Serve the People Political Books for Prisoners Program

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Serve the People Political Books for Prisoners Program

initiated in January 1988
updated on September 21, 2024

The Maoist Internationalist Movement has sent hundreds of thousands of pieces of literature to prisoners over decades based on the principles described here:

“Our point of departure is to serve the people whole-heartedly and never for a moment divorce ourselves from the masses, to proceed in all cases from the interests of the people.” – Mao Zedong, “On Coalition Government,” April 1945

MIM’s Books for Prisoners program is a Serve the People program founded on the model of the Black Panther Party’s Breakfast for Schoolchildren and other StP programs, and on the basis of Mao’s emphasis that Communists should serve the people in all we do. We are bound and honored to serve the most oppressed because our purpose in political organizing is to lead a movement toward a new democratic society that will be built under the leadership of the most oppressed. To this end, we build independent institutions of the oppressed that contribute to our ultimate revolutionary goals.

The purpose of the Political Books for Prisoners program is to do what we can to help prisoners turn their time under lock & key into a time to develop their politics and to build with us toward the beginnings of a more just and productive society. We collect and send out political, legal and historical books primarily (we also have some dictionaries and other reference that are useful for writers), to give prisoners tools to study the conditions under which they are living and to turn their knowledge into political organizing.

The Political Books for Prisoners program is not a book of the month club. Because our purpose is to organize we ask comrades in prisons to review the books we send so that more people can learn from the materials, to write articles for MIM Notes or MIM Theory based on the books, to form study groups with other comrades and do work among the study group to educate and organize, and to engage in other anti-imperialist organizing work.

Prisoners who would like to receive books from MIM’s Political Books for Prisoners program, should contact MIM and let us know the subject areas you are interested in, and also the types of political work you are interested in doing.

MIM(Prisons) has continued this legacy since its founding, and has continued to expand its operation. We are always looking for donations of political books, dictionaries, and money to keep the Books for Prisoners Program going. Supporters who would like to contribute should contact us.

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