Culture Study Pack
by MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140

This study pack focuses on the content, role and application of revolutionary culture in our struggle to build public opinion for communism. The questions below are intended to guide you in your study and help you pick up the main points of the articles, but they are by no means the only questions to be asked. If other questions come up for you, discuss them with a comrade inside or write to us.

We encourage you to share this study pack with your comrades inside. Also feel free to send us your answers for our feedback. We are available and enthusiastic to help you in your studies.

Reading:
MIM Theory 13: Revolutionary Culture by MIM

Assignment 1: Letters Section

1. Who can be racist? What are the meanings of "racism" vs. "prejudice" vs. "national oppression."
2. Why do Amerikans like to pretend they're poor?
3. What are pig questions?
4. Can you have Marxism without Maoism? 
5. What is identity politics?
6. What is fundamental vs. principal contradiction? How can different contradictions be principal at different scales?
7. What are important characteristics of leadership?  
8. Where does good leadership come from? 
9. What makes a nation?
10. How do superprofits affect class antagonism in the U.$.?
11. How are superprofits transferred to the Amerikan labor aristocracy? 
12. What is revolutionary nationalism vs. bourgeois nationalism? 
13. Why do people affiliate Babylon with u$ empire?

Assignment 2: Pages 24-35

1. What is character assassination? How do pig questions contribute to it? How do we avoid it?
2. Why do some believe that Maoists want to destroy culture?
3. Why is it important to be self-critical? 
4. What's the relationship between culture and economics in revolutionary change? 
5. Can we win the cultural war without state power?
6. How do we create proletarian culture in a society dominated by bourgeois culture? 
7. Why is it important to study past cultures as part of historical materialism?
8. How do we combat reactionary art of high artistic quality?
9. What is political criteria vs. artistic criteria?
10. How is culture related to group consciousness?
11. Where does art come from?
12. How does the bourgeoisie's class view skew their assessment of art during the Cultural Revolution? 
13. Why was it wrong for Chinese people to complain about being sent to the countryside during socialism?
14. The Maoist approach to criticism varied at different periods during the dictatorship of the proletariat in China. What should our criticism be like in this period in this country? 
15. What are the 3 levels of participation?
16. How is whiteness equated with genius through Amerikan schools?

Assignment 3: Pages 36-45

1. How can institutions and "indoctrination" help/hurt the revolution?
2. How can education be organized after abolition of the state?
3. Is knowledge genuine and beautiful?
4. How does society benefit from criticizing leaders and how can we apply this to our studies?
5. Did students learn during school closures during the GPCR? Why do some criticize these events?
6. Who studied in China? Who studies in the u$? How do they compare?
7. Does education increase employment/improve the economy? What is the basis for the theories that is does?
8. How does the U.$. school system differ from  and how is it similar to the Philippines? Why?
9. What criticisms have Maoists made of the CPP leadership since the publication of this theory journal?
10. Why is armed struggle the "highest stage" of struggle?
11. How do we build a political reputation without getting people to follow individual leaders?
12. What characters/ideas should we promote in our art in the United $tates that will further our progress?

Assignment 4: Pages 45-56

1. Is the gay marriage issue equal to the new Civil Rights movement?
2. Are nationalism and identity politics different? Why or why not?
3. Can you give examples of religious people contributing to revolutionary struggle?
4. What is religion?
5. What is the source of our knowledge today?
6. While still a minority in general, militant atheism is common in certain sectors of our society, including youth and anti-imperialists. What is the basis of such militant atheism? What is the affect on the global struggle against imperialism? Should we be spending time attacking religion at this time?
7. Can we use anti-imperialist religious language without muddling our ideology?
8. Dialectical materialism is based on the idea that the world is in constant change. Idealism says things do not change. What are some ways that people who buy into idealism cope with a world that they believe they have no power over?

Assignment 5: Pages 57-80

1. What is power? What is the role of language in power?
2. What is the role of hip hop today? How do we utilize it to advance progress in our publications or agitational work?
3. What are the pros & cons of providing solutions in our agitation work? Should we always do so?
4. How do we oppose stereotyped party writing?
5. What are some terms the Maoist movement has given us? Do we need other/ better terms?
6. How did Jiang differ from typical leaders/rulers?
7. What distinguished the ultra-left in China from the Gang of Four?
8. What is important about providing solutions along with our criticisms of what is wrong?
9. How do you effectively struggle against the ultraleft and right within the party?