Rev Left Radio - Heavy Radicals REVISITED: US Maoists and the FBI (RU-RCP)

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Breht welcomes Aaron J. Leonard and Conor A. Gallagher back on the show to discuss the recent release of the revised and updated version of "Heavy Radicals: The FBI's Secret War on America's Maoists: The Revolutionary Union / Revolutionary Communist Party 1968-1980". We discuss the importance of the original book, what changes were made in the updated and revised version (just released Oct. 2022), who the Revolutionary Union (and later the Revolutionary Communist Party) were, the difficulty of writing about Maoist movements in the US, how the FBI and CIA work to destroy left wing movements and organizations, their tactics and strategies, and much more.  Listen to our original interview with Aaron on "Heavy Radicals" here: https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/heavy-radicals-the-fbis-secret-war-on-americas-maoists-1968-1980 Get the book here: https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/zer0-books/our-books/heavy-radicals Check out more of Aaron's work, including his upcoming book here: http://www.aaronleonard.net/ Outro Song: Read Mao, Drink Water by Bambu Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

All right, welcome back to Rev Left Radio, everybody. On today's episode, we have on Aaron Leonard and Connor Gallagher, who were the authors of Heavy Radicals, the FBI's Secret War on America's Malists, and this is the new revised and updated edition. So for a long time, Rev Left fans, and I actually went back and listened to this episode, it's almost been five years since I had Aaron on the first time to discuss. the original book. So if you've been a long-time listener of Rev Left, you might remember that. But if not, no worries. We're going to link our original episode about the book in the show notes

of this episode, so people can listen to that. And you can listen to it in any order, but in that one, we really go deep on the book itself. And this one's going to be more focused on the changes that have occurred with the revised and updated edition, some of the new information that's come out, etc. But before we get into it, Aaron and Connor, would you like to each sort of introduce yourselves? Sure. I'll go first, I guess. So I'm Aaron Leonard. I live out in Los Angeles County. I'm an author, you know, written heavy radicals with Connor. We did a follow-up that focused on informants who penetrated the highest echelons of radical organizations called Threat of first magnitude. My current book is called Folk Singers in the Bureau, which deals with people

like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and the FBI's efforts against them in the Communist Party. And then I have a book coming out in February called Whole World and an Uproar, Music, Rebellion and repression from 1955 to 1972 that talks about everyone from the rock and roll evangelist Alan Freed to Jefferson Airplane to Jim Morrison. So that's coming out on Valentine's Day. So that's who I am. I'm Connor Gallagher from New York originally, but currently living in Italy. And so as Aaron mentioned, we both worked together on our first book, Heavy Radicals,

about the history of the Revolutionary Union, a Revolutionary Communist Party in the USA, and then we do that follow-up book, The Third of the First Magnitude. And I'm continuing to work on doing research related to American Communism in the 20th century and specifically where it intersects with the FBI attempts at surveillance,

infiltration, and suppression, especially in that post-World War II period. Nice. And it's also worth mentioning that I have had both of you on at one other point, I believe, talking about the assassination of Fred Hampton, some of that new information. So again, a long-time listener should be familiar to some degree with both of you. But let's go ahead and get into this revised and updated edition. And, you know, maybe just a good way to start is just sort of reminding people of some of the details about

this book. So for those that may have missed out on the first show, can you remind us who the Revolutionary Union later becoming the Revolutionary Communist Party were and what your relationship, Aaron, was to that organization? Yeah, so the Revolutionary Union came out of the upsurge of the 60s. It started in 1968, and by 72, it had become a nationwide organization. It was adopting Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zetong thought, which is how it was referred to at the time. And it attracted elements of students for a democratic society. it attracted other students who had come after SDS's collapse.

It had a big appeal among anti-war veterans, VVAW, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War Against the War ultimately incorporated into the RU and the RCP. And it sent its cadre into factories in the early and mid-Sept. It had workers in Seattle, in the minefields in West Virginia, in the steel mills in Pittsburgh and Baltimore. When Mao Zetong died, there was a major schism in the group, one of many, but it was kind of the final schism, which left the Revolutionary Communist Party nominally the larger group, Bob Avakian, but then had ascended to the ultimate leadership. You know, before that, you know, he had been an important leader, but he became the preeminent and soul one. And our book ends talking about Avakian and the initiation of the cult of personality, which, to the degree, people know the RCP today.

They know it as a very small, cultish-like organization around Baba Vakin, who they feel is, you know, the best living Marxist alive. an interesting claim, which doesn't really hold up to a deeper scrutiny. So that's your 60-second tour of the RURCP, but the book goes into a lot more depth about how it was integral to the turmoil of the 60s, and one of the few groups to cross that barrier and continue on into the 70s in somewhat of a formidable fashion relative to other groups. Yeah, absolutely. Connor, anything to add to that?

No, I mean, I think as we go, some of the other points will come up because I know we want to talk about some of the new things in the book and also some of the history of malicism. I think some of that will also get into why we took on this project from the first. Okay. Yeah, and maybe just continue to reminding people about some of the details. You mentioned the factory strategy of putting members into factories to help unionization efforts and radicalize worker movement. within factories, can either of you discuss a little bit more of some of the organizing efforts,

some of the strategies of the RU, RCP, and sort of what their major successes were? Connor, do you want to take a stab at that, or do you want me to just keep going on? Well, I want you to say, you actually have some personal experience. Yeah, so the factory stuff is, it's funny, and I'm still mulling it over because, I mean, there was a big debate in the radical movement of the 60s. you know, whether or not to give up on the working class, which some people felt it was just all white and racist and backward, and there was no ability to organize there. The R.U. argued, well, you know, if you're going to embrace Marxism, Leninism, you have to go to the working

class. And they did send cadre in. And, you know, they touched on, I won't say every major industry, but, you know, a good deal. You know, I mean, they had people in the smelters in Tacoma, in the meatpacking plants in Tacoma in Seattle. I actually met the group in Seattle when I was, you know, about to leave my teenage years. People worked in the post office in the Midwest in the East Coast. They had folks in the major auto plants, John Melrod. worked at American Motors. He's just written a memoir, which is fascinating. Your listeners would probably appreciate it. John Melrod, M-E-L-R-O-D. I'm sure you can find his book. People worked in Bethlehem Steel in Baltimore, Sparrow's Point, Baltimore, in Pittsburgh, in Chicago.

The mine workers, you know, there was a group that the R.E. You had RCP had started called the Miner's Right to Strike, which led a major wildcat strike in the late 70s because there was a lot of tumult in labor in the U.S. in that period. It was bound up with some tectonic shifts that were going on that I don't think people were aware of. I mean, industry peaked in the United States in 1979, but by 1979, major major industries were already fleeing the northeast and the Midwest. So it was a matter of the RU sending people in in a situation that was dramatically changing. They had some success,

but, you know, they also had a lot of frustration because it was not the case that the most radical section of the population was concentrated in the working class. There was some. There was disenchanted youth who had gone to the factories. There was a vets that had gone in. And so there was a firmant. There was a firmament in the post office and the mines. You know, there were caucuses and the unions and stuff. The other major thing that was going on was the recession. And the RU had this group called the Unemployed Workers Organizing Committee, which was having a fair amount of success organizing. I mean, it's an episode in itself to talk about the work in industry. And it's also, I think, a rolling

project of summation, you know, with some hindsight. But I think the RU. RCP was the most successful of any radicals in attempting a neo attachment to the working class. I mean, the Communist Party USA, you know, had been, you know, formidable, you know, in that section, and they continued into that period to have people. I mean, they never actually went away. They just got smaller, but they didn't ever become insignificant. So that's a snapshot. Yeah. And of course, as you said, the 1970s are this great time of transition. And when you're living through it, you probably could not see where things were ultimately going to lead with any sort of deep clarity. But we can look back in retrospect and see that this is a period

right before, you know, what we call now the introduction of the neoliberal era and massive of deindustrialization, which has led to a whole slew of political, social, and economic problems that in 2022, we are currently, you know, sort of dealing with or not dealing with, as the case may be. But before we move on to the next question, Aaron, just it's also important. And Connor alluded to this as well as, like, your personal involvement in that organization. I know we talked about in the last episode, but can you say some things about, you know, the period of time in which you were involved in what your involvement looked like? Well, yeah, I was, you know, I met the group, you know, I was, I became radical when I was 13, which was what, around 1970. So, you know, there was a lot going on in U.S. society in 1970. The anti-war movement was huge. Now, the movement toward black liberation was quite pronounced. There was upsurgeons in the prisons, you know, and, as somebody entering my teen years in a small town in central New York and looking for what life was going to be like.

You know, this radicalism was extremely appealing. I left home when I turned 18 and I settled in the Northwest. I had friends. And it was there that I met what had just become the Revolutionary Communist Party in 1976. I mean, when I was in central New York, we started this a bit of a communist group, you know, adhering to all kinds of various philosophies,

including Mao's Little Red Book. I think we kind of modeled ourselves off John Sinclair's White Panther Party, which was kind of a mix of counterculture and revolutionary politics. We were the Stone Rabbit's People's party, which was a great name. I'll explain in the book. But by the time I hit the Northwest, I'd already had a fair amount of radical experience, albeit, you know, formative

and probably quite immature in hindsight. But I met this group, and they made all kinds of sense to me. You know, they seem to be serious, theoretically serious organizationally. Their adherence to Maoism seemed to be the most radical and strategically sensible so that, you know, I joined with them. Initially, I worked with their unemployed group. Then I was one of the founding members of their revolutionary communist youth brigade, their youth group. And all that happened at the cusp of Mao Zetong dying and the group splitting. And after the split, I moved east and you worked with the group is kind of on the street, selling the paper, evangelizing for the group. Eventually, I ended up writing for the newspaper for many years.

And it's a matter of, you know, you put in with something, you make a commitment, and breaking that commitment becomes a very big deal. So I stayed with them for a very long time. and heavy radicals was the product of both Connor and I had gone through that experience. We had left a group and wanted to make sense of it. So we wrote this book initially just to get a sense of who it was and where it fit in and whether our activity was meaningful or not. But then we discovered this whole Pandora's box of FBI activity, and it just took us to other places.

So that's a snapshot. Yeah, that's incredibly fascinating. I appreciate you telling us about that. But that does, I think, add a certain level of authoritativeness to this text in the sense that you had, you know, personal experience with this organization. And we're really committed to many of its central tenets. And, you know, I think that's admirable. I deeply respect the Maoist tradition and Maoist political theory. I think it is fascinating.

And there's Maoist movements in India, in the Philippines, et cetera, we speak right now, waging people's war against various right-wing regimes. And that's something that, you know, we should talk about and we should discuss as people on the revolutionary socialist left. But you discuss in your book a sort of general sense of dismissal that you were sometimes met with in the process of telling this story, precisely in part because Maoism is widely seen as a fringe politic in the United States. So why is this story worth telling And why was the RURCP an important political formation in the Maoist sense in that time? Yeah, I mean, there's obviously a lot of debate to be had about the 60s, 70s, various political trends and the less response to certain political developments.

But one thing we really got a better sense of from the book is if you're not talking about Maoist trends within the U.S. or even globally, you're actually, have an incomplete picture of what happened. And so when we started, as I mentioned, sort of trying to assess what we had participated in, there was this idea that we wanted to make sense of what it was. But this sort of a weird paradox happened of the more we got at the group and wrote this book, there were more ways we found ourselves disagreeing with the group and what had done, but also paradoxly seeing that it was actually much more important than we initially realized. And so if we're going to talk about the 60s, are you going to talk about the 60s without

talking about SDS? No. Well, who was one of the most influential groups within SDS at the time that it was breaking up? It was the RU. I mean, Balavakian ran for a position within the 68, 69 period of SDS. So the red papers were distributed at the SDS. Most of their leftists there wrote in their own papers from various trends saying how important the ARU was at that meeting. So if we're going to talk about that, then we're going to talk about the 60s when we need to talk about the Revolutionary Union

and Maoism as it was a major trend in the world. This is a group that also participate in bringing people to China. They actually brought people to China to see what an alternative to the current capitalist world looked like. That had immense influence on people. Also, as we were mentioning

in terms of various things they did in terms of organizing and their strategies is one thing that also got them a lot of credibility and attention among other people were becoming more radicalized and revolutionary was that they actually made a point of going to the working class, even though many of the original members themselves were not working class people. They went and organized, they joined the unions, they actually participated. They were actually able to bridge that sort of counterculture, political ferment of the campuses with the actual factories. And in one sense, maybe they did too much of abandoning the campus, but they did send the

majority of those people who had been formerly students and the organization into actual factories and actually across the country were involved in some of the most important organizing efforts. And this is part of how it would allow them to build up into a national organization, right? they were theoretical. They were putting out legitimate polemics and serious philosophical work, whether or not you want to agree with it. That's another issue. But they were doing that. And then they were inspiring other collectives around the country, were reading that, agreeing with them and forming. And in a while they went from basically a handful of people in the Bay Area to an actual nationwide organization, which actually a lot of other groups who attempted to do the same thing weren't nearly as successful and did get nearly as large. Yeah, if I could add on to that, you know, a little anecdote is I saw on Twitter recently somebody posted a picture of Huey Newton in China. You know, Huey Newton visited China, and this is in the new version.

He visited in China at the same time that the RU delegation visited China. You know, the RU delegation was, you know, was given a fairly privileged status. You know, they met Joe and Lai, as most people did. They met, I don't know the comrade's name, but the general who was instrumental in liberating Shanghai, faded the group. But so there's this picture in Twitter of Huey Newton in China, and the implication is, oh, you know, Huey, you know, embracing revolutionary China. And I went back and looked and read Revolutionary Suicide in Elaine Brown's book. which also discusses the time that, you know, Newton, her and Robert Bray, who is Newton's bodyguard, they visited China. And their account, it's frankly appalling.

Elaine Brown says nothing about visiting China. Her main account is being in a Hong Kong hotel, naked in bathrobes, with Huey watching the sunrise. She doesn't say anything about visiting China. Newton does talk about visiting China, but he doesn't say anything about the people he met or the experience or any of the conflicts that were going on. He mainly makes some references about being greeted as a state official, which, you know, that's of some consequences in America's mentioned. But it actually, it's a footnote in this version because it's in stark contrast to Danielle Zerai. who was on the RU tour, and she talks about, you know, the incredible experience of meeting people, you know, in the countryside, their summation of the great leap forward, their sense of the internal politics of the day. And it's a very living picture of a country that is in enormous conflict between a section that is attempting to create a different kind of society.

and a section that, you know, is pretty comfortable with the status quo. So, you know, I mean, Black Against Empire actually opens with Huey Newton's visit to China. And, you know, it's mythologized. And you don't really get the sense that Newton, you know, he was not a Maoist at that point. He was actually inclining toward something else. But yet here's this group, the RU, which is, is, you know, the preeminent Maoist group in the U.S. And it's almost excised from history. Were it not for Connor and my inaugural work, it wouldn't be there.

You know, and there's a certain combativity, I think, on Connor and my are part of saying, you know, no, this stuff happened. This was there. It was important. You know, it had limitations. And we came out of the other side being very critical of a lot of the RU and RCP's ultimate directions and policies, but they were there. You know, and the FBI was not, you know, in outer space for thinking they were a big deal.

You know, there was the potential for it to be highly consequential. So that's by way of addition on that. Absolutely. And I think so much of what both of you said is crucial, but especially this point that it's really, you know, you and Connor's work that stands almost alone in, taking this part of history seriously and clarifying what was actually happening and the theoretical impetus behind it, are you aware of any other books that attempt to cover even just like Maoism in the United States at any point in history, or is it literally just your guys' work? Connor, maybe you can speak some to the revolution in the air and I can jump on anything.

I can add to that. Yeah. Well, I mean, off air, Aaron and I together today were having an interesting conversation about every time there's new book on Hoover, it seems to be more a reflection of what people think at that time than actually a critical reassessment necessarily of Hoover. And what I mean by that is, I think if you look at where a lot of left-leaning historians are at the moment, I think there's a thing they want to say this is more. important than that. I mean, and part of what we did the book is, look, this was not a group in the 60s. It's not some group in 60s. This was a very important group in the 60s. We wrote this book because it's important. We didn't just write it because someone hadn't written it before. And I think that's part of what it is. I think there's a lot of currently tendencies on the left

of wanting to sort of not sort of be too definitive about this is the correct thing or this is right, which I mean, I'm not saying people should be dogmatic, but look, if this group was big, it's important. So, I mean, to go back to this example of they're missing from history is we're going to talk about the anti-war movement in the U.S. That's a very big deal. Lots of people written books about it. We're going to talk about the anti-war movement. We need to talk about Vietnam Veterans Against the War, one of the most significant, important groups of that time period. Now, there's a lot of controversy about what happened to that group and how it became essentially really absorbed by the Revolutionary Union.

And once again, we can debate how that happened, was it good, was it bad? But to just not even address it or talk about it is frankly just ignoring an important piece of that group's development. I mean, it sort of ignores the fact that here is this group of people who had fought in Vietnam who had actually gone from fighting for the U.S. to turning their back and saying, if we're ever going to have to pick up weapons again, it's going to be to take down the U.S. government. And then you have a big question of those people who have that thought that have that

sense of unity, well, when the Vietnam War ends, what do those people do? Well, a lot of them actually got turned on to becoming more radicalized, more revolutionary joining the Revolution Union. But the majority of books that talk about anti-war women and Vietnam veterans against the war don't even mention this immense ideological crisis that was thrown in front of the group. And so part of what we're getting into, I realize I'm going on, a little bit of a tangent is I think there's not enough focus currently. I mean, this is just my idea, is that there's not enough focus on, well, what was important? What was the defining things?

I think there's a lot of people almost trying to uncover hidden history, which I think there's value to, but almost uncovering things that are hidden for their own sake, as opposed to actually try and figure out, what was actually the most important dynamic going on? Like, yes, there were other trends going on in the 60s. And Maoism, we think, was the most radical one. and we think it was most important. I don't think it's the most important, influential one today, but I do think that it was.

And there's a lot of things we can get into about why it is, the main things being death of Mao and what happened in the events of China afterwards and all of internal crises around the world of the communist parties that were following that Maoist trend. But, yeah, I think it needs to be more focused and actually figure out what's important. And I mean, I think also part of this is,

as much as there's a lot of, work being done by leftists and even radical historians, there is still these elements of anti-communism, I think, even among most radical sections, where there's a lot of communist history that's just been buried or ignored. I mean, the amount of times I read things about the Communist Party did, and the story will say, well, these progressive people, they weren't progressive, they were communists. Right. Yeah, Brett, if I could kind of jump on that, because look, the major book that deals with, I mean, this was, something we explored in the new introduction, which is the new communist movement. I wanted to

try to understand it. I mean, to the degree people today know about the new communist movement in Maoism, it's through Max Elbaum's book, Revolution in the Year. So I went back and looked through his book and, you know, talk to some old comrades who are around about this whole concept of the new communist movement. And I also look through the literature. of like, you know, very popular radical historians, left historians, people are sympathetic to that sensibility to see how much Mao is referenced, and he's not referenced very much at all. It's, you know, it's infinitesimal. I mean, here you have a quarter of humanity in 1976 that is under the rule of, you know, Maoism essentially. I mean, obviously,

It's very fraud, and it's not monolithic, but it's a huge deal, and it's contending globally in the world with Soviet socialism and U.S. imperialism, if we can use those terms, but it's not in the literature. You know, Max Albam, you know, look, he did as a service in producing this work, Revolution in the Air, where he documents all the various groups that gravitated to this. this type of ultra-leftism, which included Mao-Saitong thought. And he did it, you know, with a tone that was much more amenable to a conversation and a debate and a discussion. But he does, and we do mention this in the intro, he does put forward this concept of third world Marxism, which he doesn't actually reference. He doesn't cite where it was used back in the day. I mean, he actually says, you know, it was mentioned somewhat and sometimes not at all.

And that's actually just in a passing clause. You know, and it's our sense that, you know, there is no such thing as third world Marxism in the sense that he's talking about it. And he, you know, he actually has a quote that, you know, admits that Maoism was, to a degree, you were a revolutionary communist, circa 71, 72, you know, Mao as Mao-Saitung thought would be the thing that you were

adhering to. This third world Marxism is more of a notional concept. I mean, you can't totally, I mean, it's complicated because there is a lot of revolutionary nationalism, you know, anchored in countries that are fighting national liberation

struggles. I mean, there's complexity and nuance, but countries like Vietnam are communist and they have an alliance with the Soviet Union, you know, and this all kind of works out. The other thing, though, is this, it was a discovery. The new communist movement is this term that the RU actually never used. The RU is actually operating effectively as a party in 72, 73, and there is this mysticism and almost fetishism about what a party is. that the RU appears to have bought into.

I mean, they're operating in 30 to 40 cities nationwide. They've got youth. They've got unemployed. They've got industrial people. They've got vets. They've got U.S.-China people friendship association cadre working among middle class people. You know, if that's not a party, the question becomes then what is? But they actually adopted the view, well, we need to take a first.

their leap. And so then this whole notion of party building continues on into the 70s after Mao is dead. What we found out in looking at the size of this movement, Elbaum projects that there were probably 10,000 people that they were more like, I'm paraphrasing from, you know, people can go back and look at the actual quote, but he says there's 10,000 more or less hardcore in this. and, you know, we worked out the numbers and everybody's smaller than you think, including the RURCP. We thought the RCP might be 1,500, even 2,000 when we wrote the book, but we now think it was probably 950, 1,200, you know, something more in that scope and scale, and that everybody after that is much smaller, you know, probably half that size. So when you add up all those numbers,

you come up to something much smaller, which then raises the question. So is this stuff important? And our answer is yes, it's important because it's aligned with China, which at that point is a huge force in the world. And that's where a disproportionate amount of its authority and power comes from. So that's a bit of a riff. But to answer your question of has anybody else written about this, very, very few, and the one person who's given it the most dedicated attention, you know,

we feel like they, you know, their understanding of it is a good deal different than ours is. Yeah, exactly. And well said, and that's what makes this book so important. And so I always tell people, you know, because I'm plugged into the, to the communists left here in the United States. And there are lots of people to varying degrees, whether they're organized or not, that consider themselves Marxist-Leninist or Marxist-Leninist Maoist of some sort. I just think that this book, Heavy Radicals, is absolutely essential for anybody who calls themselves that in the United States in particular and wants to understand the history of that actual movement throughout this period, the late 60s through the 70s. It's just absolutely essential reading, and it is so unique precisely for the reasons that you say there's no other book out there like it.

And so for that reason alone, I think it's really crucial for people on the socialist, communist, left in the United States especially, but beyond that as well to, to, to, to, engage with. And one of the things they were able to do in this period, of course, which we were talking about earlier, is this advanced organizational capacity and strategic ability to get into actual working class unions and make those connections. And that's something that I see the United States left today struggle with for various reasons, one of which is unions aren't as much of a thing as they once were, but that might be changing. We've seen some promising developments on that front as of late. And so I really think that if the socialists left in the United States, of course, is going to

succeed. It's going to have to have inroads with the working class. It's going to have to be embedded in whatever unions might be available. And that's going to take organizational capacity. And you can learn about people that came before you that did that to varying degrees of success. And the R.U certainly did it with more success than most at that time, especially. But again, let's lead into this next question because it leads in quite well.

well which is this is of course the revised and updated edition of heavy radicals so can you discuss and i know you've perhaps alluded to or gestured toward a few of these things but can you discuss the revisions and the updates that are included in this new edition how you came across them and why you ultimately felt that a re-release was necessary yeah so a few things is when we initially worked on heavy radicals we did initially some foyer work, some requests of FBI files, just to get a sense of certain things. But as you can tell from the title, the full title of Heavy Radicals, America's FBI, Cypriot War on America's Maoist, is the FBI became a much more integral part of that

book and our understanding of that organization than we initially thought it would be. And so one of the things we worked on was actually not just figuring out what the FBI knew, but who were actually informants in the group. And so in the first book, we talk about Donald H. Wright, who essentially was a person who got up to the highest, was from Chicago, and claimed that he had been part of this secret group, the AHC, the ad hoc committee for Marxist-Lennist Party, or about that later. It had been a former Black Panther member in Chicago, which we've never found any evidence to support. But essentially, he sort of had this idea that he had these ties and he's sort of like a heavy dude. And he managed to work his way all the way up to the highest level of the Revolutionary Union, which at that point would have been his four-person secretariat.

And so we basically came as close as we could just calling him an informant without saying it directly in the first book because we didn't have the smoking gun. One thing that happened through sheer coincidence is some CIA files on Richard Gibson, code named Sugar, who was working for the CIA, happened to cross pass with Donald H. Wright at one point. point. Now, once we got hold of those, those unredacted files, and they had no reason to redact Donald H. Wright, since he wasn't the focus of the file, we see that everything we know about Donald H. Wright, that we could all put together circumstantially, all essentially comes out, and it becomes clear that the FBI acknowledges his name, unredacted, was an informant

for giving information to the FBI. So we have that. We also, from the first book, we knew someone in the Bay Area was also an informant, but we didn't even have enough information at that point to even speculate just because we just didn't have enough information. Eventually, we got enough files since the first book came out, and we go into this and throughout the first magnitude of this guy, Daryl Grover, who'd been an old C.P. Orr, old person also part of progressive labor before joining the RU, and he was essentially there from the third meeting on and giving information.

So we sort of began to track down who and could say with some authority who these actual informants are. It's very important to, like, we feel to look in these files, actually figure out what informants are, but you have to be very careful about saying people are informants unless you have 100% proof. And since we didn't have 100% proof with the first book, we did not explicitly say these people informants. But now we can because we have that proof. So that's one aspect. Another thing that Aaron mentioned is initially based on the accomplishments of the RU and other groups. We, and also because of some other work like LBOM's work, we thought the RU, other groups are bigger.

But we now have an understanding that the sizes were much smaller. So Aaron said we have our estimates. The FBI, which is pretty well infiltrating into the RU has smaller estimates that we do. but they're still within a range of a few hundred. So we have an idea that this movement was smaller, which in one sense is actually kind of more impressive, if you think about that a smaller group of people were able to accomplish more than we initially thought.

Also, we also have a question when we first wrote the book that we were able to uncover that the FBI had created this false communist organization that they were controlling called the AdHop Committee for a Marxist Party. Now, initially this group was formed by the, FBI out of Chicago as a way to disrupt the Communist Party. Essentially, they created a Maoist secret organization, is what Don Wright claimed to be a part of, that was disrupting the Communist Party in Chicago by putting forward a pro-Malice line at a time when the CP was consolidating around a pro-Soviet Union line.

Now, they were able to retool that AHC and then actually make it seem like a legitimate very early malice organization and actually had the credibility of being all its secret so it seems to respect security a lot but also it had been one of the earliest groups so it seems like it'd been quite serious and able to then retool that organization then use it as a weapon against the r u and so one thing we were unclear of at the time is was this something that the fbi was manipulating and was it a real organization or was it something that maybe was an organization had some fbi and then some people who were unwittingly duped into joining

this organization, but what we've since been able to discover is that it really was just a full FBI operation at various times just a small handful, seven or eight people who were essentially running this organization, putting out bulletins, communicating with

other groups through secret channels, occasionally participating in international conferences with other communist organizations around the world. And then I think lastly, we We have the interview with someone who was actually visited China during this time when the RU was taking people to see the People's Republic of China and see what type of transformation had happened under the socialist project, which also relates to one thing we also thought,

and this seemed to do with a lot of people thought, but we've since discovered it's not quite true is that we initially assumed that China was sort of handing out a franchise to the ARU, essentially that China was saying you're our group in the U.S. that we approve and that we are promoted. What we came to understand is a little more complex than that. While that after Mount died in Wago Feng in 1970, did officially recognize the Communist Party Marxist Lennis, which had formerly been the October League, which is a smaller rival to the Revolutionary Union.

initially. They never actually officially recognized the RU, nor did they officially recognize progressively labor before that. So what they actually wanted to do is they really just sort of wanted all these groups to sort of unite and to form one grouping, which is a little different than the way they were acting, but also then makes a little more sense why there was this push towards in these groups in the mid-70s, which we didn't entirely understand the part of that comes. As we get into the book, we focus on four individuals that helped give an idea of the diversity of people who came to forge and create the RU. And one of them was this guy, Lible Bergman.

And I think about Lebo Bergman is he had been in the Communist Party, but he'd also been in the 60s, lived in China, and he had a back channel connection to communicating with people in China, specifically some powerful people in China. And this is what the reason. I think you're cutting out there a little bit. Just an amendment. My sense is that China did recognize.

progressive labor party, but around 68, 69, they fell out. Progressive Labor Party was headed in a different direction. But if I can just augment what Connor was saying, you know, one of the things I've come to realize is, you know, there's a lot in heavy radicals and its follow-up that is groundbreaking. You know, and it's kind of astonishing. It's like there's all this stuff in here. And then there's the relative silence in response to it. And I was trying to figure out, well, what's going on here? And having familiarity with the literature on the FBI, there's this myopia and narrative of the dominant authorities about, you know, what radicalism was vibrant in the 60s and what was driving things. And organized communism is not one of those things.

So there's a real blindness. I mean, you know, and I'm not just talking about the RURCP. I mean, you know, Connor and I discovered like the CointelPro operation files on the Communist Party USA have never been released. And that's the single biggest co-intel pro that was ever done. You know, for the U.S. authorities, including J. Edgar Hoover, the biggest threat to the internal security of the United States was not the, Black Panther Party. I mean, actually, anybody who wants to really, Connor kind of led me on this, go ahead and follow that quote out.

You know, Jayager Hoover calls Panthers the biggest threat. And what you're going to find is a dead end, you know, that Hoover actually gave a press conference about an annual report. And that annual report refers to the Black Panthers as the biggest threat among black nationalist hate groups. And then there's a reference to a press conference where he may have misconstrued a statement, but it's a headline in a UPI story. But actual logic will tell you Jayhager Hoover dedicated the majority of his resources over time to the Communist Party USA. And, you know, it's demonstrably, you know, in effect.

you know and then you know within that then then there arises this Maoist trend and he dedicates all kinds of resources to that I mean there's this whole narrative that the weathermen were the were the biggest object of Hoover's attention and you know they were in the sense that it was a criminal investigation but Hoover realized something that I think a lot of the media and pundits don't which is that the weathermen were never going to be a threat to the internal security of the United States. They would be a disruptive factor. They were never going to challenge the authority of the country in the way an organized, excuse me, Communist Party with the support of a foreign entity might. You know, I mean, you know, the FBI was not stupid. I mean, and you can read through their reports and see how they talk about various forces.

And there is a reason that the RU was their biggest focus, you know, for new domestic intelligence organizations, circa 69, you know, into 76. You know, it's like they, you know, they understood where real problems were. But, you know, this myopia actually makes a lot of historians, unfortunately, blind to stuff that's right out there. I mean, writing heavy radicals should have been hard. exposing the ad hoc committee should have been hard, but it wasn't hard because nobody else was doing it. And, you know, even though we've only obtained a fraction of that stuff, it was easy to get it because nobody was even looking for it. So, I mean, that's a kind of a point. I mean,

I think heavy radicals is going to stand the test at the time if at some point some of these folks, you kind of get the memo and dig further into this stuff. yeah yeah no absolutely and of course you know speaking of the FBI and the weatherman when you start engaging in acts of abject criminality individual acts or small sublet groups doing terrorism of various sorts the United States government knows exactly how to handle you and you will be dealt with when you're highly organized when you have a presence in major unions when you have international connections to other socialist and communist movements or states that's a whole other sort of monster to grapple with.

And so I do think that's interesting, but just to summarize, especially what Connor was saying of these, the new elements of this text, so people really know that this revised and updated edition is, is, you know, worthwhile and something that people should go out and get is there's, of course, confirmation of various informants, a recalibration of sizes of the relevant organizations, the discovery of the ad hoc committee being a complete FBI sort of, you know, propped up our organization. The interview, which we're going to talk about in a second with, I think Danielle Azora is how you say her name. And China's connection there was an impetus to consolidate some of these various organizations as opposed to merely pick one of as their main representative.

They were urging a sort of consolidation. And so all these things are incredibly fascinating and you go into them with some depth. But let's go ahead and discuss that interview because part of the new edition, as we mentioned, includes this really fascinating interview. with Daniela Zora. So can you tell us who she was, what you learned through your interview with her, and maybe some of the experiences of the R.U. When they visited China in 71.

Yeah. So she was an early member of the Revolutionary Union, Label Bergman, who had been in the Communist Party USA. He'd been for a very brief time, a leader in the Progressive Labor Party, and then he and a number of comrades left PLP. but he was a mentor for a lot of the early R.U. people. I mean, he introduced Bob Avakian to Marxism, Leninism.

You know, he coered the group. You know, label really does need to give credit for creating the RU. I think the impetus was more his than anyone else's. I mean, everybody was looking, you know, the people who coered were looking for something, but he was the conduit. He essentially suggested Danielle and others go to China. China had put out a broad call to come in the fall of 1971. Nixon went to China in February 72.

China is in a very weird place in 71. I can't get into all the geopolitics, but the cultural revolution is still ongoing, but it had brought China to the brink. a civil war, you know, Mao is keen to retain power, you know, and not have things just descend into chaos. And conservative forces are, you know, kind of seizing on that to, you know, reassert their authority. So this is where this RU delegation comes in. You know, they're joined by a small delegation from the Black Panthers, some American pacifists, activists, a member, a former member

PLP is there. Yoruba Guzman, Poplow Guzman joins the RU. I'm part of the delegation. You know, and they are, you know, they're given the red carpet. They're, you know, they're taken all over the country to the

countryside. They're introduced to these worker peasants who had been elevated during the Cultural Revolution or trying to give them a sense of the changes underway. Danielle has on the ground experience of myth and reality on how women are treated in China and how some of the traditionalism

is still intact, even though nominally things should be different, but then she points out that women seem to have positions of authority, which they don't contemporarily, and they didn't before the revolution. And she talks about health care and how it's available and the proliferation of basic medical care via the barefoot doctors. I mean, there's a whole, I won't make this long, but there's a whole overview that she has. And, you know, it's, it's a critical assessment. It isn't just a fawning assessment. I mean, it is true that the Chinese, I don't think were showing the RU everything. I mean, nobody was invited into a Pala Bureau meeting, but they did see quite a bit. And I think if you had a critical, you know, gauge, you know, you could see some

things. And it's interesting to read it. It is just a real gift she gave us to talk to us. And you can compare it to Baba Vakim wrote a memoir. He talks about his experience. So you can begin to piece together that tour as a whole. But that's included in the book as an appendix, but it's a very rich appendix. I just want to add to that because I'm as someone who got introduced to politics well after Mao had died and that transformation in China had happened. So I feel the value is there's a whole generation of people who have become active or in some cases even radicalized and revolutionary and don't have this concept of sort of this beacon that you're looking towards. without getting into what they did right and what they did wrong and mistakes and

what should people be trying to reproduce or integrate into thinking from that experience it's just a very different experience that to understand there was a time where people could go to a place and see a completely different world even with its mistakes and with its flaws this idea of this other world wasn't just an abstraction that people were debating in a meeting it was an actual thing that exists, and people were aspired to it, and they aspired to create it in their own place. China producing these tours for people to come was, I mean, twofold. It was to promote, they were thinking around the world, is also to create allies and how people see, but it did turn a whole bunch of people.

And one thing that's really interesting, and you get some of this sense in the interview, is how this is a life-changing experience for so many people who saw this. It really was proof that there could be a different way of doing things. Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things I took away from that, from reading that interview is just like the inspiration that, you know, Danielle is now in her 70s and still certainly has the revolutionary fire burning in her belly, even after all these years. And she talks about 50 years of defeat. I mean, you know, being an active member during the 60s and then 70s and then seeing the rise of Reagan and Thatcher,

and then you live through the, you know, the Bill Clinton era, the 80s and 90s, or a dark time for communists in the West for sure. And so it's, that whole interview is really fascinating. And I really love that it's included in this updated edition, highly recommend. So we're approaching an hour here. I have a couple more questions for you. This question is just sort of your opinion. You can take it in any direction you want. But what do one or both of you think about the possibilities for a renewed Maoist or at least,

communist movement in the United States today. And what about the Maoist line? Do you find it to still be powerful and relevant? Well, I mean, I'll jump on this and kind of can supplement. I don't think there's a redo and I don't think it's a matter of just fixing a few things. I think the socialist project of the last century, you know, I think there's still a need of a summation that's more satisfying than what's come forward. I think within Maoism, there's a lot, I mean, we write in the book that it's a little too soon to just, you know, close the book on everything, you know, the last century brought forward. It's a little too soon to totally close the book on Maoism. It's not the same as saying it's going to resurge, you know, in the way that was conceived, you know, as written in the time.

I mean, there's principles of Maoism that allowed, you know, this largest populated country in the world to throw out imperialism and create a new society to, you know, take over the land and the means of production. You know, it was a very sophisticated philosophy, you know, things like the mass line were pathbreaking where, you know, you actually listen to people and try to, you know, synthesize their views in establishing policy. You know, Mao's principles on warfare actually won wars, you know, and basically, you know, drew on Lao Zhu and in a lot of, you know, the ancients, you know, who had, you know, a wealth of experience. There's a lot in what Mao brought forward that is very compelling and potentially very impactful. What the future is, I mean, my personal view is, you know, there's, it's. not at all clear, you know, what comes next or how one gains a liberated future. I do wish people were asking, and some people are, but I wish they were asking more complicated questions. You know, Brett, what you referred to is, where is the working class today? What is the force for

change? You know, and then globally, you know, what may or may not be shaping up that could give rise to if calamitous, but still a transformatory change? I think a lot needs to, you know, to be dug into it. For myself, I'm going to continue writing because I find writing allows me to explore and ask these questions and try to come up with certain answers. So that's how I would address it. I'm not sure what Connor and I, you know, we agree on a lot of things, but we're not the same person. We also see things differently. Yeah, I mean, I'll try to avoid doing what bad stories do, which is make predictions. So what I will say is I think part of the reason this book, even though it's about the past

who has value for the present, is it's worth looking at people who asked big questions and tried to take sort of big swings, right? So this, I mean, if you think about a lot of the things the RU was dealing with, even if you disagree with how they approached it or maybe their summation, I think it's worth looking at something like they tried to actually form a real legitimate multi-national working class-based organization, right? There are people who want to do things like that now, and without getting into a too big of the modern left, I think a lot of people who aspire to that are kind of asking the wrong questions and sort of framing even the questions the wrong way. I think that's vague

enough. But I mean, like, what does it actually? And but even basic questions, like, well, what, what do you study? Like, what do you base yourselves on? Like, how you actually unite with people. What is the basis of unity? You know? And I think also there's a lot to be said with what does it mean actually have a dedicated, hardcore grouping of people that can accomplish it? I mean, one of the things I think why we and other people initially thought these groups are much bigger is how much they got accomplished. And I don't think that's something to dismiss. even if you can look at, like, say, the modern RCP and say, well, it's small and significant and it doesn't really have much influence or respect.

I mean, these are groups, are you among them that accomplished? I mean, these are people who, like, changed America's mood about, like, being now more. These are people who actually made so the U.S. actually abandoned the draft. I mean, these people were trying to change the world, and they didn't accomplish everything they wanted to, obviously. but, I mean, they change the culture dramatically. I mean, if you think about the way the U.S. culture is much more skeptical than U.S. intervention as war, it's a lot of that has to do with sort of ripping the mask off and exposing what U.S. was doing in Vietnam

and other parts of Southeast Asia at that time. Yeah, no, absolutely. I appreciate both of your insights and wisdom on that question so much. And I think you're both, you know, right on target with the stuff that you're saying. But, you know, having taken that lesson, I'll also. want to take the lesson away from FBI and the CIA and how they engage with radical left-wing figures and organizations and movements. So what does not only this book, but your broader investigations into, you know, the FBI in particular, you know, their infiltration of various

things, their strategies for destroying left-wing movements and organizations, what can we learn about these sort of tried and true tactics of theirs that we could perhaps implement in modern-day organizing efforts? Well, you know, it's a good question. And I think our first, you know, heavy radicals and threat of first magnitude are rich. And I think, you know, anybody who's engaged in serious political activism could benefit from reading them,

you know, there is no blueprint or, you know, how-to's things to do, things not to do. in, but there is a certain methodology. I mean, I was just reading the proud boys. I mean, they had seven FBI informants, you know, inside of them. And then I was reflecting back on a threat of first magnitude in this doctrine. The FBI has of getting, you know, FBI and CIA informants to the very top of organizations. And I got, you know, Connor and I both got, and touring the country as well, you know, with all this new technology.

and social media, I mean, isn't it just kind of game over as far as surveillance? And, you know, that stuff is highly effective. And it has changed quite a few things. But we hear the FBI Circuit 2022 still needs human intelligence, you know, actual people inside, inside meetings, you know, reporting back, you know, pushing plans and agenda. And, you know, so that's all, you know, rather. interesting and revealing. But the other point, though, is just in my writing, what I've come to discover is, you know, there is this, I think it's a Marxist principle, but has been kind of carried down through the canon, as it were, is, you know, history develops through conflict

and struggle. And anybody who steps out and says, look, you know, the status quo is bad. It's hurting people. People are suffering and they're suffering unnecessarily. Anybody who steps out does that, is going to get confronted with people who want to stop them, if not destroy them. And it seems like it's kind of a basic thing that I think doesn't really get appreciated enough. And I think our work flows from that, you know, where there is repression, there is resistance. And where there is resistance, there is repression. So that's how I respond to that. Connor?

Just add a couple points on that. is, yeah, I can't speak directly on what the FBI is doing currently just because I don't have access to those files and I'm not studying current civil rights groups or other radical groups of the day. But I will say when requesting files and getting files, the main thing we get back in terms of why I cannot get access to this file or this section is to reveal this information would be to reveal modern, would be, To reveal this information would be to expose techniques being currently used by the FBI. So in other words, what they did 50 years ago in files that we saw before, they're still doing today. And so what I can then sort of make some assumptions from that, that well, the things we're finding back 50 years ago were things like infiltration, obviously surveillance, trying to pit people within an organization against each other, trying to foment divisions upon things that are actual differences but don't necessarily have to become antagonistic.

And all those are the things that we saw back then and some files were getting censored because they're still using techniques. Well, if those are the techniques that use then, I think it's safe to assume they're still using those techniques today. Yeah, absolutely. I concur. And, you know, the advent of social media, there's a whole bunch that comes with it, good, bad, and neutral.

but it's almost absolutely a positive fact that they're going to at least have a presence on a platform like Twitter where so much political dialogue and discourse and heavy hitters of various sorts are present and there's always going to be attempts to use whatever new terrain develops through technology to push at least the information warfare if not more. So I always just sort of like warn people on the left from spending too much time on those platforms because the algorithm in and of itself is not healthy for you, but also just the discourse, the way it's shaped, and who people are behind these anonymous profiles

and these new, quote-unquote, movements and all this stuff. It is just a wild, you know, west of insanity over there. And so, you know, any time you could organize in your community, come face to face with people who have a vested interest in making their family and their community and their neighborhood a better place. Those are going to be steps, I think, in the right direction. And spending hours and hours and hours online, arguing or debating or vomiting up your political opinion

and confusing that for real political struggle is always going to be sort of anathema to real progress. But, yeah, I think these books that you all write are so important because they really give a fascinating insight into so much of how these organs, like how these agencies operate. Whether they're attacking the left, like in your text, or like Aaron was saying, their infiltration of right-wing movements, you can still learn a lot by studying that as well. And so, you know, people just really need to keep their eyes wide open when it comes to that stuff. But, yeah, I really appreciate both of you coming on. Before I ask the final question, though, I want Aaron to just, I know your book hasn't quite come out yet, but you are in the process of publishing a new book called Uproar, Music, Rebellion, and Repression, 195. through 1972. Do you just want to tell us a little bit about that?

It's called Whole World in an Uproar, Music, Rebellion and Regression, 195, 1972. The title, I mean, it's a phrase going back centuries, but Freddie Neal wrote a song called Other Side of This Life, and he says, my whole world's in an uproar, and the line just captivated me. Jefferson Airplane performs that in their live concert, Blessed Pointed Little head and it's just devastating the way the bass just rumbles the pillars of

whatever. The book is about how the music of the long 60s was only asserted by overcoming harsh repression everything from the FBI's file of Dave Van Rock to pursue the

monitoring of Susie Rotolo Bob Dylan's first girlfriend to the hounding of Jim Morrison, who is a crazy artist, he's a conflicted character, but he's also extremely radical. There's this great picture of the doors that I'll have to put online, them standing on an American flag in the recording studio. But it's about the pushback and how these artists, everything from the Beatles to Jefferson Airplane, Nina Simone, I got Miriam McKeeba's file, how they confronted the authorities and either produce wonderful music or, you know, we're thwarted.

So that's going to be out on Valentine's Day. So, Brett, I promised I'd get you a review copy off and I will certainly do it. And Connor was gracious enough to read through it. So, you know, he helped me with the editing of it and stuff. So I'm excited about it coming out. I can't wait. Beautiful. Yeah, sounds fascinating.

I can't wait as well. And listeners, you can be guaranteed. That's going to be a future Rev Left episode. or do you have anything that you're working on that you'd like to plug before we wrap up? No, I mean, I'm still working on some work related to the FBI counterintelligence, but unfortunately that is a few years away before we finished. I see, I see. Where can listeners find both of you and this new revised and updated edition of heavy radicals online?

Well, just go to my website, Aaronleonard.net, that's spelled A.A.A. Ron, like the K-and-peel sketch. Aaron Leonard.net, and that has links to all the relevant literature. You know, Amazon, I know people don't like, some people don't like Amazon, but check in on Amazon because they put it on sale. And I don't know sure how they gauge it. But, you know, unfortunately, the publisher is, the published price is $29.95. But if you shop around, you can usually get it on sale. If you've got the old book and your wallet's tight, get the e-book.

It's considerably cheaper. you can read the new material. But if you want to support us and make Zero books happy, you know, Zero is recently rejoined Repeater books. I know there's some controversy among some people, but Zero in our publisher, gosh, I'm having a mental flip, but our publisher took a chance, you know, publishing heavy radicals and supporting the book by buying it

is helpful to them and to us. And so it's worthwhile. Terrick Goddard. If you already have a copy, get a new copy, give your old copy to a friend. Yep, absolutely. And I will link to that in the show notes. People can find it as easy as possible. Thank you, Aaron.

Thank you, Connor. Not only for coming on the show once again and sharing your insight with us, but also for all the really important and unique work that both of you do, you always have a place here at Rev Left Radio whenever and for any reason. Brett, thanks for having us on. It's always fun talking about. Thanks, right. Hey

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