MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
When I first came to prison my whole perception of organizing in the
streets changed. It changed due to education of history: history of
other movements and how to organize the streets from within the prison
walls. I do believe that prisoners can have a great influence on
activists due to our struggles in here. But as the saying goes, a
prisoner struggle today is the street’s struggle tomorrow. The work
which must be done inside these walls to help influence other
organizations is education, strategy, and unity among all workers and
oppressed people. But what I find is happening in the streets is that
everyone wants to choose what battle is most important to their cause
rather than finding a solution to all organizers’ challenges.
Here in prison we sometimes get caught up getting a big head for
fighting an issue which just caters to a person’s selfish desires,
rather than challenging issues which change the system as a whole. So we
must learn to unify under one umbrella to tackle the issues we face.
My target audience will be the workers ’cause I believe they have power
but don’t know it yet. But the difference that contradicts working with
workers is some are so caught up in consumerism so that they will not
organize, or they don’t want to lose their status so they will not
wholeheartedly strike or fight for better wages. The lumpen can also be
tricky to work with, due to a lack of resources.
We will have to build public opinion thru certain media outlets, hip hop
culture, sports entertainers, and thru magazines. The contradictions to
capitalism must be exposed so the targeted audience will have something
to fight for. But to conclude, prisoners can help street LOs by building
unity and overstanding each others’ issues and combining theory and
using science to challenge the system of imperialism.
MIM(Prisons) responds: This writer raises an important point
about needing to be able to look beyond our persynal issues and desires
to the broader problems of the oppressed. This is especially important
if we hope to unite beyond our local set. And we can certainly use
cultural outlets to build public opinion and unity.
On the question of organizing workers, we’ve written a lot about the
bought off nature of the vast majority of workers within U.$. borders
and we see this as a material explanation for what this writer notes:
they are caught up in consumerism and don’t want to lose their status.
These workers are earning more than the value of their labor because of
all the profits from exploitation in the Third World brought back to
this imperialist country. And so the workers here do understand that
their status is valuable and profitable. They have the money to spend
that allows them to get caught up in consumerism. As a result, we have
seen throughout Amerikkkan history that these folks are not a force for
progressive change. And organizing them to demand higher wages is not
organizing against imperialism. This is one of the reasons we focus on
organizing the lumpen as a group more likely to have an interest in
revolution.
I usually don’t weight in on stuff because most of my time is spent
fighting the system, that’s what I do. I don’t like pigs and I don’t
like how these wannabe convicts be talking a lot of shit but as soon as
these pigs pull out their pens and misbehavior reports they hide under
their bunks!
I’m a transgender woman and I’m not scared of these pigs! I was working
in the mess hall and the target of the most feared pig here and when I
wrote him up all these wannabe convicts started telling me how I
shouldn’t fuck with him because he will retaliate. I said “fuck him I’m
gonna keep doing me.” Sure enough he retaliated and so did I. In the New
York State Employees manual section 2.12, it states that they can’t use
abusive, aggressive, vulgar or obscene language, so whenever I heard him
violate that rule I’d write his ass up. He retaliated by writing a false
ticket on me. I got 7 days keeplock and then went back to work. Two days
later I got fired and then I got threatened that if I kept writing
grievances that they would set me up by giving me a new charge. I
stopped grieving his ass and wrote to the Inspector General’s office (ya
ya!).
So, my question is this: why the fuck are dudes that have 15, 20, 25
plus years so scared to go at these pigs, but when a comrade owes them
$3.24 they’re ready to put a shank in the guy’s back? Why when a pig
disrespects you, you tuck your tail and run, but when a comrade
disrespects you, you all of a sudden got a set of balls?
I’ll tell you why a lot of these guys might do it. Because they know the
pig will beat their ass all the way to the hole. But if they fight a
comrade that shit will only last at the most a minute and then it’s “get
on the fucking ground before I blow your fucking head off!”
I’ve physically went at these pigs more than 5 times in the last 3 years
and I’ve gotten 2 new bids behind it! I would’ve been home last year but
there’s a line that if crossed there should be consequences. I turned 10
years into 20. I’m not proud of that. Not at all. And I don’t go around
broadcasting it. But sometimes you have to stand up for yourself. If you
don’t stand for anything you’ll fall for anything!
So, to all of my comrades, stand up to these pigs. I’m not telling you
to go up against them with your fists, but don’t just let them do what
they want to you. Attack them by pen, fists, protests, or whatever! In
the words of Malcolm X “By Any Means Necessary.”
Peace Comrades!
P.S. - “I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made
up, this diminishes fear.” - Rosa Parks
MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade provides us with an important
reminder that we can’t just sit back passively and allow abuse to
happen. And the criticism addressed at those who will fight other
prisoners over bullshit but won’t take on the pigs is right on. At the
same time, everyone has to assess their own conditions and decide what
response will work best and bring on the least suffering and
retaliation. We need good comrades like this one to get out of prison,
not double their time!
The decentralization of the prison population in California has helped
make the voices of the oppressed harder to get out, as county jails step
up repression in face of growing prisoner populations. At the Martinez
Detention Facility in the Bay Area gang enhancements are being trumped
up as a form of national oppression against Latin@s:
“We here, at MDF, Contra Costa County Jail, that are of Latin descent
and not southsiders, are being held in Ad-Seg status now since 2010. And
now even more unjust treatment is being added to us, gang enhancements
just for being housed on this module, even if we don’t ask to be housed
on this module at time of arrest/booking. Classification, Administration
and the District Attorney’s office is using this module as an apparatus
to get harsher sentences from the courts.” - April 2017
Meanwhile, resistance has grown down south at Robert Presley Detention
Center in Riverside. A hunger strike began on 13 April 2017. As we go to
press updates are a couple weeks old, but we know that about 30 people
participated in the strike and that some passed out and were sent to
outside medical facilities. The prisoners list 13 demands, including the
end of long-term solitary confinement, restrictions on phones/visits and
dayroom access.
Within the CDCR we’re still seeing the unfolding of contradictions being
created by the release of many from the SHU, who were once influential
but are now older and less known, into a population that is younger and
often in disarray. The Agreement to End Hostilities came out of the SHU
almost five years ago, and it remains in a state of uncertainty. Many
are still working hard on it, but it has not been universally upheld in
these last five years. As a comrade reported in March:
“There were two recent riots here. One on the 3A yard here at Corcoran,
the other at SATF Corcoran, on 3C yard. No one severely hurt, but it’s
hard to organize with situations like that.”
There were contradictions between many of the forces behind the original
agreement and sectors of the prison population that still need to be
addressed. USW comrades in California are still working on these
contradictions to push for a more united peace. This should be a theme
as we prepare educational campaigns for Black August and the
Commemoration of the Plan de San Diego, which should both feed into this
September 9th Day of Peace and Solidarity. Send in your reports on these
campaigns and the conditions for peace where you are.
Finally, we’re getting a lot of requests for info about Prop 57 from
readers in California. One comrade recommends contacting: Initiate
Justice PO Box 4962 Oakland, CA 94605 The latest from CDCR
is that if you are eligible you will be hearing from your counselor this
summer.
I am a Mexican National Citizen raised in the old ways of making
business. Our word was always good to our dying last breath. In prison
politics and Mexican politics, the word is meaningless. (Tell that to
good Tio Colosio, who paid with his life for believing someone else’s
word.)
Well, after 20 years in a main line or so-called active yards, I made
the transition to the SNY yard. Here, I found lots of brothers
(i.e. comrades), that made the transition years and even decades ago.
Fortunately, I escaped the usual brainwashing that my Chicano
counterparts are exposed to in the schools and ghettos. So, I called
quits, and came over to the bizarre world. I found that most of my new
comrades lacked any type of political consciousness. Time after time
they declined my attempt to read some of my literature. It did not
escape my mind that I once was like that too. It took me years to awaken
to the cruel reality of my imprisonment.
Anyway, my first celly was a white male. And I discovered what I have
always known in theory: We are all ignorant, poor, and damned
(regardless of skin color, creed, or gang affiliation). For reasons that
are not pertinent to this essay my new celly only last me less than 24
hours. Nevertheless, he left a deep impression in my consciousness. He
told me that on the line his shot caller actually put a hit on him, over
a $50.00 pruno debt. So he had to assume the position and allowed his
beloved celly, who was a few months short to go home. And he was stabbed
about three times. That is how out of control the prison gangs are.
So that the readers know: The average Mexican National prisoner doesn’t
belong to cartels, or street and prison gangs. Most Mexicanos are
unaware of the avalanche of prison politics coming their way. Without no
shame I can say that had my counselor told me about my expected role to
serve at the active yard I should have checked out right there and then.
It wasn’t meant to be, so I was set up, by a failed rehabilitation
system. I was immediately classified as a “PAISA” or “BORDER BROTHER.”
This STG (Security Threat Group) is under the direct order of the
Sureños Prison Gang (like to be ordered to do hits and follow gang’s
rules).
Unbeknownst to the Mexican, all of these violent incidents will be used
by the Board of Parole Hearings (“BPH”). God forbid one has a stabbing
ten years ago. They literally act the part to be surprised that these
kind of thing happen in prison. Even a disciplinary citation over a
stolen apple will be used to say that one is a danger to the free
community. These pundits actually believe that these gulags are CENTERS
of top notch rehabilitation. And that one insists in misbehaving!
My new celly is an elderly Mexican. He is respectful and knows how to do
time. He too called it quits when he discovered the winds of change in
the air. And before things took a turn for the worst, he made the best
decision in his life. He became another “SNY.” The environment here is
more loose. The gang trip is over. I have not seen any acts of predatory
behavior towards those that are too weak to defend themselves. Then,
there are those that act out as straight protective custody; they
believe that the c/o is their daddy or big carnal. They are loud and
wear their pants half way down their butt. Still the talking with staff
can also be seen at facility “C”, an active yard. They came in to the
program office and spend time with them (getting cozy with the enemy
i.e. the oppressor).
I found out that if I kept to myself and mind my own business I can fly
undetected. This wasn’t possible in an active yard, because one is
expected to put in work for the prison gang. The new prison gangs at
this side, they pretty much keep to themselves. And do their fighting
without asking for help. Those who do not want to engage in the new
gangs warfare are left alone out of the drama. I have spoken to former
Sureños and Norteños (youth and elderly), and many described themselves
as “Mexicanos” born on this side. Many have realized that the Mexican
National is not their puppet to be used and discarded. They all agreed
that becoming “SNY” is the best decision that they ever took. Their new
leaders are their families, patria, and raza.
Here, former shotcallers and gang leaders are nothing. They are one more
slave among the thousands. Long are gone the days of blood money, glory,
cell phones, and God ego trips over life and death. As for my own
transition from an enslaved active prisoner to an “SNY” it was easy. I
packed my belongings without raising too much suspicion. And at school I
told the officer “that I wanted out of the yard.” They pressured me to
tell what I knew about the big fat sapos and those that are kissing
their ass. I had nothing to tell them.
Even if I knew anything I would never tell them nothing. I am too old to
become a state snitch. So, not all SNY prisoners become snitches. I have
been told that sometimes the officers threaten prisoners by telling them
they will be sent back to the main line. But, this wasn’t my case. (For
your information, the officers will never do that.)
For those that I left behind, stop and think about it, for a long time.
Is it really worth it to give up one’s life by running a fool’s errand?
What they are sending you to do to someone else’s son they will do to
you. The masters of manipulation’s lost cause is not worth it to die or
kill for. Screw their orders, they are not our parents, tios, or big
brothers. They are playing God with your lives and freedom.
They are bloodthirsty sociopaths with our brothers’ and sisters’ blood
on their hands. They are the oppressor’s little brother; they help the
oppressor to keep us in check. Go ahead and tell them to do the killings
themselves. They can’t really hold you up accountable for your word;
that you gave up as a little kid. You did not know anything about life
when they enticed you to join the gang. They never told you that by 15
you would be dead or doing life in the gulags.
They never took you to a funeral and told you: that is you in a few
years. They never took you to the gulags to visit those who are buried
alive. Have they told you that an early death or lifetime in prison was
your future? Odds are that you would have run away ASAP. Thus, at the
age of 20, 30, or even 60 years old, one must truly awaken to the
reality of our predicament and analyze the contradictions of one’s
slavery. So that we can shake off the old chains that bind us to a lost
cause. One must evolve and think outside the box. It is the 21st
Century, our families need us out there.
MIM(Prisons) responds: Lumpen organizations (LOs) in the united
$tates are usually organizations of the most economically marginalized
of the oppressed in this country. Elsewhere comrades have spoke about
the difference between the Neo-Colonial Lumpen Organization (NLO) and
the LO. The experience of the above comrade reflects the practice of the
NLO. But the LOs in general have both capitalistic and
collective/nationalist aspects to them. And those that embrace the
collective aspect (usually in a revolutionary nationalist way), can
evolve to become Political Mass Organizations (PMOs).(1) So while we
struggle with comrades in LOs to move in the direction of becoming a
PMO, the above story is a common one in California as SNY has come to
represent one third of prisoners in recent years.(2)
This comrade also touches on the national question and national identity
in Aztlán. The fact that those of Mexican descent born within U.$.
borders are so likely to identify as Mexicanos speaks to the national
contradiction between the Amerikan settler and the colonized territory
of Aztlán. As this comrade also recognizes we refer to those born north
of the U.$.-Mexico border as Chican@s. The recognition of a Chican@
nation deeply connected to, but separate from Mexico, was the outcome of
the struggles of revolutionary nationalists and communists in the 1960s
organizing Raza in the southwest. For those interested in this topic you
should check out Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán by a
MIM(Prisons) study group. This book is available to prisoners for $10,
or work trade.
Californian Correctional Officers’ beginning career wages are the
highest in the U.S. at a whooping $48,000, with the prospect of earning
nearly $80,000 annually when reaching the top pay grade.(1) They receive
640 hours of training, and an 8-month probationary period for each and
every new recruit. I don’t believe the average citizen who pays taxes
would approve of how they don’t run the daily prison program on a
regular basis. In essence getting paid well for clocking into work just
to sit in office areas and do nothing until it’s time to clock out.
I’m writing this specifically in relation to practices at California
Correctional Institution (CCI). Today is 18 April 2017 and a part of our
program has been taken for no given reason 71 times just this
year since January, not including a 9-day facility lockdown for the
misplacement of one set of tweezers. The tweezers were lost in PIA [job
site], which disrupted college courses and furthered this lockdown
culture. I’ve spent 7 years on Level 4s where violence was a regular
occurrence and those yards received less lockdown and program
cancellations than this peaceful low-to-no violence yard. With a month
plus of complete lockdown if one calculates partial lockdown, plus 9
building lockdowns where the rest of the yard is programming yet
Building #1 Correctional Officers have decided not to run program
without a given explanation. I feel tax payers would like to know
how their money is being spent, many of them making far less than these
Correctional Officers to do much more.
One has only to think about the mental and physical effects that are
rooted in being locked in a 6 by 8 by 9 feet cell with another human for
over 16 hours a day for months, even years, at a time under the pretense
that the Department of Corrections is using the rehabilitation model,
which was initiated in the 1930s and states that it is a model of
corrections that emphasizes the need to restore a convicted offender to
a constructive place in society through some form of vocational or
educational training or therapy. (Cole, Smith & De Jong, “Criminal
Justice in America 8th Edition.” 2015, pp 328, 362) This is one of my
college courses this semester and all previous citing is from the
textbook.
Isolationistic practices are shown to have double negative effects on
captives in regard to their social skills and behavior. This is due to
the unnaturalness of long periods in isolation, captives become more
agitated when expecting program i.e. readying themselves to go out of
cell for yard, dayroom, school, and self help then without notice they
cancel program without saying nothing. This is unique to CCI because at
all other prisons the building COs let population know there will be no
program. I write this even after talking to Sara L. Smith, Ombudsman, in
person and 2nd Watch Sgt. Bart about this ongoing issue. Both responded
it would be dealt with, yet two days in a row partial program has been
cut with three in-house COs i.e. 2 on the floor plus one in control
booth.
MIM(Prisons) responds: Under capitalism, the criminal injustice
system is primarily concerned with enforcing the conditions that allow
for profit. For colonized nations, this means repression and
imprisonment to maintain the colonial relationship. Therefore, reforming
people is rarely the focus. And how could it be, when there are no
efforts made to address the causes of anti-social behavior in the first
place, which include the dog-eat-dog culture of capitalism?
Unfortunately, the settler nations (like Amerika) are so bought into
this system of oppression that they have little concern for the $80k a
year their tax money might be paying some CO to sit around. That is a
mere drop in the bucket compared to the bombs being dropped on Syrians
right now. One Tomahawk missile, made by Raytheon Co., costs $1.59
million.(2) In the U.$. attack on a Syrian air field a couple weeks ago
(6 April 2017), they used 59 Tomahawk missiles. Yet, according to
multiple polls, a majority of Amerikans supported that attack.(3) And
they have a long history of supporting huge military spending to kill
people around the world. We find it unlikely that they will be moved by
the money being spent to keep a large, idle lumpen population in
prisons. It is up to those affected by the criminal injustice system to
do something to stop this madness creating more madness.
I believe that having alliances with lines that are military minded is
somewhat dangerous to the united front. First and foremost, I do believe
in armed struggle, but building public opinion on imperialism and moving
toward communism as the ultimate goal to end all oppression is key. Some
lumpen orgs or nationalists might criticize MIM(Prisons) on their line.
But truth be told we must study the history of the Cultural Revolution
in China, which gives us the best way to move toward socialism, ending
in communism. It also allows us to learn from the mistakes of the past.
Amerikkka targets lumpen orgs, and nationalist groups. So alliance with
a militia group might jeopardize the united front. And once the
imperialist policies place everyone in one basket who they feel are a
threat, they will place them in prisons or worse eliminate them as what
happened to many BPP members in the late 1960s. So, I must say comrades,
that MIM(Prisons)’s approach with study groups and challenging all
comrades to study history and dialectical materialism prepares us to use
public opinion to change the minds of the lumpens and all those who are
oppressed.
What good is guns if you don’t know who the enemy truly is? By enemy I
mean, just going up against amerikkka’s army is not enough. The enemy is
the system which must be changed. Guns with no vision or discipline is
suicide to the united front. The best weapon in the struggle is unity,
and armed struggle is also important. But each one teach one is the
method to awakening the masses on how capitalism destroys lives.
Once the American people become self-reliant and help their fellow man
and stop supporting this economic monster (capitalism-imperialism) then
hopefully through public opinion and democratic centralism we can
achieve the goal we all want which is communism.
As for snitches, there are different levels of snitching. But I will not
allow a person in my circle who I know has the tendencies to crack under
pressure. I mean those individuals who work for the prison
administration, receiving goods in order to cause chaos. They would go
so far as telling prison officials that you are sharing revolutionary
material and having your books confiscated.
Even on the outside you have to be careful aligning with rats who will
jeopardize the united front in order to demoralize and cause
dissociation. But as long as those who represent the militant side of
fighting oppression can agree that we must use strategy and wait for the
right time to strike the imperialist monsters, I’m all for it. But if
militants feel as though focoism is their aim, I’m all out. Educate the
poor and oppressed first, to show them the real enemy. And there needs
to be a change in habits and consciousness so that we will not allow
materialistic ideology to control us.
MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade raises a good point about the
risks of allying with those who are engaging in military actions now. We
agree with em that focoism is not the right strategy. But the value of a
united front is that we can disagree on this point of strategy in terms
of the right time for armed struggle, but still unite in our fight
against imperialism. We can work with these organizations while
struggling with them over these points if such struggle seems fruitful.
We do not need to have complete agreement on points of strategy in order
to work together in a united front. We would also want to keep these
groups at arms’ length for the simple fact that advocating armed
struggle now is a known tactic cops use to wreck a movement from within.
But beyond the question of uniting without complete theoretical
agreement, this writer is arguing that it is too risky to unite with
focoists because their premature military action could bring down the
whole united front. This is certainly a risk we need to consider. Groups
within the UF have the autonomy to act independently of the group, and
so some may engage in actions that others disagree with. While we
wouldn’t automatically exclude focoists from a UF based on their
political line, this comrade is correct to warn that we need to stay
vigilant about actions that present a risk to our work and to our
organization.
At the same time, resistors of all stripes, even those who aren’t
focoist, bring down repression from the state. Even anti-imperialist
academics and people working in electoral politics are harassed, and
murdered, by the state when their words are too effective. One could
also argue that the frivolous security practices of other groups will
jeopardize the UF. We have to find a balance between putting ourselves
out there, and getting the work done.
We can’t make up easy rules to answer to this contradiction. Instead
everyone has to evaluate alliances based on the circumstances and
current situation.
This is an open letter to all you advocates and activists who are at war
with the prison system. The American Corrections Association (ACA) has
done their two-stage, once in a decade, onsite prison review beginning
in January 2017 ending in March 2017. They’ve posted memos to the effect
of talking to prisoners and performing audits to better use monies
towards treatment and rehabilitational programs. Well at California
Correctional Institution (CCI) this is a joke, especially of the level 3
yard where there is no accountability on safety issues.
There are no cameras on yard nor in buildings that would hold
Correctional Staff to a higher level of accountability on the lines of
brutality waged against prisoners. This brutality is covered up too
often by collusion between Correctional Officers in reporting of
incidents which comes down to their words against prisoners’ with no
physical evidence to support because there are no surveillance cameras.
This is a black site operation, period. There exists no accountability
when it comes to enforcement practices. Correctional employees are given
full discretion and are supported fully by a Gestapo Culture with no
checks and balances from outside authorities. This is including the ACA,
who only talked to 2% of the prison population, and those were selected
by this administration, i.e. Correctional Staff.
There is no accountability on the running of programs, which means
anything from dayroom, yard, school, vacations, or even jobs. At the
same time there is no program and no movement, prisoners walk to medical
lines, walk to chow, go to self help groups, etc. No matter what the
weather is they are required to walk to and from just to lock themselves
back into their living quarters, i.e. cells. The ACA didn’t assist
prisoners to get assignment cards for going to college classes onsite
nor through mail even though they know these participants miss at least
9 hours a week from yard and dayroom, at the same time providing
assignment cards to prisoners in GED courses. Though the institution is
making money from these new college onsite classes of which I myself am
in, earning 6 credits for 2 classes this semester and enrolled in both
summer and winter courses. Yet, I am not able to go outside on the
weekend to get fresh air so I now get outside rec and fresh air less
than my brothers and sisters in the SHU. The American Correctional
Association is there for a waste of tax payers’ money.
Blame is put on the prisoners for most that continues to occur here to
be absolutely honest, because most of them fail to study the rules, are
rule breakers and have terrible conduct creating negative attention.
Once more I must state in complete truth, that all levels of staff have
treated me with respect, I haven’t gotten any write up, never assaulted
on any level by any level of Correctional Staff. Quite the opposite has
happened to me. I’ve initiated my own services, I’ve signed up and am
currently going to college, I had constructive conversations with all
levels of Correctional Staff. At the same time I’ve read the Title 15
and re-read it several times complying with every law and rule. I’ve
communicated with complete respect at all times with prisoners and
prison staff of all levels and walks of life.
This is written for the purpose of exciting advocates to get involved
with pro-social programs in person, to let them know that the ACA and
many other organizations are rip-offs and monies would effect more
positive change if and when it goes directly to the prison and prisoners
who are willing to take advantage of all pro-social programming. That
those who are doing the work to create better futures by learning in
college or vocational skill learning should receive beneficial treatment
and be allowed to go to yard on weekends and holidays even days that
they are off. We need advocates to sound the bell for us ensuring that
we are treated with favorable treatment, so that we are not being
punished for attempting to get ahead.
A Socialist and Conscious Comrade
MIM(Prisons) responds: We’ve been watching the great progress of
organizers at CCI with interest and excitement over the last year. But
playing by the rules does not generally pan out so well for prisoners
across the United $tates engaged in postive organizing along the lines
of the United Front for Peace in Prisons (UFPP). In one recent example,
the United Kage Brothers have been denied the ability to form an
official organization by the CDCR at Pelican Bay State Prison. And this
is why the UFPP stresses INDEPENDENCE as one of the 5 principles. If
local staff are supportive of your efforts that is great. And there is
plenty reason for them to be supportive of a safer work environment. But
we also must not build or organizing in a way that is dependent on the
whims of the state, which has a general principle of opposing the
organizing of the oppressed.
China’s Urban Villagers: Changing Life in a Beijing Suburb by Norman
Chance Thomson Custom Publishing, Second Edition 2002
“Thus it is not surprising that an important theme expressed by the
suburban Chinese described in the concluding chapter of this book is
resistance – not in direct opposition to socialism per se but against a
government and party that in recent times chose to put its own interest
ahead of those of the Chinese people. In the early years of the People’s
Republic, the Communist party was the major force leading the struggle
for economic improvement, enhanced social equality, and greater
political empowerment of its predominantly peasant population. But the
protest movement of May and June 1989, supported by thousands of Chinese
from all walks of life demonstrated to everyone that the party and
government no longer had a mandate of leadership. What the future holds
for China remains to be seen. But the lessons of the recent past, from
which much can be learned, are there for all to see.” - Norman Chance
China’s Urban Villagers is a book about peasants on the edge of
modernization. This book discusses in part how peasants made great
strides in the construction of socialism, attained a life free from
hunger, oppression and exploitation, and then lost it all. In particular
this book chronicles the story of Half Moon Village, a small peasant
village which used to be located on the outskirts of Beijing on land
which prior to liberation was known as a “vast wasteland” but which
following socialist revolution was transformed through the peoples
collective strength into Red Flag commune, one of China’s largest
communes.
The author wrote the first edition of this book based on data originally
gathered on his third trip to China in 1979. However, the author also
references material collected from earlier trips to China in 1972 and
78. He was also assisted in collecting information for the first edition
as well as the second edition to this book in 1984 and 1989 by his wife
Nancy Chance and by Fred Engst, the son of Joan Hinton, sister of
William Hinton. Within the preface to this book Norman Chance explains
his decision to publish the second edition (of which this review covers)
so as to put into perspective his previous experiences in China, both
during and after the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) as
well as his time in Red Flag in light of the repression at Tiananmen
which followed capitalist restoration.
The preface to Urban Villagers began with the author discussing
how he was initially impressed with the Chinese success upon his first
visit to China during the GPCR commenting that: “Many people, including
myself, were impressed with Mao Zedong’s strategy of reducing economic
inequalities through the immense collective effort of the people.”
Yet he immediately follows up this statement by saying that in
retrospect this prior assessment was incorrect due to the fact that he
later came to believe that we was never really allowed to actually
observe socialist China’s failures in agriculture and industrialization,
only its successes. This is an erroneous analysis which effectively
amounts to a “Potemkin Village” thesis in which the author implied that
everything that was good about China was false and everything that was
bad about it was instantly authenticated. This is a contradictory stance
on behalf of the author, not because he changed his position after
leaving China, but because all throughout the book he finds it useful to
compare and contrast what he saw and wrote about China in 1972 and 1976
with the changes he observed in 1979, all the while claiming to uphold
the conditions of the Chinese people as being qualitatively better in
1972 and 76, while still stating that what he saw in those first two
trips wasn’t really real after all – either conditions were better in
1972 and 76 or they were not, you can’t have it both ways. Indeed, even
in Chapter 9, “A Decade of Change”, added to this second edition using
data from the years 1987-89, the author comes to the conclusion that
social conditions had drastically changed in China since 1979. In
particular he refers to “class polarization the breaking up of communal
peasant land into individual holdings and the rising rate of inflation
and exploitation.”
Norman Chance was one of the first cultural anthropologists to be
allowed into China between the years 1952-1972 as anthropology as a
branch of the social sciences was discredited in the Peoples Republic
following the socialist stage of the Chinese revolution (1). He was
invited to visit China in 1972 as part of an educational delegation
during the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution. Professor Chance was
asked to give a lecture at the Beijing Institute of Minorities titled
“Minority Life in America.” No doubt the communist party invited this
Western academic not only as part of a mutual exchange of ideas, but so
as to expose the Chinese people to reactionary ideologies so that they
may learn from them and be better prepared to combat them. Upon
reflecting on his visit to China, Mr. Chance commented on “how different
were our perspectives on the relationship between minority and majority
nationalities.” (p XV)
It would have been helpful if the author would’ve spoken more on this
last point so that we could’ve learned about the structural relationship
between the majority Han nationality and minority nationalities in
China. For example, the contradiction of nation (Amerikkkka vs the
oppressed nations) is principal here in the United $tates. How did
similar contradictions get resolved in the PRC? In particular how were
these contradictions further elaborated and worked on during the GPCR?
“Apart from their other characteristics, the outstanding thing about
China’s 600 million people is that they are ‘poor and blank’. This may
seem a bad thing, but in reality it is a good thing. Poverty gives rise
to the desire for change, the desire for action and the desire for
revolution. On a blank sheet of paper free form any mark, the freshest
and most beautiful characters can be written the freshest and most
beautiful pictures can be painted.” - Mao Zedong, Introducing A
Cooperative, 1958
To understand how Red Flag commune and Half Moon Village came to be
developed we must first understand China’s need to raise the quality of
life for its majority peasant population. As in any other society
quality of life is first measured by the country’s ability to meet its
citizen’s basic needs. First among these needs being the government’s
ability to feed, clothe and house its citizens. After providing a
summary of China’s national liberation and socialist revolution
struggles the author dives right into some of the major social issues
facing the People’s Republic in the early 1950s’ primarily how does a
country of 600 million paupers who are stuck in medieval culture and a
feudal economy pull themselves into the 20th century? Chance
acknowledges the feat with which China was forced to contend at this
critical juncture in its hystory as nearly insurmountable.
Indeed, if China had remained a colony or neo-colony of this or that
imperialist empire as say a country like India was at the time and
continues as today, then it would have proved insurmountable. As hystory
has proven however the Chinese people, with the guidance of Chairman Mao
and the Communist Party, were able to lift the mountains of feudalism
and imperialism off their backs, and in doing so cleared the way for
socialism and communist development to begin.
When learning about socialist experiments of the past it is always
common to hear intellectuals and sophists alike speak of the
contradiction of a supposed “humyn nature” that will always prevent us
from building a society free of poverty, hunger, exploitation and war.
And as most academics writing on the subject, Chance does not miss the
opportunity of raising the specter of humyn nature. Where Chance departs
from this common bourgeois narrative is when he frames the issue of
greed and selfishness as originating in the culture prevalent at the
time:
“Underlying these conflicts is a fundamental problem in the building of
a socialist society – the issue of human nature. If greediness is at the
heart of human nature, then the whole idea of socialism is nothing more
than a utopia. If on the other hand, human nature involves a dialectical
tension between self-interest and social interests, then self-interest
can become secondary to the interests of the larger group.
Anthropological studies of various societies demonstrate that pure
greediness in human behavior is deviant indeed. Rather, individual
motivation is strongly shaped by the social and cultural environment. If
greed is encouraged and rewarded, it would be considered foolish not to
act in a similar fashion. By contrast, if friends and associates strive
to act in a helpful, cooperative manner, selfish actions on the part of
an individual would likely lead that person to feel ashamed. Even within
the competitive, individualistic orientation of Western society, one
regularly finds selfless actions by individuals who are willing to risk
their personal security for a given cause. Thus in discussing greed and
selfishness, the question is not human nature but rather the dominant
behavior expected in normal circumstances.” (p7-8)
What’s more the Chinese masses were able to transform their country from
the “sick man of Asia” into a strong socialist power in the span of only
twenty years. They were able to accomplish this not by force but by
persuasion. Compare this to India which started ahead of China, had a
higher life expectancy and had a higher per capita than China. It was
also 75% peasant like China. Yet China surpassed India in all these
areas within one generation – so much for the comparison between
socialism and capitalism.(2)
“Our task is to build islands of socialism in a vast sea of individual
farming. We are the ones who will have to show the way for the whole
country.”(3)
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was able to spearhead the
collectivization of agriculture thru their successful mobilization of
peasants first into mutual aid teams, then low level elementary
agricultural cooperatives.(p4-5) These APC’s were comprised of “20 or
more households which pooled their labor, land and small tools for the
common benefit.”(p4) These cooperatives not only helped peasants
survive, but begin to spurn on the economy in the countryside. With time
and success the APC’s began to grow as peasants eagerly joined.
According to Chance the only people who hesitated or refused were the
“well to do” peasants who saw an end to their standard of living come
with the rise of the APCs. At first the government let these rich and
middle peasants abstain from joining until of course their abstinence
became a hindrance to social development. It was at this time that the
Communist Party under the leadership of Chairman Mao “opted for a
acceleration of rural collectivization – a Socialist upsurge in the
countryside – in which mutual aid teams and low-level co-operatives were
to be combined into larger, more advanced units.”(p6) These APCs were
but preludes to the Great Leap Forward 1958-1960. The Great Leap Forward
was China’s attempt to catch up with the imperialist countries by
building up China’s ability to produce grain and steel. Experimentation
in farming, animal husbandry and other associated activity were in fact
the earliest models in innovation from which experience and rationale
knowledge were garnered for and summed up for further practice and
experimentation in the city environment. Once the Great Leap forward
began the APCs quickly ran their course and became outmoded. The APCs
then gave way to the commune movement in the countryside in which the
most advanced APCs were consolidated into 42,000 communes.(p8)
In it’s early developmental stages one of the fundamental political
lines in the Chinese countryside was to “rely on the poor peasants,
unite with the middle peasants, isolate the rich peasants and overthrow
the landlords and wipe out feudalism.”(p39) Having put this political
line into practice the land was re-distributed “according to the number
of persons in the family and the quality of the soil.”(p39) Landlords
were treated thusly: their house, animals and tools were divided among
everyone. As for the rich peasants the policy was to let them keep
whatever they were able to work themselves. Because most peasants were
not used to having so much land and were accustomed to only working on
small individual plots much land and crops went to waste. After having
had time to accumulate and process experience and practice from this the
peasants of Half Moon were well on their way to conquering this new
social environment. Half Moon as so many other villages within Red Flag
became responsible for growing rice, wheat, corn and a variety of
vegetables, as well as raising chickens and pigs.(p29-30) On the
question of forced collectivization, two old peasants known to have
lived in the area of Red Flag prior to redistribution had “nothing to
say.” The author insinuates the peasants were afraid to speak out
against land distribution and collectivization for fear of reprisals
from the government. However, this insinuation is unfounded due to the
fact that (1) the peasants interviewed clearly voiced their support for
Red Flag commune and the CCP remembering the “bitter years” before
revolution, and (2) this interview was conducted in 1979 at a time that
collectivization and other socialist policies originally began under Mao
were being dismantled throughout China in favor of for-profit
enterprise.
Education in the Peoples Republic
Education in the area of Half Moon Village lept from “fairly small”
between the decade of the 1950s to the early 1970s when it then spiked
to over 90 percent by 1979.(p91) These are surprising numbers for a
Third World country, yet it is only another impressive indicator that
only a country under socialist construction is truly serving the people.
In visiting some of Half Moon’s primary schools Professor Chance found
that even in 1979, three years after the capitalist roaders rise to
power, certain socialist values were still being upheld in China’s
education system even as others were being negated. One example of this
could be seen in how peasant children were imbued with a sense of
proletarian morality by being taken out of school and into the fields on
a daily basis so that they could watch their parents and neighbors work.
Children would also be put to work alongside the village engaging in
light duty. The children’s work consisted of “husking small ears of corn
left behind by their parents… Such activities not only instilled in the
student the value of hard work, but also emphasized the importance of
being thrifty with what one produced.”(p93)
In another example, the author describes how individualism was still
being struggled against at the basic level of education:
“Students continually learned proper behavior from teachers, parents,
textbooks, radio, newspapers and television. In all these instances they
were encouraged to help each other, care for each other and take each
other’s happiness as their own. In contrast activities that caused
embarrassment or remarks that emphasized a negative attribute were
discouraged. Envision for example, a Chinese child’s participation in a
game like musical chairs. In an American school such a game encourages
children to be competitive and to look out for themselves. But to young
Chinese, the negative aspect was much more noticeable. That is, losers
become objects of attention because they had lost their place – and
therefore ‘face.’ In China, winning was fun too. But it should not be
achieved at the expense of causing someone embarrassment. In all kinds
of daily activity, including study as well as games, Chinese children
were regularly reminded that they must work hard and be sensitive to the
needs of others for only through such effort would their own lives
become truly meaningful…”(p94)
Even groups like China’s Young Pioneers, a group similar to the Boy
Scouts, taught their members to engage in pro-social activities such as
cleaning streets, assisting the elderly and aiding teachers as opposed
to the leisure activities which the Boy Scout movement largely concerns
itself within the United $tates.
Of course, not everyone in Half Moon was of the same mind politically.
One school administrator spoke ill of education in China during the
Great Proletarian Revolution (GPCR):
“Education is improving now… Before (meaning during the decade of the
Cultural Revolution) the children had no discipline. They didn’t behave
properly and couldn’t learn anything. Now that is all changed. We have
ten rules and regulations for behavior, and they have settled down. Now
they are learning very well.”(p97)
As previously stated, it is logical that this school administrator would
consider educational policies a disaster during the GPCR quite simply
because his own power and prestige were challenged and negated by
revolutionary students. In addition the author also states:
“Both primary and secondary education had expanded significantly
throughout the commune by the early 1970s. Much of this activity,
closely linked to the educational policies of the Cultural Revolution,
emphasized the importance of utilizing local initiative. And indeed many
villages had established new primary (and junior middle) schools by
using local people and urban-trained”educated youth” to staff them.
Wages for these new teachers were largely paid by the villagers
themselves, through brigade-based work points. To obtain additional
teachers for the new facilities, villages had reduced the earlier system
of six-year primary schools to five years – justification for the step
being summed up in the slogan “less but better.”
“This dramatic educational effort put forward during the Cultural
Revolution brought the benefits of expanded primary and secondary
education to many commune youth – a real achievement, given the large
increase in population between 1950 and the 1970s. Yet it did so at the
expense of improving educational quality. The local primary school
director was obviously identifying with the quality side of this
equation.”(p98)
Indeed, no period in the hystory of revolutionary China is more despised
or has been more besmirched by the enemy classes as that of the Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution. During the GPCR the bourgeoisie
witnessed how the masses armed with Maoist philosophy opened up a new
offensive against traitorous, revisionist and bureaucratic elements
within the CCP itself, and attempts at the restoration of capitalism.
This new offensive took the form of criticisms of bourgeois morals,
values and ideals. Though seemingly innocent from a first worldist
perspective such as our own, if left unchallenged within socialist
society these morals, values and ideals become like a virus or disease
in the body of socialism. When left untreated they will fester and wreak
havoc on their socialist host, interrupting normal function with the
very real potential to cause death.
Beginning in 1966 all established facets of life were forced to justify
their existence within the new society or risk being relegated to the
museum of antiquities. No more would an “experts in command” line be
tolerated, in Chinese society whether in enterprise or education. No
more would patriarchal rule be considered the natural order of things.
Confucianism outside the temple of worship would be forced to contend
with scientific method – all reactionary cultural products would be
grappled with, criticized and torn asunder. In their place proletarian
morality would be erected both as a guide and bulwark to the cause of
socialism and the masses.
Later, on pg99 Norman Chance talks about how middle school students
began to drop out and how most cases were related in one way or another
to economic problems in the countryside. Chance explains that although
“80% of all primary school graduates in the commune began middle school
less than 30% finished. Of those who did, almost none entered higher
education.” Both the “failing” grades and new economic downturn can
probably be linked to the restoration of capitalism.
Portrait of An Educated Youth
In socialist China education went beyond the enclosure of the classroom,
as society as a whole was treated as a laboratory where people could
discuss, debate, experiment and learn from others, not just experts in
command. An excellent example of this could be seen in the “sent down
educated youth” program which started in the mid 1950s but increased
from the early 1960s to 1966 and then “dramatically from 1968-1976
before finally being concluded in late 1979” (p101). During the Cultural
Revolution in times of intense political struggle in the country school
was suspended so that students could struggle over the issues of the day
and have a say in which direction China would go. This is more than can
be said of the Amerikan public school system where rote memorization is
popularized and children are expected to parrot what they heard and read
and punished for leaving school to challenge government policies.
In this section we are introduced to Zhang Yanzi, a young tractor driver
in Red Flag who chose to speak to Chance about her experience in the
“Going to the Countryside and Settling Down with the Peasants” campaign.
Zhang Yanzi recounted how after graduating from middle school she
volunteered to go live with the peasants working first at a state farm
as an agricultural worker then as a primary school teacher. She was only
16 years old when she took up a teaching position. She admitted to
having her reservations about teaching because her parents were school
teachers in Beijing and had been criticized by the masses during the
Cultural Revolution.(p103) After requesting to be transferred from her
teaching position, she ended up working with livestock and later
attained a position as a cook.(p103) Zhang finally became a tractor
driver in 1976 and was transferred to Red Flag in 1977.(p103)
She spoke about how initially there was great unity between the peasants
and the sent down educated youth. This unity however soon began to
dissolve after what Zhang describes as “political factionalism” began to
develop amongst the older cadre in the commune. Another problem Zhang
brought up was that there wasn’t enough concern given to the educated
youths’ political development.(p104) It seems that much of what Zhang
speaks about was happening in post-Mao China (1977) and it’s somewhat
hard to decipher what experiences happened when. For instance, on page
104 she speaks about how enthused at first she was about choosing to go
work and live with the peasants in 1966. She speaks about how it was all
done on a volunteer basis:
“In the beginning, no pressure was put on anyone to go. It was all on a
volunteer basis. Each individual had to pass the ‘Three OKs.’ One was
from the actual student, one from the family, and one from the school.
If there was any disagreement, then the person wouldn’t go. Even if you
hesitated just before climbing on the train you could stay. But we
didn’t do that. We were all very enthusiastic.”(p103-104)
In the next two paragraphs however Zhang speaks about how “later the
policy was changed” and that families with more than “three educated
children had to send two of them to the countryside” and if they didn’t
then the parents would be forced to attend study groups and if the
parents still didn’t agree then the “neighborhood committees would come
out to the street and beat big gongs, hang up ‘big character posters,’
and use other propaganda to persuade you to let your children go.”
Because the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was exactly that, a
revolution in culture, it meant that the masses for the first time
anywhere in hystory were given free reign to not only grapple and
struggle with ideas but to engage in open debate publicly and at the
grassroots level without government interference. This is the true
meaning of democracy – and so long as violence wasn’t used the masses
were left to reach their own conclusions and express themselves freely.
It is as Lin Bao correctly stated. “…the mass revolutionary movement is
naturally correct; for among the masses, right and left wing
deviationist groups may exist, but the main current of the mass movement
always corresponds to the development of that society involved and is
always correct.”(4)
Critics of the Cultural Revolution, in particular, intellectuals like to
portray the GPCR as some kind of punishment for the petty-bourgeois
classes in which they were made to endure mental and physical torture at
the hands of the Communist Party and hateful peasants. But Zhang who
originally lived in Beijing and whose parents were both teachers, paints
a much different picture. Admittedly enough, Zhang has her own
disagreements with various CCP policies during and after the Cultural
Revolution but commune living was not one of them:
“We all ate together in the public dining halls, with some of the older
workers. Even though conditions were bad (speaking of the living
conditions of the peasants and the weather) they took pretty good care
of us, giving us easier jobs and better housing.”(p104)
In that same paragraph Zhang also says that in fact it was the sent down
youth who, after a while, began to talk down to and abuse the peasants
calling them “country bumpkins,” “dirty” and “uncultured.” She also says
that in “units where there were few educated youth, the work was done
better, but where they were the majority, the problems became severe.”
The most severe problem to occur at Red Flag during the time Zhang
reflects on is an instance in which a corrupt high ranking cadre was
discovered to be molesting young girls. This official was said to be
virtually untouchable within Red Flag, until the People’s Liberation
Army caught wind of these abuses, entered the commune, began an
investigation, arrested the official and subsequently executed him.
Afterward the situation got better. (p104-105)
All in all, Zhang’s biggest criticism of the GPCR is that there could’ve
been more mechanization in Red Flag and that because of the lack thereof
much of the commune’s potential in agriculture went to waste. She
thought that the sent down educated youth program was sound because it
“enabled them (urban youth) to learn more about the good qualities of
the peasants and also some production skills.”(p105) Zhang also
addresses the bureaucracy. This will however be addressed in the
upcoming sections.
Family Relations
In this portion of the book the author focuses on how collectivization
and land reform affected the family structure and the patriarchy in Half
Moon Village. From control over the fields, tools and animals to
wimmin’s empowerment both in the home and the local and central
government.
According to the author the focus of this attack in Red Flag was on
“Feudal backward patriarchal thinking.”(p130) Although the GPCR was the
most progressive social event in world hystory we should not be mistaken
to think that the Cultural Revolution simply went on unimpeded.
From a mother-in-law’s perceived rule in the family to the bureaucratic
apparatus there were a variety of social forces opposed to true
revolutionary change, even in Red Flag.
The Changing Status of Women
Before the start of the GPCR wimmin’s existence in rural China was
largely devoted to serving the male’s side of the family according to
what was known as the “three obediences and four virtues.” These
required a woman to first follow the lead of her father, then her
husbands, and on her husband’s death, her son, and to be “virtuous in
morality, proper speech, modesty and diligent work.”(p134)
One peasant womyn recounts her experience to the author explaining how
prior to the revolution she was given away as a child bride, beaten,
starved and made to engage in forced labor at the hands of her husband
and her husband’s family. After 1949 however the Communist Party began
the arduous task of doing away with the old system thru the enactment of
wimmin’s rights in a country where wimmin were by and large still
considered property according to the old kinship system. Beginning with
the Marriage Law of 1950, which required free choice in marriage by both
partners, guaranteed monogamy, and establishing the right of women to
work, and obtain a divorce without necessarily losing their children.
This law when combined with the Land Reform Movement Act, which gave
women the right to own land in their own name, did much to challenge the
most repressive features of the old family system.(p137)
Social relations in Red Flag during the 1950s, 60s and 70s reveal a
complex effort by the CP to simultaneously transform China economically
and liberate wimmin. Because capitalism developed under congealed
patriarchal social conditions, and ideology arises out of the
superstructure, this means that even in a socialist society the ideology
of the oppressor does not dissipate overnight. Rather, a cultural
revolution must be set into effect so that the masses and society as a
whole can learn to struggle against backward, reactionary and oppressive
thinking. Therefore it should not be surprising to find out that when
wimmin first attempted to assert their rights in the new society there
were some who did not approve and attempted to put wimmin “back in their
place.” To some, especially idealists, this will seem difficult to
understand, but revolution is never easy and at root requires
scientifically guided struggle at all levels of society. And so to many
Western academics and so-called “observers” it would’ve seemed that
wimmin’s rights were being subsumed into the wider socialist (and male
dominated) framework. But before we get too discouraged with China’s
inability to meet our idealistic standards, we should remember that
revolutionary struggle always requires determining and working to
resolve the principal contradiction, to which all other contradictions
become temporarily relegated. This is different than subsuming which
requires the glossing over of contradictions or cooptation. It would
therefore seem that this is also how the Communist Party saw it.
Therefore they could enact land reform, marriage laws and divorce laws
which recognized wimmin’s democratic rights, but they also had to be
aware of the fact that land reform, agriculture and industry were of the
highest priority during this period. If China was unable to develop its
productive forces in conjunction with changing social relations then all
would be lost. Yes land reform was enacted, and yes wimmin were finally
given democratic and bourgeois liberal rights which in semi-feudalist
society were revolutionary. But socialist revolution proceeds in stages
and it is ultra-left to believe that the patriarchy would not put up a
fight and that some concessions would not have to temporarily be made.
Ultimately this is why cultural revolution is necessary, to criticize
and build public opinion against the old ruling class in preparation for
the following stage of revolution.
Even with such reactionary ideas still being propagated wimmin’s
conditions were elevated exponentially. Testament to this being the fact
that in 1978, 3,037 young wimmin students were enrolled in junior middle
school in Red Flag compared to 3,202 males, while 1,035 wimmin were
enrolled in senior middle school compared to 859 males in Red
Flag.(p101) “In 1977, there had been six women members, out of a village
total of fifteen members, of whom one had been the party
secretary.”(p44) In addition, let us not forget Jiang Qing, great
revolutionary leader who helped spark the GPCR, one of the most
influential and powerful people in China; neither should we forget the
countless other revolutionary wimmin of China who without their
participation in revolutionary struggle China’s liberation would not
have been possible. With the restoration of capitalism however, most of
the progress made in the arena of wimmin’s rights were reversed or
negated with the exception of some democratic rights which mostly the
petty-bourgeoisie and the bourgeois classes who reside in the urban
centers are still privy to. China’s countryside however has seen a
resurgence in female slavery since the restoration of capitalism.(5)
Among other reversals in socialism which the author documents is a
perversion of China’s barefoot doctor’s program which the social
fascists used to depopulate the masses. Here the author speaks about how
barefoot doctors and wimmin’s federations “introduced system of material
incentives to reduce births, pregnant Half Moon peasant women at that
time could receive five yuan in cash and have several days off from work
if they agreed to abort their unborn child. Counseling women on such
matters was the responsibility of the local women’s federation.
Technical medical questions were handled by barefoot doctors in
consultation with the federation.”(p142)
“Becoming Rich is Fine” and A Decade of Change
These are the concluding chapters in China’s Urban Villagers and
they are very interesting as well as disappointing in the fact that they
really document China’s about face in building socialism. Perhaps they
can be both summed up in Xiao Cai’s (a young wimmin in charge of foreign
affairs at Red Flag) statement to professor Chance: “you know, it’s all
right to become rich… I mean that individuals and families can work hard
for their own benefit. If they make money at it, that’s fine. They won’t
be criticized any more for being selfish.”(p151)
Emphasis on getting rich came thru the “Four Modernizations” campaign
which emphasized developing the productive forces while negating
production relations in the economy and social relations in society. In
popularizing this campaign the revisionists stated that “collective
effort must be linked to individual initiative” and that the GPCR “was
an appalling disaster.”(p152) These criticisms expressed the class
outlook of the bourgeoisie in the party and their attempts to convince
the broad masses that “the political extremism of the Cultural
Revolution” offered a “simplistic notion of capitalism” and “unfairly
labeled people as capitalist roaders.”(p152) The outcome being “a large
decrease in individual and household sideline activities, to the
detriment of China’s overall economic development.”(p152)
In reality however, nothing could be further from the truth. While the
Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution were
not without their mistakes, both the GLF and GPCR marked profound shifts
in both the development of socialism as well as the overall development
of the humyn social relations not seen since the development of classes
themselves. Furthermore, the GLF and GPCR offered the masses insight
into the unraveling of contradictions on a hystoric level. Thru
participation in the Great Leap the masses learned what it was to engage
in industrial production as well as how to innovate traditional farming
techniques by utilizing collective effort in combination with
proletarian thinking.(3) By their participation in the GPCR the
revolutionary masses learned what it was to both gain unprecedented
insight into the advance towards communism and the unraveling of
contradictions prevalent in socialist society. Thru this experimentation
the masses contributed not only to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as the
science of revolution, but to the development of rational knowledge as
well.
Other reversals in socialism in Red Flag were made apparent when
officials in Beijing issued an order to China’s commune to
“de-collectivize” the land and privatize most plots. Opposition to this
privatization was fairly strong in Red Flag even though its residents
weren’t as politically educated as others, they still clung to the
memory of the hardships common in the countryside before the revolution.
In particular they were well aware that it was only thru collective
strength and revolutionary leadership that they were able to overcome
such difficulties. Thus, they began to openly fear class polarization as
they rightly began to recognize that some peoples “rice bowls” had
gotten bigger than others. Especially when it came to party officials.
As time went on, many in Red Flag began to get a new understanding of
what Mao spoke about before his death concerning the revisionists and
the return to capitalism.
By the mid-1980s exploitation in China had returned full-force and
no-one could deny or claim ignorance to what was happening except for
perhaps the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie. As a part of the
so-called “responsibility system” initiated under the traitor Deng
Xiaoping “separate households and even individuals, could contract with
production teams and brigades to produce their grain, vegetables, and
other agricultural goods on specific plots of brigade land divided up
for that purpose.”(p161) The inevitable result of all this was that
migrant peasant workers began to be sought out to work Half Moon’s
individually owned plots. The result? Deplorable oppressive conditions
for hundreds of thousands of peasants from poorer regions of China who
began arriving in Beijing’s agricultural suburbs:
“It looks like a prison labor camp to me” commented one visitor on
seeing Half Moon’s migrant worker dormitories “After spending all day in
the fields these poor peasants return to their dorms in the evening only
to be doled out a bare minimum of food – lots of grains but not many
vegetables. Once the harvest is over, they are paid a small wage by the
manager and then head back to Henan, Hebei, or whatever province they
came from. It’s highly exploitative.”(p166)
Due to a return to capitalism by 1985, China was again forced to import
grain, something unheard of since the natural catastrophes that occurred
towards the end of the Great Leap Forward. During this time corrupt
party officials’ greed reached new heights as they enriched themselves
at the expense of the masses thru their manipulation of the national
economy and exploitation of workers and peasants thru their access and
control of the means of production. Some of the frustration of the
people was captured in an interview of a party member by professor
Chance in 1988. Although the quote is much too lengthy to feature here
the party member was very critical of the capitalist roaders. This is
part of what he had to say:
“Some people feel the nature of the party and the state has changed. The
change first appeared in the late 1960s and 1970s when the power and
authority, rather than representing the interests of the people came to
represent those in power. This process took some time to unfold. But now
it is quite clear what Mao meant when he warned us about the danger of
capitalist roaders…. You don’t know how hard it was for us to figure out
what was going on. Mao tried time and time again to weed out the
capitalist roaders, but still he failed. Now people don’t know what to
do…. Since Mao came along many years ago and saved China from the mess
it was in, someone else will come along someday and save us from the
mess we are in today…”(p173)
In fact, contrary to what this “Communist” Party member has to say, many
of the problems with the bourgeoisie in the party first surfaced during
the Great Leap forward 1958-1961 and were illuminated for us by Mao and
his followers prior to the Cultural Revolution. In fact, during the
Great Leap Forward political struggles and factionalism were already
taking place in China’s factories and industrial centers between those
wishing to keep expert-in-command and those wanting the masses to take
the lead in production. Furthermore, this party member is in error when
he places Mao as a great individual whose responsibility it was to save
China. Yes Mao was a great revolutionary leader, but he would’ve been
the first to point out that the masses were responsible for controlling
their own destiny. Afterall this is why the GPCR was initiated.
The student movement at Tiananmen Square is also addressed in which the
author chronicles the events leading up to the political repression and
massacre of the students. The demands of the protesters ranged from a
return to socialism to freedom of the press and a desire to turn to
Western style capitalism and democracy. The revisionist CCP, fearing an
uprising by the masses, ordered the People’s Liberation Army to fire on
the protesters. On 3 June 1989, 8,000 troops, tanks and armored
personnel carriers entered the outskirts of Tienanmen and began firing
on protesters and city residents alike. Discussion in Half Moon over the
protests and political repression and Tiananmen brought mixed reviews.
“Based on their past knowledge and experience, most villagers found it
inconceivable that the PLA would fire on the protesters. Even during the
height of the Cultural Revolution, the army had gone unarmed into the
colleges and universities, where the worst fighting had occurred. But
when several factory workers reported that the army had fired on crowds
at street corners, the tenor of the conversation began to change.”(p182)
Close enough to Beijing to have participated in the rebellion (and
indeed some Red Flag students and other villagers did participate), Half
Moon residents were brought under investigation by authorities. Most
were eventually cleared.
In short, contradictions in China since the return of capitalism have
once again created the conditions for a new revolutionary upsurge. With
China’s economic emulation of the so-called “economic miracles” of the
South-East: Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong (also knowns as
the “Four Tigers” or the “Four Dragons”) contradictions in China have
once again created the conditions for a new revolutionary upsurge. In
relation to this point the author ends this book with the following:
“Implicit in this proposal is the assumption that by emphasizing
privatization and a market driven economy, China too can achieve a
similar prosperity. However, those four nations that were able to break
out of Third World poverty were small, were on the Asian periphery, and
were the beneficiaries of two large Asian wars financed by America.
There is little reason to assume that a market-driven economic system
will enable China to repeat the process. Much more probable is a return
to a neo-colonial status with small islands of prosperity and corruption
on the coasts and with stagnation in the hinterland – a sure formula for
future revolutionary upheavals.”(p187)
This will be my full account of my evolvement with the organizing of
peace between all prisoners, be they independent citizens of this yard
or members of lumpen groups or organizations. Many prisoners have been
involved in the processes that will be disclosed, to ensure their safety
their names won’t be mentioned in this report. All circumstances are
well known by the prisoner population on this yard (C yard @ Tehachapi)
and can therefore be verified easily by asking and requesting anyone who
receives ULK on this yard. Before starting I want to give shouts
out to
United
Front for Peace in Prisons (UFPP), because I hold your principles
and am inspired by your scientific methods. As a 5%er I give all due
respects to the teachings of the
Nation of Gods and
Earths (NGE) for my Free dome and clear sight which allows me to
live in a non-fictional reality, being awakened to the True Self which
is righteousness without fear. Also I would like to thank ULK and
MIM(Prisons) for
providing revolutionary education for free, which has taught me how to
lead and helped me realize that I am a socialist with a revolutionary
conscience. Thank all the prisoners here at California Correctional
Institution (CCI) who’s assisted me [nicknames omitted], Tha Numbers,
Tha Old Black Vanguard and a huge part of the New Afrikans and Chican@s.
I arrived here at CCI in mid-2016. Upon my arrival I introduced myself
as a member of the NGE. I met several New Afrikans that were very
negative about the program here, C.O. culture, prisoner treatment and a
myriad of other complexities dealing with conflicts among prisoners. The
first persyn I came to know from a non-fictional reality is a member of
one of the largest street organizations in North America. Our first
conversations would become the foundation and conduit for many actions
that followed. His assessment of the yard has proven to be invaluable,
though bleak when he spoke of the mental deadness of our people; meaning
the Black prison population on the yard. Blind, deaf and dumb with no
concept of organization or unity. This comrade is indispensable to the
prosperity, growth, and development of this yard’s prisoner on just
about every level. His advice is most valuable now as ever.
To begin to address these conditions, I initiated the weekly services
for everyone on the yard who wants to attend as a place of unity,
education and true identity resurrection. From proposal to acceptance it
took one month, then from acceptance to being physically scheduled it
took three more weeks ending when we had the first NGE service in
November 2016.
At the same time this was being developed, most people were saying this
will never be accepted by the administration on this yard. Doubters
included prisoners, as well as Captains, Chaplains and Correctional
Officers. I persynally began circulating my verbal disapproval of
two-on-one violence or group violence against one person. Simply stating
these actions won’t be tolerated when acted out against New Afrikans by
other racial groups nor by other New Afrikans on New Afrikan prisoners
nor member of other races who are also prisoners regardless of charges
and convictions issued by the unlawful court system. By my understanding
this position is backed by the BPP’s 10 point program demand #8.(1) This
has become the new norm through actions I will now describe.
On a day at the ass end of September 2016, at the morning yard for the
lower tier, I noticed a dichotomy between a group of Aztlán known as the
Number and an elder from the New Afrikans. Three members of the Number
appeared to be attempting to jump physically this unknown elderly New
Afrikan when his cellie physically assisted him ending the exchange of
blows by walking away and descending to the bottom of the yard. All this
happened in the direct view of the yard Correction Officers without any
response. After my initial investigation of the occurrence turned little
to no information I migrated to the bottom of the yard to build and
better understand what I had just witnessed. Upon speaking to a New
Afrikan soldier who we shall call Ty, me and him decided to get to the
bottom of this matter. The elder explained that the Number owed him and
upon confrontation about the debt verbally refused to pay. That is when
the elderly New Afrikan swung his fist, hitting the debtor in the jaw,
causing 3 members of the Number lumpen group to engage him in physical
battle. After the knowledge, me and Ty decided to go and confront the
Numbers, to issue a formal notice that the jumping of any New Afrikan
would no longer be accepted and if we cannot have an agreement we would
go to war at that moment. However, due to the magnetic energy all the
New Afrikans on the yard mobilized with unity and harmoniously walked as
one to the Numbers table at which time the aforementioned decree was
stated to the Numbers. They decided peace was best for the yard at that
moment and minutes later came assuring the elderly New Afrikan he would
receive what he was owed. They apologized for the acts of aggression and
the miscommunication.
During this time the Correctional Officers stayed in their yard position
but many prisoners reported hearing them radio the tower to shoot Blacks
if violence was to occur. Many New Afrikans felt the power of unity that
day and began a positive dialogue due to being empowered by the unity of
that event. That day also respectful communication between New Afrikans
and Numbers were established including beginning dialogue between white
nationals of two different lumpen groups in days to follow, which opened
up the door for me to begin to share the
principles
of the UFPP with both major groups. The NGE membership grew to 23
prisoners of a racially diverse demographic, mostly New Afrikan but
Aztláns and YT’s joined too. I shared white national books out of my
collection with the white nation lumpen group member and believed we had
strong lines of communication.
Over a month later, in November 2016, an issue was made known to me
about an alleged thief of a radio supposedly by a New Afrikan who had a
history of mischief named KC. When word got to me I was told the Aztláns
were planning to jump the New Afrikan, after sharing this with my
comrade it was decided that we would investigate in order to keep the
peace. While playing basketball someone had taken the radio off of the
sidelines where items had been sat inside owners’ shirts. My comrade
believed KC to be the culprit, which he denied. Voluntarily, all the New
Afrikans stripped down to their boxers proving they didn’t have the
property in question, lastly and with little fuss KC stripped proving he
didn’t have it. Then all the Aztláns likewise stripped proving they
didn’t have it either. The victim still felt like KC was guilty and
wanted to fight. KC reluctantly obliged and whipped him and peace was
better established stating New Afrikans won’t turn down no battle if
requested but peace is desired.
Almost a month later a white national, who I believed to be solid used
our growing relationship to lure KC away from myself, then attacked him
with a huge stone in a pillow case when his back was turned. Needless to
say his instant karma manifested, KC was able to thwart this plot
against himself and turn the tide with a huge victory over this extreme
form of physical oppression and violent aggression. In days to follow
white national politics seemed to attempt to establish itself, with
whites telling Blacks they could not use pull up bars near their table.
On hearing this I spoke with their known leaders and we all decided to
end all attempts at making C yard a racialized environment and instead
work together on a proposal to help create this yard into an honor yard.
Vowing to do away with weapon usage and to better establish open lines
of communication in order to solve interracial issues without violence.
There was an issue which touched home that I must share with you now.
One of the persyns I most respect was accused of a savage crime against
his celly. At the time I was allowing him to use my TV and a few CDs as
was two other comrades. Upon his arrest people began circulating rumors
of his alleged guilt. Due to his conduct and our developed closeness I
persynally went to those prophecizing against him and told them to stop
and desist. While he was being investigated a white porter came into
blame for what was by then deemed missing property, that the porter had
access to and had allegedly stolen. This was based on the fact that
neither my TV nor all the CDs and a CD player made it to R&R. He was
blamed and pressured to pay for two of the missing CDs by someone of
influence. During this time I found out that the Building Officer had on
his own taken my TV out of this persyn’s property before it even left
the building along with the CD player. I was asked to protect the white
porter by one of the members of the original Black prisoners vanguard
party, which I agreed to. Then the Correctional Officer returned my TV
after keepin it almost two weeks, which is not just unfair but it is
unlawful and burglary by definition. I didn’t know if the white porter
was guilty so I didn’t charge him for my CDs knowing that the comrade
was innocent and would be returning. Under threat and fear the white
porter paid a 16oz jar of coffee to the owner of two missing CDs.
Well, I was right about the porter being innocent and the comrade
because when he came back the CDs were in his property which he returned
to their owners. The porter got his coffee back and all the false
prophets learned a valuable lesson and some even apologized for smutting
the comrade.
Now I have a monthly unity walk at yard with an all inclusive New
Afrikan peaceful unity movement and I will have my first banquet in
February 2017, of which all the leaders of the different lumpen
organizations have been invited to attend. I will read UFFP principles
at that time and speak on United Prisoners (UP) its benefits and how
important it is to take the initiative in the Change Movement.
Tania La Guerrillera Y La Epopeya Suramericana Del Che (“Tania:
Undercover with Che Guevara in Bolivia” is the title of the English
translation) Ulises Estrada Ocean Press 2005
<P>Mention the name Che Guevara virtually anywhere in the world and images of Cuba, Fidel Castro and armed struggle come to mind. Travel to places like Cuba, Peru, Bolivia and Uruguay and say the name Che and another image comes to mind; that of Haydée Tamaia Bunke Bider, better known as "Tania the guerrilla", the only womyn to live, fight and die as part of Che Guevara's Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), National Liberation Army.</P><P>
The first time i came across the figure of Tania the guerrilla was in reading the book <I>Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life</I> by Jon Lee Anderson, which documents Che's extraordinary political life from childhood to his death. And while Jon Lee Anderson's book is unrivaled as far as political biographies goes, his emphasis was on Guevara, so his writing on Tania left much to be desired. In stark contrast, Ulises Estrada's present work casts much needed light on this figure little known here in the U.$.</P><P>
Tania the guerrilla was born Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider on 19 November 1937 in Buenos Aires, Argentina to Erich Bider, a German communist, and Nadia Bunke Bider, a Russian Jew (pg 157). The Bider's fled Nazi Germany in 1935 and settled in Buenos Aires, promptly joining the banned Argentine Communist Party (ACP) (pg 143). Nadia Bider recounts how Haydée was exposed to politics early on as the Biders hosted ACP meetings, hid weapons, stashed communist literature in their home and helped Jewish refugees (pg 162). Besides joining the ACP, Nadia and Erich also belonged to various anti-fascist organizations (pg 144).</P><P>
The Biders were to remain in Argentina for most of Haydée's young life and would not return to Germany until well after the Soviet Red Army smashed fascism there. Then in 1951, when Haydée was fourteen and after having spent two years in Uruguay, the Biders moved to the German Democratic Republic (GDR), also known as East Germany, part of the old Soviet bloc (pg 145). Haydée, having lived all her life in South America, did not want to leave her home and made her parents promise to let her return when she was older (pg 145).</P><P>
After arriving in the GDR, Haydée felt as if she'd experienced a "revelation" (pg 145). She immediately incorporated herself into political life. Having attended her first Free German Youth meeting, Haydée returned home with "great enthusiasm." According to Nadia, Haydée confirmed that the socialist system was superior to capitalism, because, among other things, she was allowed to speak freely and express herself politically (pg 145). No doubt that having lived in Argentina, a "democracy" where the communist party was banned and poverty and exploitation were rampant helped her make this materialist comparison.</P><P>
Apparently Haydée never forgot her beloved Argentina and, after having settled into German life, couldn't help but share with her new friends her preference for Argentinian folkloric music (pg 145). Like most girls raised in a capitalist democracy (Argentina, Uruguay), Haydée was socialized into dreaming of marriage and children. When she got older, however, even in adolescence, her priority was to one day join the revolutionary struggle in Latin America — this was to remain a focal point for Haydée (pg 145).</P><P>
At age 18, Haydée was admitted into the United German Socialist Party in the city of Stalinstadt. Due to Haydée's high level of political education and commitment, she was admitted into the UGSP after only a one-year waiting period instead of the mandatory two. This would be the only time in its hystory that this exception would be made (pg 258). Haydée first became familiar with Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and the struggle in the Sierra Maestra while attending the 5th annual World Youth Festival in the Soviet Union in 1957 (pg 145). Shortly thereafter, she decided she had to go to Cuba and the next two years in Germany were spent organizing for the trip (pg 146). Haydée was confident that in Cuba she'd learn the revolutionary methods with which to liberate Argentina from the imperialist stranglehold (pg 146).</P><P>
Haydée's participation in Che Guevara's ELN started sometime after arriving in Cuba. She was chosen from among two other Argentinian wimmin living on the island to take part in "Operation Fantasm", which was the code name given to the mission to infiltrate the Bolivian government at the highest levels, as well as to initiate a guerrilla insurgency there (pg 20). At the time Haydée was interviewed for this position, she was working as a German translator for the Cuban Ministry of Education (pg 22). She was also involved with the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the World and the steering committee for the Woman's Federation (pg 22). In addition, Haydée also worked with the Rebel Youth Association, the Young Communist Union, she volunteered in various other serve-the-people type programs and was a member of Cuban Popular Defense Militia (pg 25). The author of this book, who was working in Cuba's Ministry of the Interior at the time and was vice-minister of "political intelligence" as well as one of the people to recruit Haydée for Operation Fantasm after Che himself recommended her, remembers how she swelled with pride whenever she wore her olive green uniform and service weapon (pg 25). Among other useful academic accomplishments of Haydée was her fluency in Spanish, English, German and French (pg 145). She'd also just received a Journalism Degree from Havan University and, at the time of her departure from the GDR, she'd just completed her first year as a philosophy major at Humboldt University in East Berlin (pg 25). It was also around this time Haydée met Carlos Fonseca, the founder and leader of the Nicaraguan Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN), to whom she'd confessed her wish to one day participate in the guerrilla struggle there (pg 25).</P><P>
After being vetted and being given the role in Operation Fantasm, Haydée began training for her position, which included cryptography and learning how to use various types of communications equipment (pg 27). Haydée was not given any specifics as to her mission other than the fact that she'd be functioning mostly as a technician, but under no circumstances should she rule out the possibility of actively participating in armed struggle (pg 28). At this point, Haydée asked that she'd be allowed to choose her own pseudonym for her mission. She chose the name "Tania" in honor of Zoja Kosmodemjanskaja, a Soviet womyn guerrilla who was killed after being captured and tortured by the Nazis during the German invasion of the USSR (pg 28). Days after her training was complete, she was taken to the Ministry of Industry, where she was met, much to her surprise, by Che himself (pg 28)! After congratulating her on her decision to take up this task, Che informed her that it was not too late to back out, as he understood the gravity of what they were asking her to do. Without hesitation, Tania stated that as a communist, it was her revolutionary duty to carry out whatever task necessary to liberate Latin America from imperialist exploitation (pg 29). Che then gave her his assessment of the political, economic, social and military situation in South America. He condemned Amerikan imperialism for siphoning the region's wealth and for its subordination of Latin American governments who they bought off with only a pittance of what they themselves stole. He then concluded his assessment by telling Tania that you couldn't be a revolutionary unless you were an anti-imperialist (pg 30). </P><P>
In preparing Tania for her mission, the author shared his views on guerrilla warfare with her. He said that according to his own experience in the Sierra Maestra, it would be very difficult for a guerrilla insurgency in the rural areas to maintain itself and succeed without the support of an organization in the city, especially during the insurgency's early states. Only after the revolutionary movement in the rural areas reached maturity could it then execute military and political operations with independence (pg 32). From a Maoist perspective, however, this political-military line is incorrect. Strategically speaking, it is completely backwards as the peasant masses make up the driving force of any revolutionary movement in agrarian societies. So before moving on with respect to this topic, let us be clear that as Maoists, we disagree with the Cuban political-military strategy known as Focoism. Focoism is defined as:</P><BLOCKQUOTE>
"The belief that small cells of armed revolutionaries can create the conditions for revolution through their actions. Demonstrated revolutionary victories, the success of the Foci, are supposed to lead the masses to revolution. Focoism often places great emphasis on armed struggle and the immediacy this brings to class warfare. Focoism is different from People's War in that it doesn't promote the mass line as part of guerrilla operations."
-From the <A HREF="https://www.prisoncensorship.info/glossary/">MIM(Prisons) Glossary</A>
So while as anti-imperialists we have great unity with the national
liberation movement that booted U.$. imperialism from Cuba, we also have
a variety of criticisms of Focoism, in particular the line being
espoused in this book. The line that says only the “urban population”
(industrial proletariat & left-wing sections of the
petty-bourgeoisie) in a Third World country are advanced enough to lead
the revolution is crypto-Trotskyist. The Focoists, while claiming to be
communist and claiming to follow in the footsteps of Marx, Engels,
Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, in fact prove themselves to disagree with the
philosophy of dialectical materialism in practice by attempting to prove
external forces as principal both in general and in particular. By
relegating the role of the masses as makers of hystory to mere
spectators in hystory, the Focoists display a lack of faith in the
masses and thereby uphold the bourgeoisie theory of hystory which they
also claim to struggle against in their individualist attempts to bring
about revolution. The Focoist political-military line upheld by the
author is therefore anti-Marxist, anti-dialectical materialist,
anti-communist and contradicts the entire hystorical process ever since
the emergence of classes and class struggle. It is no wonder that
Focoism has never succeeded in defeating imperialism anywhere in the
world with the exception of Cuba. Indeed the Cuban example has been the
exception and not the rule when it comes to the revolutionary
transformation of society.
On the other hand, if we look at all three major stages of the Chinese
Revolution: from the war of independence against Japan; to the
revolutionary war that ousted the KMT from China, including Amerikan,
British and French imperialism; to the struggle for New Democracy, we
can see how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under the leadership of
Mao Zedong struggled shoulder-to-shoulder with the masses in order to
build dual power from inside the revolutionary base areas from which
they were able to encroach upon, encircle and challenge the cities of
China. This revolutionary war strategy is called People’s War
and it is the model for national liberation struggles all throughout the
Third World in the era of dying imperialism.
Once her training was complete, Tania’s handlers were confident she was
more than prepared to fulfill her role. They believed that during the
course of her training, she’d displayed many new character traits: hate
for the enemy, firm ideological grasp of the revolutionary task at hand,
discipline, vigilance, a disposition towards sacrifice in victory
without any personal ambition or gain and satisfaction in completing her
mission (pg 42). Tania soon departed for Prague under the alias “Maria
Iriarte” from Argentina (pg 62).
Once in Prague, she was briefed on the next stage of her mission by
Czech agents working in tandem with Cuban intelligence. Tania then
travelled to Italy and then to the Federal Republic of Germany, also
known as West Germany, which was split at the time between U.$., Briti$h
and French imperialism. Tania’s objective here was to deepen her cover
as Maria Iriarte so that she may then establish herself as “Vittoria
Pancini” of Italian origin (pg 62). It was in the course of these trips
that Tania was finally confronted with the on-the-ground reality of
capitalism and the class distinctions between the developed West and the
under-developed Third World. Here Tania was able to witness the
existence of poverty alongside the opulence that characterized the West;
the egoism of western society and various other social ills she’d only
learned about in school and her studies of Marxism. Whereas many people
newly arrived in imperialist countries have swooned at the sight of such
riches, Tania on the other hand found that her resolve was only
strengthened (pg 63). After a few months in West Germany, Tania was sent
to Italy to create another persona, that of “Laura Gutierrez Bauer”,
also from Argentina (pg 79).
On 5 November 1964, after returning to Italy from West Germany, Tania
arrived in Peru by way of Argentina on her next stop to La Paz, Bolivia
(pg 82). This is where Tania really proved her powers as a Cuban spy.
Through her connections she’d established with the Argentine embassy as
“Laura”, she was able to infiltrate the Bolivian dictator, General Ramon
Barrientos’s inner circle. Near the end of 1964, Tania managed to get
herself invited to a special banquet breakfast for Gen. Barrientos,
where she had a conversation with him and even had pictures taken
together (pg 84). Following this event, Tania abandoned her residence at
Hotel La Paz and moved into the guest house belonging to Alicia Dupley
Zamara, the wife of an important cement factory administrator. From
here, Tania was able to stockpile connections deep within the Bolivian
bourgeoisie as well as with various right-wing leaders and
organizations, reactionary Christian social-democrats and pro-fascist
organizations (pg 35). Next, Tania began to embed herself into various
government agencies, such as the Office of Criminal Investigations,
where she was able to collect information on the extent of Amerikan
imperialism’s penetration into the Bolivian penal and judicial system.
She also gathered intelligence on the local jail in La Paz known simply
as “the Panopticon” (pg 89).
Afterwards, Tania left Bolivia for Mexico City, where she was to meet a
member of Cuban intelligence who informed her of her next mission and
congratulated her for a job well-done. Tania had accomplished far more
than anyone expected. She was also informed that she’d been voted in
absentia into the Cuban “Communist” Party* (pg 76).
The next stage of Tania’s mission was to gain Bolivian citizenship so as
to better facilitate her cover and role in the Bolivian urban
insurgency. She was to be Che’s eyes and ears in the Bolivian
government. Tania gained citizenship by marriage to a Bolivian
university student, Mario Martinez (pg 105). On 31 December 1966, Tania
met with Che in the ELN’s base camp in the Bolivian mountains for the
first time since leaving Cuba. By all accounts it was a joyous reunion
and Tania celebrated the 9th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution with
the ELN guerrillas. Two days later, Tania left camp with explicit orders
from Che not to return to the camp and to refrain from any illegal
activities that might blow her cover. However, on 19 March 1967, Che was
angered to receive news that Tania had returned to camp. In Tania’s
defense, she stated there was no other member of the incipient urban
insurgency she yet trusted enough to deliver fresh soldiers to the ELN,
which was the task Tania was carrying out at the time. The timing,
however, could not have been worse as the ELN had just suffered the
desertion of two volunteers (pg 113). Che immediately ordered Tania to
return to the city. Before she could leave, however, they received
information that the Bolivian Army was aware of the ELN’s location and
were on the hunt. On 23 March 1967 combat operations began when, during
the course of an ambush initiated by the Bolivian military, seven
government soldiers were killed and 14 were taken prisoner. Four days
later, news reached the camp that Tania’s cover might have been blown
when government officials announced over the radio that they were
looking for someone matching Tania’s description with links to the ELN.
Around this same time the Bolivian police found identification belonging
to a “Laura Gutierrez” inside of a jeep of a home they’d raided in
search of possible connections to the ELN (pg 118).
On 31 August 1967 “Tania the guerrilla” was killed by government
soldiers during an ambush along the edges of the Rio Grande. According
to the only surviving member of the ELN, the group were trying to march
out of the zone known as the Bella Vista mountain range where the
military was attempting to confine Tania’s unit, which had split off
from Che’s. As Tania knelt down to touch the water a single shot rang
out. Tania had been shot through the arm. She immediately lifted her arm
over her head to reach for the M1 slung over her back, when she suddenly
collapsed. The single bullet traversed her arm and hit one of her lungs.
Tania fell into the Rio Grande and was swept away by the current as
shots raced back and forth between the ELN and the Bolivian Army (pg
124). Tania’s body was found three days later by government troops (pg
125). On 8 October 1967, Che Guevara was taken prisoner and summarily
executed the following day (pg 126). The bodies of all 33 fallen ELN
guerrillas would then be disappeared by government troops and would not
be found for nearly 30 years, when retired Bolivian general Mario Vargas
Salinas confessed to Jon Lee Anderson the true location of Che Guevara’s
remains (pg 132).
As late as 2005, the people of Vallegrande, near the site where Tania
was killed and where her remains were last seen, still held a special
Mass every Sunday for Tania the guerrilla (pg 138). Until the
dissolution of the GDR in 1990, there existed more than 200 juvenile
brigades and “feminist” groups with the name Haydée Tamar Bunke Bider.
Day care centers and elementary schools also bore her name in the GDR
(pg 261). Today, with the temporary triumph of imperialism in Germany,
none of these are still around. In Cuba, up until 1998, there were many
collectives and various other institutions with either the name Tamara
Bunke or Tania the guerrilla. And in Bolivia, the name Tania remains
very popular for girls. In Nicaragua and Chile there also existed until
1998 many institutions and organizations with any variety of Tania’s
names and aliases (pg 261).
It was Tania’s mother’s last wish that Tania’s remains be laid to rest
alongside her fallen comrades whenever she was found. On 30 December
1998 Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider; alias Maria Iriarte; alias Vitorria
Pancini; alias Laura Gutierrez Bauer; alias Tania the guerrilla finally
arrived to the Ernesto Che Guevara Memorial in Santa Clara, Cuba, where
she remains today (pg 273).
The role of wimmin in the annals of revolutionary struggle are not
confined to a few noteworthy names such as Tania the guerrilla. From the
Maoist struggle of the Naxalbari currently playing out outside the
cities and urban areas of India, where guerrilla wimmin battalions and
guerrilla units led by wimmin are some of the most feared by government
troops, to the overwhelming amount of leadership positions held by
wimmin in the Communist Party of Peru (aka “Shining Path”) in the era of
Gonzalo, to the national liberation struggles of the internal
semi-colonies of the U.$. empire, wimmin will remain a vital component
in the struggle for socialism-communism – this is what Mao meant when he
said “wimmin hold up half the sky.”
Indeed, the most effective road forward has already been paved.
Revolutionary accomplishments should be viewed as the product of many
peoples’ collective labor and not just a select few. Anyone attracted to
the Focoist theory of revolution need only look at the hystories of
oppressed peoples’ movements everywhere and learn from practice. What
has been more successful – Maoism or Focoism? The relationship between
mass movements and the individuals leading them is a dialectical one and
neither can carry out the task of revolution without the other.