“WHAT IS PROTRACTED WAR FOR THE BLACK LIBERATION STRUGGLE?

If the nature of the crisis of the system of oppression is protracted, that is, drawn out over a considerable period of time, then our struggle to defeat this exploitive system and acquire self-determination is also of a protracted nature. But why a protracted war?

The very reality of black people's experience in North America proves that we are, and have been in a state of undeclared war.

This is a difficult realization for many to make, especially those who still have their minds in pawn to the great American delusion, but often the truth is harsh in its naked form.

The nature of this war assumes many different guises, sometimes overtly violent, sometimes economically restrictive and still other times socially repressive.

If we bear in mind that the modern wars of U.S. imperialism waged against third world people have not all been completely military campaigns, but have also included social pacification programs, economic aid to reactionary regimes,

political-police extermination of legitimate opposition and the like, then it should not be too hard for us to realize that in its policies against blacks, poor people, and other national minorities the U.S. government is waging an undeclared war.

The primary aspects of this undeclared war are class repression, and casualties can be counted on both the welfare-unemployment rolls, and the statistics of murdered black youth and prison-crime reports.

This undeclared war has masked itself as ‘domestic reform,’ ‘law and order,’ and ‘a return to traditional American values’ a la Nixonian doctrine.

The ending of overt U.S. military involvement in Vietnam has led to an increasingly reactionary stance on the part of the majority of white Americans.

The vile and deceitful nature of America's institutions were revealed glaringly by the Vietnam imperialist venture, and has cast many into the pit of uncertainty.

Of course the post Vietnam revelations of government deception told black people nothing ‘new’ about the ruling class institutions of American society. But it revealed these institutions for what they are, for the first time America could see what was perpetrated in their name.

This was/is most uncomfortable, for white America cherishes its self-deceptions of righteousness and democracy. With the eroding of these self-delusions, our position as a national minority has become increasingly endangered.

There is the foul odor of reactionary ‘Americanism’ in the air, fanned and blown into the confused faces of white America by a ruling class beset with all manner of economic, political, and social ills—which demand attention.

(The landslide victory of Nixon in '72 was an endorsement, conscious or unconscious, of white America's deep-set reactionary nature and confusion as manifested in the Nixonian doctrine.)

The onslaught of domestic repression, social programs of class repression, and ‘law and order’ are upon us all now. We must build the means to combat these programs of the enemy, or our very survival will be severely in question.

So when we say a state of undeclared war exists, we mean a domestic war, an economic, a military, and a political war. We therefore must fight this war on all fronts.”

“The strategy of protracted war is suited to our objective circumstances. The oppressor is strong while we are weak. But his strength is not absolute, is not without its limitations. These limitations are to be found within his seeming strength.

For purely military reasons we will not go into them all, but the immense size and urban centralization of the economic strengths of our oppressor make him vulnerable, his intensified difficulties on the economic and social levels make him tactically vulnerable,

the erosion of his reactionary political face make him politically vulnerable, and subject to social dysfunction. In addition, the exploitive relationships of capital are approaching their limitations, while we are progressive and as of yet have not reached our full potential.

For these reasons and many, protracted struggle is a correct strategic line. We must refuse to fight decisive battles on the military level, while striving to increase our potential to harm ruling class interests.

We must organize on the mass level along these same principles: refusing to fight battles that cannot be won, while constantly engaging in those that will build the confidence of our people.

This does not mean an abdication of responsibility to raise the level of consciousness of our people by engaging in struggles that will only ‘enlighten’ them, it merely means that each tactical struggle around particular issues must have a specific+concrete goal that can be won.

Protracted struggle is the method of struggle that shuns bringing conflict to one decisive showdown.

Instead it seeks to wear down the enemy, force him to utilize all of his manpower without securing a decisive victory, while the revolutionary forces increase their strength and raise people's awareness in the process.

Protracted struggle aims at increasing the social burdens upon the oppressor, while these same burdens are the catalyst for the masses organizing themselves.

In short, protracted struggle is the process by which the enemy is weakened, demoralized, and made politically bankrupt, until our relationship to his strength is tipped in our objective favor.

We maintain that on the military level, urban guerilla war, based on the strategic principles of protracted struggle can succeed in its aim of increasing the crisis of the capitalist system of oppression.

And that urban guerilla struggle serves as a dialectical and necessary element in the fight for national black self-determination, without which we will be defeated.”

“[…]

We have found the democratic process under capitalism to be merely a means by which capital controls the masses.

It is a means of mass diversion, designed to keep the powerless classes politically impotent while at the same time fostering the illusion that real power can be gained through the electoral process. Black People should know better.

In a nation based on the false principle of majority rule we are a marginal minority and therefore our right to self-determination cannot be won in the arena of our oppressor.

The rejection of reformism however, is much deeper than the above reasons. For if reformism is a rejection of any meaningful change, it is also a rejection of revolutionary violence, and therefore reformism is a functional ignorance of the dynamics of Black liberation.

This is because the character of reformism is based on unprincipled class collaboration with our enemy. The ideals of class collaboration do not stand in opposition to our people's oppression, but instead consistently seeks to reform the oppressive system.

Reform of the oppressive system can never benefit its victims, in the final analysis the system of oppression was created to insure the rule of particular racist classes and sanctify their capital.

To seek reform therefore inevitably leads to, or begins with, the recognition of the laws of our oppressor as being valid.

Those within the movement who condemn the revolutionary violence of anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and revolutionary Black nationalist groups are in essence weakening themselves.

These fools do not understand the inter-active need for revolutionary violence with other forms of struggle, and because they do not understand the real dynamics involved they seriously inhibit the development of the liberation movement as a whole…

These reformists in liberationist garb should understand that unless the movement cultivates its capacity to fight the enemy on all fronts, no front will secure any real victories. It is abysmal ignorance that imagines our oppression in any other terms than undeclared war.

How will the movement as a whole be able to fight the oppressor in the future when all other ‘legal’ methods are completely exhausted?

How will we implement political struggle without the machinery and capacity for revolutionary violence—when it is abundantly clear that our oppressor maintains armed organs of violence for the enforcement of his rule?

We as a movement will be unable to fight in the future if we do not develop the capacity for revolutionary violence in the present.

But revolutionary violence is not an alternative to mass movement and organization, it is complementary to mass struggle, it is another front in the total liberation process.

Those who put the question of revolutionary violence in ‘alternative’ terms are guilty of [proscribed] politics at best or reactionary politics at worst.

Those involved in the total revolutionary process, yet claim not to ‘endorse’ revolutionary violence when it occurs, are attempting to ‘legitimize’ their existence at the expense of the entire struggle.

The only ‘legitimacy’ these people can possibly be seeking in such cases is bourgeois legitimacy.

These type people further confuse the masses, for revolutionary violence is not clarified and extended in order to undermine the psychological dependence black people still have on racist reactionary ‘legality.’

This is the vilest of sins, one for which everyone will pay during heightened repression.”

“We therefore do not view the ‘law’ of our class enemies as valid, nor do we feel restricted in struggle to his laws. On the other hand, we understand the ‘tactical’ value of using the law and consequently we understand the tactical value of reform in the liberation process.

For example, school takeovers by community parents, rent strikes by tenants, labor union takeovers by dissident members, etc.; utilizing their systems and built-in safeguards to obtain certain goals that place the enemy at a temporary disadvantage.

But we maintain there is only tactical value to reform when there exists other forms of revolutionary struggle against the whole of the capitalist structure.

Reform as such is inherently reactionary and perpetuates psychological dependence on the enemy, while confusing the true class contradictions between ourselves and the enemy.

Considering these factors, we maintain that reform can never be anything more than a tactic, never a complete strategy, never offering in itself any revolutionary change.

While it may offer the Black bourgeoisie rewards, it can never be the road to self-determination for the entire black populace.

We also strongly condemn those who claim to be progressive, yet depreciate revolutionary violence of an oppressed peoples in their struggle for liberation. There can be no conditions on our fight for freedom except those set by the oppressed themselves.

Those who claim that revolutionary violence gives the enemy the opportunity to repress the movement in general are profoundly mistaken if they think the reactionary government need such excuses for repression,

or that the government does not recognize the real danger in allowing a movement to develop the full blown capacity to wage armed struggle. The B.L.A. has undertaken the task of building just such a capacity, along with other comrades on the clandestine level…”

@threader_app compile