Anarchism and the Black Revolution

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Armed Defence of the Black Commune

"Our insistence on military action, defensive and retaliatory, has nothing to do with romanticism or precipitous idealist fervour. We want to be effective. We want to live. Our history teaches us that the successful liberation struggles require an armed people, a whole people, actively participating in the struggle for their liberty !"

"” George Jackson, quoted in Blood in my Eye

We must organise self-defence units to protect the Black community and its organisations. It is the police and the government who are the main perpetrators of violence against Black people. Every day we read of the police murdering and maiming the people in our community, all in the name of "law and order." This police brutality has included the use of deadly force against children as young as five and elderly persons over 75 years old ! We must disarm and demilitarise the police, and force them to leave our community. Perhaps this can be done after a rebellion or insurrection drives them out, or perhaps they will have to be driven out by a street guerrilla force, like the Black Liberation Army tried to do in the 1970s. I have no way of knowing. I just know that they have to go. They are an oppressive occupying army, are not of our community, cannot understand its problems, and do not identify with its people and their needs. Further, it is the corruption of the cops that protects organised crime and vice in our community, and Capitalism with its exploitative economic conditions which is responsible for all crime.

Existing police forces should be replaced with the Black community’s own self-defence force, made up of members of our community elected or appointed by their neighbours to that position, or from an existing street guerrilla force or political organisation if the people agree. They would be subject to immediate recall and dismissal by the Community Control boards of an area. This is only so that we will have community control of the self-defence force, begin to deal with fratricidal Black-on-Black crime, and be able to defend ourselves from white racist or police attacks. With the increase of white racist violence today, and the possibility of white mob action in the future, usually in the name of "law and order," this community self-defence force is most important. The only question is : can we do this now ?

We exist now under conditions of nominal legality and civil rights, but at some stage in the process of building up our farces, his inevitable that the white power structure will recognise the danger to itself represented by such a free Black commune, and will then try to forcibly repress it. We must have the self-defence capability to resist. This concept of organising a self- defence force accepts any level of violence that will be necessary to enforce the demands of the people and workers. Yet these self-defence forces would not a ’party vanguard," a police force, or even a standing army in the Statist or usually thought of sense ; they would be a Black Peoples’ militia, self-managed by the workers and community itself : in other words, the people-in-arms. These militia organisations will allow us to engage in offensive or defensive actions, either in general community defence, or as part of an insurrection or underground resistance.

But what do we do right now in conditions of legality, to reclaim our community from violent racist cops ? Do we sit around and debate the appropriateness of military preparation, when the enemy is our community now, committing rape and murder of Black people or do we hit back ? How do we even get the idea across to our people and start to train them for paramilitary operations ? On a mass scale, I advocate the immediate formation of defence and survival skills study groups, under the guise of gun clubs, martial arts societies, wilderness survival clubs or whatever we need to call them. A thorough understanding of marksmanship, ammunition fabrication, demolition and weapon manufacturing is minimal for everyone. In addition, we should study first aid pertaining to the rather traumatic injuries sustained from gunfire and explosives, combat communications, combat weapons, combat tactics for the small group, combat strategy for the region or nation, combat intelligence of police and military activities among other subjects. These subjects are indispensable if am live underground or during a general insurrection.

We should put emphasis on the purchase, collection, duplication and dissemination of military manuals, gunsmithing textbooks, explosive and improvised demolitions manuals, police and government technical manuals, and pirated editions of right-wing manuals on the subject (since they seem to write the best material in this area), and also begin the study of how to build intelligence networks to collect information on the rapidly growing Skinhead and other totalitarian racist organisations, along with intelligence and counter-intelligence information on the government secret police and law enforcement agencies, like the FBI, CIA, ATF, etc., and on any and every other subject which could be of use to us in the coming struggle.

Even though in the United States, development of military skills and self defence is simpler than many other countries because arms and ammunition are widely available, it is logical to assume that the arms situation will soon be so tight so as to make firearms virtually unobtainable, except through an expensive Black market because of the government’s "war an drugs" and other proposed gun control legislation to prevent street violence," or so they say (Do you think the sporting goods stores will be open during an insurrection ?) Therefore we should learn to use machine tool technology to produce our own weapons. Perfectly adequate firearms may be produced using a minimum of machine teals, providing the individual or group is willing to do the necessary studying and preparation. It is not enough to know a little about these subjects ; it is a matter of future survival - of life and death that one be highly proficient.

I am not advocating the immediate waging of urban guerrilla warfare, especially where there is no mass base for such activities. What I am advocating at this stage is armed self-defence and the knowledge of tactics to resist military aggression against the Black community. It is a foolish and unfortunate trait among Anarchists, the white left and sections of the Black movement to condemn the study of military skills as premature or adventurist, or an the other hand to cast oneself into a blind fury of bank expropriations, kidnappings, bombings or plane hijackings. Too many people in the movement have a death trip approach to guns - they assume if you are not "fooling around," then you should prove your convictions via a suicidal shootout in the streets. It doesn’t have to be that way.

But the Black movement doesn’t even have the luxury of such tepid debates, and must have an armed defence policy because America has a long tradition of government political repression and vigilante paramilitary violence. Although such attacks have been directed primarily at Blacks and other oppressed nationalities in the past, they have also been directed at labour unions and dissident political groups. Such violence makes it absolutely necessary to acquire familiarity with firearms and military tactics. In fact, the Black Resistance movement that I spoke of earlier should think of itself as a paramilitary movement, rather than a strict political association.

We must assert our rights to armed self-defence and revolution, even though it is true that there is a lot of loose talk about guns, self defence, revolution, "urban guerrilla warfare" , etc. in the Black and radical movements, but with very little study and practice in handling and using weapons. Some of the same folks think "picking up the gun" means that you pick one up for the first time on the day of an insurrection or confrontation with police. This is nonsense and is the real "revolutionary suicide" , you could get killed not knowing what you are doing. But many instances attest to the fact that armed community self defence can be carried out successfully, such as the MOVE resistance in Philadelphia, the Republic of New Africa armed resistance in Detroit and Mississippi and the Black Panther cases. Even as important as the act of defence itself is, is the fact that these instances of successful self -defence have made a tremendous impact on the Black community, encouraging other acts of resistance.

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