By Henry Stevens
Published April 3, 2025
This is a continuation of my article, “Analyzing the ASU encampment.”$^1$ I received a response from Jack Radey, the president of the Free Speech Movement archive website. He was involved in the FSM at Berkeley and a member of the Communist Party USA. I asked him how the encampment compared to the FSM. He gave me some great advice on how to strategize for the current movement.
The FSM was a movement at UC Berkeley in 1964 which attempted to defend the students’ rights of Free Speech. The main threats to free speech were the House Un-American Activities Committee, police repression, COINTELPRO, and the university itself. The FSM was primarily led by socialists, but the Young Democrats and Republicans also played a role. It succeeded at its main goals and set the stage for future student protests in the 60’s. Many participants in the FSM had been involved with the civil rights movement in the South.
I found out about this movement through a Jacobin article.$^2$ Later in our discussion, Radey challenged the article’s description of the FSM, exposing it as a one sided narrative which treats certain leaders like Hal Draper uncritically as saints. The Jacobin article led me to the archives at the ASU library (stored on Microfiche), and I googled a couple terms from the archives. This brought me to the online FSM archive.$^3$ I emailed the president of the website (Radey), asking how old tactics could be used in the current movement, and he responded quite in depth. After I published my first article, I sent it to him. He offered further feedback. This feedback will make up the majority of this article.
First, I asked Radey about tactics. He was quite critical of the encampment tactic. “Today, because it is the most common example, many young people think ‘demonstrate’ and think ‘tent.’ Its courageous, but basically not well thought out. Either you're now stuck there, or willing to risk losing your tent and whatever survival belongs are in it if you have to run. Or even if you want to go out and try to convince someone who is NOT living in a tent.” Essentially, it wastes resources which could be used elsewhere and risks arrest.
“The purpose of an encampment is to publicize an issue. It puts no other pressure on the institution - a strike by teaching and/or support staff would, a widespread walkout by students would, a bunch of tents on the lawn does not. How else could the issue be publicized? Lots of more effective avenues. What is the best use of the most committed cadres? Is it occupying a tent 24/7? No one sees your demonstration at 2:00 in the morning. Might as well be sleeping in your own bed, and come to the demo rested and well. You can spend time otherwise spent in maintaining a camp, regulating a camp, organizing logistical support for a camp, in reaching out to your community. A demo that lasts 2 hours can turn out one hell of a lot more people than one that lasts a week round the clock.”
He also critiqued the black bloc approach and affinity structures used by modern anarchists.
“Before the advent of Occupy Wall Street, the model that unfortunately took hold was the Black Bloc/Street Ninja nonesense, modeled from European demos - lots of people in masks, throwing rocks, bottles, heavy duty fireworks, etc. Essentially a demonstration meant not peaceful parades, not non-violent civil disobedience, but street warfare with the cops. As if the cops were our ultimate enemy. Wrong. To be sure, often demos have degenerated into brawls with the police, in large part due to police violence and attempts to interfere with our rights to assemble peacefully to petition for redress of grievances. But while I have been part of or led many monitor groups responsible for defending crowds from the cops, I have also, as monitor, done my best to prevent idiots from starting fights with the cops. Often those who want to get some violence going turn out to be working for the other side.
There is another tactical approach worked out in the 80s I think, the affinity group model. Instead of the centralized model that I know is very effective (small leadership body, able to communicate with a monitor network to enforce a discipline and protect and when necessary move a crowd) it posed a model where there was no central direction or tactic, that people would form ‘affinity groups’ - small groups who agreed on a tactic, which they would then carry out. This was popular in the women's, gay, and environmental movements - no one tells anyone what to do, we're all leaders. It confronts the opponent with tactical variety, can pull off some surprises, is hard to infiltrate and it is impossible to ‘behead’ as it has no head (arresting the leadership.) On the other hand, if you want a big demonstration (which is our real strength), most people are not going to be formed into affinity groups beforehand, they'll just show up. Then what do they do? And with no central discipline, provocateurs have a field day, ‘You go ahead, be non-violent, we're going to set some fires and break some windows. Everyone do your own thing, baby.’”
The main point was the distinction between strategy and tactics.
“Tactics are only of use as a means to reach a goal. The goal must be reachable. We don't fight for the fighting, we fight to win…Strategy first, then tactics. The tactics flow from the strategy. During the Third World Strike, having probably accurately concluded that they had no hope of winning majority support for rights for non-white students among the (then) overwhelmingly white student body and faculty, they eschewed the broad front tactics and strategy of the FSM and went for violent disruption, to draw a police response that could give them hope for broader support. It worked to some extent, but set a poor precedent I fear. (I was arrested twice during this, once for assaulting an officer). “
We both recognized that students and faculty need to learn from the past.
“Strategies of the past are always obsolete, to some extent, as "time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin', into the future" Yeah, a lot has changed, and as an official curmudgeon, I don't get it, I don't like it, and I'm glad I won't be around to see where its all going.“
Radey attempted to answer all of my questions as best he could. He addressed the question of sectarianism:
“What was clear was there was no organizational unity [within the ASU encampment]. The demonstration happened, and various groups each tried to influence it in their own direction. The most striking thing about the FSM was that despite the strains and the attempted YD led putsch, NO ONE tried to milk the movement or seek to take it over. All decisions were made in meetings, democratically, and there was a conscious decision by everyone to stay together. No group issued independent leaflets during the FSM, they all passed out the FSM's leaflets. ”
Next, he answered the rest one by one:
“1) How can students and faculty act as one while tolerating internal differences?
You form a democratically run coalition and agree to carry out your efforts inside its framework and subject to its discipline. You put the cause around which you have united above organizational interest or advantage, and admit that neither you nor anyone else alone has the CORRECT answer. Humility helps.
If they're serious about you, you can't. They sit in your councils, they can eavesdrop a dozen ways, and if you think you're going to fool them, odds are they know the plan before you've finalized it. Don't think of yourself as desperate revolutionaries, you're not making a revolution, you're organizing a demonstration. That said, I've seen the police tactically surprised on a number of occasions, sudden spontaneous surges by demonstrators overwhelming thin police lines and forcing them to retreat. To what end? The problem - the fewer people know the plan, the less likely the opposition knows it. But the fewer people who know the plan, the less likely they will be to follow it, or even show up. The cops at UC weren't anticipating that anyone would interfere with the arrest on the steps. That surprised them. The big sit in two months later was publicized well in advance. They didn't try to stop us. They could have, and we would have had to improvise in a hurry. At the Pentagon demo, during some mobile actions, in the spontaneous descent on People's Park, surges overwhelmed the MPs and the cops. Briefly. It let us push up to, but not into, the Pentagon (82nd Abn were inside, we were not getting in.) During Stop the Draft Week in Oakland and NYC we managed to get around or through police lines, BUT IN ALL CASES THESE WERE MINOR TACTICAL ADVANCES THAT WERE STERILE OF CONSEQUENCES. We occupied the plaza in front of the Pentagon overnight, and then they mopped up everyone who hadn't exfiltrated. In the Stop the Draft street dances we danced a while, then fell back on our rally points, or were dispersed. Lots of running, lots of gas (in Oakland, NYPD don't use the stuff for obvious reasons), lots of clubbings, horses, pepper spray all deployed, no induction centers closed. At People's Park the sheriffs used their shotguns, killed one, blinded one, wounded 13 others, the National Guard came in... no, we didn't take over Berkeley. They did.
Organized encampments organize logistic support from their organized base. Factory occupations were supported primarily by women's auxiliaries, unemployed councils, other unions not on strike. If a bunch of people are going to be somewhere more than a few hours, you need water, toilets, food, medical support, security, discipline, decision making, and if you're not careful you become Occupy Wallstreet, who forgot Wall Street after a few weeks because they were so fucking busy occupying. Most of the Occupy meetings in Eugene centered around self-governance and logistics. And worrying about angry homeless people who wanted to chase them out of the park they were in because it was home to some of the homeless.
Very. And they have figured out some really nasty ways to do it. The fact that pro Palestinian sentiment, while high among college age Jews and others, is definitely not supported by many in the country makes it a relatively easy target. Terrorists are great Bad Guys. So threatening universities funding, and ICEing anyone who wasn't born here, and maybe some who were, oh yeah, very serious. This could be the basis for generating a lot of solidarity, but when we're under attack it burns up a lot of resources defending ourselves, effort that is not used to promote the issue.
No. What all they will do remains to be seen. We also don't know how long Musk, or the rest of this regime, will last.
Big question, bottom line, I dunno. I was shocked spending time at UC in 2014 and 2024. Almost no-one speaks to anyone else. They all have wires coming out of their heads. They're better than half Asian women. Most people treat a leaflet you hand them like its covered in COVID with Ebola sauce on the side. It was positively terrifying. Students also carry huge financial loads, enough to make them debt slaves for the foreseeable future. We had skin in the game, but little money.
Around what? In general the way you unite with someone is when you share interests, and are interested in taking action to change them. By bureaucracy do you mean school administration? We had some success making the point that the function of a University administration was to keep the leaves swept up, and to keep toilet paper in the bathrooms, and to make sure the lights and heat worked. Clark Kerr had his own formula, the duty of University Administration was to provide football for the alumni, parking places for the faculty, and sex for the undergraduates. He were a real charmer…
But we convinced researchers the same way we did everyone else, constant agitation and education. A useful distinction from the Vietnamese comrades. The difference between propaganda and agitation. Propaganda is many ideas for the few, agitation is few ideas for the many. We had a button, a small blue button modeled after ILWU Local #6s (later my local), with the words Free Speech F.S.M. on it. You saw them EVERYwhere. Agitation.”
I was satisfied with all the answers except for 5) and 6). I appreciated his response to 7) because it pointed out the complexity of these labels. I think ASU needs to better address student and faculty needs, while making its finances more transparent. ASU justifies its exorbitant costs through its expansion and expenditures on things that many students view as unnecessary such as building more buildings and hiring seemingly useless bureaucrats. We should be careful that our movement is not used as an excuse for austerity. He concluded:
“Oh, another aspect of how the FSM succeeded. Two way communication. Examples - my wife and I. At the time she was married and pregnant, and was not in school that semester. Her husband worked for the student union's game room. After ExCom meetings she would go pick him up from the game room and go home. But first, EVERYBODY in the game room put down their pool cues and came over to find out what had ExCom decided?? I ate at the Spruce Street Co-op, and after ExCom meetings, I'd stop there on the way home - immediately there were half a dozen or more guys who wanted a report on the meeting. AND IN BOTH CASES, they didn't just listen. They'd share their opinions - ‘Nah, you guys are too impatient, I'm not convinced you have to take action now, no, that position you're taking, I can't support that.’ Or, ‘Yeah, that's right, go get 'em!’ And we'd both carry this back to ExCom, as would the other 60 members, all of whom lived with people somewhere, went to classes with people, talked to people walking to and from, eating lunch. And we listened. And ExCom listened. We tuned our message, we accepted criticism, we maneuvered WITH THE INTENTION OF WINNING THE MAJORITY OF CAMPUS TO OUR SIDE. And we did.
The notion of an occupation until Palestine is free is just downright foolish. It is a loser from start to finish. Yeah, when I was 18 I thought, briefly, that a wave of civil disobedience would force Johnson to give up the Vietnam War. Not quite. Don't plan your objectives based on what is right. Base them on what you can hope to accomplish. You just might.”
I asked Radey about Hal Draper, a famous Trotskyist involved in the FSM. Radey, a self-identifying Khrushchevist, attacked the Trots as sectarian, specifically the ISC and SWP.
“Hal was the head of the ISC (Independent Socialist Club), later the IS (Independent Socialists.) He was a follower of Sachtman, a right-wing Trotskyist. I despised the ISC during the FSM. I was totally unsophisticated politically, socialist-oriented, and interested in all the groups and where they stood. I thought during the whole FSM of the ISC as the ‘Sneering Committee.’ In their every utterance they expressed scorn for those not as militant as themselves in the nastiest terms. We were attempting to be a broad coalition, with a lot of supporters who were leery of law breaking and wild rhetoric. We were working to convince people. Hal and his comrades were always ragging on the rest of us for not being willing to go get arrested RIGHT NOW. They were the driving force behind the abortive sit-in. To give them their due, they were a constant pressure towards militancy in ExCom and in general, which served as a counterweight to the timid liberals. But dealing with them always left a bad taste in my mouth. There are at least two old ISCers on our Archives board, and I love 'em both, but at the time I really disliked Hal.”
He elaborated:
“My problem with Trots, my old comrades, Maoists, and all the rest was that we took ourselves and our ideas far to seriously, but we all got so hung up on having the perfect and correct theory that we never saw that "revisionist" is a compliment, not an insult. Human theories can at very best be crude and simplified versions of reality which is multifaceted, dynamic, interactive and constantly changing. Anyone who tells you they have it all figured out, its all in this book, see? is selling you religion, not scientific socialism. Religion is VERY reassuring, ‘I've got it all figured out, I'm so much smarter than everyone else.’ Fundamental truth about theory was expressed by the great Eastern Yogi, "In Theory, there's no difference between Theory and Practice, but in Practice there is." That was Yogi Berra, of course. If the left had a lick of sense it would come together in one organization, leave aside its petty theory squabbles, stop trying to maintain a dozen organizations, stop spending time determining the details of future socialist society and fighting about it, stop trying to talk to Americans in language that sounds translated from Albanian, focus more on the immediate struggles of working people of all colors, genders, ages and quit obsessing about tiny minorities of gender alternate folks, and constantly keep in mind, ‘Will what I am doing bring more people into struggle or drive more people away from it? How can I communicate better so people hear me?’ Watch for provocateurs, macho fools, and their ilk.”
He critiqued vanguardism, the notion of the most advanced layers of the movement passing down knowledge, as a whole. This idea is common in socialist parties, originating from Karl Kautsky.
“The Party at the time believed that the mass movement makes the revolution, the vanguard party helps guide it. The [Socialist Workers’ Party’s] idea was the revolutionary vanguard makes the revolution, not the mass movement. They like we believed in mass action. But their view of it was predatory. The vanguard party was what counted so you could sacrifice the interests of the mass movement to those of the party. This meant when in minority in a coalition or broad front, they would constantly attack the organization from the left, insisting it adopt the SWP's slogans, and attacking it if it sought coalition with any progressive democrat. They made every meeting a living hell of sneering and interruptions and ugliness. This would drive out a lot of sane people who had better things to do with their evenings than listen to snarling and sneering. Then, when the organization had shrunk to a digestible size, 60 SWP and YSA members would march into the meeting, demand that never mind votes representing organizations, let the workers decide!! We're the workers!! And take it over. Suddenly it was cool to have Dem Senator Vance Hartke as a speaker (he was tight with the Trots), and the idea was to broaden and soften the stance of the organization to get it to grow. Take the mailing list, and the funder's list and they go to the SWP. They jumped into the antiwar movement with everyone they had, deeming it a great fishing hole for recruiting. The CP, in contrast, at the top had no interest in the war whatsoever, but the youth section of the Party were heavily involved in the antiwar movement, under our own direction. We tried to make the movement as big as possible, to reach out to labor, Democrats, Black organizations. The SWP absolutely insisted that there could be no mention of Black Liberation, it would drive white people away from the peace movement.”