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Trier, Germany's oldest city, is famous for its ancient art treasures and monuments but, most of all, is the birthplace of the greatest philosopher of modern history; Karl Marx.

More than 200 years since the birth of the father of scientific socialism, candidates from the German Communist Party (DKP) are going to participate in the local city council elections that are due to take place in June 9, 2024.

Last week, the city's electoral committee confirmed that the DKP Trier had met all the requirements for running for election.

Philippe Drastik, a 30 year-old social worker who leads the DKP list, points out: "We have already been able to use the collection of signatures for many discussions with the citizens of our city and have found that we have struck a chord with people with our election program".

Of course we are aware that at the local level we won't be able to overcome capitalism, as the cause of exploitation, war and crisis. Nevertheless, we believe that an unyielding voice against privatization and speculation and for the preservation of social freedom can make a real difference for the people of Trier", the 30 year-old communist candidate adds.

Other candidates of the DKP include 71-year-old Sigrid Sommer and 38 year-old Christian Lhr. In general, we are committed to a city that is livable and, above all, child-friendly. The unconditional creation of daycare places is just as important as the expansion of gyms, playgrounds and sports fields. We want to make the city safer for cyclists", says Sommer.

dkptrier.wordpress.com / zeitungderarbeit.at

The rest is here:
Communists to run in Karl Marx hometown's election - In Defense of Communism

Slow Down is the English translation of Kohei Saitos Japanese work Capital in the Anthropocene, which became an unlikely hit when it was published in 2020, selling half a million copies. Saito had thought his argument that the climate crisis cannot be addressed without transcending capitalism was too radical to find much of an audience (p.viii), but in the event, even capitalists were coming up to him to express their agreement with his ideas, and to ask his advice on what they should therefore do with their businesses.

As Saito himself says, the enthusiasm in Japan for the book probably relates to it resonating with wider social discontentments and anxieties (p.viii). In other words, the books success was more an expression of a desire for systemic change in general rather being a specific endorsement of Saitos anti-growth message. As one Japanese fan put it, he doesnt say there are good and bad things about capitalism, or that it is possible to reform it he just says we have to get rid of the entire system. It was also apparently an expression of interest in Marxism, or, as that Guardian story about the books surprise success in Japan expressed it, in strands of Marxism. This is a cautious allusion to the fact that Saitos interpretation of Marx is decidedly controversial.

Saitos argument about Marx here repeats his position set out in his previous English-language publication, Marx in the Anthropocene,i that while Marx was a productivist in his early years, towards the end of his life, he became a degrowth communist. In Saitos view, Marx realised that blindly accelerating productivity under capitalism would never pave the way for a transition to socialism Rather than calling for raising productivity under capitalism, Marx now sought to bring about a transition to a separate economic system that is, socialism, first, and then foster sustainable economic development within that system (p.104).

In contrast to the approach of his other books, Saito here is talking to a non-Marxist audience. Members of this audience, he posits, might think that Marxism has nothing to contribute to a conversation about the environment because of Soviet environmental destruction, (p.86) or that it necessarily involves the nationalization of modes of production accompanied by one-party rule in the style of the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union or the Peoples Republic of China [and is] both outdated and dangerous (p.88). As a result, its reasonable that his account of Marxs economics should be simplified. It is less reasonable that in places, that simplification should have garbled Saitos account into incoherence.

Some of these instances are just demonstrations of the value of a final edit, such as where a discussion of how coals transportability enabled mill owners to site production where labour was plentiful, rather than being restricted by geography, is marred by the somewhat startling statement that labour power was comparatively scarce in areas near rivers and streams (p.154). It is not hard to think of a long list of major cities on rivers with which to refute this.

Other instances are more serious. Saitos simplified, broad summary of the Communist Manifesto presents its central argument as:

Capitalists compete against each other, raising their productivity, which leads to the production of more and more commodities. But workers, exploited due to low wages, cant afford to buy those commodities. This eventually leads to a crisis of overproduction. The already-exploited workers thus suffer another blow, this time due to the unemployment stemming from this crisis, and rise up en masse, bringing about a socialist revolution (p.94).

This combines an under-consumption thesis, that the problem for capitalism is that demand from the exploited workers will be insufficient to the supply they generate, with an immiseration thesis, the idea that workers will automatically rise up if their lives are just made hard enough. Neither of these was Marxs position, although it is not entirely uncommon for Marx to be seen in Keynesian under-consumptionist terms. It is certainly the case that Marx was neither an under-consumptionist nor an adherent of the immiseration thesis in the Communist Manifesto. Similarly, despite Saitos claim to the contrary, Marx did not argue in his earlier writings (or indeed, at any point) that raising productivity under capitalism [would] necessarily lead to the liberation of humanity (p.117).

Saitos thesis that Marx converted to degrowth has been thoroughly criticised, for example by Matt Huber and Leigh Phillips in a long essay for Jacobin. As they point out, leaving aside quotations which Marx copied into his notebooks (copying not necessarily representing endorsement), the argument largely rests on one set of texts, the several drafts of Marxs 1881 letter to the Russian socialist Vera Zasulich. In this letter, Marx speculated that Russian peasant villages, the mir, which had communal property, could go straight to socialism without having first to be remade as capitalist. In other words, Huber and Phillips explain,

the Russian mir could leapfrog capitalist development because capitalist development had occurred elsewhere, in the same way that many poor countries have jumped directly to adoption of mobile phones without having to pass through the stages of telegraphy or landlines.

For Saito, this letter represents the culmination of Marxs transition from what Saito caricatures as a belief in the inevitable forces of history, production as liberation and capitalism as progress, to degrowth. This is a substantial claim to make about Marxs thought on the basis of one letter, and one which Saito is only able to reach, in any case, by stretching the reading of that letter further than it can reasonably go. As Huber and Phillips make clear, at no point in any of the drafts [of the letter] did Marx suggest humanity as a whole could have taken a noncapitalist path through to communism.

On first reading, it is not entirely clear what the discussion of Marx is doing in the book at all. Saito leads into this section with the short statement that: Yes, I am talking about communism. Hence the necessity of bringing degrowth together with the writings of Karl Marx (p.86). This does not entirely cover what feels like a jump from the initial chapters on the ills of capitalism in the present day to the discussion of the evolution of Marxs thought. While Marxs ideas are, of course, directly relevant to a consideration of ecological destruction under capitalism, you might be excused for feeling that the question of how Marxs views on degrowth might have changed throughout his life belongs in a different book entirely, rather than in this one. It does not, on the face of it, appear to explain or advance the questions of how to deal with the problems of capitalism raised in the first section of this book.

One explanation for this apparent disjunct is that Saito does however believe that his argument about Marxs later thought has a direct relevance for how we should approach the climate crisis in the present. As others have noticed, Saito has a tendency to present his arguments about Marxs beliefs as if Marx were a prophet, whose word we should believe unconditionally and without question. The implication seems to be that if Marx towards the end of his life embraced degrowth, that alone should be sufficient to convince us to convert to it too. For Saito, no further argument about the merits of degrowth is necessary if it can be shown to have been hallowed by Marx.

While Marxists are sometimes accused by the right of adopting Marxism or communism as a form of religion, this is not, of course, a style of argument in which any materialist worth their salt could engage. In the specific instance of the Russian mir, we would simply note that if Marx had adopted the view that the mir represented a route for humanity straight from feudalism to socialism, events would have proved him wrong. The small size of the proletariat compared to the peasantry proved to be a significant obstacle for a successful revolution in Russia. It is also worth noting though that the section on Marx here provides left cover to a set of ideas which might otherwise appear clearly anti-working class.

In his preface to the English-language edition, Saito makes clear that he sees himself as more radical than many other proponents of degrowth. They, he says, are often ambivalent about the need to transcend capitalism. I am not ambivalent (p.x). Once we get to the section of the book dealing with solutions, it is, however, striking how much of Saitos vision of our sustainable future is recognisable from the general degrowth playbook. Workers co-ops, mutual aid, localised production and so on all make their expected appearance.

That so much of this is familiar may be why Saito chose not to spell out the thinking behind many of the specific proposals. There is little discussion, for example, of why power generation should be organised on a small-scale, local basis, or acknowledgment of the way that this would magnify renewables problems with intermittency. Similarly, there is no explanation here for why co-ordination of some production at regional, but not national, level would be permissible, or why a regional government would be somehow qualitatively different from a national one.

What is also unfortunately familiar from other degrowth works is the call for restraint on modern, urban lifestyles deemed to be self-indulgent and excessive. Saito is careful to state that his is not a nostalgic call to return to the village! (p.124), but the general picture painted here of the degrowth communist society does end up sounding rather like those low-tech agricultural communes of the Zasulich letter. Saito has commented that people accuse me of wanting to go back to the [feudal] Edo period [1603-1868] and it is easy to see why. When, for example, he criticises urban populations for no longer knowing how to grow their own food: all we know how to do anymore is live our urban lifestyles supported by the exploitation of the periphery (p.141), it is difficult to interpret the argument in any way other than as a call to abandon modernity.

Early in the book, Saito responds to the criticism that his ideas sound like voluntary poverty with the comment that on the surface, this criticism is correct (p.73). He underlines this later by calling for us to voluntarily choose the path of self-limitation as an anti-capitalist, revolutionary action (p.178). Saitos point seems to be that while, on the surface, we would indeed be choosing material restrictions, we would be gaining all sorts of intangible benefits in exchange. As he explains:

This does not mean that peoples lives will become impoverished. Rather, as the space taken up by mutual aid, independent of money exchange, expands, people will be released more and more from the pressures of work. The amount of time regained by the average person just through this shift would be immense (p.171).

Presenting the call for degrowth as a discussion of Marxs ideas frames it as a discussion of economic systems and their effects on the environment. It quickly becomes clear, however, that this is as much about individual lifestyles and our individual responsibility for them. The lifestyles of everyone in the Global North are characterised early in the book as being typified by cars, aeroplanes, large houses, meat, wine, but by the end have become simply urban. They are without qualification rich and enriched, requiring a huge amount of resources and energy to be wasted for the benefit of a very small portion of humanity (p.6). They are supported by the exploitation of the periphery (p.141) and represent the Imperial Mode of Living. Simply by living in the Global North, each and every one of us becomes complicit in perpetuating injustice (p.14).

This is the labour aristocracy theory, that either all workers or a section of the working class in the Global North is paid off by the bourgeoisie with the spoils of imperialism. It is in no way a Marxist position, ignoring as it does the way in which workers in the Global North have had to fight for advances in wages, conditions, welfare and so on, and that workers in the Global South are exploited by national and imperialist bourgeoisies, not by other workers.

As expressed here, it represents the conclusion that the problems of capitalism are caused by the greed and irresponsibility of the working class in the Global North. Even capitalisms need for growth is not understood here as a matter of economics but as a result of short-term political choices. Saito follows the productivity trap explanation for growth under capitalism, that rises in productivity mean that the same amount of production can be delivered with fewer workers, but politicians hate high unemployment rates. For this reason, theres a huge amount of pressure for the economy to keep expanding indefinitely so as to maintain the rate of employment (p.40). Growth is therefore ultimately the fault of the selfish, short-sighted workers, insisting on wages to buy their meat and wine, despite the damage to workers in the Global South and to the planet.

While Saito does take care to outline what he sees as the compensations in degrowth communism for the dramatic drop in living standards it would entail for the Global North, youre left with the strong sense that this drop is in any case deserved. We are sinful for internalis[ing] to an extreme extent the sheer desirability of the Imperial Mode of Living (p.14) and must expiate our guilt with some much-needed austerity. Saito opens the introduction to the Japanese edition with the comment that individual actions like using a reusable shopping bag or carrying a thermos for your coffee function like Catholic indulgences (p.xiii) and the religious overtones persist throughout.

It will be apparent that at its heart, this is a Malthusian position. As in Malthus, the blame for environmental destruction ultimately lies with the industrial working-class. While Saito is clear in his rejection of capitalism, it is also clear that he sees modern, industrial production as inherently destructive of the environment. Strict limits on production to only the absolutely necessary (as always, who decides what is or is not necessary is not well-defined) will be required under any system to address the climate crisis. The transition from capitalism to communism is needed in order to manage this as fairly as possible and to give people the compensation in terms of free time, community and so on, for the drastic decline in their material standards of living.

Saito does say at one point that the technological advances made under capitalism should be retained (p.124), but the general tenor of the discussion is that they wouldnt be, and indeed Saito also says that in many instances, the new degrowth communist society would have to start from scratch. Given the criticism of urban lifestyles, it is difficult to interpret this as anything other than an argument against industrialisation, regardless of the mode of production. Whether it would be possible to maintain anything like the modern size of population in these straitened, post-urban conditions is not discussed, but is a valid question.

This bears very little resemblance to the Marxist position that in a system run democratically for the benefit of everyone, humanity should be able to come up with technological solutions to ecological problems. As Engels wrote in his Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy, freed from the irrationalities of capitalist profit-seeking, human labour could always extend what might appear to be the natural limits of production: the productivity of the land can be infinitely increased by the application of capital, labour and science.ii The radical abundance which Saito is right to seek should be able to be a genuine abundance, not simply austerity for all.

There is also, of course, the question of how to persuade people voluntarily to fight for their own immiseration, a particularly difficult argument in a cost-of-living crisis. The consideration here, such as it is, of how to overthrow capitalism in favour of degrowth communism is perhaps the weakest element of the book. It demonstrates that it is not only necessary to read Marxs writings, but to understand them.

There is very little here that rises to a theory of how to achieve revolutionary change. In some places, Saito implies that the system will be changed simply by individuals changing their behaviour, as for example when he posits that: these actions will combine to become a huge groundswell that will rein in the power of capital, reform democracy and decarbonize society (p.238). The impression is that this is as much about moral deserts as it is about achieving political change. The actions which will form this groundswell are as disparate as getting involved in a community farm or working for an environmental NGO, and Saito assures us that it doesnt matter the form it [action] takes (p.237).

This position is reminiscent of that of the nineteenth-century utopian socialists, whose approach of attempting to withdraw from capitalism rather than taking it on directly was criticised by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto: they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary, action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and endeavour, by small experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the way for the new social Gospel.iii Saito does not show an awareness of this history, or of the histories of initiatives like the co-operative movement. He lauds modern co-ops in Barcelona as the first step towards the transition to a form of sustainably participatory socialism based on mutual aid and away from an economic model based on exploitation and plunder (p.218) without any explanation of why they are different from their nineteenth- and twentieth-century precursors.

In part, the problem seems to lie in the understanding here of what confronting the power of global capital really means. Saito, for example, lauds Barcelona for doing so by taking distinctly non-revolutionary and non-challenging measures such as implementing urban speed limits and cracking down on AirBnB. He also appears to have avoided learning what for Marx was a key lesson of the 1871 Paris Commune, that the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made State machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.iv He comments that the citizens assembly shows us is that social movements can renovate democratic processes and use the power of the state (p.139).

The larger issue though appears to be one which faces many green critics of capitalism: that Saito wishes to argue for overthrowing the system without endorsing proletarian revolutionary organisation. It is remarkable, given Saitos self-described credentials as a scholar of political thought in the Marxist tradition (p.viii), that the proletariat here is notable by its almost total absence, with no entries at all in the index.

There is no proletariat in Saitos account of Marxs theories, either in his versions of early or late Marx, and certainly no proletarian organisation. His caricature of early Marxs view of how revolution would come about has people rising up spontaneously in response to unemployment and omits Marxs understanding of the proletariat as the only class capable of overthrowing capitalism. It is indeed possible to read Saito as implying that a proletarian revolution would actually be ecologically disastrous. His comment that socialism ended up being an effort to bring about a society in which a nations proletarian class would be able to enjoy the material abundance realized by capitalism (p.229), without further qualification, could be taken as suggesting that proletarian consumption is, one way or another, always going to be an environmental problem.

This implication shifts the significance in this argument of Marxs letter to Vera Zasulich. The question which Zasulich asked Marx and to which Marx was responding was relevant to a world which was not yet entirely capitalist: did areas which had not yet been brought into the capitalist mode of production still have to go through it, or could they skip straight to socialism? Given that the capitalist mode of production is now entirely global, this is a historical question. There is nowhere on earth now which would still have any even theoretical option of moving straight from feudalism to socialism. It is possible however to read Saito as suggesting with the Zasulich letter that Marx meant not simply that the Russian mir could be part of a socialist revolution, given the existence of the proletariat elsewhere in Russia, but that it is possible to have a revolution without the proletariat at all.

This would be a conclusion of more than historical interest. Maybe we dont have to worry about converting working people to voluntary poverty, but can just go round them? I am sure that Saito would object to being portrayed as anti-working class, or anti-democratic, and indeed he does talk at various points about the benefits to workers of degrowth communism and the importance of engaging them. It is hard not to note, however, how these do not add up to a picture of proletarian involvement in the degrowth communist revolution.

Saito says, for example, that the first step towards revolution must take place at the site of production, but the explanation that follows turns out not to be about workers seizing control of the means of industrial production but about urban farming in Detroit (p.190). It is a geographical statement, not a strategic one. Similarly, while Saito makes various statements in favour of radical democracy, the prescription here is for citizens assemblies, which, although widely supported by parts of the green movement, would remove political participation entirely from people who did not happen to be selected by lot to be on the assembly.

Saito adopts Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephans argument that if a movement can mobilise 3.5% of the population, it is likely to succeed.v In Chenoweth and Stephans hands, this is actually an argument for mass movements; it represents the unsurprising conclusion that very large movements with significant popular support can win. The 3.5% has to be actively engaged, which in a UK context in 2024 means getting 2.3 million people on the streets. For Saito though, those who are active are an enlightened minority. Even most of the books readers, he says, wont act: even those who largely agree will likely still conduct their lives as usual, unable to conceive of what they might do in the face of a demand as enormous as changing an entire social system (p.236). The masses, it is clear, will still cling to their lifestyles under capitalism.

Saito is far from the only degrowth writer to argue or imply that working-class consumption is the problem and enlightened anti-consumerism the solution. In view of far-right climate denialism, and the extent to which the climate crisis is being used by right-wing governments as a vote-winner in the populist culture war, it is, however, a dangerous position to take, and one which pushes the chance of meaningful climate action further away.

Saito is correct that capitalism needs to be overthrown, but as a scholar in the Marxist tradition, he should at least be aware that it is necessary also to understand how that might be done. As every Marxist should know, the philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.vi

i Kohei Saito, Marx in the Anthropocene. Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2023).

ii Frederick Engels, The Myth of Overpopulation, Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (1844), reprinted in Ronald L Meek, Marx and Engels on Malthus, (Lawrence and Wishart, London 1953), p.58.

iii Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, (Progress Publishers, Moscow 1986), p.67.

iv Communist Manifesto, preface to the German Edition of 1872, p.9.

v Erica Chenoweth and Maria J Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works. The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, (Columbia University Press, New York 2013).

vi Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach, Early Writings, trans. Rodney Livingstone and Gregor Benton, (London 1981), p.423.

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Slow Down. How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth book review - Counterfire

The Devil and Communist China indicts the murderous rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with Mao Zedong at its center, reaching back to Karl Marx himself to demonstrate the demonic origin of Communism. Its author, Steven Mosher, is the whistleblower who exposed Chinas brutal One Child Policy 40 years ago.

After open flirtations with literal Satanism, Marx developed the theoretical framework for Communism. (Marxism is the theory, and Communism the practice.) This new book covers Maos life and ends with current Chinese President Xi Jinpings recent ascension to office. With ample horrific accounts, it convincingly proves that the CCP is not just a party of an earthly system, but a demonic killing machine.

I immediately saw this books value for todays America. Ours is a demonless society. We largely dont believe they exist. Many believe spiritual beings like demons have no room in our humanist society. We should waste no time on such things, they say, but give our attention to building a better future through collaboration and unconditional tolerance.

Sadly, most American churches follow the same line of reasoning. Pastors rarely talk about demons. When they do, its usually because some sections of the Scripture mention them. Jesus encountered demons and cast them out, which demonstrated His power over darkness but thats usually where the sermon ends. We see no connection between the demons in the Scripture and our circumstances. No wonder when trying to explain to my American friends about the demonic essence of Marxism and Communism, I often feel like Im hitting a brick wall.

Our countrys past dealings with the CCP also shows that weve had only a superficial knowledge of Communism, and missed its demonic nature. In the late 1940s, fooled by CCP lies and cunning, President Harry Truman and Secretary of State George S. Marshall persistently backed the CCP. At the most crucial moment, the American government stopped providing military supplies to General Chiang Kai-sheks Nationalist Army, thus saving the CCP from imminent destruction. Now, after decades of being fattened up by us, the CCP makes no attempt to hide its intentions or true nature.

The Devil and Communist China will help you develop a fresh understanding of Communism and the CCP, and realize that its adherents represent an invisible dark force whose insatiable desire is to steal, to kill, and to destroy. In light of the CCPs aggression around the world, this book will force us to redirect our line of resistance.

However, the book has its flaws, mainly in Part One where Mosher suggests the CCPs rule is merely the continuation of Chinese Legalism, practiced over the past two millennia. It leaves the impression that Chinese culture inherently promotes obedience and tolerates oppression, and this in part is the reason for the emergence and persistence of Communist rule in China.

This creates the perception that there is nothing positive in Chinese history. This sounds familiar; a teacher told my class during the Cultural Revolution that Chinese history was pitch black, and Chinese culture and civilization were evil, oppressive, and superstitious. I was told there had been nothing redemptive in China until the advent of the CCP, and Mao emerged to save the Chinese people from their abyss of suffering.

Later, after immigrating to the U.S., I learned the truth about Chinese history by reading books published outside mainland China. I found that, except for the brief rule of the Qin Dynasty (221 206 BC) when Legalism was exclusively practiced, the CCP was the most oppressive regime in Chinese history. Ironically, historians say Legalism is the very reason the Qin Dynasty was short-lived.

Though Mosher cogently articulates the characteristics of Legalism and rightly recognizes the connection between that political system and Maos rule, its quite the leap to say that Legalism has been the dominant political idea in China over the last two millennia. Throughout history, Chinas sociopolitical structure has been a mixture of different schools of thought. Though Legalism was part of it, it was significantly mitigated by opposing ideas such as Confucianism and Taoism. Mosher repeats the progressive view that American history is entirely defined by the antebellum period.

Further, in the Chinese culture, a person does not exist in isolation but always in different reciprocal relationships. In each, both people have obligations. In order for a relationship to continue, both parties have to fulfill their duties and responsibilities. For instance, while the citizens are required to obey the emperor, the emperor is bound to rule justly and mercifully.

Regrettably, Western intellectuals often overlook or misunderstand this reciprocity. They tend to focus on one party usually the lesser one, the subjects, the wife, the children. Consequently, to them, Chinese culture appears oppressive and the Chinese people seem submissive.

In Confucianism, subjects must obey the ruler as long as he rules justly. If an emperor turns out to be wicked, which indicates that he has lost his mandate from Heaven, his subjects are not to obey him. History shows that, at times, emperors publicly apologized to their subjects and promised less exhaustive labor, taxation, and military policies. Confuciuss statement, Water doesnt just support a ship, it can also capsize the ship, remains a sobering warning to authorities.

In addition, when the CCP attained power in 1949, Communism was a Western idea to most Chinese. Many, including my grandfather who had been one of Chiang Kai-sheks lieutenant generals decided to stay in China to give Communism a try instead of following Chiang to Taiwan. Many Chinese trained in universities in the west also returned to help create a new China. No one thought Communism was the continuation of the old Chinese system, let alone the worst part of it.

Though I see great value in Moshers book, its unfortunate that, in blaming Chinese culture itself as part of the reason for Communisms emergence and longevity in China, it suggest Communism is unique to China. The truth is that the supernatural darkness of Marxism and Communism can penetrate any society if we do not recognize and resist those ideologies with a vigor that matches their viciousness.

The green tents now popping up on college campuses like mushrooms after a rain demonstrate that the freest nation on Earth has not been able to keep Marxism at bay. The crisis Marxists inside our country have created is just as urgent as the threat coming from the other side of the Pacific. We must also keep an eye on our domestic Marxists and their activities, recognizing in them the demonic underpinnings detailed in Moshers book.

Ultimately, the burden of holding the line against Marxism and Communism falls on Christians. After all, its a spiritual matter, not merely an intellectual or political one. Only we can overcome this demonic ideology by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In this regard, The Devil and Communist China provides an important contribution.

Chenyuan Sniderwas raised in Communist China and majored in Chinese language and literature in college. After immigrating to the U.S. and studying at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary and Duke Divinity School, she became a professor at Christian colleges and seminary. Recently, she sensed God was leading her to use her unique voice to warn Americans about the various Marxist influences in our society. She lives in northern California with her husband and has two grown children.

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A Survivor of the Cultural Revolution Reviews New Book, 'The Devil and Communist China' - The Stream

For the workers and communist parties, the 1st of May represents a day of struggle, in remembrance of those who came before us and in honor of those who will continue the struggle.

The working people, not only in the countries of Europe, but in the entire world, have in the past years stood face to face with the inhumanity and brutality of the capitalist system, which has put the entire burden of the increasing prices on the shoulders of the working people. By simultaneously keeping wages down, the situation for the workers and other exploited strata has worsened in every country.

Through its policies, the bourgeois classes have not only achieved a significant cut in the real wages of the majority of workers, but they have succeeded in introducing more flexible forms of employment, abolishing the 8-hour day and in forcing upon the workers more and more unpaid work. The increasing pressure is not only felt in the workplaces, but in all spheres of life, where the commercialization of health, education and social security are all adding to the weight that the working people must carry.

Through its policies directed against small farmers, the bourgeois classes have further intensified the centralization and concentration of agriculture in the hands of a few, forcing small farmers out of business. It has produced hundreds of thousands of new impoverished pensioners, whose meager monthly earnings often do not cover the necessities of life.

But hope lies in the struggle, which the working people have shown. Where oppression and brutality has intensified, so has resistance. All over Europe, workers have striked and struggled to prevent capital from lowering their wages, in some cases winning victories and being able to defend earlier achievements; all over Europe, farmers have protested the impossible conditions under which they have been forced to work and live. In a difficult situation, where the strength of the bourgeois classes is evident, it is necessary to show a coordinated response to state, government and employer repression.

By class solidarity, by linking the different struggles, it is possible to counter the attacks of the bourgeoisie. It is not only possible to struggle for an increase in wages and pensions, for collective labor agreements, for a lowering of the retirement age and for unemployment benefits, but it is also possible to win.

At the same time as and in conjunction with the sharpening of the class struggle within each country, we observe a sharpening in the struggle within the imperialist system, and the more fierce struggle of every bourgeois class to expand the operations of its monopolies and companies. In this context, we highlight the necessity of the working people to struggle against this development, to oppose the policies of the EU and NATO and to reject them. The development finds expression in the increasing militarisation in every country, and in the regional wars and conflicts that arise, from the brutal terror unleashed on the Palestinian people to the prolonged imperialist war in the Ukraine.

Faced with the terror of capitalism, and its constant attacks on the peoples of the world, we declare that as it is, it cannot continue - the future under capitalism can hold nothing more than further impoverishment, humiliation and insecurity, and we stress the need for a revolutionary overthrow of capitalist exploitation by the development of the class struggle, and the struggle of the working people for the building of a new, socialist society, characterized by workers power.

We, the workers and communist parties of the European Communist Action send militant greetings to the struggling workers of the world, and we reaffirm our commitment to lead the struggle of the working people to its conclusion, to socialism.

Long live the 1st of May - Long live socialism!

eurcomact.org

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European Communist Action: Long live the 1st of May Long live socialism! - In Defense of Communism

A new Florida law requires public schools to teach students in kindergarten through 12th grade age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate lessons on communism. The Florida Department of Education will develop lessons which, as The Miami Herald noted, will focus on the history of communism, the increasing threat of communism in the United States and the atrocities committed in foreign countries under the guidance of communism.

A mandatory topic for the lessons, starting in the 2026-2027 school year, will be [t]he increasing threat of communism in the United States and to our allies through the 20th century, along with the economic, industrial and political events that have preceded and anticipated communist revolutions.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill during a mid-April visit to the Hialeah Gardens Museum coinciding with the 63rd anniversary of the failed 1961 CIA-directed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. My view is we might as well give them the truth when they are in our schools because a lot of these universities will tell them how great communism is, so we are setting the proper foundation, DeSantis said as he stood at a podium displaying a sign, ANTICOMMUNST EDUCATION, The Herald reported. We are committed to telling the truth about this ideology and we are going to make sure that people have a very accurate understanding of the human carnage that has resulted from communist regimes throughout history.

An Institute for Freedom in the Americas will be established at Miami Dade College, based at its Freedom Tower in downtown Miami, to preserve the ideals of a free society and promote democracy in the Americas. The institute will sponsor workshops, symposiums and conferences in partnership with Florida International Universitys Adam Smith Center for Economic Freedom. A history of communism museum is also proposed.

It will not be the rst opportunity for Florida students to learn about communism. As USA Today Network noted, they currently can receive lessons on communism in high-school social studies courses or in a seventh-grade civics and government course. Also, a high-school government class required for graduation includes 45 minutes of instruction on Victims of Communism Day and covers communist regimes through history.

It should be a surprise that, according to USA Today Network, the bill had bipartisan legislative support, with only seven Democrats in the House and Senate opposed. But the legislation is obviously directed at the states Cuban American population, estimated at two million or around 70 percent of the total nationally. They have been decisive in elections and vote mostly Republican. Democrats who supported the bill evidently hoped to cut into that support.

So it is merely pandering because there is no chance that communists will take over the United States. A rightwing dictatorship is much more likely and that is what should be taught in schools. Membership in the Communist Party of the United States is estimated at around 5,000 compared to 100,000 at a 1940s peak while millions harbor anti-democratic sentiment, stoked by former President Donald Trump. If, as DeSantis said, universities will brainwash students on how great communism is, they are doing a bad.

It is no coincidence that, like several others which the Legislature passed and DeSantis signed, the anti-communism bill was apparently inspired by an outside source. Heritage Foundation president Kevin D. Roberts interviewed talk-show host Jesse Kelly on the topic on his radio show, focusing on Kellys book The Anti-Communist Manifesto. The introduction, according to the transcript, claims: Hiding behind a veil of progressivism, todays communists have inltrated many of the institutions that Americans cherish and use their newfound power to control and regulate the actions of everyday Americans. Really?

In fact, this is just a return to U.S. Sen, Joseph McCarthys Red Scare campaign against communists in the early 1950s by todays Republican Party and Trump. The former president lumps communists with Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the connes of our country Florida lawmakers and the governor are, as usual, just falling in line.

DeSantis did not mention that there are only ve communist-governed countries today China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea compared to the dozens during the existence of the Soviet Union. And while he talked about the human carnage that has resulted from communist regimes throughout history, communism as an ideology originated in 1848 with the publication of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels and the Soviet Union declared itself a socialist state in 1922. There was a whole lot of history before that.

The anti-communist bill provides a stark contrast with how state policy deals with the more than 3.6 million African Americans who comprise nearly 16 percent of the population. The lawmakers and the governor have enacted laws that are downright unfriendly to them. They have limited discussion of race in schools and maintain that slavery was a skills-training program, even though it, too, produced a human carnage. They banned critical race theory (CRT) from classrooms where it never existed. CRT is a highly technical academic argument, usually in law schools, which insists that racial discrimination is baked into the American system. DeSantis has claimed that it teaches children to hate this country or to hate each other." Also barred are programs that seek to address that very racial inequality which he says does not exist. Those include diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and, in the case of businesses, environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives.

This, and more, has been happening partly because the Democratic Party, to which a majority of African Americans belong, seems unable to compete with Republicans. That failure has been worsened by Republican political sleight-of-hand and gerrymandering.

The result has been, as the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported last year, that while Republicans comprise 36 percent of voters, they are 71 percent of state lawmakers. More than 60 percent of the members of the Florida House of Representatives and 70 percent of the Senate are European Americans; African Americans are 18.3

percent and 17.5 percent, respectively. Few African Americans hold key executive positions; the notable exception is the surgeon-general, Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, whose claim to fame is his willingness to blindly support DeSantis, who appointed him, in rejecting health science.

This lack of representation has produced signicant consequences for African Americans. The Florida Department of Health reported that, from 2018 to 2020, the death rate from heart disease for those aged 35 or older was 338 per 1,000 18.6 percent higher than the 285 for European Americans. The stroke death rate was 120 per 1,000, or 58 percent higher than that for European Americans, at 76. Infant mortality rate in 2007 was 13.36 and 5.18, per 1,000, respectively.

U.S. Census data put the average African American household income at $48,998 30 percent less than for European Americans. The National Association of Realtors reported that 49 percent of African Americans owned their homes, compared to 75 percent of European Americans. African American enrollment in public universities declined by 12.2 percent between 2010 and 2022; that could drop further because of the hostile environment which has been created.

But there is one area in which African Americans surpass European Americans. Though they are 17 percent of Floridas population, they comprise more than 47 percent of state prisoners.

State lawmakers answer was to declare war on a non-existent communist threat, while ignoring the fact that Florida was a slave state, with the enslaved working on cotton and sugar plantations, and that European American terrorists destroyed entire African American communities. But no study or institute has been mandated to explore that history and its consequences. If African Americans hunger for such education, they can always turn to the churches, such as Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Melbourne which began offering Conscious Reality Teaching classes.

The Rev. L. Ronald Durham, pastor of the Volusia County Democratic Black Caucus, told Florida Today in November, Unless the Legislature comes to its senses and realizes how much damage is being caused by their openly hostile bills targeting minorities and women, we are heading toward a society that has the potential to implode, causing untold psychological repercussions that will take years to overcome.

Should that happen, of course it will be blamed on communists.

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Florida children to learn that communism is evil, slavery a skills training program - The South Florida Times