Prisoners are proletarians, if we define “proletariat” as “those who have nothing left to lose but their chains”. Not only are they proletarians, but they are, for all practical intents and purposes, slaves, meaning that they are compelled to work against their will to produce and paid either nothing or laughably substandard, nominal wages for their labor. It is no accident that Black men and women form a substantial percentage of this country’s prisoners. After the Civil War, the reactionary, revanchist state legislatures all across the South produced laws that made it a crime for a Black person to be present in a city or town without being tied to a white employer. This crime was punished by being dragged off to a chain gang and hired out to a plantation. Slavery, for all intents and purposes, was restored. The most oppressed segment of the proletariat. There is no product sold or produced in this country in which prison labor does not play a substantial role at some level of the production chain. Check this list of companies supported by modern American slavery:

https://www.cagedbirdmagazine.com/single-post/2017/03/28/50-Companies-Supporting-Modern-American-Slavery

AT&T, McDonalds, BP, Microsoft, Pepsi, Motorola. Solid, blue chip companies reaping substantial profits off slave labor of oppressed nationalities right here in the United States. It is essential for Communists to pay attention to prison issues not only from a moral and ethical standpoint, but from the standpoint of being interested in the development of the workers’ struggle in this country, meaning the struggle of the proletariat for its liberation with the proletariat of oppressed nationalities being the nexus and nucleus of the formation of a Maoist Communist Party. To this end, all formations which dare call themselves Maoist and really seek the formation of a Maoist Party should participate in all levels of the struggle of prison labor. We should not just pay attention to political prisoners, we must pay attention to all prisoners. Failure to pay attention to prisoners is to neglect the struggle of proletarians, particularly of oppressed nationalities. Furthermore, it is essential to engage in and promote united fronts of all who can be united against prison slavery. Many so-called Maoists turn their noses up at coalition and united front work because formations like PSL, WWP, IWOC, and others are participating. This left opportunist sectarianism is detrimental to the interests of the masses. Many people see engagement with other formations as a concession to revisionism and economism, this is simply ridiculous. Revisionism is not like the common cold, and if you go into a meeting about prison work or community organizing with sectarian horseshit, you’re a fool. Your line is not going to change unless you want it to. A comrade in the Filipino New Democratic struggle recently told me that “left opportunists see everything for the line, right opportunists see everything for short term gains, and Maoists see everything as for the masses”. This is the best take I’ve heard. This is the thinking that makes the Filipino movement the most advanced in the world and the most capable of seizing state power. Study how Anakbayan, Gabriela, and other legal mass organizations work. This is what the US needs. Not more squabbling sects. Maoists work for the masses, and the only thing we fear is losing contact with and backing from the masses, who are our bastion of iron. Sectarianism is placing the interests of one’s own small group over the interests of the masses and refusing to develop our work and enter coalitions/united fronts with others. If you can’t build a united front, you will not build a vanguard worthy of the name.

Back to prisons. On January 15, 2018, prisoners in Florida organizing under Operation PUSH launched a massive, month-long lie down strike for improved conditions in their facilities. Dozens of people were repressed and thrown into solitary confinement for supposed participation in this strike, communication with outside has been blocked. This is because the demands of the Operation PUSH movement frighten and intimidate the Florida DOC. The demands aren’t even violent or demanding a takeover of the system, they demand:

1. Payment for our labor, rather than the current slave arrangement

2. Ending outrageous canteen prices

3. Reintroducing parole incentives to lifers and those with Buck Rogers dates

Along with these primary demands, we are also expressing our support for the following goals:

• Stop the overcrowding and acts of brutality committed by officers throughout FDOC which have resulted in the highest death rates in prison history.

• Expose the environmental conditions we face, including extreme temperatures, mold, contaminated water, and being placed next to toxic sites such as landfills, military bases and phosphate mines (including a proposed mine which would surround the Reception and Medical Center prison in Lake Butler).

• Honor the moratorium on state executions, as a court-ordered the state to do, without the legal loophole now being used to kill prisoners on death row.

• Restore voting rights as a basic human right to all, not a privilege, regardless of criminal convictions.

These are democratic demands that all Maoists, Communists, and other progressive elements should firmly unite with and do their damndest to support from outside. My own party building formation, MCP-OC (Maoist Communist Party — OC), along with affiliated mass organizations, has endorsed this strike and is in the process of building greater unity with all interested parties at the local and national level to work towards developing a fighting prison abolition and prisoner support movement. This is in the interests of building a broad united front and building a Maoist party worthy of the name, which can only earn such a title by building bases of support and mass ties at all levels, engaging with all interested parties, and generating prestige through patient mass work. For some reason we’re the only Maoist formation to date that has supported and is working in this movement, many of the sectarian formations see where we along with PSL, WWP, and other formations that they have line differences with have endorsed it and choose to mock or ignore it. Since we didn’t approach various sectarian formations in Austin, KC and LA about integrating themselves into the OC (so they could wreck it), we’re apparently bullshit and anything we involve ourselves in is bullshit. This coming from small sects that have existed for several years and still are counting attendance at their events in the dozens and have “mass organizations” that the masses don’t even know exist because they do nothing. If you’re in a black area of Kansas City and black people don’t know who you are or think you’re weird as hell, and you have one, two, or no black members, you’re not a mass organization. Everybody knew who the Panthers were. That’s fine, of course, but don’t expect to be taken seriously by anybody actually involved in this stuff that you’ve chosen to sit out. Sitting out mass struggles and ignoring the real movement is a nice way to end up fundamentally isolated and remain a fragmented “movement” of tiny sects with no ability to wield actual political power. So much worse for you. The people are calling. Are you for the people, or are you for yourselves and your own self-aggrandizement. Do you support prisoners, or do you support yourselves? Think on it.