Revolutionary Worker #1117, September 2, 2001, posted at http://rwor.org
There are many prisoners and political prisoners that need to get their hands on the Draft Programme of the Revolutionary Communist Party. The brothers and sisters behind bars must be a part of this discussion and debate. To do this, we ask that all people who see the need to spread the vision of a revolutionary programme, to contribute to the Prisoners' Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF).
Send contributions: PRLF, Merchandise Mart, P.O. Box 3486, Chicago, IL 60654.
The following excerpts are from letters prisoners wrote to the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund on the new Draft Programme of the RCP,USA.
Forever for the People
Beloved Comrades,
First of all, my salute to you and the comrades! May our ancestors and those before us look upon us in favor as we continue the work of uplifting and uniting on all fronts.
This is a brief note to let you know I received the material (Draft Programme). I have perused through the book, but have yet to fully digest the material worthy of it all. On the surface, it is definitely a worthy document and may we be blessed to bring this about in its totality.
There are a few brothers here that I know for a fact will put the material to work with me and I have included their names to be sent it. In this environment we have to be cautious because the administration uses anything to isolate you from the masses. Their favorite stigma is "gang-related," even if the material is political in nature. This is still classified as such and the penalty is wide open from punitive segregation to years in confinement for your beliefs!
The few that are included in this writing are the ones in which I'm trying to incorporate into a structure here to further the conscious thought of the struggle. Therefore, we will need material to effect this and let me know if you will need $ to help us.
Bringing about a united structure here in these dungeons is imperative because there is so many walking dead. This also plays a part in the education because in some respects some just don't know the ramifications of their actions. I have vowed to do my part and will not turn away from this duty.
In this I conclude and forever for the people and may you all be granted the treasures of the struggle.
Correctional Facility, FL
We Can Liberate the World!
To my brothers and sisters in struggle, I salute you. There are a lot of questions being asked by my brothers here and I know there's a lot of questions asked by the people in general of the so-called free world about a New Society. I could only answer their questions with the visions I have for a New Society. Most of these visions are new visions that came from the MLM new Draft Programme. Just to name some of these visions for a new communist society:
A society without class status, the elimination of wealth, a new political economy, a society that's non-racial where people respect people as human beings. No subjugation or oppression of any particular group of people. No subjugation or oppression at all! Educational programs on history, culture, philosophy and so forth, for different nationalities, ages and backgrounds. A Revolutionary Transformation of society for a truly fundamental change where there's no such thing as poor people, pollution, CIA, FBI and police officers. New institutions that meet the demands and basic needs of the people. A non-violent society. And I would really love to see these visions realized. And after this is accomplished we can liberate the world. Nothing is impossible!
The new Draft Programme has an effective strategy for fundamental social change in Amerika. The powerful Amerikan empire can be destroyed. To achieve our objectives it will take a mass movement to see that this is accomplished. The MLM programme teaches the masses to organize the movement that works to mobilize the people behind its programme. It's a programme with a strategy to defeat the opposition. It is a new programme that gives a vision for a fundamental new communist society. And most importantly, in a vicious society, it gives me a vision of hope.
At present, the struggle continues, my brothers and sisters. And I would like to point out to people that this struggle is no game or joke. This is some serious shit. Jokes and games have no place in this struggle. This is an ongoing struggle. It can take years or decades for fundamental change in Amerikan society. The enemy is trying to murder Mumia and a bunch of other brothers in this country. When is the lynching going to stop! Four hundreds plus years of lynching! Many of our brothers and sisters have died or were murdered in this struggle for freedom. They have sacrificed their lives for the love of freedom! This struggle needs people young, old whatever to join the proletarian vanguard and fight with us for a new society. The people's movement will know when it is time to take up arms against this brutal system....
Reality vs. Religion
I greet you with a clenched fist... To answer some of the questions you asked-no, a lot of these brothers haven't read the MLM Draft Programme. And in particular, I like the part in the DP where it says getting rid of the pig police. I'm a regular police hater.
Half of these brothers are brainwashed by the system. I'm not in population, so I'm on lockdown 23 and 1. So when I wrote the RW and wrote that the brothers was asking questions about a new society, they were only asking these questions because I was telling them my vision for a new society. But is was only a handful of people, say about four people.
I never told the RW what people's reactions were. So I'll tell you now in this letter. These brothers think that none of these things could be accomplished. This was the typical response from the brothers when I explain my vision of a new society. One brother said I was being brainwashed by the RW. And that most of the things in the RW is mythical in a sense.
What we have to learn is there's always going to be people who fear the Amerikan power. These type of people are what you call, in the way. And they are also called defeatist. They are submitters to subjugation. So therefore we are going to get these type of responses from some people. But the struggle continues for the victims of capitalism and imperialism. Plus a lot of these brothers are not just brainwashed by capitalist society, but their religion is destroying them.
I'm not trying to down anybody's religion. I'm just putting forth the truth. Slaveowners use the Bible to justify slavery. And at first, slaveowners and overseers wanted the slave to be blind to the facts of everything. So therefore they didn't want the slave to learn how to read. They wanted to keep the slaves ignorant. But as soon as slaves started to learn how to read, slaveowners was telling the slave that he/she was cursed and that they was suppose to be slaves. And a lot of them believed their master. And the slavemaster controlled them with the Bible. So my point is these brothers are being controlled. Most of their thinking is shaped by their religion. Islam and Christianity are destroying our brothers in prison and out there on the streets.
This is just my opinion, and what I believe. These brothers I told about my new society visions were religious brothers, and I expected them to respond like that, because of their religion. I believe that these religions are mythical. Going back in time before both of these religions you had the religion of the Egyptians whose god was Amon-Ra, the sun god, and this religion was thousands and thousands of years before both Islam and Christianity. And this religion was mythical. Set was the Devil and Set murdered Osirus who was a god, and Osirus' son was to revenge his father's death. I can go on and on. And just bear with me, I'm trying to point out the behavior of these religious personalities. First, they are inactive, which means they are passive. Second, they don't fight for change, but is okay with their oppressive conditions-Allah and Jesus will take care of everything.
So my point is these brothers' response to my new visions for a new society and the DP was no surprise. Their religion teaches them to respond the way they do. So therefore the key point is they are not working with reality. They are working with "spookism," which pushes them far from reality. Malcolm X said if I got a religion that don't fight for my people, I say the hell with that religion...
Correction Facility, PA
A Liberating Ideology
Comrades, I apologize for not writing you sooner. Honestly, I just started reading the Programme. It is powerful. In this facility, class-consciousness is almost non-existent. The only type of mental activity is in some reactionary religious form and how mental is that? My spirit was becoming overwhelmed. I picked up the Programme and it revitalized me. It best illustrates the materialist, scientific, internationalist view that we need to advance human society. I've studied Islam, Christianity, and MLM deeply over the last six plus years of my incarceration. MLM is the only truly liberating ideology.
I'll write you a detailed opinion on Part One of the Programme in a couple of weeks. Does the party have a written critique on religion?
Correctional Facility, LA
Enthusiasm in the Concrete Colony
We have received PRLF's generous gift subscription to the Revolutionary Worker, with much appreciation, here in the concrete colony. Each issue has made wide circulation throughout the cell block and continues to serve as not only informative objective accounts of current news issues but even more importantly as educational tools. Dialogue surrounding each issue has increased amongst the prisoners and our revolutionary enthusiasm has been continually heightening, especially since the release of the new Draft Programme on May First.... We anticipate receiving the new Draft Programme soon and hammering out some feedback to you.
Correctional Facility, CA
Reality Check
Sir. I am an inmate doing 66 2/3 to 100 year sentence. I really do enjoy the Revolutionary Worker and it's a blessing, teaching me so much that I didn't know.... Also if you can would you send me the Draft Programme because I need a reality check and I need to know the truth. I don't have money. At the time am indigent but I really want to get with the Draft Programme. I am lacking a lot of education because they won't allow me to go to college. So help me out.
Correctional Facility, MI
Utmost Faith in the Proletariat
I'm writing to let you know I've received the books you sent and surprisingly none of them you sent were banned this time. So 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.
Needless to say, I was elated to read an open declaration of the party's intent-"In the process of seizing power, the revolutionary movement will storm the prisons, guns in hand, and offer the masses of prisoners the chance to join the revolutionary army."- to give us the chance to join the revolutionary army. I really believe prisoners will make some of the most enthusiastic and aggressive revolutionaries.
The only personal problem I have with the whole idea is that I am not sure I'll live to see the day the shit goes down. I have the utmost faith in the ability of the proletariat to seize nationwide power, but we must keep in mind that our efforts to raise awareness are competing with a very powerful propaganda machine (against all odds).
Recently, I read a few books by and about Che Guevara and the rest of the liberated world may have to force the United States to conform and maybe it would be more righteous of me to leave this country in order to directly assist the struggles of oppressed people in the so-called Third World. For that idea, and in general, the recent unfolding of events in Nepal have done much for my morale. But on the other hand, given the conditions here in the U.S., right now, a right-wing, pro-Nazi revolution almost seems more likely than one of proletarian character. Then again, I guess that'd be our cue...
Correction Facility, MO
Thoughts on Landlords
(Note from the RW: The following letter includes comments on the part in the Draft Programme on housing under socialism, in particular the section on page 120 which says: "Small landlords who own only one or a few units will be allowed to continue collecting rents for a period of time. But small landlords will have no power to evict, and the rents will be set by the state. If there are problems, representatives of the Party, state, and the masses will work together with tenants and landlords to resolve them. As soon as possible, as more housing is built, and as the socialist economy as a whole develops, the state will gradually buy out these small landlords and convert these units into state-owned property.")
I read the entire DP and overall, it's an excellent DP. But there are a few points I disagree with, which I'll state below and the reasons why.
Housing, health care, all forms of public transportation and all levels of education must be made universally free to all U.S. citizens, upon the seizure of power.
In a situation where civil war has just ended, a lot of damage has been done to the infrastructure during the course of such civil war, it will be essential to rally the broadest sections of all nationalities to the socialist reconstruction of the country.
First, the masses would have sacrificed enormously, and should immediately receive what they fought for. Second, there will be other armies in the field with an incorrect line and who will have tremendous influence over their regions, and the Party will have to build confidence, trust, and influence over those areas from the very beginning. Millions upon millions of people will automatically benefit from those services and will support the Party in different forms to keep such services.
The masses and the Party do not need any small landlords around, collecting any kind of rent. Their excess properties should be confiscated and turned over to the tenants' ownership. If this is not done, tenants will feel betrayed, and those same small landlords will use that against the Party and turn (who knows how many) tenants against the Party. And there are millions of tenants. Those small landlords have nothing to contribute to socialist reconstruction through their rent collection and the party needs to arm the millions upon millions of tenants to deal with such landlords.
There are tens of thousands of socialists, communists, and other radicals already organized in unions and other groups, and new such forces will be developed and forged during a civil war, all over the country. They will be the first to join the masses in taking over and controlling all institutions, especially hospitals, schools, housing, and public transportation.
In addition to that, the party will open the doors to all revolutionaries worldwide who are willing to come in and engage in socialist reconstruction. And I am confident that tens of thousands will answer that call...
A few guys read the DP and I took some notes. All the names below are fictitious. We talked a lot, but I think I organized the essence of the conversations pretty good:
Joe: What do you think about the DP?
Maya: A lot of what I read is new to me and I really can't speak on it, but I don't agree with the section on abortion. I don't agree with abortion.
Chino: I don't agree with it either.
Joe: Okay, if your wife came out from work and on the way home she got raped and as a result got pregnant, would you be willing to raise the child as your own, or would you want her to get an abortion?
Maya: I would want her to get an abortion.
Joe: So in that situation you don't disagree with abortion, that is, in cases in which a woman was raped.
Maya: In rape cases, I guess it would be okay.
Joe: What about you Chino, is it okay or not in rape cases?
Chino: If the woman wants an abortion in a rape case, then it's okay. But if she wants to keep it, then she shouldn't be forced to have an abortion.
Joe: Okay, what about all those guys that get women pregnant and abandon their women? If the father refuses to help the mother, should she be forced to raise the child by herself, or would it be okay for her to have an abortion?
Chino: She shouldn't have an abortion. If she wouldn't have opened her legs, she wouldn't have got pregnant.
Joe: How would you feel if your sister met a guy selling her dreams just to get into her pants, and after a few weeks, decided to leave her for some other girl, and left her pregnant. Could you disagree if she wanted an abortion?
Chino: Well, in that case, I guess it's okay.
Joe: Well, that happens every day. Dudes go around fucking every girl they can, get them pregnant and break out and leave them alone to raise the kids by themselves with no support.
Everyone that read the DP only talked about the issue of abortion. As to other points raised in the DP, they either agreed with the DP or were not familiar with it, and in those cases, I explained to them those points in greater detail and depth. I'm sorry I wasn't able to get more out of the guys. But believe me, the DP served its purpose as it opened the minds of many to other points of view than they are accustomed to seeing. It made them think and I know it still does.
Before I let you go, if you come across any literature, keep me in mind. Thanks. Also, does the bookstore have the little Red Book in Spanish? Let me know so I can buy one for a buddy of mine who only reads in Spanish. Don't forget. Stay strong!
Correctional Facility, NY
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
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