The American trusts are the supreme expression of the economics of imperialism or monopoly capitalism. They do not confine themselves to economic means of eliminating rivals, but constantly resort to political, even criminal, methods. It would be the greatest mistake, however, to believe that the trusts cannot establish their monopoly by purely economic methods. Reality provides ample proof that this is “achievable”: the trusts undermine their rivals’ credit through the banks (the owners of the trusts become the owners of the banks: buying up shares); their supply of materials (the owners of the trusts become the owners of the railways: buying up shares); for a certain time the trusts sell below cost, spending millions on this in order to ruin a competitor and then buy up his enterprises, his sources of raw materials (mines, land, etc.).

V. I. Lenin
A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism

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In capitalist society individuals are controlled by a pitiless law usually beyond their comprehension. The alienated human specimen is tied to society as a whole by an invisible umbilical cord: the law of value. This law acts upon all aspects of one's life, shaping its course and destiny. The laws of capitalism, which are blind and are invisible to ordinary people, act upon the individual without he or she being aware of it. One sees only the vastness of a seemingly infinite horizon ahead. That is how it is painted by capitalist propagandists who purport to draw a lesson from the example of Rockefeller — whether or not it is true — about the possibilities of individual success. The amount of poverty and suffering required for a Rockefeller to emerge, and the amount of depravity entailed in the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible for the popular forces to expose this clearly. (A discussion of how the workers in the imperialist countries gradually lose the spirit of working-class internationalism due to a certain degree of complicity in the exploitation of the dependent countries, and how this at the same time weakens the combativity of the masses in the imperialist countries, would be appropriate here, but that is a theme that goes beyond the scope of these notes.)

In any case, the road to success is portrayed as beset with perils — perils that, it would seem, an individual with the proper qualities can overcome to attain the goal. The reward is seen in the distance; the way is lonely. Furthermore, it is a contest among wolves. One can win only at the cost of the failure of others.

Che Guevara
Socialism and man in Cuba

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Rosa Luxemburg, Leader of the German Workers - Stamps of the GDR

Stamp in honour of the great Marxist thinker and revolutionary, 1955.


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#Turkmen women. Photo by Boris Khudoyarov, 1928.

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'The future belongs to @Communism!' (Russian poster by Nikolai Babin/ Izdatel'stvo Plakat, Moscow. Soviet Union, 1982).

In Praise of Communism

It is reasonable. You can grasp it. It’s simple.
You’re no exploiter, so you’ll understand.
It is good for you. Look into it.
Stupid men call it stupid, and the dirty call it dirty.
It is against dirt and against stupidity.
The exploiters call it a crime.
But we know:
It is the end of all crime.
It is not madness but
The end of madness.
It is not chaos,
But order.
It is the simple thing
That’s hard to do.

Bertolt Brecht

#BertoltBrecht #Brecht #Communism

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Media
On this day, 15 October 1987, socialist president of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara, was assassinated, aged 37. He was killed in a military coup that is suspected to have been backed by France, the former colonial power. In just four years, his government attracted mass public support by implementing numerous radical reforms to improve the quality-of-life for poor, working-class people and women. In particular millions of children were vaccinated against meningitis, yellow fever and measles, schools and hospitals were constructed, millions of trees planted to fight desertification, and the country became food sufficient. He reduced his own salary to just $450 per month, and the government reduced wages and perks for senior government officials, implemented quotas to increase the numbers of women in public life, combated female genital mutilation and forced marriages, and nationalised land and mineral resources.The coup was orchestrated by Sankara’s former colleague, Blaise Compaoré, who established a dictatorship which would rule the country for the next 27 years, and undo many of the previous changes, by privatising public property. His government was backed by the US and France, and received funding from the International Monetary Fund, until it was overthrown in 2014 after a popular uprising.

Working Class History

#Sankara
#Revolution
#BurkinaFaso
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#RadicalReforms
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Media
On this day, 15 October 1944, Danish resistance fighter Jørgen Haagen Schmidt was killed in a gun battle with Nazis.Schmidt, codename Citronen (“the lemon”, because he worked at a Citroen factory), was Denmark’s most famous saboteur. He would sabotage German cars sent for repair at the factory, pouring sugar into petrol tanks, and adding standing powder into carriage bearings. His group also bombed the factory, and other key buildings.Citronen often wore disguises, including Danish police and German army uniforms, and helped transport refugees to Sweden. On one occasion, he was captured and shot by the Germans, but managed to escape.Eventually, the Nazis caught up with Schmidt again, and on October 15, the Gestapo attempted to storm a house where he was staying. He fought back, and the house caught fire. Neighbours saw a man in striped pyjamas with a machine-gun emerging from the burning house being shot multiple times. In the exchange of fire, he killed eight Germans and wounded four.

Working Class History

#History #Citronen #Resistance #Denmark #Saboteur #Antifascist #October15 #WWII #Sacrifice #Courage

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On this day in 1968, US Olympic athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith made the Black Power salute at the medal ceremony in Mexico.
⁠
The athletes were protesting the ongoing racial injustice in the US. They wore a black glove to represent Black power, socks instead of shoes to represent poverty, and a black scarf around the neck to symbolize the lynching of Black people.⁠
⁠
The images were seen worldwide and became symbolic for the Black struggle for emancipation in the US that was heating up in the 60s. In their own country, they were criticized, attacked, and received death threats.⁠ They were suspended from the Olympic team and immediately sent home.
⁠
Regarding all the difficulties he endured, Carlos said: “I have no regrets. The people who have regrets are the ones who were there in 1968 and did nothing.”

theredstream

#BlackPower #1968Olympics #JohnCarlos #TommieSmith #RacialJustice #BlackHistory #Protest #CivilRights #BlackStruggle #OlympicProtest #HumanRights #OnThisDay

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Ten Days That Shook the World
John Reed
First published by Boni & Liveright, New York, 1919

With the greatest interest and with never slackening attention I read John Reed’s book, Ten Days that Shook the World.
Unreservedly do I recommend it to the workers of the world.
Here is a book which I should like to see published in millions of copies and translated into all languages.
It gives a truthful and most vivid exposition of the events so significant to the comprehension of what really is the Proletarian Revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
These problems are widely discussed, but before one can accept or reject these ideas, he must understand the full significance of his decision.
John Reed’s book will undoubtedly help to clear this question, which is the fundamental problem of the international labor movement.

Nikolai Lenin
(Vladimir Ilyitch Ulianov)
End of 1919

#TenDaysThatShookTheWorld #JohnReed #ProletarianRevolution #Lenin #DictatorshipOfTheProletariat #PDF #Book

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People always have been and they always will be the stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics, until they learn behind every kind of moral, religious, political, social phrase, declaration and promise to seek out the interests of this or that class or classes. The partisans of reform and betterment will always be fooled by the defenders of the old régime, until they understand that every old institution, no matter how savage and rotten it may seem, is sustained by the forces of this or that dominant class or classes. And there is only one way to break the resistance of these classes, namely, to find in the very society surrounding us, to find and educate and organize for the struggle, those forces which can – and owing to their social situation must – form a power capable of sweeping away the old and creating the new.

#Lenin

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