[2][3] The theoretical basis of the Revolutionary Youth Movement was an understanding that most of the American population, including both students and the so-called "middle class," comprised, due to their relationship to the instruments of production, the working class; thus the organizational basis of SDS, which had begun in the elite colleges and had been extended to public institutions as the organization grew, could be extended to youth as a whole, including students, those serving in the military, and the unemployed.

This contrasted with the Progressive Labor Party view which saw students and workers as being in separate categories which could ally, but should not jointly organize.

RYM II, which was led by the former national secretary of SDS, Michael Klonsky,[1] quickly gave way to various new revolutionary organizations and collectives.

Other members of RYM II joined the Sojourner Truth Organization, formed in 1969 and active in workplace struggles in the Chicago area.

Sojourner Truth Organization, active mostly in the mid-west until its dissolution in 1985, differed from other groups in the New Communist movement in the initial influence of C. L. R. James and its combination of industrial placement with the struggle against white supremacy, developing a theory of the key role of the "white-skin privilege system" in the white US working class.