Under Lock & Key

On 17 March 2025, one of the U.$. propaganda arms of Imperialism “Voice of America” was shut down. This came after major cuts to USAID, which serves U.$. interests through aid to people in crisis situations in other countries. Of course any time any of the capitalist institutions is shut down it’s a good thing. But these institutions of “soft power” influence are being replaced with trade war in the form of massive tariffs, and possibly hot war with ramped up military spending.

Voice of America? Voice of Imperialism.

It was World War II which compelled the United $tates to create the “Voice of America” (VOA) after taking a page out of Nazi Germany’s radio propaganda outlets. The VOA was used to play propaganda radio programs to countries opposed to U.$. imperialism. Over the years VOA has funded and created various propaganda broadcasts such as Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and Radio Marti aimed at Cuba. VOA would essentially transmit U.$. propaganda at the targets with a goal to foment unrest, rebellions and to destabilize the targets. USAID, established in 1961, provides actual resources to influence conditions on the ground. Amerikans should keep this in mind when they get upset about Russian propaganda on the internet.

VOA often was used to promote and support opposition forces within a country that was targeted while spreading lies, disinformation and smear campaigns against those in power. No doubt countless lives were negatively affected if not lost to those who took directives or followed the advice from VOA in the decades it was in service. Perhaps we may never know the totality of damage that VOA is responsible for in its reign of terror. The Trump Administration has shut down the VOA, citing it as having become “radical” and pushing liberal views. We believe there is more to it and it’s important that the Chican@ Nation understands what this shut down means.

On the one hand, we welcome the death of VOA; however, to be honest, the VOA was no longer as vital to imperialism today as it was 80 years ago at the height of radio around the world. Today, many of the targets that the United $tates is focused on have blocked access to VOA via internet or radio waves. It was no longer as accessible as it once was. Furthermore, the occupiers seek to harness resources for harsher forms of oppression. The radio waves today are also packed with white nationalist broadcasts, on radio and internet podcasts and other media in multitudes that the days of WWII never dreamed of. Indeed, Goebbels would have soiled his pants in glee over the flood of white power media spewed out to the world from these false U.$. leaders. So, in that sense eliminating the VOA was simply trimming the fat for the oppressor nation. The state has developed the white nationalists to an extent where they can now supplement the capitalist state allowing Amerikkka to reroute its resources. As revolutionaries, we should glean the lesson in this and work harder to develop our independent institutions among the Chican@ masses while adjusting our resources to other much needed areas in our work.

Is the U.S. Tariff War Class Warfare?

Recently a bourgeois “journalist” asked a Trump official about the tariffs and how it’s “hurting” the economy. The capitalist politician said the tariffs were “class warfare” and that this warfare was being waged by the current administration on behalf of the working class. This of course is a gross distortion of the reality of what is taking place. What we are seeing is not class warfare. It is inter-imperialist rivalry where imperialists are fighting over resources, rare minerals and clout in the world. “Class War” is the furthest from the reality, if anything it’s the imperialist class fighting for who is going to exploit the proletariat of the world the most.

Political democracy in the United $tates is bourgeois in nature and one way that it survives another day is in fooling the masses into believing that it operates in their interests. It promotes the false narrative that it is fighting for equality for the people but true “equality” can only come when classes don’t exist, when capitalism – the very system which keeps the U.$. on life support– no longer exists. This is how ridiculous the U.$. bourgeois democracy is. But this is nothing new. Lenin spoke of the capitalists selling snake oil in the guise of democracy. This is because it lulls the masses into believing that the capitalist state is truly working in the people’s interests. Listening to the capitalist press (U.$. Corporate News Media) the masses believe in the propaganda that they do not need to engage in national liberation struggles because the colonizers are engaging in “Class War” and working towards equality. Aztlán will only be free as a class when we are free as a nation. Shutting down a propaganda arm or charging tariffs do not bring us one iota closer to national liberation. We don’t want money or lies, we want to be free!

MIM(Prisons) update: As we go to press Trump had put significant tariffs on goods coming into the United $tates from almost every other country, then quickly repealed them after bond markets became unstable (because other countries began to question the reliability of U.$. debt pay offs). The only new tariff increase the U.$. has maintained as we write this is on Chinese goods, which has triggered a tariff war between the United $tates and China. This is a war that Trump will not want to back down from, but China has less reason to back down since they are actually a self-sufficient economy.

Since the overthrow of socialism in China in 1976, the Chinese proletariat have been brought into the world capitalist system, becoming the source of much of the cheap goods (and surplus value) in the United $tates. As these economies became tightly intertwined over the last 50 years, the large proletariat in China has supported the smaller, but still significant, labor aristocracy consumer class in this country. The United $tates no longer produces enough to support its own people, even if we cut our consumption to more modest means. We have become a mall economy, where we buy and sell to each other the things that other countries make. While this system has been booming for decades, Trump is correct that this is not sustainable. The trade imbalances the Trump regime used to calculate the new tariffs notably excluded services, only accounting for trade deficits in goods. This is because Trump has been touting a plan to bring goods manufacturing back to the United $tates by forcing other countries to invest here.

It’s interesting to watch Amerikan social fascists, who for decades have lamented the loss of “good manufacturing jobs” to China suddenly be worried about becoming slaves in computer chip factories. They seem to now admit the truth that to destroy the relationship with China will lead to a significant reduction in capitalist trade and profits globally in the short term, as well as the ability of Amerikans to enjoy the consumption levels that we have enjoyed since WWII.

The United $tates has been preparing for war with China for years as this economic relationship has supported their continued rise to a technologically advanced super power. You cannot have imperialism without the contradictions between nations. And that includes the contradiction between the exploiter and exploited nations as well as between the imperialist nations themselves (such as the U.$. and China). Since there are no more non-capitalist countries to pull into this exploitative system, the expansion of finance capital is reaching its limits. Trump’s pulling back from tariffs on most countries indicates a disagreement among the imperialists on how to proceed. But at this point the only way for the imperialists to create the opportunity for expansion that the collapse of Chinese socialism offered is the destruction of capital via massive war. A war that the U.$. military and other imperialist militaries are ramping up for. Such a war poses a great threat to all people of the world, but especially those in the imperialist core who have been insulated from war for many decades. The only wars we support and will serve in is the wars for national liberation and for socialism of those under the boot of imperialism.

28 September 2024 – Protestors gathered across the world to mourn the killing of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, a founding member and leader for 32 years of Hezbollah (the Party of God) in Lebanon.(1) We know some readers in U.$. prisons will be mourning as well. Nasrallah was the strongest anti-imperialist voice among world leaders for a generation. And the recent killings of Lebanese and Palestinian political leaders have been significant victories for I$rael, at least in the short-term.

Over 1,000 people have been killed, including Hezbollah’s top leaders, and 6,000 injured by a series of attacks by I$rael on Lebanon in the last couple weeks. These included exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, as well as massive bombing strikes. Amidst these attacks, the Communist Party of Lebanon has called for national unity to focus on fighting I$rael, at a time when Lebanon faces its own crisis in government. They pledged to not let I$rael (and the United $tates, we’d add) separate the struggle of Lebanon in support of the Palestinian struggle.(2)

Hezbollah, however, has been the lead party defending Lebanon and Palestinians from I$rael for decades. They have proven there is still a progressive role for bourgeois forces to play today, even in our highly-developed imperialist world.

Nasrallah had a clear analysis of U.$. imperialism:

“America itself is the decision maker. In America, you have the major corporations; you have a trinity of the oil corporations, the weapons manufacturers and the so-called ‘Christian Zionism.’ The decision making is in the hands of this alliance. ‘Israel’ used to be a tool in the hands of the British, and now it is a tool in the hands of America.”

The Samidoun Palestinian prisoner solidarity network commented on Hezbollah’s role in the liberation of political prisoners of I$rael:

“Sayyed Nasrallah’s leadership and struggle was also directly connected to the prisoners’ movement and the liberation of the prisoners of the Zionist regime. From the liberation of Khiam prison by the victorious Lebanese resistance in 2000, liberating the torture dens of the occupiers and their collaborators and turning it into a museum of honour for those who struggled and sacrificed there, to the repeated prisoner exchanges achieved by Hezbollah, the Lebanese Resistance, including the 2004 prisoner exchange, which liberated 400 Palestinian prisoners as well as 23 Lebanese, five Syrians, three Moroccans, three Sudanese, one Libyan and one German-British prisoner jailed by the Zionist regime. These exchanges, in which Sayyed Nasrallah himself played a major role, illustrated once again that the only viable mechanism available to liberate the prisoners in occupation jails is to liberate the land and to achieve an exchange.”(3)

Hezbollah arose from the 1982 I$raeli occupation of Beirut. MIM founders organized to oppose that 1982 occupation at a time when MIM was just emerging.(4) The war in 1982 also forged the Joint Leadership, in which the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine joined forces and attempted to further unite the Palestinian liberation movement away from conciliation.(5) During the 2006 war between Lebanon and I$rael, MIM condemned RCP=U$A, various alt media, and the U.$. state department for attacking Iran and Hezbollah using gender.(6) In 2024, the imperialists are circulating clips of Nasrallah making comments calling for punishment for adultery and homosexuality. We salute the “Queers for Palestine” in the United $tates who recognize the children being bombed in Gaza and now Lebanon are a lot more gender oppressed than any of us are here in the belly of the beast.

The history of the anti-imperialist united front in the region is beyond the scope of this article. But the region has certainly demonstrated the expediency of uniting classes on the basis of national liberation to fight imperialist occupiers. Hezbollah has remarked in the past that their alliances are closer to some Marxist groups than certain Islamist groups. This shows the emptiness of those in the imperialist countries who want to pit Marxism against Islam on principle. Nasrallah also wrote that Muslims have the duty to provide charity support to any Palestinian taking up armed struggle – Marxist, nationalist or any other shade.(7)

A Hamas spokespersyn responded to the death of Nasrallah saying that it will not make I$rael any safer:

“Is Israel’s problem with armed groups with limited agendas that can be eliminated by killing their leaders, or with peoples who have rights that they have been striving to achieve for decades and have not stopped or surrendered despite the killing of many leaders? Has any resistance group disappeared after the assassination of the leaders?”(8)

Despite these recent losses by the oppressed nations in the Middle East, Hezbollah won the war with I$rael in 2006, killing as many soldiers as I$rael did without all the civilian deaths caused by I$rael in Lebanon. Just as the war on Gaza, one year out, has not been an easy victory for I$rael, further escalations into Lebanon will certainly not be either. Hezbollah and Ansar Allah (Supporters of God) in Yemen continue to be the front line of the struggle against genocide in Palestine and against U.$. imperialism in general.

You can kill a revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution!

<sup>Notes:
1. The New York Times, 28 September 2024, Protestors Mourn Nasrallah’s Death Around the World.
2. Omar Deeb, 25 September 2024, Transcript of interview on SSawt al-Shaab Radio.
3. Samidoun, 28 September 2024, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah: The martyrdom of a great international revolutionary leader of our era.
4. MIM, 2007, Substantial Hezbollah book appears finally.
5. Interview of Habash and Hawatmeh on the Joint Leadership and PLO (Draft Translation)
6. MIM, 2006, Six percent of Amerikans support Hezbollah’s side in Lebanon
7. Nicholas Noe ed., 2007, Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, London: Verso, p. 269
8. Tom O’Connor, 27 September 2024, Hamas Warns Killing Hezbollah’s Nasrallah Will Not Make Israel Safer, Newsweek.</sup>

As we approach the end of Prison Banned Book Week we are pausing our campaign, which has been going on over the last couple months, to support prisoners in Pendleton Correctional Facility, Indiana. Supporters should stop gathering signatures and mail out any remaining postcards soon.

It was reported to MIM(Prisons) that 6 prisoners were threatened with drug charges, and torture in long-term isolation, for mail received from MIM Distributors. The mailroom claimed smudges of ink (that were obviously from the printer) were indications that the mail was laced with drugs. Of course, subsequent testing of the mail proved there were no drugs on them. This type of treatment has earned Indiana state a grade of D for their mail censorship, not an F because most letters do get through as does some literature.

In response to these threats, comrades in Anti-Imperialist Prisoner Support (AIPS) and other supporters hit the streets with a postcard campaign. We told people about what was going on, and asked them to sign a postcard and mail it to the administration. The postcards called out the political repression and demanded that it be stopped. Dozens of postcards were mailed to the Pendleton Administration, from near and far away, over the last couple months.

In the midst of the postcard campaign we received news that the threats had seemingly been dropped. But censorship has continued and a lawsuit is still being pursued. One of the comrades targeted at Pendleton says:

“I have not received Under Lock & Key 86 mailed out [1 month ago]. I’ve written the mailroom 2 times now and as of today have not received it.”

Ey did receive our article on the postcard campaign, which has been copied and distributed around the prison. Ey says:

“Thank you all for bringing this injustice to light!”

Thanks to the comrades on the outside who supported this campaign. We are declaring this phase over, but will continue to report on the happenings in Indiana prisons.

Outreach Report

In one locale, over 35 petitions were collected alongside distributing ULK 86 directly to passerbys. There was substantial immediate enthusiasm for discovering a publication written by prisoners, especially regarding solidarity with Palestine. Each persyn AIPS met was interested both in receiving a newsletter as well as signing a petition to mail.

AIPS also maintained a presence at Socialism Conference 2024 which took place in Chicago during the end of August. Here, over 100 copies of ULK were handed out and dozens of postcard petitions were signed by those interested in the struggle of prisoners. It was also encouraging to see those on the outside were interested in learning about the abuses and injustices prisoners face, either through attending panels hosted at the conference or by talking directly with passer-bys.

While there was no negative reception, no recipients in either location were familiar with ULK or MIM(Prisons). Only very few recognized the MIM name from prior exposure. It is indicative of a low tide in the movement here that most are completely unfamiliar with anti-imperialist prisoners. This represents an opportunity and responsibility to publicize our work and recruit more volunteers.

Among this small sample of the public, found tabling in busy urban areas, at local leftist events, or at the aforementioned conference, there were multiple people who were very enthusiastic about the newspaper and our work in spite of lacking all prior familiarity. This welcome enthusiasm also resulted in some “pig questions”: those which, if AIPS answered publicly, would inevitably feed valuable information to the pigs (in other words, agents of the state). The size of a political group, their location, and their leadership structure are examples of questions unnecessary to answer in order to work with others. That information only helps enemies who wish to study, surveil or even infiltrate anti-imperialist organizations. And we don’t say this to pretend that we are a big organization but rather to encourage people to do the work that they see as the most correct.

AIPS comrades encountered some popular confusion about MIM(Prisons)’s line on (non)exploitation of prisoners. Some people thought MIM(Prisons) was fighting against the for-profit prison system. Most prisons are not private. And even companies like JPay, Securus, and GTL that are profiteering off prisoners are making very small amounts of money compared to the cost of running the criminal injustice system, which the Prison Policy Institute put at about $182 billion. MIM(Prisons)’s actual line is that prisons are an immense cost to Amerika: a cost sustained for the purpose of social control, especially for the national oppression of First Nation, New Afrikan and Chican@ liberation movements. In the end, this cost is worthwhile if Amerika is able to prevent the masses of oppressed nations from fighting for autonomy in land and resources. But still, the benefits yielded are not profits in terms of capital but the containment and suppression of the internal semi-colonies within the United $tates. Imprisonment is a form of absolute immiseration that we think of in the realm of genocide rather than exploitation. The suppression of rebellious groups helps the settler Amerikan nation maintain its position on top. AIPS incorporates this understanding in our prisoner correspondence and campaign work.

Months after rebellions began in Kanaky (aka New Caledonia), fighting continues against the French militias and colonial forces. In New Caledonia, voting is restricted to families who have been living there since 1998.(1) This is in order to establish the dominance of the natives over the settlers in the voting system. On 2 April 2024, the French Senate voted for an amendment to the rule which would allow voting for anyone who has lived in New Caledonia for a continuous ten years, on a rolling basis.(2) This triggered the resistance of the people, as one Kanaky source recently reported:

“The toll of the riots since May 13 is very heavy: Nine people were killed and hundreds of others injured, 200 houses burned or looted and nearly 900 businesses closed. A first estimation raises the “damage” to 1.5 billion euros. More than 3,000 soldiers, gendarmes and police were deployed there by the colonial State. Great victory for the Kanak people: hundreds of French families made the decision to pack their bags and leave the colony for good.”(3)

However, the struggle over voting rights itself has cooled as parliamentary crisis struck France, and French President Macron announced on 12 June 2024 the suspension of the proposed changes in voting rights in New Caledonia. France is now focused on an emergency election at home to try to prevent a sharp rightward turn in the parliament and presidency.

[UPDATE: 7 July 2024 - Voters succeeded in preventing a victory of the anti-immigrant Le Pen, but results leave uncertainty in France as there was no clear majority.]

Background on Kanaky

For our readers to understand New Caledonia (home of the Kanak), we might use a shortcut of thinking about Puerto Rico (home of the Boricua). New Caledonia is an island near Australia and Aotearoa (aka New Zealand) claimed by France with a history of brutal colonization and imperialist domination. Europeans arrived in Kanaky in the late 18th century, beginning the colonial period in which the natives (Kanak people) were enslaved, sold, exposed to European disease, displaced from their land and placed on reservations. After France gained control of the area, nickel was discovered in the territory and the French government began sending prisoners to extract the resource and settle on the land. Ever since that time settlement has continued, though the Kanak people remain the largest group.(4) The Kanak people have been struggling for independence and liberation for generations, with recent events reflecting the latest upsurge of resistance. In recent years, the liberation movement has engaged in violent resistance to the sale of their nickel mines.

As mentioned above, New Caledonia hit news headlines after France proposed allowing all immigrants, including newer settlers, to vote in elections on the island. On 15 April, tens of thousands protested the bill, and on that same day the French National Assembly voted in favor of it, moving it one step further towards being passed. In May, violent protests of Kanak people were responded to with the arrest of hundreds and the French deploying their armed forces to suppress the movement. This deployment of forces starkly reveals the absurdity of a “free choice” to be independent. As MIM said about Puerto Rico in 1998:

“The Puerto Ricans have tried for decades”to persuade” the United States to leave, but only dictatorship (organized force) will settle the question. Without the freedom to keep the Yankees out, the elections only show what the Puerto Rican people will say with their arms twisted behind their backs.”(5)

One of the major arenas of struggle has been the independence referendum. There have been three of these in the past 4 years; in the first two the option to remain a territory of France narrowly won (56.6% and 53.2%), and nationality played a major role in the decision. Kanaks generally voted for independence while the other minorities generally voted for dependence. In the third, the independence movement boycotted the referendum, resulting in a 97% victory for dependence, but the turnout was only 43.9%, throwing its validity into question.(6) The protests and riots in May led to the declaration of a state of emergency (lifted after May 31) and the deployment of reinforcements from France. Barricades were set up by independence protesters and, in earlier reports, the clashes led to the death of two French Armed Forces personnel and injury of over 54 police officers.(7)

The struggle for an independent New Caledonia is a revolutionary struggle against imperialism. New Caledonians fight France, Palestinians fight I$rael, and the oppressed here in Occupied Turtle Island fight the United $tates, all in a united struggle against a common enemy. The struggle in Puerto Rico against the corrupt government of Ricardo Rosselló is no different. Puerto Rico was acquired by the United $tates in the bloody wars of its ascendancy into an imperialist power.

Imperialism is the number one enemy of the self-determination of nations, reaching its hands across the globe to squeeze every last drop of profit it can find. The struggle of the oppressed nations, wherever they are, is the number one weapon against this imperialist system, and that weapon is ever more powerful the more the oppressed nations ally with each other and fight imperialism as one. Puerto Rico has a history of independence movements being co-opted by leaders trying to get a slice of the imperialist pie. The movement for statehood represents this tendency, while the independence movement is the movement for national self-determination against imperialism. In both New Caledonia and Puerto Rico, the referendums have shown the majority of the population voting to remain a part of their imperialist occupiers in order to access certain benefits, whereas the independence movement represents the revolutionary opposition to national oppression and the upholding of self-determination.

Kanaky Will Be Free! Palestine Will Be Free! Puerto Rico Will Be Free!

<sup>Notes:
1. Giorgio Leali, 16 May 2024, Nickle, guns and foreign powers: How France’s New Caledonia reached the bring of ‘civil war’, Politico.
2. Explainer: What sparked New Caledonia’s Deadly civil unrest?, RNZ.
3. F.W. 20 June 2024, France: Kanaky (New Caledonia): The flame of revolt is not extinguished, CAuse du Peuple - tranlation by redherald.org
4. CIA World Fact Book, 2024
5. MC5, 22 March 1998, Puerto Rico’s relationship to U.$. imperialism and Puerto Rico’s class struggle, MIM Theory 14: United Front, 2001, Page 49.
6. AP, 13 December 2021, New Caledonia votes to stay with France, but it’s a hollow victory that will only ratchet up tensions, The Conversation.
7. AP, 14 May 2024, France imposes curfew in New Caledonia to quell independence-driven unrest.</sup>

The recent Zionist attacks on Rafah signaled to the world that the imperialists are in lock step as they cut a hideous path of genocide through Palestine. U.$. imperialism has given the nod and wink to forge ahead as we all watch, as we all mourn.

The imperialists have circled the wagons despite the world responding in disgust. The people should also come together, all sectors here in the internal semi-colonies also known as the United Snakes.

Of special interest is two sectors who defy the pull of capitalist bribes. This defiance arrives from different paths and yet our party feels they are both anti-imperialist in nature. These sectors in the United $tates are the prison movement – made up of prisoners, former prisoners and outside supporters, and the other sector being the student movement – being the students on school campuses across the country.

These two sectors have the least to lose and the most to win when it comes to revolution. Both bring that passion and fire needed to ignite the flame of real resistance and thus should find ways to resist in tandem.

A free Palestine, like a free Aztlán, will only happen when anti-imperialism is exercised in a united front between all oppressed and allies. The world sees that Palestine is deserving of peace, for it is life while Israel signifies death!

In the past, the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM), and its mass org at the time, the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League, campaigned to get the University of California to Divest from I$rael.(1) This was a correct strategy, because U.$. imperialism is the number one backer of the I$raeli war machine. Behind the flag of I$rael is the stars and stripes.

More recently, United Struggle from Within (USW) carried out a petition campaign, which read in part:

“Therefore with this declaration we angrily express our indignation with the state of Israel for committing genocide, and for the Israeli people for allowing it to happen in the 21st century after vowing”never again.”

The petition recognized that Palestinian political prisoners had supported the California hunger strikes in recent years and it was time to return solidarity. By 2016, comrades in 16 prisons had gathered 189 signatures. Recognizing the limitations of conditions, the petition also read:

“Within these walls we are as yet powerless to tap into the potential of the imprisoned lumpen; the oppressed internal nation lumpen in particular as agents of social change, but we are not yet powerless to sign a piece of paper to denounce the state of Israel and their support in the U.$.”

Still today, comrades are asking what can we do to support Palestine?

Settlers Supporting Settlers

The war against Palestine is what Amerika has always done from its very founding – land grab, occupation, genocide. Therefore, there is much support in the United $tates for I$rael’s current bombing campaign and invasion of Gaza. And the tactics being used against Palestine could easily be tried against indigenous people here on Turtle Island next.

MIM and others have documented the history of Amerikan labor union support for I$rael.(2) Yet, in recent months not only has the U.$. seen millions demonstrate to oppose U.$. militarism in Palestine, but labor unions representing millions of Amerikan so-called workers have signed a call for a cease fire.(3) While Amerikans have always been settlers, the United $tates is more and more a population of people who do not come from settler backgrounds. And more and more, people from non-settler backgrounds are joining the ranks of labor unions, big tech companies and other professional roles. This is one factor behind the wavering support for I$rael. Of course, it is the Palestinian resistance that is forcing Amerikans to take a position.

The cease fire call is a shift for many Amerikan labor unions away from outright Zionism to the left wing of white nationalism. Despite the cease fire statement, these unions will still be campaigning for Genocide Joe this year. And while some members of the International Longshoreman Workers Union (ILWU) participated in a one day protest/shut down of the port of Oakland in support of Gaza, there has been no sustained strike by Amerikan unions that are actively involved in shipping arms to I$rael.

The United Auto Workers (UAW), having been in the news for strikes last year, is one of the unions to issue a statement for a ceasefire. Meanwhile, the UAW has been hosting talks with employees of arms manufacturer Raytheon for a “just transition” to guarantee labor aristocracy union jobs in thefuture technologies of war and genocide. Brandon Mancilla, director or UAW’s Region 9A, announced in a tweet on Dec 1st the formation of a Divestment and Just Transition working group to explore how “we can have just transition for US workers from war to peace.” Behind the UAW’s ceasefire resolution, was UAW Labor for Palestine. Self-described on their website as a “nationwide group of rank-and-file UAW members” that seeks to “organize UAW worksites that send arms and other material to Israel.” They have faced great resistance from the UAW in general to taking any action to stop producing arms for I$rael. Like the Amerikan leaders who mumble words about humanitarian efforts in Palestine while continuing to authorize more and more shipments of war machines to I$rael, Amerikan labor makes statements about ceasefire, while continuing to produce these machines. Actions speak louder than words.

As we reported in ULK 84, arms shipments must get to the Red Sea before they face real resistance; resistance by Yemen’s armed forces. And following I$rael’s attacks on Iranian diplomatic soil in Syria in April, Iran has seized an I$raeli-linked cargo ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz. While the Strait, which accesses the Persian Gulf, does not lead to I$rael, it does lead to I$rael’s new Arab allies in the UAE.

Doing Better

The #1 thing people in the United $tates can be doing in the short-term to stop genocide in Palestine is to stop shipments of arms and aid to I$rael. Just as the imperialists have used blockades to weaken the Palestinian resistance. The question is how to make such a blockade meaningful and sustainable.

In the longer-term it is our responsibility in the United $tates to weaken imperialism from the inside. As we see the principal contradiction in the United $tates to be between nations, it is by supporting national liberation struggles at home that we believe we can best make this happen faster. And without building the revolutionary forces here in the United $tates, we do not foresee a successful, sustained blockade of aid to I$rael.

Another realm of struggle we should be tuned into is the struggle against political repression of those supporting Palestine, and especially the state imposing limitations on the exchange of information between Palestine and the world. The labeling of organizations linked to the Palestinian struggle as “terrorist organizations” is parallel to organizations in the oppressed nations in the United $tates being labelled “security threat groups (STGs).” As our readers know well the right to free speech and association is not guaranteed but must be struggled for within this bourgeois democracy.

Finally, correct political line must lead for us to succeed on all fronts. Democratic Party-supporting labor unions calling for “cease fire” is not the correct political line. Stopping all aid to I$rael is correct. Supporting national liberation struggles of the oppressed is correct. Recognizing the populations of the exploiter countries to be part of the bourgeoisie is correct. And recognizing the need for independent communist organizations in all parts of the world is correct for avoiding past mistakes that restricted the revolutionary potential of oppressed nations (see next section).

There is a reinforcing effect between revolutionary nationalist and communist movements around the world. Communism was more popular in Palestine when communists were demonstrating models of success in practice in other parts of the world. The revolutionary nationalism of Palestine today will impact the consciousness of revolutionary nationalism around the world, including within U.$. borders. Amplifying this effect in the short-term will help us build the type of movement that can provide real solidarity with Palestine in the short-term. The history and class interests of Amerikan labor prove that their current level of sympathies with Palestine are tenuous and lacking in militancy.

It is the struggle of the occupied indigenous populations, the largest of which is Aztlán, that are most parallel to Palestine in our context. Meanwhile New Afrika has probably been the most ardent supporter of Palestine in the United $tates historically. Though it’s also worth noting the prominence of Jewish voices in opposing the war from the United $tates, due to the connection the existence of I$rael has forced onto all Jewish people. As a resistance movement based in a compact area of land that is mostly urban, there is much to be learned tactically from the successes of the ongoing struggle in Palestine today that relates to the conditions of oppressed nations in the heart of empire.

The ICM, Pan-Islamism and Palestine

Support from communists around the world, especially those waging People’s War in the Third World, has been unwavering on the side of Palestine liberation since October 7th. But the history of the International Communist Movement (ICM) has led to setbacks in Palestinian and pan-Arab liberation.

MIM(Prisons) has been working on reiterating MIM line on the Communist International in recent years as part of an effort to compile MIM’s work opposing crypto-Trotskyism. One of the key issues we have with Trotskyism is its view that the most advanced capitalist countries will/should lead the communist movement. MIM line says that the most exploited and oppressed nations will lead the way, and recognizes the need for independent initiative and direction from within each nation. We also see the need for a Joint Dictatorship of the Proletariat of the Oppressed Nations (JDPON) as a tool for overthrowing imperialism. Under the JDPON, it will be the communist minorities in former imperialist countries that are benefiting from the assistance of more advanced, socialist, former colonies.

From 1919-1943, the third Communist International (Comintern) was the first experiment in an international communist movement that involved parties in state power. At that time the idea that the advanced capitalist countries would lead the socialist revolution was more popular. Bolshevik leader Mirza Sultan-Galiev was one of the biggest critics of this position. In 1923, at the 9th Conference of the Tatar Obkom, Sutlan-Galiev stated:

“If a revolution succeeds in England, the proletariat will continue oppressing the colonies and pursuing the policy of the existing bourgeois government; for it is interested in the exploitation of these colonies. In order to prevent the oppression of the toiler of the East we must unite the Muslim masses in a communist movement that will be our own and autonomous.”(4)

MIM positively reviewed eir ideas:

“Sultan-Galiev was for the formation of a”Colonial International” to replace the Comintern as organization of central importance. He also called for the “dictatorship of the colonial nations over the metropolis.”“(5)

Sultan-Galiev applied this concept to Russians, who were far more oppressed and exploited than Amerikans today, as well as to the United $tates, which ey saw as built on the genocide and labor of First Nations and New Afrikans.

For a brief period, about 5 years after the Russian revolution, the Bolsheviks had created a Muslim communist party separate from the Russian one. But this project was quickly abandoned. Decades later, USSR leader Joseph Stalin, who also played a leading role in the Comintern, abolished the Comintern in 1943. Stalin and Mao both said the communist international was no longer appropriate for the complicated conditions of international struggle. One of the problems with the communist international was the mixing of people from exploiter countries and exploited countries in one organization. Another was the mixing of people engaged in armed struggle against imperialism with those who are not. Sultan-Galiev’s proposal for a “Colonial International” addresses the first problem. However, eir ideas were not ultimately adopted by the Comintern, and ey was purged from the Bolshevik Party in 1923.

Current Events in Russia and Palestinian Communism

Last week a horrible mass shooting took place in Moscow, killing 143 people. The gunmen are reportedly from Tajikistan and working with the Islamic State-Khorasan, based in Central Asia. An Amerikan analyst explained that this group “sees Russia as being complicit in activities that regularly oppress Muslims” and that a number of other Central Asian militants have allied with the Islamic State group due to their own grievances against Moscow.(6) Tajikistan is a former Soviet republic. One must wonder if a Muslim Communist International, separate from the Russian one, could have avoided the emergence of militant groups in Central Asia today that have violent beefs with Moscow. This goes both ways, with chauvinist attitudes by many Russians today towards the other former Soviet republics. As the capitalist/imperialist USSR collapsed in 1991, both sides of this national divide perceived the other to be exploiting them.(7)

On the Western side of the USSR Sultan-Galiev helped establish a separate Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1921. This became a bastion for German Nazis in the 1940s, leading to the native Tatar population being relocated by Stalin, and the area populated by Russians and Ukrainians – leading to disputes over the territory today. This suggests that Stalin was correct to oppose Sultan-Galiev for narrow nationalism in the late 1920s and ultimately have em killed in 1940 as the Nazis were preparing to invade.

The problems with trying to unify too quickly with a communist international seems to have played a role in Palestine and the Arab world as well. The Soviet Union supported the partitioning of Palestine by the Zionists, leading to the Nakba (“The Catastrophe” or ethnic cleansing of Palestine) in 1948. Despite the Comintern having been dissolved in 1943, apparently it was still policy for the Communist Parties in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon to support the USSR line on the partitioning of Palestine against their own beliefs. This led to massive loss of support for the communists in Syria and Lebanon for years to come (there was not much support in Palestine until years later).(8)

While U.$. and I$raeli imperialism played a role in suppressing communist organizing, these internal contradictions and short-comings are what allowed such efforts to succeed. We can see how the strategies we choose today can have grave and lasting impacts decades later. That is why we, as communists, must do a better job of implementing an effective internationalism by recognizing the national self-determination of each oppressed nation. Independence in action must coincide with a struggle for unity in ideology.

“The early stages of socialism according to both Lenin and Stalin would see a vast multiplication of nations seizing their destinies. It was only under advanced communism that we could contemplate the disappearance of nations.”(7)

The above is in line with USW’s slogan of “unity from the inside out.” It is only with true self-determination of the oppressed nations that they can fully unite with other nations. Of course, the more unity we have the stronger we are. So we must struggle for unity, without forcing it before conditions are ripe.

We call on comrades to continue to make connections between Palestine and national struggles in occupied Turtle Island, and to build national liberation struggles here in the heart of empire.

<sup>Notes:
1. MIM - California, UC Divest From Israel! campaign page
2. Boston MIM, August 2005, Labor aristocracy hits the streets for I$rael, This article gives a more comprehensive background on the connection between Zionism and U.$. labor unions: Jeff Schuhrke, 11 November 2023, US Labor Has Long Been a Stalwart Backer of Israel. That’s Starting To Change., Jacobin.
3. Democracy Now!, 26 December 2032, Labor Demands a Ceasefire: UAW, Electrical & Postal Workers Call for Israel’s Assault on Gaza to End.](https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/26/us_labor_movement_israel_palestine)
4. Joshua Alexander, 08 August 2016, Two Articles by Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev, 1919, Anti-Imperialism.org.
5. MIM’s Pan-Islamic Page
6. Sophia Yan, 23 March 2024, Islamic State attackers publish selfie following Moscow attack, The Telegraph.
7. MIM, The role of the National Bourgeoisie: The decline of Soviet social-imperialism
8. Guerrilla History, 15 March 2024, History of Palestinian Communism w/ Patrick Higgins.</sup>

On 23 December 2023 Reuters reported Iranian Revolutionary Guards stating the Red Sea will be closed if the United $tates and its allies continue to commit “crimes” in Gaza. The next day, a drone struck a commercial tanker owned by an I$raeli billionaire in the Gulf of Oman. The U.$. and I$rael claim it was Iran who launched the drone, but Iran denies it.

While involvement of Iran in the emerging regional war remains cryptic, the Ansar Allah party has been very open about drone attacks launched by the Yemeni Armed Forces on ships in the Red Sea. They have said that until the siege of Gaza ends, shipping by I$raeli companies through the Red Sea is not gonna happen. When U.$. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for them to stop their attacks, they responded brazenly with “No.”

Secretary of State Blinken has been behind imperialist bombings in Yemen for many years, as we discussed in a 2015 article.(1) It is no wonder that the Ansar Allah slogan is “Allah is great, death to the United States, death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory for Islam.”(2)

Yemen has been at war with the Amerikans and their Saudi partners for decades now, and despite being one of the poorest countries in the world, have maintained their sovereignty against those imperialist attacks.

The Yemeni Armed Forces response to the bombing of Gaza started with warnings against any ships entering the Red Sea associated with I$rael, boarding ships and telling them to turn around. Then on 19 November they took over the ship Galaxy Leader with helicopters dropping off armed troops and boats flanking the tanker. They flew the Palestinian flag on the ship and posted videos online.

In addition, the Yemeni Armed Forces has shot missiles and flown drones into southern I$rael. They even knocked a $40 million U.$. drone out of the air.(3)

In Yemen, hundreds of thousands marched in opposition to the recent bombings of Gaza by I$rael. The people of Yemen have long stood in strong solidarity with Palestine liberation.

The Red Sea, going through the Suez Canal, is one of the three most critical shipping routes in the world, with bulk goods and containers going to the Mediterranean. The Red Sea is full of war ships from all over the world, Djibouti being the home of many imperialist naval bases. As much as 30% of global shipping containers can be in this area at any time.(3)

Many major shipping companies have stopped shipping through the Suez Canal in recent weeks. This forces them to go around Africa, delaying ships weeks to a month, greatly increasing cost.

In response to all this, the Amerikans recently announced a U.$. naval task force to combat Ansar Allah named “Operation Prosperity Guardian”. Can’t let interventions against genocide get in the way of profit flows the the United $tates. No states on the Red Sea have signed on and the only Arab state to sign on, Bahrain, has no navy of its own but hosts U.$. military bases. Meanwhile, close military allies such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia are not willing to sign on. It is not just in Yemen that the people are outraged about what is happening in Gaza. No Arab state, no matter how brutal and reactionary, is willing to stand with the U.$./I$raeli camp in this genocide.

Even Egypt, whose whole economy is threatened by a halt of shipping through the Suez Canal, cannot assist the U.$. effort against Yemen. They figure they can survive economic collapse better than the response of their people to such betrayal of Yemen and Palestine.(4)

Saudi Arabia is currently involved in the peace process in Yemen, bringing internal peace and unity to Yemen, following Ansar Allah’s victory against U.$./Saudi warfare. Standing up for Palestine militarily strengthens Yemen’s position in the peace negotiations.(4)

I$rael is taking a huge economic hit from the war overall. The I$raeli airport is mostly closed, cutting off important tourist money. The Palestinian proletariat from the West Bank and Gaza are no longer coming in to do work, and tens of thousands of Thai proletarians have left kibbutz farms where they did much of the agricultural work for the country. Meanwhile, half a million I$raelis evacuated the south and the government is paying to house them in hotels. Unemployment in I$rael has tripled in the last month, and businesses have lost half of their revenues.(3) Ansar Allah is contributing to this increasing economic pressure on I$rael demonstrating what real internationalism looks like in the face of a genocide against an oppressed nation.

^*Notes:
1. Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons), July 2015, Honduras to Yemen: Puppet Regimes Falter, Under Lock & Key Issu 45
2. We of course would not promote a slogan of “curse the Jews.” There is a history of anti-Jewish sentiments creeping into the communist movement. Discussing the pogroms that happened after the October Revolution in Russia, Bolshevik leader Preobrazhensky stated:

“This anti-Semitic agitation, frequently masking under radical slogans, represents an enormous danger both to the Jewish people and to the revolutionary movement in the country, for it threatens to drown in fraternal blood the whole cause of freeing the people and to cover the revolutionary popular movement with indelible shame.”

To this day we still have problems in the international communist movement (ICM) of groups focusing on Israel, rather than the imperialist powers. This reference to Jews by Ansar Allah’s slogan, similarly risks misidentifying the enemy, though correctly putting U.$. imperialism first.

As for victory to Islam, see: Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons), January 2016, Islam as Liberation Theology, Under Lock & Key Issue 48.
3. most of the facts in this article are from the radio show/podcast The Electronic Intifada from 24 December 2023.
4. Mitchell Plitnick, 21 December 2023, Biden administration’s flawed response to Yemen attacks increases possibility of regional war, Mondoweiss.*^

A Quick Recap On Russian Imperialism

We have written in April of 2022 reviewing some quick FAQs with regards to the situation in Ukraine at the time. We believe some important points we must reassess and new points to bring up are as follows:

• Both Russia and Ukraine have problems of fascism in their society expressed through the most reactionary elements of the Wagner Group of Russia and the infamous Azov Battalion of Ukraine. Both sides are vehement anti-communists despite the sensationalist portrayals of Putin as a USSR-esque tyrant in mainstream media political cartoons. Ukrainian reactionaries will topple down Soviet era statues while for the Russian imperialists, Ukraine itself is a giant Soviet era statue that must be toppled down and engulfed into Russia. Ukraine would have never gotten its independence in the first place without the world’s first proletarian dictatorship of the USSR.

• Unlike the United $tates, Japan, Western Europe, and etc., Russian imperialism does not have a majority labor aristocrat population (despite a very significant one) and the class interests of the Russian proletariat lines up with the class interests of the Ukrainian proletariat against Russian and NATO imperialism.(0)

• At best, Soviet nostalgia expressed in Russia longs for social-imperialist era command economy coupled with resentment of the political-economic crises caused by the complete opening up of Soviet markets. It is an unscientific frustration of the general masses in Russia. At worst, it is a rallying tool for current Russian imperialism’s moral justification akin to how concepts like democracy, freedom, and women’s rights were rallying tools of U.$. imperialism’s military invasions in the Middle East. We wish to practice revolutionary optimism in regards for the anti-revisionist communists in Russia and Ukraine who could take this popular sentiment away from the hands of the imperialists and into the hands of the broad masses.

• Oftentimes in our current conditions where the anti-imperialist movement is weak and undeveloped, the best thing for U.$. imperialism’s involvement in the war in Ukraine is giving the masses the correct analysis from the vantage point of the international proletariat. We should avoid “cheer leading” between various imperialist powers where “various people’s wars and nations at war… [become akin to] fandoms for TV shows to obsess and argue over rather than a movement to popularize and create awareness for.”. We recognize the importance of organs like Under Lock & Key and independent institutions like United Struggle Within – both in their strengths and limitations – for the imprisoned section of the lumpen class.

The Wagner Group

One significant development this summer was an attempted coup by the Wagner Group against the government of Russia. For our readers who might not know, the Wagner group is a private military mercenary group of the Russian Federation formed through the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea.(1) While its origins are unclear, the group has been claimed to have been founded by both Dmitry Utkin and Yevgeny Prigozhin with the the former having been the field military commander and the latter being the financier and military programmer.(2) Utikin, being a veteran of the Chechen Wars, was said to have had great admiration of Nazi Germany and his nickname in the battlefield was given by eir fellow imperialist soldiers as “Wagner” named after the German composer whose music was popularly used by Hitler and eir fascist goons as rallying songs during marches.(3) Due to the Nazi ideologies which were part of the Wagner Group’s political DNA from the start, fascist slogans and graffiti by the group’s presence in Ukraine has been known to have surfaced.(4)

On 20 May 2023 Prigozhin, at the time the top commander of the Wagner Group, took the city of Bakhmut, Ukraine.(5) Ey criticized top Russian officials of the military, the defense minister, and the chief of general staff withholding artillery ammunition from the Wagner Group and accused them of “high treason.”(6) Defense minister Sergei Shoigu announced that all members of “volunteer units” must be required to sign contracts with the ministry by July 1st in order to get Wagner and similar mercenary groups under a tighter leash. Despite Prigozhin’s close loyalty to Putin, the latter has chosen to back the defense minister’s decision.(7)

On the midnight of 24 June 2023, Prigozhin while denying to sign the contract and have eir fascist mercenary goons under Russian imperialist control announced a “march for justice” leaving Ukraine and having the first column enter Russia’s Southern Military District. Prigozhin demanded that Shoigu and Gerasimov be brought to him and held a blockade of the city. On the city of Voronezh, the group shot down Russian military helicopters and a command aircraft killing at least a dozen soldiers marking the start of the rebellion.(8) With Putin’s condemnation and the labeling of Prigozhin’s act as treason, the rebellion came to a quick end. On the Sunday of 24 August 2023, Russian authorities have confirmed that Prigozhin has died in a plane crash.(9)

The rhetoric that Russia is an anti-fascist or anti-colonial force in the global imperialist system is a bold-faced lie of Russian imperialism. Acknowledging this fact is in no way supporting Ukraine’s own fascism ridden government. It is the instinct of petty-bourgeois moralism to see armed conflicts as a side of the good guys and the bad guys. This war itself is an inter-imperialist battle where Russian imperialism seeks to gain global hegemony against U.$./NATO aligned forces and where the nation of Ukraine is caught in the middle of this geo-political tug-of-war. The fact that the fascists of Ukraine’s Azov Battalion and the fascists of Russia’s Wagner Group are fighting each other is just another telltale sign how fascism is an incoherent nihilistic political trend that must be stomped out.

Russia Sympathies Among the Masses

Many prisoner comrades have written to us since the previous article was published where they expressed some sympathies for Russian imperialism. Many arguments had to do with the fact that Russian imperialism was defending itself against the NATO/U.$. led powers.

A California prisoner commented:

”I hear too many well proclaimed communists taking sides with Ukraine. “Putin is a fascist,” “Putin is imperialist,” etc…

As a prisoner I have learned to be very cautious about taking sides, I see all kinds of evil up here everyday: a lot of schemes, manipulations, scam artists. I see all of them here in prison.

So why? Why is the United $nakes so interested in Ukraine winning? Why is it worth trillions of dollars to the U.$. for Ukraine to win? We, the common people like myself, does not understand things like the stock market, and the grain exchange. I understand that grain is sold for money. What I don’t understand is how a whole completely separate market created out of thin air, selling absolutely nothing but grain calling itself the grain exchange that is something only the capitalists who run the world understand.

If I had to guess with my simple mind, I would say that Ukraine sells its grain to the west at a premium as a means to launder dirty drug money. But that’s just my simple mind. It probably has more to do with the grain exchange, capitalism itself.“

One sentiment we can agree with this prisoner comrade is that the job of communists and revolutionaries in the U.$. would be to see U.$. imperialism as their principal enemy. Many communists can so far agree with this line, the problem comes in deeper with regards to the analysis of other major imperialist countries – especially ones that spout anti-imperialist rhetoric in words such as while in practice commit imperialism that rivals the traditional NATO imperialist powers..

We would like to iterate to this comrade that their mind isn’t so simple as ey might let off. We appreciate the humbleness that revolutionaries should have that this comrade has shown, but in the end the contrite and popular phrase that the imperialist governments are the real criminals is true. Sure, we wouldn’t boil down world imperialism to money laundering; but theft and murder are important objectionable aspects of imperialism. We see many imprisoned comrades who project the anti-people crimes they struggle to overcome onto the criminal ways of the imperialists, and for a starting point these oversimplifications might not be the worst thing as a step towards revolutionary thinking.

With that said we would disagree that Russia is doing self-defense with regards to their invasion of Ukraine. As the above points laid out, we should avoid choosing sides in inter-imperialist conflict even though the U.$. and NATO imperialist forces didn’t have direct boots in Ukraine (which the comrade has also expressed as well).

The real question comes in as how Lenin’s theses on “The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War” would mean in practice in our current material conditions where the revolutionary forces are much weaker and arguably much more revisionist and opportunist than even the revisionist European and imperialist country communist movements which Lenin was writing polemics against.(10) One point that we can start from is this: the war that we should be focusing on is the war waged by Amerika against its internal semi-colonies of the Black, Chican@, and Indigenous Nations through mass imprisonment and police occupation. With this issue’s Under Lock & Key covering the topic of how “Prisons Are War,” we would like to further expand on how prisons play this role of low-intensity genocide against the masses.

<sup>Notes. 0.300 million exploited whites: where are they? (Not in the United $tates), MIM FAQ.
1. Andrew S. Bowen, 1 August 2023, Russia’s Wagner Private Military Company (PMC), Congressional Research Service.</sup>

^{2. Stewart Bell, 29 June, 2023, In Prigozhin’s shadow, the Wagner Group leader who stays out of the spotlight, Global News.}

^{3. Ibid.}

^{4. Brian Castner, 1 June 2022, The White Power Mercenaries Fighting For the Lost Cause Around the World, TIME.}

^{5. Joshua Yaffa, 31 July 2023, Inside the Wagner Group’s Armed Uprising, The New Yorker}

^{6. Kevin Shalvey, 10 July 2023, Russian rebellion timeline: How the Wagner uprising against Putin unfolded and where Prigozhin is now, ABC News}

^{7. Ibid.}

^{8. Ibid.}

^{9. Associated Press, 27 August 2023, Russia confirms that Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in last week’s plane crash, NPR.}

^{10. Lenin, 26 July 1915, The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War, Lenin Collected Works.}

As revolutionary class-conscious partisans within the epicenter of global capitalist-imperialism, our daily struggles consist of a multitude of factors, such as a societal inundation of bourgeois ideology that is close to total. This means that every time your television is turned on or your radio is playing the chances of some reactionary foolishness reaching your senses is greater than the likelihood of a white male becoming the next amerikan president.

Before most people turn-in for the night they tune in for another dose of the corporate state’s media misinformation (most begin their day like this as well!). The talking points are simple and easy to follow and the repetition of the message increases the likelihood of remembrance. Under these conditions what becomes of the formation of independent thought development?

Marx taught us to subject everything in existence to relentless criticism, our sources of information gathering down to the way we choose to utilize technology controlled by multi-national (corporations) we must assess and re-assess our own patterns and those of others among us to conform to the material conditions of our struggle as to devise methods which will allow us to intensify our efforts hence moving closer and closer to ultimately overthrowing this reactionary order.

As Maoists, we cannot differentiate between the working-class masses of Russia and Ukraine. Not only do they share a common culture and historical background, but the fact that we as laboring masses have no country proves true in the current context. The so-called “socialist” international chose nationalism over socialism, reform over revolution, and we walk that same path by choosing sides in a conflict where the people are regarded as bystanders. In the world of Clausewitz this may make sense, but as Marxist-Leninist-Maoists (or Maoists) we understand that the people make their own history.

MIM(Prisons) adds: We saw anti-Russian propaganda ramp up quickly in the last couple months. As the mainstream media continues to villianize Russian imperialism for the same atrocities the Amerikans have committed much more regularly, we aim to serve the majority of the world who has no allegiance to imperialism. Unfortunately, most in this country recognize that they benefit from the imperialist exploitation and ally with the militarist rhetoric.