I N T E R N E T ' S  M A O I S T M O N T H L Y

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 
 

     XX XX  XXX  XX XX   X   X  XXX  XXX  XXX  XXX
     X X X   X   X X X   XX  X  X X   X   X    X
     X V X   X   X V X   X X X  X X   X   XX   XXX
     X   X   X   X   X   X  XX  X X   X   X      X
     X   X  XXX  X   X   X   V  XXX   X   XXX  XXX

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 
 

         THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

  MIM Notes 64              May 1992

MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the 
world's oppressed majority, and against the 
imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in 
the service of the people. support it, struggle 
with it and write for it.


IN THIS ISSUE:
1.  PERU SECTION:
    WHO'S WHO IN PERU
    WHICH ARMY IS THE REAL MURDERER?
    DEMOCRACY IN PERU--LONG GONE
2.  CATERPILLAR AND THE CASE OF THE PRIVILEGED WORKING CLASS
3.  PRISONER WINS RIGHT TO READ MIM 
4.  LETTERS
5.  PAPER TIGERS
    THE AMERIKAN REAPER
    BUY AMERIKKKKAN!
    THE $5 BILLION SPOOK
    CIA GRABS 'EM YOUNG
    AUSTERITY BREEDS REBELS IN VENEZUELA
    SANDINISTA LEADER ENDORSES TROTSKY
    MORE COPS, LESS FREEDOM
    UNIVERSITY NEWSPAPER UNDER FIRE
    REPORT SAYS ANTI-GAY ASSAULTS ON THE RISE
    BACK AFTER LIBYA
6.  ANC TALKS WITH WHITE POWER; OTHERS STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION.
7.  'STREET CRIME'--THE FBI'S DIRTY WAR
8.  BIG MAC OR BIG MAO? : CHINESE YOUTH INTERESTED IN MAO
9.  CHINA MARCHES TO CAPITALIST TUNE
10. INDIGENOUS GROUP SPLITS RURAL VS. URBAN
11. LATINOS TOIL FOR AMERIKA



The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a 
revolutionary communist party that upholds 
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, comprising the collection 
of existing or emerging Maoist internationalist 
parties in the English-speaking imperialist 
countries and their English-speaking internal 
semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging 
Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties 
of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of 
the U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of 
MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-
speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM.

MIM is an internationalist organization that works 
from the vantage point of the Third World 
proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans, 
but world citizens.

MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups 
over other groups: classes, genders, nations.  MIM 
knows this is only possible by building public 
opinion to seize power through armed struggle.

Revolution is a reality for North America as the 
military becomes over-extended in the government's 
attempts to maintain world hegemony.

MIM differs from other communist parties on three 
main questions: (1) MIM holds that after the 
proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, 
the potential exists for capitalist restoration 
under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within 
the communist party itself. In the case of the 
USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death 
of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's 
death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in 
1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural 
Revolution as the farthest advance of communism in 
human history. (3) MIM believes the North American 
white-working-class is primarily a non-
revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it 
is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in 
this country.

MIM accepts people as members who agree on these 
basic principles and accept democratic centralism, 
the system of majority rule, on other questions of 
party line.

"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is 
universally applicable. We should regard it not as 
dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is 
not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases, 
but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of 
revolution."
-- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208


* * *

WHO'S WHO IN PERU

The Communist Party of Peru: Commonly identified as Sendero 
Luminoso or Shining Path, the party's correct name is el Partido 
Communista del Perœ (PCP) or the Communist Party of Peru. Sendero 
Luminoso, Sendero, Shining Path and Senderists are all distortions 
created by the mainstream press.

Shining Path: Sendero Luminoso, Spanish for shining path, comes 
from the phrase "on the shining path of Mari‡tegui" for JosŽ 
Carlos Mari‡tegui, the founder of the PCP in 1928. It gained 
currency as the name of the newspaper published by Chairperson 
Gonzalo, the current leader of the PCP, at the National University 
of San Crist—bal de Huamanga in Ayacucho before PCP was 
revitalized in its current form. So the phrase is connected to the 
rebuilding of the party and its affirmation of the Third 
International. It is not, however, the name of the party or its 
members.

Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement: A reactionary rebel group 
known by its Spanish acronym MTRA, this group serves imperialism 
and social imperialism. It attacks the people and has formed 
alliances with the Peruvian military. MTRA offered an indefinite 
truce to the Garc’a government (1985-90) even while Garc’a was 
directing the slaughter of imprisoned revolutionaries.

United Left/Izquierda Unita: The United Left is the major 
"opposition" party within the Peruvian government. It wants to 
dress up imperialism and bureaucratic capitalism which keeps the 
masses starving, in poverty and under martial law so that the 
Peruvian bourgeoisie and international capitalists will stay in 
power. IU believes Peru is a functioning democracy and that PCP 
messes things up.

PCP answers back: "What a democracy! More than 60% of Peruvian 
territory is under the control of political-military commands. [IU 
Leader] Enrique Bernales Ballesteros has kept a loathsome silence 
in the face of the massacres committed by the military and police 
forces in the emergency zones."



WHICH ARMY IS THE REAL MURDERER?

MIM is always addressing the allegation that the Maoist Communist 
Party of Peru is a gang of brutal savage killers who are 
responsible for the deaths of many good people in Peru. No brutal 
dictatorship could possibly gain the broad support of the masses 
that the PCP has, according to even the most reactionary accounts. 
With that it mind, we would like to present a historical note on 
Maoism in war.

Both the People's Liberation Army (China) and the People's 
Guerrilla Army (Peru) had a similar method of working with the 
people.

Fighting in the Chingkang Mountains, Mao wrote: "The most 
effective method in propaganda directed at the enemy forces is to 
release captured soldiers and give the wounded medical treatment. 
Whenever soldiers, platoon leaders, or company or battalion 
commanders of the enemy forces are captured, we immediately 
conduct propaganda among them; they are divided into those wishing 
to stay and those wishing to leave, and the latter are given 
travelling expenses and set free. This immediately knocks the 
bottom out of the enemy slander that 'the Communist bandits kill 
everyone on sight.'"

A recent PCP attack reported in El Diario Internacional has a 
similar demeanor: "Eleven policemen and one civilian advisor were 
the remains of a violent ambush carried out by a column of the 
Maoist guerrilla army against a motorized patrol of the National 
Police....

"The policemen, about 30 effectives, shocked by the overpowering 
attack, decided to surrender. They turned in all their weapons and 
military gear before they were set free."

Having the confidence to let your enemies go, to let the people 
speak out and to face down all reactionaries one at a time, is an 
essential tenet of Maoism. --MC¯



PERU RUNS SCARED

When Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori officially ended 
democracy in Peru the first week of April, what changed? The myth 
of democracy in Peru was ended, and the reality of a country 
engulfed in revolutionary war came home. The result is a picture 
in stark relief. Fujimori dissolved the congress, suspended the 
judiciary and placed all power in the hands of the executive and 
the military. It was a defensive move by the government and a 
victory for the revolutionary forces of the Communist Party of 
Peru (PCP).

The Fujimori government has been operating under state-of-
emergency procedures since he took office. The guerrilla army's 
power has grown throughout the last 10 years, and for the last 
several years they have maintained control over more than half the 
country, using these areas to begin to construct the future 
society of what is now Peru.

In response, the government has launched massive attacks against 
the civilian population, under the old counterinsurgency axiom 
that in revolutionary guerrilla war, the people are the enemy of 
the existing order. They're right, and the more they act on that 
principle, the more true it becomes.



DEMOCRACY IN PERU--LONG GONE

by MC¯

In a desperate attempt to stop the steady advances of the 
Communist Party of Peru (PCP), Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori 
extended the existing state of emergency on April 6. He dissolved 
congress, suspended the constitution, imposed additional 
censorship on the media and ordered the military to arrest an even 
wider array of political activists and mainstream politicians.(1)

The next day, Fujimori brought his attack to bear more directly on 
its real target: the Maoist PCP. At dawn, 500 soldiers and police 
officers surrounded two prisons where cell blocks are controlled 
by some 630 PCP members and allies.(3) The troops dared not enter.

These measures show the strength of the PCP, which has recently 
advanced from guerrilla war in the countryside to mobile warfare, 
encircling Lima, the capital city.(2) The reactionary Peruvian 
government is so threatened that it has cast off its last shreds 
of legitimacy in an effort to attack the PCP.

The newly expanded martial law has also exposed conflicts within 
the Peruvian bourgeoisie and their Yankee masters. In Peru, many 
bureaucratic capitalists applaud the crackdown with the hope that 
their enterprises, oil investments and mining operations will 
finally be safe. Peru's senators and judges--many of whom are now 
under arrest--naturally oppose this violation of "democracy," the 
system that allowed them to get rich while more than 14 million 
Peruvians languished in total poverty.

But Germany, Japan, the United States and the Organization of 
American States (OAS) have all condemned the crackdown in Peru. 
The Bush administration froze $275 million in military and 
economic aid slated for fiscal year 1991 and said that an 
additional $45.4 million slated for the next fiscal year may be 
affected as well. Germany is reconsidering a $161 million aid 
package and the OAS is considering economic sanctions, a move that 
the New York Times says, "could cripple an already weak 
economy."(3)

Fujimori's move creates problems for much of the Amerikan "left," 
the Peruvian bourgeoisie and the U.S. State Department--all of 
whom have been tacitly working together to assert the existence of 
"democracy" in Peru.

State Department Spokesperson Richard Boucher issued a statement 
against the crackdown: "The United States calls for the full and 
immediate restoration of constitutional democracy, which must 
include immediate freedom for those detained, and full respect for 
human rights, immediate restoration of a free and independent 
press and civil liberties, and immediate restoration of 
independent legislative and judicial branches of government."(4)

This is essentially the same position of many social democrats and 
Trotskyist groups in Amerika which condemn the PCP for disrupting 
elections, soup kitchens, Western humanitarian organizations and 
other political parties such as United Left (IU). In a recent 
review of the killing of Maria Elena Moyano, a political activist 
from a Lima shantytown, the social democratic magazine The Nation 
blamed the PCP for her death: "The reason the Shining Path, which 
vows to end injustice, wants to kill people like Moyano lies in 
its macabre logic of 'people's war.'"(5)

Not only did The Nation fail to present evidence that the PCP 
killed Moyano or that it knows what a People's War really is, but 
this argument assumes that Peruvians should somehow work through 
the system of "democracy" that allegedly exists in Peru.

Likewise, in separate editorials The New York Times and The Boston 
Globe attacked the "Shining Path" and criticized the U.S. 
government for engaging in a "drug war," instead of a real war 
against the most successful Maoist party in the world today.

The Globe went so far as to say, "The Bush administration has 
confused the real menace of the Shining Path with the 'drug war,' 
which, by comparison, is a distracting sideshow."(6)

Reactionaries--especially those calling themselves progressive--
have to work hard to keep their heads buried in the sand because 
the national media and Peruvian government often point out the 
truth of Peruvian "democracy."

The New York Times made it plain that "President Fujimori has kept 
most of Peru under state-of-emergency measures since taking office 
to give security forces greater leeway in combatting the Shining 
Path guerrillas."(1)

MIM Notes readers will recall our story "Peru's New Presidential 
Tyrant" which took note of Fujimori's attacks on the people from 
the day he took office on July 28, 1990.(7)

And Fujimori himself has said that there is no democracy in Peru: 
"The current democratic system is deceptive, false; its 
institutions routinely serve the interests of the privileged 
groups."(8)

There is a war on in Peru. The system of "democracy" which has 
killed more than 12,000 PCP cadres in the last decade, and allowed 
millions to die of malnutrition, cholera and starvation in that 
same time--this system is no longer legitimate. That is why the 
PCP disrupts elections and will not permit Western aid 
organizations to try to "help" the Peruvian people. The only thing 
that can help the oppressed countries of the world, and the 
oppressed masses in Peru, is a revolution, fought and won with a 
People's War. And that is exactly what the PCP will do.

MC5 contributed to this report.

Notes:
1. Reuters in New York Times 4/7/92, p. 1.
2. The bourgeois media often refers to the PCP as "Shining Path" 
or "Sendero Luminoso" in Spanish. These pejorative terms are used 
to mystify the group as "terrorists" whose beliefs are somehow 
irrational instead of connected to Marxism and Maoism. See sidebar 
for more details.
3. NYT 4/8/92, p. A8.
4. NYT 4/7/92, p. A6.
5. The Nation 3/31/92, p. 412.
6. Boston Globe 4/7/92, p. 18.
7. MIM Notes 44 9/1/90.
8. Eugene Robinson, Washington Post in Boston Globe 4/7/92, p. 1.

Order MIM's Peru Study Pack for only $15, postage paid. Contains 
original PCP documents, accounts from the bourgeois press and 
articles from MIM Notes.

* * *

CATERPILLAR AND THE CASE OF THE PRIVILEGED WORKING CLASS

More than 10,000 Caterpillar manufacturing workers, most of them 
white, shuffled back to work last month, after being told to sit 
down and shut up by their big brother, the multinational 
Caterpillar construction-machine producer.

The workers, members of the United Auto Workers, spent five months 
on strike, holding out for a raise beyond the $17.50 an hour 
offered to the average line worker by the company--that's about 
$35,000 a year.

But the company has had enough. It put out ads to hire permanent 
replacement workers.

Imperialists like Caterpillar are the privileged white working 
class' best friends. But the workers are in the subordinate 
position in a relationship between parasites. This year, the 
bosses told them, there would be no second cars, larger houses or 
cosmetic surgery.

And who would support them, these workers who are among the 
world's richest people? Not the 100,000 people eager to take their 
places. And certainly not the oppressed people of the world--the 
laboring members of the oppressed nations of the Third World 
within the USA and abroad.

CAT WORKERS AID THE COMPANY

by MC12

Amerikan imperialist capital and privileged workers have finished 
a showdown at Caterpillar in Illinois. The multinational company 
fought to lower the cost of bloated labor-aristocracy wages, and 
the workers tried to muster a little class solidarity to keep the 
blood-tinted gravy flowing.

On April 14 the United Auto Workers (UAW) announced it had caved-
in to Caterpillar's last offer, and told its members to go back to 
work. The workers will have to live with an average of about 
$35,000 a year in pay, and less benefits than they had sought.(1) 
The 10,000 mostly white workers at Caterpillar plants in Illinois 
struck for five months before the company announced it would start 
hiring permanent replacements if the union didn't accept its final 
offer, which raised average on-line wages $0.58, to $17.56 per 
hour.(2)

A week before the union gave in, the world's largest construction-
equipment maker began hiring new workers. The phone company said 
more than 100,000 calls were placed to the numbers in the help 
wanted ads in four days.(4) By April 12 the company said 750 
workers had broken with the union to come back, but the union said 
the number was less.(5) The agreement was a complete loss for the 
union, which all along had been rejecting the same final offer 
they eventually accepted.(1)

Eastern Air Lines, Greyhound and International Paper have all 
recently hired permanent replacements to break labor-aristocracy 
strikes.(6) But this is the first time recently that a big company 
has tried it against the UAW.(1)

Pattern bargaining 

outdated

The strike was called a watershed, as the UAW tried to hold on to 
the system of pattern bargaining, by which one contract is struck 
with different companies in the same industry. That method has 
been successful for the union in the auto industry, which has 
negotiations coming up soon; auto executives were hoping 
Caterpillar could break the system.

Caterpillar is offering less in health care and retirement than 
Deere and Co. did in its last contract, saying that pattern 
bargaining would hurt its ability to compete with foreign 
companies. Caterpillar's biggest competitor is the Japanese 
company Komatsu, which is half its size. Caterpillar had six years 
of profits before last year, when it lost $404 million.(6)

Pattern bargaining is one tactic the UAW used to stay ahead of 
other big unions in the last 10 years. Although the UAW lost a 
third of its members during the 80s, it got wage increases 
totaling 25% for the decade, compared to only 2.5% for 
steelworkers, for example. The union also got the major auto 
companies to promise $6 billion in compensation for laid-off 
workers.(6)

Although less than 2% of the UAW's 900,000 members work for 
Caterpillar, the union was using the strike as a test for future 
battles over pattern bargaining.(7) They were also trying to get 
better job protection, since Caterpillar said it could run its 
factories with 10-15% fewer workers.(2)

International profits

Caterpillar is a massive multinational company, the second biggest 
industrial exporter in the United States, but 75% of its products 
are officially Made in the USA (59% are exported). Paying Amerikan 
manufacturing workers has been expensive, and investors are glad 
to see the company paring down its costs.(7)

The strike is a clash of "visions." The company is led by Chairman 
Donald Fites, a seasoned imperialist with an international head on 
his shoulders; he led the company's operations in South Africa, 
Brazil, Asia and Europe. His vision is of a company using some 
Amerikan workers competing successfully with foreign imperialists. 
To do that, he wants to stop subsidizing some medical packages.(8)

Meanwhile, "For the strikers," the New York Times wrote, "there 
are the lost dreams of new cars, larger homes and college 
educations for their children."(9)

This is part of the ongoing conflict and negotiation between 
privileged Amerikan labor and imperialist capital over the amount 
of riches ripped off from the Third World to be distributed to the 
labor aristocracy here. In the overall alliance of these two 
groups, occasional flare-ups mark difficult periods of transition.

Kissing imperialist ass

The white workers, having kissed imperialist ass for so long, have 
little class solidarity and even less credibility as a serious 
strike threat. They're often at the mercy of these corporate 
cutbacks, although they still maintain one of the highest 
standards of living in the world. Losing these strikes, even as 
they wave their flags and cheer on U.S. militarist ventures 
overseas, shows the weakness and dependency of the white working 
class.

A labor movement filled with Amerikan nationalism and petty-
bourgeois aspirations (and petty-bourgeois salaries) has no one to 
rely on but the bourgeoisie. The oppressed people of the world 
sure as hell couldn't care less.

The imperialists are paying too much for the unproductive labor 
privileged workers do here, and so they need to both reduce their 
costs and increase their super-exploitation of Third World 
nations. In the process, they foster the revolutionary tide among 
the oppressed people of the world--the working classes of the 
oppressed nations abroad and within Amerika--and use their shiny 
yellow tractors to dig their own graves.

Notes:
1. New York Times 4/15/92, p. A1.
2. Wall Street Journal 4/2/92, p. A3.
3. NYT 4/9/92, p. A12.
4. NYT 4/11/92, p. A10.
5. WSJ 4/13/92, p. A3.
6. WSJ 4/7/92, p. A1.
7. NYT 4/7/92, p. A1.
8. NYT 4/13/92, p. C10.
9. NYT 4/10/92, p. A13.

* * *

PRISONER WINS RIGHT TO READ MIM

A year after New Jersey State Prison officials decreed that MIM 
Notes was "unauthorized for retention by the inmate population," a 
prisoner's perseverance has forced the administration to cease its 
censorship of the MIM newsletter.

A New Jersey state appeals court ruled March 31 that prisoner 
Kevin S. Thomas' constitutional rights had been violated when 
prison officials confiscated MIM Notes and declared that they 
would block all forthcoming issues of the newspaper from reaching 
prisoners at the state's maximum security prison in Trenton.

Thomas, who represented himself in the suit, was one of many 
Trenton prisoners who were notified last April that MIM Notes was 
considered "contraband," and that to be in possession of a copy of 
the newspaper was a violation of the prison mail code. The April 
1991 issue, MIM Notes 51, contained a page of reports from Trenton 
prisoners on their struggles against guard brutality and the 
crackdown on political organizing there, headlined "Trenton 
prisoners fight for survival." Subsequent articles were titled 
"Prisons don't work," "Police don't work," and "Revolution is the 
answer."

The appeals court ruled that the prison administration violated 
its own rules when it banned MIM Notes: Prison officials should 
have offered Thomas the choice of having the "offensive" articles 
removed from the newsletter, rather than censoring the whole 
thing.

MIM salutes Thomas for succeeding in this step of the crucial 
struggle to get revolutionary literature into prisons. The Trenton 
administration wanted to ice out MIM Notes because it is used as a 
tool to organize behind the prison walls.

Although MIM considers it of vital importance to provide this tool 
to prisoners, the party does not have the resources at this point 
to fight it out in the courts. So we depend on prisoners and other 
allies to do what they can. In this case, Thomas went up against 
the odds and won. --MC11

* * *

LETTERS

'Revolutionary' tokers examine Mao

Dear Comrades,

We [the Green Panthers] are the only militant, direct action 
protest group in our subculture [pot-smokers]. Our subculture, 
which is heavily proletarian, is being warred against like never 
before in history. Bush and company just budgeted $12.3 billion to 
be spent over the next 12 months oppressing us and a lot of other 
people under the guise of the drug war. There are 30 million pot-
smokers in Amerikka, and we're getting pissed.

As you will notice in our manual, we draw from various sources, 
including Mao. Our next printing (sometime around mid-summer) will 
include the 18-word strategy and material from "Just War, Unjust 
War."

We know from history that Mao executed addicts and their 
suppliers. Many Maoists we have met are rabidly anti-pot-smoking. 
This makes us initially reluctant to work with you. But, being a 
student of Mao, I know that it is foolish to think China's 
revolutionary methods must be applied directly to the U.S. 
revolution. That would be "cutting the feet to fit the shoe" and 
you would be defeated. Real strength is to be gained by working 
with our subculture.

I have been part of the pot movement for years, and I have watched 
our leaders grapple for a strategy to deal with the onslaught. 
None of us had ever dealt with such repression, and the only 
methods seemed to be working through the existing court system. In 
other words, we had no strategy.

But now people with AIDS are denied medical marijuana, the middle 
ground of negotiations is almost gone. Even A Barefoot Doctors 
Manual [a book used in revolutionary China--MC17] has medical uses 
for the herb. And talk of armed resistance is becoming more and 
more audible. Our movement is getting really angry about what is 
happening and what is about to happen. It is my opinion, and there 
are those that share my opinion, that Maoist tactics are our only 
chance against a full scale lockdown and round-up.

At the Alternative Drug Summit in San Antonio last month, I was 
the only speaker to talk about South America, Peru, and the PCP. 
Our movement is overall pretty ignorant of world politics and even 
domestic politics, but we are awakening. And when we have awakened 
fully to what is going down, we will overwhelm those that oppress 
us.

I have enclosed a copy of our newsletter, the Revolutionary Toker.

In solidarity,

Green Panther member 

March 1992 

 

MC67 & MC17 respond: The Green Panthers seem to be quite 
politically advanced, evidenced by their recognition of the 
superiority of Maoist theory and methods for organizing against 
imperialism. At the same time, the group is aware that we cannot 
apply China's methods here in Amerikkka wholesale. We must respond 
to our current conditions.

The Green Panthers are correct to recognize the importance of 
fighting against the Amerikan drug war. This war on drugs is the 
government's method for suppressing potentially revolutionary 
communities and legitimizing the state crackdown on drug 
"criminals"--while raking in the profits from drug imports and 
sales. [Write to MIM for in-depth articles on how the drug war 
oppresses Third World communities inside and out of the United 
States borders.]

The war on drugs kills and brutalizes Black and Latino youth every 
day, and these young people are the ones put in fascist boot 
camps. MIM would like to see the Green Panthers focus on this 
occupying army in the oppressed communities.

MIM sees the war on drugs as imperialist aggression. The principal 
contradiction, what we must focus our revolutionary energies on 
right now, is between the oppressed and the oppressor nations. 
Until we overthrow imperialism, we will never be able to benefit 
from marijuana's many uses. As a legal drug, it is not profitable 
for the capitalists because it can be grown too easily.

As a revolutionary vanguard party, MIM bans the use of any illegal 
drugs (for non-medicinal purposes) by its members. There are 
several reasons.

First, revolutionary organizations are under government 
surveillance. As with the Black Panther Party in the 1960s, once a 
party becomes threatening, the state is always looking for an 
opportunity to break down the doors and lock up all the commies. 
Possession or use of illegal drugs is too great a risk for a 
vanguard party.

Second, MIM agrees with the Green Panthers' policy on members not 
smoking pot before a political action. But MIM takes this quite a 
bit further. Although pot is different from harder and more 
addictive drugs like crack and heroin, it still has a mind-
altering effect (as does alcohol), which can impair one's 
judgement.

Third, although there are many reasons why the Third World 
proletariat uses drugs, in general drug use is part of imperialist 
oppression and serves to take people away from the revolutionary 
struggle. Addictive drugs are very profitable for the capitalists, 
and they need markets. Such drugs are often pushed into oppressed 
communities where poverty and suffering make people receptive to 
the escape offered by drugs. Often, as physical energy 
deteriorates, so does revolutionary zeal. Just as Britain forced 
opium into China, the Amerikan government dumps crack and heroin 
into U.S. inner-city oppressed communities.

In Peru, for instance, the peasants' principal crop is the coca 
leaf. This leaf serves many purposes for these people: medicinal, 
cultural, and sustenance. The Amerikan government and its colonial 
supporters in Peru buy the crop and turn it into cocaine to sell 
to the oppressed masses in Latin America, the United States and 
Canada as a means of further keeping the masses down.

Buyers cheat the Peruvian peasants, but coca is one of the few 
crops that will grow on their land, and it is the only crop that 
will bring in any money. In addition, the many cultural uses of 
the coca leaf would support small scale production even without a 
market for the cocaine producers. (Order MIM's Peru Pack for more 
information, send $15 post-paid to MIM.)

MIM understands that these complex factors are behind the U.S. war 
on drugs. And MIM supports the Peruvian masses who want to grow 
food crops and become more self-sufficient. They want freedom from 
the oppression of drug production and use, not freedom of access 
to it. For these people--and most of the Third World--drug use is 
not a cause to fight for.

MIM does not believe that pot-smokers in this country, as a group, 
are the oppressed masses who have a material interest in 
revolution. For example, although all biological women suffer 
under some gender oppression, that does not mean that all First 
World women are revolutionary feminists. The Third World oppressed 
nations (the majority of the planet) are the anti-imperialist 
revolutionary base.

Also, the Green Panther writer incorrectly attributes execution of 
drug addicts to Mao Zedong. Like the United States today, many 
oppressed people in China before 1949 were addicted to drugs. In 
fact, Mao did execute the really big drug pushers who would not 
change their ways, but even these executions were few. The drug 
addicts were not executed, they were reformed out of their often 
deadly addictions. Mao correctly identified drugs as a source of 
oppression for the Chinese people and MIM sees this as a truth for 
the oppressed nations of the world today.

MIM seeks to work with groups like the Green Panthers in the fight 
against the imperialist drug war while struggling over important 
issues of tactics and line such as what is outlined above. As MIM 
allies with opponents of imperialism, it hopes to learn and 
promote an ever clearer definition of the best path to 
revolutionary victory.

Non-member enjoys struggle with MIM

Dear MIM,

While I am not a member, I do want to express my admiration and 
respect for the work that you have done with me and the guidance 
you have provided. Such an inclusion and feeling of camaraderie is 
most appreciated. Things like that are rarely said in this world, 
but I just wanted to say Thank You for letting me become part of 
your circle of workers and supporters. I hope I can always rise to 
the occasion and do the best work possible. Your example in work 
and political struggle must be commended.

MA20

March 1992

Gimme info on Peru

Dear MIM,

Please send me MIM Notes 38, 44, 47 and 48. I am particularly 
interested in the civil war in Peru. Personally, I think comics 
are the best way to disseminate ideas; an extra bonus is that they 
are inexpensive. The party should definitely give this format 
serious consideration.

A comrade in the East 

March 1992

MC17 responds: MIM is very interested in the idea of using 
cartoons to disseminate ideas and is looking for skilled and/or 
willing cartoonists. We hope that the author of this letter and 
others will help us.

Messiah opens 

dialogue

Dear MIM,

I just got my hands on another copy of MIM Notes. As with any 
revealing publication, it is a tad hard to find. Every once in a 
while I find it in this certain bin on X campus.

Something really dawned on me while enjoying MIM Notes 61 and that 
was our goals are the same but we are coming at each other from 
different directions. Maybe one day we will find each other.

I find it refreshing that other people, like myself, are willing 
to risk popularity to get a point across and save the planet. The 
article on General Motors hit the target. God, they piss me off.

I publish a Zine called Messiah: The Journal of Sex, Politics and 
Religion and would like to participate in your publication 
exchange program.

If you need someone to spread the party line in the XX area, I 
could put MIM Notes where Messiah is found.

I look forward to hearing from you. 

Editor of Messiah 

March 1992 

 

MC17 responds: MIM appreciates the offer to help with 
distribution. We can always use more help.

Some people work for revolutionary goals from the direction of 
religion. MIM agrees with the goals of many religious national 
liberation movements (in oppressed nations), but sees the idealism 
of religion as misleading in the struggle to promote a materialist 
understanding of historical and current politics.

In spite of this disagreement, MIM hopes to work with all 
revolutionaries who understand the principle contradiction at this 
time is between oppressed and oppressor nations and target the 
enemy, imperialism.

MIM does not let religion get in the way of alliances with truly 
anti-imperialist organizations. But MIM does not see religion as 
compatible with Marxist materialism. Materialists must examine 
history and always be prepared to defend their beliefs with facts; 
religion is a method of reasoning that defends beliefs with faith. 
MIM hopes to convince religious people who support revolutionary 
goals of the value and necessity of materialism to achieve those 
goals.

Look for a review of Messiah in a future issue of MIM Theory.

How does the world work?

Dear MIM,

I saw your MIM Notes and I am interested. Please add me to your 
mailing list. I would like to receive all related information 
about what is going on in the world. 

Reader in the East 

March 1992 

 

MC17 responds: MIM has materials about what is going on in the 
world in its literature list available for $2. But, as a monthly 
newspaper, MIM cannot yet be anyone's primary source on current 
news. MIM needs help with articles and finances so that it can 
become a more frequent paper, and effectively counter the 
government and corporate propaganda in the bourgeois press. In 
addition, anyone serious about advancing their understanding of 
revolutionary theory and practice should also be subscribing to 
MIM Theory ($3/quarterly issue or $10/year).

* * *

PAPER TIGERS

All reactionaries are paper tigers. In appearance, the 
reactionaries are terrifying, but in reality they are not so 
powerful. From a long-term point of view, it is not the 
reactionaries but the people who are really powerful.

--Mao Zedong

THE AMERIKAN REAPER

Sometime after 3 a.m. on the morning of April 21, Robert Harris 
spent 11 minutes strapped down in a chair in San Quentin prison in 
California, waiting for someone to pull the lever that would drop 
cyanide capsules into a bucket of acid, releasing the poison gas 
that would choke him to death.

"Let's pull it," he said.

That was before he got another stay on his execution, which gave 
him another two hours to wait in his cell for the Supreme Court to 
order his death, again.

It's all part of an especially wicked practice of the state 
torture system in Amerika known as the "justice system." Inmates 
set for execution are regularly dragged through hours of waiting 
and suffering, and sometimes multiple attempts to kill them by 
such methods as intravenous lethal injection, poison gas and 
electrocution.

After 16 minutes of choking and convulsions, Harris, a white man, 
was finally pronounced dead at 6:21 a.m.

Since state murder was officially legalized in 1976, 169 people 
have been executed. About 2,500 are on death row, almost 330 of 
them in California. While pacifists outside sang "We Shall 
Overcome," blood-thirsty Amerikans bore signs which read, "Take a 
deep breath, Bob," calling for his death.

Harris was the victim of vicious child abuse, which his lawyers 
said left him brain damaged. He was convicted on the testimony of 
his own brother, who supposedly helped him kill two young men 14 
years ago. The father of the victims watched Harris die.

Whose idea of justice is that?

Revenge, torture and blood-lust murder fuel the rising tide of 
executions. There is no justice in Amerika.--MC12

Notes: New York Times 4/22/92, p. 1.

BUY AMERIKKKKAN!

Republican presidential hopeful Patrick Buchanan spoke to an 
auditorium full of enthusiastic admirers at X University recently. 
His rhetoric was charged with "Buy American" and "America First" 
which has come to define his campaign. The audience cheered 
blindly.

One young man attempted to challenge Buchanan, asking why the 
defense budget was so high. Buchanan replied, "It won the cold 
war, and freedom for 250 million people, that's what for." 
Applause. The man persisted, decrying the injustice that people 
are starving in the cities of Amerika. "There's nobody starving 
here," quipped Buchanan. The candidate's loyal brownshirts then 
drowned the man out with their cheering.

As for Buchanan's claims: Amerikan victory in the cold war won 
civil war, economic insecurity and possible starvation for 250 
million people in the ex-USSR. Furthermore, as the leadership of 
the new Russian federation is proving to be completely inept in 
confronting the problems facing the region, two important 
political movements have risen. On the extreme right, fascist 
Vladimir Zhirinovsky gains support all the time.

On the left, there has been a re-emergence of the Communist Party. 
The Russian people realize that capitalism is an empty promise. 
Unfortunately, the party is led by officials from the former state 
capitalist and social imperialist Soviet Union, the same men who 
once sold their people down the river for profit.

As the situation unfolds, one thing is clear: anything can happen.

Amerika has no starving people? Perhaps if Big Brother Buchanan 
visited the inner city of his native Washington, D.C. he would 
change his tune. Or maybe the folks who make their homes on the 
heating grates in Lafayette Square Park just don't quality as 
"people." No one worth saving is starving. Sounds like genocide.

How should the people respond to Buchanan's ravings? Revolution! 
Let the international proletariat show reactionaries like Buchanan 
what Maoist fury can mean. Let the masses speak! Let the 
proletariat drink the wine of victory, and toast the downfall of 
capitalism and imperialism. --MA51

THE $5 BILLION SPOOK

In conjunction with the CIA, Republican Senators are working to 
force Russia to turn over renegade agent Edward Lee Howard, now 
that the Russian republic has fully joined the capitalist circle. 
Howard defected to the Soviet Union in 1985. The feds want to 
force Russia to turn over Howard as one of the conditions for the 
the U.S.'s $5 billion contribution to a $24 billion international 
"aid" package for Russia. --MC67

Notes: Newsweek 4/20/92, p.12.

CIA GRABS 'EM YOUNG

The Central Intelligence Agency this year is subsidizing 500 
college students across the country, to the tune of $1.6 million. 
Some students, paid $30,000 a year, pledge to give four years work 
after graduation. "Toys are a fun thing," said one young future 
state-terrorism expert, who loves his job developing 
"technological devices for covert operators."

It's all part of director Robert Gates' new "openness" program (in 
the USSR they called it glasnost), which includes "closer 
cooperation with academia."

The CIA and other state organs pay countless young people to 
become pigs and work for the cause of world-wide oppression and 
exploitation. These CIA stooges are another 500 down the drain, 
but they should be a counter-model for angry young people who want 
to break the mold of wallowing decadent Amerika and line up on the 
side of the people. --MC12

Notes: NYT 4/5/92, p. 4A.

AUSTERITY BREEDS REBELS IN VENEZUELA

In Venezuela, leaders of the Feb. 4 coup attempt are warning that 
another coup attempt is likely, possibly combined with a social 
uprising. Workers and students have been striking and protesting 
against the government, and on April 1, 70,000 public employees 
struck to demand salary adjustments. Sixty thousand health workers 
began a solidarity strike, joining 10,000 court workers who began 
a series of strikes with the threat of an all-out strike soon. 
Venezuela has a population of about 20 million. --MC67

Notes: Weekly News Update on Nicaragua and the Americas. Nicaragua 
Solidarity Network (NSN) of Greater New York, 339 Lafayette St., 
New York, NY  10012,  4/6/92.

SANDINISTA LEADER ENDORSES TROTSKY

Sandinista president Daniel Ortega was asked whether, in light the 
FSLN's consideration of joining the Socialist International (SI), 
the front was dumping Lenin in favor of Kautsky (a turn-of-the-
century German Social Democrat Party leader); Ortega said, "I 
think that a revolutionary cannot ignore Kautsky just as you can't 
ignore Trotsky. It has nothing to do with stopping being Leninists 
in order to turn ourselves into Kautskyites. Rather, we continue 
to be Sandinistas." --MC67

Notes: NSN 3/29/92.

MORE COPS, LESS FREEDOM

In response to the arrest of two Winnipeg men who were arrested in 
December for advocating and promoting genocide, an Atlantic 
Canadian gay/lesbian issues magazine ran a news piece which 
stated, "Police are congratulating themselves for smashing a Ku 
Klux Klan chapter in Manitoba." Many were happy to see these 
bastards charged, since they have been attacking ethnic groups and 
had electronically changed the message on a gay/lesbian bashing 
reporting line to criticize those who spoke out against the KKK.

This article left the impression that the police are here to 
defend women, Blacks and gays from fascist attacks. It negated the 
fundamental role of the police: as armed agents of the capitalist 
state to sanction, promote and participate in the murder of 
members of the gay community, not to mention Black youth who have 
been in the sights of the racist cops of Toronto, Montreal and 
Halifax. The article did not distinguish between the fascism of 
groups like the KKK and skinheads and the fascism of the Canadian 
government.

Gay and lesbian activists who want to stop the bashing of their 
friends should break from illusions of Canada's "liberal 
democracy," pick up a copy of the works of Mao, discover who their 
allies are and organize to destroy capitalism and patriarchy. --
MA68

Notes: The Gazette 3/92.

UNIVERSITY NEWSPAPER UNDER FIRE

The bi-monthly newspaper, Surface, at Queen's University in Canada 
has been the target of backlash from the administration and 
conservative students. A poem which said that rapists "deserve 
death" and a graphic of a .38 caliber handgun with the caption 
"You can't rape a .38--We will defend ourselves" has resulted in a 
wave of complaints to the publishers--the Queen's Arts and Science 
Undergraduate Society.

The editors of Surface were last in the news in October, after a 
reader sent a letter to the editors threatening to "rape u dykes" 
and "kill any and all feminists slowly." The reader had apparently 
been upset by an issue in the fall which said that "We think all 
straight men are rapists (and dead men don't rape again)" and 
"Jesus was a flaming queer who sucked the cocks of all his 
disciples (except for Judas)."

MIM sees all sex under conditions of capitalism and patriarchy as 
rape, not because all straight men are inherently rapists, but 
because gender inequality makes it impossible to engage in 
consensual sexual relations. We do think the slogan "We will 
defend ourselves" is quite revolutionary, particularly when 
compared to state-backed "feminist" organizations. MIM calls on 
all progressive and revolutionary feminists to join MIM. --MA68 & 
MC67

REPORT SAYS ANTI-GAY ASSAULTS ON THE RISE

In March the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) reported 
that documented anti-lesbian and gay incidents rose by 31% in 
Amerika during 1991. The statistics for 1991 are based on 1,822 
incidents reported to state and community agencies in New York, 
Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul and San Francisco.(1)

The reported incidents include verbal and physical assaults, 
vandalism, arson, police attacks and murder. The number of 
reported incidents in these cities has increased 161% since 1988 
when monitoring began.(1)

The rise in reported attacks reflects the fact that these reports 
exist. The reports exist because more lesbians and gays have come 
out and become more visible in the years since the Stonewall 
Battle of 1969, when gay men and lesbians violently resisted 
police brutality following a raid on a gay club in Manhattan. 
Since then, lesbians and gays have created diverse political 
entities based upon public identification of sexual orientation.

While some of these groups agitate for the "right" to serve in the 
U.S. military--others burn police cars and trash government 
buildings in outrage over genocidal government AIDS policies. San 
Francisco's large gay community has been particularly militant 
over the last 15 years.

The reported rise in anti-gay verbal assaults and violent "hate-
crimes" is a phenomenon born of Amerikan gay political power and 
its growing access to government, media and police institutions. 
Sexual assault, lynchings and gender oppression are as Amerikan as 
apple pie, white sheets and napalm.

As public awareness of homophobia expands and gay people use the 
capitalist state to protect themselves from attackers that are 92% 
men--revolutionaries note that all gender, class and nation 
privileges gained and used politically under imperialism are 
bought at devastating expense to the majority of the earth's 
people.

We will not have a future if queers continue to collaborate with 
the patriarchy! Gay-bashing is repugnant to revolutionaries and 
calls for revolutionary actions. MIM invites all oppressed 
lesbians and gay men to form revolutionary communist cells and 
bash back!

MIM says: Queers can fight back against the world's masters only 
by forging revolutionary alliances with the truly downpressed 
colonies inside the United States and the billions of people who 
suffer under gender oppression and are thus female in relation to 
the privileged First World. --MC86

Notes: 
1. NGLTF press release 3/19/92.
2. CUAV press release 3/19/92.

BACK AFTER LIBYA

The U.S. government has escalated the ongoing conflict with the 
people of Libya, this time by forcing the U.N. Security Council to 
adopt an air-traffic and arms embargo on Libya. The pretense is a 
U.S. and French demand for the Libyan government to turn over 
suspected terrorists for trial in the West.

The United States has been gearing up for war on Libya for more 
than 10 years. In 1981 U.S. fighters downed two Libyan jets over 
Libyan territorial waters. In 1986 U.S. fighter-bombers bombed two 
Libyan cities, including the capital city of Tripoli. Then in 
January 1989 they shot down two more fighters, supposedly in self-
defense, again over Libyan-claimed waters.(See MIM Notes 35.)

The U.S. government is shoring up its increased influence over 
Arab nations, trying to root out uncooperative leaders. After the 
Soviet collapse, U.S. domination has new opportunities for 
superexploitation of people and pillaging of resources, but also 
new threats from rival imperialists in Europe. In that regard, 
Amerika hopes to extend influence over Libya and replace leader 
Muammar el-Qaddafi with a more pro-U.S. power, since Libya is a 
major source of cheap oil for European countries, but not for the 
United States. --MC12

Notes: NYT 4/1/92, p. A6.

* * *

ANC TALKS WITH WHITE POWER; OTHERS STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION.

by MC12

After white South Africans voted in March to endorse the 
government-led negotiations toward a new constitution, and as the 
violence and economic crisis for Azanians increases, Azanians are 
fighting for leadership and organization for the national struggle 
toward liberation and socialism.

The leadership of the mass movement, particularly the African 
National Congress (ANC) and its allies, is coming under fire from 
people tired of watching their comrades die on the slow boat to 
electoral reform. The reform process has meant the end of 
international sanctions against South Africa, and a boom for the 
international bourgeoisie, smiling down on the clever tricks of 
its little brothers and sisters in the colony. (See MIM Notes 63.) 
But so far, nothing is better for the people.

Sharpeville remembered

In the USA, Azanian revolutionaries and their supporters gathered 
in Pittsburgh on March 21 to commemorate the thirty-second 
anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre and to celebrate the U.N. 
International Day Against Racism.

Mongezi Sefika Ka Nkomo, the president of Azania Heritage, 
delivered an important speech at the event. MIM has a lot to agree 
with in this speech, which took a concrete historical approach and 
critical perspective based on isolating the principal 
contradiction (national oppression), and driving it forward 
through class and gender struggles.

Nkomo stressed mainly the class struggle within the national 
liberation struggle of the Azanian people, calling for proletarian 
leadership of the movement. His was a progressive call and an 
incisive indictment of sell-out leadership within the Black 
movement.(1)

National liberation requires a broad movement of national forces, 
but the leadership of proletarian feminist ideology and a vanguard 
party is essential for achieving real liberation and building a 
new society.

"Today, divisions between and among Black political groups and 
alliances even within trade unions are basically class oriented," 
Nkomo said. "The revolutionary imperative and the socialist 
demands of the Pan-Africanist movement in general, and the Black 
Consciousness Movement in particular, have crystalized the 
formerly covered-up and masked ideological differences within the 
leadership of the sections of the Black-founded and -led 
liberation movement based on class."

Internationalism key

Nkomo outlined the political orientations of the main 
organizations in Azania today: the Azanian People's Organization 
(AZAPO), which carries the torch of the Black Consciousness 
Movement and Bantu Steve Biko; the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), 
which inherited the legacy of the ANC's radical Youth League of 
the late 1940s; and the ANC itself--"the first modern civil rights 
movement."

AZAPO now seeks to ensure working-class participation in the 
negotiation process, the PAC is devoted to the national land 
question, and the ANC--along with the formerly pro-Soviet South 
African Communist Party (SACP) and trade unions--targets racial 
discrimination. Nkomo dates the ANC's degeneration to 1955, when 
it adopted the Freedom Charter, abdicating "the national land 
rights of the African people without any semblance of reparation 
for their ancestral property and the labor of making South Africa 
the industrial giant of Africa it is today!"

In the spirit of an honest assessment of the political forces in 
Azania, Nkomo gave credit where credit is due, and leveled harsh 
criticisms as well. "Not all Blacks are working class," he pointed 
out, "let alone have working-class orientation. In the same way 
the majority of whites are working class but ideologically they 
follow their capitalist-funded political parties--even here in the 
USA that is the case."

He added: "The majority of whites voted for [the referendum on 
negotiations] in order for the white Afrikaner National party to 
preserve white privilege when negotiating with Nelson Mandela's 
ANC, which is interested in the economic empowerment of the 
national African bourgeoisie through capitalistic affirmative 
action programs funded by the private sector from Pittsburgh to 
Johannesburg."

Revolutionary potential in the midst of crisis

Any group within the national movement has a duty, Nkomo argued, 
to "define their primary class allegiance," and insisted that "it 
is also ideologically correct and politically imperative for 
gender and sex-preference issues to be examined in terms of class 
interests." While this passage of the speech is slightly ambiguous 
as written, he appeared to be stressing the importance of the 
principal contradiction within the struggle.

With regard to gender struggles, that means feminism which does 
not work from the perspective of national liberation and 
proletarian revolution does not serve the needs of oppressed 
women--and therefore fails to be feminist at all. Likewise, a 
national liberation struggle, even with proletarian leadership, 
needs revolutionary feminist ideology in order to overturn the 
existing order and project the power of all progressive forces.

Nkomo declared the National Peace Accord signed last year a fraud, 
and condemned the ANC and its allies for "finding common cause" 
between European colonizers and oppressed Azanians. That puts the 
ANC on the same level as neo-colonial lackeys of imperialism from 
Kenya to Haiti to Washington.

Part of the accord, according to a statement quoted by Nkomo, was 
that the ANC, SACP and Congress of South African Trade Unions 
agreed to turn over names and addresses of political activists 
engaged in any public political activity, supposedly to help the 
apartheid government stop political violence!

Nkomo stressed self-reliance in the Azanian struggle, which is an 
urgently-needed perspective in the midst of a lot of fatalism 
after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Those movements which were 
backed and funded by Soviet social imperialism are now inevitably 
turning away from armed struggle and toward sell-out negotiations: 
this is happening from Palestine to Azania to El Salvador. As 
Nkomo pointed out, the people of Azania need to see beyond the 
blinders put out by "public state bureaucratic capitalism in the 
former Soviet Union."

Azania remains in a state of crisis. The white vote has 
strengthened the state and boosted its international political and 
financial standing; imperialist countries are ending (flimsy) 
sanctions and turning back to South African investments. While the 
futile negotiations drag on and the people's death toll rises from 
state terrorist attacks, the national liberation struggle needs a 
strong vanguard party with proletarian feminist ideology and 
Maoist strategy and analysis. From the whirlwind of intensified 
crisis and change, MIM looks for such a new revolutionary 
development.

Notes: Transcript of Mongezi Sefika Ka Nkomo's speech delivered at 
the Azania Heritage, Inc. First Annual Observation of the United 
Nation's International Day Against Racism and Apartheid. 3/21/92. 
For more information about Azania Heritage, contact the 
organization at P.O. Box 6360, Pittsburgh, PA. 15212-0360.

* * *

'STREET CRIME'--THE FBI'S DIRTY WAR

by MA20

In early 1992, Attorney General William P. Barr announced that the 
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is shifting 300 agents who 
were assigned to the department's counterintelligence division to 
units which are "combatting 'street crime.'"(1)

This shift in personnel should not be taken lightly by liberation 
movements.

The "war on drugs" and the "war against violent street crime" are 
code words used to justify the U.S. government's political and 
military oppression of the Black nation, Latino nation, indigenous 
nations and some Asian communities.

In the 1960s, FBI documents characterized Black youth in the Black 
liberation movement as "hate groups that had a propensity for 
violence." Pigs today use this same rhetoric to describe gangs.

Slain Black Panther leader Fred Hampton struggled with gangs in 
the Chicago area in order to win these youth and young adults over 
to the Black Liberation Movement. Such a stand is needed today as 
well, especially since the U.S. government is carrying out, and 
intensifying, military-political war against this segment of the 
already oppressed Black nation.

It is not uncommon in major cities today to find many Black youth 
who are members of urban street groups, commonly referred to as 
"gangs." The purpose these groups serve, as well as their 
activities, are subjects of debate and struggle within the Black 
nation itself. The stand of revolutionaries on this important 
social issue is that we should be working with gangs to point out 
the problem with inter-nation violence, commonly referred to as 
"Black-on-Black violence."

Pigs devise a plan

A brief analysis of newspaper and government documents shows that 
this domestic war has been going on for years. Using the "war on 
drugs" and a "war against violent street crime" as an ideological 
and rhetorical cover, the federal government has been coordinating 
police operations against Black urban groups for years.

The 1992 federal budget points out that "to remove violent street 
gangs from U.S. cities, special FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco 
and Firearms (BATF), and state and local task forces have been 
established." Thirty-one of these task forces exist today. 
"Federal agents work side-by-side with state and local officers to 
counter the influence of drug and other inner-city gangs."(2)

Such a program exists in Los Angeles, where 22 of the 
counterintelligence FBI agents have been reassigned. "Thirteen 
agents in the FBI's Los Angeles region have concentrated for years 
on ... investigations involving gangs...."(3)

These same FBI agents, along with the BATF and other federal pigs 
may well be involved in "Operation Weed and Seed," a spin-off from 
foreign war political-military operations designed to divide the 
oppressed peoples from the revolutionary forces by phoney 
investment and community service projects initiated by the 
imperialists. This "Weed and Seed" program "will root out the 
violent criminals and provide investment to revitalize 
neighborhoods."(2)

In the L.A. area, the Compton NAACP was reportedly an initiator of 
a meeting with the local FBI, in which other federal pigs, such as 
the BATF, attended.(3) The use of civil rights organizations like 
the NAACP to support police operations against Blacks will cause 
division within the Black nation. No legitimate activist or 
communist could support police wars against any segment of the 
oppressed masses.

But the imperialists use the NAACP and other groups to legitimize 
state repression and split the Black nation. "Jay Wachtel, chief 
of the Long Beach (CA) office of BATF ... said that community 
organizations are invaluable in mobilizing residents to fight 
gangs."(3)

Other aspects of this not-too-secret war include:

¥The planned establishment of a joint FBI and BATF Gang Analysis 
Center.

¥Support for the BATF's Violent Gang Enforcement Program, to the 
tune of $38 million.

¥Operation Triggerlock, a joint federal police and U.S. Attorney 
program designed to jail "the most dangerous criminals in each 
community."

All of these programs cost big money, with the FBI's street gang 
task force predicted to cost $46.7 million in 1993.(2)

But the cost to the Black nation will be far greater. None of 
these programs even consider remotely that the courts will acquit 
any defendants--not that activists or genuine communists ever 
expect the capitalist courts to dispense justice to the oppressed.

Just as the 1960s and 1970s saw frame-up after frame-up of Black 
and indigenous fighters--kangaroo court justice, guilty verdicts 
with long prison terms and fines are almost assured for those who 
fall within the web of the current domestic political-military 
campaign.

Counterrevolutionary programs, such as those described above, were 
carried out against the Black Liberation Movement in the late 
1960s. Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, along with scores of 
other Panthers and non-Panthers, were murdered or jailed by local 
and federal police agencies. Many of these freedom fighters--young 
Black men and women of the same age as youth in today's street 
organizations--carried out Black nationalist, revolutionary 
nationalist and Maoist political work in the Black nation's 
communities. The FBI-led war against the Panthers left today's 
youth without revolutionary political leadership.

Fred Hampton carried on struggles with Chicago street youth and 
encouraged them to join in the liberation struggle. Today's youth 
face the same challenge--and a determined enemy as well. What is 
needed more than anything today, is to build revolutionary 
political leadership that can lead the way forward to victory for 
the oppressed people.

Notes:
1. New York Times 1/13/92, p. A11.
2. 1992 Budget of the U.S. Government, part 1, p. 199, 202.
3. Los Angeles Times 2/6/92, pp. B1, B4.

* * *

BIG MAC OR BIG MAO? : CHINESE YOUTH INTERESTED IN MAO

"To be a genius is to be a bit more intelligent. But genius does 
not depend on one person or a few people. It depends on a party, 
the party which is the vanguard of the proletariat. Genius is 
dependent on the mass line, on collective wisdom."(1)

Mao popular in China

A rebirth of interest in the Cultural Revolution and the cult of 
personality around Mao Zedong has swept across China in the past 
few years. According to the bourgeois press, Mao hasn't been this 
popular in China since the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 
(GPCR) of 1966-1976. People are interested in Mao's writings, his 
portrait and buttons, and clothing and music reminiscent of the 
GPCR.(2)

Bookstores reportedly sold 10 million volumes of the new edition 
of his works in 1991. During the Cultural Revolution, China 
printed 10 billion volumes of his works and 6.5 billion copies of 
the "Little Red Book," Quotations from Chairman Mao.

According to the China Daily, the "Mao cap," with a red star at 
the front, is a favorite among trendy Cantonese youth.(2) Like 
Malcolm X in Amerika, Mao is at the height of fashion in China.

This popularity is really nothing new. During the student and 
worker protests which led up to the Tiananmen Square massacre on 
June 3 and 4, 1989, many demonstrators carried portraits of Mao 
and slogans from the GPCR were popular. The student-worker 
movement used the memory of Mao to represent true socialism in 
today's struggle against Deng's fascist regime, which is socialist 
only in name.

Mao was a great comrade. But some of Mao's popularity arises from 
the extensive "cult of personality" built up around him. The 
problem with personality cults, which emphasize individual 
leaders, is that they deny that the masses are the true makers of 
history. (Send MIM $1 for "Personality Cults: Individualist 
Ideology Rooted in Class Society.")

U.S. press catches the Mao craze

On March 9, Time magazine featured two articles about Mao. The 
first was a two-paragraph piece debunking the myth that Mao had 
taken "marching orders" from Stalin during the Korean War. The 
article concluded that Mao acted on his own--out of fear--when 
Chinese forces attacked U.S. forces nearing the Chinese border. In 
fact, China had the strategic confidence to defeat the United 
States in Korea, even if that meant a U.S. invasion of China.

The second article was a full-page review of a book by Harrison E. 
Salisbury entitled, The New Emperors:  China in the Era of Mao and 
Deng. This book claims that Mao Zedong was a sex and drug addict 
and a "pseudo-Marxist" who was incapable of running a country. 
Salisbury deems Mao unfit to rule because he believed that the 
masses were capable of achieving anything, if motivated. What a 
villain!

Salisbury's sources are largely drawn from former Chinese aids and 
officials who proved to be pseudo-Maoists themselves in the post-
Mao era. Mao is portrayed as an Emperor prepared to violently oust 
anyone who got in his way. But if Mao was as violent and ruthless 
as the bourgeoisie makes him out to be, then Deng Xiaoping would 
not be in power today.

And if Mao was such a sex and drug addict, how could he be such a 
careful leader? He initiated the Cultural Revolution, through 
which the Chinese people made great advances in medical care and 
improved the overall standard of living in China. Under Mao, China 
became a modern and self-reliant nation. --MA51

Notes:
1. Committee for a Proletarian Party, later called Organization 
for Revolutionary Unity, "The Cultural Revolution in China," p. 
122.
2. Toronto Globe and Mail 2/14/92.

* * *

CHINA MARCHES TO CAPITALIST TUNE

In February, 87-year-old Deng Xiaoping made his Chinese New Year 
tour of China's booming southern coast, where he visited the town 
of Shenzhen, one of China's prosperous "special economic zones" 
(SEZS) in Guangdong province, near Hong Kong. Deng was quoted by 
the New York Times as saying, "If capitalism has something good, 
then socialism should bring it over and use it."(1)

Which is exactly what he has done. Ever since Deng's anti-
socialist agricultural reforms of 1979, he's been working to speed 
up the advance to capitalism.(2)

Following Deng's agricultural counterrevolution, the door to 
capitalism was opened in the coastal regions. Along China's 
southern coast, five SEZS were established in Guangdong and Fujian 
provinces and on Hainan island. Also, 14 cities became "coastal 
open cities" with tax breaks for foreign trade and investment.

The result of these capitalist "reforms" has been the 12-year 
economic boom in Guangdong and Fujian.(3)

This boom has brought all the "pleasures" of decadent capitalist 
industrial life. A small farming and fishing town in 1979, 
Shenzhen in 1991 had 2 million inhabitants, high-rise buildings, 
prostitutes of both sexes, traffic jams, its own shattered BCCI 
branch, and a GDP per person of $2,000 a year (3)--compared to GNP 
per capita of $330 for all of China.(4)

Sexual harassment, drug addiction and prostitution are far more 
common among Guangdong's 63 million people than in most of the 
rest of China.(5)

Fujian province, with 30 million people, went from being one of 
China's poorest provinces in the 1970s to the second largest 
recipient of foreign investments, after Guangdong.(3) When 
imperialist control takes over, self-reliance is out the window.

Privatization makes 

conditions deteriorate

Just before Deng's 1979 reforms set in, state-owned businesses 
accounted for nearly 80% of China's industrial output. In 1990, 
that figure was 54%.

China's state enterprises-- called "welfare societies" by the 
western press--provide workers with education, housing, medical 
care and a small wage.(6) These state enterprises are being 
overtaken by private business, many foreign-controlled, which 
offer no such guarantees. In particular, Chinese business in 
Taiwan, Hong Kong and abroad are investing in the SEZS.

Last year, the state paid 37 billion yuan ($6.75 billion) to 
subsidize artificially low prices, and had a record budget deficit 
of 21 billion yuan.(7) In contrast, during the 1960s China carried 
no internal or external debts at all.(8) And today, prices 
continue to rise, as a once self-reliant economy is traded 
overnight for one which is debt-dependent and export-oriented.

The Chinese masses know better than any people that without 
another socialist revolution and continual Cultural Revolutions, 
this road to capitalism will bring only more pain and suffering to 
the majority of the nation. --MC42

Notes:
1. NYT 2/28/92, p. A14.
2. NYT 3/25/92, p. A4.
3. Economist 10/5/91, p. 19.
4. 1990 World Population Data Sheet.
5. NYT 3/26/92, p. 1.
6. The Economist 6/1/91, pp. 15-18.
7. NYT 3/27/92, p. A11.
8. William Hinton, The Great Reversal: The Privatization of China, 
1978-1989. Monthly Review Press: New York, 1990. p. 6.

* * *

INDIGENOUS GROUP SPLITS RURAL VS. URBAN

A split in the continental grassroots-oriented leadership of the 
500 Years of Resistance Movement was formally recognized at a New 
York City conference of indigenous people's representatives during 
the week of March 2.

A statement released by the newly formed Coordinating Body of 
Indigenous Organizations and Nations of the Continent (CONIC) 
reads in part:

"In 1986, the Indigenous Movement initiated a campaign to 
disseminate information about the state of oppression under which 
our peoples live. ... Among the initiatives of the native peoples 
of ABYA YALA have been to invite the different sectors of the 
society to make a common front, based on mutual respect of the 
differences and characteristics among sectors. This indigenous 
proposal has been distorted, and usurped by sectors which have 
always carried out discriminatory practices. ... They tried to 
impose a system of a homogeneous society which is based in 
centralized and bureaucratic power which ignores the right of 
Indigenous Peoples to Self-determination.(1)

A spokesperson for South and Meso American Indian Information 
Center (SAIIC), one of CONIC's founding organizations, told MIM 
that indigenous people are the "vanguard" of the 500 Years 
Movement. S/he said that the Secretaria Operativa, the original 
coordinating organ of the 500 Years Movement, has manipulated the 
political agenda of the Movement to favor the interests of 
mestizos (descendents of Spanish conquerors and indigenous people) 
and Blacks (descendents of slaves hijacked from Africa), i.e., 
urban interests. Indigenous people are primarily rural peasant 
farmers.

Demographic realities

Mestizos live mainly in urban areas, participating in electoral 
politics. Blacks tend to live in barrios and form an urban 
proletariat. In the rough social and economic hierarchies 
throughout Meso and South America, mestizos interface with the 
urban and rural petty-bourgeois classes. Blacks are mostly 
landless and depend upon the ability to sell their labor-power for 
survival. Indigenous people communally farm land that was stolen 
from them long ago and from which they are forcibly removed on a 
daily basis.

Mestizos speak Spanish. Blacks speak Spanish and English. The 39 
million indigenous people speak dozens of languages. Historically 
all three sectors have been set at each others' throats by the 
ruling class which understands that it is often more cost-
efficient to let the oppressed fight for crumbs among themselves 
than to hire a death-squad for every village.

Unity in diversity?

As a whole, the 500 Years Movement has an anti-imperialist thrust. 
The Movement protests "neo-liberal privatization," destruction of 
the environment, IMF debt restrictions, gender oppression and 
murder by the military and police.(2) However, says CONIC, at the 
continental meeting in Guatemala in October 1991, the indigenous 
were only represented by 10% of the delegates and their demands 
for indigenous national self-determination and cultural and 
political autonomy were essentially liquidated.

A Colombian spokesperson for the Continental Chasky told MIM that 
the goal of the indigenous is "autodescubrimiento," or "self-
discovery." S/he charges interference in this process by "unions 
of the old left and syndicalists." S/he says that the complex 
struggle has been reduced by non-grassroots leadership to only 
class struggle and fails to encompass demands for indigenous self-
determination on the basis of nations that existed long before 
1492.

Both SAIIC and the Chasky urge activists to participate in the 
hundreds of activities planned between now and Columbus Day 1992. 
They state that the Movement, originated by the indigenous in 1987 
in Quito, Ecuador, is successfully stirring up public opinion and 
hopes to influence the course of liberation struggles now and 
after the obscene Quincentennial Celebration evaporates in a blast 
of champagne bubbles and bulldozers.

"We should ratify, in light of the misrepresented interpretations 
of our political and ideological position, that our struggle is 
anticolonial and anti-imperialist, and against all forms of 
domination and exploitation. We support the maintenance of 
communitarian forms of life in the face of the aggressive 
capitalist imposition, the struggle for the maintenance of 
indigenous territories in the face of multinationals and the 
diverse forms of cultural resistance, which are examples of our 
political position. ... [however] it is a right of indigenous 
people to meet with each other to handle our own problems."(3)

MIM knows that any liberation movement that is not led by a 
vanguard revolutionary communist (Maoist) Party is doomed to 
fragment around the types of issues described above.

Mao Zedong remarked that there are three major contradictions in 
society. These are between urban and rural areas; between industry 
and agriculture; and between mental and manual labor. Maoists take 
note that all three of these contradictions are manifested in the 
split of the 500 Years Movement into class, nation and gender 
interests that are irreconcilable, short of communist revolution. 
The struggle between these interests is also the motor of 
revolution.

MIM supports the right of the indigenous nations to self-discovery 
and self-determination. MIM also supports the necessity of the 
urban proletariat and petty-bourgeois peasants to form vanguard 
parties, smash the bourgeois state, and develop socialist 
economies. The self-determination of indigenous nations cannot be 
achieved by any lesser movement. --MC86

Notes:
1. CONIC press release 3/7/92.
2. Report of the Campaign 500 Years of Indigenous, Black and 
Popular Resistance, Quetzaltenango, 7 to 12 October 1991, 
Guatemala, Central America.
3. Ibid., p. 30.

* * *

LATINOS TOIL FOR AMERIKA

Farm workers survive by handling pesticide saturated crops. Unlike 
the privileged sectors of the Amerikan public--who only think 
about pesticides when they go to the supermarket--farm worker 
families never escape the hazardous poisons on which Amerikan 
agribusiness relies. Farm workers handle plants that are still 
wet--they breath air, drink water and eat food that harbors death.  
Farm workers are in contact with treated crops within hours of 
spraying; they can not simply buy organic.	

Migrant farm workers are mostly young latino couples with 
children.(2) In California, 88% of all farm workers are Mexican, 
(3) and half of the total farm worker population are undocumented 
aliens.(2) Children in the farm worker community face overwhelming 
obstacles, for them life in Amerika is no better than the future 
they would have had in their native country, they receive no 
benefits from imperialism.	

Children have no place to go while their parents toil in the 
fields, there is no day care and school is problematic because 
school districts in farm worker areas concoct tactics to keep the 
non-English speaking children out. They refuse to enroll students 
who do not speak English, they discourage enrollment by inventing 
residency requirements and they demand that only natural parents 
can enroll a child in school.(4) Many of these tactics are 
illegal, but laws do not apply across nation and class divisions, 
they are applied selectively.					

Migrant children are usually two or more years behind when they 
are in school, the drop out rate is 45% compared to 29% for the 
general population.(2)

One-third of parents interviewed by the National Child Labor 
Committee had children working with them in the fields; half of 
these have incomes below the poverty level.(2)

Young children work along side their parents, and often a whole 
family will work and receive one wage, under one social security 
number. This way the grower can report the wage as if they are 
following regulations, and get the labor of three or four for the 
price of one.(5)

According to the National Child Labor Committee, which has no 
interest in recording actual figures, in one year there are 1 
million child labor violations. In 1990 the average penalty was a 
whopping fee of $212 per violation. MIM is not surprised that 
offenders get off so lightly. 

A study of migrant children working in western New York found that 
40% of the children interviewed had worked while crops were still 
wet and 40% had been in the field while crops were being sprayed. 
(2) 

From 1979 to 1983 approximately 23,800 children were injured on 
farms and 300 died from these injuries(2).

The cancer rate in and around farm worker communities is above the 
national average.  In Earlimart, Calif., children are afflicted at 
twelve times the expected rate.(1) The Environmental Protection 
Agency estimates that farm workers suffer 300,000 acute illness 
and injuries from being exposed to pesticides alone.(2)

A farm worker in Merced County California stays up all night 
shaking and quivering, the fluid in his lungs make it difficult to 
breath. He has Parkinsons disease. A doctor attributes the disease 
to spraying Paraquat and Guthion in an almond orchard. At a 
workmans compensation trial seven doctors testified, four 
supporting his claim and three for the insurance companies that 
fought his claim. He lost the case.(5)

Farm workers are treated as subhuman labor devices. Growers and 
farm labor contractors keep the crews downpressed in every way 
they can. A 71-year-old man tells of how a group of Mexicans were 
contracted by the government to work in the United States: "Back 
then [1944] a man from the government came and was charging 80 
pesos, and he would tell us where to go if we wanted to be 
contracted for work.... People would sleep there so they could be 
there when they were called. Nothing but workers. All of us bald. 
They shaved our heads, our armpits, everywhere. They thought we 
had fleas. They disinfected us.... They made us go into a huge 
shower stall, all of us naked. The steam coming out of the tube 
was really hot....There were 60 of us locked in.... And right when 
all of us were drenched in perspiration, they turned ice cold 
water on us. There was no place to hide. Before we knew what was 
happening we were on the train the next day for Texas."

The worker concludes: "I'll tell you one thing, thanks to the 
Mexican people, this country has been able to maintain and expand 
its wealth and its standard of living. But we haven't. We can't 
pass a certain point of living."(5)

Notes:				
1. Toxics Race and Class: The Poisoning of Communities, SouthWest 
Organizing project, 1991
2. Government Accounting Office, Hired Farmworkers, February 1992
3. Department of Health Services, California Occupational Health 
Program, Press Release, May 1991
4. Noticiero, California Rural Legal Assistance, Winter 1992.
5. The Sacramento Bee, Special Report, "Fields of Pain" 12/8-
12/11/92.