Under Lock & Key

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

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

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

General Remarks on Terminology

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

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

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

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

Responding to Sykes on Settler-Colonialism

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

Sykes begins with a straightforward appraisal of Marxism:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Theory of Productive Forces

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

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

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

Criticize Settler Revisionism! Criticize Deng Xiaoping!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Regime

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peak Integration?

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

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

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

You Can’t Think Racism Away

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

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

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

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

Tabletas en Florida DOC

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

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

La Población Prisionero

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

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

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

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

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

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

In order to prescribe the Marxist ideology to our Maoist thought much needs to be understood. I believe there is a contradiction that exist that’s unspoken here: race. There seems to be a strong emphasis embraced on race as a “white” verses all other “non-white” races. The contradictions that exist here are that the “white” race is the only oppressor race. There is a huge historical analysis missing here if MIM(Prisons) is going to promote such race politics in what is fundamentally a human attribute that exists in all races of homo sapiens. To include such a factor in any discussion that involves a dialectical materialistic view of economy and government is destructive to the revolution.

The revolution is to promote equality. Ideally I believe to my understanding, an equality based on, “…each one according to their needs.” With that understanding my question becomes, what is the standard of equality on an international scale and how do we get there?

“Race” has nothing to do with our dialectical materialistic analysis because capitalism is based on only one color right now, green. The color of the Amerikan dollar which is the world’s reserve currency! So if MIM(Prisons) comrades are going to discuss economy, based on capitalism, socialism, and communism through Maoist thought then speak from the perspective of an economist. Or if it is government, then I guess the contradictions need to be explored to define the nation MIM(Prisons) looks to build because as a comrade I feel alienated based on “race.”

Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons) responds: You’ll be hard-pressed to find MIM(Prisons) talking about race, since, as this comrade points out, race is not real. The problem is, we talk about the New Afrikan nation, or the Chican@ nation, and our readers think we’re just using fancy words to talk about race.

Perhaps this is an example of us getting a bit ahead of the masses here leading to miscommunication. Another comrade recently submitted a long paper explaining what the New Afrikan nation was because they felt new readers of ULK were confused by it. It’s interesting, since we adopted the term New Afrikan from the prison movement. But goes to show how things have changed. We will be utilizing this feedback to consider how we can improve ULK. But New Afrika is already well-defined in our pamphlet Power to New Afrika, which our New York comrade above has read.

Another source of confusion is that the imperialists will always try to deny the nationality of the oppressed. It’d be hard to find someone who doesn’t recognize Haiti as a nation, because they fought and won their liberation in 1804. Like New Afrika, they are a nation of people from all over the African continent, with a sprinkling of Europeans, that were merged by force to form a new nation. New Afrika has not yet won it’s liberation, so it gets less recognition than Haiti does.

We agree with our comrade above that capitalism is motivated by profits. Racism, and the idea of race itself, arose with the system of capitalism. Though there were certainly other systems of caste and class before. The United $tates of Amerika project was central to the development of race theory. In fact, the internal semi-colony of New Afrika would not exist without racial ideology that separated the first slaves based on what continent they came from. So we may be one of the last places to rid ourselves of this backwards way of thinking, it was so important to what this project is about.

The comrade also asks about our vision for the future. Well we’d suggest reading Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism and other works by V.I. Lenin on the national question for background. Because imperialism is a system of oppression/exploitation of most nations by a few, we see the most important source of change, towards a world of equality, to be found in national liberation struggles that challenge that system; from Palestine to Aztlán. Decades ago MIM put forth the theory of the Joint Dictatorship of the Proletariat of the Oppressed Nations (JDPON) as a vision for how socialism can be imposed on Amerika itself. This is because we don’t believe a majority of Amerikans will support socialism at this stage. This idea is also found in Lenin and in Chinese Maoist thought. At the time MIM was discussing the carving up of what is now the United $tates territory into a New Afrikan Black Belt, Aztlán for the Chican@ nation, various First Nation territories. MIM also suggested that Amerika and Kanada were one oppressor nation. Some of these ideas seem much closer to reality today with Amerikan imperialism looking to incorporate Canada, and California looking for separate trade deals with China with popular support.

We have readers who say we’re anti-Black for citing Marx, and readers who say we’re anti-white for applying the ideas of Lenin. The reality is, all of these critics are too brainwashed by the “white man” to see things beyond this racial lens. Yes, the New York prisoner above we’re talking to you as well, you are the one too stuck thinking in racial ideas, not us.

Now to be fair, this is the dominant thinking of our society. So we must learn to speak Marxist truths that people stuck in imperialist, racist thinking will understand. We also recognize that the oppressed nations are more likely to be led to the truth. So we cannot avoid alienating people who identify as “white” and generally should not try to. These forces are either enemies of the revolution, enemies of equality, enemies of communism, or will have to be won over in a later stage of struggle. This is true because of their racial identities, which are the subjective reflections of their material reality as exploiters. Race is divisive – that’s why the imperialists have used it for hundreds of years.

This is Part 2 of the review of this revealing work.

Could many in the U.$. left be colorblind?

In summarizing the intro to the sixties the writers once more fall into the ideological swamp that we noticed in Part 1 of our review of this work. They state in part:

“Students, Black People, and (at the end of the Sixties ) soldiers constituted the main forces of rebellion…”

This continues in the same erroneous tradition as the RCP line. Statements like this highlight that, and RCPers have heard our stance before, but much of the non-Chican@ left, here in the snakes are what we of the ROA have come to define as colorblind. That is they only see Black and White struggles against empire. This outdated line needs to be “buried” along with the CP-USA that was previously criticized in Part 1 of our review. This colorblindness is what prevents any real revolution on these shores, especially with the Third World on our doorstep. Colorblindness is a major obstacle to many. Asked about the nation by us in the past, the RCP and their ilk have brushed it off.

“We don’t agree with those who say ‘Put my nation in front of the line’”, the RCP and their ilk have said in prior talks. Our point here is that the Chican@ nation simply be acknowledged as being in line period. For perspective of the times, the Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (OCR) declare erroneously that “Students, Black people and soldiers” were the supposed “main forces” of rebellion. Yet, since the end of the sixties Chican@ revolutionary orgs were developing throughout Aztlán. Groups like the Brown Berets, Chican@ Liberation Party and the Crusade for Justice that were brewing in this time would later be alleged by U.$. “law enforcement” of mobilizing the largest student strike on these shores with the school “blow outs” that included over 10,000 Chican@ youth, that mobilized over 10,000 people in a Chican@ anti-imperialist action in East L.A. called the Chicano Moratorium that downed a police helicopter and was alleged to have committed the only bombing of a CIA office on U.$. soil ever(1) not to mention many other instances of armed struggle.

The idea that any rebellion in these false U.$. borders does not include the Chican@ Nation is simply mierda. Those who uphold this thinking deserve full membership in the RCP-USA as their line is in goose step.

The tactics of “divide and conquer” employed by massa have worked so well on all of the masses here in the United Snakes; even within the so-called “Left” that not only are some folks pitted against other oppressed but some have come to not even acknowledge those in the trenches right beside them. Mao warned about who are our friends, who are our enemies. Malcolm X reiterated how we can end up loving our enemies and hating our friends.

BPP Legacy

As this work delved into the history of the Black Panther Party, it highlighted lessons learned. We agree with the analysis on the Panthers for the most part. The Panthers carved a path of resistance yet unseen in many ways for all of us. At the same time their imprint taught us the limits under U.$. imperialism, even when united fronts and allies are strongly in support, it is still not enough, without structural foundations in place. In this writing the authors frame it nicely in regard to the Panthers:

“The development of a vanguard party is not the same thing as and cannot wait for the development of a revolutionary situation. The ideological consolidation, theoretical development program and organizational apparatus of a vanguard party must be built consciously and systematically before the emergence of a revolutionary situation if the vanguard is to have the ability to withstand and advance through the pressure of intense events and vicious repression.”(2)

The state repression will come with victories small and large. Even when victories are small and an organization is not numerically large the organizers may down play the threat they pose to the state. But the state and their agents sometimes see the threat before the organizers, before the revolutionaries can see it and react. For this reason the vanguard must move in accordance to our potential threat to the capitalist state.

White Proletarians?

We disagree with the writers on their economic analysis in regards to who is a proletariat here in the snakes. The writers state:

“Labeling oppressed nations and nationalities in the U.S. as internal colonies, while morally justified, does not provide the analytical foundation for such a strategy and program. Instead suggesting separate struggles to liberate each”internal colony” perhaps linked by solidarity and a common enemy. The “internal colony” analysis fails to grasp that there is a multinational proletariat in the U.S. disproportionately made up of people of oppressed nation(s) and nationalities but also including white proletarians which bring together people of different nationalities who have a common class interest and similar but variegated experiences of exploitation and conditions of life that is in the strategic position, as a class, to lead the revolutionary overthrow of U.S. imperialism.”

Although many revolutions were fought and won by multi-national parties and organizations – including the Chinese Revolution and victory of 1949 – we disagree with the writers that a “white proletariat” exists within these false U.S. borders. Furthermore we do believe that there are internal semi-colonies, and the Chican@ nation, aka Aztlán, is one such internal semi-colony. The writers state that labeling the oppressed nations as such does not provide the analytical foundation for such a strategy and program but we would refer to the Chicano Red Book as the ROA refers to our precious book Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán, which does indeed provide the analytical foundation for such a strategy and program as it is Chican@ Maoist ideology. As for the bourgeoisified crumb-snatching First World labor aristocrats that are referred to as “white proletariat” we will refer the readers to MIM Theory # 1: A White Proletariat? for a more in depth examination of the white labor aristocracy in the occupied territories or Zak Cope’s Divided World, Divided Class.

Despite the writers alluding to the problematic nature of revolutionary nationalism we feel otherwise and side with Lenin on this:

“In the same way as mankind can arrive at the abolition of classes only through a transition period of the dictatorship of the oppressed class, it can arrive at the inevitable integration of nations only through a transition period of the complete emancipation of all oppressed nations, i.e. their freedom to secede.”(3)

Aztláns secession will be a prelude to how the Chican@ nation votes via plebiscite on our way forward. No bourgeoisiefied worker will define our struggle or pre-determine who we consider the proletariat here in the First World. As we have come to the conclusion through our own scientific study that the reserve army of labor here in the United Snakes is imported, that is, the proletariat is Mexican@ for the most part.

We run into more colorblind assumptions in this writing in regards to the writers views on mass imprisonment. They seem to continue with the outdated 50 year-old lenses of mass incarceration when they state:

“The entire justice system, from the police to prosecutors to prisons, was (and still is) used to keep the Black masses”in their place” and became a defining feature of their daily lives.”

It seems to be describing the 1960’s or 70’s but in TODAY’S world it is the Brown masses who are feeling the brunt heel of the injustice system. The U.S. Federal prison system today reports 8% of its population being Mexican citizens, and another 8% not being U.$. citizens. Meanwhile 38.6% are reported as “racially Black”, while 29.4% are “ethnically Hispanic”.(4) The Federal prisons are often more harsh than state prisons, and more isolated, with families living in other states or other countries. Children and babies are being imprisoned in ICE kamps; babies handcuffed in kourt; Brown babies separated from parents and then “lost” in foster care. Brown people are now being sent to Guantanamo Bay to await deportation, or straight to supermax prison in the U.$.-fascist state in El Salvador.

The new greaser laws ensure that U.S. control units and solitary confinement units are also well stacked with Brown masses via “Gang” enhancements and classification within the concentration kamps. The 2013 California Hunger Strike exposed that the SHU, or control units, were populated by 80%+ Chican@s. With the brutality of the injustice system in this country used against raza, it is ridiculous to say it is only used on Black people. In general, the U.S. penal colonies are used for population control of Aztlán and the other oppressed nations on these occupied territories.

The section on postmodernism was refreshing to read. Much of the movement papers and writings these days not only gloss over the ills of “postmodern” ideology but even become influenced by it in many cases. In addressing this assault, the movement and its affect on the youth the writers state:

“For students, the bourgeoisie worked on two main fronts (1) they promoted, in academia, ideologies and politics that appeared oppositional but in reality fortified bourgeois rule and in effect steered students away from communism and other revolutionary ideas. Postmodernism was chief among these ideologies and has since become the dominant discourse within liberal academia.”

For the Chican@ nation we see the injection of the terms Latino, Latina, Latinx and all such derivatives as being part and parcel to the postmodernism project. For Aztlán, these terms move under the guise of “inclusiveness” only to obscure the identity of Chican@s, thereby detouring our focus on national liberation and land into simple multinational reforms within the confines of the bourgeois electoral politics arena. Those who espouse the postmodernist views within a raza context have clipped their wings which compels them to walk the road of brown capitalism, never soaring for secession or national liberation because the framers of their line have negated these paths starting with their identity.

As our Chican@ scholars sank into the swamp of academia their drive for Chican@ power and self-determination also sank. As Montaya put it:

“Most tenure-track scholars are aware that academic institutions rarely recognize grassroots activism and other non-traditional forms of scholarship.”(5)

In short the path and pull of integration into the empire is too strong for many who cannot resist the trinkets of blood and treasure squeezed out of the Third World by U.S. imperialists.

It becomes apparent that the writers were in the orbit of RCP-USA. The description of life surrounding the RCP-USA seemed like a scene out of Thomas More’s Utopia. Lots of talk of life surrounding the RCP being a vibrant socialist experience having “an atmosphere of theoretical discussion and debate.”…the writers say, I was captivated for a brief moment, very brief, especially when I realized that all this “theoretical discussion” left out the Chican@ Nation – as much of the so-called U.S. “left” seems to do so cleverly. The writers leave out in their lofty description that the RCP-USA is also colorblind, like the writers and most of the posers parading like communists in these occupied territories. “Racial” scientists would likely find unity with this colorblind RCP line which infects much of the U.$. “left.”

The national liberation struggle is very much necessary despite the rhetoric from some like the RCP-USA. The “All Lives Matter” crowd swear that the society we are oppressed in has somehow developed beyond national struggle and then we picked up some “progressive” rag and read it cover to cover and not read the word Aztlán, “Chican@” or any mention of the Chican@ struggle, despite many of these same parties and orgs existing in the Chican@ National territory (the U.S. Southwest) at this time. Raza must grasp that exploitation and dehumynization of the Chican@ did not end with the U.S. “civil rights” movement. Political exploitation and cooptation remains a threat to the Chica@ nation.

Much of the content on the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) was spent “dick riding” Avakian, although in the latter part there was some good criticism of Avakianism and the RCP more generally. The “dick riding” mostly being the writers gushing over some of Avakians writings and books.

The criticism of the RCP and Avakian was in pointing out various errors. One such error was in attempting to create a cult of personality for Avakian placing Avakian above the masses, above the movement. Claiming Avakian developed a “new synthesis” and “new communism.” Some of our members remember reading this claim years ago and not seeing it then, we do not see it now either. The writers correctly highlight that Revolution newspaper began to focus almost obsessively on filling its rag with quotes of Avakian speeches that he gave to the party. The closing of Revolution Books, the RCP-ran bookstores, was also criticized, especially when RCP said it was done to focus on promoting Avakian literature, when Avakian lit was mostly distributed at the bookstores. More striking was the fact that Avakian promoted voting for Biden when Biden and Trump squared off the first time. It appears that when it comes to Bourgeois democracy: the RCP can’t do better than that.

The portion at the end is informative on the organizational functions of the vanguard party on what the writers define as the “nuts and bolts” of the vanguard. There is much to learn from studying the development and disasters of revisionist parties like the CP-USA and the RCP-USA. We take our duties here in the beast serious and the Chican@ nation will not be bamboozled via neo-colonial projects that masquerade in communist barb. The Republic of Aztlán is re-building the nation and studying the errors of the past to be successful in our struggle.

Free Aztlán!

<sup>Notes:
1 The Crusade for Justice by Ernesto Vigil.
2. “The CP, The Sixties, The RCP and the Crying need for a Communist Vanguard Party Today” by The Organization of Communist Revolutionaries.
3. V.I. Lenin, “The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination”, January-February 1916 from Selected Works Vol. 1, International Publishers, NY, 1971, P. 160.
4. https://www2.fed.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_citizenship.jsp 5. “Chicano Movement for Beginners” by Maceo Montoya, 2016, page 202.</sup>

Florida DOC Tablet Saga

When tablets came out in 2017 the very first tablets were sold to the prisoners. I had a loved one to buy me one. Then the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) decided to change the mail to digital mail, so FDOC picked up all tablets that the prisoners paid for and came back around and passed out free tablets for every one. Since then all tablets have been updated no less than three times.

This comrade just got released from a Close Management Unit and was transferred to Hamilton C.I. Since I got here I found out that for the past year the Property Room Sergeant has been confiscating tablets, most of the time giving prisoners a disciplinary report for tablet tampering in which prisoners are found guilty 99% of the time and are suspended indefinitely from having another tablet. On top of this, most now have a loan on their inmate trust fund account of $130 restitution. FDOC gave a little for a period of time, then turned around and took everything. They gave the tablets, tablets belong to the state, and now they have an excuse to take them.

The Prisoner Population

I’ve been in prison for 28 years and this whole thing changed. This is not a prison anymore, this is a child care center for these fools to hang out. Everybody wants to belong to a gang but let me remind you that before you take that oath, you need to find out why that nation, group, or gang was born. It was born by the oppressed to fight in unity as a group against oppression. Who is the oppressor? Pigs that work here, the administration, the system, the state, the government. I know my history, do you know yours?

FDOC have a total of no more than 30 officers per shift (with 1/4 of them pushing overtime) and that is counting the front controls operators. It is embarrassing how that small group of pigs can control, oppress, and abuse no less than 1250 to 1500 prisoners, thugs, gangsters, criminals, and gang members. FDOC prisoners have no unity and no self-respect. I said self-respect because I might have a debt of a 78 cent soup and you ready to kill me, but the pigs call you and the whole dorm a “bunch of bitches” and you put your head down.

FDOC prisoners, mostly gang members, would rather have the pigs as a friend than anybody else with the same uniform color. They respect the pigs more than their fellow prisoners. Ali-al haf from Georgia, I read your article in the ULK Winter 2025 issue – you are not alone! I think it is a virus that is spreading. Now prisoners do the pigs’ jobs. They check and make sure that your cell door is secure, they pass mail, they make sure you don’t eat twice in the chow-hall, they even stand next to some of the pigs like bodyguards. All this ass kissing and at the end of the night your ass is just like mine: locked down behind a door. It doesn’t matter how down you might think the pigs will be, at the end of the day they will not put their paychecks on the line because of you. Coño Preso – look at the fucking color of your uniform. Ain’t you noticed that it has a different color!

Learn the difference between a right and a privilege. Use the grievance process, you must leave a written historical track in case issues need to be handled at another level. Written proof is all there is that shows a peaceful avenue was tried before going all the way out. All those comrades that in the past sacrificed their prison sentences, release dates, family, and some of them even their lives for this new generation to throw their hands up and surrender. Really? That is how we’re doing time in 2025?? Where are your cojones??

Let’s get together in the same line of thought. Before you complain about not having a tablet or not being able to watch the game on TV, we need to think about how high canteen prices are, receive more gain time, bring parole to lifers like me, get better food. Sorry, but prison is not a place that you come to to hang out with your homies and have a good time. This is the cemetery of the walking living dead, where your whole future could change in 15 seconds. Don’t forget where you are, your culture, where you came from. Do not submit to do the pigs’ work. I won’t be surprised if in a few more years visitation is done solely via video and they stop all contact visits. If we don’t get together and stand up and work as a group, as a family, we are going to keep losing. Remember that before you became a gang member you were a man, a human being – not a beast. And I refuse to be trapped like one. No quiero abrazos con la vida hasta que mi pueblo sea libre.

A Georgia prisoner echoes Ali-al haf’s report: Here at Baldwin State Prison in Hardwick, Georgia, some things are the same as Valdosta, GA. Gang members having a room all to themselves and picking on the weak, taking all their property.

In one building the unity manager has her boys, [gang members] to beat some prisoners up (mostly whites). It is told that the female officer unit manager is a [gang] member. She is always talking down to the whites.

The drugs are plenty here and the drug called strips is where most go to.

The mail system is really screwed up. Mail is passed out maybe two times a week. The mailroom officer puts mail out daily for night shift to pass out.

Stabbings happen daily. Some cut themselves to be placed in the hole to get away from the gang members. Some gang members force some, mostly whites, to put money on their books or send them cash and make them go to the store for the full amount only to take it from them and officers let it happen.

Baldwin State has nicknames such as “Bloody Baldwin”, “Body Bag”, and “Cut Throat”. The names fit well.

$prayer responds from Pennsylvania: Our comrades here in the PADOC would rather be focused on going at each other and being on the C.O.’s side and doing a bunch of nonsense, it’s sad. Our comrades aren’t even focused on their own lives like they should be instead of worrying what others are doing. They oppress their other comrades like they’re the oppressor, like they’re not oppressed by the oppressors too. The oppressing comrades do what the oppressors want them to do so they take the heat off of their own backs and put it on their own comrades’ backs. Like I really can’t believe all of the OPPRESSION between comrades, it’s really sad. Like the oppressing comrades call us (who stand against the criminals of permission “cops”) rats, but look at what they’re doing, they’re doing the oppressors’ bidding. So who’s the real rat? They are, aren’t they, since they’re doing the oppressors’ bidding right? They really need to ask themselves who’s the rat. We’re supposed to stand up to our oppressors, not stand with them against our own comrades. Am I right or am I wrong?

MIM(Prisons) adds: We also published a report in February from a Tennessee prisoner being extorted by a drug gang that was protected by staff. Ali-al haf’s article really struck a chord with our readers, indicating the state of affairs across the prison systems on occupied Turtle Island. This relates to our campaign: Stop Snitching, Stop Collaborating, where comrades have repeatedly pointed out that you can’t snitch on pigs. These prisoners described above are collaborating with the enemy.

But lumpen orgs working with the imperialists is not a forgone conclusion. We know this because there are plenty examples in history of lumpen orgs working on the side of anti-imperialism, especially in the internal colonies of the United $tates. We also know this because, as Trauma points out, there is a common material interest in the lumpen coming together for conditions and for respect. And as $prayer says, most prisoners should be comrades on the same side. We can make that happen through education and organization. We must build institutions that serve the interests of the lumpen better than the state does, to win over the masses.

MIM(Prisons) regularly publishes articles speaking on the reprehensible conditions in U.$. prisons. Why do oppressed nationalities suffer these life conditions disproportionately, and what is the solution?

The United $tates has been the largest economy in the world for some time. How is that possible? It is made possible because the United $tates reaps this profit out of the Third World. Many people know this subconsciously, but do not put all the pieces together. There is a common joke about Asian children making smartphones, but we do not question why this is the case. It is the case because it is profitable for the United $tates, because the company makes more profit when they pay lower wages, then these commodities are brought to the United $tates and sold for cheap, and everyone here benefits. The company makes a profit and the Amerikans get cheap goods. That much is clear from a cursory look, and proved by the recent literature on “unequal exchange.”

It is obvious why the Third World is placed into poverty by this system, but why the oppressed nationalities within the United $tates? Historically, the internal semi-colonies were sources of wealth as well, but today it is a question of distributing that wealth from the Third World. The Amerikan nation recognizes, consciously or unconsciously, that they have an interest in keeping their plunder to themselves. For that reason, Black and Brown people are excluded from employment, education, housing, and all the benefits of Amerikan empire. Racism, therefore, is the way that Amerikans assert their economic interest in keeping others from getting a hold of their money.

The movement against racism stems mostly from the desire of the oppressed nationalities to integrate into the empire; the desire here is for an empire free of national bigotry, wherein the currently oppressed nations have equal access to the wealth which is pulled out of the Third World, the globally oppressed nations. Anyone with two eyes, however, can see that this struggle has been raging for decades without an end in sight. The oppressed nationalities within the United $tates cannot leave behind the Third World on the low chance that they may succeed in becoming one with the beast; they must ally with the Third World in the struggle against imperialism. Only by overthrowing this system of class and national divisions can the oppressed within this country live to see a day where oppression in general is dying out, and prisons in particular become based on rehabilitation instead of “punishment,” and where people are not restricted from life opportunities in the interest of protecting the wealth of the privileged nation.

Does anyone today believe that true integration, true “equality” between nationalities in this country is possible through the ballot or any other means? The response to this question will be “if not, what hope is there?” The choice seems to be between the gradual struggle for equality on the one hand or nothing on the other, since the only method of achieving liberation without reform is revolution, and most cannot imagine the oppressed nations in this country winning any real fight against the empire. But why are we imagining this fight as only between these two competitors? The oppressed nations within the United $tates are only one component part of the oppressed nations of the whole world. The struggle for the revolutionary overthrow of imperialism is a global one, uniting all who can be united. Yes, none of the oppressed nations in this country can liberate themselves: neither the Black nation, nor the indigenous nations, nor the Chicano nation. But the struggle of all these nations, by themselves too weak to overthrow imperialism, together form a mass which vastly outweighs the strength of the United $tates, and this is where our strength lies. This is where our strategic confidence in success comes from. Through the international struggle imperialism will overextend itself, and it will open inroads for success in national liberation struggles. These successes will weaken imperialism further, eventually setting the scene for the truly anti-imperialist force, the socialist working class, to make its appearance.

MIM(Prisons) adds: We’ve published a paper by the Dawnland Group discussing the organizations that were behind the now defunct magazine Kites. As summarized in that essay, these organizations reject the labor aristocracy thesis and the importance of national liberation struggles (see What is MIM(Prisons)? for more on our positions).

In addition, this month we are publishing on our website the final version of our paper, “Why the International Communist Movement (ICM) Must Break with the Legacy of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM).” This paper is a critique of the RCP-U$A, and the RIM that it helped lead, on the grounds that they put First Worldist and revisionist ideology at the forefront of the ICM. This paper was inspired in part by the work of the OCR and the ideas and papers (by Bob Avakian) that they promote. Part 2 of this review by ROA addresses the section of Kites #8 on the RCP-U$A.]

In this piece put out by the Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (OCR) they attempt to shed light on two organizations – the Communist Party-USA (CP) and the Revolutionary Communist Party USA (RCP-USA). This paper further delves into the 1960’s and the communist movement in general, particularly within these false U.$. borders.

As the writers point out little has been written about the RCP-USA so not much is known for the newer generation of revolutionaries. Some of the members of our organization however have experience with the RCP-USA and have debated and struggled with them for a couple of decades over their neo-colonial line toward Aztlán to no avail. Their failure to recognize the existence of the Chican@ Nation has led us to label them as a revisionist party to say the least. So this paper was welcoming and a way for our comrades to sum up this relic of a distorted past called the RCP-USA.

The writers list the Socialist Party of America (SP) and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) as the forerunners to communist organization in the United $tates. It should also be noted that white supremacy and language barriers hindered the recruitment of Chican@s, or other raza, into these organizations. It is interesting that 100 years later white supremacy continues to affect the line of many multi-national organizations like the IWW, especially when they attempt to put our national interests on the back burner while accusing us of wanting to put our nation first. It is not that we simply want to put the national struggle to the forefront for some subjective reward, we do so as revolutionary nationalists because we have determined that the principle contradiction is between the oppressed nations and the oppressor nation. A people cannot be free to determine their future if they are suffering from oppression.

As noted in this paper, the early days of the communist movement in the United $tates had a proletariat that was “substantially immigrant”, today we see the same with the proletariat being mainly migrant workers, particularly those from Mexico. This seems to make the vanguard’s job easier organizationally. Back then there was a proletariat of various migrants from various countries, including many from Europe, so a communist vanguard role would have been to create agit/prop material in these various languages in an attempt to raise consciousness in these populations. We see the Chican@ nations role as key in today’s environment where the proletariat is largely Mexican@ and from Central and South America making Aztlán’s job of uniting the Brown exploited workers under the Chican@ leadership much easier than any other national organization. The trail of liberation on these shores is Brown.

At one point the issue of Black oppression was addressed in this paper, noting that the communist movement of this time essentially dropped the ball and:

“Subjectively, the failure of US communists to prioritize making an analysis of the Black national question – the oppression of Black People and how that oppression can be ended through communist revolution and begin making political interventions in struggles over the oppression of Black people was a serious, strategic blunder that only compounded the objective problem.”(1)

Another “strategic blunder” of the time was in not prioritizing an analysis of Chican@ national oppression – not only back in the early 1900’s but the continued blundering of today when many political organizations within these false U.$. borders continue to ignore the very essential Chican@ struggle in their analysis. This also highlights the continued necessity of single-nation building for Aztlán. After all if the Chicano nation does not organize for the liberation of Aztlán who will?

The early 1900’s was prime time for the Chican@ nation in terms of rebellion, it was just about 50 years since colonization at the hands of U.$. imperialism but it was also a time of the Plan de San Diego. As our Chicano Red Book put it:

“During the first decade of the 1900’s a group of unidentified Mexican@s or Chican@s put out a document calling for armed resistance by Chican@s. The Plan de San Diego called for Armed Struggle against Amerika and proclaimed that upon victory the”South West United States” would become a Chican@ state, New Afrikans would form their own state and First Nations their own state. This was the first united front of the oppressed nations on these shores that sought independence for all oppressed nations upon victory: the Plan demonstrated true internationalism.”(2)

So although Chican@s have been resisting and organizing for independence even before U.$. communists began to organize in the SP, IWW, CP or Communist Labor Party (CLP), none of these so-called revolutionary orgs developed an analysis on raza or our colonization during the early 20th century. The RCP-USA still has not supported Chican@ independence. Marxism taught us historical materialism which we use to learn from hystory. Hystory has taught us that anytime we have lifted the boot of the white oppressor nation off our necks it has been by Chicanos coming together and struggling. Whether it was against white terror that las Goras Blancas (the white caps) fought or against Amerikkka which compelled the Plan de San Diego to develop, we have, as a people, always struggled against national oppression from the factories to the field. The most significant labor strike in U.$. hystory, which was a Chican@ strike but which white labor has hijacked and renamed “The Ludlow Massacre”.

During the time that the SP, CP, IWW and CLP were committing the blunder on the Black nation, they likewise committed a great blunder on the Chican@ nation who was also struggling against national oppression. Because of this hystory we set out to create the Republic of Aztlán, the government in waiting for the Chican@ nation. The writers note the CP’s “foreign language workers clubs” and their role in organizing non-English speakers. Taking into account the almost non-existent analysis of the Chican@ struggle by the movement in U.$. borders, it highlights the need for Raza workers org’s and clubs to help organize and develop immigrants who suffer from exploitation.

This piece sums up the trials and tribulations of the CP. Their factionalism and devotion to the unions seemed to drown out the suffering of the internal semi-colonies of the time. The Comintern and, in particular, Stalin’s guidance, led the CP to finally give the Black nation and their struggles against national oppression some attention. Aztlán was ripe for development during this time when white labor denied Chican@s as well as many other oppressed at the time.

An interesting mention in this piece was on the development of a “guerilla military force.” In discussing the communist activities of the 1920’s the writers state:

“There is a question of whether Communists could have developed some type of guerrilla military force to supplement the mass labor struggles that erupted and to contend with the repression by way of organized armed defense of strikers where appropriate (some of that happened spontaneously) and selective assassinations of agents of repression!!” (3)

Although we do not promote People’s War today, the fact remains that a vanguard’s role is to be prepared to defend the people, especially when the capitalist state unleashes the most vile forms of repression. One has to be prepared for the inevitable, this includes the understanding that a strike force is a very necessary vehicle for defense of an oppressed peoples. No nation will ever acquire liberation without such a mechanism in place. Cadre should grasp this, teach this and prepare for the time when such a force is necessary. Fanon was clear in that colonial violence can only be overcome by a greater violence, the oppressor nation understands no other language. At the same time, the cadre should accept that such a dialogue is a great sacrifice of the highest form. Indeed, we cannot study revolution without studying what such warfare would deliver society to such a transformation. The Black Liberation Army sliced to the heart of it when they said:

“Bombings, kidnappings, sniping, revolutionary executions, surprise raids, bank robbery: all of these are rightfully weapons of urban guerrilla warfare. As we use them we must take care to maintain high principles and keep in mind that power to the people is more than just”campaign rhetoric”.” (4)

Although campaign rhetoric may be leading much of the public discourse, a realistic view of national liberation leads us to develop plans of attack and self defense even if the plans do not become operational until after our demise. The future of any socialist revolution demands this.

Subjectively, the part of this writing that hit the hardest to those of us who organize within the U.$. concentration kamps was the portion describing the story of the young womyn named Marian Morna, the 18 year old member of the CP’s Young Communist League who describes integrating with the masses to organize strikes in the fields of California’s Imperial Valley. Her description was incredibly moving, in her words:

“The years with the fruit pickers became a world within the world, a microcosm of feelings that never left me, not even when I left them. I lived with the pickers, ate, slept, and got drunk with them. I helped bury their men and deliver their babies. We laughed, cried, and talked endlessly into the night together. And, slowly, some extraordinary interchange began to take place between us. I taught them how to read, and they taught me how to think. I taught them how to organize, and they taught me how to lead. I saw things happening to people I’d never seen before. I saw them becoming as they never dreamed they could become. Day by day people were developing, transforming, communicating inarticulate dreams, discovering a force of being in themselves. Desires, skills, capacities they didn’t know they had blossomed under the pressure of active struggle. And the sweetness, the generosity, the pure comradeship that came flowing out of them as they began to feel themselves! They were—there’s no other word for it—noble. Powerful in struggle, no longer sluggish with depression, they became inventive, alive, democratic, filled with an instinctive sense of responsibility for each other. And we were all like that, all of us, the spirit touched all of us. It was my dream of socialism come to life. I saw then what I could be like, what people could always be like, how good the earth and all things upon it could be, how sweet to be alive and to feel yourself in everyone else.”

If one were to replace the words “fruit pickers” with “lumpen” or “prisoners” it would be spot on to an organizer’s experiences in the concentration kamps. I feel it. The connections that develop with the masses in any environment cannot be manufactured insincerely. Oppressed people, wherever they may be struggling against an oppressor, at some point develop relations that give us a glimmer of what social interaction and struggle will feel like as society transforms to a higher level, we taste it and this sampler compels us forward for more.

Another glimmer of hope we learn about in this piece was in the lesson of the Yokinen Show trial in 1931. August Yokinen was a member of the CP who refused to allow Black folks to enter the Finnish Workers Club in Harlem and went on to say their place was in Black Harlem. The reaction to this was the CP having a show trial charging Yokinen with white chauvinism. It was public and even got coverage in the bourgeois press with The New York Times putting it on the front page. The trial provided good agit prop for the masses and highlighted the inability of the capitalist state to address white supremacy and hold white chauvinism accountable and the CP did. This educated the masses and put Amerika on blast. This reminded me of our org’s action around a gun buy-back program by the pigs. We had a comrade announce on the radio live that there was going to be a gun buy back, where the pigs can turn in the stolen “hot” guns they had in their trunks that they regularly planted on people. We announced they can remain anonymous and that we will not ask for a badge number. Our goal was simply to keep our streets safe from pig terror. We did this to raise consciousness and, although in our case we did not get coverage in the bourgeois press, we addressed a real form of repression in a very audacious way which, to our knowledge, had not been previously done.

Raising consciousness is our job as communists however because of the brainwashing that the state does on a mass scale we have to be bold, creative and audacious in our efforts, all without crossing the line where the state has ammunition to lock us up. In the end sometimes they’ll make shit up and lock us up anyways. The Republic of Aztlán has taken up its responsibility to serve the people by all means necessary and we overstand the dangers that come with this role!

This piece has many lessons within it, too many to address in our writing here. The case of the Scottsboro boys is worth a mention though. It was of course a sad case of injustice and imprisonment but the lesson was definitely on how communists of the time responded and struggled with bourgeois liberals on which way that struggle developed. This struggle reminded me in a small way to the prisoner hunger strike of 2011/2013 in Califas and how a variety of orgs entered the arena of coalition.

It is always a struggle to at once unite with the masses in struggle while resisting the pull towards reformism which often engulfs mass struggles. This first part of our review framed the CP and its good and bad characteristics that we can learn from today. Soviet revisionism ultimately sank the CP ship. Despite all of its efforts, it continues to be anchored in the graveyard of bourgeois elections today. This first part of the review was successful in “burying” the CP for our organization.

<sup>Notes:
1. “The CP, the Sixties, the RCP and the Crying Need for a Communist Vanguard Party today: Summing up a century of Communist leadership , organization, strategy and practice in the United States so that we can rise to the challenges before us.” By Organization of Communist Revolutionaries
2. Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán by a MIM Prisons Study Group, 2nd Edition 2021, Aztlán Press, Page 40.
3. Organization of Communist Revolutionaries IBID.
4. Collected Works of the Black Liberation Army, Rookery Press, Page 92.</sup>

Organizations in Occupied Turtle Island organizing under the label of Palestine solidarity take various tactics and ideological positions. A great portion of these efforts are negative, representing leftist organization-building and guilt-soothing for populations who benefit from imperialism.(1)

Still, there is much to be appreciated in Palestine solidarity organizing. The fact that as a class, U.$. workers are wedded to imperialism as a labor aristocracy(2) does not mean that select individuals and segments of the same class, such as youth, immigrants and members of oppressed nations, don’t have a righteous impulse to rebel against genocide.(3) Further, drawing the line between practicing manufactured discontent to gain social capital (for example, peaceful, permitted and policed “solidarity” marches, or gathering social media clout) versus genuine rebellion (involving significant self-sacrifice) can be a difficult strategic question and a complicated moral matter. It’s the job of communists to answer these questions, drawing those who can be allied in a united front under the leadership of the global proletariat.

In the United $tates, only small percentages of the country ever will protest for progressive causes, and usually only a few thousand people are liable to turn up at anti-imperialist protests, if we’re lucky. But even this small size of protest crowds can be confusing. We see large events put on in the name of helping Palestine and, ignoring the lack of ideological unity required for such crowds, perceive that there is a strong movement against genocide here. To move how? Against which genocide? You’ll find that the larger the event, the less likely it is for such questions to be answered.

Let’s examine one specific way this numbers game is lost among the U.$. left. A very common protest narrative goes something like this: X city/institution is partnering with Israel. That partnership uses funds which could otherwise be spent “on our community” (healthcare, jobs, public resources). Therefore, we must divest from Israel and invest back into “our community”. The messaging behind agitational work tells the organizers, audience and onlookers at protests the purpose and goals of the work: they represent the ideology pushing our practice forwards. Here, this oft-repeated messaging about divestment explains that everyone should join the cause to reclaim what is theirs from an immoral misappropriation.

This narrative about redirecting resources away from genocide and towards “community” can be found in endless settler-left slogans such as “build more schools, not bombs!” or “money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation!” All such ideas revolve around the mythos of the Amerikan “community”: a fictitious multi-national concept in which, abstracted from the violence at the base of the Amerikan colony and the national conflicts therein, we can imagine harmonious and communal ways of life involving sharing our resources. This imagination goes back to the root of settler consciousness in Occupied Turtle Island which imagines a “Thanksgiving” where the colonists shared food with the First Nations rather than poisoning, raping and murdering them by the millions.

An almost identical narrative is wielded by referencing the “tax dollars” spent on Palestine-solidarity campaigns’ targets, begging Amerikans to rise up against a supposed misuse of money which is otherwise rightfully owed to them. This relies on the same conceptual basis as a “community.” If we believe this narrative then absent specific policy mistakes (such as funding Israel) there would exist the basis for peaceful redistribution of the spoils of genocide and imperialism, and this would be a righteous redistribution. At the base of these common yet mistaken ideas are 1) a genuine impulse towards fascism by U.$. citizens who wish to become even more wealthy compared to the Third World, and 2) ignorance regarding the source of global wealth disparity to begin with.

We cannot resolve #1, the fascist impulse among a majority here, without overturning imperialism and settler-colonialism entirely. To address #2 however, we can study how “communities” in Occupied Turtle Island are literally built and sustained off of genocide, slavery and imperialism, especially regarding the “average jo.” There are two main groups in the United $tates: the settlers and the oppressed nations. Euro-Amerikan settlers have been a consistently reactionary group for the past five centuries as their life here is founded on slavery and land theft.(4) They are the numeric majority of the U.$. population and have consistently subjected the First Nations, New Afrika and the Chican@ nation with oppressive, genocidal campaigns.(5)

These oppressed nations on the other hand vacillate between progressive and regressive tendencies depending on proximity to the spoils of imperialism. Independence movements among oppressed nations represent a progressive impulse wishing to sever connections with U.$. imperialism, whereas participation in DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) initiatives, reforming political parties and redistributing wealth to the oppressed nations represent an integrationist trend which serves to either enlarge the (petty-)bourgeoisie of these nations at the expense of their oppressed masses or incorporate swaths of the nation into the capitalist-imperialist world system.(6) Overall there are substantial parts of oppressed nations here who still face genocide while other portions steadily receive a bit more of the imperial pie.

To the extent that anyone here enjoys it, the First World lifestyle includes housing, food, medicine, transportation and extensive leisure-time bought from the blood of indigenous peoples and manipulation of global labor prices which under-pay workers in the Third World and deprives them of basic necessities.(7) An over-accumulation of profits in the United $tates has led to excess money supply and higher domestic wages: the surplus available to create a complacent consumer base beyond the settlers alone.(8) This is why wages here are approximately 10x normal wages in Palestine. Thus while some U.$. workers suffer under national oppression, they are almost all economic oppressors of the Third World.(9)

So if we convince the majority here that they are actually impoverished through imperialism, or would be enriched through its end, we are misrepresenting the facts and tarnishing the cause of Palestinian liberation. When imperialism inevitably falls, internationalist forces in the imperial core will probably be encircled by fascism: citizens here attempting to cling to lifestyles and social roles which can no longer exist, led by whichever elements of the bourgeoisie can rally them around new extractive outlets to replace old imperialism. The faster we can pull away from self-interested economic thinking here, the faster we will eventually construct socialism. The more here who search for their own best interest through the fall of imperialism, the longer such a task will take.

United front work in the imperial core on behalf of the global proletariat will involve grappling deeply with the labor aristocracy and the settler nation. We must investigate this majority’s interests as they unfold in street protests, unions, universities and even prisons. We shouldn’t reject them wholesale: we should condemn their economic gluttony while simultaneously uniting those who will commit to fighting on the behalf of the international proletariat. We must educate each and every Amerikan who will listen about how their wealth comes from genocide and how their lives will change when imperialism finally falls.

Having rejected the fantasy of an abstract, multi-national Amerikan “community,” we could instead support the many progressive causes belonging to the oppressed nations here who have suffered under genocide like Palestine. But such campaigns must be specific in their slogans and selection of organizing base, as well as how to relate to those with varying proximity to imperialism. Connecting progressive campaigns such as those against police brutality, which predominantly affects oppressed nations, to Palestinian sovereignty is a righteous cause. Trying to connect Palestine to the reactionary dissatisfaction of everyday Amerikan workers, especially settlers, is a recipe for fascism and genocide.

<sup>Notes:
1. A Million Tiny Fleas “The Anti-War Movement that Wasn’t” Substack, Jun 13 2023.
2. Cope, Zak “Divided World Divided Class” Kersplebedeb 2012, pg. 9.
3. The Dawnland Group, “A Polemic against Settler Maoism”, MIM (Prisons) website, June 2024.
4. Sakai, J. “Settlers: The mythology of the White proletariat from mayflower to modern.”(2014). Kersplebedeb.
5. Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons, “Proletarian Feminist Revolutionary Nationalism” June 2017, pgs 96 – 108.
6. Labor unions from oppressed nations integrating with settler and imperialist labor unions is an important historic evidence of this trend. See: Sakai, J. “Settlers: The mythology of the White proletariat from mayflower to modern.”(2014). Kersplebedeb, pgs 152 – 174.
7. Jason Hickel, Christian Dorninger, Hanspeter Wieland, Intan Suwandi, “Imperialist appropriation in the world economy: Drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1990–2015,” Global Environmental Change, Volume 73, 2022.
8. Cope, Zak “Divided World Divided Class” Kersplebedeb 2012, pg 200.
9. Undocumented migrants, prisoners, homeless people, and the chronically unemployed lumpenproletariat are generally not economic oppressors.</sup>

Let The Memory of Marcellus Khaliifah Williams, A New Afrikan Poet and Revolutionary, Reaffirm Our Commitment to the Struggle

Marcellus Williams, also known as Khaliifah ibn Rayford Daniel, was murdered by the amerikkkan state on 24 September 2024. He was a proud Muslim New Afrikan, a poet, an advocate for Palestinian children, and a prison imam at Potosi Correctional Center. Despite a vast quantity of evidence showing that Williams did not commit the crime of which he was convicted -

“Williams was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery and burglary in 2001 for the 1998 killing of Felicia “Lisha” Gayle, a 42-year-old reporter stabbed 43 times in her home. His conviction relied on two witnesses who later said they were paid for their testimony, according to the Midwest Innocence Project, and 2016 DNA testing conducted on the murder weapon “definitively excluded” Williams.”

The state nevertheless passed the decision, with the approval of the Supreme Court, to murder him in cold blood.

Williams was convicted in 2001, by a jury consisting of 11 white men and one New Afrikan. According to Al Jazeera, a New Afrikan juror was improperly dismissed from the jury, with the justification that they would not be objective.

Prosecutor Keith Larner said that he had excluded a potential Black juror because of how similar they were, saying “They looked like they were brothers.”

In a country that supposedly grants everyone the right to a “trial by their peers”, the fact that a New Afrikan on trial for the murder of a white woman was not allowed a jury of his peers – of New Afrikans – makes it clear that amerikkka cannot be “reformed” into “accepting” the New Afrikan nation, no matter how much surface-level anti-racist rhetoric is in the media nor how many bourgeois New Afrikans are elected to positions of power. For skewing Williams’s jury towards white men the judge would owe blood debts to the oppressed nations and the proletariat far greater than any average criminal under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Ey was right about one thing – a jury of New Afrikans, of Williams’s peers, would have been more likely than a jury of white men to consider his innocence. That is why more than half of the people with death sentences in the United $tates are Black or Latin@ according to the Prison Policy Initiative.

Williams’s conviction, for the murder of a white woman, shines clarity on why it is necessary to have a proper analysis of the gender hierarchy in the First World. The trope of a New Afrikan man murdering or “raping” a white woman has been used to stir up the most vile representations of national oppression ever since New Afrikans were imported as a permanent underclass and oppressed nation, from Emmett Till to Marcellus Williams. The rapidity at which the criminal injustice system will commit atrocities against New Afrikans accused of violence against white women makes it clear that the question of “gender oppression” is far more tied up in national and class oppression than pseudo-feminists would have one believe. Since time immemorial, the oppressor-nation men and women both have been spurred into action by the suggestion of a New Afrikan acting violently towards a white woman; Williams’s case is no different.

“From 1930 to 1985, the white courts not only executed Black murder and rape convicts at a rate several times that of white murder and rape convicts, it executed more Black people than white people in total.”(2)

Hours before ey was executed, the Supreme Court reviewed Williams’s case, and denied the request to halt or delay his execution. This is despite millions of signatures on a petition, and a great deal of social media activism around the case. The righteous anger of millions was not enough to save Williams’s life. True radicals, not reformists nor revisionists, need to look past the idea of incremental reforms, of politely asking the amerikkkan state to consider the humanities of those it has deemed worthless. If the time and energy that had been put into the (nevertheless righteous) cause of petitioning for Marcellus Williams had been put into studying, organizing, and building towards a movement of New Afrikan liberation, or towards an overturn of the amerikkkan empire and its justice system, not only would Williams’s life have likely been saved (as he would have been granted a true trial by his peers), but the lives of many others convicted (wrongfully or not) of crimes that pale in comparison to the crimes against humanity committed by the First World bourgeoisie and its lackeys would have been saved as well. Any justice for Williams can only be attained when we feed this righteous outrage into such systematic solutions.

Many of the narratives from supporters surrounding his death would have the reader believe that the only reason he was undeserving of death was his lack of culpability. Undoubtedly, the murder of an innocent man is something that will tug at the heartstrings of many, and can be used as an agitational opportunity. But as communists, we recognize that the use of the death penalty by the bourgeois state, and especially a jury of euro-amerikans deciding the fate of a New Afrikan, is always murder. So too are the deaths of New Afrikans at the hands of the police; so too are the deaths of the Third World proletariat by starvation, natural disaster, or oppression by paramilitaries serving as U.$. attack-dogs. Whether or not Williams was guilty of his crime, whether or not the hundreds of others on death row are innocent, the system will never prosecute those who uphold the world order that leads the oppressed into a life of crime, will never order the lethal injection of those with the blood of millions of oppressed-nation proletarians on their hands.

Williams was a devout Muslim and served as an imam for those in prison. The topic of religion has been covered many times before in Under Lock and Key, but this case serves as an example of how religion serves as a liberatory force for many in prison – helping them to transform themselves, and to find allies among all those fighting against amerikkka and the capitalist system throughout the First and the Third World alike. Williams’s last words were “All praise be to Allah in every situation!!!”; the author sees this as an example of why, rather than condemning religion as some pseudo-“Maoists” and chauvinists will do, we recognize religion to be, as Marx explained, the sigh of the oppressed people. Islam brought Williams a sense of comfort and cosmic justice as he headed to his death, without keeping him from organizing and speaking out against the moribund and oppressive priSSon sySStem.

Let Marcellus Williams’s death remind all of us that this country’s injustice system doesn’t care how much people protest, or petition. Ultimately, polite pleas to higher authority will go ignored. The only thing that will keep such high-profile injustices like this, as well as the more covert violence against New Afrikans and other oppressed nations, from happening again, is freedom from the amerikkkan state, won through struggle and revolution. And we must remember, unlike so many of the liberal activists who took up this cause, that we fight for Marcellus not only because the evidence shows he has a higher chance of being innocent than most people on death row, but because the oppressive and racist amerikkkan empire should not have the right to decide whether a single New Afrikan lives or dies.

Williams’s poetry is a beautiful and striking example of proletarian-internationalist art, in how it captures the revolutionary consciousness of New Afrikans in the United $tates, and in how it draws the link between New Afrika and Palestine.

^Note: 1. Elizabeth Melimopoulos, 25 September 2024, Why was Marcellus Williams executed? What to know about the Missouri case, Al Jazeera.
2. see MIM Theory 2/3:Gender and Revolutionary Feminism for more on the intersections of nation and gender*^