1960s student radicalism, the Weathermen and the origins of political correctness

The SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) was an important American student organisation in the 1960s known for its activism against the Vietnam War. It split after 1968 over whether to use violence to overthrow the government. This article is in the public domain and sheds light on the origins of the modern left in the USA.

It was at this meeting that Bernadine Dohrn, celebrated the fork stuck into the heavily-pregnant Sharon Tate's belly.

“Dig it! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim’s stomach. Wild!”

I draw your attention to this passage:

The logic of that view was expressed in a statement by Ted Gold, a top Weatherman, who said that “an agency of the people of the world” would be set up to run the U.S. economy and society after the defeat of the U.S. imperialism abroad.

A critic spoke up: “In short, if the people of the world succeed in liberating themselves before American radicals have made the American revolution, then the Vietnamese and Africans and the Chinese are gonna move in and run things for white America. It sounds like a John Bircher’s worst dream. There will have to be more repression than ever against white people, but by refusing to organize people, Weatherman isn’t even giving them half a chance.”

“Well,” replied Gold, “if it will take fascism, we’ll have to have fascism.”

Weatherman–virtually all white–continues to promote the notion that white working people in America are inherently counter-revolutionary, impossible to organize, or just plain evil–“honky bastards,” as many Weathermen put it.Weatherman’s bleak view of the post-revolutionary world comes from an analysis of American society that says that “class doesn’t count, race does.”

Weatherman conducts a ’war council’
First Published: Guardian, January 10, 1970.
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.
The Weatherman group, which came to power at the SDS convention in June, called the meeting to try to bring together various parts of the radical movement and other young people, including those turned on and turned off by Weatherman politics.
“We’ve made a lot of mistakes,” said Bernardine Dohrn, a Weatherman leader. The meeting was planned to make amends for some of these mistakes–such as the hostility shown by Weatherman for the rest of the movement–and to broaden support for Weatherman politics and actions.
The meeting hall was decked with large banners of revolutionary leaders – Che, Ho, Fidel, Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver – hanging from the ceiling. One entire wall of the ballroom was covered with alternating black and red posters of murdered Illinois Panther leader Fred Hampton. An enormous cardboard machine gun hung from the ceiling.
Violence was the keynote of the long hours of talk that began Dec. 27. The distinction between revolutionary armed struggle and violence for its own sake is a major point of contention between Weatherman and its numerous critics.
While Weathermen had spoken of their desire to reconstitute SDS as a mass organization representing various points of view within the revolutionary movement, it was clear that Weatherman was running the show. This was a Weatherman meeting, with a handful of outsiders there to gawk, scowl, listen and occasionally to debate.
Old-time movement people noticed a large number of unfamiliar faces there. True, there were the Weatherman founders– people who had played a major role in SDS in 1966-69, many of them from Columbia and other elite schools. But then there were dozens of new, young kids–long-hairs, street kids, a few of them only 13 or 14 years old, some of them from out-of-the-way places like Grand Rapids, Mich, and Fall River, Mass.
The strongest debate centered on the question of who is going to make the American revolution. Weatherman, along with many others in the movement, recognizes that the American revolution is part of the world struggle against U.S. imperialism, a struggle for liberation from both colonial and capitalist oppression. Weatherman’s critics maintain, however, that Weatherman’s internationalism is based on an analysis that ignores capitalist oppression in America. Weatherman sees revolutionary change in America as happening almost solely, if at all, as a belated reaction to a successful world revolution including a successful revolt by the black colony inside the U.S.
The logic of that view was expressed in a statement by Ted Gold, a top Weatherman, who said that “an agency of the people of the world” would be set up to run the U.S. economy and society after the defeat of the U.S. imperialism abroad.
A critic spoke up: “In short, if the people of the world succeed in liberating themselves before American radicals have made the American revolution, then the Vietnamese and Africans and the Chinese are gonna move in and run things for white America. It sounds like a John Bircher’s worst dream. There will have to be more repression than ever against white people, but by refusing to organize people, Weatherman isn’t even giving them half a chance.”
“Well,” replied Gold, “if it will take fascism, we’ll have to have fascism.”
Weatherman–virtually all white–continues to promote the notion that white working people in America are inherently counter-revolutionary, impossible to organize, or just plain evil–“honky bastards,” as many Weathermen put it.
Weatherman’s bleak view of the post-revolutionary world comes from an analysis of American society that says that “class doesn’t count, race does.”
White workers are in fact fighting for their survival, insisted people doing organizing of factory workers in California. They claim that strikes for wage increases and job security can fairly easily be linked to an anti-imperialist analysis.
But Weatherman denies that survival is an issue for white workers. Weatherman leader Howie Machtinger derided white workers for desiring better homes, better food and essentially better lives.
Bob Avakian, from the Bay Area Revolutionary Union, argued that not only do white workers need those things for their survival, but that black people need them and want them, too. The several black people who Weatherman had brought to the meeting shouted, “Right on!” and waved their fists.
“If you can’t understand that white workers are being screwed too, that they are oppressed by capitalism before they are racists, then that just shows your class origins,” said Avakian.
Machtinger shot back: “When you try to defend honky workers who just want more privilege from imperialism, that shows your race origins.”