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 just wrapped up our Fourth of You-Lie annual fundraiser. The
results so far aren’t great. We’ve only received about a third of the
number of donations we got from comrades inside for all of 2023, and
less than a third in the amount received. That means we need to get
twice as many donations in the next 6 months as we got in the first 6
months of this year to maintain where we were. And ideally, we want to
be increasing the percent of funding that comes from donations from
prisoners. The amount of donations we receive from prisoners is one way
we measure mass support for our work and whether we should keep doing
it.
Our education programs continue to develop. We’ve mailed out the
first group response to our University of Maoist Thought study group on
the Collected Works of the Black Liberation Army. We’ve
completed an update to our study guide for The Fundamentals of
Political Economy, a must-read text. Comrades on the outside also
completed a study of MIM Theory 14: United Front that is
reflected in the content of this issue. We will likely continue this
theme in ULK 87, looking at the united front in Palestine more
and printing your reports on building united front for the September 9th
Day of Peace and Solidarity.
We are also entering Black August as this issue hits the cell blocks.
And soon after that, the September 9th Day of Peace and Solidarity.
Besides the Runaway
Slaves Coalition statement on the United Front for Peace in Prisons,
we did not get any submissions on these topics. But as always we have
our September 9th Organizing Pack that prisoners can request to get more
information on the history of this day, and countless books and
pamphlets on the Black liberation struggle that you can get from our
Free Books to Prisoners Program in exchange for political work.
The week of December 6-13 has been marked as a week of solidarity by
Jailhouse Lawyers Speak. Over the years comrades have suggested a
boycott of any activities that financially benefit the prison system.
This is the tactic being implemented in December, with the campaign
focusing on ending prison slavery and overall abolition of prisons in
general. Our next issue will be out in early November. So if you are
organizing for this week of solidarity, send in art or articles to share
for ULK 87.
This issue features content produced by United Struggle from Within
comrades as part of our campaign to connect the prison struggle to the
student movement for Palestine. Some of these materials were also used
in a pamphlet
put together and distributed on the streets, to get these messages into
the hands of students and outside supporters.
As we finalize the content for this issue, reports are coming in of
the disproportionate deaths of prisoners in the recent heat waves.
Prisoners and prisons are being excluded from new worker protection laws
dealing with heat. This June was the hottest on record. And yet the
imperialists still aren’t getting serious about reducing CO2 emissions
to slow global warming. We welcome your reports on heat and climate
change, especially organizing efforts and how to build a united front
around these campaigns, for the next issue of ULK.
Amerikan Elections
Finally, i thought we should say a few words on the upcoming U.$.
presidential election. For those that don’t know, our slogan is, “Don’t
Vote, Organize!” We aren’t too interested in who becomes president
because there is no anti-imperialist option.
As has become the trend, the Democratic Party wing have been
campaigning hard to “stop fascism”. Our line has not changed since 2016,
when we argued that Trump was not instituting fascism as president
then either. But that does not mean we should not be vigilantly looking
for the emergence of fascism and opportunities to combat it.
Comrades in Texas have reported on lumpen gangs being used by the
state as enforcers in Coffield
Unit and Allred
Unit. Another reader in Allred more recently reported that staff
using drugs to bribe prisoners has continued:
“The prison administration here at Allred Unit have been getting away
with killing prisoners for so long with the help of these so-called gang
members that they fear not the possibility of accountability.”
The use of gangs to police prisoners is not new in Texas history.
However, in the past this role was filled by the euro-Amerikan prisoners
who enjoyed privileges in exchange for enforcing discipline on the
oppressed nation prisoners.(see Robert T. Chase’s book We Are Not
Slaves) While we have written extensively on the revolutionary
potential of the First World lumpen, and even lumpen organizations,
these organizations also have this reactionary potential, making them an
unreliable ally of the proletariat.
In fact, it is quite damning that these L.O.s are consciously working
for the imperialists to violently repress other oppressed nationals. We
address this further in this issue with the ongoing campaign (and
debate) around “Stop Collaborating!” Of course we see the same thing in
Third World countries around the world where the imperialist have built
death squads by bribing various lumpen and military men. And we do
recognize such death squads as a form of exported fascism with no real
base in the Third World itself.
Here in the heart of empire it is more typical to see the
euro-Amerikan petty bourgeoisie play the role of fascist foot soldiers.
We saw a glimpse of this in the attacks of bands of young white men on
the UCLA encampment for Palestine as cops idly stood by. And we’ve seen
it in various street clashes over the last decade with groups like the
Proud Boys attacking radical left demonstrators or gender-non-conforming
events.
But these remain fringe events. While Trump represents a certain
heightening of contradictions in this country, the U.$. state is still
very stable. No one can become president of the United $tates without
support from the imperialists. The current support of the ultra-rich for
another Trump presidency has been pinned largely on the possibility of
Trump era tax cuts expiring if Biden wins a second term. So this is
hardly a sign of the imperialists recognizing the need for a strong man
to move this country into a more authoritarian direction. On the
contrary, it is a sign of a further eating away at the stability of the
United $tates by undercutting state funding through neo-Liberalism. Yes,
the contradictions are heightening, no it is not time to join in united
front with Joe Biden, Kamala Harris or whoever ends up being the more
status quo option they give us in November.
In May of this year, Texas governor greg abbott pardoned a man named
daniel perry. Some of you may remember the incident in which daniel was
convicted of murder. Recall the summer of 2020. The hope, optimism and
liberty many felt as they bum-rushed the streets in protest in cities
worldwide decrying anti-blackness.
In the midst of this surge of proactive and progressive human energy
after the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, was
a tag team, husband and wife duo in Austin, Texas. Austin, the state
capital, was the most active and longstanding protest site in the state
during that summer. In the eye of this storm was Garrett Foster and eir
wife, Whitney Mitchell. Mitchell, who was confined to a wheelchair,
wanted to be involved in the ground swelling movement of humynity, and
would not let being confined to a wheel-chair detour em. Garrett was eir
guide and aid.
Garrett and eir wife attended many of the protests that summer,
mostly centered around the police headquarters and state capital in
downtown Austin. Garrett, a u.$. air force veteran, routinely adorned
fatigues and carried a rifle which ey was legally permitted to possess
by the laws of the state. In July of 2020, while walking and escorting
eir wife Whitney down Congress Avenue, Garrett and daniel got into a
verbal altercation. daniel was an Uber driver and was on the job. daniel
was also legally armed. daniel, behind the protection of an Uber
vehicle, began revving eir engine up in order to intimidate protesters.
Mr. Foster addressed this behavior verbally and after doing so, daniel
rolled down the window and shot Garrett Foster multiple times, killing
em.
During the pre-trial proceedings, this case, along with the case of
kyle rittenhouse, received a swarm of media attention on conservative
networks. The neo-confederates believed that the two white supremacists’
acts of murder had struck a blow for all of them (them being the white
settler amerikans, particularly the neo-confederacy).
At that time in 2020, greg abbott appeared on the tucker carlson show
and vowed that in the event of guilt ey would pardon daniel perry. In
May, abbott made good on this vow and pardoned daniel perry, stating
that ey “stood his ground”.
i hope this news upsets the reader. At the very least i hope this
news brings you in on the not so little secret my comrades and i have
long known. You wanna know what that secret is? Sure, i’ll tell you.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS LAW, ONLY POWER STRUGGLES.
The good, if i can even call it that, is that some will see this and
finally realize the illegitimacy of law in Texas and amerikan society.
To understand why this was such a thrust and showcase of reactionary
power, we have to understand the history of the pardon and commutation
in Texas. Briefly, in the 1980’s the legislature passed measures to
limit the power of the governor to pardon and commute sentences. What
they passed made sure that in the case of pardons, at least 10 of 18
members of the Pardons and Parole Board, all of which are appointed by
the governor, would have to recommend a pardon. All 18 members
recommended the pardon of daniel perry. A spit in the face of bourgeois
democracy and the bourgeois legal process. So now We can see that it’s
okay not to play by the rules, this will free us of some of our
handicapping hang-ups. Will you step up and commit to wrestling power
out of the hands of tyranny? We All Have A Choice To Make; Power to the
People! Power to New Afrika!
The Biden/Harris campaign released the above image criticizing some
language coming from recent Donald Trump campaign speeches for the 2024
U.$. Presidential election. Meanwhile Trump continues to lead by a
landslide for the Republican ticket, which is not surprising, as Hitler
viewed the Amerikan project with envy.
The United $tates has been milking it’s alliance with the Soviet
Union to fight fascism for over 75 years now. If it were not for the
sacrifices of the Soviet people, over 20 million of whom died in the war
fighting fascism, and if it were not for the strategic leadership of the
Comintern in building alliances with some imperialist powers to fight
others, we might not have had 75 years of self-righteousness to have
leaned on by U.$. leaders.
Usually U.$. officials would raise the “Hitler” comparisons when it
was time to expand imperialist wars against another Third World country,
such as Iraq or Panama. But today the leading Democratic presidential
candidate is using it against the leading Republican candidate at the
same time that the Democrat is facing legal charges for enabling
genocide emself. It seems the mask is coming off.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a complaint in
federal court in November on behalf of Palestinians that is seeking
recognition of the ongoing genocide in Palestine and the requirement for
President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to do all they can
to prevent Israel’s genocidal acts.(1)
While the occupation of Palestine by I$rael and their imposition of
an apartheid state has long been genocidal, the war has reached
unprecedented levels since the Hamas-led attack against I$rael on 7
October 2023. By mid-December, a whopping 85% of the population of Gaza
has been displaced from their homes and 1% of the population has been
killed by the I$raeli onslaught. At least 8 of the murdered and around
100 of those injured were at the hands of “civilian” settlers.(2) Large
numbers of the displaced have no access to food or clean water.
Whether the Amerikan courts will recognize what is happening to the
Palestinians in Gaza as genocide is questionable according to legal
experts. But legal filings continue to be submitted to bolster the
case.
The “We Declare Genocide” tribunal held within U.$. borders last year
already found the United $tates guilty of genocide against the internal
semi-colonies who are facing an ongoing low-intensity warfare.(3) Of
course, this finding does not have official legal standing by the United
$tates government itself. The CCR suit is attempting to get that for
Palestine, and further brings attention to the genocidal acts of U.$.
imperialism around the globe.
The United $tates has single-handedly prevented the United Nations
Security Council from implementing a ceasefire in Palestine. The United
$tates picks and chooses who is allowed to commit war crimes and who is
not, and the UN is toothless to stop it.
During the second inter-imperialist war, the United $tates was in a
position to play the good guy because of rival interests with the
fascist countries and the opportunity it allowed them to exert power
over Europe as a whole. I$rael on the other hand is the #1 U.$. client
state, receiving far more funding from the Amerikans than any other
country since World War II. As Biden said, if I$rael didn’t already
exist they would have to create it. This puts the U.$. in a position
where it is impossible for them to oppose the genocide in Gaza.
The settler state is by definition a genocidal state. Stalin helped
give the United $tates a fig leaf to cover that legacy in the form of
supporting the Soviet defeat of Hitler. That fig leaf is drying up and
falling off. And the legitimacy of U.$.-run international institutions
like the UN and the United $tates itself are coming more and more into
question by global public opinion.
Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” is an overnight viral hit, accumulating millions of listens and ranking as the most streamed song on iTunes in Amerika and right now 28 million views on Youtube plus over a million likes. With that catchy southern twang, and a message speaking to workers directly, it is clearly resonating with a lot of people – but what does this mean?
Let’s look first at the lyrics to get a sense of what this song is all about. There’s two main parts of the song that i think really get to the root of what Anthony’s trying to convey. Ey points out:
“Lord, we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothin’ to eat And the obese milkin’ welfare Well, God, if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds Young men are puttin’ themselves six feet in the ground ‘Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin’ them down.”
So there’s two matters here: one is the issue of fat people milking welfare, and the other is the plight of the Amerikan workers. Welfare is no doubt a gift of imperialist parasitism paid with super-profits, and MIM pointed out a long time ago how Amerikan minds and bodies are rotting on imperialist parasitism, highlighting the contrast between affluent imperialist countries and the poor exploited countries.
MIM said basically that overcoming imperialism is the only way to reshape food production and consumption, to address the disparity in obesity rates with an equitable distribution of resources to effectively tackle the issue. But so long as imperialism remains, so does parasitism which always fattens up the unproductive of the empire and feeds on the hard working poor of the world. So now here’s the other issue, that question of the plight of the Amerikan workers. Factually, the U.$. government safeguards its labor aristocracy (most of whom are unproductive workers in the service industry) through a multifaceted approach, utilizing OSHA guidelines, mandating minimum wage laws, regulating maximum working hours, and ensuring collective bargaining rights. This is all ensured with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Department of Labor (DOL), and so on.
In terms of safety, the U.$ is among the safer of countries for workers as it pertains to workplace fatality – still far from perfect. Our most dangerous industry is agriculture, forestry, and fishing with a fatal injury rate at 20 deaths per 100,000 full-time workers. Migrants from south of the U.$./Mexico border make up around 75% of U.$. farm workers so it is no surprise that the most dangerous industry affects Amerikans the least.
But back to the song. The refrain goes:
“These rich men north of Richmond Lord knows they all just wanna have total control Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do And they don’t think you know, but I know that you do ’Cause your dollar ain’t shit and it’s taxed to no end ’Cause of rich men north of Richmond.”
These are your typical Amerikan’s grievances with the system: the government is too big, and the feds won’t keep their greedy hands off your money. Considering Biden’s new plan for 87,000 new IRS agents and his incessant drive to intervene in the affairs of crypto currency companies and his promotion of a new IRS rule to require anyone who earned over $600 on payment apps (like Paypal, Venmo, etc.) to file a 1099-K form to ensure taxation is being paid by lower classes – yeah, maybe this resentment is understandable. But really, Amerika is ranked 32nd out of 38 OECD countries in terms of the tax-to-GDP ratio.(1) Belgium (42.8%), Germany (39.9%), Denmark (38.9%), etc. pay higher taxes, and also receive better social programs. Even the tax rate in Hungary (35%) is higher than in the United $tates (16.4%), which is just above i$rael (15.5%). Since the top 25% of earners pay 89% of all income taxes, and since virtually all Amerikans make more than 90% of the rest of the world in income, is the dollar really worth shit, are Amerikans really taxed to no end, as Anthony claims? [editor note: Not to mention U.$. dollar values being propped up by interest rate hikes that are decimating the value of currencies in exploited countries that must pay debts in U$D.]
No, so what are Amerikans complaining about? Taxes in the U.$. contribute to funding programs such as education, healthcare, social security, unemployment benefits, housing assistance, food assistance, veterans’ services, infrastructure projects, environmental protection, and public transportation; Amerikans have access to clean water, electricity, smartphones, cars, internet connectivity, modern healthcare, education, reliable infrastructure, well-stocked supermarkets, and recreational facilities, which are often unavailable to many in the third world.
So again, what are Amerikans complaining about? Typical Amerikkkan tears over the incompetence of their imperialist leaders who are unable to share the super-profits from the neo-colonies effectively. This is why we rely on science, not frog-in-the-well subjectivism, to inform us about the world.
Frustration
In recent years the labor aristocracy has been shook. The 2016 and 2020 elections show deep-going upset in different segments of the population, which is leading to strange ideological currents among the youth (including a return to religious dogma on the one end and a clinging to nihilism on the other). Some people have just given up on society, so a kind of Kaczynskian primitivism is also making a come-back.
We’re seeing some class problems blow up too, with unions taking more action across the board (with the rail workers, the baristas, and now the script writers and actors in recent months). The crypto-Trotskyite “left” is capitalizing on these grievances to pick up speed and organize, especially among students and younger workers who want a bigger piece of the Amerikan-bloodsuckin’ pie.
Inflation has driven up prices and this month it was revealed how Amerikans have racked up more than $1 trillion of credit card debt.(2) While high credit card debt in general is an indicator of high access to consumption, the recent increases seem to be linked to higher prices. The student debt crisis is also haunting the Amerikan consumption rate, because Amerikans own $1.77 trillion in federal and private student loan debt as of the second quarter of 2023. That’s serious, and students have gotten to the point of just saying “hell no, we ain’t paying that.”
The government, or at least some forces in it, are responsive to that, with the Biden regime talking about “student loan forgiveness.” But it hasn’t been successful. The first time, the Supreme Court ruled that the Secretary of Education did not have the power to waive student loans under the HEROES Act. So Biden is now trying the Higher Education Act of 1965 to justify it, and ey just recently was able to perform an IDR Account Adjustment for 800,000 borrowers. This still doesn’t make the youth all that happy, and a large percentage of the older generations opposed the attempt at debt forgiveness.
Aside from class issues, there’s still heat picking up with the abortion issue and the question of censorship, and other things regarding your typical sex and drug issues. There’s a clear polarization between the youth and the old when it comes to how they approach this and see the world, the former seemingly liberal and the latter seemingly conservative. Generational disputes are all too common a sight now, each generation blaming the other for all the problems we face in the world today.
There is clearly a LOT of frustration, a LOT of unease and anger too – but is that really enough for a revolution? We will have to see the historical forces that the youth (especially the oppressor nation youth movement in the 1960s) and how to discipline this force for non-adventurist and scientific forms of resistance than individualist hedonism.
Proletarianization?
The proletariat’s more than the working-class, it’s defined by a more precise relationship to the ownership of the means of production, consumption, and relations to other classes. It’s the class that is not only dispossessed (without private property), it’s the class with nothing to lose but its chains. Do Amerikans now got nothing to lose but their chains?
Let us look at it from the standpoint of material comfort. Homes built in the last 6 years are 74% larger than those built in the 1910s, an increase of a little over 1,000 square feet – the average new home in the United $tates now spreads over 2,430 square feet.(3) The Biden regime is claiming that the bourgeoisie added 236,000 jobs in March(4) and a solid 187,000 jobs in July(5), and that the unemployment rate has fallen to just 3.5%, matching the lowest level in half a century. They’re claiming also that wages are rising faster than inflation. These claims would indicate that the situation for Amerikans isn’t really all that bad.
In 2019, MIM(Prisons) explained in “Economic Update: Amerikkkans Prospering in 2019” that amerikans are prospering with a stable economy and low unemployment, increased average wages and leisure time, more homeownership and accumulated wealth, etc., all kinds of indications of economic prosperity. There were some issues in 2020-2021 because of the pandemic and surely an economic crisis of big proportions is bound to crop up, but right now the tides seem to have stemmed – at least temporarily.
There is really no sign of proletarianization on the horizon. Maybe it will happen soon, but Comrade Mao said “Marxists are not fortune-tellers.”(6) To speak of lumpenization is perhaps more accurate than predicting proletarianization, i think both are possibilities with the decline of Amerikan capitalism.
While the contradictions described in MIM(Prisons)’s article on the expected recession in 2023 have not been resolved, the crisis has still not hit here in the heart of empire. The self-destructive nature of capitalism-imperialism will lead to wars and other man-made tragedies where these parasitic economic privileges we have will eventually end. Some examples of “fortune-telling” by Mao would be what time, date, and year a recession starts or an imperialist-war breaks out. Maoists do not concern ourselves with this type of prophecy – it is actually the labor aristocrat and petty-bourgeoisie movements of fascism that loves conspiracies and finding prophecies (such as the fascist nonsense promoted in the Elders of the Protocols of Zion and the reactionary QAnon Movement that seems to love Anthony’s song).
Right/Left Divide
In Amerika, the left of capital and the right of capital divide themselves on the issues of culture war but functionally have the same vested political interests in maintaining the status quo of capitalism-imperialism. Occasionally some of these people on the left wing of parasitism present themselves as radicals, anarchists, even sometimes Maoists, but the truth of it is that these are not communists.
The digital landscape’s been churning out a lot of these personalities in recent years. MIM(Prisons) has commented on some of these trends in Some Discussions on Bad Ideas (ULK 79), with attention to how
“communist groups are far outshadowed online by memes, twitch streamers, tik tok spheres, instagram pages, internet forums, and the likes when it comes to converting kids to communism than communist organization internet presence. This has given rise to the problem of communism becoming more akin to a sub-culture talked about on social media sites like twitter and reddit than a political movement. Different political stances from Maoism, Trotskyism, all the way to Stirnerite Anarchism cease to become guides to action, but a thing to put on your bio. Various people’s wars and nations at war become more akin to fandoms for TV shows to obsess and argue over rather than a movement to popularize and create awareness for. Political line ceases to become a belief and action that one takes, but a take one has so they can get on the algorithm. Line struggle turn into flame wars with no purpose of uniting with others, but exist only to express one’s individual self for the cathartic feeling of having the correct line.”
One of these recent digital trends has been known as “MAGA Communism,” with notable support from the likes of people named Haz Al-Din and Jackson Hinkle. This camp has positioned itself against the left and the right, opposing liberalism but also conservatism, taking bits from both sides. [MIM(Prisons) previously referred to Haz in the intro to our review of Pao-Yu Ching’s *From Victory to Defeat for eir meaningless definition of socialism, saying that every country in the last 100 years has been socialist.]
When it comes to songs like this one, it is seen as a message of class struggle by this camp. Haz claims “this song about class struggle by @aintgottadollar, a working class Virginian has gone viral overnight with millions of views from ordinary Americans. The masses are far ahead of the current right wing and leftist grifter ideologists who benefit from dividing the people!”(7)
Similar sentiment from a like-minded camp, calling itself “Patriotic Socialism,” is echoing much the same; you will find this view all over social media, especially the cesspool of Twitter where these ideological currents permeate. Opportunistically, they’re all invoking class struggle.
Well yes, the song is about class struggle but what kind of class struggle? Comrade Mao pointed out “this question of `for whom?’ is fundamental; it is a question of principle.”(8) i don’t see any real concern for the international proletariat in this song, i don’t see any mention of how this dying empire treats the rest of the world with diseases, bombs, sanctions, subversion, and other ways to bring death and destruction to fatten up the Amerikan ticks. So who does this song serve?
Comrade Mao said “all literature and art belong to definite classes and are geared to definite political lines.” That’s why when analyzing literature and art, ey said, “the first problem is: literature and art for whom?”(9) This song is serving the interests of the labor aristocracy, albeit a disaffected branch of the labor aristocracy that has elements of both the right and left-wing of white nationalism.
Anthony eyself has said that “both sides serve the same master – and that master is not someone of any good to the people of this country.” This is conveniently being ignored by the MAGA right, who have taken Anthony as their savior and prophet. For example, here is what the right is saying:
“Rich Men North of Richmond is a key example of the populist-nationalist vs establishment paradigm. The anti-establishment message is gaining traction right now, and explains the dynamic we see in the GOP primary where career politicians are struggling against outsiders.” – Jack Posobiec (10)
“You might notice a theme there… [speaking of both Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” & Jason Aldean’s “Try that in a Small Town”] People are starved for music that speaks to them about today’s problems.” – Rogan O’Handley (11)
“Oliver Anthony is a star […] inside of the hearts of the people […] millions of us, with whom he has touched with his music, as somebody who is just desperately searching for a better world in a place that has been strip mined by our elites, and we are angry about it.” – Benny Johnson (12)
Ben Shapiro also praised the song, calling it “the cry of a lot of people in the United States” who feel “there are too many people who have their hand in their pocket, particularly elites in the federal government.”(13) So why ain’t the mainstream left vibing with it? Well a main reason is the song’s attack on the fat people (which they’re calling “fatphobic”) and Anthony’s denunciations of the “welfare state,” but i also think a contributing role is the general anti-southern chauvinism that is characteristic of the liberal-subjectivists in our country. Anthony is from the rural Appalachians, specifically North Carolina.
MIM(Prisons) notes that “there are various groups of people in the United States who share the physical misery of these rural masses – American Indians, Chicano farm laborers, Black tenant farmers in the South, the dispossessed whites of Appalachia. But most of these groups are scattered and weak, living on the fringes of capitalist society, away from its vital centers.”(14)
While the urban petty bourgeoisie’s reaction to Oliver Anthony is partly based in a disdain for southerners, the question is, how do we transform the thinking of those with gripes against the system? How do we get them to drop their vested material interests in parasitism, militarism, and conservatism? That requires more investigation, more practice. To speak of Anthony as this enlightening Buddha of the century is not scientific, his thinking is still backwards and merely reflects some tussles between the labor aristocracy and the imperialist bourgeoisie, but it is not great enough a leap to really consider this some kind of revitalization of Joe Hill or Woody Gutherie.
I think the most important thing to grasp in light of this song is that imperialism is basically in crisis and there’s a lot of discontent at home, and this is fueling contradictions of all kinds. Comrade Mao made it extremely clear that “there is nothing that does not contain contradiction; without contradiction nothing would exist.”(16) The question we need to deal with is how to tackle and wrangle with these contradictions.
The key to contradictions and their resolution is practice. Comrade Mao conceived of it in this way: Practice, knowledge, again practice, and again knowledge. Stepping up practice is a big leap along the way of figuring out problems and having our thinking correspond to really-existing laws that govern society. As fascism and social-fascism step up to the plate and imperialism crashes into deeper peril, advancing our work as Maoists is key to ensuring our survival and our ability to meet the challenges that come ahead.
The challenges ahead are gonna be difficult but we are taught not to fear hardships or sacrifices, not even death. Focusing on ideological unity, strengthening our organizational bond, digging deeper, and keeping at it, more answers will reveal themselves about the nature of what’s going on and what we need to do. More practice is what we need. That lofty criterion of practice is our compass to success and our life-blood.
With practice, we gain insight, we gain consciousness, we gain unity, and we gain struggle and pain too. It ain’t supposed to be easy. We are up against a big ass labor aristocracy serving a strong imperial empire and its representative drones in the White House. But they won’t win. That’s what strategic confidence is all about. This is all a paper tiger, and practice proves that empire ain’t all that.
So long as the proletariat of the Third World is revolutionizing, and the empire is dying, the situation is excellent in my eyes. Our day is coming, don’t let the grifters, tricksters and swindlers fool ‘ya.
The task of a revolutionary, regardless of ones political/ideological
or cultural leanings, is to make revolution. Revolution is all about
change. The biggest change that a revolutionary must undertake is the
equivalent to in the religion of Islam what is called Jihad. Jihad is
not limited to what most Western religious enthusiasts have been led to
believe, the meaning of Jihad goes much deeper than the concept of
crusades or mere bombings. The biggest Jihad or battle that one can have
is the battle for control over oneself.(als see MIM(Prisons)’s study
pack on religion) To the revolutionary, this task is important because
he/she has to become the change they wish to produce to the world.
A constant improving of one’s character with the righteousness of
ideals that have went through the rigors of tests to be found or rather
proved to be correct for the overall ordeal of advancement. Once again
before this can be felt by the untapped but potential revolutionary or
the dumb, deaf & blind brother/sister clinging to a culture intended
to kill them, the revolutionary must make this change (revolution)
within his/her own personal character. This is what should be used to
provide an example for others of whom we are trying to reach. This also
however leads us to the conclusion that people no matter the fact that
we come from common ways of living & thinking, are still each
different.
This statement doesn’t mean that I subscribe to individualism,
because true revolutionaries think from the communal mindset. However,
since we are far removed from that concept, we must find ways that are
productive to lead one to the communal mindset that already exists in us
naturally. The idea of individualism is one of the main obstacles to
overall community change, because we’re not acting as organisms moving
together for the betterment of the body (society). But that doesn’t mean
that all aspects of individualism are wrong, for example, “each
according to ability.” So while some may think of us all developing the
mind of the commune will lead us all to thinking like the Borg from Star
Trek (everyone thinking the same thing), I see it more like the Smurfs.
Yes the Smurfs. They had a unified community, accompanied with everyone
playing a specific role. This way shouldn’t just be relegated to one’s
own political vanguard or the military brigade. We have to find some
means of communicating these ideals to everyone. Since we all share a
common enemy, all of our efforts have to revolve around crushing that
threat.
If we relegate ourselves to constantly battling over which of the
communal methods hold the stronger validity, we’ll all end up moving in
our own directions & probably never initializing the changes that we
are the basis of our citizenship within these groups. We’ll more than
likely continue to develop the mentalities they would like for us to
develop, which will ultimately reduce us to caricature. All opinions are
not equal & there is such a thing as counter-productive revisionism.
Our vanguard elements are going to have to develop the use of Democratic
Centralism. This process however must be done without the bitterness
& rancor that can only come from egoism. In fact egoism must be
crushed, because great man personalities have no place in revolution.
Revolution, whether politically or through armed struggle, is all about
the altering of a society that is crushing the life force out of all of
us, this is not an individual problem, once again it is communal!
Dialectical materialism is all about examining things within their
total sequence & seeing the pros & cons in the struggles of the
past. The obvious reason is to better equip ourselves from suffering the
same fate as a result of the same failures of our previous brave
brothers/sisters engaged at trying to crush the outside enemy culture
& to utilize whatever methods may be useful to strengthen what we
already have. A constant improvisation still needs to be done, but this
doesn’t mean that we should stop studying people’s war. We have to study
the principles of people’s war & learn to interpret them to fit our
overall situation here. Most wars of liberation took place in the
countryside of their respective lands. Our situation is different in
that Amerikan settler-colonialism is modernized & at least 80-90% of
Amerika is industrialized, so the nerve centers of this nation are
indeed the cities. This means that hip shooting cops are all around us,
thus making them easier to reach.
In the opening phases of our struggle for liberation, I feel just as
Comrade Jackson felt, that the military proper must be kept hidden &
separate from the political front. You see the role of a political
revolutionary is totally different than the military who are engaged in
armed struggle against macabre freaks. The guerrilla chief is tasked
with communicating to his soldiers that they must protect their
political peoples at their work. If we let our “voices” die to machine
gun fire, no knock invasions, the anonymous tip, political incarceration
& even the work of agent provocateurs & class defectors, then
our dream of eventual freedom will more than likely die with those brave
brothers/sisters. The guerrilla chief however must also have a thorough
understanding of the true nature of fascism, the modern industrial
state, the economic landscape etc. The reason is that if one group dies
or is not as effective the guerrilla chief & his band of
revolutionaries can still keep the revolution alive.
As of now our main problem is the fact that our vanguard &
military groups have shifted their focus from revolution to clinging to
the culture of anti-people crimes. The settler-colonial strategy is law
& order which ultimately means prison – our tactic is perfect
disorder which leads to the proletariat & the lumpen creating mass
disorder to work against the beast (cops) & their vigilante
supporters. In 1969, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover declared that “there
will no longer be a Black Panther Party in the U.S.” The Black Panther
Party was not the only revolutionary group & in spite of popular
belief, they were not just a group working exclusively in the interest
of Blacks. The Black Panther Party like almost every other revolutionary
group, was a communist organization that utilized the principles they
learned from successful communist victories, from examples such as Mao
Zedong and his Red Book. They formed alliances with many other
revolutionary groups and because the Black situation stood out more
(& still does) they were thought to be the overall vanguard party to
even other political & military vanguards. So the goal wasn’t to
just fix conditions in the Black community. That was their primary
objective, but they understood that if you just focused exclusively on
the black conditions and fixing only our areas, we would have to
ghettoize other segments of society that would equal Mexicans, Chican@s,
First Nations, etc.
To stop the progressive elements of unity among different
cultural/revolutionary groups, the establishment caused the leaders of
these groups to distrust their own members. This was done by the
government from planting spies in these groups, along with wiretaps,
surveillance, to out sending letters to leaders that were supposed to
have come other leaders declaring war between the groups. The goals the
establishment used largely worked and eventually several key leaders
either went into hiding, left the country, or were even assassinated
while the political prisoners suffered death legally and
quasi-legally.
Of course progressive thinking was still held as an ideal in some
people’s minds and this led to groups that eventually turned against the
community even further by becoming gangs. Community Revolution in
Progress became the goal for Raymond Washington and Stanley “Tookie”
Williams or Brotherly Love Overriding Oppression & Destruction
became the acronym for Blood. These were good ideas and could’ve worked
if we had received the freedom first. The freedom I’m referring to must
come first in the form of a free-dome because our situation was more
psychological than physical. This means that our minds were created for
the sole purpose of getting us to act against our even better interests.
This shouldn’t be understated since the mindsets that we have now didn’t
exist in communal Africa. These mindsets is what led us to
industrializing this country which ultimately our labor was used as the
down payment on the system of economics that determines one’s status in
this country.
Without the mindsets that we adopted (through long usage) we would’ve
long been better equipped at resisting. But since chattel slavery lasted
for 400 years and we haven’t been free 200 years, how can we hope to win
freedom, especially since once again we are still clinging to the ideas
that created our mindsets in the first place? Since it is our design
that gave beauty to the world, which should be easy to see since others
are quick to pick up on our culture, even sometimes more readily than we
are, we must go back to our own design. This could work for the
betterment of not only us as a group however, this could be used as a
basis to show others righteous examples that could ultimately lead to a
change. But it must begin now. For us to delay what must be done today
is like asking someone else to undertake to aid us in a liberation
effort that must be engaged in by our own efforts.
Another problem working against us is our inability to understand the
difference between reform and change. Largely the only righteous peoples
who were working for us are the people who were attacked by the outside
enemy culture. Anyone else was used because their stance wasn’t
revolutionary. I’m not dismissing people like Martin Luther King Jr.,
Rosa Parks etc, but I know that the main reason why they are mentioned
over people such as Malcolm X or Huey Newton is their view against the
necessity not only of violence and the correct usage of armed struggle,
but it also mainly rests with them telling us to escape from the culture
that we embrace. Malcolm X’s image is only now used because at the end
of his life he was said to have accepted whites. Part of that was true,
but he never said they weren’t devils just because he converted to
orthodox Islam. What he said was that in his view the devil (white man)
could only be redeemed in his opinion through Islam because Christianity
has not redeemed them from not only killing us, but also starting wars
with other whites.
So people like Martin, through his practice of pacifism and his
refusal to go against the culture of Amerikanism, resulted in him
winning a few reforms which are only offered to us as tokens, these
tokens however are not change. Change is why we are no longer looked at
as second class citizens in a world where some are held above others
based on racial & economic reasons. His Imperial Majesty who heavily
inspired Bob Marley to later embrace Rastafarianism, said that “until
the philosophy that the color of one’s skin is as less significant as
the color of one’s eyes there will always be war.” The road to freedom
means freedom, justice & equality for all regardless of one’s
ethnicity, political views, religions, spirituality etc.
We will have this freedom even at the cost of total war. We come to
the conclusion that violence to us may be the only recourse. This
violence shouldn’t be tied to romanticism, it’s about us altering the
conditions that are restricting our passage to freedom. I humbly and
passionately respect all the sincere people who gave their life and
ideas to produce men like me whose goal is to move further than when
they left off and that’s even for those of whom I disagree with. I
recognize that passion leads to different outcomes and different
results, as long as they were intended to benefit us as a whole than
whether I disagree or not I still have the fact that their life force
was used to alter the conditions that is for the betterment of our lives
as a whole. My stance as a whole is rooted around us globally enjoying
freedom, justice & equality. I realize the imperial process is only
complete if the parent imperial nation - USA - is strong so I’m all for
bringing Amerika down to her knees. Anyone who sincerely has that as a
goal I embrace, white or Black I embrace, but it must begin now.
Long Live Guerrilla Chief George Jackson!
Long Live All those Who Don’t Fear Freedom!
Plastick of MIM(Prisons) responds:This comrade here
has given us a core learning element of leading the masses by example –
a new socialist world and a new human being will have to constantly
remove the old world’s reactionary culture and habits.
One thing this comrade has mentioned that we are in disagreement is
in regards to fascism. Originally, the comrade has spoke of fascist
Amerika which has been changed to settler-colonial Amerika by this
responder. We define fascism as a new strategy by the bourgeois
dictatorship when it can no longer rule the way it has ruled before. We
believe that Amerika is likely to turn fascist through a
political-economic crisis which is integral to capitalism-imperialism.
However, we believe that the current state of methods such as police
killings, imprisonment, and exploiting the majority of the world for
superprofits and high level of consumption has always been the way that
Amerika has ruled. When this social-democratic strategy of sharing the
piece of the imperialist pie to the oppressor nation (Amerikans) ceases
to work due to an ever deepening of the crisis, then fascism will indeed
come. Up until now, Amerika has maintained relative strength, and Sun
Tzu taught us to attack when the enemy is helpless.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, MIM(Prisons)
has not published any analysis of the war, nor have we participated in
any organizing around the war. Our position is that our movement should
be looking to counter and prevent Amerikan war-mongering against Russia,
or any other country.
Unfortunately, most opposition to the Russian invasion in the United
$tates is being led by the State Department and is fanning Amerikan
support for war with Russia and promoting the overthrow of Russian
President Vladimir Putin. As we go to press, things have continued to
heat up and the threat of inter-imperialist war seems greater than it’s
been in decades.
Imperialists are stealing from other imperialists. The U.$. Treasury
Department has already seized $1 billion worth of boats and planes and
hundreds of millions of dollars in bank accounts. The House of
Representatives passed a bill to liquidate these assets and use them to
rebuild Ukraine. In addition, the U.$. imperialist bloc has frozen $600
billion of Russia’s central bank foreign reserve fund, which they are
also considering using to rebuild Ukraine.(1) They are taking the stolen
wealth of other imperialists and using it to rebuild Ukraine to serve
U.$. imperialism instead of Russia. This greatly adds to the original
military threat Russia had felt from NATO encircling them, making the
escalation to all-out inter-imperialist war more likely.
The U.$/IMF/World Bank will of course sink their teeth deeper into
Ukraine through loans, which have already begun during the war period.
As they do to oppressed nations around the world, these loans become
means by which they control their policies and structure their economies
as neo-colonies. Perhaps they will even use assets stolen from Russia to
loan to Ukraine.
As this issue of Under Lock & Key reaches ours
subscribers, we will be approaching the anniversary of the victory over
Nazi Germany (May 8-9). In the Russian-allied Donetsk and Luhansk
Peoples’ Republics they are restoring statues of V.I. Lenin and hanging
red flags as they prepare to celebrate, while the Azov neo-Nazis
threatened to attack victory parades.(2) The memories of World War II
run deep. While there is no socialist camp engaged in the current war,
we can see how the crisis is pushing people to look for answers. In
addition to being morally abhorrent, the fascists cannot address the
contradictions of capitalism that are playing out today. It is only a
new economy that is driven by universal humyn need and not profit that
can solve the problems of war, environmental destruction and economic
booms and busts that capitalism brings.
What
sort of sanctions is Russia under? What will the effect be?
Russia was banned from SWIFT, a component of the global payments
processing system. Many other sanctions have been placed on the Russian
economy, including obstacles to outside investment and bans on the sale
of anything that could conceivably have a military use (which is a lot
of stuff). Oil and gas, as of this writing, are still being bought from
Russia by most European countries, but this might change soon even
though Europe has no other reliable supply of natural gas to rely on
currently. Germany, for example, ships weapons to Ukraine that are used
against Russian troops and pays Russia for its natural gas at the same
time.
The effects of the sanctions aren’t clear yet. If Russia loses access
to the European market for its oil and gas its export earnings will
collapse. China cannot replace the lost demand, and sanctions will play
havoc on Russian industry’s supply chains.
What
will the effects of the war be on the Ukrainian economy?
One of the major battles, around the town of Mariupol in the
southeast, is unfolding in Azovstal, an enormous Soviet-era steel mill.
The complex has mostly been destroyed. This serves as a symbol of what
the rest of Ukraine will look like once all this is over. Following the
war there are likely to be fewer and worse jobs, a large refugee
population abroad, environmental devastation and a radical polarization
of Ukrainian society. There is talk of forgiving some of Ukraine’s
foreign debt, and maybe there will be aid for reconstruction, but the
rest of the world’s charity is not likely to make up for what’s being
lost now, and its also likely to come with strings attached.
Are there Nazis in Ukraine?
Yes. The Azov battalion, which is based in southeast Ukraine and has
been fighting Russian separatists in the Donbass region since 2014, is a
far-right military formation with white supremacist leadership and
ideals. They’re responsible for numerous attacks on Roma encampments,
LGBT people and leftists in Ukraine since their founding, as well as
attacks on civilians and war crimes during the battles against
separatists in the east. Many of their leaders, including founder Andriy
Biletsky, used to openly promote race war against
“untermenschen”[define?] and Jewish people, but have dialed back such
talk in public in recent years.
Their logo features the Wolfsangel and the Sonnenrad, both
indisputable Nazi SS symbols, and the constant appearance of these logos
in sympathetic coverage of the Ukrainian military has been a PR headache
for the government. The Azov battalion is just one part of a larger
fascist Azov movement coming from the Western part of Ukraine. U.$. news
media has helpfully downplayed the significance of an openly fascist,
highly armed and well-organized formation at the heart of Ukrainian
politics by claiming that the symbols and years of fascist rhetoric and
actions either don’t mean anything or are in the organization’s past.
The limited presence of explicit far-right figures in the Ukrainian
parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, belies their ability to organize outside
parliament and the impunity with which they do so.
The popularity of Stepan Bandera is another aspect of fascism in
Ukraine. Bandera was the head of the Organization of Ukranian
Nationalists, and worked with the Nazis during their occupation of
Ukraine, including participating in the Holocaust and in ethnic
cleansing in southeastern Poland. He is admired by the far right and
those influenced by them, but not by the rest of the country – the Rada
refused to award him the title of Hero of Ukraine when this was proposed
in 2019. So it’s wrong to say that Ukraine is a Neo-Nazi dictatorship,
just as it’s wrong to say that fascists have no influence and are not a
serious issue in Ukranian society. Of course, Putin has his own fascists
and couldn’t care less about Nazi rhetoric among his own forces, so he
can’t use that as a pretext for an invasion.
Are war crimes being
committed in Ukraine?
The biggest war crime is starting one, so Russia is undoubtedly
guilty on that score. In addition, indiscriminate shelling of civilian
areas in Ukraine by Russia has led to probably thousands of casualties
so far, though confirmed counts are much lower. During early April, when
Russian forces retreated from the area surrounding Kiev, Ukranian forces
reoccupying the town of Bucha found hundreds of bodies of civilians on
the streets. The brutality of the invading forces is clear.
The Ukranian side has also engaged in war crimes, like the
kneecapping of prisoners of war. That happened on video, so who knows
what’s going on when phones aren’t pulled out. War is hell.
Are there
diplomatic efforts to stop the war underway?
Ukraine and Russia started talking almost immediately, and the
demands have shifted with the battle. When it looked like Russia was
about to capture Kiev immediately in the early days of the war, Russia’s
demands were significant. But now that Russia has withdrawn from the
area around Kiev and suffered significant casualties, things are
different. The discoveries in Bucha as well as the radicalizing effect
of war in general, might make negotiations break down completely in the
future.
The key issues in the talks are Ukraine’s diplomatic relationship
with the EU and NATO, and territory in Ukraine. Russia wants Ukraine to
stay out of NATO, and wants its territorial acquisitions, including
Donetsk and Luhansk in the east and the Crimean peninsula in the south,
to be confirmed.
Does
Putin support the Soviet Union and its recreation?
The Soviet Union was formed on a voluntary basis by independent
nations. Most of those who joined the Soviet Union had been part of the
Russian Empire in the past. As an imperialist, Putin may be aspiring to
something closer to the Russian Empire. However, stated motivations for
the invasion of Ukraine are immediate concerns about defending Russia
from NATO.
In a recent speech Putin denounced Lenin and the Bolsheviks for the
creation of Ukraine, because Lenin recognized the right of all nations
to secede. In ULK 36 we wrote about the emblematic image of the
toppling
of the statue of Lenin in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev in 2013.
This was done by supporters of the right-wing populist party of
Svodoba.
Both sides of the current war in Ukraine are openly and virulently
opposed to Bolshevism and the ideas of Lenin and Stalin.
Should
we support sanctions as a way to peacefully pressure Russia to stop the
war?
The sanctions being implemented by the U.$.-led imperialist bloc are
not peaceful as they come along with large military support being sent
into Ukraine to prolong the war and the fighting.
Sanctions are economic warfare. They can be a softer way to pressure
other powers than military conflict, but given time they can also have
more damaging effects.
In a few days the U.$. imperialists achieved more than the movement
to boycott, sanction and divest from I$rael has achieved in years. The
illegal occupation of Palestine and daily oppression of the Palestinian
people does not get the support of many of the multinational
corporations and organizations that jumped to ban Russia or pull their
operations from Russia.
As the sanctioning of Russia happened more quickly and successfully,
it is that much more dangerous. The increase in economic boundaries
between imperialist camps marks the shift from a stage of relative peace
between imperialist powers to one of more violent competition. Tariffs,
sanctions, market control, dividing up of the world’s colonies,
resources and markets, were what led up to the first and second
inter-imperialist wars.
Supporting sanctions on Russia right now is further isolating an
imperialist power and increasing the chances of military escalation
between the imperialists, which increases the chance of nuclear war.
None of this is in the interests of humynity as a whole.
Is
siding with the Amerikans and against the Russians the profitable option
for the capitalists?
For the last century the United $tates has led the most prosperous
path for international finance capital. As a result many of the big
names are loyal to the Amerikans. But there are also many exceptions,
companies who are not volunteering to stop business in Russia. And
others who are looking to capitalize on others leaving. One financial
company made a bold statement saying that if they were to ban a country
from their services for invading a sovereign people, they’d start with
banning the Amerikans.(3)
Different capitalists are going to have different interests, and
their interests are going to conflict with those of their competitors.
While the big finance capitalists benefit from and support stability,
other capitalist interests will fund and fuel escalating conflict
between the imperialist camps. Meanwhile, weapons manufacturers always
benefit from militarism and are very powerful and influential in
imperialist circles of power. The mutual interests that created the
military-industrial complex has posed a great threat to the world since
WWII.
What is a
multipolar world, and is it a good thing?
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United $tates of Amerika
has been the sole dominant superpower in the world. Before then,
countries who opposed U.$. interests could find support from the other
imperialist pole of the Soviet Union.
Since WWII, Europe has been subsumed by Amerikan imperialism. If you
look at a map of those imposing sanctions on Russia today it is occupied
Turtle Island (the United $tates and Klanada), Western Europe, Australia
and Japan. This has been the alliance of imperialist powers that has
dominated the world, operating under U.$. military and economic
leadership, for 70 years.
China left the socialist path in 1976, and has continued to rise as
an economic superpower since then. When the Soviet Union took the
capitalist path it led to collapse 35 years later as the bourgeoisie was
divided, carving out their own fiefdoms from which to extract wealth.
China’s new bourgeoisie however has remained united in a plan to exploit
its own proletariat, and is now seen as the biggest threat to U.$.
dominance almost 50 years after taking the capitalist road. Of course,
the people of China and the former Soviet Union were the losers in both
cases.
China and Russia remain politically separate from the U.$.-dominated
imperialist pole, despite China’s deep integration with the U.$.
economy. Their socialist past is one reason for this separation.
Together Russia and China control most of the Eurasian land mass, and as
neighbors have shared interests in promoting trade in the region. The
media has been buzzing about the new Russia/China pole as the
geopolitics of the invasion of Ukraine play out. Some dissident media
outlets cheer this prospect as a counterbalance to U.$./European
imperialism, or what is often referred to as “Western” imperialism.
We look at the invasion of Ukraine with the outlook of “it’s
terrible, but it’s fine.” An invasion by an imperialist country is
always terrible, with Ukrainians and Russian soldiers dying and 100,000s
of Ukrainians being displaced. Communists should never aid an
imperialist invasion.
Ultimately, it is imperialist conflict that creates space for the
proletariat to organize, and to play the imperialists against each other
in order to win victories for the people. In that sense, the increase in
disorder in the world “is fine.” It is the inevitable result of the
contradictions within the capitalist system. These conflicts will come
sooner or later, we cannot prevent them in the short term, but we can
seize the opportunities they create to put an end to this system to
prevent chaos in the long-term.
Prior to WWI, Britain was the leading imperialist power, and
maintained its dominance in part by keeping continental Europe divided.
Today the Amerikans play the leading role, but are working with the
British to prevent closer relations between Germany and Russia. This has
been their strategy since the 1930s when the imperialists feared Germany
would join the socialist camp.
In recent years, the United $tates has been threatening sanctions to
stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would pipe natural gas directly
from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea. Germany is already
Russia’s biggest gas customer, and Nord Stream 2 would strengthen that
relationship. The Amerikans oppose this as they see this tying German
and Russian interests closer. In recent negotiations around sanctions
against Russia, Germany proved reluctant but ultimately joined the NATO
consensus to impose them. Germany even gave in on shipping arms to
Ukraine after refusing at first.
Among the imperialists there are disagreements about this. Henry
Kissinger famously opposed NATO inclusion of Ukraine, promoting a policy
of integrating Russia into the U.$.-led sphere. Kissinger warned of the
consequences of trying to break the back of Russia.
Nord Stream 2 provides an alternate route to transport gas to Germany
than the other primary route through Ukraine.
Petro Dollars and Reserve
Currencies
Following WWII, the U.$. was the least damaged imperialist power and
was booming from the wartime economy. Profits were high, exploitation of
the Third World was transferring wealth to the rising U.$. empire that
financed the rebuilding of Europe. This allowed Europe to be built in
the way the Amerikans saw fit. One thing this allowed for was they
positioned the dollar to become the global reserve currency, or the
currency that other countries held and conducted international trade in.
Oil was set to trade exclusively in exchange for the “petro dollar.”
This arrangement has allowed the U.$. to have a growing trade deficit
for decades without the value of their currency dropping. When Third
World countries have trouble paying their debts, their currencies can
become worthless overnight. A replacement of the U.$. dollar as the
global reserve currency makes the United $tates more economically
vulnerable.
“According to the IMF, the share of reserves held in U.S. dollars by
central banks has dropped by 12 percentage points since the turn of the
century, from 71 percent in 1999 to 59 percent in 2021. But this fall
has been matched by a rise in the share of what the IMF calls
‘non-traditional reserve currencies’, defined as currencies other than
the ‘big four’ of the US dollar, euro, Japanese yen and British pound
sterling, namely such as the Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, Chinese
renminbi, Korean won, Singapore dollar, and Swedish krona.”(4)
Currently Russia is saying ‘unfriendly countries’ must begin to pay
them for gas in Russian rubles. Hungary, which is part of the European
Union, but also friendly with Russia has already agreed to pay with
rubles. But the European Union(E.U.) has said the deal was to pay in
euros and dollars and they would not change. This is an effort by Russia
to stabilize their currency using their vast gas trade with Europe to
force others to buy rubles. While the value of the ruble initially
dropped about 50% after invading Ukraine, it has since recovered close
to pre-war levels.
Poland, Germany and Bulgaria have refused to pay Russia for natural
gas in rubles instead of euros as they are demanding. On 27 April 2022,
Russia halted natural gas flows to Poland and Bulgaria after their
deadline for paying in rubles was not met. About 40% of Europe’s gas
consumption is supplied by Russia. The region is talking about
tightening up its consumption. While good for the planet, this will lead
to a further constriction of the economy, applying more pressure to the
imperialists who must always expand their markets to circulate more
capital. However, it is reported that some undisclosed purchasers are
going ahead and buying with rubles, despite it being a violation of EU
sanctions.(5)
Would
joining the European Union benefit Ukranians economically?
As we discussed in ULK 36, GDP in Ukraine after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union was 1/3 what it was just before. Though
the Soviet Union had already been operating a capitalist economy for 35
years at that time, the complete opening up of the region to the West,
the complete Liberalization of policies, and the resultant chaos and
uncertainty led to a precipitous drop in material wealth in the
country.
Leading up to and following the 2014 coup in Ukraine, the GDP fell
and had not recovered pre-coup highs before the current war.(6) The coup
installed a U.$.-backed, EU/NATO friendly government that introduced
International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans to the country, which are used
around the world to extract wealth from the exploited countries to the
finance capitalists. As we predicted in ULK 37 these IMF
loans contributed to decreasing wealth in Ukraine.
Before 2014, the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine in the East and
South were much more productive and prosperous. People in those regions
have lost significant income. Meanwhile, the rest of the country that
was somewhat ignored by Russian imperialism, has not seen material
improvements by cozying up to the West.(7)
To join the E.U. is a logical option for many in Ukraine who see the
wealth in those countries and the incomes they can earn migrating to
even the eastern E.U.. Yet the spoils of imperialism are limited, and
experience in the last 8 years in Ukraine show the limitations of this
option.
Ukraine and Russia remain largely proletarian countries, with
material interests opposed to imperialism. While there does not appear
to be a strong anti-imperialist current in Ukraine at this time, this
can change quickly as this crisis has brought much disruption and
displacement in the country.
A Texas Prisoner wrote: “Recently on sum conservative
radio show there was a persyn who asserted that amerikkka is a”socialist
country and has been for a long time.” A pupil and i argued about this
because i’m like, amerikkka is the antithesis of socialism, but as i
read your reply this debate re-entered my mind along with the
conservative ploy to confuse the masses with “red baiting,” equating
everything “left” of center as die hard communist/socialist but in
essence what the persyn on the radio program was really saying was that
amerikkka is a social democratic country and has been for a long time. i
still disagree, wat about u? And wat is the difference, if any, between
social democracy and democratic socialism?“
Plastick of MIM(Prisons) responds: For us Maoists,
social-democracy is the tendency where as opposed to Marxism or
communism, they seek to apply a welfare state such as the likes of
Sweden while capitalism is the main basis. Democratic socialism is a
revisionist Marxist trend where they claim that socialism is the goal
where the workers run the world, we must do it through non-violent and
reformist means. The confusion could go deeper for some newer comrades
as the Bolsheviks of the Russian revolution called themselves as
upholders of Social-Democracy. To Lenin and Stalin, social-democracy
meant socialism and modern democracy in a backward semi-feudal
imperialist Russia, not sharing a section of the imperialist pie to the
Russian masses. But the International Communist Movement later abandoned
“social-democracy” to those who thought capitalism could be reformed to
serve humyn need.
Social-Democracy’s core characteristic is appeasing the masses
through reforms and better short-term conditions while preserving
bourgeois dictatorship. In an imperialist country, social-democracy can
mean better wages and living standards for the labor aristocracy who
might be growing tired of inflation. In the Third World there are just
as much social-democratic movements as the comprador-bourgeoisie seeks
to quell the majority proletarian populations of their respective
countries. Ironically, despite its efforts to preserve Liberal bourgeois
democracy, social-democracy oftentimes paves the way for fascism,
particularly in the exploiter countries. In Germany, social-democracy
crushed the revolutionary movement both by appeasing to the workers
through oppressor nation chauvinism and militaristically ridding the
revolutionary leadership. When economic crisis in Germany deepened to
where social-democracy couldn’t govern its masses the way it did before,
fascism arose to put forth law and order.
People often talk about social-democratic countries being the middle
ground combination between capitalism and socialism: Amerika is a
capitalist country, China is a communist country, and Sweden is a
social-democratic country. This is a metaphysical view of what a
country’s political economic system is – qualitatively all of these
countries are run by a bourgeois dictatorship. Out of these countries,
Sweden is the most famous for its social-democratic way of governing.
There is a similar social-democratic movement in the U.$. that wishes to
follow those countries lead, but to say a country is social-democratic
is misunderstanding what social-democracy is: it is a trend that arises
out of the labor aristocracy/petty-bourgeoisie during times of hardship.
If social-democracy fails, the coin will flip to reveal the other side
of fascism.
The last two presidential elections demonstrated an increase in
pressure from the labor aristocracy for social democratic policies. All
advanced imperialist countries have social services paid for off the
backs of the Third World proletariat. If we want to split hairs and say
some of these countries are social democracies, we’d say the U.$. is not
currently one because it has extreme privatization, going so far as to
privatize some prisons.
The seizure of the Capitol on 6 January 2021 was the culmination of
oppressor nation organizing over years that has proven the continued
need for New Democratic revolution here in North America, what many
First Nations people today call occupied Turtle Island. Participants in
the siege donned racist Odinist tattoos, pro-holocaust slogans,
anti-China signs, and waved pro-slavery and nazi flags. Most had
Amerikan flags or pro-Trump flags, hats and shirts. They included QAnon
followers, Tea Party members, elected officials, Proud Boys, and leaders
of a number of fascist organizations and groupings.
Media reported five deaths, including one U.S. Capitol Police officer
and four pro-Trump rioters. Those killed during the siege included a
womyn shot by security for trying to crawl through a smashed window to
get to the Senators, a man who reportedly tasered himself to death while
trying to steal a painting off the wall and a cop who was beaten to
death with sticks, including one carrying an Amerikan flag, while the
audience sang The Star-Spangled Banner. The latter, Brian
Sicknick, served the imperialist army in Afghanistan and was an
outspoken supporter of President Trump.(1)
The group who laid siege to the Capitol did so in response to calls
from President Trump to oppose the election results that has Joe Biden
scheduled to replace him on 20 January. As the mob took swings at police
and smashed through barricades, they chanted, “USA, USA!”, “Stop the
Steal” and called out the Democrats and CNN as primary targets of their
anger. By denying the outcome of the election, this organized force is
allied with efforts to deny New Afrikans, and other oppressed groups,
the vote. These front-line Trump supporters militantly deny the right of
Chican@s to even exist on their own land, not to mention control it. And
they generally support the incursion of multinational corporations into
the small fragments of territory left to the other indigenous peoples of
this continent. They want to keep Muslims and Asians out of the United
$tates, whether its because of terrorism, a virus, or some other
semi-factual excuse for xenophobia. They fear the browning of the U.$.
population.
Regarding the vote, the shift of Georgia from Republican to Democrat
marked for these settlers another step towards the end of white
domination on occupied Turtle Island. Newly-elected Senator Raphael
Warnock is the first Black senator in the state of Georgia, which was
31.94% New Afrikan and 51.82% white (“non-hispanic”) in 2019 (in a
country that is about 12% New Afrikan overall). In recent years,
“non-hispanic” whites have only accounted for about 44% of births in the
state.(2). Warnock comes from the same church as Martin Luther King Jr.,
where Warnock was Pastor for former representative John Lewis. MLK of
course was a symbol of multicultural integration that brought much ire
and hatred during eir short life, leading to eir assassination. The
current period is the culmination of the reaction to the attempts by the
bourgeois state to incorporate those ideas of King’s into the empire.
After the abolition of slavery, the Federal government made the first
attempt at granting New Afrika democratic rights and full citizenship by
imposing Reconstruction policies on the southern states. These were
mostly undone by white settlers by the by the 1876 presidential
election, which led to the Jim Crow policies(3) (maintained by violent
voter suppression of New Afrikans) until the time of MLK and the Black
Panther Party. The movement today is to undo the progress of integration
that followed the civil rights and national liberation movements of the
1960s. Rioters literally marched confederate flags through the Capitol,
after fighting their way in, in 2021.
In 2020, Georgia also saw shows of force from New Afrikan militia,
and
lumpen
organizations coming together to seize the site of a police murder,
and defend from threats by groups like the 3 Percenters and Ku Klux Klan
from coming into Atlanta.(4) While New Afrikans band together in
self-defense, the oppressor nation has made it clear they are now on the
offense with their seizure of the U.$. Capitol. They brought firearms,
pipe bombs and nooses as they called for the blood of Vice President
Mike Pence and others. Men who entered the Capitol carried fire arms and
one had seized zip tie handcuffs, ready to take hostages and possibly
assassinate Federal representatives, including the Vice President. When
officials escaped, the intruders settled for posing for photos in their
office chairs and taking memorabilia off the Senators’ desks and
walls.
Economics of the Crisis
Social media posts by leaders promoting the action on 6 January are
also calling for the assassination of Mitch McConnell and Republicans in
general for blocking the $2000 stimulus check currently backed by Trump
and the Democratic Congressional leadership. The battle over stimulus
funding (to respond to COVID-19 restrictions) in recent weeks has been a
great demonstration of the relationship between classes under
imperialism. The wealth flowing into this country is split between the
imperialists and the rest of the population. The stimulus bills were a
clear demonstration of this, with big corporations getting 100s of
millions to billions in benefits, while the rest of the country averaged
thousands of dollars per persyn. Most people in the world received
little to no money.
The printing of money by the U.$. central bank since the beginning of
the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented in history. With so many more
dollars in circulation, economists wonder whether this money can be
exchanged for goods at the value one would expect. Many Third World
countries have seen depreciation of their currencies compared to the
U.$. dollar as finance capital left those countries in response to the
pandemic. For the dollar to maintain its value, the empire must stay
strong. We’ve already seen a decrease in Japanese and Chinese finance
capital from U.$. treasuries in the last year.(5) Japan and China are
the two largest foreign holders of U.$. treasuries.
The people of Weimar Germany (prior to the popular Nazi takeover)
faced conditions where what they were paid one day could not buy a loaf
of bread the next. This was due to having lost WWI and facing sanctions
from other imperialist countries. The U.$. has not yet faced this
problem, but they are having to do more to stabilize their own currency
and economy. If the white nationalists had their way, and productive
labor from Latin America and Asia was forced out of U.$. borders, we
would see the dollar decrease in value very quickly. While dollar values
have not declined yet, the situation is quite precarious, especially as
productive output of the economy remains slow.
What Will Happen Next?
Senators who were calling the election a fraud backed off immediately
following the siege, proving it was just a popularity game to them. Yet
some who forced their way into the Capitol, came ready to die that day.
This is curious, as economic conditions in this country do not yet
warrant such extremism, especially for the demographic showing up at
these demonstrations. Many on the front lines of the siege are steeped
in conspiracy theories. These theories tap into a deep existential fear
they have of the ending of their white country. Something many of them
feel has already happened.
While the attacks of 9/11 were a blow to the sense that Amerikans
could have their fingers in every other part of the world, while staying
safe at home, the response was a show of strength through Amerikan
nationalism. Since then, the U.$. image continued to decline with more
lost wars and humyn rights abuses abroad and at home. This week’s attack
on the Capitol marks an internal weakening from within.
There is no god coming down to purify the crackers’ souls in the
rapture. Nor can Turner Diary-style fantasies resolve the contradictions
that define this imperialist country. A re-civilization of the oppressor
nations must come from the hands of the oppressed. Having one side of
the oppressor nation try to cajole the other into giving the oppressed
what they think they need, or rather what they think will appease, has
proven ineffective over the last 150 years. The oppressed nations
occupied on this land must seize their own destinies. They must rise up
for a New Democracy, where they as sovereign peoples can decide how to
solve their own problems without the constant oversight and interference
of the euro-Amerikan.
We support the continued development of New Afrikan defense
organizing in places like Atlanta, that is based in real revolutionary
nationalism – which as Mao said is applied internationalism. We
re-iterate the call for Barrio Committees in Aztlan, as outlined in the
book Chican@
Power and the Struggle for Aztlán. We all need to connect with those
in our communities that are ready to respond.
With regards to those that are already familiar and well versed with
Marixt-Leninist-Maoist political philosophy, we must call for discipline
and centralized organization. Most major cities’ “radical scenes” are
dominated by anarcho-liberals who preach on voting for the Democratic
party one day and preach for militant direct action the next day. Even
amongst the more militant and anti-reformist anarchists, there are a lot
of poorly organized forms of violence that fleets in energy. Us
communists should work towards building independent institutions that
the people can go to to solve their daily material problems – not have
loosely affiliated cliques that serve themselves more than the
masses.
Another test of principled actions that many communists failed was
the reliance and aid to the existing bourgeois institutions such as the
FBI and the police. Many radical liberals online have resorted to
identifying the Capitol Hill fascists for the police agencies while also
hoping these police institutions can repress the fascist movement. The
Communist Party of India (Maoist) have had the correct response to this
regarding the issue of rape in the country of India. Whereas
petty-bourgeois movements call for the death penalty and stronger
punishments for rapists in the semi-feudal country, the Maoists
recognize that rape is not alien to the system and stronger state forces
against these anti-people crimes will result in stronger state
repression against the masses.(6) And just like how relying on the
bourgeois state to give justice in India will result in the repression
against the masses, these acts by radical liberals of relying on the FBI
and the police departments will only result in more surveillance and
crackdowns on the oppressed people.
Our readership has always talked about fascism more than the
mainstream because they face some of the most fascistic aspects of
imperialism within U.$. borders. As the dialogue around fascism in
relation to the White House enterslj6 the mainstream, it becomes more
important for us to distinguish our line, and the potential strategies
that follow from that line.(1)
The first draft of an article on the self-determination
of the Lakota people referred repeatedly to the fascism that they
faced. The parallel is certainly justified. As we know Hitler was very
inspired by the Amerikan genocide and colonization of First Nations.
Yet, fascism arose hundreds of years after settlers first came to Turtle
Island. There are many similarities, but also differences, between Nazi
Germany and the early United $tates, and the United $tates today.(2)
Understanding what fascism is is important for fighting it.
Fascism as
Inter-Imperialist Conflict
“Marxist-Leninists eventually argued that fascism is qualitatively
more evil than ordinary imperialism. First, fascism occupied imperialist
countries and exterminated national self-determination in direct ways
that the other imperialists did not. Second, and less important, fascism
is the open dictatorship of the bourgeoisie instead of just the more
masked dictatorship of bourgeois democracy.” MC5, May 1993, “Historical
applications of Line, Strategy and Tactics: The United Front”, MIM
Theory 6: The Stalin Issue, p.76. ($5)
MC5 goes on to say that the principal contradiction during the period
of the rise of fascism was actually that between the socialist and the
imperialist camps. That the Nazis focused so much on the destruction of
the Soviet Union, undermining their own success, demonstrates the role
of fascism as a response to socialism.
Stalin’s strategy in this period was to divide the imperialist camp.
It’s hard to see how the socialist camp today could employ such a
strategy since we are not operating from the base of power that Stalin
was (the USSR actually had the military might to stop the Nazis). But in
his time, Stalin’s strategy proved correct.
A Global Threat or
Bourgeois Politics
Antifa and the unorganized rebellions against the police in cities
across the country have forced anti-fascism into the mainstream. Yet the
mainstream rhetoric has quickly transformed the “battle against fascism”
in the United $tates into a thinly veiled campaign for the Democratic
Party presidential election in November. The likes of Bob Avakian,
Angela Davis and Noam Chomsky have all called on people to vote for Joe
Biden, citing this battle.
Stopping fascism is a lower level goal than ending imperialism or
building socialism. There are times, like World War II, when stopping
fascism is the appropriate focus for communists. At that time fascism
was waging a military assault across Europe and threatening the first
dictatorship of the proletariat.
Presidential candidate Biden has already promised a significant
increase in military spending, and President Trump has increased
military spending during his term, despite his criticisms of the
self-interest of the military industrial complex. Both candidates are
clearly behind continued U.$. militarism to wage war against the
oppressed peoples of the world. Neither candidate has indicated a
rapacious military campaign to conquer and occupy other nations. Between
the two options offered by the U.$. imperialists, we do not yet see the
principal characteristic that led the communists of the COMINTERN to see
fascism as a greater evil than imperialism.
Those who are crying “fascism” in the U.$. today are arguing that
state repression internal to the United $tates is ramping up. So let’s
look at what MC5 called the “less important” distinguishing
characteristic of fascism.
The
Democratic Struggle Against Fascism in the Third World
“The imperialists export fascism to many Third World countries via
puppet governments. And imperialist countries can turn to fascism
themselves. But it is important to note that there is no third choice
for independent fascism in the world: they are either imperialist or
imperialist-puppets. Germany, Spain, Italy and Japan had all reached the
banking stage of capitalism and had a real basis for thinking they could
take over colonies from the British and French. … The vast majority of
the world’s fascist-ruled countries have been U.$. puppets.” – MIM
Congress, “Osama Bin Laden and the Concept of ‘Theocratic Fascism’”,
2004
Strategy varies from place to place. An example of this from the past
is when the Filipinos waged a campaign against the GATT trade agreement.
In the Philippines this was a righteous campaign against imperialist
control over their economy. However, in the United $tates the campaign
against GATT was one focused on protecting Amerikan jobs, which implies
fortifying imperialist borders against labor from other countries. So
you can see how the same campaign can have very different impacts in
different contexts. It is our responsibility to understand our own
context and organize accordingly.
In a previous
article on this same topic, we mentioned the anti-imperialist
rhetoric of the newly elected President Duterte in the Philippines.
After Duterte’s anti-United $tates rhetoric fizzled, the National
Democratic Front in the Philippines have begun campaigning against the
“fascist US-Duterte regime.” This framing is important. The fascism is
coming from the United $tates and being implemented by the puppet
Duterte. This allows for their propaganda to be consumed within the
United $tates without fueling U.$. militarism for an invasion of the
Philippines to rescue them from fascism.
This is in sharp contrast to the rhetoric around “islamo-fascism” in
Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon. This framing was of course propagated by the Pentagon, but
also by many calling themselves “communists.” It fueled anti-Muslim
sentiments in support of U.$. militarism in Central Asia.
The framing of fascism in the form of puppet regimes is useful for
the national democratic movements in the Third World to unite all who
can be united. But these puppet regimes do not signify a shift in the
global balance of power that warrant a strategic re-orientation like the
rise of fascism within an imperialist country would.
Don’t Vote, Build Bases of
Power
Another important point to note is that there is an active People’s
War in the Philippines. The National Democratic Front is led by the
communist party. The united front to get Trump out of office is led by
the Democratic Party, in other words, the imperialists. The imperialists
are not facing the threat of a communist revolution in the United $tates
like they are in the Philippines that would warrant a shift to outright
bourgeois dictatorship.
The imperialists responded to the 9/11 attacks with a series of
changes in law, such as the Patriot Act, which legalized some of the
things Trump has been doing domestically. Initially, MIM was part of the
movement to oppose the Patriot Act. However, they decided to leave that
movement when it was clear it was dominated by libertarians. Other
“communists” tailed this movement with calls to “Drive out the Bush
regime” often referring to Bush as a fascist. These same “communists”
who were effectively campaigning for Obama’s election by offering no
other alternative to Bush, because they have no power, are now openly
endorsing Biden.
When the Soviet Union allied with the United $tates, and the Filipino
communists ally with the bourgeois forces, they do not put down their
guns, or give up their goals of building socialism. To be real players
in the anti-fascist struggle, we must first build power like the Soviet
Union did and the Filipinos are doing. Stalin did bite his tongue about
U.$. imperialism to defeat German fascism. To bite our tongue today
about Joe Biden’s militarism and targeting of oppressed nations with
mass incarceration is to abandon the oppressed nations of the world.
It is good to see those in the imperialist state defending bourgeois
democracy. That is their role. Our role is to build public opinion
against imperialism and build independent institutions of the oppressed.
As Trump attempts to frame Biden/Harris as the radical left, it is
important to demonstrate real revolutionary politics in this country.
And the target of the revolution is imperialism. Imperialism must be
overthrown before we can really begin the task of building a society
without oppression. To put this goal to the side to focus on getting
Trump out of office, especially at a time when more and more people are
looking for systemic change, is to stop representing the international
proletariat. In this era in the United $tates, anti-imperialism is the
radical position, while anti-fascism and anti-racism are the reformist
positions.
Notes: 1. order MIM Theory 5: Diet for a Small Red
Planet ($5) for an in-depth look at the relationship between line,
strategy and tactics 2. order our Fascism and Contemporary Economics
($3) for a deeper look at the history and economic of
fascism
A California prisoner asks: “What are MIM’s thoughts
on”Antifa” and what and who are Antifa? Any information you can provide
will be helpful, thank you.”
MIM(Prisons) responds: Antifa stands for anti-fascist,
and it derives from movements in Europe that have a deeper history that
we won’t attempt to address here. It’s primary symbol is a black flag
and a red flag, symbolizing the unity of anarchists and communists of
all stripes in unity against the fascists. “Antifa” is a generic term in
the United $tates. There is no central organization, only local
collectives. Anti-Racist Action is probably the most active formal group
that is akin to Antifa in the United $tates.
The Antifa strategy is one of confronting various stripes of racists,
white supremacists, fascists, etc. in the streets and in their
communities. When such organizations make a public stand, especially
when they organize marches, Antifa will try to make sure there are more
counter-demonstrators and will attempt to shut down their actions. The
long-time Antifa activists often focus on researching these groups,
tracking down their members, doxing them and exposing them.
MIM has never been involved in this type of organizing. Strategically
we think it focuses on a fringe element rather than the real enemy –
imperialism. Imperialism is murdering people in the streets, locking
them away and torturing them, bombing countries, starving whole
populations and polluting the world. Fighting nazis in the street does
not contribute to ending imperialism at this time. Nor does campaigning
against Trump.
That said, if fascism gains traction in this country, then we need to
assess when to shift our strategy away from imperialism as the primary
enemy and towards the fascists. At that time we will certainly be
allying with and relying on some of the knowledge of those that have
been following these groups closely for years.
Why is Antifa in the News?
So why is this comrade asking us about Antifa now? Probably because
President Trump threatened to declare it a terrorist organization, among
other rants against them over the years. So why is Trump talking about
Antifa? As the self-proclaimed enemies of all things racist and fascist,
the various elements of the alt-right/dissident right/third positionists
and racists in online forums have accepted Antifa as their enemy (more
on these groups below). Donald Trump rose to popularity in part by
following the media outlets associated with these movements and echoing
their talking points, one of which is the danger and threat that Antifa
poses. Many of these groups use videos of street fights and
confrontations between their members and Antifa as recruitment material.
(Antifa as such has little to do with the recent uprisings in the United
$tates against police murders, though certainly many who work in Antifa
groups participated in the protests as well. Trump’s statement falsely
implied that Antifa was behind these uprisings.)
The President of the United $tates stated that Antifa is terrorism.
In other words, he said opposing fascism should be illegal in the United
$tates. Quite a bold statement. One that thankfully received strong
rebuke from the majority of the state apparatus at the time. In response
to that statement by Trump, MIM(Prisons) joined the calls in the streets
that “we are all Antifa.”
Is Fascism on the Rise Due
to Crisis?
Since the 2016 presidential campaign we have published a series of
articles addressing the question of whether fascism is here, or on its
way. An article we published in November 2016, arguing that the crisis
that would trigger fascism just wasn’t there yet, ended with, “That
being said, based on Trump’s statements and actions, if Amerikan
capitalism was truly threatened by the oppressed internal nations,
Trump’s open chauvinism would easily transition to far heavier fascist
tendencies.”(1) Now in 2020 we had the broadest display of street
actions, largely by oppressed nations, seen in most of our lifetimes, if
ever in this country. And we have a downward trend in the economy due to
declining rates of profit and exacerbated by a global pandemic. So we
are in a crisis, and as the threat to Amerikan capitalism becomes more
and more real, so does the threat of fascism.
Theoretically, fascism is always on its way in the advanced stages of
imperialism. This is because of the inherent contradictions within
capitalism that make it harder and harder to extract a profit from the
circulation of capital. Without profit, the economy stops under
capitalism. That is why the COVID-19 shut downs have been so disastrous.
Under socialism, we could cut back production and shelter in place
without threatening the future of the economy.
Denying this reality, one of the ideological leaders of the alt-right
called on the Trump administration to just shut down the economy for a
period and restart again like a long weekend. But capital must
circulate, when it does not things begin to collapse like a house of
cards. The amount of value being circulated in the realm of finance
capital just got a shot of another few trillion dollars by the COVID-19
stimulus bills. This money was created by the Fed from thin air. Most
countries would face a decrease in currency value and increase in
consumer prices if they did this. The U.$. is depending more and more on
international finance capital to come into the country to prop up the
dollar and Amerikan consumerism. But if there is no profit to be had,
that finance capital stops coming. The reason this hasn’t happened
already is that the bourgeoisie is aware that a slowdown in finance
capital circulation will lead to a collapse of the system like a house
of cards. This is when the all out war option of the fascists becomes
the only option.
Parasitism Begets Fascism
Another alt-right ideologue, has recently put out a video denying
that fascism is capitalism in decay. Eir thesis is that if there was a
crisis in profitability of capital that the system would have to go back
to some kind of feudal system and greatly reduce production to restore
profits. Since fascism in Germany increased worker incomes and overall
production, ey argues this proves fascism was not a response to crisis.
This logic sort of makes sense from the revisionist “Marxist”
perspective that anyone employed is exploited and that profits don’t
cross borders.
The MIM answer to why the capitalism in decay thesis is correct is in
parasitism theory. Really, few would deny that Germany’s economic
flourishing came from the literal and brutal robbery of land, resources
and labor (through enslavement) of other peoples. But similar things
occur in all imperialist countries, even if just a bit more “civilized.”
We point this out to show how revisionism calling itself Marxism plays
itself nicely into the ideas of fascism. And it is through the appeals
to a populist class interest of the labor aristocracy that the fascists,
social democrats and revisionist “Marxists” all bolster support for
imperialism, despite their rhetoric against war or whatever.
Another thing all of these forces have in common is labeling things
based on their form rather than their substance. Whether it’s the
“Marxists” who see Xi Jinping as leading a socialist country or the
fascists saying that Mussolini was opposed to the bourgeoisie, they are
putting ideas, words and symbols above substance. They say, “see the
leader said this, therefore ey couldn’t support that.” The capitalists,
as a class, do not care about the words as long as the economic
substructure is still functioning to produce profits. Mussolini (and the
King) ensured that it did as does Xi Jinping today. This is the same
reason why today every multi-national corporation is tripping over each
other to put out statements on and make donations to Black Lives Matter.
Yes, there are ideologues within the bourgeoisie, but the class as a
whole, in order to continue on as a bourgeoisie, must ensure that
profits keep flowing. And if stamping Black Lives Matter all over their
website and social media feeds can assist with that, then call Jeff
Bezos anti-racist.
Oppose Left and Right
White Nationalism
The alt-right is actively extending olive branches to the left wing
of white nationalism, specifically those they refer to as “Bernie Bros.”
Some in the alt-right claim to have 90% agreement with such social
democratic types, specifically in their critiques of capitalism and
calls for populist economic reforms and a state that can deal with a
global pandemic. Our saving grace right now in the United $tates is in
the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, as well as the struggles against
ICE detention which has also rallied significant support in recent
years. The outpouring of support for BLM has been surprisingly strong.
Even if the multinationals are just motivated by profits, this is like
nothing we’ve seen in our lifetime. Clearly they have recognized where
the winds are blowing, and it is not towards the racism of the
alt-right.
The fascists argue that they are an alternative to the neoliberal
bourgeois order and the Marxist communist order – hence “third
positionists.” But Dimitrov critiqued this misconception for the
COMINTERN during World War II, stating that “Fascism is the power of
finance capital itself.” The fascists argue that finance capital did not
and does not support fascism in its rise to power. MIM added to
Dimitrov’s thesis in 2005: “It is only the finance-capital dominated
petri dish where fascism grows. Today, the labor aristocracy of ONLY the
imperialist countries is the”main force” of fascism…“(2) So again, all
the groups we mention above, whether”left” or “right” are organizing
this class and activating them towards fascism by telling them they are
the oppressed and they deserve more.
More on Class and Economic
Systems
MIM and the COMINTERN agree on the dialectical nature of class
struggle under capitalism as it relates to the phenomenon of fascism –
that is that capitalism is identified in the contradiction and
interdependence of two economic classes: the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie. In this view, there are two paths, or two economic systems:
capitalism (of the bourgeoisie) or socialism (of the proletariat). Other
classes exist and have their own interests. But they will not shape
history in their image. Our world today is shaped in the image of the
bourgeoisie, and Marx explained why the future lies in the hands of the
proletariat, those who have nothing to lose but their chains.
The petty bourgeoisie (including the First World labor aristocracy)
doesn’t have an image for the world. Their ideology is that of the
bourgeoisie, steeped in individualism. And because of their varying lots
in life, their interests are varied, made up of little groups just
trying to make capitalism work for them. They can be united in the
nation-building project that involves their nation being on top. But
even this will not elicit much sacrifice from this class as a whole
unless conditions are quite dire.
When we talk about the labor aristocracy of the imperialist countries
being the “main force” of fascism, we still agree with Dimitrov that
fascism is the power of finance capital. It is finance capital
that gives these tendencies real power. This truth can be seen when you
investigate the organizations in the fascist realm. The most successful
efforts to unite these petty bourgeois forces and use them towards real
political goals are led and funded by millionaires, with access to
advanced military weaponry and international connections to intelligence
agencies. While there are many small, organic groups that are in this
realm, the ones that pose a real threat really aren’t so organic.
Our comrades in prison can understand this dynamic, where it is quite
common for white nationalist organizations to have “special”
relationships with the pigs, to the point of helping to enforce for the
state. Some of our comrades who have served in the military have also
seen direct coordination between the military and local white
nationalist organizations around perceived threats of oppressed nation
rebellions. It’s the same in prison.
From the proletariat comes the true guerilla, who starts from
nothing, and gains their tools and supplies by taking from the enemy
oppressor. The guerilla does not start out with high-end military
equipment, the guerilla earns it. And even before we get to the military
phase, the true mass character of the communist camp is evident. Even in
the bought off imperialist core, you can see genuine organizers popping
up in all areas, fighting for similar goals, from a real organic desire
for change and humyn progress. In the United $tates this is fed by the
oppressed nations and by the youth and by all justice-seeking
people.
The proletariat of the world must distinguish itself from the
parasitic populism of the First World labor aristocracy. Antifa has not
done this. Antifa is open to militant Liberals because they tend to see
this as a battle over ideas in peoples’ heads and don’t have an honest
class analysis of what is going on.
The alternative that MIM offers is that those of us in the
imperialist countries are criminals that must reform our ways. That the
rest of the world wants us to reform our ways and welcomes us in joining
in building a new world based on internationalism, humynism and
solidarity. The oppressed people of the world must guide us towards true
internationalism and not make excuses for the backwardness of the
bought-off populations. Amerikans still haven’t made right the crimes
they committed against the internal semi-colonies of this land. That is
being discussed in the mainstream today. But we still aren’t discussing
making things right with the majority of the world that we have
exploited, polluted and murdered for the comfortable lives we live here.
This is what we see as pro-active anti-fascism. And it’s not about
taking on some guilty complex for your ancestors, it’s about saying that
you will not pass the exploitation on to your descendants. And this must
be part of the current struggles of the oppressed nations here today, or
else we will just end up with more exploiters with more diverse skin
tones.
