114
For the theory and practice of Marxism Powered by @r_channels and @reddit2telegram
Bangladeshi sweatshop laborers go on strike, clashing with police and shutting down factories and roads
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/bangladesh-garment-factories-reopen-wage-protests-keep-industry-edge-2026-11-02/
https://redd.it/1xm54kl
@r_communism
Ukraine
What's your thought on Ukraine's current stand with USA? I've had argument with a social democrat and they're sympathizing Zelenskyy's stand, using US-Russia relations. Give me some insights
https://redd.it/1xlv5eb
@r_communism
help me lol
My question is surely naive, but I wonder how transactions involving raw materials are carried out between a communist system and capitalist countries. For example, if a country’s climate does not allow for the production of bananas, how to do a traded if markets and money do not exist? Or, to take another example: France produces a big quantity of nuclear energy but is dependent on uranium from Kazakhstan—how are such situations handled if the other countries are not interested in receiving a different material in exchange but only money ?
https://redd.it/1xji7kp
@r_communism
Macron threatens a state of emergency against mass mobilization in France
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/10/27/qair-o27.html
https://redd.it/1xhm7ly
@r_communism
nature of the Pale, its knowledge of totality captured like a monad when your sidekick, Kim Katsuragi, photographs it. This inspires Harry to organize the Revachol Citizens Militia—Revachol's police force—for revolution. Disco Elysium reaches its ideological false solution: a conspiracy of the intelligentsia to overthrow the state and realize communism, or, Blanquism.
Whether or not these tactics will be implemented after the events of Disco Elysium depends on the player's choices throughout the game. Leaving the island upon which you arrested the Deserter, your decisions are summarized all at once in a final dialogue branch as Harry is interrogated by the rest of his precinct for his actions during the course of the investigation. As a video game, Disco Elysium's mechanics offer a digital representation of its imaginary solution. If only we could have the absolute power of overcoming chance, of beating the dice roll, and making the right decision every time, embodying a knowledge of natural laws normally inaccessible under capitalism, even a cop could singularly bring about revolution.
Nevertheless, I would caution against so readily letting this outward appearance disguise the game's proposed mode of action: revitalizing an earlier form of the RCM, the Insulindian Citizens Militia that fought as the people's army in Revachol's revolution, and taking hold of a revolutionary past to redeem the degraded world of the present, sweeping away the dreg heap built by imperialism. As Walter Benjamin says,
“[T\]he Messiah arrives not merely as the Redeemer; he also arrives as the vanquisher of the Anti-Christ. The only writer of history with the gift of setting alight the sparks of hope in the past, is the one who is convinced of this: that not even the dead will be safe from the enemy, if he is victorious. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.”
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/benjamin/1940/history.htm
A suitable proposition from a bunch of petit-bourgeois artists and game developers raised in post-Soviet Eastern Europe.
https://redd.it/1xiyiqb
@r_communism
"builds" (an RPG term) a personality and set of politics for the game's protagonist, Harry Du Bois, who awakens with Korsakoff syndrome—amnesia induced by extreme alcohol consumption—as a ludonarrative excuse to present him as a blank slate for the politics of "the player". (It in fact the politics of the game that seek to colonize this construct.) Oftentimes dialogue options map so blatantly onto each political pole that the intent to produce the feeling of politics as a form of unalienated self-expression is made crystal clear. (Imagine a developer telling you, "Care to see the buffet table of quirky dialogue options? It has both communist and fascist jokes. Don't worry your little head about if your political beliefs are determined for you by ideological interpellation.") As the player builds Harry, the game constructs the subjectivity of the player as an all-knowing god outside of ideology. Consider the medium through which you play Disco Elysium. You look at Harry on your computer, TV (in my case, Steam Deck) screen top-down, accessing his thoughts and feelings by clicking bubbles that appear around his head, and obtaining absolute knowledge by examining the environment through clicking other scattered bubbles. We see Revachol from heaven, or perhaps the zeppelin of the Moralintern.
This dialogue system, like the rest of its gameplay, however, is structured by a system of dice rolling. In TTRPGs, dice rolls are, in essence, a relationship between chance and necessity. Take the player's likely first dice roll as you try to collect a tie from a ceiling fan in Harry's hotel room. To roll is an instance of chance that self-negates as it necessarily produces one of two outcome, be it that Harry successfully collects his tie, or doesn't, and exerts himself enough to die of a heart attack. Repeating the dice roll (possible through a number of mechanics which refresh your ability to roll for certain outcomes) dissolves each instance of chance into necessity seemingly once and for all as every possible dialogue option is exhausted. Hence Disco Elysium's gameplay mirrors that Hegelian movement from necessity to freedom as the understanding of natural laws as knowledge of every dialogue branch unfolds, provided you can reinterpret said "natural laws" as said "dialogue branches".
Yet chance steps back in: each playthrough's potential dialogue branches are determined by your stats and the development of your thought cabinet, two CRPG mechanics that give Disco Elysium replay value by allowing the player to influence potential routes for the development of Harry's personality. The dialectical movement toward freedom in one playthrough eventually sublates freedom into a higher repetition of the dialectic between chance and necessity should you reallocate your stats, unlock new thoughts, wear different clothes (which modify your stats and change available dialogue branches), or start a new playthrough. The stage of freedom repetitiously unfolds back into newness, or, restated as the reverse: newness can only produce repetition of the same. As Joyce Messier, Disco Elysium's ultraliberal caricature of Margaret Thatcher, says to Harry, "Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead."
But this repetition constructs a player's subjectivity from the standpoint of uncovering totality. As Jameson argues, the detective novel, a generic influence on Disco Elysium, shows the detective's function as a cognitive mapper of a fragmented urban setting in which a Philip Marlowe can move from front-facing executive offices ran by bourgeois puppets into concealed back rooms where the strings are "really being pulled." But these two spheres are completely severed from one another, not unlike the relationship between the first world and the third. The earlier quoted line from Joyce (who stands out in the open) is particularly funny, if you think of how often “leftists" quote it. Neoliberal fascism doesn’t hide itself. It's common sense, to use Gramsci's
labour capital, Value Price Profit, yet to read Capital, State and revolution, Socialism Utopian and scientific, Origin of family. TIA
https://redd.it/1xiwmf4
@r_communism
What do you consider communist or non-communist?
I see that one of my opinions was unpopular due to the downvotes it received, but it would be interesting to hear other opinions. I usually refer to Žižek for contemporary discussions. He often explains why communism/the left faces difficulties in Latin America. What do you consider communist or non-communist? Have there been governments in Latin America that could be described as communist? What do you think about the rise of the right in several Western countries?
https://redd.it/1xiuwuy
@r_communism
I need career advice.
/r/Marxism/comments/1xhxn09/i_need_career_advice/
https://redd.it/1xi0hrt
@r_communism
Success of the Founding Congress of the Anti-Imperialist Front (USA)
https://aif-usa.org/2026/10/25/success-of-the-founding-congress-of-the-anti-imperialist-front-usa/
https://redd.it/1xhth8k
@r_communism
Edward Gibbon had Marxist tendencies
Under the Roman empire, the labour of an industrious and ingenious people was variously, but incessantly employed, in the service of the rich. In their dress, their table, their houses, and their furniture, the favourites of fortune united every refinement of conveniency, of elegance, and of splendour; whatever could sooth their pride, or gratify their sensuality, Such refinements, under the odious name of luxury, have been severely arraigned by the moralists of every age; and it might perhaps be more conducive to the virtue, as well happiness, of mankind, if all possessed the necessaries, and none the uperfuities, of life - Gibbon Chapter 11, decline and fall of the Roman Empire
I am still going through the book and am interested to see whether there are more hints that the famous classicist held to such esteem by the conservative intellectual establishment was a closet leftie. Don’t have much to add in terms of dissension but thought it was an interesting few paragraphs and Havnt seen them discussed.
https://redd.it/1xh98md
@r_communism
ideologies of those communities. But of course, you have to read both Settlers and Imperialism first, to both understand the often subliminar context of brazilian communism and why teoreticians like Ruy Mauro Marini couldn't understand quilombola and indigenous communities as an authentic nations and why communists have failed in Brazil over the past century.
As for the elections, those past 3 weeks were full blown hell with social-fascism from PT and it's supporters. It was clear that as u/turbovacuumcleaner previously appointed, there was not really much of the risk of a coup and despite the panic provided by Lulaism of a potential coup despite the lack of any evidence, by sunday 9:30pm brazilian settler capitalism and it's social democracy were looking, indeed, once again, stronger than ever. And that have been the case for the past 3 weeks as imperialism shows that it can always last for a little longer and the petty bourgoise is always willing to support it. So the social paratisism and decay of the labour aristocracy and the rise of new, young, petty-bourgoise leadership shown that it have more strenght and appeal than one might give them, they didn't need the support of communists, but as we can expect from the mainstream "communists" (which envolves the parasitical media comsumption of content producers as accepted as education) they had to support "democracy" never putting at first sight which "democracy" is that they are indeed defending? The same democracy is the democracy of white supremacists running the congress which just took over and Lula have himself to compromise to "govern within the congress". Now those communists will have to put themselves as we say in Brazil, "entre a cruz e a espada" which whether anyone that avoided supporting the PT will have at least ideological sobriety and leverage which PCB, UP, PCBR and PSTU cannot say for themselves. The only ones that I can say that maintained a line of opposition towards both candidatures are MPR which is one of the many existing trotskist-oriented microfactions that departed from PSTU after a recent period of liquidationism.
I would also like to point out that both AND (P.C.B) and RRC (Novo MEPR) shamelessly sided with Lula and none of them had at least the courage to explain their support and obvious capitulation. AND moved away from their usual "electoral farse" which they repeat all the time and started to campaign "against Bolsonaro" after the first week of october and none were to be said about Lula's candidature. N-MEPR repeated the same thing for a different type of audience as they have themselves departed from AND/P.C.B once they realized that P.C.B is a male supremacist cult under "gonzalo thought" banner but never necessarily appointed that into serious terms and in attempt to not get themselves in trouble with petty bourgoise students as they are a young org and women that they might potentially target into future recruiting, avoided any criticism and their line was to "still struggling after october 25". But they give no proper criticism and commentary into the elections so one may wonder that maoists in Brazil forgot that the elections were happening and did not have anything to say about both candidatures and the whole process or or they actually did as they always do and "critically sided" with PT as they share the same class leadership: people that were born into white communities - whether they are themselves white or not - and progressed into the higher level of formal bougoise education.
The only org that I may suggest that may lead to something positive that I have interacted with in the past weeks is MZT (Movimento Zona Norte) though they are a democratic mass front spontaneously formed to combat fascism but it's proletarian led and it's unclear which line will follow, for now.
So as for the result, I think I share an early draft on the following struggle for the next years and put those for criticism.
For the work of communist
now more frantic than ever to obliterate our dignified socialist system. Sensing the approach of destruction amid our powerful advance, our enemies are desperately fighting back.
The more the revolution advances, the more intense the ideological and physical confrontation with our enemies becomes. This is an inviolable law of class struggle.
We must sharpen the blade of the anti-imperialist class struggle and solidify our revolutionary and class positions, always and everywhere, to firmly defend and endlessly glorify our socialist motherland.
https://redd.it/1xg1fip
@r_communism
Happy Komsomol Day!
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1xg192t
https://redd.it/1xg1akv
@r_communism
A combined, distilled history of Socialism and Communism. Represented as a universal pattern, then followed by a closer lense to examine how each story panned out for the nations involved. The theme of the topic is "accurate terminology".
The Universal Pattern, in first person
Revolution is led by parties named with any arrangement and wordcount over 0 of something like "The People of Socialist Communism". The promise of giving Power to the Proletariat through Socialist takeover of the means of production then becoming a Communist Utopia is used as a major draw to grow their cause. Books on Marxism and/or the Communist manifesto may be handed out or read from for others to listen.
With your new revolutionaries you succeed in gaining control of the state. Then you completely ignore the first step Marx wrote to do when in power. You do not create a **Dictatorship of the Proletariat**. ***Socialism is never Implemented***. Immediately you install a State-Capitalist government, and also forget about the rest of the instructions Marx wrote down (Use Socialism to implement Communism.)
You may however remember his description of **State-Capitalism**, an economic system where the state acts as the dominant **capitalist** or *corporation*, owning the means of production and employing wage labor while retaining capitalist production relations.* [ 1, 2\]
You also could know about Engels, the collaborator of Marx, warning that when the state concentrates all means of production into its hands, the **capitalist relationship is not resolved; rather, it is pushed to its extreme limit.** [1, 2\]
There are a few useable terms for Capitalism when the State owns the means of production, owns all the land and is free to act as an unregulated for profit organisation.
Terms might be End, Highest, Late, or Final Stage Capitalism.
This gives more power than any other options available. The book on Communism told you the best way to get total power. You aren't worried about the "downsides" and unfavorable words about it, nor it's absolute exclusion from the long term plan they made.
Now that you installed it:
***You then either:***
Cause a famine that kills millions of your own people, which you were able to force into happening because you never did that Socialism thing where workers get to have enough of a voice and political sway to do things correctly.
Eventually, you become a behemoth, tycoon of international production and industry with the State turning the whole country into its own gargantuan umbrella Corporation.
Cash is rolling in as the lower class works cheap and the upper classes are loyal to you. You pull all the strings and always get the last word. This nation is entirely under your brand. And everybody knows it. You have a lot of global sway.
You take a look at the book that was used to name your Party and see a definition:
COMMUNISM: A classless, stateless, and moneyless socioeconomic order built upon the common ownership of the means of production (such as factories, land, and machinery) and the distribution of goods based on individual needs. [ 1, 2, 3, 4\]
You have seen this definition many times before. You know your party carries the name. But it doesn't bother you. Because you aren't anything Marx talked about.
You are Socialism, with Chinese Characteristics. And you get to define that as you please.
OR YOU CAN
Also start a famine that kills millions because you also never implemented socialism and you have all the power, but you do this before China does.
For some reason you get paranoid people might not like you. This is unacceptable. You make sure the whole nation is terrified at all times and always ready to throw eachother under the bus. Your own paranoia partly because you still didn't do the first step and implement Socialism and instead still holding onto all the power so you are worried someone might think that's a bad thing. Which you cannot allow. It isn't a part of your 5 year plan that nobody else gets to have input on because it's yours and the
Question: Should someone lose a second property they earned through years of hard work and saving?
​
One question I have about the communist position on abolishing private land ownership is how it distinguishes between different circumstances of property ownership.
For example, my grandfather came from a poor background, worked in factories for years and eventually saved enough to build a second house. He didn't inherit wealth or exploit anyone to acquire it. he built it through his own labour and financial discipline.
Would a communist system take away that property regardless of how it was acquired? If so, would there be any form of compensation for the wealth he legitimately accumulated through his hard work? Because otherwise is this not injustice to the working man?
I understand the argument against landlords who exploit tenants or accumulate enormous property portfolios through inherited wealth and unequal economic structures. However, shouldn't there be a distinction between those circumstances and someone who worked their way out of poverty to afford a second property? How does communism account for that distinction?
https://redd.it/1xlv8hw
@r_communism
Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (November 01)
We made this because Reddit's algorithm prioritises headlines and current events and doesn't allow for deeper, extended discussion.
Suggestions for things you might want to comment here:
* Articles and quotes you want to see discussed
* 'Slow' events - long-term trends, org updates, things that didn't happen recently
* 'Fluff' posts that we usually discourage elsewhere - e.g "How are you feeling today?"
* Discussions continued from other posts once the original post gets buried
* Questions that are too advanced, complicated or obscure for r/communism101
Mods will sometimes sticky things they think are particularly important.
Normal subreddit rules apply!
\[ Previous Bi-Weekly Discussion Threads may be found here [https://reddit.com/r/communism/search?sort=new&restrict\_sr=on&q=flair%3AWDT](https://reddit.com/r/communism/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3AWDT) \]
https://redd.it/1xkp4sy
@r_communism
Religion
Why do some communist believers think that their dogma cannot be questioned, when communism is against the obscurantism and totalitarianism propagated by religions?
https://redd.it/1xjbsi7
@r_communism
Repost about discipline in western leftist circles
This one is for the American anti-imperialists out there. We have to stop treating ourselves like a subculture and act as what we are, revolutionaries.
Dress cleanly. Don't have pasta stains on your shirt. Don't have hentai stickers on your computer. Practice good hygeine and shower once per day.
Unless you can groom your beard properly, shave it. Same with unkempt long hair. I know you want to look like a mad philosopher, don't.
Cut your hair down to a size that is manageable. If you're too unbothered to clean up, shave it off every month or so.
Exercise. Workout at least twice per week with resistance training and endurance.
Learn to fight. Muay Thai and BJJ are effective. Make sure there is pressure testing with live sparring.
Do not learn Krav Maga, we are fighting capitalism not Palestinian children.
Sleep consistently and don't abuse stimulants. Keep it below 400 milligrams of caffeine per day and have a bedtime. Dont show up to meetings exhausted, as this will demoralize fellow organizers
We must have discipline, and discipline starts with respecting yourself
https://redd.it/1xiz5s7
@r_communism
language. It even has a completely human face (and has at times been called "socialism", with human characteristics, of course). The one occupying the back rooms, union leader Evrart Claire, is found across a decaying sprawl of disjointed containers for shuttling commodities through "the Pale"—an expanding, destructive mist separating the continents on the planet in which Disco Elysium takes place, which in a surface reading may be an analogy for climate change, but I take as a hysterically subliminal méconnaissance of the irrationality of capital—in a repurposed container of his own, decorated with a mess of tapestries, taxidermied swordfish, and a chaotically assymmetrical rug. Despite ostensibly representing Disco Elysium's "communist" faction, Evrart is the ultimate social fascist. The four political poles of the game, under scrutiny, in fact collapse into two: liberalism (fascism, ultraliberalism, moralism) and communism. Disco Elysium's claim is that the far more insidious agent pulling the strings isn’t the neoliberal strawman Joyce, whose influence on the course of the game's plot is marginal, at best. It's the so-called communist Evrart who trades himself out with his twin brother, switches personalities on a dime, and coerces a communist militant, the Deserter, into being his agent. (Charles Villedrouin, a representative of the Moralintern, who's even more concealed than Evrart and far harder to find by accident, is portrayed even worse.) And what of Revachol's fascists? Every one you encounter is a mere pawn of liberalism and completely ineffectual—Measurehead, the most straightforward fascist and a parody of insecure patriarchal masculinity, is an employee of the "communist" Evrart and is just as easily swayed from right to left when it comes to the matter of feminism, not unlike the vacillating class character of the petit-bourgeois base of fascism.
What sets Harry apart from Baudelaire's flâneur who passively observes Revachol, though, is that he, too, is a puppet of liberalism, a literal cop, not a detective. Your access to totality is short-circuited by that Korsakoff syndrome that mirrors the player’s lack of information onto Harry. So I believe we can model a semiotic square in which knowledge is in contradiction with amnesia and fragmented consciousness in contradiction with the ego. These contradictions articulate their characters: Harry (amnesia-fragmented consciousness), the Deserter (fragmented consciousness-ego), and their respective negations, the Phasmid (knowledge-ego), and the union (knowledge-amnesia).
Consider the history between the Deserter and the two union representatives, Edgar and Evrart Claire. Initially a revolutionary, Iosef credulously believed that Edgar, still only a union member rather that leader, could bring about change, so he worked for him, assassinating then-union leader Tiphaine Holly. The conclusion to this story is obvious: the Claires came to power, won a few reforms, then rested on their laurels, tossing Iosef to the side. The knowing-amnesiac of the union, aware enough of a revolutionary past to exploit it, but too disconnected from the masses to produce a revolution, negates the ego of the fragmented consciousness when it turns Iosef, at last, against revolution altogether, allowing him to live out his life isolated, slowly losing his sanity, waiting for a spontaneous uprising he believes will never come. Not a bad depiction of the counterrevolutionary function of social fascism.
Now look at the other side of the square. The Pale, like the irrational expansion of capitalism, came into existence alongside its subjects, and seeks to outlast all life, even the end of the world. Harry's encounter with the Phasmid (a cryptid found hiding in camouflage behind the Deserter, as if concealed in a revolutionary back room) then is a return to the earlier movement from necessity to freedom, no longer Hegelian but in Marx and Engels' philosophical formulation as communist revolution. The knowing-ego negates the amnesiac-fragmented consciousness by disclosing the
How to talk about Disco Elysium
While r/communism has produced interesting critique of TV, movies, and books, I'd venture to say it hasn't said much interesting about video games yet. The consumption of games and the morbidity of their fandom is a common subject of discussion, but this hardly touches upon what is called "immanent critique". Behind the discourse, it is the task of Marxists to soberly evaluate the commodity itself, and find out what it has to say about totality.
I've made a project of researching the field of ludology to produce a Marxist reading of a video game. Narrative critique of video games is prevalent, and has even been tried on this subreddit, but in analyzing the stories and characters of video games, what makes the medium truly new is lost, whether or not the interpretation produced is of valid, local significance. McKenzie Wark, in her book Gamer Theory, says,
'The images and stories that populate games are mostly cribbed from other media—from novels, films, or television. Games mostly just recycle, or "remediate," bits of representation from other media. Bolter and Grusin: "Remediation is a defining characteristic of the new digital media." And hence not specific to games. What is specific to games is at the level of form, not content.'
What I'm saying is that we have to talk about gameplay, not just narrative. To substantiate this claim, I'd like to take a stab at a video game that is extremely popular amongst first world Marxists (and "the left" in general) to ask whether or not it's particularly progressive through an analysis of its form, in order to navigate back to its content. Did I succeed? That's for you to tell me.
Disco Elysium is a CRPG in which a cop discourses endlessly with a bunch of political talking heads while solving a murder mystery. It takes place in the city of Revachol, whose urban decay may remind the player of ex-Soviet metropolitan areas. The specter of imperialism at all times haunts Revachol, literally flying overhead: the Moralintern, a NATO analog, occupies the region after a failed communist revolution fifty years earlier, surveilling the city from a zeppelin. At least some of Disco Elysium's appeal to Marxists is certainly tied into this critical Eastern European metaphor, along with how shamelessly it presents communist, Marxist, and even Soviet iconography (via pastiche) for a video game, independent of the ideological content of these references. In transforming Marxism into so many aesthetic gestures and easily-"memeable" jokes and punchlines, Disco Elysium is no stranger to the Dengist transcoding of politics into reproducible "content" devoid of any revolutionary vitality. It's also full of misogynist filth. For these reasons, I'll begin from the standpoint that Disco Elysium is as reactionary as I, a Maoist, would expect.
The game's most transparently reactionary function comes in the presentation of its four political poles (communism, fascism, ultraliberalism, moralism) in its character-building and dialogue systems that interpellate the subjectivity of the player as a seemingly "voluntary" political agent. Video games are in fact ideological state apparatuses and "the player" a subject constructed by ideological interpellation.
"[V\]ideogames take hold of their playing subjects as homo oeconomicus: they read their players through an architecture of rationality, a reading which restructures the player who plays. The player is created by being subjected to this computational, calculable, economic grid of intelligibility: it is the material interface by which the player is “read” and by which they respond—which really means that this interface is the material practice which forms the player as a player-subject."
https://gamestudies.org/2202/articles/gap\_keever
Unlike a visual novel (think Steins;Gate) in which a player merely reads text, Disco Elysium constructs the subjectivity of the player through a twist on its CRPG mechanics. Selecting dialogue options
History, Religion and Radicalism: How much is too much?
From India. It's going to be a long post with all necessary context provided. As a newbie and as per the advice of fellow comrades I started reading theory, little bit of history and at the same time following current affairs.
Recently I came to notice my state people discussing about Israel elections and a vast majority were in support of the genocide. It's obvious that in times of oppression to stand by the oppressed is the only right thing to do, so I tried to educate one of them who claimed Oct 7 was the starting point and Palestinians started the war. The conversation went for a long time and at last he said
>"We Hindus are secular in India, yet Muslim majority always turns out to be theocracies. Other nations at least bring laws to reform the savage practices, but Islamic theocracies are fixated on being fundamentalists and Indian Muslims support every atrocities committed by those theocracies. If Palestine attains peace it is ought to be become another theocracy like How Khomeini used the left to overthrow the Shah and later backstabbed communists once came to power. So I don't empathise with Muslims of Palestine and of any nation"
Indian Muslims' support for Palestinians is radicalising misled Indian Hindus. But a group of Hindus were already radicals since the Partition of India and Pakistan. Now the right wing demands for Hindu theocracy "Hindu Rashtra", even the establishments are on their side Ex: Recently Gujarat court cited Hindu religious texts while sentencing three Muslim men to life for cow slaughter, because Cow is Holy to Hindus, So we are denying the right for people to eat beef.
I'm also an Athiest and unlike Marx I hated religions because in my opinion it hinders people from getting class consciousness especially in India. So I liked how Mao handled this issue (need to read more about that)
But I was said that proposing abolition of religion wont work on practice since it will shun people away from our movement and radicalise them, so as Marx said we need to let it dissolve by itself once we achieve a communist society
Here's my questions
1. (Hypothetical) Religion has the tendency to update itself, it even survived through all the scientific and technological advances, how one would hope that it will dissolve by itself? Fellow comrade questioned me this and I can't able to answer because the facts I know said otherwise
2. In such fights over religion/nation/ethnicity, every person cites various ancient texts as sources. Without knowing them we can't argue their claims. But we can't waste our time by reading all the irrelevant ancient texts and entertain the communal fights either. But without convincing them there in my opinion I fear we can't move forward, I tried but they aren't understanding the class struggle. This makes me go radical. We don't have an option to ignore too since it would lead to accelerated radicalisation especially in current India. What should one do in this situation? Do we need to read fundamentals texts of religions and of ethnicities to stop the misleading and radicalising rally of the right and educate the masses? How can we convince the radicalised masses?
3. In Marx' view, religion isn't a problem until it oppresses other in the name of it is what I understood. But how can be that possible if religion101 is "everyone who aren't your religion is not your equal" especially Abrahamic religions? It looks like to me that they are bound to be radicalised and become theocracies at one point or the other. In a communist society it'll be gone but during the transitional phase the religions still possess a threat to the socialist state
4. Are there any materials to read on this topic? Please provide some
PS: We Indians have been constantly fed with western propaganda, I too grow up watching them. So please correct my perspective if they are wrong. I've only read the principles, Wage
How do you find your people in a world of social isolation
Greetings. I'm just going to be blunt; I don't have a hell of a lot going for me in life besides my art and activism. It's all I truly care about anymore. I come from rural New England and though it feels hopeless, I'm looking for groups to organize with. Looking for tips on how to find them and keep myself safe. I'm very alone here in my activism- or so it seems. Trying not to loose hope
I'm disabled and receive Medicare & disability income. I can't work, I've tried for years. (23f) Sometimes I feel like a poser for having to rely so much on a government that I hate. I hate that it has to be this way. I hate that my voice only carries much power in virtual spaces. Tips? Tricks?
Advice? How can I use what skills | DO have (ie: extensive knowledge of history, being a poet/artist, reading comprehension, critical thinking, intersectionality).
Perhaps I could be the unofficial librarian of the revolution if I'm lucky lol
****New England is a group of states at the Northeast tip of the US
****| cannot drive so it's very difficult to organize in real life
https://redd.it/1xi0466
@r_communism
surviving under capitalism?
Is it okay to own a small business under capitalism being a communist? or will it be hypocrisy or betrayal against your own ideology?
https://redd.it/1xhyhbo
@r_communism
What other books should I read to better understand communism and other political ideologies?
The books that I’m getting right now are das kapital, socialism: utopian and scientific, state and revolution, Che Guevara a revolutionary life and the communist manifesto. I just feel like there’s some books that I’m missing that I could also get that would help me learn more about this.
https://redd.it/1xhbohw
@r_communism
organizations, I wouldn't expect much in the coming years due to potential consequences for the petty-bourgeois leadership. The upcoming political violence could be appropriated by communists, but I doubt there is the willingness for such a move right now, given the potential repercussions for the petty bourgeoisie.
The leadership of the movement that orchestrated the victory in the runoff election (academia, electoral party leaderships, and the bureaucratic-union apparatus) needs a "democratic victory" to justify its own existence and internal privileges. Facing the reality of a second term—a government plagued by austerity, conciliation with latifundia, and the maintenance of mass incercaration and increasing pogroms—would mean severing the umbilical cord with funding and bourgeois respectability. Therefore, as we have experienced over the last four years—and as can be observed in the day-to-day routine of modern day schools and universities—the immediate tendency of this leadership is ideological anesthesia and the covering up of contradictions.
I believe the next four years tend to further strengthen social-fascism and national(ist) white supremacy, the persecution of left-wing dissidence (anticommunism), and political dogmatism (the lack of critique), as has been the case in recent years and as intensified during the elections, given that these are inevitable consequences of the strengthening of imperialism. Since the PT government can't break with the boundaries of capitalism and the spending cap/fiscal framework, crisis management will invariably occur through the social containment of poverty. The public rhetoric will be one of inclusion, but state practice will continue to be mass incarceration and the militarized management of new afrikans and indigenous semicolonies—the exact definition of social-fascism.
The narrow electoral victory, obtained without a mandate for real transformations, drastically reduces the margin for internal critique. Any opposition from the left will immediately be labeled as an "auxiliary line of fascism" or "agents of the far-right." And as we have seen this tends to intensify ideological policing to shield the leadership from grassroots questioning.
Organizations will have to understand that they are walking on thin ice, where there will be even less leniency from the hegemonic party due to the fragility of this victory, alongside an even more restricted space for opposition. The leadership will, of course, have to avoid positions that push them into serving as an auxiliary line to the conservative (and fascist) movement—similar to what occurred with Dilma Rousseff, whose impeachment was supported by Trotskyists (PSTU) and Maoists (P.C.B/AND/MEPR) under the guise of "fora todos!" ("out with them all!").
It will be interesting to observe how, just as over the past four years, the momentary euphoria will come to an end, and internal contradictions tend to explode and inevitably turn against the president himself, which tends to make his support base necessarily an increasingly conservative social force. When budget squeezes, cuts to healthcare and education, and the inability to curb inflation take hold, people will begin to feel the deterioration of their living conditions. To sustain governability in the face of lost popular support and pressure from a reactionary Congress, the government will seek refuge in increasingly right-wing sectors. Out of a need for self-preservation, the leadership supporting the president will become an increasingly conservative force, averse to any truly emancipatory agenda.
https://redd.it/1xh086m
@r_communism
Elections in Brazil shows the strenght of Social-Fascism
First things first, I had to move away from u/Clean-Difference1771 and return to my previous account due to reddit requiring facial identification to allow me see the discussions here. Anyway I don't think that I will post anything else anymore, not only due to increasing of surveillance against communism but because my commitment to communism and actually putting into practice many of the things that I have learned sinced joined this community for the first time 3 years ago actually had real repercussions in my life, whether you think I'm a "petty bourgoise student" or any other thing as such. Not to deny that I really am, but class suicide and engaging into marxism envolves being vulnerable to things like real life stalking, academic persecution, defamatory claims against you and the spread of false information as bourgoise self-defense which indeed I have been a victim of for the past 3 years and intensified during the past 3 weeks. So I think is time to me to move on from this community as well (though I will continue to observe eventually), as the struggle against communism will continue, digital and social vigilance is intensifying and as long as I live, may I fight for communism until I die. Digital footprint is obviously large for everyone here and if anything is to be taken value from the latest MIM(p) response to the polemics on sex and gender earlier this year it's their recommendation towards taking it seriously late in the article.
Having this resolved, I share with you some notes that I have took following the defeat of Flavio Bolsonaro. First of all, I have to admit that after the result of october 4, my first impulse was compelling to vote for Lula given the consequences of Flavio Bolsonaro becoming Head of State in Brazil and the simbolism and practical consequences of a white supremacist and anti-communist running the country. But my impulses didn't last for much more than 3 days and after participating in some of the street events of Lula campaign in the same week and watching some assemblies in college (which all indeed were only recruiting free work to be given to PT's election), I soon remembered why for years I have been struggling against Lulaism and PT as of now and whether this have led to early isolation, as of now, lulaism (and imperialism) is indeed in decay and this mature on other people, us vanguardists must know how to act on the available circumstances. Not only because Bolsonaro's anti-communist mumbling is closer to Mao's tiger paper, but because if there's a vanguard party into anticommunism in Brazil, the one to be appointed here is the PT itself. We understand PL is a right-wing ultranationalist conservative party as common sense, but communist accountability into the history of PT and Lula's government on the 2000's is overlooked and hypocritical. u/turbovacuumcleaner's criticism over the years here, which we often look forward to, are marginal into brazilian communism and periods like the elections reminds us that some notions we have been discussing here over the past few years are marginal and way too off from communist mainstream. I think this is important to understand that, as I also agree that this community stands out in online antirevisionism, at the same time "mainstream" marxism in Brazil have probably all the opportunist tendencies that have been theorized in the past 200 years going on into the existing parties and the more one study on marxist general theory and brazilian marxism, we can trace this back in time.
My reading suggestions to trace it are Jacob Gorender's Combate nas Trevas, Clovis Moura's Dialética Radical do Brasil Negro, Francisco de Oliveira's O Ornitorrinco (which covers PT's full transition from the reformist party into a imperialist bourgoise's party) and Raquel Rolnik's Guerra dos Lugares which also can give a proper understanding of PT's urban policies and settler populational reagroupment and the land question into the white supremacist garrison into Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo and the
Rodong Sinmun: What is Class Struggle? (2023)
Today, the dignity and prestige of our country have reached their highest level.
The Republic’s formidable self-defence capabilities, centred around nuclear weapons, powerfully guarantee the vigorous advancement of the cause of building a strong socialist nation and drive hostile forces, including the US imperialists, into extreme anxiety and fear. However, this does not mean the end of class struggle. On the contrary, the silent confrontation with the enemy is raging even more fiercely.
Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un stated:
>As time passes and the revolution advances, the class struggle to decide who conquers whom becomes more intense. The intensification of class struggle is an universal law under socialism, anyone who denies it is a revisionist.
Class struggle is the struggle to oppose the exploiting class, the exploitative system and the reactionary forces, to eliminate the remnants of the old society, and to defend and realize the independence of the masses.
(https://medium.com/plans?source=promotionparagraph---postbodybannerdotcalmclouds--b3874df2eaa5-----------------------------------------)
The exploiting class cannot survive even for a moment without exploiting the masses, and the masses cannot achieve social and political independence without liquidating the exploiting class. Reflecting this fateful confrontation, the class struggle becomes the most uncompromising battle of life and death. In 19th-century Paris, a working-class government emerged for the first time in history. Feeling uneasy, the bourgeoisie resorted to violence, bloodily massacring countless working people. This is vivid evidence of the intensity of the class struggle.
The class struggle intensifies as the masses advance their cause for independence. Even in socialist society, the class struggle continues to rage fiercely.
The establishment of a socialist system eliminates the social roots of class conflict. However, as long as imperialism exists on earth, the activities of class enemies will never cease, and leftovers of outdated ideologies are still deeply rooted among workers. Therefore, even in a socialist society, the struggle against external hostile forces and the remnants of the overthrown exploiting class hidden within, as well as the struggle to free the working people from the shackles of obsolete ideas and to revolutionize and working-classize them, continue unabated. Class struggle in a socialist society is conducted by uncompromising violence against hostile elements and through ideological education to counter the vestiges of outmoded ideas lingering in people’s minds and to educate and remould them along revolutionary lines.
Ideological education aimed at eradicating outdated ideological remnants, including individualism and selfishness, that run counter to socialist ideology is of paramount importance. Raising awareness of the anti-socialist maneuvers of imperialist reactionaries is also a vital issue for the advancement of socialism.
The collapse of socialism in some countries in the past clearly demonstrates the viciousness of the imperialists’ anti-socialist offensive. Imperialists used any means necessary to disintegrate and annihilate socialist countries, including military threats, economic blockades and ideological and cultural infiltration. However, some countries not only neglected the work of suppressing imperialism’s anti-socialist offensive and arming the masses with class consciousness, but also paved the way for the enemy’s ideological and cultural infiltration moves. As a result, people’s class consciousness became blurred and, ultimately, the historical tragedy of the collapse of socialism occurred. The confession of a CIA agent that “the collapse of the former Soviet Union was not a gift by God to America, but a consequence of the policies pursued by the Reagan administration” proves that the collapse of socialism was the product of the anti-socialist maneuvers of class enemies.
The imperialist reactionary forces, led by U.S. imperialism, are
state is yours. You can't have anyone thinking you're a bad person so what you do is you kill a lot of people that might think that or cause others to think that. You will stick with State-Capitalism going forward. Socialism might give too much power to people who aren't you or close to you. Besides, you do run socialized programs so that's close enough to you. It might not be at all what Marx meant when was talking about Socialism, and they may not mean the same thing at all, BUT they do sound super similar so lots of people will think that you are doing Socialism and you won't ever have to get close to it! Brilliant. You focus on being a "welfare state" with centrally planned services and housing. You have a "planned economy" that frequently fails to address critical issues faster than non critical issues. But it isn't all bad for people. Not always.
You have well educated people living comfortably after attending state funded schooling. Your space program is impressive on a global scale.
The USA and yourself have been in a rivalry for some time. They are competing in almost every way they can as an "opposing economic philosophy". They totally bought that Socialized/Socialism switcheroo. They even call you Commies! It is a good thing they take so much pride in "not" being Commies the vast majority will never look at its definition. You did hear of a red scare, American Commies. It doesn't seem like most of them looked up the definition of Communism either. To the Americans, your State-Capitalist nation with central planning and welfare has been redefined as Communism. Good. You never had to be Socialist or Communist and still get credit for pioneering both. But then things slow down all of a sudden. The USA sees this. You can feel your time running out. One final mistake is made, and enough trust is broken. Your massive reach is voted back down to it's single original country. People are angry. But that anger is captured and turned to loyalty. You shed the old ways that failed you. And you fear not, because you are still State-Capitalist that never changed. And this time, you aren't pretending to be Marxist. Those close and loyal will be rich. Those who might be issues tend to fall from skyscraper windows by accident or commit suicide with two shots to the head. You have all this black gold. Why not treat yourself with it? Media reminds the common citizen of the reach they once had, of the former glory. Mother Russia, formerly the USSR, influenced the world.
I was gonna do more of these but actually I think I'm done now.
Long story short; surprise, it was all just more **capitalism** this whole time. Not a single socialist/communist facing party ever did socialism and communism. It's always just different flavours of:
"State-Capitalism is used by a small group or individual to control all the wealth and have the power to do anything and make anyone else do anything. Usually lots of people die at some point. In the end, they still didn't begin the first step and install Socialism. This then lead to Communism never happening. The leading party name is or was 'Socialism and Communism' thus, once again, State-Capitalism gets no direct blame for any lack for freedoms or blunders and much of the world is terrified of two things deemed by many as evil. Yet they have never actually happened in the history of the planet unless you count ancient proto-communist tribes, and nobody would do that. Since working collectively as 15 people before the vast majority of human technology existed is a lot different than we working collectively with the population of a modern nation.
https://redd.it/1xfsjde
@r_communism
Russification across the USSR that wasn’t necessary for industrialization at all
I don’t think Stalin was the best socialist leader, if we’re speaking purely from an emotionally liberal/reductive perspective. Lol. I get why Stalin had to push aggressive natalism (which was fairly socially regressive, although one of the options to industrialize in order to survive the Nazi invasion.) but I do not see how the Russification, the silencing of ethnic cultures, languages, and its people was needed for this specific mission. It is a reflection of exceptionalism, which communism goes against.
Any thoughts?
https://redd.it/1xfgkx0
@r_communism