Revolutionary Worker #1111, July 22, 2001, posted at http://rwor.org
The following excerpts are from letters prisoners wrote to the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund on the new Draft Programme of the RCP,USA.
It's a programme with a strategy to defeat the opposition. It is a new programme that gives that vision for a fundamental new communist society. And most importantly, it gives me a vision of hope in a vicious society.... This struggle needs people young, old, whatever to join the proletarian vanguard and fight with us for a new society.
Correctional Facility, PA
*****
The Draft Programme is a very comprehensive statement and source or text for unification of the dissatisfied masses and organizations committed to the revolution. The draft can be compared to a powerful tool and weapon to build a new system and destroy the old one, and this tangible frame of reference is something really needed in the grasp of the directionless masses to guide them to their rightful destiny.
I request that a copy of the Draft Programme be furnished to the following person.... I don't know anyone more anxious and excited than him about the release of the Draft Programme when it was first announced in the Revolutionary Worker. I tried to smuggle my copy to him but the way things are, we both might lose our only copy in the process of the attempt.
Correctional Facility, PA
*****
I have received the N.D.P., read it, made my humble comments, my comrades have also received the N.D.P. We are currently organizing our views so that we can submit them to you as a whole collective effort on our behalf... I would like to thank you personally and the PRLF of the RCP for making our participation possible. All I can send right now is a big clinched fisted salute."
Correctional Facility, Michigan
*****
I have had an opportunity to read the new Draft Programme and I was very impressed. It'll be difficult but I plan on going over it with some other prisoners who've expressed an interest. The only personal problem I have with the whole idea is that I'm not sure I'll live to see the day the shit goes down. I have utmost faith in the ability of the proletariat to seize nation-wide power, but we must keep in mind that our efforts to raise awareness are competing with a very powerful propaganda machine (against all odds).... I want nothing more than to fight for a better world. I have nothing to lose but my chains.
Correctional Facility, Wisconsin
*****
I received the Draft Programme.... I think that it is fantastic. There are a few things that I have found that I needed to change within myself. Like women's roles as far as child rearing. I totally know that women are my equals (in some cases more so), so for me reading the Draft Programme was an excellent reality check.
I am committed to what the Programme has boldly stated. What is good about this is it lays it out. Also it helps one see within oneself, to see point blank within the mirror of truth. You see where you are right and also where you have went a path in wrong thought. Like with so called 'gender roles' in my case.
Within this envelope is a small list of fellow prisoners that I believe would get something from the Draft Programme. All are on the road.
Correctional Facility, Ohio
*****
Though I just started reading the Programme I want to say that I appreciate all the time, research, socio-economic, and communist MLM ideology that is invested in it. I know my comrades must have worked hard exchanging ideas with the masses as well as giving them insight into the RCP, RCYB's goals.
I now have the weapon (knowledge) to fight back [against] 'reactionaries' and 'cognitive-dissonance' sufferers who are blinded by the bourgeois class.
Thank you for opening my eyes to your--correction, our cause and for letting me know that there can be a better world out there, a communist world. Rest assured that I will hold conversations with fellow inmates who are tired as I am and try to move them to our cause.
Well, comrades, I end this letter now sending my out-most respect and love to all the revolutionaries that share our goals.
Correctional Facility, California
*****
I am writing in hope of receiving the new publication of the "Draft Programme." I am a political prisoner in the state of California doing time for my undertaking in the Los Angeles so-called riots. Anyhow I don't have money at the time so I find myself indigent and really want to get with the "Draft Programme."
I have become an enthusiastic student of "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism" and "proletarian struggles." I receive the Revolutionary Worker and it has taken me to new heights of understanding the social problems we are being confronted with today's fucked-up system of capitalism. I also feel that it has brought me closer to other world struggles. Get down "RW," thank you.
Well I hope you can help me out with a "Draft Programme"--it will be deeply appreciated comrades. There's a handful of brothers in here with me that share the same ideology. "Power to the Revolutionary Communist Party." I'm out--"In the spirit of Marx, Lenin, Mao"
Correctional Facility, California
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