MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
We are placed back here in Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg) for being
part of a security threat group (STG), a supposedly “confirmed” gang
member. I was placed in Ad-Seg in 2002 for corresponding with other
prisoners in another unit who were already confirmed. I got out of
prison in 2004, and have just recently come back this past year, and
once again I find myself placed in Ad-Seg even though I am not part of a
gang. I have tried to write to the gang officers and even wrote a
history report about my association in the past. I was told I would go
to a G.R.A.D. program that’s designed for ex-gang-members. I have yet to
hear anything.
During this time in Ad-Seg, we are supposed to receive an hour of
exercise (recreation) per day. Well I have been here on this unit going
on 6 months and have been to recreation only twice. I have written a
Step 1 grievance only to be told that they would get to us when staff
permitted. They claim to be under-staffed. But general population gets
their daily recreation, and they have enough staff to allow them to
shake our cells down every other day during showers. There are other
units that are really under-staffed, yet their Ad-Seg blocks receive
their hour of recreation. It’s sad because some of us need the exercise
for medical reasons, and all of us need it for mental issues. Constantly
in the cell all day every day is really a mind battle and a severe
health issue.
MIM(Prisons) responds: In Under Lock & Key 41 we
published many accounts of gang validation being used as a tool of
social control. The STG designation is held over the heads of prisoners
who are often among the most politically active, and then used as an
excuse to isolate them from others. It is irrelevant to the prison
administration whether or not these “confirmed” people actually
affiliate with a criminal organization. And in some places, working with
MIM(Prisons) is considered criteria for classifying people as a security
threat. We publish accounts like this one to demonstrate the ongoing
conditions of torture in these isolation programs, and the arbitrary use
of the STG label. But in reality we do not trust the criminal injustice
system to decide who is a threat to security; the biggest security
threats are running the Amerikan government and its military and prison
systems.
On Christmas morning upon entering lockdown for 8 a.m. count, Sergeant
Samuel approached a cell near mine and radioed the officer station to
open the cell door. When the cell door slid open, Sgt. Samuel who is
always playing and joking with the two prisoners in that cell, was then
putting on his latex gloves so he and an officer in training could
search the cell.
One of the prisoners walked out of the cell and refused to cuff up for
the search in a playful manner. Refusing to cuff up in the presence of
the trainee officer made Sgt. Samuel look bad and playful, so he whipped
out his chemical agent saying, “get on the floor or I’ll spray you.” The
prisoner walked away with Sgt. Samuel following; they ended up
downstairs and backup arrived. The backup was Sgt. Harris and
Corrections Officer Sanders. The prisoner agreed to cuff up as long as
they would not gas him. Sgt. Harris agreed and the prisoner laid on the
floor face down with his hands behind his back.
Once the cuffs were on the trainee officer and C/O Sanders went into
action. The trainee tried to cross the prisoner’s legs across each other
while pressing them into his back. At the same time C/O Sanders started
pressing his right knee into the prone man’s neck area. The prisoners
locked behind their cell doors started screaming while Sgts. Samuel and
Harris looked on. Then they picked the man up from the floor and took
him into the sally port.
Outside of the dormitory, as soon they got the prisoner out on the
sidewalk, C/O Sanders punched him in the back of the head and he fell to
the ground. I saw the whole thing from my back window and started
screaming “they’re jumping on that man out there!” loud as hell so
everyone including the pro-imperialist goons (pigs) could hear me.
Corrections Officer Daluco was on his radio commanding all pigs to get
the prisoners off their back windows; no witnesses allowed. But they
quickly picked the beaten man up from off the floor as Captain Coleman
showed up, while the pig Sanders explained that he had to drop the
prisoner because “he was talking too much shit.” Just like that,
Sgt. Harris and Cpt. Coleman walked the beaten prisoner off for
pre-confinement where he now sits pending fake “Battery on an Officer”
charges even though he was in cuffs and he was battered by C/O Sanders
who violated Florida Statute 944.35 (3)(a)(1). C/Os Sanders and Daluco
walked off together talking like it was just another day on the
plantation, being members of the slave patrol conscripted with all the
impunity in the world.
MIM(Prisons) adds: This article was sent to us by both the persyn
who was beaten up and another comrade who witnessed the event, exposing
an example of brutality in prison that is all too common. And by writing
about this brutality, both authors set a good example for others, that
there are many ways to take up the battle against the criminal injustice
system. We call on our readers to document abuse by prison employees as
it happens, and help us to establish patterns that can be used to expose
the system and educate people on the streets.
We also need to make the connections between this brutality by prison
staff and the criminal injustice system in general. The problem is not a
few bad guards, or even the free reign and positions of power they are
given in their jobs. It is the entirety of the system that dehumanizes
prisoners and places them in a system that has nothing to do with
rehabilitation. By classifying so many people, disproportionately from
oppressed nations, as fundamentally criminal and forcing them outside of
the social and economic system, the criminal injustice system plays a
key role in social control of the lumpen class. Keeping prisoners in a
constant state of fear of violence and loss of privileges further helps
to reduce resistance and silence the voices of those who might otherwise
speak out.
It is an act of courage to write about the brutality that is happening,
and even greater courage to organize others to study the system and seek
greater understanding of its connections to Amerikan imperialism. This
study and education helps build comrades who can work together to fight
the imperialist system itself.
Psychological diagnoses made in bourgeois society seek not only to
isolate and treat mental illness on an individual basis, but also says
the illness neither affects, nor is affected by, others.
Taking isolation in prisons into account (where research shows that
being locked up in itself can cause mental illness) one begins to see
the so-called facts in bourgeois reasoning behind individual diagnoses
as fallacious. Individual diagnosis benefits the bourgeoisie by
separating the individual from h environment, forcing the illness to be
considered through the biological lens where it is said to be internally
developed. This method negates a persyn’s social and cultural
influences, economic plight, outside forces acting upon h social milieu,
as well as individual interpretation of all the above.
Inside isolation pods in U.$. prisons we are subject to sensory
deprivation, restricted movement, lighted cells 24 hours a day, the
constant clanging of metal doors, bullying by guards, unhealthy food, as
well as sporadic screaming and banging by those even more deeply
affected by imperialism’s woes. This constant barrage of negative
stimuli over a period of time is agitating, if nothing else. Agitation
leads to the need for an outlet for the release of pent up tension. That
tension leads to anger and resentment. This anger can have far-reaching,
long-term effects. This awareness is underlined by my own persynal
experience of having a quick temper, blurred reasoning after being
agitated, and less thought-out reaction to anger with little to no
thought of consequences.
The bourgeois system is backwards because it is idealistic (diagnosing
as biological and as not affected by environment) and metaphysical
(mental illness affecting only the individual and unchanging). Both
these are world outlooks that imply things are what they are and will
always be what they are. These outlooks are supported by the bourgeoisie
because they compel apathy (indifference to the rule of the bourgeois
because there seems to be little we can do to change things) and
acceptance of the “order of things” by the masses who come to accept the
conditions as inherent and the dominance of bourgeois leadership as
unchanging. Basically the bourgeois classes push this line of reasoning
because it allows them to hold on to power.
While the bourgeois classes perpetuate imperialism and deny
responsibility for world conditions (including the systematic
incarceration of oppressed nations) they also label all who refuse to
subscribe to their world view as sick, radical, deviant, disillusioned
and, of course, mentally ill.
In Under Lock &
Key 15 after asking the question “who is mentally ill?” MIM(Prisons)
quotes MCB52 that those who are diagnosed with mental health problems
are mostly “pissed off people rationally resisting the hegemonic culture
one way or another.”
The method of diagnosis will change once the people begin defining and
deciding our own conditions. Fed up with the conditions we find
ourselves and the world in, fed up with being agitated, let’s begin to
agitate back. And let’s build independent institutions that operate
outside the diagnosistic structure of the bourgeoisie, where the people
decide who is mentally ill based on their contributions to the further
development of the people’s interest, not because we refuse to take part
in a system that oppresses us and others.
Revolution starts in the gulags. All power to the people.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with this comrade on the problem
of individual diagnosis for mental illness in bourgeois society. This
standard especially benefits Amerikkka because it justifies drugging up
oppressed nationals full of psychotropics in the name of psychology,
while leaving the structure of prisons and solitary confinement intact.
We have heard reports from many comrades in prison that the so-called
therapists want to prescribe them strong psychotropic drugs (or even
force them to take these drugs), which they refuse because it will have
a negative impact on their ability to engage in politics. Yet these
comrades’ requests for a resful night’s sleep, or adequate nutrition,
are ignored. Individual diagnosis permits individual (mis)treatment.
The most progressive of psychologists in the bourgeois countries do see
a connection between the individual and society. But the vast majority
of those are reformists who do not see the link of the individual’s
mental illness to the capitalist economic system itself. These academics
can be our allies, such as those in the struggle to abolish long-term
solitary confinement. But their reformist leaning is inherently
limiting.
There is use for mental health practitioners and counselors to work with
revolutionaries in our present social context in order to help us
resolve the mental illnesses we pick up just from living in an
imperialist society. The goal of this mental health work should be to
make us better revolutionaries, and not just so we can feel more
comfortable going along with the status quo.
Of the few mental health practitioners that do see the bigger
connections between capitalism and mental illness, most present-day
radical counselors are found in the anarchist movements. A challenge
with anarchism is it often seeks persynal “liberation” from capitalism
today without a long-term plan of how to achieve liberation on a
worldwide scale and for the most oppressed peoples in the world. We are
not opposed to anti-imperialists of all stripes achieving a higher level
of mental health. At the same time, we have to acknowledge that mental
illness can be a persynal motivating factor for many people into
revolutionary politics (“i am depressed because this world is so fucked
up and makes no sense”), and a resolution of persynal mental illness
combined with the frustration many feel by the dead-end strategy of
First World anarchism is a perfect formula to push people to age out of
political struggle for good.
Professional psychological standards in the United $tates push for
“objectivity” of the therapist, which is actually just institutionalized
Liberalism. In Communist China, mental health workers were educated in
political economy and would use Mao Zedong Thought to help people
understand how their depression, suicidal tendencies, or even
schizophrenia fit into an international and material context. Rather
than being limited to defining somone’s “personality” or persynal
chemical defect, mental health was seen on a mass scale as a product of
society. Anecdotal evidence from our prisoner comrades and outside
recruits has shown that mental health challenges can often be resolved
on an individual level by taking up revolutionary politics and studying
to understand all the nonsense of capitalism.
The basic logic behind the United Front for Peace in Prisons is simple,
but genius. The concept is self-explanatory. How else do circumstances
get resolved without the
five
principles?
Individualism and evasion counters liberation. Regardless, whether we
are into politics or not, believe that politics are into us. All aspects
of life have an element of control that dictate our lives, and if we
don’t seek unity and ultimate internationalism, chaos will always
follow. Sharing information about ourselves to each other in collective
formats is the first step. Guarding ourselves is natural; it is
something we do to protect ourselves from opposing forces. However,
through self-discipline and some simple confidence and motivation,
progress is possible.
Our biological nature is to be selfish. It is primal instinct to seek
ultimate survival and power, and without a balance or some
consciousness, humyns want to oppress each other. The ones who have
blindfolds on have the idea that oppression = peace, and perhaps they
have been programmed to think and view life in such a manner. However am
I the only one, or does that logic sound irrational to you too?
In my opinion (and I could be wrong) I believe a better approach is to
educate as many people as you can to obtain growth and progress. There
will always be contradictions, of course (no matter what). But to give
up is to give up on your people and yourself.
I like Mao’s quote from “Some Questions Concerning Methods of
Leadership”:
“[T]ake the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and
concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and
systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these
ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and
translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in
such action. Then once again concentrate ideas from the masses and once
again go to the masses so that the ideas are persevered in and carried
through. And so on, over and over again in an endless spiral, with the
ideas becoming more correct, more vital and richer each time. Such is
the Marxist theory of knowledge.”
Educate to liberate!
MIM(Prisons) responds: We have a lot of unity with this writer’s
call to action around the United Front for Peace in Prisons (UFPP). But
we do disagree that there is a biologically inherent trait of
selfishness in humyns. While there is certainly an instinct to survive
in all living things, this does not mean there must be an instinct to
take power and oppress other people. We can see that this is what many
people do today, but the culture of capitalism teaches us that’s how to
get ahead, from the time we are born. So how can we separate out
instinct from culture in this situation?
As Maoists we believe in the need for a dictatorship of the proletariat
after the revolution, where the formerly oppressed majority take control
of the government and run it in their own interests while dictating to
the minority (who promoted exploitation) how society will be run. During
this period of socialism we will need cultural revolutions to challenge
the ingrained mentality of capitalism that has taught everyone to look
out for themselves first and to get ahead at the expense of others. We
know it will take many generations of cultural revolution and
re-education of humynity but we do not think the reality of capitalist
culture determines what humyns are capable of under communism.
I’m writing in regards to the article
“Gang
Validation: Justification for Torture and Social Control” that the
Connecticut prisoner wrote in ULK 41. I was housed in the same
control unit in Corrigan Correctional Institution when the incident
happened. When the prisoner who got caught with the 5 pages of Security
Risk Group (SRG) paperwork returned back to the block (phase 3) I read
the ticket and all paperwork that was associated with it. The paperwork
clearly stated he was found in possession of the materials and he takes
all responsibility. This clearly shows the prisoner who was transferred
to Walker Correctional Institution was a target. I, and many other
prisoners, believe he was a target of the pigs because of his ability to
organize. It was through this brother that I first found out about
Under Lock & Key. I feel that because of ULK I am
better informed on the struggles within from state to state.
Since that incident I have also received a Class A SRG ticket because
the words “Neva Will I” are supposedly Blood identifiers. Now I have
been set back and have to wait for the ticket to clear to be eligible to
start the program. The prisoners here in the state of Connecticut can be
validated SRG members for something as simple as the “B” representing
the Boston Red Sox Logo, or simply writing the $ or cents sign. I’m
guessing these pigs have to keep the beds filled up some way, right?
I have to try my hardest to stay under the radar because I am now being
targeted due to an incident that happened which had nothing to do with
me. Two prisoners engaged in a scuffle and the one who lost cooperated
with the pigs giving up unreliable information. I was questioned by the
Captain and Lieutenant of the block. I was told “Since you won’t
cooperate then I will do everything in my power to make sure you won’t
phase through the program!” by the Lieutenant while the Captain sat
there and laughed. I simply responded, in control, “Regardless of how
you feel, or what you do, time will continue to move forward whether I’m
in the program or not!” Since that confrontation my cell has been
subjected to searches 2-3 times a week and the pigs find nothing. I
believe it is just a waste of time. There is no valid justification for
torture and social control, but yet the pigs continue to use these units
for such. We must all keep fighting regardless of how long it takes. A
war has never been won in a single day! I want to say to all comrades in
the struggle to stay headstrong (educated), positive and above all else
remain militant! MADMEN (Minorities Against Depression/Oppression
Maximizing Education Nationally).
MIM(Prisons) responds: This writer describes the most common way
that Under Lock & Key and general revolutionary education is
spread behind bars: from one activist prisoner taking the information to
others. And the result, as reported in ULK 41, is often
punishment and even SRG “validation” for the activist. It is good for us
to know that our educational work is such a threat to the criminal
injustice system that they go to great lengths to stop it: censorship,
solitary confinement, physical abuse, and theft of property are some
examples. The attacks on our comrades are actually a confirmation of the
effectiveness and importance of this work. As this comrade points out,
there is no justification for torture and social control, but these are
common tools of the oppressor. We call on everyone who reads
ULK to take at least the one small action of sharing your copy
with someone else, exposing at least one other persyn to revolutionary
education. And everyone reading this should get in touch and make sure
to get your own subscription since you can’t count on being in the same
place to borrow a copy next time.
Here at a torture unit known as the Corcoran Security Housing Unit
(SHU), we New Afrikan freedom fighters and other entities are getting
retaliated on by the fascist Institutional Gang Investigators (IGI). IGI
and their cronies seem to think that attacking those who were hunger
strikers and at the forefront of the prison movement is gonna distract
us from our main objective in challenging this oppressive system. They
are holding onto our mail for months at a time, giving out petty
disciplinary cases after cell searches and calling miscellaneous items
contraband, such as extra laundry, or wire we use to make our digital
channels come in clearly and radios without static.
Due to the outside support we received for the collective solidarity we
expressed on the inside, we’ve received but a few items we requested in
our yearly packages and canteen purchase. The legislators gave the
administration an earfull of how they mistreat us in the SHU, and how
mental torture is much worse than physical torture and solitary
confinement must be abolished.
The retaliation is a given, and just this past week I personally had
some books sent back to the sender and was told they promoted racism and
violence. Well, I filed a grievance against the sergeant they sent to my
door because his actions were racist. The reading material was in fact
about anarchism, and they have allowed the white/European inmates to
have literature on this very same subject. I was also referred to as a
racist because he saw pictures of a few Black Panthers on my wall, and
asked why do I read racist books of the past. I just looked at the
sergeant standing before me and shook my head. How can a New Afrikan be
a racist considering all the things that have happened to my people in
previous times, and are still happening around the country?
We are also being moved around the yard to the different buildings, and
we hear it’s only due to the warden wanting to place mentally ill
inmates in the left side of the building and those who are not on
medication to the right side of the building, but this is so they can
revalidate those who the Departmental Review Board might be considering
kicking back to the mainline, and to disturb think tanks we have been
able to put together throughout the prison diaspora. We who have been
buried alive in these concrete tombs (Pelican Bay, Corcoran, Tehachapi
SHUs) will stand firm in our principled discipline and continue our
revolutionary studies, because we have a world to win. We will not let
our oppressor’s strategies and tactics stop our movement or break our
momentum. In true liberation and struggle I encourage all to show
solidarity until all oppressed are free.
Dare to Struggle Dare to win….
MIM(Prisons) responds: While we agree with what this comrade
wrote above, we want to expand on this topic. Racism is the ideology
that arises from national oppression: a way of seeing certain groups of
people as inferior based on their alleged biological differences, or
“race.” National oppression is the system that engenders racism, a
system where one nation has power over other nations. New Afrikans are
an oppressed nation within U.$. borders, and so this discrimination
based on race by the guards is no surprise (and something our comrades
see all the time behind bars). But a persyn from an oppressed nation
could be racist (though not in the way that the prison guard claims). We
see racism manifested as incorrect ideas about Mexicans by New Afrikans
or New Afrikans by Mexicans, for instance. Or oppressed nation people
thinking white people are oppressors because of some biological
deficiencies.
Despite the utter lack of scientific evidence that race exists, Amerikan
academics have succeeded in replacing discussions about national
self-determination with ones of race and multiculturalism. This has led
to the popularization of lines such as “Black people can’t be racist.”
One video from the Ferguson uprisings has gotten a lot of promotion by
white nationalists trying to show how ridiculous the protestors were
because they accuse a reporter of being racist because he is white and
claim that they can’t be racist because they are Black. While we cannot
win over the white nation as a whole, by being more scientific and more
correct in the line we put out there we can better win over those at the
margin who will be turned off by illogical statements. The revolutionary
movement needs to work on educating people on incorrect ideas about
racism and the material definition of national oppression. This will
both help us recruit the support of others as well as be more successful
in everything we do because of our own greater understanding of things
as they are.
Enclosed is the grievance I submitted regarding ULK 39. As you
may notice, the Chief of Corrections Operations A. David Robinson,
upheld the decision of the Publication Review Committee to censor the
publication. But if you read the third paragraph of Robinson’s response
you will notice he refers to the prison denying “the books.” Obviously,
Robinson failed to do his job.
His job is to review the publication to see if the censorship is
justified. Since ULK 39 is a newsletter and not “books,” he
could not have reviewed them. Robinson is paid at least $50,000 annually
(perhaps double that). Isn’t that too much to pay a rubber stamp yes
man?
People in combat zones get paid less than Robinson, yet he cannot be
bothered to actually perform his duty. Instead he simply acts as a robot
automatically approving the actions of his flunkies beneath him.
Also notice the date of the response is December 17, but I didn’t
receive it until January 20. I conjecture that the date is false - the
man missed the 20-day deadline but back-dated it. He had only until 21
December to respond but he probably responded January 17.
MIM(Prisons) adds: This is an example of just a few of the
responses we get when attempting to fight censorship of MIM(Prisons)
literature. There is never any legitimate reason behind the censorship,
but it’s easy for prison administrators to run our comrades around in
circles with false claims and delays. These are very difficult to appeal
because the appearance of a response to a grievance is sufficient for
higher level rejections. Nonetheless, everyone who faces censorship
should be appealing it, and we can provide a guide to fighting
censorship for those who need some help. Please also report on the
outcome of your appeals and let us know what support we can send to help
with the fight. This is a critical part of the educational work we do
behind bars.
As of January 2015, my access to copies of MIM Theory magazine
in Goose Creek Correctional Center has been curtailed. Several days ago
I was given a notice from the prison’s mailroom that a “booklet” had
been sent (it was MIM Theory 2/3) from “a vendor who is not on
the approved list.” Though this vendor approval policy was instituted
DOC-wide in Alaska about two or three years ago, at every other facility
I’ve been in, including two pre-trial jails, magazines and periodicals
such as MIM Theory were exempt and I received every issue
previously sent. So, apparently, there is only a problem at Goose Creek.
I sent a request to the mailroom to consider the copy of MIM
Theory a zine, with a denial coming back. My next step was to send
a request to the security sergeant. The response from this officer was
different. Now, apparently, I’m being denied because the pages of the
magazine are “discolored” and therefore the conclusion is that the copy
is “second-hand” and “used.” Even though any “discoloration” would
likely be because the magazine is 20 years old and printed on newsprint,
it is still denied because used books are not allowed.
As of about a week ago I wrote a cop-out back saying that the copy is
not used nor second-hand, but rather a back-copy – an issue that was
kept in stock and never put into circulation. I made the analogy that it
is the same as if I had ordered from Time a back issue of their
magazine. I also pointed out that the sender is the same entity as the
original publisher/distributor and hence the copy is obviously not used.
I’m still, as of the time of this letter, awaiting a reply back, but
thus far it’s not looking encouraging. I also did ask that MIM
Distributors be placed on the Approved Vendors List.
I intend on pursuing the matter as far as is necessary. I have not
exhausted all avenues yet. I’m curious to know if anyone else has had
similar issues regarding the specific reason I’m thus far being given
for the withholding of the issue, and what remedies were taken.
MIM(Prisons) adds: In our experience with this particular reason
for censorship, it is a coin toss whether the administration will submit
to logical reasoning on whether to allow the magazine in. We don’t have
a specific recommendation on how to handle a claim that a magazine is
used when it simply isn’t. Often times we need to send in another copy
of the magazine that hopefully looks newer, or that arrives on a day
when a more rational mailroom staff persyn is working.
Censorship battles are particularly important for the prison-based
revolutionary struggle because of the educational focus of our work
right now. Our only option presently is to work with prisoners through
the mail, and the political literature that we send in is the main way
we spread information about political theory, history and current
events. When our mail is cut off we lose a critical tool in our
anti-imperialist organizing work. This comrade’s reporting of censorship
battles, and h work fighting the censorship, is a good example for
others. A lot of mail we send out is returned back to us, and frequently
mail is rejected without any notification as to why. We need people to
appeal all cases of censorship, and notify us each time censorship
happens. We can support these appeals with our own letters of protest,
but only when we know the censorship is happening. Many of you receive
Unconfirmed Mail Form letters from us asking you to tell us what mail
you received. We appreciate all the responses to these form letters, and
it would be even better if everyone kept us up to date on all mail
received so we don’t have to send out these forms. Remember, every time
you write you should tell us everything you’ve received since you last
wrote.
The United States and Cuba recently agreed to restore diplomatic ties
after a half-century of hostility, taking steps toward ending one of the
world’s last Cold War standoffs. President Obama’s announcement, made in
coordination with President Raúl Castro, stated that these
long-estranged countries would restart cooperation on a range of travel
and economic issues and reestablish the American embassy in Havana that
closed in 1961 after the Cuban Revolution.
While the Cuban Revolution was a blow against U.$. imperialism, which
had a choke-hold on the Cuban economy, after the 1959 revolution Cuba
became dependent on the state capitalist Soviet Union. By 1959 a new
bourgeoisie had arisen in the Soviet Union and it had turned away from
its socialist orientation toward state capitalism. Instead of building
socialism in Cuba, Castro and his government ended up building a
satellite colony of the USSR.(1) Amerikan refusal to associate with Cuba
was a reaction to the Cuban people successfully shutting down Amerikan
dominance and a concession to the many wealthy Cuban immigrants who fled
to the United $tates after the revolution, rather than a serious
political stance. The Amerikan imperialists have not hesitated to
associate with governments and countries that are strongly anti-Amerikan
when the economic benefits of the relationship are compelling.
The recent policy changes forge significant economic ties between the
two countries by allowing U.$. financial institutions to open accounts
with Cuban counterparts, easing restrictions on the export of U.$.
agricultural and telecommunication gear to Cuba, and permitting U.$.
citizens to use credit and debit cards there. The biggest boost in the
short-term from the changes will come from remittances, which will now
allow relatives of Cubans to send back $2,000 a month to their homeland,
up from $500 at the moment. Remittances are the island’s leading source
of income. In cash and in kind (appliances and clothes), they account
for $5.1 billion a year in income, nearly double tourism at $2.6
billion.(2)
The immediate benefits for the country are obvious. The Cuban government
reported that economic growth for 2014 was around 1.4%, and an estimated
40,000-50,000 Cubans emigrated in the past year. For economic reasons,
Cuba is starved for cash, and its biggest trading partner, Venezuela, is
facing an economic crisis due to the recent plunge in oil prices.
Analysts say the possibility of losing Venezuelan aid likely played a
role in reaching an agreement with the United $tates.
Business Opportunities Abound
Restoring trade ties will benefit the U.$. economy, allowing companies
to join other countries which have operated for decades in Cuba and made
their own capitalist inroads, such as Canada and European Union
member-states. U.$. farmers, already helped by a partial lifting of the
embargo for agricultural goods, will have new export opportunities.
Despite heavy regulation and strict limitations, U.$. exports of
agricultural goods to Cuba grew to $547 million in 2010 from $4 million
in 2001.
Groups ranging from the American Farm Bureau Federation to the U.$.
Chamber of Commerce strongly support a lifting of the embargo because
they see Cuba as a significant export market. Opportunities abound
elsewhere, such as in telecommunication, retail, tourism, and natural
resources. “Cuba needs everything we make in the United States,” said
the global government affairs director for Caterpillar, Inc. The company
hopes to soon install a dealership in Cuba. “We’ve been calling for a
new policy toward Cuba for 15 years.” U.$. hospitality companies also
are eager to do business in Cuba when they can. “The minute it’s
available, we’ll be down there,” the CEO of Choice Hotels International,
Inc. was reported as saying.(3)
All this is evidence of the capitalist system in Cuba. U.$. companies
want access to this market that corporations based in other capitalist
countries have been enjoying for years.
From Yanqui to Soviet Social-Imperialism: Neglect of Socialist
Alternatives
With the 1959 revolution, Cuba sought to dismantle the economic hegemony
the United $tates had over the country. Partial nationalization of
certain sectors of the economy, followed by a complete confiscation of
foreign-owned property, were met with stiff U.$. opposition, as many
Amerikan citizens held large investments there. On 3 January 1961, U.$.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba
after Castro charged that the U.$. embassy in Havana was the center of
counter-revolutionary activities in the country. In February 1962,
President John F. Kennedy proclaimed an embargo on most U.$. trade with
Cuba. The Cuban economy at the time was in serious danger. Industrial
plants, confiscated after the revolution and now in disrepair, lacked
the raw materials to keep operating. Spare parts for factory equipment
and motor vehicles made in the United $tates were no longer available.
Crop yields were poor, and food rationing began in March 1962. Against
this backdrop, Cuba signed a $700 million trade agreement with the
Soviet Union, following up on a $100 million credit and agreement to
deliver a large procurement of sugar two years earlier. By mid-July of
that year, thousands of Soviet military and economic advisors were
making their way to the island.
While an improvement over the neo-colonial status it held under the
United $tates, the new alliance Cuba had forged with the Soviet Union
was hardly symbiotic in nature. This strings-attached relationship also
affected Castro’s drive to diversify Cuba’s economy through
industrialization, which ultimately proved unsuccessful. Historically,
Cuba’s most valuable crop has been sugarcane. Under U.$. tutelage, more
than half of the cultivated land was devoted to this crop for export to
U.$. markets. Little changed after the revolution, and sugar accounted
for almost two-thirds of all export revenues. This heavy dependence on a
single crop continued to hinder Cuba’s economy. Cuba needed sugar to
carry out its trade agreements with the Soviet Union and its allies, and
as a result, agricultural diversification and the ability to feed its
own people suffered. Cuba’s economy remained stagnant, and became
heavily dependent on Soviet aid. With the eventual collapse of the
Soviet bloc, Cuba was severely wounded economically.
Furthermore, the material aid given to Cuba was inferior in quality, and
was not geared towards the needs and climatic conditions of the
Caribbean country. Castro’s early advocacy of violent revolution
throughout Latin America put it at odds with and weakened Cuba’s
relations with the Soviet Union. The Soviets in turn would curtail
economic aid whenever the Cuban government stepped too far out of line,
as was the case when Cuba opposed its and the Soviet bloc countries’
invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. After a round of economic
arm-twisting, Castro took a more neutral stance.
Unlike the socialist veneer of Soviet-revisionist economic cooperation,
communist China’s line at the time in regard to socialist financial and
material aid had its basis in mutual cooperation and advised that it
should be tailored to the needs of both countries with an aim towards
economic self-sufficiency. In no way should it be conditional and carry
high interest, which perpetuates the cycle of indebtedness in the
recipient country. Material aid should be of first-rate quality and not
technologically outdated. It should also suit their material conditions.
Soviet agricultural implements exported to Cuba, for instance, did much
damage to sugarcane fields.
Socialist Principles?
In his latest speech on the subject of normalization of relations,
President Raúl Castro stated that Cuba “will not give up its socialist
principles.” Despite his assertion, we contend that he and Fidel had
already done so by 1961. They embraced the fallacy that you cannot get
production without incentive, instituting many Soviet-styled agrarian
and industrial measures such as the implementation of work incentives
and wage differentials to better boost production quotas. Looking to Mao
Zedong’s implementation of moral incentives to reward the workforce in
China for overachievements in production could have been a viable
alternative to this. The class struggle was also sidelined with their
focus on economic output as a gauge of their country’s success in
building socialism, which constitutes a failure to do away with the
theory of productive forces – a policy which has led many a socialist
revolution to its revisionist perdition.
This is a critical reason why the Cultural Revolution in China
represents the furthest advance towards communism in history: capitalist
theories and practices will not just disappear under socialism and must
be actively combatted. Otherwise a new bourgeoisie will arise from
within former proletarian forces and attempt to take power against the
interests of the masses. This happened in the Soviet Union, and their
treatment of Cuba demonstrates clearly the state capitalists ignoring
the needs of the Cuban people.
Since Raúl Castro took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, the Cuban
government has undertaken a series of tentative economic reforms to move
the country away from the state capitalist framework to a full-fledged
capitalist system.
Keeping Solidarity with Cuba in Perspective
Having endured centuries of repeated imperialist encroachment, Cuba has
managed to attain a degree of independence and sovereignty over its
affairs. We support Cuba’s right to self-determination, and applaud the
Cuban government’s notable success in providing educational and medical
services to all segments of Cuban society. Cuba’s anti-imperialist
stance on a range of issues remains strong, and in a confrontation with
imperialism, Cuba deserves our backing. Yet Cuba is not socialist, and
the Cuban people know that their government at this point in its history
is not a revolutionary government, but a pragmatic one. It is our hope
that the people of Cuba will experience a blossoming of revolutionary
consciousness and organize for their rights in the coming years as
capitalist encroachment places their country in the cross-hairs of
further economic exploitation.
“Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research.
And when you see that you’ve got problems, all you have to do is examine
the historic method used all over the world by others who have problems
similar to yours. Once you see how they got theirs straight, then you
can know how you can get yours straight.” - Malcolm X, Message to the
Grass Roots
The basis of any social movement is unity. Unification is most often
formed around a common oppression and recognition of necessity by a
sometimes common, sometimes diverse group of people in order to link up
together to fight the oppressive powers that be. On this topic perhaps
the best, yet least known example of a common, yet diverse group of
people coming together to fight off the most oppressive and far reaching
power the world has ever known, was the Asian-African Conference of 1955
held in Bandung, Indonesia. This gathering of Black and Yellow nations
was the first time in hystory that representatives from 29 Asian and
African countries would meet to discuss strategic methods for combating
the effects of imperialism on their people. All of the countries in
attendance were not only newly independent following the beginning of
the disintegration of the old colonial order, but represented a quarter
of Earth’s land surface.(1)
The Bandung Conference was sponsored by the Prime Ministries of
Indonesia, Burma (now Myanmar), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), India and the
Philippines. The most notable and prestigious country to attend however
was the then-socialist People’s Republic of China. The convocation of
these newly emerging forces was an important step towards the creation
of the Non-Aligned Movement and it is from the legacy of both Bandung
and the Non-Aligned Movement that the concept of the Third World would
later be developed. Most notably barred and excluded from attending the
conference were any and all Western imperialist powers, including the
then-social-imperialist Soviet Union, as the newly emerging forces were
looking to make a clean break from all variations of imperialism.
The Bandung Conference considered problems of common interest and
concern to the countries of Asia and Africa, and discussed ways and
means by which their people could attain fuller economic, cultural and
political cooperation. And while to many today, particularly in the
First World, the idea of the Third World liberating itself from the
artificially-produced poverty of capitalism without the benefit of U.$.
“aid” may seem like a pipe dream, those of us who know the mechanisms by
which imperialism operates know that what is actually ridiculous is the
notion that the United $tates and other imperialist powers would ever
sit idly by as the oppressed and exploited organized for their own
liberation to the point that they are no longer dependent on such First
World aid. As a matter of hystorical perspective, Malcolm X would later
explain the social context for the exclusion of the white man at
Bandung:
“The number one thing that was not allowed to attend the Bandung
Conference was the white man. He couldn’t come. Once they excluded the
white man, they found out that they could get together. Once they kept
him out everybody else fell right in and fell in line. This is the thing
that you and I have to understand. And these people who came together
didn’t have nuclear weapons, they didn’t have jet planes, they didn’t
have all the heavy armaments the white man has. But they had unity.”(2)
To be clear, it’s not that the oppressed Asian and African countries
were excluding the white man out of some sense of racism. Rather they
were excluding the representatives of various white nations because the
issues being discussed at Bandung were in direct contradiction to
Western imperialism and the white nations they are in the service of.
Never before had such unity between the oppressed nations played out
either before or after the 500 years of colonialism which preceded the
conference and which the Bandung 29 were trying to depart from. The
United $tates responded to this political snub which they perceived as a
threat to their political and military hegemony, as well as to their
material interests, with various destructive acts. The most serious of
these being the attempted assassination of Chinese Premiere Zhou Enlai
and the mid-air explosion of the passenger plane “Kashmir Princess.”(3)
Even with such acts of barbarity committed on the part of the
imperialists against the oppressed for daring to carve out an existence
on their own terms, the Bandung Conference was a success as the final
communique of the conference can attest to: economic cooperation on the
basis of mutual interest and respect for national sovereignty, technical
assistance in the form of experts, trainees, pilot projects; the
establishment of the Special United Nations Fund for Economic
Development; the stabilization of commodity trade in the region and the
stabilization of international prices and demands for primary
commodities through bilateral and multi-lateral arrangements, just to
mention some of the more groundbreaking methods by which the Bandung
Conference sought to break the colonialist stranglehold on their
nations.
The Bandung Conference was also convinced that
“among the most powerful means of promoting understanding among nations
was the development of cultural cooperation. The Asian-African
Conference took note of the fact that the existence of colonialism in
many parts of Africa and Asia, in whatever form, not only prevented
cultural cooperation but also suppressed the national cultures of the
people. From the denial of basic rights in the sphere of education to a
peoples basic right to study their own language.”(4)
Out in the so-called free world we can see modern day examples in the
closing of “ethnic studies” departments and the banning of Chican@ and
other Latin American history books in racist Arizona; to the denial of
prisoners’ abilities to learn their people’s true hystory for fear of
“Security Threat Group” validation. What the imperialists and prison
administrators really fear however is the unity of the oppressed based
on common national identities and the creation of revolutionary
nationalist organizations that would surely bring most prisoners
together, as opposed to the divisive gang feuds that currently mark the
reality of many prisons.
In the years following the Bandung Conference, the world saw the rise of
national liberation movements all over the Third World, from guerrilla
armies to People’s Wars in the imperialist periphery, to the fledgling
national liberation movements and armed struggles that under-lied the
Civil Rights movements in the core capitalist countries, principally the
United $tates. Political thinkers attributed these movements in part to
the “Spirit of Bandung” and the example set there for the rest of the
oppressed nations by the Bandung 29, in particular the People’s Republic
of China (PRC). The PRC led by example, showing the world what true
independence and balanced self-reliant development could look like. For
what many oppressed nations could only just begin to aspire to, the PRC
was already doing and had to a large degree already accomplished.
“[The Spirit of Bandung] can be summarized in the following five
principles: (1) respect for the fundamental rights of people as well as
for the goals and principles of the United Nations Charter; (2) respect
for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations; (3)
equality of all nations and people both large and small; (4)
non-intervention and non-interference in the domestic affairs of other
countries; (5) no recourse to acts or threats of aggression or to the
use of force. These five principles were also referred to as the”five
points” of peaceful co-existence.”(5)
The Bandung Spirit Lives On!
Today prisoners from different nations and many different cliques and
sets are taking part in the United Front for Peace in Prisons and are
hence putting United Front theory into practice. Peace and unity between
prison organizations mark not only the beginning stages of national
liberation movements within the oppressed internal nations within the
U.$. empire, but the embryonic stages of the peoples struggle in the
United $tates for socialist revolution in alliance with Third World
communist movements. Just as surely, the Bandung Conference marked the
entrance on the hystorical scene of the people’s liberation movements in
Africa and Asia, and represented the first impetuous rising of countries
still oppressed or scarcely liberated from imperialism. Thus, from this
we take the Five Fundamental Principles for Peace in Prison also known
as the “five points of unity”:
Peace: By organizing to end needless conflict amongst
prisoners we not only struggle against the pigs divide and conquer
strategies, but we set a positive example for others and likewise help
to begin the constructive reconstruction of our prison and lumpen
organizations and nations.
Unity: As against a common oppression we fortify our
peace-treaties by using this opportunity to work together in one form or
another to both better our conditions and understanding of each
other.
Growth: Without growth on an individual level or a
group level our newfound unity will not survive. So comrades should take
the time to build themselves up and each other so as to aid and push the
movement further, as the movement in return will push us all
further.
Internationalism: Mao Zedong said that in wars of
national liberation patriotism is applied internationalism. Within our
conditions this essentially means that in struggling for our own nations
now we effectively aid the struggles of other oppressed nations by
forcing the oppressors to contend with us. Hence on a strategic domestic
and international level our tactics are to pit ten against one.
Independence: Then and now independence has always been
the ultimate aim, both at Bandung and in the prison movement. By
building our own institutions and programs of the oppressed independent
of the U.$. prison administrators and their inmate lackeys we help
solidify and consolidate the prison movement. Just as the sponsoring
countries at Bandung cut out the white man and found that their unity
and movement could only be strengthened as a result, so must we cut out
all the prison administrations’ officially sanctioned prisoner
representatives because they cannot truly serve us, but have only served
to better oppress and suppress us.
For all these things to work we need not only unified resistance to
oppression, but the one crucial aspect that was missing at Bandung. We
need vanguard leadership and mass struggle working together so that the
prison movement will truly get somewhere and not merely stagnate and die
after a few petty reforms are put in place. Hence we need correct
leadership to guide that resistance. Correct leadership and struggle
comes from a correct understanding of material reality and of the
correct methods for influencing that reality; not sporadic and
short-lived rebellions where the masses learn nothing but the taste of
defeat with incompetent leadership that has no one’s interest at heart
except for their own, and who clearly lack the vision of carrying the
struggle forward until true change and reform is won. This is the
difference between victory and defeat, and it is the kernel of truth
which we must all grasp if we want to change our reality.
Connected to this kernel of truth is the fact that the prison movement
will be dialectically connected to the streets and to the national
liberation movements of the internal semi-colonies. All that is left for
us to do is to grasp these truths as part of the objective laws of
development for our cause and vigorously build on them. As such there
can be no successful prison movement without the help of the rest of the
oppressed nation masses and various revolutionary organizations outside
of prison walls, just as there cannot be any successful national
liberation movements for the oppressed without the help and leadership
of the revolutionary lumpen in the semi-colonies and behind prison walls
playing a vital and pivotal role.