Sullivan, David

David Sullivan (19xx-1006) spent his youth engaged in progressive and radical politics in New York City. His parents were both liberal Democrats and his father was a professor of Psychology at New York University. Sullivan attended PS 41 for junior high and enrolled in high school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan at Seward Park High School; he was an activist in both schools. During high school, the anti-Vietnam war movement was ablaze in New York City and around the country. Sullivan considered himself on the left-wing, anti-imperialist end of the movement. In 1967 when Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at Riverside Church in New York, Sullivan was a marshal for the 5th Avenue Peace Parade Committee. He affiliated himself with the Youth Against War and Fascism and helped to found the Seward Park Peace and Freedom Coalition. Sullivan was also active in the high school student union and published a student paper. Additionally, he acted as a "scout" during the Spring Mobilization for Peace activities of 1968, where he rode his bike around Washington Square Park and used pay phones to spread information on the whereabouts of the police. Sullivan was eventually arrested in Washington Square.

When King was assassinated in April 1968, Sullivan was attending an anti-war meeting. He immediately produced a leaflet in support of the MLK memorial and organized students at his school to go. Sullivan marched to the principle’s office demanding that the school be shut down for the memorial. When the principle declined, the students marched out anyway. Sullivan continued to be involved in radical politics throughout his time in high school. Acting as part of a liberated school at Seward Park that was established during the Teacher's Union strike of 1969, Sullivan was arrested again.

David Sullivan attended college in Yellow Springs, Ohio at Antioch College. He was involved with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and continued to be an anti-war, anti-imperialist activist. Sullivan, however, like many students grew disillusioned with the youth movement and turned to the teachings of Marx, Lenin, and Mao. SDS was going through massive splits at the time. One splinter group of SDS was the Revolutionary Youth Movement II, known as RYM-II. RYM-II eventually fractured into two major groups, one led by Mike Klonsky was the October League, the other led by Bob Avakian was known as the Bay Area Revolutionary Union.

The David Sullivan U.S. Maoism Collection consists of the internal and public documents of four organizations central to the Marxist-Leninist tradition in the United States: the Revolutionary Union, the Revolutionary Communist Party, The Revolutionary Workers Headquarters, and the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist). Sullivan was involved with the groups following his work with SDS at Antioch. These organizations have origins in the student activism of the late 1960s. The relationships between the four organizations are filled with splits and mergers, which are outlined throughout the collection.

The origins of the Revolutionary Union (RU) lay with the formation of the Bay Area Revolutionary Union (BARU) in 1968 by Bob Avakian and Steve Hamilton. BARU had units in San Francisco, Oakland-Berkeley, Richmond, and Palo Alto, California. The group initiated the Richmond Workers Committee, which played a support role during the Standard Oil strike of 1969. In the early 1970s, the BARU wanted to grow into a larger, more nationalized organization and went on a United States tour to gain membership. Sullivan found out about the RU through this tour; he joined a collective of the Revolutionary Union in Ohio circa the early 1970s. Sullivan then went to work for ALCOA Steel Corporation in Cleveland as part of his work with the RU.

The Revolutionary Union in the East Coast helped to form the November 4th Coalition, which organized an anti-imperialist demonstration in New York City in 1973. The RU also helped to run a workers conference the following year in March. The group continued to act throughout the 1970s, for instance on campaigns against Nixon, such as the "Throw the Bum Out" campaign, but also on the national energy crisis and with postal workers in an organization called Outlaw.

The RU, through its district and national bulletins, focused on developing a central task for the organization. The Revolutionary Union was concerned not only with developing this central task but also the methodology through which it was achieved. Through these bulletins the RU wrote extensively on summing up campaigns and putting forth political lines. Important issues for the Revolutionary Union included trade union organizing, black liberation, the national question, the international situation, and building a United Front Against Imperialism. They produced the widely circulated Red Papers, which functioned as a theoretical journal for Marxist-Leninists.

In 1975, the Revolutionary Union founded the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). This new formation was in line with the Union's central task of party building. Bob Avakian continued to be a leading figure within the RCP. The RCP supported the domestic and foreign policies of the People's Republic of China until Mao's death in 1976. They opposed what they saw as revisionist, social imperialist policies of the Soviet Union.

Two years after the 1976 overthrow of the Gang of Four in China, the RCP split. The majority, led by Avakian, felt that the Chinese government had adopted revisionist policies, while the minority, which supported the present regime of the Chinese Communist Party, established the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters.

In the mid-1970s, the Party opposed busing, affirmative action, and black nationalism, believing them to be non-revolutionary policies. To demonstrate against U.S. expansionist policies they briefly occupied the Alamo. They were instrumental in the organization of the National United Workers Organization and the Unemployed Workers Organizing Committee. In the late 1970s, the RCP shifted its concentration from heavy industry toward youth and immigrant workers. In 1982, after a three-year court battle, 17 members, the Mao Tsetung Defendants, were acquitted of felony charges for alleged violence at a demonstration in Washington, D.C. In 1989 the RCP won a supreme court ruling that flag burning falls under protection of the first amendment. Since 1975, they have published The Worker .

The Revolutionary Workers Headquarters (RWH) formed a minority faction within the RCP, disagreeing with leadership in the RCP over the politics and policies of the Chinese Communist Party. The RWH officially separated from the RCP in 1977, as announced in their publication, Voices of the Rebellion . The RWH was involved in much the same struggles as the RCP, concerned with organizing workers and the unemployed, and forming an anti-imperialist revolutionary organization. They too focused on the national question and the international situation. Much of their work, as reflected in the material, pertained to uniting Marxist-Leninists, believed to be a central task of revolutionaries. They had merger negotiations with the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), the Proletarian Unity League, the Bay Area Communist Union, and the League of Revolutionary Struggle.

The Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) (CPML), originally known as the October League, was founded in 1971. Michael Klonsky, active with Students for a Democratic Society, was a primary figure of the CPML. The Party published the influential and widely read newspaper, The Call . The central task of the October League was party building and uniting Marxist-Leninists in a united front against imperialism. They engaged in lengthy merger talks with the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters during the late 1970s and into the 1980s.

David Sullivan, though not directly involved with every organization represented in the collection, became a repository for materials related to the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist tradition. Various individuals and organizations donated their papers to him. These, along with material he created and collected, make up the bulk of the collection.

From the guide to the David Sullivan U.S. Maoism Collection, Bulk, 1970-1982, 1918-2006, bulk 1970-1982, (Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive)