I N T E R N E T ' S  M A O I S T  M O N T H L Y
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     X X X   X   X X X   XX  X  X X   X   X    X
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= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 


         THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

  MIM Notes 57                    OCTOBER, 1991
MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the 
world's oppressed majority, and against the 
imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in 
the service of the people. support it, struggle 
with it and write for it.


IN THIS ISSUE:
1.  BLOOD & OIL: AMERIKA BURIES IRAQIS ALIVE
2.  FBI FRAMES NATIVE LEADER : BROTHER PELTIER FIGHTS MURDER RAP
3.  SOVIET LEADERS SELL OUT THE PEOPLE, AGAIN (p 10)
4.  SOVIET EMPIRE DIES
5.  LETTERS
6.  PAPER TIGERS
    CIA RUNS COVERT WARS
    BCCI INVESTIGATORS KILLED
    SALVADORAN WORKERS STRIKE 
    'FREE' TRADE ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD IN MEXICO
    U.S. FIGHTS PERUVIAN MAOISTS
    UNITED STATES AIDS PANAMANIAN DRUG TRADE
    DOG EAT DOG
    BEWARE OF WOLVES IN SHEEPS' CLOTHING
7.  AMERIKAN ACCORD SEEKS WORLD DOMINANCE, NOT AN END TO MIDDLE 
    EAST WARS
8.  THE MYTH OF BLACKS VS. JEWS
9.  BLACK FILMS, WHITE PARROTS
10. REVOLUTIONARY CULTURE
11. HAITI: 'REVOLUTIONARY' PRESIDENT ARISTIDE FINDS CONFLICT IN 
    THE SYSTEM
12. UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONS AND PRISONERS
13. REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY: THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY


The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a 
revolutionary communist party that upholds 
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, comprising the collection 
of existing or emerging Maoist internationalist 
parties in the English-speaking imperialist 
countries and their English-speaking internal 
semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging 
Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties 
of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of 
the U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of 
MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-
speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM.
MIM is an internationalist organization that works 
from the vantage point of the Third World 
proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans, 
but world citizens.
MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups 
over other groups: classes, genders, nations.  MIM 
knows this is only possible by building public 
opinion to seize power through armed struggle.
Revolution is a reality for North America as the 
military becomes over-extended in the government's 
attempts to maintain world hegemony.
MIM differs from other communist parties on three 
main questions: (1) MIM holds that after the 
proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, 
the potential exists for capitalist restoration 
under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within 
the communist party itself. In the case of the 
USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death 
of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's 
death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in 
1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural 
Revolution as the farthest advance of communism in 
human history. (3) MIM believes the North American 
white-working-class is primarily a non-
revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it 
is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in 
this country.
MIM accepts people as members who agree on these 
basic principles and accept democratic centralism, 
the system of majority rule, on other questions of 
party line.
"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is 
universally applicable. We should regard it not as 
dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is 
not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases, 
but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of 
revolution."
-- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208

* * *

BLOOD & OIL: AMERIKA BURIES IRAQIS ALIVE

The Pentagon has admitted to burying hundreds or thousands of 
Iraqi soldiers alive in the first hours of the ground offensive 
against Iraq in February. Army bulldozers plowed sand into 10 
miles of Iraqi trenches to make way for advancing tanks and 
personnel carriers.

"For all I know, we could have killed thousands," said Col. 
Anthony Moreno, in an interview with Newsday.

This latest news of Amerikan atrocities comes as millions of 
Iraqis still suffer the consequences of the imperialist 
war--malnutrition and disease have settled into the Iraqi 
landscape, the economy is destroyed, and reconstruction is almost 
non-existent. All this, on top of more than 100,000 deaths from 
the bombing itself.

But the image of thousands of Iraqi people, fighting a war in the 
name of their country's dictator--with nothing to gain for them, 
even if they won-- buried alive in their trenches, is more fuel for 
the fires of anti-imperialist rage.

So that the Iraqi people have not suffered in vain, MIM and all 
revolutionaries use such examples of imperialist acts of terror to 
rededicate ourselves to the struggle against this system in all of 
its forms.

--MC12

Notes: AP and UPI in Detroit News 9/13/91, p. 5A.

* * *

FBI FRAMES NATIVE LEADER

After serving 15 years of his two life-term prison sentence in 
Leavenworth, Kansas for allegedly killing two FBI agents, American 
Indian Movement (AIM) leader Leonard Peltier is waiting to appeal 
his conviction. In the course of an appeal brought in 1985, the 
federal prosecutor admitted the government had no evidence that 
Peltier had been the "principal" killer of the agents. In a 
hearing on Oct. 2, Peltier's defense team will try to convince the 
court to allow Peltier another appeal, arguing that his 
constitutional rights were violated in the 1977 trial.

Peltier supporters should not bank on a fair trial. Endless and 
costly court procedures have diverted attention from the main 
issues--the expropriation of Native land and the economic and 
political persecution of Native peoples. But as much as Peltier is 
a symbol of the struggle of Native people against Amerikan 
imperialism, his trial is a stark reminder of the bankruptcy of 
Amerikan "justice."

BROTHER PELTIER FIGHTS MURDER RAP

by MC45

After serving 15 years of a two life-term prison sentence in 
Leavenworth, Kansas, for allegedly killing two FBI agents, 
American Indian Movement (AIM) leader Leonard Peltier is waiting 
to appeal his conviction.

 In the course of an appeal brought in 1985, the federal 
prosecutor admitted the government had no evidence that Peltier 
had been the "principal" killer of the agents.(1) In a hearing on 
Oct. 2, Peltier's defense team will try to convince the court to 
allow Peltier another appeal, arguing that his constitutional 
rights were violated in the 1977 trial.(2)

At the 1976 trial of two AIM brothers accused of the same 
crime--killing the two FBI agents--Peltier's defense showed that 
much of the prosecution's evidence was fabricated by the FBI's 
investigation team. Judge Paul Benson, in Fargo, North Dakota, 
curtailed similar damage to the prosecution's case by placing 
heavy restrictions on the defense, bringing out a conviction from 
the jury.

The shoot-out

The circumstances under which the FBI agents were shot made a 
murder charge unlikely. They drove their car down to the AIM camp 
on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota on the morning of 
June 26, 1975.(12) The FBI's version of the story says the agents 
met an ambush there. By the testimony of AIM members, Pine Ridge 
residents who witnessed the shooting and all the physical 
evidence, the agents drove into the camp on a plan to attack the 
people there.

A few days before the shooting, people on the reservation had 
heard of the planned massacre and had asked AIM for help. So when 
the two FBI agents drove into the middle of a field, got out of 
their car and started shooting into the camp, AIM was there to 
return their fire.(11) On hearing and seeing actual resistance 
from the camp, the rest of the FBI killing squad decided not to 
go, as planned into the camp-- instead sacrificing two agents to a 
failed plot.

Terrorism

In the years before the shoot-out at Pine Ridge, FBI activity on 
the reservation had been so heavy that most adults there--not just 
AIM members--were carrying weapons at all times.(3) The terrorist 
threat came most immediately from the reservation's Tribal 
Council. Tribal Councils are U.S.-founded reservation governments 
composed mainly of "mixed" Indians. The Council on Pine Ridge 
developed its own "goon squad" (so dubbed by the people of Pine 
Ridge) on the reservation, whose main function was keeping AIM 
activity under control.(4)

The goon squad considered the title an honor, and took it on as 
Guardians of the Oglala [Sioux] Nation (GOONs).(5) When offered 
the carrot of white privilege and slightly whiter salaries than 
most, the GOONs took on the task of repression, becoming agents of 
imperialism in their own nations.

Dick Wilson rode into the presidency of the Pine Ridge Tribal 
Council in 1972 on a tide of mysteriously obtained campaign funds. 
The federal government then supported him as his people's 
protector against "the 'outside agitators' of AIM."(6)

Courts

The FBI determined it had lost the trial against the first two 
defendants from Pine Ridge because "the defense had been 'allowed 
to question witnesses.'"(7) Judge Benson, who met with the FBI 
several times before and during Peltier's trial to discuss the 
"security" of his courtroom, ruled that evidence would be limited 
to events of June 26, 1975.(8)

Peltier had been in hiding in Canada for a year when his trial 
came up, and the highly suspect and contradictory evidence 
fabricated by the FBI to bring him back to the United States(7) 
went unchallenged in court. Benson excluded from the trial all 
evidence about FBI harassment at Pine Ridge, testimony from the 
trial of the other two accused AIM members, as well as the 
specifics of that verdict.

The order made it impossible to discredit the testimony of FBI 
agents who contradicted themselves from one trial to the next. The 
defense also could not challenge testimony the FBI had coerced 
from witnesses, which also changed from one trial to the next.

Judge Benson also ordered the jurors not to take notes during the 
trial, and they were not permitted to consult the more than 5,000 
pages of transcript during deliberations. That made it possible 
for the state's attorney to lie in his summation about what 
evidence had been presented in the trial.(9)

The judge did not stop the prosecutor from lying to the jury, nor 
would he hear any of the defense attorney's pleas for 
mistrial,(10) a trial made invalid because of errors in the 
proceedings.

On appeal

In 1985, Peltier went before the Federal Eighth Circuit Court with 
evidence of FBI fabrications, coercion of testimony and 
manipulation of physical evidence. The three-judge panel that 
heard the case admitted the evidence seemed shaky at best and that 
fabricating it was a bad thing for government agencies to do. But 
the court decided to let the conviction stand, rather than open up 
a potentially bottomless can of worms for the FBI.(1)

Peltier supporters should not bank on a fair trial. Endless court 
procedures have in fact diverted attention from the main 
issues--the expropriation of Native land and the economic and 
political persecution of Native peoples. But as much as Peltier is 
a symbol of the struggle of the Native people against Amerikan 
imperialism, his trial is a stark reminder of the bankruptcy of 
Amerikan justice.

Notes: 

1. Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, Agents of Repression, South 
End Press, Boston, 1988, p. 325. 
2. Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, Lawrence, Kansas, 1991.
3. Peter Matthiessen, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, The Viking 
Press, New York, 1983, p. 318. 
4. Matthiessen, p. 62.
5. Churchill and Vander Wall, p. 135.
6. Churchill and Vander Wall, p. 263.
7. Churchill and Vander Wall, p. 305.
8. Matthiessen, p. 353, Churchill and Vander Wall, p. 306.
9. Churchill and Vander Wall, p. 318.
10. Matthiessen, p. 363.
11. Matthiessen, p. 157.
12. Churchill and Vander Wall, p. 238.
13. Spirit of Crazy Horse, Newsletter of the Leonard Peltier 
Defense Committee May-June 1991, p. 1.

* * *

SOVIET LEADERS SELL OUT THE PEOPLE, AGAIN

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is holding a fire sale on 
history. Since President Mikhail Gorbachev returned to power after 
a failed coup, the Soviet empire is being blown out at 100% off. 
The alliances that Lenin assembled to build socialism, are 
worthless to party capitalists trying to hold onto their money and 
influence.

In order to gain Western aid, the union that was able to wait out 
Hitler through a long winter and defeat the Third Reich is now 
groveling at the feet of U.S. leaders. The USSR has promised to 
settle the Kurile Island dispute with Japan, cut off its puppet 
government in Afghanistan and recognized the Baltic republics of 
Lithuania, Lativa and Estonia.

Estimates are that the fall harvest will be 30% short and that the 
country will not be able to feed its people through the winter 
without help. 

Since a capitalist coup in 1953, the USSR has practiced socialism 
in words, capitalism/imperialism in deeds, hence poverty, 
unemployment and actions like the invasion of Afghanistan.

Recent events show that the Soviet Union, while often synonymous 
with "communism," has all the crises of any capitalist Third World 
country. Now that its military empire is dissolving, all that is 
left is debt, a greedy capitalist class enmeshed in the party and 
a new breed of pro-Western capitalist roaders.

SOVIET CAPITALISM

by MC 86

Maoists have long recognized that capitalist economic and social 
relations were re-imposed on the Soviet and Chinese peoples since 
their revolutions. In the Soviet Union, capitalism was restored in 
the aftermath of World War II by the traitor Nikita Khrushchev. In 
1963, Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party exposed Soviet 
Leader Khrushchev's phoney socialism as state capitalism.

By the mid-1960s, the USSR had become a social-imperialist power: 
socialist in words and imperialist in actions. The USSR rivaled 
the stronger Amerikan Empire for domination of the world's 
markets. War on a world-wide scale became the order of the day, 
and revolutionary peoples from Vietnam to Iran to Afghanistan 
booted imperialist armies out of their nations.

By 1985, the Soviet social-imperialists were experiencing a 
terminal crisis. The August coup is merely a stage in the collapse 
of Soviet monopoly-capitalism. The current world-wide recession, 
coupled with the imperialist parasitism of the Soviet economy, 
spells the death of the USSR.

The incredible development of Soviet productive forces, brought 
about by socialism from 1917 to 1954, provided, for a time, the 
basis upon which the Soviet system was able to sustain itself. But 
the corrupt Soviet ruling classes were not able to conjure up a 
whole imperialist global credit system like the  West's 
International Monetary Fund. The Soviet bourgeoisie was left with 
a capitalist economy which was not as resilient as that of their 
rivals'. So the Soviet system was less able to respond to the 
current crisis of over-production and stagnation.

The exclusion of the Soviet imperialists from the international 
web of banking and favorable tariff structures undermined the 
expansion of Soviet capital. Soviet industrial productivity 
inevitably fell.

Soviet rulers thus turned inward and invented the phrases 
"perestroika" (economic restructuring) and "glasnost" (technically 
openness, practically democracy for the few) as covers for the 
increased exploitation of the nations and minorities in the Soviet 
Union. The August coup sent a signal to the Soviet people that the 
repressive state capitalist system is weak. And in response, they 
rebelled.

* * *

SOVIET EMPIRE DIES

by MC�

Since the Aug. 19 coup failed to oust Soviet President Mikhail 
Gorbachev, the Soviet Union has rapidly moved to dissolve its 
empire. Courting Western governments and asking for aid, the USSR 
has said it will cut off aid to Cuba and withdraw its troops; it 
has signed a joint agreement to end its proxy war in Afghanistan; 
it has promised Japan that it will return the Kurile Islands 
seized after World War II; it has recognized the independent 
Baltic republics of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, and it has made 
additional offers of reduction in nuclear weapons capacity to the 
United States.

The USSR is breaking up into its various nations, and the central 
government is giving away pieces of its empire in hopes of gaining 
U.S. and Japanese investment and monetary backing.

The foiled coup--in which eight party leaders, including 
Gorbachev's Vice-President Yanayev, attempted to declare martial 
law and were abandoned by the military in the face of popular 
uprising--was an explosion in the evolving capitalist system in the 
USSR. An older group of party and government 
bureaucrats--communists in name only--who ran the country according 
to capitalist rules, was opposed by a much larger group of "free 
market" capitalists headed in part by Russian President Boris 
Yeltsin.

The coup was the old guard's desperate attempt to hold onto its 
privileged position of controlling political power and the means 
of production. The victory of the "new class" of capitalists at a 
time when the Soviet Union is bankrupt, and unable to feed its 
people this winter, is plunging the country into a Third World-
like condition--where its leaders are begging for foreign 
investments and aid. This is very much like the strategy of the 
ruling classes in China and Vietnam--two other regimes which are no 
longer socialist and which solicit arrangements with the West to 
exploit their nations' resources and cheap labor.

The Soviet regime is now saying "imperialize us, exploit us," and 
the Bush Administration and other governments are jumping at the 
chance. Gorbachev has asked the European Community (EC) for $6 to 
7.3 billion in food aid for this winter alone, as estimates are 
that the Soviet harvest will fall 30% short.(1)

EC President Jacques Delors says that the group can provide $2 
billion at this time. Other governments are preparing to grant 
substantial amounts of aid: the United States has granted more 
than $2.5 billion already this year.

Taking aid from the imperialist bloc is counter to the principles 
of socialist development. To build socialism--"socialism in one 
country" as the Soviet Union set out to do in 1917 as the first 
such nation--a country must adhere to the principles of self-
reliance, reliance on the party program and on the people.

It is only the capitalist class, seeking to maintain its 
privilege, that says a country must turn to its enemies for aid. 
Western aid is useless because it always comes with strings 
attached. It is always designed into programs that help 
capitalists rob and pillage a country's resources and exploit the 
working class.

No more sugar for Castro

In a press conference in Moscow with U.S. Secretary of State James 
Baker, Gorbachev announced in early September that he would 
withdraw the 11,000 Soviet troops in Cuba and end an effective $2 
billion-a-year subsidy in which the Soviet Union traded oil for 
overvalued Cuban sugar. Making the arrangement public in a press 
conference with Cuba's principle adversary shows Gorbachev's 
collusion with the West: he is willing to sell out former Third 
World allies for favors.

Soviet troops on the island have acted, at least symbolically, to 
counter the U.S. presence at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base for 
which the United States has a forced lease from the Cuban 
government. Up until last month, the Soviets had 3,000 troops at a 
listening base which monitors U.S. communications, and at least 
3,500 were advisors to the Cuban military. These functions are 
unneeded and expensive now that the USSR is giving up its 
superpower role.(2)

Sucking up to Japan

Only hours after the Cuban cutoff was announced, Yeltsin declared 
that the Russian republic had reached a compromise where he 
proposed that four islands in the Kurile chain be returned to 
Japan. The islands were seized after World War II.(2)

Yeltsin had previously held that the ownership of the islands was 
not a subject for negotiation.(3) Gorbachev also resisted Japanese 
claims to the islands during his April visit to Japan.(4)

The islands are surrounded by valuable fishing waters, but more 
importantly, they broach the channel through which Soviet nuclear 
submarines pass.(4)

According to the Soviet Tass News Agency, Gorbachev asked Japan 
for a $15 million "goodwill gesture" after the announcement was 
made. Japan has already said it would provide $100 million, but 
none of this money has reached the Soviet government.(5)

It seems likely that Gorbachev and the Soviet ruling class are 
willing to make some quick concessions in land and military 
arrangements in order to get cash. MIM Notes has reported that top 
leaders in the Soviet military have often said that force will be 
needed to keep the people down through the winter.(6)

So while the insurgent free market capitalists have, for the 
moment, beat back the old-party capitalists, they still face 
challenges from greedy old-timers and hungry masses.

Bye bye Najibullah

The U.S.-Soviet agreement to cease aiding their proxies in 
Afghanistan has Bush Administration officials dancing. The Soviet 
invasion of Afghanistan in December of 1979 was a major 
advancement of Soviet social-imperialism. The USSR invaded the 
Third World nation--which is wedged between the USSR, China, 
Pakistan and Iran--under the guise of socialism to gain greater 
military position and access to resources. The involvement was a 
military failure, especially after the CIA launched its largest 
covert military response in history.

The USSR plans to cut off all arms shipments to Afghanistan's 
puppet government of President Najibullah by Jan. 1, 1992. Baker 
accepted this news and made positive references to possible Soviet 
membership in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and upcoming 
aid.

"Two weeks ago we had some very contentious items--I call them old 
agenda items--on our agenda with the Soviet Union," Baker said. 
"One of those was independence for the Baltic states ... [another 
was] Cuba. A very, very difficult issue, a thorny issue in U.S.-
Soviet relations for a long, long time.

"Afghanistan, an issue where the Soviet Union and the United 
States have been directly in confrontation ... has now been worked 
out ... This removes three of the most contentious and 'old agenda' 
items that have impeded and obstructed progress ..."(5)

The Soviet ruling class is giving up on Afghanistan because 
fighting against Afghan self-determination was a losing venture to 
begin with. The USSR no longer has the cash to carry out its role 
as the number-two world power, and the current regime is hoping to 
trade its remaining military cards to the United States for money.

This is the final call on Soviet influence in the world. The USSR 
used to support national liberation movements--like the African 
National Congress in South Africa and the FMLN in El Salvador. It 
is strategically realigning itself, posing as though it was never 
at odds with Amerika. The Soviet Union hopes to bargain its 
hegemony--after all it's still a nuclear power--for a place in the 
E.C., a position of Western-type privilege.

With these last desperate acts and demands for capitalism to come 
in bolder and faster than ever, maybe revisionists here and abroad 
can now realize that the Soviet Union is not a socialist country, 
that Soviet socialism was defeated after Stalin, and that the New 
World Order is leaving us with just two Worlds: First and Third.

Notes:
1. NYT 9/13/91, p. 6.
2. NYT 9/12/91, p. 2.
3. NYT 9/11/91, p. 1.
4. NYT 9/11/91, p. 7.
5. NYT 9/14/91, p. 4.
6. MIM Notes 47, p. 1.

* * *

LETTERS

'I'M SORRY. . . .'

Dear MIM,

Sorry I have been unable to write. I have been very busy lately.

I thank you for the information on Stalin and Trotsky. As usual in 
your publication the articles were well-written and made several 
good points. The argument for Stalin is one that is rarely heard 
and I am sure the reactionaries would find trouble in refuting it.

--MA51
August 1991

THE SUCCESS OF FOCOISM?

Dear MIM,

With certain sadness I have to try to clarify why my involvement 
as a party member will not be satisfactory for you and me.

I realize that not all my positions have a clear-cut rationale and 
political rightness, but I will feel extremely frustrated with 
"political work," besides my lack of a strong commitment. I am not 
sure nor enthusiastic in trying to persuade any political idea 
through the process of discussions, rallies, papers, "educating" 
the masses in the traditional way.

A frustration, probably born out of the realization that 
capitalism at this stage, even with its periodic crises and 
constant contradictions, holds not only the total control, the 
exploitation of man and material resources, the manipulation of 
ideology through infinite means, not only in the capitalist 
countries, but in the so called socialist too.

My heart to give you one example is much closer to actions that 
help bring change, even if not well understood in a rational 
context. Heroic actions, much before the Russian revolution, in 
the spirit of the Narodnia Volia movement, as a necessary 
condition for what happened 20 years later in the Bolshevik 
revolution. My heart should be more close to other movements, that 
apparently failed or still active, but with the sparks to generate 
change toward revolutions, to mention a few, Black Panthers (some 
positions), Tuparmarous (Uruguay) Red Army (Germany today) ... I am 
not implying to be ready to take arms now, but the discussion of 
violence is at the core of the Marxist development, and should be 
an imperative task, at least ideologically.

I am not sure if in your opinion this should be the infantile 
disorder of the "left-wing."

On a more positive note, it impresses me your internationalism, 
and the world communism as a goal. The non-worship of a leader or 
leaders, the well-elaborated concept of Sakai's white proletarian 
mythology and above all something that I perceive as your best way 
of appraising people; with the higher regard, by considering that 
any person, disregarding his historical situation, has a 
tremendous potential (of course not in the individualistic sense).

I will not have much problem in settling as an associate and help 
in a limited way, if you wish, considering all the added handicaps 
mentioned here, and probably a big difference in the theory of 
methods.

In solidarity,
--MA50

August 1991

MC17 responds: While MIM disagrees with the author's ideology, 
MA50's practice deserves praise. While engaging in political 
struggle with MIM, MA50 has established a revolutionary practice. 
Revolutionaries who believe that MIM is doing important and useful 
work should be contributing to this work while they investigate 
MIM's theory. Without a practice, revolutionaries are no better 
than Trotskyists or members of the bourgeoisie and are in no 
position to criticize MIM.

The author refers to many movements which engaged in armed 
struggle or worked above ground before the time was right. This 
amounts to focoism in MIM's book. See MIM Notes 47 for a complete 
refutation of focoism.

Focoism is a popular theory that says that small cells of armed 
revolutionaries can create the conditions for revolution through 
their actions. The "successes" of the foci are supposed to lead 
the masses to revolution.

Focoist practice is often more romantic than Maoist practice. But 
ultimately it is the Maoists who are around for the real 
revolutionary victories while the focoists end up at best 
disillusioned, at worst in jail or dead.

The actions of the Narodniks in the Soviet Union amounted to 
focoism as they attacked the surface of the problem and not the 
root. The height of their accomplishments was the assassination of 
Tsar Alexander II in 1818. But this success became the source of 
their disillusionment and decline. They had expected the hated 
order to fall under their fatal blow. In reality they only 
succeeded in killing one autocrat and not the whole autocracy. 
Alexander II was succeeded by Alexander III--an even more cruel and  
tyrannical ruler.(1)

The Tuparmarous of Uruguay also based their politics on 
spectacular actions: bombing buildings, robbing banks, and 
kidnapping high ranking citizens. They were crushed by the 
government soon after they began to take these actions, in 
1973.(2)

MIM's most recent information on the activities of the Red Army 
Faction in West Germany indicates that it continues with similar 
focoist tactics of frequent bombing and arson attempts on military 
and commercial targets.(3)

MIM criticizes the Black Panthers for their spectacular actions 
which made it easier for the government to arrest and kill them. 
This is a good example of how a revolutionary party in the United 
States can suffer from focoism.

Focoism has won no victories, but rather has consistently "won" 
the death or imprisonment of its subscribers. People are more 
useful to a revolutionary movement if they are alive and out of 
prison.

People who want to work most effectively to create revolution 
should be fighting strategic battles: only those they expect to 
win. Right now MIM can win the battle of building a revolutionary 
party and creating public opinion. MIM will not engage in armed 
struggle to impress the masses or for the enjoyment of its 
members. The proletarian masses who understand revolutionary work 
will only be impressed by a successful movement that ultimately 
overthrows capitalism.

Notes:
1. Isaac Deutscher. Stalin, A Political Biography. New York: 
Oxford University Press, 1949. p. 27
2. Carlos Mart�nez Moreno. El Infierno. London: Readers 
International,  1981.
3. The Economist 12/5/87, p. 40.

BLACK NATIONALISTS CRITICIZE MIM FOR INTEGRATIONIST LANGUAGE

Dear MIM,

We recently acquired and studied our first copy of your organ (MIM 
Notes 53). We find ourselves with some mixed emotions over this 
issue of your paper. Our "University" acts as a "Think-Tank" 
committed to ideologically advancing the most forward-thrust in 
the Black Liberation Movement, to liberate by revolutionary means 
our oppressed national colony known as Black America from inside 
Fortress America.

Here at the University of Hard Knocks (UHK), we trace our 
intellectual learnings and our social lineage in the struggle for 
these ideals and political aims fought out in our era to the 
Marxist-Leninist methodology of class struggle as enhanced and 
extended by the works of Mao Tse-tung and to the Pan-Africanist 
current found among these scientists headed by K. Nkrumah and F. 
Fanon. And of course to the genius of our own Malcolm X whom we 
knew in our time.

In that sense, your published self-repudiation of your "white-skin 
privileges" (What is MIM pg. 2) "... We are not Amerikan(!)" caught 
our eye and this made us much more receptive to the further study 
of this one issue of your organ.

It may also be correctly said neither do many Black people in the 
Economic colony of Black America consider themselves to be of this 
"American" or "Yankee Doodle" variety "Great" nation chauvinist 
stripe either.

Yet in this very same issue of your paper the term "Afrikan-
Amerikan" is created there and is reserved as a particular 
identity to black people. This indicates to us your "Maoist" 
movement has not quite "gotten its act together" on the national 
struggle of an oppressed nation. ("In the last analysis") said 
Chairman Mao, "... a national struggle is one of class struggle."

The term "African-American" was first conjured-up and projected 
into the political arena by Jesse Jackson and the Black AMERICRATS 
from the petit bourgeoisie social class found inside the national-
colony of Black America. When those of us that formed the vanguard 
Black Panther Party helped overthrow from lexicon the derisive 
term "Negro" from being the designated national identity; we did 
so in the face of this same social class that back then had 
dragged their feet leading out of the period of Black Liberation 
(now called by the bourgeoisie--the period of Civil Rights and the 
entire movement as standing just for bourgeois "Civil Rights").

These Black AMERICRATS in putting the bogus identity African-
Amerikan to the political and ideological fore, do so mainly to 
emphasize the AMERIKAN aspects and to prove their own ideological 
worth as the advanced detachment of the U.S. bourgeoisie in its 
quest for neo-colonialism over our domestic colony and off in such 
places of the world such as Africa.

So this term "African-Amerikan" transforms itself into a 
contradiction between the enemy and ourselves because it tramples 
underfoot our Right to self-determination and to a national 
identity that repudiates all forms of Amerikan (white) hegemony.

The real question is this: if MIM considers itself not to be part 
of this "Amerikan" nation (e.g. world-citizen(s) it says) then why 
reserve it to the identity of Black nationals? Racial identity and 
national identity are not necessarily one and the same.

This then brings us to the second item found in your paper that 
aroused our curiosity here at "The University" and that was the 
many symbols of bourgeois political feminism featured in this one 
issue.

On its masthead starts out this display of counter-revolutionary 
feminism. Here on this masthead the so-called "Christian" symbol 
(of this political feminism) is displayed and attempted to be 
"merged" there with proletarian symbols.

Two things stand out about these symbols--how they politically scab 
on the emblems and slogans of the "Black Liberation Movement" that 
organized itself into ideological form back in the days of Marcus 
Garvey.

The term and designation "Liberation" as a political concept was 
never any term used inside the Anglo-national body-politic before 
the period of Black Liberation in the 1960s by any strata in the 
class struggle.

The other political scabbiness found in this pro-feminist display 
is in the co-opting of the "clenched-fist" which can also be 
called a "communist" greeting! But again, this symbol was first 
popularized inside Fortress America by the Black Liberation 
Movement in that same revolutionary period as its "Black Power" 
Salute.

Not only does bourgeois political feminism corrupt these 
revolutionary symbols of the Black Liberation movement, such 
political feminism of any kind is a backward and a counter-
revolutionary ideological prop scabbing on the turf of proletarian 
internationalism.

Printed in this same issue of MIM Notes is a discussion of "Rape," 
placed front-and-center. It is a charge which bourgeois females 
have historically raised-up and used to fight class-warfare in 
behalf of reactionary political forces. Historically, "rape" as a 
social charge uttered by unreconstructed white females has been 
used to lynch Black men by the state and its irregular militias. 
This is a long and extremely complicated issue.

"Women" (as a social form) cannot be raised up over or stand above 
their class position if the scientific examination of the class 
struggle were properly pursued by any one of these groups in the 
(bourgeois democracy) "left" calling themselves one form of 
Marxist, "Leninist" or even "Maoist."

Feminism and social decay became the chief vehicle most every one 
of these pretenders to revolutionary proletarian science used to 
beat their own hasty retreat and desertion from the revolutionary 
period of the 1960s when they all ran off to Amerikan nationalism 
behind such bastardized political feminism and their capitulation 
to this social decadence (in the form of the "Gay" Lifestyles of 
the bourgeois lumpen-proletariat). "Homosexuality" was suddenly 
"discovered" by all these political formations circa-1960 and 
raised-up and declared a more "noble" oppression (deserving) 
"liberation" than any national or class oppression.

This desertion on their part allowed Staatspolizei (FBI) a free 
hand to hunt-down and dispose of with extreme prejudice the Black 
revolutionary fighters.

Abstract "women" (that stand above social class character) and/or 
this bastardized political feminism usually becomes the cover for 
this political sell-out and for the undermining of the proletariat 
on its very own turf--the science of the revolutionary overthrow of 
capitalism.

Imperialist females of this Anglo-Amerikan nation participate in 
the Amerikan ruling circles at large as well as do men.

Yet much of this bullshit-left calling itself "Marxist" or 
"Maoist" (maybe) allows the bourgeoisie to seduce it ideologically 
on the sexual plane.

Such phony sexism attempts to liquidate the class struggle by 
interjecting the class interests of bourgeois females above those 
of any proletarian women. No proletarian woman would seek any 
"liberation" based strictly on any sexual gender to the exclusion 
of the entire proletarian class. This is the essence of 
proletarian internationalism.

So-called "Women's Liberation" in the era of the bourgeoisie (as 
leading class) can only mean "liberating the productive forces of 
bourgeois females" in joining with the capitalist classes on all 
levels. Simply put, political feminism is an ideology of and for 
class collaboration with the imperialist bourgeoisie.

No other female (as a biological being) has it as good as this 
unreconstructed Amerikan-variety female (whose lineage comes out 
the epoch of chattel slavery). At one point your paper inquires 
about divorce in China. What about the divorce-rate inside 
Fortress America?

In the political economy of divorce, it is this same Amerikan 
national-female that (economically) owns (see wide body of state 
laws called "Community Property" Laws) the Amerikan male in the 
same manner as in the political economy of chattel slavery, it was 
the plantation that then "owned" the slave(s). So it is illogical 
from any "revolutionary" perspective or viewpoint to place above-
the-class-struggle the form of "woman" since they are class-
divided themselves.

Here at the UHK, we serve at breaking down the political economy 
of these different sectors of the bourgeoisie that constitute the 
capitalist classes for our constituent organs. The female 
political lobby is indicative of a multi-billion dollar economy 
based on the merchandising of this form of the Amerikan female.

It is obvious that this Amerikan-variety bourgeois female is at 
war with her entire biological being as "woman."

Name any other political economy (capitalist or otherwise) that 
grants two chances to its females, first as a sex-junkie (!) 
(Madonna--anyone?) And second as that of a (so-called) "lesbian"(?) 
What did one say the unemployment rate of Black males currently 
was? Now you see too, where all those cheap-labor jobs went--with 
more females employed in a stagnated capitalist economy than are 
both white and Black men combined; a "two-job" bourgeois family 
was created at the expense of the "cheap-labor" reserve of Black 
America.

No(!) comrades, political feminism is a bad omen from any way it 
is attempted to be sliced in the political arena and made 
palatable to proletarian science. It is absolutely reactionary and 
counter-revolutionary for all its ultra and infantile "leftism" 
espoused.

--The University of Hard Knocks
West Coast
August 1991

MC17 & MC5 respond: Because the University of Hard Knocks (UHK) 
has only seen one issue of our paper they misrepresent MIM's use 
of the term Amerikan. MIM does not reserve this term for Black 
nationals, it is used to refer to Amerikans who are descendants of 
other nationalities as well.

In spite of this misinterpretation, UHK criticisms of our 
terminology are valid ones that have sparked discussion and a 
change in word usage by MIM. In most issues, we have correctly 
used the words "Black," "Eritrean" and "Azanian." Sometimes MIM 
makes mistakes regarding these terms which we attempt to correct.

MIM will in the future more carefully edit for the use of "Black," 
not "black," or "Afrikan" or "Afro-American" and their 
derivatives. MIM will also say "Korean community," "Vietnamese 
community" etc. and will say "indigenous peoples of North America" 
or the specific nation involved (e.g. Mohawk), not "Native-
American."

But MIM is quite far from the UHK line on feminism. UHK criticisms 
of the feminist symbols on our masthead are rooted in a 
disagreement with the fundamentals of feminism. While MIM has much 
to criticize the feminist movement for, this criticism is in the 
interest of developing a more advanced feminist movement as a part 
of the revolutionary struggle for communism.

MIM does not agree that "political feminism of any kind is a 
backward and a counter revolutionary ideological prop scabbing on 
the turf of proletarian internationalism." MIM works to end all 
oppressions, including that perpetuated by the patriarchy. A 
feminist struggle must be integrated into any communist agenda 
that hopes to be successful in eliminating the power of people 
over people.

With regard to the UHK discussion of rape, it is true that rape is 
a complicated issue, especially when discussed in the context of 
white women and Black men. But rape must be identified currently 
in Amerika as a fundamental expression of the pervasive influence 
of class and patriarchal power and culture.

While it is true that women can rape, the majority of rapes are 
expressions of men's ascribed power over women. This power must be 
recognized and understood for the role it plays in perpetuating 
capitalism. Female labor (including sexual labor) is used and 
exploited by men at a very low cost and high profit. This is the 
class interest that men have in perpetuating patriarchy. Men are 
taught to enjoy their power over women and eroticize it into an 
enjoyment of raping.

On the topic of homosexuality, UHK seems to blame homosexuality 
for the death of many Black revolutionaries. They suggest that the 
discovery of a "Gay lifestyle" caused many desertions from the 
revolutionary struggle in the 1960s. MIM does criticize anyone who 
believes that a Gay lifestyle is the equivalent of a political 
practice, because we understand that active revolutionary work is 
the most effective political practice for all people. But MIM does 
not see any sudden turn towards a liberating lifestyle as the 
cause of the downfall of Black revolutionaries. This anarchism is 
a fundamental flaw in political line, not discovery of a 
particular sexual orientation.

MIM also does not agree with UHK's implication that homosexuality 
is a problem undermining the proletariat and a mutation of 
bourgeois feminism. There is no evidence that one sexual 
orientation is more "natural" than any other and MIM works for the 
liberation of people of all sexual orientations.

MIM agrees with what is apparently the UHK line on divorce and 
Madonna. MIM has criticized these and many other forms of 
imperialist decadence in gender relations in Amerika.

UHK is also correct in identifying some women as members of the 
enemy  bourgeois class. MIM agrees with UHK's criticism of 
reactionary feminism, which identifies all women as equally 
oppressed and powerless in the realm of imperialism-- ignoring the 
modern day realities of capitalism. UHK is also correct in 
identifying the bourgeois feminism which only hopes to raise those 
white women up to an equal position with white men.

Women are definitely class divided on an international plane. But 
in the United States, a majority of Euro-Amerikan women are allied 
with imperialism. Ironically, MIM disagrees with UHK that there 
are significant class divisions within Euro-Amerikan women. This 
error of UHK would cause it to obliterate the national struggles 
of exploited and superexploited peoples against the oppressor 
Amerikan nation. MIM urges UHK to study J. Sakai's  Settlers on 
this point.

There are also Black people who are part of the imperialist class. 
Neither these nor imperialist women are reason to dismiss the 
struggle for liberation of Black people or women.

Within these struggles it is important to distinguish between 
reactionary and revolutionary work. MIM identifies reactionary and 
revolutionary nationalism; the former is a struggle for capitalist 
independence, the freedom to reap the profits of exploitation, and 
the latter is a struggle for national independence from 
imperialism.

Reactionary feminism is also allied with the imperialist, 
capitalist class and is only a movement for equal rights to 
exploitation and its profits  by women. Revolutionary feminism 
exposes the roots of patriarchal oppression and works to end the 
power men hold over women across classes.

Both revolutionary nationalism and revolutionary feminism lack an 
overall understanding of class oppression as the root cause of 
exploitation. As a result, both movements do not see the important 
links between each struggle. Without overthrowing the system of 
classes in all its facets of oppression, power differences will 
never be eliminated. But within this limitation both nationalism 
alone and feminism alone can make significant steps forward toward 
creating the conditions for socialist revolution.

UHK included in its letter the slogan "700,000 Black men locked-
down in Fortress America to make jobs for white women." This is 
not communist because it implies Amerikan women should go back to 
their exploited positions prior to gaining a major role in the 
labor force. This is the same issue involved in the repeated 
struggles over immigrant labor in this country. The international 
proletariat has no interest in saying that whites, Blacks, 
Mexicans or women should or should not have jobs. They're all 
hired by the imperialists that need to be overthrown. It's true 
most Euro-Amerikan women are allies of the imperialists now, but 
the solution is not to remove them from the labor force. In 
socialist society, everyone will have a job anyway.

* * *

PAPER TIGERS

MIM reprints the following information from the Weekly News Update 
on Nicaragua and the Americas, a publication of the Nicaragua 
Solidarity Network of Greater New York, 339 Lafayette St., New 
York, NY 10012. The analysis is not necessarily that of the 
Solidarity Network.

CIA RUNS COVERT WARS

Senator Alan Cranston recently released portions of secret 
testimony given to the Senate in 1987 by a former Argentinian 
information agent. The agent, Leandro S�nchez Reisse, reportedly 
told the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and 
International Operations that the CIA had been working closely 
with the Argentinian government during the rightist "dirty war" of 
the 1970s, that ex-contra leader Ed�n Pastora trafficked drugs to 
support the contra southern front, that the U.S. company Florida 
Air Transport flew cocaine from Pastora's zone of operations, and 
that Panama's General Manuel Antonio Noriega was an "important" 
connection between drug running and the contras.

--MC17

Notes: Issue #82, 8/25/91.

BCCI INVESTIGATORS KILLED

D.C.-area journalist Joseph D. Casolaro was found dead on Aug. 10 
in Martinsburg, West Virginia, where he had gone to speak to a 
source for his book, which links the Bank of Credit and Commerce 
International (BCCI) and the October Surprise scandals with a 
lawsuit two software developers have brought against the Justice 
Department over the Inslaw criminal tracking system. Casolaro told 
an associate that unnamed U.S. government agents had illegally 
reproduced the software in the early 1980s and sold it abroad to 
pay for guns for the contras.

Authorities in Martinsburg ruled the death a "suicide" and 
embalmed the body before the autopsy, without notification of the 
family. An apparent suicide note was found in Casolaro's room; his 
story notes were missing.

Casolaro's death came in the wake of the July 29 death of Anson 
Ng, another reporter investigating the BCCI scandal. Senator 
Cranston said on Aug. 8 that he had information that Ng was 
working on a "big story" about BCCI's activities in Guatemala. 
Cranston says that the gun used to kill Ng had a silencer, that a 
set of documents was stolen from Ng's desk, and that Guatemalan  
authorities have impounded a set of computer disks the reporter 
used.

--MC17

Notes: Issue #82, 8/25/91.

SALVADORAN WORKERS STRIKE 

Nearly 55,000 public sector workers in El Salvador held a 
nationwide one-day strike Aug. 19 to protest the shutdown of the 
government's program of privatization and the Supply Regulatory 
Institute (IRA)--which was responsible for the purchasing, pricing 
and distribution of basic foodstuffs. So far 18,000 Salvadorans 
have lost their jobs to privatization. On Aug. 15, the Legislative 
Assembly approved a proposal to hold hearings on Aug. 27 
questioning the government's decision to close the IRA.

--MC17

Notes: Issue #82, 8/25/91.

'FREE' TRADE ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD IN MEXICO

In the first major test of using free trade agreements to overrule 
U.S. environmental protection laws, a General Agreement on Tariffs 
and Trade (GATT) panel rejected a U.S. law banning tuna imports 
from countries whose tuna industry kills more dolphins than the 
U.S. fleet. Mexico, the latest partner in "free" trade with the 
United States, sought the ruling.

The GATT panel based its ruling on the principle that nations 
cannot impose trade restrictions because of environmental concerns 
about a foreign industry.

--MC17

Notes: Issue #82, 8/25/91.

U.S. FIGHTS PERUVIAN MAOISTS

The Bush Administration is reportedly planning to send more than 
50 military advisers, including Army Special Forces, to help the 
Peruvian military in its "war on drugs" and its war on the Maoist 
Communist Party of Peru (sometimes called Sendero Luminoso). A 
State Department official said that there are only 10 U.S. 
military personnel currently training the Peruvian police, and 
claimed that the only policy change is that the United States will 
now train the army as well.

--MC17

Notes: Issue #81, 8/18/91.

UNITED STATES AIDS PANAMANIAN DRUG TRADE

According to the New York Times, more cocaine reaches the United 
States from Panama now than before the United States invaded in 
December 1989, with the pretense of fighting the drug trade.

--MC17

Notes: NYT 8/13/91.

DOG EAT DOG

As the media dogs howled and praised the monopoly banks for merger 
mania, they covered up the extent of the rot that has eaten away 
at the nets of the credit system within Amerika's sphere of 
domination.

A persistent drumbeat alongside the media's glorification of the 
"tough individuals" leading the giant banks into the raptures of 
financial fornication was the racist vilification of the failed 
Bank Of Credit And Commerce International (BCCI).

This imperialist-run institution blew $25 billion of capital 
extracted from one million Third World depositors, who are not 
covered by deposit insurance. Owned on paper by the ruling class 
of United Arab Emirates, BCCI's roots are in Pakistan, and its 
profits went directly into the coffers of predators like Mr. Clark 
Clifford, a well-known Amerikan bourgeois war-monger.

But BCCI did nothing that its counterparts and cohorts at 
Citicorp, Bank of Amerika, Chemical, et al, haven't been doing for 
years.

The imperialist countries seized BCCI's global assets while 
promising no restitution to its proletarian depositors. While 
Salomon Brothers received a wrist-slap for illegally cornering the 
market on government bond sales,  Mister Clifford was allowed to 
gracefully resign from the chairmanship of First American 
Bankshares which had been locked in an obscene embrace with BCCI 
for years while depositors were screwed by such lovelies as Bert 
Lance, Andrew Young, Jimmy Carter, Alan Garcia and The Pope.  
Meanwhile the Feds indicted BCCI founder Aga Hassan Abedi and his 
associate Swaleh Naqui of Pakistan.(1) Get it?

Ironically, the Amerikan media's epitaph

for BCCI exactly sums up the true nature of its identical twins in 
Amerika: "BCCI concealed losses through a pattern of bribery, 
phoney loans, unrecorded deposits, and rapid transfers of funds 
from one part of the bank to another."(2)

--MC86

Notes:
l. NYT 7/1/91, 8/29/91.
2. NYT 7/23/91 p. 1.

BEWARE OF WOLVES IN SHEEPS' CLOTHING

Under the guise of "privatizing" the state-run economies of dozens 
of industrializing nations, the international financial oligarchy 
is sinking its teeth even deeper into the flesh of the Third 
World.

While decaying Amerikan banks merged for strength this past 
summer, Banamex, the state bank of Mexico which was nationalized 
in 1982, was "privatized"--purchased by a "group of 800 investors" 
who are probably fronting for non-Mexican capital.(1)

In a secret bid, these investors beat out a competing group headed 
by "the sons of Mexico's wealthiest and best-known families."(1) 
This reeks of Amerikan capital seizing control of Mexican 
financial capital--probably by securing loans from Banamex itself 
to buy Banamex!(l)

"Competition for money market operations, credit cards, and 
lending to large corporate customers will intensify and some of 
[Mexico's] banks may well be forced to merge or fold in the next 
few years."(2)

This surprise sale of capital is the capitalist equivalent of 
carpet-bombing Mexico. As one observer of the ongoing pillage of 
Mexico commented, "Banks serve as intake pipes for the foreign 
capital that funds major conglomerates [using] foreign loans 
collateralized on [Mexican] oil revenues to gobble up industrial 
sectors short of cash."(3)

Recently, 1,150 government-owned enterprises have been liquidated 
or privatized.(1) A Mexican economist commented that, in general, 
"Financially things are going very well but economically things 
are going very badly."(4) This, the people know.

What the people may not yet be aware of is the nature of political 
"reform" the imperialists are planning to force on Mexico as part 
of the new "trade-bloc" between Amerika, Canada and Mexico. A new 
type of "democracy" may be in store which will make it legally 
impossible for Mexican governments to nationalize industries and 
"constitutions could be designed to simply outlaw the public 
provision of goods and services."(5)

While recognizing that only Maoist revolution can free the Mexican 
people, MIM will support any and all forms of struggle aimed at 
locking the imperialists and their comprador front out of Mexico.

"Colonial workers! You are the world's overwhelming majority! The 
metropoles cannot exist without you. But you can exist without 
them! Take your destiny into your own hands! Do not expect help 
where none may be expected! Inscribe on your banners the sober, 
costly but effective watchword: SELF-RELIANCE!!!"(6)

--MC86

Notes:
1. NYT 8/27/91, p. C1.
2. Financial Times 8/29/91, p. 17.
3. Naylor, Hot Money And The Politics Of Debt, Unwin, 1987, p. 66.
4. Naylor, p. 72.
5. S.H. Handke, "Privatization And Development," U.S.A.I.D. 
conference paper, 2/86.
6. Edwards, Labor Aristocracy, Mass Base For Social Democracy, 
Aurora, 1978, p. 370.

MIM Notes needs your Paper Tigers. Send submission (approx. 200 
words) to P.O. Box 3576, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-3576.

* * *

VIOLATING PEACE: AMERIKAN ACCORD SEEKS WORLD DOMINANCE, NOT AN END 
TO MIDDLE EAST WARS

by MC86

In the wake of the U.S. war against Iraq, imperialists are talking 
again of "peace" in the Middle East. Amerika has set-up a "peace 
conference," featuring Syria, Israel and Jordan, scheduled to 
begin in October.(1) Syria--former client-state of the Soviet Union 
and Amerika's ally in the war against Iraq--agreed last July to sit 
down with a reluctant Israeli government and discuss ending more 
than forty years of armed conflict.

At stake is the end of an economic blockade imposed on Israel by 
the Arab states in 1948, when Israel became an official state. 
More importantly, in a "good-cop/bad-cop" charade, President Bush 
is now linking a $10 billion loan guarantee--to build profitable 
housing for up to one million Soviet emigr�s--to the halting of 
further Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.(12)

Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union joined 
Syria in approving the October conference. Each government has 
demonstrated a willingness to abandon the will of the Arab masses 
that Palestinians be allowed to live freely inside their own 
nation. Through a series of unrelenting wars, Palestine has been 
forcibly partitioned, or vivisected, by Israel into the 
"territories" of Gaza and the West Bank.

As the coup in the Soviet Union unfolded, George Bush and 
Secretary of State James Baker moved to consolidate Amerikan power 
in the Middle East by engineering a "peace" conference, in part 
designed to forever submerge the question of Palestinian national 
liberation. Most Arab governments have followed Baker's lead and 
approved a "peace-process" that will exclude real representatives 
of the Palestinian people from the conference table.

The Amerikan agenda calls for a negotiated "peace" between Syria 
and Israel. The Syrian ruling classes, in need of an imperialist 
sponsor, are willing to concede the fate of the 5,314,000 
Palestinians--dispersed into concentration camps and ghettos around 
the Middle East(2)--in return for Amerikan capital and admittance 
to Amerikan-dominated markets.

The Soviet Union, long the main excuse for any number of Amerikan 
military "incursions" around the world, is no longer a player in 
the Middle East. But as Lenin wrote during World War I: "The 
division of the world between two powerful trusts does not remove 
the possibility of redivision, if the relation of forces changes 
as a result of uneven development, war, bankruptcy, etc."(4)

The Soviet Union is bankrupt; in 1991 its GNP fell 18%, industrial 
production declined 30%, farm production sank 12%, foreign debt 
tripled in seven years to $65 billion and the ruble is not worth 
the cost of its ink.(5)

Amerika, itself not exactly solvent, is attempting to open up a 
whole new export/import market for itself and its allies in the 
Middle East. To facilitate this, Baker proposed the creation of a 
Middle East Development Bank.(7)

Scrounging for cash, Amerika and its allies froze and stole Iraq's 
considerable financial assets while financing the war through $60 
billion in hit-man fees from imperialist countries such as Germany 
($6.6 billion) and Japan ($10.7 billion). From more dependent 
regimes, Amerika exacted tribute: Saudi Arabia ($16.8 billion), 
United Arab Emirates ($4 billion) and South Korea ($385 million). 
Amerikan firms have snatched up 80% of the contracts to rebuild 
Kuwait. Kuwait is expected to finance this extortion "by 
liquidating part of [its] $90 billion portfolio of foreign assets 
and taking out sizeable loans secured against the rest."(8)

In assessing the possibilities for revolution, a materialist 
analysis indicates that "uneven development" of the global, 
imperialist economy supports two kinds of states in the Middle 
East. 

Syria, Iraq, Israel, Egypt and Libya are social-militarist. They 
subsidize the living standards of segments of their populations 
while investing heavily in arms and secret police forces. 
Conscription of the lower classes provides the rulers with cannon 
fodder for their profit-seeking wars. Monarchic regimes, such as 
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, are ruled by hereditary aristocracies who 
have also, to a small extent, socialized commodity distribution to 
sections of the masses, while enforcing feudal social relations. 

Soviet, European and Amerikan monopoly capital financed these 
regimes, which used state power to develop and concentrate the 
productive forces of industry and commerce. The ownership of each 
nation's social capital was centralized through the 
"nationalization" of the means of production and the running of 
"state-enterprise" commercial entities.

Investment capital effectively developed new, imbalanced markets 
keyed to the production of cheap industrial exports, as well as 
raw materials, such as minerals and crude oil; and importation of 
expensive commodities, such as machine parts and liquor.(9)

The substitution of capitalist monopolies for freely competitive 
economic forces created a rapid expropriation of the feudal, land-
owning classes, while limiting the "natural, free-market" 
development of home-grown capitalist national bourgeoisies. The 
small industrialists and merchants were eaten up by imperialist-
financed state regimes run by dictators such as Saddam Hussein and 
Syria's Hafez al-Assad.(10)

Capital must grow or die. Saddam ordered the invasion of  Kuwait. 
This was the mistake of a budding imperialist.

Amerika killed more than 100,000 Iraqi people for many reasons. 
One was that Amerika has no intention of allowing weaker 
capitalists to fix global commodity prices, such as oil. Another 
was that the Soviet Union lost the ability to sustain its 
declining empire and Amerikan ambitions in the Middle East were 
violently unleashed.

The most important factor, however, concerns the new class 
composition of the 200 million-strong Arab world. Arab and migrant 
laborers, imported from as far away as India and the Philippines, 
were channeled into the oil fields and urban areas by their search 
for subsistence. By the sale of their labor-power, they were 
thrown into the modern proletarian class.

Today, the Arab states find themselves squeezed from above by 
imperialist masters demanding ever greater profits; and from below 
by a growing threat of mass revolution. Uneven economic 
development of the Middle East has created the context for a surge 
in revolutionary class struggle.

And now, with blood-encrusted hands, the imperialists talk again 
of "peace." In reality, they are intent on trying to unify the 
corrupt ruling classes of all the Arab nations as a force to wage 
continuous war against the masses.

Comrade Lenin said: "Proof of what was the true social, or rather, 
the true class character of the war is naturally to be found, not 
in the diplomatic history of the war, but in an analysis of the 
objective position of the ruling classes in all belligerent 
countries."(11)

Only revolutionary force exerted by the class-conscious 
proletariat is capable of bringing peace to the Middle East.

Notes: 	
l. New York Times 9/6/91,  p. A1.
2. Edward Said, A Profile Of The Palestinian People, Palestine 
Human Rights Information Center 1990, p. 21.
3. Democratic Palestine 5/91, p. 18.
4. V. I. Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage Of Capitalism, 
International Publishers, 1985, p. 70.
5. NYT 7/17/91, p. A7.
6. NYT 7/15/91, p. C5.
7. Middle East Report May/June 1991, p. 4.
8. Democratic Palestine p. 10; MER, p.
9. 1991 Official Export Guide, North American Publishing Company, 
Philadelphia, PA., p. 342.
10. MER, p. 14-23, 31-37.
11. Imperialism, p. 9.
12. NYT 9/16/91, p. 4.

* * *

THE MYTH OF BLACKS VS. JEWS

by MC45

On Aug. 19, a seven year old Black boy was killed in the Crown 
Heights section of Brooklyn, New York. He was playing on a 
sidewalk at about 8:20 p.m. when the driver, an Hasidic Jewish 
man, lost control of his car and pinned him under a front wheel. 
The boy's cousin, also seven years old, was caught between the car 
and a building and was injured.(1) At approximately 11:25 p.m. 
that night, two Black teenagers--one 15 and one 16 years 
old--stabbed and killed a Hasidic Jewish man; the police say the 
killing was in retaliation for the car accident.(2)

The accident touched off four nights of demonstrating in the Black 
community--which the mainstream press has dubbed "racial" and 
"ethnic" violence. Crown Heights has become the newest site of the 
media-hyped "Black/Jewish conflict." For years, Black people in 
Crown Heights have said that Jews get preferential 
treatment--including police protection and funding for community 
services.(3) Jewish leaders claim they are victims of the false 
image of themselves as a "selfish and dangerous minority 
group."(14)

Where's the real conflict?

In the wake of the accident and the events that followed, the 
Black community in Crown Heights demanded a hearing with the mayor 
and other City officials about the City's consistently lousy 
treatment of Black people. This points to the real issue in Crown 
Heights--the contradiction between the white settler nation and the 
colonized Black nation.

Framing the violence in Crown Heights in terms of "race" and 
"ethnicity," the press, city administration and community leaders 
obscure the national contradiction. They admit that Black people 
have problems in Amerika, but they go on to imply that the issue 
is not as simple as Black and white, oppressed and oppressor. Ring 
class ideology does not count Jews as part of the oppressor class, 
claiming the conflict is more complicated than that.

One week after the accident, the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation 
League (ADL) protested what it called anti-Semitic violence in 
Crown Heights. ADL director Abe Foxman said that "the fact that it 
[the demonstrating] is American and it is black should not make it 
invisible or tolerable."(4)

The white "national" minority

White national minorities-- including Irish, German, Southern and 
Eastern European immigrants--came to Amerika to escape social and 
economic oppression. As each immigrant group settled in Amerika, 
it made great efforts to upgrade its own status as an oppressed 
nationality. Many European immigrants came from the bottom of 
European class society, hoping to climb to the top of Amerikan 
class society.

As each group entered the labor force, immigrant workers were 
temporarily oppressed. They began working 16-hour-a-day jobs for 
meager wages. Based on their economic conditions, these workers 
could have been a proletariat. But as J. Sakai points out in 
Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat, "[e]ven for 
those on the bottom stratum of white wage-labor the actual wages 
were significantly higher than in Old Europe."(5)

So while a significant portion of these Euro-Amerikans turned 
toward radical politics--including socialism and anarchism--living 
under slightly better conditions than they had in Europe caused 
the majority of white workers to look forward to the realization 
of their own Amerikan dream. The minimally-better conditions of 
Amerika helped corrupt their revolutionary potential. Gradually, 
imperialist profits paid their wages as well with profits skimmed 
off the backs of the international proletariat.

Who's paying?

Witnesses from Crown Heights testified that the driver was 
speeding through the intersection--talking on a cellular phone--and 
hit a car before careening into the kids. The first ambulance to 
arrive was from Hatzoloh, a private Jewish ambulance company. It 
got there before the first of three regular city ambulances.(6) 

Witnesses, including both Black and Hasidic people in the 
neighborhood, agreed that on police orders, Hatzoloh took the 
driver and his two passengers and left the two kids on the street. 
New York's Police Commissioner Lee Brown claimed that both 
ambulances got there at the same time and the Hatzoloh driver saw 
the kids being attended to before ignoring them and taking off.(6)

A Brooklyn grand jury began hearing testimony about the accident 
on Aug. 22 to determine if criminal charges could be brought 
against the driver.(6) The jury decided on Sept. 5 not to file 
charges.(7)

Lemerick Nelson Jr. was arraigned on Aug. 21 on a charge of 
second-degree murder for stabbing the Jewish man who died.(8) He 
was indicted by a grand jury in Brooklyn on August 26.(9) The 
indictment, once returned, was sent to the State Supreme 
Court.(10)

This is not Palestine?

On Aug. 21, while Mayor David N. Dinkins was visiting the family 
of the little boy who was killed, a group of Black people in the 
community gathered outside. As police collected to block the 
doorway, the crowd circled them shouting "This is not Palestine! 
We want justice!" The mayor finally got out of the building, 
protected by a wall of pigs.(11)

As a group, Jewish people in Amerika are not oppressed. Although 
there was some initial resistance in allowing them into the white 
nation, and there is still some discrimination against Jews, as a 
group they are squarely in the Amerikan oppressor nation today. 
They do not, as an ethnic group, run this country, as fascist 
groups often proclaim.

On Aug. 22, the fourth night of "rioting", the police got orders 
to make mass arrests "if necessary."(12) Outnumbering 
demonstrators two-to-one, 200 of New York's finest were decked out 
in riot gear to meet a 4 p.m. demonstration.(14) They took 63 
people into custody. Sixty people had been arrested in the first 
three nights combined. Dinkins said of his tougher policy: "If 
they break the law, then they will be treated like law-breakers," 
and "we are not going to permit thugs to take over this city."(13)

Healing wounds with rhetoric 

Mayor Dinkins said on Sunday, Aug. 25 at the First Baptist Church 
of Crown Heights: "[B]rothers and sisters, in the tragic deaths of 
these two young people [the Black child and the Jewish man] also 
lie the seeds of our redemption. We have an opportunity now to 
right old wrongs, to heal old wounds and to make our city a 
better, more just place."(15) 

Dinkins is doing his job as a Black member of the Amerikan 
government--standing up as token, living proof that success in 
Amerika is attainable for the Black nation. The bourgeoisie uses 
Dinkins, and other Blacks who "succeed" in Amerika to discredit 
Black claims of genuine national oppression. 

Tokenizing Black people hides the fact that they are colonized. 
Press-propagated myths about the "ethnic" oppression of white 
people--albeit people who were once terribly exploited in this 
country--hide the fact that imperialism extends within the borders 
of the United States. The Black nation and all revolutionaries 
must understand how imperialism sucks its life-blood through 
national oppression. This is the understanding we use to liberate 
all nations--destroying imperialism at its base.

Notes:
1. New York Times 8/21/91, p. A20.
2. NYT 8/23/91, p. A4.
3. New York Newsday 8/23/91, p. 4.
4. NYT 8/31/91, p. 11.
5. J. Sakai, Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat, p. 48.
6. NYT 8/23/91, p. B2.
7. NYT 9/7/91, p. A12.
8. NYT 8/22/91, p. B2.
9. NYT 8/27/91, p. A1.
10. NYT 8/27/91, p. A20.
11. NYT 8/22/91, p. B1.
12. NY Newsday 8/23/91, p. 5.
13. NY Newsday 8/23/91, p. 6.
14. NYT 8/23/91, p. B1.
15. NYT 8/26/91, p. A12.

* * *

BLACK FILMS, WHITE PARROTS

by MC59

Recently, in theaters across the country, a flurry of movies 
directed by Black people have been produced. Each of them purports 
to deal with issues confronting the Black nation. Over the past 
summer, "New Jack City," directed by Mario Van Peebles; "Jungle 
Fever," a Spike Lee Joint; Matty Rich's "Straight out of Brooklyn" 
and "Boyz in the Hood," by John Singleton have been released.

Looking at these movies about the Black oppressed nation, we see 
that most of them do not deal with issues of oppression in any 
useful context. 

Movies are a powerful medium to express ideas and manipulate 
viewers' perceptions. They teach people how to view themselves and 
the world around them. Under capitalism, films serve as propaganda 
for the ruling class. So what does it mean that films are made by 
and about the Black nation? A critical understanding of media will 
allow revolutionaries to analyze how the bourgeoisie manipulates 
oppressed people through film.

Mainstream movies are tools the oppressor nation uses to enforce 
systematic repression. This is historically true, as in one of the 
first widely released Amerikan films, "Birth of A Nation," which 
was used as a recruiting tool for the Ku Klux Klan. With an 
awareness of this context, we must examine how the "Black movies" 
coming out reinforce this repression, and fall short of being 
revolutionary.

Movies define debate

Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever" defines a set of problems in the Black 
nation: drugs, white women and white bosses who call the shots. 
"Straight out of Brooklyn," Matty Rich's first, takes a more 
realistic look at the conditions imposed on the Black nation. Both 
movies, while pointing out problems existing in the Black 
community, define the realms in which Black people are "allowed" 
to resist their oppression. These realms are controlled by the 
media industry.  

Movies are constructed to define debate. They address problems 
they define as existing in the oppressed nation. Solutions they 
suggest are never revolutionary--in some respects they are 
counterrevolutionary.

"Jungle Fever" addresses the exclusion of Black people from the 
white business world. But Spike Lee suggests that the solution is 
for Blacks to start their own companies, propagating the myth that 
the Black nation can succeed under capitalism, the same system 
that has oppressed them for hundreds of years. The Euro-Amerikan 
bourgeoisie is delighted to support this myth because as long as 
Black people believe it they will remain subordinate, defending 
capitalism against the revolutionary forces of the Third World 
proletariat.

"Straight Out Of Brooklyn" defines issues in a context more real 
to Black people. Rich analyzes the issues in part, but he makes no 
analysis for solving problems. He gives the illusion that there is 
no solution to oppression. At least Rich does not give false hope 
for a corrupt system. The movie falls far from pretending that 
capitalism can work for the people.

Victim blaming analysis 

Mainstream media looks at problems through individual examples; 
they propagandize Amerikan individualism and the myth of choice. 
They blame the oppressed for their own oppression--pushing the 
conclusion that people can change their conditions. 

Spike Lee's portrayal of a crack addict as someone who "likes to 
get high" and "chooses" to be a junkie falls under the assumptions 
of mainstream media. The portrayal ignores the fact that 
capitalism pushes crack into the Black nation. Supporting the idea 
that people choose to be addicts denies the fact that addiction 
and drug dealing are the few options offered to the Black nation. 
Oppression forces people into their "choices."

Disneyland for grown-ups

These movies hold up a standard of middle-class life that is 
completely unreal for the Third World proletariat. They put forth 
the notion that oppressed nations can achieve success in 
Amerika--that they can be just like their oppressors. Blacks making 
movies drives the point home, demonstrating how individual Black 
directors can "make it" in white Amerika.

The media puts out dominant culture's paradigms through the 
example of a few wealthy members of the oppressed nation--the 
national bourgeoisie. An understanding of how the media uses the 
national bourgeoisie is conspicuously missing in these movies.

The mainstream media will never let a revolutionary movie play in 
its theaters, and we must analyze movies in this context. We must 
look at contemporary culture to understand what is wrong with it. 
Through revolution, we must make movies that accurately reflect 
the history and culture of oppressed nations.

So what do they leave out?

Important too, is analyzing which movies are not made.  Movies 
have not dealt with Black women's oppression under slavery. Most 
movies about slave rebellions are made from the masters' 
perspective, ignoring some of the most insightful history, told in 
slave narratives. Movies like "Glory"--about a Black unit in the 
Amerikan Civil War Union Army--show Black people happy to be 
massacred for settler Amerika's freedom to oppress them. 

Movies about Black resistance ignore revolutionary elements, like 
the Black Panther Party. "Mississippi Burning" is a case in point. 
It is based on the true story of the murders of three civil rights 
workers, rewritten to make the FBI look good!

Movies that are made hide the truth about Amerika as the oppressor 
nation. Despite Amerika's efforts however, people are beginning to 
have an understanding of cocaine as a means of genocide on the 
Black community. People are understanding their own oppression in 
real terms, as they see their material conditions worsen.

The power structure uses movies to explain away or ignore the 
violence against oppressed nations; it obscures the need for 
revolutionary struggle. A movie telling the truth about violence 
against the Black nation would advance the people's revolutionary 
consciousness, and the bourgeoisie will never promote that cause. 

The bottom line 

Revolutionaries have to think about so-called Black movies in the 
context of the Amerikan settler power structure, which is 
interested only in rewriting the history of the Black oppressed 
nation. These movies will not deal with revolution, the only 
viable way to end all oppression. Through revolutionary struggle 
the people will seize all media--the means of teaching history and 
culture. Only then will they be able to teach the truth about 
their lives and the righteousness of their struggle.

To paraphrase PARIS: Mindless movies for the masses make ya/ think 
less of the one that hates ya!

* * *

REVOLUTIONARY CULTURE

by MC45 & MA20

People sometimes ask, why does MIM write movie and book reviews?

MIM upholds the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as the 
highest stage of development of socialism to date. During the 
Cultural Revolution, the majority of the Chinese population 
mobilized to dismantle capitalist culture, understanding its role 
in sustaining class oppression.

Culture includes all of the ruling class's means of propaganda: 
schools, art and mass media. These forms express--and at the same 
time build--class relations. Through revolution and continuing 
class struggle the people will take hold of all forms of culture 
and use them to build a new society.

Bourgeois culture

Under capitalism, the bourgeoisie bombards the people with "mass 
media," using the forms of news, movies, music, etc. to "educate" 
people and justify the domination of the oppressor over the 
oppressed. Mass media should not be confused with "media of the 
masses."

The oppressed masses' tendency is towards revolution, and their 
culture-- expressed in all media to which they have access--reflects 
that. The masses' music is about revolution. Their books and 
newspapers are about exploitation and day-to-day survival. In 
contrast and opposition, the bourgeoisie's position is parasitic, 
and the culture it "creates" is stolen wholesale from the people.

Mass media is only a shell of the masses' culture. Capitalists may 
imitate the forms the masses use, but "mass media" strips them of 
all meaning.

Music created out of bare survival means very little when it's 
played on a stage for a mostly-white-all-wealthy audience; and 
after the show you can take the CD home to play in your five room 
apartment. Similarly, reading a sexy hardcover edition of a young 
Black author's story of growing-up-poor is a contradiction of its 
own.

Revolutionary culture

MIM educates toward revolution. While bourgeois culture works hard 
to impede forces working against imperialism, a large part of 
revolutionary culture focuses on exposing the reactionary. We need 
to strengthen our understanding of the ideological weapons of the 
ruling class in order to fight them.

MIM combats the damage of bourgeois education by distributing 
accurate history from the perspective of the international 
proletariat. MIM analyzes current history from this perspective as 
well--and works with the people to develop both the historical and 
theoretical knowledge we need to expose the program of the 
bourgeoisie, uncover its lies and make revolution. 

Many bourgeois institutions will change drastically at each stage 
between capitalism and communism. The function of a school for 
example, in any society, is to educate people to serve the needs 
of the ruling class. When the international proletariat becomes 
the ruling class, the ideological control it will exercise over 
schools will not be a bad thing. Education will be radically 
different.

To turn culture--education in all its forms--into a tool of the 
people, we will need to understand how thoroughly it currently 
supports oppression, and then use that understanding to tear down 
the oppressive structures of misinformation and miseducation.

* * *

HAITI: 'REVOLUTIONARY' PRESIDENT ARISTIDE FINDS CONFLICT IN THE 
SYSTEM

by MC42

We must not be swayed to collaborate and conciliate ... In my heart 
I am sure that the way of total commitment is the right way, but 
perhaps time and life will change me, as they have so many others. 
I doubt it."(1)

Elected president of Haiti in Dec. 1990, Rev. Jean-Bertrand 
Aristide is popular with the masses and no one else. He has been 
preaching "class struggle" in his church and encouraging poor 
peasants to defend themselves for many years.(2) New to the 
political spotlight, his once-revolutionary ideas and actions are 
coming into predictable conflict with his role as president and 
theologian.

The Haitian legislature has traditionally supported dictators, and 
they continued to do so through the first few months of Aristide's 
presidency. Now joining hands with the bourgeoisie, even they have 
begun to resist Aristide and his crowds of supporters.(3) Aristide 
is not the leader Haiti's army usually supports, but the force 
which usually throws its weight behind dictators has begun to 
support him.

Why the masses support Aristide

Aristide, born to a poor family in southern Haiti in 1953, has 
widespread support among peasants, trade unionists and radical 
clerics. He has promoted Ti Legliz, the Haitian church of the 
poor, and made helping the poor his mission.(4)

Since 1982, his sermons attacking the dictatorship of Jean-Claude 
"Baby Doc" Duvalier (son of the infamous Fran�ois "Papa Doc") and 
his speeches on the radical Catholic Radio Soleil, encouraged the 
popular protests which led to Duvalier's overthrow in 1986.(2) In 
his church, St. Jean Bosco, on the edge of the La Saline slum in 
Port-au-Prince,(6) Aristide ran an orphanage and preached the 
"benefits of revolution and the evils of the United States."(5) 
The Catholic Church expelled him in 1988 for "exalting violence 
and class struggle."(4)

Understanding "the deadly economic infection called 
capitalism,"(7) Aristide urged the Haitian people to "disobey the 
rules ... organize with your brothers and sisters ... refuse the 
squalor of the parishes of the poor."(8) He preached resistance 
through elections, ignoring the necessity of armed revolutionary 
struggle.

Encouraging the myth of victory

Aristide's presidential campaign slogan, "Operation Lavalas," 
Creole for a cleansing flood or avalanche, emphasized the basic 
needs of food and justice for all Haitians.(9) His stated 
priorities also included raising the level of literacy and 
agricultural production in Haiti,(2) where two-thirds of adults 
are illiterate(10) and malnutrition accounts for more than half of 
all deaths in the country.(11)

In a country with a history of violent and coerced elections, 
interim Haitian president Ertha Pascal-Trouillot set the stage for 
a "free" election--complete with Western observers to verify the 
"freedom." The election came on Dec. 16 1990 with Aristide winning 
by a landslide, with 66.7% of the vote and 60-70% voter 
participation. The U.S. favorite, conservative economist Marc 
Bazin, polled 15.4% of the vote.(2) 

Aristide entered the political race at the last possible 
moment--November 1990--to counter Dr. Roger Lafontant, former 
Duvalier defense minister and head of the Tontons Macoute 
paramilitary unit responsible for many murders under the Baby Doc 
regime.(12) Lafontant was exiled before the fall of Baby Doc, but 
returned to Haiti in 1990 in spite of an outstanding warrant for 
his arrest as leader of the Macoutes ("bogeymen"). The army--still 
loyal to Lafontant--refused to arrest him.(11) But the 1987 
Constitution barred him from running in the election.(12)

Failed coup attempt proves Aristide's support

The Macoutes conducted a rash of murders following the election. 
On Jan. 6, 1991, Lafontant led them in an attempted coup against 
acting president Trouillot.(11)

Thousands of Aristide supporters took to the streets, built 
barricades to resist Lafontant and attacked suspected 
Macoutes--beating and burning them to death. The army reluctantly 
intervened, arresting Lafontant and freeing Trouillot.(11) 
Lafontant was arrested in September and given a life sentence (the 
legal maximum is 15 years) probably due to the "menacing crowd" of 
Aristide supporters outside the courthouse.(3)

Aristide plants the seeds 

Sworn in as president on Feb. 7, 1991, Aristide inherited a $455 
million debt. His first actions were paring down bureaucracy(5) 
and restructuring the long-hated Haitian army,(13) a descendant of 
the "Garde" created by the U.S. Marine Corps during the 1915-1934 
US occupation of Haiti.(12)

Gaining critics, Aristide chose his friend Ren� Pr�val as prime 
minister, filled his cabinet with supporters(10) and barred 134 
people from leaving Haiti pending investigation of the Trouillot 
administration.(13) Trouillot herself was arrested and jailed 
overnight in connection with the failed coup attempt.(14) 

Despite U.S. disapproval of Trouillot's arrest and Aristide's past 
anti-Amerikan stance, Amerika will give $82 million in economic 
aid to Haiti this year. Aid had previously been set at $54 
million.(5) Perhaps some good ol' U.S. dependency will put 
Aristide in his place.

Begging for business

Aristide says he needs the support of Haiti's business leaders.(4) 
In May, the Haitian Senate--still compliant at the time--approved 
legislation nearly doubling the daily minimum wage from the 
equivalent of $2.15 U.S. per day. Businesses and economists 
protested, saying that higher wages will increase both 
unemployment (currently over 50%) and inflation.(15)

Haiti's director of information insisted the government had no 
intention of alienating the business sector, whose investments it 
desperately needs.(15) 

Aristide welcomes investors for his mostly unemployed country, the 
poorest in the Western hemisphere. "We're going to guarantee a 
climate of security for the business sector to make their 
investments," declared a member of Aristide's private cabinet.(15) 

Aristide nominally stood up for the poor, saying he wants foreign 
companies to pay "fair wages" to Haitian workers(10)--who have long 
been a "dependent source of cheap labor for U.S. companies."(12)

How will he do it?

Aristide cannot manage his conflicting goals. The dissatisfied 
Haitian legislature is no longer afraid of the crowds. The Senate 
recently rejected Aristide's choice for Ambassador to France and 
interrogated Prime Minister Pr�val about his handling of 
government matters.(3) Aristide still has popular support and 
tenuous control over the army, but with the legislature, economic 
dependency and businesses against him it is clear that his ideals 
will go nowhere under this system.

Elections will never change international imperialist oppression. 
To free themselves from exploitation, the Haitian people must join 
with the rest of the international proletariat and throw off the 
yoke of imperialism in revolutionary struggle.

Notes:
1. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, In the Parish of the Poor: Writings 
from Haiti, Orbis Books, 1990, p. 18.
2. The World Today 3/91, p. 37-8.
3. New York Times 9/11/91, p. 5.
4. Economist 12/22/90, pp. 50-52.
5. Washington Post 6/6/91, p. 23.
6. Aristide, p. ix.
7. Aristide, p. 6.
8. Aristide, p. 34.
9. In These Times 12/26/90, p. 6.
10. Economist 2/16/91, p. 34.
11. Essence 6/91, p. 65.
12. La Palabra, Summer 1991, p. 4.
13. NYT 2/9/91, p. 3.
14. NYT 4/23/91, p. 3.
15. Christian Science Monitor 5/16/91, p. 3.

* * *

UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONS AND PRISONERS

DESPITE CENSORSHIP, TRENTON PRISONERS FIGHT

Greetings,

 I am writing to let you know that the issues of MIM Notes you've 
consistently been sending me have been reaching this prison 
(Trenton State). Unfortunately the last four issues you sent have 
been confiscated as contraband by the running dogs (Internal 
Affairs) here in the prison. These blood clots are very serious 
about controlling the kind of subject material that prisoners 
can/can't retain and read. The notion or logic being that if they 
control the thought, ultimately they will control the action. 

On every occasion that MIM Notes was withheld from me I was asked 
by a prison mailroom guard as to which method did I wish to use in 
disposing of the newspaper--as prisoners are offered options in 
this matter. I opted to have the newspaper sent back to the 
sender, to which I filled out a form to that effect. Apparently my 
option of disposal was ignored by the prison mailroom guard, since 
you are still sending me issues of your newspaper, apparently 
unaware of the situation as it relates to me. 

Recently, where I am presently locked-down in the Management 
Control Unit (MCU) the prison administration has launched a 
campaign of "search and seizure" of revolutionary literature. 
They've instructed those search parties to read everything (all 
paper work found in prisoners' cells) and seize certain material, 
particularly material dealing with revolutionary Pan-Afrikanism, 
guerilla warfare military/police science in general, Afrikan 
history, various theories and analysis critical of the u.s. power 
structure and capitalism-imperialism. It should be noted too that 
for the most part much of the material seized in these searches is 
subsequently destroyed, but certain subject matter taken from 
certain prisoners is preserved and turned over to the N.J. State 
Police for the perusal and subsequent compilation of dossiers on 
these prisoner by the prison's Internal Affairs Unit and N.J. 
State Police and FBI.

It's no secret--and several politically conscious prisoners in MCU 
with me now will attest to this--that the prison's IA unit and 
state police and FBI share information, real or fancied, that they 
have compiled on certain prisoners. I can personally verify this 
since I was/am a victim of both these agencies' vilification and 
now of the prison administration.

I was placed in MCU upon my extradition from Pennsylvania back to 
New Jersey as a result of information fed to prison officials by 
the state police and FBI.

On several occasions the prison's Internal Affairs Unit on request 
by the state police and FBI raided several prisoners' cells 
seizing revolutionary literature and other documents to aid them 
in their search of me and a comrade of mine. Several prisoners 
here in MCU now were taken from their cells in handcuffs and 
questioned by the FBI as to my and my comrade's whereabouts when I 
went under. Obviously more could be said, but this is not the 
forum for it. 

Gone, but remain ...
Steadfast
--Trenton prisoner


Dear MIM,

I'm writing to inform you that I just received a contraband for 
the MIM Notes 53; they have stated that the papers are a violation 
of the prison. I see it as just another way for them to stop us 
from learning about what's going on in the prison system and all 
around this world--and just all-out racist.

I was looking forward to reading this month's MIM. But I'm not 
going to let things stop me from doing or learning about the 
struggles. So if you can send me something on the Black Panthers 
or Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat by J. Sakai? 
Also the last time I wrote you I said that I would send you an 
address to someone to give out papers from the streets. You can 
send the papers to this person: XXX.

Also since the MIM papers are declared as contraband here, I would 
like for you to send the sisters in XXX prison the MIM Notes. This 
is the address: XXX.

The struggle must move on!
Thank you,
--Trenton prisoner


Revolutionary Greetings MIM,

Just writing to inform you that these racist pigs here at this 
prison have been banning the reception of MIM's newsletter for 
"certain prisoners."

I say "certain prisoners" because the majority of the brothers 
here who have been receiving MIM Notes still get them, it's just 
selected individuals such as myself who don't receive them because 
the racist so-called authorities here are playing my mail 
situation close with their censorship. 

You should recall that I recently sent you establishment's press 
releases on a situation I was involved in here that dealt with a 
liberation attempt. 

[MC11: On May 22 prison guards said they found an ice pick, a 
hacksaw blade and other tools in a Trenton prisoner's cell. He was 
charged with possession of a weapon, possession of escape 
paraphernalia, conspiracy to escape and planning an escape. Prison 
pigs suspect 30 other prisoners were involved in organizing a mass 
escape. The author of this letter reported in June that most of 
the suspected organizers were transferred to "Rahway's extremely 
racist lock-up unit. This unit consists of mainly white, klan 
mentality pigs who murdered at least two prisoners in the last two 
years, and brutalize them on a daily basis. And, to top this off, 
all of the brothers who were charged with last year's Black August 
attack against Trenton State Prison's pigs, and the ones that wore 
the red arm bands in solidarity with the anniversary of Comrade 
Jonathan Jackson were all amongst the prisoners transferred to 
this racist, brutal camp in Rahway, which undoubtedly sets the 
stage for their inevitable targeting by these blood thirsty 
pigs."]

Well, ever since the discovery of that plot by the pigs, 
repression directed at me has escalated, which is undoubtedly why 
they have been refusing to allow me to receive MIM Notes--a 
courageous newsletter that has been affording unlimited coverage 
to the politico-plight of brothers here in captivity. 

I refuse to permit these racist pigs to impede the flow of a 
righteous periodical such as yours, therefore, what I would like 
to propose to you is that my subscription of the MIM newsletter be 
forwarded to my people out in the land.... I would appreciate this 
very much. 

(addresses enclosed).
Let the dragons fly
--Trenton prisoner


MC11 replies: The determination to continue to struggle and the 
broad revolutionary vision reflected in these letters from Trenton 
prisoners is crucial to the ultimate success of the revolution. 
Like all MIM cadres, they are in it for the long haul. They 
recognize the censorship of MIM Notes at Trenton as a temporary 
setback in one place, and continue to organize on other fronts--by 
studying, writing for MIM Notes, suggesting other prisoners and 
places to send MIM Notes, as well as continuing to fight the 
immediate repression they are faced with in their daily lives. MIM 
salutes the strength and resolve of the Trenton prisoners and 
urges others to follow their example: as Mao said, from a long-
term point of view, all reactionaries are paper tigers.

The following letter, dated Aug. 19, 1991, was written by the 
executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New 
Jersey and addressed to the Hon. William Fauver, the Commissioner 
of the New Jersey Department of Corrections. 

Dear Commissioner,

I am writing on behalf of the American Friends Service Committee 
and a number of inmates from nearly every prison in the state who 
have complained of having newspapers seized as contraband. I am 
referring to Issues I and II of the Black Panther newspaper and 
the July 1991, No. 54 issue of the MIM Notes.

When the Panther publication first came out, it was sent to 
individuals in each state lockup and was seized as contraband in 
some, while permitted in others. Volume II of the Panther paper 
was confiscated in each institution. Subsequently, MIM Notes was 
mailed to subscribers in the various prisons with the same 
resulting seizure. 

I have read each of these newspapers and cannot imagine which 
articles pose the required security risk that is the only grounds 
provided for in the statutes which allow for the confiscation. 
Inmates who have asked why their literature is being seized are 
either ignored or told that the publications are "inappropriate" 
with no further explanation.

The staff of the American Friends Service Committee informs me 
that on at least two occasions they have written to you, included 
samples of the newsletters, and have asked your office to 
investigate the complaints. Months later they have received 
neither an acknowledgement nor a reply. When can they hope to 
receive an answer?

Please investigate this matter and either enlighten me as to what 
was found in these publications which justified their seizure or 
let me know that the mailings to the prisoners may resume without 
problems. If I can be of any assistance, please contact me.

Meanwhile, I eagerly await a response at your earliest 
convenience.
Respectfully, 
--Edward Martone
Executive Director

MC11 replies: MIM thanks the ACLU and the American Friends Service 
Committee for their support on this issue. We have had reports 
from prisoners since May that MIM Notes is being censored from the 
New Jersey State Prison at Trenton, and we also have had no reply 
to our request for an explanation. 

Although MIM regularly criticizes groups like the ACLU and the 
AFSC for their liberal illusions--that free speech can exist under 
capitalism if enough reforms are pushed through the legal system, 
or that the capitalist legal system itself can ever be reformed 
into an instrument of justice--we recognize the prisoner advocacy 
work they do as important and valuable. There are reforms worth 
fighting for as steps toward revolution, and getting MIM Notes 
into the prisons is one of them.

But it is also important to make a realistic assessment of such 
battles: censorship is one of the tools capitalists use to 
maintain their ideological dominance over the proletariat, and 
they will use it whether the pretense of legality exists or not. 
If MIM Notes distribution is restored in New Jersey, it will be 
restricted in other prisons, in other states, because the agents 
of the state who run the prisons don't want prisoners to have 
access to the information and revolutionary analysis MIM Notes 
provides.

MIM Notes has been censored from different Amerikan prisons since 
it began publishing, and will continue to be as long as the 
imperialist state maintains control of the prison system. But 
while it is sometimes worth fighting legal battles to win a 
temporary reprieve--those battles are better viewed as part of a 
revolutionary strategy, and not as ends in themselves.

Ultimately, we hope the ACLU and AFSC will join us in recognizing 
the futility of struggling to find justice in an inherently unjust 
system, and work with us to plan a strategy that will truly 
liberate prisoners and other oppressed groups in Amerika. Until 
then, we are glad to have them as allies in this struggle against 
state censorship.

* * *

REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY: THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY 

In the first two weeks of October, 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby 
Seale formulated the ten-point platform of the Black Panther Party 
(BPP), initially called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. 
From political study while attending Merritt Junior College and 
experience in Black student groups, Newton and Seale realized the 
inadequacy of working in reformist and cultural nationalist 
groups.

The Black community needed a revolutionary party for organization 
and protection.

They wanted a party that identified its enemies on the basis of a 
Marxist economic analysis, not on the basis of skin color--a party 
free from cultural nationalism and advocacy of Black capitalist, 
bourgeois reformist or integrationist solutions. "We do not fight 
racism with racism. We fight racism with solidarity. We do not 
fight exploitative capitalism with black capitalism. We fight 
capitalism with basic socialism. We do not fight imperialism with 
more imperialism. We fight imperialism with proletarian 
internationalism."(1)

Panther ideology

Contrary to popular distortions of Panther ideology, the Party 
openly identified itself as communist. From the Party newspaper, 
The Black Panther, "The Black Panther Party recognizes, as do all 
Marxist revolutionaries, that the only response to the violence of 
the ruling class is the revolutionary violence of the people ... 
Black people picking up the gun for self defense is the only basis 
in America for a revolutionary offense against Imperialist state 
power."(2)

Although heavily influenced by the works of Franz Fanon, Che 
Guevara and Fidel Castro, Maoism was the primary basis for Panther 
ideology. At the Party's founding, Newton and Seale had read the 
four volumes of Mao's collected works. Newton later recalled, "We 
saw them [Mao, Fanon, etc.] as kinsmen; the oppressor who had 
controlled them was controlling us, both directly and indirectly. 
We believed it was necessary to know how they gained their freedom 
in order to go about getting ours."(6) 

The Panthers used their newspaper in Leninist fashion to educate, 
politically stimulate and organize the masses. Education of party 
cadres was also emphasized--under party rules: "Political Education 
Classes are mandatory for general membership."(4)

The decline of the BPP

The FBI destroyed the Panthers by infiltrating the Party. The U.S. 
government effectively manufactured conflicts between the BPP and 
its potential allies through a forged-letter campaign. These 
conflicts splintered alliances and made political work more and 
more difficult for the Panthers.

The BPP believed that underground political work was unnecessary 
as they were organizing in a "pre-revolutionary situation," and 
the Party distrusted underground movements in the United 
States.(7) But the Panthers' above-ground operations made them an 
easy target for infiltration. 

FBI infiltrators also exacerbated existing tendencies within the 
Party toward focoism, by stirring up militancy in strategically 
bad situations. Many important leaders like Chicago's Fred 
Hampton, betrayed by informants and infiltrators on the FBI 
payroll, were jailed or assassinated.(5) The remaining leadership 
degenerated by the early 1970s.

Notes:
1. Bobby Seale, Seize the Time, Random House, New York, 1968, p. 
71.
2. The Black Panthers Speak, edited by Philip Foner, J. B. 
Lippincott Company, New York, 1970, p. 19-20.
3. Seale, p. 82.
4. Foner, p. 6.
5. Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, Agents of Repression, South 
End Press, Boston, 1988, Chapter 3.
6. Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide, Ballantine Books, New 
York, 1973, p. 123.
7. Foner, p. 66.

* * *