At the news that the police were assembling on the campus nearby, the occupying garrison in Low Library locked and barricaded the doors. When the police contingent had drawn up before the building, an officer demanded entrance in customary legal terms. From inside came the chanted reply: “To the wall, motherfuckers!” “To the wall”: that is, to the place of execution; the chant of the delirious followers of Castro and Che as the Enemies of the Revolution were paraded before them; embellished, at Columbia, by the favorite epithet of their rather aloof Black Power allies.
Traditional Marxism of both the reformist (socialist) and revolutionary (Communist) varieties has been doctrinaire and systematic. You were a “philosophical” Marxist because you believed in a doctrine set forth by Marx, Engels and their successors. You were a practicing socialist or Communist if you belonged to the party. For orthodox Communism the definition of “a revolutionary” was, and is: a disciplined member of the Communist Party. Doctrine and organization are logically prior to action.
Comments