Prisoners Join Revolutionary Conversation on New Draft Programme

Revolutionary Worker #1133, January 6, 2002, 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 all people who see the need to spread the vision of a revolutionary program, to contribute to the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF). PRLF is also looking for volunteers to help get the RW into prisoners' hands.

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I was recently fortunate enough to read your party's Draft Programme and am interested in contributing feedback as well as becoming a member of the RCP. I would like to hold debates and discussions with others here on the issues that are brought up in your Draft Programme. However, the copy that I read was not mine and I would really appreciate a copy I could read and study as well as to pass around and share with others. I am an indigent inmate and am unable to purchase a copy. Would it be at all possible for me to receive a copy and in exchange I will try to collect the cost of the DP in postage. If this is possible, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Greetings Comrades! First and foremost I give my respect to you all as POW's. I would also like to let you all know that your Draft Programme of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA is totally deep. I mean it is mind-strengthening. I have and am learning so much--me, myself who is now a political prisoner in my own way; one whom is now a prisoner of this genocidal establishment. It is in my best interest to seek the proper knowledge, which will strengthen my mind to the ability to withstand this psychological war that has been declared upon me and the rest of us in struggle. Please let it be of no surprise that I am a prisoner who has a quest to revolutionize my mentality. Prison will only make us 1 or 2--and that is a revolutionary or a slave. Peace because: positive energy always creates elevation.

I received your letter dated 9/5/01. Please allow me to apologize for such a late response. I have been under a lot of stress concerning my case, family and dealing with the everyday struggle of prison life. Please allow me to explain: I was heavily involved with Native rights struggles and anti-racist demonstrations (in an all-white southern town). Anyway, several charges were attributed to me. At trial evidence was tampered with, jury tampering occurred, and evidence of my innocence was withheld (now in my possession). I was convicted of a number of charges and received the maximum sentence on each, to run consecutively for a total of 90 years! I was 18 when I came down. My activism hasn't stopped, which really makes it hard on me here. Some say I'm a political prisoner...

My mother is also a Native activist. She also is one of my main supporters on the outside. She is always going around the country trying to rally support for me and others like me. Because of her outspoken criticism, her home was burned to the ground by the Klan (no investigation) and recently she was brutally raped by three men (no investigation as of yet). She is still fighting though and I admire her courage.

Yes, I've been receiving my RW regularly. I really enjoy reading it. I also received my Draft Programme with no problem.

I am not a card-toting communist yet I see a lot of good things that the RCP propagates. I myself am an "anarchist" as some say, but labels really don't sit well with me. I do believe in the anarchistic philosophy and involve other philosophies as well. However, being an anarchist, communist, or whatever doesn't make a difference. We are all fighting the same monster and the RCP, RIM, BLA, etc. as well as the anarchists can't do it alone. We have to do it together. I also believe that communism will have to come before anarchism and therefore I support that movement.

Before I sign off, I would like to say thank you for your patience in getting this letter. I hope you understand the reasons behind the delay. Also thanks for sending the RW and the Draft Programme. I have been passing it around and we talk about the material all of the time. I would also like you to send my Hispanic brother a copy of the DP and a sub to the RW. Thanks.

Dear comrades,

I hope you are in good health and high in consciousness. I read the Draft Programme of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA and I let one of my comrades read it and he was really excited about it, so I gave him a copy. The only complaints I have are two:

The first complaint is that the Draft was printed on biodegradable paper and the second complaint is that the Draft Programme should have been released many years ago. But as Malcolm X said, "there is nothing like an idea whose time has come." However, the tenets of the Draft Programme are straight forward, comprehensible and fueled by revolutionary energy.

I am now in transit. The institution moved me because they had read the new Draft Programme and the correctional staff were really shook up. Quick, fast and in a hurry I was sent to the Institutional Classification Committee without prior 72-hour notice, which in actuality is a violation of my due process rights. These vanguards for the oppressor class have given proof to the scientific prophecy of the Communist Manifesto. The reality is "just as your [oppressor's] jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of existence of your class."

The other reality is, "Let the ruling class tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains." The nature of fascism is heterogeneous. With the cataclysmic events taking place in the United States of America, the ruling class is trying to reverse time, but time and space only moves forward. The Draft Programme tells us in the section noted, "Who Are Our Friends and Who Are Our Enemies": The prison administrative body is the enemy of the proletarians and lumpen-proletarians.

The Draft Programme has really made me look at the Revolutionary Communist Party more critically. I now take the RCP,USA more serious. I have an idea that may or may not have been presented. In order to give poor people an understanding about communism and the Revolutionary Communist Party.

There should be a correspondence course teaching the working and pauper class about the basics of communism. The correspondence course should also give the terms and definition to words and phrases such as bourgeoisie, proletarian, class consciousness, false-consciousness, overproduction and means of production, instrument of labor and the Marxist evolution of society, etc. And it should give an illustration of how these words and phrases apply to the multiracial and cultural group within the USA and abroad. Some of these illustrations should be accompanied with an example of how dialectical and historical materialism applies to the lives of the oppressed. And as the course progresses, there should be a history of the founding fathers, i.e., Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, V.I. Lenin and Mao Tsetung, etc.

In the historical studies of the founding fathers, there should be an example and explanation as to how the ruling class have distorted the images of these great icons; in order to keep the poor class blind to these great leaders painstaking and scientific works for the betterment of society. The correspondence course should also be placed in a section of the Revolutionary Worker. Also there should be an established communication via visitation and or telephone call at least once or twice a month to a party member(s) on the outside. The visitation and/or telephone call would be to monitor the growth and development of the study groups throughout the prison system in the USA and U.S. territories. Under the direction of a well-versed party member, these prison groups would have the ability to form themselves under democratic centralism and learn the true meaning of scientific socialism, in practice and theory.

As the full studies proceed, these prison study groups will help to change the social environment -- because only those who understand how society works can change society.

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