture did not have its own history
of oppression and resistance to draw lessons from. Consequently,
when it bothered to consciously design a history, it borrowed
its political strategies and history from others, primarily the
Left of the Third World. The lack of a historical consciousness
caused the youth culture to fumble and created an opening for
those in power to buy it off.
Weather's (and the New Left's) fascination
with the struggles of the Third World was understandable given
the romantic vision of the movement and the considerable number
of revolutionary struggles occurring in those countries at the
time. The attempts to import the revolutions of Latin America
and Vietnam with virtually no changes, however, severely limited
Weather's effectiveness. The primary reason for that limited
ability, especially in relation to the application of foco organizational
strategies, was an oversimplified perception of the control techniques
of the U.S. system. Unlike the Latin America of the sixties,
where many people lived away from urban areas and were illiterate
and impoverished, in the United States most people were (and
are) literate and relatively financially secure. Consequently,
they could be convinced there was no reason to change anything.
Although youthful discontent with the
products of the increasingly centralized political and economic
system in the United States and other capitalist nations motivated
much of the New Left in the sixties and seventies, the majority
of the discontented youth maintained a belief that their society
was capable of remedying the problems. As it became apparent
to the most politically aware that this was not the case, they
moved towards revolutionary positions. In SDS, these positions
took two main forms by the summer of 1969 (Weatherman and RYM
II), both deriving from the SDS statement 'Towards a Revolutionary
Youth Movement.' Although both agreed on the particular exploitation
of youth, the perception of youth's role in the revolutionary
struggle differed. At that time. Weather organized youth as a
fifth column operating behind enemy lines in support of Third
World revolutions and RYM II organized them as future members
of the working class. Both relied on the forms of the youth culture
as organizing tools, yet neither actually considered youth worthy
of organizing on the basis of their own oppression.
Following the Third World meant, by definition,
accepting their definition of revolution. While more applicable
to the colonies (including the North American black colony),
the analysis applied little to the circumstances of those in
the belly of the beast. The alienation and oppression felt by
the non-poor majority of youth of North America and Europe was
not primarily economic. Instead, it stemmed from social alienation
and the realization of one's unequal relationship to the rest
of the world and the awareness that, as the children of the beast,
one was being groomed to maintain that inequality.
In Europe, radical youth instigated movements
which, in some cases (France, 1968) mobilized whole sectors of
the society. Some radicals chose the armed struggle in these
countries, too. Two of the more notorious and popular of the
armed movements were the previously mentioned Red Army Fraktion
in the Federal Republic of Germany and the Red Brigades in Italy.
Unlike Weather, both of these groups developed substantial and
deep public support as well. When military actions were carried
out, demonstrations of several thousands supported the actions
in the streets. Weather never enjoyed such a level of organized
public support.
Dave Gilbert, a Weathermember recruited
in 1969 by Ted Gold and currently serving two life terms at Attica
Prison for his involvement in a 1981 Brinks truck holdup, speculated
in a 1990 opinion piece in the now-defunct leftist weekly The
Guardian that Weather "dismissed the potential to have both
an underground and a militant mass movement." This statement
indicates the inability of the U.S. Left to take itself seriously
enough and commit itself to a protracted struggle. Weathermembers,
who did take themselves seriously, apparently did not consider
their fellow Leftists sufficiently committed to the struggle.
This led them to decide not to organize a political wing and
devote all their energy to the underground instead. The lack
of organized popular support gave the state in all its guises
(Nixon, FBI, liberals, media) the space to further criminalize
the armed Left and thereby guarantee their isolation. In the
same way that purveyors of mind-expanding substances are now
portrayed as evil, so did North American revolutionaries become
gangs of bloodthirsty terrorists and criminals.
The period that the new left (and Weather)
existed was a unique historical moment. We live in the wake of
that time. The world has changed immensely since then. One thing
that remains the same, though, is the corporate American hold
on the planet. Indeed, that hold is greater now than it was 30
years ago. Although more insidious (fewer hot wars for example),
the damage is even greater: increased poverty, increased concentration
of wealth, greater environmental damage, and widespread cynicism
among the world's populations.
Recently, leftist popular politics have
experienced a bit of a renaissance in the United States and elsewhere
in the capitalist world. This has occurred in spite of (or perhaps
because of) the disintegration of the Stalinist states in Europe
and Asia. The primary focii of this resurgence have been the
criminal justice system (especially in the US) and its victims,
and the globalization of capital, which is primarily under the
control of US corporations. This movement has mobilized internationally
against the 1999 NATO attack on Yugoslavia, the WTO/IMF/World
Bank/FTAA meetings from Seattle to Prague to Okinawa, the so-called
war on terrorism, and in support of political prisoners like
writer and death row activist Mumia Abu Jamal. There have been
minor victories- for example, Black Panthers geronimo ji jaga
pratt and dhoruba bin wahad were freed after years of struggle.
There have been many setbacks as well: the most obvious being
Mumia and, on a greater scale, the continuing growth of the military
and prison-industrial complex.
Since my history of the Weather Underground,
The
Way the Wind Blew, was published in 1997, I have received
many letters from participants in the aforementioned movements,
most of them from youth. I have also received many letters from
prisoners in prisons around the US. While many of these letter
writers are proponents of forceful direct action, none express
a frustration even approaching that felt by their similarily
youthful counterparts of the late 1960s and 1870s. Likewise,
nor do they express a belief in underground armed struggle. The
level of tactical sophistication amongst the street fighting
elements of this movement, represented best by the anarchist
black bloc and its communist and syndicalist allies, is far beyond
any tactical approaches during the street actions of Weather's
heyday. In addition, there seems to be a level of support for
the militant tactics by others in the movement not inclined to
such action. Hopefully, these individuals and movements will
continue to wage the struggle in the streets, even as the forces
of the state employ even harsher repressive tactics. Also hopeful
are the alliances between students, workers, farmers, environmentalists
and others in this movement-a phenomenon that stems directly
from its anti-capitalist analysis, which is, in itself, the only
possible analysis that allows for a complete understanding of
the process of globalization.
Instead of insisting on its newness and
differences from the old Left, the New Left, (of whom Weather
represented some of its most influential members) should have
acknowledged the rich history of the Left (especially its North
American portion) early on, and their role as the latest protagonists
of the revolutionary struggle. This may well have prevented the
confusion and disillusionment which developed in the late sixties
when the necessity for a more defined ideology and culture was
realized. Instead of clumsily attempting to fit the pegs of Latin
American and Asian revolutionary theory into the ideological
hole of the U.S. revolutionary movement, perhaps a bit of revolutionary
United States history would have provided the right shape peg.
Although true that any anti-imperial movement, be it one of electoral
change or popular revolution, potentially hastens the end of
U.S. imperialism, grassroots anti-capitalist, anti-fascist change
in the United States would, given its hegemony at the moment,
change everything.
Ron Jacobs
is author of The
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground.
He can be reached at:
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