MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
I am a single individual among a multitude of revolutionaries being
held captive behind imperialist enemy lines (Texa$ Pri$on $y$tem).
I am a part of the Growth and Development movement and I stand for
righteousness, unity, love and the liberation of all oppressed nations.
At this time, I can only speak on my own behalf and not on behalf of the
movement as a whole.
It is however, my sincere hope that my brothers and sisters of
struggle will find agreement and solidarity with the following
statement:
I stand in solidarity with the Palestinian People and I stand in
solidarity with those who struggle against oppression everywhere. As is
said; an injury to one is an injury to all, and none are free until all
are Free!
I am Pro-Palestine; I am not anti-Israel.
I am Pro-Humyn; I am not anti-semitic.
I am Pro-Liberation and I am anti-Imperialist oppression!
Regarding Pro-Palestine protests that are currently taking place; I
urge my fellow humyn beings to stand upon a Foundation of Love.
The imperialist press continues to paint an image of hate so I
especially urge our young comrades who are in the protest trenches to
stay strong and give the enemy absolutely no ammunition to utilize in a
smear campaign.
My young comrades, fear is a natural response to danger, feel no
shame if you are afraid and remember that courage is doing what is
righteous despite the presence of fear.
To our young comrades who are willing to commit class suicide and
sacrifice the numerous benefits of belonging to a college educated
bourgeoisie, I salute you, continue to stay true to your beliefs and
stand firm on righteousness.
If you should face confinement because of a righteous struggle, take
heart in knowing that so long as you stand on righteousness, you will
find support and solidarity wherever you go.
The student encampments that were attacked by the state and their
goons were a glimmer of hope that the youth here in these false U.$.
borders hold on to their humynity in the face of repression. Standing up
for the national liberation of Palestine, putting their freedom and
their lives on the line so that the Israeli settler colonialists stop
the attacks on Palestine.
Chican@s stand with Palestine because we are also colonized by
imperialists. The Chican@ nation stands with the students who dare to
struggle. Imprisoned Aztlán awaits our student allies in the
concentration kamps so we can build and solidify our struggle with a
common political enemy.
The Chican@ movement struggles against imperialism too, we stand up
to settler colonialism, and genocide as well. Imperialism is what
creates the conditions where kids
in cages is normalized whether we are talking about in U.$. prisons
or Israeli prisons.
We have a moral obligation to stand against the genocide in
Palestine. We are obligated as conscious people to stand with oppressed
people always.
I$rael’s war on Palestine is without a doubt a genocide.
There has been a groundswell of support from people around the world
that conclude that the settler state of I$rael needs to be brought to
justice and that Amerika has given the “greenlight” for the genocide to
ensue.
At a recent protest over I$rael bombing an Iranian consulate in
Syria, killing several Iranian military intelligence personnel, Hamas
responded with a statement saying among other things that Amerika has
given the green light for this bombing by not denouncing it. We would
agree and go further by stating that Amerika has green-lit genocide
since it first arrived here in Turtle Island over 500 years ago.
It strikes us that the world would be shocked that Amerika would
stand by in the face of the genocide happening to Palestine when
Chican@s, First Nations and New Afrikans know first hand that the United
$tates is not only a client but a pathfinder in the realm of genocidal
settlerism. We should remember it was Amerika who inspired the likes of
Hitler in honing his genocidal craft, an evaluation of evidence supports
our point.
In the mire of the oppression being rained down on Palestine,
especially with I$rael assassinating those it has targeted even in other
countries – or in embassies! – we just glean what lessons are available
as the world gets a bold example of what colonization looks like
today.
If we are in fact at the conclusion that Amerika – who aids I$rael in
billions of aid each year – is giving a wink and a nod to assassinating
government officials of sovereign countries, it poses the question: how
might revolutionaries here in the imperialist center of the world
prepare and respond?
We should start by understanding that in today’s world genocide
arrives via stages of development by the imperialist agencies. These
stages are 1) Intelligence. 2) Analysis. 3) Logistics and 4) Operations.
What we are seeing happen is war plans, whether we are talking about the
streets of Gaza or the barrios of Califaztlan it all starts with
intel.
The oppressor nation identifies its threats and its assets – on the
ground or online. Because we are in the stage of building public opinion
here in the United $tates we can be vulnerable to data mining that is
employed by agencies globally. Search bots that are known as “spiders”
search the internet 24/7 mining through open source material and all
public records to find any links to revolutionary data, i.e. people,
groups or theory. They snatch everything: Facebook posts, chat rooms,
blogs, news stories, financial records, visa applications, etc… which
can all be harvested quickly on a daily basis, programs like starlight
or spire can then sift, cross reference and separate non-essential
material while then targeting links that lead back to intended targeted
people or groups within the movement. In this way the state is able to
closely monitor not only a movement’s vanguard but anything that
metastasizes out of the movement as well, that is everything in its
realm of influence. Once data is comprised. with the help of programs
like Analyst Notebook, it reveals the internal structure of an
organization and its international links as well. All of this intel
helps the oppressor nation develop its genocidal programs which not only
furthers its own interests but the interests of its allies like the
settler state of I$rael.
Here in the occupied territories that some call Amerika, the internal
semi-colonies have long known about Amerika’s stance on genocide.
Chican@s and other oppressed nations who languish in the prisons, in the
control units, and on Death Row overstand that Amerika green-lights
genocide. The Brown and Black people, gunned down every day by Amerikan
police know this as well. The Chican@ nation and other oppressed know
because our land and resources are occupied and controlled by the
capitalists who neutralize us when we threaten the occupation.
In the past, the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM), and its mass
org at the time, the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League, campaigned
to get the University of California to Divest from I$rael.(1) This was a
correct strategy, because U.$. imperialism is the number one backer of
the I$raeli war machine. Behind the flag of I$rael is the stars and
stripes.
More recently, United Struggle from Within (USW) carried out a
petition campaign, which read in part:
“Therefore with this declaration we angrily express our indignation
with the state of Israel for committing genocide, and for the Israeli
people for allowing it to happen in the 21st century after vowing”never
again.”
The petition recognized that Palestinian political prisoners had
supported the California hunger strikes in recent years and it was time
to return solidarity. By 2016, comrades in 16 prisons had gathered 189
signatures. Recognizing the limitations of conditions, the petition also
read:
“Within these walls we are as yet powerless to tap into the potential
of the imprisoned lumpen; the oppressed internal nation lumpen in
particular as agents of social change, but we are not yet powerless to
sign a piece of paper to denounce the state of Israel and their support
in the U.$.”
Still today, comrades are asking what can we do to support
Palestine?
Settlers Supporting Settlers
The war against Palestine is what Amerika has always done from its
very founding – land grab, occupation, genocide. Therefore, there is
much support in the United $tates for I$rael’s current bombing campaign
and invasion of Gaza. And the tactics being used against Palestine could
easily be tried against indigenous people here on Turtle Island
next.
MIM and others have documented the history of Amerikan labor union
support for I$rael.(2) Yet, in recent months not only has the U.$. seen
millions demonstrate to oppose U.$. militarism in Palestine, but labor
unions representing millions of Amerikan so-called workers have signed a
call for a cease fire.(3) While Amerikans have always been settlers, the
United $tates is more and more a population of people who do not come
from settler backgrounds. And more and more, people from non-settler
backgrounds are joining the ranks of labor unions, big tech companies
and other professional roles. This is one factor behind the wavering
support for I$rael. Of course, it is the Palestinian resistance that is
forcing Amerikans to take a position.
The cease fire call is a shift for many Amerikan labor unions away
from outright Zionism to the left wing of white nationalism. Despite the
cease fire statement, these unions will still be campaigning for
Genocide Joe this year. And while some members of the International
Longshoreman Workers Union (ILWU) participated in a one day protest/shut
down of the port of Oakland in support of Gaza, there has been no
sustained strike by Amerikan unions that are actively involved in
shipping arms to I$rael.
The United Auto Workers (UAW), having been in the news for strikes
last year, is one of the unions to issue a statement for a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, the UAW has been hosting talks with employees of arms
manufacturer Raytheon for a “just transition” to guarantee labor
aristocracy union jobs in thefuture technologies of war and genocide.
Brandon Mancilla, director or UAW’s Region 9A, announced in a tweet on
Dec 1st the formation of a Divestment and Just Transition working group
to explore how “we can have just transition for US workers from war to
peace.” Behind the UAW’s ceasefire resolution, was UAW Labor for
Palestine. Self-described on their website as a “nationwide group of
rank-and-file UAW members” that seeks to “organize UAW worksites that
send arms and other material to Israel.” They have faced great
resistance from the UAW in general to taking any action to stop
producing arms for I$rael. Like the Amerikan leaders who mumble words
about humanitarian efforts in Palestine while continuing to authorize
more and more shipments of war machines to I$rael, Amerikan labor makes
statements about ceasefire, while continuing to produce these machines.
Actions speak louder than words.
As we reported in ULK 84, arms shipments must get to the
Red Sea before they face real resistance; resistance by Yemen’s
armed forces. And following I$rael’s attacks on Iranian diplomatic soil
in Syria in April, Iran has seized an I$raeli-linked cargo ship passing
through the Strait of Hormuz. While the Strait, which accesses the
Persian Gulf, does not lead to I$rael, it does lead to I$rael’s new Arab
allies in the UAE.
Doing Better
The #1 thing people in the United $tates can be doing in the
short-term to stop genocide in Palestine is to stop shipments of arms
and aid to I$rael. Just as the imperialists have used blockades to
weaken the Palestinian resistance. The question is how to make such a
blockade meaningful and sustainable.
In the longer-term it is our responsibility in the United $tates to
weaken imperialism from the inside. As we see the principal
contradiction in the United $tates to be between nations, it is by
supporting national liberation struggles at home that we believe we can
best make this happen faster. And without building the revolutionary
forces here in the United $tates, we do not foresee a successful,
sustained blockade of aid to I$rael.
Another realm of struggle we should be tuned into is the struggle
against political repression of those supporting Palestine, and
especially the state imposing limitations on the exchange of information
between Palestine and the world. The labeling of organizations linked to
the Palestinian struggle as “terrorist organizations” is parallel to
organizations in the oppressed nations in the United $tates being
labelled “security threat groups (STGs).” As our readers know well the
right to free speech and association is not guaranteed but must be
struggled for within this bourgeois democracy.
Finally, correct political line must lead for us to succeed on all
fronts. Democratic Party-supporting labor unions calling for “cease
fire” is not the correct political line. Stopping all aid to I$rael is
correct. Supporting national liberation struggles of the oppressed is
correct. Recognizing the populations of the exploiter countries to be
part of the bourgeoisie is correct. And recognizing the need for
independent communist organizations in all parts of the world is correct
for avoiding past mistakes that restricted the revolutionary potential
of oppressed nations (see next section).
There is a reinforcing effect between revolutionary nationalist and
communist movements around the world. Communism was more popular in
Palestine when communists were demonstrating models of success in
practice in other parts of the world. The revolutionary nationalism of
Palestine today will impact the consciousness of revolutionary
nationalism around the world, including within U.$. borders. Amplifying
this effect in the short-term will help us build the type of movement
that can provide real solidarity with Palestine in the short-term. The
history and class interests of Amerikan labor prove that their current
level of sympathies with Palestine are tenuous and lacking in
militancy.
It is the struggle of the occupied indigenous populations, the
largest of which is Aztlán, that are most parallel to Palestine in our
context. Meanwhile New Afrika has probably been the most ardent
supporter of Palestine in the United $tates historically. Though it’s
also worth noting the prominence of Jewish voices in opposing the war
from the United $tates, due to the connection the existence of I$rael
has forced onto all Jewish people. As a resistance movement based in a
compact area of land that is mostly urban, there is much to be learned
tactically from the successes of the ongoing struggle in Palestine today
that relates to the conditions of oppressed nations in the heart of
empire.
The ICM, Pan-Islamism and
Palestine
Support from communists around the world, especially those waging
People’s War in the Third World, has been unwavering on the side of
Palestine liberation since October 7th. But the history of the
International Communist Movement (ICM) has led to setbacks in
Palestinian and pan-Arab liberation.
MIM(Prisons) has been working on reiterating MIM line on the
Communist International in recent years as part of an effort to compile
MIM’s
work opposing crypto-Trotskyism. One of the key issues we have with
Trotskyism is its view that the most advanced capitalist countries
will/should lead the communist movement. MIM line says that the most
exploited and oppressed nations will lead the way, and recognizes the
need for independent initiative and direction from within each nation.
We also see the need for a Joint Dictatorship of the Proletariat of the
Oppressed Nations (JDPON) as a tool for overthrowing imperialism. Under
the JDPON, it will be the communist minorities in former imperialist
countries that are benefiting from the assistance of more advanced,
socialist, former colonies.
From 1919-1943, the third Communist International (Comintern) was the
first experiment in an international communist movement that involved
parties in state power. At that time the idea that the advanced
capitalist countries would lead the socialist revolution was more
popular. Bolshevik leader Mirza Sultan-Galiev was one of the biggest
critics of this position. In 1923, at the 9th Conference of the Tatar
Obkom, Sutlan-Galiev stated:
“If a revolution succeeds in England, the proletariat will continue
oppressing the colonies and pursuing the policy of the existing
bourgeois government; for it is interested in the exploitation of these
colonies. In order to prevent the oppression of the toiler of the East
we must unite the Muslim masses in a communist movement that will be our
own and autonomous.”(4)
MIM positively reviewed eir ideas:
“Sultan-Galiev was for the formation of a”Colonial International” to
replace the Comintern as organization of central importance. He also
called for the “dictatorship of the colonial nations over the
metropolis.”“(5)
Sultan-Galiev applied this concept to Russians, who were far more
oppressed and exploited than Amerikans today, as well as to the United
$tates, which ey saw as built on the genocide and labor of First Nations
and New Afrikans.
For a brief period, about 5 years after the Russian revolution, the
Bolsheviks had created a Muslim communist party separate from the
Russian one. But this project was quickly abandoned. Decades later, USSR
leader Joseph Stalin, who also played a leading role in the Comintern,
abolished the Comintern in 1943. Stalin and Mao both said the communist
international was no longer appropriate for the complicated conditions
of international struggle. One of the problems with the communist
international was the mixing of people from exploiter countries and
exploited countries in one organization. Another was the mixing of
people engaged in armed struggle against imperialism with those who are
not. Sultan-Galiev’s proposal for a “Colonial International” addresses
the first problem. However, eir ideas were not ultimately adopted by the
Comintern, and ey was purged from the Bolshevik Party in 1923.
Current
Events in Russia and Palestinian Communism
Last week a horrible mass shooting took place in Moscow, killing 143
people. The gunmen are reportedly from Tajikistan and working with the
Islamic State-Khorasan, based in Central Asia. An Amerikan analyst
explained that this group “sees Russia as being complicit in activities
that regularly oppress Muslims” and that a number of other Central Asian
militants have allied with the Islamic State group due to their own
grievances against Moscow.(6) Tajikistan is a former Soviet republic.
One must wonder if a Muslim Communist International, separate from the
Russian one, could have avoided the emergence of militant groups in
Central Asia today that have violent beefs with Moscow. This goes both
ways, with chauvinist attitudes by many Russians today towards the other
former Soviet republics. As the capitalist/imperialist USSR collapsed in
1991, both sides of this national divide perceived the other to be
exploiting them.(7)
On the Western side of the USSR Sultan-Galiev helped establish a
separate Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1921. This
became a bastion for German Nazis in the 1940s, leading to the native
Tatar population being relocated by Stalin, and the area populated by
Russians and Ukrainians – leading to disputes over the territory today.
This suggests that Stalin was correct to oppose Sultan-Galiev for narrow
nationalism in the late 1920s and ultimately have em killed in 1940 as
the Nazis were preparing to invade.
The problems with trying to unify too quickly with a communist
international seems to have played a role in Palestine and the Arab
world as well. The Soviet Union supported the partitioning of Palestine
by the Zionists, leading to the Nakba (“The Catastrophe” or ethnic
cleansing of Palestine) in 1948. Despite the Comintern having been
dissolved in 1943, apparently it was still policy for the Communist
Parties in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon to support the USSR line on the
partitioning of Palestine against their own beliefs. This led to massive
loss of support for the communists in Syria and Lebanon for years to
come (there was not much support in Palestine until years later).(8)
While U.$. and I$raeli imperialism played a role in suppressing
communist organizing, these internal contradictions and short-comings
are what allowed such efforts to succeed. We can see how the strategies
we choose today can have grave and lasting impacts decades later. That
is why we, as communists, must do a better job of implementing an
effective internationalism by recognizing the national
self-determination of each oppressed nation. Independence in action must
coincide with a struggle for unity in ideology.
“The early stages of socialism according to both Lenin and Stalin
would see a vast multiplication of nations seizing their destinies. It
was only under advanced communism that we could contemplate the
disappearance of nations.”(7)
The above is in line with USW’s slogan of “unity from the inside
out.” It is only with true self-determination of the oppressed nations
that they can fully unite with other nations. Of course, the more unity
we have the stronger we are. So we must struggle for unity, without
forcing it before conditions are ripe.
We call on comrades to continue to make connections between Palestine
and national struggles in occupied Turtle Island, and to build national
liberation struggles here in the heart of empire.
In our last issue we covered the mythology
of sex crimes being painted onto Hamas in the imperialist media, and
the flaunting of beautiful, young, “white” wimmin to rouse the hunger
for war in the men of the United $tates, Britain and I$rael itself. In
effect they have turned the genocide in Palestine into a rape revenge
fantasy.
Since that article, multiple news agencies have done further
investigation into the claims made by the New York Times and
echoed across the imperialist media. Yes! and The
Intercept both conducted investigations, and to those paying
attention, it seems very clear that there is actually no real
evidence of rape committed on October 7th, especially by Hamas
itself. Both investigations report on the experience of one of the lead
investigators for the New York Times, who questioned eir own
qualifications to be working on the article, and hit dead end after dead
end while intentionally trying to dig up information on alleged rapes.
This “reporter,” Anat Schwartz, also liked a tweet saying that I$rael
needed to “turn the [Gaza] strip into a slaughterhouse.”(1)(2)
Another figure in this propaganda campaign, Cochav Elkayam-Levy, was
hosted by the White House in December, whom it described in a press
statement as the “Chair of Israel’s Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes
by Hamas Against Women and Children.” Since then ey has been the center
of scandal in I$rael where it has been exposed that the “Commission” is
just one persyn, and despite its name is not an official state
commission. Elkayam-Levy released a “Horrors Report” that was 4 pages
long, listing newspaper headlines and some signatures. Meanwhile ey
attempted to raise $8 million for the “Commission’s”
investigation.(3)
While working on this article another New York Times piece
came out claiming that an I$raeli prisoner was sexually assaulted. This
came out months after her release and having given a press conference on
her imprisonment. It also came out shortly after that new evidence had
been uncovered to prove some of their claims about rapes on October 7th
false. In reality, it was already known that these claims were false
before the original article came out.(4) What is not debated is the fact
that these wimmin were killed in the October 7th attack. The grandfather
of the two girls killed by Hamas, mentioned in the NYT report
on rape, said it “was the saddest day of my life.” So why is it so
necessary for the imperialists to create these stories that they were
raped as well? Finally, this new sexual assault story comes to light as
I$rael is conducting an intentional mass starvation campaign and
destruction of medical care in the Gaza Strip and as footage is released
of I$raeli drones hunting down and murdering unarmed Palestinians
walking down the street.
The imperialist media has at times painted the myth of sexual
assaults on October 7th as the greatest tragedy in the conflict in
Palestine. Greater than the almost 35,000 dead Palestinians, greater
than the thousands of Palestinian babies starving to death as we write
this, even greater than the hundreds of I$raeli lives taken.
Meanwhile, many U.$. prisoners are confused by the state to think
that anyone with a “sex offender” label has assaulted children. And they
see this assault of children, whether real or imagined, by another
prisoner as the greatest tragedy that they will sacrifice their body and
their freedom to avenge. This is a greater tragedy to them than the tens
of thousands of oppressed nation men and wimmin being tortured every day
by the U.$. prison system. The 100,000 rotting
away in long-term isolation. The minds of multiple generations being
zombified by chemical warfare agents being brought in and sold by the
guards. Staff beating people to within an inch of their lives over
frivolous trespasses. Some of our misled readers would rather attack
another prisoner than avenge these atrocities of the state.
Young New Afrikan males are one of the demographics that are most
likely to be raped in the United $tates because of their vastly
disproportionate rate of imprisonment.(5) Palestinians face similar
rates of imprisonment, with accounts of rape in those prisons of both
men and wimmin. A recent UN report says allegations of I$raeli sexual
assault and rape of Palestinan wimmin and girls are credible.(6) It is
clear that by fighting imperialism – its occupations, its wars, its
prisons – we can do the most to combat rape. It is clear that bombing
Gaza is not stopping rape. It should also be clear that attacking other
prisoners who are threatening no one does not stop rape.
Rape revenge fantasies are built up by the patriarchy, to tug at the
emotions of the patriarchal men who are called to avenge the innocent
who are defiled. This props up the very gender relations that lead to
rape in the first place, where individuals take other individuals’ fates
into their own hands through the use of inter-persynal force. These
fantasies are used to divide the oppressed and rally the oppressors.
They are used to justify division and oppression in U.$. prisons, and
they are used to justify war and genocide in the Third World.
The theme of this issue of Under Lock & Key was inspired by recent essays and interviews by Orisanmi Burton, previewing material from eir upcoming book: Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt. Comrades in MIM(Prisons) and United Struggle from Within (USW) have been studying Burton’s work. Though we have not had the opportunity to read the book yet, which comes out end of October 2023, we like a lot of the ideas ey has presented so far and the overall thesis that prisons are war.
As we go to press the genocidal war on Palestine is heating up. We have reports inside on Congo, El Salvador, Ukraine and Niger; and we don’t even touch on Guatemala or Haiti. History has shown that as war heightens internationally, war often heightens against the oppressed nations within the empire as well.
In this issue we have reports of political repression as war in U.$. prisons. We also feature articles from comrades who organized around, and reflected on the Attica rebellion and Black August. This is the history that Burton analyzes in eir work, exposing the state’s efforts to suppress the prison movement and how both sides were operating on a war footing. For over a decade readers of ULK have commemorated the beginning of Attica on September 9th with a Day of Peace and Solidarity, as part of the campaign to build the United Front for Peace in Prisons. But how do we get to peace when we find ourselves the targets of the oppressor’s war?
Burton pushes back against some Liberal/reformist lines that have been advanced onto the prison movement to oppose the line of liberation. Burton’s ideas harken back to V.I. Lenin, recognizing prisons as a repressive arm of the state, and the state being a tool of oppression and warfare by one class over another. War is one form of political struggle, and a very important one at that.
It is this framework that we have used to push back against “abolitionism.” Our organization emerged from the struggle to abolish control units, a form of prisons that is torture and inhumane. We see the abolition of control units as a winnable, if difficult, battle under bourgeois rule. In a socialist state, where the proletariat rules over the former bourgeoisie, we certainly won’t have such torture cells anymore; but the abolition of prisons altogether is a vision for the distant future. We find it questionable that Burton frames revolutionary communist martyrs like George Jackson as an “abolitionist”.
Where we have more unity is when Burton takes issue with building the prison movement around the legalist struggle to amend the 13th Amendment of the U.$. Constitution that abolishes slavery except for the convicted felon. Burton points out the history of Liberal thought in justifying enslavement of those captured in just wars. As most in this country see the United $tates as a valid project, it could follow logically that it is just to enslave the conquered indigenous and New Afrikan nations, as well as nations outside the United $tates borders. We see how settlers in Amerika and I$rael are now justifying all sorts of genocidal atrocities against Palestine.
The challenge we have repeatedly made to the campaign to amend the 13th Ammendment is how this contributes to liberating oppressed people? How does it build power for oppressed people?
In one essay Burton draws connections to how the state was handling the war against the Vietnamese people at the same time as the war against New Afrika at home.(1) We have a draft paper out on the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement that discusses the counter-insurgency in Peru, and how the fascist U.$.-Fujimori regime locked communist leader Comrade Gonzalo in an underground isolation cell and then used confusion around political line to crush the People’s War in that country. In Under Lock & Key 47, we reprinted an in-depth analysis of the use of long-term solitary confinement against the revolutionary movement in Turkey and the use of hunger strikes to struggle against it from 2000-2007. All of these historical examples, including to some extent New Afrika in the 1970s, involved an armed conflict on both sides. Today, in the United $tates, we do not have those conditions. However, we can look to the national liberation struggle in Palestine, and the connection to the prison movement there as a modern-day example.
Burton spends time exposing the politics of the federal counter-insurgency program PRISACTS. And one of the things we learn is that PRISACTS is officially short-lived as the counter-insurgency intelligence role is taught to and passed on to the state institutions. We see this today, especially in the handling of censorship of letters and reading materials we send to and receive from prisoners. We see the intentional targeting of these materials for their political content, and not for any promotion of violence or illegal activity. Our comrades inside face more serious consequences of brutality, isolation and torture in retaliation for attempts to organize others for basic issues of living conditions and law violations.
The arrest of Duane “Keffe D” Davis for involvement in the murder of Tupac Shakur has also been in the news this month. Keffe D is a known informant who confessed to driving his nephew to murder Tupac years ago in exchange for the dropping of a life sentence for an unrelated charge. Author John Potash notes that there were many attempted assassinations of Tupac prior to his death, at least one that involved the NYPD Street Crimes Unit. This unit was launched following the supposed “end” of COINTELPRO.(2) This directly parallels what we see with the “end” of PRISACTS and the passing of intelligence operations on to state pigs.
As we’ve discussed in drawing lessons from the repression of Stop Cop City, we need to take serious strategic precautions in how we organize. We must recognize the war being waged on us. If we treat this as something that can be fixed once people see what’s going on, or once we get the right courts or authorities to get involved, we will never accomplish anything. And as always we must put politics in command. There is an active intelligence counter-insurgency being waged against USW and the prison movement in general, and the best weapon we have is grasping, implementing and judging political line.
Prison is War is not just a topic for ULK, it is a political line and analysis. We welcome your future reports, articles and artwork exposing the ways this war is happening in prisons today.
Notes: 1. Burton, Orisanmi (2023).“Targeting Revolutionaries: The Birth of the Carceral Warfare Project, 1970-1978.” Radical History Review. Vol. 146. 2. John Potash on I Mix What I Like, 16 October 2023. (author of “The FBI War on Tupac Shakur and Black Leaders”)
Both Russia and Ukraine have problems of fascism in their society expressed through the most reactionary elements of the Wagner Group of Russia and the infamous Azov Battalion of Ukraine. Both sides are vehement anti-communists despite the sensationalist portrayals of Putin as a USSR-esque tyrant in mainstream media political cartoons. Ukrainian reactionaries will topple down Soviet era statues while for the Russian imperialists, Ukraine itself is a giant Soviet era statue that must be toppled down and engulfed into Russia. Ukraine would have never gotten its independence in the first place without the world’s first proletarian dictatorship of the USSR.
Unlike the United $tates, Japan, Western Europe, and etc., Russian imperialism does not have a majority labor aristocrat population (despite a very significant one) and the class interests of the Russian proletariat lines up with the class interests of the Ukrainian proletariat against Russian and NATO imperialism.(0)
At best, Soviet nostalgia expressed in Russia longs for social-imperialist era command economy coupled with resentment of the political-economic crises caused by the complete opening up of Soviet markets. It is an unscientific frustration of the general masses in Russia. At worst, it is a rallying tool for current Russian imperialism’s moral justification akin to how concepts like democracy, freedom, and women’s rights were rallying tools of U.$. imperialism’s military invasions in the Middle East. We wish to practice revolutionary optimism in regards for the anti-revisionist communists in Russia and Ukraine who could take this popular sentiment away from the hands of the imperialists and into the hands of the broad masses.
Oftentimes in our current conditions where the anti-imperialist movement is weak and undeveloped, the best thing for U.$. imperialism’s involvement in the war in Ukraine is giving the masses the correct analysis from the vantage point of the international proletariat. We should avoid “cheer leading” between various imperialist powers where “various people’s wars and nations at war… [become akin to] fandoms for TV shows to obsess and argue over rather than a movement to popularize and create awareness for.”. We recognize the importance of organs like Under Lock & Key and independent institutions like United Struggle Within – both in their strengths and limitations – for the imprisoned section of the lumpen class.
The Wagner Group
One significant development this summer was an attempted coup by the Wagner Group against the government of Russia. For our readers who might not know, the Wagner group is a private military mercenary group of the Russian Federation formed through the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea.(1) While its origins are unclear, the group has been claimed to have been founded by both Dmitry Utkin and Yevgeny Prigozhin with the the former having been the field military commander and the latter being the financier and military programmer.(2) Utikin, being a veteran of the Chechen Wars, was said to have had great admiration of Nazi Germany and his nickname in the battlefield was given by eir fellow imperialist soldiers as “Wagner” named after the German composer whose music was popularly used by Hitler and eir fascist goons as rallying songs during marches.(3) Due to the Nazi ideologies which were part of the Wagner Group’s political DNA from the start, fascist slogans and graffiti by the group’s presence in Ukraine has been known to have surfaced.(4)
On 20 May 2023 Prigozhin, at the time the top commander of the Wagner Group, took the city of Bakhmut, Ukraine.(5) Ey criticized top Russian officials of the military, the defense minister, and the chief of general staff withholding artillery ammunition from the Wagner Group and accused them of “high treason.”(6) Defense minister Sergei Shoigu announced that all members of “volunteer units” must be required to sign contracts with the ministry by July 1st in order to get Wagner and similar mercenary groups under a tighter leash. Despite Prigozhin’s close loyalty to Putin, the latter has chosen to back the defense minister’s decision.(7)
On the midnight of 24 June 2023, Prigozhin while denying to sign the contract and have eir fascist mercenary goons under Russian imperialist control announced a “march for justice” leaving Ukraine and having the first column enter Russia’s Southern Military District. Prigozhin demanded that Shoigu and Gerasimov be brought to him and held a blockade of the city. On the city of Voronezh, the group shot down Russian military helicopters and a command aircraft killing at least a dozen soldiers marking the start of the rebellion.(8) With Putin’s condemnation and the labeling of Prigozhin’s act as treason, the rebellion came to a quick end. On the Sunday of 24 August 2023, Russian authorities have confirmed that Prigozhin has died in a plane crash.(9)
The rhetoric that Russia is an anti-fascist or anti-colonial force in the global imperialist system is a bold-faced lie of Russian imperialism. Acknowledging this fact is in no way supporting Ukraine’s own fascism ridden government. It is the instinct of petty-bourgeois moralism to see armed conflicts as a side of the good guys and the bad guys. This war itself is an inter-imperialist battle where Russian imperialism seeks to gain global hegemony against U.$./NATO aligned forces and where the nation of Ukraine is caught in the middle of this geo-political tug-of-war. The fact that the fascists of Ukraine’s Azov Battalion and the fascists of Russia’s Wagner Group are fighting each other is just another telltale sign how fascism is an incoherent nihilistic political trend that must be stomped out.
Russia Sympathies Among the Masses
Many prisoner comrades have written to us since the previous article was published where they expressed some sympathies for Russian imperialism. Many arguments had to do with the fact that Russian imperialism was defending itself against the NATO/U.$. led powers.
A California prisoner commented:
”I hear too many well proclaimed communists taking sides with Ukraine. “Putin is a fascist,” “Putin is imperialist,” etc…
As a prisoner I have learned to be very cautious about taking sides, I see all kinds of evil up here everyday: a lot of schemes, manipulations, scam artists. I see all of them here in prison.
So why? Why is the United $nakes so interested in Ukraine winning? Why is it worth trillions of dollars to the U.$. for Ukraine to win? We, the common people like myself, does not understand things like the stock market, and the grain exchange. I understand that grain is sold for money. What I don’t understand is how a whole completely separate market created out of thin air, selling absolutely nothing but grain calling itself the grain exchange that is something only the capitalists who run the world understand.
If I had to guess with my simple mind, I would say that Ukraine sells its grain to the west at a premium as a means to launder dirty drug money. But that’s just my simple mind. It probably has more to do with the grain exchange, capitalism itself.“
One sentiment we can agree with this prisoner comrade is that the job of communists and revolutionaries in the U.$. would be to see U.$. imperialism as their principal enemy. Many communists can so far agree with this line, the problem comes in deeper with regards to the analysis of other major imperialist countries – especially ones that spout anti-imperialist rhetoric in words such as while in practice commit imperialism that rivals the traditional NATO imperialist powers..
We would like to iterate to this comrade that their mind isn’t so simple as ey might let off. We appreciate the humbleness that revolutionaries should have that this comrade has shown, but in the end the contrite and popular phrase that the imperialist governments are the real criminals is true. Sure, we wouldn’t boil down world imperialism to money laundering; but theft and murder are important objectionable aspects of imperialism. We see many imprisoned comrades who project the anti-people crimes they struggle to overcome onto the criminal ways of the imperialists, and for a starting point these oversimplifications might not be the worst thing as a step towards revolutionary thinking.
With that said we would disagree that Russia is doing self-defense with regards to their invasion of Ukraine. As the above points laid out, we should avoid choosing sides in inter-imperialist conflict even though the U.$. and NATO imperialist forces didn’t have direct boots in Ukraine (which the comrade has also expressed as well).
The real question comes in as how Lenin’s theses on “The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War” would mean in practice in our current material conditions where the revolutionary forces are much weaker and arguably much more revisionist and opportunist than even the revisionist European and imperialist country communist movements which Lenin was writing polemics against.(10) One point that we can start from is this: the war that we should be focusing on is the war waged by Amerika against its internal semi-colonies of the Black, Chican@, and Indigenous Nations through mass imprisonment and police occupation. With this issue’s Under Lock & Key covering the topic of how “Prisons Are War,” we would like to further expand on how prisons play this role of low-intensity genocide against the masses.
In yet another act of terrorism, Shareen Abu Akleh, a
Palestinian-amerikan journalist, was targeted and killed by the
illegitimate state of I$rael and its military. The I$raeli state, its
occupation of Palestine, and its armed forces are and have been backed
by the united state’s ruling class since 1932. On 11 May 2022, while on
the job, covering an I$raeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp in
the West Bank, she was maliciously assassinated.
Shareen Abu Akleh became a thorn in the side of the I$raeli state as
a result of her continuous on the spot coverage of daily state
repression, human rights violations, and Palestinian genocide. She
covered many detentions, home demolitions (which Palestinian homes were
targeted in, and demolished to force them to relocate for I$raelis)
military raids of schools and universities, and Masjids, and killings of
Palestinians. This brave frontline work placed her on I$raeli hit
lists.
Shareen Abu Akleh was a journalist for decades and a Palestinian
revolutionary-nationalist, who being a trailblazer in her field,
inspired many Palestinian and Arab wimmin to serve their people through
the work of liberation journalism.
Her funeral brought out tens of thousands of supporters, mostly
Palestinian, in Jerusalem. As pallbearers carried sister Shareen, the
I$raeli military attacked them, and further disrupted the occasion with
malicious zionist violence against Palestinian nationals.
Sadly, the colonization of Palestine, the Apartheid regime of I$rael,
and violent and fatal repression of native inhabitants is all apart of
the imperialist system. What does imperialism look like? It looks like
land theft, it looks like millions of people living without power or
plumbing, it looks like bombing and shelling of homes, schools,
hospitals and finishing the job by attacking refugee camps. It looks
like storming universities, confiscating study materials, it looks like
the process of erasing an entire human group, and that’s exactly what’s
taking place in Palestine. There will be many who call for justice for
Shareen Abu Akleh, but the sad truth is that justice for her and justice
for the Palestinian nation can only be achieved with the end of the
I$raeli occupation.
FREE THE LAND!!! FREE
PALESTINE!!!
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is a grassroots
initiative that began in the early 2000’s to gain international support
for the occupied Palestinian nation against I$rael’s continued military
suppression, genocide and land theft.
In recent years the BDS movement has indeed gained international
support, even in the face of reactionary pro-imperialist backlash from
the states who support genocide, land theft and military crimes.
The goal of BDS is to isolate I$rael on the international field by
upholding the “simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the
same rights as the rest of humanity”.
Students around the world have been pressuring their schools and
universities to join the ‘Academic Boycott’, initiated in 2004 by the
Palestinian campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of I$rael
(PACBI). As student activism again comes to life here in the United
$tates, it is important that students engage in internationalist
frameworks. Amerikan student activists should support the academic
boycott of I$rael, which is part of the overall BDS movement. Students
should do this not as a mere moral cause, but the understanding that
over 50% of the U.$. states strongly support the I$raeli
military-apartheid-colonization, so much so that 35 states have Anti-BDS
laws. They support the frequent military raids of Palestinian
universities under the pretext of ‘countering terrorist activities’, the
imprisonment and murder of student activists peacefully protesting,
closure of schools and the recent I$raeli military move to arbitrarily
control what is and isn’t taught in universities. A new government
procedure allows the military to restrict visiting professors who teach
subjects supposedly ‘not relevant to Palestinians’.
In the United $tates, the free flow of ideas has begun to be brought
to an end. Book bans, Don’t Say Gay laws, the backlash against Critical
Race Theory, what’s next? Will the same reactionaries rally police/
military force to suppress your student demonstration? The book Chican@ Power and
the Struggle for Aztlán has been banned in prisons in many parts of
occupied Aztlán. Will the reactionaries prevent your free thought?
NEWSFLASH THEY ALREADY ARE! Students in North America should pressure
their institutions to join the Academic boycott and the wider BDS
movement. END ALL COLLABORATION WITH THE ILLEGITIMATE STATE, until
Palestine is free.
MIM(Prisons) adds: One of the first essays many
students of MIM study is On Contradiction by Mao Zedong. In it
Mao explains how change must come from within. The liberation of
Palestine depends on an effective national liberation struggle from
within Palestine, but it can be assisted by resistance to the funding
and arming of the I$raeli state by Amerikans whose government is the
primary prop of I$rael. A strong anti-imperialist movement in this
country would be able to limit the sale of military goods to I$rael,
Ukraine and anywhere else where the empire wants to fight wars against
its enemies without sending its own troops.
Notes: (1) ‘Palestinian-american journalist
assassinated,’ Monical Hill, FreedomSocialist,vol.43,no.3 (2)
‘Academic fortify boycott of Israel’, Raya Fidel,
FreedomSocialist,vol.43,no.3
Crime is a child of poverty and miseducation, which are both created
and perpetuated by Plutocrat Policy(s).
The real criminals are too rich and too big for jail, while the poor
are incarcerated for simply living a survivalist existence, for
responding and/or reacting to poverty and miseducation in reactionary,
economically desperate and miseducated ways.
Prison is mainly based on inflicting punishment and resentment,
rather than cultivating genuine healing via essential self-criticism
that has historically proven to decrease recidivism. Prisoners’ growth
will defeat the purpose of spending or investing 20-plus million dollars
building each prison. Genuine rehabilitation is a bad investment to the
Plutocrats.
The entire so-called criminal justice system is nothing but a
replacement and extension of slavery. A job-generating industry for all
government branches and departments between the slave patrollers (street
PIGs; Plutocrat Imperialist Goons) and Overseers (D.O.C.; Department of
Cruelty) as was the case with post-Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676.
Crime, is all founded upon, and backed up by the exception clause of
the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution: “Neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime…”
Thus, to genuinely heal or rehabilitate prisoners is to end the new
slavery; meaning, leading to the shutting down of prison, and mass
lay-offs within the entire so-called criminal justice industry system,
made up of slave patrollers (street PIGs), judges, state and defense
attorneys, counselors, doctors, nurses, canteen vendors, civilian food
service and maintenance workers and county jail and prison overseers
(DOC). Millions of jobs when tallied up nationally, all off so-called
crime, the new cotton, tobacco and/or sugar.
Crime, as an industry, can only end by first and foremostly ending
poverty and miseducation. Even rape is a result of miseducation, or
psychological defects of miseducation by the system of patriarchy.
However, poverty and miseducation will not end without first and
foremostly ending and replacing the CIPWS (Capitalist Imperialist
Patriarchist White Supremacy) with a Proletarian Internationalist
Dictatorship.
Whenever and wherever there is poverty and miseducation, material
conditions are ripe for the warrant of crime or revolution. For neither
takes place without the desire for and/or the aspiration of better days,
or a higher standard of living.
History is proof, that revolutions do not automatically occur and
succeed with the collapse of the CIPWS elite and their Plutocrat’s
superstructure. Revolution can, and will only occur and succeed when and
where the revolt which leads to revolution is culture. When and where
the masses are revolutionary conscious and active in every aspect of
human life. When and where every human embraces the power to determine
the egalitarian destiny of his and/or her own community. Revolution is
when and where power changes hands, in our case, from CIPWS to PID
(Proletarian Internationalist Dictatorship) ensuring egalitarianism
meaning All Power To The People. Revolution begins with education like
crime ends with education.
In egalitarian solidarity and struggle.
MIM(Prisons) adds: This is great summary of the
connection between the system of mass incarceration in the U.$. and the
need to end imperialism. We agree that this criminal injustice system is
a replacement for slavery in relation to controlling New Afrikan
populations, and that it funds millions of jobs for Amerikans. However,
this system is very different from cotton or sugar in that no value is
being created, rather the potential value that the oppressed nations
could be producing to benefit their people is being squandered by
locking them up in unproductive conditions for years and decades.
On 28 December 2021, Hisham Abu Hawash of the Islamic Jihad Movement
in Palestine has gained a victory against I$rael’s counter-revolutionary
“administrative detention” policy. Hawash’s lawyer, Jawad Boulos, has
stated that I$rael pledged for Hawsah’s release on 26 February 2022 and
therefore the hunger strike will end.(1)
Hawsah is a 40-year-old father of 5 and a member of the Islamic Jihad
Movement in Palestine. He is among several Palestinian revolutionaries
waging a hunger strike in protest of I$rael’s unjust policy, which locks
up Palestinians without any due trial. He has faced 8 years of time
imprisoned with 4 of those years under administrative detention.(2)
The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine (PIJ) rightfully threatened
counter-attacks if Hawsah ever died in custody.(3)
Palestinians across the occupied land have gone in protests
supporting the strikers. One protest in the West Bank city of Ramallah,
on 6 January 2022, included signs which read: “Those starving behind
bars feed the universe with dignity” – a slogan we extend to hunger
strikers not only in Palestine but across the world.(4)
The
Reactionary Policy of Administrative Detention
Administrative detention is a form of arrest or imprisonment done
without trial – usually for issues of “terrorism” or rebellion. Many
imperialist countries use the tactic of administrative detention to
control unruly populations/groups.(5) In the United $tates for example,
around 182,869 migrants from the Third World were held in detention
centers through this method in 2020.(6) Despite the more advanced and
developed contradictions between I$rael and Palestine, compared to
oppressed nations in the United $tates and Euro-Amerika the year after,
I$rael held a mere 1,595 Palestinians in administrative detentions.
Amerika has truly earned the title “Big Satan” in contrast to I$rael’s
“Little Satan” status on this front.(7) The administrative detention
policy of the I$raelis work through the arrest and detention of
Palestinian revolutionaries and activists. The idealists arguing for
I$rael will say that administrative detention has been applied to
I$raelis as well – notably, against ultra-chauvinist zionist terrorists
and unruly settlers. Throughout the years, only 9 I$raelis were held in
administrative detention; Palestinians and Arabs number in the
thousands.(8) Any sober minded person and materialist will be able to
recognize that the exception proves the rule in this case like so many
often times.
DOWN WITH ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION!
THOSE STARVING BEHIND BARS FEED THE WORLD’S DIGNITY
Notes: 1. Joseph Krauss, “Palestinian prisoner ends hunger
strike in deal with Israel” Associated Press, January 4th
2022
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. “Israel’s Policy of Administrative Detention,” European
Parliament
6. “United States Immigration Detention Profile,” Global
Detention Project
7. “Prisoners society: Israel issued 1,595 administrative
detention orders against Palestinians in 2021,” Press TV
8. “Stop Administrative Detention,” Prisoner Support Human
Rights Association