Revolutionary Youth Movement
Revolutionary Youth Movement | |
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Far-left[1] |
In the United States, the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) is the section of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that opposed the Worker Student Alliance of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP).[1] Most of the national leadership of SDS joined the RYM in order to oppose PLP's party line and what they alleged to be its attempted takeover of the SDS leadership structure, particularly at the 1969 SDS convention in Chicago.[2][3]
History
The theoretical basis of the Revolutionary Youth Movement was an understanding that most of the American population, including both students and the so-called "middle class," comprised, due to their relationship to the instruments of production, the working class; thus the organizational basis of the SDS, which had begun in the elite colleges and had been extended to public institutions as the organization grew, could be extended to youth as a whole, including students, those serving in the military, and the unemployed. Students could be viewed as workers gaining skills prior to employment. This contrasted to the Progressive Labor Party view which saw students and workers as being in separate categories which could ally, but should not jointly organize.[4]
Politically, the RYM took issue with what they alleged was PLP's opposition to the right of
In the 1969 fragmentation of SDS, RYM departed the convention hall and declared itself the "real SDS" in a new space across the street. In splitting the SDS, the RYM itself also split. One section of the RYM (referred to as RYM I), containing most of the SDS leadership including
The other major section of the RYM, referred to as Revolutionary Youth Movement II, were
See also
- Michael Klonsky
- Revolutionary Student Brigade
References
- ^ S2CID 153120694.
- ISBN 1-85984-617-3.
- ISBN 978-1-78279-534-6.
- ISBN 978-0-671-20725-0
- ISBN 1849350973.