The original Weather Underground manifesto, in its original layout. Prairie Fire was a 188-page political manifesto published by the Weather Underground in 1974, articulating the radical splinter group's ideology, and endorsing revolutionary violence."Prairie Fire" was distributed in radical bookstores, food coops, headshops, on college campuses and many other places that movement activists met. It was met with a combination of strong emotions throughout the Left. Ultimately, the ideological arguments articulated in "Prairie Fire" led to a new split in the Weather Underground, with some gravitating toward the "Prairie Fire Collective," which favored mass-based, above-ground revolutionary politics, and the "May 19th Communist Organization," which remained underground and pulled off the infamous Brinks robbery in 1981. In 1974 when "Prairie Fire" was written the Weather Underground had realized the shortcoming of there underground tactics in the previously stated sense.