Hilarious how actual Vietnamese veterans are telling these middle-class kids to mass organize instead of engaging in combat & they completely scoffed at them and just continued to do nothing

I love how this guerilla groups have like this cool names like "Red Brigades", "Red Army Faction", "The Weather Underground", and then theres just Britain with their Angry Brigade

Fun story concerning the Anti-Radical Act in Germany: my mother was baptized by a Lutheran priest who got thrown out of the church for being a communist. Yes, really.

Interesting video. A lot of the points you make also apply to 19th century propaganda of the deed. The German anarchist Johann Most initially supported assassinations and bombings but later changed his mind. He wrote in 1892, "to have a propagandist effect, every deed needs to be popular . . . If that is not the case, or if it actually meets with disapproval from the very part of the population it is intended to inspire, anarchism makes itself unpopular and hated. Instead of winning new adherents, many will withdraw".

I remember reading about Japanese "United Red Army" Asama-Sansō incident and how that basically sealed far-left politics in Japan among both the students and the masses for good, by publicly being the most awful optical disaster for the left wing cause imaginable. It seems suicidal cults aren't the most efficient vehicles of proletarian revolution... 😅

The way modern alienation corrupts even revolutionary groups explicitly reacting to it is really insane.

I would like to highlight a group the video doesn't mention: the colombian guerrilla M-19. They did several acts, from stealing arms from a military base to, years later, take the building of the supreme court of justice in Bogotá. One interesting thing is that they negotiated a peace agreement with the government,then entered politics, helped to write a new constitution and nowadays several former members are important politicians, included the president. Look it up, they have an interesting history.

When you speak of striking workers in the 19th century using terrorism in their strikes, it's kinda meaningless: the police routinely beat strikers to death in this era, which is terrorism: using violence to achieve the political aim of breaking the strike, and discouraging union organising.

Your talk about leftwing terrorism becoming more based on alienation than exploitation makes me think that there might just be a long term connection between the leftwing era of terrorism and the modern era, as people become ever more alienated by capitalist society. If you look at modern alt right stochastic terrorism, it is truly the peak of alienation, it's nothing more than a incoherent twisted hyper individialistic lashing out against an oppressor they can't even properly define, thinking that killing completely innocent civilians is a revolutionary act in and of itself. Of course these people never had any knowledge whatsoever of socialist critiques which explain the alienation they feel, since in the post cold war era socialism had become old fashioned, so they only ever had recourse to reactionary garbage on internet forums, the only place where their issues were being heard at all. Of course i believe a missing link in the chain connecting the two is the most successful form on terrorism known to mankind, islamic terrorism, which has truly revolutionized modern asymmetric warfare, and which is intrinsically connected with the anti-imperialist struggle in the middle east, but which critically is aligned with reactionary politics rather than the European left wing tradition. And historically it also makes sense, coming from the failure of postcolonial secular governments in standing up against western genocidal imperialism in Palestine and control over their resources; such that the triumph of the Islamic revolution in Iran and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan heralded a new age of decidedly non left wing irregular warfare in the region. The people joining these movements also struggle with alienation in an ever more xenophobic world in which struggle between the imperialist core and the periphery is increasingly formulated as a clash between cultural-historical foes by reactionaries on both sides. This historical decoupling of antisystemic struggle from antisystemic politics is a complex phenomenom, which is related to many other things we can observe: the western working class turning reactionary, anti-imperialist rhetoric being coopted by imperialist states, symbolic performative change being mistaken for actual systemic change, and so on. We're truly living in postmodern times

49:55 fun fact one of the hijackers (Moriaki Wakabayashi) was the bassist for Les Rallizes Dénudés (awesome noise rock band)

The story from the japanese RAF in 1970 is absolutely wild

I think it’s important to note that in many cases these guerrillas fizzled out is because of the lack of support from the wider left. Most mass orgs disowned them and shunned them, leaving them even more vulnerable to state violence. Most of this applies to the present as well

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Babe wake up new Jonas Ceika video just dropped

Overall, very good video. You’ve made a solid history of the urban guerrilla movements of the 60s and 70s, and while criticizing their clearly ineffective and self-defeating brand of individualistic adventurism, you still sympathize with their cause. The only problem I have with this video is that you don’t adequately reckon with the role that Western intelligence agencies played in the propagation of some of these groups and the orchestration of some of their more senselessly violent actions. While you do mention that they would sometimes be infiltrated and that their kind of praxis ultimately led to an increase in policing and surveillance, both generally and against the left in particular, you never connect the dots between the two. For example, you’re totally bewildered over the Symbionese Liberation Army and their admittedly bizarre actions. This group isn’t nearly as strange when you recognize that they were a very obvious intelligence front. Not once is it mentioned that the FBI ordered all of their informants within Students for a Democratic Society to back the Weather Underground faction at the 1969 convention. Also ignored are, admittedly more tenuous, connections between certain RAF and Red Brigade actions and GLADIO. Hell, even the murders committed by the Manson family were staged to implicate black nationalists. This is notable because Manson himself had ties to American intelligence and was likely a police informant. I’m not trying to claim that every urban guerrilla movement in the West was directly created by the government and that all those involved were feds(although some like the SLA almost certainly were); I’m sure that most were genuine people who genuinely wanted to do good in the world. The issue is that because of the nature of these groups (small, disorganized, disconnected from the masses), they were very easy to infiltrate and utilize toward the state’s own ends of suppressing the left and expanding the police state by fomenting a threat of domestic terrorism. They were doing this even before these groups came to be; members of Malcolm X’s security detail revealed that an informant in their midst tried to entrap them in a plot to bomb the Statue of Liberty. This kind of thing still goes on a lot today, although since the 1980s the target has largely been right wing militia groups. This is due to a number of factors including the relative destruction of the organized left, the fact that right wing militias are typically larger and more organized while still being easy to infiltrate, and the fact that right wing militias tend to have interests that are already more in line with those of the national security state. While FBI’s COINTELPRO targeted the left wing radicals of the 60s and 70s, Operation Patriot Conspiracy (PATCON) was used to target the militia movements of the 80s and 90s. Just like the state likely played a role in many of the more violent attacks perpetrated by left wing urban guerrillas, it also had a clear role in right wing domestic terror like the Oklahoma City Bombing and even more recent events like the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot. The evidence is clear, and the continued use of these tactics through the years, as well as their success in expanding the surveillance state, proves how useful these kinds of groups are to the capitalist class. Again, this video offers a good general history of these movements and a good critique of the issues with them, but it severely underestimates the direct role that intelligence agencies played.

"The greek radical left doesn't play games." I get why you would have that picture, but allow me to elaborate a little bit regarding the past few years. Your video is a great analysis into sentiments I generally agree, urban warfare isn't sustainable as evidenced by multiple failures. As such, the greek radical left has shifted tones over the last few years, due to a lot of circumstances. Don't get me wrong, we still had 3 bombings (1 in the ministry of labor, 1 in a training police camp, and 1 in a courthouse) in the last 3 months only, but the general public opinion has shifted a lot. The greek radical left is still highly invested into urban warfare, despite having enough agrarian population generally aligned with leftist/communist struggles. It is true that our agrarian population is divided between fascists/junta supporters and communists, but if there is any support, it is to be found there. Urban cities are mostly liberalized, with a lot of self-loathing and self-hatred for the failures of capitalism and europe. People tend to blame themselves and our "culture" for failing us, insisting that "if we were like europeans we would succeed", without any clear idea as to what "being a european" is, how to execute it, or even if it makes sense. The current political party in government (Nea Dimokratia), is taking advantage of this, by presenting an aura of Europization, progressivism etc, despite it having far-right politics and far-right politicians, including people that a few years prior were speaking highly of the Junta. There is a very clear disconnect between the politics & tactics of our gov, with the propaganda they present. Given it's catchiness, our left-wing parliament parties include such propaganda as well, with SYRIZA (somewhat left) and PASOK (moderately left), utilizing the same propaganda, that we need to become like "europe". This is highly conflicting due to the fact that most leftists in greece are disagreeing with europe and its politics, given that they completely fucked us over, and have been blaming us for their failures and the 2008 bubble, and are still doing so. Our left parties are trying to cast a wide net to catch centrists and people still disillusioned with the european dream & progressivism, despite europe showing clears signs of regression to far-right politics, including AfD (Germany) , FDI (Italia), SD (Sweden), Finns Party (Finland) etc. Our current gov is very quickly and highly escalating tensions, by utilizing an insane amount of police brutality in almost every march, peaceful or not, every strike and even in more minor circumstances, to the point where even european institutions have started paying attention. Tear-gases, a lot of unwarranted arrests, beatdowns etc. The people's perspective though is that of "finally the law is layed down", given that people think the reason we're like this is because of unlawful behavior and because again, we aren't "european" enough, given that people in europe "respect the laws". As such, far-left action is highly limited, and always presented in a bad flavour, unlike 2008, when during the major financial crisis, people were supportive of such actions. 17 years of economics crisis have lead people to believe that no struggle can win over, nothing can change, there is only decay, and we have to obey the law, become european, and stop fucking around if we want to shift tones. The greek radical left has lost a lot of support over the years due to its failures to properly incentivize people to think of a better life. Life in greece has been slowly and steadily becoming worse, the inflation has hit us like a truck, in a much worse way than it did most of europe (which we're a part of, so the only proper context to compare). Public funding for hospitals, schools, roads, everything, has gone down, while private industries keep making insane profits, to the point where 19th century analysis of class struggle make more sense than whatever europe was going through the 1960s, with a lot of people being in permanent debt, and having insanely low paychecks but insanely high living costs. Average salary is 800-900 euros, and rent has reached a peak of 400-500 in most urban centers, bills are around 150, and groceries are around 200-300 if you don't want to eat gravel or spaghetti each day. As you can tell, there isn't enough money to afford basic stuff, let alone support a more "liberal" european lifestyle that is presented as the ultimate goal of our society, given that this is just to live alone, and not with a family and have kids, or even afford doctors (our public healthcare in the last 5 years has been completely demolished). People are forced to sell their properties to afford basic necessities, and foreign capital investors are buying it up to transform them into tourist destinations, given that this is the most highly profitable sector in greece. This tourism industry has lead into a sortof colonialism, where instead of becoming conquered by war, we were conquered by economic shenanigans. People working for 1000 euro wages 6/7 or even 7 days a week, 12 hours shift, serving rich tourists that walk around like kings and queens. Most tourist destinations are insanely dystopian, with bosses in those parts expecting you to be highly subservient, agree to even paranoid demands and not speak out. This has cultivated a tourist industry where people come here to act like kings, and tourist organizations here even advertise it so. The greek radical left has failed to turn the 2008 crisis that completely decimated us into a political struggle, due to it's highly aggressive nature, and disorganized motives. They didn't "fuck around", but they fucked around in the end. It is important to mention, that KKE (our communist party), played a "defensive" role in 2008, with members of the party actively beating down protestors outside of parliament, which lead to an even bigger split of the party and the rest of the movement. In retrospective, the highly aggressive nature and disorganized fashion of the movement during those days, might have not resulted in an actual revolution, but might have ended us up with a "USA" sanctioned "democratic intervention", without an actual resistance, given that most people during 2007-2008 still might have supported intervention to get rid of our corrupt officials, which was the main point that everyone was "organizing" around, for the lack of a better word. However, our current status politically is still "controlled by external forces beyond our comprehension", so in the end nothing significant might have changed, but it might had lead up to people being more willing to participate in class struggle. Some people here are disillusioned that we are "independent" and do not recognize USA's or Europe's influence (insane), so a USA-coup might have made it more clear that we are indeed controlled by external forces.

One student activist of this time said to me, he was proud to knew 100 Marx quotes. That was it. There was no critique other than the call for a reform of the reformist state, These urban terrorists were isolated from the start, because they couldn't even see the superficial critique of their fellow students. In France and Germany figures a whole generation of students in 1968 became figures to demand war for Human RIghts. The 1960s ended at least in Germany with the congress of Konkret in 1993, when the last standing communist Karl Held made a critique against using poems against the right and he was marked as a man of the past, a mad man. His speech is a witness of the art of rhetoric and the speech was at the same time a contradiction. What was in demand was a feel well ideology and a confirmation of identity, but not an argument. The video is on YT. This is the critique on this video when the prerequisite of the critique and state of society is almost vanishing in the haystack of historical facts. The label left was put on all groups, instead of giving an analysis of what was the critique of these groups. I'm closing here the circle to the fate of Richard Müller who gave up and became land lord, because he couldn't find a good critique. When the critique is a wrong one, wrong action will follow. The rest is a question of power.

Its been so exciting to watch you develop as a filmmaker! The cut to the montage at the beginning is really well done! Well done!!!!

I like that this video included that quote from Marcuse, because it goes to show just how detached from Marxism a large portion of 'the new left' has become. Marx put emphasis on that the working class itself must bring its own liberation by constituting a class for itself. I wish the video focused more on how these movements actually contridicted Marxism in a lot of ways. The tactics used by these 'urban guerrilla' cells were Blanquist, which Marx and Engels criticized. Blanquism was later sometimes used to describe Lenin's tactics, but Lenin could at most be accussed of Blanquist leanings (if that), these groups were Blanquist to their core.

OMG, I had "Urban Guerilla" by Hawkwind in my head for the first three minutes... and then you actually PLAYED it! Like a BOSS!

You forgot to mention the acts of the argentine student movements and urban guerrillas, some of them pretty impresive 1969: The Cordobazo. A mass rebelion against the military dictatorship, in which local workers took control of the city by jailing the police. Lots of student organizations joined the effort with known examples like chemistry students making bombs to throw against the soldiers approaching to recover the city. This event started a chain of "-azos" in different provinces that basically ended the dictatorship. 1969: a group named "ERP: Ejercito Revolucionario del pueblo" (revolutionary people's army. A mix of different communists but trotskists and guevarists mostly) assaults multiple buildings of the bank of the province of Buenos Aires 1970: A left wing guerrilla (but confusingly ideologically linked to peronism) assasinated Pedro Aramburu, former dictator of argentina in his home. 1972: The ERP assaults the National bank of development, stealing $450.000.000, incredible considering the bank was a few steps from the command center of the SIDE (basically the CIA of argentina during the dictatorship) 1973: The ERP asaults a barrac of the 141 battalion of the argentine army, takes complete control of the building and the soldiers inside. Steals two tons of weapons, not a single bullet was fired, not a single person killed. 1973: The ERP takes full control of the nuclear plant ATUCHA with just 13 people 1973: The ERP kills the chief of the military Hermes Quijada 1973: The ERP kills John Thompson, president of the american company Firestone and demands a ransom of 3.000.000 USD, they succed and release him intact. 1974: Montoneros kidnaps the Born brothers, heirs to the fortune of the born family and heirs of the number 1 economic group of argentina, they demand a ransom of 60 million dollars (around 260 million euros of today, according to Maria O'donell, the historian who publish a book on the subject) There are several other great attacks, particularly against the military. There's also a join collaboration between the ERP and Montoneros against the military dictatorship in 76 that ended in failure and marks the end of their actions and the start of the massive genocide by the dictatorship against students, workers and guerrilla fighters.

this video became honestly my favorite video essays ever, this is just so well done and honestly very impressively made. just another jonas ceika banger i guess… ❤

You have no idea how happy I am when Čeika uploads!

Fun Fact: The Symbionese Liberation Army was the inspiration for a videogame by Bay12 Games- the creators of Dwarf Fortress- called “Liberal Crime Squad”. The player takes on the role of the leader of the titular urban guerrilla cell while fighting both the cops and the LCS’s dreaded nemeses, the Conservative Crime Squad. The politics are…admittedly not great, kind of has a South Park vibe to it imo. Still, a fun strategy game if you’re willing to work with a purely text-based interface.

This video is OUTSTANDING! From the use of period footage to the author going so far as to read and try to make sense of original documents such as the WU's manifesto, the viewer gets a more in depth picture of these groups. Most importantly, though, is the author's successful tracing of the origins of these movements from their 19th century origins and their split away from their rural counterparts. I find the self serving rhetorical distinctions they make particularly interesting, specifically that while they are beholden to their 19th century terroristic forebears, they must try to frame themselves as "armies" and "cadres" when in fact they cannot form such organizations due to the limitations imposed on them by their urban settings. Though not within the scope if this video, an interesting contrast would have been to examine the urban/rural cooperation networks that helped the various factions of the IRA in the same period. Very well done!

What I still don't get is what do all of these militant groups have to do with apes

another historical analysis! your series on weimar republic was great

Wonderful job on this, seems at times more recents events are more difficult to script than the old tales- amazing research on this, got me reading more on these groups immediately. Keep on ...

Great video as always. Wow, you included two points about the German postwar left that I honestly feel a little embarrassed for not including in my writings on the subject. (the trials of ex-nazi officials and the relations with the CDU chancellor to Goebbels being specific sources of the West German Left's Nazi fears) . Great stuff! Also, you left out what I find to be one of the most interesting of the New Left urban guerilla groups: Denmark's Blegingegade Gang. Like the Greeks, they were known for their professionalism but also what makes them particularly unique for these groups was that they held no pretenses of being a vanguard of revolution in their own country or being libertarian. They were third-worldists who viewed themselves as providing aid for the true revolutionary subjects in the Third World, and they did this basically by robbing banks and armories for the PFLP. Their pessimism manifested in a sort of J Sakai's settlers-esque mindset of thinking the first world was completely bought off by the bourgeoisie from the exploitation of the Third World.

My lawyer has advised me to refrain from commenting on my opinions about this topic

more excellent work. i love the reaearch and insight you bring, thank you for sharing all this.

Great video but some historical imprecisions on the Italian case of Red Brigates. Moro was chosen simply because he was the easiest to kidnap among Christian Democrats politicians. He was the best among them and surely the less fascist compared to Andreotti or Cossiga. Red Brigades wanted to show their power and to reveal state secrets through this kidnapping. The State let Moro died because he was a troubling figure for the international order of the Cold War. He received some years before (can't remember when exactly) direct threats from the likes of Kissinger for his tentative alliance with the Communist. Moro death marked the beginning of the decline of Italian democracy imho

Amazing video as always comrade , although i hoped you would also have talked about the italian Red Brigades

One man's Terrorist is seen as a another man's freedom fighter,

Holy heck gonna have to come back to this a few times, nice work

Excellent video! One thing I would have liked to see discussed, that is related, is the case of the Years of Lead in Italy, the employment of the Strategy of Tension and the false flags attacks committed in conjunction with Operation Gladio, with government and US involvement.

Jonas, I just want to say that I really appreciate your work you do. As a fellow leftist, anarchist, communist, who cares about the history of these movements. I have poured over your “How to Philosophize With a Hammer and Sickle,” your perspective is very similar to mine and can’t wait for more. This one is gonna be a doozie.

It's not strictly true that Marx and Engels only endorsed terrorist methods in the Russian context. They also became infamous among British trade-unionists for defending the use of bombs in England by Irish Republicans. This was in fact what drove the final wedge between Marx and organized labor reps in Britain, as documented by Kevin B. Anderson (in Marx At The Margins)

love this video! thank you for this so informative!

By far the best video on the subject!! Amazing research!!

11 days after Kent State was another shooting at Jackson State, a historically black university in Mississippi.

As an aspiring African Nationalist: - Physical terrorist violence can never achieve long term or even mid term revolutionary goals in my opinion. Revolutionary martial force is the answer to state martial force. The 'war' and broader strategic thinking is key no matter how asymmetric the approach. - People and property are both the most valuable resources for any group. Better to subvert their functions than to burn them down ESPECIALLY since the enemy has the deeper pockets. - If logistically feasible, kidnapping is most always preferable to assassination. - Groups who are really bout it bout it, will 'liberate' actual territory and perform 'governance' to some degree. - I think the reason the BPP shook the govt so much is because they were beginning to produce/provide (at least the basics) for themselves when so much of the despair of marginalized communities comes from the lack of (group) self belief tied to begging the very state that oppresses you for scraps - There needs to be a contemporary manual for the exercise of revolutionary martial power in urban settings with emphases on high tech, data driven, highly dynamic operations a la cyberpunk. .... I always say 'The people are literally the power' the more people, the more power

The fetishization of revolutionary violence is generally a problem with radicals of all stripes. Violence is only to be used out of necessity or as a last result, but many seem to completely reject reformism or even political organizing in favor of revolutionary violence.

"The Greek radical left doesn't play games" -Jonas Ceika "Hell yeah dude" -Stavros Halkias

Noted that the name of the organization "17 of November", comes from the date the Tank entered the Polytechnic University to break the occupation as mentioned at the beginning of the video. Funny enough it is a national holiday to this day, if that isn't weird.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but government repression is significantly increasing yet our tactics have not changed at all. they are literally forcing us to escalate

Although this profile of mine is new I have been following your work since the time when the channel was called Cuck Philosophy. This video of yours is very well done the footage and the topic were both very well researched (Your mention of Marighella and ANL in particular was a surprise to me the former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff was enlisted in it; decades before they Luis Carlos Prestes in the 1920s led a sort of more traditional rural type Guerrilla that march across Brazil hinterlands with a semi-army of peasants and workers, but he did not succeed in acquiring the proper mass base to form a more professional army. Later during the Military Dictatorship of the 1960s he exiled himself to the Soviet Union). I thought your video in some ways very like Adam Curtis style of documentary, I wonder what you would be able to accomplish with more footage resource and a more unrestricted use of soundtrack as he does in his own films. The only thing I would point out though is that your narration would benefit from a little bit of enthusiasm, but I strongly hope you continue to work in videos like this one.

Thank you for this video. As an Anarcho-Syndicalist I really appreciate your opinion. I think that most (autonomous) Leftist still see "propaganda of the act" as an legitimaze act of building a second of expression to destory capitalism. In a capitalist world, people see themselfs just as an human being, who just live in the moment and interact with the capitalist tools, (allmost) without realising the toxic/capitalist enviroment. I really have a huge problem with the Left at the moment because we just don't have a Strategy today and can't even talk with someone outside of the bubble. The difference between todays Leftist and the Leftists then, is that they were at the right moment at the right place with a great Strategy bound with contemporary Tactics to build a counterrevolution or movement. Today's Leftists still thinks that burning Tesla's Power box would leed to more solidarity with their worker's but they don't understand the neoliberal tools, the firm's can play against them. So I think it's really important to reflect the System today and our Strategy. Thanks.

Looking at the world today, it sure feels like all these actions were for nothing.

Does anybody know where I can watch the full State of Siege (1972) movie with English subtitles? Thanks in advance!

It's very scary how the establishment keep evolving and the revolutionaries can't keep up with them, most of these organizations had pure intentions but with lack of mass organization and led to huge defeats for these movements. The movement now opposing the slaughter in Gaza is something that we can hope that us our generation can use it as a starting point for mass organizing in the whole world to change this dystopian world

What do you think about groups like Extinction Rebellion? Will their strategy be effective?

moro was a false flag done by gladio - just like the Bologna bombing. at the most generous you could say that his kidnapping and murder was allowed to happen by the italian state, but the actual kidnapping was too organized and surgical to be done by student leftists. all i’m saying is look at all the details for yourself and ask yourself if the red brigades were really so short sighted as to allow an opportunity to bring the italian communists into legitimate power and ask who’s interests were furthered more by the kidnapping/murder of moro.

The 70/80s was the decades of political soldiers or political youth who sacrificed so much. Today are youth would never put themselves in danger for a cause.

Half way video yet (really good) but it's so strange as a basque person to not see ETA mentioned in a video about this

I'm sure some of these were genuine groups, but i'm also sure a lot of them are gladio style ops.

Interested in making a video about Tiqqun and communization?

Interesting topic. Can't wait to watch.

You finally dropped the video

i appreciate that is you showing with honesty this topics and not a passionate rigthwinger

To translate Verfassungsschutz as "guardians of the constitution" makes them sound like a bunch of Marvel characters hahah

If anyone wonders how Rudi Dutschke died of his sustained injuries a decade after he was shot: He suffered from epilepsy because of being shot in the head. When he died he had an epileptic fit while being in the bath tub and drowned.

I didnt know how far reaching the Urban Guerilla Idea was. I knew of the brasilian origins and of the german RAF, Rote Zora and Bewegung 2. Juni (all of them being in a geographical sense close to me), but outside of them I had very little knowledge on the topic (also the Rote Zora isnt that renown even in germany) so quite helpful Video

Generally cool video but the Red Brigades in Italy actually did have a fair amount of support from the working class (and quite large clandestine/semi-clandestine mass organisations) until the Moro incident. And the reason behind the Lod Airport attack was to assassinate an Israeli scientist who was helping make weapons for Israel, according to Mei Shigenobu (the daughter of the co-head of the JRA, Fusako Shigenobu), the attack worked but the attack was poorly planned and killed many innocents.

One of your best videos yet! It's a fascinating and important topic

What organisations are you guys part of? I think this analysis fits very well into the marxist understanding of the Internnational Marxist Tendency (IMT), especially the emphasis on mass action and the driving force of change. For example in Palestine, we call for an 'Intifadah until Vicotry', aka, the most succeful mass action of strikes and occupations in Palestine to be carried out until victory. Not just in Palestine, but also in the regimes that fund the Imperialism and genocide that Isreal spearheads. Really, the enemy is at home and only the working class has the power to unseat the current ruling class

Fantastic video ! Is there room for discussion of the Peruvian Communist Party, who were near to achieving state power during the 90s and fought with the state in many urban contexts?

Really interesting topic! Just downloaded the video in case it gets taken down before I actually have the free time to watch the whole thing (and also for archiving purposes)

Incredible work.

Fun fact in the summer of 61, Fanon gave lectures to the ALN on Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason.

Turkey was no different. In 1971, the THKC (People's Liberation Party-Front of Turkey) guerrillas initiated a series of actions, including the kidnapping and subsequent killing of the Israeli consul. The next year they abducted three NATO staff, demanding the liberation of their comrades sentenced to death. Both endeavors failed, and the latter incident led to the deaths of the involved members and the eventual disbandment of the organization.

I remember seeing an interview with David Dellinger, a pacifist anti Vietnam war US activist who went to N Vietnam a few times as an ambassador for peace during the war. On one trip, the N Vietnamese asked him about the US militants like the Weatherman and they told him that they did not approve of them and their violent actions because if they and political violence would become popular and grow, it would lead to a crackdown by the US government on the anti war movement as a whole, which the N Vietnamese supported ,needed and benefited from in getting the US to quit fighting and pull out of Vietnam. Also, no mention of the FLQ in Quebec?

Basically the issue is Left Adventurism. This is the very prominent reason why Lenin disliked the Left-SR.

Thanks for making this, I’ve been preparing to write something about the cultural reception of left-wing terrorism in painting, music and literature

Fascinating. It would be interesting in the future to study Israeli settler action against the British Palestine Mandate (comparing this with Palestinian action against Israeli settlers at the time) as well as the rise of militia movements in the US from the early 1990s. Thank you.

it’s really a shame this video barely covers the red brigades of italy, which is by far the largest armed communist terrorist organisation in the west, and differently from the others examples in the video it was linked with the workers more than the students

More than anything, thanks for reminding me that Hawkwind exists. That song slaps.

I think we should revise the new-left movement again and with more detail because I feel we have currently the same problem and disconnection between the workers and the students. The main problem I find is that students just fight to see which one is the most extremist leftist with the "best take" and what Lenin or Mao said (forgetting to analyze their works and actions to adapt it, rejuvenize them and improve them) instead of reaching to the working class and, the working class doesn't even know how to say "no" (not even express disagreement, let alone doing a strike or sabotage the line of production).

Just a bunch of middle-class bratty baby boomers.

i know it went outside the scope of the video but after talking about the Tupamaros you kinda left them for dead halfway through the video when they actually moved on and became a socdem political movement who actually did a lot of good in the country, heck, even the impact of the pandemic was lessened because of the robust healthcare system and social plans they implemented.

also one of the best movies depicting urban guerrilla activity is the battle of algier directed by Gillo pontecorvo Italian communist, which was later shown to US soldiers to counter urban resistance in Irak, shown to the jury in a Black liberation army trial to influence them and shown to the police to adapt their tactics.

The point about popular acceptance is an important one to make. Some events of commotion that are conveniently called "violent" by the press and authorities gain the acceptance of many people (not for long, but such commontions are not themselves long in their own nature), so many activists believe propaganda of the deads can be effective. I think they disregard the factor of public reception and also that what is considered violent or terrorism depends on cultural consensus, be it tacitly organic or manufactured.

It's worth pointing out that Hamas didn't exist as *Hamas* until the 1st Intifada, before then they were simply a quietist Islamic charity, which was patronized by Israel as a way to undercut the PLO and we see how that worked for them.

Wow this is amazing, tnx i needed this so bad

Thank you so much for the video !

The fact that these students blamed their parents and grandparents for not standing up to the nazis is abit silly as it ignores the pain these generations took After ww1. If someone came along, solves the high inflation and cost of living crisis in modern times, even if the method was brutal, i doubt manu would oppose such a person, especially the poorer masses who don't care much for politics and only see their life standard improving.

Who has the monopoly of violence? Oh ya. The rich.

Amazing work as usual

Solid bibliography and analysis. It's interesting to see that you have not included how successful factors are so often reliant upon foreign-state actor sponsorship for "sanctuary", organization, training & equipment regardless of whether those seeking change are "left", "right", "urban", "rural" or hybrid in their political structure and/or strategy of action.

Your video prompted me to watch (again) the film Baader-Meinhof Complex. I noticed that it portrayed the German media describing the group as anarchists. I wonder if that was true and how they felt about it as Im sure they felt they were Marxist-Leninist?

"Rote Armee Fraktion ihr wart ein geiler Haufen, Rote Armee Fraktion, mit euch ist was gelaufen. Rote Armee Fraktion ich fand euch immer spitze. Leider war ich noch zu klein um bereits bei euch dabei zu sein, doch mein Herz schlug damals schon für die Roooooteeeeeee Armee Fraktioooooon."

Tupamaros had the advantage of fighting a heavily militarized regime, that was decaying into a dictatorship, and eventually turned into one, when the Tupamaros were defeated. This allowed them, not only to grow organically, but also to evolve into an actual political party that went on to lead the biggest political party on Uruguay

great work Jonas ❤

Heyyy Uruguay mentioned, my grandparents were actually around at the time and were part of PVP (Partido por la Victoria del Pueblo), a clandestine leftist organization that fought against the dictatorship imposed by the USA. Interested to see what you have to say :)

I've really been caught in the rat race and providing for a family these past few years and have seldom listened/read/discussed revolutionary politics. Watching reality tv w/ my partner or gaming after 10+hr work days. This is a kick up the arse I need. Thx Also would like to shout out Sidney Lumet's Network which I think the cynical mindset of much of this audience will appreciate

On wich platform you will make your stream ?

Thank you Jonas and thank you Patreons!

While I like the other points of the video, I don't like the idea of creating a dichotomy between exploitation and alienation. Alienation and exploitation are intrinsically linked, and alienation is a byproduct of exploitation, if not because through the direct experience than through its repercussions throughout society. I think this is critical to understand this because an analysis of it that doesn't would make the mistake of separating it from the broader class struggle. This was a misguided attempt at revolution by members of the working class, not something wholly different. We should be looking for what led to their failure and why they became so out of touch with what resonated with the broader working class where they could not establish the mass line. I can't quite put my finger on why exactly this point irks me so much, but I really feel like there's something deeper going on there and people will wrongly assume this shift in focus is the main cause of their estrangement rather than a byproduct of the true cause. Plus there's reason to believe the Aldo Morro thing was Operation Gladio

This is a perfect video after having learned about the RAF and Baader-Meinhof Group recently! Keep it up!

That was an extremely interesting video. Surely, a lot to learn from the past.