A Spokesman for the People: in Conversation with William F. Buckley

a spokesman for the people: in conversation with William F. Buckley, February 11, 1973

(The following interview was broadcast on the Public Television program Firing Line.)

BUCKLEY: Will you explain your concept of revolutionary suicide?

HUEY: . . . if I may impose upon you, I’ll answer your question, but first, I have a friend who is almost dying for me to ask this question: During the Revolution of 1776, when the United States of America broke away from England, which side would you have been on?

BUCKLEY: I think probably I would have been on the side of George Washington. I’m not absolutely sure because it remains to be established historically whether what we sought to prove at that point might not have been proved by more peaceful means. On the whole, I’m against revolutions, although I think that that revolution will go clown as a pretty humane one.

HUEY: You’re not such a bad guy after all. My friend will be surprised to hear that.

BUCKLEY: His assumption was what?

HUEY: He was puzzled. He was inclined to believe that you’d have been on the side of the colonizers. But I’m pleased with your answer, and I agree with you. The only revolution that’s worth fighting is a humane revolution.

BUCKLEY: Also, one that succeeds.

HUEY: Yes, eventually.

BUCKLEY: I feel that if King George had captured George Washington, he’d have had the right to hang him.

HUEY: According to law.

BUCKLEY: Yes.

HUEY: But revolutions always in some ways contradict some laws. That’s why it’s called revolution.

BUCKLEY: Well, revolutionary justice is its own justice, isn’t it?

HUEY: Yes. Of course it always professes to go under some human right or humane consideration. I think we can judge revolutions on the basis of how much in fact, objectively, people are dealt with in a fair way and are given more freedom. One of my principles is that contradiction is the ruling principle of the universe, that every phenomenon, whether it’s in the physical world, the biological world, or the social world, has its internal contradiction that gives motion to things, that internal strain. Much of the time we Homo sapiens don’t realize that no matter what conditions we establish, no matter what government we establish, there will also be that internal contradiction that will have to be resolved-and resolved in a rational and just way. Of course that’s very vague. Many times we claim actions are revolutionary when really they’re not. So I appreciate your answer, and would agree with that part of it.

BUCKLEY: Which part?

HUEY: That the only revolution that is worthwhile, and is a real revolution, and that succeeds, is a humane revolution ….

BUCKLEY: Otherwise it’s called an insurrection or a mutiny.

HUEY: Or a rebellion, or riot.

BUCKLEY: As I understand it, the generally accepted test of the integrity of a revolution is whether it is established once it has taken place, if the people truly support it.

HUEY: A revolution cannot succeed without the people’s support. Changes in authority can be successful, but I think we’d have to have a functional definition, we’d have to stipulate what we mean by revolution.

BUCKLEY: Well, there are revolutions every two or three months in Latin America without the people getting involved at all.

HUEY: I’d probably call that a coup d’etat. But, by way of definition, I’d reject your definition, but I appreciate your calling a coup d’etat a revolution. I can function with that.

BUCKLEY: Fine, and if you want to call a popular revolution a popular revolution, please call it a popular revolution.

HUEY: I’d have to say that revolution would have to be popular or else I wouldn’t label it a revolution. So really, we’re just dealing in the semantics of what a revolution is made of. We won’t have to belabor that. Any rebellion that establishes a new authority, if you would like to call that a revolution, then I could entertain it because it’s just a word anyway. In governments, changes in relationships between people and authority and institutions, I’d say many forms are taken . . .

BUCKLEY: What would you call the thing that ousted King Farouk?

HUEY: I wouldn’t call it a revolution.

BUCKLEY: Even though an entirely new order was brought in?

HUEY: Yes. With coup d’etat it’s common that an entirely new order is brought in.

BUCKLEY: Not necessarily. Sometimes a coup d’etat takes away one colonel and puts in another colonel.

HUEY: Sometimes. But other times a coup d’etat establishes an entirely different relationship between the institutions and the people in a particular place.

BUCKLEY: In which case it’s revolutionary.

HUEY: I said I could function with that definition, if you insist. But to me, revolution carries a special connotation. Of course this is only my subjective feeling about it. If I have to distinguish between those changes of power, in my own way of thinking, I would call one a flower and the other a skunk.

BUCKLEY: I grant that you have considerable authority in your movement. But I’m not sure that you have the authority to impose your own terminology.

HUEY: I agree that your definition is not necessarily a lexical definition. I already granted that if you wanted to stipulate that as the definition of revolution, I’ll entertain it. . . . I’m not attempting to stipulate a new definition. There are authorities I could cite that would call a revolution a very special thing. One authority would be the scholar philosopher Chairman Mao Tse-tung. He would only call a people’s movement, and the overthrow of the authority by the proletarians, a revolution. But I wouldn’t support Chairman Mao against you in saying that that is the only definition. Unfortunately, with the English language or rather the American language (that’s a little different from the English language) it, (revolution), becomes a pretty vague thing. You have so many lexical definitions that directly contradict each other. I don’t think we should belabor our audience who has the authority to define a particular phenomenon.

BUCKLEY: As you no doubt know, the word people, the term popular support, is used by Chairman Mao, as you refer to him in your book, with some sense of proprietorship. That is to say, he always talks about “the people.” But the people are in fact never consulted about anything. They have never been consulted about Chairman Mao, about any of his regulations, or about any of his foreign policy.

HUEY: I differ with you. I think that too much of the time, because of our cultural differences, we only consider being consulted within the scope of what we feel being consulted is. For instance, in the West, as well as in Latin America, people say there’s no democracy in Cuba because they’ re not putting the ballot in the box. So therefore people are not consulted. On the other hand, Fidel Castro says that the people are consulted in an even more severe way; that the authority is put to the acid test. The acid test is that for a long time the people can be fooled, but they can’t be fooled and misused all of the time. The test would be the doom of authority through armed revolution. That is the way the people are consulted in the final analysis.

BUCKLEY: I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t think you do either.

HUEY: Well, you can only speak for yourself. I’ll be more clear. I’m going to explain a principle. The principle is how the people are consulted in a democratic society. I’m saying that Westerners have a particular definition of what democracy is about, and I can appreciate that definition. Here in the West it is felt that the only time the people are given democratic rights is when they can put the ballot in the box. You vote for a particular person within a particular framework. What I’m saying is that sometimes people are heard, people participate, and it could be called democracy, because what matters is who defines democracy. In the West much of the time if you’re no allowed to vote by putting the ballot in the box and choosing an administrative person, if this does not take place, then in the West, we’re inclined to say there’s no democracy. This is not necessarily true, if democracy is defined as all of the people getting a fair share and a fair deal of whatever wealth there is and some control over their administrators. But here you can only vote within the scope of the definition of the institutions and the authorities that control them.

BUCKLEY: Democracy consists not only of being permitted to vote but in being permitted to organize an opposition so as to discover whether people are latently on your side. There is no practice of democracy, as commonly understood, in Cuba. The assumption that an organization is democratic or otherwise the leader would be overthrown is naive.

HUEY: There’s one fallacy in what I think you would consider a democracy. You could only organize in opposition within the scope defined by the authorities that have control anyway. And this is true in the socialist society as well as in the capitalist society.

BUCKLEY: Give me an example.

HUEY: The example is this: In this society you are not allowed to organize in opposition against the authority through armed resistance with intent to overthrow the government.

BUCKLEY: We call that rebellion.

HUEY: By law. But you’ve already agreed that if you had lived in 1776, you probably would have chosen Washington. This definitely would have been against the law. I’m saying that when we talk about organizing opposition against government in this world, nothing that I know about has the audacity at this point to allow anyone to organize in opposition against the authority any way they like.

BUCKLEY, I don’t understand you. If you want to organize in opposition in the U.S. short of killing people-

HUEY: Hold it right there. “Short of killing people.” Why do you say that?

BUCKLEY: Well, because those are the rules.

HUEY: That’s just what I’m saying, You have to operate within a limited scope.

BUCKLEY, The rules of democracy are that the art of persuasion has to be practiced short of assassination.

HUEY: I understand that. There is also the same principle operating in socialist or communist countries.

BUCKLEY: Give me an example, where?

HUEY: Well, let’s choose the People’s Republic of China.

BUCKLEY, Tell me one authority on-

HUEY: We could start with Chou En-lai. I spoke with him in the People’s Republic of China. I had six hours of private talks with him, and I had many hours of talks with responsible members of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. I was shocked. I suddenly realized how brainwashed I had been by Western thought. As I sat there, it was said that all state administrations are oppressive to someone. And he started to explain that the capitalist state, that the people who own the capital, are a minority; they oppress the majority through exploitation. He said that in the national state, sometimes a whole nation will oppress the rest of the world with their state national administration, so they’re still a minority oppressing the majority of the world’s people, the way the Hitler regime attempted to do, and the way this [American] regime attempts to do. What I thought was so shocking was that he said,

“While you have state administration, we expropriate from the people. If the people in this country earn ten dollars an hour, we only give them eight. The difference between us and the capitalist state is that our expropriation is different. We don’t have private ownership, so we would give the two dollars that we expropriated from the people back for their own welfare. The capitalist state gives it to themselves, into their pockets. Therefore, the people are still not free as we would like. However, we work for the dissolution of a State- for our own disappearance.”

When he said that, I realized that he was saying that he is working for the end of the communist regime in China. I thought that was very honest. That was a statement that led me to believe that if he’s working for the dissolution of the state, then opposition could arise to work to wither away territorial boundary lines.

BUCKLEY, I’m attempting to pin down a point and I’m losing track of it. I said, “Who agrees with you?” and you said “Chou En-lai.” And then you proceeded to tell me what Chou En-lai said to you.

HUEY: I can tell you of other people: Comrade Tung, Comrade Li; you wouldn’t know the difference. I named a person that you’re probably familiar with. They say that you’re well read and you are conscious of world events, so I only named one of the officials in China so that you could identity him. I doubt if you’ve been to the villages, the countryside of China. Have you?

BUCKLEY, Yes, I did go. Are you aware of the messages that Chou En-lai sent to Allende [the president of Chile]?

HUEY, Yes, I saw the letter

BUCKLEY, And you remember that he said that he does not believe that Marxism can be ushered in by a parliamentary democracy? You know that Chou En-Iai, in that particular statement, said that he does not believe in the right to organize an opposition that is contrary to the dialectics of Marxism.

HUEY: I would like to make this clear, for the audience and for you: I don’t know about Chou En-lai, but I’m not a Marxist. I think the whole concept that Marx tried to lay down as a scholar, a historian, a philosopher, has been distorted. People became priests of Marx. I am not. I think that Marx was a scientist. He tried to point out a very advanced method of analyzing phenomena; it is called dialectical materialism. You can’t usher in dialectical materialism because that is the whole order and process of the universe. In other words, I explained one of the principles, that contradiction is the ruling principle of the universe; it gives motion to matter.

Contradictions based upon internal strife seem to give it the ability to move and to be transformed. Societies, people, and my fellow revolutionaries, who think that you can usher in a social order through any sort of ideological proclamation are very wrong. The society itself strains itself to fight against colonialism, such as America did with England. After that a situation arises with workers, unions. There is the struggle against the owners of the factories, and you can come up with another type of order, which is much different from the formalities of the ballot. You don’t know where it’s really going to progress to until you become such a scientist of the people that you can harness the forces that are in operation and set them in a direction that is most desirable.

BUCKLEY: Why don’t we get a little more concrete, if you don’t mind; let’s talk about the Black Panther movement.

HUEY: I like to argue theory with you probably better than factual things.

BUCKLEY: I’m a little more interested in factual things.

HUEY: I think you’re very fictitious. I was inclined to believe that you were a thinker, somewhat of a scholar, and a theoretician, but I’m usually wrong about those sort of things

BUCKLEY: I’m also a yachtsman, which doesn’t mean that we’re here to discuss boats

HUEY: I don’t know anything about the facts of boats, I couldn’t talk to you about that, but I know something about theory.

BUCKLEY: Let’s talk about your Party. Why did you feel it necessary to expel Eldridge Cleaver?

HUEY: He was not expelled. He left the Party, and we thought that it was a good time for him to leave because in organizations, parties, companies, there are very bright, articulate people. They often have great influence upon others, and people are impressed. When a person comes in who is articulate, bright, and eloquent, and because of the oppression he’s gone through, he becomes somewhat sick, his great influence over the whole administration can lead the whole organization down the drain.

BUCKLEY, By doing what? What was it that “lead you down the drain”?

HUEY: Well, when the Party started in October 1966, in Oakland, we had the occasion, as a strategy, to arm ourselves in a police-alert patrol. We followed the police, we were very careful to follow city ordinances, gun regulations, state law, and our constitutional rights. But we realized that it wasn’t the principle of revolution or the armed principle of our Party, to take the gun and make the gun the only thing that could fight a revolution. So, it was a strategy that was mistaken after I went to prison.

We realized that we had to treat the issues that the people were most concerned about. After I went to prison, with this influence, and much of the respect that I personally gave him, he led us astray. So, it was my fault also. The media enjoyed the sensationalism of the gun. In many ways, we set ourselves up for the murder we received. We had to deal with the objective situation to see what changes could be made; the changes I saw that I could support, because there are some changes that I don’t support, and I wouldn’t call them revolutionary changes. I’m not a leader, I’m an organizer.

BUCKLEY, So you think that your organizing talent would result in a victory over Eldridge Cleaver, not your theoretical ability.

HUEY: Well, if Eldridge Cleaver was able hypothetically to organize the people, then that would mean that history would denounce me and justify him, or history would justify my way of doing things, or my influence in the Party, because really it’s the Party that really makes things move. I’m influential, and I have a vote, and my vote is probably worth more influence than many other comrades, but I work for that to be changed, as they become more organized, more clear, and gather expertise in organizing.

It wouldn’t be a fight. I can’t conceive of a fight between Eldridge and myself for leadership or anything. If the Party said that they think that Eldridge Cleaver is correct, then I’ll bow out. The biggest problem is that I don’t think that Eldridge will come back. But, hypothetically, if he were to come back, I think the media would drop him quickly, because we have an affectionate name for him: we call him an M.F., or media freak. The media created this kind of ghost split that supposedly occurred within the Party. They listened to him and then give a kind of credence to Eldridge Cleaver as a representative of a small Party or large faction. But we can’t ever find any small cult, Party, or anything. However, as soon as the news reporters come in and put the cameras up and start talking, they have created what I call a media organization. It’s a little different than a paper organization, but we live in a pushbutton world now.

BUCKLEY: Well, given your organizing talent and your theoretical position, why is that?

HUEY: No, I said I would like to think of myself somewhat as an organizer with some expertise, but I’m not very good really. If I were good, America would be changed tomorrow, or yesterday, but we’re still struggling on precinct levels, making many turns and many maneuvers.

BUCKLEY: Yes, I know that you’re struggling.

HUEY: Well, I couldn’t be that good, because I’m saying from objective evidence that there are not too many changes that I desire that have been made as rapidly as I desired. However, everything is in a constant state of transformation. America’s certainly changed; the situation in the country is different from what it was in 1619. I have to acknowledge that. I have to acknowledge contributors to the people’s struggle such as Martin Luther King or John Brown, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner. I have to acknowledge people who have contributed to change in America.

BUCKLEY: Well, who said you didn’t? I don’t know what you’re up to.

HUEY: I’m only up to this: I’m saying that we all play a part in attempting to change things so that we will not have the physical clash that causes the inevitable death of men. I reject violence; there’s no need for it and violence will no longer have to exist. I think that the death of any man diminishes all of us, because we’re involved with humanity. I would like to admit to you that I don’t have the answer to even start to resolve the contradictions in this country, so that we can have that new order. But I do have a desire, a desperate desire, to reach the other shore. And I think that each day, each minute, whether we know it or not, we’re slowly, in this world, arriving at another level. Some other relationship between all of us, whether you define yourself philosophically as a conservative, as a progressive, as a reactionary, or as a revolutionist.

BUCKLEY: Mr. Simpson from Trinity College.

MR. SIMPSON: I’ve enjoyed the exploration of Mr. Newton’s concepts. I thought what you said was quite clear.

HUEY: Well, it seems that Mr. Buckley is the only dunce around here so far.

MR. SIMPSON: But I’m even more interested in getting a little more practical and down to present social policies in the cities, in the inner cities; the continuing and ever-occurring crisis in the inner cities, where large numbers of people are trapped in a cycle of poverty. I want to know whether either of you can suggest and agree upon a social policy for the inner city that would lead to the reduction of tensions and new levels of communication?

HUEY: First, I would like to make this very clear, so that Mr. Buckley and I don’t go off onto another tangent. I saw, crystal clear, how we can start to reduce the kinds of conflicts that we’re having in this country. I saw an example of that in China. This is not China, that is a different culture. Their history is different, therefore the transformation there will be different. Things will take a different shape. What I saw was this: when I went there, I was very unenlightened and I thought that I knew something about China. I thought, as it has been said so often, that China would be a homogeneous kind of racial/ethnic territory. Then I found that 50 percent of the Chinese territory is occupied by a 54 percent population of national minorities, large ethnic minorities. They speak different languages, they look very different, they eat different foods. Yet, there is no conflict. I observed one day that each region- we call them cities- is actually controlled by those ethnic minorities, yet they’re still Chinese.

BUCKLEY: Would that include the Tibetans?

HUEY: Yes, there was a big conflict for so long-

BUCKLEY: Yes, they called it genocide.

HUEY: Well, all right then. You talk about genocide. If the Chinese were wrong then, they’re in the barrel with the rest of us- with England as well as America, in your genocide against blacks. The whole Western world has crucified over 50 million blacks alone. America took part in this. You can call that genocide. I’m talking about a general condition in China where ethnic minorities I’ve observed control their whole regions. They have a right to have representation in the Chinese Communist Party. At the same time they have their own principles. You talked about organizing opposition. You cannot vote to organize an opposition to reinstate private ownership there any more than you can organize an opposition to take away private ownership in this country. So, it’s what you choose. I happen to choose the way they go about it, all right?

BUCKLEY: I thank you, Mr. Simpson, for listening to this illusive reply to the problems of the inner city.

HUEY: Did I get too theoretical again?

BUCKLEY: Well, Mr. Simpson will explain it to you later . . . .

HUEY: Then I will say this: The cities in this country could be organized like that, with community control. At the same time, not black control so that no whites can come in, no Chinese can come in. I’m saying there would be democracy in the inner city. The administration should reflect the population of the people there.

BUCKLEY: No capitalists, like Lin Piao? Mrs. Holland?

HUEY: You say that Lin Piao is a capitalist?

BUCKLEY: I was teasing you.

MRS. HOLLAND: In reading through most of the earlier Panther material, religion was not emphasized, or rather was deemphasized. Have you and the members of your Party rethought about the relevance of religion in the culture of black people of America?

HUEY: I think that with any people, religion is almost a necessary thing to engage in. I’m a very religious person. I have my own definition of what religion is about, and what I think about God and so forth. As I analyze religion, I find that we are all talking about the same God, the person or thing in nature that we do not know, that we do not understand, that we do not control, but that somehow affects us. In Webster’s dictionary they say that this too could be defined as ignorance. You don’t know God, but you know there’s something there. You didn’t create yourself, so you must have been created.

I find it hard to tell a person, “Don’t believe in God” and also tell him, “Pretend that you know everything, all the answers.” So no matter what religion it is- whether Judaism, Christianity, or Islam- God is always that “thing”: the unknown, the unknowable. I say that it’s ignorance. It’s ignorance when you don’t know, and it’s wisdom when you do. My father has been a minister ever since I can remember, and he used to always tell me, “You know, the church is the heart of men and God grows from within.” So as we eliminate our ignorance, and our God stops being ignorance and becomes wisdom and he grows within us, then we will really know who God is. We will see that we walk with him, that we talk with him, that we will find ourselves. We will know that our pipes have been in our mouths all the time. We’ll know really who we are, and we’ll know who God is. We’ll find that he’s the “all,” which is a nonsense term because man only knows events in between the beginning and the end. Both of those are words that maybe Mr. Buckley can define, but I can’t. We know there’s something outside of events that we don’t understand.

BUCKLEY: Mr. Moots?

MR. MOOTS: I have a question for you, Mr. Buckley. Much of the emphasis on modern research, perhaps the concern of students here, has been viewing the Panthers in the last two or three years and seeing a great deal of metamorphosis that has taken place. Probably we have many more questions for Mr. Newton about where the Panthers stand now compared with the past. I would like to ask you if you have undergone a metamorphosis in your own appraisal? Some of your earlier statements about the Panthers were rather strong. I was curious about your present appraisal. 

BUCKLEY: My judgment has been publicly made of the Panther movement. It was made on the examination of its literature. I’ve read the Panther paper and described its contents and its publication. But I don’t think that it’s an historical exaggeration to say that the Black Panther Party, to the extent that one could infer its thoughts from these declarations, was based on its need to despise the white race.

MR. MOOTS: Could I suggest an example. In one piece, I believe it was in Look magazine, you disagreed strongly with Dick Gregory, who had indicated that the militant stance, symbolism, and rhetoric functionally could actually displace violence, if you see what I mean. Could you perhaps accept that as a phenomenon?

BUCKLEY: Yes.

MR. MOOTS: Of a positive good that the Panthers have . . . ?

BUCKLEY: Yes, yes, I could. Unfortunately, as much could be said of the Ku Klux Klan. Dick Gregory gave an example to me that you may not remember about a black woman who felt intimidated. This was about two or three years ago, and she called the Black Panther headquarters and they sent someone to look out for her. And he was armed. On the basis of the assurance that she got from his presence, she did calm down, and recovered her stability. And there is an impression that people can perform that kind of a function, armed in that kind of a way. I have no doubt that the Black Panthers did it.

HUEY: I would like to say this, and I’m sorry if I interrupt, but when people equate the Black Panther Party with the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens Council, I get upset. The point is that dialogue, dialectical struggle, or struggle through words-this would be what I hope will be the next advance man will make; that he will put down the club. But I think there are certain difficulties to face before that point. I think that things don’t just happen, they start. But as long as there’s a special economic interest one has to support, an authority that one must support, then he creates a rhetoric that he uses in order to sell ideas to a group, an army, or a henchman. I think that this kind of dialogue would be inflammatory and cause much violence. I think that rhetoric ran amok in the Black Panther Party while the leadership was under the influence of Eldridge Cleaver. It caused murders of many of our people. It laid the foundation so that even the black community could say, “Oh, see those bad guys are out there, you see, they always want violence and robberies and so forth.” This kind of rhetoric can provoke physical conflict. Dialogue itself carries no virtue unless it’s pointed in a direction to resolve a problem. You see?

MR. MOOTS: What about the role today of the Panthers? You indicate in your To Die for the People that one of the first priorities is education. But you don’t actually define that. Do you mean political education, the use of the media, or do you mean formal education? For example, would you have advice for the black students here today?

HUEY: Most of us have been taught, we’ve been programmed by our schools and universities, to think in categories. That’s very different from thinking dialectically. Many, many things are in play at the same time, but we think of education to refer to formal knowledge perhaps or maybe political education. When I say education I mean a raising of the consciousness of the people so that external stimuli will bombard the human organism and from that process a person will begin to have some sort of awareness of what is going on. I agree with Sigmund Freud in that the first step in controlling what’s wrong with you in relation to the social forces is to know what you’re dealing with. When I say education I mean it in the broadest sense of the word. Technical education-we’re living in a very technical world now, thanks to the West-is a contribution to humanity. I don’t like the way they arrive at it, I accuse them of trespassing. They took away other people’s goods and they dominated other people as their very own, and certain people were able to inherit without ever working at all-such as my friend here [Buckley]. They protect that interest of the right to inheritance. I say that being educated is to be conscious and know as much as you possibly can so that we can start dealing with this garbage pile we call society.

BUCKLEY: For the record, while you were relaxing in jail, I was working.

HUEY: Maybe you call working, running your mouth on these TV programs. I don’t see any calluses on your hands.

BUCKLEY: I was writing all those books you didn’t read.

HUEY: Is that right? From what I understand of the books, it didn’t take too much time to do that. They’re very much like your conversation here. I’m only joking with you, because I really enjoy talking with you. No, truly, I think you’re very entertaining, and I like the hot kind of debates in which we have to struggle to get to the seed, you know? So, I’m sorry if I was hard to take. You’ve proven yourself to be the gentleman everyone says you are, in spite of all the other criticisms.