Mark Rudd - Revolutionary Youth Movement and Weather Underground

Revolutionary Youth Movement and Weather Underground

In 1969, as SDS membership grew rapidly, members' views concerning both goals and methods began to diverge widely. Rudd felt that SDS was not doing enough to protest the war in Vietnam. He was a leader of the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM), a faction of SDS, which advocated a more militant course of action while other factions within SDS were becoming concerned about Rudd's increasingly vocal calls for violent confrontation and hardline Communist sentiments. The 1969 SDS convention effectively splintered and ended the organization. Rudd and other former RYM members ultimately formed Weatherman, a self-proclaimed "organization of communist women and men." The new organization was intent on overthrowing the government through violent actions. Spreading communism was a priority for the members of Weather, as when Rudd told other members of SDS, “ Don’t be timid about telling people we’re Communist. Don’t deny it, be proud of it.”

Read more about this topic:  Mark Rudd

Famous quotes containing the words youth, movement, weather and/or underground:

    “He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    “There is no example in history of a revolutionary movement involving such gigantic masses being so bloodless.”
    —Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)

    “To recover a buried treasure without having it disappear miraculously in the process, one must be entitled to it, and also be willing—really willing deep in his heart—to share it with the poor and helpless. Buried money, especially silver, gives off a bright glow which comes right up through the earth and can be seen as a dim light on nights when the weather is misty or there is a gentle rain.”
    —Administration in the State of Ariz, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    “Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
    And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
    And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
    Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about....”
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)