MIM (Prisons) Preaches Logic but Practices Petty Bourgeois Opportunism (2016)

Introduction

The Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons (MIMP) strikes again! This time, in their article “Study Logic, Don’t End Up Like Rashid,”1 they take umbrage with our recent article, “MIM or MLM?”2 where we critique their line, analyses, and practice which they falsely portray as Maoist.

Our article was simply a response to their earlier fallacious critique3 of our own 2013 refutation of a vulgar line on the labor aristocracy which MIMP upholds and falsely characterizes as Maoist.4 Our 2013 article, which began this series of polemics between our New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter (NABPP-PC) and MIMP, was, however, not addressed to MIMP.

In “Study Logic,” MIMP levels several charges against us and claims by doing so they are giving a lesson in logic and exposing our logical flaws. What they’ve actually done, however, is expose what can only be seen as their own political immaturity, cognitive incompetence, and totally elastic attitude towards honesty. Typical petty-bourgeois tendencies.

But of course in responding to them, we won’t – and need not – resort to their tactics of deception, spin, insult, and antagonism. All we need – and will – do is honestly compare the facts point-by-point to their spin and let the reader be the judge.

We Got MIMP’s Line All Wrong

MIM contends that in “MIM or MLM,” we got their political line wrong on “many points.” They begin by claiming “a significant portion” of our article confuses and spreads misinformation about the membership requirements for their prisoner study groups, their “mass organization” United Struggle from Within (USW), and MIMP itself. This is outright fabricated. First of all, we never once mentioned USW. And the only mention we made of any of these groups’ membership criteria was to point out that prisoners are not allowed as members of MIMP, (so we obviously didn’t confuse MIMP with its prisoners’ study groups and “mass organizations” which are composed of prisoner members) and that MIMP ejects prisoners from its study groups who persist in disputing MIMP’s lines. MIMP admitted itself that these observations were correct.5

We did, however, mention that MIMP’s membership is known to consist of the very class and character of people it denounces as enemies and exploiters of the Third World proletariat whom they claim to champion, namely petty-bourgeois, white, Amerikan settlers. They implicitly admit this to be accurate, but accuse us of playing identity politics for bringing it up, which is odd and hypocritical; since it is they who charge this group to be enemies, and furthermore base their entire line on a non-Marxist book whose very focus is on vilifying this group, namely J. Sakai’s Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat. Hell! The title itself says it all! So their first point is completely fabricated and illogical, since we neither spread disinformation about nor confused their groups. And it is they not us who are into identity politics.

Personalizing Politics

MIMP then argues that we shouldn’t base the correctness or incorrectness of a position on who stated it. Curiously – and again self-contradictorily – their entire polemic from title to text emphasizes “Rashid” as who said this and that (not that he is elaborating the line of a Party or class, instead, it’s all “don’t listen to Rashid”). Apparently, it’s ok for them to shift focus from political line to personalities. Whereas, we contested them by showing their positions reflect a counter-revolutionary class line that serves the bourgeoisie and not the proletariat.

They raised this argument to say our critique of their line on the labor aristocracy is based on MIMP’s petty-bourgeois class background. Another deceitful claim, this time by omission. We clearly contested their Vulgar Labor Aristocracy (VLA) line on many grounds, including that 1) it doesn’t comport with Marxist class analysis, 2) it ignores that Marx himself recognized that workers in different countries existing at different stages of technological development will always experience significantly different wage levels and living standards, 3) Lenin observed that higher paid workers were the vanguard layers of the proletariat – the exact opposite of MIMP’s claim that they are the enemies of the proletariat, 4) the proletariat will inevitably be politically backward and fall under bourgeois influence absent a revolutionary proletarian party to awaken, unite, and lead them, which has been the case and cause of the political backwardness of the First World workers in particular, and not as MIMP claims, because they are the enemies of Third World workers, 5) Stalin recognized First World proletarians to be the key ally of Third World peoples and not their irreconcilable enemy as MIMP claims, 6) the workers in Amerika are indeed part of the world proletariat, 7) all the leading Marxists – Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc. – have held that unity of First and Third World workers is essential for the struggle against imperialism to succeed, etc., etc., etc. MIMP totally omits mention of these many arguments and supporting points we raised against their VLA line, which had absolutely nothing to do with the class background of MIMP’s members.

Now it is true that we pointed out MIMP’s petty-bourgeois class identity, but not in some generalized, abstract sense as they try to portray it. Rather we tied their class identity in with their line and practice to show overall that they were petty-bourgeois through and through and not adherents to the revolutionary proletarian line or Maoism as they claim; and this all based on their own observation in their polemic “Rashid’s Empty Rhetoric” that class orientation determines who our real friends and real enemies are. As Mao stated, this is a question of first importance to revolutionaries. Furthermore, we showed the “logic” of the VLA line duplicates almost exactly the revisionist petty-bourgeois line that Marx, Lenin, and Mao fought against continuously, revealing it to be but a continuation of the same trend within the Marxist movement, that will continue to rear its head and must be continuously combatted for as long as classes exist.

In fact, we showed on many grounds that MIMP’s prejudices, “logic”, and practice (or lack of thereof) also conform exactly to that of petty-bourgeois elements identified and opposed by these same leading Marxists – and by proletarian revolutionaries in general – whom MIMP claim to uphold; from its small cell clandestine organization model, to its vilifying and isolating itself from the working masses, and intellectualizing the struggle; from its rejecting criticism with antagonism and childish defensiveness and refusing to do political work amongst the working class (including its reactionary layers, which as Lenin said is “the bounded duty” of genuine revolutionaries), to its individualizing the struggle and confining itself to what Lenin called the “amateurishness” of “narrow study circle life” and failing to make class analyses based upon the relations of various groups to the productive system; from attempting to divide the proletariat along national lines, to claiming the solution to working-class exploitation is to increase their wages (economism), and so on. Again, MIMP mentions none of this.

We clearly did not confine our critique of MIMP and their VLA line to their class background. Rather, we demonstrated, and did so in considerable length and detail, that they exhibit petty-bourgeois characteristics in thought, theory, organizational form, political work, and most importantly political and ideological line; and they embrace many of the very same positions that Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao fought against and specifically identified as “petty-bourgeois revisionism.” It was MIMP’s class line that we contested, not their mere class background, consistent with Mao’s important teaching that correctness or incorrectness of one’s ideological and political line determines everything.

Are We Fishing for Information on MIMP’s Members?

Next they claim we are baiting for information on MIMP’s members’ identities because we criticize their clandestine form of organization. In doing this, they claim we’re doing “pig work,” which is merely a long-standing ploy of theirs calculated to evade and discourage criticism on this point, by implying that their critics are acting like or working for the pigs. We are not impressed. And because we are aboveground the people can determine from our history, character, sacrifices, and treatment by the pigs that we aren’t pigs and are acting in the people’s interests. Furthermore, every revolutionary movement has confronted and tackled this question, as we will show.

As justification for their clandestine form, they claim a desire to avoid identity politics, pig surveillance, and such. We’ve already addressed the utter hypocrisy of their claim to oppose identity politics. As for NABPP-PC, we are genuinely against identity politics, which is why we embrace all nationalities and “ethnic” and “racial” groups and are intercommunal: We consist of Black, Brown, and White Panthers whose aim is to build intercommunal unity across all oppressed groups. Our open and observable diversity teaches unity by example, which is far more effective and in service to the interests of the masses than operating in a secret group that bases its line on the “mythology of the white proletariat” while theoretically claiming, (when it is convenient), to reject just such an identity politics.

As for us performing “pig work” because we challenge MIMP’s “secret society” organizational model, by this logic Mao did “pig work” too, because he opposed it as well, and emphasized the “mass line” which entailed mass supervision of the revolutionary leadership and organic interaction between the leaders and the led so the masses know and trust their leadership. Marx and Lenin promoted the same.

Of course there is the tactical use of aliases, coded messages, secret couriers, and so on for operative security, but they didn’t hide who they were from the people as a strategic practice. In addition to the masses’ need to trust and supervise their leaders, their visibility to the people serves to counter the pigs’ ability to effectively create bogus revolutionary groups in efforts to misdirect and mislead the masses, contain their mobilizations, commit acts that undermine the character and credibility of the movement before the masses, draw in and misdirect the energy and efforts of genuine revolutionaries, etc. This is “pig work,” which requires clandestinity to be effective. No such group could exist or operate for long if the masses could supervise and identify them. Indeed, clandestinity is standard operating procedure in pig infiltrations of movements, organizations, etc. So again, strategic clandestinity is “pig work.”

Also, according to MIMP’s “logic,” Huey P. Newton did “pig work” too in co-founding the Black Panther Party (BPP). Ironically, it was he who coined the term “pig” to refer to the oppressive police and exploiting classes. Huey co-founded the BPP as an aboveground organization, specifically in opposition to other New Afrikan groups like the Revolutionary Action Movement, who insisted on clandestinity. We’ll let Huey speak for himself:

“Many would-be revolutionaries work under the fallacious notion that the vanguard party should be a secret organization which the power structure knows nothing about, and that the masses know nothing about except for occasional letters that come to their homes in the night. Underground parties cannot distribute leaflets announcing an underground meeting. Such contradictions and inconsistencies are not recognized by these so-called revolutionaries. They are, in fact, afraid of the very danger that they are asking the people to confront. These so-called revolutionaries want the people to say what they themselves are afraid to say, to do what they themselves are afraid to do. That kind of revolutionary is a coward and a hypocrite. A true revolutionary realizes that if he is sincere, death is imminent. The things he is saying and doing are extremely dangerous. Without this realization, it is pointless to proceed as a revolutionary.

“If these imposters would investigate the history of revolution they would see that the vanguard group always starts out aboveground and is driven underground by the oppressor.”6

As we pointed out in “MIM or MIM?”, MIMP’s “secret society” approach to political leadership is petty-bourgeois in essence, in fact it is an anarchistic tendency. Actually, MIMP has adopted the very organizational position of the anarchist, Mikhail Bakunin, Marx’s chief rival within the leadership of the First International, against whom Marx struggled on this very issue!  So, apparently, Marx was doing “pig work” too.

Like MIMP, Bakunin promoted revolution carried forward by small secret societies of petty-bourgeois intellectuals; a “revolutionary general staff composed of dedicated, energetic, intelligent individuals, sincere friends of the people above all.”7 Interestingly, this is the sort of elitist leadership model anarchists have long critically accused Communists – especially Leninists – of practicing.

Marx critically opposed Bakunin’s model, emphasizing that the working class must be emancipated by themselves, not by “sincere friends.” Secret societies, he said, contravene “the development of the workers, these societies subject them to authoritarian, mystical laws which cramp their independence and distort their power of reason.”8 But MIMP is notorious for castigating anarchists and denouncing those who don’t embrace their positions as being anarchists. Yet it turns out that they practice the very organizational line of Marx’s principal anarchist opponent, and which Marx himself opposed. However, in concluding “Study Logic,” MIMP claims that it’s “Rashid” who “lacks an understanding of the importance of organizational structure and political standards.”

Lenin likewise opposed the small-circle exclusivist organizational model. It was recalled:

“Comrade Lenin’s main idea was that we had to remain with the working class and be a mass party and not coop ourselves up exclusively in the underground and turn into a narrow circle. If the workers are in the trade unions then we must be there too; if we can send just one man into the Tsar’s Duma then we shall; let him tell the workers the truth and we can publish his speeches as leaflets. If something can be done for the workers in the workers’ clubs then we shall be there. We have to use every legal opportunity, so as not to divorce ourselves from the masses…”9

It was Lenin who recognized that to have the greatest mass impact, a revolutionary party had to be mass-based and aboveground. He therefore led the break within the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party to “outgrow the narrow framework of the ‘circles’ of 1902-05,” in which “close knit, exclusive” committees of “professional revolutionaries” had made up the RSDLP. “Undoubtedly, the present leaders of the present workers movement in Russia will have to break with many of the circle traditions … so as to concentrate on the tasks of Social-Democracy in the present period. Only the broadening of the Party by enlisting proletarian elements can, in conjunction with open mass activity, eradicate all the residue of the circle spirit.” He then noted that “the transition to a democratically organized workers’ party, proclaimed by the Bolsheviks in … November 1905, … was virtually an irrevocable break with the old circle ways that had outlived their day.”10 Again, in breaking with the RSDLP’s old closed-circle organizational structure, we suppose Lenin too was doing “pig work.” It should be noted, that in doing so Lenin was met with ridicule and jeers from within the RSDLP. In fact, he’d broken ranks with his own Bolshevik faction to their shock as well. But, he wasn’t deterred, and his decision, as we know, proved correct.

Nowhere in the history of proletarian revolutionary struggle do we find that the masses had to guess who Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Cabral, etc. were. Even under the most repressive conditions, these comrades never hid their names from the masses they led, (at least not their nom de guerre or nom de plume), hence the people knew their characters, histories, and work, and could judge that they were not pigs. Who can say this of MIMP?

The masses’ right to know those who presume to lead them and represent their interests, and to supervise them is a “people’s tactic.” Hiding from the people while claiming to represent their interests without their say so and supervision is an elitist “pig tactic.” Especially, as MIMP doesn’t dispute that it’s absurd and an insult to the people’s intelligence for them to act as if they believe that the pigs don’t know who they are.

Fortunately, the NABPP-PC doesn’t look to MIMP for leadership. Instead we work to create leaders from the oppressed masses themselves. So, we have no interest to fish for information on the identities of MIMP’s members. But for those who do accept MIMP’s leadership, they certainly have a right to know who they are, to investigate their character, history, and work, and to supervise their continued performance. That is the Maoist “Mass Line,” which doesn’t change one bit because MIMP attempts to insult and shame those who contest or question their strategic practice of clandestinity and anonymity by ridiculing them as doing “pig work,” especially when MIMP cannot deny that the actual pigs already know their identities.

If you are crippling your political effectiveness by hiding from the people in order to avoid scrutiny from the pigs, who already know who you are, whose interests are you really serving?

Do We Know MIMP’s Political Line?

MIMP claims further that we criticize them without knowing their political line and class definitions. Again, this is false. First of all, we have been long acquainted with their lines and those of their now defunct parent organization, the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM), whose line MIMP continues to uphold with some minor variations. Let us remind MIMP that the NABPP-PC has had its own members inside MIMP’s prisoner study groups, USW, and as regular writers for its newsletter.

Likewise, we are also familiar with their class definitions. The actual problem is, in “MIM or MLM?” we responded to the arguments and class definitions that were set out in their polemic against us, “Rashid’s Empty Rhetoric.” It’s not our fault that the author of that article specifically responded to our Marxist definition of the proletariat stating s/he “prefer” the “definition that the proletariat are those who have nothing to lose but their chains,” and the lumpen as “people who live in rags.”

When we exposed these abstract metaphors to be completely ridiculous class definitions that deviated completely from Marxist political economy, MIMP tried to explain their error away by falsely claiming that they never used these “people in chains and rags” as class definitions, which the above quotes of theirs prove to be untrue, and by saying they’ve previously published their class definitions in a 2012 booklet and “we send a short list of these definitions to all new subscribers. It would be overkill to expect us to provide a full definition each time we use a word, as Rashid seems to require. Our last response to Rashid was written assuming he had access to definitions of our political line, perhaps another error on our part.”

This rationalization is disingenuous and absurd. First of all, as we quote them above in “Rashid’s Empty Rhetoric,” they explicitly said they disagreed with our definition of the proletariat and “preferred” a different one instead. But when we showed in “MIM or MLM?” the Marxist roots of our definition and that MIM had previously adopted the same definition, suddenly in “Study Logic” they actually agree with our definition and can prove it by referring to their own 2012 published list of class definitions. Second, their “Response to Rashid” was not in a private correspondence, but rather a published article intended to be read not just by Rashid, but also by many others who haven’t read MIMP’s 2012 booklet and aren’t on their subscription list. These people will obviously have no idea what MIMP’s definitions might be beyond what they wrote in that article. The very point of publishing an article is for it to be widely read. We might add that MIMP also published their article online. So MIMP knew they weren’t writing for just Rashid’s benefit but rather for many other readers also who needed clarity on the intended definitions of disputed terms MIMP was using, like “proletariat” and “lumpen”.

What MIMP should have said, (and been more honest about their own errors), was their author who rushed to write “Rashid’s Empty Rhetoric” simply was not qualified or adequately versed in MIMP’s line, nor Maoism, to have done so, and s/he therefore made some erroneous or not well-thought out arguments. Instead, they attempt to cast us as the irresponsible ones for pointing out these errors, and portray us as the ones unfamiliar with their line, rather than their own comrade who wrote the article.

Let us point out here too, that MIMP persists in distorting what we write and trying to deter their readers from reading us. If one reads their other reply to “MIM or MLM?” titled “100 Reasons Why Rashid Should STFU About MIM (Prisons)”11 which we’ll respond to elsewhere, they cherry pick isolated passages (taking a lot of it out of context) and insert commentary throughout the text in a manner that will certainly distract the average reader from focusing on or following and grasping our points. They also tell readers they should not read the article but rather should just “skim” over it and instead read MIMP publications listed by them as “further reading.” Likewise, in “Study Logic,” they again encourage their readers to not read a newer article of ours “Third Worldism and Politicizing the Blame Game: What’s Revolutionary About That?”12 which also contests the VLA line and Third Worldist book by Zak Cope, Divided World Divided Class.13 They recommend their readers to instead check out a debate between Cope and a “labor-aristocracy denier.” The reason is obvious, in that we don’t deny the existence of a labor aristocracy, we just reject MIMP’s overboard definition, and, like Lenin, we don’t regard even the actual labor aristocracy as being beyond redemption. We explain and support these points in “MIM or MLM?”

They then make sure to conclude their polemic with an assurance that they will not give print space in their newsletter for our replies to their polemics, because supposedly they are “unscientific.” This is in response to our citing Lenin’s point that “revolutionary” media has a duty to publish such polemics. (Lenin and others also found their polemical opponents “unscientific,” but didn’t use this as an excuse for not publishing their views alongside his in their papers.) It should be rather obvious what MIMP’s intentions are, since it’s clear that their arguments can’t be trusted or believed, nor can what they accuse others of saying or doing be taken at face value.

MIMP’s Mass Work … Or Lack Thereof

MIMP then questions how we could possibly know what sort of mass work they do or don’t do. They argue that we are out of touch with their organizing both inside and outside the prisons. How indeed could we know? Well, for one, as we’ve pointed out, NABPP-PC cadre have long participated in MIMP-led study groups, written for ULK and have joined USW. This writer – Rashid – is a leading member and theoretician of NABPP-PC who is thus privy to what his Party comrades study and do. So contrary to MIMP’s wholly silly position that Rashid couldn’t know their work inside the prisons because he lacks personal participation in their study groups, doesn’t write for ULK and hasn’t himself joined USW, the NABPP-PC, for which he speaks, participates in all these things.

What MIMP also seems to forget is, unlike them, most NABPP-PC members live inside the same prisons and alongside the same prisoners they seek to influence. We see and know what they accomplish and fail to accomplish inside these razor wire plantations. So we’re more than qualified, from the position of both participants and observers, to know about and analyze MIMP’s so-called “mass work” – or lack thereof – inside the prisons.

As for them asking how we might know what organizing MIMP does, or doesn’t do, outside of prison. Well, how about the fact that they told us? In “Rashid’s Empty Rhetoric,” they wrote, “we do not have the resources right now to do any real organizing outside of prisons.” But in “Study Logic,” they then turn around and contend, “As a security-conscious organization, we don’t publicize where, when or how much organizing we do outside of prison. Yet Rashid claims to be an expert on our practice, and claims we have none. This sort of baseless shit-talking is another logical fallacy…” If this is what MIMP calls “scientific thinking,” “security”, and “logic,” we’re happy to want no part of it …. And no one else should either!

So, not only is MIMP demonstrably unwilling to engage in principled and honest struggle with others, they aren’t even “logically” competent enough to admit, remember or be consistent in their own positions, and they will attack those who simply hold them to what they say themselves as engaging in “baseless shit-talking” and “logical fallacy.” Who indeed would trust such “logic” to competently assess and solve the complex developments, the ebbs and flows, that arise along the winding road of revolutionary struggle against the most advanced, powerful, and destructive system of oppression in world history?!

MIMP’s Opportunism

And here’s some of MIMP’s more flagrant opportunism. In “Study Logic,” they state “Rashid … does not have a base understanding … of Maoism.” How odd, since until now they’ve regarded Rashid as so knowledgeable of Maoist philosophy (dialectical materialism) that they use his writings on the subject to teach their study groups.

Dialectical Materialism (DM), by the way, is the very basis and method of analysis and practice that Maoists use to solve problems of all sorts – social, natural, theoretical, scientific, etc. In ULK Vol 33, p. 5 they advertise “a study pack made by Rashid of NABPP-PC, Historical & Dialectical Materialism.” Similarly, in a January 2011 review of Rashid’s book Defying The Tomb14 in which he went into considerable discussion and elaboration of Maoism, MIMP observed “It is well-written, concise and mostly correct. Therefore, it is well worth studying.” The only parts of the book MIMP found disagreeable were those parts that differed with their line or criticized them.

Then, some years back, the old MIM Prison Ministry reviewed another of Rashid’s articles, “A Practical Approach to Strategic Organizing for Popular Struggle.”15 In a letter to us dated April 18, 2006, the MIM representative wrote that the article “puts forth a practical strategy that I think stems from a correct class analysis.”

Only the most opportunist sort of “logic” could find Rashid so competent in Maoist philosophy, theory, history, and practice that his Maoist writings are used as teaching materials on the subject, his general writings are recommended “well worth studying,” and his strategies devised for today’s struggles are endorsed as “practical” and based upon “correct class analyses,” yet when Rashid disputes certain cherished MIM/MIMP beliefs, he suddenly doesn’t have even a “base understanding of Maoism,” and his critiques therefore lack credibility. How convenient. How scientific!

Conclusion

As we’ve shown, on every point that MIMP disputed or accused us in “Study Logic,” they were dead wrong, outright dishonest or confused about their own lines and prior statements. But they claim to be scientific and logical, and encourage others to follow their example. Well, we in NABPP-PC decline their offer, and leave it to the reader to look at the evidence and decide whose example proves most worthy of emulation.

Dare to Struggle Dare to Win!
All Power to the People!