Trusting in violence is a form of
revolutionary romanticism, a seductive shortcut to other more basic
kinds of social power. The history of the Black Panthers would seem to
be an example of this point. Their appeal to violence attracted angry
youths who were eager for quick results. Although the party gained a
lot of publicity, and, in some quarters, received a lot of applause,
its desire for rapid success kept it from building a solid, mass base.
Apparently its leaders believed that violence made this kind of
mobilization unnecessary. Its publicity and quick successes were
superficial and failed to achieve basic social transformation. On
Wednesday, May 19, 1971, Huey Newton, the Black Panther Minister of
Defense, declared that the Panthers had been wrong in confronting the
police: "All we got was a war and a lot of bloodshed." He said that
they had been mistaken in disregarding the church and in thinking that
they could change things without the people's changing them:
"We'll be criticized by the revolutionary cultists for trying to
effect change by stages, but to do all we want to do, we just have to
go through all the stages of development.
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