Under Lock & Key

[Arms & Empire(1980) by Richard Krooth is a MIM must read. MIM(Prisons) just developed a study guide to go along with this book. The below is the intro to the study guide with some key quotes from the book.]

Introduction to the study pack

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (originally named the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement) was founded at a time when inter-imperialist conflict between the camp led by the United $tates and that led by the social-imperialist USSR posed a threat to the world. In one of the founding documents, written in 1983, comrades saw the combination of liberation struggles in the Third World and this inter-imperialist conflict as a hotbed for communist revolutions.(1)

MIM founders saw the success of communist revolution as an absolute necessity to prevent a new inter-imperialist war, that would likely lead to nuclear war. As such, they recognized that a revolutionary situation could arise within the United $tates in a matter of years, despite having a budding skepticism of the interests of most in our country in communist revolution.

For most of MIM’s existence now we have not been in the situation described above. By 1991 the “Cold War” was over with the dissolution of the Soviet imperialist bloc. For a solid 3 decades we lived under a “unipolar world”, where U.$. dominated organizations and alliances ruled the world (NATO, World Bank, IMF, etc).

For many years now (in 2022) China has been the rising imperialist power, mostly independent of the U.$.-dominated institutions, though deeply integrated with the U.$. economically. As the contradictions heighten in the U.$.-China economic system, they also heighten in the capitalist system overall. The post-USSR era brought a sacking of the wealth of the former Soviet states by cleptocratic capitalists. This aligned with the capitalist development of China, and the return of exploitative relations dominating over 1 billion people who became the primary producers for consumers in the United $tates and around the world. These processes of wealth extraction were the life-blood for global capitalism for those 3 decades of inter-imperialist peace. But, capitalism must keep expanding, and there is not much more room to expand. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a series of collapses in the international system of distribution that prioritized profitability over resiliency.

Earlier this year, Russia invaded Ukraine, in what many fear is the first hot war of what will be an escalating inter-imperialist war. Though to date, it has not yet exceeded in scale the U.$./USSR conflicts of the Cold War. It has brought with it massive trade barriers. The Amerikans have rallied the world to isolate Russia with great success, yet differences in interests have also arisen. This will force many realignments in the coming months and years. The battle for markets, using tariffs and embargoes and currency manipulations, will only escalate. This makes Arms & Empire such a relevant read today.

In 1997, MIM passed a resolution stating:

“For MIM’s purposes, World War III began immediately after World War II ended in 1945. World War III continues today. It is a war between the imperialists and the oppressed nations. By defining World War III as post-World War II, MIM does not mean to say that imperialists did not wage war on the oppressed nations prior to 1945, only that the post-1945 period has specific characteristics (such as: 1. the leading roles of the U.S. and, for a time, the USSR and 2. the predominance of neocolonialism) which separate this period from the pre-1945 periods.”(2)

We can say that world war is inherent to imperialism. As Lenin defined it, imperialism is when the world has been completely divided up by competing monopolist powers, making the export of finance capital the dominant aspect of the economy, and finance capitalists become the shapers of the world. This competition translates to economic and military warfare, both of which result in large numbers of unnecessary humyn deaths. Imperialism kills millions. When warfare between the imperialists can be minimized for a period, the warfare is aimed primarily at the oppressed nations who are resisting the imperialists trying to control and exploit them.

On the eve of World War I, the revisionist Kautsky proposed a theory of ultra-imperialism to supercede imperialism, where the imperialists can ban together to manage the world internationally. Today, there are many bad Marxists who unknowingly promote this metaphysical view of world imperialism where the imperialist forces of NATO and the U.$. are an invincible unbreakable force, and that the best thing the communists can hope for is a counter-balance to U.$. hegemony while tailing other independent imperialists such as Russia or China. While also unknowingly parroting neo-Kautskyism, these revisionist Marxists also unite with the bourgeois Liberals on the world view of a post-Soviet world. The bourgeois liberals had their own theories of “the end of history” after the collapse of the Soviet Union that envisioned the current order to have proven itself as the stable state in which we would remain. In this book, Richard Krooth concisely points out why these fantasies can never come true. The internal contradictions of capitalism and imperialism, brilliantly exposed by Marx and Lenin, translate to antagonistic contradictions among the imperialists that cannot be resolved by synthesis but only by one aspect of that contradiction overtaking the other via warfare. This remains true despite brief periods of relative peace between the imperialists that must also coincide with periods of prosperity and great opportunity for the imperialists. And has MIM has pointed out, even in times of prosperity, the different interests of the labor aristocracy can damper the plans of imperialist unity.(3)

Today, the labor aristocracy is talking about their inability to consume products not made by them in their movement to increased wages, decreased worktimes, etc. However, they seem to be able to consume products not made by them pretty well. Cars, phones, food, etc. are mostly produced by the Third World proletariat, and the main gripe comes with things they don’t own rather than things they don’t produce: rent for example.

As we enter a period of heightened inter-imperialist conflict, we echo the sentiments of MIM’s founders. We are not for war, but we recognize that war by the proletariat to overthrow imperialism is necessary to stop war. As military and economic warfare expands among imperialists and between imperialists and the oppressed nations, opportunities for successful revolutions to put the proletariat in state power increases. This is the solution to war. We aim to destroy imperialism, because imperialism is destroying the planet.

<sup>Notes:
1. Manifesto on the International Situation and Revolution (first few pages)
2. Resolution on World War III (1997 MIM Congress)
3. Social-democratic gravy train opposes European Union (2005 MIM Congress)
4. also see: “Ukraine: Imperialism in Crisis” in Under Lock & Key 77 for broad discussion of economic and military warfare against Russia in 2022.</sup>

Key summary quotes from book

End of the Introduction:

“For we will see that empire was systemic and competitive; that competition and nationalism then powered the changeover from one system of empire to another; that, consequently, the mercantile colonial system was replaced by a system of free trade with the coming of industrialism; that free trade was thereafter replaced by a return to colonial empires with the rise of monopolization in the leading nations; that war between the Powers resolved little in the fight for world domination; and that a new growth of monopolies led to strengthened colonial spheres of influence and renewed warfare.”

Explanation of the Great Depression (top of p.119):

“The U.S. had long since closed down free trade into America, stopping Germany and other European countries from exporting to American shores to pay their debts. This secured the U.S. dollar for a while, making it the hardest currency in the world, pushing up its value vis-a-vis other currencies, but also making it inaccessible to nations that otherwise would have purchased from America. When other nations could not obtain dollars by exports to the U.S., obviously they could import nothing at all. And so U.S. exports tended to fall and had to be replaced with bilateral trade agreements. Up went U.S. unemployment when markets fell away and bilateral trade could not replace them. Then down came the dollar, the U.S. devaluing in 1933 in an attempt to stimulate the exports again. But, alas, it was too late. The depression was on, production was down, America was spreading crisis to Europe!”

Lead up to WWII (p.129-30):

“Within European nations especially, the road to war was laid out in stages – the first for counterrevolution, the second for capitalist resurgence, and the third for crises and the rise of antagonistic governments seeking to take what all others held in trade, investments, colonies and profits. In the first period (1917-23) we can discern how civilian bands of reactionaries had used force and violence against the agrarian or socialist”revolutions”… The reactionaries demanded “law and order,” eventually leading to “counter-revolutions.” Yet the incipient fascist movements did not themselves assume government power, for the marketplace was being re-established and did not require a fascistic state.

“The second period (1924-29) had no use for a fascist government either. The powers of capitalist production were expanding, the market fetters were destroyed, and al the important nations save Great Britain were on the economic upgrade. While the United States enjoyed legendary prosperity and the Continent was doing almost as well, Hitler’s putsch was a footnote in political economy. France evacuated the Ruhr, the Reichsmark was restored by U.S. loans, the Dawes Plan took politics out of reparations, Locarno was in the offing for peace, and Germany was initiating seven fat years. The gold standard ruled from Moscow to Lisbon by the close of 1926; buyers could now pay for their imports, restoring the capitalist marketplace to its full capacity.

“Then came the Great Crash of 1929, the market economy turning down, general economic crisis forcing nations to be sellers but not buyers in the world. The continuing deadlock of market dealings demanded changes in the political way in which economic solutions were planned. The Italian trusts chose fascism as a way out of their economic malaise. The German cartels demanded continental markets and colonies, not by marketplace dealings - for they were shut out of the markets and colonies of the other Powers - but by military conquest. Hitler, their puppet, demanded no more than they asked, Germany taking the lead in totalitarianizng Europe. And with Japan in the Asian wing, the Axis Pact aligned fascist power over five continents.

“Thereby the material conditions of society – monopoly ownership, overproduction, market struggle, political bankruptcy, and military occupation – had ended the marketplace system. The monopolists and cartelists needed fascism to build themselves strong for a military confrontation which, they believed, would award them with more raw materials, more markets, more profits and more power. The liberal business interests, then opting for increasing national competitiveness, also blocked any move towards allowing the social means of production to provide for popular need, instead of their private profit. The fascists, combining jingoism and planned speed-ups for the working population, now displayed a tawdry alternative to the free marketplace. And the monopolists then brought them into power in hopes that their accumulation of private gain would continue undiminished. World War II inexorably followed, not only because leaders willed it, but also because the solutions to economic and political crises required it.”

Sadly far too many people who should know better believe that a sign of “equal justice” would be if Kyle Rittenhouse was housed in the empty cell down the tier from me. Additionally far too many people actually felt and argued that a sign of the system working was the guilty verdict given to the McMichaels for killing Ahmaud Arbery. However i wonder what exactly such people believe happens when these people are in fact placed into prison. Do people believe these people would share the same experiences as someone from the semi-colonies? Do they believe these people will be subjected to the same level of brutality from the state or its representatives? Do they believe this is “rehabilitation”?

i’ve even heard far too many people state that these people should not even be given bourgeois rights while going through the courts. Such people obviously believe in amerikkkan “democracy” and only aim to put and keep their people in power specifically through the Democratic Party where they can use the levers of bourgeois civil society to dominate* the Republican Party. This is vengeance against the Amerikan bourgeoisie’s political party by another - not justice and definitely not revolutionary. We should condemn this at every turn.

2020 was lost because spontaneity dominated instead of actual consciousness. Lenin stated in 1900 that the “spontaneity of the masses demands a high consciousness from us.” Another obvious failure was the failure of analysis of what amerikkka’s capitalism-imperialism is and who her citizens are and their relationship to this specific form of late capitalism-imperialism. Had this been done there would’ve been less talk of trying to stuff a true history lesson down the settler-colonist throats as if this would make them see the light and instead teaching this history to New Afrikans, First Nations, Raza, API and receptive whites with an emphasis on self-determination struggles, self-reliance, anti-imperialism and internationalism. A proper class analysis would’ve concluded there’s no real opposition to capitalism-imperialism (in 2020) and most amerikans benefit from this system. The people protesting, thinking pigs would be or should be neutral, while their system was under attack; that they would not welcome vigilantes and even thank them were foolish. If any one was surprised at all by how that night played out, regardless of the Rittenhouse verdict, they need to go back to the ABC’s of amerikkkan history (maybe Critical Race Theory would’ve helped them).

Not only should we not root for U$A injustice system even against our enemies**, we should denounce bourgeois criminal behavior, not just gangsterism but even in protests. We are not terrorists nor do we believe in focoism or anarchy. We advocate revolutionary consciousness. We do not lead the people to slaughter. We gather forces or at least sympathy for revolution.

What are prisons for? We know all too well about the school-to-prison-pipeline and who this is designed for. We know we are considered surplus-population and prison acts as a social tool to keep idle people idle. We also know that amerikkkans are infatuated with law and order (and punishment). We know amerikkkans rest assured when its carceral system locks people away for 40 or 50 years for whatever crime…we know amerikkka does not bat an eye at such abuses. In fact immediately after Rittenhouse’s GoFundMe page successfully got him acquitted Vice President Harris professed her role as top-cop in California was to make the system more “equitable” and his acquittal means there’s obviously “more work to be done”. Again, but what are prisons for? Rittenhouse should go inside a box (for obviously many, many years), get old and then be judged (by a specific faction of the bourgeois dictatorship - the democrats**) to see if it’s enough years gone by. This is the only purpose prison in bourgeois society serves so what kind of people advocate such a thing?

Even in prison it’s not well known what prison is used for. Not only that, even in prison bourgeois mentality is prevalent and ubiquitous… We sit in cages like animals. We are psychologically tortured, sexually humiliated, manipulated and harassed. We must fight for outside contact, safety, humanity and freedom but a majority of captives sit around in their assigned boxes and literally direct their anger and future violence at other captives. Not just that but rebellion against our circumstances and capture is far too often shunned. Revolution even in hell isn’t automatic. Bourgeois society will go down as the most adaptable. When almost everyone has a price how could it not?

When i hear “lock em up” or that “justice” was served i know for sure i’m in the midst of enemies. i know such people deep down believe i’m exactly where i should be. Revolutionaries cannot parrot Jesse Jackson, Alicia Garza, Amy Goodman or anyone else’s call to “lock em up.” Let’s leave that to Trump and Clinton and all the other enemies of the revolution. Instead let’s learn how to protect each other starting with a proper class analysis. True political consciousness going into 2022 must start from the empire’s utter success in buying off all but a small percent of its population and the knowledge that this demand and lame-ass attempt to take over the bourgeois system “from the inside” with this pro-police imperialism, pro-FBI socialism, anti-revolution revolutionaries is worse than a joke.

Salutes to TX Team One, FPC, Republic of Aztlán, and the entire USW,

NA Struggle RL NAIM CA-MLM

*Obviously if this had the potential to advance anti-imperialism in any way it is to be considered but we will not first exploit internal contradictions between the capitalist then as a response to this build our forces. No, there must first be a revolutionary force to galvanize otherwise it’s just more imperialism and pro-imperialism.

**It would have to be Democrats because Republicans believe this was just.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with this comrade’s focus on building our forces, building anti-imperialism, building movements for self-determination. As we say on page 2 of every Under Lock & Key, we have a different solution to the bourgeois prison system and that is proletarian justice. We distribute the book Prisoners of Liberation about Amerikan spies in a Chinese socialist prison that we use as a starting point for how prisons can be used to serve the people and give everyone the resources to reform and contribute positively to society.

But implementing pro-people rehabilitation on a mass scale is a ways off for us in this country. And we agree with our comrade here that these calls for “justice” are the battlefield of bourgeois politicians. If Rittenhouse was given a long prison term, that would only increase the chances of him becoming the Nazi that he has been branded already in the media; an indication of what these bourgeois prisons actually do. There are class enemies, and both sides will use force against their class enemies. But we must first build proletarian institutions, before we can implement proletarian justice.

Previously I argued that taxpayers are not responsible for government capital policy because they are ignorant. My error was pointed out to me and now I see the truth – the January 6th rioters showed me that they are willing to fight for my oppression therefore their ignorance is irrelevant – they are indeed more responsible than I assumed, therefore I must ignore my compassion for their humanity as unnatural as that is for me. The object is more important than the subject.

When evaluating responsibility, it is tempting to be blinded by the subject. For instance, government officials are directly responsible for enforcing capital policy. However, collaborators often look like our neighbors, friends or even family. These collaborators will support & encourage oppression & tyranny out of ignorance or out of a callous heart. Ignorance cannot be excused if freedom is ever going to be won. When the object of freedom becomes important enough all barriers must fall, even if that means forcing ourselves to do what is not natural.

Rights are never granted, rights are won. Unfortunately, this includes basic human rights such as freedom. To win freedom from the tyranny & oppression that comes with a capitalist economy, the opposition must fall. This necessity does not come naturally, that is because the values instilled in our youth are instilled by capital policy (submission), these values are what allows capitalists to steal your freedom. We must relearn a greater value.

There exist those that will take more than one has to give, that is what capital is (inequality). There is only so much resource & for one to have more than one needs he/she has to deprive another of what they need. For one to be rich, one must be poor.

As I watch the January 6th investigation, one thing is clear. That is the effort was weak. I think that is because the rioters knew in their hearts that they were fighting for the exploitation of an oppressed class. Ironic that they choose to capture the Capitol Building in order to keep their capital wealth at the expense of the oppressed class.

For those of us that are fighting for freedom, We will not make a half-hearted effort because it is our very survival that we are fighting for. We are not fighting for material wealth because we have none. Because our oppression is total & complete then so is our fight for freedom.

We will not fight for one building, not even for one city, or one country. We are fighting for equality. We will not stop until all opposition is fallen. Our fight comes from the heart & that is why it is stronger than the January 6th fight for material wealth.

The difference is that I am sick & tired of being oppressed so that another can live lavishly. The difference is that unlike the January 6th rioters I am not here to have a big party with a bunch of friends at the Capitol Building – I am here to win my freedom and to fight for the freedom of all oppressed people and I will not stop and lay down, I will never stop!!

That is what Marx means by permanent revolution, we must never stop fighting because the very moment we relax is the moment the exploiters continue to exploit as they have always done. Sun Tzu said we can “never leave an enemy on the battlefield.” If we do they will come back again.

As communists we must know our enemy is the object and not the subject. Compassion can blur our vision of the object and it is in these moments I must remember that the capitalists never had any compassion for the oppressed.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This point is relevant as Amerikans remember the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and Afghans sigh in relief as the invader of their country pulls out. Professor Ward Churchill took a lot of heat for quoting Malcolm X on chickens coming home to roost after 9/11 and referring to Amerikans as “little Eichmanns.”(1) Adolf Eichmann was a Nazi in Germany who ran logistics for the system of concentration camps there. He was captured years after the war and in his trial claimed he was just following orders, just a cog in the machine, and should not be blamed for the deaths caused by that machine.

Since the end of the second imperialist war, the Amerikans have run the largest system of concentration camps in the world. While they lack the mass murder of the Nazi system, they are genocidal nonetheless against the oppressed nations that make up the majority of the prisoners. The day will come when Amerikans will be charged for their decades of crimes against humynity. Our success at building anti-imperialism and accountability in the United $tates today will ease the transition to a more just future on these lands.

^{Notes: 1.Ward Churchill, Some People Push Back.}

I examined the articles in ULK 72 concerning the Capitol Seizure on 6 January 2021. The racist and fascist Trump, his lap dog Guliani and other white capitalist goons from the political, corporate and intelligence world attempted to use the brainwashed QAnon zombies and mind-controlled Trump supporter in a pre-planned and very well orchestrated Nazi-style coup d’état (though they failed or appeared to have failed). These poor men and women from the Anglo middle class ‘Labor Aristocracy’ were used as pawns and cannon fodder in a mass psychological operation that will be used as a pretext for the social elite to implement more mechanisms of control and ‘security’ in exchange for more of the public’s privacy and so-called ‘freedoms’!

This event was labeled by the members of Congress and the intelligence community as an inside job. The major indication of this U.S. Capitol nonsense being an inside job orchestrated by the elite is the fact that the National Guard, Homeland Security and local law enforcement procrastinated in intercepting the very irrational and violent Trump supporters and also the fact that many of these vanguard reactionaries were discovered to be off-duty officers, military and Homeland Security themselves; another sign of a psychological operation. Also it was discovered that the security inside the U.S. Capitol were aware of what the protesters were planning to do and some of them even let the protesters inside, simply opening the door for them.

I also found the article by Allah Saturn very interesting in which this comrade described the atrocities committed by the European colonialist on Blacks for four hundred years. As comrade Walter Rodney pointed out, as well as Karl Marx, slavery and racism is the very foundation of western capitalism and racism is used to reinforce capitalism on targeted ethnic groups that usually occupy the lower and proletarian classes worldwide. Those who dismiss the Capitol seizure as fringe white nationalists attempt to hide the white/Amerikan nationalism at the heart of this country, that is oppressing people around the world.

“Karl Marx also commented on the way that European capitalists tied Africa, the West Indies and Latin America into the capitalist system; and (being the most bitter critic of capitalism) Marx went on to point out that what was good for Europeans was obtained at the expense of untold suffering by Africans and American Indians. Marx noted that ‘the discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the turning of Africa into a commercial warren for the hunting of black skins signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.’” - Walter Rodney in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.

I am starting to understand MIM’s Theory on the Labor Aristocracy even more thanks to the study material the comrades of USW provided by comrades Marx and Engels (On Colonies, Industrial Monopoly and The Working Class Movement). Also MIM Theory 6: The Stalin Issue in which Maoists addressed misinformation on comrade Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin as well as MIM Theory 4 Issue: A Spiral Trajectory. These materials were combined with my knowledge of Marxism and revolutionary principles to further develop a greater understanding of MIM’s concepts on the origin of the underdevelopment of the Third World by the First World and this is further explained on pg. 11 in the Marx and Engels material that was edited by the Communist Working Circle in 1972,

“Marx believed that the export of capital would result in capitalism spreading all over the world. However, he did not imagine that it would institute a rigid division of the world between a highly developed imperialist center and an exploited and underdeveloped periphery.”

And this is the case we find ourselves in presently. Except now, we find ourselves up against a different kind of beast, a more covert or clandestine form of imperialism that instead of using nationalism of sovereign nations as its power base or nucleus; now, because of new laws on international trade and commerce, individual nations cannot check or limit its tyranny that operates through multinational corporations; thus we encounter neo-colonialism that has its foundation in globalist corporations that have billions of dollars to pay off whole countries in the First and Third Worlds. A new and very advanced techno-Anglo Establishment that changed its methods 50-60 years ago when they realized as Comrade el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz (Malcolm X) (PBUH), said in a speech he made in 1963:

“…the thing that is bringing an end to their world is the awakening of the dark world! As the dark world awakens, the dark world is rising. And as the dark world rises and increases, the power of the white world decreases…”

By the dark world, comrade el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz meant that the Afro, Asian, Latin American and Arab lower, working and proletarian classes that were and still are oppressed by the white world or western corporate capitalist parasites.

Now, 58 years later, this beast has mutated and evolved into a new species similar to the COVID-19 virus, multiplying and reproducing itself rapidly on a global scale, disguising itself as so-called ‘Free-Market Capitalism’.

The overt racism as we see, experience and that is televised daily, is used to reinforce this so-called free market capitalism at the expense of the lower and working classes, especially the Third World proletariat.

We must come to recognize repeated human behavior as not coincidences or isolated phenomena or events but as being systematic methods of control and agitation by the reactionary forces to accelerate social tensions between different ethnic, political and religious groups. The elite create the problem, (like the bio-engineered COVID-19 virus or police brutality), they wait for it to do its damage then they come with the solution to the problem that they created as is the case with the COVID-19 virus. Medical practitioners said it usually take up to ten years to develop a vaccine but somehow the big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna all managed to simultaneously develop a vaccine within months. As Marxists, Maoists, Leninists, or dialectical materialists we must examine history in comparison to current events and we will come to the conclusion that this current situation is the result of Malthusian Anglo philosophy.

Malthusian meaning, relating to the theory that population, unless checked (by war or bioengineered pandemics, sterilization) tends to increase faster than the so-called means of subsistence. This is the philosophy of the fascist world Anglo establishment, the predatory elite and all of their brainwashed pawns (politicians or corporate lackeys).

They tend to focus on the myth of overpopulation because they know that they, statistically speaking are a minority and we are a majority, thus we pose more of a threat to the elite because we outnumber them. So all of this madness we see everyday on the mainstream media are not isolated events, the majority of it is done by design. Ignorant behavior is promoted 24 hrs a day, seven days a week on the mainstream media outlets purposely because social engineers understand that the masses tend to repeat the same behavior, especially when they are being bombarded by the same images everyday.

Now, in Minneapolis – the world is awaiting the George Floyd trials and the results of the charges of second degree murder and manslaughter brought against officer Chauvin, the pig that murdered comrade Floyd (PBUH)(sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) in cold blood in front of the whole world.

But, unlike the U.S. Capitol situation on January 6th of this year, regardless of the intelligence communities foreknowledge that the Trump militia and QAnon zombie terrorist goons were going to storm the Capitol; the National Guard, Homeland Security and the local police in Minneapolis are already on post and the jurors for the trial on Chauvin hasn’t even been picked yet. This strong military and law enforcement presence is obviously due to the fact that the Afro, Asiatic, or New Afrikan element that the authorities know will be highly dissatisfied if that pig Chauvin is let off, as was the case with Elijah McClain in Denver, Breonna Taylor in Kentucky, Daniel Prude in Rochester, New York and Jacob Blake in Wisconsin. This further proves that institutional racism is still deeply interwoven within the fabric of the AmeriKKKan criminal justice system.

The mainstream media attempts to captivate the minds of the masses with tales of romance and intrigue concerning the Megan and Harry scandal in Buckingham Palace and the reason why the same bloodlines and Anglo-Saxon-Coberg Gotha-Scandinavian, Frankish and Celtic families have been in control of the British Empire; the birthplace of modern imperialism and capitalism that had its origins in the exploitation of African slaves and the pillaging of resources throughout India, Asia, the Caribbean as well as the British colonies in North America. The Queen’s England or United Kingdom was never about racial tolerance or equality but it was always about the domination of the Anglo establishment over the rest of the world’s people and resources.

“Between the 16th and 19th centuries, the major international motors for European capital accumulation was the trade in African slaves carried in British and French ships; silver and gold exports from South America to Spain and Portugal; profits from the use of slave labor in the British West Indies; profits from the Dutch Spice Trade; profits from the Opium trade, and the colonial land revenue…” - Marx and Engels, On Colonies, Industrial Monopoly, and The Working Class Movement, pg. 25

This present dissatisfied generation must be educated by a genuine revolutionary vanguard to those historic realities that create the current situation we find ourselves in now, which is the main principle of Marxism; accurate analysis of history. Only then will we transcend or rise above all the prejudices and social stigmas placed on us by the imperialist elite.

“The greatest danger facing young people right now is the coming of a fascist state, like the one described by George Orwell in 1984 where Big Brother is always watching you. In a few years, that book might be history. We must look into history and see it as being concretely related to the problems of today. In turn, we will find a lamp of truth by which we can guide our feet to oppose the fascist 1984-type state that’s rapidly coming into power in this country. That is why the racists and the narrow-minded chauvinists do not want black people, Chicano people, Puerto Rican, Asian, and poor white people to study and know their own true history - because their history will tell the truth about America today.” – Bobby Seale in ‘Seize the Time’ 1968-69

MIM(Prisons) responds: We say about 80% of the world’s people are clearly on the side of communism and opposed to imperialism based on their material interests. That 80% also happens to be darker due to the invention of race by the Anglos as a means of dividing the world as this comrade documents. Meanwhile, those “poor men and women” who stormed the Capitol building waving racist flags and emblems were solidly in the top 10% globally based on income. And they happened to be almost all white, and of course Amerikan.

The quick development of multiple COVID vaccines was a surprise. However, this was technology that had been in the works for years prior. This was a unique opportunity to test mRNA technology in a critical real-world scenario. Researchers were working on this before most of us had even really begun thinking about COVID-19. Based on previous experience the quick development of vaccines was unexpected, but humyn knowledge advances and now there is a new standard.

Epidemiologists immediately began tracing the source of COVID-19 when it appeared in Wuhan, China. They determined its source was very likely a live animal market. Since then, researchers have studied the nature of the virus and agreed that that is the likely source. Warnings of a virus just like this have been around for decades. This pandemic was not unexpected. Movies like Contagion(2011) tell a very similar story based on the knowledge that such a virus was expected.

Regardless of the source of the virus itself, it is clear that the imperialists are taking advantage of the situation to further control the oppressed. First, they are using intellectual property laws enforced by international bodies like the World Trade Organization to prevent labs in Third World countries from producing the vaccine while millions around the world have died. Instead of stomping out COVID-19 it looks like we will not be able to reach heard immunity and the virus will keep evolving. Second, they are hording vaccines and will be deciding how to dole them out to the Third World that is desperate for relief from the pandemic. Third, as always the economic fallout of the pandemic will be pushed onto the Third World, as Amerikans benefit from all kinds of stimulus packages paid for by dollars that are backed by a transfer of value from the exploited countries.

Even in the United $tates we continue to be in bad shape despite having some of the greatest access to the vaccine in the world. We have reached the point where people are not getting vaccinated. Misleadership by President Trump, and profiteering by quacks on the internet have persuaded large segments of the population to not get the vaccine. This could lead to more instability in the system due to a lack of scientific thinking on the part of the oppressor nation. Science is on the side of the oppressed and must be leveraged by the oppressed to resolve the major contradictions in the world today that threaten us with death and destruction.

Weeks into the Derek Chauvin trial, protests in Brooklyn City, Minnesota were set off by the shooting of 20-year-old New Afrikan Daunte Wright during a traffic stop. The pig who shot him claims she thought she had pulled her taser. People braved the snow and freezing temperatures night after night, resisting the curfew that was put in place by the fascist pigs. They chanted “fuck the police!” and “fuck your curfew!” as cops shot tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowds of hundreds to thousands of people.

As we go to press, the pig who killed George Floyd has been charged with 2nd degree murder. Derek Chauvin assassinated Floyd on 25 May 2020 by kneeling on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.

This verdict doesn’t change the fact that over 1,100 people were killed by pigs outside of prison in 2020, and that that is consistent with previous years. Of those, 121 were pulled over for mere traffic violations like Daunte Wright. New Afrikans were 28% of those killed in 2020, despite being only 13% of the population. In cities like Chicago and Minneapolis, New Afrikans were killed by cops at over 20 times the rate of whites for 2013-2020. In that same period, no cops were charged in 98.3% of killings.(1) While this data may be incomplete, behind prison walls this information is even more hidden. United Struggle from Within reminds our readers that Prisoners’ Lives Matter too, despite being excluded from these statistics on murders by so-called “peace” officers.

In May 2020, George Floyd’s murder righteously struck a nerve in many people both in the United $tates and internationally. This lead to a great awakening in international consciousness and exposed some heavy contradictions concerning capitalism-imperialism and its facade of democracy and human rights. We were shown that it is a dictatorship, and just like all other political systems, its state representatives are only there to uphold and enforce its class interests.

One of the most inspiring consequences of the killing of George Floyd is how this is so relatable to so much of the world’s oppressed communities and how so many of them not only showed their support for New Afrikans in North America but used this as a catalyst to confront their own bourgeois dictatorships. Just last month, Victoria Salazar of El Salvador was killed by Mexican police by a knee pressing her neck into the ground similar to George Floyd. In response, wimmin across the country took to the streets, marching, performing street theatre and sometimes clashing with police. Feminists protested both the rate of femicide in the region as well as the militarized border patrols and policing that create the conditions for killings like Salazar’s; tracing it back to U.$. imperialism.

Even the bourgeoisie in China criticized how the United $tates polices its Black population, saying, “Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States.”(2)

Despite these connections, the death of Mr. Floyd had little chance of galvanizing itself to confront the U.$. bourgeois dictatorship or threaten its rule. A few officers were scapegoated. One will be doing prison time. And all Democrats and Republicans unanimously joined to denounce the officer’s actions. Western imperialism was quick to send out its talking heads and the Democratic Party to corral the people back into bourgeois confines and to let the system administer the appropriate “justice” through its judicial process. Then $27 million was given to the family in a very public and biased way which could be a sign and another way to placate the people. Sadly, Biden and the Democrats have largely won over much of the “allies” of the oppressed and New Afrikans in particular. A recent poll said that immediately after the uprising 60% said at least one pig “murdered” George, now it’s only 36%, which is just a sign of how fickle and amorphous even “talk” of discontent for how capitalism-imperialism treats the “other,” and how quick much of Amerikkka wants to get back to business, ie. back to normal.(3)

The trial of Derek Chauvin was captivating. Many people, from many backgrounds actually cared and tried to help George Floyd. Sadly, even in the rare occasion when they are given prison time, none of the pigs will be reformed. We know this because our own comrades who do want to serve the people are not given any resources to reform in the current prison system. This should only add to the list of reasons why capitalism-imperialism must go not why we need to give it yet one more chance, or worst still “push Biden further to the left.”

All comrades should be using their voice to build the anti-imperialist united front and demanding class suicide from all oppressed communities and justice-loving people in this country. It is real in the field, fascism is no longer a misnomer. There are very large swaths of the country who would love nothing more. The kid who murdered the two protestors in Kenosha received $2 million in donations, which just shows you what Amerikkkans think of the cries of its oppressed citizens, and also what it thinks of its right-wing vigilantes. Meanwhile Florida just passed a fascist bill that allows felony charges for protestors for “rioting,” including up to 15 years for those who damage or desecrate an historical monument. Meanwhile it protects Amerikans who assault or kill protestors with a deadly weapon (an automobile), a form of fascist vigilantism that has grown in recent years. Then you have the recent voting rights bills, such as in Georgia, to stop people from voting. This is a real crisis within the bourgeois empire itself on how to rule; whether oppressed nations are allowed to vote, or even to exist.

Mao said the basic law of dialectical-materialism is the unity of opposites. The primary contradiction in imperialism is the oppressed nations against the oppressor nations. Mao also said two cannot combine into one. Only revolution and a seizure of the state apparatus by the oppressed will ultimately transform this contradiction, yet we can and should be working to transform all aspects of the contradiction short of revolution we can in preparation for that time.

Amerikkka, or any First World nation, has no right to deny anyone a share of its ill-gotten spoils. We should not get caught up in the “lock-him-up” hysteria of this trial and instead demand and support a true united front against this system and expose it as an utter failure. We should be supporting the First Nations call of welcome to their cousins from South and Central America and those from the global south. The imperialists should not have undermined their governments and resources. We should be uniting with the Asian and Pacific Islander peoples’ struggles against national oppression, especially now, and welcoming them to the table (we’ve sure missed them and need them).

Studying Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, applying dialectical materialism and historical materialism, building a new culture using the method of analysis and synthesis to critique and transform this gangster culture and “bourgeois” criminal mentality into a revolutionary one, building independent institutions to protect ourselves and avoid state repression and even exposure as much as possible and effecting both the quality and quantity of these contradictions amongst the people and the enemy.

There is nothing in the world but matter in motion and our current social contradictions must be exploited by real materialists. We are living through an historic moment, things are certainly in motion, and we must affect the direction they move in. If we dare recognize our collective enemy and transform our petty bourgeois “wanna-be” gangsta mentality into one that is at least sympathetic to the revolutionary process we can really change and exploit these contradictions so they are more favorable to us.

<sup>notes: 1. mappingpoliceviolence.org
2. China’s Warning to Biden, 21 March 2021, The Wall Street Journal.
3. Jordan Williams, 5 March 2021, Poll:Number who think George Floyd’s death was murder down more than 20 percent, The Hill.</sup>

If there is nothing to be made known of the affects the bourgeois mis-education systems have on oppressed nations and internal semi-colonies within the (un)United State of Amerika, there is one thing that will give truth to power. The U.$. is a police state. The majority of the general public is a cop guard regime, and all parts of amerikan society are affected, and infected, with the virus of police-ism. Popular politics revolve around contest between the identities of so-called classes that don’t even relate itself to the revolutionary workers and exploited labourer of the internationalist proletariat.

The common theme of the COVID-19 era has been, big ups to the frontline workers, and first responders. But it shows how little resistance there is for the bourgeoisie news and social media, non-truths trend on instagram and snapchat while those who are truly exploited – from the prison population to the homeless and migrant labourer populations, the disenfranchised are steady marginalized into social sub-sects of the lumpen-proletariat. It sucks having little determination of one’s national independence. The oppressor nation has the power to Jedi mind trick its internal populations into accepting ideas of itself as suffering classes deserving of priority in the distribution of natural resources, while semi-colonies die the slow painful death. The U.$. has been sick long before the rise of COVID-19 imperialist world order.

Many on the liberal leftist side of Turtle Island remain hopeful of a sudden shift in the exploiters justice system, and the economical maneuvering of the petty bourgeoisie to redistribute wealth and punishment in equality. Thing is hopefulness is unlogical in circumstances that requires skepticism. It’s as critical as Vietnam, the draft and Muhammad Ali, refusing to attend the appointment with jungles of the Asian continent in the Amerikkkan draft. Chances are, most of those within the internal semi-colonies of these United $nakes, with the least to lose in breaking with the exploiter nation, they will be drowned out by the noise campaigns of dress-up revolutionaries, culture vultures, and agent provocateurs. The last being the most dangerous to nationalist leaders of the First World Lumpen amongst Turtle Island’s internationalist Maoist modeled groups.

Kicking New Afrikan Internationalist Principles as a USW Leader

The bourgeois nationalists are able to quote the phrases of classical revolutionary leaders and anti-imperialists but their necessities for true internationalism is just a metamorphisized lesser form of activism; never truly the form of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. As the U.$ofA imperialist and parasitic capitalist are brutally proliferating, the lies of the petty bourgeoisie are spread. These lies have become a sort of plague that infects the minds of our youth de-socialized as First World lumpen (FWL). True works of revolutionary nationalist culture are suppressed. Today’s youth (including many FWL) run to the bourgeois nationalist for education, and these ideas of reactionary, watered-down nationalist politics of New Afrikan and Aztlán liberation, with political jargon by Liberals’ approach to revolutionary action for national liberation.

Subjugation, colonialism and neo-colonialism is the cause of certain lack of knowledge. Then, with social media acting as the death alter, sacrificing one’s youth to do something the world SEES, these so-called nationalist and internationalists become inept, specifically when it come time for true actions to spring forth from the FWL. Yet, there’s a pattern throughout history for this. We see these individuals protesting against certain injustices, but is it truly Revolutionary Suicide? Does it liberate all beings subjugated?

Dialectical materialism is a concept that We’ve adapted to due to Maoist Internationalist form of thinking. One must know how to formulate a purpose of an ideology-movement. Once we’ve compared all past actions of national liberation, next we take revolutionary action. But how does the youth of today know the works of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, when their grandparents and parents were fed misinformation about liberation? We leave the youth no militant alternative but to turn to bourgeois nationalism. These individuals that speak of half revolutionary truths. They know the path of liberation, and what it will take to end oppression in the world, but in their actions of so-called change these bourgeois nationalist only aim to reform policies of subjugation. It’s like asking to desegregate a school, but there’s still white/black, girl/boy bathrooms, separating the ethnic groups of that school. We only enable police policies, which aim to further the impression of anti-socialism, capitalist-imperialistic psychology, determined psychology because of how police-ism has become a philosophy that has instinctively mingled with the psyche of certain amerikans, and as now the psychology of most amerikans, including Blacks, Chican@, Asians and First Nations.

#BLM/Black Lives Matter is an agenda that has attracted many followers. But everything that is a trend has attracted many followers. Just follow social media within the exploiter nation USA.com. The Republic of New Afrika and Aztlán need to realize that if we continue to separate the oppressed into subject classes and ethnic groups, their nations will forever be tools of bourgeois nationalists.

These systems of oppression were constructed in the exploiter nations constitution, a constitution bent on enslaving half of its population and disenfranchising the rest into minorities. Bourgeois nationalists disguised as bi-racial issue organizing groups. Protest that life or these lives matter, but lets argue the case why the BLM agenda screams Black Lives Matter, when more Blacks murder each other than so-called police do year round? Though pigs murder of so-called black men and women and children should be an issue addressed, it shouldn’t just be as one particular race or class, when race doesn’t exist to be national requirement of liberation and class struggle doesn’t really exist. The majority of Amerikan society are cops, what’s there to struggle over?

Take for example in other nations, like Palestine or Somalia, where it is known there’s a military presence by the U$ofA Africom and other oppressor nations, are all oppressing these independent national struggles that are less armed than the colonialist military settlers. The Liberal left of the U.$. scream pro-choice but in turn dictate to Third World womyn what they can or cannot do with their bodies. How is this pro-choice?? This is dividing the oppressed nations. And don’t mention the sterilization methods of U.$. state prisons, used against female prisoners to destroy reproductive powers of social rejects.

When FWL proletariat eradicate the pig system of abuse and instead begin building platforms to proliferate the ideas of MIM, nationalist organizers amongst lumpen organizations will have the voice of the people in the revolutionary objective.

With practical application of class disturbance, integration with the masses, and rigorous international study of Maoist theory, relevant to revolutionary history, with understanding of the nature of fighting and serving the people economically, we’ll address the flow of wealth that exploiters use to control world-wide populations.

Serving the oppressed in the First World, amongst the First Nation semi-colonies, tribes and lumpen organizations, means to eradicate super-exploiter systems and bourgeois nationalist personalities who advocate for said exploiting Amerikans. They won’t accept responsibility in the crimes against First Nation populations. They will hide and advocate increased police-ism reform vs. defund city council and police unions satisfying their guilty conscious with exploitation by the lesser of two evils.

Reformist and revisionist Black Lives Matter nationalists need to take their method of study and use it to shapeshift into an ideology, or philosophy that leads to MIM. These must become the FWL youths’ alternatives to ushering in a socialist revolution.

Global Jubilee and Reparations to Africans in CA, USA

In the United $tates of Amerikkka, Black New Afrikan George Floyd has their face plastered across the walls of convenience stores within the territories of occupied Dakota, Aztlán, New Afrika, and Makesh. But the true question is what will it take to unite the multitudes of FWL that lumpen leaders like G. Floyd mentored?

The pop culture of police-ism disguised as socialist nation building must be struggled against. Using the unity of fact checking and scientific decision making, leaders strengthen national resources like the independent institutions of learning, healthcare, labor, housing and entertainment. Not to fall into the politrix of revisionist co-opting for a lesser slice of servitude.

As USA.com states like California are manufacturing legislative measures like the African-American Reparations Bill to wave liability of wrongs committed against indentured servants/slave laborers of the Afrikan diaspora. There will be no reconciliations between New Afrikans and the oppressor nation pig regimes, unless the pigs swallow the cliff edge of the square they so gladly occupy. In by none but armed struggle will national reparations for all of New Afrika be possible, including We imprisoned.

The death rate of oppressed nation prisoners, a number that is still hidden from us, is part of what classifies them as semi-colonies, members of the lumpen proletariat by the political targeting of cop patrols disguised as social welfare workers. The fact remains the same prisoners exposed to COVID-19 suffer physical attacks form the cop union. The only way to mediate the national contradiction is to arm the prisoners re-entering society with a distrust for integration with a system that has deliberately exposed them to a terminal disease.

National liberation for fighters in the First World must materialize into stronger leanings towards the culture of anti-police-ism, struggling against increased police occupation of internal semi-colonies disguised as national liberation healthcare relief or economic rescue plans. It’s a trap, B. Don’t eat the swine of the captors, invaders from the petty bourgeoisie. None of what the pig state offers will appreciate in time. The military presence of the U.$. army brigades and national guard’s COVID welfare systems are surely signs of the time.

Be mindful, stay watching and prepare to fight! Uhuru Sasa!!!

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.

<sup>Notes:
1. Grace Hauck et al., 8 January 2021, Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick who died after pro-Trump riot was veteran and war critic, USA Today.
2. U.S. Census Bureau data via Wikipedia
3. the name Jim Crow comes from a character from a famous black face performance by a white entertainer 4. Greyhound, July 2020, On the Tragic Death-of Secoriea Turner, Under Lock & Key No. 71.
5. Reuters, 15 December 2020, China, Japan cut U.S. Treasury holdings in October -data 6. CPI(Maoist), December, 2012, Fight Against Patriarchy, Not Only Against Rape!, Towards a new dawn.</sup>

In the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, the glaringly ugly nature of amerikkkan exceptionalism and arrogance has been on full display. The simple and non-threatening acts of staying home and/or wearing PPE (masks) have become rallying points for reactionary patriotic elements. For this reason, occupied Turtle Island has become the world leader in COVID cases even though the imperialist regime had ample time to prepare for the virus.

With this understanding, it is only logical that people cannot rely on parasites and pigs to secure their health. It, like all aspects of our lives, is most effectively met by the people ourselves.

In May, Republican governor of South Dakota Kristi Noem threatened to sue the Lakota Nation or rely on the U.$. government to use violence to take down the Lakota’s Emergency Health Points on their home lands.

Due in part to fear of the negative reaction from Republican constituents and their mass base, as well as fundamental capitalist-imperialist unbridled greed, Noem refused to issue stay-at-home orders. Such ineptitude placed all South Dakota residents at risk, but especially our First Nation siblings and comrades as they’re a marginalized people.

In light of this development, and understanding the hystory of bio-chemical warfare and its role in the genocide of indigenous nations, the Oglala Lakota Nation pro-actively insulated themselves on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The Emergency Health Points ensured that outsiders couldn’t bring the new sickness (COVID-19) to their home.

The Emergency Health Points, allowed no one to come onto or leave Pine Ridge, unless it was an essential activity. Those going and coming were made to submit to a health questionnaire at the check points.

The Governor’s ultimatum was rightfully refused and the Lakota gave an official written statement, “you continuing to interfere in our efforts to do what science and facts dictate seriously undermine our ability to protect everyone on the reservation.”

The oppressive nature of imperialism continues to undermine the self-determination of First Nation peoples and oppressed nations generally. For this reason, and to work towards the goal of tearing down the imperialist system, New Afrikans and all oppressed nationalities within the imperialist centers must unite in the spirit of collective growth and internationalism, around our shared mission of self-determination.

Let’s not forget, that it is this same Lakota Nation which has been a thorn in the side of our shared enemy for almost 200 years. It was the Lakota, led by Red Cloud, Chief of the Oglala Lakota, who dealt the United $tates its first military defeat in 1868. In retaliation and due to ongoing resistance, it was this same nation who the 7th cavalry massacred at Wounded Knee on 29 December 1890.

Fast forward to the early 1970s with the siege of Wounded Knee and the following COINTELPRO carried out against the American Indian Movement and its supporters on and around the Pine Ridge reservation. This operation led to the political imprisonment of Oglala warrior Leonard Peltier. (An in-depth study of these events and the imperialists’ war on the Lakota people can be read in the book Agents of Repression by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall available from MIM(Prisons) for $10 or work trade.)

With the understanding of the Lakota’s specific circumstances and their hystory of resistance against the occupying forces I call on all revolutionaries and people who respect the sovereignty of the First Nations of Turtle Island to raise your voices and shine a light on this issue. Being on reservations, our siblings and comrades are often hindered from garnering proper media attention or solidarity support. The mistake of past generations of oppressed nation fighters was that of failing to support each other’s causes in all aspects (militarily, economically, socially and politically). We end that practice now. In the spirit of true proletarian internationalism.

Clench fist salute to all the First Nation warriors who’ve not sold out the great War for freedom.

^{source: 1. The Five Percenter Newspaper, Volume 25.6, pg.10.}

A Critique of Maoist Reason serves as a follow up to Continuity and Rupture, as a way to both sum up the different trends in Maoist thought within occupied Turtle Island and to respond to the critiques of the earlier book. As the latest book gives a more proper address to MIM Thought, we thought it important to read and respond.

Again on Maoism-Third Worldism

In a recent interview, JMP flippantly rejects our complaint that MIM Thought was referred to as “Maoist Third Worldism” in Continuity and Rupture. To reiterate from our last review, this is an ahistoric application of the term. As we said in one of our founding documents, Maoism Around Us, we opposed the term for two reasons. The first is fundamental to the arguments made in Continuity and Rupture as to the path of development of revolutionary science. We argued that there could be no new stage without new practice that supersedes the past. MIM has never suggested such a thing, and the term was coined after the original MIM dissolved.

The second reason, that recent works by JMP and the online journal Struggle Sessions seem to take advantage of, is that by calling our line something other than Marxism-Leninism-Maoism you can otherize it and make it seem more fringe. This new book from JMP serves to place the RIM strain of “Maoism” as the most legit one, and paints MIM as a “shadow Maoism.”

A Falsifiable Thesis

Other than making some of the common arguments made against MIM’s thesis on the labor aristocracy, JMP’s philosophical argument against our line is that it is not falsifiable. This appears to be a tautological argument based in some of the lines shared by JMP and Struggle Sessions. Yet, it would be easy to falsify our thesis by organizing petty bourgeois First Worlders (who they call proletariat) to overthrow imperialism; the very thing such projects claim to be working towards. We’ll gladly follow the leadership of anyone who does this.

JMP writes,

“What ultimately disqualifies MTW [Maoism-Third Worldism] from correctly representing Maoist reason is that it has no logical basis upon which to develop its theoretical insights. If there is no proletariat in the imperialist metropoles, and thus no proletarian movement, the first world third worldist cannot make a correct assessment of anything since it cannot practice the mass line. With no revolutionary masses in which to embed a revolutionary movement (because these revolutionary masses are elsewhere) how can it test its ideas, struggle with the masses, and thus develop theory through practice? Considering that MTW disagrees with the assessments of the most significant third world Maoist movements regarding the first world proletariat, it is not as if it is learning from the revolutionary masses it claims to valorize, either. Thus, even if MTW is correct it has no way of knowing it is correct, or developing a theory regarding its correctness, since it has no means of testing these ideas in practice. That is, MTW is not falsifiable and thus not scientific. And if it is not scientific then it is disqualified from Maoist reason.”(p.91)

JMP is saying that since MIM(Prisons) asserts that the First World has no masses to do mass line with, we cannot come to the correct position to guide communist practice.

Our claims however, are far from this. Our claim is that the masses here are a minority force: they are oppressed nation, they are migrants, they are prisoners, etc. We have been saying this for many years, yet JMP ignores this line and claims that we do not believe that anyone is oppressed in the First World. We don’t claim that there is no masses here, we claim that the constantly dying imperialist system needs to fall in order for proletarianization of the labor aristocracy to happen.

To support our claims we look at history, not just abstract economic models as JMP implies. It’s been over a hundred years since the first successful revolution leading to a dictatorship of the proletariat. Of all the efforts since then, that reached different levels of success, how many occurred in an imperialist country where most people own homes that value 6 digits in U.$. dollars, automobiles, have access to any food from around the world, not to mention unlimited clean water and practically uninterrupted electricity? Zero. So let’s flip the challenge on our comrades who believe that there is a majority proletariat in the First World and ask them to falsify our thesis by waging a revolution from within these countries. Because from where we’re standing, the historical evidence seems to be on our side so far.

Second, as the prison ministry (the most public cell representing MIM line at this time), we can say that developing mass line is central to what we do. A typical MIM(Prisons) cadre will interact with 100s of imprisoned lumpen a month. And we synthesize the best ideas through our newsletter and other work, providing ideological leadership for a prison movement that is true to anti-imperialism and the international proletariat. Our practice quickly dispenses with the premise that we cannot develop mass line in the United $tates.

Assuming that our critics cannot achieve a successful First World proletarian revolution, the question then becomes how will socialism come to countries like the United $tates? How will proletarianization of the labor aristocracy happen? Our movement has offered some theories on how that might transpire. And the future will either validate or falsify those theories. If there is a significant delinking of the exploited countries from the imperialist system before any revolutions happen in the core countries, then we must conclude that their thesis has been falsified. If revolutions in the core countries requires military support from the existing socialist countries to install a dictatorship of the proletariat in those core countries, then certainly we will have falsified their thesis.

These are some examples of how our line will either be validated or falsified in the future. It is a dogmatic position to put some universal model for how revolution must occur onto all countries.

It is circular logic to say that there must be a majority proletariat for revolutionary science to be applied, and revolutionary science is universal, therefore there must be a majority proletariat everywhere. It’s hard to see how JMP’s point can stand without this circular logic.

Drawing Class Lines

Unlike the other strands of “Maoism” criticized in the book, JMP is careful to recognize that MIM made real theoretical contributions and goes so far to say that it would be revisionism to deny that imperialism transfers wealth from some nations to others.

The question here is how do we draw lines between friends and enemies? Relatedly, we might ask when does quantitative change in the distribution of surplus value result in a qualitative change in class?

Mathematically, the switch from an exploited group to a net exploiter group is a qualitative change. However, the labor aristocracy is not generally defined as being net exploiters per se. And the workers are not conscious of when this theoretical point has been reached (as evidenced by JMP’s statement that workers in the United $tates are conscious of the belief that they are exploited, when in reality they are not). As we have argued elsewhere, while there are workers who are paid more than the value of their labor power in any country, it is a very different phenomenon in the Third World than in the First. And this is because class is colored by nation under imperialism. We see nation as the principal contradiction, representing the identity that is imperialism. So we find arguments against our global class analysis that do not address the national question to be lacking.

Let’s be clear, MIM’s third cardinal principle (MIM has long used 3 cardinal principles to distinguish its line from others calling themselves “communists”) is that “imperialism extracts super-profits from the Third World and in part uses this wealth to buy off whole populations of oppressor nation so-called workers. These so-called workers bought off by imperialism form a new petty-bourgeoisie called the labor aristocracy. These classes are not the principal vehicles to advance Maoism within those countries because their standard of living depend on imperialism.”

It is within imperialism that we find the qualitative difference that this labor aristocracy has with workers outside the imperialist core countries. It is not because First World people fought harder for higher wages, or First World companies are more democratic and offer higher wages, it’s not because white people are evil; it is the system of imperialism that puts some nations in a position of receiving surplus value and others of losing. Those who gain tend to support the system and those who lose tend to oppose it.

As an aside, settler-colonialism is one form of this, which defines occupied Turtle Island. While we welcome the surge in interest in dismantling settler-colonialism, we must recognize it as one form of imperialism. We find many who want to “de-colonize” without recognizing the global class structure for what it is. We also have those like JMP who acknowledge the economic structure of imperialism, but for some reason don’t think it changes who are our friends and who are our enemies.

While the academic economic models of Marxism may not inform the class consciousness of the labor aristocracy, relative deprivation does. And there is nothing that symbolizes that divide in relative wealth more than the imperialist country borders. Closing core country borders happens to be an issue that has garnered much support from the labor aristocracies of the United $tates and United Kingdom, as well as in France and Germany in recent years. Do Brexit and “Build the Wall” not symbolize enemy ideologies? Are the labor aristocracies of these countries wrong that open borders would prevent them from hoarding wealth in those countries? How does JMP reconcile this political reality with his dogmatic thesis of a revolutionary proletariat in the First World?

JMP asks, “is it implicitly”first worldist” to argue that there is a proletariat at the centres of capitalism and go out to organize, for example, miners around a communist ideology that is also anti-imperialist?”

Organizing miners in the First World against imperialism sounds great. But if you are arguing that they are the exploited proletariat who deserve more money, when they are actually benefiting from imperialist exploitation of the Third World, then you are not organizing against imperialism, are you? It just doesn’t follow that JMP sees the transfer of value in favor of a group from a system and then argues that that group is going to be opposed to that system. The question here isn’t primarily about who to organize, though certainly focusing on the right groups will get us further faster, but rather what to organize around that will push anti-imperialism forward. Perhaps the miners are allied with anti-imperialism for reasons external to income and raw value transfer, such as carbon emissions. To organize them around a radical transformation of our energy system being led by the international proletariat could be a form united front work, but not organizing the proletariat itself.

A Global Anti-Imperialist United Front

One thing we learn from this book is some of the differences between JMP and those who use the term “principally Maoism,” specifically the blog Struggle Sessions. Obviously one should read the latter’s writings to get their real views. However, one difference addressed is that the former sees the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) as the historical event that solidified Maoism, while the latter sees the Peruvian Communist Party as having done so alone and the RIM as a rightest deviation.

Our counter-history of Maoism was presented in our last response to JMP, where we get into the RIM in more depth and our arguments against the practice of forming a Communist International. While Struggle Sessions has some significant agreement with our critiques of the RIM and its role, they actively promote the formation of a new International, as does JMP. In this latest book, JMP concedes that the RCP=U$A sought to and to an extent did control the RIM. To be clear, we did not argue that other parties in the RIM did not have any independence or basis outside of the RIM, we specifically said not all members were revisionists. But those calling for U.$. intervention in Iran certainly were, and such a position should not be up for debate or tolerated among communists.

On page 86, JMP implies that MIM blames the RIM for the failure of the People’s War in Peru. That is not a position that we recall from MIM’s work at the time. Certainly they harshly criticized the RIM for its role in endangering the People’s War after the capture of Gonzalo. This was perhaps one of the most horrific actions in the RCP’s long history of anti-proletarian work, but JMP has nothing to say about it.

Our general complaint with the International model is that it tends to subsume one party under another. Mao fleshed out the theory and practice around the united front within China and learned through hard experience in relating to the Soviet Union, principles that we take to be universal, including the need for the leaders of each liberation movement to interpret their own conditions. To the extent that RIM was a think tank that allowed communists from around the world to come together and agree to the basic principles that defined the latest stage of revolutionary science, we would support such a project. MIM participated in such forums in its original form.

It was in the work of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) that we saw the theory of the united front from Mao summed up and reproven in practice in their rectification campaign. This struggle waged in 1992 stressed the importance of the independence and leadership role of the proletarian party in the national liberation struggle. The decision of the CPP to not join the RIM reflects the recognition of the need for independence of each national struggle. This is a line point where we agree with the CPP against others in the international communist movement (ICM) who did join.

At the same time, MIM harshly criticized CPP complacency in pushing a revisionist class analysis within the United $tates. JMP argues that the global class analysis of MIM is rejected by all Third World communists of significance and this is evidence against our position. Yet, we have yet to see any analysis from any of these parties substantiating claims against MIM line; amounting to an argument from authority.

Because the Third World communist parties rightfully have more cred, many will presume they are right about this and follow their lead when they call for uniting the “working class” in North America and denying the national liberation struggles of the internal semi-colonies. The open and conscious rejection of MIP-Amerika’s analysis of its own country by certain Third World leaders, followed by their promotion of the integrationist line, was behind MIM’s decision to say that the global class analysis must be a dividing line question within the Maoist movement globally.

Without a communist international, comrades in the United $tates are free to combat incorrect lines being promoted from other countries and prove our line in practice. Despite whatever great accomplishments certain members of the RIM may have had, we think joining an international was a mistake, proven in practice once again, with the RCP=U$A-run CoRIM promoting revisionism at a crucial point in the history of People’s War in Peru.

MIM Thought also provides insights here beyond the general point of the need for independent development on the national level. An application of MIM Thought to parties in the Third World is that there’s more enemies than friends in the imperialist countries, and people from those countries should be treated as potential spies. PCP practice in expelling Non-Governmental Organizations from territories they controlled was in line with this.

Going back to the theoretical miner example above, we apply the theory of united front to unite all who can be united. And we can frame the global anti-imperialist united front within our global class analysis. We can look to the internal semi-colonies and the Third World diaspora as the most likely allies in the First World, without calling them proletariat. And we can win over sectors of the oppressor nation as well, just as in everything, 1 divides into 2. So we disagree with the implied criticism of our line that there is no real proletariat in the First World to mean there is no organizing against imperialism that can be done here. Certainly staying on the correct path will require an active eye on the Third World proletariat, which our movement has always stressed.

MIM(Prisons) continues to develop the mass line here in the belly of the beast. We continue to promote organizing against imperialism in a principled way that puts the interests of the exploited and oppressed at the forefront. And we challenge JMP, the supporters of eir line, Struggle Sessions or anyone else who thinks they can apply Maoism to occupied Turtle Island while ignoring that the vast majority of people here have a material interest in imperialism, to prove us wrong. Please, just don’t awaken the fascists in your attempt to do so, with your cries about the exploited Amerikan.

We see now in these times a great number of mass movements springing up and struggling for particular causes. A new generation of activists forming and struggling against ever more specific issues. For almost any social issue affecting anyone in the United $tates today you will find some type of movement underway to combat it. From racism, sexism, religious intolerance, wages, to police brutality, prison reform and sentencing reform, etc.

These kinds of issues have more or less always existed here in the United $tates and mass movements have more or less always accompanied them. However, not much has been accomplished. Every one of these issues and forms of oppression continue to plague society, with some of them becoming even more acute. Of course, to many, much has appeared to have changed; with some reforms made and concessions given, the great tactic of pacification and distraction has been utilized. But after generations of struggle and “victories” (reforms) why is it that these problems continue to exist?

These things are like weeds: you can chop them down and it may appear as if they have been removed or cut so low that they are no longer perceived as problems, but they grow right back because the roots were not ripped out. This leaves one mowing the same patch of weeds week after week.

All social movements that aren’t struggling to eliminate the root cause of these forms of oppression are only battling non-principal contradictions. This doesn’t mean that these issues aren’t important, it just means that they are merely effects of the principal contradictions, not their cause. They are by-products of the system that, like weeds, constantly reproduces itself so long as its base remains intact.

What is the base from which these non-principal contradictions originate? It is the mode of production: capitalism. It is the economic base that created and perpetuates these forms of oppression people continue to fight. What people continue to fight is the superstructure that protrudes from the base. But these types of struggles will be an eternal one if we continue to fight what appears to be the cause of oppression instead of its essence.

Karl Marx’s scientific study of history, and sociology in particular, allowed him to demonstrate how our material conditions determine our social relations with each other. Let’s hear Marx putting forth this concept:

“Assume a particular state of development in the productive faculties of man and you will get a particular form of commerce and consumption. Assume particular stages of development in production, commerce, and consumption and you will have a corresponding social constitution, a corresponding organization of the family, of orders or of classes, in a word, a corresponding civil society. Assume a particular civil society and you will get particular political conditions which are only the official expression of civil society.”

So goes the materialist conception of history. But we don’t have to take Marx’s word for it. We can analyze history and see for ourselves how each different stage of development of the productive forces and the mode that these forces were subsumed produced its own social relations peculiar to that mode of production. And with that, its own contradictions, whether they be manifested in culture, class, gender, “race,” etc. This demonstrates that our material relations have been the basis of our relations.

This is the concept of the base (mode of production) producing the superstructure (social relations, politics, laws, ideology, morality, desires, etc.). We use this concept to show that a lot of the forms of oppression that we struggle against are produced by the nature of the economic foundation that we are dominated by. It has produced and continues to reproduce these contradictions. Now it is systemic. If we are ever going to end racism, sexism, imperialism, mass imprisonment, poverty, hunger, etc., then we have to eliminate the thing that causes them.

Our movements must consolidate their efforts to attack the base. We have the valence, we just need to help the people make these connections. Everything is connected in some way to the economic base, its mode of production and distribution. Capitalism’s system of “all against all” has created these contradictions we face. With colonialism, imperialism, and especially now with neo-colonialism, many new contradictions and forms of oppression have sprung up that can cloud our vision. But we can’t continue to concentrate great amounts of our energy and resources in fighting the non-principal contradictions that don’t target the system directly.

It is of course understood that at certain moments a nation’s contradictions that were non-principal before, or perhaps even non-existent, can become principal contradictions. For example, in China before/during Mao’s revolution Japanese imperialism was the principal contradiction, but afterward new contradictions became acute due to the ever-expanding nature of global capitalism.

In Vietnam before/during Ho Chi Minh’s liberation movement against French colonialism, for the people of Vietnam colonialism was the principal contradiction. Then came the fight against U.$. imperialism which quickly became the principal contradiction. But these were particular contradictions, not general ones.

Imperialism is an appendage of capitalism. When the courageous and determined guerilla fighters of Vietnam defeated U.$. imperialism, they did not end imperialism. They only ended U.$.-Vietnam imperialism.

The point is that while forms of oppression like imperialism can seem like the principal contradiction to certain nations at certain times, it can never truly be the principal contradiction overall. Even when China fought Japanese imperialism, and to them it was the principal contradiction, in the grand scheme of things it was not; it was the interests that caused imperialism.

Imperialism can not truly be defeated until the imperialist nations/empires undergo an internal revolution and the economic interests that drive imperialism cease to be. So long as global capitalism and the capitalist global market persists, imperialism will always exist in some form; it will only be shifted from one nation that defeats imperialism onto another, and that cycle will continue.

To rid all oppressed nations of imperialist aggression we’ve got to rid the imperialist nations of the mode of production (capitalism) that makes imperialism necessary.

Of course, we must always continue to demonstrate against the by-products of capitalism, the non-principal contradictions. But in doing so we have to consolidate these movements and establish a consensus of consciousness so that while we continue to fight everyday oppression we can also understand that the fight is really much bigger and we have to all know what the cause of these forms of oppression is.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This is a great explanation of the nature of capitalism and why reformist and even individual anti-imperialist battles don’t result in the immediate end of oppression. To do that, it’s important to define the principal contradiction within any struggle. The principal contradiction is the thing that will push forward a struggle the most. It is the highest priority contradiction, the one that revolutionaries must focus their energy on. It is the string we can pull to unravel the whole situation. And so it’s the most important contradiction to focus on right now.

We agree with this writer on the fundamental importance of the contradiction of capitalism. We say that the class contradiction, which under capitalism is between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, is the fundamental contradiction. This means it underlies all other contradictions within class society. As this author points out, this is an important guiding principle because it helps us understand why one successful revolution in one country won’t lead to the end of all oppression, even within that country. This doesn’t, however, mean that class is always the principal contradiction. In fact, as noted above, the principal contradiction in the world today is between imperialist countries and the exploited countries. And even within U.$. borders we see the principal contradiction as between the oppressor and oppressed nations.

By evaluating every situation scientifically we can figure out what is the most important contradiction to focus our energy on. And in this way we can best push forward the revolutionary movement.