The SOLE PURPOSE of a Panther

The SOLE PURPOSE of a Panther is to be a
REVOLUTIONARY in the Black/Afrikan People’s
liberation struggle, and to mobilize the
masses towards self determination. A Panther
MUST be a vanguard example at ALL
TIMES. In order to accomplish this great
and divine mission, she/he must be:
1. Spiritually, culturally, and
politically conscious.
2. Respectful and courteous to all
people and demand the
same in return.
3. Militant – Always engaged in war
for the minds and hearts of black
people, while carrying one’s self
in an organized and orderly fashion.
4. Humble – Willing to release
any arrogant attitudes or
superior ideas of one’s self.
5. Disciplined – Willing to sacrifice
your lower or personal
desires for the greater good
of the mission.

The New Afrikan Black Panther Party – An Introduction

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

My name is Shaka Zulu. I am the Chairman of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party (NABPP), a revolutionary nationalist vanguard Party in the tradition of the original Black Panther Party. Our ideology is called Pantherism, illuminated by Marxist-Leninist- Maoism (MLM). Pantherism is the theory and practice of socialist revolution for all oppressed people across the world. Pantherism holds that in order to defeat our oppressors we must build base areas of social, cultural and political power in our own oppressed communities.

We see our Party as the 21st century embodiment of the original Black Panther Party (BPP). We have set up our Party Organization in a way that absorbs ALL who can help in the development of NABPP as a cutting edge proletarian vanguard Party. We are inviting you to put your talent and energy in a revolutionary vanguard Party. The many Panther formations that have sprung up across the country, while a good thing because it means that people are doing things to advance the national liberation struggle, cannot liberate the masses from the junk of bourgeois culture until we form a fighting party, an advance detachment of proletarian consciousness and activism.

We think that it is absolutely important for all of us to be united and together as Panthers, as one huge revolutionary family cemented with Panther Love. Panther Love is revolutionary love, liberating love, world changing love. We believe that Panther Love as a viable means of unity will enable us to better advance our strategy of “Turn the Iron Houses of Oppression into Schools of Liberation, and the Oppressed Communities into Base Areas of Cultural, Social and Political Revolution.”

We have to be together to collectively deal the avarice vampire monopoly capitalist a final death blow. While we fight and divide at the bottom, the monopoly capitalist are cooperating locally and globally to maintain capitalist imperialism oppression and domination over places like Afrika, Central Asia, Latin Amerika, the Middle East, and the various oppressed nations in empireland. We cannot defeat them by being scattered and loose. We need a powerful force such as democratic centralism. Our struggle is not a race struggle, but a class struggle, an international struggle against capitalist imperialist structures which perpetuate the economic exploitation of resources, lands, markets, wage-workers, and the environment.

The Maoist Movement is international–which means that if we intend on sowing seeds of world socialist revolution–we should be proud to raise the Red flag from a position of unity.

In the Party’s newspaper Right On! #1, we stated that “Understand¬ing the role that the party must play is also understanding the role others must play and how these roles fit together to serve the highest interests of humanity. The Party cannot be all things. Its special purpose is to represent the future in the movement of the present and illuminate the path forward. It is a Black revolutionary nationalist party that recognizes that class struggle and socialist revolution is the path forward.”

The solution to all of our problems come down to revolution, socialist revolution and the correct practice of Pantherism, which is the 21st century ideology of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-PC (NABPP). So while the monopoly capitalist class oppressors remain united, our ranks exude the death of division and petty squabbles over who hold the principle political line. It comes down to really understanding the tricks the ruling class historically, consistently use to keep us divided.

Comrade Tom Big Warrior stated so eloquently in his forward to “Black Youth and the Criminalization of a Generation” that the oppressors have a strategy that unite neo-liberals and neo-conservatives all over the world. And in order to defeat them, we must develop our strategy–of building base areas of cultural, social, and political revolution–of going amongst the people and organizing and mobilizing them to take on the historic mission of making revolution.

Comrades! We have a marvelous role to play, an historic task to complete, a great opportunity to turn our single fingers into a fist of revolutionary unity by getting together under the leadership of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party (NABPP). We need you! We invite all sincere, honest, loyal Comrades to struggle with us to free New Afrikan people and all oppressed people across the world. Pantherism is the key here.

We leave you with these words from Comrade Huey: “But to achieve such freedom, we must all start at the bottom. We must fight as brothers [sisters], each in our own community or ghetto, but against the common enemy that deprives’ us of our identity, that is, that exploits us economically, politically, culturally. We are then both nationalist and internationalist. We fight for our freedom in our own terrain, but in alliance with everyone who fights: our enemy, not just because we need each other tactically but because we are brothers [sisters].”

All Power to the People!

10-Point Program and Platform of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party (NABPP)

1. We want Freedom! We want power to determine the destiny of Our Black and oppressed Community.

We believe that Black and oppressed people will not be free until We are able to determine Our destiny in our community ourselves, by fully controlling all the institutions which exist in our community.

2. We want full employment for Our people.

We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every person employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the american businessman will not give full employment, then the technology and the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.

3. We want an end to the robbery by the CAPITALIST of Our Black and oppressed Community.

We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now We are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules was promised over 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to Our many communities. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million Black people; therefore, We feel that this is a modest demand that We make.

4. We want decent housing fit for shelter of human beings.

We believe that if the landlord will not give decent housing to Our Black and oppressed community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that the people in our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for the people.

5. We want decent education for Our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us Our true history and Our role in present-day society.

We believe in an educational system that will give to Our people a knowledge of self. If a person does not have knowledge of themselves and their position in society and the world, then you will have little chance to know anything else.

6. We want completely free health care for all Black and oppressed people

We believe that the government must provide, free of charge, for the people, health facilities which will not only treat our illnesses, most of which have come about as a result of our oppression, but which will also develop preventive medical programs to guarantee our future survival. We believe that mass health education and research programs must be developed to give all black and oppressed people access to advanced scientific and medical information, so we may provide ourselves with proper medical attention and care.

7. We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people, other people of color, all oppressed people inside the united states.

We believe that the racist and fascist government of the united states uses its domestic enforcement agencies to carry out its program of oppression against Black people, other oppressed people and poor people inside the united states. We believe it is our right, therefore, to defend ourselves against such armed forces and that all black and oppressed people should be armed for self-defense of our homes and communities against these fascist police forces.

8. We want an immediate end to all wars of aggression.

We believe that the various conflicts which exist around the world stem directly from the aggressive desire of the united states ruling circle and government to force its domination upon the oppressed people of the world. We believe that if the united states government or its lackeys do not cease these aggressive wars it is the right of the people to defend themselves by any means necessary against their aggressors.

9. We want freedom for all black and oppressed people now held in u.s. federal, state, county, city, and military prisons and jails. We want trials by a jury of peers for all persons charged with so-called crimes under the laws of this county.

We believe that the many Black and poor oppressed people now held in united states prisons and jails have not received fair and impartial trials under a racist and facist judiciary system and should be free from incarceration. We believe in the ultimate elimination of all wretched, inhuman penal institutions, because the masses of men and womyn imprisoned inside the united states or by the united states military are victims of oppressive conditions which are the real cause of their imprisonment.

We believe that when persons are brought to trial they must be guaranteed, by the united states, juries of their peers, attorneys of their choice and freedom from imprisonment while awaiting trial.

10. We demand bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people’s community control of modern technology.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind require that they should declare the cause which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are most disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, that to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpation, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

All members and potential members must study and memorize Our Ten Point Program and Platform.

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Shaka Zulu 661323B
NSP
PO Box 2300
168 Frontage Rd.
Newark, NJ 07114

NABPP
PO BOX 4362
Allentown, PA 18105

Panther Dual Power Strategy By the United Panther Movement

Panther Dual Power Strategy

By the United Panther Movement

The essence of Panther strategy is to occupy space, as we can, within the confines of capitalist-imperialist society from which to resist the dictatorship of the monopoly capitalists and build community-based people’s power that is intercommunally linked and serves as a base for the worldwide united front against capitalist imperialism creating a situation of dual power until the opportunity presents itself for insurrection and seizure of power from the capitalist imperialists. In other words, our strategy is to transform the slave pens of oppression into Schools of Liberation and the oppressed communities into Base Areas of Cultural, Social and Political Revolution in the Context of Building a Worldwide United Front Against Capitalist-Imperialism.

In this we agree with aspects of both Leninist and Anarchist strategy while opposing their lack of awareness of the necessity to combine these aspects dialectically. We agree with the Leninists on the absolute need to seize state power to lead the masses of people in the work of organizing a socialist society and with the Anarchists that we cannot wait until the seizure of state power to begin to build and exercise people’s power, but such dual power cannot be an end in itself or a substitute for the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is but a stepping stone.

Generally speaking, Leninists in the advanced capitalist countries concentrate all their efforts on disseminating Marxist ideology in the form of propaganda among the masses to instill revolutionary class consciousness. Whenever the masses protest, they turn out to sell their newspapers and to recruit others to sell their newspapers. For the most part, grassroots community organizing is left to reformists and Anarchists. The original Black Panther Party (and it’s affiliates among other ethnic communities), were a notable exception. The Panthers both organized around the people’s immediate needs with “Serve The People” survival programs and carried on revolutionary agitation, education and organizing to raise the revolutionary class consciousness of the masses.

Traditionally, Marxist organizations and parties concentrate their main organizing efforts at the point of production where workers can make their power felt via the mechanism of strikes, in particular promoting the use of the political general strike. This is all well and good, but useless as far as organizing the urban poor and marginalized workers in the oppressed communities that are the Panther movement’s social base. For us, community organizing is an absolute necessity.

While the State exercises control over the communities via the local government and the police and through state social service agencies, FBI and other state agencies, there is space for dual power through independent community organizations and coalitions, people’s service programs and alternative institutions, and these provide a basis for building and sustaining a vanguard party and movement of the people rooted in the oppressed communities.

Such manifestations of grassroots people’s power will be subject to harassment and repression by the State, but our movement will be able to defend itself and fight back with the support of the community and the court of public opinion. The very laws of the State can be used to back down the State by threatening exposure of the true nature of the State as an instrument of class dictatorship and rip away the facade of “Democracy” and a “government of laws.” While guarding against the illusion of “legalism” and failing to ourselves grasp the true nature of liberal-fascism, we can mount a vigorous legal defense of our movement and rally the masses of people to protest every act of repression against us and the people in the oppressed communities.

Our purpose in the Class War is to preserve our forces and grow stronger while diminishing the authority and power of the State and its ability to maintain the status quo. From our side, this war has three phases; 1.) defensive, 2.) strategic equalibrium and 3.) the strategic offensive (or insurrectionary phase. Unlike rural-based People’s War, where the purpose is to surround the urban centers with liberated countryside, urban-based Class War seeks to create a situation of dual power within the urban centers to facilitate sustained class struggle leading to insurrection and the overthrow of the State.

On our own, the urban poor and marginalized workers cannot overthrow capitalist-imperialism, but we can act as a catalyst upon the whole proletariat and masses of people – here and internationally — to inspire them to rise up and pull down the whole rotten system. This includes winning over a significant portion of the oppressor’s armed forces – here and in their deployments internationally – to side with the people. As an important segment of these forces are drawn from our oppressed communities, it is imperative that red political power be built in the oppressed communities to win the allegiance of these sisters and brothers.

Likewise, the “souljas” of the lumpen street tribes are also our brothers and sisters and are themselves targeted for repression by the ruling class’s “War on the Poor.” Traditionally, a degree of revolutionary consciousness has existed within these organizations, due largely to the influence of the original Black Panther Party (and its affiliates). We can play an influential role in assisting these organizations to more firmly root themselves in revolutionary consciousness and unite to form a “Red Fist Alliance” with each other as part of the United Panther Movement.

Within the prisons, the RFA can play a significant role in defusing racial tensions and violence between factions and promoting unity between all prisoners and all factions in the transformation of the prisons into “Schools of Liberation.” Outside the prisons, the RFA can play a powerful role in building support for the prison movement and in creating dual power in the oppressed communities.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, and particularly Occupy the Hood, has opened up new avenues for building mass struggle. By targeting the Wall Street Oligarchy and the 1% of mega-rich monopoly capitalists, they brought forth a qualitative leap in the class struggle and the consciousness of the masses of people. We have to maintain this consciousness and build on it.

The situation of masses of homeless people and an abundance of abandoned buildings calls forth an organized squatters’ movement that can be incorporated into the transformation of the oppressed communities into revolutionary base areas. This also provides an opportunity for locating people’s institutions, such as; day care centers, soup kitchens, health care clinics, people’s coffee houses, artists’ workshops and so on in reclaimed buildings.

Small shopkeepers and business owners can be brought into the movement along with people’s co-ops and community-owned enterprises and present a united front in dealing with corporate-owned operations doing business in the oppressed communities. The workers in these establishments can be assisted in their efforts to unionize and win better conditions and wages, and the companies can be tapped to support community service programs.

The movement must necessarily grow organically and unevenly from one community to the next, nevertheless, we must always strive to create and build intercommunialism and overall centralized leadership representative of The proletarian state is temporary and will will wither away as the need for it is eliminated, but the power of the people will need to be organized continuously. The institutions created by the revolution will need to be repeatedly revolutionized and from the grassroots up. New forms of struggle will continuously emerge to challenge the established institutions and must be supported by the revolutionaries.

Dare to Struggle Dare to Win!

All Power to the People!

the rank and file to attain and maintain unity of purpose and direction. From the broadest participatory democracy we must create a vanguard party that serves the highest interests of humanity in the struggle to move society forward to achieve social justice and equality for all.

In the military phase, the Party must command the gun (the People’s armed forces) and play an increasingly complicated role in leading the insurrection and socialist reconstruction of society. At all levels of the movement we must encourage (and not merely tolerate) active ideological and political struggle (including inside the vanguard party) and broad participation of the masses in decision making. The Party must never divorce itself from the masses nor the concept of dual power.

Unity-Struggle-Transformation: On Revolutionary Organization, Leadership & Cadre Development

Introduction

The object of a revolutionary organization is to unite (and unite with), mobilize, organize and lead masses of oppressed peoples to achieve fundamental economic, political, cultural, and social change and collective security.

Founded in 2005, the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter arose within the most oppressed stratum of U.S society, (namely amongst prisoners), to take up the banner of revolutionary struggle in the interests of New Afrikans and all oppressed and exploited peoples. We aspire to become,but are not as yet a formal and functional vanguard party.

We will be formally constituted once we transition to the outside, hold a founding Congress and elect a free world Central Committee and Executive Committee (Politburo). We will befunctionally constituted only when the oppressed urban masses voluntarily embrace us as their revolutionary leadership.

Even as we remain a prison-based organization, we share an important revolutionary role which is to transform these prison plantations into liberation schools. This is the first phase of our Party’s strategy, which coincides with our having been founded inside the prisons.

The second phase of our strategy, which is largely consigned to the outside Party once established will be to transform the oppressed urban communities into base areas, where a new revolutionary economic, social, political and cultural life, and collective security will take root and thrive.

These two phases tie into a broader strategy of building a worldwide united front to overthrow this capitalist-imperialist system.

At this point comrades are still in need of practical guidance, and ideological and organizational clarity on building and consolidating a solid Party structure and mass revolutionary movement around us.

These are issues relevant to both the Prison Chapter and building the outside Party. Related questions and critiques have also been presented, some long outstanding, by our supporters and detractors alike concerning methods of building an effective political movement appropriate to existing conditions.

Some of these people of course, don’t understand or outright reject the need and importance of revolutionary leadership and organization. There is also the question of who must comprise this leadership. These are the issues we would like to address here.

On Organization and Security

On the “Left” the term “organizing” is used often and loosely. Especially by those who actually oppose forming, joining or subordinating their individual interests to the collective decision making and discipline of a revolutionary organization. Although they may exhort the virtues of “solidarity” they actually practice individualism which runs counter to building and advancing a movement for collective or mass change.

Obviously one cannot be a social organizer and not belong to a social organization. One implies the other. An organization is a body of people, never one persyn acting alone, who devise goals and work together to achieve them. It is coordinated with levels of responsibility and allocation of tasks and accountability between its members, who must perform functions alloted to them according to their means and the needs and goals of the organization.

This explicitly calls for leadership and discipline. Conversely to act individually according to one’s own whims, agenda and impulses, without accountability or responsibility, is the meaning of disorganization.

Which can only lead to chaos, division, conflict and disorder. The opposite of solidarity.

Becoming or remaining a voluntary member of any organization involves important considerations, such as whether one trusts and believes in, agrees with and understands the organization and its goals.

To the more mature and committed organizers; These are questions of especial concern and influence whether they will commit themselves wholeheartedly and long term to the group’s core principles, its work, growth, development, survival and regeneration.

It is therefore important that the group and its members be transparent if people are to know, trust and understand it. Without this the group cannot have even the foundation for “security”.

Comrade Safiya Bukhari, a former BPP and BLA leader explained:

“By definition, security means freedom from danger, fear and anxiety. Individual and organizational safety and well-being begin with the knowledge of what your about, what the organization is about, your limitations, the organization’s limitations, your strengths and the organization’s strengths. Knowledge is the key to security. History has shown that the best security depends on the internal strength of the organization and the internal principles of the people who make up the organization.” (1)

As an examples of solid organizational and individual principles she uses the creed of the Republic of New Africa (RNA) which states in the relevant part: “I will steal nothing from a brother or sister, cheat no brother or sister, misuse no brother or sister, inform on no brother or sister and spread no gossip.”

These principles, she observed, express

“an extremely important part of individual and collective security. The knowledge that the person next to you-the person working beside you-will not cheat you or lie and spread gossip about you is the basis for your feeling secure in your environment and within your organization. The ability to trust your comrades implicitly and to know with certainty what they will do in any circumstance is the best security.

The question then, is how do we get to this point? It begins with knowing what you’re about-what you want and what you believe and how far you will go to obtain it. The reciprocal reality is knowing what the organization is about. If the purpose and mission of the organization is clear, not subject to interpretation, then people joining will not be able to say that they thought the organization was about one thing when they joined only to find out later it was about something totally different.

That means that both the individual and the organization must be open and honest.” (2)

Our Party’s rules embrace standards akin to the RNA rules, which actual and potential members must know and obey. An important criteria of Party recruitment is that one’s internal principles be proven to be compatible with the Party’s.

They must also know, understand and commit to our Ten Point Program and Platform, which clearly sets out “what we want” and “what we believe”. They must also understand and adhere to our ideological and political line of Historical and Dialectical Materialism (HDM), instead of practicing dogmatism, sentimentalism, opportunism and subjectivism.

Before being recruited into the Party, comrades must prove to be dedicated and serious, and bring a great deal of voluntary discipline to this work; They must, having the courage of their convictions, be willing and able to stand firm in adversity, repression and isolation. And they must stand tall as “professional revolutionaries” meaning they must be committed foremost and completely in principle and practice to carrying forward the struggle against oppression and exploitation as their life’s work, instead of wavering, having divided loyalties, ulterior motives, other agendas or seeking individual gratifications and rewards. Only people of this caliber can be trusted by the masses to serve their interests without deviating. Hence it is they who must constitute the core of the revolutionary Party.

Indeed the moral stand of the vanguard must be “the masses first, think nothing of self.” The Party must have absolutely no private agenda to pursue and work solely to serve the people.

Supervised by the people it must never alienate or isolate itself from them, nor set itself above them. This work calls for planning, cooperation, and accountability. In a word: organization.

To proceed without order and planning is in fact counter-strategic, counter-productive and irresponsible.

Our individual moral outrage and love for the people can and should be our fuel to action, but our actual courses of action must be disciplined and informed by objective, collective, organized and scientific planning. This inherently requires and constitutes organizational leadership.

On Leadership

No revolutionary movement can proceed and succeed without a revolutionary leadership. And no one can participate in such a movement without themselves leading or misleading it or being led. To think otherwise is a mistaken idea.

As already discussed an organizer belongs and is loyal to an organization. The function of which is to collectively devise and achieve certain goals. In carrying out such goals, the organizer is in fact a leader. This is especially true when s/he seeks to inform or influence the actions of those outside the organization. Whether to induce them to aid, support or simply not oppose the organization’s ideas and goals.

So the organizer leads others, for good or for ill and regardless of whether they admit and accept their leadership role and its responsibilities. The same applies to individuals who seek to influence or inform others. In the case of a revolutionary organization which seeks to guide a mass movement, its leadership must be achieved by the voluntary consent of the people. It must be earned by proven merit, not by force, coercion, deception or fraud.

Our work in service to the People requires that we be educated by them-and in turn educate and elevate them-we must be both students and teachers.

As students we learn from them their conditions, needs and concerns, and being of the oppressed masses ourselves, we live and struggle alongside them daily, we must attentively listen to their views, remain close to them, and learn from their strengths.

If they are wrong we must explain their errors, but only after patiently hearing them out. But we don’t know everything and therefore must be good at listening and learning, accepting criticism and correcting our mistakes.

As teachers we take the masses raw and unorganized ideas and applying revolutionary theory-HDM-and understanding of the oppressive system as a whole, return their ideas to them in the form of programs, practical solutions and examples, which involve and enable them to solve their own problems. To do this Party cadre must be throughly versed in the science of HDM and be able to apply it to solving problems.

In this dialectical relationship of student and teacher, we don’t quibble over the question of leadership. Because it is inherently impossible to teach or guide or influence people’s thoughts, decisions or actions without assuming the role of leadership. And since we arealways teaching or learning, setting or following examples, we are either leading or being led.

So unlike those “Leftists” who shun the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist revolutionary line; we don’t reject the role and responsibility of leaders and leadership. Indeed we recognize that in class divided society, the thinking of every person and group reflects the perspective of the class which has influenced and molded them.

And as soon as that persyn or group opens their mouth or puts pen to paper to share their perspectives, or take actions observed by or setting an example to others, the assume the authority to influence others opinions and actions according to the values of the class which has influenced them. They then teach others. And every teacher is a leader.

Their words and actions will affect the words and actions of others who hear and observe them.

Again, whether for good or for ill, whether conscious or not, and whether they accept or deny the fact of being a teacher, leader or authority. In fact it is through perceptions of our environment and others in it that we learn and form ideas, opinions, theories etc, which in turn inform our actions.

Intelligent life reflects reflects and follows the example and influence of others, especially the more advanced members of its species.

Who among us that oppose the oppressive system, when we speak or write critical articles, poetry etc,don’t aspire to influence the ideas and by extension the actions of others in relation to the system?

We therefore deceive ourselves and others when we profess to eschew leaders and leadership. And a grave injustice is committed by those who raise rejecting leadership and “authority” to the level of political principle. There is actually a class basis to this thinking which we will further discuss below.

Furthermore, consider how absurd it would be for a teacher to challenge and change your beliefs and understandings with new perspectives (say about capitalism for example), that affect how you perceive and relate to the world at the most fundamental levels, but then tell you not to act on this information.

And not to look to them for guidance or examples in resolving the problems and contradictions they opened your eyes to, or which arise as you struggle to apply your new understanding and values.

To abandon you in this manner would be to leave you at the mercy of a society and system organized to counter all that you have just learned, inevitably compelling you to resort to it or continue upholding it just as you have always done.

This is an erroneous line which leaves many a radical to ultimately integrate into the system.

Here is what distinguishes genuine revolutionary leaders from elitist philosophers. The revolutionary leader not only consciously teaches what is wrong with the system, but also leads in teaching the masses through example and participation how to correct what is wrong.

Mao Tse Tung summarized this revolutionary Marxist line thusly:

“Marxist philosophy holds that the most important problem does not lie in understanding laws of the objective world and thus being able to explain it, but in applying these laws actively to change the world…only social practice can be the criterion of truth.”

This is where the traditional “Left” falls short. In the manner of petty bourgeois intellectuals, they analyze, criticize and interpret the world in various ways, but they fail to bring their analysis down to the level of practice to change its oppressive conditions.

At best they resort to individualist rebelliousness or counter cultural or academic retreats, which does nothing to benefit the oppressed multitudes. And why?

Because their class stand prevents it. Which is a principle reason many of them reject the need for and function of revolutionary leadership. While in truth they act as leaders and teachers of the class stance of those who talk about but don’t dare organize to solve the problems of the oppressed.

Namely the petty bourgeois. Actually deep down many of these people don’t really want to fundamentally change conditions because they have privileges to protect and fear the exercise of power from below.

So while they arouse the discontent of many, they leave them to fall on their faces when it comes to leading the masses to organize to resolve the conditions that oppress them. This leaves the People to a fate of spontaneous, unorganized rebellion which will be co-opted and or violently repressed, leading to business as usual for their exploiters and mass conformity and demoralization.

This is why the People need a revolutionary vanguard. And “vanguard” by the way simply means leadership which is what building the NABPP-PC is all about.

On Cadre Practice

A revolutionary organization is only as strong or as solid as its members or cadre, who must be rooted in the masses. Thus it is imperative that cadre be good at communicating and connecting with and solicitous of the needs and ideas of the People.

Her/his love of the People must run deep. As Che Guevara once stated: “Let me say at the risk of seeming ridiculous that a true revolutionary is motivated by great feelings of love.” But the work of revolutionaries is not to be measured by motive alone.

“How can we tell the good from the bad-by motive [the subjective intention] or by the effect [social practice]? Idealists stress motive and ignore effect, while mechanical materialists stress effect and ignore motive. In contradistinction to both, we dialectical materialists insist on unity of motive and effect. The motive of serving the masses is inseparably linked with the effect of winning their approval; the two must be united.

The motive of serving the individual or a small clique is not good, nor is it good to have the motive of serving the masses without the effect of winning their approval and benefiting them. In examining the subjective intention of a writer or artist, that is whether his motive is correct or good, we do not judge by his declarations but by the effects of actions (mainly his works) on the masses in society.

The criteria for judging subjective intention or motive is social practice and its effect.” (3)

Of course not everyone amongst the People will be receptive, friendly or interested in political or intellectual growth.

We have however found that many prisoners are interested, but are hampered by limited access to information and rules which severely restricting the amount of property and publications they may have.

So collective pooling of information and cadre lead study groups within the prisons are very important.

On the other hand, many don’t find reading and study to be “cool” and shun it. But this tendency can be combated. Like all social “fads” its subject to change under positive or negative peer influence.

Cadre must be patient, tolerant, and sensitive to the People’s needs and issues, and capable of reaching and teaching them despite the conditioned disinterest of many. Methods vary.

One method we have found highly effective is to start by showing genuine interest in what interests the persyn or people in question, this calls for being a good listener. To serve the people we must understand them and be receptive to their ideas and interests. In speaking to their interests and also what disturbs them, we should study and learn all we can about these topics and gradually connect them up to political questions showing how the liberation struggle is relevant to their interests and unfulfilled needs. One can always find connections. We should give concrete examples when able and and encourage and enable hands on participation where possible.

Not all cadre will be capable communicators, although all should struggle, especially collectively to excel in this area. It was actually in prison that Fidel Castro studied and developed his exceptional abilities as a motivational speaker. Another exceptional orator, Comrade Fred Hampton, admitted the importance of studying and practicing good oration. He once noted, “I listen to anyone who speaks well.”

It is important that we are able to speak to, inspire and touch people’s deepest ambitions, longings and feelings. Whether good speakers or not all cadre will and do have some sets of skills and abilities, and the capacity to develop others, that can contribute to the effectiveness and efficiency of the Party and its work in serving the people. As in any organized body, everyone has a part to play.

“No one person can do everything, but every person can do something-and all jobs are more or less equally important. That is the “soldier” is no more important (may in fact be less important) then the person putting out the newsletter, or the person organizing the students, or the person agitating on issues such as no-rent housing or people’s control of the airwaves…” (4)

And not all cadre will be equally advanced in applying the principles of HDM to problem solving.

At this point we daresay many Party cadre likely have little to no understanding of this Marxist science. A result of loose and inconsistent cadre training and recruitment we must resolutely and promptly address and correct. Because to apply any method of study, analysis and practice other then the scientific methods of HDM is to practice dogmatism, subjectivism, sentimentalism, and opportunism.

Therefore, an object of primary importance is to instruct and advance cadre in mastering and applying HDM. Like shooting a target, mastery comes with proper training and practice.

It also imperative for the organizational life of our Party, and for creating the leadership which can win the masses to change history, that we train cadre to become good organizers and excel at building and regenerating the Party and mass organizations as solid structures with strong inner unity and loyalty.

And also at bringing people together in collectives which ably pursue our work.

All of this is key to effective revolutionary leadership.

To enhance our effectiveness in serving, learning from and teaching the masses, cadre must be throughly knowledgeable in matters of political and social fact and phenomena, organizing, science etc.

We should be able to speak truthfully, knowledgeably and persuasively on a wide range of matters, since the enemy will use and actually cultivate an army of “experts” to attempt to discredit the truth and necessity of revolutionary theory and the diabolical workings of the system.

This also shows the value of collective leadership where we pool our knowledge and practice to collectively arrive at truth.

We must truly follow Sun Tzu’s edict to “know your enemy and know yourself and in a hundred battles you will never face defeat.” This applies at all levels-strategic and tactical-and on all fronts: economic, political, security, cultural and educational. It is especially important in cadre development and the roles within a revolutionary Party. Because to have cadre serve in roles most conducive to their abilities and the People’s and Party’s needs, we must be good at assessing each comrade’s strength and weaknesses. And by knowing the enemies strengths and weaknesses, we know where to assail and where to avoid him, and we will not become arrogant with a few successes nor demoralized by a few losses. This way we are objective in the face of triumph and failure and can adjust our plans and practice accordingly.

For there is no such thing as an unbeatable foe nor unwinnable war, only the use of the wrong tactics.

This often results from not having an objective study and understanding of one’s enemy and oneself.

Too, we must be careful to not hold ourselves out as authorities on matters we have not investigated throughly. “No investigation, no right to speak.” When it becomes apparent that we require more study and experience, we should seek it out without hesitation.

“To put forward a correct political line for the new Party, we must have concrete analysis of concrete conditions on the major questions: class struggle, the national question, trade union work, the women question, the international situation etc.” (5)

On Cadre Purpose

Cadre as pointed out, are the component parts of the revolutionary vanguard, the “professional” working class conscious revolutionaries, the most dedicated and loyal organizers.

Together they form the vanguard Party of the struggle which is the nervous system and organic part of the revolutionary movement of the masses.

Cadre must be prepared to do what the Party requires to the best of their abilities, and be good at building bases of support among the People (winning the masses over and organizing them to support the struggle and the Party). A revolutionary movement is only as effective as its leadership or its vanguard Party- “When revolution fails it is the fault of the vanguard Party.” Therefore cadre development is crucial. To this end.

“We must purposely train tens of thousands of cadres and leaders versed in Marxism-Leninism, politically farsighted, competent in work, full of the spirit of self sacrifice, capable of taking problems on their own, and devoted in serving the nation, the cadres and the party. It is on these cadres and leaders that the party relies on its links with the membership and the masses and it is relaying on their firm leadership of the masses that the party can succeed in defeating the enemy.

Such cadres and leaders must be free from selfishness, from individualistic heroism, ostentation, sloth, positivity and sectarian arrogance and they must be selfless, national and class heroes, such are the qualities and style of work demanded by the members, cadre and leaders of our party.”

-Mao Tse tung

Cadre are an indispensable requirement for revolutionary struggle. Mao demonstrated this, so did Comrade Amilcar Cabral, Afrika’s most outstanding revolutionary leader. As the founder of the revolutionary Party of Guinea Bissau in 1956, the PAIGC (6), he saw and proved that development of revolutionary cadre is key to building a successful revolutionary movement.

Initially in 1959 the oppressed workers of Guinea Bissau plunged headlong and blindly into resistance into resistance against the Portuguese colonial oppressors.

Their disastrous failure led Cabral to reassess the situation and the errors in their tactics. He then spent three years organizing and leading patient political education and preparatory work across the country while training 1000 Party cadre in his Party school to develop in them the consciousness and methods for waging a new wave of struggles under their collective leadership. He said:

“We prepared a number of cadre from the group [of declassed semi-intellectual urban youth] , some from people employed in commerce and other wage earners, and even some peasants, so that they could acquire what you might call a working class mentality mentality…when these cadres returned to the rural areas they inculcated a certain mentality into the peasants and it is among these cadre that we have chosen the people who are now leading the struggle…” (7)

These PAIGC cadre reignited the struggle in 1963 winning and mobilizing immense and immediate mass support, which quickly liberated vast sections of the country from Portuguese control. By 1969 two-thirds of the entire country was liberated and only five years later Portuguese rule was completely overthrown. Even though Cabral was himself assassinated by Portuguese agents a year before, it was the cadre trained and prepared ahead of time, that lead the people to victory.

As we discussed in a previous article, the original Black Panther Party’s efforts to lead mass struggle here in America, met with failure largely because it neglected to train and root its members here in Amerika met with failure largely because it neglected to train and root its members in revolutionary working class ideology. Instead its cadre retained and acted upon the values of their less then revolutionary class perspectives, like that of the lumpen proletariat, the petty bourgeois etc, etc.

Indeed, BPP leaders specifically promoted a lumpen class line, and even tried to advance a lumpen (as opposed to revolutionary working class) political theory to validate this line.

The failures and reversals of revolutionary mass movements here and abroad here result from the lack of ongoing working class cadre leadership.

In the past revolutionary movements have relied on the petty bourgeoisie for leadership which has given revisionism (deviation from the principles of Marxism Leninism and revolutionary proletarian political line) and every other form of petty bourgeois deviation in reversing the advances the masses have made through struggle.

The petty bourgeois have had the advantage because of their education and access to the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao. The petty bourgeois have produced some fine revolutionary intellectuals-like Marx, Engels, Lenin,Mao,Cabral, Nkrumah, and so on-but as a class they are not so ready to commit class suicide and develop working class consciousness and allegiance. Instead they impose their own class perspectives and prejudices on the proletarian movement, resisting its development into an all the way revolutionary consciousness and commitment.

However the needs of the capitalist system have created conditions (such as mass imprisonment) for some actual proletarians to get more then just basic literacy skills, and some proletarian intellectuals like Comrades George Jackson and James Yaki Sayles-have developed with access to and of revolutionary history and literature. Its no coincidence that these comrades developed within the prisons which Malcolm X once referred to as the poor man’s university.

Prisons have provided conditions for poor proletarians to have both study time and access to revolutionary literature. This is what our Prison Chapter is tapping into.

Our line of transforming the prisons into revolutionary universities is taking the revolutionary movement down a different path. Our aim is not to indoctrinate people in prison with a political line merely teaching them what to think. But to arm them with HDM-teaching them how to think and how to do so scientifically, to transform them into revolutionary cadre who can effectively lead a new wave of mass revolutionary struggle.

In training cadre we not merely give them materials and expect them to develop spontaneously. This is the importance of developing Party lead study groups and an interactive cadre study group as part of developing the prisons into liberation schools.

Cadre should be developed into critical and tactical thinkers. Therefore in training them we should balance the specifics in the application of certain tasks with encouragement to collectively think and apply critical analysis and practice; Promoting flexible thinking and work and developing tactical innovativeness. We must not encourage learning through mere memorization of general concepts but allow them to develop and experience details of tactics, techniques, historical examples, environmental effects and so on.

The Party should assimilate and circulate good ideas that develop or they will wither and die on the vine. Therefore we should develop information-sharing practices to aid in cadre and organizational development and incorporate them into our broader work.

As good organizers cadre must be good at teaching others organizing skills. They should also be conscientious in setting the best examples in character and conduct at all times. This is important because our role is not to exercise political power amongst the people, but educate, persuade, and learn from them, and set an example thereby empowering them to build their own collective institutions of political power.

Our leadership, therefore comes only on account of our unity, integrity, and ability to provide solutions to difficult problems that win mass support and through participation in the daily life, work and struggles of the masses.

This extends a great deal of prestige to the organization that must be reflected in the conduct and merit of its members. We lead by example, educate the people constantly (and should be conscious of this in our every word and deed) and must prove more principled, devoted, humble and selfless then ordinary people. This again is what qualifies one to serve as a revolutionary vanguard element.

It is also why we must guard against allowing just anyone to jump into the ranks of a vanguard or to there when proven unworthy of the people’s trust.

Also the people at low levels of political development tend to see in individuals the characteristics of an entire movement. This places a heavy responsibility on the Party, when cadre make mistakes or deviate from principles, many will attribute it to the entire movement, Party or school of thought.

Even folks on the “left” do this. How many impute errors of Joseph Stalin to all Marxist-Leninists and their ideology (although many of the critiques of Stalin are false, one-sided, or unfounded)? Also the enemy will use our mistakes to caricature and discredit the struggle before the People.

This too is why the Party must be open and accountable to the scrutiny and criticism of the masses, transparent in its relations with them, and acknowledge and rectify its errors humbly, openly and honestly to the People.

As Cabral said: “hide nothing from the masses of our people: Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories.” (9)

Cadre must be respected, respectable, reliable. They draw their moral authority to leadfrom the people not themselves. They mentor and are mentored by comrades and the people, and avail themselves of every opportunity to bring dedicated people into the struggle.

Conclusion

Hopefully, we have given comrades and Party supporters and detractors alike a clear picture of the importance of revolutionary organization, leadership, and cadre, how these things come together to form and serve as essential elements of building and ultimately succeeding in mass revolutionary struggle, and that they will not only think seriously over what we have said, but will unite with us and commit it to practice.

Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win!

All Power to the People!

Endnotes:

1: Safiya Bukhari, The War Before: The True Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison & Fighting for Those Left Behind (C.U.N.Y Feminist Press 2010) pp 37.

2: id pp 37.

3: Mao Tse Tung, Selected Works , vol III pp 88-89.

4: James Yaki Sayles, Meditations on Frantz Fannon’s Wretched of the Earth: New Afrikan Revolutionary writings by James Yaki Sayles (Montreal QC: Kersplebedeb/Chicago IL Spear & Shield 2010) p 184-185.

5: V.I.Lenin What is to Done?

6: African Independence Party of Guinea and Cape Verde Islands

7: Amilcar Cabral, The Politics of Struggle (1964)

8: Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, On the Roles and Characteristics of the Panther Vanguard Party and Mass Organizations, Right On (Vol.8, Summer 2007).

9: Amilcar Cabral. Directives of PAIGC (1965), published in Basil Davidson, The Liberation of Guinea : Aspects of an African Revolution (Baltimore MD, Penguin 1969).

-Kevin “Rashid” Johnson: Minister of Defense New African Black Panther Party (NABPP-PC) January 2012, posted from Revolutionary Initative

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On Meditations: A Weapon for Struggle

BY SANYIKA SHAKUR

 

The following is a review of Meditations on Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth: New Afrikan Revolutionary Writings by James Yaki Sayles. The review is written by New Afrikan Communist Sanyika Shakur, the author of the international bestseller Monster: the Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member, and a comrade of Yaki’s.

On Meditations: A Weapon for Struggle

We have here ideo-theoretical gold. A presentation of New Afrikan Communism so profound, clear & precise that if utilized correctly & with consistency, will raise consciousness & sharpen practice. The material here in Yaki’s Meditations On Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, runs comprehensively thru a coherent theme: a brief preface by Comrad Hondo; an editorial introduction allowing the reader to “meet” Our late comrad Yaki – which does a great job at highlighting some of the political & social circumstances & conditions that ultimately shaped this illustrious Brotha into the dynamic New Afrikan Communist he became.

We see his involvement with the student orgs & demos; his community service & his military actions, leading to his capture & imprisonment. In the kamps tho the comrad poured in on & evolved into the ideo-theoretical giant that touched Us all. Rightfully, the editors began at the beginning. Then they expertly connect the dots that will ultimately raise the consciousness & heighten the struggle.

* First, with the “War for the Cities” – which is a lesson he always taught Us which is to function with the People in the area in which you live. Deal with the People who are “off the block.” The old tired & true From The Masses to The Masses. The rad was from Chicago, so it stands to reason that this would be where he’d concentrate his initial efforts. It’s where he knew best. And yet as We see he doesn’t just say “Oh Chicago is such a bad place” – as if We can only clean-up Chicago We’d be alright. No, Yaki ties “War for the Cities” into the whole colonial matrix of u.s. imperialism. The language is precise, clear & conscious. is any ghetto – it is but one of the urban reservations that We find Ourselves stranded on.

* Second, after establishing the fact of a war – of national oppression & genocidal violence – We fall into the “Free the RNA 11: Prisoner of War” chapter – brilliant! Both Yaki’s piece & the editorial placement. Cause We are reading, studying & meditating the things that are engaging Our social consciousness: Him (Yaki); How (National Oppression); What (War); Where (New Afrika – inside amerika, “a prisonhouse of nations”); Why (capitalist-imperialist exploitation for wealth & profit) – but let me not get ahead of myself here.

In explaining who the RNA 11 are, Comrad Yaki diligently explicated how, why, where & when the Provisional Government was formed. Crucial this is because most New Afrikans, while natural citizens, remain woefully oblivious to these facts. And as such, they go unknowingly along with the current colonial-settler government of amerika because they see or know of no other alternative. Truthfully, the masses aren’t necessarily down with the U.S. government, but without an alternative they cling to what is available. So, presenting this piece after “War for the Cities” highlights the realization of Our alternative to U.S. settler government. Simultaneously it points up the lengths to which the oppressive arrangement will go to keep it’s position firm & crush any opposition. Over 500 New Afrikan Nationalists signed the New Afrikan Declaration of Independence. No more than seventy five euro-amerikans signed the U.S. declaration of independence. Imagine that. The difference? Class. Cats will get caught up on that nationality thing, or as the cultural nationalists stress, “black race”, & miss the boat altogether on the class significance that is the concrete under any struggle. But as always, Comrad Yaki blows away all that foolishness here. Yes, it’s a good thing to be around New Afrikans – but i’d rather be around Communists.

* Third, lest We forget, the Comrad (& again the editorial geniuses) goes right into “On Transforming the Colonial & ‘Criminal’ Mentality.” i remember when i first read & studied this piece back in the mid-1980s – it was shocking to me. No, seriously, because up until that time i was thinking like the old Eldridge Cleaver, that the criminal or outlaw was just like a revolutionary. That as long as he or she was breaking the law or shooting pigs they were somehow on Our side. That when the revolution matured & We hit the streets, in confrontation with the state, they’d be with Us against the law. But “On Transforming…” shattered that line of thinking & brought the truth right down front! And, in so doing, taught a fantastic lesson in dialectics.

The criminal has no qualm with capitalism, colonialism or imperialism. In fact, the criminal is in league with these evils. Why, the capitalist is who the criminal wants to be. The criminal can only flourish under capitalism – with some degree of impunity. The criminal is an individualist, a greed driven parasite, just like the capitalists. The criminal has more in common – as far as class aspirations – with the oppressor than he or she has with the working class &/or revolutionaries. Again We are confronted with class & class interests. How practical it is to run this chapter right after the “RNA-11: POW” piece; lest people get the notion that packing heat & correcting pigs is the be all & end all to revolution. To transform one’s mentality is, in essence, to commit class suicide. To alter one’s class allegiance. Of course it’s dialectical, far from static, so it can go either way, i.e. a rev can commit class suicide by becoming a capitalist or criminal. Conversely, a backward, or lumpen, individual can transform into a rev.

Also, while skilfully explaining this process, the difference between the two (rev vs. criminal) & how to go about actually doing it (thru study, struggle & practice) – the rad lays down some very important definitions: Captive Colonials (those New Afrikans captured who are not revs, but natural citizens of the Nation); Political Prisoners (New Afrikans captured for non-military anti-imperialist activity) & Prisoners of War (those New Afrikans who are captured for carrying out military strikes against the state). Also included within these definitions is the category of PP or POW where one who is already in a kamp, who has transformed his or her colonial/criminal mentality, makes political/military assertions & is consequently locked in a SHU/Control Unit for it, is recognized by Our Movement.

These definitions, along with the whole “Transforming…” piece on the criminal/colonial mentality, is of the utmost importance to have in Our ideo-theoretical arsenal because they give Us concrete lines to follow, to adhere to & to apply in Our overstanding of struggle in the belly of the beast.

* Fourth, “Scenes from the Battle of Algiers”. Now, i’ve read, studied & meditated on the “Transforming…” piece, i have read the paraphrased version of Ali Aponte’s scene in question – but i never saw the movie. Thought the Comrad’s paraphrased version was sufficient. That is until i read the actual scenes from the film! A master stroke by the editors to bring the actual scenes in. It totally brings to life what the Comrad wrote in the “Transformation” piece. It’s like seeing it as it happens & if you’re a real studier (like me) you won’t be able to help yourself from going back to the “Transformation” piece after you’ve read the actual “Scenes”. The fact is the transformation must be genuine & thorough – not an emotional commitment based on “race”, or an imagined slight, but a genuine & authentic transformation of class allegiance & interest. And this must be tied into the struggle for National independence & Socialism. i feel this piece is pivotal in the work as a whole.

* Fifth, the “Raids on Chicago Public Housing – Fact Sheet” – here We see the rad going back to the block or the hood in an effort to point up the continuing genocidal violence perpetrated under the guise of bourgeois law & order. And while this was written for Crossroad in 1989, it is just as relevant today as it was then. But what can We learn from this? We can see that We need to be more conscious & active in Our particular areas of operation – to document, study & struggle with the people who are in these conditions. Again, from the masses to the masses. And, again, like everything else, the Comrad keeps politics in command by tying the Chicago Housing Raids into the overall genocidal violence of U.S. capitalism against internal nations. Get out, get active, get involved in what’s going on where you live. Learn from the masses, keep your politics in command, transform the conditions under which you live.

* Sixth, We have the “From One Generation to the Next” piece. Again, right out of the New Afrikan P.O.W. Journals, Books 1-7. Also in abbreviated form in False Nationalism False Internationalism: Class Contradictions in the Armed Struggle. This, too, was/is beautifully placed because it clearly puts into perspective the continuity of struggle & migration. And isn’t it poignant today with what’s going on with immigration (so-called) issues with Mexicanos? Our New Afrikan ideological formulation instructs Us that just like Mexicano people (or other immigrants) who are coming across the artificial & political border in search of work & better conditions, so too did New Afrikans migrate out of the National Territory & into amerika in search of better jobs & nicer “white” folks. And, true to the social development of others, before & to come, the Northern cities proved to be devastating to Our cultural unity & awareness.

This is essentially what “From One Generation to the Next” points out. “That Ours is a struggle with continuity, unbroken except occasionally in Our own mind.”
Now, if you’re not aware at this point of Yaki’s consciousness & energy; the class nature of the struggle; the National reality of New Afrika as an internal neo-colonized Nation; or of the existence of Our Provisional Government, Declaration of Independence & the war waged against oppressed nationalities & Our efforts to extricate Ourselves from U.S. capitalist-imperialism & the need to transform your colonial (allegiance to the oppressor nation) & criminal (allegiance to individualism, exploitation & capitalist class interests) mentality – while constructing a proletarian/revolutionary mentality – then you’re not reading, studying or meditating on this work.

But read on – read over & think deeply, cause this is the truth!

Where else are you gonna find quotes by Martin Luther King, jr. on: “Extremism, Capitalism, Imperialism”? Read on.

* Seventh, “Malcolm, Model of Personal Transformation” – here, no clearer, is the actual transformation of the colonial/criminal mentality in Brother Malcolm X. And altho We know that his early stages of consciousness with the patriarchal theocracy of the NOI was hardly complete, We know that he continued to grow, transform & develop his revolutionary mentality. It’s unfortunate for Us all, however, but it is a testament to his seriousness & commitment (and correct line) that he was targeted & assassinated by reactionaries in league with the settler government. Continuously, We are confronted with class alliances that go above & beyond what’s perceived as “race”. The leadership of the capitalist Nation of Islam had more in common, on a class level, with the U.S. ruling class, than it did with people of its own Nation. So when Malcolm pointed out that the hit on Kennedy was a “case of the chickens coming home to roost” – & the bourgeois press reported it (knowing Elijah Muhammad’s class allegiance) – Elijah Muhammad acted swiftly to show his class allegiance with capitalism & submission to imperialism. He silenced Malcolm for ninety days.

Malcolm, however, had that infernal thirst for truth & genuine freedom & kept on studying & investigating other struggles that resembled Ours only to find that “every revolution fought has been against capitalism & for some type of socialism.”

We can learn a whole lot from the steadfastness of Malcolm in the face of varying degrees of adversity that rushed upon him. He committed class suicide in prison; he overcame his addiction; he became an excellent orator, recruiter & military strategist; he read, studied & meditated constantly – never being satisfied with what was. He associated with other movements & struggles. He travelled & made alliances. And, too, We must overstand that when he left the petty-bourgeois Nation of Islam, according to what his beliefs were initially, he wasn’t just going against Elijah Muhammad, but against Allah himself. Elijah Muhammad had propped himself up as the “Messenger of Allah”, so to oppose him was to oppose Allah. No easy feat, huh?

Once he found orthodox Islam he was relieved, i’m sure, to learn that that b.s. old Elijah was kicking was just that. So, Malcolm was a true revolutionary – he was the message he brought. And it is this sort of fortitude, thoroughness & conscious effort that We must strive to emulate. This is, of course, a strong piece & a well placed piece in the work. Props to the rad & kudos to the keen eye of the editors.

* Eighth, “Reflections on Victor Serge’s ‘What Everyone Should Know About (State) Repression’”. Perfect piece, perfect placement. i know i keep saying this, but building a book of this magnitude, of this depth & seriousness, is like arranging an album of classic jazz – some Bird, or Coltrane. The layout has to be coherent & consistent in order to maximize the effect. In order to realize the intent – which of course, is to heighten awareness so as to see things both as they really are as well as they can be.

So, the “Model of Personal Transformation” of Malcolm is followed by “What Everyone Should Know About (State) Repression” – can you dig that? They were able to repress & eliminate Malcolm, the Muslim Mosque Inc. & the Organization or Afro-American Unity (both of his young orgs) because their security wasn’t tight. Because there was no real culture of security.

i remember when this piece first was sent to me in 1988, the actual pamphlet the Comrads printed it in was called: “Study Notes On Secure Communications: So That We Don’t Fool Ourselves Again”. It was an eye-opening piece then & it’s still – more so – an eye popper now! Especially in the day & age of Patriot Acts & Homeland Security! It’s timely & precise. It reminds Us that any anti-imperialist activity is against the law & expect to be surveilled. Therefore work overtime to create a culture of security & need to know. The stress throughout this piece is consciousness. Overstand your situation, believe that the enemy is always alert, act always as if your phone is tapped, your mail is being opened & that anyone can be turned. It’s not about being paranoid – it’s about being secure. But again, all this stems from being conscious, overstanding your politics, keeping them in command & maintaining a working-class stand. “Never say anything over the phone that you wouldn’t say to a police officer.” Why? Because the police are your class enemy – they represent the settler state as a first line of defense & offense.

We have to overstand, dialectically, that weaknesses of every kind begin within – as a qualitative degeneration. That the primary cause of change is within a thing – anything. And that the secondary, or quantitative development is what alters the time & the space of the thing. So We know that Our old Movement was destroyed by its primary weaknesses – by the internal, or qualitative, deficiencies – & only secondarily by the outer or quantitative make up of the contradiction.

The internal was Us, Our orgs & the class make up of them & how they in turn related to each other & the masses. With no clear class-based criterion for recruitment, Our qualitative center was weak, unsound & not ready for prime time with the imperialist state. The secondary make up of this contradiction was the imperialist state as represented by its various security agencies, foundations, social orgs & loyal citizens. We learned that the FBI, or Cointelpro didn’t “destroy” Our Movement. Didn’t scatter Our forces. On the contrary, Our Movement was weakened from within. We, as the rads say, “Fooled Ourselves”. Like the New Afrikan in this piece who after discussing surveillance & knowing that others’ cars had been tagged, still refused to “be an espionage agent” – to secure himself. It’s almost as if We have grown biased against Our own safety & security. And this discussion, as pointed out by Comrad Yaki, took place at the so-called height of consciousness. And yet & still, stunning strikes were able to be made against Us by the oppressive forces.

We are not emphasizing security & safety in order to just be “safe & secure” – We are emphasizing security & safety in order to carry out Our activity of re-building. In order to raise up cadres who can relate to the masses in order to replenish ranks, in order to re-build Our Movement, in order to get free & build Socialism. If We are to do these necessary things We need to survive, to have a sense of safety & security. And of course, to make strikes. Can you see how things are building with this work? We are climbing up a ladder of consciousness, circling & spiraling towards a heightened state of revolutionary awareness. You see, the Comrad has both the practical & the theoretical experience that he brings to the table here & lays out. This work is important.

i remember what Comrad Yaki would do was type out position papers, policies & long theoretical tracts & send them out to Us wherever We happened to be. That way We’d all have the same things & then he’d expect Our comments, positions & feedback. So a lot of these Meditations on Wretched – especially Parts One, Two & Three – We (Comrads of the NAC) got in raw letter form. i can remember thinking as these papers arrived, how was he able to see things as he did – so vividly, so astoundingly clear? The answer, of course, is study & meditation. The Brotha was a “beast” – seriously. And trust me, We need beasts more than ever.

We come now upon the actual Meditations on Wretched of the Earth, the primary namesake of the work. If you’ve read my first book, Monster, you’ll know then that on page 345, i wrote about my initial arrival at San Quentin SHU (the hole) & a fellow prisoner sending me Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth. This was ’85 or early ’86. Admittedly the book was over my head – i couldn’t overstand what Fanon was saying. i even admitted this in the book. i wanted to, tho, cause i’d heard that it was considered the “Panther Bible”. Well, it now appears that not even they completely overstood Wretched of the Earth. A small consolation to what’s left of my ego…

When We started receiving these Meditations i was so grateful that the Comrad had taken the time to break down Wretched from a New Afrikan Communist perspective. This work will last a hundred years because it is the truth. And it is rich with substance & dialectical-materialist reasoning. It’s solid & concrete. It is a true weapon for Our struggle & should be read, studied, discussed, meditated upon & practiced in order to realize a better world than that in which We now live. This work will take its place next to Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat, by J. Sakai; Night-Vision: Illuminating War & Class on the Neo-Colonial Terrain, by Butch Lee & Red Rover; False Nationalism False Internationalism: Class Contradictions in the Armed Struggle; Coming of Black Genocide, by Bottomfish Blues. i won’t go into the Wretched Meditations, by now you should be ready to go forth. Trust me, this is ideo-theoretical gold! Lets get free!

Re-Build!
Sanyika Shakur
New Afrikan Communist

“MESSAGE TO REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN”

“MESSAGE TO REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN”

Black Women, Black Women,
Hold your head up, and look ahead.
We too are needed in the revolution.

We too are strong. We too are a threat to the oppressive enemy. We are revolutionaries. We are the other half of our revolutionary men. We are their equal halves, may it be with gun in hand, or battling in streets to make this country a socialist lead.

Sisters, let’s educate our people.
Combat liberalism, and combat male chauvinism. Awaken our men to the fact that we are no more nor no less than they. We are as revolutionary as they. For too long, we have been alone. For far too long we have been women without men, for far too long we have been double oppressed, not only by the capitalist society, but also by our men.

Now we are no longer alone, our men are by our sides.
We revolutionary men and women are the halves of each other.

We must continue to educate our men, and bring their minds from a male chauvinistic level to a higher level.

Our men need, want and will love the beautiful children, that come from our fruitful wombs.

They need our trust and encouragement as well as we need theirs. They need us to educate, them, the people and our children as well as we need them to educate us. Sisters, we are being called by life itself.
We are being called by the revolution.
We are mothers of revolutionaries, with us is the future of our people.

We my sisters, are mothers of revolution and within our wombs is the army of the people.

Sisters! Revolution Is Here! Bring Forth The Army! Bring Forth the Guns!

We my sisters are revolutionary women of revolutionary men!
We are mothers of revolution!

Comrade Candi Robinson

We Are All Doing Time

We Are All Doing Time by Kevin Rashid Johnson

Kevin “Rashid” Johnson

Higher Quality Audio files available, email us: info@prisonradio.org Copyright© 2011 Kevin Rashid Johnson/Prison Radio

Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

Black Panthers Speak about Criminal Injustice

Black Panthers Speak about Criminal Injustice

This newsreel footage features interviews with Huey P. Newton (from Alameda County Jail), Eldridge Cleaver, and Bobby Seale. The footage also includes scenes from a Black panther rally at Hutton Memorial Park demanding the release of Mr. Newton. In this film, Huey Newton discusses the police brutality that so many Black people experience and calls for equal treatment for blacks within the criminal legal system. Bobby Seale outlines the 10 point of the Black Panther Party Program which are: 1) Freedom; 2) Full Employment; 3) Decent Housing; 4) End of Robbery of Black Communities by Whites; 5) Education, 6) Exemption of Blacks from Military Service; 7) End police brutality and murder of blacks; 8) All Blacks to be released from jail and prison; 9) Fair Trials; 10) Land, Bread, Housing, & Education.

Kevin Rashid – What is a “Comrade” and Why We Use the Term

by Rise Up

 

Kevin “Rashid” Johnson

Minister of Defense, NABPP-PC

 

What is a “Comrade” and Why We Use the Term

 

The concept of “Comrade” has a special meaning and significance in revolutionary struggle. We have often been asked to explain our use of this term, especially by our peers who are new to the struggle, instead of more familiar terms like “brother,” “homie,” “cousin,” “dog,” nigga,” etc.

Foremost, is that we aspire to build a society based upon equality and a culture of revolutionary transformation, so we need to purge ourselves of the tendency to use terms of address that connote cliques and exclusive relationships. A comrade can be a man or a woman of any color or ethnicity, but definitely a fellow fighter in the struggle against all oppression.

Terms like “mister” or “youngster” imply a difference of social status, entitlement to greater or lesser respect and built-in concepts of superiority or inferiority. Terms like “bitch,” “dog,” nigga,” “ho,” etc., are degrading and disrespectful – even when used affectionately – as some do to dull the edge of their general usage in a world that disrespects us.

“Comrade,” however, connotes equality and respect. It implies “I’ve got your back,” and “we are one.” Comrades stand united unconditionally, and if need be, to the death. It implies a relationship that is inclusive, not exclusive, and not based on any triviality but revolutionary class solidarity. It represents the socialist future we seek to represent in the struggles of today, and the eventual triumph of classless communist society.

Most forms of address used by New Afrikans carry subtle implications of differing status and worth, or were originally meant to insult and dehumanize us. Embracing these terms has led to our subconsciously embracing these roles, and feeling and believing we are inferior and treating each other as worth less than others. So it is definitely important that we remind ourselves constantly that we are equal to and as good as anyone else and address each other accordingly. As Malcolm X put it in an interview with the Village Voice in 1965:

“The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first, then you’ll get action.”

“Wake them up to their exploitation?” the interviewer asked.

“No,” Malcolm replied, “to their humanity, to their own worth.”

Conscious use of the term “Comrade” instead of the many disparaging terms of address popular today, explicitly connects all people up as humans and equals. It reminds us of our interdependence for survival; promotes relations of equality, friendship and camaraderie between all oppressed and exploited people; it expresses the unified outlook of the proletariat; and it will promote a change in people’s outlook and thinking. It’s use identifies those committed to the revolutionary struggle and represents the future in the struggles of today.

As Amilcar Cabral expressed in “Our People are Our Mountians”: “I call you ‘comrades’ rather than ‘brothers and sisters’ because if we are brothers and sisters it’s not from choice, it’s no commitment; but if you are my comrade, I am your comrade too, and that’s a commitment and a responsibility. This is the political meaning of ‘comrade’.”

In the interpyrsonal sense, camaraderie binds people by respect, mutual support and trust, making organizations cohesive and stable. It builds and cements unity in the process of struggle, generating mutual confidence between people, affirming that we can rely upon each other regardless of the dangers that come from standing for the people and social justice for all.

Examples of genuine camaraderie are inspirational to the people and build their willingness to make a commitment to the struggle. The development and maintenance of organizational structure depends on the close and genuine camaraderie of the revolutionaries – what we call Panther Love!

Black Liberation in the 21st Century: A Revolutionary Reassessment of Black Nationalism

Kevin Rashid is a political prisoner and communist
revolutionary in the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter, an
organization formed within prison. We present present Rashid’s
reassessment of the Black liberation movement for discussion. This piece
first appeared in Right On! #19

“Revolution.” Artwork Courtesy of Kevin Rashid

“[T]rue revolutionary leaders must not only be good at
correcting their ideas, theories, plans or programs, when errors are
discovered… but when a certain objective process has already progressed
and changed from one stage of development to another, they must also be
good at making themselves and all their fellow revolutionaries progress
and change in their subjective knowledge along with it….” -Mao
Tse-tung, On Contradiction  

Introduction

Some time ago comrades of the New Afrikan Maoist Party (NAMP)
expressed a desire to reconcile contradictions between their line and
the line of our New Afrikan Black

Panther Party—Prison Chapter (NABPP-PC) on the question of Black
National Liberation in the 21st Century. On this question, NAMP along
with several other organizations—including the New Afrikan People’s
Organization (NAPO), the Provisional Government of the Republic of New
Afrika, the Maoist International Movement (MIM) and others promote the
Black Belt Thesis (BBT) as it was set out by the Comintern (Third
Communist International) in the 1920s.

The NAMP comrades are correct in pointing out that our respective
organizations have a major line contradiction on this question. We have
as yet not publicly fleshed out our line on this, in contrast to that of
NAMP and others, so it is time we did so in a formal position paper.

In developing our line on the Black National Question in the U.S. we
have applied the method of historical dialectical materialism and
deepened the analysis put forward by Huey P. Newton of the original
Black Panther Party (BPP). This means we do not hold dogmatically and
idealistically to outmoded ideas and formulations that no longer fit the
current situation. Instead we base our analysis on the study of
concrete conditions in the context of their actual historical
development, realizing that everything is in a state of motion and
development from a lower to a higher level, and that correct ideas
develop in struggle and contradiction with incorrect ones.

The Black Belt Thesis and the New Class Configuration of the New Afrikan Nation

The BBT was developed by the U.S. “Black Bolshevik,” Harry Haywood,
in his 1928 and 1930 “Comintern Resolution on the Negro Question,” which
was adopted by the Comintern and the U.S. Communist Party with support
from V.1. Lenin. It holds that Blacks in Amerika (New Afrikans)
constitute a nation within the territorial U.S. and that we should
establish our own sovereign national territory in Alabama, Mississippi,
Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina (the “Black Belt” also  known as
the “Cotton Belt”). The states were chosen because we slaved there and
developed and evolved as a national group and “internal colony” where
Blacks made up the majority. The principle factors which supported the
BBT were economic and demographic that existed in the 1920s but no
longer exist today.

No one can sensibly deny that Black people were forged into a “nation
within a nation” because of their loss of Afrikan national identity
under slavery and exclusion from the white Amerikan nation under
conditions of “Jim Crow” segregation. Nor can one deny that this nation
is bound to its Afrikan origin and defined by the imposed value that a
drop of Afrikan blood sets one outside of the “melting pot” of white
Amerikan society.

But where the BBT breaks down is that our present situation doesn’t
fit into the neat definition used by the Comintern in the 1920s. The
reality is more complex today.

At the time the BBT was developed, Blacks in the “Black Belt” were a
predominantly peasant (sharecropper) nation tied to cotton production.
This condition was also shared by many poor whites and some Indians and
mixed bloods. The BBT was based on Comrade J.V. Stalin’s analysis of the
National Question as essentially a peasant question. Unlike the
analysis put forward by Lenin, and more fully developed by Mao, Stalin’s
analysis limited the National Question to essentially a peasantry’s
struggle for the land they labored on geographically defined by their
having a common language, history, culture and economic life together.
Hence the slogans “Free the Land!” and “Land to the Tiller!”

Indeed, ALL the national liberation struggles of the 20^th Century
occurred in peasant-based societies in opposition to colonial or
neo-colonial domination and feudal or semi-feudal class oppression.
Today, however, the Black population within the U.S. is no longer a
rural peasantry. It is overwhelmingly a proletarian nation (wage slaves)
dispersed across the U.S. and concentrated in and around urban centers
in predominantly Black or multi-ethnic oppressed communities.

The trend since World War I has been towards migration away from the
“Black Belt” South and from the rural to the urban setting (even within
the South). Check this out from “1001 Facts” on Black History:

“African Americans continued to move northward and cityward after
World War I in 1918. In fact, the migration increased during the 1920s
as another million southern African Americans picked up their bags and
left southern living conditions. The migration expanded in the 1930s as
the New Deal Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 forced many more to
migrate once the AAA paid white southern farmers not to produce crops
and made it profitable to dispense with Black sharecroppers.
Technological advances such as the cotton picker machine made large
numbers of unskilled agricultural laborers obsolete in southern
agriculture. Then, as World War II began, Black mass migration exploded
and nearly 5 million African Americans left the South for the North from
1940 to 1960… [This] Second Migration created huge ghettos in all the
major American cities. Whereas in 1890 close to 90 percent of African
Americans lived in the South, by 1960 only 50 percent of African
Americans still resided there. Moreover, the movement north was also a
movement toward urban rather than rural living. By 1990 over 84 percent
of African Americans lived in urban areas, making ‘African American’ and
‘urban’ almost synonymous in modem America.”

Therefore, without need of pursuing a struggle to achieve a New
Afrikan nation state, we have achieved the historical results of
bourgeois democracy, at least as far as transforming ourselves from a
peasant to a predominantly proletarian national grouping through the
“Great Migration.”

Of course the Amerikan liberal democratic revolution begun in 1776,
which was continued by the Civil War (1861-1865), remains unfinished—in
particular as far as Black people are affected. Pre-capitalist forms of
exploitation continue to exist, such as the “slave status” of U.S.
prisoners, institutionalized torture, legalized “lynching” as embodied
in the racist death penalty, and all manifestations of racism, sexism
and discrimination that prevent all from enjoying the “life, liberty and
pursuit of happiness” promised by liberal democracy.

To complete the liberal democratic revolution and move forward to
socialist reconstruction the proletariat must lead the struggle which is
stifled by the increasingly antidemocratic, fascistic and reactionary
bourgeoisie. The bourgeois are no longer capable of playing a
progressive role in history.

The Revolutionary Advantages of Our Proletarian National Character

That we New Afrikans are now a predominantly proletarian nation—and
one without a national territory—is an advantage to the cause of
building a multi-ethnic, multiracial socialist Amerika. Indeed, it
thrusts us into playing a vanguard role in leading the whole working
class and the broad masses in pulling down the capitalist-imperialist
system and achieving social justice for all.

This conception of our historical role corresponds with Lenin’s and
Mao’s lines on the National Question which we contrast with Stalin’s and
dogmatic continuation of the BBT. Lenin and Mao saw the national
question primarily as a matter of building the ranks of the proletarian
revolution to pull down the system of imperialism. In fact, in all of
his writings on Black liberation in the U.S. Mao consistently talks
about merging the Black liberation struggle with the proletarian
revolutionary struggle in the U.S. He doesn’t mention the land issue
once. In A New Storm Against Imperialism, (April 16, 1968), he stated:

“Racial discrimination in the United States is a product of the
colonialist and imperialist system. The contradiction between the Black
masses in the United States and the U.S. ruling circles is a class
contradiction. Only by overthrowing the reactionary rule of the U.S.
monopoly capitalist class and destroying the colonialist and imperialist
system can the Black people in the United States win complete
emancipation. The Black masses and the masses of white working people in
the United States have common interests and common objectives to
struggle for.

“Therefore, the Afro-American struggle is winning sympathy and
support from increasing numbers of white working people and progressives
in the United States. The struggle of the Black people in the United
States is bound to merge with the American workers’ movement, and this
will eventually end the criminal rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist
class.”

In his August 8, 1963 article, Oppose Racial Discrimination by U.S.
Imperialism, Mao’s emphasis is on racial discrimination, not “Free The
Land!” He sees Black liberation as driving forward the United Front
Against Capitalist-Imperialism and pulling white workers and other
strata towards socialist revolution in the U.S. The issue is not
integration versus separation but revolution.

Even Malcolm X came to embrace this position. In fact, every popular,
independent Black leader who came to hold this view and actively
advanced it was promptly assassinated. Why? Because neither separation
nor integration threatens the imperialist system—socialist revolution
does!

Separation, Integration or Revolution?

Take Brother Malcolm; in his early stages of political development,
he promoted Black separatism. Based upon his observation of independence
struggles across the predominantly peasant-based Third World of the
1950s and early 1960s, he adopted the view that revolution was about
land, and he embraced the slogan “Free The Land!”, which he elaborated
on in his Message to the Grassroots speech given in 1963. However, in an
April 6, 1964 speech given in Harlem, he expressly rejected both Black
separatism and integration, in favor of revolutionary change of Amerika
as a whole. He stated:

“We have to keep in mind at all times that we are not fighting for integration, nor are we fighting for separation. We are fighting for recognition… for the right to live as free humans in this society” [my emphasis]

Malcolm increasingly came to identify capitalism and imperialism as
the ultimate enemy—embracing the need of Afrikan people everywhere to
consolidate their struggles into a united Pan-Afrikan movement, and for
Blacks in Amerika to unite in a common struggle with all the
“have-nots”, regardless of their skin color, against the common
exploiters who try to divide everyone and play us against each other. It
was at this crucial stage of his development as a revolutionary that he
was silenced with a bullet.

A few months before his assassination, Malcolm X criticized his earlier views on separatist Black Nationalism, finding that:

“I was alienating people who were true revolutionaries dedicated to
overturning the system of exploitation that exists on this earth by any
means necessary…. I had to do a lot of thinking and reappraising of my
definition of Black Nationalism. Can we sum up the solution to the
problems confronting our people as Black Nationalism? And if you notice,
I haven’t been using the expression for several months. But I would
still be hard pressed to give a specific definition of the overall
philosophy which I think is necessary for the liberation of Black people
in this country.”

At the opposite pole, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—who was initially
pro-integration and pro-capitalist—also came to identify capitalism and
imperialism as the ultimate enemy, expressly rejecting integration and
privately promoting socialist revolution in Amerika as the way forward.
He stated in November 1967: “Something is wrong with capitalism as it
stands here in the U.S. We are not interested in being integrated into
this value structure.” During later 1967 and 1968, shortly before his
assassination, King repeatedly promoted socialism to his inside circle,
but he refused to make this stand publicly for fear of government
assassination. But his private statements, public opposition to U.S.
imperialist wars abroad, and support for the rights of the poor and
workers’ strikes were enough for the imperialist ruling class to mark
him for death.

George Jackson, pursuing the same path and arriving at the same
conclusions in a more developed way, was likewise cut down by an
assassin’s bullet. He observed:

“It’s no coincidence that Malcolm X and M.L. King died when they did.
Malcolm X had just put it together…. You remember what was on his lips
when he died, Vietnam and economic, political economy. The professional
killers could have murdered him long before they did. They let Malcolm
rage on Muslim nationalism for a number of years because they knew it
was an empty ideal, but the second he got his feet on the ground, they
murdered him.”

Despite Malcolm X’s and even King’s clearly-stated revolutionary
positions that New Afrikan liberation lies neither in assimilation
(accommodation) nor separation (running away), but in fundamentally
changing Amerikan society as a whole, so that we can live as a free
people right here, the Black Movement, and those purporting to lead it,
have remained deadlocked between these two less than revolutionary
positions. The original Black Panther Party has been the notable
exception.

The Panthers recognized that the New Afrikan Nation can neither
effectively separate from nor integrate into capitalist imperialist and
white supremist Amerika. Neo-colonialism precludes the former and racist
national oppression precludes the later. Our path to liberation—which
even the Panthers found a bit difficult to consistently articulate—is to
overthrow U.S. imperialism and play a leading role in the global
proletarian revolution and socialist reconstruction. We must be the tip
of the spear and rally everyone who has contradictions with imperialism
to unite with us.

Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, who were greatly influenced by
Malcolm X, were organizing in this direction, in implementing the BPP’s
10 Point Program and Serve The People (STP), survival programs while
carrying out revolutionary agitation, education and political organizing
to build community-based people’s power. Huey saw that Blacks were an
oppressed nation inside Amerika, but his ideas on charting our path to
liberation took a quantum leap forward when he visited and toured Mao’s
revolutionary China. There he found that numerous racial and ethnic
minorities had attained genuine liberation within China’s socialist
state, without separating or integrating in the classic sense.

What Huey observed in China gave him a blueprint for organizing Black
folks to become self-reliant in the very urban communities where they
were concentrated in preparation for revolution in the U.S. The BPP’s
implementation of these ideas quickly earned it the label of the
“greatest threat to imperialism’s security, and the U.S. government
concentrated its forces in an all-out campaign to destroy the Panthers.
Here’s what Huey found in People’s China that inspired the BPP’s STP
survival programs and illuminated his ideas about Black liberation in
Amerika:

“I saw, crystal clear, how we can start to reduce the kinds of
conflicts that we’re having in [Amerika]. I saw an example of that in
China… what I saw was this: when I went there, I was very unenlightened
and I thought I knew something about China. I thought, as it has been
said so often, that China would be a homogeneous kind of racial/ethnic
territory. Then I found that 50 percent of the Chinese territory is
occupied by a 54 percent population of national minorities, large ethnic
minorities. They speak different languages, they look very different,
and they eat different foods. Yet there is no conflict. I observed one
day that each region—we call them cities—is actually controlled by those
ethnic minorities, yet they’re still Chinese…. I’m talking about a
general condition in China where ethnic minorities I’ve observed control
their whole regions. They have a right to have representation in the
Chinese Communist Party. At the same time they have their own
principles…. The cities in this country could be organized like that,
with community control. At the same time, not Black control so that no
whites can come in, no Chinese can come in. I’m saying there would be
democracy in the inner city. The administration should reflect the
people who live there.”

While Huey proved less than adept at linking together, organizing and
leading a multi-racial anti-imperialist united front in Amerika, Fred
Hampton, the leader of the BPP in Chicago, successfully pulled together a
revolutionary coalition of poor whites (Rising Up Angry and The Young
Patriot Party), Puerto Ricans (the Young Lords Organization), Mexicans
(the Brown Berets) and various student groups known as the “Rainbow
Coalition.” He was being considered for promotion to national leadership
when he as killed in his bed by FBI and Chicago police in a planned
assassination.

Around the country the Black Panthers did inspire and forge alliances
with many different ethnically-based groups including the White Panther
Party, I Wor Kuen (Chinese), Ang Katipunan (Filipino), the American
Indian Movement (AIM) and many others. This was paving the way for a
revolutionary united front against imperialism rooted in the oppressed
communities.

The NABPP-PC also finds relevance in Huey’s theoretical concept of
“Revolutionary Intercommunalism”, which recognized that the U.S. no
longer fits the classical definition of a nation state nor do the
countries under its neo-colonial domination. Using “Dollar Diplomacy”,
along with covert operations and outright invasions, the U.S. has
successfully imposed itself upon all of the former European colonies and
overthrown the socialist-oriented governments brought to power by
national liberation struggles in the 3ed World. This paved the way for
the U.S. becoming the world’s sole imperialist superpower. Amerika’s
consolidation of global power since the collapse of the Soviet Union and
the increasingly globalized economic interdependence gives greater
credibility to Comrade Newton’s theory of “Intercommunalism,” but we
embrace this theory conditionally, recognizing that nation states still
exist in the geo-political sense under various political and military
set ups of “reactionary intercommunalism,” although they exist within a
system of relative dominant and subservient positions with the U.S. in
the position of “Top Dawg.” The shackles of bourgeois nationalism still
bind the productive forces of the various nations to some degree, from
which world proletarian socialist revolution will liberate them,
creating the conditions for “revolutionary intercommunalism.’

Reassessing the National Liberation Question

As every national liberation struggle in the 20th Century has
demonstrated, genuine national liberation and self determination have
been unattainable. In each case the capitalist-imperialists have created
and appealed to aspiring native bourgeois and petty-bourgeois elements
within the oppressed national groups and used these puppets to derail
their own people’s liberation struggles. They have used “Dollar
Diplomacy” to forge neo-colonial bonds upon these new republics.

Through their neo-colonial designs, the budding socialist and
non-aligned Third World blocs were undermined and overthrown (sweeping
the tillers off the land) and their natural resources and productive
forces were brought under U.S. imperialist domination (with other
imperialist powers getting a share). In this world of U.S. imperialist
hegemony, any New Afrikan struggle for independence and separation from
the U.S.—along the lines of the BBT—would suffer the same fate in
spades. Even if we did manage to reconstitute ourselves as a territorial
nation in the “Black Belt,” we would only join the ranks of imperialist
dominated Third world nations—and with the imperialist U.S. right on
our border.

At a time when few within the Third World national liberation
struggles foresaw the danger of U.S. neo-colonialism, Amilcar Cabral
sounded a warning to other leaders of anti-colonial national liberation
movements in the Third World. He questioned whether the national
liberation movements were altogether born of the colonial peoples’
determination to be free or if they were also to some degree instigated
by imperialism to create and “liberate” Third World bourgeois and
aspiring petty bourgeois forces to serve as imperialist agents and
“front men” to impede and counter the growth of world socialism and
create global U.S. imperialist hegemony. Few took heed to his words—then
or now. Here is Cabral:

“In Guinea, as in other countries, the implementation of imperialism
by force and the presence of the colonial system considerably altered
the historical conditions and aroused a response—the national liberation
struggle—which is generally considered a revolutionary trend; but this
is something which I think needs further examination. I should like to
formulate this question: is the national liberation movement something
which has simply emerged from within our country, is it a result of the
internal contradictions created by the presence of colonialism, or are
there external factors which have determined it? In fact I would even go
so far as to ask whether, given the advance of socialism in the world,
the national liberation movement is not an imperialist initiative. Is
the juridical institution which serves as a reference for the right of
all peoples to struggle to free themselves a product of the peoples who
are trying to liberate themselves? Was it created by the socialist
countries who are our historical associates? Let us not forget that it
was the imperialist countries who recognized the right of all people to
national independence.”Cabral went on to point out the inherent
contradiction in the imperialists “promoting” Third World national
independence if indeed such struggles were a threat to imperialism:

“This is where we think there is something wrong with the simple
interpretation of the national liberation movement as a revolutionary
trend. The objective of the imperialist countries was to prevent the
enlargement of the Socialist Camp, to liberate the reactionary forces in
our countries which were stifled by colonialism, and to enable these
forces to ally themselves with the international bourgeoisie. The
fundamental objective was to create a bourgeoisie where one did not
exist, in order specifically to strengthen the imperialist and the
capitalist camp.”—Amilcar Cabral. The Politics of Struggle, (1964)

Cabral found that “what really interests us here is neocolonialism,”
which he observed was a new phase of imperialism devised after World War
II to replace the old colonial system, by “grant[ing] independence to
the occupied countries plus ‘aid.”

Witnessing the failed promises of ‘national liberation’ Cabral
recognized that to be genuinely revolutionary and ‘liberating’ the
struggles for national independence had to be joined with the struggle
of the international proletariat. He concluded:

“… that imperialism is quite prepared to change both its men and its
tactics in order to perpetuate itself. it will make and destroy states
and. as we have already seen, it will kill its own puppets when they no
longer serve its purposes. If need be, it will even create a kind of
socialism, which people may soon start calling ‘neo-socialism.’ if there
has been any doubts about the close relations between our struggle [for
national liberation] and the struggle of the international working
class movement. neo-colonialism has proved that there need not be any.”
-Ibid.

Even the U.S. imperialists admitted using such “new tactics” of
neo-colonialism as Cabral observed in supporting Afrika and Asia’s
various national liberation movements. In the words of Vice President
Richard Nixon on his return from a 1957 tour of Afrika:

“American interests in the future are so great as to justify us in
not hesitating even to assist the departure of the colonial powers from
Africa. If we can win native opinion in this process, the future of
America in Africa will be assured.” Quoted in Dirty Works 2: The CIA in Africa, edited by Ellen Ray, et al. (Seacaucus; Lyle Stuart, Inc., 1979, p. 58)

Accord this statement of the U.S. National Security Council:

“We must recognize, although we cannot say it publicly, that we need
the strong men of Africa on our side. It is important to understand that
most of Africa will soon be independent…. Since we must have the strong
men of Africa on our side, perhaps we should in some cases develop
military strong men as an offset to Communist development of the labor
unions.” Quoted verbatim from the record of a January 14, 1960 meeting
of the NSC

So clearly the U.S. government favored pushing its European rivals
and their colonial governments out of Afrika by supporting the Afrikan
national liberation struggles, by backing or placing native puppets at
the head of those anti-colonial movements. In doing so:

‘The stage was set for the transition to neo-colonialism: formal
political independence for the African countries, but continued economic
domination by imperialism, with imperialist political control exerted
indirectly through bureaucratic African governments more or less
subservient to imperialism, and military control exerted indirectly
through covert links between imperialist powers and African
military/police hierarchies” Daniel Fogel, Africa in Struggle: National Liberation and Proletarian Revolution, (ISM Press: CA, 1982, p.116).

National ‘Liberation’ has therefore proved empty of substance to
oppressed Third World peoples, absent the defeat of imperialism, just as
it would be in a struggle for New Afrikan national ‘liberation’ in the
southern U.S. territory absent the defeat of imperialism.

Moreover, any such struggle would almost certainly degenerate into an
imperialist-sponsored race war, similar to what went down in the Kosovo
conflict (1998-1999), and present day Sudan. In any such struggle,
Blacks would be at a decided disadvantage—witness our helplessness in
the face of the Hurricane Katrina Crisis and attendant martial law in
Louisiana and Mississippi (both “Black Belt states). And in that crisis
we didn’t have to contend with angry and desperate whites fighting to
keep their land and homes. Or do our proponents of the BBT expect whites
in the “Black Belt” to passively concede the territory and leave? Or do
they think we will just grab the imperialists by the throat and demand
that they give us five states, make all the arrangements, and then let
us run the show there without interference?

And what about the white proletarians who live in the “Black Belt?”
What stake would they have in this? Or would we want to just push them
into the arms of the reactionaries opposing us? Such a plan would only
divide the proletarians along racial lines, set them against each other
and give the imperialists a free hand to play the “Divide and Rule” game
‘Willie Lynch” style.

Furthermore, our migration back to the “Black Belt” would be “a leap
from the frying pan into the fire” for how would we survive in the
already poor economy of the rural South? “Returning to the Land” may
sound romantic, but trying to bust a living out of the depleted soil of
the Deep South was a dead end that caused the “Great Migration” in the
first place.

And what a loss it would be to the international proletariat for us
to give up our strategic positions within the urban centers across
Amerika. Of course revolutionary work should be done among the people of
the “Black Belt” South (including the poor whites and others) as well,
as part of building the revolutionary movement to overthrow
capitalist-imperialism.

The BPP did not promote a mass exodus of New Afrikans back to the
“Black Belt; rather they correctly looked to New Afrikan
self-determination right in the oppressed urban communities where Black
people are concentrated. It really wasn’t until Harry Haywood’s book
Black Bolshevik was published in 1978 that the BBT was revived among the
New Communist Movement in the U.S. The name New Afrikan was adopted by a
convention of 500 Black Nationalist leaders in Detroit in March of 1968
at a Black government conference.

For the NABPP-PC “New Afrikan” is more than the latest in a series of
monikers given to Black people in Amerika. Afrika is our common
heritage. It (not the “Black Belt) is our common historic homeland. When
a Black person comes to Amerika from the Caribbean, Brazil or from
Afrika they become a part of the New Afrikan Nation in Amerika—and
suffer national oppression and discrimination—even though their
ancestors never set foot in the “Black Belt.”

As proletarians, our relationship to production and the world economy
makes us “New” and different from the peasantry of the Third World and
our ancestors in the Old South. Even if we could go back it would be a
retrogressive step—and we doubt this is what the Black masses want.

We Have Not Liquidated the National Question

By our pointing out that the shift from peasantry to proletarian and
from rural to urban has fundamentally changed the National Question for
New Afrikans, we expect some critics will accuse us of having
“liquidated” the National Question. For those who dogmatically apply
Stalin’s analysis, the problem is: “How can we be a nation without a
land base?”

We reiterate that the issue is a bit bigger and more complex than that.

If we look at the New Afrikan Nation as being part of a greater
Pan-Afrikan Nation, inclusive of the peoples of Afrika and the Afrikan
Diaspora (as Malcolm X did, and this liberation struggle in the context
of world proletarian socialist revolution, then we shall see the issue a
bit differently. Then we can also see our struggle within the context
of a future socialist Amerika that is multi-ethnic and a strong ally of
the oppressed peoples internationally.

The proletariat fundamentally has no country and seeks to create a
world without boundaries or nation states. So to the proletariat
national liberation is not an end in itself but a stage to pass through
on the road to World Communism. It is a stepping stone to greater unity
and the ending of all oppression.

There are many white comrades (Communists, Socialists, Anarchists,
Radicals and Progressives) who are committed to supporting Black
liberation because it serves the cause of liberating all of humanity
from imperialism and exploitation, and because it strengthens the
workers’ movement. The cause of uniting the Black liberation struggle
with the proletarian class struggle is a step towards the total
liberation of humanity and the whole world becoming one people.

Just as the proletariat seeks to abolish itself as a class by
abolishing all classes, we must seek to abolish ourselves as a nation by
abolishing all nations—all national divisions and all national
oppression. But this has to begin with liberating ourselves as nations
from the grip of colonialism, neocolonialism and imperialism. Just as
the proletariat must rise as a class and “pick up the gun to put down
the gun” (what is the state but a special body of armed men and wimyn?),
we create nation states only to render them obsolete and allow them to
fade away when they are no longer necessary. The transitory nature of
nation states under socialism is clear.

Comparing Racial and National Oppression

We can only speak of New Afrikan national liberation because we
suffer from national oppression. National oppression is linked to but
not the same as racist oppression. The people of Haiti don’t just suffer
national oppression as citizens of a Third World nation but also racist
oppression because they are black. Iceland is a small island nation
too, but if an Icelander family emigrates to the U.S., they will be
accepted as whites. If a Haitian family moves here they will face racial
oppression. All people of color, to one degree or another, suffer
racist oppression because of the institutionalization of the ideology of
white supremacy.

The Haitian family will suffer oppression and discrimination in the
U.S. because they are immigrants, because they are Black, and because
they are not white. A Korean family will have to face the first and the
last but not the specific oppression and discrimination leveled at
Blacks (New Afrikans in Amerika). This oppression is rooted in the
history of slavery (not just in the “Black Belt” South) and colonialism
that spawned the white racist mentality.

Whereas in Amerika, the oppression of the indigenous people is a bit
different. People with Indian features (“Skins”) suffer   from national
oppression and so do Indians with black or white-skinned features. Black
Indians are also oppressed as New Afrikans. White-skinned Indians (if
they are identifiable by their dress) may be subjected to racial slurs
and discrimination, but this is really national oppression. There is a
difference between “white Indians” and “white people” in Amerika, but
the difference is national rather than racial.

Within the Indian nations there are divisions between “Bloods” and
those who are perceived as “Black Indians” and “White (or mostly white)
Indians.” These contradictions (which can be antagonistic) between “Red:
“White” and “Black” members of the same oppressed indigenous nations
are a reflection of the culture of racism that permeates Amerikan
society (a colonial settler state) and projects throughout the world.

We do not (as many Black nationalists do) confuse race with
nationality. Nationality is not confined by race. One can change their
nationality. One can also have dual or multiple nationalities. One can
be a Puerto Rican and a New Afrikan (and also a Taino Indian). One can
be a Palestinian, an Arab and a New Yorker all at the same time.
National identity is a complex issue.

Do not some New Afrikans identify primarily as Amerikans? What is
Obama trying to sell us? Yet look around any prison and what do you see?
Look at the statistics on poverty, infant mortality, hunger,
unemployment, and violent deaths. These tell a very different story—one
of continued (and intensified) national and class oppression for the
Black masses in the U.S.

I have written before that:

“As revolutionary New Afrikan nationalists, we realize that there is a
contradiction between race and nationalism, and moreover, that there is
no nation composed of a single race. All existing nations, like the
Indian nations here in North Amerika, include whites and mixed bloods,
even though there are contradictions. It was the policies of white
colonialism created by the ruling class that produced these
contradictions, and indeed the New Afrikan Nation. In this regard, we
say all people of Afrikan heritage, regardless of skin tone, are part of
a single New Afrikan Nation a Pan-Afrikan Nation. Indeed, most “Blacks”
in Amerika are “mixed bloods; mixed with white and/or Indian
bloodlines.

“We therefore move beyond black and white dogmatism Native Americans
have always done this in adopting any “race” of people into their
nations who embrace and respect their heritage and culture. All
non-chauvinistic nations have done this. We also accept that
nationalities can overlap and are not merely an either/or situation.
People the world over embrace multiple nationalities, and so can New
Afrikans. One can be a Venezuelan and a New Afrikan, or a Lenape and a
New Afrikan, etc. This concept becomes practical revolutionary
internationalism that has all nationalities struggling for both national
self-determination and united multi-national, anti-imperialist
cooperation…

“From our point of view, the key question is building alliances
between the oppressed nations [and nationalities] within the U.S. and
abroad and the multi-national proletariat.”—Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, On
the Questions of Race and Racism, Revolutionary National Liberation,
and Building the United Front Against Imperialism, 2007  U.S. Revolution
as an Advance Towards Global Communism

The success of socialist revolution in the U.S. would “break the
back” of global imperialism and create conditions for successful
revolution in every other country. This eventuality will create the
conditions for a global dictatorship of the proletariat and move the
struggle decisively towards rendering nation states obsolete. What then
will be the need for national boundaries or militaries?

Could we not then move forward towards classless society at an
accelerated pace? Could we not, for example, create a single
international currency and globalized planning of production and
distribution of goods? Would it not be possible to have a World Health
Organization that really provides for people’s health needs and a global
commission with clout to address the issues of ecological preservation
and balance? Could we not standardize wages and prices and ensure a
decent standard of living for everyone on the planet—eradicating
poverty?

Conclusion 

Most theories on the National Question do not address the dialectical
relationship between New Afrikans in the Diaspora and Afrikans in
Afrika, the contradictions between Afrikans everywhere and imperialism
in the Age of Neo-Colonialism and the Crisis of Capitalist-Imperialism,
and between New Afrikans in the U.S. and the white-supremacist,
imperialist U.S. ruling class. These questions demand a reanalysis of
the BBT and our strategy for Black Liberation.

Kwame Nkrumah’s concept of an AII-Afrikan (Pan-Afrikan) Revolutionary
Party (supported by a military arm) is the correct answer to
neo-colonialism. We can take a lesson in this from the struggles going
on in South Asia. India contains many nationalities with their own
languages and regions, yet they are being led by a united Communist
Party of India (Maoist). Likewise we can look to Nepal where the Maoists
have won the support of many national minorities and have created
autonomous regions. In Afrika, neo-colonialism had an advantage because
it was able to play the various budding nation states and tribal groups
against each other. Our strength is based on unity and common purpose.

Our concept of Afrika as a Pan-Afrikan nation departs from the
Comintern’s definition of the National Question which confines the
nation to the boundaries already in existence (even though these only
reflect the imperialists’ carving up of Afrika). We don’t expect that
the New Afrikan Nation will ever constitute itself again in the “Black
Belt,” but we can play a significant role in the constitution of a
Socialist Afrikan Union, and in the creation of a Socialist U.S.A.

We believe that it is the historic destiny of the nation of New
Afrikans in Amerika to play a leading role among the oppressed peoples
of the World in overthrowing capitalist imperialism and advancing
humanity to a higher stage of political-economic organization based on
the principles of social justice and equality.

Our unique history and position within the “Belly of the Beast” gives
us the opportunity to deal the coup de grace to U.S. imperialism. Our
long suffering at the hands of white supremacist Amerika gives us a bond
with all who have suffered racist and national oppression and enables
us to be truly internationalist in outlook.

As Mao predicted:

“The struggle of the Black people in the United States is bound to
merge with the American workers’ movement, and this will eventually end
the criminal rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class.”

This is the mission of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party Prison Chapter and our position on the National Question.

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