Aaron J. Leonard - Heavy Radicals - The FBIs Secret War on Americas Maoists: The Revolutionary Union / Revolutionary Communist Party 1968-1980

Heavy Radicals is a concise and insightful history of a long-forgotten but vibrant radical movement. Leonard and Gallagher break new ground in revealing the extent to which law enforcement will go to infiltrate, destabilize and ultimately destroy domestic political organizations that espouse a philosophy counter to the status quo. To better understand the current state of domestic surveillance and political repression, from Occupy Wall Street to the Edward Snowden revelations, start with this little gem of a book.

T.J. English, author of The Savage City and Havana Nocturne

In this masterfully written and extensively researched book, Aaron Leonard with Conor A. Gallagher offers a no-nonsense critical analysis of one of the most resilient, misunderstood, and controversial anti-capitalist organizations of the last fifty years. This book is a MUST READ for anyone invested in nuancing their understanding of revolutionary political struggle and unrelenting state repression in the United States.

Robeson Taj Frazier, author of The East Is Black: Cold War China in the Black Radical Imagination

Based on impeccable research, Heavy Radicals explores the rise of the Revolutionary Communist Party in the late 1960s and 1970s. Militant Maoists, dedicated to revolutionary class struggle, the RCP was one of many organizations that fought to carry on the 60s struggle for radical change in the United States well after SDS and other more well known groups imploded. Leonard and Gallagher help us to understand how the RCPs revolutionary ideology resonated with a small group of young people in post-1968 America, took inspiration from the Peoples Republic of China, and brought down the wrath of the FBI.

David Farber, author of The Age of Great Dreams: America in the 1960s

Meticulously researched, drawing on both internal documents hiding in plain sight and a wealth of information gained through laborious freedom of information requests, Heavy Radicals is a great example of history of the near past in examining how the FBI acted, we are better able to understand the methods employed in undermining dissent today.

Eveline Lubbers, author of Secret Manoeuvres in the Dark: Corporate and Police Spying on Activists

In this untold and highly accessible history of Sixties radicalism, Aaron Leonard and Conor Gallagher expertly guides us through the world of the Maoists who picked up and maintained the activist cause well into the seventies, long after others had collapsed. Fascinating!

Rick Shenkman, Founder and publisher of George Mason Universitys History News Network

First published by Zero Books, 2014
Zero Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., Laurel House, Station Approach,
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Text copyright: Aaron J. Leonard & Conor A. Gallagher 2014

ISBN: 978 1 78279 534 6

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

The rights of Aaron J. Leonard & Conor A. Gallagher as authors have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This book contains material previously published in Truthout.org which have been edited for this work. They are: A Window Into Infiltration: The FBI Informant File of Sheila Louise OConnor, January 16, 2013 and The Bureau and the Journalist: Victor Riesels Secret Relationship With the FBI, February 14, 2013.

Cover image: RCP members and supporters clash with police during Deng Xioapings US visit January 29, 1979. Photo by John McDonnell/The Washington Post/Getty Images.

Design: Stuart Davies

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

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For Irka, Emily, Jarina, and Amawta

Many people helped in the course of undertaking this project and I want to thank them. To Mat Callahan who pointed me to the road and allowed me to draw a map on how to reach my destination. To Dave Pugh for his deep well of experience, memory, and unending generosity, without which this would be a story of only fragments. To Lincoln Bergman who opened his home and his memory to me, giving a human picture to a critical character in our story. To Doug Monica for his generosity and insights. To Dennis ONeill for his candor, irreverence, and willingness to introduce me to a realm beyond my grasp. To Page Dougherty Delano for sharing her precious insights and memories. To Marc Lendler for his critical memory and for helping me expand the frame of my analysis. To Mark Rudd for his insights on the metamorphosis of SDS. To Art Eckstein for his deep well of knowledge on the FBI, for his help in analyzing certain key FBI documents, and pointing me to important sections of the Felt-Miller trial transcript. To Scott Harrison and his essential archival material on the Revolutionary Union and Revolutionary Communist Party. To David Morgan, for his insights and insightful dissertation. To Bill Drew for taking the time to talk, and to put down in writing his stark and rich experience. To the late David Sullivan, for having the foresight to see his papers as something more than the detritus of a time gone by. To the staff of Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line, especially Paul Saba, for continuing to rescue the bounty of material of the new communist movement from oblivion. To Leslie Thatcher and the staff of Truthout for printing what too few others will. To the faculty and staff at NYUs McGhee Adult Undergraduate program, particularly Ozan Aksoy, Simon Davis, Taj Fraizer, Clif Hubby, Kathleen Hulley, April Krassner, and Larry Menna, they walked me through the doorway toward new ways of thinking. To Heather Thompson, who I met only briefly, but to-lasting effect. To the staff of the NYUs Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner archives, and their depository of radical United States history that is indeed a treasure. To Zero Books, and the wonderful people who make it a reality, for having the confidence to take on this project, especially Tariq Goddard, Tamar Shlaim, Liam Sprod, Dominic C. James, Catherine Harris, Mary Flatt, Nick Welch, Stuart Davies, Trevor Greenfield, and John Hunt. To the former RU and RCP comrades who called up a time in their lives that remains both essential and unsettled and shared their thoughts and memories with methey know who they are, but likely do not know how essential they were to this project. To Hunter McCord, Ben Slater, and Alan Yee, whose reading and insights allowed me to go past the limits of my own constrained vision. To Brandon Prince for his essential research and support. To Laura Freeman for her advice and abiding friendship. To Jolie Gorchov and Anji Taylor for their example and their friendship. To Conor Gallagher, who took this project into the stratosphere with his relentless tenacity in prying secrets from the hands of the secret-keepers and his penetrating insights; this would be a far lesser book without him. And finally to my partner, Irka Mateo, for her keen ear, keener insight, and illuminating joy and humanity, I am fortunate beyond words. Of course assistance and support do not connote agreement with my particular views and analysis, and in the end I am solely responsible for the books content, analysis, and any shortcomings.