revolutionary action movement (ram) - Michael Schwartz Library

169
nationalized the movement when he returned from his second trip to Africa
. 46
The organizational structure of RAM presented in 1964 in Black Youth :
Vanguard of the New World did not vary significantly in
the documents that
followed . The organization was to be highly disciplined, democratic cen
tralist and secret . At least one-third of the members were to be secret .
It was to be organized on three levels--professional organizers, active
members, and
inactive members who were secret but supported the work of
the organization . The organization required that members see themselves
as professional revolutionaries who were convinced of the "moral imperative
of revolution ." They should function as a "military staff and a priesthood"
(p . 8) . Their commitment should be total and unswerving . The organization
was opposed to its members being public leaders who
could be manipulated
by the bourgeois media and exposed to the repression of the state .
Almost all
of RAM's public documents,
particularly after 1965,
were anony-
mous .
This commitment to secrecy was
an assurance of
survival, as was the
concept of revolutionary discipline .
The movement was political
as well
a s
military, and, therefore, required
discipline on a limited democratic
basis (p . 8) .
Urban Guerrilla Warfare
Integrally tied to RAM's political program was its use
of
the concept
of urban guerrilla warfare . Formulated, in part, by Robert F . Williams,
this was perhaps the major factor that differentiated RAM's ideology from
other movements in the 1960's . Williams played a key role in RAM's position
that there was a legitimate government-in-exile that expressed the
46"An Analysis by RAM : Revolutionary Action Movement, Why Malcolm X
Died," Liberator, April, 1965, pp . 9-11 .