Tag: class struggle

Lenin: Socialism and Religion

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Lenin: Socialism and Religion

The economic oppression of the workers inevitably calls forth and engenders every kind of political oppression and social humiliation, the coarsening and darkening of the spiritual and moral life of the masses. The workers may secure a greater or lesser degree of political liberty to fight for their economic emancipation, but no amount of liberty will rid them of poverty, unemployment, and oppression until the power of capital is overthrown. Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation. Impotence of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.

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Drama: PatSocs, CPUSA, and Mao

Ms. Cat
Source

A Sad State of Affairs: The Decline of the Communist Party USA.

In fact, they have even gone so far as to attack with the most heinous and disgusting of lies the most prominent Communist in the country, who is one of the leading voices in the Palestinian solidarity movement, Jackson Hinkle, along with us and the rest of the new Communist movement that is quickly forming in our new era of revolutionary potential. And in doing this, they are materially aligning themselves with the forces of that genocide and Zionism.

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Recently, the Party posted a rather telling article on its official website called “Against Patriotic Socialism”. Yes, you read that correctly. The article, part of the pre-convention discussions (or, really, we should put “convention” in scare quotes, and the National Board knows why – maybe they can explain to the various clubs why that is, before we have to do so), which can be found on the Party’s main website, maliciously, falsely, and childishly attacks the most prominent Communists in the entire country, who have done more for the cause of class struggle in a single year than the Party has managed in 20. Hinkle alone has exposed millions of people not only to a more positive view of Communism and fought Zionism and imperialism at every turn, but even gone so far as to do what these so-called “old heads” thought impossible, and gotten people to reconsider their views on J.V. Stalin, the most lied about Communist in history. The Infrared Collective has created new slogans that have gotten parts of the working class the Party gave up on long ago to begin getting interested in Communism, and its slogans are featured in mainstream media frequently.

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[1999] Philippines: The Great Left Divide

Ms. Cat

A SPECTER is haunting the revolutionary movement in the Philippines — the specter of seemingly interminable splits.

In the seven years since Armando Liwanag issued his “Reaffirm our Basic Principles and Rectify Errors” document, the Left — or more appropriately, the Left of the national democratic (ND) tradition — has gone through an unprecedented period of metastasis. The once monolithic movement that at its peak in the mid-1980s commanded 35,000 Party members, 60 guerrilla fronts, two battalions and 37 company formations, and foisted ideological and organizational hegemony in the progressive politics during the Marcos dictatorship is now history. Out of it have emerged fragments of disparate groups — eight at least — that continue to wage “revolution” in similarly disparate forms.


The Great Left Divide

Related:

Philippine Socialism Archive

Banned or Suppressed Publications in the Philippines

Anti-Imperialism in the US Today: What It Is and Is Not

Ms. Cat

Fidel Castro, the world recognizes as a historic anti-imperialist figure, repeatedly warned that the main danger to humanity is US imperialism: “There is an enemy that can be called universal, an enemy whose attitude and whose actions…threaten the whole world, bully the whole world, that universal enemy is Yankee imperialism.” He fought to build a world united front against imperialism, of the world’s peoples and countries to oppose the barbarous actions of US imperialism. We see that anti-imperialist unity right now with United Nations votes and worldwide protests against the US-Israeli slaughters in Gaza, in what the New York Times in 2003 called “a second superpower.” 

Anti-Imperialism in the US Today: What It Is and Is Not

Speech Made by Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un on Congratulatory Visit to Ministry of National Defence

Ms. Cat

Pyongyang, February 9 (KCNA) — The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un paid a congratulatory visit to the DPRK Ministry of National Defence on the occasion of the 76th founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) and made a significant speech to congratulate the officers and men of the heroic KPA.

Speech Made by Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un
 on Congratulatory Visit to Ministry of National Defence

Five of Lenin’s Insights That Are More Pertinent Than Ever

Ms. Cat

Today we mourn a hundred years since the physical death of one of our dearest comrades, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, known to us as Lenin. It would be foolish, however, to think that his physical death meant the death of his ideas. Today, after a hundred years, Lenin’s ideas are as indispensable as ever. “They are mistaken when they think that his death is the end of his ideas”. This was told to us by Fidel Castro upon the death of Che Guevara, but it applies with equal accuracy to Lenin’s death.

Five of Lenin’s Insights That Are More Pertinent Than Ever

Motives for respecting Mao on his 130th birthday

Ms. Cat

Motives for respecting Mao on his 130th birthday

Mao Zedong was a great revolutionary who brought Marxism, founded by Marx and Engels, and developed by Lenin, into the 21st century and led the transformation of the lives of millions by using scientific socialism as a guide to action. Mao Zedong is a great teacher not only of the Chinese people but also of the cause of humanity. Mao demolished the dogma that socialism “can only exist in developed capitalist countries”. Thanks to the horizon opened by Mao, oppressed nations have gained their independence and brought freedom, prosperity, and happiness to their people to build socialism unique to their own countries. Mao Zedong courageously determined that the transition to a classless society would take a long historical period, theorized that the class struggle persists in different forms under socialism, and discovered and applied the means and mechanisms to mobilize the great power of the people to build socialism from the top down. Mao’s most important achievement was to lead the building of the Communist Party of China, which was resilient, strong, vibrant, and based on the people in all circumstances.

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Today, Xi Jinping is developing China’s modernization path by applying Mao’s route to the realities of the 21st century. Mao’s vision of achieving a “society of abundance” and the method of advancing to a classless society remain unchanged. Today, the CPC, led by Xi Jinping, represents the hope of the Chinese people and all humanity because it adheres to Mao’s path.

Argentina: the movement against Milei has begun

Ms. Cat

As we were about to publish the latest editorial of the Argentine section of the IMT, concerning the first budget announcements of the new government of far-right demagogue president Milei, he doubled down: announcing by decree the abolition of over 300 pieces of legislation, which regulate economic activity in a wide range of fields. This is an unprecedented, ultra-liberal assault on the rights and living conditions of the working masses, introduced using undemocratic emergency decree powers. The announcement provoked a spontaneous movement of protest, with thousands coming out into the streets of Buenos Aires, as Alejandro Spezia describes in this special update (the original article follows after).

Argentina: the movement against Milei has begun