“Let us fight the enemy: with arms and ideas. Forward towards liberation and socialism”

I’ve been studying the PFLP and their history. There’s actually a wealth of information out there, it’s just not organized into a cohesive database. They began as a nationalist movement and later adopted a Marxist-Leninist political doctrine. They engaged in multiple high-profile plane hijackings in the late 60’s-70’s.

Since 2023 they have been fighting to repel the Zionist invasion of their land along with fighters from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and others.

Interviewer: Why won’t your organization engage in peace talks with the Israelis?

Kanafani: You don’t mean exactly peace talks. You mean capitulation. Surrendering.

Interviewer: Why not just talk?

Kanafani: Talk to whom?

Interviewer: Talk to the Israeli leaders.

Kanafani: That’s kind of conversation between the sword and the neck you mean.

Interviewer: Well if there are no swords and no guns in the room you could still talk.

Kanafani: No I hadn’t been. I have never seen any talk between a colonialist case and a national liberation movement.

Interviewer: But despite this, why not talk?

Kanafani: Talk about what?

Interviewer: Talk about the possibility of not fighting.

Kanafani: Not fighting for what?

Interviewer: Not fighting at all, no matter what for

Kanafani: Yeah people usually fight for something. And they stop fighting for something.

He compares negotiating with Israel to introducing “the sword to the neck.” 60 years later and nothing has changed. Still the imperial, colonial nations of the US and Israel bomb without reprise, and even peace negotiations are just excuses to underhandedly attack the enemy. Iran is a microcosm of how US foreign policy has been handled for decades.

Israel and its imperialist handlers don’t seek peace. They seek endless war, unbridled capitalism, a thriving military industrial complex, and the subjugation of the poor and working class around the globe.

I’m an Italian guy, and I’ve been watching my country’s economy and society for years. From what I read, liberals think Italy hasn’t done enough neoliberal reforms. They say public spending is too high and should be cut, and that the bureaucracy is too slow. The "left", on the other hand, says that governments have privatized too many public services. They think this is especially clear in the poor state of schools and healthcare.

So, I wanted to ask you how a Marxist would interpret this situation—not least because I am worried about my country. The cost of living shows no signs of decreasing, and the people currently protesting are being silenced.

Thank you in advance.

I got rather carried away with a rant about taking on the Socialist name then running a State-Capitalist society under it. It was potentially too critical and turned into being inflammatory.

As a result I am permanently blocked from the rest of the top communist subs as I had posted in all of them.

So I will try to calmly share my grievance here.

There are a number of factors that will make you qualify as State-Capitalist, or as using the State for Capitalist purposes such as generating class disparity, suppressing certain workers, or for personal gain. None of this has any place in Socialism. It is a disqualification and forfeiture of the Socialist Banner. I am not certain if I am allowed to name the parties guilty of this. I do not want to be exiled from here so I will not do so.

In addition to this: it seems there has never been a case of following the book instructions as written. Sure, some minor substitution in some areas may make sense. And there are no instructions for how to implement Socialism. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat collaborates on this if using instructions.

The Dictatorship of The Proletariat never seems to be of attendance. It would seem important for the Proletariat to collectivise and take power at this stage.

So that step is skipped.

Which leaves a political state, seperate from the working class. Things are starting to fall apart here.

Socialism is heavily redefined by the state to suit this dynamic. It typically involves shifting collective ownership of the means of production, land, and resources from the working class, to state ownership instead. Money has never been removed from any society, and commodification continues with the State being the owner. Sometimes ownership of certain things can be shared if the state allows it.

Here is where they all fall into becoming various levels of State-Capitalist societies. Certain parties allow less class disparity and more collective/shared ownership than others. But they all have the tools of Capitalism, with the power of a one party State, and the influence to always be at the top.

So to me, there has never been a Marxist nation. Not once. Scientific Socialism has never been implemented, and so Communism will not be the end result for any Communist country to date.

When mismanagement thanks to severe overreach leads to widespread famine... When the people fear the State because it has purged it's critics and makes people disappear... When the working class has no rights, long hours and low wages...

They write the Black Book of "Communism". People who leave share the horrors of living in a "Communist" country. Socialism becomes a taboo word. People speak of bread lines and how poor all the workers are while the government lives lavish lives. Votes all mean nothing. I could go on.

These are all issues caused by State-Capitalist countries wearing Marxism masks. The thing is, the masks work so well I think even they believe it is genuinely who they are. Most of them anyways.

I hope this is an acceptable position to have and that it is not considered too pessimistic or negative to the overall cause.

Thank you for reading this. Please let me know what you think.

-A Marxist of the Marxist collective.

*Edit:

I really am hoping that the one guy who responded isn't representative of the average Marxist here. That was easily one of the most randomly hostile and accusatory meme responses I have ever gotten. They completely failed to form a cohesive rebuttal then sandwiched it with nonsense that doesn't even require scrutiny to dismiss. Maybe in another time of day a Marxist with some level of maturity will decide to discuss or pick apart what I said. Please don't let this disappointment be how modern Marxists engage in discourse. I beg you.

I'm addition, the amount who dislike a post with no stated reasons or criticisms is super disappointing. Have a spine. Tell me why I am wrong. If you can't, then I assume I'm right. This is a sub for people who read literature named after and co-written by an exceptionally genius person. Why does it not feel that way?

For a fun twist, going forward I am counting all dislikes against the amount who respond. Every dislike with no response counts as someone who was unable to articulate a way to refute what I posited, thus they chose to send me a thumb because they are a monkey limited to simple gestures, and original thoughts upset them. No judgement. If you're a monkey and you know it, use that down thumb and you'll show it!

I like to call my self a Marxist I read Marx and have a basic understanding of his theory, but I feel like unless it's about class conflict between the capitalist class and the workers I never analyze thing through a Marxist frame work. So what does it look like and mean to analyze things through a Dialectical-Materialist lens?

It seems now more then ever these words have been adulterated to many a plethora of things. Some view the left wing as anti capitalist, some view it as any position remotely progressive. Socialism by many is seen as lower phase communism some view it as progress towards lower phase communism and the establishment of workers state, some view it was literally any sort of welfare/social democracy. I generally think that trying to categorize ideology on the standard brainrot 2 axis political compass will always been extremely inaccurate. In no way can one try and compare communism to neo liberalism on that type of graph considering one lives within the realm of capital and one lives outside of it. Meanwhile socialism has genuinely so many different meanings that trying to use it in a place of debate or conversation is nigh-useless. Socialism for quite a while was used synonymously with communism for decades before Lenin essentially separated the two and then changed his own definitions. Then Stalin did the same thing and we've kinda ended up at a point where socialism has not only little meaning outside of anti capitalist circles but also within. Overall I think "left" and "socialism" have gained a sense of ambiguity in there definition that can be used to neuter actual working class movements and anti-capitalist ideology.

Let me know your thoughts tho
(repost cause my shit got nuked for puttin an emoji in a edit message)

Either way it’s the best time to radicalize the people especially the youth so it should be happening. I also feel like Macron knows the class character of the protest and that’s why he’s blaming it on Melenchon.

this is my first time posting here and I'm probably not even on the right subreddit but imo things are getting so dire there is a massive need for a revolution. like people EVERYWHERE need to start going against their governments and the upper class because this shit is getting insane. we've got pedophiles and fascists as world leaders , tech bros coming up with new and improved ways to destroy human creativity and evolution as we know it, just generally SO much going on. I am of the firm belief that when threats of this nature appear, humanity can overcome them, but that can only be done by taking action. we need more high stakes protests, we need our voices to be heard. I'm still young so I may not know what I'm talking about, but this is not the future I was promised. i don't want to live the rest of my life in misery because of a few scumbags high up.

All art is not political in the sense that say drawing a picture of an apple is political because if politics didn't do some things for environmental measures, then no apples would exist. Art is, however, derived from realities influenced by base and superstructure. Said base has been influenced by the political portion of the superstructure, but to what extent is up for debate. Returning to my first point, for example, an art piece against the current leader of a nation has a political intention in mind, but the politics had to be derived from the current superstructure(with an added backdrop that if you didnt dislike your current conditions you wouldnt be doing this. You also may not be doing this if you didnt fear what would happen to your current reality.), and if its an economic critique the base is more directly needed. In a scenario where a national bans say, jazz. Doing jazz is socially a political statement, but is still derived from current realities created from the base and superstructure(I do want to mention that doing jazz still was a personal decision. You have agency). Art is always merely a reflection of material realities. Even when imagining something in the future or which doesn't exist, as Descartes noted in Meditation I, you must always derive your thoughts(Descartes would've said dreams, but are dreams not merely the thoughts of the unconscious? Pardonnez-moi, Revenons à nos moutons) from existence. For example, again taking from the great Descartes, think of a new animal. It has things from animals you know, for example a griffin, minotaur, mermaid, hecatoncheires, demon, angel. Even if you try without that and somehow do it, it has remnants of things which exist in the material reality such as shapes or hair or fur or even that it has a living and a dying stage of its life or that if it stops living it is dead in the sense of death being not living after you have lived. That material reality is influenced by the base+superstructure. The imagination of a future society or alternate society always shall be a reflection of your realities and the imagined realities in your fiction too. The superstructure always has its place, it's a major influencer, economic realities are not alone. But all art is not some idealist thought of ‘political’

For context I want to educate myself on theory and I just finished the Communist Manifesto and found it so interesting for a 70-page book. I would like to read Das Kapital but I’ve heard that it’s too heavy on economic theory to start with, so if you got any intermediates between them two to continue, or if you could share your experience with these I’d be grateful.
Have a great day !

Hey ya'll, I'm new to this subreddit but I was wondering if anyone had any good books or sources to recommend to learn about liberation movements in specifically the Bengal region or modern-day Bangladesh and the West Bengal region of India from a Marxist or generally left-politics lens.

I would also appreciate just being given advice on where to look for good historical sources on this in general if anyone has any.

This is for a project I'm doing but also I am Bengali American and it shames me that I do not know nearly enough about the country or the region my parents are from. So I am trying my best to learn.

Are there any books from Marxists that talk about ethics and what is right and wrong? How do we as Marxists know what we're doing is good, or do we just follow the idea ends justify the means?

On October 22, 1941, in retaliation for the assassination of a German officer, the Vichy puppet government handed over a list consisting primarily of communist prisoners and trade unionists to the occupying forces.

Among the 27 men executed that day was Guy Môquet, only 17 years old. He refused a blindfold and marched to the firing post singing the Marseillaise. His final letter to his family ended with a plea to those who would survive the war.

To live, fight, and remain worthy of their sacrifice.

I am conflicted when looking at and dealing with people in my country who are genuinely suffering from economic and systematic oppression, the people are generally anti imperialist and are aware of the fact that their country is dominated by foreign powers and interests but they mainly analyze their plight from a religious perspective and have very conservative views on gender and sexual freedoms. They have a lot of revolutionary potential but they are very likely to not align with the revolutions view on cultural issues so how can Marxists deal with that problem without causing a schism during the revolution or not having the ability to accumulate enough numbers for a successful revolution to begin with.

In light of the protests in France, i wonder what is the opinion on looting.

I support the protests, including the violence, i just dont understand how looting a jewelry or clothing store (not a multinational corporation, just a local business) will help the working class fight the bourgoisie or the state. Its also important to note that this looting is not done for any revolutionary goal and seems to just be a very oportunistic and childish way of protesting or getting some money.

I might be wrong though so i want to know what are some perspectives on this.

Source for the second image : https://archive.org/details/resolutionsthese00commiala/page/16/mode/2up

For those unaware, the Rand Revolt was a failed revolt by the South African Communist Party and Labour Party against the South African government. Typified by the slogan "Workers of the World, Fight and Unite for a White South Africa", the revolution was inherently white supremacist in it's rhetoric and actions.

So why doesn't the Communist International separate themselves from the movement? Are they hypocrites merely trying to push a political agenda?

Capitalist bootlickers love the "heroic founder" myth. Mention that labor creates all value, and they immediately cry: "B-but the founder’s risk! He took all the debt while workers risk nothing!"

Let’s dismantle this bootlicker logic with their favorite scenario:

Steve spends four years broke in a garage, maxing out cards and sleeping on the floor to design a semiconductor prototype.

In Year 5, the venture secures outside capital, builds a facility, and hires Greg.

Greg’s job is facility support?watering lobby plants and restocking breakroom paper towels for $22 an hour with zero personal liability.

Bootlickers look at this and say: "Steve solved the physics bottleneck and risked his life’s savings! Greg is just restocking Bounty, so Steve deserves 15% equity in a billion-dollar firm while Greg only gets an hourly wage."

Pure bourgeois brainrot. Steve's past suffering doesn't grant him a permanent lien on future collective labor. "Risk" and personal debt are capitalist constructs used to legitimize ownership hierarchy.

Meanwhile, Greg’s maintenance labor literally sustains the physical environment required for production to occur.

The moment a firm scales beyond one person, it becomes a collective effort. The idea that Steve’s early R&D entitles him to permanent control while Greg is denied an equal equity stake and voting share is just wage slavery masquerading as merit.

Greg built the operational reality, Greg deserves equal ownership.

Joseph Stalin, "The Possibility of Building Socialism in Our Country" 1926

The congress held that the working class, in alliance with the labouring peasantry, can deal the finishing blow to the capitalists of our country and build a socialist society, even if there is no victorious revolution in the West to come to its aid. The opposition, on the contrary, held that we cannot deal the finishing blow to our capitalists and build a socialist society until the workers are victorious in the West. Well, as the victory of the revolution in the West is rather late in coming, nothing remains for us to do, apparently, but to loaf around. The congress held, and said so in its resolution on the report of the Central Committee, that these views of the opposition implied disbelief in victory over our capitalists.

Stalin is obviously not hostile in any way to revolution occurring worldwide.

[...] we are capable of completely building a socialist society by our own efforts and without the victory of the revolution in the West, but that, by itself alone, our country cannot guarantee itself against encroachments by international capital—for that the victory of the revolution in several Western countries is needed. The possibility of completely building socialism in our country is one thing, the possibility of guaranteeing our country against encroachments by international capital is another.

...But what do you do when it doesn't? Just simply wait around for other countries to have a revolution instead of creating Socialism?

[...] what if this support does not develop into a victory of the revolution in the West? If there is no such victory in the West, can we build a socialist society and complete the building of it? The congress answered that we can. Otherwise, there would have been no point in our taking power in October 1917. If we had not counted on giving the finishing blow to our capitalists, everyone will say that we had no business to take power in October 1917.

Building Socialism within the confines of material reality isn't counter-revolutionary. On the contrary, it is counter-revolutionary to say that revolution should not have occurred simply because, like the uneven economic development of Capitalism across the world, so too is there uneven political development of class consciousness across the world.

Karl Marx, "The German Ideology"

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.

Hi reddit friends,

As the title states i am planning on reading Das Kapital volume 1 for the first time, and i am looking for people to share in this experience since it's supposed to be more fulfilling and opens-up the possibility for discussion.

I was wondering if anyone would be willing to join in a shared reading experience.

Thank you for reading my post.

[Edit] If you are intresested, feel totally free and welcome in our BuddyReads and let's dive in to one of the world's most significant books ever writen together:

https://app.thestorygraph.com/buddy_reads/0a456b49-0460-47a2-9f53-503b0d10cbe8

Please aways be respectful and nice to each other, we're here to learn and have discussions and gain insight.

So, two of the biggest things I have been trying to understand since starting this book is dialectics and materialism. Dialectics seems to have different meanings depending on who uses the term, but from what I understand about Marxism it incorporates the Hegelian use of the word dialectic where a thesis and antithesis will reach a synthesis and looks at history and how material conditions effects society. That kind of leads into historical materialism and how the way a society produces its material needs shades its social structures.

I understood these ideas more when Engels talks about how most of recent history, is a history of class struggles and that the warring classes are a product of the modes of production. More things I really grasped were how the capitalistic mode of production isn't compatible with the mode of exchange as products will accumulate and cause commerce to reach a stand still as well as the idea that transforming joint-stock companies state owned companies doesn't rid these businesses of their capitalistic nature since the state is inherently a capitalistic machine. The reason I'm listing all these out is to make sure my understanding is right so please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Despite my understanding of these points, I feel like I left a lot of meat on the bones of this book. There were times I really couldn't understand a page or two at a time. I took this book really slow and reread a lot but I feel like I still failed to grasp some of the concepts that Engels was talking about. I was wondering if anyone had any tips for understanding Marxists writings better. I plan on reading the Communist Manifesto, The Principles of Communism, The Part Played by Labour in the Transition From Ape to Man, and The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State and I want to understand these books to the best of my ability. I definitely want to go back and reread this book but I want to prepare myself a little more before I do so please give me any tips.

Hello! I have read wage labour and capital and also price value and profit. I need some help understanding how two passages are not contradictory in Capitol volume 1.

The first passage seems to make complete sense and go along with what I’ve been reading so far but then the second one (starting with “a close scrutiny”) seems to completely flip it on its head. Maybe I’m missing something. Please help! Thank you!