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For the theory and practice of Marxism Powered by @r_channels and @reddit2telegram
Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (November 02)
We made this because Reddit's algorithm prioritises headlines and current events and doesn't allow for deeper, extended discussion - depending on how it goes for the first four or five times it'll be dropped or continued.
Suggestions for things you might want to comment here (this is a work in progress and we'll change this over time):
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\[ Previous Bi-Weekly Discussion Threads may be found here [https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/search?sort=new&restrict\_sr=on&q=flair%3AWDT](https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3AWDT) \]
https://redd.it/1om31qs
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Looking for texts on student organizing
Its as the title says, I could use some recommendations which dive into the topic of organizing students
https://redd.it/1okjki7
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Condemn The Illegal Detention of FACAM Members by the Delhi Police Special Cell in Bogus Missing Person Case!
https://redd.it/1o93mgs
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The Three Instances of Hegemony in the History of Capitalist World-Economy
https://citysoc223.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/wallerstein.pdf
https://redd.it/1ododn8
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FBI and Puerto Rico Police Discussed Pro-Independence Group During Domestic Terrorism Meeting
https://thelatinonewsletter.org/p/fbi-and-puerto-rico-police-discussed-pro-independence-group
https://redd.it/1o7mwax
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Comprehensive Maoist Overview of Chinese Historical Development since 1949
https://www.bannedthought.net/China/Maoism/2022/ChinaRevolutionAndRestoration-English-2022.pdf
https://redd.it/1o67i74
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PFLP Statement on Ceasefire Agreement (October 9, 2025)
https://fightbacknews.org/articles/pflp-on-ceasefire-agreement
https://redd.it/1o2gzh2
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communist sources on maduro
Would appreciate recommendations for pretty much any resource for communist perspectives on Maduro and his policies. I'm having a hard time finding anything on him that isn't straight from the US government.
https://redd.it/1o1ptwf
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Zohran Mamdani and Graham Platner, aka why Stalin was right about "social democrats"
I knew today would be filled with imperialist propaganda, but to see it so shamelessly peddled from 2 of the countries more "left wing" candidates was really sad to see. Let's get into why:
https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1975550702056538512
Just an all around awful statement here. Calling resistance to genocide a "war crime" and condemning hamas (even though resistance to genocide is explicitly protected under international law) is a joke. And spouting that "67,000" figure is pretty plainly genocide denial. The real number has been proven to be closer to 700,000. If he had to make a statement, it was possible to make one without spreading zionist lies and condemning resistance around the world. Not to mention this comes only days after he called Maduro and Diaz Canel "brutal dictators." Zohran is no friend of communists
https://x.com/grahamformaine/status/1975570406938751259
This one may be even worse, but not surprising coming from a literal blackwater mercenary.
This is just to serve as a reminder that when Stalin said "Social democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism" he was 100% correct.
As communists, we must condemn these "leaders" and their actions while also working with our community to actually improve material conditions and help them see through the lies.
This also proves that electoral politics will not save us. Now is the time to organize and act.
https://redd.it/1o0l1iu
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What happens when they shut off water to rebel base areas?
**SCENARIO**: America goes fascist. A civil war emerges. Revolutionary base areas are formed. The fascist state cuts off water supply (as well as auxillary systems like energy & sewage processing) to revolutionary base areas.
**KEY CONSIDERATIONS**:
* Approximately 80% of America's population is urban/semi-urban. 85% of Americans are reliant on centralized water supply systems.
* Among rural Americans with private wells, the overwhelming majority of their population is sympathetic to fascism.
* All historical examples of socialist civil wars/revolutions occured in the Global South. In most of those cases, when the state weaponized water access, it was _not_ a deathblow to the revolutionary movement. The masses of the Global South are accustomed to irregular access (or even zero access) to clean running water. The masses of the Global South already have decentralized water infrastructure in place (either as a back-up or as their main/only source). The masses of the Global South also have the know-how to safely expand capacity for more decentralized water harvesting & purification. _Americans do not_.
**QUESTIONS**:
* How does this play out across the US? How does a rebel base area overcome this form of seige?
* How many people do you know who have the technical knowledge to build wells? To determine the optimal placement of a well? To engage in proper filtration/purification/desalination, especially without regular access to electricity? etc.
* How can a rebel base area quickly expand the number of community members who have this critical knowledge
(Assume the fascist state has also shut off the internet, electricity, and most universities/libraries have been bombed by the state or burned down by fascist gangs).
* In our individualistic imperial-core culture, how will communities react to this form of siege warfare? Even in a revolutionary base area, there will be plenty of selfish individuals. The fascist state _will_ broadcast to the revolutionary base area. The fascist state _will_ promise to restore water access as soon as the community hands over the rebels. In your community, do you think people would maintain solidarity under these conditions?
* How many American doctors are knowledgeable enough to treat the types of water-borne diseases which will emerge? These diseases are mostly relegated to the 3rd world.
* How does climate change affect the realities of such water-siege in different regions of the country?
https://redd.it/1nz21n0
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Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (October 05)
We made this because Reddit's algorithm prioritises headlines and current events and doesn't allow for deeper, extended discussion - depending on how it goes for the first four or five times it'll be dropped or continued.
Suggestions for things you might want to comment here (this is a work in progress and we'll change this over time):
* 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!
\[ Previous Bi-Weekly Discussion Threads may be found here [https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/search?sort=new&restrict\_sr=on&q=flair%3AWDT](https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3AWDT) \]
https://redd.it/1ny9k8g
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Is this real ?
https://english.dainikjagranmpcg.com/states/chhattisgarh/historic-surrender-103-naxalites-lay-down-arms-in-bijapur-on/article-5848
https://redd.it/1nx22ek
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locals out of the union, opening up fissures that weakened the union's strikes against the Anaconda Copper Mining Company in 1954 and 1959. The union eventually merged with the Steelworkers in 1967 after losing locals to it in Butte and Canada.
In fact, even this "radical" union merely disagreed with its more conservative alternatives that anti-communism was the best way forward
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmpireZincstrike
>A very public conflict between the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and the IUMMSW over political policy and charges of communist infiltration had played out in the years leading up to the strike, and had resulted in the expulsion of IUMMSW from the CIO. Even more publicity over this issue occurred when Maurice Travis, President of the IUMMSW, and Nathan Witt, its chief counsel, traveled to Silver City to attend a hearing on the extension of the injunction against blocking Empire's mine road. Both were either former or current members of the CPUSA.
But what was their actual function? Suppression of the grassroots local and compromise with the state:
>As the strike went on inconclusively for months, the leadership of IUMMSW increasingly felt that it could not be won, and urged Clinton Jencks, its representative in Grant County, to convince the strikers to accept Empire's offer. When Jencks and a majority of Local 890's membership refused to give up, IUMMSW's executive board voted to take control of the strike and negotiations. Following this development, dissent simmered within Local 890.
...
>Governor Mechem's call for negotiations eventually brought New Jersey Zinc's vice president of employee relations to personally meet with the union. IUMMSW's executive board, headed by Travis, conducted negotiations instead of Local 890. Travis was desperate for a settlement, again proposed arbitration, and hinted at concessions, but could get no cooperation from New Jersey Zinc. Jencks and Velasquez objected to Travis' soft line but were overruled. Many in Local 890 were unhappy about IUMMSW's defeatist attitude toward the strike, and the sidelining of Jencks.
...
>As Local 890 became more unpopular with the public, the state and local courts increasingly pressured the union with jailings, fines, and jail bonds. By the end of 1951, the union had to provide several hundred thousand dollars in bonds to be able to appeal a growing number of court decisions against it. Almost every car, lot, and home owned by union members had been pledged in property bonds. The Executive Board of IUMMSW fired Hollowwa, who was very popular among the rank and file members of Local 890, for not following their directives. The Ladies Auxiliary, the Steward Council, and the Kennecottt unit sent telegrams to IUMMSW's executive board, accusing it of disrupting the union, and comparing the executive board to metal corporation bosses.
The strike was "won" only when the reactionary function of this "communist" union was in danger of being entirely extinguished
>Surprisingly, as Local 890's position seemed ready to collapse, Empire agreed to participate in a new bargaining session in response to a request from Local 890 for arbitration by the Conciliation Service. Richard Berresford, vice-president of New Jersey Zinc, later testified before the House Labor Committee that "We are not trying to destroy this union. We are trying to give it proper leadership." Many in Local 890 believed Empire Zinc preferred to be able to deal with a weakened IUMMSW rather than deal with the more powerful Steelworkers Union.
...
>The most serious loss for the union in the negotiations came when Empire refused to drop court proceedings. In September 1952, Marshall handed down 90-day jail sentences for union leaders (Goforth held Jencks in solitary confinement) and fines totaling $38,000 for Local 890 and the IUMMSW. When presenting the contract to Local 890's membership, Travis said the contract was a victory. Witt said it was as good as the membership made it. Pablo Montoya was more sober, calling for a pilgrimage to a poor Hispanic
The equalization of the General Industrial Rate of Profit in monopoly capitalism
In Volume III (Part 2) of Capital, as you are well aware if you are in any position to understand or answer this question, Marx describes the tendency for the various rates of profit in different spheres of capitalist production to equalize into an average industrial rate of profit, as mediated by the mobility of capital and the contradictions of competition decreasing/increasing commodity prices to their relevant prices of production. While the mobility of already-applied industrial capital is constricted by the often very significant depreciation times of its fixed aspect, the surplus-value realized by a particular industrial capital can as easily be invested in other spheres of production as in the accumulation of the original line; commercial capital, and especially autonomous money capital (banking capital), are even more capable of fulfilling this function. The necessary mobility of capital, which may seem unlikely at first sight, is thus easily explicable.
The real problem that I'm dealing with in trying to grasp the mechanism and development of the equalization tendency is making sense of it in the context of monopoly capitalism. The very essence of monopoly capital, after all, is the near-maximal centralization of capital and constriction of competition, with this necessarily leading to the prices of produced commodities increasing to well above what would otherwise be their prices of production (this being the definition of super-profit). In the fields of capitalist production dominated by monopoly, the exceptional rate of profit is inherent only to the monopoly firms rather than the field itself (however ephemerally); thus there would be no corresponding flow of capital into (let alone out of) it because of this, especially with the choking out of the opportunity for smaller firms to realize profit at all, and thus the sphere would no longer be subject to equalization. Does the tendency for equalization to the general rate of profit, then, not apply for monopoly firms (or the fields of production that they dominate) --as opposed to these monopoly firm's super profits themselves determining the general rate of profit-- in developed national monopoly capitalisms? If so, there are significant implications for the historical and present development of the rate of profit.
https://redd.it/1nvnbm4
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marxist literature on global production and distribution?
Is there any literature/discussion on the details of how a communist government should handle the specifics of production and distribution? I feel like I have an intuitive understanding of what that looks like on a small scale, but I was wondering if there's any existing work on frameworks for national or global communist production.
I understand that the actual details would vary drastically based on specific capacities and needs, but I would appreciate any recommendations, whether based in a specific example or entirely theoretical.
https://redd.it/1olc0w8
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Resources and guidance on studying North Korea and its history
I have begun my study of North Korea, focusing on its history as a start. I am reading a Russian, renowned Korean studies scholar named Andrei Lankov who also lived in North Korea to study at Kim Il-Sung University in Pyongyang. Naturally I will not be satisfied with reading from only one author/source and will seek to branch out to other sources after getting through the three books I want to read as I could access them for free online. I want to ask for the freely accessible resources available on this subject and guidance on studying North Korea from this subreddit on the matter. I have also emailed my Korean studies professor asking for helpful guidance so that should go well. As an Anarchist-Communist I am naturally extremely critical of hierarchical structures and philosophies and skeptical of state and corporate produced media.
https://redd.it/1ogmiy5
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The “Second China Shock”: Finally destroying the U.S. Stranglehold?
https://red-spark.org/2025/09/06/the-second-china-shock-finally-breaking-the-u-s-stranglehold/
https://redd.it/1ocqwl3
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Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (October 19)
We made this because Reddit's algorithm prioritises headlines and current events and doesn't allow for deeper, extended discussion - depending on how it goes for the first four or five times it'll be dropped or continued.
Suggestions for things you might want to comment here (this is a work in progress and we'll change this over time):
* 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!
\[ Previous Bi-Weekly Discussion Threads may be found here [https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/search?sort=new&restrict\_sr=on&q=flair%3AWDT](https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3AWDT) \]
https://redd.it/1oabeb1
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Nazariya Magazine Issue #6 including a letter to the CPI (Maoist) CC Against the Liquidationist Line of Sonu
https://www.bannedthought.net/India/ML-Groups/Nazariya/NZ%206%20FINAL.pdf
https://redd.it/1o6clsr
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Some notes on the current political situation | Peru People's Movement
https://vnd-peru.blogspot.com/2025/10/peru-peoples-movement-some-notes-on.html?m=1
https://redd.it/1o3l29g
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Join the Professor G. N. Saibaba memorial lecture in Delhi
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1o1yd9d
https://redd.it/1o1ylwu
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Anyone have any experience with RAM?
It seems like RAM, or the Revolutionary Action Movement, might be a presence on campus and I feel as if it would be good to know things about them.
https://redd.it/1o0w8y2
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thoughts on One battle after another?
there seems to be many good reviews and only a few bad reviews (mainly coming from conservatives/right-wing). After I finished watching the film at the movie theater today I had a discussion with a friend about it (he identifies as a socialist but not a communist) and he didn’t like it at all, he thought it was hardly revolutionary at all as well as very racist. Just wondering if anyone feels the same way or the opposite?
https://redd.it/1o07oiv
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Has anyone seen the brazilian miniseries “Hilda Furacão?
Communism is one of the major themes in the show
If you have seen it, what are your thoughts about it? do you like it?
https://redd.it/1nys7zp
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I want to highlight this to show how Chinca@ communities are actually responding to recent events.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9lRq9nfevs
https://redd.it/1nwlsge
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Gen Z Protests Discussion Thread
I wanted to make this thread to facilitate discussion regarding the recent "Gen Z" protests in the Third World. I don't have much in the way of an analysis myself which is why I hope this can serve as a springboard. What is the class basis of these movements? What are your observations on the general phenomenon itself or specific movements?
Something I have noticed is that all of these protests have been organized through Internet chatrooms and primarily led by students. Those who positioned themselves as the leaders of the movements have tried to limit their violence even after facing state repression, which suggests a leadership with petty bourgeois consciousness. Outside of Nepal, my knowledge of communists' responses to the other movements is scarce, so I welcome any information regarding this.
https://redd.it/1nw8l2b
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village, where all of the strikers could "feel honorable with a clear heart and conscience."
This is the now well understood struggle in Settlers between a local union of non-white workers, the "radical" white national union that "represents" them, the reactionary unions that want to destroy both in a period of retreat for the class struggle, and the government simultaneously promoting inter-union struggle based on the course of the proletariat struggle and its suppression and sabotaging the process by attacking the union movement as a whole and, at the level of political spectacle, buying into its own propaganda about communist subversion.
Though there are moments in the film in which the wider miner's union comes to help and superficial moments when the white organizer learns to be more humble (such as not recognizing a portrait of Benito Juárez in the home of the Mexican family), the film becomes the story of one Mexican family, one Mexican mine, and one Mexican town gaining dignity. This is practical, as the film is primarily a melodrama rather than a realist illustration of wider social and political context . But this actually makes the film more honest, as the rare intrusion of white people into the central narrative doesn't overtake the centrality of the Mexican proletariat and isn't all that convincing. One reason for this is there is a lot of Spanish in the film, only some of which is translated through a voiceover from Esperanza. The film is increasingly indifferent to whether a white audience understands (the version I watched had untranslated Spanish subtitles whereas original screenings would have had none at all like on YouTube, hence the voiceover done post-production by Rosaura Revueltas, the actress who played Esperanza, from Mexico). The ending is also somewhat ambiguous, as "their Mexican children" and the working class are both "the salt of the Earth" 1:29. So while abstract dignity unites the working class across race, the actual strike was about equality between the living conditions white workers already had and Mexican workers, particularly indoor plumbing. The actual cross-racial struggle for wages and working conditions is left for a promised future, which of course never came as the film is the one product of blacklisted filmmakers and was buried on release. Watching it today the ambiguity stands out, particularly in reflecting how the end of the strike itself foretold the decline of the hispanic working class and mining itself
>The 25th negotiating session between Local 890 and Empire Zinc was held in El Paso, Texas, at the Hilton Hotel on January 21, 1952. Local 890 gave up pay for all time spent underground and paid holidays, but Empire increased pay rates to more closely approximate those of other mining companies in the district. By giving an increase in hourly wages, instead of benefits, like a 40 hour week, it could claim that it paid the highest wages in the district, which may have helped it compete for scarce workers and keep the competing Steelworkers Union at bay. Empire also agreed to negotiate wage rates for new jobs, a sickness and accident insurance program, a modest pension plan, a company-paid life insurance policy of $2500, a three-week vacation for employees with 25 years of service, and the right to use grievance procedures for new employees. Empire Zinc still refused to bargain over housing conditions, and demanded that the strikers double their housing payments until the company collected all delinquent rent. Nevertheless, Empire notified workers shortly after they returned to work that indoor plumbing, hot water, and baths would be provided to Hispanic housing. The message: this is a gift, not a concession.
All of this is to say that the film is both a historical record of the most radical form of settler-communism in its final moments and gaps and failures in that narrative because filmmaking is both and art and an industrial process. In this case, art directly imitated life, in some capacity against its own
The Salt of the Earth (1954)
I recently watched this film and it was a lot more interesting than I thought. If you haven't heard of it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SaltoftheEarth(1954film)
I watched it on Kanopy but you can watch it here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE1oKQCwwo4
It was made by a blacklisted director and the production was as difficult as the strike it portrays. The main actress was even deported during production.
Given we've all read *Settlers,* the assumption about a movie that portrays a strike of Mexican miners in New Mexico from former CPUSA intellectuals would be that the white and hispanic workers are divided by the ruling class until they come together and win. This is actually the text of the film, where this hypothesis is explicitly stated as the reason the company can't accommodate equality with the white miners and the film ends with both white and mexican workers and community members coming together and showing their power against evictions. But there are some elements of the text that complicate this.
First, though the film tries to gloss over the reactionary leadership of the unions, this haunts the film. The strike goes on for almost two years and nobody else ever shows up.
The main lesson of the film is for men to understand women as workers and social life as part of the reproduction of the worker and therefore part of the class struggle. This takes the form of the male workers being barred legally from striking and getting around it with a technicality that allows their wives to strike in their place (which is what actually happened in the strike and is worth studying on its own). The male chauvinist husband [Ramón Quintero] and his wife [Esperanza Quintero] are arguing about her participation and he says that the white men (workers and bosses) are happy to have the Mexican wives emasculate their husbands while keeping their own white wives at home. Esperanza argues that there are white women on the picket line [54 minutes], pointing to two. Ramón then counters that one is the organizer's wife and has to be there and the second is the wife of the (white, Polish/Jewish) miner who was injured and caused the strike to begin. Esperanza then says "anglo husbands can be backward too."
This debate shows that both the wife *and* the husband are correct. While the husband's chauvinism and resentment ideology is incorrect and self-defeating, there is no mass movement of white women to support them (or white men) and that white feminism is not automatically their ally. After all, she's already run out of examples on the picket line. Given the recent discussions of the persistence of chauvinism and hetero-normativity among oppressed peoples and socialist nation-state construction, this aspect of the film is worthy thinking about.
Part of the reason for the lack of white solidarity is that, despite whatever intentions the director had, in the actual production all of the unions affiliated with movie production and mining barred their workers from involvement.
>As Tom Miller notes in a Cinéaste article, the early negative publicity made it difficult to assemble a film crew: "The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees—IATSE, an AFL affiliate—refused to allow its members to work on Salt of the Earth because of the movie's politics. That the Hollywood unions wouldn't let their members work on such a pro-union film was bitter irony
Put simply, they couldn't find enough white people to send a message of racial solidarity. As wikipedia notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WesternFederationofMiners
>The producers found it difficult, however, to recruit Anglo actors to play strikebreakers or deputy sheriffs; those who disliked the union wanted nothing to do with it, while those who sympathized did not want to be seen switching sides, even as actors.
reflecting the general segregation of the union
>more conservative members, uneasy with the union's foreign policy and with the increasing number of African-American and Mexican-American unionists, tried to take their
Beyond State Control: The Struggle Over North Korea’s Markets
https://www.38north.org/2025/09/beyond-state-control-the-struggle-over-north-koreas-markets/
https://redd.it/1nujkrk
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