Heavy Radicals: The Fbi's Secret War on America's Maoists: The Revolutionary Union / Revolutionary Communist Party 1968-1980

Heavy Radicals: The FBI's Secret War on America's Maoists is a history of the Revolutionary Union/Revolutionary Communist Party - the largest Maoist organization to arise in the US - from its origins in the explosive year of 1968, its expansion into a national organization in the early '70s, its extension into major industry throughout the early part of that decade, and the devastating schism in the aftermath of the death of Mao Tse-tung to its ultimate decline as the 1970s turned into the 1980s. From its beginnings the grouping was the focus of J. Edgar Hoover and other top FBI officials for an unrelenting array of operations: Informant penetration, setting organizations against each other, setting up phony communist collectives for infiltration and disruption, planting of phone taps and microphones in apartments, break-ins to steal membership lists, the use of FBI 'friendly journalists' such as Victor Riesel and Ed Montgomery to undermine the group, and much more. It is the story of a sizable section of the radicalized youth whose radicalism did not disappear at the end of the '60s, and of the FBI's largest - and, up to now, untold - campaign against it.

Author: Aaron J. Leonard
Publisher: Zero Books
Published: 11/01/2022
Pages: 392
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 8.43h x 5.51w x 0.79d
ISBN13: 9781803413174
ISBN10: 1803413174
BISAC Categories:
- History | United States | 20th Century
- Political Science | Intelligence & Espionage
- Political Science | Political Ideologies | Communism, Post-Communism & Socialism

About the Author
Aaron Leonard is a writer and historian. He publishes regularly in Truthout.org, Rabble.ca, History News Network, and Physics World. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Conor Gallagher is a researcher and educator from Brooklyn, New York. He currently lives with his wife Michelle in China where he teaches history.