On this day, 17 November 1915, thousands of housewives and other workers of Glasgow marched on the sheriff's court in support of 20,000 rent strikers. The strike ultimately lead to the introduction of rent controls throughout the UK. One observer, Willie Gallacher, wrote: "From early morning the women were marching to the centre of the city where the sheriff's court is situated. Mrs. Barbour's army was on the march. But even as they marched, mighty reinforcement were coming from the workshops and the yards. From far away Dalmuir in the West, from Parkhead in the East, from Cathcart in the South and Hydepark in the North, the dungareed army of the proletariat invaded the centre of the city."

Working Class History

#RentStrike #WorkersUnite #Proletariat #Glasgow1915 #ClassStruggle #HousingRights #WorkersHistory #OnThisDay

@Communism

The Revolution of 1905 undermined the tsarist autocracy. Out of a mob of muzhiks repressed by feudal slavery of accursed memory, this revolution created, for the first time in Russia, a people beginning to understand its rights, beginning to realise its strength, For the first time, the Revolution of 1905 showed the tsarist government, the Russian landowners and the Russian bourgeoisie that mil lions and tens of millions of people were becoming citizens, were becoming fighters who would no longer permit anyone to treat them like cattle, treat them as a mob. The real emancipation of the masses from oppression and tyranny has nowhere in the world ever been effected by any other means than the independent, heroic, conscious struggle of the masses themselves.

Vladimir Lenin
The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Fall of Serfdom

#Lenin

@Communism

The epoch of the latest stage of capitalism shows us that certain relations between capitalist associations grow up, based on the economic division of the world; while parallel to and in connection with it, certain relations grow up between political alliances, between states, on the basis of the territorial division of the world, of the struggle for colonies, of the “struggle for spheres of influence.

Vladimir Lenin
Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism

#Lenin

@Communism

Presidents of the G20 countries are met with anti-imperialist protests in the streets of Rio de Janeiro. Social movements expressed their solidarity with Palestine and all struggles against racism and oppression.

theredstream

#AntiImperialist #AntiCapitalist #AntiRacist

Tens of thousands flooded the streets of Thessaloniki to mark the anniversary of the 1973 anti-junta uprising at the Polytechnic University—an event etched in blood and defiance against Greece’s ruling military regime. Tanks tore through the university gates, crushing the rebellion in a brutal crackdown that left at least 40 protesters dead.

The uprising carried demands against imperialism and NATO influence. Its violent suppression reverberated through the decades, shaping the nation’s large anarchist movement and inspiring the now-defunct Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group, “Revolutionary Organization 17 November,” named after the uprising’s final day. Each year, a commemorative march brings the struggle back to life—often accompanied by fierce clashes in the streets.

theredstream

#PolytechnicUniversity #Greece

🔴 Capitalism is perpetual crisis
✍🏻 Alex Snowdon

Capitalism is a system in crisis. We can see that crisis in its failure to satisfy the material needs of so many people. Inequality is more acute than ever. While a tiny number of billionaires amass unimaginably vast wealth, huge numbers of working-class people globally struggle to make ends meet.

There have been recurring economic crises since the post-World War Two boom ended in the 1970s, most significantly with the financial crash of 2008 and the economic turmoil that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic.

The conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, together with the huge sums spent by governments on the military, illustrate the fact that imperialist conflict remains a core feature of capitalism. The ecological crises, above all climate change, reveal how our existing economic and social set-up threatens the planet and everything living on it.

Capitalism is perpetual crisis. This is a system that is incapable of anything else: it cannot be benevolently reformed into something rational, humane or stable. Its crises are part of the essential dynamic of the system itself.

Karl Marx, the greatest theorist and critic of capitalism, recognised the dynamism of capitalism. In the Communist Manifesto, in 1848, Marx and his collaborator Frederick Engels referred to the innovations of the new capitalist ruling class, the bourgeoisie:

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than all the preceding generations put together.

The means of production were transformed, with new technologies revolutionising industry and agriculture. Capitalism’s drive to accumulate is built into the system. However, Marx also grasped that the anarchy of the system ensured enormous waste of that potential to improve people’s lives. Capitalism’s dynamism cannot be separated from its irrationality and inhumanity.

Read more

#Capitalism #Marxism

"In capitalist society, providing it develops under the most favourable conditions, we have a more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by the capitalist exploitation, and consequently always remains, in effect, a democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners. Owing to the conditions of capitalist exploitation, the modern wage slaves are so crushed by want and poverty that "they cannot be bothered with democracy", "cannot be bothered with politics"; in the ordinary, peaceful course of events, the majority of the population is debarred from participation in public and political life."

V. I. Lenin
(State and Revolution)

#Lenin

@Communism

Media
On this day, 19 November 1915, Joe Hill, Swedish-American Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union member and songwriter was executed by firing squad for a murder most historians believe he did not commit. During his life, Hill wrote many songs such as 'There is Power in a Union', 'Casey Jones - the Union Scab' and 'The Preacher and the Slave'. The latter song is the origin of the phrase "pie in the sky", which is promised by preachers to starving working people: "You will eat, bye and bye,/In that glorious land above the sky;/Work and pray, live on hay,/You'll get pie in the sky when you die."In Hill's final letter to IWW leader Bill Haywood he wrote: "Goodbye Bill. I die like a true blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize." He also told Haywood: "I don't want to be caught dead in Utah", and requested that he be cremated, and his ashes used to replenish the earth.Large crowds attended his funeral in Salt Lake City, who were described as a "murderous mob" of "low-grade foreigners" by the Ogden Standard-Examiner newspaper, and as "anarchists, nihilists, socialists, bombs, and hobos" by the New York Times.In 1936, a song was written about Hill by Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson, describing his spirit which lived on: "I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,/alive as you and me./Says I “But Joe, you’re ten years dead”/“I never died” says he,/“I never died” says he…"From San Diego up to Maine,/in every mine and mill,/Where workers strike and organize/it’s there you’ll find Joe Hill,/it’s there you’ll find Joe Hill!"

Working Class History

#JoheHill

@Communism

There is Power in a Union
Joe Hill

Would you have freedom from wage slavery,
Then join in the grand Industrial band;
Would you from mis'ry and hunger be free,
Then come Do your share, like a man

There is pow'r, there is pow'r
In a band of workingmen
When they stand hand in hand,
That's a pow'r thats a pow'r
That must rule in every land
One Industrial Union Grand

Would you have mansions of gold in the sky,
And live in a shack, way in the back?
Would you have wings up in heaven to fly,
And starve here with rags on your back?

If you've had nuff of the blood of the lamb,
Then join in the grand Industrial band;
If, for a change you would have eggs and ham
Then come Do your share, like a man

If you like sluggers to beat off your head,
Then don't organize, all unions despise,
If you want nothing before you are dead,
Shake hands with your boss and look wise

Come, all ye workers, from every land,
Come join in the grand Industrial band
Then we our share of this earth shall demand
Come on Do your share, like a man

As is well known, however, from the moment when the bourgeoisie emerged from feudal burgherdom, when this estate of the Middle Ages developed into a modern class, it was always and inevitably accompanied by its shadow, the proletariat. And in the same way bourgeois demands for equality were accompanied by proletarian demands for equality. From the moment when the bourgeois demand for the abolition of class privileges was put forward, alongside it appeared the proletarian demand for the abolition of the classes themselves -- at first in religious form, leaning towards primitive Christianity, and later drawing support from the bourgeois equalitarian theories themselves. The proletarians took the bourgeoisie at its word: equality must not be merely apparent, must not apply merely to the sphere of the state, but must also be real, must also be extended to the social, economic sphere. And especially since the French bourgeoisie, from the great revolution on, brought civil equality to the forefront, the French proletariat has answered blow for blow with the demand for social, economic equality, and equality has become the battle-cry particularly of the French proletariat.

The demand for equality in the mouth of the proletariat has therefore a double meaning. It is either -- as was the case especially at the very start, for example in the Peasant War -- the spontaneous reaction against the crying social inequalities, against the contrast between rich and poor, the feudal lords and their serfs, the surfeiters and the starving; as such it is simply an expression of the revolutionary instinct, and finds its justification in that, and in that only. Or, on the other hand, this demand has arisen as a reaction against the bourgeois demand for equality, drawing more or less correct and more far-reaching demands from this bourgeois demand, and serving as an agitational means in order to stir up the workers against the capitalists with the aid of the capitalists' own assertions; and in this case it stands or falls with bourgeois equality itself. In both cases the real content of the proletarian demand for equality is the demand for the abolition of classes. Any demand for equality which goes beyond that, of necessity passes into absurdity. We have given examples of this, and shall find enough additional ones when we come to Herr Dühring's fantasies of the future.

The idea of equality, both in its bourgeois and in its proletarian form, is therefore itself a historical product, the creation of which required definite historical conditions that in turn themselves presuppose a long previous history. It is therefore anything but an eternal truth. And if today it is taken for granted by the general public -- in one sense or another -- if, as Marx says, it "already possesses the fixity of a popular prejudice", this is not the effect of its axiomatic truth, but the effect of the general diffusion and the continued appropriateness of the ideas of the eighteenth century.

Friedrich Engels
Anti-Dühring; Part I: Philosophy

#Engels

@Communism

🔴 Colonialism: A cancer that must be eradicated in the Twenty-First Century (I)
✍🏻 By Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein
Shanghai, November 12, 2024.

In his magnificent work “Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism”, written in 1916 and published for the first time the following year, Vladimir I. Lenin delineated, at the dawn of the twentieth century, the contours of the colonial situation that permitted placing it as the fundamental characteristic of the imperialist stage of capitalist society.

In Chapter VI, entitled “The division of the world among the great powers”, he provides innumerable figures and “irrefutable general data from bourgeois statistics and from the declarations of bourgeois scientists of all countries, a picture of the whole capitalist world economy in its international relations, at the beginning of the twentieth century, on the eve of the First World Imperialist War.”

Lenin quotes the German geographer A. Supan. Supan stated that “the characteristic feature of this period is therefore the division of Africa and Polynesia”. However, Lenin warns that “… it is necessary to expand on Supan’s conclusion and say that the characteristic feature of the period in question is the definitive division of the planet”. He then clearly states that “… Definitely not in the sense that it is possible to divide it up again – on the contrary, new divisions of the world are possible and inevitable – but in the sense that the colonial policy of the capitalist countries has already completed the conquest of all the unoccupied lands that existed on our planet. For the first time, the world is already divided, so that what can be affected from now on are only new divisions, that is, the passage of territories from one “master” to another, and not the passage from a territory without a master to an “owner.”

Read more

🔴 Trump proclaims Argentina’s fascist President Milei a model for incoming US administration
✍🏻 Andrea Lobo

Milei began by congratulating Trump, saying “the world is a much better place, and the winds of freedom are blowing much stronger” after Trump’s victory, which he called “the greatest political comeback in all of history.”

He then launched into a prolonged attack on “socialism” that provoked cheers and whistles. He began: “In 1848, Marx wrote the sinister pamphlet that was his Communist Manifesto, saying that a specter was haunting Europe, the specter of Communism. Today a different specter haunts the world, the specter of freedom.”

The word “freedom,” from his mouth, means liberation of the corporations, banks and monopolies from any impingement on their pursuit of profit through the exploitation of the working class.

Milei is explicitly in favor of turning back the clock to the 19th century in terms of the social position of working people. He has previously said that he wants to return Argentina to the “liberal model of 1860,” which means demolishing public education, healthcare, regulatory bodies, labor rights and public institutions established over more than a century as concessions by a ruling class fearful of social revolution, particularly after the October 1917 Revolution in Russia.

Read more

🟡 BREAKING: The ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes against the Palestinian people. This is the first time the ICC has ever targeted a close ally of the United States.

theredstream

The International Chess Federation's (FIDE) 17th Chess Olympiad was held in Havana, Cuba between October 23 and November 20, 1966. 52 teams participated in the event which was a huge success for the socialist host nation just 7 years after the Revolution, 5 years after the Bay of Pigs and 4 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis.


As was expected at the time, the Soviet team won the gold medal at the tournament with the US winning silver and the Hungarian People's Republic bronze, although the bronze was won on a tie-breaker with the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.


Both Fidel Castro and, most especially, Che were chess aficionados. Che had done quite a lot to promote the game in Cuba both in the creation of chess clubs and national tournaments. In the end, Cuba placed 14th overall. Castro and Che attended many of the matches and related events of the Olympiad. There they met the chess legends Tigran Petrosian, leader of the Soviet team, and Bobby Fischer of the USA.


An account of the Olympiad notes "Those fortunate enough to be present at the Olympiad spoke only in the highest praise and appreciation of the hospitality of their hosts. Fully backed by the Government and Cuban people, the organisers, headed by José Luis Barreras, set a perfect example of their work, and none of the participants will ever forget their friendship and generosity. The 17th Olympiad is now just a memory - but one of the finest in the whole series of Chess Olympiads."

#Chess #Che #Castro #Cuba #Olympiads #CheGuevara #USSR

@Communism