You Say You Want a Revolution

February 19, 2009 6:35 AM

You Say You Want a Revolution -- "Despite some bravado, I myself was a cautious person looking to break the shackles of bourgeois detachment. I felt real relief in seemingly giving my all. But at the same time, I was terrified. Such existential 'acting out' does not ordinarily lead to political good sense. The importance of demonstrating revolutionary credentials or moral purity gets in the way of clear thinking about how to strengthen the movement or take advantage of political opportunities." Howard Machtinger, a founding member of the Weather Underground, provides a contemporary critique of his group's actions. [via]
posted by billysumday (19 comments total)

The importance of demonstrating revolutionary credentials or moral purity gets in the way of clear thinking about how to strengthen the movement or take advantage of political opportunities.

Thank God for that.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:50 AM on February 19 [2 favorites]

I think a more in depth looks at the Weather Underground is definitely called for to counteract the facile "They blew stuff up in the 60's, but weren't the U.S. government, so they were terrorists" analysis that occurred during the campaign, but his referring to them as "the WU" is totally throwing me off as I try to read it. I keep expecting ODB to jump in and back him up.

On the subject of "the revolution" generally, it always tickles me to read or hear people referring to who is going to be "first up against the wall when the revolution comes", because if the collection of waiters, customer service reps and IT professionals that generally talk about "the revolution" are the ones responsible for bringing it about, then I am pretty sure all the first-up-against-the-wallers are safe. Why don't you worry about getting me my General Tso's chicken first, then you can get back to planning the revolution.
posted by ND¢ at 6:57 AM on February 19 [3 favorites]

Why don't you worry about getting me my General Tso's chicken first, then you can get back to planning the revolution.

Hope you like the taste of bodily fluids with that side dish of sass.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:31 AM on February 19 [2 favorites]

Machtinger-
A number of issues have been conflated that need to be disentangled at the outset. These are questions about (a) what is terrorism, (b) the appropriateness of any form of violence as a strategy, (c) how (not) to work through differences in a comradely fashion, as fellow participants in a common movement for social change, and finally (d) movement building.

Let’s begin with the most explosive issue.


Comment from [via]
You can’t create a successful revolutionary movement without the support of the people — and you don’t gain the support of the people by being self-indulgent assholes.

A guy I know who worked against the Weather Underground as an Army spy said that what infuriated him –and helped motivate him in his work — was that some of the Weather leaders claimed to speak for “The People” while being little more than spoiled, arrogant rich kids playing with violence. My friend was from a blue collar background.

I never knew any members of the Weather but I remember thinking at the time that some members of the leftist movement seemed to speak in an incomprehensible jargon akin to Swahili.

Not knowing the context very well, but reading through the article and the comments at Yglesias's it strikes me that the author should not have begun with the most explosive issue first. Because it's not about (b) the appropriateness of violence as a strategy (which he doesn't really analyse, are we to demand total clarity of intent and zero moral confusion with all acts of violence? have there ever existed a perfect set of conditions for righteous violence? isn't it the difficulty, ambiguity and indecidability of the moment part of the nature of extreme actions?) it's about (c) "how not to work in a comradely fashion" or in the commenter's words, how to be "self-indulgent assholes." In other words I'd rather the author left the explosives at home, again.
posted by doobiedoo at 7:44 AM on February 19 [1 favorite]

Thanks for this. Helps me make sense of my early 20s and the people I surrounded myself with in those days.
posted by Rykey at 7:47 AM on February 19

Howie, you should have demonstrated your revolutionary credentials and moral purity by buying a hungry fucker some food, asshole.
posted by Hovercraft Eel at 8:22 AM on February 19

This organizing tradition, which the WU abandoned, has a developmental, long-haul perspective and an emphasis on building relationships that endure. It respects collective leadership and holds that the best movement leaders should have ongoing, accountable relations with their bases—the grassroots. Its anti-bureaucratic ethos and preference for connecting issues and organizing around peoples’ everyday lives create an expansive notion of democracy...

...Out of sheer impatience and an inflated sense of vanguardism, the WU rejected this empowering tradition. Ironically, the WU understood the painstaking work of grassroots organizing as a sign of white privilege. This work required waiting too long while the world was in tumult.

That's a very astute observation. I have the same exact problems with the revivals of Students for a Democratic Society groups in my city. In some ways, they're right on politically, and in others, they are very, very wrong.

Social change is slow. That doesn't mean it stands still, and that doesn't mean it stops short of challenging the status quo, but it also does mean that resorting to tactics that are fundamentally alienating is appealing but misguided. As soon as radicals start adopting with-us-or-against-us type stances, community organizing flies out the window.
posted by lunit at 8:45 AM on February 19 [1 favorite]

if the collection of waiters, customer service reps and IT professionals that generally talk about "the revolution" are the ones responsible for bringing it about, then I am pretty sure all the first-up-against-the-wallers are safe. Why don't you worry about getting me my General Tso's chicken first, then you can get back to planning the revolution.

ND¢, is this just some random "oh golly, look at those silly plebs getting fancy ideas" flamebait or do you actually have a point?
posted by public at 9:17 AM on February 19 [1 favorite]

On the subject of "the revolution" generally, it always tickles me to read or hear people referring to who is going to be "first up against the wall when the revolution comes", because if the collection of waiters, customer service reps and IT professionals that generally talk about "the revolution" are the ones responsible for bringing it about, then I am pretty sure all the first-up-against-the-wallers are safe. Why don't you worry about getting me my General Tso's chicken first, then you can get back to planning the revolution.
posted by ND¢ at 6:57 AM on February 19

Ho Chi Minh was a waiter and a chef, dummy. Be careful what you wish for.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:27 AM on February 19 [2 favorites]

Yeah well General Tso started out working in customer service, so who's the dummy now?
posted by ND¢ at 9:34 AM on February 19

I'm saying, ND¢, in all seriousness, that the very people you're making fun of are generally exactly the type of people who are the revolutionary vanguard. That is why your joke is dumb. There's not going to be a revolution in the U.S. for a very long time, even with the imploding economy, but if there is, it will be led and conducted by the lower-class nobodies you so inexplicably disdain.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:46 AM on February 19

It is not the people I disdain, but the substitution of childish fantasies for actual action. You want to bring about a revolution? This is a (for the most part) functioning democracy, go out and knock on doors or volunteer for a campaign or other organization working to bring about change in our society. Sitting around fantasizing about societal change is no better than imagining what you would do if you were to win the lottery. The people I was mocking in my comment are those who prefer to fantasize about a better life rather than actually making a better life, whether it be politically or personally. Ho Chi Minh may have been a waiter, but he is not the type of person I was talking about.
posted by ND¢ at 10:04 AM on February 19

Ho Chi Minh was a waiter and a chef, dummy. Be careful what you wish for.

Not only that, he was pastry chef who studied under Escoffier. Don't tell anyone you heard it from me, but I hear that his éclairs were da bomb!
posted by jonp72 at 10:28 AM on February 19 [1 favorite]

revolutions are not "actions", they are reactions.
posted by kitchenrat at 11:00 AM on February 19

revolutions are not "actions", they are reactions

Often of the "chain" variety.
posted by AdamCSnider at 11:36 AM on February 19

You want to bring about a revolution?

No, not really. What a weird question.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 11:45 AM on February 19

I would just like to share here a wonderful excerpt from the actual article:

By allowing our frustration and revolutionary airs to trump our political common sense, we disowned one of the ’60s-era organizers’ greatest contributions to leftist politics—the revival of what has been termed the “organizing tradition.” This was the tradition, focused on long-term change and bottom-up politics that animated the Civil Rights, Black Freedom, Women’s Liberation and antiwar movements.

This organizing tradition, which the WU abandoned, has a developmental, long-haul perspective and an emphasis on building relationships that endure. It respects collective leadership and holds that the best movement leaders should have ongoing, accountable relations with their bases—the grassroots. Its anti-bureaucratic ethos and preference for connecting issues and organizing around peoples’ everyday lives create an expansive notion of democracy.

This conception of organizing goes beyond mobilizing, disdains vanguardism, requires patience and emphasizes the centrality of building new leadership. The organizing tradition was most fully embodied in the practice of early Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers, but also revivified in Women’s Liberation groups and even some SDS chapters.

Out of sheer impatience and an inflated sense of vanguardism, the WU rejected this empowering tradition. Ironically, the WU understood the painstaking work of grassroots organizing as a sign of white privilege. This work required waiting too long while the world was in tumult.

The WU favored more dramatic action that ended up disconnecting the purported leadership from any mass base, leaving it unaccountable (except self-glorifyingly to a nebulous “people of the world”) in its self-defined trajectory. The WU rationalized its practice by attacking any possible base as too privileged, too corrupted by consumerism and imperialism.

posted by jason's_planet at 12:36 PM on February 19

The WU rationalized its practice by attacking any possible base as too privileged, too corrupted by consumerism and imperialism.

In other words: "We're the vanguard. We know better than you. You just wait off there by the side and watch TV or whatever the fuck it is that you people do and we'll do the hard work that you're too backward and corrupt to do."

Not a terribly progressive or empowering perspective, I have to say.
posted by jason's_planet at 12:39 PM on February 19 [1 favorite]

The author get sit right in the jargon when he cites "'petit-bourgeois' adventurism" as one of the charges levelled against the WU; there's also the old Trotskyist phrase "substitutionism" - the Party.whoever substitute themselves for the working class or whoever it is they claim to be acting on behalf of. Faved lunit's comment because that quote brings this out and agree with doobiedoo about the focus on the question of violence qua violence as a bit previous.
As it happpens, been recently doing something on the role of Li Lisan (very briefly secretary of the Chinese Communist Party) and his role in the Anyuan strike in the 1920s - then a highpoint of the communist movement in China (about a third of all members nationally were miners and rail workers in Anyaun) and the breeding ground for the activists who would later lead the Hunan peasant uprisings after the bloody Nationalist crackdowns. Any road, what the outside radicals Li Lisan et al did was set up a miners and railworker's welfare club with free lectures, open debate and basic education for their children under the slogan "Before we were beasts of burden; now we will be human beings." (从前是牛马，现在要做人). When it came to organising the general strike that changed conditions in the coal mines of Anyuan so much for the better, first thing Li did was negotiate with the local Triad organisation to make sure it stayed peaceful unless provoked - the miners were no cowards and were more than willing to take violent reprisal against injustice; problem being of course in the long run you could never organise violence as successfully as the state or bosses (or warlords in this case). So the strike went ahead and passed off peacefully, ended in total victory and brought a lot of the local bourgeois on board who recognised the justice of demands and appreciated the goal of education. Later when the Natioanlists were bloodily suppressing the various commie enclaves post Northern Expedition, Anyuan proved the most resilient because the ideas were genuinely rooted in the class/community. When the repression got so bad many had to flee or die, they went back to their home villages in Hunan and spread the movement there, with the results noted above.
posted by Abiezer at 12:48 PM on February 19 [3 favorites]