The first chapter of BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution titled The Founding v. Slavery, author Mike Gonzalez presents a summary refutation of several important claims linked to the 1619 Project. This rebuttal citing numerous subject area experts and primary sources highlights how the overarching argument put forward by texts which were later disseminated along with lesson plans to schools was a weapon with which to indoctrinate and not a historical work with which to instruct honestly about the past. This section contrasting Commentary and History sets the tone for subsequent chapters, highlighting how the former is often shaped for use as a weapon by the left and the latter is an aegis with which to defend society. While Mike Gonzalez does overlook several important elements about BLM, this book is truly a masterful accounting of how much of the rhetoric used as a cudgel by BLM activists are variations of what was said before by Soviet-inspired Communist activists in the U.S.
The second chapter, The Soviets’ Failed Infiltration, details the period following shortly after the 1917 Revolution in Russia. During this period of cultural renaissance for Blacks in Harlem, efforts were made by Communists to claim themselves as the true representative of the political interests of Blacks. Communists and fellow travelers defined themselves in opposition to other popular, capitalist movements, such as Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Associate. And yet they repeatedly sought to infiltrate it and gain control over this organization and others like it. This strategy along with many of the policy positions – such as the separation of the Southern portion of the United States under a separate government called New Africa – taken by these groups often originated from deliberative bodies in Moscow.
As Harold Cruse details at greater length in The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, these were not tactics and policies able to mobilize many rank-and-file workers or activists. Outside of a few committed bodies of radical cadres that better established black civil organizations shunned, it merely had the effect of – to paraphrase Cruse – aesthetically and intellectually castrating many potentially brilliant minds. Gonzalez continues by highlighting the close relationship between organizations such as the Black Liberation Army and International Labor Defense, a Communist Party front organization, and Cuba – which was actively collaborating with the Soviet Union. The goal of these groups was to foment racial strife and dissension in manners that would benefit the interest of both of these parties (Domestic and international Communist Parties). From a regional perspective Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression describes this politics in more detail – and how leading up to and during the Second World War the Soviet Union discouraged this behavior so that the Communists were recognized as “supporters” of the fight against Nazi Germany.
The third chapter, Then The 1960s Happened, covers the period after the War and the end of the Popular Front. It shows a political return to anti-racist discourse, as well as a new focus on anti-sexism and anti-imperialism, understood to also relate to the experience of blacks in America. Stockley Carmichael, former leader of SNCC, and a pan-African communist, is invited to Cuba after promoting this view in London and later tells audiences in Havana that they are preparing urban guerrilla forces.
Highlighting the intellectual linkages between these events from the 1960s and the present, Gonzalez cites SNCC’s letter which functioned to pass the torch from them to BLM and highlights how: “Opal Tometi, known for touring Caracas and praising Nicolas Maduro’s dictatorship in exchange for his support, is hardly the first radical black leader to tour the Caribbean in search of like-minded dictators.” (Gonzalez 63). After highlighting how the Cuban Revolution was a model which inspired the Weathermen Underground leftist terrorist group, how the Cuban government provided assistance and sanctuary to Black Liberation Army members that were wanted for major crimes, and how members of these organizations have since turned from armed conflict to subversion, the reader enters the near-present.
At 25 pages Chapter 4, titled BLM, is the book’s shortest chapter. It does, however, highlight how BLM is part of a decentralized transnational network of activists who seek to develop revolutionary conditions within the U.S. through policy initiatives, organized conflict, and positive media coverage. Gonzalez cites Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) and Bridging Divides Initiative (BDI) research which shows that BLM was involved in 95% of the then 633 incidents recently coded as riots in the U.S and claimed they were one of the main factors for the “heightened risk of political violence and instability going into the 2020 election”. Brief biographies are given of the founders and a few leaders of BLM, along with their background on their religious upbringing and family history. Gonzalez describes how Opal Tometi, who comes from a Liberation Theology background, wrote “something akin to a manifesto titled “Black North American Solidarity Statement with the Venezuelan People” (Gonzalez 85). Several other examples showing BLM’s linkages to the international Communist movement are also shared.
This section is where my main criticism of the book emerged – there is no identification of the fact that these individuals and many of the groups Gonzalez cites – i.e. Causa Justa, FRSO, PUEBLO, etc. – participated in the United States Social Forum. It’s one thing to say that these are people for whom “Maduro is a model to follow in the United States” (Gonzalez 94). It is a whole other thing to use intelligence processes and products to highlight how these people participated in organizational and strategic knowledge transfer events that were first ideated in Caracas at the World Social Forum and that had multiple Venezuelan government officials in attendance at these events.
This is important as it enables verification and expansion of significant conjectures made by Gonzalez – such as his claim that “given the great assortment of small and large Marxist associations that the three would call on [to promote BLM], we can quickly figure out how the hashtagged message was amplified and by whom.” (Gonzalez 95). Given Venezuela’s sympathetic view toward BLM, and Venezuela’s alliance with China and Russia, and that all three have social media operations to influence Twitter – this means that three states antagonistic to the U.S. government have the means, motive, and opportunity to support BLM in their online operations. This means that all the other groups which were part of the Social Forum had the means, motive, and opportunity to claim the BLM flag as their own. Both of these factors can be used to explain BLM’s “virality”. Regardless of this criticism, further relevant details of the official BLM network and its affiliate’s connections to the pan-Africanist movement are described, which then serves to transition to a discussion on the money involved.
Chapter 5, titled Follow The Money, illustrates how the fiscal sponsors of the movement have ties to long-established foundations and financial support networks which are led by people with past or present associations with Communist regimes in Beijing, Caracas, Havana, and Managua as well as older liberal organizations that have seemingly been captured. The citation of numerous amounts of money distributed is at times shocking. There are, however, no charts that show this and it’s not clear the methodology used – meaning there could be gaps between what’s said and what is actually raised. Because of this lack of charts and network maps – and this is a systemic problem within the subject area literature on leftist groups in the U.S. – it decreases the effectiveness of the intuitively correct claims made about how these networks are classifiable as 4th generation warfare actors. It also explains why criticism of BLM is more difficult than that of their primarily white allies, Antifa.
Chapter 6, How Antifa Became the Safe Space, highlights several issues such as elected politicians running interference in criminal investigations and district attorneys refusing to prosecute political cases. The examples given show that the Network Contagion Research Institute’s claim that “The need for regular, reliable and responsible reporting with methods such as those used in this briefing with similar computational techniques is now imperative.” is perhaps an understatement (Gonzalez 139). After all, without a comprehensive account of what’s going on at a national level, journalistic accounts are such “local” stories that can’t provide a full picture of how these financial and political support networks are able to impact society. Antifa, because of its lack of a clear organizational leadership structure, is able to be criticized because it’s not able to politically mobilize according to methods traditional to representative democracy.
Chapter 7, Schooling the Revolution, is very insightful for showing how it is that activists have been able to incorporate radical communist and race essentialist perspectives into instructional material. Through the use of networks affiliated with the Zinn Educational Project, and Black Lives Matter at School National Steering Committee, teachers are forced to go through training sessions skin to the Red Guard struggle sessions in Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and the curriculum transitions from subject area knowledge to the creation of “proper” political views. Gonzalez highlights “Former Weatherman Bill Ayer’s stomach-churning praise for Hugo Chavez’s communist indoctrination of Venezuelan children at a 2006 meeting in Caracas” and highlights how the promotion of sexual libertinism to children matches the work of George Lukacs, the former Educational and Cultural Commissioner of Soviet Hungary – but unfortunately doesn’t unpack this even more to cover how so many of the policies that he cites are verbatim those that have been implemented in Venezuela (Gonzalez 160).
On the whole, the book is very insightful in presenting a picture of the actual strategies, tactics, techniques and aims of the Black Lives Matter Movement. The scope of it’s organization isn’t holistic nor is the extent of its network affiliates and efforts fully mapped. However, as an advanced account of the organization and its affiliated activity, it’s a worthy contribution to the literature.