On The Question of Youth And Revolution:
Editor’s note: The objective of this article is to sum-up the importance of youth to our struggle. While at the same time critically analyze those contradictions found which limit the struggle to youth/student politics. It also attempts to describe the role that the U.S. colonial system plays in keeping our movement disorganized and unable to effectively fight for the liberation of our Raza. Finally, it points out some negative contradictions and elements currently (in 1997) found within M.E.Ch.A., the source of this negativism, and what needs to be done to unite the student movement with the rest of the Raza liberation struggle.
The Importance Of Youth To The Liberation Struggle
Youth and students, historically and worldwide, have been central to liberation struggles and revolutionary movements. From the French Revolutionary movements of the late 1800’s and the Russian Revolution of 1917, to the Mexican Revolution of 1910, and the rest of the revolutionary movements found in Central and South America (i.e. Cuban revolution of 1959, the FSLN and FMLN in the 80’s), youth and students have been militant participants in struggles for social change (for more on the importance of students in progressive political movements read Mexican Students Por La Causa: The Chicano Student Movement In Southern California 1967-1977, by Juan Gómez Quiñoes).
It is precisely because of our understanding of the value of youth and students to our struggle that Unión del Barrio wrote:
“We understand that the very nature of youth, their psychology (of independence, daringness, and open to new ideas), their physical characteristics (generally in excellent health, and their lack of economic constraints- not tied into economic dependence) makes them the backbone of all revolutionary armies.
“History has given us thousands of examples of this. Such examples include: ‘Los Niños Heroes’, teenage-cadets (most under the age of 15) who, armed only with swords and daggers, fought to the death against the racist-imperialist U.S. Marines who were laying siege to México City in 1845. In fact, the so-called ‘Marines Hymn’ refers proudly to the killing of Mexican boys in the ‘halls of Moctezuma.’ Another example is socialist Emma Tenayuca, who started organizing Mexican workers in Tejas while in her teens in the early 1930’s; or the ‘Pachucos’ (who were the first to popularize the term ‘Chicano’), who, during the 1940s, fought hand-to-hand battles- called the ‘Zoot Suit Riots’ by the gringo colonial media- against battalions of racist sailors, marines, and police throughout the barrios of Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and other locations; also, we saw the Brown Berets, who, during the 1960’s and early 70’s (what we call the Chicano Power Period) had physical confrontations with racist white worker organizations and police throughout Aztlán and other parts of occupied America (Chicago, Kansas City, etc.), and it was 15 year-old Brown Beret Lynn Ward who was one of the three Chicanos killed by the pigs during the August 29,1970 Chicano Moratorium march in East Los Angeles.
“Most recently (1980-1990), we witnessed how the great majority of the guerrilleros of the FSLN (in Nicaragua) and FMLN (in El Salvador) were teenagers, under the age of 18, who not only kicked ass on the neo-colonial soldiers (vendido-puppets counter-revolutionary forces of the U.S.)- but against U.S. Green Berets and C.I.A. mercenaries as well” (read “Barrio And Cholo Youth And Their Role In The Liberation Struggle,” ¡LA VERDAD!, Jan-Feb. 1993).
It Will Be Future Generations Of Young People Who Will Construct The Society For Which We Are Fighting Today
Recognizing the importance of youth, our position has long been, as Lenin once explained, that those presently involved in revolutionary struggle can only hope to destroy the foundations of the capitalist-imperialist way of life. Thus, it would be the task of future generations of young people to construct a new society. A society where there is no rich or poor, exploiter or exploited (read, “The Tasks Of The Youth Leagues”, V.I. Lenin: Collected Works). Furthermore, we uphold the position that, “No revolution can be victorious without the effective education, organization, and mobilization of the youth into political action (read “Role and Place of the Youth in Society, the ANC and the Struggle”, document of the African National Congress).
° Because of their age itself, many youth are immature and lack experience. This leads to idealism, lack of critical analysis, and errors in judgment.
The Movement Needs Experienced Leadership And Disciplined Organization
As we have summed up before in articles in ¡LA VERDAD! and in presentations made by our leadership, the absence of a strong, politically advanced, and organized Raza liberation movement has made all the various sectors of our movement (community, student, labor, barrio youth, women, and prison activists) susceptible to control and attacks from the colonial institutions: the educational system, businesses, government agencies and its military forces (F.B.I., C.I.A., police/migra, etc.).
In his book, Quiñones, who sums the stance of Lenin in regards to the student movement, highlights some elements that form our understanding around this particular question: “Lenin appreciated the importance and function of student groups... provided there was a class stand and an element of clear direction and strong organization... He noted their tendency to liberalism and opportunism and the fact that they were prone to substitute emotion for political judgment because given their age they lack the experience by which to measure their actions” (Mexican Students Por La Raza). This is why we have always upheld, that if the student movement is to be a revolutionary one, it must be under the leadership of a national liberation movement, a movement made-up of all sectors of our community: workers, community activists, pintos, barrio youth, women’s groups, etc.
We have also argued that without the existence of a vanguard formation who can pass on to other activists- including students- their experiences and revolutionary education, it would be impossible for students to develop a revolutionary consciousness dedicated to La Causa, the liberation of all Mexicanos and the reunification of our homelands (México-Aztlán).
Critical to this understanding is the fact that Mexican youth and students do not exist outside their social environment. Nor do they form a class of their own. Rather, they constitute part of the colonized Mexican nation and therefore their liberation is tied to the liberation of the class which makes up the great majority of the Mexican people: the working class.
Low Intensity Warfare Is A New Type Of Counter Intelligence Program Being Used Against The Chicano Mexicano Nation And Other Oppressed Peoples
Unlike many activists, the pigs have learned valuable lessons during the last period of struggle (1965 to 1975). It was based on these lessons, that soon after the brutal destruction of the liberation movements within occupied America (U.S.) and around the world, we see U.S./European colonialism-imperialism developing a new type of warfare: “Low Intensity Warfare.” A type of warfare tested in Vietnam and widely employed during the U.S. intervention in Central American. Low Intensity Warfare is a modern version of the “Counter Intelligence Program” (COINTELPRO) that was used to destroy or neutralize the revolutionary and militant organizations of the 1960’s, such as: The Brown Berets, The Black Panthers, Crusade For Justice, American Indian Movement (AIM), and La Raza Unida Party. (for more information on this particular question, read Occupied America, by Rodolfo Acuña; Agents Of Repression, by Ward Churchill; and Culture of Violence, by Penny Hess)
Low intensity warfare is a war waged under a general strategy that calls for consistent attacks on the whole population that make up the colonized nation, not just the military targets (insurgents, guerrillas, or revolutionary political organizations). It is a type of war that utilizes every means, physical and psychological, at the disposal of the colonial power to strike fear and intimidation into the hearts and minds of the colonized people. In the case of domestic implementation (within the borders of the “United States”) such low intensity warfare includes, but is not limited to: importing drugs into the colonies (barrios), the spread of diseases (AIDS), environmental racism (toxic dumping, junk yards in the barrios), instigating “gang violence,” incarceration and criminalization of Mexican youth, arresting or discrediting activists, and propping up neo-colonial vendidos (city council members, professionals, social service agency directors, etc.) as leaders of our community, the political/ideological education found in the colonial school system, etc. The real motives behind laws such as 187, 209, “Three Strikes,” English Only, etc. are grounded in this new colonial strategy. It is a strategy that has as a central component the destruction of the liberation movement, even before it gets off the ground. This is the strategy that U.S. capitalism has been using since the late 1970’s on all the forces found within the Chicano/Mexicano Movement.
Specific Examples Of Tactics That Are Being Utilized By Colonialism In Its War Against La Raza
Some specific tactics it has used on the movimiento include:
° Spreading rumors and slander within the movimiento in order to demoralize its militants and destroy its leading forces.
The Birth Of El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (M.E.Ch.A.)
The roots of M.E.Ch.A. can be traced to two key conferences that occurred in 1969. The first, which took place on March 1969, when, in an effort to provide direction to the militant youth movement which was rapidly growing during that period, the Crusade For Justice, under the leadership of Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez, organized a “National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference.” The Crusade For Justice was an organization based around the politics of revolutionary nationalism and the conference was held at its headquarters in Denver, Colorado.
This conference was one of the first juntas in the history of our struggle that attempted to unite both campus and community activists into one national movement. It also connected the Chicano Movement to the liberation struggles taking place world-wide. Many of the Raza student activists who were present at the conference were turned-on to the militant politics of “Corky” and the Crusade; specifically the ideas of carnalismo and Chicanismo that were advocated by the speakers and the document that came out of the conference: “El Plan de Aztlán”.
One month later, a second historical conference took place. On April 1969, the Chicano Coordinating Council On Higher Education (CCHE) organized a conference around the issue of education, organization, and La Raza. Many of those present at the CCHE conference, which was held in Santa Barbara, were activists who had attended the Youth Liberation Conference (in Denver) or had been influenced by the revolutionary movements coming down throughout the world.
The original objective of the CCHE conference was to develop a master plan for Chicano Studies, Student Services, and Recruitment. But the conference went further the organizers had expected. It took a deeper and more revolutionary stance, one that called for the unity of the campus and community struggle. It called for a student movement that went beyond regionalism and narrow politics, and it upheld the national liberation of all Raza as a central goal. The student organizations present decided to drop previous names such as: MAYA (Mexican American Youth Association), UMAS (United Mexican America Students), etc.; and adopted the name “Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán” (MEChA). Out of this conference came “El Plan de Santa Barbara”, which was to serve as a guide for the implementation of Chicano Studies and for student involvement in both campus and community struggles (for more on the Santa Barbara conference and “El Plan” read “Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement, by Carlos Muñoz and article “El Plan de Santa Barbara”, Education, Chicano Studies, and Raza Liberation, La Verdad Publications).
Contradictions Arise Within M.E.Ch.A.
According to compañero Carlos Muñoz, soon after its inception (by 1971) MEChA ran into contradictions that eventually led to its decline. Muñoz outlined four important reasons for this weakening of MEChA:
1. New students (who owed their admittance into college to the militant movement waged by community organizations) wanted organizations that would meet their “needs.” Rather than join MEChA, they chose non-political and career-oriented organizations such as Engineering Associations, Business Associations, Pre-Med, Pre-Law, etc.
While we agree with Muñoz’s observations, we place more blame on: 1) COINTELPRO and the implementation of “Low Intensity Warfare;” 2) a lack of political maturity and organizational discipline- which was responsible for the many splits and internal conflicts within MEChA and other movement organizations which led to (by 1975), the decline and destruction of the Chicano Power Movement; 3) Chicano Studies Professors and Academicians, for not providing the base on which to build the historical link and practical connection with the few remaining community militant organizations.
From 1970 to 1974, many campuses experienced internal struggles within MEChA and Chicano Studies Programs. During these particular period, the struggle was between the so-called Marxist and Nationalist forces (for information on these types of struggle, read the article “Culture Of Politics, Politics of Culture” by Segade, found in the Journal Of Chicano Studies, Mexican Students Por La Causa, or Education, Chicano Studies, and Raza Liberation). We say “so-called,” because looking back, based on information that we have gathered and analysis we have made, we question whether some of the groups involved in these conflicts and struggles were really Marxist or Nationalist, but rather naive groups, or fronts for U.S. police agencies (C.I.A., F.B.I., etc.)
What is certain is that college administrations used these struggles to institutionalize (white-wash) Chicano Studies and limit the powers of MEChA on campus by 1975. MEChA was to no longer have a voice in the hiring of staff (professors, EOP employees), in the recruitment of Raza students into the university, or in the content of Chicano Studies curriculum. Most Raza professors and staff (but not all), had no revolutionary commitment or history of movement activism, or were always aspiring to become part of the petty bourgeoisie and welcomed this weakening of MEChA. They no longer had to risk their jobs (through confrontational-liberation politics, work with and be accountable to community organizations) and didn’t work outside gringo “academia.”
Lack Of Political Development, Ideological Clarity And Organizational Discipline, Led To Continuous Splits Within M.E.Ch.A. And The Movimiento In General
A particular bitter conflict that often used MEChA as a “battle field,” was the struggle between the August Twenty Ninth Movement (ATM) and the Centro de Acción Social Autónoma (CASA). CASA upheld a political line that adhered to socialist revolutionary nationalist politics and the reunification of México and its occupied territories (Aztlán). ATM was a Maoist organization that claimed that Chicanos and Aztlán were a nation separate from México. The struggle between these two groups to assert influence and leadership in our movement- which often manifested itself in negative struggle (instigation from the various U.S. police-spy agencies must have played a part) caused many politically underdeveloped students to “burn-out” and give up struggle and to antagonize the infighting between the more advanced students who sympathized with either one of these organizations.
Probably the most damaging impact upon MEChA was the 10-year (1979-89) existence of the League of Revolutionary Struggle- LRS or Liga. This was a group formed by the merging of ATM with African, Asian, and white forces- to control the Raza student movement. The LRS, a multi-national organization, whose membership composition (Raza, African, European/white, and Asian) and political line (which emphasized struggling against the USSR, instead of U.S. capitalism) found itself in opposition to Mexicano self-determination. While claiming to be a “socialist” organization, their practice was to support the liberal capitalist Democratic Party and its front, the “Rainbow Coalition.” It negated the national character of our struggle and promoted a political line that called for Raza and other oppressed nations to unite with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party (Rainbow Coalition) and it opposed national liberation politics.
In A Fight To Move Our Struggle Back Onto The Road Of National Liberation, Unión del Barrio Exposes And Challenges The League Of Revolutionary Struggle (LRS, A.k.a.: Liga)
Another struggle that tremendously impacted MEChA, was the struggle between Unión del Barrio and the LRS. In 1985, we saw the influence that the LRS had over some MEChA chapters, the state-wide conferences, and the success they were having in winning over MEChA to liberal Democratic party type politics and away from self-determination and national liberation. Unión del Barrio engaged the LRS in struggle with the objective of exposing its bankrupt, anti-Mexicano politics, kicking the LRS out of the movimiento, and winning those MEChistas influenced by the LRS back to a line that called for Raza to be our own liberators. Unión was also critical of the “practice” used by the LRS, in which they used deceit (secret members), rumors, and theatrical emotional outbursts (which we called “El Teatro Ligista”), to win over MEChistas.
Some MEChistas, not aware of the true nature and dynamics of the struggle between Unión del Barrio and the LRS (many thought our contradiction with the LRS had to do with its socialist politics, which was never the case) and at the urging of some reactionary faculty and hispanic ex-MEChistas, turned “inward,” isolated themselves from non-campus organizations and community politics, and rejected anything having to do with socialism. This led to some MEChA chapters cutting themselves from the rest of the movimiento; a situation which continues today. While history has relegated the LRS to oblivion (it’s almost impossible to find someone who would admit they were at one time members of the Liga) the problems they produced during the 1980’s continue to impact our movement today. (for more on the LRS read, “10 Years Was To Damn Long: The Rise And Fall Of The Opportunist/Slanderous/Cagapalo League Of Revolutionary Struggle”, ¡LA VERDAD!, issues May-July 1991 and Aug. 1991 - Jan. 1992)
From 1989 to 1997 we have witnessed some chapters of MEChA practicing a politic of self-imposed isolation of the Chicano Student Movement from the community. This negative tendency is being pushed by a few so called “MEChistas” (so-called because they are working counter to the goals and objectives of the “Plan de Santa Barbara” and the “Plan Espiritual de Aztlán”), their “advisors” (hispanic careerists), and academicians. It has been basically a line that attempts to isolate MEChA from community-based self-determination and revolutionary nationalists groups, while uniting with the neo-colonial vendidos (EOP directors, Democratic Party pimps, government founded programs, cultural-folkloric nationalists, etc.) and all stripes of opportunists.
[In Part II of this article, we will sum-up and expose the backwardness of some students who opposed working on the “500 Years Of Raza Resistance March” (in 1992), the nationalist struggle against Prop. 187 (in 1994), the “25th Commemoration of August 29th” (in 1995), the “March Against the Racist Republican Party” (in 1996), and their years of opposition to the liberation politics of organizations such as Unión del Barrio, National Chicano Moratorium Committee, and the Brown Berets de Aztlán.]
While we recognize and value the importance of youth and students, we are also conscious, as in the case of most groups, of their limitations and contradictions. For example:
° The very nature of a bourgeois, middle class education often creates an elitist mentality among some students who begin to see themselves “above” community based political activists.
° During their college years, many students live far away from the Mexican community in which they grew up and having no roots in communities near the university they attend, some students limited themselves around campus-based activities. (read “History of Unión del Barrio Part VI: 15 Years of Struggle for the National Liberation of the Mexicano People,” ¡LA VERDAD! Jan-May 1997).
° Infiltrating organizations with the objective of creating divisions and derailing the struggle for self-determination, forcing it to spend much of its resources on internal contradictions.
° Rewarding, through jobs, positive publicity, loans and grants, those who support the capitalist-colonialist system; and punishing- through arrests, loss of jobs, both physical and psychological harassment, etc. to those who oppose it.
° Using the media to indoctrinate, through lies, deceit, and stereotyping, not only the colonized people, but also its own citizens, thereby keeping the majority of the white population on the side of capitalism and opposed to the liberation of Mexicans and other oppressed people.
° Using the educational institutions to win over people to capitalism and elitism, by making Raza students think that capitalism and “working within the system” are the only alternatives available to them as a way of overcoming poverty, racism, and oppression. It instills in our young gente an elitist mentality which opposes working as equals with community based, grass roots forces. (see “U.S. Domestic Covert Operations, from the Archive: War At Home”, on internet)
2. Most MEChA graduates shifted their energies from “confrontational politics” to furthering their professional careers, implementing programs, or became employed at EOP (Educational Opportunity Programs).
3. Many became alienated and turned-off by political struggles.
4. Some MEChistas, who because of their involvement, neglected their studies, were forced to drop political struggles and concentrate on “academic survival.” (read “Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement, Carlos Muñoz, Jr.)