A-Infos (en) Spaine, Regeneracion: What was Bring the Ruckus? (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Bring the Ruckus (BTR) was an anarchist organization from the first 
decade of the 21st century (2001-2012) located in the United States. 
They called themselves a cadre organization that participated in mass 
struggles to build dual power. These ideas are similar to those we 
propose from the platformist and especifist positions, but they arrived 
at them independently, without situating themselves within this 
tradition. They coexisted with the platformist Northeastern Federation 
of Anarcho-Communists (NEFAC) and participated in debates with this 
movement.
Bring the Ruckus had a marked anti-racist focus, championing the 
destruction of white supremacy in their nation as an organizational 
priority. They participated in anti-racist and anti-fascist struggles 
from what we would call social integration, seeking to develop global 
strategies based on the militancy and context of each "cadre group" to 
generate dual power. The proposal of this organizing practice from 
outside the platformist/specificist tradition suggests that these types 
of practical approaches do not arise from misinterpretations or the 
voluntarism of a handful of militants, but rather from a global trend 
within organized anarchism to abandon informal and ineffective 
organizational methods.

We present the translation of two of his documents: Bring the Ruckus , 
the text of his organizational proposal, and What is a Cadre 
Organization?, an internal document of his that defines, as its name 
suggests, the concept of a cadre organization.

Bring the Ruckus
By the Ruckus Collective, Phoenix, 2001

In recent years, there has been a growing debate among revolutionaries 
about the need for a national or continental anti-authoritarian 
revolutionary organization. This discussion has arisen in several 
contexts, including the demise of the Love and Rage Revolutionary 
Anarchist Federation , the anti-globalization protests that began in 
Seattle in 1999, and criticisms of the whiteness of the American left 
made primarily by revolutionaries of color. World and national events 
also seem to justify this debate: globalization, the persistence of the 
American racial order, and the bankruptcy of reformist movements on the 
left, right, and center. However, while there is much talk about the 
need for a new organization, steps to build it have been clumsy. Much of 
the talk merely recycles debates about violence and organizational 
structure, while other debates, such as strategy, have been largely 
overlooked.

This document was written with the intention of fostering discussion 
about a new revolutionary organization. The Ruckus Collective (no 
relation to the Ruckus Society) was formed in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1997 
to discuss revolutionary politics at the local and national levels and 
develop revolutionary praxis. Our primary contribution at the local 
level has been the creation of Phoenix Copwatch , which has patrolled 
the streets since early 1999. Several months ago, we began discussing 
the need for a national or continental revolutionary organization. This 
led us to embark on a program of study with the goal of creating a 
proposal for a membership-based national or continental revolutionary 
federation. During this time, we have studied several past revolutionary 
groups, focusing especially on their politics, programs, structures, and 
strategies.

The principles outlined below express the conclusions we have reached so 
far in our study. This is by no means a complete manifesto or political 
declaration. It is simply an outline of the principles we believe a new 
revolutionary organization should adopt. We hope that this document will 
not only contribute to the debate on the structure and policy of a new 
organization, but will help foster the development of such a group.

Neither the vanguard nor the network

A revolutionary organization for the 21st century needs to forge a path 
between the Leninist vanguard party proposed by traditional Marxist 
parties and the fluid "network" model of organization favored by many 
anarchists and activists today. The purpose of a revolutionary 
organization is to act as a cadre-based group that develops policies and 
strategies that contribute to mass movements toward a free society.

It is not a vanguard group. It does not seek to control any organization 
or movement, nor does it claim to be the most advanced sector of a 
struggle and therefore entitled to act in the interests of the masses. 
On the contrary, it assumes that the masses are typically the most 
advanced section of a struggle and that the cadre continually strives to 
learn from and identify with the masses. Simultaneously, a cadre 
organization does not deny its leadership role in broader movements, nor 
does it assume that such leadership is inherently authoritarian. A cadre 
organization does not seek to control any organization or movement, but 
rather to help direct it by providing a radical perspective and 
committed members dedicated to developing its autonomous revolutionary 
potential. A cadre group must debate those policies and strategies that 
best envision and lead to a free society and then strive to enact them 
in mass-oriented organizations and movements.

A cadre group is not an umbrella organization. It does not participate 
in all types of progressive social activism. Instead, a cadre group 
seeks out, helps develop, and supports those forms of agitation that 
undermine the dominance of established society and in some way prefigure 
the new society. In other words, the organization would not actively 
support any type of activism, but only those struggles that hold the 
potential to build dual power. We imagine that a revolutionary 
organization of this kind would be for contemporary movements what the 
FAI was for the CNT in Spain or the First International was for European 
workers' movements: a membership organization of like-minded people 
committed to developing and fostering the autonomous revolutionary 
tendencies of our current society.

A democratic structure

In the proposed organization, all power and authority must be 
transparent, accountable, democratically distributed, and effective. We 
believe the structure of the new organization should be based on the 
following principles:

1. Direct democracy . All members must have an equal voice in matters 
affecting the organization. Unlike democratic centralism, this would 
include the right to freely express disagreement with decisions made by 
the majority. This type of democracy does not mean that a minority 
faction can overturn the decisions of the majority, which often occurs 
in loose network structures (i.e., consensus processes).

2. Membership . The organization must be a membership organization. Only 
members should make decisions and act on behalf of the organization. The 
organization should be controlled only by those who are committed to it. 
Membership criteria should be clearly established, along with criteria 
for suspending or expelling members who violate the organization's 
principles. Membership criteria should include political and financial 
commitments to the organization.

3. Local nuclei . The group must be organized into local nuclei. One 
criterion for membership would be to join a local nucleus or form one if 
one doesn't exist.

4. Effectiveness and Accountability . A democratic means of making and 
implementing decisions must be established. Members who fail to fulfill 
their responsibilities must be held accountable.

Against the white race

The priority of the proposed organization must be to destroy white 
supremacy. White supremacy is a system that grants those who define 
themselves as "white" special privileges in American society, such as 
preferential access to the best schools, neighborhoods, jobs, and 
healthcare; greater advantages in accumulating wealth; a lower 
likelihood of being incarcerated; and better treatment by the police and 
the judicial system. In exchange for these privileges, whites agree to 
police the rest of the population through means such as slavery and 
segregation in the past, and through formally "colorblind" policies and 
practices today, which continue to maintain white advantage. Thus, white 
supremacy unites a segment of the working class with the ruling class 
against the rest of the working class. This class alliance is the main 
obstacle to a revolution in the United States, strategically speaking. 
And, given US imperial power, its consequences are global.

The central task of a new organization should be to break this unnatural 
alliance between the ruling class and the white working class by 
attacking the system of white privilege and the subordination of people 
of color. This is not to say that white supremacy is the "worst" form of 
oppression in this country, nor that if white supremacy disappears, all 
other forms of oppression will magically disappear. Rather, it is a 
strategic argument, based on an analysis of American history, designed 
to attack the American Death Star at its weakest point. White supremacy 
has been the cement that has held the American state together; 
dissolving that cement opens up revolutionary possibilities.

Against the state

The proposed organization must be anti-statist. The function of the 
state is 1) to perpetuate the rule of the oppressor class and 2) to 
maintain its own power. Therefore, it has nothing to do with a free 
society and must be abolished. A revolutionary strategy seeks to 
undermine the state by developing a dual-power strategy. A dual-power 
strategy is one that directly challenges the institutions of power and 
at the same time, in some way, prefigures the new institutions we 
envision. A dual-power strategy not only opposes the state but also 
prepares us for the difficult issues that will arise in a revolutionary 
situation.

The organization must also support the principle of self-determination, 
or the right of people to control their own lives and destinies. 
Self-determination movements have often embraced the politics of 
nationalism. Anarchists have traditionally rejected nationalism as a 
tool of oppression. We recognize that anti-statism and nationalism are 
often contradictory tendencies, as nationalism typically supports the 
creation of nation-states. However, nationalism has also been a 
liberating force in world history, especially in the struggle against 
colonialism. Thus, despite their contradictions, anti-authoritarian 
revolutionaries cannot reject nationalist struggles outright. The task 
is to develop anti-statist tendencies within nationalist movements, not 
to denounce the struggles of oppressed peoples because they take a 
nationalist form.

A feminist organization

Every new organization must be explicitly feminist, in several ways. 
First, a revolutionary organization must have a radical feminist 
analysis of our society that questions male domination, compulsory 
heterosexuality, and the bipolar gender system that forces human beings 
into the categories of "man" and "woman" and "masculine" and "feminine." 
Second, its internal workings (organizational structure, allocation of 
leadership positions, meeting procedures, debate habits, etc.) must 
ensure the participation of women and be acutely aware of practices that 
tend to favor men's voices over women's. Third, it must be committed to 
feminist political work, particularly those kinds of agitation that 
connect struggles against sexism with struggles against white supremacy. 
Finally, a revolutionary organization needs a feminist vision. It must 
imagine a world not only without sexism and homophobia, but in which 
gender relations are completely transformed. To do this, it must foster 
resistance to male/female gender boundaries and encourage people to 
criticize and explore their desires rather than repress them.

Strategy

The proposed federation must recognize that political theory, however 
strong, can achieve little if not combined with an effective strategy. 
The actions undertaken by the organization, its participation in mass 
movements, and its public statements must be determined on a strategic 
basis. Our work should focus on engaging in movements and activism where 
there is the possibility of working toward building dual power. The 
social reforms achieved by progressive movements may be important, but 
if they do not contribute to building dual power, they are not the 
concern of a revolutionary organization. For example, animal liberation 
is a worthy cause. However, it is difficult to imagine how a campaign 
for animal liberation could threaten state power and prefigure a new 
society. Therefore, while a revolutionary organization might applaud 
animal liberation activities, it would not devote energy to animal 
rights. On the other hand, a program to create local Copwatch groups 
could be a double-edged sword: controlling the police weakens the power 
of the state by making it harder for them to impose their class and 
racial norms, while at the same time anticipating a society where 
ordinary people take charge of the safety of their communities.

Therefore, campaigns developed by the organization that do not 
contribute to building dual power must be abandoned. If a popular 
protest movement has little chance of building dual power, it is not one 
in which we should collectively engage. We may morally and politically 
approve of such movements, but as a small group with limited resources, 
we must reject the liberalism of reformist activism and focus on 
revolutionary strategy.

Vision

One of the great failings of modern radical organizations has been the 
inability to offer a solid vision of a new society. We are able to say 
what we are against, but rarely what we are for. One of the goals of a 
revolutionary organization is to offer people a vision of a world worth 
fighting for. This lack of vision is one of the reasons why radicals 
have historically failed to win the working class to their politics. 
Unfortunately, the fascist right has not failed in this task; they offer 
a clear vision of the world they want to create. If we continue to fail 
to offer a vision of our own, we cannot hope to win people to 
revolutionary politics.

Bring the Ruckus

This proposal is the product of our readings and discussions about 
various radical organizations and movements over the past year, ranging 
from works produced by Black liberation struggles, women's liberation, 
abolitionists, and classical and contemporary revolutionary anarchism. 
The praxis addressed also draws on our experience with grassroots 
political work, particularly in Phoenix Copwatch .

What is a cadre organization?
By Joel Olson

The purpose of an organization like Bring the Ruckus may not be clear to 
some observers or readers of our website. This article aims to explain 
Ruckus's purpose and role in the struggle to build a free society. I 
originally wrote it for the 2005 Ruckus national conference.

What is a group of paintings?

A cadre organization is a group of committed and active revolutionary 
intellectuals who share a common policy and who come together to develop 
revolutionary thought and practice and test it in struggle. By "active," 
I mean someone who participates in political struggle, not a mere book 
reader. By "intellectual," I don't mean someone with a college degree, 
but someone who is seriously and continuously committed to understanding 
the world in order to act in it more effectively.

A cadre group is not a mass group like Janitors for Justice , Critical 
Resistance , Copwatch , or Communities United , although its members 
should actively participate in such groups. Nor does it claim to lead 
these groups, although its members can assume leadership roles if 
necessary. It does not seek to co-opt or use these groups for its own 
ends (that would be a front group), although it certainly participates 
democratically in the struggles to define their purpose and direction. 
Rather, a cadre group seeks to participate in the mass struggles that 
have the greatest potential to shatter this society, and it seeks to 
make those struggles as radical and democratic as possible.

What is the purpose of a group of paintings?

The goal of a cadre group is to foster the development of a 
revolutionary working class in the United States. A cadre group seeks to 
understand the world in which it lives, identify the forces within it 
that are radically struggling, and develop those forces in a manner 
consistent with the cadre group's policy.

Marx argues in the Communist Manifesto that the purpose of a cadre group 
is to radicalize and internationalize the struggles of the working 
class. That is, a cadre group should help the working class of one 
region connect its struggle with the struggles of other regions, as well 
as overcome religious, ethnic, and other distinctions that prevent 
working-class unity. A cadre group should also help demonstrate to the 
working class the intrinsically radical nature of its actions, which 
might otherwise appear reformist (such as the fight to reduce the 
workday to ten hours).

For CLR James, the purpose of a cadre organization is to "observe and 
record." That is, it must observe the struggles of the working class and 
record them (through a newspaper) so that the working class can see for 
itself what it is doing and the radical nature of its struggle.

I think Marx and James are essentially correct, except I would add that 
a cadre group should also participate in those struggles we believe have 
the greatest revolutionary potential. Thus, the function of a cadre 
group like the BTR is to observe, record, and participate in 
working-class struggles that have the potential to achieve a free world.

What is the role of political analysis in a cadre group?

A cadre group exists first and foremost for the benefit of 
revolutionaries. Its purpose is to organize revolutionaries, not the 
masses. (Organizing mass movements is the task of larger grassroots 
organizations, in which members of the cadre organization must 
participate.) Its benefit to ordinary people and non-revolutionary 
activists is indirect at best, at least until the barricades are lifted 
and people actively seek new ideas and ways of organizing the world. 
Thus, a cadre group seeks to develop a political line and the politics 
of its members in the service of the revolutionary struggle. The 
politics of a cadre group today must involve the expansion of democracy 
to every aspect of a person's life and a radical rejection of capitalism 
and the state. The state is not a path to a classless society, but an 
obstacle to be crushed. This politics is explained, more or less, in our 
statement " Bring the Ruckus ."

What strategies does a group of cadres develop?

A friend of mine, when he gives talks, tells people to imagine that 
capitalism is the Death Star and we are the rebels. We are outnumbered 
and outgunned, so we can't confront the Death Star directly. Faced with 
this situation, what do we do? We have to find the weakest point in the 
system and concentrate our attack there, he argues. This is exactly what 
a group of cadres must do. A group of cadres, then, seeks to develop a 
strategy that can make the most of a crisis in capitalism.

The cadre group attempts to find and exploit cracks in the system and 
fill them with the seeds of a new society. In other words, a cadre group 
must try to devise and implement strategies that can build dual power.

As the " Bring the Ruckus " statement states , dual power strategies are 
"those forms of agitation that undermine the dominance of official 
society and in some way prefigure the new society." More simply put, 
dual power is a situation in which two (or more) social forces assert 
power over the same territory and are capable of fighting over it. Such 
a situation is obviously unstable and quickly leads to conflict. When 
this conflict becomes prolonged, it culminates in civil war-revolution.

The Six Ruckus Criteria guide our dual power strategies. We work to 
build dual power by attacking white supremacy and thus disrupting the 
cross-class alliance and its "wage of whiteness" that present the 
central obstacle to working-class unity in the United States.

How does a painting relate to the grassroots movements?

A cadre organization seeks to participate in those grassroots (or 
"mass") struggles it believes have the greatest revolutionary potential, 
based on the cadre's political analysis. At the national level, a cadre 
organization develops and implements dual-power strategies involving its 
members across the country. At the local level, local cadres participate 
in grassroots struggles that fit into the national strategy, debate 
their effectiveness at local meetings, report back to the national 
organization, and attempt to move the grassroots struggle in a radical 
direction in accordance with these debates. Let me give two examples, 
one at the national level and one at the local level.

The Love & Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation , which existed from 
1992 to 1998, defined three areas of work with revolutionary potential. 
One of these was anti-fascist political work. L&R created a national 
Anti-Fascist Working Group to engage in this struggle. This WG 
determined that the best place to do anti-fascist work was within a 
grassroots organization called Anti-Racist Action. Thus, the WG asked 
Love and Rage members to join ARA and conduct anti-fascist work within 
it. L&R's role was to participate in this work and attempt to steer it 
in radical directions. L&R members did not assume leadership of ARA 
unless they had earned it, and they did not seek to "control" ARA. A 
commitment to grassroots organizing work and to participating 
democratically distinguishes a cadre from a front group.

An example of how a local cadre works can be found in the relationship 
between Phoenix Ruckus and Phoenix Copwatch . Phoenix BTR launched 
Copwatch in 1998, but once Copwatch was up and running, BTR relinquished 
control and Copwatch became an independent organization. BTR members now 
participate in Copwatch as Copwatch members , and any leadership 
positions come from that participation, not from being in Ruckus . 
Phoenix Ruckus frequently discusses Copwatch at its meetings, trying to 
come up with ways to improve Copwatch 's work and its revolutionary 
potential. Phoenix Ruckus also reports back to the national 
organization. Phoenix Ruckus should also be communicating regularly with 
other Bring the Ruckus anti-police agitators nationally, brainstorming 
tactics and strategy. Based on these discussions, if Phoenix BTR has an 
idea about how to take Copwatch in a more effective and radical 
direction, they bring it to a Copwatch meeting and put it up for 
discussion and a vote.

Phoenix BTR participates in Copwatch rather than, say, Food Not Bombs , 
because it thinks Copwatch has more potential to lead to a situation of 
dual power than any other form of political work in Phoenix . Copwatch 
challenges the authority of the state, obstructs the function of the 
police (preserving the dominance of color and class), and prefigures a 
society in which ordinary people take responsibility for ensuring the 
safety of their communities. Phoenix BTR (at least in its more hopeful 
moments) believes that, given the right confluence of social forces (and 
a good dash of luck), Copwatch has the potential to become the kind of 
wedge that could create and generalize anti-police rebellions like LA '92.

Many Love and Rage members didn't have a clear understanding of the 
purpose of a cadre organization and, therefore, of L&R's purpose. This 
contributed to L&R's collapse, particularly in Minneapolis. Therefore, 
it's essential that Ruckus members have a firm understanding of our 
organization's purpose.

The paintings and the revolution

A cadre group should not attempt to "lead the revolution." Its task is 
to bring to light the revolutionary tendencies that already exist in 
society. A cadre group will not initiate a revolution. It will rarely 
lead one. But even if its members never live to see revolutionary times 
(e.g., Love and Rage ) and even if its members work in relative 
obscurity (e.g., the Sojourner Truth Organization ), it can play an 
indispensable role in preparing people for a protracted struggle against 
the state.

To put it mildly, the role of a group like Ruckus in non-revolutionary 
times (which I believe we live in today) is to be a crouching tiger, 
waiting for a social crisis (such as a depression or a new civil rights 
movement) to erupt and challenge the legitimacy and stability of the 
state. When this happens, the group will exploit the instability for 
revolutionary purposes.

As the Bring the Ruckus statement states , a revolutionary organization 
"does not seek to control any organization or movement, nor does it 
consider itself the vanguard of any struggle with the right to act on 
behalf of the masses. On the contrary, it assumes that the masses are 
often the vanguard and that cadres must learn from them and stand in 
solidarity with them. At the same time, a cadre organization does not 
deny its leadership role in larger movements, nor does it assume that 
such leadership is inherently authoritarian. Its aim is not to control, 
but to guide by providing a radical vision and members committed to 
developing their autonomous revolutionary potential."

1. Copwatch is a network of local organizations in the United States. 
Their work involves patrolling local communities to monitor and record 
police interactions with the public, with the aim of preventing police 
abuse. In Phoenix, they formed from an anti-racist perspective to 
monitor racial profiling of police stops following the passage of 
Arizona Senate Bill 1070, which allows police to question anyone they 
identify as a suspected illegal immigrant .

https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2025/07/14/que-fue-bring-the-ruckus/
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