The original Rainbow Coalition was not a liberal election strategy by Jesse Jackson. It was Fred Hampton's attempt to politicize and unite the street gangs in impoverished Chicago. Racism was, as it always has been, an obstacle to proletarian unity. However, through the hard organizing work of Hampton and the Black Panthers, the Rainbow Coalition united poor whites in the Young Patriots Organization, poor Puerto Ricans in the Young Lords and the American Indian Movement with the Black Panthers to form a united front against poverty under capitalism and brutalization of the poor by police. Do not fall for the divide and conquer narrative. Certainly the various oppressions we face are linked to aspects of our identity, but certainly, we can all unite as a class in the interest of rising up against the ruling class in order to establish a new, proletarian regime.
Matthew 20: 1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius[a] for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
- New International Version
IDEOLOGY
OF THE
YOUNG
LORDS
PARTY
^
National Headquarters
357 Wl His Ave.
Bronx, New York 10454
First Pr int I nq Feb. 1972 UrVWiw
Wilt be updated and revised
at first party congress
Julv 1972
F*b. »av
AM criticisms and suqnestions welcome
Vouva
THE IDEOLOGY OF THE YOUNG LORDS PARTY
(Puerto Rican Pevol utionary Party)
Juan Gonzalez, Minister of Defense
Juan "Fi" Ortiz. Chief of Staff
Gloria Gonzalez, Field Marshal
David Perez, Field Marshal
Denise Oliver, Former Minister of Economic Development
Pablo "Yoruba" Guzman, Minister of Information
"I have lived in the belly of the monster, I have seen its
entrails, and mine is the sling of David."
— Jose Marti
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION 2
2. DEFINITION OF TERMS 3
3. ON HISTORY AND DIALECTICS , 5
by Yoruba
4. PROTRACTED WAR IN PUERTO RICO 13
by Gloria Gonzalez
5. ECONOMIC AND MILITARY STRUGGLE 20
by Juan Gonzalez
6. COLONIZED MENTALITY AND NON-CONSCIOUS
IDEOLOGY 26
by Denise Oliver
7. THE PARTY AND THE STATE 33
by David Perez
8. THE PARTY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 37
by Juan "Fi" Ortiz
9. ANALYSIS OF PUERTO RICAN SOCIETY ^ 1
INTRODUCTION
This is the beginning of the ideology of the Young Lords
Party. What is ideology? It is a system of ideas, of principles,
that a person or group uses to explain to them how things
operate in the world. Our ideology was developed out of the
experiences of almost two years of struggling everyday with
our people against their oppression.
The systematic ideas and principles in this pamphlet are
guiding us as to the best way to lead the liberation struggle of
the Puerto Rican nation. These are not fixed, rigid ideas, but
constantly developed as we constantly work to serve and
protect the people.
There are certain principles that are fixed and
unchangeable to us, though. First, is collective leadership, not
individuua I leadership. One individual can never see the
whole of a problem. Only collectives of people, working
together, can solve problems correctly. Second, we can
understand nothing unless we understand history. One of the
problems of the Puerto Rican and amerikkkan revolutionary
movements is that they have not done systematic, scientific
study of their history and so do not yet understand the
countries that they wish to liberate. Third, a revolutionary
must be one with the people, serving, protecting, and
respecting the people at all times.
'^Wherever a Puerto Rican is,
tlie duty off a Puerto Rican
is to maice tiie revolution."
GLORIA GONZAUZ,
FIILD MARSHAL
DEFINITIONS
When we begin to read and study things on revolution, on
how other people's have liberated themselves and on how we
can develop our revolution, we come across a lot of new
words we have never heard or seen before. We should learn
what the words mea n and then learn how to explain those
ideas to our brothers and sisters in ways they can understand.
Nation: A people who have had the same history, culture,
language, and usually have lived in the same territory for a
long pe riod of time.
Colony: A nation which is controlled economically,
culturally, militarily by another country and whose
government is run by that other country.
Capitalism: A way of running the economy of a nation,
where a few of the people in the nation own the factories,
trains, business, commerce, and the majority of the people
work for those owners. The few capitalists make large
amounts of money by selling what the rest of the people
make-the products, like dresses, cars, copper, oil. This is
called profit.
Vendepatria: A sell-out. One who has sold out his or her
people for money or power.
Contradiction: When two things are opposed to each other,
for instance, right and wrong, up and down, good and bad.
When you have a contradiction, you have a problem that has
to be solved. If someone says that the way to get to a place is
by turning right, and someone else says it's by turning left,
you can't get to that place until the contradiction is
soived-it's either right or left.
Jibaro: The mixture of mostly Spanish and Taino, but also
some Blacks, who developed in the mountains and campos of
Puerto Rico mostly as small farmers and as peasants. The
language is Spanish, the culture Spanish and Indian.
Afro-boricua: The mixture of mostly Spanish and African
who developed in the sugar cane plantations and coasts of
Puerto Rico doing fishing, and whose ancestors were slaves.
iVIost Black Puerto Ricans try to call themselves mulattos
when the language is Spanish, but the culture and customs
are still mostly African, and when the racist societies of Spain
and Amerikkka still treat them as though they are inferior.
Class: The group of persons that an individual belongs to all
of whom make their living the same way. For instance,
lumpen make their living by surviving -stealing, prostitution,
dope, etc.. The workers make their living by working for
someone. The petty-bourgeois make their living by working
for themselves, the peasants make their living working on the
land for themselves or someone else. The bourgeois make
their money off the labor of everyone else. They don't work
at all.
Self-determination: It means very individual, every
nationality has the right to determine their own lives, their,
future, as long as they don't mess over other people. A nation
shoud be free from control by another nation.
Independence: When a nation has a government made up of
people from that country, but it is still controlled
economically, and culturally by another country.
National liberation: When a country is completely free from
control by another nation. When the people are in control of
the government, economy and afmy.
Lombriz: A parasitic worm that produces intestinal disease,
found in tropical countries. We use this word for all the
Puerto Rican traitors, for the parasites they are.
**The price of imperialism
is fives."
JUAN GONZALES
4
ON HISTORY
& DIALECTICS
The Young Lords Party has always believed in the correct
studying of our history, the history of the nation. Puerto
Ricans are told we have no past, not as good as the
oppressor's past. So finding out the truth is a good thing. See,
the game that the amerikkkan enemy runs is to tell us that
we ain't got no history, no roots, no tradition, no nothing. In
this way, we are made to feel as though we have just popped
up, and when we move against the enemy, we move blindly.
If we had a knowledge of history, we could study the
mistakes and successes of those who came before; instead of
starting anew, we could begin where the last generation left
off.
It is time that all Puerto Ricans get down to studying our
history. This serves three purposes:
1) We'll be able to check out what our ancestors did and
did not do. Also, we'll get a sense of our people's
development. In a national liberation struggle like ours, a
movement must be built that comes from the people, from
our experiences, sorrows, joys. There is a certain way to
organize the Puerto Rican nation, as opposed to say, the
Polish nation.
2) Studying history allows us to see the enemy's master
plan develop, such as the one being used to control Puerto
Ricans.
3) Finding out about our roots gives us a certain pride in
the knowledge that we have withstood oppression for so
long. We must transmit this righteous pride to all of our
people.
Let me run something down on history. In school, or in
society in general, we are taught that events in history take
place because of a few "great" individuals, like Napoleon or
George Washington (specifically, "great" white males). We
are taught that history goes in cycles, that it repeats itself.
This is atl jive. In the Young Lords Party, we are training
ourselves in thinking scientifically, in looking at things from
an orderly point of view to arrive at the right conclusions. All
Puerto Ricans concerned with their people must begin to see
things in a scientific way.
Scientific?: Well, we learned in school that the way a scientist
approaches a problem is by way pf a thing called the
scientific method. The scientist first say, "What do I want to
get out of this thing after I understand it? Where do I want to
go? Now what would be the best way of getting through this
problem and to my goal?" And then the scientist lays out
each step, one by one, until the goal is reached. This is the
way we must lay out the revolution, using our passion, our
feelings, to keep us going, step by step, until we are free.
This means that we will become something catted "dialec-
tical materialists." What does this mean?
First, take the word dialectics. Dialectics is the study of
contradictions.
What is a contradiction? We've heard about
something being contradictory, right? Like say you're having
a discussion with someone, and then they say one thing and
you say the opposite. That's a contradiction, and it must be
resolved one way or the other. The both of you could have
an argument and walk away, or a unity of thing between you
will arise. Contradictions are everywhere, even in nature. Say
you have a herd of pigs, the last herd left. Then say there are
some people who are starving , and they come across the pigs,
a decision has to be made. The people or the pigs.
That's a contradiction.
A Puerto Rican in, say, high school who hears
their history teacher say "history repeats itself," will say,
"No good, teacher. History flows, like a river, and the course
that river takes depends on how contradictions are resolved.
In other words, history is always moving ahead, teacher,
going forward, once a contradiction is dealt with (resolved).
Sometimes a contradiction is resolved in a way that it only
looks as though history repeats itself." That sister or brother
would say, "See, let's say you have a nation where most of
the people are starving, and a few people in power are eating
well. That's a contradiction. It could be resolved either by
the people rising against those in power, like in Cuba in 1959,
or by those in power taking the country into a war against
another country, like the united states in 1941 against Japan
(sometimes the rulers of a country go to war so that the
people forget their internal problems, like their stomachs)."
This Puerto Rican would say, "That's history, that's life: you
have contradictions, they get resolved, which changes
history's course, and since there are always contradictions.
there will always be new changes."
Some contradictions are the ones between machismo and
male-female liberation, or between capitalism and socialism.
The second word is materialism. This means that all of
these contradiction occur in the real world, the world we can
see around us. Many times, for example, the economic facts
of life cause other things to happen. Yet, we are taught in
school that the united states went into World War I "to make
the world safe for Democracy." This is a lie. The u.s.a. went
into World War I for the same reason it went into the
Mexican-American invasion, Spanish-Amerikkkan invasion,
Korean and Indo-China Wars — economics. Wealth. As an
imperialist country, amerikkka resolves the contradiction of
constantly needing more wealth to keep its machinery
running by going to war to rip off land (Puerto Rico from
Spain) and to put people to work at home. (Defense
contracts=factories=employment=products=consumers).
Scientific analysis show that it is materialism, real things, that
exist in the world. Part of dialectics is that everything has its
opposite, and the opposite of materialism is metaphysics,
idealism. Idealism is ideas that have nothing to do with
reality. It's like saying that the reason why flowers grow is
because of magic, or why people are here is because man was
made from dirt, and woman came from man's rib. The reason
why flowers grow or Why people are here is because of
certain scientific laws of nature. That is real. That is
materialism.
With this kind of thinking in mind we can now briefly
cover Puerto Rican and Black history. Why? Well, there are
contradictions between people and the enemy; these are
natural contradictions since it is the enemy that enslaves us.
Contradictions with the enemy are antagonistic, non-friendly.
These differences are resolved ultimately through war. Then
there are contradictions among the people. We have been
divided and conquered by the enemy in hundreds of ways —
housewives against prostitutes, young against old, men
against women, Puerto Ricans against Afro-Americans,
unionized workers against non-union workers, workers
8
against drug addicts, families against other families, one ar
rabale against another. These contradictions should be kept
non-antagonistic and settled among ourselves, as friends so
we can unite against the enemy.
So, in studying Black and Puerto Rican history, we look
at the history of the contradictions between Blacks and
Puerto Ricans as differences among brothers and sisters
oppressed by the yankee.
"We wasn't thinking
about the other guys
being Puerto Ricans
•••if he was your enemy,
you iciii him*"
CEORGIE
We studied the history of Puerto Ricans. First, we saw
that the u.s.a. took control of Puerto Rico because they were
preparing a "safety valve" country in case the "Black
Problem" got too heavy. In case Afro-Americans increased
their efforts to remove their chains, the u.s. intended to ship
the Black people to Puerto Rico, the Phillipines, and Hawaii.
The gringo came claiming to be liberators from Spain, and
our people couldn't even understand the lies since they were
made in english. We were ruled by interpreters. By changing
the currency of Puerto Rico to u.s. dollars, one unit of the
old currency was now worth 60 cents amerikkkan. Then a
hurricane wiped out the coffee crop (the only crop), and this,
combined with the currency devaluation drove people
bankrupt overnight. A severe depression set in. The u.s.
self-proclaimed liberators of the island, sent aid to Puerto
Rico that amounted to about 8 cents a person. Dig that.
Already the Yankees had a master plan — First, to take
military control; then, to make Puerto Ricans citizens; then
change the colony to a dominion status, like Canada; then
make it a state. This plan was made in the early 1900s and
the enemy is right on schedule.
The governors amerikkka picked to rule over us weren't
exactly gems, either. They were perverts and lames. Not one
knew a thing about diplomacy, shown in how they
constantly said openly racist stuff, or got caught either
embezzling or having late-night sessions with ambassador's
wives. We studied how Munoz Marin weasled his way into
power, running an independence line here, a commonwealth
line there. Most important we saw bmbriz Ferre's scheme for
getting Puerto Rico to be a state:
1) Before the '72 elections, he was gonna ask Nixon to
set up a commission to see if Puerto Rico could vote for u.s.
president. (The commission has already been set up). A
referendum would be called for the people.
2} They are then gonna ask that the resident
commissioner who now sits and watches what happens in the
amerikkkan House of Representatives, be doubled (another
resident commissioner) and the both of them would be given
the right to vote.
3) Ferre runs for governor again in 1972 on a maintain
the commonwealth line.
4) After Ferre wins, after there are two resident
commissioners in the house of representatives, and after the
island is given the presedential vote (so that Puerto Rico can
vote for Mix on in 1972) Ferre puts out the referendum to
make Puerto Rico a state.
Ironically, the u.s. congress may be most strongly
opposed to this. A tot of those red-necks wouldn't want no
"spanish-speaking colored, poor, illiterate, nasty, smelly
fornicating, rum-drinking, welfaring, stupid, lazy,
troublesome spies" to be a state.
Next, it is important to study the history of
Afro-American people. Many people think that Puerto Rican
history is like one circle sitting by itself on one side, and
Afro-American history is a circle sitting by itself on another
side. Actually, the two circles are linked together. To study
Black history is to complete the study of Puerto Rican
history, and vice-versa. African people were brought, in
chains, to the americas, and the resistance started from day
one. The ships brought Africans to Hispanola, Cuba, Jamaica,
Brazil, Puerto Rico, etc. Moving through history, we see how
many of the organizations and tendencies of the Black
movement in Amerikkka are definite outgrowths of history
as are all people's movements,
10
The Young Lords Party recognizes Black people in the
united states as the leaders of that country's revolution, since
they have been the most oppressed people in that empire's
history. Wo other people in amerikkka were ripped off from
f i
their country and brought here as slaves. For 400 years, the
only change in Black people's conditions was that the visible
chains were removed and non-visible ones put on — like
segregated schools, ghettoes, police aggression, or
mind-bending chains like "No niggers allowed" signs. One of
our most important allies in the fight for the national
liberation of Puerto Rico, will be Afro-Americans, and we
must eliminate the racism that divides us now, or else all of
us be killed off separately.
Let us look at the history of the revolutionary struggle in
the united states. For example, most of us never were taught
in school the true history of that empire, how it expanded
from a rebellious little colony of England to destroy a whole
people, the Native American, how it committed genocide
against the Hawaiian people, how it conquered and exploited
the Filipino people, how it forced large numbers of Chinese,
Mexicans, and Japanese to leave their countries to come to
the U.S. like Puerto Ricans did, looking for jobs, how it
massacred large numbers of poor European immigrants who
rebelled against the conditions they were forced to work in.
Most of us were never taught in school about a righteous
white workers' movement of the early 1900's called the
International Workers' of the World (IWW) or the Wobblies.
These were some revolutionary people. In the early 1900s
amerikkka was uptight. It may seem shocking to us now with
the hardhats walking around, but these white workers were
revolutionary. And the IWW was the leadership of their
struggle. One leader of that movement was Elizabeth Gurley
Flynn who was a leader of a general strike of 25,000 workers
in Patterson, New Jersey. What happened to this progressive
movement was the sell-out political parties, like the socialist
party, and the enemy's tricks like World War I, and their
final tool - repression, the jailing and killing of many leaders.
We must study white amerikkka's background to see how
the monster developed, then we can begin to move in the
manner which Jose Marti 19th century Cuban Revolutionary,
described, "I have lived in the monster, and know its entrails
(insides), and mine is the sling of David."
12
PROTRACTED
WAR IN
PUERTO RICO
The concept of Protracted War best describes the history
of the Puerto Rican people. For many centuries our people
have been invaded by one nation or another. Two oppressors
were successful, the Spaniards in 1493, and the yankees in
1898.
When a country is invaded by another, it becomes a
colony, slave, of the occupier, and that control stops the
normal development of the people.
In Boriquen, the Taino nation had its own economic,
social and political structure, and was developing in its own
way. When these people came they used the riches of the
island to aid Spain's development and destroy the Tainos.
The Taino people rose up against the enemy. The war did
not last long, because the Spaniards, with their plunder of the
rest of Latin America, had more power and arms. Many
Tainos died, some because of diseases the Spaniards had
brought, others through the war, and the rest fled to
the mountains to avoid slavery.
Then the Spaniards had the problem of who would be
their slaves. Beginning in the 1500s, they showed how
barbaric and criminal they were. They began to ravage the
African lands, kidnapping our Yoruba brothers and sisters to
serve as slaves. By the 1600s there had been four slave
revolts. We were once again defeated, but they did not
destroy us, as is shown through the influence of African
culture in Puerto Rico.
Out of these temporary defeats, our people became
stronger, and by the 1800s, the Puerto Rican nation, as we
know it today, was formed, of the mixture of Taino,
13
Yoruban, and Spanish, of the most exploited by those in
power of men and women more determined than ever to be
free. Among the many freedom fighters were Ramon
Emeterio Betances, Maria Bacetti, and Segundo Ruis Belvis.
These were the ones who toward 1868 raised the cry for
liberation on September 23, in Lares. Eventhough we were
defeated again, Betances knew what a protracted war was and
he said, "Men and women pass, but principles continue on
and eventually triumph." And so our struggle for liberation
continued.
In 1898, the Spaniards had war declared on them by the
united states and were quickly defeated. As a result, Puerto
Rico passed from one slavery into another. Now the invaders
were Yankees, and on July 25, 1898, 18,000 amerikkkan
troops landed at Guanica.
This new invader would be the most criminal and vicious
that has touched our land, and with the new invasion began
the new war of liberation.
The principles established by the Taino nation, by the
African people, and then by the revolution of Lares were
advanced by the Nationalist Party, which in the 1930s
proved to the Yankees that our people have never been
docile. During this time our people suffered from
unbelieveable hunger and misery--that was the "democracy"
the Yankees brought to us.
The Nationalist Party, under the leadership of Don Pedro
Albizu Campos, became the defenders of the people. In
1936, the amerikkkans arrested Don Pedro and the rest of
the leadership of the party, because they were considered a
threat to their plans. It was during this period that occurred
what we have come to know as the Ponce Massacre. On
March 21, 1937, the Nationalist Party organized a
demonstration in Ponce. The day was the anniversary of the
abolition of slavery in the era of the Spaniards. The
demonstration was to let the Yankees know that our people
would not tolerate either political prisoners or continued
occupation.
Throughout this period the amerikkans had one of their
own as governor. At the time the criminal was called Blanton
14
Winship, and he, along with the lombrice, Corsado, gave the
order to assassinate the nationalists; 200 persons were
wounded and 22 killed. With this act the united states
declared war on the Puerto Rican nation. The enemies of our
people continued their brutal attacks, arresting 2,000
persons and sentencing many to 400 years of prison after the
revolt of Jayuya in 1950. All of this had one sole aim-to end
the operation of all the just struggle for liberty because we
were receiving international support.
In addition to all of this, the yankees began operation
"co-option." That is. they looked for sellout traitors, and
during this period they began to heavily support the
electoral parties, especially the Popular Party led by traitor
Munoz Marin.
The combination of the repression of the Nationalist
Party and the lies of the Popular Party created a lot of
confusion among the people. Another important factor was
**lf our people fight
one tribe at a time,
ail will be killed.
They can cut off our
fingers one by one,
but if we join
together we'll make
a powerful fist."
LITTLE TURTLE, MASTER GENERAL OF THE
MIAMI INDIANS, 1791
that the Yankees tried to weaken us by dividing the people
through "Operation Bootstrap," and they moved 1/3 of the
Puerto Ricans to the united states, but our struggle
continued.
15
It's true that they weakened us when they took away our
revolutionary leadership, but what they did not understand
was that it is impossible to stop a liberation struggle.
Once again, in the united states, we rose up in the belly
of the monster. In 1965, we rebelled, together with Black
people in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and in New
Jersey; wherever there were boricuas, the cry of liberty was
heard.
Out of those rebellions, developed the Young Lords
Organization in Chicago, in 1969. With the example of the
Afro-american people, who throughout their prolonged war
inside the united states, raised consciousness among Puerto
Ricans, and with the principles and examples of Don Pedro,
Lolita Lebron, Dona Blanca Canales, the YLO began to
organize the Puerto Ricans in Chicago . Meanwhile, in New
York arose a group, the Society of Albizu Campos, young
students and lumpen {lumpen are the class in our nation
which for years and years have not been able to find jobs,
and are forced to be drug addicts, prostitutes, etc.), all of
whom had the same sole objective, the liberation of Puertd
Rico on the island and inside the united states.
The Young Lords of Chicago united with the Society of
Albizu Campos to create the national organization. With a 13
Point Program the organization began to serve and protect
the people, with free breakfast programs, free health and
clothing programs , and with the taking of the People's
Church, where the organization was recognized as a group
with support from the community .
Each day the organization won more support, but it
found itself with many problems. Because of its oppression,
the Chicago group did not understand the necessity for
discipline and political education, which is needed to achieve
our liberation, and was not able to further the struggle. In
New York, was the Eastern region with a much more
disciplined and developed leadership, which was anxious to
advance the struggle. We split with Chicago and fomed the
Young Lords Party. With three bases in El Barrio, another in
New Jersey, and another in the South Bronx, the Party began
to analyze Puerto Rican society, and we soon realized that
16
'^
2/3 of our people, almost wholly unknown to us, lived on the
island.
The analysis of Puerto Rican society made it clear that
our nation is composed of distinct classes and social groups
and with this understanding we began to formalize ideas to
bring the Party to all sectors of our people. Always
remembering that we are a revolutionary party whose goal is
complete national liberation, and about the job of uniting
that nation.
In August, 1970, two leaders of the Party, Juan Gonzalez
and Juan Fi Ortiz, made the first official Party visit to the
island. From that trip we analyzed a number of things.
For example, we saw that the struggle in the united states
was much more advanced since the conditions in the u.s.--the
racism, the oppression was much clearer; hunger and
oppression expose quickly the lies of the amerikkkan dream.
Although it's true that there were other established
independence groups, the Movement for Puerto Rican
Independence, founded in 1959. the Puerto Rican
Independence Party, founded in 1947, the origin of these
groups was either from the petty or upper bourgeoisie (the
middle and upper classes}. Also, they were either social
movements or electoral parties. As the years have passed,
17
these organizations have raised the consciousness of the
people, especially MPI, but for our revolution to succeed it's
clear that we need more revolutionary leadership. With this in
mind, we began the preparations for the move to the island,
this being the best way to unite the 1/3 of our people on the
island and the 2/3 in the u.s.
The Yankees have divided and weakened us in many
ways- the analysis of Puerto Rican society helps us to
understand the divisions. First, we have to unite the two
most oppressed classes, the lumpens and the workers, and
also the two social groups in which our people are divided,
the most oppressed Afro-Puerto Ricans and the jibaros. This
is not to say that we won't also unite the petty-bourgeoisie
and the students. As we have seen, with a little education,
they will come in large numbers to follow the lead of the
people and will take part in the revolution.
Taking into account our origin in the u.s., we began to
analyze the 2/3 in Puerto Rico.
In the northeast of the island, are the towns of Loiza
Aldea, Fajardo, Rio Grande, Canovanas: it was to these
towns that the Spaniards brought the African slaves, and to
this day these towns, with one third of the island's
population, are Afro-Puerto Ricans, victims not only of
exploitation, but of racism.
Carolina is one of the most industrialized towns where
the Yankees have built many factories, and the people are all
workers.
In this area are the big arrabales (slums), like El Cano, in
Santurce, Barrio Obrero, Martin Pena, Cataf%, and the
housing projects like Lloren Torres where 26,000 people live,
and communities with large lumpen populations, like La
Peria, in San Juan.
With this, we have briefly described the north of the
island. The second area of major importance is the
center-- Lares, Adjuntas, Jayuya, and the south. Ponce, Cabo
Rojo, Salinas, and Guanica. The social group of the center is
what by the 18th century received the name Jibaro. The
jibaro of that period was humble and illiterate because of
their exploitation, very superstitious, and always ready to
defend their honor.
It was rare when the jibaro or jibara visited the town.
Their calendar was the many hurricanes that passed over the
land. The jibaro of today continues to be illiterate, not so
superstitious, and now not only visists but lives in the big
towns, now that the Yankees have forced them to leave their
lands, turning them into tomato pickers in New Jersey or
dishwashers in New Y ork. The jibara, who once had her herd
of pigs, her house in the mountains, now is a worker in a
factory making a miserable amount, while producing
brassieres. It's obvious why this group, a large part of our
population, will give strength to the revolutionary
movementOur job is immense. We have called it the Chains
Off Offensive (Ofensiva Rompecadenas). To reunite our
nation, we began with a demonstration on the 21st of
March, the 34th anniversary of the Ponce Massacre. Together
with our revolutionary example , the Nationalist Party, we
raised once again the cry of liberty in Puerto Rico.
|re are many reasons why we chose Ponce. Pecans
the secohcLJargest city on the island, next to^atitfuan. The
place where Dbits^edro was born, it is al^oxtflrfiere the Yankees
have establishe^Ks^emicjJ'-'-'plants, although the
unemployment is imjJjaJWfi^We have all sectors of our
society Wvinajitare^^me lumpert»Nqnd workers and also the
differgjjt-'fScial groups, Afro -PuertftN,^ cans and jibaros.
lyunified can we break the chains of sla^
For the Puerto Rican nation this is another stage in our
protracted war for liberation. To achieve our liberation we
need a revolutionary Party, representative of all the people
with one sole objective, national liberation.
In that way we will give our largest contribution to the
other oppressed people's of the world, as the people of
Vietnam have done for us.
Liberate Puerto Rico now!
Venteremos!
18
19
■m^MiiijiAMiM^^
ECONOMIC
AND MILITARY
STRUGGLE
On the television, in newspapers, wherever Puerto Ricans
go, they tell us that money is the key to a good life, that if
you work hard you'll make enough money.
But who tells us that money is the key — the ones who
have the money, who own the televisions, the factories,
azucareras, the refineries, the hotels, the restaurants, the
hospitals, and even own the government. We work and sweat
for $50, $70, $100 a week. We work and the companies
grow, and the bosses get richer, and we stay the same. And
whatever we produce the owners sell for a lot more money,
that's their profit, for doing nothing. We, the people, work
and they, the capitalists, profit.
We must begin to demand that all the money and
factories made from our sweat and blood be returned to us.
We know that this is the only system where a woman can
work nine hours in a factory, produce dozens of dresses in
one day and not go home with enough money to buy herself
a dress. That's why many of us hate our bosses, and we
should — they are robbing us. That's why many of us would
like to, and do, steal the bosses' products, because they
belong to us.
If we study history, if we talk to our parents, we will see
that things were not always this way.
Capitalism is just one phase of the human race. It has
existed since the late 1700s, but the human race is probably
25,000 years old. The whole history of human beings is the
story of our trying to develop our ability to survive, to have
food, clothing, shelter, and mental satisfaction. We used our
hands, feet, and brains to increase our power to survive, to
produce out of nature, what we needed. First we traveled in
tribes looking for food. Little by little we settled in one
place, the men hunting and the women bearing children and
planting food. As agriculture became more developed, not
everyone was needed to look for food, so some people could
do other things. Some farmed, others made clothing, or tools,
or built homes, and little by little cities developed. Then,
some began to become more wealthy than others and soon
enslaved others to work for them — like the Pharoahs of
Egypt, the Emperors of Japan, or the Aztecs of Mexico.
Then came the period of feudalism, when there was no
slavery but people were serfs, worked on the land of one rich
prince or another. All these periods did not come at the same
time all over the earth. Some areas, like the African nations
of Mali, Songhay, or the Biblical kingdoms of Mesopotamia,
developed faster, or at different times. Then came the period
of capitalism and of nations with a state and a regular army,
both working under the employ of the capitalists, who began
to buy and sell politicians like they bought and sold goods. In
the 1800s revolutions in France and all of Europe brought
the rising young businessmen to power against the feudal
Kings and Queens. Why was it that Europe, a backward and
barbarian country in the year 1300, rose to conquer the
world by the year 1900 is hard to say. Maybe it was because
Europe was sitting on much of the iron needed to build
factories and had many rivers needed for steam and electric
power to run those factories With that iron they built the
guns that conquered the rest of the world in a few hundred
years.
As capitalism developed, there was competition between
them to control the wealth; the little ones were cheated,
killed, outcompeted by the big ones, who then began to look
to other countries in the world where they could make
money. They looked to Latin America, Asia, and Africa,
trying to find natural resources, cheap labor, and more
consumers. We call this, when one nation oppresses another
nation. Imperialism.
In the 1930s came the world-wide depression. Millions of
20
21
people were out of jobs — capitalism had collapsed because
of its own faults. In Puerto Rico, the depression meant
complete hunger and misery. The old type of competitive
democratic capitalism had failed. A new type of capitalism
was suggested by one of their own politicians, named Adolf
Hitler. He put forth fascism, open dictatorship and genocide
as a solution to the problem. Meanwhile, Roosevelt in north
amerikkka put forth the "welfare state", the government
controlling things peacefully for the welfare of the
businessman. We call this monopoly capitalism. Rexford
Tugwell was Roosevelt's lacky in Puerto Rico and he together
with lombriz Muftbz Marfh developed Operation Bootstrap,
the welfare state idea for Puerto Rico.
Roosevelt was a left-wing capitalist and Hitler a
right-winger. These divisions still exist. ISitxon, Reagan (the
governor of California} and Ferre are right-wing and Lindsay
(the niayor of New York City), Kennedy, and Munoz Marin
are left-wingers. Both are enemies of the peoples.
World War II was a war between left-wing and right-w/tng
capitalists. But the ones who fought the war are the ones who
always fight the wars, the poor and oppressed people. The
capitalist and generals always stay far away from their own
wars. White the u.s. and its allies fought Germany, in Asia,
and China, which had been long exploited, was fighting the
Japanese fascists. Twenty million Chinese were killed by the
Japanese but China liberated itself and in 1949 emerged as a
socialist country with 1/4 of the world's population. Since
then Korea, Vietnam, Cuba have also become socialist, and
little by little capitalism is dying. Chile and Guinea-Bissau
and other countries are not far behind.
We must begin to study economics. We must begin to
learn how the yankees invaded Puerto Rico destroyed our
economy and rebuilt another to meet their needs.
The main capitalist countries are the united states,
england, france, germany, japan. They are surrounded by the
2/3 of the world which is starving, homeless, and angry. The
europeans and yankees are like one big city and the Third
World is the countryside. They must fight genocidal wars in
22
^
•:
the countryside as well as fight against their own internal
enemies.
The first front is Indo-China.
The second front is Palestine.
Where will the third front be? Puerto Rico? Black
America? Brazil? India? Meanwhile, these wars are destroying
northamerikkka internally. A recession in the U.S., Puerto
Rico, and ^e world is leaving hundreds of thousands out of
jobs. Layoffs in New Jersey factories, Fajardo sugar centrales,
Mayaguez refineries, the New York garment center, general
23
motors plants, and the California aviation industry. For the
first time since the depression, workers are looking to
revolutionaries for the solution to their problems.
This is just a summary, but it shows that we have much
to study in economics and world politics. If we are to liberate
Puerto Rico and control our own destiny, we must study
how we have been enslaved and how we will release the
power of the people, through socialist revolution.
The amerikkkans tell us we can't exist without them. But
Albania, Israel, Switzerland, are all countries with similar
populations and area and they exist well. They tell us we
have no natural resources, but they try to steal
$3,000,000,000 of copper from the island's center. Another
deposit of $2,000,000,000 worth of nickel was found in
Mayaguez, and they are looking for oil in the off-shore areas.
They tell us we have no food but before they came we grew
our own food and ate decently and we fished in our own
waters. Now we eat only canned foods and New England
codfish. Yes, we can and will be free from the Yankee.
MILITARY
People ask how can Puerto Ricans, 2,700,000 on the
island and 1,500,000 in the united states, possibly hope to
fight a war of liberation against the united states,
200,000,000 strong and the most advanced country in the
world? Our island is 100 miles by 35 miles. The united states
is 3,000 miles by 1,000 miles. The u.s. is thousands of times
bigger.
First, the Young Lords Party and the Puerto Rican
people do not want war. We would prefer peaceful liberation.
We would prefer that the yankees left Puerto Rico and gave
us self-determination in the u.s.a. peacefully. But they refuse.
Instead, they cover 14% of our land with military bases and
bombard our islands of Culebras and Vieques. So we have no
choice but to fight for liberation. The other choice is the
slow destruction of the Puerto Rican nation into the 51st
state.
24
If they want war, we will fight it on our terms. That
means first that the liberation war for Puerto Rico will not
just be fought on the island but also in the u.s.a. Since there
are Puerto Ricans in every state of the u.s.a. forced to leave
their homes by the yankee, we will fight wherever we are,
because the enemy is the same, from Humacao to Aguadilla,
from Florida to Seattle.
If there are less than 5,000,000 of us, we will show the
strength there is in unity. Since we have lived and developed
close together for 500 years we are more unified as a people.
If they forced us to work in their factories, we will fight in
their factories. If they filled our land with military bases, we
will fight on their bases. If they herded 1,000,000 of us into
their most important city. New York, then we will fight in
that city. If they use us to slave in migrant camps and
factories throughout their east coast, then we will wage war
on that coast. If they stuck us in barrios isolated and
oppressed, we will take control of these communities. If they
have bombers, missiles, modern weapons, and a regular army,
then we will fight guerilla warfare, with few weapons, gotten
from them, but using creativity and our own resources. If we
are a few and they are many, then we will fight a protracted
war, eating them away little by little, one by one, until they
either withdraw or are crushed.
We will always be on the initiative, always fighting to
win. We have the moral superiority because our people fight
for freedom, for their homes, and loved ones, while the
enemy fights for money.
We only attack when we know we'll win. The enemy
attacks whenever he can, and many times loses. Our army
will be made up of free, thinking, men, women, and children
— a true People's Army. Their reactionary army is made up
of mostly racist, robot-like men.
If the U.S. appears strong, it is just a trick. Thirty million
Black people, 20,000,000 Chicanos and Chicanas, 500,000
Hawaiians, 500,000 Chinese Americans, 250,000 Japanese
Americans, and 700,000 Native Americans and millions of
young and poor white people fight with us. The u.s. is really
very weak.
25
In the rest of the world, with Indo-China, Palestine, and
Latin America rising up for freedom the amerikkkan army is
weak and overextended.
With socialist countries like China, the Soviet Union,
Cuba, and Korea, watching it, u.s. imperialism can't do
whatever it wants. So we are sure to win if we maintain
unity and strength, and if we remember that combined with
our fighting is the constant education and mobilizing of
lumpen, workers, and students.
Guerrilla War, People's War, Protracted War, is the key to
an underdeveloped people defeating a larger, more
technologically advanced people.
COLONIZED
MENTALITY &
We are all fighting against an enemy, the Yankee and the
Puerto Rican lombrices. The one major thing that holds us
back in our fight to liberate Puerto Ricans and all oppressed
people is a lack of unity. If we are not united, like a fist, we
are weaker in our battle. In unity there is strength, and a
nation divided is a weak nation. We have been divided
geographically, with one third of the nation on the mainland
and two thirds on the island. To be stronger we must unite.
But even this unification will not be enough if we still fight
against each other. One of the problems that we face is the
fact that we have been taught to fight against each other.
Capitalism is a system that forces us to climb over our
brothers and sisters' backs to get to the top. It is like a race,
in which the prize is survival, with 500 people in it, and only
one person is the winner — the one who gets to the finish
line first, the losers all starve to death. The prize money
which is equal to life: We fight against each other to live, and
we are divided into groups that fight against each other.
These groups are formed out of artificial divisions of race and
26
NON-
CONSCIOUS
IDEOLOGY
sex, and social groupings. The struggle between men and
women, the struggle between lumpens and workers are all
contradictions among the people. Contradictions among the
people must be erased in order to form a solid fist, a fighting
force to destroy the enemy.
iVIany of these divisions that exist are a result of
colonization. Puerto r^icans are a colonized people. As a
result of the oppression suffered for generations and
generations, first under Spain and then under the
amerikkkans we all develop a "colonized mentality". The
colonizers divide us up, teach us to think we are inferior, and
teach us to fight against each other, because as long as we
fight against each other we won't deal with our real problems
— slavery, hunger, and misery. We are brainwashed by the
newspapers we read, the books they write for us, the
television, the radio, the schools, and the church, that we
don't know what our real thoughts are anymore. We are
afraid to be leaders, because we are taught to be followers.
We have been told that we are docile so long, that we have
forgotten that we have always been fighters. We are afraid to
speak in public because we have been taught not to speak
out. We are told that we cannot exist without amerikkkans in
Puerto Rico, and we believe it, even though we know that
our nation existed for hundreds of years without them. All of
this brainwashing, this "colonized mentality" holds us back
from our liberation. If you take 10 rats and lock them up in a
cage which is only big enough for 5 rats, some of them will
kill each other and some of them will go insane, just as we
kill each other in the streets for five dollars, or in a stupid
argument, and just as we go insane and turn to drugs to
27
cover up the ugly reality of our lives.
We can only unchain our minds from this colonized
mentality if we learn our true history, understand our
culture, and work towards unity.
This colonization is responsible for the racism that exists
in our nation. We do not see it all the time, and most Puerto
Ricans believe that we don't have any racism. Most people
will tell you "we are all Puerto Ricans, we are all different
colors, none of us are black or white, we are just Puerto
Ricans." But that doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist. It is
so deep that we just don't see it anymore. The darker
members of every Puerto Rican family have felt it all their
lives. We have been so brainwashed that it has become
unconscious. The Young Lords Party calls this
"non-conscious ideology." We believe that Black is bad and
ugly and dirty, that kinky hair is "pelo malo," we call Black
Puerto Ricans names like prieto, mouUeto, and cocolo. We
are not proud that our ancestors were slaves so many or us
say we are "spanish" or "castillians." Our birth certificate
says white even if the reality when we look in the mirror is
very dark. jj^g Spanish treated the slaves as if
they vtsrs animals, and none of us want to believe that
Qur ancestors were animals, so
we "non-consciously" reject the Blackness we are all a part
of. All Puerto Ricans have a Black heritage, in our culture, in
the way Spanish is spoken, in the blood which flows through
our veins. Having slaves for ancestors is not something to be
ashamed of; one should be proud to know that one's
ancestors were strong enough to live through the horrors of
slavery, strong because of the rich and beautiful history of
Africa. We are taught that Africans were savages, and this
makes us non-consciously ashamed of our past. We must
study true African history, of the civilizations of Mali and
Songhay, for this history is part of our history. The Young
Lords Party is a Party of Afro-Americans and Puerto Ricans.
Both have the same roots in the past, similar culture and the
same types of "colonized mentality." Because of the Black
Power and Black Pride movement inside of the united states,
American Blacks are now able to hold their heads up high
28
''The chains that
have been taken
off slaves' bodies
are put bade on
their minds."
DAVID PEREZ
and be proud of their past. It is necessary that we understand
and study Puerto Rican history, much of which is African
history so that we can move on ridding ourselves of the
barriers that exist between Afro-boricua and jibaro.
We should not be afraid to criticize ourselves about
racism. We are all racists, not because we want to be, but
because we are taught to be that way, to keep us divided,
because it benefits the capitalist system. And this applies to
racism towards Asians, other Brown people, and towards
white people. White people are not the oppressor —
capitalists are. We will never have socialism until we are free
of these chains on our mind.
The other way in which "non-conscious ideology" divides
our people is through machismo, or male chauvinism. We
have said for a long time that sisters and brothers should be
equal in the struggle, that men and women should work
together and that Puerto Rican men should not oppress their
wives, mothers, and daughters anymore. When we said that
machismo is fascism, we were saying something that was true,
but we couldn't understand the reasons why men became
uptight when they were accused of machismo. Brothers could
not understand why some of the ways that they treat sisters
are wrong. Brothers did not know how to act differently than
their fathers and grandfathers have always acted toward
women. Is it all right to rap to a sister? Should I give a
woman a complement? Is it machismo if I want to protect a
woman? Because we did not understand why there is this
division we could not explain well enough, all we could say
was machismo was bad, male chauvinism is wrong, you are
oppressing your sisters.
29
On the other hand, we c.iticize sisters for being passive
and docile. We wi nt womeii to become leaders, to speak out
in public, to stop being shy ?v6 timid, to learn to be strong.
We tell sisters to change, the way our mothers have taught us
to be, the way our mothers mothers' have always been. And
again, we did not completely understand why our sisters had
difficulty in understanding what passivity is, and how to
change. Sisters still volunteered to cook and sew, to take care
of children. Sisters still felt more comfortable letting the men
Palestinian Women's Militia
Jordan, July 1970
be the leaders. Sisters don't like other women to be leaders
either. We did not understand why women constantly get
into arguments with each other. When a woman is strong and
a leader she is considered to ba a "bitch." When a man is
3n
strong he is a "good leader." But why?
We have realized that the division of the sexes between
male and female have existed for such a long time, that all
societies have accepted the "fact" that there is a difference
between men and women. We know that the only differences
are biological — women have a womb and ovaries and they
make eggs, and men manufacture sperm.
All societies developed around the first oppression; man
used woman as a worker, to reproduce, to make babies, while
men were free to do other things. This ideology of a division
of the sexes is called "sexism," just like the ideology of the
division of the races is called "racism." Both are
"non-conscious ideologies," From the simple fact that
women produce babies and men didn't, developed all sorts
of ideas that women were a certain type of human and men
another type of human.
What is a man? What is a woman? "Non-consctously" we
believe a man is strong, aggressive, hairy, bad, decisive, hard,
cold, firm, intelligent. "Non-consciously" a woman is
weak, timid, smooth, soft-spoken, scatter-brained, soft,
warm, dumb, and loving. Both of these sets of descriptions
are a result of the way we have trained "non-consciously."
From the time a baby is born it is taught by its parents and
by society to be a "man" or a "woman." If it grew up alone,
with no outside influences what would its personality be
like? Just because it has a womb, would it be weak? If it had
a penis, would it be aggressive and strong? No. These traits of
personality are part of the way we are taught to be.
A little boy wears blue. A little girl wears pink. A little
boy is given trains, trucks, toy soldiers and baseball bats to
play with. Little girls get dolls and suzie homemaker sets.
Litde boys wear dungarees and can play rough and get dirty.
Little girls wear dresses and stay at home near their mothers
to play and watch them cook. When a little boy talks about
what he wants to be when he grows up he dreams of being a
fireman, a doctor, a lawyer, a cabdriver, a revolutionary. A
little girl can dream, but everyone knows what she will be —
a mother, a housewife. Anything else is strange and
temporary. Any other job she has must be something for her
to do part-time until she can quit and stay home. If she has
31
to work she then has two jobs — the main one is the home.
Women cannot exist in this society without a "man to
protect them." Women who have no men are forced to make
it in a world that doesn't accept them. Welfare mothers are
women with no men. Women compete against each other to
"get a man." So we don't just have division between men and
women, sexism divides women against each other.
By the time a baby is six months old it has already been
treated differently if it is a boy than if it is a girl, and acts
and responds differently. Baby boys are more active. Baby
girls cry more.
Because Puerto Rican society is structured in a sexist
way, it is very difficult to fight against things that we are not
aware of. If we want to change this society and develop a
new one that no longer oppresses anyone we must try to
eliminate the sexism that we "non-consciously" retain in our
rViinds. We must become instead of men and women — new
humans, revolutionary people.
Men should learn to cook, to care for children, to be
open to cry and show emotions because these are all good
things — needed to build a new society. Women must learn
to be leaders, to speak out, to use tools and weapons, because
our army must be made up of brothers and sisters. One of the
ways that brothers can figure out if they are oppressing
sisters is to ask themselves if they would treat another
brother the same way. If you lived with another brother,
would he always cook the meals and do the housework. If
you lived with another brother and friends came over would
you do all the talking? Sisters can judge their passivity the
same way. How would you repair machines if there were no
men around? Who would protect you if you were attacked?
We must think about all the ways we have been brainwashed
unconsciously and fight against it. It is a hard struggle,
because everything around us is sexist — the books we read,
the t.v. shows we watch, the institutions of our society. We
will never«be free until we have broken all the chains of our
"non-consciously ideology" and our colonized mentalities.
32
THE PARTY &
THE STATE
We are a colony of the yankee. We have been kicked and
pushed around, and forced to work for the lowest wages
while we do the hardest work. All major decisions that
concern Puerto Rico and our people are made by racists in
Washington, by crooked politicians who represent their
bosses, the capitalists that own the factories and tourist trade
of the island. One third of our people were conned into
coming to the united states so that they could divide and
control us better. We are programmed or mis-educated to do
whatever the yankees desire. If they say Puerto Rico should
be a state, we are Supposed to bow our heads down like good
Puerto Ricans or spies and agree.
We are allowed the privilege to vote for some of our own
oppressors like badillo or hernandez-colon. Soon they think
they will give Puerto Ricans the "privilege" to vote for the
pig president of the united states. By keeping us from coming
together they have been able to remain in control. Whenever
we make attempts to liberate our people, they use whatever
force they have available to prevent it from happening. When
the Nationalist Party was becoming successful in educating
the people, they were crushed, by having their leadership
jailed and assassinated, and they succeeded in terrorizing the
people.
Now the Young Lords Party is becoming the force to
organize the nation for a struggle for national liberation, a
struggle where the whole people will be organized to fight
against the colonizer. We are the Party which through our
practice, has raised the consciousness of Puerto Ricans in the
U.S. to the point that "Viva Puerto Rico Libre" has become a
household word and "Power to the People" is replacing the
unhappy good-byes. We have come to understand that
without a revolutionary Party based on scientific analysis,
33
we will not be able to gain our national liberation. A Party is
necessary because there has to be a leading body to give
direction. The revolution is not made by a bunch of
individuals running around doing their thing. Our problem
has been that we have too many individuals and little groups
doing their thing and forgetting that the struggle for national
liberation is our thing. What we need are leaders thalj come
from the poor people and who place in their hearts the
interests of the poor people and oppressed above anything
else, and who are prepared to die for the liberation of the
people, struggle is for "power", power to determine the
direction in which we and our people move. That power
means a struggle for control of the churches, hospitals,
schools, police departments, political system. Any struggle
that builds the consciousness of the people to control their
institutions, helps the national liberation. A struggle that
raises consciousness abo ut the reactionary and corrupt
commonwealth or amerikkkan state and government is good.
While we fight to control and destroy the old government
organization, at the same time is being formed the new
people's government which grows as we fight. This concept
we refer to as the Party and the State.
We recognize that a Party has to exist to give political
direction (revolutionary theory), that it has to show people
how to organize themselves, how to move against their
landlord, a government agency, a factory boss whatever, and
how to build organizations that last (revolutionary
organization), and the Party also supplies revolutionary
examples of what to do, for example, when we seized the
People's Church, or Lincoln Hospital, or the National
Students' Conference of September 23. This revolutionary
Party is composed of the most active, most politically
conscious, disciplined and committed revolutionaries in the
nation. We understand that the Party will be a minority in
number compared with the masses. But because we serve and
protect and are one with the interests of the people, we
represent the majority. The Party cadre (members) are all
leaders of the battle of the people, and will coordinate the
national liberation struggle.
3A
We see that there have to exist other organizations which
we call People's Organizations. These organizations are
massed based, try to get as many people as possible involved
in struggle. They are not cadre organizations, like the Party.
They have a specific are of work to control; for example,
student organizing, workers organizing, community
organizing. We think as many people's organizations as
possible should be formed. These organizations work closely
with the Party and have Party members in them, or working
with them. We see this method as preparing the revolutionary
state, the People's government, in th at the people are
braining themselves how to run their own society.
As the People's organizations grow, there will then be
two powers in the Puerto Rican nation-the power of the
reactionary present government, police, and businessmen,
and the power of the poor people, people's organizations,
and Party. These two cannot exist peacefully side by side.
There will be conflict until one destroys the other. And as
the people gain in strength, the revolutionary movement,
together with the People's Army, will destroy the old state
and set up a new revolutionary government.
Many people ask, who will make this revolution?
Everybody? The Young Lords Party feels most of our people
would live better in a socialist society. But there are two
classes of people that will fight harder for the new society,
because they have been most oppressed in this present
society. The lumpen-worker alliance is the name we use for
the two classes who will lead the revolution. It means that
according to our analysis of Puerto Rican society, the two
most important parts of Puerto Rican society are the
lumpens and the workers. The lumpens are the prostitutes,
drug addicts, welfare mothers, hustlers, the street people,
unemployable because the system has no jobs for them. They
don't want jobs because they know already how much the
sys tem makes off of them. They are the prisoners in the jails,
all political prisoners, colonized and messed over by the
system. They come out of school into no jobs, no future,
nothing but drugs, wine, gambling. They try to find
something worthwhile in their lives and only find racism and
greed, or a pimp ready to make money off of them.
35
The workers, the majority of the population, work five
and six days a week for a lousy $100 more or less, they work
in hosp itals, post offices, trains, and buses, in restaurants and
hotels, in construction, in factories big and small. They are
the housewives and working women oppressed at honie or on
the job, who have nothing to do but come home to bills,
credit, T V , and beer, who will never get anyplace though
they have lots of dreams. The lumpen understand the
oppression best, that is why the y and the students (who
come mostly from petty-bourgeois or middle class) are the
first to get involved. The lumpen also form the hard core
fighting force, once they are disciplined, because the
individualism of the streets is still very strong with them. The
workers are usually a little more conservative, because they
have at least an apartment, even if there is no heat, and a car,
even if it's mortgaged, and a job, even if it pays nothing, and
they are afraid to lose their little bit. But they also have the
most power. With their labor they built the society, and with
a strike they can paralyze the whole island or a city. It is
from the labor of the workers that the capitalist gets all the
goods he sells. The workers know how to run the factories,
the hospitals, the schools, the restaurants. They will run,
along with the lumpen and students, and a small group of
professionals, the new society, but first they must be
educated to join with the lumpens and students to wage the
war. Lumpens on drugs and having nothing, are divided from
workers who fear getting robbed by them. Workers who have
a few crumbs, are afraid the lumpen will steal it, so the two
classes fight each other. The duty of the Party and the
People's Organizations is to unite the two classes into a
fighting force, the main force of the revolution.
**Let me say at the risk
of seeming ridiculous tiiat
a true revolutionary is
guided by great feelings
of love*' CHE GUEVARA
36
THE PARTY
AND THE
INDIVIDUAL
The ideology of the Party is the framework from which
we move. Evelrything we do relates to the principles on this
paper. Ideology doesn't only talk about what the Party
believes but also where the Party sees itself going. On the
basis of those prfnciples and Weas we do our work among
.the people. We call this practice.
As the Party grows and develops, we are going to be
developing a bigger more defined ideology and we will be
faced with a continuous problem; how do we keep building
that Party of our people that will put the ideas into practice.
It is no good to have an ideology if all you can do is talk and
not practice. Tn order to be involved in good practice, two
things must de dealt with; first on the level of organization,
and then on the level of the individual.
On the level of the Party, we ask ourselves, how do
we develop the type of organization that can lead our people
in a liberation movement? How do we structure it? How do
we run the Party? We must remember that the structure is
not for any one part of our people, it must suit the needs of
all our people-lumpen, worker, student. Also, it must help
develop people into good revolutionaries.
The Party is divided into levels of leadership and
ministries. The levels of leadership are the branch, the
leadership of the branch, and the leaders and coordinators of
the Party in general. The ministries. Defense, Staff, Field,
Information, Economics, and Education are specific fields o'
responsibility assigned to party members. The level of
leadership is the army that does the organizing of the people,
and the ministry is the function that aides the Party.
37
We have learned the hard way, through trial and error
some of the problems involved. It is very important for parts
of the Party to communicate with the whole. If this is not
done, there will be no unified Party. Communication is done
in many ways, regular reports, telephone, mail, personal
visits. One of the most important things besides
communicating is education. Without ^a structured
educational system in the Party it is very hard for the Party
to organize all sectors of the people. It is also hard for any
individual to develop without political education.
Two of the cores of the Party are the general membership
meeting, where democratic discussion and decision-making
are done, and criticism - self-criticism, the key to Party
democracy. The structure is still changing, but we should
never be afraid of changing to progress.
On the level of the individual the question comes up, how
do we train cadre? What is cadre; How do we develop
individuals from different sectors of the society at the same
time? In this field the Party went through many changes. We
were organizing high school students, lumpens, college
students, workers, and other sectors at the same time and we
had to fight the bad traits that each group brings with it, like
the impatience of high school students, the individualism of
lumpen, the conservatism of workers, and the intellectualism
of college students.
What is a cadre? A cadre Is a person in the Party who has
gone through a change in himself or herself from just another
Puerto Rican to leader of the people, a revolutionary. This
change does not take place right away. First, a person
becomes political, then they join the Party, then, after a
period of time, they become a leader of the people. But it
isn't as simple as that. There is a big change in the whole life
of the individual. This change can be broken into two parts.
First, losing the bad traits from the class they originated
from, like individualism, machismo, sexism, racism
intellectualism, superiorities and inferiorities. This is called
"de-classizing". Once you become a cadre of the Young
Lords Party, you are no longer a student, or a lumpen
38
street-person, or a worker. You have that background, but
what you are is able to organize best that class' that you
came from because you understand it best, have dealt with a
lot of the negative parts of it, and have recognized the good
parts.
Second, is the big change that the individual has in
getting rid of the scars that capitalism has left in the person's
mind , like liberalism (not doing something you know is
right), pessimism, and the biggest of all, colonized mentality.
Colonized mentality is the effects of oppression. Because we
are taught that a spic is a lower form of human, we end up
believing it and acting as if it were true. We shy away from
responsibility, we think negative, we don't think we can learn
and then wre takeut on ourselves, persecuting ourselves and
fighting with others. We call this change, "de-colonizing".
This doesn't mean that before yiu become a Lord, you have
completely succeeded in getting rid of bad traits-that takes
years-but that you have made an effort and are succeeding.
The change in the individual of de-classtzing and
de-colonizing goes on at the same time and both complement
each other. The developing of the Party should be seen as
preparing internally for the prolonged war demands
constant development and change.
39
ANALYSIS OF
PUERTO RICAN
SOCIETY
In May, 1970, the Young Lords Party studied the
divisions in our people, divisions that make us weak. We call
this the "analysis of Puerto Rican Society." This is how we
are divided in classes. Every Puerto Rican fits into one of
these classes. Your class is determined by how you make
your living, how you survive everyday in this crazy
amerikkkan-controlled world.
Industrial Workers : The majority of the population are
workers. We work in factories and in government
employment, in sweat shops and petroleum refineries, in
construction and restaurants. We make $40, $60, $100 a
week and hardly stay alive while our bosses make hundreds
of thousands off our hard work. We don't like to get into
trouble, because we might lose our job, or our project or
casserio apartment, or our children might suffer. We are the
housewives and working wome, who are oppressed not just
on the job but at home by our own husbands, who beat us or
mistreat us because they don't know any better. We are
afraid of the lumpen, because they rob us; but we know that
this is the result of the system that forces them into drugs
and prostitution. They are our brothers and sisters,
compatriots, oppressed by the same enemy. We will join with
them to free Puerto Rico, and after the yankees are kicked
out, we will take over and run the factories for the good of
all the people.
Lumpen: Are men and women who are unemployable, on
drugs, prostitutes, welfare mothers, people in jail. Most of us
never had a chance for a decent life. We are young, poor,
there were never any jobs waiting for us, there was no future,
so we tjrned to drugs and crime. The society calls us
AO
worthless, good for nothing. But all we are is oppressed
human beings. We rob from our own people because we're
prisoners, of drugs, of our conditions. We don't bring the
drugs into the community, the businessmen and government
di to keep us pacified. We are waking up and uniting as a
class with the rest of our people to destroy the real
enemy-- the yankees.
Agricultural Workers: We are the last of the campesinos,
who had our lands bought up or stolen by the amerikkams,
who were tricked intJ slave-like migrant labor and shuttled
back and forth from the u.s. to Puerto Rico, to pick
tomatoes or other cr jps. The Petty-bourgeois are people who
don't work for anyone else or who work with their mind? not
their hands, but who also don't employ anyone or any other
people. In other words, they live off their own labor. There
are three main types of petty -bourgeois:
Bodeqeros: We own our own store or businesses. We have
anywhere from 1 to 5 people who work for us. We make
enough to live on if we work hard ourselves. But now the
amerikkkan chain stores or the Cuban gusanos are running us
out of business. If we don't joint the other oppressed classes,
we wilt soon be destroyed by the amerikkkans and Cuban
gusanos (exiles).
nan j-^al[ | ^i;t f ^ pd Traitors: These are the few Puerto Rican
capitalists, like Ferre, and the big traitors, like Sanchez Vile
lla, Badillo, Hernandez Colon, alt the politicians and others
whose lives are tied up with the amerikkkan occupation.
There are also the thousands of Cuban pigs, who were kicked
out of Cuba by Fidei. We will kick all of them out of Puerto
Rico to establish a free, independent, and socialist nation.
The lumpen and workers, allied together, will lead the
revolution. The students, bodegeros, and professionals will
join with them. Some professionals, vendepatrias and
capitalists will be against us , but in the long run, we will win
and Puerto Rico will be free.
^1
University Students: We are mo | ^ ^00° 08 7 802 5 2
families are 'jwell off. Some of us, though, come from poor
families, but at the university they are working on our minds
trying to make us think middle class. They want us to join
white amerikkkan society. We will fight against that. We are
Puerto Rica lis imd we will determine our own lives. We will
use these skill s to help our own people, not t> oppress them.
Professionals : These are the professors, engineers,
doctors, directors of poverty programs, middle level
manaqement of amerikkkan. They are well off, but
the colonialism and racism of the Yankees always reminds
them that they are spies , not gringos. Some of them will join
with the people in the national liberation war. Many of them,
though, will fight against us, and will be alcahuettes of the
amerikkkans.
Source