For today, in Black History Month, watch former Black Panther, revolutionary, and scholar Kathleen Cleaver respond to the question of non-violence, arguing that “non-violence is non-functional.” Cleaver joined the Black Panther Party (BPP) in 1967. She became the first woman to be included in the BPP’s Central Committee, the highest decision-making body within the organization. She wrote many of the organization’s speeches, delivering them nationwide and serving as a media spokesperson.

theredstream

A group of Neo-Nazi protesters was chased out of town by residents in Lincoln Heights, a Black-majority neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio, in the US.

Residents were also able to seize their flag and burn it. The Nazi group involved is believed to be a sect called “Hate Club 1488”.

The small group of Nazis held up swastika flags and displayed guns in Lincoln Heights but soon escaped when the local community came out in greater numbers, some with firearms to protect residents.

theredstream

The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth — i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.

Karl Marx
Theses On Feuerbach

@Communism

The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself. But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons — the modern working class — the proletarians.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Manifesto of the Communist Party

@Communism

🔴 Socialism or barbarism–a statement of fact
✍🏻 Morning Star Online

ENGELS once said that capitalist society “stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.”

Commenting on these remarks during World War I, the great socialist Rosa Luxemburg said:

What does ‘regression into barbarism’ mean to our lofty European civilisation? Until now, we have all probably read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without suspecting their fearsome seriousness. A look around us at this moment shows what the regression of bourgeois society into barbarism means. This world war is a regression into barbarism. The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilisation.

Today, as we see the climate catastrophe, the wars in Gaza and elsewhere, the insane new nuclear arms race which is set to escalate, and the dire economic situation globally, it is clearly the case that the choice is socialism or barbarism.

Furthermore, the return of Donald Trump represents a new, heightening phase in the barbarism that is the U.S. empire’s ongoing war on the majority of humanity.

In terms of the world economy, global poverty and inequality levels show how barbarism is already a reality across much of the globe.

An Oxfam report last year confirmed the world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes since 2020, while the wealth of the poorest 60 per cent has fallen.

If these trends continue, the world will have its first trillionaire within a decade but poverty won’t be eradicated for another 229 years.

Unfortunately, there won’t be a habitable planet if capitalism continues anywhere near that long!

Oxfam may not be a socialist movement, but it does eloquently point out how sharply increasing billionaire wealth and rising corporate power are interconnected.

These are of course the conclusions Rosa Luxemburg herself made as she analysed the emergence of imperialism as a phase of capitalism, also linked intrinsically with the drive to war, saying:

The high stage of world-industrial development in capitalistic production finds expression in the extraordinary technical development and destructiveness of the instruments of war.

Today it is weapons made in the U.S. and Britain–and still sold by the government of Keir Starmer and David Lammy–that use technology to commit genocide in Gaza.

But there is hope that the flame of resistance can burn brighter too in the period ahead.

The mass movements on Palestine show how millions have not only had enough of war and misery, but are making the link between the wars and the profit-driven, crisis-ridden economic system that drives them.

The same is true in the climate justice movement, where placards often carry the slogan “system change not climate change.”

On both counts, Trump’s return–flanked by Elon Musk and a motley crew of profiteers and polluters–will for millions in the U.S., here and around the world starkly confirm the need for a different economic order.

And as I’ve pointed to in the Morning Star before, polling shows remarkable things in terms of how people perceive an economic system that puts corporate greed before public need.

To give one illuminating example. In Britain, a 2023 YouGov survey showed that while among those born between 1946-64, only 4 per cent of people have a positive view of Lenin, he was popular among 40 per cent of millennials (those born between 1981-96). And another poll published shortly afterwards by the Fraser Institute found that nearly a third of young people (18 to 34-year-olds) believe that “communism is the ideal economic system.”

And we know that socialist solutions to the crises that we put forward, such as water and energy public ownership, or wealth taxes to fund public services, have massive popular support that goes way beyond this layer of radical younger people.

It is therefore more than possible that a mass anti-capitalist mood, and movements organised by the left based around it, can emerge here in the next period.

Read more here:

🔴 South African communists blast Trump’s imperialist agenda: “We will not bow to imperialist threats”
✍🏻 South African Communist Party (SACP)

For the record, Trump is not the President of South Africa—he is the president of the United States. We will not allow him to interfere in our internal affairs, undermine our democratic national sovereignty, or impose his reactionary will upon our people. Our national self-determination was not handed to us on a silver platter by the imperialist-backed apartheid regime—it is the hard-won result of centuries of gallant resistance against colonial oppression and decades of liberation struggle. We have proven, beyond any doubt, our ability to stand firm against the racist regimes and agendas that once sought to subjugate our people.

Trump’s comments are based on a racist, distorted briefing from the beneficiaries of apartheid, falsely alleging that the South African government has “confiscated land” during this democratic dispensation and probably committed worse atrocities. In contradiction, it was under the racist regimes of colonial and apartheid oppression that the historical injustice of land confiscation occurred. This racist past and its legacy must be addressed. It is, among others, the historical task of the new Expropriation Act to do so. We will not allow Trump to enforce the legacy of colonial and apartheid land confiscation in our country.

Trump has parroted the maliciously fabricated junk, revealing his racist sympathies. Furthermore, Trump ignorantly assumes that South Africa is dependent on United States aid and has threatened to withdraw such support based on the racist blue lies. As President Cyril Ramaphosa clarified in an X post on 3 February 2025, “With the exception of PEPFAR Aid, which constitutes 17% of South Africa’s HIV/AIDS programme, there is no other funding that is received by South Africa from the United States”. Trump’s rants through the so-called “Truthing” and “reTruthing” on “TruthSocial”—his social media platform which should be aptly renamed “FalseSocial”—amount to nothing but “Falsifying” and “reFalsifying”.

Read more here:

Seen in Philadelphia

Seen in Girona, Spain

Tell me, Lieutenant Lyudmila Pavlichenko, how many men have you killed?

— Not a single man. Just 309 Nazis.

Title: Materialism and Empirio-Criticism
Author: Vladimir Lenin
Year of Publication: 1909
Source

This book is a strong defense of philosophical materialism against subjective idealism and Neo-Kantianism, which had influenced Russian Social Democracy at the time. Written during the reactionary period following the 1905 Russian Revolution, it critiques ideas that deny objective reality and historical progress—issues still relevant today in postmodernist thought and certain academic circles. Lenin’s work serves as a crucial ideological weapon in the struggle against reactionary philosophy, emphasizing the importance of class struggle and scientific materialism. It remains essential reading for Marxists and those interested in revolutionary theory.

[Reading Guide] Materialism and Empirio-criticism

#Lenin #Book #PDF #Marxism #Marxist #Materialism #Materialist #Philosophy

@Communism

Greek resistance fighters

On this day, 12 February 1945, the Treaty of Varkiza was signed in Greece, leading to the disarmament of communist-led partisans in exchange for political rights—an agreement soon broken by the Right through mass repression. This betrayal escalated into the Greek Civil War, where Western-backed forces crushed the resistance and cemented their rule.

On this day, 13 February 1991 during the Gulf war the US air force dropped two laser-guided bombs onto the Al-Amariyah civilian bomb shelter, killing 408 local residents who had been seeking shelter from the bombing. One eyewitness, Na’eem Jeenah, recalled that the "explosions were so powerful and hot that we saw foot and hand prints seared onto the walls and ceilings."
"The explosions had also destroyed two huge water tanks in the basement. Those who slept in the basement – doctors and others who provided services for the residents – were boiled in the two metres of water that invaded their refuges. Bits of their skin and hair still cling to the walls below the water line as a testimony to the horror that took place here."
Only 14 people survived the devastation.
After the bombing, many Baghdad residents decided to stop visiting bomb shelters, and instead remain in their homes during bombing raids. The US falsely claimed that the shelter was a military command centre. One military official claimed: “this was a legitimate military target, it was hit precisely, it was destroyed and put out of business – and there was very little collateral damage”.

Working Class History

Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany
Engels

Marx was asked in the summer of 1851 by Dana, managing editor of the New York Tribune, to write a series of articles on the German Revolution. Founded in 1842 by Horace Greeley, the Tribune was the most influential paper in the United States at the time. These articles were written by Engels at the request of Marx, who was then busy with his economic studies and felt, besides, that he had not yet attained fluency in English. Engels wrote the articles in Manchester, where he was employed, and sent them on to Marx in London to be edited and dispatched to New York. Thus, although Engels must be rightly considered their author, Marx took a big part in the preparation, for in their almost daily correspondence the chief points were discussed thoroughly between them. The articles appeared under Marx's name, and it was not until much later, when the correspondence between the two life-long collaborators became available, that the true circumstances were revealed.