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I attended a very good U.S. public school, which means that I learned very little about history. Oh, I learned plenty in American history class about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff and the fight over the Second Bank of the United States. But I didnt learn much about popular resistance movements, except for classic bullet points about Rosa Parks being a tired woman who didnt feel like giving up her seat one day (rather than a committed radical political organizer who admired Malcolm X and Angela Davis and opposed U.S. imperialism). I did learn about John Brown, and a highlight of my middle school years was getting to play him in a mock trial and give a defiant, wild-eyed speech about why higher moral commitments justify lawbreaking (if memory serves, my classmates convicted me unanimously). But it was not until college that I was taught about radicals, or understood just what social movements were and what it takes to make them succeed.

I also recall being surprised at just how many notable historical figures were far more politically radical than I had previously known. Thankfully, the efforts of historians and popularizing publications like Jacobin have made it far more common knowledge that someone like, say, Martin Luther King Jr., was not just a Nice Man Who Wanted Everyone To Hold Hands And Forget About Race. But I still get angry when I realize how many peoples most cherished commitments are totally erased after their deaths, their legacies sanitized. So lets have a quick refresher, and remember them as they would wish to have been remembered: not just as people who did Great Deeds and thought Interesting Thoughts, but as people who were part of a movement to bring about radical economic and political change.

The creators of wealth are entitled to all they create. Thus they find themselves pitted against the whole profit-making system. They declare that there can be no compromise so long as the majority of the working class lives in want while the master class lives in luxury. They insist that there can be no peace until the workers organize as a class, take possession of the resources of the earth and the machinery of production and distribution and abolish the wage system. Helen Keller

When I was in elementary or middle school, we were shown a highly-regarded 1962 film called The Miracle Worker, which is based on the early life of Helen Keller, who overcame an inability to see or hear thanks to the persistent efforts of a skilled tutor. It is an inspirational story and the two leads are very well-acted by Patty Duke (as Helen) and Anne Bancroft (as the tutor, Anne Sullivan). The film, however, contains nothing (as far as I can recall) about Kellers actual life as an activist, not just on behalf of those with disabilities, but also for the labor movement. Keller was a committed member of the Industrial Workers of the World and a supporter of Eugene Debs. In fact, reading her socialist writings can be quite shocking, because she is absolutely staunch in her hatred of capitalism. Keller issued a biting rebuke to the New York Times when it printed an editorial heaping scorn on the red flag after the paper had asked her to contribute an article:

I love the red flag and what it symbolizes to me and other Socialists. I have a red flag hanging in my study, and if I could I should gladly march with it past the office of the Times and let all the reporters and photographers make the most of the spectacle. According to the inclusive condemnation of the Times I have forfeited all right to respect and sympathy, and I am to be regarded with suspicion. Yet the editor of the Times wants me to write him an article!

Keller was similarly scathing towards a paper called the Brooklyn Eagle, which suggested that her socialist politics were a product of her disabilities. Keller recalled that the editor of the Eagle had once heaped praise on her intelligencebefore he knew she was a socialist:

At that time the compliments he paid me were so generous that I blush to remember them. But now that I have come out for socialism he reminds me and the public that I am blind and deaf and especially liable to error. I must have shrunk in intelligence during the years since I met him. Surely it is his turn to blush.

Keller said the editor should fight fair and attack my ideas and oppose the aims and arguments of Socialism rather than engaging in the low tactic of remind[ing] me and others that I cannot see or hear. In fact, she wrote, the editor was far more blind and deaf than she herself was, because he refused to see injustices that she herself perceived clearly. The Eagle, that ungallant bird, suffered from Industrial Blindness and Social Deafness, neither seeing the operations of the wage system clearly nor hearing the anguish of those whose lives were crushed by the pursuit of profit.

In 1905, Call of the Wild author Jack London wrote a powerful essay about his journey from capitalistic individualism to socialism. Londons essay fits well with Kellers writings, not only because they were active during the same period, but because London explains that one reason he was not a socialist when he was young was that when he was young he did not suffer from any physical disabilities. He was, he says, physically fit and felt capable of anything. So, he writes, it was very easy for him to adopt the kind of self-reliance philosophy that we still hear today: if people dont make it, its their own fault, they just didnt try hard enough. He thought of himself as a blond-beast lustfully roving and conquering by sheer superiority and strength. But London went and roamed the county, and on his travels he found all sorts of men, many of whom had once been as good as myself and just as blond-beast; sailor-men, soldier-men, labor-men, all wrenched and distorted and twisted out of shape by toil and hardship and accident, and cast adrift by their masters like so many old horses. London listened to their stories, and realized that despite his feelings of strength, he was in fact only an accident away from being cast aside like an old horse himself. He felt, he says, a certain terror: What when my strength failed? What would he do when he couldnt work shoulder to shoulder with the strong men who were as yet babes unborn? London realized that not everyone in the universe had the advantages that he himself had, and that other people who suffered did not do so because they were morally worse or personally irresponsible. This realization, London said, made him a socialist even before he actually started reading deeply in socialist political and economic theory.

It takes a fearsome intellect to get to the point where your name literally become synonymous with genius. But Einsteins legend invites a clear follow-up question: if one of the greatest minds in the history of the sciences was committed to socialist values, doesnt this suggest that socialist values might at least be worthy of serious consideration? (Of course, people who are brilliant at one thing can be idiots at nearly everything else, so the fact that Einstein was correct about relativity doesnt mean he was correct about socialism, but I think his level of obvious thoughtfulness means hes entitled to at least have his ideas taken seriously.) In his famous 1949 article Why Socialism? in the Monthly Review, Einstein gave a very succinct explanation of the irrationality of capitalism that resonates to this day:

Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.

As I say, there is no necessary correlation between scientific genius and political insight, but in Einsteins case he was insightful on both. His explanation of the inherent problems with a capitalistic economy is spot-on, and 75 years later its very clear he was correct.

I have recently written a long article about Kings political and economic thought, so I wont rehash too much of that here. King was not just an opponent of racism, but of militarism and capitalism as well, and he alienated many (even in the civil rights movement) with his insistence on denouncing the atrocity of the Vietnam War. Kings final book Where Do We Go From Here? should be required reading in schools. It goes well beyond civil rights, discussing what a fair economy would look like and giving his tentative answers to the title question.

One thing to remember when conservatives push the Cuddly King image is that in his day, King was widely despised as a radical and agitator who was destabilizing the country. Polling from the time is striking in showing that the civil rights movement was deeply divisive. It wasnt just a handful of Southern racist sheriffs objecting to Kings agenda:

This should give us some encouragement, for we can see that those who are correct about the injustices of their time (and ultimately vindicated) can be quite unpopular among their contemporaries. Being on the left can be lonely and tough sometimes, because its very much an uphill fight, but so were all of the struggles in history that were worth waging.

There is nothing to prevent us from paying adequate wages to schoolteachers, social workers and other servants of the public to insure that we have the best available personnel in these positions which are charged with the responsibility of guiding our future generations. There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American citizen whether he be a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid or day laborer. There is nothing except shortsightedness to prevent us from guaranteeing an annual minimumand livableincome for every American family. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from remolding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood. Martin Luther King Jr.

Oscar Wildes image is as something of a dandy or fop, someone who made witticisms while reclining in a drawing room. But Wildes essay The Soul of Man Under Socialism is a classic text on the relationship between individualism and socialism. Wilde explains that the purpose of guaranteeing people a basic standard of living is that it would actually free their individuality to flourish. Wilde (like the great Arts and Crafts pioneer and British socialist William Morris) was a strong believer in the roses part of socialist demand for bread and roses. He wanted people to live in economically stable circumstances so they could be freed to let their creativity flourish.

With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

Wilde was an unabashed utopian, and much of the essay seems impractical and naive today. But I think its hard to deny that Wildes text poses a serious challenge to the views of those who see socialism as a form of collectivism that denies individual freedom. For Wilde, individual freedom was everything, which is why he didnt want the concentration of economic power in the hands of capitalists. Wilde is also critical in the essay of the coercive state and the practice of punishment, and he himself was brutalized by the British prison system. His Ballad of Reading Gaol holds up to this day as a stirring attack on the practice of imprisonment. Wilde rites:

I know not whether Laws be right,Or whether Laws be wrong;All that we know who lie in gaolIs that the wall is strong;And that each day is like a year,A year whose days are long.But this I know, that every LawThat men have made for Man,Since first Man took his brothers life,And the sad world began,But straws the wheat and saves the chaffWith a most evil fan.This too I knowand wise it wereIf each could know the sameThat every prison that men buildIs built with bricks of shame,And bound with bars lest Christ should seeHow men their brothers maim.

Malala Yousafzai is another of those figures who plenty of people celebrate as an icon without really listening to or engaging with. Even as she was being rightly held up as a symbol of resistance to patriarchy, Malalas radical socialist political convictions were all but ignored in the Western press. And yet she is someone who has said: I am convinced Socialism is the only answer and I urge all comrades to take this struggle to a victorious conclusion. Only this will free us from the chains of bigotry and exploitation. As a Socialist Worker article on Malalas politics explains:

As much as it highlights Malalas words on education and nonviolence, the U.S. corporate media never mentions the side of Malala that it doesnt like, the side of Malala that doesnt serve but rather challenges Western imperialist interests, the side of Malala that overtly opposes not just U.S. drone strikes but capitalism itself.

Malala has said plainly she is not a Western puppet and is critical of the U.S., having said in 2021 that Its the decision of the U.S. and other countries that have led to the situation that the people of Afghanistan are witnessing right now. But few in the U.S. media are particularly interested in elevating Malala as a critic of this country. She is best presented as a benign figure of womens global empowerment who makes moral criticisms of the Taliban, but not of us.

I disliked Nineteen Eighty-Four when I first read it, and I dont really care for it to this day. As I discussed in an essay about it a few years back, I think Orwell just missed some crucial facts about totalitarianism. He depicted a world that was objectively and obviously horrible, without showing why such a world would have appeal for anyone. In reality, the disturbing truth about dystopian societies is that they can be great for some people, and they have a good pitch. I think its crucial to understand this if we want to get off the path to dystopia. We have to recognize that for some people, there are compelling reasons why the dystopian world would be appealing.

But while I find Orwells most famous books frustrating (not really much of an Animal Farm fan either), I love and treasure George Orwells other work, the stuff youre not assigned in school. Homage to Catalonia, Burmese Days, Down and Out in Paris and London, and The Road to Wigan Pier, plus the essays are overflowing with insight and a hatred of inequality. They are also deeply socialist works. The short passage in Homage in which Orwell pays tribute to revolutionary Barcelona is an inspiring description of what an alternative society might actually feel like, and why he took up arms to defend what he saw in Spain:

Every shop and cafe had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said Seior or Don or even Usted; everyone called everyone else Comrade and Thou, and said Salud! instead of Buenos das. Tipping was forbidden by law; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and all the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, the loudspeakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no well-dressed people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls, or some variant of the militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for.

I highly recommend all of Orwells nonfiction, most of which holds up decently well. (I particularly like his essay about the authoritarian misery of British boarding school life.) Many on the left (fairly) distrust Orwell because late in his life he committed the unconscionable act of naming suspected communists to the British government.

Honorable Mentions

Plenty of historical figures who would never have described themselves as socialists were nevertheless much more egalitarian and radical than their public image. Jesus believed that you cannot serve both God and mammon, and claimed it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (i.e., not very easy at all). Christian socialism and liberation theology are honorable traditions that take Jesus belief in nonviolence and mercy seriously.

There are plenty of figures whose radical sides it took me far too long to discover. I wish Id read Leo Tolstoys profound Christian anarchist work The Kingdom of God is Within You many years earlier. Thomas Paine, as historian Harvey Kaye has long documented, was an early exponent of social democratic policies, not just the author of a famous anti-monarchist tract. In political philosophy classes in college, I was taught the views of the famous philosopher John Rawls, who was presented to me as a liberal who rationalized certain kinds of inequality. In fact, he came to far more socialistic conclusions than I understood. John Stuart Mill, too, was presented to me as essentially a libertarian, but when I read his Principles of Political Economy for myself, I found that the passages on socialism were distinctly favorable. (Likewise, Adam Smith of invisible hand fame was, as Noam Chomsky has long pointed out, much less of a proponent of free market capitalism than he is popularly seen as.)

So there are plenty of those who are known for one thing (e.g. Paines Common Sense) but have the parts of their work that pose a deeper, lasting challenge to the economic status quo ignored. Of course, there are other historical figures who are simply ignored altogether. Ive written about a few more of those here (including the great early Black socialists Peter Clark and Hubert Harrison). One thing that decades of reading has taught me is that history is full of fascinating figures who should have been remembered but havent been. And nobody is going to tell you about many of them; you have to go out with a curious mind and find them yourself. But its worth it, because when you discover the words of some long-dead person who dealt with the same problems you do, and who fought the same fights, you feel your own strength growing, because it is like meeting a new friend or comrade who is beside you in tough times.

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Seven People They Never Told You Were Socialists Current Affairs - Current Affairs

Chinese officials have signaled how generative AI may be regulated in the country, writing in recently published draft guidelines that the software should reflect the core values of socialism, CNBC reports. The proposed rules were published by the countrys Cyberspace Administration of China as it seeks public feedback and provide key indications of how the countrys heavy-handed speech rules may be applied to locally developed competitors to ChatGPT.

As well as reflecting socialist values, the draft rules (translated via Google Translate) say generative AI should not attempt to subvert state power, overthrow the socialist system, or undermine national unity. Promoting terrorism, extremism, or ethnic hatred is also prohibited, along with distributing false information or content that might disrupt economic and social order.

There are guidelines about how algorithms should be designed in a way that prevents discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, and other characteristics. And Bloomberg notes that the country plans to conduct security reviews of generative AI services before allowing them to widely launch in the country.

The publication of the draft guidelines comes as Chinese firms have signaled their intention to develop homegrown alternatives to OpenAIs ChatGPT. Alibaba has Tongyi Qianwen, which it plans to integrate into its productivity software, while Baidu recently announced its own software called Ernie bot.

Government restrictions mean China already has a distinct online ecosystem of apps and services. Western search and social media giants are largely barred from the country, allowing domestic firms to dominate the space. Now, its looking like this will continue into a new generation of generative AI services. Nikkei Asia previously reported that Chinese users have had to turn to VPNs in order to access the US-developed ChatGPT and that Tencent has banned third-party attempts to integrate the generative AI tool into WeChat. China Daily, the countrys biggest English-language newspaper, has warned of the potential for ChatGPT to amplify US disinformation.

China is keen to promote the development of domestic generative AI alternatives amid mounting tensions with the US over its access to powerful technologies like high-end semiconductors needed to train AI systems. But theres tension here with the countrys restrictive approach to censorship. I see the Chinese regulators being quite cautious with its regulatory approach in order to give more room for the development of generative AI in the country, University of Hong Kong law professor Angela Zhang tells Bloomberg.

At least one Chinese generative AI tool has had limitations imposed on its ability to create content relating to political topics. Last year, MIT Technology Review reported that Baidus text-to-image generatorERNIE-ViLG refused to create images of Tiananmen Square or other political leaders and would instead label them as sensitive.

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China wants homegrown AI to reflect the core values of socialism - The Verge

We are the party of the future, and the future belongs to the youth. We are a party of innovators, and it is always the youth that most eagerly follows the innovators. We are a party that is waging a self-sacrificing struggle against the old rottenness, and youth is always the first to undertake a self-sacrificing struggle. Lenin

Across the world, a whole generation of youth are entering the road of class struggle. In response to a lifetime of capitalist crises, young people are increasingly turning to the only progressive solution to humanitys problems: revolutionary communism.

According to one recent poll, for example, 29% of 18-34 year-olds in Britain believe that communism is the ideal economic system. In America and Australia, the equivalent figure from the same survey is 20%.

And the youth have been at the forefront of countless international struggles and mass movements in recent years: from Black Lives Matter; to Fridays for Future; to the explosive events in Iran.

In the Basque Country (Euskal Herria), however, this process of radicalisation has gone even further, with thousands of youth organising themselves into the openly-communist Mugimendu Sozialista (MS, Socialist Movement).

This movement has been responsible for some of the largest youthful revolutionary mobilisations in recent decades. On just one day in January this year, the MS marched 7000 through the streets of Bilbao and Pamplona to confront the bourgeois offensive against the working class.

The Socialist Movement represents a radical current that has developed from the Abertzale Basque nationalist left. It groups together several organisations led by the Gazte Koordinadora Sozialista (GKS, Young Socialist Organisation).

GKS defines itself as communist, proletarian, against the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and avowedly internationalist.

It emerged from a split in the main Abertzale youth and student organisations, with the majority levying criticism against the left-nationalist EH Bildu party.

This revolutionary tendency demanded that the failures of the old leadership of the Basque national liberation movement be recognised rejecting EH Bildus reformism and its support for the PSOE (Socialist Party) government in Madrid (see below).

In opposition to this dead-end of reformism, GKS calls for the independent organisation of the working class, and the struggle for the establishment of a socialist state in the Basque Country.

The movement has organised mass demonstrations under slogans that condemn the bourgeoisie and capitalism in the clearest terms, and which call on the working class to fight back. Connecting the crisis in workers living standards with the decay of the capitalist system, the struggle for socialism is put front-and-centre by the Mugimendu Sozialista.

For abandoning some of the traditional nationalist symbolism and slogans, MS has been spurned as unpatriotic by the official Abertzale leadership.

But the movements supporters defend the class basis of their organisation, proudly flying the red flag of international socialism on demonstrations, above all others.

This unashamedly revolutionary stance has drawn sympathetic interest from across Spain. Notably, similar tendencies are developing amongst the Catalan youth, and in nationalist movements in other regions.

And MS has reached out to these groups, actively promoting its bold revolutionary agitation and model of socialist councils (kontseilu sozialistak), recognising the need for a united movement across the Spanish state.

Basing itself also on an international perspective, MS has also sought links with revolutionary organisations in the near-abroad of the Basque Country.

This internationalist call has been answered by the Marxist Student Federation in Britain. MSF comrades attended one of the movements massive youth camps last summer, and MS activists participated in the 2022 Revolution Festival in London last October.

The spectacular rise of the Mugimendu Sozialista is a sure sign of growing radicalisation among the working class youth of the Basque country. But the same process is taking place in all countries.

The details may differ, but the overall trend is clear. A wave of young people, seeing the impasse of capitalism, reformism, identity politics, and bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalism are turning towards the ideas of Marxism, internationalism, and communism en masse.

A whole generation has grown up in the post-2008 landscape, knowing only social, political, and economic turmoil on one side, and witnessing the bankruptcy of the traditional reformist parties as well as new popular formations like Syriza and Podemos on the other.

In Britain, young people were pivotal in the rise of the Corbyn movement. But unfortunately, the weakness of the left leaders was equally pivotal in its fall.

Similarly, north of the border, the youth have been the driving force behind the Scottish independence movement. But now, under the leadership of the SNP, it has run out of steam. And it is clear that these bourgeois nationalist leaders, unwilling and unable to mobilise workers and youth, have no strategy for breaking the deadlock with Westminster.

In place of these old leaders and parties, young people are seeking the most advanced ideas and reaching for the most radical methods from the history of the class struggle.

In turn, many are discovering the red thread of communism: the highest expression of the emancipation of the working class.

There is the potential for something like Mugimendu Sozialista in every country. The MS shows the way forward for young people everywhere who have grown disillusioned with reformism and left nationalism: turn to the path of communism and class struggle!

Millions are now looking towards these ideas, and to the struggle of the working class, as the only force capable of changing society; of addressing the multitude of economic, social and ecological crises that are inflicting misery upon workers and youth.

Unburdened by the defeats of the past, working-class youth will lead the way in this fight for the revolutionary transformation of society. It is we who are bearing the brunt of capitalisms crisis and we who have the most to gain from the overthrow of this rotten system.

The class struggle is unfolding before our eyes: on every strike and demonstration; in the trade unions and in our workplaces.

As Marx and Engels outlined in the Communist Manifesto, it is the task of communists to be the most determined and militant section of these struggles guided by the most advanced ideas and by a clear revolutionary programme.

That means steeling ourselves in the genuine ideas of scientific socialism, i.e. Marxism, as represented by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky in their lifetimes, and by the International Marxist Tendency today.

Young communists must learn, study, and get organised. Join the struggle for the future of humanity! Join the fight for communism! Join the IMT!

Khaled Malachi and Laida Lpez

Since the emergence of the Gazte Koordinadora Sozialista (GKS), the official leadership of the nationalist left (EH Bildu) in the Basque Country has treated them as a nuisance; maintaining an official appearance of ignoring them.

Last year, Arkaitz Rodrguez, the general secretary of Sortu (the largest party in the EH Bildu coalition) described the group as reactionary. But in the next breath, he claimed that GKS is a mere fly in the ointment, and that the leadership had not dedicated even half a minute to their developments.

While this boastful claim seems rather unlikely, it is now clear that the nationalist left are paying full attention. In February, Sortu sent a circular to their members in which they aimed to politically clarify their position regarding GKS. This amounted to peddling the lies that the Basque media have propagated (depicting GKS militants as thuggish and violent); and most strikingly, using identity politics to tar the communist youth.

Sortus clarification was a thinly veiled attack; a conscious acknowledgement that their approach so far has failed. Though claiming that GKS weaken transformative projects, the timing of Sortu publicly breaking its silence is rather telling.

Indeed, the circular followed another magnificent mobilisation of 7,000 people organised by GKS in Bilbao and Irua on 28 January. The demonstration rang with militancy with slogans including lets face the bourgeois offensive and the workers revenge: socialist revolution.

Though the size was the same as last year, it was clear that the bold, communist messaging is garnering support from swathes of the Basque youth.

The circular states that behind GKSs revolutionary and radical rhetoric we find an inability to influence society and change things. But far from a flash in the pan, GKS and the wider Socialist Movement is a force the nationalist left must reckon with.

They counterpose the reformism and paltry offerings of the nationalist left with revolutionary agitation and propaganda. It is no surprise that they have become a reference point in the Basque country and beyond.

GKS emerged from a debate within the nationalist left, with the explicit aim of exposing the historic failure of the strategy used to bring about Basque independence, as well as criticising their subordinate role to the government in Madrid. This is something Sortu cannot tolerate, especially with their pitiful record in parliament.

EH Bildu is part of the government majority whose vote is necessary for the PSOE-UP coalition to stay in power in Madrid. There have been many written agreements between Bildu and PSOE. And so the track record of this government one which has defended the interests of the ruling class on all decisive questions reflects back onto themselves.

There have been a handful of instances, for example, of backtracking on election promises since the shaky coalition came to power.

There was a written agreement between PSOE and Bildu about the repeal of the right-wing Popular Partys labour counter-reform. When it came to putting this agreement in practice, the PSOE refused to implement it, passing only a partial reform of the PP legislation, whilst leaving intact the most reactionary elements. Bildu protested, presenting its own alternative proposal but in the end, stayed as a loyal partner to the PSOE-UP government.

The same was the case with the reactionary Ley Mordaza (Gag Law), also introduced by the PP government in order to limit democratic rights. The PSOE-UP government had promised to repeal it. Then they settled for amending it slightly. Bildu protested, refused to vote for it but continued its support for the government.

Moreover, it would be wrong to think that EH Bildu simply protests against the government, and then falls silent. They have voted in favour of the reform of the penal code (Codigo Penal), which increases the repression on those who struggle against injustice.

Just to give another example of the kind of government the nationalist left is supporting in Madrid: recently, an officer involved in the torture and extra-judicial killing of Mikel Zabalza in 1985, a Basque bus driver, has been promoted in the Spanish state to the leadership of the Civil Guard. This is the reality of playing second fiddle to the regime in Madrid.

With elections approaching, they are falling over themselves to promise the world in order to secure their seats. But just like the rest of their resistance, this amounts to nothing more than words, words, words.

Though EH Bildu feigns a mixture of shock and disappointment at the government, it continues to give crucial support to that very same government.

Moreover, their constitutional path to independence is a mirage. National liberation in the Basque country is not one centimetre closer since EH Bildu ingratiated themselves with PSOE in Madrid and in the Navarre parliament.

The facts speak clearly: the PSOE-UP government in Madrid, despite its pretence of being the most progressive government in history, is firmly committed to managing the crisis of capitalism in the interest of the bosses. They are loyally servile to US imperialism when it comes to foreign policy, including support for NATO in its war with Russia in Ukraine.

EH Bildus support shows the Basque youth where their allegiances lie. They are a completely pacified and politically bankrupt force. In truth, these petty-bourgeois nationalists were only ever concerned with having a seat at the table.

Their record at home is no better. In the Basque country, they engage in the Stalinist tactics of smear campaigns, chiming in with the attacks mounting daily in the bourgeois press against the Socialist Movement. They have attempted financial strangulation of GKS; expelling the communists from the txosnas, which is an instrumental way of raising money for their projects.

We might ask: with comrades like these, who needs enemies?

In their circular, Sortu lambasts the reactionary GKS for the most harmful practices that have been seen on the left. Irony is perhaps lost on them. The leadership of the nationalist left should hold up a mirror to themselves.

With nothing to offer the workers and youth but more of the status quo, Sortu has dressed itself up in the language of identity politics. As they write:

On the road to a unified, independent, socialist, feminist and Basque-speaking Basque Country, GKS does not contribute anything. On the contrary. In addition, there is no possibility of collaboration, because we have different projects and strategies, because they reject that possibility and, above all, because they act in an exclusive and aggressive way.

One part of that paragraph is actually true: there can be no collaboration between the opposing projects and strategies. But that is precisely because the Socialist Movement stands against capitalism and for socialism, while the leaders of Sortu stand firmly for a reformist strategy of managing the crisis of the system within the narrow limits of capitalism.

The circular continues by arguing that GKS feels uncomfortable with struggles of the LGBT community, feminism, etc. For example, they slander Itaia, the womens coordinating group of GKS. In a customarily patronising manner, they claim this group corrupts the minds of young women militants.

With these broad strokes, Sortu aims to paint GKS as a single-minded group that is against social justice completely aloof from anything other than communism.

This is a red herring. The struggle of genuine communists aims to connect all the various struggles. Revolutionaries must seek to unite the oppressed and exploited strata in society, and channel these collective energies into building a revolutionary party capable of overthrowing capitalism.

Paying close attention to all the injustices of capitalism and agitating against them is a prerequisite to building. And only on this basis, can we uproot all discrimination and prejudice that plagues society.

After all, it is the system that Sortu defends through their reformism that relies on these divisions to rule. And so it is little surprise that they fall back on the arguments of identity politics.

Identity politics claims that the main division in society is one of subjective identity. It separates the struggle for womens liberation from the struggle against the capitalist system, pandering to trendy ideas that serve to confuse and disorientate the youth.

It is no surprise that this emaciated reformist party speaks in such language. Being the torchbearer of social justice in mere words is the cheapest of all reforms.

These attacks are cynical and self-serving. Once again, we see the genuine oppression faced by women being weaponised by a party that has no serious interest in fighting against it in the first place. GKS have rebuffed this nonsense.

Sortu stands in a long line of reformist parties that fall back on radical-sounding language to keep up appearances. We see this in Scotland also, where the SNP has profited from being more progressive than the rabid Tory Party, while still standing firmly within the limits of the capitalist system.

In all cases, if you scratch the surface, you will find reformist politics that offer no route forward for the masses.

In truth, the focus on identity, nationality, etc. and the relegation of the importance of class independence and methods has disastrous consequences.

Lenin once commented that the national question is at root a question of bread. That is absolutely correct. In a period characterised by cuts and counter-reforms, the problems of housing, security, jobs will continue to fester. There is no way of solving the national question on the basis of capitalism.

We note that it is from a position of weakness, not strength, that Sortu has attacked GKS militants. This will serve a dual purpose. With elections later this year, Sortu is aiming to deflect attention away from its failures. They will also be aiming to firm up their youth group, Ernai, who have been left behind in the wake of this explosion of militancy.

For all of the bombast of GKS being against Basque national liberation in their circular, it has not dawned on the leadership that the youth are pushing beyond the limits of nationalism with resounding success.

This is occurring not just in the Basque country. There are other such promising developments in Catalonia with the formation of Socialist Horizon (Horitz Socialista).

Across the world we see a layer of working-class youth radicalised by the experience of capitalist crisis, the threat to the climate, war and destruction turning towards the ideas of radical change, rejecting this rotten system, and turning towards the ideas of communism.

GKS is undoubtedly the most advanced example of this to date. But the potential for developments like this exist all across the globe. Internationalism must be the lifeblood of the communist movement in order for us to succeed in the tasks we set ourselves.

GKS have shown the way forward for the youth disillusioned with reformism and nationalism. The path forward is class struggle and communism.

We commend the efforts of GKS in the example they have set. And we stand in full solidarity with them against the attacks and slanders which they continue to face.

The sterile politics and strategies of the reformist parties have been put to the test. They have been found wanting.

The role of communists is to expose the weaknesses of these woolly, institutional politics, and to educate ourselves in the ideas of scientific socialism. Marxism is our sharpest weapon the key to understanding the world in order to transform it. With further crises impending, we havent a minute to waste.

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Basque Socialist Movement shows the way: Join the fight for communism! - Socialist Appeal

Photo: Supporters of the Socialist Party of Zambia. Credit Dr. Fred Mmembe

The Party for Socialism and Liberation strongly condemns the brutal attack on April 8 against a public meeting organized by the Socialist Party of Zambia, and the subsequent arrest of party president Dr. Fred Mmembe on false charges. The assault, carried out by members of the ruling United Party for National Development, came amid an election campaign. This is a cowardly attempt to suppress the rising popularity of the Socialist Party of Zambia, which fights for the rights of workers and the poor.

The U.S. government views Zambia as an arena to conduct its strategy of great power competition against China. This includes using Zambia as its base for the recent Summit for Democracy a soft-power tool designed to sharpen the new Cold War atmosphere around the globe. The World Liberty Congress, a regime-change operation with ties to Western intelligence circles, is also attempting to use Zambia as a base to train activists to overthrow anti-imperialist governments in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere. As long as the UPND government is on its side in this perilous new Cold War, the United States is happy to turn a blind eye to the violent political repression it carries out despite its empty rhetoric about human rights.

The Socialist Party has been a resolute voice against Zambia becoming a pawn in the game of U.S. imperialism to control the world for a tiny elite. Their clear voice is undoubtedly dangerous to the ruling party, who hopes to confuse the working class and peasantry.

Absurdly, the police arrested the victims of the attack, not the attackers. The day after the assault, police announced that Mmembe along with Saili Chita and Daniel Mumba would be charged with assault, with an additional bogus firearm charge leveled against Mmembe. He explained:

The UPND cadres who attacked us are not being arrested, they are not in any way being questionedI was myself assaulted in front of police officers, I was threatened in front of police officers at the police station. This is the type of policing we are seeing today

The UPND government of president Hakainde Hichilema has ignored the well being of the people of Zambia in the interests of big corporations and western governments. Violence and repression is its only option to prevent alternative political forces from challenging its power.

Clearly, the Socialist Party of Zambias program of pro-people development is considered a danger to the entrenched power of the elite. We demand an end to the physical and legal attacks on the Socialist Party, its members and leaders.

Read more from the original source:
Solidarity with the Socialist Party of Zambia: Drop the charges against Dr. Fred M'membe! Liberation News - Liberation

Photo by: Brenden Cowan

Haytham Nawaz

Karl Marxs central observation about capitalism was correct and the acknowledgement of that is desperately needed in a 21st century fraught with inequality and undemocratic institutions.

This whole writing year at The Brock Press Ive been something of a broken record on the need to take socialism seriously as a political alternative to the dominant neoliberal consensus in the Western world. Im not the only one, though. The Fraser Institute put out a poll that found socialism saw a favourability amongst Canadians aged 18-24 in the 50 per cent range. Needless to say, socialism is becoming favourable to younger generationsGen Z and Millenials.

While the fear rightfully associated with names like Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and Pol Pot still plague and blossom into irrational reactionism in the generations that were most acutely subject to McCarthyism, younger people are realizing that socialism is just as diverse a tradition as any other ideology. Socialists of today are fairly sober minded when it comes to the failings of big 20th century projects. Many on the left today rightfully acknowledge that what the Stalinist USSR and Maoist China did was a kind of state capitalism that industrialized too fast and imploded from within. Demand always outpaced supply. Thats why the resurgent push for both top-down and bottom-up reform to capitalism from socialists like founding editor of Jacobin magazine, Bhaskar Sunkara, as seen in his book The Socialist Manifesto are so important.

Likewise, the Marxist economist Richard Wolff in his seminal work Democracy at Work argues that the worker cooperative is the way forward for the socialist movement in the 21st century and beyond. What a cooperative entails is the democratization of the workplace, where every worker has a share in the company and can vote on how the organization is run. The workers of an enterprise, then, are effectively their own directors instead of the division of owners and workers seen in traditional work organizations where the board of directors and CEOs, CFOs, etc. are the sole owners and pocket the profit created by the workers.

This would be the bottom-up aspect. The top-down aspect would no longer be the Central Committee as seen in the Soviet Union but institutional reforms in the state that would incentivize the democratization of the private workplace through preferential loans to worker co-ops or even through nationalizing banks, as well as rebuilding a progressive welfare state not unlike what one sees in the highly successful socialized models in the Scandinavian bloc. Theres also merit to the need for state control of the energy sector as it will be easier to facilitate a switch to renewable energy for the basic reason that the market mechanisms in place currently simply dont address the climate crisis (which is criminally called an externality according to neoclassical economics).

The common thread running through all of these arguments and proposals emerge from what was essential to Karl Marxs study of capitalism as outlined in his masterwork Capital, released in Germany in 1867.

In the first volume of Capital Marx spends the first few chapters laying out his labour-theory-of-value (LTV). The LTV has been rejected by many economists and commentators since. However, the main idea articulated in it is still correct: workers produce commodities and capitalists sell them and pay back only part of the value created by the workers in the form of wages and hold onto the rest of the value called surplus-value by Marx in the form of profit. This is what Marx calls the exploitation of labour-power. And while Marx spends a great deal of time in Capital arithmetically tying the LTV into prices and other aspects of economic theory that appear to be a dubious gymnastics of universalization by todays standards, the central idea of exploitation still stands regardless of if prices can or cant be pinned down to a science that results from the socially necessary congealed labour-time of society.

What Marx made clear is that there is an antagonism at the heart of capitalism. The neoclassical approach has been to disavow this antagonism at every step of theorization. Key objections from the neoclassical side of the aisle include (I) that the capitalist takes a risk in starting an enterprise and that (II) the capitalist assembles the means of production (factories, tools, the workers, machines) in order to begin the production process in the first place. The first statement, however, is true of workers too. Workers have to sell their labour otherwise they risk homelessness and starvation; they too take a risk accepting to work for a company they have little to no control in because they have to to survive. To the second point, Marx already outlines how those means of production assembled by the capitalist are already congealed forms of labour from the past, a kind of frozen labour that Marx calls dead labour.

What labour-power in an economy does is it uses living labour from the living workers to create value with, on and through dead labour in the form of tools, buildings, machines, and even intellectual dead labour such as concepts. The capitalist is simply a mediator between the interaction between these two forms of labour that manages it but under capitalism he also takes the value created, claims it as his own, and apportions a bit of it through wages to workers so they can meet their subsistence requirements and continue to work for him. Capitalists ensure that they are not just mediators but owners and exploiters through the employee-employer contract which states in law that the employee agrees to sell their labour-power and, therefore, their muscles and brain to the employer for a wage.

The contractual aspect is why criticism of the state from the left shouldnt focus on abolition first, as per anarchist thought, but on using state power to reconfigure this contract to a more just arrangement, again through preferential loans or by making wage and salary work illegal in the same way that paying under the minimum wage and sexually harassing employees is illegal. That would involve having a scaled form of penalization, starting at fines and ending with imprisonment. So no, the implementation of state sanctioned abolition of wage/salary labour doesnt mean throwing capitalists in jail per se, just that there will be a sliding scale of punishments like when theres other laws violated in the workplace.

Its time to acknowledge that Marx was right and then work towards sublating the antagonism at the heart of the global capitalist system.

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The 21st century has to acknowledge Karl Marx was correct about ... - Brock Press