Revolutionary Youth Movement | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Founded | 1968; 57 years ago (1968) |
| Ideology | Communism Marxism-Leninism Maoism |
| Political position | Far-left[1] |
In the United States, theRevolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) was the section ofStudents for a Democratic Society (SDS) that opposed theWorker Student Alliance of theProgressive Labor Party (PLP).[1] Most of the national leadership of SDS joined the RYM in order to oppose PLP'sparty line and what they alleged to be its attempted takeover of the SDS leadership structure, particularly at the 1969 SDS convention inChicago.[2][3]
The theoretical basis of the Revolutionary Youth Movement was an understanding that most of the American population, including both students and the so-called "middle class," comprised, due to their relationship to the instruments of production, theworking class; thus the organizational basis of SDS, which had begun in the elite colleges and had been extended to public institutions as the organization grew, could be extended to youth as a whole, including students, those serving in the military, and the unemployed. Students could be viewed as workers gaining skills prior to employment. This contrasted with the Progressive Labor Party view which saw students and workers as being in separate categories which could ally, but should not jointly organize.[4]
Politically, the RYM took issue with what they alleged was PLP's opposition to the right ofself-determination for oppressed nations andethnic groups. The RYM also criticized PLP's attacks on theVietnamese National Liberation Front, whom PLP had accused of "selling out" to the U.S. during theParis Peace Talks, as well as other criticisms. But most of all, the RYM opposed what it considered to be PLP's unfounded attacks on theBlack Panther Party.
In the 1969 fragmentation of SDS, RYM departed the convention hall and declared itself the "real SDS" in a new space across the street. In splitting SDS, the RYM itself also split. One section of the RYM (referred to as RYM I), containing most of the SDS leadership includingBernardine Dohrn,David Gilbert andMark Rudd, became theWeathermen. Weathermen briefly retained control of the SDS National Office and membership lists before dissolving SDS and closing its headquarters in 1970, in favor of pursuing illegal activities that it believed would help to spark revolution in the short term.
The other major section of the RYM, referred to asRevolutionary Youth Movement II, wereMaoist-oriented and rejected the Weathermen's line of immediate armed struggle in the U.S., advocating building a new revolutionaryvanguard party instead. RYM II, which was led by the former national secretary of SDS,Michael Klonsky,[1] quickly gave way to various new revolutionary organizations and collectives. This milieu became known as theNew Communist movement. The largest of the RYM II groups was theBay Area Revolutionary Union, which soon absorbed some other groups and became theRevolutionary Communist Party, USA in 1975. TheCommunist Party (Marxist–Leninist) also evolved out of these disputes. Other members of RYM II joined theSojourner Truth Organization, formed in 1969 and active in workplace struggles in the Chicago area. Sojourner Truth Organization, active mostly in the mid-west until its dissolution in 1985, differed from other groups in the New Communist movement in the initial influence ofC. L. R. James and its combination of industrial placement with the struggle againstwhite supremacy, developing a theory of the key role of the "white-skin privilege system" in the white US working class.[5]