MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) announced yesterday
that the WHO joins the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in
supporting debt relief to poorer countries to help them combat the
COVID-19 pandemic and related economic fallout.(1) Now is the time for
the international community to call for full debt forgiveness for
countries in Africa, South Asia and Central and South America.
Religious leaders have renewed the call for a debt jubilee, which in
the Bible is a grace period from slavery and debt. It is a period of
renewal, for a fresh start. Most notably, in a broadcast to the
Philippines, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle asked “Could the coronavirus
crisis lead to a jubilee of forgiveness of debt, so that those who are
in the tombs of indebtedness could find life – untie them, release
them.”(2) The Cardinal went on to say that the wealthy countries have
spent too much on weapons when people are dying for lack of ventilators
in hospitals across the globe.
News of the spread of coronavirus in the Third World is starting to
emerge. Being at the periphery of the economy may have granted many
Third World countries a little more time to respond. But as the richest
countries in the world prove unable to prevent deaths due to lack of
supplies and preparations, the situation in Third World countries will
in all likelihood prove more dire. In all countries, the death rate is
revealing the ineffectiveness of an economic system guided by the profit
motive in meeting humyn needs.
MIM(Prisons) stands in unity with the Cardinal’s call. The World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund have been the institutions that
issue and manage the majority of loans, along with accompanying
structural adjustment programs, that have sucked wealth from the Third
World to the First World since the Bretton Woods Agreeement in 1944.
Therefore we must demand absolute forgiveness of these debts, a true
jubilee, without the further meddling of these imperialist institutions
in the economies of sovereign nations.
If there were ever time for a fresh start, it is now. The economic
fallout from the current crisis is only just beginning. Forgiving debt
to the poorest countries in the world will free up scarce resources and
save countless lives.
“Why did one of the coordinating members unexpectedly leave
MIM(Prisons)? We should be informed on his/her departure because he/she
do know our names in the group.”
As to your concern about the info that this comrade had, it is a
valid concern, and one we are always thinking about. The persyn who left
MIM(Prisons) was a long-time cadre-level member who had access to
information on a need-to-know basis, which included subscribers’ names,
addresses and communication records. But as discussed in the article, ey
left for some kind of nihilism and sense of defeat, and ey still feels
like ey agrees with what we are doing. So we are confident in saying
there is no ill-will there.
Over the existence of our organization we have constantly improved
the security of our organization and specifically the security of our
subscribers’ information. There have been at least 4 major technological
leaps in our tracking of your info in our over 10 years of existence. We
are confident in saying that our information is more secure than any
other organization that you may write to, and about as secure as it
could possibly be while still using computers connected to the
internet.
Other than the technical side of security is the humyn side. We
organize our movement in a hierarchical way. People must work their way
up the ladder, and information is released on a need-to-know basis.
Comrades must put in work to get access to any information. So even if
they do do harm, we try to make sure they are doing more good for the
movement.
We recently put out documents outlining a new mass organization
called Anti-Imperialist Prisoner Support (AIPS). In those documents we
outline the hierarchy of supporters, member, leaders and cadre. Cadre is
the highest level, and would be full members of MIM(Prisons) or other
Maoist cells. We have the same hierarchy within United Struggle from
Within for our comrades inside, except that cadre-level prisoners cannot
join MIM(Prisons) for security reasons. (Since the state can read our
mail or listen to our phone calls, there is no way to have democratic
centralism with cadre while they are still in prison.)
Our latest iteration of technological improvements was a major
achievement that was just launched over the last couple months. It
involved allowing supporters and members, working as AIPS, to help us
with work like typing reports we receive from prisoners on conditions
and organizing, articles and study group responses. This is done in a
way where our subscribers’ identity and persynal information is
completely inaccessible to these AIPS comrades. In fact, that persynal
info physically cannot be “hacked” into from the information that these
comrades have.
Even within the different levels of commitment outlined above, we
have instituted different levels of access to information. It is all
handled on a need-to-know basis and based on one’s quality of work and
proven commitment to the movement. For example, members of AIPS have
begun to participate in the introductory study group that you are also
doing right now. And from the people that complete it, we will invite
AIPS supporters to respond to imprisoned comrades’ answers to help both
parties develop their political consciousness. This will be a level of
political responsibility and access that must be earned.
Back to the comrade that left MIM(Prisons). As soon as ey left, we
cut off eir access to all of our digital information and accounts. Most
importantly, we
released a new gpg
key. We use gpg to encrypt our email and confirm our messages are
officially from us. So anyone emailing us should use our new gpg key to
ensure that anyone with our old gpg key cannot read our messages. Using
the new gpg key provides extra certainty that you are only communicating
with current members of MIM(Prisons).
In this era, people are more aware than ever about the susceptibility
of their persynal information being sucked up and used by all kinds of
powers that be. For revolutionaries this can become a life or death
concern, and is certainly a concern of success or failure. Only recently
have we seen other organizations and movements begin to talk about the
kind of practices that MIM was once mocked for. While most of what we’re
saying here you just need to take our word for, we do think our
historical practice around security culture speaks to the seriousness
with which we take the work that we are doing. And we commend you (the
comrade who asked this question) for also taking these things
seriously.
Our most recent censorship notice came from GOA T. Bates at Thumb
Correctional Facility in Michigan. The reason our mail was censored?
“MAIL - WITH LABEL AND POSTAGE STAMP”. So you can send mail to prisoners
in Michigan as long as you don’t put a postage stamp on it. Do they
understand how the postal service works?
Of course they do. Violations of our First Amendment rights for
illogical reasons is common occurrence here in these United $nakes.
There are no rights that we don’t stand up for and defend. Right now we
are behind on fighting censorship battles, and we could use your help in
increasing the pressure on such egregious cases as this.
See our prison
censorship database for examples of protest letters, and our
legal/caselaw page
for existing court precedents. Please
email us any letters
you send, or let us know about any phone calls you make. We are eager to
help people, especially friends and family of our subscribers, join in
our anti-censorship efforts!
In a New Year’s statement for 2020, llco.org stated:
“While we have much to celebrate, we also mourn the loss of a once
dear comrade, who passed away earlier this year. Prairie Fire, who was
integral to crafting our theory and authored many of our earlier
articles, lost his battle with drug addiction this past April. Although
he was expelled from our ranks in 2016, we still recognize and honor the
important role he played in the formative years of our
Organization.”
2019 was certainly a year of loss and transformation for the Maoist
movement in the United $tates.(1) While the Leading Light Communist
Organization abandoned Maoism as such for its own self-aggrandizing
brand shortly after forming, comrade Prairie Fire was someone who we had
great unity with over the years. While our knowledge of eir work is
somewhat limited, ey was someone who dedicated eir life to building a
revolutionary movement.
Prairie Fire spent some time working with the Revolutionary Communist
Party (USA) before being won over by the MIM critiques of the RCP=U$A
brand of revisionism. Prairie Fire, having been a student of Avakian’s
work, wrote some biting critiques of Avakian’s writings for MIM.(2) In
its later years, MIM came to promote the It’s Right to Rebel
(IRTR) online discussion forum as a place for Revolutionary
Anti-Imperialist League comrades to organize. Prairie Fire was a lead
figure in the IRTR project ideologically and work-wise. MC5, later
revealed as Henry Park, would come to consider the IRTR a failure and
proof that you cannot out-number the fascists and cops on a public
internet forum.
Not long after the IRTR experiment had begun, the original MIM
Comrades cell dissolved and the etext.org MIM website was left in the
hands of lead theoretician Henry Park. By this time MIM had dropped most
of the infrastructure related to the prison ministry into the hands of
comrades who would come to form MIM(Prisons). One of those founding
comrades came from IRTR.
Once Henry Park was on eir own, eir writings became more erratic,
accusatory and difficult to decipher. It was at this time that Prairie
Fire began leading the call to disassociate from MIM. Another key point
of struggle was MC5’s continued promotion of Mousnonya as the MIM Art
Minister. MC5’s failure to denounce Mousnonya, who participated in IRTR,
was very concerning for the core membership of IRTR. Comrades could not
understand the free reign of creative license that seemed to be allowed
to Mousnonya, whose content was inconsistent in its political message.
While IRTR was condemned as a failure, swimming with fascists, MC5
hinted at other reasons for the Mousnonya relationship, but we don’t
know what those were. Unfortunately, Mousnonya videos are still
prominent on YouTube’s search when looking for MIM content.
Most of IRTR’s core membership followed Prairie Fire in denouncing
Henry Park as having lost it and went off to form Monkey Smashes Heaven
(MSH) and associated projects. These projects eventually put out the
Sunrise Statement declaring “Maoism Third-Worldism” as a new,
higher stage of historical materialism, intentionally distancing
themselves from MIM Thought. Comrades who formed MIM(Prisons) at that
same time stood by the MIM legacy and the writings of Henry Park until
eir early death in 2011.(3) We put online and continue to host the
latest version of the MIM etext.org site that we had a copy of before it
was shut down.
At the same time that IRTR was operating, the Revolutionary
Anti-Imperialist Movement arose in Denver, organizing in alliance with
MIM around support for Ward Churchill in eir fight for academic freedom,
and anti-war and anti-militarism. As MSH wanted to to go beyond online
media and art projects, it morphed into an aspiring vanguard
organization called the Leading Light Communist Organization. This group
was active in Denver and included 2 comrades from RAIM-Denver on the
central committee, with the intent of using the RAIM name and formation
as the LLCO-led mass organization.
While MIM(Prisons) criticized the idea that there was a new stage of
revolutionary science beyond Maoism, we saw the MSH alliance (and later
LLCO) to generally uphold the MIM cardinal principles, even as they
continued to find more aspects of MIM Thought and writings that they
disagreed with. As the primary theoretician behind LLCO, we know Prairie
Fire was a lead force in this continuous distancing from MIM.
Some time after forming LLCO, Prairie Fire decided that eir ideas had
again become so distinct that they constituted a new ideology, called
“Leading Light Communism.” Without discussion with other central
committee members, LLCO abandoned “Maoism Third-Worldism” for “Leading
Light Communism” as it continued to move its rhetoric in a direction
that MIM(Prisons) found to be sectarian and dogmatic.(4) RAIM comrades
in LLCO made a similar assessment, and soon split with LLCO, which in
turn denounced RAIM as wreckers. At this point RAIM became a collective
focused on a news blog at anti-imperialism.com without a clearly defined
ideology. Over the years RAIM would go back to the “Maoist
Third-Worldism” identity.
As membership changed, RAIM began to come around to the MIM(Prisons)
position on a new stage of revolutionary science. In its last years,
RAIM was in regular discussions with MIM(Prisons), regarding plans to
launch joint projects under the MIM name. As RAIM has since been
dissolved, comrades who have followed the MIM(Prisons) and RAIM legacies
continue to work towards a reconsolidation of the MIM.
After a struggle with LLCO over its gender analysis in 2014,(5)
MIM(Prisons) paid little attention to LLCO as practical alliance had
reached an impasse. While the nature of its activity was unclear to us,
it seemed focused on leading struggles in the Third World. Essentially,
it had gone full circle due to seeing the center of world revolution in
the Third World, and it had taken up a Trotskyist strategy of leading
Third World organizing from the First World. Prairie Fire had gone back
to the ways of Bob Avakian.
According to the recent statement from LLCO, Prairie Fire was
expelled from the organization in 2016 for drug use. It was around this
time that Prairie Fire reached out to us to notify us that LLCO had been
usurped by enemies, and ey was regrouping around a formation called “the
Founders.” That was the last we heard from Prairie Fire.
As our movement is in a period of great transition and
transformation, we wanted to take this opportunity to document some of
this history now that people have passed and organizations have
dissolved.
We also wanted to comment on Prairie Fire’s passing because we saw em
as a fellow traveler, despite our differences over the years. While eir
practice was not really known to us in much detail, we had respect for
eir ideas and eir efforts. Certainly more than most organizations out
there. So it is sad that we learn of eir passing.
It is also sad when we hear that a comrade had succumbed to drug
addiction. Developing healthy lives in this sick system is a challenge,
to say the least. That is why we have comrades currently developing a
program for those dealing with addiction and other challenges related to
being healthy in an imperialist society that we are struggling against.
And we welcome help and input from comrades on this project, as we
strive to Serve the People in addressing the effects of this society on
the individual. The transformation of the individual is only actualized
in the individual contributing to the transformation of society.
We post the images of Prairie Fire above to commemorate and remember
em. Yet it is not because of eir appearance or life story that we are
writing on eir death. We are critical of eir efforts to build a cult of
persynality around emself. Promoting eir image and eir persynal history
is promoting pre-scientific thinking. We must be real with the people.
We must strike a balance between those who see themselves as great, and
make great statements, and those who shy from the vanguard role and deny
revolutionary truths. We must be clear and honest about what we know,
and what we are doing, and what we don’t know, and what we are not
accomplishing.
At times it seemed that Prairie Fire was always striving to
distinguish emself as having done something new and different, falling
into the trap of post-modernism that ey emself condemned. We are not in
revolutionary times. We can not have the impact or discover the truths
that Mao or Lenin did in our current conditions. We mustn’t strive to be
the next Mao or Lenin. We must strive to be humble, dedicated servants
of the people; always struggling and striving in the direction of
revolutionary transformation of society, as so many millions of people
who came before us have done. We are a part of something great. We are
doing great things. There is nothing great about us as individuals.
Prairie Fire was a leader. Overall ey led people in the right
direction, though at times ey led people away from MIM Thought. We
should strive to unite with all who are in agreement with MIM’s three
cardinal principles. These are what distinguish us as Maoists, that are
moving in the overall direction toward a world without oppression.
As the launch of a new Maoist Internationalist Movement newsletter was
scheduled to occur in the next week or so, we are addressing in part the
events of the last 6 weeks that have delayed this project indefinitely.
There were a series of splits, degenerations and internal struggles
within our movement that came to a head last month. We are still
assessing where things will fall, as we work to keep the prison ministry
projects operating.
On 10 December 2019, remaining members of the Revolutionary
Anti-Imperialist Movement announced, “After nearly 13 years of
existence, the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement (RAIM) is no
more. Contradicting lines and practical inadequacies have been allowed
to fester to the point of intractability, resulting in several splits
and the widespread abandonment of our organization.”(1)
RAIM was our primary partner in the planned newsletter. There have been
promises of more thorough assessments of RAIM’s history and
shortcomings, but the most detailed commentary right now is at the link
in the notes below. One of the key things it highlights is the
challenges of revolutionary organizations to engage in the practice that
allows us to learn from and bind ourselves to the masses in real
struggle while in a non-revolutionary situation. There is a challenge in
distinguishing ourselves in action, not just words, from the countless
non-profits, non-governmental organizations, liberal reform groups and
other bourgeois institutions misdirecting energy and resources from the
struggles of oppressed people in this country.
The announcement from RAIM was followed shortly by the sudden
resignation by a cadre member of MIM(Prisons). This loss seems to echo
some experiences coming out of the RAIM camp, and this article is an
attempt to analyze it in terms of phenomena that stem from our
conditions in particular and that we must try to combat.
In contrast to some other struggles that had happened within
MIM(Prisons) and within RAIM, this comrade who left MIM(Prisons) said ey
had no political disagreements and therefore there was nothing to
discuss or struggle over. In eir resignation ey stated, “I’ve come
around to the belief that the humyn race is likely doomed at its own
hand.” Ey went on to say, “I don’t see a better political line out
there, instead I see a problem with me and my First World conditions.
I’m no longer able to rally the energy to continue contributing.”
For some of us, this is a hard position to understand. For some of us
there is no life free of despair outside of a committed struggle for a
world without oppression. However, we must understand that we live in a
predominately petty bourgeois country, and what the class interests of
that class is, and what its political outlook is. Only then can we
understand and combat these types of conclusions.
On the one hand, it was mostly true that this comrade did not see a
better political line. In fact, until eir last days with us ey was
upholding that line in practice, even challenging others who were
wavering in their own belief that Maoist organizing, in the form it took
within our movement anyway, was the best way to struggle against
oppression.
However, it was just a few weeks prior when i was editing an article
this comrade had written reviewing the recent Terminator movie.
In it ey had commented on capitalism marching towards the annihilation
of nature and humyn life. I argued we should change the clause to
“annihilation of the current balance of life on Earth that humyns depend
on.” The “annihilation of nature” is such an absolute concept that i’m
not sure humyns could be capable of such a thing if they tried. Even the
elimination of humyn life is an extreme outcome.
This seemingly subtle change hints at an underlying line struggle that
emerged as em leaving the movement completely because ey thought “the
humyn race is likely doomed at its own hand.” This type of apocalyptic
outlook is unfortunately common in our petty bourgeois culture. The
petty bourgeoisie is a class whose purpose is based in consumption,
leading to a different type of alienation than what Marx talked about
(one that leads towards nihilism). And this is a truly First World
problem that we should take seriously.
Whether it’s lifelong communists retreating to the comforts of a
consumer life built on the exploitation of the Third World, or
imperialist warhawks attempting to literally initiate a biblical
rapture, First World nihilism is a threat to humyn life. Whether it will
kill off all of the humyn race aside, we sure know it kills a lot of us,
and it is happening every day as long as imperialism stays in place.
There are two main forms of political degeneration that we see. There
are those that abandon attempts at change to take up a bourgeois
position as this comrade did. Then there are those who sneak bourgeois
politics into their practice. The more obvious examples of the latter
are comrades leaving to join single-issue reformist groups. The more
insidious are those who take up a revisionist, or non-revolutionary line
that hides in Maoist clothing. Really there is only one form of
political degeneration: it is the abandoning of proletarian politics for
bourgeois politics in one form or another.
The fact that this comrade, who had served the people and upheld the
proletarian line against attacks for so long, did not see eir decision
as a disagreement in political line makes no sense. The MIM line is very
clear that our strategic confidence comes from the 80% of the world’s
people who have a material interest predominately opposed to
imperialism. Mao Zedong said that the imperialists were paper tigers,
and proved in practice what that meant; that they are dangerous on the
surface, but will collapse in the face of organized peoples’ power. So
clearly the comrade had disagreements with Maoist political line.
Apparently this comrade felt ey had made up eir mind and didn’t want to
engage in struggle anymore. This reminds me of the many times people
have told me they don’t listen to the news anymore because it just makes
them depressed. And sure, I can relate to getting upset at times at
things that I hear on the news. But most often I listen to the news with
an open mind to understanding the world around me, the good and the bad.
To stick one’s head in the sand is easier than looking for answers. But
if you are just getting depressed every time you listen to the news, it
is because you are not engaged in the process of transforming our
reality and/or you think humynity is doomed and there are no answers to
the massive problems we are facing. To believe there are no answers is
metaphysical thinking – ideas that things just are the way they are, or
maybe even that humyn nature is just bad. This is religious/idealist
thinking. And it is strange to come from a comrade who spent many years
railing against religious and idealist thinking and advocating Maoism
based in a historical materialist analysis of history.
Knowing what this comrade knew, the lie ey told, perhaps to emself,
about not disagreeing with us politically, can only be explained as an
excuse to do what this persyn subjectively wanted to do. If ey was being
honest with us ey might have said something like “i feel that my life
will be happier, more fulfilling, more rewarding by abandoning the
struggle against oppression and imperialism.” And i know what you’re
thinking, what kind of sick mind could think that? Well, we are
surrounded by sick minds, present company included. Here in the belly of
the beast, to seek out and uphold a proletarian position takes real
effort and fortitude. It is going against all we are taught. And that is
why this struggle to transform society is dialectically a struggle to
transform ourselves. All the self-help books and therapy sessions cannot
transform us into the new socialist humyns we are striving to be. Only
revolution can transform us to the point that we have eliminated this
sickness.
Well, you say, aren’t we in the First World hopeless then, because
revolution is so far off? For one, revolutions happen quickly. It is
true that our movement has been saying for decades that we do not live
in revolutionary conditions. But that could change in a matter of
months. And for the oppressed, crisis is opportunity, not the
individualist, nihilist fantasy of the zombie apocalypse or the end of
humynity that the petty bourgeois culture prophesizes.
Secondly, we do not have to achieve a stateless communist utopia to
begin to transform ourselves. In fact, we transform every day. It is up
to us whether we are training our brains to become more responsive to
capitalist advertising and consumption or training ourselves to better
embody the proletarian line and morality that leads us to struggle every
day. That struggle defines us. And it impacts those around us. And
together we lay the groundwork for a better tomorrow. Tomorrow can be
better, a step in the right direction, or not. It is in the act of
making revolution that we can cure the disease that has infested all our
minds, and the system that requires unnecessary death and suffering to
grease its wheels.
The recent events have created a significant shake up in our plans.
These were long-term plans that were closely reaching their due date.
Needless to say the setbacks have brought temporary disappointment and
discouragement. At the same time we have been striving for a new path,
and this shake up can help us get there.
We have already begun to transform our reality in recent weeks as we
develop relationships with a number of new comrades. Even here, in the
heart of empire, we know the number of potential comrades out there
vastly outnumber what we have managed to unite to date. And we know it
is our responsibility to be effective at what we do, to inspire the
masses to join our movement. It will take us some more months to get
back up to speed. And we don’t foresee any newsletter coming out before
that. But we are rebuilding. And we invite you to join us.
Continuity and Rupture: Philosophy in Maoist Terrain J.
Moufawad-Paul Zero Books 2016
Abbreviations JMP = J. Moufawad-Paul
CPC = Communist Party of China MZT = Mao Zedong
Thought MLM = Marxism-Leninism-Maoism ML =
Marxism-Leninism MIM = Maoist Internationalist Movement PCP = Communist Party of Peru RCP,USA or
RCP=U$A = Revolutionary Communist Party, USA RIM(MIM)
= Revolutionary Internationalist Movement that later became the Maoist
Internationalist Movement RIM(RCP) or RIM =
Revolutionary Internationalist Movement that was a sort of international
led in practice by the RCP CoRIM = Committee for RIM, the
leadership of the international RIM, primarily run by the RCP AWTW = A World To Win, magazine published by the CoRIM GPCR = Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution PPW =
Protracted People’s War ICM = International Communist
Movement, or the collection of communist organizations across the world
This book purports to be a philosophical exposition into the terrain of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, a science that has been forged in revolutionary
practice. And as it’s title aptly describes, it focuses on the
dialectical relationship between continuity and rupture in the
development of humyn knowledge through the scientific method. A method
which can be applied to society just as it can to oceans or plants. The
author counters those who deny this.
Continuity and Rupture is a useful book for understanding the how
and why behind how Maoism came to be. But we recommend reading the book
with this review to get an alternate history of Maoism in the First
World, as well as some strong caveats on the political line presented as
Maoism in this book. The biggest issue we will take up in this review is
the uncritical presentation of the RCP=U$A-led Revolutionary
Internationalist Movement (RIM). The development of Maoism within
occupied turtle island can be seen to have started with the Black
Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP), but to really be consolidated as
“Maoism-qua-Maoism” by the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)
beginning in 1983. MIM’s development of Maoism was explicitly a
criticism of and rejection of RCP=U$A politics. It is problematic that
this book leaves the RCP=U$A in the position of the prominent Maoist
organization in this country as Maoism was being consolidated as an
ideology, when that organization struggled against Maoism the whole time
and only claimed the label for a period when it served to maintain their
influence within the RIM.
In addition to providing a counter-narrative, albeit North
America-centric, we will address a number of points where JMP emself
seems to lean towards positions of the RCP=U$A and away from the Maoist
position.
Maoism as Maoism Rupture
Much of this book deals with the distinguishing of Maoism from Mao
Zedong Thought. What distinguishes a ‘Thought’ from an ‘ism’ is that a
‘Thought’ is applying revolutionary science to local conditions and
drawing specific conclusions. When a ‘Thought’ develops understanding
that is universally applicable to communists everywhere, that is beyond
the previous level of scientific understanding of how to build
socialism, it becomes an ‘ism’.
Applying the concept of ‘continuity and rupture’ to historical
materialism, the author makes the somewhat controversial assertion that
the rupture that established Maoism as a new theoretical stage occurred
in 1993. This is controversial because the term “Maoism” existed and was
used to describe movements long before then. Our own movement took up
the name the “Maoist Internationalist Movement” in 1984. Though the
author points out that it is quite common for a scientific term to
emerge before its concept is developed.(p.18) The author succinctly
distinguishes the earlier and later uses of Maoism:
“Maoism, then, is not simply an addition to Marxism-Leninism (as it was
generally understood prior to 1988 under the rubric of Mao Zedong
Thought), but a theoretical development of the science that sums up its
continuity in the formula Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.”(p.23)
Before this time, the author argues that “Maoism” was a word to describe
those who looked to China for leadership, and recognized the revisionism
of the Soviet Union. It was the historical overlap of these two
phenomenon that made this such a heady time for communists. They were
simultaneously experiencing the fall of the first great socialist
experience, while watching a second great revolution critique that
downfall and surpass it by learning from it. As JMP argues, it is these
great events that allowed the theory of historical materialism to
develop and be synthesized by those who lived through and attempted to
build on them.
JMP goes on to say that the GPCR itself was not enough to forge Maoism
as Maoism, but it was the People’s War in Peru that made this a
possibility. It is unclear why the Peruvians would be in a unique
situation compared to other revolutionary movements of their time. For
any of us to move forward, and incorporate the lessons of what China
did, we would have to come to some conclusions about what Maoism is. We
have no reason to believe that MIM founders relied on the PCP to come to
the same major conclusions on what the correct lessons were. We see MIM
actively struggling to defend the main points of Maoism in its struggles
with the RCP=U$A before and after founding MIM. And many others grasped
the significance of both the GPCR and the coup in China in which the
capitalist roaders took power, which are central to distinguishing
Maoism as a new stage and to distinguishing those who understand it.
“And though, in 1981, these same Peruvian revolutionaries began to think
of the possibility of Maoism (in a document entitled Towards Maoism), it
was not until they had reached the apex of their revolutionary movement
that they declared the ‘universal validity’ of Maoism as a ‘third stage’
of revolutionary science. Hence the supposedly controversial claim that
Maoism did not exist before 1988: it did not exist as a properly
coherent theoretical terrain.”(p.xviii)
At times it seems JMP is arguing that a stage can only be summed up
after moving on to the next stage. For instance ey argues that Leninism
was only summed up by the Chinese Maoists, and now Maoism was only
summed up by the Communist Party of Peru (PCP). Or at the very least it
can’t be summed up without the practical application in a protracted
revolutionary struggle that at least approaches taking state power.
“The overall point, here, is that revolutionary theory develops through
class revolution, specifically through world-historical revolution, and
that there have only been three world-historical communist
revolutions.”(p16) and “…the Chinese Revolution was the first
Marxist-Leninist revolution because the Communist Party of China under
Mao was operationalizing (and theorizing) Leninism.”(p29) and so “The
new theoretical terrain emerges when this struggle passes beyond the
limits of the previous terrain and begins to produce a new stage of
struggles according to its assessment, synthesis, and decision of
universality.”(p30)
This gets to shaky ground when JMP argues that the apex of the PCP
struggle was achieved prior to establishing socialism in Peru but still
asserting that new theoretical terrain can only emerge when the struggle
begins to produce a new stage of struggle. The PCP certainly contributed
significantly to the ICM in both the practical fight in Peru and the
ideological exposition and defense of Maoism in the global movement. But
we do not see the PCP as having produced a new stage of struggle, past
the limits of the previous terrain. The practice that revealed the
validity of Mao’s theories was that of the Chinese people, not the
Peruvians.
JMP admits, “Obviously there are other interpretations of Maoism that do
not declare fidelity to this historical narrative”.(p.2) And ey later
cites MIM as one example of this. We provide our historical narrative in
this review. But one of the reasons given by JMP for choosing the
RIM(RCP) story over MIM is that MIM is made up of “organizations based
at the centers of capitalism, specifically the U.$.”(p.47-48), while
going on to say that MIM would not disagree with the PCP conception of
Maoism as a new ism. Calling an idea “white” or “First Worldist” can be
a shortcut for explaining ideological differences, but JMP is not
drawing ideological differences here. This line of thought is a
divergence from the scientific method ey prevents throughout this book.
JMP on MIM
JMP’s coverage of MIM Thought in this book is limited to one footnote.
As mentioned above, it is a footnote where ey seems to acknowledge MIM
as one of the exceptions, one of the other examples of Maoism as Maoism
and not just Mao Zedong Thought, that was separate from the RIM(RCP). Ey
acknowledges MIM’s rejection of the RIM “experience,” as we explain
briefly below. Ey correctly goes on to say that MIM’s Maoism would not
disagree with the PCP Maoism adopted by the RIM.
What we take issue with in this footnote is JMP’s branding of MIM
Thought as “Maoism Third-Worldism.” This term was coined in the Sunrise
Statement published in 2007, after the original MIM had collapsed, 24
years after its founding. For our part, MIM(Prisons) rejected the term
Maoism Third-Worldism, while generally allying ideologically with those
taking it up. We, agreeing with JMP, said that there could be no higher
stage of revolutionary science without a practice that surpasses
socialist China during the GPCR. We asserted that the question of
exploiter vs. exploited countries was just basic Marxist economics, and
not new theory. And we warned our comrades of ceding the terrain of
Maoism to the revisionists.
A Counter-Narrative
Below we have produced a timeline of events related to both the use of
the term “Maoism” and the ideological development of the MIM and the
PCP. Later we will go deeper into some of the ways MIM addressed things
that JMP leaves as open questions for the movement.
We are not claiming that the below represents all the Maoist forces,
rather we are putting MIM history into the context of the history that
JMP upholds as defining Maoism for us. We also start with some notes
from China on the formulation of Maoism as a higher stage of
revolutionary science. In one PCP document online(1) the authors say
that they were waiting for the Chinese to declare and define Maoism, but
once the coup took place in 1976, then the Peruvians saw it as their
task to take on.(2)
The point of all of this is not to say “we were the first,” or to fight
over what year Maoism was established as we know it today. It is to
challenge a narrative that puts the RIM and the RCP=U$A at the center of
this development, when both organizations were dripping with
revisionism. That’s not to imply that all parties in the RIM were
revisionists. But it is clear that the PCP put out all the documents
listed below and struggled to get the RIM to accept their line on
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism over many years. JMP does not state that the RIM
improved on the existing definition coming from the PCP, but that RIM
forced its meaning by adopting the statement. From here, we don’t see
the great importance of that adoption. What is clear, is that the
development of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in occupied Turtle Island took
the form of a rejection of and struggle against the RCP=U$A, and the RIM
that it led.
Another date worth mentioning is 1956, which is when the bourgeoisie
within the party took the USSR down the capitalist road to the point of
causing a rift in the ICM. This provided the conditions that allowed for
the lessons that defined Maoism as a higher level of understanding of
how to proceed towards communism. MIM founders said you cannot talk
about Maoism prior to this event. And in 1956, the Chinese, led by Mao,
began addressing the question of the bourgeoisie within the party that
develops under the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is at the core
of what Maoism teaches us about pushing socialism to new, higher levels
than we’ve reached so far.
By 1969, the CPC was still using the term Mao Zedong Thought
for reasons of internal political struggle, yet they were applying the
principles of MZT externally, implying that it had universal application
and was really an ‘ism.’
A U.$.-centered Timeline of ‘Maoism’
1938 - Chen Boda and others began pushing the study of Mao’s writings(3)
1945 - VII Congress agreed that the CPC was guided by
Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought(3)
1948 - Wu Yuzhang used “Maoism” in a draft speech instead of MZT - Mao
said ridiculous(3)
1955 - Mao again opposed “Maoism” adoption among intellectual
conference(3)
1956 - Kruschev denounces Stalin, Mao’s critique of bourgeoisie in CPSU
and theory of productive forces begins, addressing questions that Lenin
never faced (MIM said can’t talk about Maoism before this)(3)
1966 - Lin Biao says Mao has elevated Marxism-Leninism to a new stage(3)
launching of Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) in China
Gonzalo’s Red Faction within PCP took up Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong
Thought(4)
1969 - 9th Party Congress in China - difference between MZT and Maoism a
formality, as Deng and Liu Shaoqi resisted “Maoism” as a new stage, the
CPC began applying MZT to global situations/outside China(3)
1969 - PCP took up Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, with
reconstitution under leadership of Gonzalo(4)
1976 - PCP denounced coup in China and declared “To be a Marxist is to
adhere to Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought.”, later indicating that
they were waiting for Maoists in China to declare “Maoism” before
this(2)
1979 - PCP: “Uphold, defend, and apply Marxism-Leninsm-Mao Zedong
Thought!”(4)
1980 - PCP launched People’s War with slogan “Uphold, defend, and apply
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism!” - only ones defending
Maoism as such(4)
1980 - RCP, USA get 13 communist parties to sign statement upholding
Marxism-Leninism
MIM predecessor RADACADS is working/struggling with RCP,USA over
questions of Maoism (dates unknown, pre-1983)
1981 - PCP: “Towards Maoism!”(4)
1982 - PCP “took Maoism as an integral part and superior development of
the ideology of the international proletariat”(4)
1983 - RIM(MIM) founded as Maoist group in response to RCP,USA failure
to take up or uphold Maoism, founding document “Manifesto on the
International Situation and Revolution” discusses Mao, the GPCR and the
Third World War(5)
1983 - RCP went to PCP with ML statement from 1980 and PCP rejected it
because it failed to uphold Maoism.(2)
RCP was agnostic over who better Mao or Lenin w/ RIM(MIM), upholding
theory of productive forces and did not understand that a new
bourgeoisie formed within the Chinese CP(7)
1984 - RIM(RCP) founded among groups RCP brought together in 1980, this
time upholding Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought(2)
1984 - RIM(MIM) became MIM, stating “RCP consciously stole the RIM name
for its international mutual aid society”
by this time MIM was distributing pamphlets on the guerilla war in
Peru
1986 - PCP responds to RIM founding statement on MLMZT and becomes a
participant(6)
MIM puts out a theory piece on the PCP that addresses Gonzalo’s line
on the militarization of the party, while it is agnostic on this line it
calls out RCP,USA leader Avakian for rejecting it as well as rejecting
the lessons of the GPCR as universal (MIM Theory 2 (old school))
1987 - “MIM made the question of the non-revolutionary, bourgeoisified
white working class a dividing line question in practice for U.S.-based
Maoists.” and began distributing J. Sakai and H.W. Edwards books(7)
MIM releases
“Third
Draft of Criticism of the RCP” exposing RCP revisionism and stating
that “the RCP has yet to concretely show what it is that is concretely
happening in China in our own lifetimes.”
1988 - JMP claims Maoism begins to exist here, this is the year the PCP
released their Fundamental Documents with the most in-depth definition
of Maoism in relation to philosophy, political economy and scientific
socialism
1990 - “MIM formed a Central Committee with supervisory powers over the
various branches and empowered by the membership to run the day-to-day
work such as the party’s monthly newspaper MIM Notes” and put out
What is MIM? and most of the content therein
1990 or 1991 - line on non-revolutionary labor aristocracy majority
appears as 3rd Cardinal Principle in MIM Notes
1992 - Gonzalo captured
MIM concludes that RCP,USA is revisionist party(7)
1993 - RIM releases statement upholding Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (AWTW
#20 1995), correcting 1984 statement as being “incomplete”, recognizes
bourgeoisie within party
1996 - RCP,USA first public response to MIM via CoRIM/AWTW
1997 - MIM response to RCP,USA - continue to condemn their seeing
question of ending armed struggle as a “two line struggle”, their
putting campaign to save Gonzalo over People’s War, criticize the
international in general, and recognize that CoRIM is RCP,USA(8)
2002 - MIM declared 3rd Cardinal Principle applies to Third World
comrades as well
2006 - cell of remaining original MIM Comrades disbands/website &
MIM Notes cease
2007 - MIM(Prisons) forms
sunrise statement released – declaring Maoism Third Worldism a new
theoretical development (orgs separate from MIM/MIM(Prisons))
The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement
Stalin and Mao both justified the dissolution of the Third International
(Comintern) by stating a Comintern was only appropriate for simpler
times. (9) The history of the Chinese revolution and its relationship to
the USSR proved the correctness of Stalin’s decision to dissolve the
Comintern in recognition of the uneven development of nations in their
path towards socialism and the need for each nation to forge that path
for themselves. Neither of them get into the details of what makes the
relationships between countries so much more complicated by the 1940s.
However, we can insert the ideas of theorists like Walter Rodney and
Samir Amin to explain that most countries are actually underdeveloped to
enable the development of the imperialist economies as one good reason.
The question of the role of European countries vs. colonial countries
was one of great concern to the Bolsheviks leading up to and throughout
their time in power. And while their ideas varied at different times,
ultimately the theories of Lenin and Stalin around nation proved correct
and important to the colonial countries. Trotsky, meanwhile, continued
to look to Europe, and was so stuck on a revolution happening in Europe
right away that he gave up on his own revolution in Russia. This idea
remains with Trotsky’s followers today and meshes well with the national
chauvinism of the oppressor nations.
Given the above, we must question whether the idea of a communist
international fits into Maoism today. JMP actually states “that it is
false internationalism to establish an international communist
party.”(p.239) Yet ey upholds the RIM experience, that MIM saw as an
incorrect practice. The USSR dominated the Third International as a
large socialist entity with state power. The RIM was dominated by the
RCP=U$A by virtue of its resources from being in an exploiter country.
While both power dynamics proved undesirable, the USSR had certainly
earned their leadership role. At the same time the influence and power
of the Comintern was much greater than the RIM.
As MIM began to reach outside of U.$. borders it came to define
itself as
“the collection of existing or emerging Maoist internationalist parties
in the English-speaking imperialist countries and their English-speaking
internal semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging Maoist
Internationalist parties in Belgium, France and Quebec and the existing
or emerging Spanish-speaking Maoist Internationalist parties of Aztlán,
Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.$. Empire.”
While we currently have no parties in our movement, we still do not
claim to provide organizational leadership outside of imperialist
countries. That is not to say MIM does not involve itself in struggles
in the Third World, as was clear in its work in combating the Committee
of the RIM’s (CoRIM) efforts to slander the People’s War in Peru.
If the RIM were a group of parties coming together to define Maoism,
that might be a fine project. But the truth is that the Communist Party
of Peru (PCP) had already defined Maoism and had to push the rest of the
RIM to accept it. With the capture of the PCP leadership, the CoRIM went
on to promote the idea that there was a two-line struggle over peace
negotiations within the PCP, and that Gonzalo had authored a peace
letter. Not only is the idea of disarming the communist party the
literal definition of revisionism, there is probably no party to date
that has made this more clear than the PCP of the 1980s. For years MIM
published articles exposing this wrecking work, led by the RCP=U$A, as
working right into the hand of the CIA/Fujimori regime.
Putting that atrocious activity aside for a moment, JMP’s treatment of
the RIM as a monolithic whole acts as a way to sneak in the obviously
revisionist RCP=U$A. RCP revisionism is spelled out clearly in the
original MIM comrades’ writings from its very founding to its very last
days. Even many former RIMers have critiqued the RCP’s role in
hindsight, though this was not until after the RCP had openly rejected
Maoism again. JMP alludes to the RCP=U$A and the Communist Party of
Nepal (Maoist) as examples of Maoists gone revisionists. Yet both of
these organizations were criticized as Trostkyist prior to the RIM
statement on Maoism.(10) Certainly revisionism will emerge from the
genuinely Maoist movement, but these examples just serve to include
revisionists in the genuine ICM.
Just as the RCP=U$A used its resources to have undue influence in the
ICM, the PCP’s real street cred served to legitimize the RCP=U$A on its
home turf once the PCP joined the RIM. While the RCP=U$A long ago
removed itself from the milieu of “Maoism” and its influence has waned
greatly (the RIM having faded away), this action by the PCP had lasting
negative impacts on the development of Maoism and revolution in the
United $tates.
Defining Maoism
To identify Maoism as a new stage, JMP identifies several universally
applicable advances on Marxism-Leninism. Ey distinguishes between those
elements that primarily define Maoism, and elements of revolutionary
theory that, while advances of Maoism, are not universal aspects
applicable in every context.
“Maoism is universally applicable because: class struggle continues
under the dictatorship of the proletariat (socialism is a class
society), the revolutionary party must also become a mass party and
renew itself by being held to account by those it claims to represent
(the mass-line), the struggle between the revolutionary and revisionist
political lines will happen within the revolutionary party itself, and
that the strategy of people’s war rather than unqualified insurrection
is the strategy for making revolution. To these insights we can add: a
further elaboration of the theory of base-superstructure where it is
understood that, while the economic base might be determinate in the
last instance, it is also true that this last instance might never
arrive (a point made by Althusser, following Marx and Engels) and thus
we can conceive of instances where the superstructure may determine
and/or obstruct the base; the theory of New Democratic Revolution, which
applies universally to the particular instances of global peripheries
(universal in the sense that it applies to every so-called ‘third-world’
context) and explains, for the first time in history, how regions that
are not capitalist by themselves and yet are still locked within a
system of capitalist exploitation (that is, regions that are the victims
of imperialism) can make socialism; and a further anti-colonial
development of ‘the national question’…”(p15)
MIM’s founding documents in 1983 contain the first three points, as
they voiced support for PPW in Peru. So it seems that MIM had grasped
the universal points of Maoism as defined by JMP before 1988.
“Maoism, which has been promoted as a new theoretical stage of
revolutionary communism, is not primarily defined by the theory of New
Democracy since a new stage of communism should exhibit universal
aspects that are applicable in every particular context.”(p248)
We agree with many of JMP’s universals about Maoism. But we would argue
that points like New Democracy do not need to apply universally to all
contexts to be universally true. The universality of a political line is
found in its correctness for the phenomenon to which it applies.
Imperialism is a contradiction of imperialists versus oppressed nations.
Just as there is no imperialism without national oppression, there is no
imperialism where New Democracy does not apply.
Our difference from JMP on this may also stem from eir different
understanding of what New Democracy is. Ey repeatedly stresses that New
Democracy is necessary to develop the productive forces within a
semi-feudal country as a prerequisite to socialism. On the contrary, New
Democracy was an answer to and rejection of the old line that leaned
heavily on the Theory of Productive Forces. This line was common among
the Bolsheviks, and never really fully grappled with until the Chinese
did so.
“Revolutionary movements at the center of global capitalism (that is,
movements that manifest within completed capitalist modes of production)
will not pursue New Democracy since the problem New Democracy is meant
to address has nothing to do with the capitalist mode of production
where the economic infrastructure necessary for building socialism
already exists.” JMP goes so far as to say, “…the fact that there is no
significant peasantry or a national bourgeoisie with some sort
of”revolutionary quality” at the centers of capitalism means that the
entire possibility of New Democracy in these regions is patently
absurd.”(p.244)
It is certainly true that the French, for example, do not need to wage a
New Democratic struggle. Yet, it is a surprising line to see from
someone living within occupied Turtle Island, where the national
question of the internal semi-colonies is so prominent. The New
Democratic revolution in China was all about uniting the nation against
foreign occupation to regain the sovereignty of their territory and the
self-determination of China. It is the semi-colonial character, rather
than the semi-feudal, that is warranting a New Democratic revolution.
Mao did not mention the development of the productive forces in eir
essay “On New Democracy.” Ey does talk about developing capitalism, but
not as a prerequisite for socialism. Rather it is speaking to the
national ambitions of the bourgeois forces at the time. In that essay ey
alludes to the conditions of the development of capitalism in China
allowing for the May 4th Movement to develop as it did in 1919. And ey
is clear that the era of New Democracy only emerged with the October
Revolution that marked the establishment of the first dictatorship of
the proletariat. This was because the contradictions within imperialism
as well as the subjective development of the first socialist state,
meant that bourgeois revolution had become impotent and irrelevant.
JMP’s idea that the productive forces are not developed enough today
just isn’t true. What happened is they were developed off the sweat and
blood of the oppressed nations and put in the exploiter countries to
benefit others. Certainly the question of economic development after
liberation for the under-developed nations is one of importance. But the
Chinese proved that this internal economic development does not need to
preclude the march towards socialism. Mao butted heads with Stalin on
this very question within China, and Mao was proven correct.
In occupied Turtle Island, it is MIM line that plebiscites must be held
within the internal semi-colonies to determine the path they take after
revolution, and that such plebiscites require full independence to be a
true representation of the will of each nation.(11) Such a New
Democratic stage would be even more abbreviated here, again because it
will be a political question and not an economic one.
Strategy of Protracted People’s War
JMP places a lot of emphasis on strategy. A party is not Maoist, ey
argues, if that party is not engaged in the strategy of making
revolution. This is a fair point when we consider the importance of
tying theory with practice. Sitting behind a book or computer or desk
and theorizing about revolution does not make for a revolutionary party.
But we would replace “strategy” with “practice” in eir argument. We can
disagree on the best strategy, which should come from our political
line. But whatever line and strategy we adopt must still be put into
practice. Results come only from actions, and we can only test our
analysis by putting it into practice and witnessing the results.
When JMP argues that the strategy of Protracted People’s War (PPW) is
universal, we counter that this is only true in the sense that we can
describe New Democracy as universal. Elements of PPW are certainly
universal, but we have no peasantry nor a proletariat of significant
size in imperialist countries in which to base this PPW. “Here also is a
theoretical gauge for those organizations who would now name themselves
Maoist: if they are not actively attempting to pursue revolution, to
strategize a method based on their particular contexts for overcoming
capitalism, then it does not appear as if the name, due to its concept,
should logically apply.”(p180)
Of course we agree with JMPs focus on criticizing reformism and
spontaneous insurrection via union organizing. But ey does not address
those of us who see socialism most likely being imposed from the outside
in this country. If revolution breaks out at the weakest links first,
won’t it break out in the heart of imperialism last? And at that point,
how will revolution occur in a country of former exploiters and
oppressors surrounded by a socialist world? There is work to be done in
the First World to combat and undermine imperialism, and prepare the
people of those countries for socialism the best we can. MIM also said
from its very beginning that armed struggle becomes a reality within the
United $tates as it becomes militarily over-extended. But the form that
such a revolution will take is far less clear than what we can
generalize from history for the Third World periphery.
To the extent that there is a two-line struggle within Maoism around the
question of the universality of PPW, there is a two-line struggle around
revolutionary strategy in the First World. JMP poses the debate as one
of insurrection vs. PPW. But in searching out positions in this debate
we did not see anyone claiming Maoism and also arguing that insurrection
is somehow more appropriate for the First World. Those who have objected
to the JMP/PCP line on PPW seem to lack any acknowledgement of the
different class structures within the imperialist core countries. They
might mention conditions not being ripe, but the implication is that
they will ripen and there is a mass base to take up the struggle. For
MIM, this is a question of cardinal principles that distinguishes
Maoists from others. To try to talk about PPW in the First World while
not having a materialist understanding of the class structure is a
backwards approach.
We can argue that both New Democracy and Protracted People’s War are
certainly important parts of Maoism, but are also continuities with
Leninism. In other words, the development of these concepts by Mao and
the Chinese people would not necessarily warrant the consolidation of a
new “ism”, a new stage of revolutionary science. It is MIM’s first 2
cardinal principles, which defined our movement since 1983, that really
distinguish Maoism as a rupture from previous practice in building
socialism.
Class and the Party of a New Type
While we disagree with JMP on the class composition of the First World,
eir discussions of class in relation to the vanguard party we found
quite useful. Working in a very wealthy and privileged country, we often
encounter people who are unsure of their role and right to lead. We also
encounter many oppressed nationals who don’t trust white people, and
wimmin who don’t trust men. In other words, we encounter identity
politics. Chapter 3 was a well-done and sobering response to such takes.
JMP addresses the question of how an outsider could provide the
proletariat with the truth,
“How can this party be aware of proletarian politics if it comes from
outside? Because this is the politics derived from a scientific
assessment of history and society that permits us to understand the
meaning of”proletariat” as a social class. It is also a politics that,
in its clearest expression, has learned from the history of class
struggle, particularly the two great world-historical revolutions in
Russia and China, and so can bring the memory of revolution to those who
have been taught to forget.”(p.122)
Ey addresses the contradiction of the more privileged being the first to
make the analysis of one’s society that is necessary to build a vanguard
party: “If the most oppressed and exploited remained incapable of making
the same analyses then counter-revolution would remain a significant
danger.” (p.119)
“the party of the new type is that party, then, that keeps leadership
structures, and thus the unity of theory and practice, but understands
such leadership as one that will also be led by the masses, seeks to
transform everyone in society into leaders, and thus has its”top-down”
aspect balanced by a “bottom-up” conception of organization.” (p.202)
Where We Are In the History of Theory
In JMP’s timeline and understanding of the relationship between theory
and practice, we are currently in a stage of distinguishing Maoism, and
elucidating its meaning. The lines have been drawn, but are still poorly
understood as Maoism has not risen to prominence since the fall of
Chinese socialism. Though it remains one of the most active bases of
anti-imperialist practice, and certainly the most active within the
broader collection of those identifying as communists. As we have stated
before, JMP agrees that to go beyond Maoism theoretically requires a
practice that goes beyond China. In our founding documents, MIM(Prisons)
applied this criticism to things like “The New Synthesis,” “Maoism Third
Worldism” and later “Leading Light Communism.”
JMP presents our current state in an inspirational way, saying that
other radical theories (for example, Foucault’s) filled the space as
Marxism-Leninism was in retreat, but that those theories have now shown
their short-comings, while Maoism is being consolidated and maturing.
On the constructive side of this development, JMP proposes that Maoism,
unlike Marxism-Leninism, has the capacity to address the issues that
these other theories tried to address, and obviously do it better. This
is one place where the lack of discussion around MIM Thought really
jumps out. We don’t know how much and what MIM writings JMP has read,
but ey has read some. MIM Thought provided communists with a new
framework around gender that offers explanations to so much of the
milieu around that topic that often trips people up.
MIM Thought Ahead of the Curve
While MIM Thought’s most important tenant is the raising of the labor
aristocracy in the imperialist metropole question to a dividing line
question, this line is very much a continuity with Marxism dating back
to Marx and Engels themselves. In contrast, MIM’s gender line is only
present in tiny breadcrumbs in the past. And in reading
“Clarity
on what gender is” by MC5, you can see it addressing some of the
very things Foucault addressed in eir The History of Sexuality.
MC5 echoes (or perhaps accepts) Foucault’s history that says sex,
through sexuality, ceased being about controlling labor power (or
biopower as Foucault called it) and became a self-affirming value of the
bourgeoisie in the 20th century. This timeline might correspond to when
we see the popularization of the gender aristocracy among the general
populace of the imperialist metropole – which has today spread even
further throughout the world through the U.$.-dominated superstructure
(culture). MIM, like Foucault, addressed the lack of revolutionary
content of the so-called “sexual revolution.” MIM even finds health
status to be central to gender today, something Foucault discussed in
the modern bourgeois thinking around sex and biology related to the
vigor and hegemony of their class.
MIM, however, poses some materialist explanations for the evolution of
gender through history, unlike Foucault, who only tells us how the ideas
around sex evolved within different institutions of power over time. And
unlike most “Marxist” attempts at discussing gender and sex, MIM very
intentionally looked for what gender was, independent of class and
nation. MIM addresses issues of alimony, high paid prostitution,
celebrity rape cases, patriarchy within homosexual relationships and
other hot-button issues in the realm of gender in the contemporary
imperialist society. In doing so they always clearly distinguished their
line from that of the Liberals, post-modernists, and class
reductionists.
So when JMP makes a call for Maoism to address oppression related to
sex, race, disability, etc, we wonder why ey poses this as if it is a
task that is yet to be begun. We believe MIM Thought has provided much
insight and guidance in these realms already that should be enough to
counter almost any of the talking points from the alt-right to the
post-modern radicals.
Applying MLM/MIM Thought
And so we end with some ideas of where our ideological struggle must
continue today. We must continue to distinguish ourselves along lines of
the fundamentals of Maoism and the application of MIM Thought to our
current conditions simultaneously. We must draw hard lines between us
and the revisionists, while offering better explanations than the
Liberals and post-modernists. In doing so, we will court the scientific
thinkers who abstain from bourgeois politics with disgust. And by
employing the mass line to continuously improve our understanding and
analysis, we can mobilize all who stand against oppression in these
imperialist countries.
In November 2019, the U.S. District Court ruled that the Arizona
Department of Corrections (ADC) must “establish bright-line rules that
narrowly define prohibited content in a manner consistent with the First
Amendment.” These rules must be defined by mid-February. This ruling
comes after years of censorship of a variety of publications by the ADC,
often as a result of arbitrary decisions from mailroom staff.
In this case Prison Legal News (PLN) (a project of the Human
Rights Defense Center (HRDC)) filed a lawsuit in 2015 challenging the
censorship of its newsletter for “sexually explicit” content.
Ironically, the content that inspired this censorship was describing
non-consensual sexual contact between guards and prisoners. And as most
readers know, PLN is primarily a legal resource for prisoners
fighting injustices like this prison rape.
Arizona bans a variety of publications, including issues of National
Geographic, Men’s Health, and GQ.
Issues of
Under Lock & Key are also on this banned list, though not
for sexually explicit material. In the case of ULK, the most
recent ban (that we know about) is ULK 63 from July/August 2018,
which was banned for “Incite, Aide, Abet Riots, Work Stoppages, Means of
Resistance.” Many other issues of ULK sent to subscribers in
Arizona are returned or rejected without reasons given. Our attempt to
appeal this ban of ULK 63, requesting the ADC provide more
evidence than these vague claims resulted in the following response:
“The pages identified containing such content are throughout, including,
but not limited to, pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 17.”
In an example of their arbitrary decisions around censorship, a
MIM(Prisons) six-page guide to forming a prisoner-led study group was
censored in 2016 because it supposedly “Promotes superiority of one
group over another/promotes racism/degradation.” This is exactly what
MIM(Prisons) fights against: the superiority of one group of people over
another. And this is exactly what the criminal injustice system
promotes.
This court ruling requires the Arizona Department of Corrections to
change the mail policy from allowing DOC staff to use their discretion
when determining what’s banned and to establish consistency in excluding
sexually explicit material. This won’t help MIM(Prisons) as it is rare
that a prison claims ULK should be censored for sexually explicit
material. But any progress towards less censorship and more
narrowly-defined policies is a good thing.
On 22 October, in a different case, Prison Legal News was awarded
$1.2 million in attorney fees by a Federal district court in Florida
after a nine-year lawsuit over censorship of PLN publication
because of ads for phone services, pen-pals and stamps. This victory
came after the Supreme Court refused to take up the final appeal of this
PLN ban.(1) This resulted in the case remanding back to the
district court for a ruling on the attorneys’ fees. Basically this means
PLN won on their Due Process claims but lost on their First
Amendment claims. So the censorship is still legal, but the DOC failed
to follow proper censorship policy.
“Free speech isn’t free,” said Human Rights Defense Center executive
director Paul Wright. “In this case, censorship by the Florida
Department of Corrections cost state taxpayers almost $1.2 million –
because of the vicious efforts by the prison system to censor HRDC’s
publications. The Attorney General’s office spent over 3,000 hours in
attorney time fighting this case. The real tragedy is that Florida
prisoners remain unable to read PLN and other HRDC publications
that will educate and inform them of their rights.”(2)
PLN and the HRDC have done a lot to fight censorship in prisons over the
years. And their hard work on this front benefits everyone seeking to
help educate and organize prisoners. This censorship, and failures in
the courts prove a point we often make: there are no rights, only power
struggles.
Censorship is one of the biggest barriers to our work with prisoners.
And it’s an area where we always need more help, both from jailhouse
lawyers and from lawyers on the streets. If your mail is censored,
APPEAL IT, and get in touch with us and let us know. We will send you a
guide to fighting censorship and sometimes we can assist on our end with
an appeal to the prison. And lawyers on the streets get in touch and
help us with these battles!
The latest installment in the Terminator movies takes up where
Terminator II left off. In this timeline the A.I. called Legion has
achieved consciousness and seeks to wipe humynity from the earth. The
plot continues the theme of humyns fighting the machines after a nuclear
holocaust, with the future pivoting on the life of one persyn.
This movie features more gender and nation diversity than the previous
Terminators. All the humyn heroes are female. And it moves beyond the
U.$. borders to Mexico where the new target of the Terminator lives. In
Dark Fate the Terminator was sent back in time to kill Dani
Ramos. A cybernetically-enhanced soldier, Grace, was also sent back in
time, to protect Dani. And Sarah Connor, target from the previous
Terminator movies, shows up to help with Dani’s protection.
There are a few interesting themes to the Terminator movies that
continue in Dark Fate. First there is the nuclear destruction of
humynity. The earth and most of life on it has been wiped out. People
need to take seriously the dark possibility that humynity is driving
towards this destruction. It may not include a conscious A.I. wiping out
the few humyns who survive. But capitalism is on a firm march towards
annihilation of the current balance of life on Earth that humyns depend
on. It is not sustainable. And so movies that pose this possible future,
brought about by the actions of humyns, are good for the ideas they can
provoke.
Another general theme of the Terminator movies is that one persyn is
pivotal to the entirety of humyn existence. In previous movies that
persyn was John Connor, the unborn child of Sarah Connor. And so the
Terminators went back in time to try to kill Sarah to prevent the birth
of John to stop em from leading the resistance that could defeat the
Terminators. In Dark Fate the one persyn is Dani Ramos. In this
case it’s not Dani’s womb that needs protection/destruction, it’s Dani
eirself, who will lead the resistance.
We might read into Dark Fate that it’s not actually about
individuals. After all, John Connor died but now we have Dani. Humynity
and its conditions creates these leaders. But for the most part the
movie is pushing a message that history is created by one individual who
must be protected or destroyed at all cost. Humyns would not have united
against the Legion without Dani. So the Legion must send a Terminator
back in time to destroy Dani, and the resistance must send a soldier
back to protect Dani. That’s a lot of resources and energy spent on one
persyn.
Dark Fate is consistent with the bourgeois theory of history, a
spin on history that focuses on the accomplishments of individuals,
removing them from the political context of their time. Communists, on
the other hand, don’t see Dani, or John, or the other humyn resistance
leaders as uniquely qualified for their roles. Instead we see them as a
product of the political conditions. They did what was necessary to
fight for the survival of humynity. And in their absence others would
have done the same.
The idea that only certain special individuals are able to take
leadership roles fits in with a religious/capitalist way of thinking.
Humynity may be moving towards destruction, but there’s nothing average
folks can do about it. Only special heroes can make a difference. This
way of thinking discourages people from taking up the fight for a better
future. And instead suggests it’s best to just believe in a leader
without question.
Maoists, on the other hand, see no individuals as infallible. In fact, a
fundamental tenant of Maoism is the need for continuous cultural
revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, in which the
people are actively critical of and struggling with socialist leaders
and one another. This includes removing from positions of power those
who have strayed off the revolutionary path. The future lies in the
hands of the people, and so the people must learn through struggle in
order for us to discover the correct way forward.
The earlier Terminator movies had a good slogan from Sarah and John
Connor: “No Fate But What We Make.” This was a mantra that John repeated
to himself and others to remember that the future can be changed. This
is a good counter to the idea that humynity is fated to nuclear
destruction and the rise of conscious anti-humyn A.I.s. And that only
John, or only Dani, can lead a successful resistance. Perhaps the A.I.s,
in their limited world view, believe this to be true. But humyns should
be focused on stopping the nuclear destruction and A.I. consciousness
event before it happens. It is unfortunate that Dark Fate takes
into its title the antithesis of this anti-fate slogan, and perpetuates
that message in the plot.
The movie misses a great opportunity to avoid this idea of fate at the
end, when discussing the future of one young character. The goal that
this character not die in battle later in life is a good one, and a sign
that potentially fate can be changed. But the assumption that the way to
do this is to start military training for the post-apocalyptic battle
now, rather than fight to keep humynity from destroying itself, is an
unfortunate ending.
More than 200 detainees began a hunger strike on October 18 at the ICE
Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) in Tacoma, Washington. The NWDC is a
private prison run by the Geo Group. The facility can hold over 1500
people and houses those swept up in immigration raids, transfers from
the U.$-Mexico border, and other migrants caught in the Amerikkan
system. This is one of the largest immigration prisons in the country.
Since 2014 detainees have launched 19 hunger strikes to protest their
detention and conditions behind bars. This latest protest is demanding
edible food and humane treatment, with many also demanding a complete
shut down of NWDC. Prisoners find maggots, blood, hair and other things
in the food. Kitchen workers report rats running around the food prep
area. Guards abuse the prisoners. And Geo group ignores these
complaints.(1)
U.$. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers mirror
conditions in other prisons in the United $tates. In fact, prisoners at
Clallam Bay Correctional Facility in Washington also went on food and
work strike earlier in October to demand better conditions, focusing on
food quality.
ICE officials issued a statement denying the existence of a hunger
strike: “Failure to eat the facility provided meal is not a stand-alone
factor in the determination of a detainee’s suspected or announced
hunger strike action. Commissary food items remain available for
purchase by detainees.” They followed up this statement with a press
tour of the NWDC, featuring spotless conditions, a well stocked urgent
care room, and nice library. It appears that no prisoners were
interviewed or even filmed up close in the tour.(2)
A majority of the 54,000 ICE detainees in the United $tates are held in
privately run prisons. And migrant detention makes up the majority of
the private prison population in this country. But this isn’t about the
difference in conditions between private and state or federally run
prisons. Conditions across the criminal injustice system are abusive,
dangerous, and inhumane. We’re not fighting for a different face on the
abuse.(3)
While federal arrests overall have gone up over the past 20 years,
between 1998 and 2018 federal arrests rose 10% for U.$. citizens and
234% for non-citizens. The most dramatic increase was between 2017 and
2018, a 71% rise in arrests of non-citizens. In 1998 63% of all federal
arrests were U.$. citizens while in 2018 that number flipped and 64% of
all federal arrests were of non-U.$. citizens. The portion of federal
arrests increasingly focused along the U.$-Mexico border increased from
33% in 1998 to 65% in 2018. 95% of this increase was due to immigration
detainees.(4)
The ICE detention centers make clear the purpose of prisons in the
United $tates. This is national oppression. These non-citizen detainees
are mostly being prosecuted for the “crime” of being in the United
$tates without permission of the imperialists. This “crime” represents
78% of the cases.(4)
Closed borders are a requirement of imperialism. The wealth is kept
within these borders for the lucky few who are born to this privilege.
That wealth is stolen from outside the borders; exploitation of labor
and theft of natural resources brings great profit to the imperialists.
And the imperialists share that profit with the citizens of their
countries to keep them passive and supportive. This wealth differential
is obvious, even between the poorest within U.$. borders and average
people living in the Third World. Those living outside those borders are
desperate to get in to access this wealth stolen from their homeland.
The role of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security is clear: keep
this wealth within u.$. borders exclusively for Amerikan citizens.
We support the just demands of prisoners in NWDC and throughout the
criminal injustice system. This system has sunk so low that people are
forced to starve themselves to fight the dangerous and inhuman
conditions. It will not be fixed by improving the condition in one
prison, or even by shutting down one facility. But these demands fit in
with the anti-imperialist struggle as we fight for open borders and an
end to a system where one nation has the power to lock up others just
for the crime of crossing an invisible line.
A modern-day example of New Afrikans building independent institutions
and public opinion for socialism is the groups carrying out the
Jackson-Kush Plan in Jackson, Mississippi and the surrounding area.
There are a number of different organizations involved in, and evolved
out of, this Plan, and its roots go back to the Provisional Government
of the Republic of New Afrika (PGRNA) in the 1960s. It is directly built
on the long history of New Afrikan organizing for independence, going on
since people were brought to the United $nakes from Africa as slaves.
The Plan itself was formulated by the New Afrikan People’s Organization
and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement between 2004 – 2010. (1, p. 3)
The project has gone through many different phases, all focusing on
attaining self-determination for people of African descent in
Mississippi and the surrounding region. Sometimes the organizing has
been more heavily focused on electoral politics,(2, 3) sometimes more on
purchasing land, and currently the Cooperation Jackson project appears
to be at the forefront of pushing the Plan forward.
Cooperation Jackson’s mission is to develop an intimate network of
worker-owned cooperatives, covering all basic humyn needs, and more:
food production and distribution, recycling and waste management, energy
production, commodity production, housing, etc. The main goals of
Cooperation Jackson (C.J.) are to provide sustainable livelihoods for
its organizing base, which includes control over land, resources, means
of production, and means of distribution. Currently C.J. has a handful
of cooperatives in operation, and is building the Community Land Trust
to have greater control over its target geography in Jackson. This is
just a snapshot of the work of Cooperation Jackson, which is explained
in much more detail in the book Jackson Rising.(1)
The Jackson-Kush Plan is being carried out despite big setbacks,
repression, harassment, and roadblocks from the government and racist
citizens alike, for decades. This is the nature of struggle and the
folks working with the Plan are facing it head-on. C.J. and the other
organizations involved are doing amazing work to establish what could be
dual power in the state of Mississippi.
While the MIM has congruent goals with the Jackson-Kush Plan (at least
including the self-determination of New Afrikan people; control over
land, economy, and resources; environmental sustainability; an end of
capitalism and imperialism), there are some notable differences.(4)
We’re holding out hope that the Plan is being intentionally discrete in
order to build dual power, but the ideological foundations of some of
its structure point instead to revisionism of Marxism.
Cooperation Jackson’s plan includes working with the government in some
capacity. It needs to change laws in order to operate freely and
legally. This itself isn’t wrong – MIM(Prisons) also works on and
supports some reforms that would make our work of building revolution
much easier. But because of its relationship to the state, C.J.’s voice
is muffled. MIM(Prisons) doesn’t have this problem, so we can say what
needs to be said and we hope the folks organizing for New Afrikan
independence will hear it.
Cooperation Jackson’s structural documents paint a picture of a peaceful
transition to a socialist society, or a socialist microcosm, built on
worker-owned cooperatives and the use of advanced technology. Where it
aims to transform the New Afrikan “working class” (more on this below)
to become actors in their own lives and struggle for self-determination
of their nation, we are for it. So often we hear from ULK readers
that people just don’t think revolution is possible. Working in a
collective and actually having an impact in the world can help people
understand their own inherent power as humyn beings. Yet it seems C.J.
sees this democratic transformation of the New Afrikan “working class”
as an end in itself, which it believes will eventually lead to an end of
capitalism.
“In the Jackson context, it is only through the mass self-organization
of the working class, the construction of a new democratic culture, and
the development of a movement from below to transform the social
structures that shape and define our relations, particularly the state
(i.e. government), that we can conceive of serving as a
counter-hegemonic force with the capacity to democratically transform
the economy.”(1, p. 7)
This quote also alludes to C.J.’s apparent opposition to the
universality of armed struggle in its struggle to transform the economy.
In all the attempts that have been made to take power from the
bourgeoisie, only people who have acknowledged the need to take that
power by force (i.e. armed struggle) have been even remotely successful.
We just need to look to the governments in the last century all across
the world who have attempted to nationalize resources to see how hard
the bourgeois class will fight when it really feels its interests are
threatened.
Where C.J. is clearly against Black capitalism and a
bourgeois-nationalist revolution that stays in the capitalist economy,
we are in agreement. Yet C.J. apparently also rejects the need for a
vanguard party, and the need for a party and military to protect the
interests and gains of the very people it is organizing.
“As students of history, we have done our best to try and assimilate the
hard lessons from the 19th and 20th century national liberation and
socialist movements. We are clear that self-determination expressed as
national sovereignty is a trap if the nation-state does not dislodge
itself from the dictates of the capitalist system. Remaining within the
capitalist world-system means that you have to submit to the domination
and rule of capital, which will only empower the national bourgeoisie
against the rest of the population contained within the nation-state
edifice. We are just as clear that trying to impose economic democracy
or socialism from above is not only very problematic as an
anti-democratic endeavor, but it doesn’t dislodge capitalist social
relations, it only shifts the issues of labor control and capital
accumulation away from the bourgeoisie and places it in the hands of the
state or party bureaucrats.”(1, p. 8)
As students of history, we assert that C.J. is putting the carriage
before the horse here. National liberation struggles have shown the most
success toward delinking populations from imperialism and capitalism.
Yes, we agree with C.J. that these national liberation struggles also
need to contain anti-capitalism, and revolutionary ecology, if they plan
to get anywhere close to communism. But C.J. seems to be saying it can
dislodge from capitalism before having national independence from
imperialism.
The end of this quote also raises valid concerns about who holds the
means of production, and the development of a new bourgeoisie among the
party bureaucrats. This is one of the huge distinctions between the
Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, and China under Mao. In China, the
masses of the population participated in the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution, which attacked bureaucrats and revisionists in the party and
positions of power. These criticisms were led from the bottom up, and
the Cultural Revolution was a huge positive lesson on how we can build a
society that is continually moving toward communism, and not getting
stuck in state-capitalism.
Another significant difference between the line of the MIM and of
Cooperation Jackson is our class analysis. Cooperation Jackson is
organizing the “working class” in Jackson, Mississippi, which it defines
as “unionized and non-unionized workers, cooperators, and the under and
unemployed.”(1, p. 30) So far in our exposure to C.J., we haven’t yet
come across an internationalist class analysis. Some pan-Africanism,
yes, but nothing that says a living wage of $11 is more than double what
the average wage would be if we had an equal global distribution of
wealth.(5, 6) And so far nothing that says New Afrika benefits from its
relationship to the United $tates over those who Amerikkka oppresses in
the Third World.
We can’t say what the next steps for the Jackson-Kush Plan should be.
There’s still opportunity for people within the project to clarify its
line on the labor aristocracy/working class, the necessity of armed
struggle to take power from the bourgeoisie, and the significance of the
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. MIM(Prisons)’s Free Books for
Prisoners Program distributes many materials on these topics. Some
titles we definitely recommend studying are On Trotskyism by
Kostas Mavrakis, The Chinese Road to Socialism by E.L.
Wheelwright and Bruce McFarlane, and Imperialism and its Class
Structure in 1997 by MIM.
