This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
Maoist Internationalist Movement

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         THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

     MIM Notes 139             JUNE 1, 1997



MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the 
world's oppressed majority, and against the 
imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in 
the service of the people. support it, struggle 
with it and write for it.

IN THIS ISSUE:


1.  AMERIKAN'S PLAN FOR THE FUTURE:
    ARREST AND IMPRISON YOUTH
2.  CLINTON PROMOTES IMPERIALISM IN MEXICO  
3.  LETTERS
4.  SJ MERCURY NEWS EDITOR WEASELS OUT OF CIA
    CRITICISM
5.  RALLYISTS DENOUNCE U.S.-RAMOS REGIME
6.  THEY CALL IT A TAKEOVER:
    HONG KONG REUNIFICATION A PARODY AT BEST
7.  BRUTUS RALLIES STUDENTS:
    DEBUNKS MYTH OF PEACEFUL REVOLUTION IN
    SOUTH AFRICA
8.  DEMAND FREEDOM FOR IRISH ACTIVIST
9.  RED CROSS PROVES STALIN CORRECT IN
    ANTI-NAZI WAR
10. IMPERIALISTS ADMIT COLLABORATION WITH NAZI
    GERMANY
11. MIM FORMS PEOPLE'S INTERNATIONALIST REAR AREA
    ORGANIZATION
12. HOMES NOT JAILS TAKEOVER BUILDING
13. LATINO ANTI-IMPERIALIST MAY DAY CELEBRATION
14. MORE MASSACHUSETTS TRANSFERS TO TEXAS
15. BOSTON PUBLIC CENSORS PROTECT YOUTH FROM
    POLITICAL SPEECH
16. UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND
    PRISONS


* * *



WHAT IS MIM?

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a 
revolutionary communist party that upholds Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism, comprising the collection of 
existing or emerging Maoist internationalist 
parties in the English-speaking imperialist 
countries and their English-speaking internal semi-
colonies, as well as the existing or emerging 
Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties of 
Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the 
U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of MIM. 
Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-
speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM.

MIM is an internationalist organization that works 
from the vantage point of the Third World 
proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans, 
but world citizens.

MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups 
over other groups: classes, genders, nations.  MIM 
knows this is only possible by building public 
opinion to seize power through armed struggle.

Revolution is a reality for North America as the 
military becomes over-extended in the government's 
attempts to maintain world hegemony.

MIM differs from other communist parties on three 
main questions: (1) MIM holds that after the 
proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, 
the potential exists for capitalist restoration 
under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within 
the communist party itself. In the case of the 
USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death 
of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's 
death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in 
1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural 
Revolution as the farthest advance of communism in 
human history. (3) MIM believes the North American 
white-working-class is primarily a non-
revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it 
is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in 
this country.

MIM accepts people as members who agree on these 
basic principles and accept democratic centralism, 
the system of majority rule, on other questions of 
party line.

"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is 
universally applicable. We should regard it not as 
dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is not 
merely a matter of learning terms and phrases, but 
of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of 
revolution."
-- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208




* * *


AMERIKAN'S PLAN FOR THE FUTURE:
ARREST AND IMPRISON YOUTH

by MC53

Legislation passed in the House on May 8 promotes a 
stronger offensive in the war against youth. The 
bill -- called the Juvenile Crime Control Act of 
1997 -- offers states $1.5 billion if they change 
state law and require that youth accused by the 
pigs of violent crimes be tried as adults in the 
white nation's courts -- certainly without a jury 
of their peers. The House also voted to stiffen the 
penalties against youth convicted of violent crimes 
in Federal court.(1)

The police, court systems and prisons are used as 
tools of social control and the primary and 
disproportionate targets Amerika is trying to 
control are members of oppressed nations. In 1988, 
the overall incarceration rate for youth was 221 
per 100,000.(2) The rate for Latino youth was 481 
per 100,000 and Black youth were incarcerated at a 
rate of 810 per 100,000. The war against youth is 
an attempt to head off social unrest that results 
from the oppressive settler nation's capitalist 
system. And the youth most affected by the ills of 
the system, oppressed nation youth, will be the 
primary targets in the increasing offensive.

If (or when) the bill passes in the Senate, it will 
mean that not only will youth be tried as adults, 
but that they will be incarcerated with adults. 
This means subjecting youth to the same or harsher 
conditions of slave labor, repressive living 
situations, denial of education and brutal guards 
faced by adult prisoners.

Studies have shown that youth held in the adult 
system commit another crime 30 percent more often 
than youth held in the juvenile justice system.(3) 
Additionally, some research demonstrates that youth 
in adult institutions are five times more likely to 
be sexually assaulted, twice as likely to be beaten 
by staff, and 50 percent more likely to be attacked 
with a weapon than children confined in a juvenile 
facility.(3) While MIM does not believe the 
juvenile justice system serves the people or 
provides any measure of justice, these differences 
are important because they reveal how little the 
criminal injustice system cares about 
rehabilitating people. Youth in particular have 
years of potential productive life ahead of them 
and the criminal injustice system is happy to just 
throw away these lives. This is the result of a 
criminal injustice system that serves imperialism.


INCREASE REPRESSION TO GET MORE MONEY


To qualify for part of the $1.5 million in block 
grants, the states must:  insure that youth "15 
years or older who commit a serious violent crime 
be tried as an adult; impose escalating penalties 
against repeat juvenile offenders; establish a 
tracking system for minors who commit a second 
crime and make those records public, and allow 
juvenile court judges to issue court orders against 
the parents or guardians of convicted minors who do 
not properly supervise them."(1)

Already in the last three years, 50 states have 
changed laws to allow more youth to be tried as 
adults. At this time, only five states impose the 
measures that would qualify them for the grants. 
But the new legislation gives the remaining 45 
states the incentive and green light to become more 
repressive than they are already, encouraging them 
with a financial incentive to radically restructure 
the juvenile justice systems to eradicate any last 
remnants directed at rehabilitation of youth.

Though the proposed law talks about youth 15 or 
older, it also attacks even younger. The bill 
requires that states routinely try 14 year olds as 
adults if they are charged with a violent crime.(1) 
The only way out of that would be if the Attorney 
General decided that it would be better (for the 
interests of the white nation) to try the 14 year-
old youth as a juvenile. The law also allows the 
Attorney General to move the trial of a 13 year-old 
to adult court if it pleases the pigs.

This bill pushes the same measures as the defeated 
Violent Youth Predator Act of 1996 only now it has 
a nicer name. Clinton's administration apparently 
was not ecstatic about the bill because it did not 
include all of the harsher penalties which 
Clinton's Anti-Gang and Youth Violence Act of 1997 
sought (which he introduced in Boston on February 
18th.)

Part of the Clinton administration's proposal still 
pending is the creation of a new Office of Juvenile 
Crime Control and Prevention to increase the war 
against youth and gangs supposedly to fight crime 
and drugs. The OJCCP would have a budget of $500 
million per year to lock up and oppress youth.(4) 
The OJCCP which would replace the Office of 
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The 
stated goals of the existing office include: the 
deinstitutionalization of status offenders; the 
separation of juveniles from adult offenders; the 
removal of juveniles from adult jails and lock-ups; 
and the reduction of disproportionate minority 
confinement. The elimination of this office would 
remove any facade of justice for juveniles. The 
proposal for the OJCCP foreshadows a more draconian 
future for Amerika's youth.

The government says that Amerika needs to hurry and 
attack this so-called youth crime problem before 
the number of youth increases to a record level in 
the next few years. MIM says that youth need to 
hurry and join the movement to build a society that 
doesn't force kids to suffer from the injustices of 
capitalism and patriarchy and national oppression. 
The Amerikan government is not working in the 
interest of youth, especially youth from oppressed 
nations. It will take a revolution to achieve self-
determination of the oppressed nations and 
continued struggle to ensure that youth are not the 
targets of oppression.


EDUCATION IGNORED IN FAVOR OF INCARCERATION


At the same time the Amerikan government was 
increasing its power to harass and incarcerate 
youth, the government also shot down the part of 
the education plan which would have spent $5 
billion to repair and rebuild schools over the next 
four years.(5)

Even this money would not have been enough to 
address fully the need to improve urban and poor 
students' schools. The 1995 estimate was that it 
would take $112 billion just to repair substandard 
and dangerous school buildings. The New York Times 
reported that one-third of schools require major 
repairs or need to be replaced and that almost half 
of the schools don't have the electrical capacity 
to support computers. Students in some urban area 
schools have to hold their classes in the hallways 
because of overcrowding.

Amerikan schools are better than those in Third 
World countries where the Amerikan government can 
more easily get away with murder and genocide 
against the people. But the condition of urban and 
poor students' schools is the first piece of 
evidence that the government does not concern 
itself with the welfare and betterment of youth, 
predominantly oppressed nation youth. The 
overcrowding of prisons serves as a justification 
for the proliferation of prisons. And the 
overcrowding of dilapidated urban schools drowns 
students out of the opportunities kids receive in 
the suburbs and pushes them on the streets 
ultimately serving as a justification for the 
proliferation of prisons.


ARRESTS AND BRUTALITY AGAINST YOUTH WILL INCREASE


MIM and RAIL have been increasing our coverage and 
activism to expose cases of pigs murdering youth 
and how this is a result of having an occupying 
force within the oppressed nations of the united 
snakes. This type of murder and brutality will only 
continue and increase with the proliferation of 
prisons, increase in pigs and prosecutors and the 
growth of for-profit-prisons and prison industries.

Klinton's war on youth will only increase and 
result in more incidences like the April 6th murder 
of Kevin Cedeno is Washington Heights, NY.(6) The 
16 year-old oppressed nation youth was allegedly 
carrying a machete and the pig decided that was 
enough reason to murder him by shooting him in the 
back as he ran away. As evidenced by the criticisms 
by the masses at Kevin's funeral, the oppressed 
know that these cases are examples of the 
systematic and increasing genocide and slaughter of 
oppressed nationals. This is only going to get 
worse with the increase of the occupying force's 
power.

Even the wealthier or more privileged youth are 
affected by the increasing numbers of pigs and more 
aggressive repression against youth. The Chronicle 
of Higher Education conducted a study of all the 
four-year colleges and universities which have more 
than 5,000 students enrolled. Among these, the 
arrests for violation of drug laws rose 18% in 
1995.(7) Most of the 'experts' studying this 
concluded that this was not because of increased 
use of drugs. It was because of increased pig 
enforcement and patrolling of the campuses.

No doubt, students that get arrested pay lower 
fines and have lower sentences than youth allegedly 
involved in gangs in urban areas. Nevertheless, 
students have historically played important roles 
in revolutionary struggles and increased patrolling 
for drugs, whether on the campuses or in urban 
areas, serves to control the youth of Amerika. 
Whether it's urban youth or oppressed nation youth 
being beaten, harassed and imprisoned, or white 
nation youth or youth on university campuses who 
want to build a society without environmental mass 
destruction and constant oppression, the future 
revolution will be sped up if you mobilize and work 
with MIM. Join RAIL or the MIM-led army and stop 
this system that depends on arresting and killing.


NOTES:
1. The New York Times. 9 May 1997. pp. A1 and A19.
2. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics. As 
cited in Criminal Injustice ed. Elihu Rosenblatt. 
South End Press: 1996. p25.
3. http://www.aclu.org/news/n050897e.html
4. Youth Today March/April 1997. p. 38.
5. The New York Times. 9 May 1997, p. A12. 
6. See The New York Times. 8 April 1997. p. A12 and 
16 April 1997, page A20. 
7. The New York Times. 16 March 1997, p. A13.




* * *



CLINTON PROMOTES U$ IMPERIALISM IN MEXICO

by MCB52

United $nakes president Bill Clinton recently 
returned from a trip to Mexico (followed by more of 
the same in Costa Rica) where he rallied the 
comprador forces and told lies that the Mexican 
people know far better than to believe. The people 
responded with protests which were harshly 
repressed.

The whole visit was seeped in neo-colonial means 
and ends. Mexicans, like all other oppressed 
nations, will only get the imperialists out of 
their country through revolutionary armed struggle 
to achieve self-determination.

One thing that Clinton did shortly after arrival 
was visit the Ninos Heroes memorial to soldiers who 
fought in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48 where 
Mexico lost half its territory -- what is now New 
Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado and Texas. An 
American flag was flown next to it especially for 
the occasion. Needless to say, Mexicans were 
offended.(1) The ceremony was an eerie suggestion 
of Amerika's further expansionist goals.

At a speech in an auditorium in Mexico City, 
Clinton said "I come here today to celebrate the 
ties that bind the United States and Mexico and to 
help set a course to strengthen them for the age of 
possibility before us as we enter the 21st 
century."(2) We know what ties those are -- neo-
colonial. Despite the trade figures touted by 
Clinton and Zedillo, the bad state of the economic 
conditions of the people led to scattered jeers and 
whistles of derision as the president's remarks 
were translated into Spanish.(3) 

Clinton claimed that NAFTA is a boon to Mexican 
workers as much as it is to Amerikan ones, but in 
fact wages and employment are low and stagnant.(3) 
Superexploitation will continue as long as the 
price of Mexican labor is set by multinational 
corporations (MNCs) across the heavily militarized 
border, rather than by the people through 
industrial development they choose. This self-
determination will only be possible after the 
Mexican people kick out the MNCs and the Amerikan 
military industrial complex that supports the MNCs.

Clinton said a lot about democracy during his trip, 
claiming "Democracy has swept every country but one 
in the Americas, giving people a vote and a voice 
in their future." This is a lie. Clinton wants to 
single out Cuba as the only non-democratic country 
in Latin America in the wake of the Mexican 
government's own recent massacre of rebels written 
about in the May 1 issue of MIM Notes. His pretense 
that Mexico is democratic is particularly gross 
since the U$ has propped up successive corrupt 
regimes by the one party that ever takes power, the 
PRI. He had the gall to praise puppet/president 
Zedillo for "vision and courage."

The very lack of democracy and its root in the U$ 
was part of the reason several hundred Mexicans 
protested Clinton's first official visit, burning 
an American flag and yelling "Yankee go home!"(4) 
Without the support of successive US governments, 
the PRI would not have been able to retain power 
for almost seven decades, traditionally through 
fraud. Its rule is in the interests of the U$ 
because it promote what the U$ calls "regional 
stability:"  the PRI brutally crushes dissidents 
and radical movements.

And while Clinton was talking democracy with self-
congratulatory tones, "We know from our own 220-
year experiment that democracy is hard work," the 
practice of U$ style democracy was evident outside 
every Clinton event. Those with something to say 
were prevented from doing so. Protesters were 
repressed.

Hundreds of riot police controlled groups of 
protesting teachers, street activists, students and 
leftists by blocking their access to the U.S. 
Embassy, Clinton's hotel and elsewhere near the 
center of town. Referring to the massive student 
demonstrations of 1968, one seasoned activist said 
"We haven't seen this kind of police repression 
since 1968. The police are doing everything they 
can to repress any voice speaking out against Bill 
Clinton."(5)

Clinton claimed "Our partnership for freedom and 
democracy and for prosperity, and our partnership 
against drugs, organized crime, environmental 
decay, and social injustice is fundamental to the 
future of the American people and to the future of 
the Mexican people." The truth is that the 
prosperity is hardly "shared," with a huge 
difference between the U$ and Mexico remaining. 
Nearly 20 percent of the Mexicans do not have 
regular sanitation, more than half the population 
lives in poverty, and many rely on the marginally 
higher wages available to family members at great 
personal risk to undocumented workers in the united 
states.(6)

Though Clinton denied that there would be mass 
deportations, we have already seen the biggest 
deportations of undocumented workers ever in the 
first three months of this year.(7) And those 
hearing Clinton's lies knew this. One housewife 
present said "It is terrible the way they treat our 
brothers and sisters who go to the United States, 
just because they need the money. We need work, and 
yet they treat us like animals." A student added 
along similar lines, "The treatment immigrants 
receive in the US is bad, because they are 
undocumented workers. We see it in the news. They 
beat them, they even kill them."(6)

Hitting a record pace, the u.s. government deported 
42,426 illegal immigrants in the first half of 
FY97.  The six-month deportation rate keeps the INS 
on schedule to achieve its goal of removing 93,000 
undocumented immigrants from the Amerika's stolen 
land this year, up from nearly 69,000 last year. 
This does not include the more than 1.3 million 
apprehensions each year of people caught trying to 
cross the border or who agree to voluntary removal. 
Mexico was the main destination for those deported. 
More than 31,000 of those removed were returned to 
Mexico. Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and the 
Dominican republic were the other top 
destinations.(8)

Clinton went on to lie about the exclusion of the 
Latino immigrants from full participation in 
Amerikan so-called democracy: "As our cooperation 
grows closer, so do our people. For America, that 
means pride in the fact that we are one of the most 
diverse democracies in the world. That diversity 
will be one of our great strengths in the global 
society of the 21st century. And Mexican Americans 
are a crucial part of our diversity and our 
national pride. Now, more than 12 million strong, 
they have helped to make the United States the 
fifth largest Hispanic nation in the world."

Clinton is right that there exist some of the 
world's largest Latino populations in the U$, but 
he is covering up the internal colonial 
relationship in identifying those nations as a part 
of the U$. They are not receiving the Amerikan 
dream, they are receiving the Amerikan nightmare. 
Their interests are allied with the people of 
Mexico and other oppressed nations against 
imperialism.

And so Clinton was in some sense prescient when he 
said that we are on the verge of something similar 
to the Mexican revolution:  "Our nations and our 
hemisphere stand at a crossroads as hopeful as the 
time when Hidalgo and Morelos lit the torch of 
liberty for Mexico almost two centuries ago." But 
it is not going to be the kind of "justice" Amerika 
wants in the end. The Latino nations, together with 
other oppressed nations, are going to destroy 
Amerika and take the reparations they deserve.


NOTES:
1. The Christian Science Monitor, 9 May 1997, p. 6.
2. All Clinton quotes are from transcript U.S. 
Newswire, 7 May, 1997
3. The Baltimore Sun, 8 May 1997, p. 14A.
4. The Independent, 8 May 1997, p. 14.
5. Los Angeles Times, 8 May 1997, p. 38.
6. The Boston Globe, 8 May 1997, p. A2.
7. British Broadcasting Corporation World Service, 
13 May 1997.
8. The Boston Globe, 14 May 1997.




* * *



LETTERS

MIM IS BLACK RACIST RAG?


DEAR EDITORS:

I just finished reading four copies of your MIM 
Notes. I am a fifty-nine year old black man and 
have been a true communist for the past forty 
years. I am very disappointed in your newsletters 
as it deviated far from the true aim and intent of 
communism. Neither is it a true Maoist movement. 
From the many articles I have read it is nothing 
more than a racist black rag that is used by some 
blacks as a forum to whine and cry about their 
"plight". I am no "Tom" by any stretch of the 
imagination. I am an ex-school teacher and am in 
prison of my own doing and refuse to blame "Whitey" 
or anyone else for what I have done.

Certainly I see many injustices in prison but 
blacks are not the only recipients of them. As long 
as there exists the "poor me black mentality" and 
all authority figures are white and if black then 
they are lackeys of the whites then true communism 
will never come into its own. Communism is not a 
problem of color or race. It is a struggle against 
an imperialist economy and an elitist society. MIM 
would better serve the cause if it would dispense 
with condoning the fight against "whites" and 
attempt to concentrate all that untapped energy 
toward the true oppression, the economic system 
that exploits our labor. Whites are not our 
enemy...capitalism is. A great many of the 
communist in the world are our white brothers.

Another thing that irks me is apparently you do not 
attempt to verify some of the outrageous claims 
made by some of the contributors to "Under Lock & 
Key". I have been in the Texas prison system on and 
off since March 11, 1960. At one time it was bad 
here. Real bad. Today prison is not a country club 
for sure, but then it isn't meant to be is it? Some 
of the letters in Under Lock & Key is just plain 
old b/s. This only serves to cast doubt on 
everything else in the paper. If the contributors 
would realize that many other inmates read their 
letters and know the truth of how things really are 
perhaps they would stop that they are hurting 
everyone else involved. The point I wish to get 
across is for all the inmates to get rid of the b/s 
about "white" oppressors, stop whining about how 
badly they have it and start channeling their 
energies toward what is important to them, their 
families and their children and their children's 
children.

THINK! JOIN! BUILD! EXPAND! RECRUIT! Let people 
know what communism is about! It is not about 
racism, bigotry, black, white, or green polkadots! 
It is about us making changes for the better. It is 
about revolution! It is about justice for the 
working man. And when you get out of prisoner DO 
NOT RETURN TO THE LIFE OF CRIME!!! Do something 
constructive for the cause!!

In the struggle (for forty years),

--A Texas Prisoner, 18 February 1997

MIM RESPONDS: We agree with this prisoner that 
people should not just complain about the problems 
in the world, they should organize and work to 
change it. But it is important that we organize in 
the most effective way possible. And to do this, we 
must carefully analyze who are our enemies and who 
are our friends. MIM believes that Mao was right to 
focus on the contradiction between imperialism and 
the oppressed nations as the principal 
contradiction in the world at this time. And we see 
the same principal contradiction within US borders. 
As a results, it is important to talk about 
differences between nations because different 
nations have different relationships to (and 
against) imperialism.

If we do not carefully analyze who are our friends 
and who are our enemies, which groups have 
interests in revolution, and what is the most 
effective way to fight imperialism, we will end up 
fighting losing battles. We owe it to the oppressed 
of the world to do better. If this prisoner, or 
anyone else is interested, we offer MIM Theory #1 
and #10 as thorough analysis of the white working 
class in this country, demonstrating the group's 
alliance with imperialism as a result of the 
benefits it receives from this system. Such 
analysis proves that in fact the white nation is on 
the side of the enemy.

As far as the charge that some of the articles 
printed in MN about prison conditions are b/s, we 
can only respond that we have many comrades behind 
bars, and within prisons there are usually more 
than one MN reader. We count on our readers to 
correct any incorrect information printed in MN but 
we don't find blanket charges of b/s useful. If you 
have specific criticisms of individual articles, we 
welcome hearing your evidence that they were 
incorrect.


CORRECTION:
The letter and response in the May 1st issue of MIM 
Notes (#137, p. 2) stated that psychologist Sigmund 
Freud denied the existence of child abuse. This is 
factually incorrect. Freud pioneered the study of 
childhood sexual experience, and most psychiatrists 
working with theories regarding sexual history or 
motivation come from the Freudian school of 
thought. Before Freud there was no emphasis on 
traumatic childhood experience in psychology, 
contrary to the letter-writer's claims.

Knowingly or not, the letter-writer put forward an 
ultra-Freudian line. When we say people are used to 
being deceived and deceiving all the time, Freud 
would say we are "repressing." So the letter-writer 
and Freud are in agreement and defend psychiatry 
along close to identical lines.

The article which the letter-writer was criticizing 
("Amerikans: A People on Psychological Drugs 
Rotting Their Minds," MN134) attacked the 
psychology industry for supporting national 
oppression by legitimizing suggested testimony in 
the name of Freudian "de-repression" theory.




* * *



SJ MERCURY NEWS EDITOR WEASELS OUT OF CIA CRITICISM

by MC45

In a predictable display of the lengths to which 
the bourgeoisie will go to discredit honest 
exposure of its corrupt and violent practices, the 
Editor-in-Chief of the San Jose Mercury News has 
printed an editorial casting doubt on its expose of 
the CIA's drug trafficking in the Black nation. MIM 
is not surprised by this action, which is an 
excellent demonstration of our reason for 
independent publishing.

MIM consistently argues, as Lenin and Mao did, that 
a newspaper is one of the most important organizing 
tools at the Party's disposal and must be 
controlled by the proletarian line. A newspaper is 
our means of getting out news and analysis to the 
masses in an honest and widespread way. But to do 
its job, MIM Notes cannot bow interests other than 
those of the international proletariat. Because our 
job is to serve the proletariat, we must 
consistently expose and criticize the bourgeoisie 
and all its repressive apparatus. The SJ Mercury 
News has now given us another lesson in the 
impossibility of doing this important work under 
the directorship of the bourgeoisie.

Last August, the California newspaper had run a 
series of articles about the U.S. Central 
Intelligence Agency's practice of importing drugs 
and selling them in Black neighborhoods like South 
Central Los Angeles to fund Amerika's wars against 
social democratic governments in Latin America. Now 
the SJ Mercury News has cast doubt on the series. 
While admitting that the series was accurate in 
reporting connections between CIA-paid drug 
traffickers and the contras in Nicaragua, the 
paper's editorial stated that the Mercury News had 
no proof that high-level CIA officials were 
involved in this corrupt activity or that they were 
aware of it.

The SJ Mercury News reporter who wrote the series 
has told the New York Times that he has had follow-
up stories submitted to his editors for months but 
that none of these stories have gone anywhere. He 
has also said that he is almost ready to ask the 
paper for permission to print his articles 
someplace other than the SJ Mercury News. Printing 
in an independent newspaper is the only way to 
ensure that the truth about the bourgeoisie and its 
army and government will be exposed. Look for the 
history of the series in MIM Notes 124 and a more 
detailed article on our criticism of the editor-in-
chief's vacuous statement and the history of CIA 
penetration of the media in the next issue of MIM 
Notes.


SOURCE: New York Times 13 May 1997.




* * *



RALLYISTS DENOUNCE U.S.-RAMOS REGIME

LOS ANGELES, May 6 and 7 -- Over 50 people 
protested at the LA Conventions Center where 
Philippine President General Fidel Ramos was 
promoting his economic liberalization plans and 
facilitating deeper imperialist penetration into 
the Philippines. Protesters carried banners 
denouncing Ramos for pimping and selling the people 
of the Philippines and their resources. They also 
chanted anti-imperialist and anti-feudal slogans.

Ramos was head of the Philippine Constabulary under 
the Marcos Dictatorship and implemented the U.$.-
designed total war policy during the Aquino regime. 
Assassinations, indiscriminate bombings of 
villages, forced relocations, and other violent 
abuses have increased under his presidency. He 
claims that "Philippines 2000" will help 
industrialize the country, but in reality it simply 
encourages the exploitation of the Philippines' 
natural resources while keeping the Philippine 
economy backward and un-industrialized. What 
industrial development "Philippines 2000" does 
attract will certainly not serve the Filipino 
people.

BAYAN (New Patriotic Alliance) International USA 
and several other organizations distributed the 
following statement at the rally:
"President General Fidel Ramos [...] has come to LA 
as part of a series of junkets to pimp the 
Philippine economy and patrimony of the nation. 
General Ramos, a genuine and hardcore Amboy 
(American Boy) who graduated from West Point, must 
prove once again his servility to foreign interests 
particularly that of his US masters...

"[Ramos'] policies concocted to satiate the 
economic interests of the imperialists only mean 
one thing:  more oppression and severe exploitation 
of the broad masses of the Filipino people. This 
further aggravates the landlessness of the 
peasantry, massive unemployment and more 
exploitative labor practices by the capitalists, 
displacement of indigenous peoples, environmental 
degradation and plunder of natural resources, 
massive human rights violations, and strangulation 
of the rights of the Filipino people by the US-
Ramos regime. This means all out war against the 
Filipino people! This also means the right of the 
people to defend themselves by all means 
necessary...

"BAYAN Int'l USA, with support from allied 
organizations and individuals in the US, condemns 
General Ramos and his ilk in their treacherous 
selling of the Philippines.

"BAYAN Int'l USA stands together with the Filipino 
people's demand for genuine agrarian reform and 
national industrialization. Together with the broad 
masses of the Filipino people, BAYN Int'l USA 
struggles for genuine freedom, justice, and 
democracy in the Philippines and an end to foreign 
domination and control."

MIM also condemns Amerikan imperialism for its 
brutal exploitation of the Filipino people and its 
bloody proxy war against them.

The national democratic movement in the Philippines 
believes that the three main enemies of the people 
of the Philippines are imperialism, bureaucrat 
capitalism, and feudalism. It struggles for genuine 
land reform, genuine national industrialization, 
and self-determination for the Filipino people.

MIM aids the national democratic movement of the 
Philippines by building public opinion for Filipino 
self-determination and against u.s. imperialism. 
Ultimately, the most effective blow MIM can land 
for the emancipation of the Filipino people, as 
well as all peoples oppressed by u.s. imperialism, 
is to lead the masses in building anti-imperialist 
revolution here within u.s. borders. Towards that 
end, MIM politically educates the masses and 
develops people's organizations like RAIL and the 
People's Internationalist Rear-Area Organization.


NOTES: Support the National Democratic Front of the 
Philippines, a RAIL Pamphlet, available for $1.




* * *



THEY CALL IT A TAKEOVER:
HONG KONG REUNIFICATION A PARODY AT BEST

by MC45

The reunification of Hong Kong with mainland China, 
scheduled for July 1, will be the union of two 
capitalist countries and economies -- one private 
capitalist and one state-capitalist. For Maoists 
everywhere, this union of two capitalist economies 
is the principal aspect of England's scheduled July 
1 departure from its settlement in Hong Kong, when 
Hong Kong will become part of revisionist China.

MIM calls July 1 the date of reunification with our 
tongues slightly in cheek. While we never uphold a 
Western capitalist government's claim to one of its 
colonies, we know that this union cannot bring joy 
to the hearts of the international proletariat 
because it is the joining of two exploitative 
regimes -- a parody of the proletarian struggle for 
national liberation and self-determination.

At the same time as we point out how empty this 
reunion is for the Chinese masses, it is our duty 
to remind the world that in principle national 
reunification and self-determination are correct 
goals in the era of imperialism, when the 
international bourgeoisie attempts to split the 
proletariat and the oppressed nations for the 
purposes of capital. We cannot let the bankruptcy 
of revisionist China's agenda blind us to the 
importance of national reunification for the 
peoples of Korea, Ireland, Mexico, and every place 
else where imperialism has attempted to break 
national unity.

On July 1, Hong Kong will become a Special 
Administrative Region (SAR), a semi-autonomous 
region of China.(1) Part of the reason for Hong 
Kong remaining separate from the rest of China, in 
what is being called the "one nation, two systems" 
policy,(2) is its Western-style capitalist economy. 
Hong Kong is quite wealthy and the state-capitalist 
Chinese government wants to take part in that 
wealth and not interfere with it.

International capital's penetration into Hong Kong 
will not be touched when China takes over 
administration, so the international proletariat 
will continue to suffer superexploitation. 
Proximity with and relations with China are a big 
selling point for Hong Kong industry. The Tak Shing 
Manufactory (a branch of an English company) brags: 
"as our plastic toys are produced in China with the 
best quality control system under our Hong Kong 
management, our products feature both high quality 
& competitive prices."(3) This is only a polite way 
of saying that the Chinese government allows 
foreign companies to come into China and pay 
superexploitation wages to the Chinese proletariat, 
but that it takes the wealthy Hong Kong 
businesspeople to assure good quality products.

At a recent meeting of the Asian Development Bank 
(ADB), China's central bank governor and the head 
of the Monetary Authority of Hong Kong appeared 
together to assure international capital that Hong 
Kong would maintain its own currency and monetary 
system, and that Hong Kong's foreign currency 
reserves would not be used to balance out the 
Chinese and Hong Kong economies. Japan, long-time 
oppressor of China and many Asian-Pacific 
countries, is the single biggest investor in Hong 
Kong(2)

This is why MIM says this transfer of Hong Kong 
from the English empire to China is a parody of 
national self- determination. In 1949, and in the 
revolutionary period leading up to China's 
socialist revolution, the Chinese people chose 
overwhelmingly to push China's economy beyond the 
limits of capitalism by establishing socialism. Now 
and since 1976 the Chinese regime is mocking the 
benefits of state ownership of the means of 
production by focusing on the profit motive and 
ignoring the importance of production for social 
good.

Now in 1997, the Chinese regime is taking in a 
semi- autonomous region whose currency trading 
rates will be attached to the U.$. dollar.(2) This 
is a deeply anti-socialist program to have any part 
of a country's economy tied to the largest 
imperialist economy on the planet.

MIM looks forward to the day when the Chinese 
masses will rise up again and show the imperialists 
and their running dogs that they have well learned 
the lessons of China's 27 year socialist history. 
Each desperate maneuver of the international 
bourgeoisie only brings its inevitable demise 
closer. In the end, the international proletariat 
will be victorious.


NOTES:
1. Reuters 5 May, 1997.
2. Hong Kong Standard 12 May, 1997.
Found at: 
http://www.hkstandard.com/online/finance/001/hksfin
.htm
3. Tak Shing Manufactory website. 
http://k.com.hk/takshing/



* * *



BRUTUS RALLIES STUDENTS:
DEBUNKS MYTH OF PEACEFUL REVOLUTION IN SOUTH AFRICA

The first week in May, Dennis Brutus gave a number 
of talks in Massachusetts hosted by MIM and RAIL. 
Many of the talks focused on prisons in Amerika. 
Brutus made connections to the use of prisons as 
social control in South Africa during apartheid. 
The talks led to questions about the current 
situation in South Africa in which the government 
continues to work against the interests of the 
oppressed masses.

Brutus is a well known South African poet and 
activist exiled by the South African apartheid 
government after serving 18 months on Robben Island 
with Nelson Mandela. Active in the fight to end 
apartheid in South Africa, he was the primary 
organizer behind South Africa's exclusion from the 
1972 Olympics.

Brutus discussed the important point of the power 
of student organizing in the United Snakes when he 
spoke at the universities. Divestment struggles in 
the u.s. began on university campuses and succeeded 
in getting 150 universities to divest. Brutus 
considers this student struggle in the u.s. to be 
the most important external factor in the struggle 
against apartheid. It was these student struggles 
that triggered churches, community organizations, 
Black organizations and others to get involved in 
the anti-apartheid fight.

Brutus put this in the context of students getting 
involved in anti-imperialist organizing today. 
Emphasizing the potential power students can wield, 
he staid that too many underestimate the capacity 
of students to make change.

On the current situation in South Africa, Brutus 
said that the Government of National Unity(GNU) -- 
created with Mandela as president and DeClerk as 
second in command -- is far from a government that 
represents the interests of the people. When 
Mandela came to power in presidential elections, 
many believed this was truly a peaceful revolution 
that would bring justice and equality to South 
Africa. Brutus said that it is important not to kid 
yourself about there having been a revolution when 
there really was not.

The retreats from the not-so-radical positions of 
the ANC Freedom Charter have been clear. First, the 
Freedom Charter was dropped in favor of the 
Reconstruction and Development Program(RDP). The 
RDP is a retreat from nationalization demands and 
was made in the pragmatist interest of keeping 
support of foreign investors. And now even the RDP 
has been abandoned in favor of the Growth, 
Employment and Reconstruction Program(GEAR), an 
even milder program.

One result of the programs which kowtow to foreign 
capitalist interest is the growing problem of 
homelessness. Mandela has failed to deliver on the 
promised 1 million houses for the homeless, instead 
so far providing less than 100,000. And the white 
property owners made rich through apartheid have 
retained their wealth stolen from the Black and 
oppressed masses.

Another blatant sign that the South African 
government is not working in the interests of the 
oppressed masses is its moves towards accepting 
loans from the IMF and World Bank. Brutus explained 
at length that these institutions, which he 
considers the most powerful and important in the 
world, only grant loans with conditionalities. The 
requirements for loans allow the u.s.-controlled 
IMF/WB to determine the economic and political 
agenda of the country. Brutus pointed out that the 
government of South Africa tries to placate 
corporations and foreign investors and as a result 
has retreated on helping the people, the homeless, 
jobless and workers.

One conditions of these loans is the requirement 
that there be no minimum wage. Another is the 
guarantee by the receiving government that there be 
no labor unrest or demands for increased wages. 
These conditions allow corporations to maximize 
profits and lower production costs. In South Africa 
they also demand privatization of all state owned 
companies including an agreement to sell the 
electricity system and telecom system. South 
African Airways is currently a state owned company 
which produces revenue for the government:  by 
forcing privatization, the World Bank forces the 
government into greater dependency on these loans.

The results of World Bank loans are devastating. Of 
the 35 African countries that have taken World Bank 
loans, 33 are bankrupt. In Zambia, the government 
is paying 30% of the GNP on interest on their loan 
and they are not even touching the capital. In 
spite of the conditionalities, Tabo Mbeki, the man 
most likely to succeed Mandela, has said he would 
sign a World Bank loan and does not understand why 
the government is currently hesitating to agree to 
the conditionalities.

Although Mandela has not yet agreed to the World 
Bank loans, Brutus pointed out his role in the 
ANC's move away from the demands for the people. 
Negotiating with the government from within prison, 
Mandela did not consult with the ANC and accepted 
many concessions. Once the concessions were worked 
out, Mandela just announced them to the ANC rather 
than allowing the mass membership and other leaders 
to have a voice in the process.

Another clear sign that there has been little 
change in South Africa is the amnesty being granted 
to those who have committed grave crimes against 
the people. Men in the police force boast of having 
killed Steven Biko. Other murderers from the 
apartheid regime have been welcomed into the 
military. 200,000 white civil servants kept their 
jobs for life post-apartheid -- the same sweet deal 
these whites enjoyed under apartheid. While many 
pro-apartheid forces repeatedly said that they did 
nothing that was wrong and refused to admit their 
crimes in front of the Truth Commission, many anti-
apartheid activists were pushed into admitting the 
alleged crimes they committed against the apartheid 
regime and into admitting that armed struggle to 
defend the interests of the masses was a crime. And 
meanwhile many Blacks are still jobless.

The economy in South African is in bad shape and is 
getting worse for all except the rich. As Brutus 
said, the struggle for freedom and social justice 
does not end. Workers in the South Africa Airways 
have marched to protest privatization and others 
have protested against the World Bank, but it 
appears likely that the people will not be 
successful in preventing the World Bank from 
sinking its deadly claws into the country within 
the current government.

Following Mandela's election in 1994, we wrote, 
"Economically, the ANC promises on the one hand 
that little will change - international trade, 
foreign investment, open markets, and so on - but 
on the other hand the ANC promises increases in 
social welfare, such as school, sewage and 
hospitals." The current material conditions of the 
Azanian people show that such plans and promises 
only benefit the interests of the imperialists and 
their lackeys. True liberation from the neo-
apartheid system in South Africa, from poverty and 
from imperialist and settler plundering will only 
come with the successful revolutionary struggle for 
national liberation. Activists here in the u.s. 
need to work with MIM, RAIL and the PIRAO to expose 
u.s. imperialism against the Azanian people and 
support genuine revolutionary struggle, not fake 
lackey of imperialism.




* * *



DEMAND FREEDOM FOR IRISH ACTIVIST

Roisin McAliskey is a 25 year old activist from 
northern Ireland active in the struggle for Irish 
freedom. In November 1996, she was arrested without 
explanation by the Royal Ulster Constabulary in her 
home town. After five days of interrogation (from 
8am to 1am every day) she was flown to London and 
informed that a warrant had been filed seeking her 
extradition to Germany. She has been held for six 
months without charge, repeatedly denied bail, and 
subject to barbaric conditions in prison for her 
refusal to give up her legal rights and personal 
dignity.

In British occupied Ireland, the British 
authorities exercise the Emergency Powers Act which 
denies citizens their right to habeas corpus when 
they want an excuse for political repression. 
Britain has exercised this power in Ireland for 75 
years and special powers also exist under the 
Prevention of Terrorism Act, first passed in 1973 
and renewed every year since. This act allows 
individuals suspected of terrorism to be detained 
and interrogated for up to seven days.(1)

By the time this article is printed, Roisin will 
likely have given birth. She is malnourished and 
suffering from serious medical problems and in this 
late stage of her pregnancy she can not walk and is 
confined to a wheelchair. She is under permanent 
lockdown in solitary confinement, her mail is 
censored, and she is repeatedly subject to strip 
searches. She has never been charged with any crime 
in Ireland or Britain.

German authorities are demanding Roisin be 
extradited to Germany for questioning in an attack 
on a British army base there. Four weeks ago, on 
national television in Germany, the only witness 
named in the warrant denied that he had ever 
identified Roisin McAliskey as the womyn who had 
rented a cottage from him. He could not pick out 
her photograph. German police have also changed 
their story on the only physical evidence they 
have.

Roisin's hearing was scheduled for May 6 but she 
was too ill to attend and the hearing was 
postponed.(2) Protests around the world have 
demanded freedom and justice for Roisin. This case 
is very tied up in the demand for freedom for 
Ireland. Slogans common at demonstrations for 
Roisin include "Brits out of Ireland, free Roisin" 
and other variations on this theme. This is a 
progressive way to link national liberation 
struggles with prisoner struggles. Prison struggles 
such as this one help to expose imperialism and it 
is important to expand our demands beyond the 
freedom of just one prisoner, even while we are 
fighting an individual case. MIM joins the call for 
Roisin McAliskey's release and the dropping of all 
charges against her while recognizing that this 
case of repression is a part of the larger struggle 
for self-determination for Ireland, a struggle in 
which the British government will use all means of 
political repression to silence the people.


NOTES:
1. The Village Voice, 6 May 1997.
2. The Irish Times, 7 May 1997. P.4.




* * *



RED CROSS PROVES STALIN CORRECT IN ANTI-NAZI WAR

Recently released International Red Cross documents 
from World War II vindicate J.V. Stalin, the leader 
of the Soviet Union from 1924-1953, for his 
military actions in Eastern Europe in World War II. 
Thanks to widespread whitewashing of fascism by 
imperialist media and education organs, many 
believe only Germans and maybe Italians and 
Japanese were fascists during World War II. Many 
countries conveniently overlook their own history 
and the enemies of socialism assist them in order 
to shield fascism from criticism.

The Red Cross documents, now released 50 years 
after they were written, show that more than 
100,000 Jews died in Romanian death camps taken 
from the territory of the Soviet Union.(1) Romanian 
troops joined the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union 
on the German side. They obtained Soviet land for 
Romania in 1941, including a camp called 
Transnistria.

Stalin split Poland with Hitler in World War II but 
was unable to seize all of Poland and Romania. Now 
we can see that the crypto-fascists were wrong to 
criticize Stalin for his aggressiveness in Poland. 
In contrast, MIM has said that we wish "Stalin 
could have gone further and could have stopped what 
happened in Romania. More anti-fascist lives would 
have been spared if Stalin had done to Romania what 
he did in his own country and in Poland."(2) The 
Red Cross documents show why MIM was more correct 
than it could know.

"Transnistria was a holding place for local 
Ukrainian Jews and for Romanian Jews who survived 
massacres by Romanian soldiers that killed 160,000 
in 1941-1942."(1) Another figure says that over 
100,000 died of starvation, cold and typhus in the 
death camps between 1941 and 1943. Some Jewish 
orphans only survived because the Soviet Union 
claimed them as their citizens.

With the forward march of the Soviet army, the 
favors the old oppressors did for the Jews 
increased drastically. In December, 1943 when 
Stalin had already turned the war to the advantage 
of the anti-fascists and it was clear Romania 
needed to buy favorable standing with the Soviet 
Union and its allies, Romania started to allow 
inspections of the camp. But Romania only withdrew 
from the war completely in August, 1944 -- after 
the Soviet Union had made its coming victory of 
1945 apparent.

After World War II, the Soviet Union occupied both 
Poland and Romania temporarily and set their 
foreign policies. MIM believes both these countries 
got what they deserved. National integrity cannot 
be respected in the presence of Nazism and 
genocide. Although some Polish and Romanians 
resisted Nazi rule, the internationalist minority 
understands why Stalin did what he did in Poland 
and Romania during and after World War II.


NOTES:
1. USA Today 5May97, pp. d1, d2.
2. MIM Theory 6, pp. 36-7.



* * *



IMPERIALISTS ADMIT COLLABORATION WITH NAZI GERMANY

A 200-page Clinton administration report being 
called "'a moral milestone in modern American 
history'" explicitly admits that the Cold War was 
an excuse for the U.$. government to paper over 
Nazi injustices perpetrated during World War II.(1) 
Over $60 million in gold remain in Amerikan, 
English and French hands because the Western 
imperialists were too busy propagandizing against 
the Soviet Union to return the gold to the Jews 
from whom it had been stolen, some of whom lived in 
the Soviet Union.

The U.S. government report required 11 agencies and 
15 million pages of documents.(1) For MIM, this 
admission of a cover-up raises the question:  how 
many government agencies and pages of text will it 
take to find out what else the imperialists have 
covered up to keep from giving J.V. Stalin and the 
socialist Soviet Union (1917-1953) their due? How 
many are owed reparations for their suffering at 
fascist hands during World War Two, and when will 
the Western imperialists admit to their lack of 
vigilance in these matters? We raise this question 
to people with Socialist sympathies everywhere:  
where have you gotten your information on the Big 
Bad Stalin and what do you think of this new 
admission? What do you think of your sources now 
that some of their motivations for making Stalin 
look bad have a dollar figure attached?

We only hear the truth now because the Soviet 
social-imperialist bloc (1957-1991) has collapsed 
and the Klinton administration wants to spread 
Amerikan power everywhere, including the vaunted 
secrecy of Swiss bank accounts. In recent years, 
U.$. imperialists have broken up some of the 
secrecy of Swiss accounts to check for political 
activity deemed unfriendly to Amerika. By 
embarrassing the Swiss for holding Nazi gold 
originally stolen from Jews, the U.$. imperialists 
aim to show that Amerikan power reaches everywhere 
and there will be no business that the U.$. 
Government does not know about.

But even in this climate of exposure, some u.s. 
bourgeois media have been careful not to accuse any 
imperialist country of knowingly stockpiling 
plunder from concentration camp victims. An NPR 
report said that while the Swiss bankers clearly 
knew that gold they were accepting was plunder from 
the Nazi war, it was unclear that this gold had 
come from the Nazis' victims.(3) MIM asks:  what's 
the difference? Why is it better to steal money 
from a country you invade for the purpose of 
plundering its resources and either murdering or 
assimilating its people than to steal money from 
the people you murder in that country?

This is exactly the kind of hairsplitting that 
distracts liberals from the important questions of 
who is a fascist, who is not, and who is 
objectively opposed to fascism. By talking as if 
the fascist war on Europe, Asia and Africa were 
somehow benign but for the concentration camps and 
the Nazi genocidal program, the liberals obscure 
the dangers of placating fascism, and attempt to 
confuse the masses into thinking that in the 
absence of death camps, there is no need to worry. 
This confused approach comes with the added benefit 
to the liberal mindset of being able to both sound 
good criticizing fascism, while still avoiding the 
responsibility of taking up genuine opposition -- 
like supporting Stalin's successful anti-fascist 
war.

It turns out that American Jewish groups also were 
too busy being Amerikan to ensure that gold from 
Western vaults would be returned to Soviet Jews. 
Only now do they attack the German government for 
giving Nazi Waffen S.S. officers pensions while 
Russian Jews have received no compensation. The 
German Government has replied swiftly and 
affirmatively to the demands of the American Jewish 
Committee.(2)

Commenting on the July 15, 1994 New York Times MIM 
wrote: 
"Decades of fighting the Cold War against the 
Soviet Union under the guise of anti-communism are 
now bearing ample fruit -- strong fascist movements 
in Eastern Europe and a fascist government elected 
in Italy in March. For 50 years, the U.S.-
imperialist bloc governments and media glorified 
every little nationalist noise out of Eastern 
Europe in an effort to run down the Soviet Union, 
first as a socialist country and then as a 
contending imperialist. Now that the competitive 
threat from the Soviet Union is much receded, we 
see the cracks in the motley coalition the 
imperialists put together in Italy -- the Church, 
the Mafia, the Christian Democratic Party and the 
so-called Socialist Party.

"The U.S. bloc had to cover up and distort every 
progressive legacy of the Soviet Union during World 
War II, which even Clinton says shaped this entire 
century. As a result, fascist movements and fascist 
histories were whitewashed, because the communists 
did the most to crush the fascists in World War 
II."

Anyone with a minimal knowledge of Communist theory 
or of Twentieth Century history, and now anyone who 
picks up a copy of USA Today, knows that Communists 
-- not liberal democrats -- are the real anti-
fascists. The history of World War II and the Cold 
War shows us that the genuine Communists were the 
only activists around with the political line to 
prioritize the anti-fascist war. The western 
imperialist bourgeoisie was too busy fighting 
Communism to stop the fascists, while the 
Trotskyists, anarchists, pacifists and everyone 
else failed to show up for the struggle. MIM Notes 
urges its readers to investigate this history, 
learn more about us, and work with RAIL and MIM to 
protect the future from fascism and imperialism.


NOTES: 
1. USA Today 8May97, p. 1.
2. AP in Boston Globe 8May97, p. a23.
3. All Things Considered, National Public Radio 7 
May, 1997.



* * *



MIM FORMS PEOPLE'S INTERNATIONALIST REAR AREA 
ORGANIZATION

The 1997 Congress of MIM decided to form a 
revolutionary army -- the People's Internationalist 
Rear Area Organization (PIRAO). What follows is a 
description of that new organization.


I. TASKS AND GOALS OF THE PIRAO

The PIRAO is the rear area support organization of 
the Maoist armed struggle. As in any rear area, the 
tasks of the PIRAO do not involve weapons. Instead, 
the PIRAO proudly takes up the mundane tasks that 
need to be carried out for the fight at the 
proletarian front in the semi-feudal and semi-
colonial countries throughout the world. The PIRAO 
will substitute its labor for the blood sacrificed 
by our comrades in Peru, the Philippines, Turkey, 
Azania etc.

The PIRAO will be unarmed and will in fact struggle 
with people in the imperialist countries to take up 
their proper role at this stage of struggle. A 
well-known military metaphor is "peeling potatoes." 
We are the potato-peelers of the revolution. There 
will be those who laugh at us, and some will say 
our tasks are incompatible with revolution, but in 
any army there is mundane work to be done under 
great discipline, so we say let them laugh. The 
more tedious tasks we accomplish, the more our 
comrades at the front will have time to accomplish 
the glorious tasks of armed struggle.

In front-line armies, much time is spent in the 
barracks and preparing for war. Not every day is a 
day of decisive battle. Likewise, in the rear area 
the pace of action will depend on the support the 
army receives and the capabilities of its members. 
We aim to build an army of people with long-run 
goals, vision and discipline, people willing to do 
the equivalent of push-ups and potato-peeling to be 
ready. The goal of the army is to speed up victory, 
not bring fast and easy glory.

At the front, the leading means of obtaining 
weapons is through armed struggle -- seizure of 
arms of defeated enemies. In the imperialist 
countries, we cannot utilize such methods 
appropriately. What we obtain -- books, medical 
supplies, computers and other concrete aid -- can 
be usually obtained with money. A key element of 
the army will be systematic financial work. Other 
elements will include intelligence, technical aid 
and medical advice.


II. SOCIAL BASIS OF THE PIRAO


We of the army led by the Maoist party of the 
English-speaking imperialist countries -- MIM -- 
will say bluntly to our recruits:  "it is not our 
turn yet for armed struggle." We follow the 
teachings of Mao who said that the people have 
nothing if they have no army. Mao also said that 
the imperialist country communists must engage in 
"long, legal struggle -- not armed struggles." We 
must realize that that means we behind enemy lines 
have nothing ourselves yet, but we can support the 
armed struggle of the semi-colonies external to the 
imperialist countries in Asia, Latin America and 
Africa.

We say bluntly to the Black, Latino and Asian-
descended peoples of the imperialist countries:  
"it is not your turn yet; instead seek to hasten 
the blows of the oppressed peoples of the Third 
World: take up your tasks in the rear area and do 
not seek armed battles until the imperialists are 
really helpless as Mao said we should do where the 
imperialists have their modern transport and 
communications ready for battle on their own turf." 
The small neighborhoods where armed struggle can be 
carried out successfully are the exceptions at this 
time, as is the case of the righteous armed 
struggle of the people that occurred during the Los 
Angeles rebellion after the Rodney King verdict. 
Even in those circumstances where armed struggle 
does break out spontaneously and successfully our 
task is to guide it into more organized unarmed 
forms. The tendency of those involved in armed 
struggle at this time in the English-speaking 
imperialist countries is to degenerate without 
sustained work. It can be much like taking drugs -- 
a momentary thrill unattached to a real political 
plan. It is mainly the fault of the middle-class 
intellectuals for isolating the truly oppressed 
that such struggles do break out and secondarily it 
is the fault of the lumpenproletariat and other 
angry oppressed peoples for not seeking out more 
systematic forms of struggle.

We say to the First Nations:  where you have 
overwhelming support of your peoples for the 
defense of your borders, we support your ongoing 
armed struggle. It is time to utilize the Maoist 
party idea to fight imperialism, because the white 
man understands nothing but the gun and because you 
must communicate with your allies in an 
internationalist and coordinated way. It is no 
longer true to say that all Indians are equal in 
their political understanding. The influence of the 
white man and imperialist parasitism infects even 
the First Nations. Even on the national 
territories, there are those considering leaving 
and taking up complete assimilation and 
capitulation. Those who are most advanced in their 
ideas about First Nation liberation must form the 
vanguard party. This has become a universal 
necessity because of the class system that the 
white man has imposed on the whole world. True, in 
the old society of communism in the First Nations, 
the vanguard party was not necessary to live 
communist life. Now the vanguard party is necessary 
to lead the struggle back to communist life which 
the world knows about thanks to the First Nations.

To the lumpenproletariat, we say, if you are 
willing to sacrifice your lives in a shoot-out or 
go to prison, why aren't you willing to spend 60 
hours a week for the revolution? We will help you 
to gain middle-class camouflage. If you are already 
in prison, you must help to keep people out of 
prison by getting out the word on MIM and the army.

To the students and petty-bourgeois intellectuals 
we say, if the people are dying in the Third World 
and going to prison in record numbers in the 
imperialist countries, why are you advocating 
compromise and "toning it down?" Why are you not 
linking up with the oppressed and doing the work of 
militant creation of public opinion to tap the 
energies of the peoples already so angry with the 
system but improperly channeled into crime and gang 
violence amongst the oppressed?


III. TYPES OF ARMY MEMBERS


A. IRREGULARS

Irregulars are the most basic elements of the armed 
force, because they are most like the people 
themselves. We will count them as part of the army; 
even though they usually are not counted as such in 
the Third World.

In the imperialist countries, an irregular is 
someone who lends timely aid to the struggle in 
passing, for the instance.


B. INFANTRY: SYSTEMATIC FASHION


A member of the infantry is someone who does 
sustained work on concrete tasks. An irregular may 
come up with a stash of books, a thousand dollars 
or medical supplies. The infantry member scours the 
earth regularly for such items and figures out how 
to obtain them legally.

The infantry dedicates more time to preparation 
work than the irregular. The infantry member does 
not regard such preparation work as a 'waste of 
time.' Rather the infantry is thankful not to 
sacrifice blood in taking small but persistent 
risks that a certain percentage of the time will 
lead to victories. The infantry works hard without 
instant gratification. The knowledge that numerous 
small victories obtained without shedding a drop of 
blood add up to big victories sustains the 
infantry. The infantry member also realizes that 
his or her example may inspire countless others to 
carry out similar tasks and lead to the inevitable 
downfall of imperialism.


C. COMMISSIONED OFFICERS: FULL-TIME


Commissioned officers combine the planned and 
professional aspect of the infantry with one 
difference. The officer has arranged his or her 
material life so that it is possible to work full-
time for the revolutionary army. The officer will 
tend to be the main organizer of the irregulars.


IV. DISTINCTIONS AMONGST ORGANIZATIONAL TYPES: 
RAIL, MSG, PIRAO, MIM


The question arises, how does the army differ from 
other organizations of the oppressed, such as MIM, 
MSG and RAIL?

Army leaders must be party members, but most army 
members will not be party members. It is extremely 
difficult to get into the party. Army recruits need 
not wait at all before they begin their work as 
army members. The army will serve as a recruiting 
ground for the party.

MSG is for people with worked out differences with 
the party who are nonetheless close to the party. 
The members will tend to be intellectuals and may 
believe that vanguard parties, MIM in particular or 
just MIM's leadership is overrated. In contrast, 
army members don't make a big deal of their 
differences with the party if any. Army members 
have less trouble with the concept of discipline 
and concrete action. Army members tend to think the 
ideas of MIM are the most correct or plenty close 
enough to being correct and the leadership of the 
party is if anything underrated, so there is no 
problem with proceeding to concrete action under 
the leadership of the existing MIM line.

RAIL members acknowledge party leadership like the 
army, but RAIL members are under limited 
obligations of discipline and they focus their work 
on building public opinion. The army's work is the 
furthest removed from building public opinion. As a 
natural consequence, in the army, there is less 
focus on arguing over line and winning public 
debates. Army members may be quiet but decisive 
actors.

The army will have its share of right opportunists 
who simply avoid political struggle, but it will 
also have its share of people who simply don't like 
working with the intellectuals necessary for 
building public opinion on a continuous basis. The 
army's work will support the work of those building 
public opinion and the army will defend the party, 
but its main task will be concrete and logistical 
support to building the independence and material 
presence of the institutions of the oppressed. To 
carry out this task effectively it is absolutely 
essential that the army member accept the 
leadership of the party. The army member will be 
content to carry out action and will not demand 
constant political struggle and explanation. The 
pride of the army is that it will carry out actions 
more quickly than any other organization and with 
less talk. At the same time, the army member will 
realize that no pace of action is ever fast enough 
for the genuine revolutionary.

There will be less emphasis on learning from 
discussion and more emphasis on learning from years 
of concrete activity. Every legitimate 
revolutionary is impatient with the pace of action 
here in the imperialist countries. We must not 
become so impatient as to lose our heads or burn-
out. One way to do that is to follow a leader who 
will keep us in check. The army member understands 
that the party may not be able to lead fast enough 
for anyone's likings including the party's, but the 
more people there are willing to follow leadership 
without question, the less time is spent bogged 
down in political details.

Relative to other organizations, there is less 
emphasis on all-pervasive study in the army; 
although all organizations of the oppressed require 
some level of political struggle. Army members will 
be able to follow directives of the head of the 
army quickly and without question, by focusing on 
an area of concrete agreement if necessary before 
joining the army. The party leader of the army will 
be the final decision-maker and there will be no 
jostling for leadership or political votes for 
leadership. The army's leader will certainly 
consult with the irregulars, infantry and officers, 
but the army member can be assured that such will 
be cut to the barebones minimum.

It will be the head of the army's decision whether 
or not someone is working within army discipline or 
should be in another organization or no 
organization of the oppressed at all.

The PIRAO is especially organized for the many 
people ready to recognize MIM leadership and stop 
wasting time in political debate. They have made up 
their minds in the short-run and they seek to do 
concrete work with less emphasis on building public 
opinion and more emphasis on building independent 
institutions of the oppressed. Some people 
concentrate on writing books and struggling over 
the content; in a nutshell, the army will focus on 
getting the money to print the books and then the 
means to lug them around -- concrete needs.

Material aid to Third World immigrants and exiles 
will be included. Internationalist material aid is 
the most important.

People may belong to both RAIL and the army, but 
while carrying out army functions, they will follow 
army procedures. MSG members will not be allowed in 
the army.

The army is inconceivable without an already 
established party leading the creation of public 
opinion. Now that we have a core of people carrying 
out the tasks of the party it is possible to form 
the army to do supplemental work. Without a party 
the first task would not be to form an army but to 
engage in political struggle over the formation of 
a line. Now that there is a Maoist line embodied in 
the MIM party, there are further gains to be had in 
concrete work. Army members will learn from 
practice their personal capabilities for 
contributing to the struggle at the front and 
making a difference.


V. LEADERSHIP


The party guarantees to the army as in any Maoist 
party that the lives of the army will not be 
wasted. In our conditions that means the work of 
the army will not be wasted. Instead, the party 
leadership will go about maximizing the effect that 
the army's work will have by gauging the conditions 
of each member of the army and how that member may 
best contribute to the struggle.

Not wasting the work of the army means that if 
there are already enough potatoes peeled for 
upcoming weeks and anymore peeled will just rot, 
then the leadership should not ask for more 
potatoes to be peeled. On the other hand, if our 
comrades from the front might visit us for dinner, 
then we better do some extra work.

The leadership should ask for work to be done, 
including repetitive work when that work might 
uncover significant gains for the proletariat. 
There are important calculations in determining 
when to continue pursuing certain work. The 
leadership of the army will answer the question:  
is this action worth it?

The party also guarantees to the army that the head 
of the army will be empowered to handle all 
political issues without ongoing interference in 
daily affairs from the party that would bog down 
the army. For example, whether a suggested means of 
struggle is too politically impure to use, the 
army's leader will be able to decide. The party 
will in fact sanction the army leader's impure 
methods from the beginning to make it clear that 
learning from action will be paramount in this new 
undertaking.

Without party leadership seasoned in effective 
tactics and the proletarian line, the army member 
would never learn how effective s/he could be in 
practice. For this reason, the party takes very 
seriously the job of appointing a leader to the 
army. The leader of the army must have a proven 
record of establishing new undertakings and finding 
new methods of struggle against the bourgeoisie.

Furthermore, the head of the army must have 
bourgeois training in at least one major field of 
concrete endeavor -- business, finance, computers 
or medical. The army's leader will be expected to 
utilize bourgeois expertise while knowing when the 
assumptions of bourgeois experts are not 
appropriate for revolutionary struggle. This will 
be known as being "both red and expert." For this 
reason the army can have faith in its leader chosen 
by the MIM Congress.



* * *



HOMES NOT JAILS TAKEOVER BUILDING

Homes Not Jails, Boston, held their third building 
takeover this year on May 10 in the wealthy 
neighborhood of Beacon Hill. These actions 
dramatize the homelessness problem in Boston and 
the need for affordable housing rather than 
prisons. These takeovers include a rally in 
downtown Boston and then a march to an abandoned 
residential unit.

Homes Not Jails members have already cut the lock 
on the designated building and replaced it with 
their own lock. When the rally arrives at the 
vacant property, some people enter the building, 
pry off the boards from the windows and hang 
banners while the crowd chants and makes noise 
until the cops come and arrest the people occupying 
the building for trespassing. While HNJ's goal is 
to convert these empty units into homes for the 
homeless, the police will never allow such blatant 
and illegal anti-capitalism and no one is under the 
illusion that these actions will end with anything 
but arrests. This time the building being occupied 
was the former home of Charles Sumner, a member of 
the U.S. Senate in the 1800s and an outspoken 
abolitionist in the anti-slavery movement. Speakers 
at the rally included Howard Zinn, author of A 
Peoples History of the United States, who suggested 
that Sumner would have wanted the people of Boston 
to have his former home to help address the problem 
of homelessness in a city with 23,000 empty housing 
units, many boarded up and completely unused like 
the one HNJ took over.

At this takeover six people were arrested, carried 
out through the crowd of hundreds of mostly young 
people shouting at the pigs. Unlike past takeovers, 
this actions attracted the attention of a lot 
mainstream media, with local TV stations and NPR 
radio shows covering the takeover as a part of 
their local news broadcasts.

The Homes Not Jails message about the 
contradictions of capitalism that allows empty 
housing units to exist in the face of 6,000 
homeless people is important. And the connection to 
prisons is particularly crucial as many of these 
homeless people are former prisoners. But it will 
take more than just dramatic building takeovers to 
end the problems of homelessness and to fight the 
criminal injustice system. This is why MIM builds 
independent power of the oppressed through a 
revolutionary party that will ultimately overthrow 
capitalism and seize power for the people.

Actions that educate people and pressure the 
government are an important part of this work, but 
without the context of an organization that is 
fighting imperialism systematically drawing 
connections between homelessness, prisons, 
militarism and imperialism, we will never be able 
to take on this system. Everyone serious about 
overthrowing imperialism needs to be arrogant 
enough to fight both local, continental and 
international battles. Work with MIM and RAIL to 
end homelessness and end imperialism.



* * *



LATINO ANTI-IMPERIALIST MAY DAY CELEBRATION

MIM attended a May Day celebration in East Boston 
hosted by Latinos y Latinas Por el Cambio Social 
(Latinos for Social Change), an anti- imperialist 
organization of Latinos and Latinas organizing in 
the Boston area. The event combined political and 
cultural acts for a celebration of International 
Workers Day that was both educational and 
entertaining.

A speaker from the organization opened the event by 
describing the history of May Day. May Day is 
celebrated by the proletariat around the world but 
largely ignored in this country which now has a 
government created "Labor Day" on September 1st.

The speaker pointed out that the history of factory 
workers in this country is one of immigrants and 
that this situation has not changed:  still the 
immigrants are working the worst jobs and do not 
enjoy the job security, 8 hour days, or benefits 
that white workers have gained. This is an 
important point to recognize because it speaks to 
the differences between the different nations in 
this country.

Latinos for Social Change does not go far enough 
with its analysis of the working class in this 
country. The speaker at the event slipped in a few 
statements about the need for unity among the 
working class (including whites in this country) in 
spite of his overall excellent analysis of and 
focus on the situation of Latino immigrants and the 
connections to international imperialism.

Other speakers from UNITE, a union organization 
that is working to organize Latinos in Boston who 
are undocumented and faced with conditions often as 
bad as those in Third World countries, echoed the 
theme of the need for organizing these oppressed 
and exploited workers. But again these speakers 
called for unity with white workers rather than 
recognizing that white workers in this country have 
gained a position of privilege at the expense of 
the international proletariat which pits their 
interests against the interests of the proletariat, 
including the Latino workers that UNITE is 
organizing.

Songs were performed by Sergio Reyes, a well known 
local Latino activist and performer. The politics 
in the songs mirrored the general line of the 
event:  overall good anti-imperialist content but 
an incorrect focus on uniting everyone regardless 
of their political position. This came through most 
clearly in his song commemorating the recent MRTA 
take over of the Japanese embassy and the 
subsequent massacre of the MRTA members by the 
Peruvian government.

The song correctly pointed out that this massacre 
was not a victory over terrorism but rather a 
victory for state terrorism. But the chorus lumped 
the MRTA, the Senderos, and the people together as 
all forces fighting for progressive change without 
making any distinctions between organizations or 
their political lines. As has been reported in 
recent issues of Maoist Sojourner, the MRTA has a 
history of collaborating with the imperialist-
supporting government parties in Peru in between 
its focoist attacks like this one on the embassy 
which succeed in getting many people killed and 
winning nothing for the people.

The focoist line and strategy have been proven a 
failure while the Communist Party of Peru has 
gained control of much territory and the support of 
the people through its strategy of peoples war. It 
is important that anti-imperialists take seriously 
the need to study and analyze history and current 
events rather than just lumping anyone calling 
themselves leftist into the same camp. Some lines 
and strategies are more effective than others and 
we owe it to the international proletariat to take 
up the ones that mean the fewest deaths and the 
greatest victories, anything less is selling our 
comrades short.



* * *



MORE MASSACHUSETTS TRANSFERS TO TEXAS

On April 28th the Massachusetts DOC shipped another 
25 prisoners to Texas, this time driving them on a 
bus the 1915 miles to Dallas County Jail. For this 
trip the prisoners were provided with metal cages 
within the bus.

This is the second time in two months that the Mass 
DOC has sent a group of prisoners to Texas. The DOC 
spokesperson said that these prisoners were being 
sent by bus to save costs (the past two shipments 
were sent by plane.) The DOC says that 25 other 
inmates will be brought back to Massachusetts on 
the return bus trip. They are planning an ongoing 
revolving door in Dallas where inmates are sent 
down and brought back regularly so that 300 are 
maintained in Dallas.

This revolving door is something of an admission by 
the DOC that these transfers to Texas are bad for 
the prisoners and counter to any claims of 
rehabilitation the prison system makes. But this 
change in policy is not a victory for the 
prisoners, it means that even more prisoners will 
be forced to endure the terrible conditions and 
long distance from family and friends in Dallas 
County Jail. Ironically, the contract with Dallas 
says that only "model prisoners" will be accepted. 
Prisoners are being punished for behaving in 
prison.

According to the DOC, it costs $42 a day to house a 
prisoner in Texas, compared to $80 a day in 
Massachusetts. If these cost savings are real, MIM 
has to ask what exactly it is that costs less in 
Texas. The Dallas facility does not offer any 
educational services. Men there are kept in "tanks" 
with up to 28 other men, lights are left on 24 
hours a day, and prisoners leave their cells for 
only one hour a day. This kind of prisons for 
profit are really just torture units destroying 
human beings. MIM and RAIL continue the fight 
against this and other aspects of the criminal 
injustice system as we build our forces to 
overthrow the system.

For more information on prison privatization, see 
MIM Theory #11.


NOTE: Boston Globe, 04/29/97, p. A1.



* * *



BOSTON PUBLIC CENSORS PROTECT YOUTH FROM POLITICAL 
SPEECH

MIM received the following message from the 
Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the Industrial 
Workers of the World (IWW). All forms of content-
control on the Internet, even those supposedly or 
actually targeted against pornography, which MIM 
opposes, will end up being used to censor political 
speech. In the case of software censorship, the 
"rules" may be programmed in without the computer 
users even knowing that they are. We oppose the 
censorship of the IWW newspaper, and invite 
concerned readers to send email to the Boston 
Public Library tyrants who would "protect" children 
by censoring the political materials they would 
read, even though we have fundamental disagreements 
with the IWW (See MIM Theory 8 and 10, $6 each).


April 17 -- Please read this even if you do not 
completely oppose the Boston Public Library's 
censorship of pornography, because they are also 
censoring us (on the left) as "political 
extremists." And we can each do something rather 
quickly in protest -- e-mail the Chief Information 
Officer and let them know that this is a travesty.

The details:  as you probably are already aware, 
the Boston Public Library has paid CyberPatrol 
corporation big money for the tools to censor 
various "inappropriate" Internet sites from the 
children's area of the library. What you probably 
do not know is that "political extremism" is one of 
the categories for censorship. And I'm not talking 
about fascist sites here, I'm talking about the 
newspaper of my union, the Industrial Workers of 
the World (IWW, also known as Wobblies). I and 
other Wobblies are furious about this, and I want 
to use our experience as evidence that censorship 
in the Boston Public Library runs counter to 
democratic access to information, including vital 
information critical of the status quo such as our 
newspaper. So please e-mail the Chief Information 
Officer and let them know that we are part of the 
community, we are not going away, and we will not 
allow ourselves to be censored. (As it turns out, 
soon after we started protesting directly to 
CyberPatrol, our newspaper was removed from the 
censor's list, however many anarchist sites remain 
on the list and this list may grow along with 
right-wing influence generally. We need to speak up 
now!)

Cheif Information Officer e-mail (via world wide 
web form):
http://www.ci.boston.ma.us/mismail.html
Info on CyberPatrol and the Boston Public Library:
http://www.peacefire.org/censorware/Cyber_Patrol/



* * *



UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS


REBELLIONS AND VIOLENCE IN PRISONS

This issue of Under Lock & Key is a collection of 
letters around the role of violence in prisons. 
Instead of responding to each letter separately, we 
print MIM's position on violence in prisons up 
front.

First of all, prisons themselves are organized 
violence. They are tools of social control for the 
ruling class. In Amerika, this means violence 
against oppressed nations. Prisons deprive 
oppressed nationals of their freedom -- and lives -
- at a rate many times that of the dominant white 
nation.

Furthermore, as prisoners and readers of Under Lock 
and Key know too well, pig violence against 
prisoners is common. Any prisoner resistance, 
organized or unorganized, big or small, runs the 
risk of provoking a beating. The pigs also provoke 
prisoner on prisoner violence, as even mainstream 
news stories coming out of Corcoran state prison in 
California confirm.

Thus, the Amerikan prison system is a concrete 
example of why MIM believes violence is justified 
and necessary to overthrow the oppressive, 
imperialist Amerikan state. The oppressors 
consistently use violence, terror, and brutality to 
prop up their festering, evil system, and the 
oppressed must defend themselves by any means 
necessary. Anybody who advocates "turning the other 
cheek" as a strategy is not serving the interests 
of the oppressed.

That said, we should be clear that revolutionaries 
do not engage in armed struggle in order to feel 
good about themselves. Revolutionaries engage in 
armed struggle to win. To paraphrase Fred Hampton:  
'Kill one pig, get a little satisfaction. Overthrow 
this entire fucking system, get complete 
satisfaction.' All of our efforts are geared 
towards speeding up the impending victory of the 
people over u.s. imperialism.

This is why violence against pigs and prisoncrats 
is a difficult question. Prisoners often find 
themselves in lose-lose situations. If they don't 
defend themselves, they die;  if they do defend 
themselves, they die. Prisoners involved in 
rebellions are abused, lose privileges, face severe 
retaliation, and are often murdered.

Still, there are situations where a stout but 
losing battle is better than nothing. The Attica 
Prison Rebellion is one case in point. MIM supports 
the Attica Prison Rebellion as an organized attempt 
to improve conditions for prisoners. It brought 
media attention to the problem and inspiration and 
hope to other prisoners (See MT5, "Losing Battles," 
p. 51). Note that one of the reasons the Attica 
rebellion was so effective was that prisoners were 
organized and united to some extent around a 
political line. This organization and unity was 
forged before the rebellion.

MIM advocates that prisoners actively organize and 
educate themselves to determine the best way to 
struggle in prisons. Practice dialectical 
materialism and let theory lead your practice. 
Write to Under Lock and Key to expose the 
conditions of your struggle. Even in prison there 
is much room for nitty gritty legal struggle.

But the bottom line is prisoners are in the 
trenches and it is they who will lead the struggle 
in prisons.


MICHIGAN PRISONER WANTS TO BE TREATED LIKE A HUMAN 
BEING


An Article was written on June 29, 1996 entitled:  
Call for prisoner to become politically motivated, 
and was printed in the Under Lock & Key's section 
of MIM Notes 121. RCG1 agreed with most of the 
article but was in disagreement with the article 
stating that prisoners ought to stop the violence 
among ourselves and become violent with our 
captors. Comrade RCG1 felt this was wrong and 
suggest that prisoners look at historically 
revolutionary figures such as George Jackson, and 
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (a.k.a.: Malcolm X) and 
learn from the COINTELPRO war against the Black 
Panther Party (BPP). We agree with the historical 
look but we vehemently disagree with passivity. We 
have seen for too long how oppressors will not stop 
oppressing unless and until one stand up and be 
counted. No one is going to stop oppression by 
passive low-toned conversations. It is not going to 
happen.

Comrade RCG1 is not in the death camps and thus, 
not experiencing the hardships comrades within the 
death kkkamps are experiencing. In fact, when the 
pigs slam a brotha against the wall and call in 
goon squad friends to help him bash a brothas head 
in, what are you suggesting one to do? Accept it? 
Are you saying that we should lick the boots of 
these racist pigs and not defend ourselves? Are you 
suggesting that we sit and wait for you or some 
other outside group to come and stop our heads from 
being bashed in? How do you figure? Even a dog has 
the right to defend itself from attach and we are 
saying is no different. We are saying that we 
should and must defend ourselves against the 
brutality that aggresses us. We are saying that we 
have a right to be treated as human being 
regardless of us being prisoners.

The days of We Shall Overcome and accept being 
beaten, kicked, knocked down, spit upon and abused 
is over. Sure, we agree that conversation is always 
good but there comes a time when there is no room 
for talk, and that is all we are saying. We are not 
suggesting that comrades go crazy and start 
attacking pigs. However, we do say that if a pig 
assaults you or your brotha to defend yourselves by 
all and every means. Meantime, comrade RCG1, if you 
want to accept someone smashing you head in, then 
by all means accept it, but we aren't buying it.

In the trenches
--A Michigan Prisoner, 6 Dec. 96


AN EYE FOR AN EYE? A PIG FOR A PRISONER?


More information about this situation in Texas can 
be found in MIM Notes, 131 "Texas Prison Activist 
Launches Hunger Strike" and MIM 135 in ULK , "Texas 
Prisoner exposes the Murder and Brutality in 
Prison."


Sirs, I was very surprised to see in [MIM Notes] 
No. 131, page 10, The Texas Prison Activist Article 
because I was there in the fields less than 50 
yards away Daniel was shot, in the head. Don't you 
know that boy's hands were raised in surrender when 
the bullet tore though his brain. That incident 
totally fucked me up. I saw a puff of red mist pop 
out of that dudes head and he hit the ground and 
did not move. And to top it off the Sergeant rides 
over with his horse, gets down and flips Daniel 
over and handcuffs him. How do we know that wasn't 
the move that killed Daniel.

Now again 6 weeks ago, give or take some, an inmate 
by the name of Gary Crenshaw, had a major use of 
force done against him. At which time the pigs 
broke his neck. He is also dead. Both officers [who 
killed Gary] are still at work. Daniel's killer is 
also at work here still. Four or five weeks ago 
about 50 inmates stormed the front desk from the 
rec. yard and smashed down on seven pigs. (Good for 
us) I did get to be involved. Wish I could have 
seen how now I am suffering a major lockdown of all 
of us closed custody inmates. We should have killed 
two of theirs like they killed two of ours.

Well Again, Thanx. In Struggle,
--A Texas Prisoner, 12 Mar, 97


RACISM CAUSES REBELLION IN UTAH'S MAXIMUM SECURITY


The Maximum Security wing of the Utah State Prison 
explodes with pent-up aggression and ugly hatred as 
the guards run for shields and gather 
reinforcements.

This latest battle was small-scale and nothing new 
to the pigs who place racist skin heads and 
minority gang members on the same tier, knowing 
without a doubt that blood will be spilled as a 
result of the intolerance and stupidity of both 
parties involved.

Instead of joining forces to make a stand against 
the murderous pig oppressors, the various hostage 
groups held captive inside of this hate factory 
would rather fight amongst themselves for their 
racist ideology.

By word of mouth and whatever literature I receive 
it is my intention to open minds up to the ideology 
of the Communist beliefs. I struggle to spread the 
word and to gather comrades together to stand equal 
in unity.

The goose-stepping pigs who keep us under lock and 
key spread hate, fear, and terrorize the people. It 
is because of Mr. and Mrs. Pig that the hate and 
intolerance level is at an all time high here in 
this facility.

The pigs will not prevail!
Comrades world-wide held hostage in dirty piss 
boxes will not be silenced. From sea to polluted 
sea we shall rise and revolt. With mass assistance 
from our Brothers and Sisters in the Anarchist, 
Green and other Anti-Pig movements, we will be 
victorious in our struggle. These Utah pigs are 
totally out of control. This Utah state Prison 
(KKKlansville) is so out of line that it's even 
taking verbal heat from the big pigs at the state's 
capital.

You are not forgotten. We shall not be silenced.

--A Utah Prisoner, 8 Mar. 97

MIM NOTES: Many anarchists are indeed allies in the 
struggle against imperialism. But we have strong 
disagreements with them about how to make 
revolution. For more information check out MIM 
Theory #8, "The Anarchist Ideal and Communist 
Revolution."


VIRGINIA REBELLION


Dear MIM: On December 26, 1996, an inmate stabbed a 
Warden. Thereafter, at least 200 inmates gathered 
on the recreation yard in unity. All the staff 
members exited, for safety, into the watch 
commander's office. The law library was destroyed, 
regular library, gym and grievance division 
damaged, and the commissary looted, during the 
incident.

In the front entrance to the dining hall, the 
officer in the master control room deliberately and 
intentionally pushed the control button opening the 
gate. The officer attempted to shut it. As inmates 
stopped him, the racist H. Ponton directly shot 4 
inmates, wounding them in the hand, torso, back and 
chest. These were 2 officers armed, 2 dogs and 
other members standing and controlling the entrance 
area. As the inmates asked for medical attention, 
he forced them to lay on the ground and then 
handcuffed them. He directed the medical staff out 
of the facility. 

The process taken:  no visitation, no telephone 
calls, tampering of out- going mail and legal mail, 
[and] no money orders. Prisoners receiving money 
orders in the mail as of Dec. 20, 1996 have not 
received a receipt.

Two inmates must be separately handcuffed in the 
cells as one can leave while the other remain to 
take a shower under 3 officers [supervision]. it 
was required that under the new Federal Court 
hearing, the facility must comply with issuing 
balanced meal, but to no avail have they acted. 
Armed officers with dogs escort prisoners to other 
sections in the facility.

No cleaning supplies for cells, no inmate workers, 
unsanitary conditions remain. Staff makes walk-bys 
or security checks every 2-3 hours. the regular 
housing block, 950 total, built for 500. There was 
no violence before the uprising.

Within his 5 months as Warden there have been 3 
lockdowns. Staff act highly disrespectful and no 
disciplinary action is taken. Inmates served 
institution warrants do not have the right to ask 
for witnesses. On October 15, 1996, an officer 
claimed that inmates attempted to hang him and 
robbed him. It was false.

-- A Virginia Prisoner, 3 Jan. 97


ACTS OF VIOLENCE IN VIRGINIA


Greetings Comrades: I write you from Buckingham 
prison camp where there was cause to celebrate. The 
overseer warden being served his daily bread on 
Dec. 26, 1996. Prisoners reacted to this situation: 
burned the library which took five hours to put 
out, and the commissary was expropriated (looted 
and vandalized). Prison guards were attacked - 
prison flunkies didn't [expect] this - Virginia's 
prisoners reacting to their oppression.

On May 4, 1996, a prisoner at Maklenburg 
Correctional Center stabbed a guard in apparent 
retaliation for the stun gunning days earlier, of a 
prisoner in the yard. In July 1996, two more guards 
were stabbed about nine times at Greenville 
Correctional Center. On July 6, 1996, there was a 
fracas between prisoners and prison guards at the 
prison's segregation unit recreation yard at the 
Nottoway Correctional Center. During which time it 
is alleged several guards suffered superficial 
wounds, and a number of prisoners say they were 
cornered and beaten. On Aug. 9, 1996, two guards 
were stabbed at Nottoway and four hostages were 
taken. More than 250 prisoners rioted. One day 
later, prisoners set fire to a building forcing the 
evacuation of 56. Only one of these Aug. 9, 
incidents, the hostage standoff, was reported to 
the public.

Since Dec. 26, 1996, prisoners have been given very 
small portions of food. No telephone calls until 
Jan. 9, 1997. Visitation has been suspended since 
Dec. 26, 97. The Department of Incorrections had 
its strike force and canine units within the 
compound for intimidation. If prisoners had to be 
escorted to the prison infirmary, the dogs were 
used to escort prisoners along with prison guards. 
The canine units were discontinued on or about Jan. 
18, 97.

The restrictions of what prisoners cannot have, 
beginning 1-1997, concerning property: no 
typewriters, 1 pair of tennis shoes, state clothing 
exclusively, 5 inch TV sets, no more 12 inch 
screens. This is a concept that has been in 
planning stages along with social cutbacks.

Solidarity,
--A Virginia Prisoner, 18 Jan. 97


AFTERMATH OF OCTOBER 1995 REBELLIONS THROUGH-OUT 
THE FED BOP


As you may be aware on or around Oct. 18th, 1995 
the U.S. Congress shot down passage of a bill that 
would have balanced out the disparity in the 
sentencing laws for Crack-Cocaine, a bias law that 
has victimized an extremely large portion of 
minorities, mainly African-Americans and Latinos. 
Whereas, all the whites arrested/convicted for 
Crack sales have resulted in State cases Vs. 
Federal cases and longer sentences for the 
minorities.

On Oct. 19th, 1995, in the Federal Correction 
Institution - Talladega, Alabama, a rebellion 
occurred. [Which resulted in] nearly seven million 
dollars in property damage and numerous injuries 
for both staff and inmate alike. This was the 
beginning of a rash of rebellions which began to 
occur instantaneously through-out the Federal 
Bureau of Prisons. (There are nearly 90 federal 
institutions across the U.S.)

On October 20th, 1995, the Director of the b.o.p. 
sent a communiqué to the Wardens of all secured 
institutions, ordering a nation-wide lock-down. 
Some of the rebellions occurred before the lock-
down, at the announcement of the lock-down, and 
after inmates were released from lock-down.

Around Jan. 1996, the b.o.p. designed a program to 
further punish the alleged main participants of the 
rebellions (as all of those found guilty received 
various sanctions from the discipline hearing 
officer in the range of loss of good-time, time in 
disciplinary segregation and disciplinary 
transfer.) and to deter the non-participants from 
massive rebellions in the future. They designed ten 
institutions that would house 465 inmates (alleged 
main participants) for up to one year. These 
institutions are being run in CONTROL UNIT fashion, 
whereas: inmates are on lockdown status 22 _ hours 
a day, inmates must be shackled upon leaving their 
cells for any reason, visits are non-existent, 
being that everyone was sent to institutions on the 
opposite of the u.s. from their legal residence, 
and we are allowed one 15 minute phone call a 
month. The Control Unit has always been used for 
BEHAVIOR MODIFICATIONS purposes and the general 
methods that are still utilized to achieve the 
objective are:

1. ISOLATION - Deprives inmates of all social 
supports of his ability to resist, in turn causing 
him/her to become dependent upon correctional 
staff.

2. MONOPOLIZATION OF PERCEPTION - Fixes attention 
upon immediate predicament; foster introspect. 
Eliminates stimuli completing with those controlled 
by staff. Frustrates all actions not consistent 
with compliance.

3. SLEEP DEPRIVATION - Bright lights, or darkness, 
barren environment, restricted movement, and 
monotonous food, slamming of doors, shaking of keys 
loudly in front of an inmate's cell, loud clicking 
of handcuffs as passes an inmate's cell.

4. DEGRADATION - Denial of privacy. Insults and 
taunts makes cost of resistance appear more 
damaging to self-esteem than capitulation. Reduces 
inmates to "animal level" concerns.

5. OCCASIONAL INDULGENCES - Occasional favors, 
fluctuations of interrogation attitudes, promises, 
rewards for partial compliance, tantalizing.

6. DEMONSTRATING "OMNIPOTENCE" - Confrontation 
staff to inmates, pretending co-operation taken for 
granted, broken promises, demonstrating complete 
control over an inmate's fate.

There are 25 of us at this institution for alleged 
riot participation. Being under these conditions 
creates instances of "double jeopardy," as we have 
already served sanctions for our alleged wrong acts 
and being on lock-down for one year was not one the 
sanctions melted out to any of us. However the 
b.o.p. has attempted to cover themselves from legal 
attack on these grounds by claiming, "they have no 
bed-space at the HIGH institutions to house us and 
once bed-space is available we will be designated." 
This is the official position of the b.o.p., but 
upon arrival here and at the other institutions the 
staff made it know that we would be held here for 
punishment up to one year and that we have nothing 
coming, and that each time we violate any rule the 
year will re-start from the date of the infraction.

During the later part of June 1996, we were told 
that due to structuring problems at the High 
(presently being constructed) institution in 
Beaumont, TX that we would be here for 18 - 24 
months. This information created a "food strike," 
which lasted four days and one inmate didn't eat 
for 10 days and became ill. He was force fed in a 
brutal manner by staff and repeatedly threatened by 
staff. These type of situations are occurring at 
all ten of the institutions that are housing 465 of 
us.

In between Oct. 19, 1995 and April 1996, many 
inmates were brutally beaten by staff without 
provocation, as retaliation for their alleged 
involvement in the rebellions. These beatings have 
been silenced and no charges, administratively nor 
criminally have resulted in the staff on inmate 
assaults. However, a large number of inmates were 
charged in federal court with MUTINY, ASSAULT, AND 
DESTRUCTION OF GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. The staff 
continue to mentally and physically abuse us, and 
pit other inmates (we are housed with pre-trial 
detainees) against us by telling them we are the 
reason for them being locked-down at this 
institution, we're vicious killers, etc.

We (all 465 of us) are placed in a hazardous, 
biased, unconstitutional and subjective situation 
simply because of our skin color. For the most part 
many of the administrative staff, at many of the 
institutions which had rebellions, over-played the 
rebellion situations. And to put themselves in 
better position for promotion, they targeted 
inmates who were not wanted at their institution 
for whatever reason and gave them up as agitators 
or leaders of the rebellion, when there was no 
evidence to support these findings other than 
fabricated evidences. It is a well known fact, that 
the crack-cocaine laws have suppressed a large 
percentage of minorities. The longer sentences are 
in fact stagnating out reproductive years and 
creating a genocide against the people. This is a 
crime in itself, but the ones instituting the laws 
are apparently ABOVE THE LAW, as no one has been 
charged for its implementation. Prisons have become 
BIG business and I say it's time that someone take 
a closer look at the matter

There has been a media black-out on this situation 
even though there is a major need for public 
exposure, as their tax dollars are involved in a 
large way. Many of us accused of involvement have 
supported many organization, Famm, Million Man 
March, Cure, etc. but we have received little or no 
support in return. Has solidarity died in these 
times of mass prison building?

Thus far there have been three legal challenges to 
the incident reports and about four more challenges 
forthcoming. It's my hope to re-alert the people to 
the after-math of the b.o.p. riots and to see if we 
can generate some form of support

Free the Land! Respectfully,
--A Federal Prisoner, 8 Dec. 97

***WHAT NON-PRISONERS CAN DO TO SUPPORT 
PRISONERS***

*1. Struggle with, work with, finance and join MIM. 
The best way to support prisoners is to overthrow 
the system under which capitalists profit from the 
exploitation of prisoners. History shows that the 
best way to do this is to build a Marxist-Leninist-
Maoist party. The oppressors will not give up their 
power without a fight.
*2. Finance MIM's prison work. Our biggest bill 
each month is postage. Most of the prison comrades 
who read MIM Notes have no way of paying for it. So 
if you have money, send what you can afford. Every 
cent helps, and stamps are as good as cash to us.
*3. Distribute MIM Notes and Notas Rojas. Bring the 
voices of prisoners and their supporters to as 
large and wide an audience of people as possible. 
Contact MIM for bulk rates and distribution tips.
*4. Start or join a prison support group. MIM can 
provide advice and resources to help you build 
public opinion for prisoners and their struggles.
*5. Fight censorship, beatings, torture and other 
fascist outrages. Under Lock and Key often features 
the addresses of prisoners' friends and enemies. 
Work with the friends and let the enemies know 
you're watching. (Don't expect to win the fascists 
to the side of humanity, however. See #1 in this 
list).
*6. Stay in touch. Keep us informed of pro-prisoner 
work you do. Our readers might find it educational 
or inspirational.

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