Anarchist black cross support Leninists

Anarchists have done prisoner support work for generations. ABC locals have gone through many ups and downs over the past 50 years, with some supporting non-anarchists and others only supporting known anarchists who are held hostage by the state for their anarchism. Many ABC groups, not finding the kind of anarchist they'd prefer, look to other prisoners as their constituency. Each ABC local has had different practices about whom to support, which is as it should be; anarchists support the idea and practice of self-organization.

The problem for me (as a person who's been involved in prisoner support work since about 1985) is the name of the outfit: ANARCHIST Black Cross makes it explicit that the membership of the group is anarchist (or does it?) but also at least hints that the prisoners they decide to support are anarchists. Without a clear explanation of each ABC group as to why they have decided to support some prisoners and not others, the use of the A in ABC will cause both confusion and resentment.

My experiences with people who created the ABC Federation in the US back in the 90s was that they were far too enamored of those designated as "Prisoners of War/Political Prisoners." This meant almost exclusively glamorous Stalinists (BLA, Weather Underground, UFF) who'd been caught and imprisoned for engaging in the failed "armed struggle" campaigns in the 70s and 80s. As previously mentioned, ABC groups are all entitled to support whomever they please. But their deliberate exclusion of certain explicitly self-identified anarchists (for whatever reasons, which were never clear enough to me - but I suspect it had to do with their alleged crimes not being political, or political enough) led some of those imprisoned anarchists to refer to themselves as "Klingons" (enemies of the Federation, get it?).

Rather than a semantic question, the problem many continue to have with ABC groups has to do with the use of the word Anarchist in the name. Does it mean that only anarchists are in the group(s), or that anarchists are a majority? Does it mean that only anarchist prisoners are being supported, or that anarchist prisoners are a majority of those being supported? Any time a project attaches the word "anarchist" to whatever they do, other anarchists who find the word confusing or contradictory will certainly question its use. Any time an anarchist does something stupid in the name of anarchy/ism, other anarchists should call it into question.

Due to the incoherent practice of almost all ABC groups in the past 15 to 20 years, this is a critique that remains pertinent. Softy's rants may not be the most comradely or eloquent expression of that critique, but it remains germane nonetheless.

@ Softens

Yeah, there's something in your last post - once you calmed down! - and fair enough if you don't want to support leninists (can't blame you). But I don't think it's blanket support; if a trot were imprisoned for something that is well within our understanding of class struggle, then why not?
That's your position and it's a valid one. As Badger has said, the ABC remains an incoherent collection of groups. As this model stands you get everything from supporting crackerjacks to animal rights.

Right so on one hand you have got people saying stuff like this

which seem to be said in a positive tone and I would say they imply that ABC groups should be autonomous in this respect, but also you have got people saying this in the same breath

This seems to be problematic. Can we criticize ABC groups for being incoherent whilst advocating that each ABC group should be entitled to support whoever they please? Is the difference in who each ABC group chooses to support causing this incoherency, or can we maintain this right for each ABC group to choose who they want to support and still have coherency?

To me at least, I would rather the different ABC groups or the locals of them be part of one big group which has basic guidelines who they should support (these things would be decided democratically) etc and the locals then would then act autonomously and where supporting one person might mean breaking these basic guidelines they should have a meeting with all the other groups and put it to democracy, with perhaps a delegate arguing why they felt they should support this person in spite of the basic guidelines.

When you say for those inside with crimes unrelated to struggles, Im assuming this would encompass 'non politicos' or people that might be politically opposed to us. Now this seems to be problematic when you say mention that part of the minimal provision would involve sending them stuff to read. Do we send them anarchist literature or anything they want?

I would suggest sending them anarchist literature might be the wrong move, because if a non politico or some one politically opposed to anarchism is accepting help from us its likely that they are a bit skeptical already because we are explicitly anarchist and they are not, and therefore sending them anarchist literature as well might make them feel a bit awkward and at worst, they might then feel the support we are giving is not genuine and that we are just using it to push our own agenda on people.

But then say if we are supporting a person who has committed a crime unrelated to struggles (whatever that is, again as some one said before, groups need to be clear about what makes a crime political) who just happens to be massively conservative or something and requested if we could send him a copy of, I don't know, something like The Wealth of Nations (a book we would not really politically agree with at all and would argue that the arguments do not advance the workers class interest) to read when hes in prison, I would not really want to do that in name of an anarchist prisoner support organization.

You dont think people who deal hard drugs prey on anyone?

Croydonian, this is the salient part of why I believe ABC groups should be challenged on whom they decide to support:

While it may be irrelevant for anarchists to support animal liberationists, it is certainly creepy for anarchists to support Leninists.

I think this pretty much says it all for me. Talking about "supporting" or "not supporting" Leninists in the abstract seems rather strange; surely it's about who they are, what they've done (or been accused of doing), why they've been locked up and so on?

I mean, if a member of the local SWP got jailed after things kicked off at a demo (or a picket line or whatever) I'd certainly get involved in supporting them. Not out of some sort of new-found love of the old Colonel Sanders lookalike but because, while there's obvious and significant political differences, they are my friends and people I respect - and because the idea of just abandoning them to their fate simply doesn't make any sort of sense to me.