Editing Weather Underground (section)

===''Prairie Fire''===
With the help of [[Clayton Van Lydegraf]], the Weather Underground sought a more [[Marxist–Leninist]] ideological approach to the post-Vietnam reality.{{sfn|Jacobs|1971}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}} The leading members of the Weather Underground (Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Jeff Jones, and Celia Sojourn) collaborated on ideas and published a manifesto: ''Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism.''{{sfn|Jacobs|1997}}{{Page needed|date=November 2024}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/PrairieFireThePoliticsOfRevolutionaryAnti-imperialismThePolitical |title=Prairie fire : the politics of revolutionary anti-imperialism : the political statement of the Weather Underground. : Weather Underground Organization. : Free Download & Streaming: Internet Archive |date=2014-12-31 |access-date=2015-01-30}}</ref> The name came from a quote by [[Mao Zedong]], "a single spark can set a prairie fire." By the summer of 1974, five thousand copies had surfaced in coffee houses, bookstores and public libraries across the U.S. Leftist newspapers praised the manifesto.{{sfn|Varon|2004|pp=292–298}}

[[Abbie Hoffman]] publicly praised ''Prairie Fire'' and believed every American should be given a copy.<ref>Marty Jezer, ''Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel'', (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992), pp. 258–259.</ref> The manifesto's influence initiated the formation of the [[Prairie Fire Organizing Committee]] in several American cities. Hundreds of above-ground activists helped further the new political vision of the Weather Underground.{{sfn|Varon|2004|p=292-298}} Essentially, after the 1969 failure of the Days of Rage to involve thousands of youths in massive street fighting, Weather renounced most of the Left and decided to operate as an isolated underground group. Prairie Fire urged people to never "dissociate mass struggle from revolutionary violence". To do so, asserted Weather, was to do the state's work. Just as in 1969–1970, Weather still refused to renounce revolutionary violence for "to leave people unprepared to fight the state is to seriously mislead them about the inevitable nature of what lies ahead". However, the decision to build only an underground group caused the Weather Underground to lose sight of its commitment to mass struggle and made future alliances with the mass movement difficult and tenuous.{{sfn|Jacobs|1971|pp=76–77}}

By 1974, Weather had recognized this shortcoming and in ''Prairie Fire'' detailed a different strategy for the 1970s which demanded both mass and clandestine organizations. The role of a clandestine organization would be to build the "consciousness of action" and prepare the way for the development of a people's militia. Concurrently, the role of the mass movement (i.e., above-ground Prairie Fire collective) would include support for, and encouragement of, armed action. Such an alliance would, according to Weather, "help create the 'sea' for the guerrillas to swim in".{{sfn|Jacobs|1971|pp=76–77}}

According to Bill Ayers, writing in 2001, by the late 1970s, the Weatherman group had further split into two factions—the [[May 19th Communist Organization]] and the Prairie Fire Collective—with Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers in the latter. The Prairie Fire Collective favored coming out of hiding and establishing an above-ground revolutionary mass movement. With most WUO members facing limited criminal charges (most charges had been dropped by the government in 1973) against them creating an above-ground organization was more feasible. The May 19 Communist Organization continued in hiding as the clandestine organization. A decisive factor in Dohrn's coming out of hiding was her concerns about her children.{{sfn|Ayers|2008}}{{page needed|date=November 2024}} The Prairie Fire Collective faction started to surrender to the authorities from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. The remaining Weather Underground members continued to attack U.S. institutions.