"At the painting"
By Alexey Sundukov, 1987.

I really like this painting. A Mise en abyme of us looking at a painting of people looking at painting of people looking into the distance.

What Ibrahim Traoré has said about not believing in “democracy” will shock the liberals, but only because they treat the word as sacred rather than material. From a historic class perspective he’s not rejecting people having power, he’s rejecting the lie that the West already provides it.

What passes for “democracy” in countries like United Kingdom or United States is nothing more than managed consent. Political parties share policies and rotate in and out, but the ownership of industry, media, land and finance stays in the hands of the ruling class. Workers are invited to tick a box, but never any real say in governance.

That is not democracy in any meaningful sense; it’s class dictatorship.

Traoré cuts through that illusion. In a country like Burkina Faso, long suffocated by imperialism, plundered resources, and foreign interference, “democracy” has historically meant compliant governments serving imperialism.

Rejecting that model is not authoritarianism that the western media portrays it as; it’s a recognition that a revolution must serve the liberation of the people, not mimic dangerous Western institutions.

"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 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."

- Lenin, State and Revolution.

Lenin is clear on this: the state is not neutral. There is no abstract “democracy” floating above class interests. There is only rule by one class or another. The question is simple — who holds power, and in whose interests is it exercised?

The West lectures the world about democracy while crushing any system that threatens capitalist dominance. Traoré is exposing that contradiction. Real democracy isn’t a ballot paper under capitalism, it’s the working class holding power, controlling production, and shaping society in its own interests.

The Class Consciousness Project

"Some men, faint-hearted, ever seek
Our programme to retouch,
And will insist, whene’er they speak
That we demand too much.
’Tis passing strange, yet I declare
Such statements give me mirth,
For our demands most moderate are,
We only want the earth.

“Be moderate,” the trimmers cry,
Who dread the tyrants’ thunder.
“ You ask too much and people fly
From you aghast in wonder.”
’Tis passing strange, for I declare
Such statements give me mirth,
For our demands most moderate are,
We only want the earth.

Our masters all a godly crew,
Whose hearts throb for the poor,
Their sympathies assure us, too,
If our demands were fewer.
Most generous souls! But please observe,
What they enjoy from birth
Is all we ever had the nerve
To ask, that is, the earth.

The “labour fakir” full of guile,
Base doctrine ever preaches,
And whilst he bleeds the rank and file
Tame moderation teaches.
Yet, in despite, we’ll see the day
When, with sword in its girth,
Labour shall march in war array
To realize its own, the earth.

For labour long, with sighs and tears,
To its oppressors knelt.
But never yet, to aught save fears,
Did the heart of tyrant melt.
We need not kneel, our cause is high
Of true men there's no dearth
And our victorious rallying cry
Shall be we want the earth!"

James Connolly (1907)
We only want the earth.

"End of Shift, when the whistle blows."

By Anthony James Hall

Valentina Tereshkova and Fidel Castro, Havana, 1963.

I want to thank everyone that helped me out by contributing to my Buy Me A Coffee.
I've now moved into a new home. It's still half empty, but I'm comfortable in my own place. After 4 months of being homeless being in a place I can securely say is my own is a godsend.
I may be sleeping on a mattress on the floor but it's my own house!

So thank you everyone.
buymeacoffee.com/redrick

Liberalism manifests itself in various ways.

To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.

- Mao Tse-tung, Combat Liberalism.

🇷🇺🇱🇧 Soviet cartoon. "The bandit attack by the Israeli military on the capital of Lebanon — Beirut was carried out by saboteurs posing as tourists."

This was drawn during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians killed. Sabra and Shatila massacre. An entire capital besieged.

Today, Israeli paratroopers dressed as Lebanese soldiers are in the Bekaa Valley. Hezbollah's Radwan forces are ambushing them. A disguised IDF is back in Lebanon, again.

t.me/RussianBaZa

The effects of an imperialist war machine.

Chuvash State Opera and Ballet Theatre, Cheboksary, Russia. Built in 1985.

Footage of the brutal airstrike on Shamstar

The "Israeli" airstrike that targeted Arbasalim Square in southern Lebanon

🚨🚨From Corniche al-Mazraa... rubble removal operations continue