Revolutionary Student Brigade
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The Revolutionary Student Brigade (RSB) was a left wing student activist organization in the 1970s in the United States. The RSB was founded at a conference on June 15-17, 1974 which was attended by about 450 students from 80 campuses. Its predecessor was the Attica Brigade, which was one grouping that can be traced to the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) split in 1969. The RSB was the student organization associated with the Revolutionary Union, which became the Revolutionary Communist Party in 1975.
When the RCP split in 1977 this struggle was reflected in the RSB; a significant section of the Revolutionary Student Brigade left the RCP, taking the RSB name with them. They joined the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters, a new Marxist-Leninist organization which emerged from the RCP. Those who remained in the RCP and renamed their organization the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade. Struggle over how to organize students and youth played a role in the RCP-RWH split.
The RSB waged a number of important campus battles of the 1970s, including continuing the student anti-war movement as Nixon pursued "Vietnamization"; working to discredit Nixon's efforts to hold onto power as the Watergate scandal unfolded; supporting the 1976 Soweto uprising in South Africa; working to keep the memory alive of the student protesters who were killed in May 1970 at Kent State and Jackson State; as well as others.
In 1980, what was left of the RSB joined with the Student Coalition Against Nukes Nationwide (SCANN) and Midwest Coalition Against Registration and the Draft (MidCARD) to found a new organization, the Progressive Student Network. Prior to this merger, RSB cadre had been active in both of the other two organizations.
