Under Lock & Key

In December 2024, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) published an article by J Sykes titled “Marxism-Leninism and the theory of settler-colonialism in the United States”(1), which repeats many of the same errors that appear in eir July 2022 article (2) arguing against Sakai’s thesis in Settlers that the white Amerikan working class constitutes a petty-bourgeois labor aristocracy.

While Sykes does not present any particularly new or interesting points about settler-colonialism or the imperialist country labor aristocracy, ey does present us with an opportunity to dissect revisionist arguments and identify the underlying theoretical errors that lead our opponents to take up an enemy line on this question. Our focus will therefore be on exposing how the FRSO line on this particular question is a reflection of their general tendency toward idealist dogmatism and metaphysical reasoning. We will see how this national chauvinist line on the Euro-Amerikan working class is connected to their enthusiastic support of revisionists like Deng Xiaoping and the bourgeois counterrevolution that restored capitalism in China.

Although it is perhaps not immediately obvious, both of these incorrect ideas arise from how they misunderstand the fundamental contradiction of capitalism in general and conflating it with the principal contradiction in particular.

General Remarks on Terminology

Before getting started, a quick note on terminology is in order. The words “white”, “settler”, “Amerikan”, and “Euro-Amerikan” will be used interchangeably here unless otherwise noted. The term “Euro-Amerikan” (often just shortened to “Amerikan”) is the most specific and precise term to use for the First World imperialist country oppressor nation. This is preferred over more colloquial terms like “white” (an unscientific “racial” category) and “settler” (potentially ambiguous) when referring to a specific oppressor nation in a particular historical context.

For readers who are not yet very familiar with Marxist terminology in general, MIM’s Glossary of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is a useful resource that is available online and can be provided to prisoners for free upon request.

It is also worth mentioning that while the MIM line on the white working class was significantly influenced by Sakai’s work in Settlers, our analysis has generally focused on the labor aristocratic (rather than settler-colonial) nature of the Euro-Amerikan working class. This is because the emergence of a labor aristocracy in the advanced countries is a general feature of imperialism rather than a particular consequence of settler-colonialism. Sakai’s detailed historical investigation on how the Amerikan working class became a labor aristocracy under concrete conditions provides us with enough information to theorize about the entire First World in general. While there are unique contradictions in nations that developed in a historical context of settler-colonialism, we agree with Lenin and the Comintern that imperialism in general has chained entire nations to finance capital and that these oppressor nation workers have material interests that are more aligned with the continued exploitation of colonized labor-power than communism.

One may reasonably ask, then, why even bother to distinguish settler-colonialism from other forms of colonialism or imperialism? We have both practical and theoretical reasons to make this distinction. On a practical level, having a correct and rigorous understanding of settler-colonialism in a particular historical context would be critical for a revolutionary government addressing the land question and calculating reparations owed to internally colonized nations for the crimes of settlers (genocide, slavery, land theft, environmental destruction, etc). On a theoretical level, it is important because we can arrive at knowledge about the contradictions of imperialism as an abstract mode of production in general by investigating the particular contradictions governing the development of imperialism in a concrete historical setting. We will see what this means in more detail in our response to Sykes and critique of FRSO revisionism.

Responding to Sykes on Settler-Colonialism

In this section, we will quote from the Sykes’ article so it is clear to our comrades reading this in prison what exactly we are responding to here and to contrast our differences in line and method. Unless otherwise specified, all quotes in this section are from Sykes.

Sykes begins with a straightforward appraisal of Marxism:

“The purpose of Marxist analysis is so that we can know how to make revolution, so that we understand the terrain of struggle, formulate correct strategy and tactics, and identify our friends and enemies. We must understand the contradictions at work in society and unite all who can be united if we want to win. So, we need to be very careful and precise in that analysis.”

So far, we do not disagree. We will see, however, that nobody at FRSO is apparently up to the task of actually performing this analysis or correctly identifying any of the glaring theoretical errors that immediately follow.

Having paid lip service to dialectical materialism, Sykes proceeds to abandon it completely in eir analysis of U.$. class structure and idealist proposition that the principal contradiction in the United $tates is “between the capitalist class on the one hand, and the multinational working class and its allies on the other, particularly the oppressed nations.”

If FRSO had any “theorists” who had bothered to actually understand Marx’s work or the categories laid out by Mao in On Contradiction, they would know the fundamental contradiction is between the forces of production and the relations of production. This contradiction is the driving force of hystory. The class struggle is a reflection of this contradiction under a particular mode of production in a concrete hystorical context where class divisions exist. The class struggle is not equivalent to the fundamental contradiction. The fundamental contradiction existed in primitive communal societies and will also exist in an advanced communist society, since any humyn society will have forces of production (labor-power, natural resources, tools/machines) and collectivized ownership is a form of production relations. Class struggle is resolved through the abolition of class distinctions under communism. The fundamental contradiction would still exist, but it would no longer reproduce the conditions for class antagonism. These are totally separate concepts that describe different things. The distinctions may seem subtle but it is important for communists to get it right, otherwise we risk saying nonsense and taking up enemy positions, which is precisely our charge against FRSO here. This confused and distorted use of terminology is in fact a load-bearing pillar of Sykes’ argument, the theoretical core of an old and rotten line.

Sykes acknowledges the existence of national oppression in some vague sense and admits that Amerika “began as a settler colonial project, founded on the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans”, but rarely identifies the oppressor nation in any concrete terms. This is what Maoists call “one-sided thinking”, which completely fixates on one aspect of a contradiction while ignoring the whole. We cannot have national oppression without an oppressor nation, just as we cannot replace the oppressor nation with the monopoly capitalist, no matter how convenient it would be if we could.

Sykes continues by dressing up this ahistorical idealism as if it actually has anything to do with Marxism:

“While it is true that the legacy of settler-colonialism in the United States certainly persists, the systems of oppression have not remained static. Dialectical materialism understands that the nature of a thing is defined by the contradictions inherent to it. Things aren’t fixed, but always changing and developing according to these contradictions.”

What is the difference between “the legacy of settler-colonialism” persisting into the present and actually being a settler-colony? This is the kind of language games revisionists use to vacillate on a question rather than take a clear, coherent and principled position. They know it would be absurd to claim that national oppression has ended in the United $tates, but they also want to argue that class struggle is the principal contradiction, so they do this sleight-of-hand that places the white Amerikan working class at the center of national liberation struggles by saying it is the same thing now as the class struggle. It is how they present ideas they presume, or perhaps wish, to be true as if they are material facts. It is how they smuggle the reactionary petty-bourgeois class interests of the Euro-Amerikan oppressor nation into the international communist movement and to divert resources from national liberation struggles that could actually develop the principal contradiction and deliver serious blows to imperialism. This is a counterrevolutionary line that runs contrary to the interests of the proletariat.

Without providing any evidence or concrete reasoning for it, Sykes claims that “different contradictions have taken the principal, determining role” throughout U.$. hystory. The national question has always been the principal contradiction in the United $tates. This analysis so far is just a long, meandering way to argue that Amerika is not a majority exploiter oppressor nation. It is also a strange, even absurd, claim to make after admitting that the United $tates was founded on slavery and genocide from the very outset.

Those of us who live in reality know that the contradiction of national oppression cannot be resolved without national liberation. The FRSO position seems to be that the national question was subsumed by the class struggle in the United $tates at some point in hystory. This is reductionist and ahystorical.

We are finally offered something resembling a thesis on what settler-colonialism is and the role it played in U.$. hystory:

“U.S. settler-colonialism is a particular social formation with a particular set of contradictions at the heart of it. Historically it is a transitionary period in the early development of the capitalist mode of production. It is characterized by the dominant role played by the contradiction between settlers on the one hand and colonized people on the other. This contradiction is the main thing shaping the trajectory of the capitalist mode of production in the period of “primitive accumulation” during its nascent development. In this way, settler-colonialism fueled the rapid growth of the capitalist mode of production in the early United States.”

There is a concrete, material claim being made here without any evidence provided to support it. The definition of settler-colonialism as being a “transitory period” is dogmatic as it is self-serving to Sykes’ argument.

Sykes mentions that class divisions existed among the settlers, many of whom were indentured servants or otherwise indebted. This is presumably meant to suggest that only the upper echelons of the settler population drew material benefits from colonialism. However, even the lowest strata of the white settlers who originally came to the colonies as indentured servants were eventually able to pay off their debts and become land owners in the early 1700s. From the very earliest days of colonization, the Euro-Amerikan oppressor nation considered access to land and upward mobility reserved to itself.(3) Meanwhile, well after the U.$. Civil War that nominally ended slavery (1865), white settlers continued to struggle to keep land promised by the government out of New Afrikan hands and expanded their land grab from First Nations.

Sykes claims that “this transitional settler-colonial period had to give way to mature competitive capitalism, bringing forth new contradictions”, suggesting that the contradictions of settler-colonialism were resolved in the United $tates by “two bourgeois revolutions, the War of Independence which overthrew the British colonial system and the Civil War, which overthrew the slave system of the Southern planter class.”

It would be more correct to say that the particular contradictions of settler colonialism had a profound (and continuing) influence on the development of capitalism and imperialism in the United $tates. If these particular contradictions (between settlers and the colonized masses) did in fact simply “give way” to the fundamental contradiction of capitalism (between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat), then how do we explain the material fact that national oppression still exists in occupied Turtle Island today? Sykes would like us to believe the Euro-Amerikan oppressor nation was simply replaced by the “monopoly capitalists” at some point, conveniently resolving the contradictions between settlers and the colonized masses. Note that this again conflates the contradiction of nation with the contradiction of production. We cannot simply substitute the capitalist class with the oppressor nation and call it a day. That is not how dialectical reason works. Sykes is resorting to metaphysics to defend an idealist proposition by arguing backwards from the white chauvinist presumption that national liberation is not the principal struggle for communists to focus on today.

Amerikan independence from Britain did not fundamentally change the class structure or relations of production in the Euro-Amerikan settler colony. The economic base and ideological superstructure that developed in Amerika remain inseparable from the genocidal land theft and exploitation of slave labor that remained at the very foundation of settler life. Whether a settler colony achieved independence from its host country or not is an irrelevant detail, what matters is the class structure that develops. Kanada never had a war for independence and is still to this day a subject of the British monarchy. This did not impede the development of capitalism in Kanada and the impact of any lingering “feudal remnants” is limited to the realm of superficial things such as street names, anthems and portraits on bank notes. While the aristocratic classes in Europe certainly enjoyed the spoils of colonial exploitation, it was settlers at the front lines who directly engaged in the plunder and genocide.

The Civil War did have a more significant impact on the class structure and property relations in the United $tates, chiefly by resulting in the abolition of chattel slavery and eventually giving limited neocolonial status (e.g. voting rights, property rights) to New Afrikans. This did not resolve the contradictions of national oppression, although it did transform external conditions such that the struggle for national liberation entered a distinctly new phase of development. According to Sakai, there were two distinct conflicts playing out in the Amerikan Civil War. The first “was between two settler nations for ownership of the Afrikan colony – and ultimately for ownership of the continental Empire” and the second was “the protracted struggle for liberation by the colonized Afrikan Nation in the South.”(4) It should also be noted that the abolition of slavery did not come from the class consciousness of white workers, nor did it engender among them any meaningful or lasting sense of solidarity with Afrikan labor.

On the contrary, white workers began to form organizations like the National Labor Union (NLU) to protect their jobs and wages from being in free competition with Afrikan workers. Groups like the KKK functioned as the paramilitary wing of this reactionary class interest. The abrupt end of Black Reconstruction in the southern United $tates and the institution of Jim Crow laws is proof that the reactionary nature of the Amerikan oppressor nation precluded revolutionary “multinational” class solidarity. The NLU (the first major federation of white labor unions, similar to the AFL-CIO today) is an instructive example on this point. As Sakai pointed out, “when the National Labor Union was formed in 1866, most of its members and leaders clearly intended to simply push aside Afrikan labor” and that a major point of contention among the white workers expressed in the first meeting was over “how the capitalists had used Afrikan workers to get around strikes and demands for higher wages by white workmen” and that the most “advanced” white workers argued for taking Afrikan workers into the NLU as a means of “driving them out of the labor market”.(5)

Similarly, it was not the monopoly bourgeoisie who organized pogroms against Chinese workers, forcing entire villages out of their homes at gunpoint – it was white workers acting in their own class interest. The bourgeoisie were generally quite content to exploit Chinese labor, which is why the white workers took it upon themselves to violently attack Chinese workers throughout the west coast and form reactionary anti-Chinese organizations such as the “Workingmen’s Party of California” and to support policies like the Chinese Exclusion Act.

The most significant historical event responsible for consolidating the contemporary class structure in Amerika was World War II, where the United $tates emerged as the hegemonic imperialist world power and was consequently able to expand and intensify exploitation of the Third World to such an extent that the entire white Euro-Amerikan oppressor nation could be subsidized with plundered wealth from abroad. Suburbs became the new frontier homesteads on stolen land. While the rest of the world was recovering from a horrifically destructive war, the United $tates was able to leverage its military and economic advantages to become wealthier than ever. This allowed the United $tates to further shift the burdens of capitalist exploitation to the Third World and further consolidate the Amerikan labor aristocracy as loyal subjects of imperialism.

Sykes attempts to excuse all of eir ahystorical idealism by digging up a quote, presented with no citation or context, where Lenin described the U.$. War for Independence as “one of those great, really liberating, really revolutionary wars of which there have been so few”. Sykes also invokes a similar “famous” quote from Mao, who said that “In the final analysis, national struggle is a matter of class struggle. Among the whites in the United States, it is only the reactionary ruling circles that oppress the black people.”

Just because a great revolutionary like Lenin or Mao said something does not make it true or above scrutiny. Mao was being unscientific in making this assessment, which should be criticized regardless of the context. Like all ideas, the national chauvinism of white workers has a material basis in concrete social relations that developed in a particular hystorical context. Lenin’s remark appears in the context of a letter to U.$. workers in the early days of Soviet power and should be understood as more of a diplomatic gesture intended to garner political support for the Soviet Union rather than as a scientific statement about Amerikan hystory. It was also perhaps not so clear in Lenin’s time that the entire Euro-Amerikan nation was so firmly in the enemy camp, although even in March 1919 the Comintern was focusing their attention on struggling against the Second International and labor aristocracy by putting out statements like this:

“At the expense of the plundered colonial peoples capital corrupted its wage slaves, created a community of interest between the exploited and the exploiters as against the oppressed colonies – the yellow, black and red colonial peoples – and chained the European and American working class to the imperialist ‘fatherland’.”(6)

For an in-depth review of the how Lenin and the Comintern actually viewed the imperialist country oppressor nation working class, see Lessons from the Comintern: Continuities in Method and Theory, Changes in Theory and Conditions from MIM Theory 10.

Interestingly, Sykes admits that the United $tates does “solve its growing crises through the oppression of whole nations and peoples…in order to extract superprofits to prop up its rotten system” but then draws an erroneous conclusion that “the multinational working class and the liberation movements of oppressed nationalities [have] a common enemy – the monopoly capitalist class.”

This term “multinational working class” is used frequently in attempts to smuggle in oppressor nation chauvinism to allegedly Marxist politics! They simply cannot imagine a socialist revolution happening unless it has a white majority. This idea that a united front that includes white workers as a class is “necessary” to defeat imperialism comes from an idealist and national chauvinist assessment of the actual balance of forces. They assume pandering to white workers must be a strategic necessity and invent a political line that fits that assumption. However, hystory shows that most Amerikans will sooner rush to the defense of empire rather than struggle for the overthrow of a system that places them in materially privileged position in the global class structure.

We can draw a parallel between FRSO urging the national liberation struggles to unite with the white working class and the NLU urging New Afrikan workers to join their unions as a means to ensure the class position of New Afrikans remains subordinate to the interests of oppressor nation labor aristocracy parasitism. The practical ramification of the FRSO line would divert resources from the internal semi-colonies struggle against imperialism into pushing for the economic demands of First World parasitism. This holds back the communist movement and serves the imperialists. Hence, it is not merely wrong, it is an enemy position!

Sykes claims that a “real revolutionary movement” in the United $tates “must have working class leadership” and since “the working class…is fundamentally multinational in character” any revolutionary movement that doesn’t assume the necessity of settler leadership is based on “wishful thinking” and doomed to failure. This provides us with a good example of postmodern idealism, which rejects the scientific method and dialectical materialism by reifying subjective individual experience as the foundation for a theory of knowledge. In this context, the term “working class” seems to be understood as more of a vague cultural identifier rather than an objective material relationship to production. Sykes concludes that even though capitalism places some (unspecified and abstract) “greater pressure” on oppressed nation workers, their “white siblings” have a shared class interest because they are exploited by the “same bosses” and “the higher rate of exploitation in the oppressed nations drives down living standards for the entire multinational working class.”

If whites are exploited the same as everybody else, then why do they own more property and control more wealth than oppressed nations within U.$. borders? Why are oppressed nations incarcerated at such staggeringly higher rates than white Amerikans? How can we say that national oppression even exists if white workers are truly suffering the same oppression at the hands of the “bosses and landlords” as everybody else and that it is only the “monopoly capitalist class who reaps the superprofits from national opression”?

MIM has written and distributed volumes of literature showing precisely how the oppressor nation “workers” materially benefit from imperialism in general and how white Amerikans benefit from the oppression of internally colonized nations. This “monopoly capitalist” class has bought off the entire Euro-Amerikan nation with plundered wealth and rewarded them with preferential treatment in everything from home ownership, access to higher education, employment in higher paying white-collar professions and every other aspect of life in bourgeois society. This is not only about buying off the loyalty of white workers, it is also a practical necessity to have a large non-productive working class to oversee administration of the empire in exchange for access to a share of the surplus value produced by colonized labor power, allowing the imperialist country petty bourgeoisie and labor aristocracy to consume far beyond their own productive means. This is how imperialism maximizes the realization of surplus value as profit and reproduces a class structure where entire nations are chained to the interests of capital.

Sykes argues this basic realization about imperialism comes from “petty bourgeois ideas about the backwardness…of the working class”, rather than a concrete analysis of concrete conditions, and that it reflects a “pessimistic and defeatist attitude” toward the “revolutionary potential of the [imperialist country] working class”, rather than strategic confidence in the international proletariat.

The real “pessimistic and defeatist” line is Sykes’, who seems to believe that 220 million Euro-Amerikans have a decisive role to play in the movement to liberate 8 billion people from exploitation. If the international proletariat has to wait for a majority of Amerikkkans to wake up and join the revolutionary struggle against oppression, then it is indeed a bleak situation. Thankfully, we know that is not the case and have strategic confidence in the masses. It is neither necessary nor expedient for the proletariat to tail the left wing of white nationalism.

We should at least credit the FRSO for not calling their position “Maoist”, even though they do claim to uphold the Chinese revolution and dogmatically quote from Mao’s works. We can also credit Sykes with coming up with the new argument that a desire to “copy and paste an analysis of the Palestinian struggle onto U.S. conditions” is why communists consider the United $tates to be a settler colony. This absurd claim does not deserve a serious response, but at least it is something we have not heard before!

Having squeezed all that we can out of the idealist metaphysics lurking beneath the FRSO brand of revisionism on the labor aristocracy, national liberation and the principal contradiction, we will now discuss how this fits in with their revisionist line on the restoration of capitalism in China.

Theory of Productive Forces

It is generally the case in hystory that the forces of production constitute the principal aspect of the fundamental contradiction and that changes to the relations of production primarily follow as a consequence of changes in the forces of production. For example, the rise of technology like the steam engine and mechanized agriculture (forces of production) had a transformative effect on the class structure of feudal societies (relations of production). This led to the emergence of new social classes (namely, the bourgeoisie and proletariat) with a revolutionary interest in overthrowing feudal aristocracy and building industrial capitalism.

Deng Xiaoping’s “theory of productive forces” essentially claims that a similar development in the forces of production was necessary to transform the relations of production in socialist China. The revisionist coup that began in 1976 implemented policies that replaced socialist economic planning with a return to capitalist price speculation and market incentives, opened up Chinese industry to foreign investment, and forcibly shut down collectivized farms in favor of private agriculture and family ownership. Maoists view this as a bourgeois counterattack on the masses in China, who had achieved great victories in constructing socialism and mobilizing hundreds of millions to engage in ideological struggle and serve the people.

During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Mao led the masses of China to show how it is possible (under certain circumstances) for the relations of production to become the principal aspect of the fundamental contradiction and consequently transform the forces of production. This approach to constructing socialism requires mass mobilization and sharp ideological struggle, such that the whole of society is engaged in consciously revolutionizing the relations of production. In practice, this means industrial and agricultural development is oriented toward meeting humyn needs (rather than profits) and ideological struggle against “bourgeois right” (the idea that some people deserve to have more than others due the nature of their work, their social position, etc) was heavily emphasized and continually advanced. This is why Maoists uphold the Cultural Revolution as the greatest advance towards communism thus far in history. This is also why we view a return to NEP-style economic policies, the dissolution of collectivized agriculture and the reification of bourgeois right as counterrevolutionary.(7)

Criticize Settler Revisionism! Criticize Deng Xiaoping!

FRSO has basically the same line as their predecessor organization, the League of Revolutionary Struggle (LRS), in supporting Deng Xiaoping, the arrest and imprisonment of the “Gang of Four”, and the end of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR). They defended this counterrevolution in China on the grounds of empricism and bourgeois individualist lifestyle fixations about the Gang of Four. See MIM’s 1999 congress resolution Repudiate sub-reformism; fight revisionism! for a more detailed polemic against the LRS and FRSO on this topic.

We are not surprised(8) to see an organization that still upholds Deng’s counterrevolutionary theory of productive forces consider the Euro-Amerikan working class as being part of the proletarian camp. Trotskyists make a similar error in how they understand the fundamental contradiction in the context of imperialism by obfuscating the nature of superprofits to support their chauvinist view that imperialist country workers are actually the most exploited in the world. Both of these revisionist errors are rooted in a one-sided view of contradiction and a dogmatic belief that First World wages are higher because the class struggle has advanced so much due to the more developed productive forces in advanced capitalist countries. In reality, imperialist country workers are able to live far beyond their own productive means by receiving wages many times higher than the actual value of labor-power and entire nations are subsidized by exploitation of the Third World proletariat. The imperialist country oppressor nation is an enemy class that cannot be relied upon to advance the struggle for communism.

For a recent critique of organizations nominally supporting the GPCR, but still promoting “working class unity” in the United $tates, see A Polemic against Settler “Maoism” by the Dawnland Group.

<sup>Notes:
1. J. Sykes, _Marxism-Leninism and the theory of settler-colonialism in the United States
2. J. Sykes, Red Theory: Against Sakai on settler colonialism and the national question in the U.S.
3. J. Sakai, Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat from Mayflower to Modern, Fourth Edition, pp. 21 - 22
4. Ibid., pp. 88-89

5. Ibid., pp. 99-100
6. Jane Degras, The Communist International: 1919-1943 Documents, Vol. I, p.18
7. The New Economic Policy (NEP) was implemented in the early days of socialist Russia to transform backward economic conditions. It made use of capitalist profit incentives.
8. MIM Theory 10, Coming to Grips with the Labor Aristocracy, p. 28</sup>

Thank you for the Under Lock & Key 87 and 88. I just finished reading through ULK 87 and Grim is right Christianity is being forced on every individual in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. This violates all Texans’ rights to religious practice through the tablets in prison.

On the other hand I’m over here on the McConnell Unit where I see religious people who are supposed to be for the people work in the place as the oppressor with the same pigs whom practice oppression. When we look at the capitalist here in American prisons we see the state abuse their authority by placing power and control in the peoples’ hands. Half of the time we can’t get nothing done because every time we stand up for what’s right here come the gang members and religious folks taking up for the pigs and it’s your fellow inmate brother whom is putting you farther in oppression. I myself experience this a lot.

The staff here, these officers rather, let the prisoners deal with the prisoners, in return the officers look the other way when the workers are dealing drugs. Just the other day a crip wanted to go on a hunger strike for the pod going on a 15 day lock down because several individuals got caught smoking. These same officers know the prisoners who are bringing the smoke over here. All these individuals are working together with a handful of gang members and religious folks. The real revolutionary prisoners are basically stuck in the cell all day.

My question is when are we gonna connect with people who can do something about the situation. We write grievances and file complaints and we still can’t get anything done. I know for a fact we sent out every letter of 35 grievances. I pack my stuff up and went to the front desk and told them to move me back [because an L.O. runs this block that I have a documented conflict with] and they threatening me with physical harm and told me to go back to my pod.

The people in Israel are evil people who hide behind the Christian religion. They want the rest of the world to follow in the Christian faith but they can’t follow in their own faith. Israel needs to stop oppressing Palestinians especially the women and children. America is supposed to stand against that kind of crime. R.I.P to Marcellus Khalifa Williams. May the brother reach the heavens and dwell in the window of God. The injustice system can still kill innocent Black men in America no matter what the people do, no matter how hard the people fight. His death did not go without a learned message. Once I’m free I’mma keep in mind that that could be me.

MIM(Prisons) adds: Yes, people inside must connect with people on the outside to build a real movement to stop this oppression. We can look to the national liberation struggle in Palestine and the connection to the prison movement there as an example. We once had stronger movements here in occupied Turtle Island. And as we build them up again, we must build that crucial link between the inside and outside.

Welcome to the Revolution! This is Alien, back with Part II to my last article from ULK #86: Response to “Stop Snitching: Stop Collaborating”.

I disagree with this California prisoner’s definition of snitching in the 2nd paragraph of the “Stop Snitching on Pigs” article (also in ULK 86). Not all snitching is done to a “higher authority.” To snitch is to incriminate an ally, or should-be ally, through written/verbal statements made to anyone who could be a pig/rat/enemy, in general. If I take incriminating info/intel to a rat, or to somebody who views the pigs as “allies”, through gossip/rumors/incriminating raps (AKA rhyming witness statements), then this is snitching. It’s well-known that this type of gossip/rumors often finds its way to the higher authorities. The problem is that this form of snitching, via gossip/rumors/raps, happens so routinely that everybody is typically guilty of doing it, which means that nobody’s trying to enforce anti-gossip/anti-rumors/anti-incriminating rap. You never know you’re gossiping to a MFer on 60-days-in, or a fuckin’ pig dressed up/tatted up like a convict. I’ve seen many rats feed all kinds of gossip to the enemy. Convicts gossiping about other convicts is just as bad as convicts writing grievances on other convicts, snitch-wise, it’s just that grievances are documented on paper while gossip isn’t always documented. However, just because an incriminating statement isn’t documented on paper doesn’t mean it’s not what it is – snitching. Gossip, rumors, and incriminating raps aren’t silence, and thus, violate the code of silence.

Why would you gossip about somebody who you claim to be loyal to, when that “somebody” is somebody you claim you’d never snitch on? Some say “a man’s only as good as eir word,” but if you’re using your word behind somebody’s back, it means your words can’t be trusted. If your word can’t be trusted, it’s no good. How am I supposed to be loyal to people who I can’t trust? Besides, if you’re gossiping about everybody else, then why can’t they be gossiping about you? What they’ll do to you, they’ll do to me. An organization plagued by gossip is a ship that’ll sink at the words of loose lips. (Mao discussed this in part in eir essay Combat Liberalism). Plus infiltrators can weaponize gossip to keep everybody against each other. The revolution demands open confrontation. In a time of war (seeing as how prison is war, gossiping to any enemy about an ally is disloyalty/snitching. Don’t be scared to pull MFer’s up and encourage confrontation.

Gossip/rumors, as an aspect of communication, are a contradiction within the masses that stirs up all kinds of dramatic manipulation/schemes/disorganization/confusion/division/etc. If we’re to wage a campaign against gossip/rumors/incriminating rap. Criticism/self-criticism is not to be conducted behind comrade’s backs. We need our organizations gossip/rumor-free, if we’re to succeed in our number-one goal.

Time, for a Revolutionary, is more than just money; Time, for a Revolutionary, is waging Revolution – with emphasis placed on the word “wage”/“waging.” You wage Revolution against the enemy, not with the enemy. Don’t waste much time loosening one’s lips with the enemy, if it’s not words spoken in the name of the Revolution.

Seeing as how Communism is a society where no group has power over any other group, I’d like our next articles to discuss how we can change individuals, who collaborate with our powerful enemies and view them as allies, into viewing the powerless as allies, who aren’t to be collaborated against, or snitched on – a shift in loyalties, through dialectical materialism’s resolution of contradictions.

In y’all’s experience, what strategies/tactics have y’all applied behind bars, in order to internally change other prisoners’ loyalties, in favor of Revolution? What new strategies can we come up with? How do we get people to start caring about people who need help, instead of $, drugs, sex, and power?

Can a communist society exist with individuals abusing powerful words against each other, through snitching, gossiping, rumors, incriminating raps, etc., or with collaboration against one another? (I personally don’t see a communist society tolerating bullshit like that). What will communication, on/off the internet, look like in a communist society and how will it be organized? Remember, communication rules the nation(s), so it’s very important to address this in our campaigns, if we’re to succeed. The problem is that it’s hard enough for many of us to control our own mouths, let alone the mouths of an entire society. How do we organize our communications leading up to socialist Revolution?

It’s time to put the Revolution where your mouth is.

NOTE: This is why MIM said that, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, party members will be paid the rate of the lowest paid workers in society.

UPDATED MAY 2025

When state-level petitions fail, we now have this petition to appeal to the Department of Justice. This federal level appeal may help put pressure on the state corrections departments ignore our appeals

Mail the petition to your loved ones and comrades inside who are experiencing issues with the grievance procedure. Send them extra copies to share! For more info on this campaign, click here.

Prisoners should send a copy of the signed petition to each of the addresses below. Supporters should send letters on behalf of prisoners.

Section Chief – Special Litigation Section, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20530

ACLU National Prison Project, 915 15th St NW, 7th floor, Washington DC, 20005-2112 (for those ready to bring class action lawsuits)

Office of the U.S. Attorney General, 1425 New York Ave. NW, Washington DC 20530-0001

Director/Commissioner/Secretary of Corrections (for your state)

Agency or Facility Grievance System Director or Coordinator (for your state)

And send MIM(Prisons) copies of any responses you receive!

MIM(Prisons), USW
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

No average free citizen, nor incarcerated individual, has hardly ever heard of the term “light pollution” (otherwise known as “constant illumination”) which is very harmful to the lives of humans and animals.

Jailers across the country continually adopt the malevolent practice of installing fluorescent lighting within housing cells of jail and prison facilities alike. Officials usually have complete power to turn the light off at night, but choose not to do so. This scheme, to my knowledge, is a sure form of corporal punishment.

To make matters worse, sheriffs and prison guards threaten convicts and detainees with disciplinary infractions for covering the light up at nighttime. When officials usually have a standard-issue flashlight that can easily be used when conducting their security checks.

Scientific studies have rendered evidence, showing how light pollution is a contributing factor to the causation of triggering diseases. These diseases can range from hypertension, diabetes, cancer, and a slew of other health problems.

Light pollution initially affects our circadian rhythms, leading to the onslaught of ensuing problems that follow afterwards, which disrupt the systems of the body. Our circadian rhythm is the body’s internal sleep-wake-clock, which is governed by the way light enters into our bodies through the retinas of the eyes. Light itself, is usually measured in the fashionable method of lumens, luxes, and candle watts. Whenever our exposure to constant illumination is 24/7 for weeks, months, and years, could be why a bunch of us may be experiencing health problems, while being totally unaware that light pollution is the hidden catalyst behind our illnesses. Especially when there’s evidence of sleep deprivation being the main culprit.

Keenan vs. Hall, a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, is one of the leading cases amongst many others in the federal district courts, where decisions have been made on this matter that have set precedence. Despite this, jailers continue to practice this form of penology that brings about the needless cruel and unusual double-whammy punishments caused by light pollution. Over the past several decades across the country, animal facilities housing monkeys and other creatures were forced to shut down due to those particular animals’ exposure to the dangers of constant illumination, that was ultimately deemed to be animal cruelty.

The question to be answered here, should one might think to ask is this: shouldn’t the life of a human be just as much valued as a precious animal’s life, if not more, regardless of incarceration?

MIM(Prisons) responds:This is just one of many examples of the disregard for prisoners’ health under imperialism. The negative impacts on the health of oppressed peoples from U.$. prison conditions is just one contributor to a system of low-intensity genocide in this country.

We fight for a socialist world, where prisoners’ health is taken as seriously as that of lab animals or of any other humyn beings for that matter. The current system dehumynizes prisoners as part of a system of national oppression, and control of surplus populations. Through national liberation we will build a system of rehabilitation that recognizes the value of restoring people who have committed crimes against the people to citizens that contribute to society.

The Chican@ Movement continues to grow and evolve as it reacts and responds to the social reality that we encounter today. For this we need to put our goals in perspective so that we may build today and guide our future guerrer@s who will continue the struggle for liberation and self-determination for the nation. Today we delve into our predecessors’ actions and previous lessons and ideas that shaped our political line and which guide us into the future. For these reasons it’s crucial that we define what our true objectives are today in our movement that we hope outlines how our movement has evolved and continues to grow into the future.

In the 1960s many within the Chican@ movement of that period sought Chican@ power in the form of better schools, of an end to abuse or the murder of our people in the imperialist wars like in Vietnam. For many others Chican@ Power meant to have community control in some form, of having our own teachers and schools or even a parcel of land. Many Chican@ organizations did not study political theory, even today political education is not promoted in the nation on the level that it should at this stage in the decaying of capitalism.

A true classification today of Chican@ power should push the boundaries and transcend generations in ways that cut the path for our future cadre. For these reasons Chican@ Power today can only be seen as based in a socialist revolution and a communist future less it be reduced to simply a defective label. Seeking more jobs or “funding” for our community which is ultimately strangled out of the Third World by imperialism no longer quenches the thirst we have for justice and liberation.

The pairing of Chican@ power with revolution is the natural cause of development if we are to take a materialist approach. We know that the capitalist State will not hand over power, it will not unseat itself, on the contrary the natural cycle of imperialism demands that it “eats more”, it must in order to continue to exist. In the initial stages of revolution a joint dictatorship of the oppressed nations will ensure the U.$. capitalist state and all of its imperialist lechers are thoroughly stomped out for good, thereby cutting a path for Aztlán and other oppressed nations to finally exercise people’s power in their liberated nations where socialism can blossom.

Today’s Chican@ movement is in agreement for the most part that we the Chican@ Nation are a people who should be free from oppression and who deserve to be free to organize in our own fashion and even our own government. Where the road becomes blurry for some is what Chican@ power should look like as the term Chican@ power can fill many different buckets.

One challenge we have today, to be quite honest, is the rise of the petty bourgeoisie within Aztlán, and as a result, the dominance of bourgeois ideology is taken for granted. Taking a Materialist approach was rarely done in the past where our concrete reality and the ever changing conditions, very material conditions in which we exist as an oppressed nation highlight the terrain in which we are up against. Another challenge is the strong pull towards integration with the oppressor nation and what these two challenges mean or how they affect the activity of the Chican@ nation and its vision for power or what power even looks like to Aztlán especially for those under the influence of Amerikkka or capitalism more broadly. As communists we know that humyn activity and how they move through life affects their production and one’s mode of production. How and what we as Chican@s produce defines how we are developing as people and as a nation. Production is key to assess a people or productive forces but here in the U.S. the “productive forces” are for the most part bourgeoisified.

For Aztlán the most revolutionary elements that push for power would be the lumpen and migrants. The Chican@ lumpen exist in a tribal type of structure within these false U.S. borders with a definite class formation and antagonism between lumpen and the capitalist state. At the same time some of the petty bourgeoisie will ride with the revolution and we should understand these social forces collectively and build with this in mind. All socialist revolutions proved this to be true, including Mao’s Chinese revolution.

Chican@ Power at this stage will not come from a gun. We have much work ahead, mental work, theoretical production to get our gente where they need to be theoretically or ideologically. But consciousness raising cannot elevate a nation if this effort is devoid of practice, and correct practice does not arrive without error in which to learn from. So practice is necessary for us to propel Aztlán onto the stage where Chican@ power is finally realized as without practice we are left with what Marx called “dead facts”. Within U.S. prisons I read of a lot of resistance and theory including new Chican@ revolutionaries and others. Some of this writing is very good but without practice and putting some of these ideas into reality the U.S. prisons can degenerate into warehouses of dead facts. Likewise the semi-colonies can end up as prison houses of dead facts.

Our hystorical conditions as a semi-colony will compel us to obtain national liberation. Our ideology will streamline this process. Our colonizers today control the dominant ideology taken up by the majority of the masses here in the occupied territories, even among the most oppressed we can see and hear them parroting ruling class propaganda. The capitalist state spends a lot of money and time from its many agencies in order to spread its brainwashing on a mass scale. It’s our job to counter this as best we can. Chican@ power relies on how effective we are at this.

We should know and understand that Chican@ Power will be realized in a world lead by the Third World. What’s more is the Chican@ Movement is also part of the International Communist Movement (ICM) and millions of people around the world who are a part of the ICM are also currently fighting for national liberation just like us. They fight against class and gender oppression just like us. We are not alone, on the contrary we are with the majority of the world’s people in our fight for justice.

Today Chican@ organizations should be building Barrio Committees in a hood near you. The Barrios Committee will be the cultural center and political laboratory for Aztlán at a regional level. The Barrio Committee is but the seed for the Chican@ Communes. These are the steps towards dual power and community control. This is the path towards Chican@ Power that needs to be utilized in order to guide the nation towards a society that is free from oppression.

In the last issue, we mentioned the removal of Spanish-language content from federal websites. Since then, we’ve seen the Pentagon removing information about Navajo code-talkers, Jackie Robinson, Tuskegee Airmen and Japanese who fought for the U.$. in World War II from their websites.

The U.$. military helps to impose fascism on the oppressed people of the Third World when they get out of line. But now that fascism is coming home, the oppressed nations here are the first to feel the brunt.

There’s a long history of the U.$. military using benefits and even citizenship to bribe people to fight for them. There’s also a long history of the United $tates not always coming through with their promises. This erasure of oppressed people from their history is just one more slap in the face of those who thought they’d get in with the Amerikans by fighting in their wars. And we see it as a petty sign of how Amerika is taking a different approach to oppressed people in this country.

The Regime

While Trump wasn’t so different as a U.$. president first time around, we can look to his current cabinet to confirm the consolidation of fascists for this second term.

Does anyone think a Euro-immigrant from apartheid South Africa who throws Nazi salutes, and is the richest persyn in the world, is a friend of oppressed nations? How about Pete Hegseth, the guy with the Christian nationalist tattoos now in charge of the military that already had a white nationalist militia problem? Who ironically closed his self-leaked plans to bomb Yemen with:

“We are currently clean on OPSEC. Godspeed to our Warriors.”

President Trump recently told Salvadorian President Bukele to “build five more places” to hold “homegrown” criminals from the United $tates, referring to the giant Salvadorian “terrorist” concentration camp Trump has begun sending people to. Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser to Trump, when asked if Mahmoud Khalil will be deported, replied:

“Yes he will, as will anyone who preaches hate for America.”

Vice President J.D. Vance is a benefactor of another of the richest people in the world, Peter Thiel, who also funds Curtis Yarvin, who Vance says he takes much influence from. Yarvin believes New Afrikans have lower IQs and that their enslavement was thus justified because they were destined to be slaves. Yarvin is paraphrased as writing:

“He then concluded that the “best humane alternative to genocide” is to “virtualize” these people: Imprison them in “permanent solitary confinement” where, to avoid making them insane, they would be connected to an “immersive virtual-reality interface” so they could “experience a rich, fulfilling life in a completely imaginary world.”“(1)

This will sound very familiar to regular readers of ULK. This is the future of prison tablets. A slow genocide that avoids the current messiness of videos of dead babies inspiring young anti-imperialists to destroy weapons manufacturing plants of companies like Elbit Systems.

These are just some highlights of the current regime that have been exposed in much more depth by others over the past year. These people do not want us and they’re serious about it.

Peak Integration?

By the 1960s, the injustices of Jim Crow had garnered sympathy and support from many sectors for the self-determination of the internal semi-colonies (in particular the Black/New Afrikan nation). Since the victory of the Civil Rights Act, that support has declined, replaced with an imperialist project of assimilation. At this point, most of us have only lived in an integrated United $tates, which has greatly reduced the interest in national liberation on occupied Turtle Island. Of course the disproportionate poverty, homelessness, murder and torture of oppressed nations continues, but many in the internal semi-colonies joined the Amerikan consumer class post-integration as well. As a result, we have more Uncle Toms and Tio Tomas than ever before (especially the Tios and Tias who continue to join the U.$. military at increasing rates).

Black Lives Matter (peaking in 2020) and the al-Aqsa Flood in 2023 brought an uptick in support for national liberation. With the resumption of the U.$.-i$rael war on Palestine and Lebanon, breaking peace deals in both cases, opposition to what the imperialists are doing in the Middle East continues to rise within the United $tates. We also think the internal actions of the current Trump regime are already beginning to heighten contradictions and broaden the base for possible alliances as the fascist enemy consolidates its forces against us.

Deportations have targeted those from Latin America and the Muslim world so far. As the prospect of war with China advances we will also see the rise of racism against Chinese people (or those perceived to be Chinese) in this country, as we have seen in the past, as recently as the COVID-19 pandemic.

You Can’t Think Racism Away

While liberals think we can (and have) made progress against national oppression by fighting “wrong ideas” in peoples’ heads, racism is in reality a product of national oppression. It cannot be ended without the national liberation of the oppressed.

The reason people believe in integration is that they believe that the wealth and prosperity of the United $tates can exist without oppressing and exploiting other nations. It cannot. And the Trump regime has a more realistic understanding of this than most Amerikans.

As support for national liberation and alternatives to the current system grow, we must make this point very clear. We must draw a clear line between the proletarian line and the social fascist and crypto-Trotskyist lines that have historically linked the struggle against oppression with the struggle for more wealth for Amerikans. The struggle for more wealth always wins out. This is why the labor aristocracy is the main force for fascism, even if the imperialists are doing most of the work so far.

<sup>Notes:
1. Gil Duran, 22 July 2024, Where J.D. Vance Gets His Weird, Terrifying Techno-Authoritarian Ideas, The New Republic.
2. MIM 2005 Congress, The labor aristocracy is the main force for fascism.</sup>

Tabletas en Florida DOC

Cuando las tabletas primero salieron en 2017, las primeras tabletas los vendieron a los presos, yo fui uno de ellos a los cuales sus seres queridos le compraron una. Luego FDOC decidió cambiar el correo postal a correo digital, so la seguridad de FDOC recogió todas las tabletas (incluyendo esos que los presos pagaron). Después regresaron y le dieron una tableta gratis a todos los presos. Desde ese tiempo hasta ahora las tabletas han sido actualizados no menos de tres veces.

Este camarada recientemente salio de Close Management (CM) y fue transferido a Hamilton C.I. Desde que llegue a esta prisión, he encontrado que durante el ultimo año el Sargento encargado de Propriedad ha estado confiscando tabletas, dando reclusos reportes disciplinarios por “manipulación de las tabletas” en la mayorídad de la veces – los presos se encuentran culpable en 99% de los casos. Son puesto en suspensión indefinida por poseer otra tableta y imponen un préstamo de $130 por reconstitución que tienen que pagar. Por un tiempo, FDOC nos dieron un poco, pero después regresaron ha quitarnos todo. FDOC nos regalaron las tabletas, pero porque son propiedad del estado, tienen un a excusa para llevárselas.

La Población Prisionero

Yo llevo 28 años internado en las prisiones y todo ha cambiado. Esto ya no es una prisión, se ha convertido a un centro de guardería infantil donde los tontos pueden pasar el tiempo. Todos quieren ser parte de una pandilla, pero antes que tomas ese juramento, dejame recordarte que es necesario entender porque esa nación, grupo, o pandilla fue nacido. Nació por parte de los oprimidos para pelear en unidad (como colectivo) contra la opresión. Y quien son los opresores? Los puercos que trabajan aquí, la administración, la sistema, el estado, y el gobierno. Yo conozco mi historia, sabes la tuya?

FDOC tiene un total de no mas de 30 guardias trabajando por turno (1/4 de ellos trabajan horas extra) y eso es contando el personal que trabaja en los controles del área en frente del prisión. Es una vergüenza que un grupo tan pequeño de puercos puedan controlar, oprimir y abusa a un grupo de 1250 a 1500 presos, matones, gánsteres, criminales y pandilleros. Los presos de FDOC no tienen unidad y menos tienen respeto a ellos mismo. Digo que no tienen respeto a ellos mismo porque puede ser que yo tengo un deuda de una sopa de 78 centavos y ya están listo para matarme, pero los puercos te pueden llamar un “montón de perras” ha ti y tu dormitorio entera y no hacen nada pero seguir con su cabeza abajo.

En el FDOC, la mayoría de los pandilleros prefieren tener un puerco como amigo en vez de otro preso que tiene el mismo colores de uniforme. Respetan mas a los puercos que a sus compañeros presos. Ali-al Haf de Georgia, leí tu articulo en ULK Winter 2025 – no estas solo! Yo también creo que esto es un virus contagioso. Ahora los presos están haciendo el trabajo de los puercos. Revisan y chequean que las puertas de tu celdas están asegurados, pasan correo, y ellos se aseguran que no comes dos veces en la cafetería, hasta los puedes ven parados al lado de un puerco como guardaespaldas. Pasan besando el culo pero al fin del día están igual como yo; encerrado en una celda. No importa como positiva sea tu opinión sobre los puercos, porque al fin del día ellos no van as arriesgar sus cheques de pago para ti. Coño Preso – no seas ciego y mira el color de tu uniforme! No te das cuenta que es un diferente color?

Aprendan la diferencia entre un derecho y un privilegio. Aprendan y usen la sistema de quejas institucional (Grievances). Necesitas dejar un historial pasado escrito en caso si la situación necesitar ir a otro nivel. Un historial pasado escrito enseña prueba que trataron una ruta de paz antes de elevar la forma de lucha.

Todos esos camaradas del pasado que sacrificaron sus sentencias, fechas de salidos, salud, familia, libertad, y otros que hasta fueron mártires que sacrificando sus vidas solamente para que esta generación se tiren sus manos arriba y rendirse? De verdad? Esto es como estamos sirviendo nuestro tiempo en 2025? Donde están tus cojones??

Unámonos todos bajo una misma linea de pensamiento. Antes de que te quejas por no tener una tableta o por no poder ver el partido en el tele, necesitamos a pensar sobre los precios de las cantinas, de como ganar mas “gain-time”, como traer libertad provisional ha los presos de vida como yo, y como mejorar la comida. Disculpame pero la prisión no es un lugar donde vienes para pasar el tiempo con tus amigos y donde se pasa un bien tiempo. Esto es el cementerio de los muertos con vida, donde tu futuro se puede cambian completamente en menos de 15 segundos. No te olvides de quien eres, de tu cultura, y de donde vienes. No te sometes al trabajo del puerco. No me sorprendo si en algunos años solamente ofrecen nuestra visitas por video y paran todo contacto físico. Si no nos unimos y no nos levantemos como un pueblo, como una familia, vamos a seguir de perder. Recuérdate que antes de que fuiste un pandillero, fuiste un hombre, un ser humano – no un animal. Niego que me tratan y que me tienen cautivo como uno. No quiero abrazos con la vida hasta que mi pueblo sea libre.