Prairie Fire Organizing Committee

Prairie Fire Organizing Committee (PFOC) formed in 1974, was the publishing arm of the Weather Underground Organization (WUO), the terrorist spin-off from Students For a Democratic Society (SDS). The name came from a statement by Mao Zedong, "a single spark can set a prairie fire." Its first pamphlet was Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-imperialism, written by Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers and Jeff Jones. According to Prof. Harvey Klehr:

It announced that "we are communist men and women" and urged its supporters to form an above-ground arm of the WUO. Chapters soon formed in several cities with perhaps a thousand members. Members of PFOC helped facilitate communication and logistics for WUO members living underground. The PFOC also published Breakthrough, a quarterly journal which routinely called for widespread violent resistance to U. S. imperialism, and ran article after article praising third-world single party Marxist-Leninist dictatorships.

Founding/Supervisory Organizations:

• Cuban General Directorate of Intelligence (DGI)
• Weather Underground Organization (WUO)

Supporting Organizations:

• Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP)
• Workers World Party (WWP)
• Youth International Party (YIP)

Type of Organization: Terrorist/revolutionary

Location: Ideological cover: Openly Marxist-Leninist

Activities: Urban guerrilla warfare; bombings; assassinations; riots; prison organizing

Target countries: United States

Status: Organized, possibly active

Assisted Organizations:

• American Indian Movement (AIM)
• Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN)
• Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP)
• Republic of New Africa (RNA)
• Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA)
• Workers World Party (WWP)

Derivative/Controlled Organizations:

• May 19th Communist Organization (M-19 CO)

References

• ATTAC Terror Report