Engels’ Speech:

Allow me, dear friends, to speak here today as an exception in my capacity as a German. For we German democrats have a special interest in the liberation of Poland. It was German princes who derived great advantages from the division of Poland and it is German soldiers who are still holding down Galicia and Posen. The responsibility for removing this disgrace from our nation rests on us Germans, on us German. democrats above all. A nation cannot become free and at the same time continue to oppress other nations. The liberation of Germany cannot therefore take place without the liberation of Poland from German oppression. And because of this, Poland and Germany have a common interest, and because of this, Polish and German democrats can work together for the liberation of both nations. — I also believe that the first decisive blow which will lead to the victory of democracy, to the liberation of all European nations, will be struck by the English Chartists. I have lived in England for a number of years now and openly aligned myself with the Chartist movement during this period. The English Chartists will be the first to rise because it is precisely in England that the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is the most intense. And why is it the most intense? Because in England, as a result of modern industry, of the introduction of machinery, all oppressed classes are being merged together into a single great class with common interests, the class of the proletariat; because as a consequence, on the opposite side all classes of oppressors have likewise been united into a single class, the bourgeoisie. The struggle has thus been simplified and so it will be possible to decide it by one single heavy blow. Isn’t this so? The aristocracy no longer has any power in England; the bourgeoisie alone rules and it has taken the aristocracy in tow. But the whole great mass of the people stands opposed to the bourgeoisie, united in a formidable phalanx, whose victory over the ruling capitalists draws nearer and nearer. And you have to thank machinery for this elimination of opposed interests which previously divided the different sections of workers, for this levelling of the living standards of all workers. Without machinery no Chartism, and although machinery may temporarily worsen your position it is nevertheless machinery that makes our victory possible. But not only in England; in all other countries it has had the same effect on the workers. In Belgium, in America, in France, in Germany it has evened out the positions of all workers and daily continues to do so more and more; in all these countries the workers of all nations is the result of the party interests of the workers of all nations is the result of machinery is an enormous advance. What follows from this for us? Because the condition of the workers of all countries is the same, because their interests are the same, their enemies the same, they must also fight together, they must oppose the brotherhood of the bourgeoisie of all nations with a brotherhood of the workers of all nations.

On Poland
Speeches at the International Meeting held in London on November 29,1847 to mark the 17th Anniversary of the Polish Uprising of 1830

#Engels #Proletariat #ClassStruggle #PolishLiberation #GermanOppression #Chartism #InternationalSolidarity #Bourgeoisie #WorkersUnite #MachineryAndRevolution #WorkerBrotherhood

@Communism

🔴 Seventy-Five Years of the Chinese Revolution
✍🏻 Tings Chak and Vijay Prashad

On October 1, 1949, the leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Mao Zedong (1893–1976) announced the creation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Three hundred thousand people gathered in Tiananmen Square to welcome the new government and to greet the new leadership. After Mao made his initial announcement, he unfurled the new flag of the PRC, and then the military chief Zhu De reviewed the forces of the People’s Liberation Army. Similar celebrations were held in other parts of China. The foundation of the PRC ended a century of humiliation before the imperialists (that began with the first Anglo-Opium War of 1839) and the long second world war (that began with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931). Ten days before, at the first plenary session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Mao had said, “we are all convinced that our work would go down in the history of humankind, demonstrating that the Chinese people, comprising one quarter of humanity, have now stood up.”
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#China #PRC #MaoZedong #Communism #PeoplesRepublicOfChina #TiananmenSquare #October1 #ChineseRevolution #Liberation #AntiImperialism #CPC #ZhuDe #ChineseHistory

@Communism

We say: our aim is to achieve a socialist system of society, which, by eliminating the division of mankind into classes, by eliminating all exploitation of man by man and nation by nation, will inevitably eliminate the very possibility of war.

Lenin
War and Revolution (1917)

#Lenin #War #Socialist

@Communism

Modern monopolist capitalism on a world-wide scale — imperialist wars are absolutely inevitable under such an economic system, as long as private property in the means of production exists.

Lenin
Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1920)

#Lenin #War #Capitalism #PrivateProperty

@Communism

Over 1,000 Samsung workers in Chennai, India, have been on strike for four weeks, making it India’s biggest strike in recent years. The protests, held in a makeshift tent near the factory, have disrupted production at the plant, which contributed to a fifth of Samsung’s $12 billion revenue in India for 2022-23.

The Samsung plant employs roughly 1,800 workers. More than 1,000 workers on strike are demanding higher wages and union recognition.

The protests have since been met with repression by Indian authorities. Around 850 Samsung employees and 60 workers linked to the labor group Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), which is leading the protest, were detained before being released the same day.

Samsung has warned the striking workers they risk losing their jobs and has taken CITU members to court, saying the strike is illegal. However, the workers on strike disagree, vowing to continue their protest until their demands are met.

theredstream

#SamsungStrike #ChennaiWorkersProtest #India

@Communism

Media
On this day, 2 October 1968, the Tlatelolco massacre took place in Mexico City when police murdered hundreds of students demonstrating peacefully, just prior to the start of the Olympic Games in the city. At the time, many workers and poor farmers were fighting for better conditions, and the government responded with violent repression during what is known as the "dirty war". People were angry at the huge cost of staging the Olympics, as well as police repression. And so, on 2 October around 10,000 school and university students gathered in protest at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Mexico City, chanting: "We don't want Olympics, we want revolution!" A little after 6 PM, 5,000 troops surrounded the square and began firing into the crowd and nearby buildings. Throughout the night, soldiers and police officers went on a rampage, rounding people up, and beating and killing protesters, bystanders and local residents. Authorities and the media claimed that troops were defending themselves from sniper fire, but it was much later revealed that the snipers who began shooting were members of the Presidential Guard. The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been in close contact with Mexican authorities as it was concerned about protests against the Olympic Games, and the US military provided them with equipment, weapons and ammunition. Six days before the massacre, Mexican federal security told the CIA that "the situation will be under complete control very shortly".

Working Class History

#TlatelolcoMassacre #Mexico1968 #RevolutionNotOlympics #StudentProtest #DirtyWar #StateRepression #JusticeForTlatelolco #CIAInvolvement #WorkersAndFarmers #RememberTlatelolco #History

@Communism

Two basic functions characterize the activity of the state: at home (the main function), to keep in restraint the exploited majority; abroad (not the main function), to extend the territory of its class, the ruling class, at the expense of the territory of other states, or to defend the territory of its own state from attack by other states. Such was the case in slave society and under feudalism. Such is the case under capitalism.

In order to overthrow capitalism it was not only necessary to remove the bourgeoisie from power, it was not only necessary to expropriate the capitalists, but also to smash entirely the bourgeois state machine and its old army, its bureaucratic officialdom and its police force, and to substitute for it a new, proletarian form of state, a new, Socialist state.

Stalin
Report on the Work of the Central Committee to the Eighteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.)(Delivered March 10, 1939.)

#Stalin

@Communism

Trade Unions fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system.

Karl Marx
Value, Price and Profit

#KarlMarx #Marx #Profit #WorkingClass

@Communism

Che participating in a voluntary work day, 1961

Che was one of the people who proposed the idea of working a half Sunday to help Revolutionary construction by building much-needed infrastructure. True to form he helped out himself every Sunday he could.

#Che #CheGuevara #Che_Guevara #Sunday

@Communism

One is an “offense against humanity” while the other is a “necessary security barrier.”

theredstream

#PalestineSolidarity #BerlinWall #Colonialism #AntiFascism #WorkersUnity

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