Red Guards (United States): Difference between revisions
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[[File:Austin red guard demonstration.png|right|thumb|Members of Red Guards Austin.]] | [[File:Austin red guard demonstration.png|right|thumb|Members of Red Guards Austin.]] | ||
At around the time of the [[2016 United States presidential election|2016 election in the United States]], the Red Guards began to escalate both their rhetoric and tactics, with Red Guards beginning to take militant action against [[Donald Trump|Trump]] supporters, and calling on voters to boycott the presidential election and instead take revolutionary actions against the bourgeois democracy. | At around the time of the [[2016 United States presidential election|2016 election in the United States]], the Red Guards began to escalate both their rhetoric and tactics, with Red Guards beginning to take militant action against [[Donald Trump|Trump]] supporters, and calling on voters to boycott the presidential election and instead take revolutionary actions against the bourgeois democracy. | ||
===Later activities=== | ===Later activities=== | ||
Revision as of 20:08, 26 January 2026
| Red Guards | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Dates of operation | 2015-2018[a] |
| Merged into | Committee to Reconstitute CPUSA |
| Motives | Initiation of a protracted people's war in the United States.[1] |
| Ideology |
Marxism–Leninism–Maoism |
| Status | Inactive |
| Size | ~200 |
| Opponents |
Democratic Socialists of America Party for Socialism and Liberation Other local opportunist nominally "socialist" organizations |
The Red Guards in the United States were a collection of decentralized Marxist–Leninist–Maoist organizations.
The priorities of the US Red Guards included a strong opposition to reformism, and eventual initiation of a protracted people's war against the government.[2] The group took up violent approaches against local members of organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, leading to violent attacks on their gatherings which were done in the name of anti-revisionism.[3]
History
Formation
The Red Guard movement in the United States first originated in the city of Los Angeles, California, when in 2015, communists that were previously participating in an effort to reconstitute the CPUSA based around Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology split.
Later on, the Austin Red Guards were able to gain popularity among other Maoists for their vocal denouncement of the widely-disliked Trotskyist party, the International Socialist Organization, among other infamous groups. The Austin Red Guards exploited this popularity that was created from their polemical attacks against opportunists to create similar Maoist Red Guard collectives (which largely functioned as merely front organizations) in other parts of the United States. These Red Guard organizations were allegedly created through coercively splitting rival Maoist collectives or, if that tactic failed, eliminating them as an effective organization entirely.[4]
Anti-electoralism during the 2016 election
At around the time of the 2016 election in the United States, the Red Guards began to escalate both their rhetoric and tactics, with Red Guards beginning to take militant action against Trump supporters, and calling on voters to boycott the presidential election and instead take revolutionary actions against the bourgeois democracy.
Later activities
After the conclusion of the presidential election, and in the immediate years following it, the Red Guards would largely maintain their anti-reformist rhetoric and anti-fascist stance, with the Austin Red Guards publishing a statement which called on other collectives to begin "militarization," and declaring that "the war is not coming, it is here and now."[5] At this time, the Red Guards further intensified their attempts at creating and expanding aligned-cells. However, also at this point, the Red Guards would soon begin to direct criticism and even take forceful action against organizations which failed to adhere to a similar Maoist line, which included reformist "socialists" and even other nominal communists, with their tactics beginning to encapsulate what has been described by their enemies as "street gang tactics."
Around this time, members of the Red Guards would attack and otherwise disrupt organizing efforts from revisionist groups like Democratic Socialists of America.[6]
Statements of dissolution
Following increasing controversy over alleged attacks on DSA and other organizations by Red Guards, along with other reasons, on December 17, 2018, a Red Guards Austin (RGA) WordPress account published the statement, "this project has reached its conclusion, we are no more."[7] A Red Guards Los Angeles (RGLA) WordPress published a similar statement on May 17, 2019, stating, "Red Guards Los Angeles, as of today, is no more."[8]
With the largest and most influential Red Guard collectives disbanded, most other Red Guards followed suit and dispersed, with many collectives likely suffering from a lack of discipline, collective leadership and democratic centralism, and internal unity.[9]
Further reading
- If You Don’t Dare to Struggle, You Don’t Deserve to Win, by the Tampa Maoist Collective
See also
External links
Notes
- ↑ Certain Red Guard collectives maintained activity until 2020.