2025 New Year's Statement

At the end of every year, MIM(Prisons) does an assessment of our work and finances and we plan for the new year. We also solicit reports, criticisms and self-criticisms from USW comrades. We were a little late on that this year, so perhaps we will have more for next issue of ULK.

While most are finding it hard to predict what the next Trump regime will bring, it is clear from this choice that imperialism is in crisis. The uncertainty and threat of instability from things like tariffs, deportations and defunding important social programs do not bode well for the future of U.$. imperialism or stability of the current world order of U.$. domination. There are clear cracks in the latter, despite 2024 being a series of short-term victories for the U.$. empire in the Levant.

The coming upheaval of the current system requires preparation and organization. Since the dissolution of the original MIM in 2008, we cannot say that the MIM has seen significant growth. The prison ministry did accomplish a lot in the decade from 2008 to 2018, reaching new heights in MIM’s prisoner support work. In U.$. prisons we saw significant growth and some amazing actions of mass solidarity. As long-time readers know, MIM(Prisons) took some major setbacks in 2020 and we’ve been regrouping since. In that period we’ve successfully expanded our online recruitment. We’ve also seen a significant growth in MIM line in online communities that MIM(Prisons) has never or no longer participates in (meaning promotion of MIM’s 3 cardinal principles). This has come along with a general growth in “Maoist” groups popping up, evolving and dissolving, though most of these groups do not uphold the 3 cardinals. All of this indicates change in favor of the growth of our forces here on occupied Turtle Island.

Assessing 2024

In the last few years we have revamped and relaunched all of our educational programs for prisoners, which were all non-operational by 2020. We’ve also begun running them online. In 2024, we saw another significant expansion of our educational engagement with prisoners with the relaunching of our study group for USW leaders through the University of Maoist Thought (UMT). Meanwhile, every year, comrades inside and outside continue to complete our intro study courses. These education programs are the first step to building the leaders we need to grow our movement.

Beyond just education, 2024 marked the beginning of the intentional building of the MIM-led united front. By MIM-led we mean ideologically, not a centralized organization. While still in its early stages, these discussions have been fruitful, involving people in cadre orgs and mass orgs that are doing real work in the anti-imperialist movement outside of prisons.

To be prepared for the changes to come, we must continue on these fronts. We must educate more allies into leaders, through both study groups and pushing them to engage in practical work. And we must continue to develop our networks and infrastructure to support real fighting forces in the future.

In 2024, our readership in prisons has continued its steady decline dating back to 2016 now. We didn’t receive a lot of feedback last year on the possible causes of this, but some factors include: drugs, tablets, digital mail, more long-term isolation, and a general decline in the prison movement.

We had less prisoners write us in 2024 than any other year in our existence. This translated to another decrease in donations. A few years ago we accomplished our longstanding goal of having prisoners fund 10% of ULK costs. This seemed to be a result of Covid money. Since then donations have returned to the more normal rate, but with less people writing us that’s an overall decrease in donations. The percent of ULK costs covered by prisoner donations dropped to about 4.2% in 2024, down from 11.5% in 2022.

On the other hand, this summer we distributed far more copies of ULK on the streets than ever before as part of our effort to link the prison movement to the student movement for Palestine. We got close to our goal of matching distribution inside prisons. And our donations from outside supporters (outside of MIM(Prisons)) reached an all time high as well to help pay for those papers.

Overall, our budget was very stable between 2023 and 2024, and much of the small increase was due to us expanding our operations in other locations.

Other than continuing our regular publication of ULK each season, we also put the finishing touches on our paper “Why the International Communist Movement (ICM) Must Break with the Legacy of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM)”. This paper is an important summary of the MIM struggle against the Revolutionary Communist Party(U$A) in the realm of the ICM, pointing out key differences between us and the various revisionists claiming Maoism to this day.

New for 2025

We have a number of things planned for this year already.

As whitehouse.gov removes all Spanish-language content, we are excited to announce the relaunch of our Spanish page (or section) that will start in ULK 89. We already have a Spanish version of our current letter introducing United Struggle from Within and MIM(Prisons), and will have a Spanish version of the intro study course level 1 soon. So if you know people who are interested in studying with us in Spanish have them write in for that. We are also looking for incarcerated translators to help contribute to this important project.

We are already making progress in 2025 towards our unachieved goal of establishing local AIPS chapters with local outreach, regular meetings, educational events, and campaign support for comrades inside. This should continue to expand our ability to correspond with prisoners and attempt to rebuild interest in U.$. prisons around our work.

We will be pushing the September 9th Day of Peace and Solidarity, on the anniversary of Attica, on the streets in the forms of fasting, political work and study, and possibly larger events as we have promoted inside prisons for a decade now. We have not seen much activity around this inside prisons in recent years, so we hope this will inspire that again and that we can reinforce each others’ efforts around 9/9.

The relaunch of our study group for USW leaders has been very successful overall. Specifically, it has brought together some of our most enthusiastic and advanced thinkers within the New Afrikan Independence Movement, creating momentum around more proactive work in that realm. We will be continuing this study and looking to produce work from it for the broader movement.

Join Us

Imperialism will keep providing opportunities for resistance as its internal contradictions only continue to heighten. It has been some time since we’ve seen real opportunities within the United $tates, and it remains one of the most stable places in the world. Yet, now is the time to build. Opportunities are close enough that people are getting interested in real change, but we must build before real crisis ensues and the existing dominant forces sweep away our efforts because we were not prepared.

Since 2020 we’ve seen a persistent slow and steady growth. We need your help to sustain that growth into the future.