Anarchy
Can’t Fight
Alone

Kuwasi Balagoon
Of all ideologies, anarchy is the one that addresses
liberty and equalitarian relations in a realistic and ultimate
fashion. It is consistent with each individual having an
opportunity to live a complete and total life, With anarchy, the
society as a whole not only maintains itself at an equal
expense to all, but progresses in a creative process
unhindered by any class, caste or party. This is because the
goals of anarchy don't include replacing one ruling class with
another, neither in the guise of a fairer boss or as a party.
This is key because this is what separates anarchist
revolutionaries from Maoist, socialist and nationalist
revolutionaries who from the onset do not embrace complete
revolution. They cannot envision a truly free and equalitarian
society and must to some extent embrace the socialization
process that makes exploitation and oppression possible and
prevalent in the first place.

When I first became a revolutionary and accepted the
doctrine of nationalism as a response to genocide practiced
by the United States government, I knew as I do now that the
only way to end the evil practices of the US was to crush the
government and the ruling class that shielded itself through
that government was through protracted guerrilla warfare.

Armed with that knowledge, I set out the initial organizing of
the Black Panther Party until the state’s escalation of the war
against the Black people that was begun with the invasion of
Africa to capture slaves made it clear to me that to survive
and contribute I would have to go underground and literally
fight.

Once captured for armed robbery, I had the opportunity to
see the weakness of the movement and put the state's offen-
sive in perspective. First, the state rounded up all the orga-
nizers pointed out to it by agents who had infiltrated the party
as soon as it had begun organizing in N.Y. It charged these
people with conspiracy and demanded bails so high that the
party turned away from its purposes of liberation of the black
colony to fund raising. At that point, leadership was imported
rather than developed locally and the situation deteriorated
quickly and sharply. Those who were bailed out were those
chosen by the leadership, regardless of the wishes of the
rank and file or fellow prisoners of war, or regardless of the
relatively low bail of at least one proven comrade.

Under their leadership, “political consequences” (attacks)
against occupation forces ceased altogether. Only a Fraction
of the money collected for the Purpose of bail went towards
bail. The leaders began to live high off the hog while the rank
and file sold papers, were filtered out leaving behind so many
robots who wouldn't challenge policy until those in jail pub-
licly denounced the leadership.

How could a few jerks divert so much purpose and energy for
so long? How could they neutralize the courage and intellect
of the cadre? The answers to these questions are that the
cadre accepted their leadership and accepted their command
regardless of what their intellect had or had not made clear
to them. The true democratic process which they were will-
ing to die for, for the sake of their children, they would not
claim for themselves.

These are the same reasons that the people’s Republic of
China supported UNITA and the reactionary South African
government in Angola; that the war continued in Southeast
Asia after the Americans had done the bird; why the Soviet
Union, the product of the first Socialist revolution is not
providing the argument that it should and could through
being a model

This is not to say that the people of the Soviet Union, the
People’s Republic of China, Zimbabwe or Cuba aren't better
off Because of the struggles they endured. It is to say that the
only way to make a dictatorship of the proletariat Is to elevate
everyone to being proletariat and deflate all the advantages
of power that translate into the wills of a few dictating to the
‘majority the possibility must be prevented of any individual
or group of individuals being able to enforce their wills over
any other individual’s private life or to extract social
consequences for behavior preferences or ideas.

Only an anarchist revolution has on its agenda to deal with
these goals. This Would seem to galvanize the working class,
déclassé intellectuals, colonized third world nations and
some members of the petty bourgeois and alright bourgeoise.
But this is not the case.

That China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Mozambique would
build round a Marxist ideology to drive out invaders and
rebuild feudal economies in the midst of western imperial-
isms designs and efforts to reinvade and recolonize is a point
that can be argued in the light of the international situation it
is one thing that they don't back the will of the people as
much as they chose allies in the East- West wars fought on
the ground of the non-white colonies. It is another thing that
Anarchy ceases to inflame or take the lead in combating
fascism and imperialism here in North America with the
history of the Wobblies, the western federation of miners and
other groups who have made their mark on history. It is a
denial of our historic task, the betrayal of Anarchists who
died resisting tyranny in the past, malingering in the face of
horrible conditions. It is the theft of an option to the next
generation and forfeiture of our own lives through faint
hearts.

We permit people of other ideologies to define Anarchy
rather than bring our views to the masses and provide
models to show the contrary. We permit corporations to not
only lay off workers and to threaten the balance of workers
while cutting their salaries, but to poison the air and water to
boot. We permit the police, Klan and Nazis to terrorize what-
ever sector of the population they wish without repaying
them back in any kind. In short, by not engaging in mass
organizing and delivering war to the oppressors we become:
Anarchists in name only.

Because Marxists and nationalists ain’t doing this to a large
extent doesn't make it any less a shame. Our inactivity
creates a void that this police state with its reactionary press
and definite goals are filling. The parts of people’s lives
supposedly touched by mass organizing and revolutionary
inspiration that sheds a light that encourages them to unveil
anew day, instead are being manipulated by conditions of
which apathy is no less a part than poisonous uncontested
reactionary propaganda. To those who believe in a
centralized party with a program for the masses this might
mean whatever their subjective analysis permits. But to us
who truly believe in the masses and believe that they should
have their lives in their hands and know that freedom is a
‘habit, this can only mean that we have far to go.

In the aftermath of the Overtown rebellion, the Cuban com-
munity conceded as lost souls by Castro came out clearly in
support of the Black colony. And predictably the Ku Klux
Klan, through an Honorary FBI agent Bill Wilkenson, made
nobones about supporting the rights of businesses and the
business of imperialism. Third World colonies throughout
the United States face genocide and it is time for anarchists to
join the oppressed combat against the oppressors. We must
support in words and actions, self-determination, and
self-defense for third world peoples.

It is beside the point whether Black, Puerto Rican, Native
American and Chicano- Mexicano people endorse
nationalism as a vehicle for self-determination or agree with
anarchism as being the only road to self-determination. As
revolutionaries we must support the will of the masses. It is
not only racism but compliance with the enemy to stand
outside of the social arena and permit America to continue to
practice genocide against the third world captive colonies
because although they resist, they don't agree with us. If we
truly know that Anarchy is the best way of life for all people,
we must promote it, defend it and know that the people who
are as smart as we are will accept it. To expect people-to
accept this, while they are being wiped out as a nation
without allies ready to put out on the line what they already
have on the line is crazy.

Where we live and work, we must Not only escalate discus-
sion and study Groups, we must also organize on the ground
level. The landlords must be contested through rent strikes
and rather than develop strategies to pay the rent, we should
develop strategies to take the buildings. We must not only
recognize the squatters movement for what it is, but support
and embrace it. Set up communes in abandoned buildings,
sell scrap cars and aluminum cans. Turn vacant lots into
gardens. When our children grow out of clothes, we should
have places where we can take them, clearly marked anar-
chist clothing exchanges and have no bones about looking for
clothing there first. And of course we should relearn how to
preserve food; we must learn construction and ways to take
back our lives, help each other move and stay in shape.

Let's keep the American and Canadian flags flying at half

Irefusetobelieve that direct action
hasbeen captured.
Kuwasi Balagoon was a bisexual New Afrikan anarchist,
Black Panther, and Black Liberation Army member
born in 1946 in Maryland. After being radicalized by
race riots in his home state and his expierence serving
in the US Army, he would move to New York and work
with local afrocentrist groups in Harlem. He would
soon join the Black Panther Party and was arrested as
part of the Panther 21 case. He would be imprisioned in
1971 and becoming disillusioned with the Black Panther
Party, begain to look ideologically to anarchism as a
response. This turn would also lead him to join the
Black Liberation Army. He would escape twice before
being captured after the Brinks robbery in1981 and died
from complications from AIDs in prision. His theory,
letters, poems, and life can be found in “A Soldiers
Story.”

“ASoliders Story”
Kuwasi Balagoon

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https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/
kuwasi-balagoon-a-soldier-s-story