Students for a Democratic Society

Organizational chart of the SDS prepared for Congressional Investigators by the FBI.

Students for a Democratic Society was founded by Aryeh Neier (Director of the socialist League for Industrial Democracy) in 1960. Its principles were elaborated by Tom Hayden in his Port Huron Statement of 1962, which adopted the position of "anti-anti-Communism," refusing to support the West in the Cold War. What began as a movement to involve the largest possible number of American students in the democratic processes had become by 1969, as a contemporaneous FBI memo reports, "an organization totally dedicated to the destruction of American society...In the span of seven years, the SDS had evolved into a hard line Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organization dedicated to the destruction of Western democratic traditions and ideals."

Several prominent SDS members organized Progressives for Obama in March of 2008. Among the organizers are Carl Davidson, Mark Rudd, and Todd Gitlin; while several Klonsky family members are represented, Mike Klonsky is conspicously absent from the signers.

• Many key SDS members were "red-diaper babies," children of parents who were Communist Party members or Communist activists in the 1930s. In 1966, when President Lyndon Johnson abolished student draft deferments, some 300 new SDS chapters were formed. Among the organization's activities were: disrupting ROTC classes, staging draft card burnings, and harassing campus recruiters for the CIA and for firms that conducted research tied in some way to national defense. SDS also occupied buildings at universities such as Columbia and destroyed draft records.
• At the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, SDS protestors, organized by Tom Hayden, created a riot in order to destroy the electoral chances of the pro-war liberal Hubert Humphrey, and thereby set the stage for a confrontation with the Nixon Administration over the Vietnam War. Hayden and his cohorts -- including Jerry Rubin, Abby Hoffman and Black Panther Bobby Seale -- were arrested and indicted for crossing state lines to incite a riot. They became known as The Chicago Seven. In a celebrated trial (whose guilty verdict was subsequently overturned on a technicality), they were given token sentences.
• In 1969 SDS began imploding into factions. One of them, a group calling itself Weatherman, was elected to SDS leadership and proclaimed that the time had come to launch a race war on behalf of the Third World and against the United States. The new entity dissolved SDS and formed a terrorist cult in its place, which was given the name Weather Underground. [1]

Soviet/CPUSA influence

SDS was an important subject within the Soviet directed and funded Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in early 1968. The CPUSA decided to fight for Moscow directed ideology within SDS; to include articles on SDS in its publications; and to begin to put many more CP youth (cadre) directly into SDS and into the SDS national office in order to get direct access to the SDS leadership. The need and possibility for greater CPUSA participation in SDS, and the possibilities for CPUSA recruitment from SDS, were emphasized. Rennie Davis at this time associated with Don Hamerquist of the CPUSA National Committee who was working with New Left organizations to formulate a program for a communist movement in the U.S.

Maoist influence

By 1974 Maoism had supplanted the Soviet ideological doctrine guiding many New Left willing to use violence to achieve socialist revolution. In Prairie Fire, Ayers, Dohrn and Jeff Jones identified the WUO primary strategy on the side of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) thought in the following way,

“

The Chineese Revolution is a wonderful development in the advance of humanity. Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Communist Party have made many important breakthroughs in developing revolutionary strategy in the semi-feudal, semi-colonial world. The thought common to Mao and Ho Chi-minh - that the central revolutionary force of our time is the oppressed nations and peoples of the world leading the liberqation struggle against imperialism - is the guiding strategic principle of this era.

”

Cuban collusion

David Dellinger

The first known trip of significance to Cuba occurred in January, 1968 when Carl Davidson, Todd Gitlin, Gerry Long, Susan Sutheim and Tom Hayden traveled to Cuba to attend the International Cultural Congress. Long and Sutheim later became Weathermen, Davidson, Gitlin and Hayden later joined Progressives for Obama. David Dellinger of the NMC also attended this conference, as did many communists and revolutionaries from around the world. The announced purpose of this conference was to obtain unity of action in Cuban anti-imperialism fights and to spread revolution and hatred of the U.S. The theme was the "Struggle Against U.S. Imperialism." At this conference delegates condemned the U.S. for what the communists alleged was U.S. aggression, and support was pledged to North Vietnam. The delegates also pledged to promote violence against the United States whenever it was deemed necessary. The attendees also met with representatives of Maoist China, North Korea and North Vietnam and visited the National Liberation Front (NLF) Mission in Havana. During this three and one half week trip, Davidson finalized arrangements for a visit of twenty SDS members to travel to Cuba.

Thereafter, in February, 1968, a group of approximately twenty-two people including future Weatherman Mark Rudd and approximately nineteen other SDS/Weatherman members, and two Cuban Government officials with diplomatic status traveled to Cuba via Mexico City at the request of the Cuban Government, which paid all of the expenses. One of the Cuban Government officials in the group was the former First Secretary at the Cuban Mission to the United Nations (CMUN) who was also a Cuban Intelligence Officer. While in Mexico City, the group stayed at the Cuban Consulate. Several of the SDS members had previously traveled to other foreign countries friendly to Cuba. The group was destined to the Instituto Cubano para Amistad entre los Pueblos (ICAP-Cuban Institute for Friendship between Peoples) although the ICAP operated as a cultural exchange organization on the surface, it was in fact the Cuban Government's School for Ideological Indoctrination and their chief instrumentality for providing training to foreign radicals in revolutionary and guerilla tactics. Rudd and others visited the ICAP on this trip. During their four week visit, SDS members also talked with representatives of the NLF (the political arm of the Viet Cong) and with individuals from North Korea.

Mark Rudd addresses the rioters at the Columbia University insurgency, 1968.

Mark Rudd and the Columbia strike

Upon his return from Cuba, Mark Rudd was elected Chairman of the SDS Chapter at Columbia University and became a leader of violent disturbances. It was believed by the FBI that such disturbances were planned in Cuba and that the visitors to Cuba received specific instruction from Cuban officials in regard to the demonstrations. At Columbia, Rudd led the largest student strike in the United States. Although there had been various demonstrations in prior years, the main feature of the spring 1968 strike that distinguished it from earlier demonstrations was Rudd's brand of confrontation politics which involved physical confrontation, including the take over of buildings and the ransacking of offices. By the end of April, 1968, 700 to 1000 students had taken over five university buildings and eventually had to be removed by a force of 1000 policemen. In addition to Rudd, a number of others involved in the leadership of the Columbia strike later played prominent roles in the Weathermen and Progressives for Obama. Rudd was later interviewed about the Columbia riots by the Cuban publication, Prensa Latina.

Carl Davidson meets with Castro

SDS member Carl Davidson again visited Cuba in March. He and others had a three hour discussion with Fidel Castro, and reportedly met with representatives of North Korea, North Vietnam and Communist China. During the militant Labor Forum, held in April, Davidson reported on his meeting with Castro, stating that Castro now believed that a socialist revolution was possible in the United States. Davidson later was to become active in Progressives for Obama.

During April, SDS activist Steven Halliwell visited North Vietnam; Ken Cloke later to become a Weatherman and RU member also met with a North Vietnamese delegation during this time in Sweden.

At the 1968 June SDS National Convention meeting it was decided that SDS should align itself with students from other countries. The convention adopted resolutions of solidarity with the students of Germany and France and with the Iranian Student Association. The resolution dealing with Iran stated in part:

"To be sent by telegram to the Iranian Student Association. SDS expresses its solidarity with your continuing fight against the dictatorship which oppresses your homeland. . . . Your fight against the Shah, the fight of German SDS against Kiesinger, of the French against deGaulle, of the Japanese against Sato — these are a few of the current fronts of a single war. We are your allies and brothers."

Wald, Klonsky & Dohrn

Members of the CPUSA, DCA, PLP, SWP and the SWP youth group Young Student Alliance (YSA) attended the convention. Karen Wald also attended and was working at the SDS national office as of this time. Wald was also a member of the editorial group of The Movement, and previously associated with the YSA. A year earlier, Wald had traveled to Cuba. Bernardine Dohrn was elected Interorganizational Secretary, and stated that she considered herself a revolutionary communist. Mike Klonsky, elected SDS National Secretary, also publically identified himself as a revolutionary communist. Klonsky's father was the former Organizational Secretary of the Eastern Pennsylvania-Delaware District of the CPUSA. His mother was also a former CPUSA member.

At the convention, a workshop on sabotage and explosives was held. Earlier in the year, a pamphlet bearing the inscription "An Argument for Sabotage as the Next Logical Step Toward Obstruction and Disruption of the U.S. War Machine" was mailed from Toronto, Canada to over 300 antiwar groups throughout the U.S. The document urged the use of incendiary devices and included detailed instructions and diagrams.

The illegal and clandestine nature of such violent activity was emphasized. Also, it was during this convention that Naomi Jaffe, later to become a Weatherman, claimed to have shot down an American fighter plane with an anti-aircraft gun and to have assisted in the capture of an American pilot during her earlier trip to Hanoi.

1968 riots at the Democratic National Convention

Near the end of the Democratic National Convention, Tom Hayden reportedly went around to the various leaders including Rennie Davis and Bobby Seale and asked that when they returned to their home states they continue what began in Chicago. The FBI summarized the activity at the Democratic National Convention as follows:

"... Rarely has any city been threatened all at one time with an invasion of 100 to 200 -thousand dissidents- plots to assassinate governmental dignitaries and prominent individuals; intentions to instigate major riots in varied ways widespread sabotage of communication, transportation and electrical systems- proposals to pour hallucinogenic drugs into the water supply; clandestine shipments of arms and ammunition into the city for use in sniper activities-and myriad forms of guerrilla warfare." ...

Maoist influence at the June 1969 SDS National Convention

All factions present at the SDS National Convention held in Chicago in June 1969 adhered to the general over-all line of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese world view that attributed the source of global conflict from tension between the colonial and former colonial peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America on the one hand, and the forces of imperialism led by United States imperialism on the other." The unfolding of the conflict between the national liberation movement of the Viet Cong and forces of United States imperialism and its puppet regime in Saigon would provide an example for peoples of the Third World to unite in the defeat of US imperialism and the establishment of a "world socialist order."

This contrasted sharply with the traditional orthodox view of Moscow which relied heavily on a dialectical "force of history" that would inevitably bring about the "objective conditions" necessary for a proletarian revolution to succeed. Traditional Soviet theoriticians regarded any concept that skipped stages of historic development as dangerous and "counter revolutionary."

The main point of contention centered on the role of black Americans in the revolutionary processes in the United States. Many held the view that a Vietnam style war within the United States between the black "colony" and the white imperialist super-structure was inevitable. Many were fond of quoting Chaiman Mao who wrote, "In the final analysis a national struggle is a class struggle." There was a great deal of competition among the warring factions to portray themselves as the main purveyors of Mao Zedong Thought in the United States revolutionary movement.

Bernardine Dohrn noted that the National Office of the SDS was responsible for development of a correct Marxist-Leninist line and called for the future exclusion of deviationist forces such as the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and the CPUSA from the SDS. The debate within SDS leadership between the Klonsky and Dohrn factions was far from over. Both factions were committed to a socialist revolution through armed struggle, thier differences centered non strategy and tactics.

The Dohrn/Ayers group called for a program of confrontation and action by white students in the style of Castroite guerillas in a supportive role to black revolution withourt regard to the white working class. Ayers and Dohrn felt armed struggle of blacks for self-determination would result in the victory of socialism in the United States without any reliance on white workers. They saw thier role as supportive of the black liberation struggle and one which involved direct confrontation with the authority of the capitalist state.

Klonsky's faction held the view that black self-determination, the establishment of a black nation-state in the South, would constitute the first stage followed by a white working class alliance which together would complete the second stage of the socialist revolution.

Other prominent members

Michigan Regional Staff from the Organizational Chart.

Other prominent members of SDS were Linda Sue Evans and Dianna Oughton who served along with Bill Ayers on the Ann Arbor Michigan Regional Staff. Evans was involved in the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee which bombed the U.S Capital building in 1983 and the May 19th Communist Organization. Evans was convicted for her role in the holdup of a Brinks armored truck in Nyack, NY, in November 1981 that resulted in the murder of two policemen and a security guard and was later among several terrorists whose sentences were commuted by President Bill Clinton. Dianna Oughton accidentally blew herself up in an underground terrorist bomb factory in 1970.

Kathy Boudin, Judy Clark, David Gilbert, Cathy Wilkerson, Terry Robbins, and Ted Gold were also prominent organizers. Robbins and Gold were killed in the bomb factory blast, Wilkerson and Boudin survived. Wilkerson, along with Dohrn, was placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List and later convicted of illegal possession of dynamite. Her father owned the building in which the blast occurred. Robbins was Ayers girlfriend at the time she was killed. Judy Clark was convicted of three counts of felony murder and sentenced to 75 years to life for her role in the Brinks armored truck robbery.

See also

• Communist front
• Progressivism
• Liberalism

External links

• Students for a Democratic Society - by Discover the Networks