/r/EuropeanSocialists

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An educational and informative sub for socialists/communists of Europe to stay informed on and discuss recent developments in the European continent and adjacent areas with regards to socialism and the workers movement. We are first and foremost an anti-imperialist sub that acknowledges that the biggest enemy of the global proletariat is imperialism. Please read the rules before posting and participating in discussion!

Link to rules: https://www.reddit.com/r/EuropeanSocialists/about/rules/

An educational and informative sub for socialists/communists of Europe to stay informed on and discuss recent developments in the European continent and adjacent areas with regards to socialism and the workers movement. We are first and foremost an anti-imperialist sub that acknowledges that the biggest enemy of the global proletariat is imperialism. Please read the rules before posting and participating in discussion!

Link to rules: https://www.reddit.com/r/EuropeanSocialists/about/rules/

/r/EuropeanSocialists

9,882 Subscribers

6

South Korea: The next Hong Kong?

Read the article on the Marxist Anti Imperialist Collective website.

South Korea, the regional aspirant that has refused to industrialize by its petty agricultural circumstances, rather training its population to refuse social protections in the name of raising their wage to usher into service and manufacturing, first a market of textiles, wood and wigs and then a home of processed minerals and high technology. It’s hard currencies then used by institutions which would then acquire loans through intense negotiation before moving their workforce to then make more grand projects while the small shareholders break even. A mode of state led development that no one else followed (I swear), Has managed to decline the continuation of their people for the sake of their work.

This precipitates the new question of the family, within the confines of individualist break. Its use, the trajectory, the family’s relationship that inclines its children. This continues absurdities such as communalism or the cynicism granting the role of state, demarcating the collective means and will to create family. This question will become more considerable in the region over time no doubt, especially seeing as the forces that lead in the crisis have already surrendered forms of aid and following dignity. Per L’Express :

Earlier this year, new President Yoon Seok-Youl increased the birth bonus from around 210 euros to 500 euros per month for the first year, then 250 euros per month for the second year.

Among the factors that may explain a drop in the birth rate, some specialists mention in particular the South Korean work culture, which values long hours spent in the office. The legal weekly working time of 40 hours, with a ceiling of 12 possible hours of overtime, seems incompatible with family life for many workers.

What follows is an impending acceptance of foreign women as the answer, despite the Korean men who have seen no benefit beyond a friendship with women which takes no dual discipline in the time constraint they deal with, and the women who have been given their choice in childhood between lifting their skirt for their principal or clamping down on their personality.

In early September, the government launched a program to encourage the arrival of domestic workers in this country of just over 51 million inhabitants. These foreign workers, mostly women from Southeast Asia and the Philippines, paid the minimum wage, are supposed to encourage women to have children, while keeping their jobs.

According to Singapore’s daily The Straits Times , “Mr Han’s latest remarks come as President Yoon Suk-yeol pushes to create a new government agency that would serve as a control tower for immigration affairs.” But this policy of welcoming migrants is not new. For the past 20 years, Seoul has opened the door to migrants from Southeast Asia, including Pakistan and Sri Lanka. More recently, access to work visas for a larger number of pre-selected countries, such as Nepal, India and Lithuania, has been ordered.

To understand the situation you must know the audience. For the considered social character of South Korea we can always turn to Shea.

The USA’s official stance on the Republic of Korea is that it’s a beloved ally and partner, because that’s what needs to be true for the occupation of Korea to remain stable. Underneath the surface-level rhetoric, however, are growing anxieties within the U.S. foreign policy establishment over how reliable of an ally the ROK truly is. These worries were articulated by the Council on Foreign Relations analyst Scott Snyder, who this year summarized why the alliance between Washington and Seoul could fail: “The rise of exclusive nationalism guided by ‘America First’ or ‘Korea first’ leadership that places national self-interest above alliance-based cooperation on shared challenges represents a point of vulnerability for the relationship. Combined with deepening political polarization in both countries, the cohesion and resilience of the U.S.-South Korea alliance may come under threat.”

Though the ROK’s president Yoon Seok-yeol isn’t named here, it’s clear he’s one of these factors that’s making the empire concerned.

Seok-yeol isn’t even the most ideologically nationalistic politician, yet he’s been showing signs of putting the national interest over the hegemon’s interests. He’s refused to follow many of Washington’s most extreme plans for escalating with the DPRK, which alone is enough to make his government be seen by the U.S. with distrust. (…) a rift has been happening between Washington and Seoul.

This of course is utterly dogshit and false, and all he speaks of is a conspiratorial way to establish the fact that capitalist systems always compete insofar as they can, before he embellished his work with a few lies. This confuses those who have been told that the right wing government of Korea is some sort of nationalist facade at the very least, in fact the new right is rather defined by its anti national character long planted by the insistence of a regional harmony appropriated by the military ‘bonaparte’ systems. I’ll let an ordinary ML speak for the situation.

Yoon Seok-yeol’s pro-Japanese behavior is not something that started a day or two ago. Since last year, there have been rumors that Yoon Seok-yeol “doesn’t know what country’s president he is.” In March 2023, Yoon Seok-yeol called for “third-party compensation” for the victims of forced mobilization by Japan. (…) In August, he suddenly announced that he would remove the bust of General Hong Beom-do at the Korea Military Academy. Yoon Seok-yeol’s pro-Japanese behavior has continued this year. For example, on July 27, Japan’s Sado Mine was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs agreed to this, resulting in Sado Mine being registered as a World Heritage Site without properly specifying the forced mobilization that Japan carried out at Sado Mine.

Strangely enough, Yoon Seok-yeol’s pro-Japanese treasonous acts began to become even more rampant ahead of this year’s Liberation Day. On August 7, Yoon Seok-yeol appointed Kim Hyung-seok as the director of the Independence Hall of Korea. Kim Hyung-seok is a well-known member of the so-called “New Right.” At his inauguration press conference on August 8, he stated, “There are parts that do not fit in the dictionary of pro-Japanese figures, and I will raise the issue so that no one is unfairly branded as a pro-Japanese figure.”

Furthermore, on Liberation Day, an even more absurd thing happened. In his Liberation Day speech, Yoon Seok-yeol did not mention the past history of Japanese colonial rule at all, and only talked about absurd things like the “unification doctrine.” Even within the People Power Party, there was criticism about the absurd situation where the history of Japanese colonial rule was omitted from the Liberation Day speech, which is a day to commemorate our country’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule.

Another thing that upset the angered public was the outrageous remarks of Kim Tae-hyo, the first deputy director of the National Security Office. When asked in an interview with KBS on August 16 whether the government was not able to say anything to Japan, Kim Tae-hyo made the outrageous remark that “what’s important is Japan’s feelings,” and that Japan cannot be forced to apologize when it does not like them

This in line the with the increasing language of a new alliance aligned with NATO fomented by a weakened Japan and struck by a totality of the ROK, as far as it should exist under the political order. This frustrates the economist’s mind as he not only saw great potential in the North but an a strong industrial machine. This sends the Korean nationalist into a state of question and vulnerability, let us look at the last solution and its founding.

The Korean people’s firm belief in the need for the modernization was not derived from self-centered ultra- nationalism. Rather, the enthusiasm for modernization was the outcome of their tremendous effort to live peace- fully with all nations in Asia and the Pacific areas. Modernizing our nation is the only shortcut to unification of our divided land, and the most valid means of getting rid of the power vacuum. It is no exaggeration to say that the successful modernization of Korea serves as a compass indicating the direction of peace and security in East Asia.

– Park Chung-hee, “To Build A Nation” p.138.

Can the South Koreans form the structure for an independent and rich ROK in alliance with its neighbors, or will it choose once again between colonialism or socialism?

Stanton 20/11/24

2 Comments
2024/11/24
18:31 UTC

25

Leon Trotsky in fascist Italy in 1937 while Gramsci is imprisoned there. I wonder what Trotsky is doing there 🤔

15 Comments
2024/11/22
14:02 UTC

15

For german Socialists: Sign now!

1 Comment
2024/11/21
17:17 UTC

12

Do you have any compilation of arguments against anarkiddies? I have found Marxist-Leninists to be able to provide the best critiques against them.

12 Comments
2024/11/20
02:13 UTC

5

For a Scientific Understanding of Races

Read the full article here : https://mac417773233.wordpress.com/2024/11/17/for-a-scientific-understanding-of-races/

It seems that among the revolutionary elements that we have always tried to guide towards the right path and a clear course, there are two possible opinions on the question of Race. The first, the Marxist answer, being that races are only fictions invented by the capitalist superstructures to divide the oppressed masses, the second, the radical nationalist one, being that races are very real, and that the Defense of ours must be the absolute priority of any self-respecting patriot.
We must ask ourselves the question, in the manner of a March Bloch tired of the debates around Robespierre: racialists, anti-racialists, simply tell us, what was race?

Before answering this question, we must support our questions concerning the anti-racialist arguments of the pseudo-Marxists… Yes, it is true that the system of races, as imagined by the bourgeoisie, seems to be only a veneer resulting from the imperialist and colonial superstructure… We will cite Haiti, divided between the French slave owners and the Blacks condemned to pay their blood tribute to their masters… This obvious division has even forced certain white nationalists, tired of Haitian immigration in their countries, to speak of “white genocide“! We will have to write a more detailed article on how this term “genocide” has become such an enormity used to reduce all popular revolts to pieces (in the Haitian case, our nationalist friends are putting their feet in the carpet by speaking of genocide, because they admit to supporting the pre-1791 situation… which would have led to an integration of African populations into the French one and therefore to the death of France as a Nation!) but it has an element of truth. Indeed, the brutality of this revolution can only be understood in the destruction of the system of Whiteness, itself inhuman, which required a truly bloody process, we also forget to specify that the brothers of the Haitians were the Poles, as honorary Negroes. Why?

4 Comments
2024/11/18
21:50 UTC

2

Celeste Caeiro, the lady who on the 25th of April 1974 first gave the soldiers carnations on the Carnation Revolution has passed away. The revolution would end almost 50 years of fascist dictatorship.

0 Comments
2024/11/15
18:11 UTC

10

Italy needs Socialism.

In Italy the right-wing Will be dominatong US for two years now, it's been two shitty years. They didn't do a good thing and some still see you, they think that society should not progress but lag behind, I don't understand why some don't want change, it's natural right? We would need a vanguard party to put things back in their place, nationalize some companies, and create a bit of social justice, tax the rich to guarantee schools, healthcare and public transport for the community. A new golden age would be born, like that of the Romans. The south of Italy needs a socialist economy where social classes do not exist and are equal to the north. Italian workers will be able to have a higher salary and elderly people a higher pension. Italy is the cradle of civilization and of being strong and united under the red flag of the workers. I hope for a red Europe, where all Europeans are put on the same level, and only with the socialization of countries like France, Germany and Italy will the future of European civilization be prosperous! You European Socialist, raise your fist! Struggle! fight for your children's future. Brothers, let's unite, if it starts in Italy it will spread to Europe! VIVAT ITALIA, VIVAT EUROPAE, VIVAT SOCIALISMUM ET INTELLECTUM HUMUM.✊🚩⭐🇮🇹🇪🇺 Sorry for my English.

4 Comments
2024/11/15
16:59 UTC

10

This Swedish satirical song mocked conservatives in 1975, and it shows us how their talking points - from tradwives to "law and order" - are exactly the same today. English subs are added

3 Comments
2024/11/11
13:22 UTC

13

Some Lessons of Temporary Defeat of Socialism in the USSR and International Communist Movement

https://preview.redd.it/l7bkakli0pzd1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bee3ade74c8df5c0c124e27ad951c5ada643725a

SOME LESSONS OF TEMPORARY DEFEAT OF SOCIALISM IN THE USSR AND INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST MOVEMENT

Speech Delivered in Germany in June 1992

Thousands of comrades from capitalist and developing countries ask us, Soviet communists, questions: Why do not the working people of our country revolt against restoration of capitalism, mass impoverishment and unemployment? What are 19 millions of party members of the CPSU doing in these tragic conditions? What has become of hundreds of thousands of party workers, activists, lecturers and teachers of Marxism-Leninism? Why does no one resist the ban of the CPSU and robbery of the property and finances of the party? Questions are not simple. They will, no doubt, become for decades the subject of discussion of historians, sociologists and philosophers. Today it is urgently necessary for the Soviet communists to give reply, even preliminary, to them, which is utterly needed for the international working-class and communist movement.

Above all, I dwell on the characteristics of the situation of the CPSU as the party which led socialist construction in the USSR. Lesson of experience of unprecedented rise and fall of its authority has no historical analogue. Analysis of this experience and drawing lessons from this for the future are a really international task on the successful fulfillment of which the global process of liberation of mankind from exploitation and oppression and the victory of communism depend. The attempts to falsify this world-historic experience on the part of ideological centres of imperialism and also of revisionists-reformists and opportunists-restorationists of capitalism in our days exceeded all preceding propaganda campaigns of anti-communism in their scale.

It is not taken into account abroad that the two-three generations of the Soviet people are not personally associated with capitalist orders and their carriers and have no idea of what unemployment, power of capital over labour and lack of confidence in tomorrow and the future of their children are like. In the period of stabilization of capitalist system people in the Soviet Union often judged bourgeois countries by the rich show-windows of supermarkets, the latest make of smart automobiles, relatively high living standards of the basic masses of the working people in the developed capitalist countries without consideration of their constant struggle with capital for their social gains and plunder of the “third-world” countries and the like.

The seventy year long experience of life under the Soviet power made the working people believe that difficulties, deficiency and distortions in politics and the economy will be overcome sooner or later under the leadership of the Soviet power. They practically were not required to do some warning of the character of initiative. Rather on the contrary, excess of personal initiative may disagree with the changes in society and bring harm to them and the cause of socialism. The blind and often uncritical trust in the “leaders” of the CPSU kept back and made it difficult for many people to make genuine appraisal of the bourgeois-restorationist perestroika with initiative which the Gorbachev-Yakovlev-Shevardnadze clique came forth with, having acceded to the leadership of the party in 1985.

Further, for the Soviet man the concept of class struggle itself converted into some abstract symbol inherited from the distant revolutionary epoch. Although class struggle in the country actually did not cease, only changing its form, it was rarely mentioned. Decades of such political education of the working people could not but tell on the social consciousness and psychology of the masses of people, on the loss of class intuition and vigilance to the scheming of the forces hostile to socialism at home and abroad. Here imperialist propaganda and its increasing professionalization in fooling the Soviet people should not be ignored.

The ruling character of the CPSU and its indisputable services to the people for recent three-four decades came to engender conceit and complacence. This could not but to be reflected on its composition. In the years of the Second World War each communist had to prove his or her dedication to socialism by rising up under enemy fire and in the years of Stalin’s five-year plans by constant readiness to work where the party sends him or her. Later the essence of demand to communist shifted to conscientious attitude to work, other moral qualities conditioned by “material interest”. This in practice opened the valve of replenishment of the CPSU with careerists and sycophants, the people for whom affected party loyalty and activeness were the sole and easy means for personal advancement. Those unsound in professional relations often wormed their way into party organs. All this could not but tell on the authority of the CPSU among the people.

The affair of promotion and education of leading party cadres was in worse situation. One of the basic organizational principles—incompatibility with the membership of the CPSU of selection of cadres on the principle of personal faithfulness but not on the principle of political and practical qualifications—was soon deleted from the rules adopted at the 19th Congress of the party. Change of party leadership in the centre inevitably brought about change of leading cadres in the provinces, and that often with less suitable ones. After the 20th Congress “pragmatists”, administrators, former specialists of national economy who were incapable of political judgement of situation wormed their way into the leadership of the territorial, regional and city committees of the CPSU. They brought into the leading party environment lack of principle and readiness for “perestroika” and change of “landmarks”. This told on the tempo of socialist construction, the level of leadership and responsibility for the entrusted affair and opened the way for degeneration, lordliness, bureaucratism and communist superciliousness.

Among people the image of party workers came to be connected with the hats made with young reindeer skin on their heads which could be obtained from the supply stores closed to the public. Party work gradually lost ideo-political character, converting into a sort of bureaucratical activity. In some republics party bureaucrats gained the reputation of new khans and rulers standing above people, their needs and requirements. Even the party staff members of the lowest level (to say nothing of the leading party bureaucrats) ceased to associate with the working people and rank and file communists, preferring meeting on the spot with administrators and other chiefs. Objective examination of practical qualifications on the spot gradually discontinued, internal contradictions in party collectives were smoothed over and cadres for promotion to party apparatus were chosen among those who preferred going to regional and city party committees for “advice”, demonstrating their obedience and skill to guess the opinion of the party leadership.

Beginning with the ’60s in the leadership of the CPSU there was observed gradual deviation from Lenin’s style in party and state work. The essence of this style of Leninism, in the words of J.V. Stalin, was “combination of Russian revolutionary sweep with American business ability”. Russian revolutionary sweep means “vigor which jogs thought, pushes ahead, breaks away with the past and offers prospect”. American business ability means “the ability which does not know nor recognize obstacle, overcomes all kinds of hindrance with business-like insistence and completes the started affair to the end”. The Lenin’s style of party work most fully manifested itself in the Stalin’s five-year plans, in victory over Hitler and rehabilitation of the economy ravaged in the war.

Russian revolutionary sweep was gradually superseded by the “revolutionary” writing, bureaucratic framing of plans which derived from the faith in the force of decrees and directives as if they themselves could do and change everything. Lenin called this “revolutionary” verbosity and political empty talk. American business ability in party and state work began to be converted into narrow unprincipled utilitarian approach, wingless practicism of pragmatists. Especially “socialist” red-tapism and “brainless utilitarian approach” (Lenin) widely spread in the years of Brezhnev’s stagnation and Gorbachev’s perestroika, which seriously impaired the authority of the party leadership.

Bureaucratic degeneration of party apparatus increased with it that in the CPSU was gradually blunted such sharp weapon as criticism and self-criticism which is the powerful means of exposition and remedy of shortcomings and an important way of influence of people on the course of social life. Precisely criticism and self-criticism awaken in the working people the sentiment of the master of the country, increase their political and labour activeness and make them take part in the management of social affairs. Conceit, complacency, Manilov-like nonchalance, passion for celebration, “dosing” of criticism at congresses and conferences resulted in that wrong resolutions were retained, the viability of wrong directive increased and all illnesses of the party organism became chronic and worse.

Reprisals for criticism acquired mass character. It became impossible to fight for elementary justice. Bureaucrats made reprisals on those who dared to file a complaint against them, declaring that “the time of Red commissars is gone”. The party ceased to strengthen itself, criticizing itself, which inevitably led to its ruin. Taking advantage of this, anti-communists introduced the idea of “biparty system”. Philistines saw its embodiment in the “duet of Gorbachev-Yeltsin”, as if it gave possibility for “leaders” to take turns in leadership. Finally the idea of “biparty system” developed into assertion on the necessity of political pluralism of anti-socialist character.

Thus the CPSU shared the fate of the Second International, which was also ruined by the fear of self-criticism and the attempt to veil sore problems of inner-party life. Experience once again confirmed the correctness of the repeated warning of Lenin and Stalin.

The disruption of the CPSU was also spurred by gap between theory and practice. Outwardly all was right with theory. Under the leadership of the Central Committee of the CPSU functioned the Academy of Social Sciences director of which was in the rank of department head of the Central Committee of the party, worked institutions of philosophy, economy, history, sociology and thousands of chairs of social sciences where great proportion of scientific potential of the country was concentrated. Scholars-social scientists were cadres cared for by the party, that is, chosen, approved and promoted by party organs. Journals, collections and monographs which proclaimed the party and class character of the theory on society were issued. But from the end of the ’70s the term “Marxist-Leninist theory” gradually disappeared from publications and were replaced by more “neutral” term, social science, society lore and the like.

Deviation of theory from socio-political practice was preceded by split of unique revolutionary theory, division of Marxism into component parts and disciplines. Philosophy, sociology, political economy, scientific socialism, ethics, esthetics, atheism, social psychology and other “independent” disciplines developed in diverging direction, often losing connection with the problems of direct socialist construction. But this was not the main thing. The main thing, in our opinion, was that Marxism-Leninism ceased to be considered as the theoretical foundation of the world-historic mission of the working class to create society free from exploitation, oppression, violence, wars and social injustice. In other words, the class-party foundation of scientific proletarian world outlook which was Marxism-Leninism historically and was actually gradually washed away.

At the same time gradually blunted was the revolutionary edge of the Marxist-Leninist theory, which ceased to be considered as the “experience of the working-class movement of all countries taken as a whole” (Stalin). The political theory of Marxism came to be reduced to scientific socialism and accordingly the CPSU was declared to be the party of scientific socialism. The next step on this path was qualification of the CPSU as the “party of all people”. This conclusion was included in the basic documents at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU precisely when the so-called “shady economy” legalized by Gorbachev’s perestroika came to gain strength. Opportunism gradually received its political formulation in the party. It came to be implanted in the consciousness of communists and the working people through mass media, party propaganda and enlightenment, the system of secondary and higher education. The basic premises of Marxism-Leninism were gradually ousted from the theory of social development. Theory became aimless and the practice of socialist construction, blind, confused, winding or spontaneous. The socio-economic practice ceased to be the basis of theory and criterion of its truthfulness. Such masterpieces like the slogan “Economy must be economical” were circulated.

At the same time with the conversion of the CPSU from the working-class party into the “party of all people” the Soviet state of the working-class state was converted into the “all-people state”. In this state the “Soviet” millionaires grew like mushrooms after rain, bureaucracy prospered and bribery and corruption bred. Towards the ’80s the state apparatus increased three times in comparison with the Stalin’s period. Effectiveness of its operation decreased. Gradual alienation and estrangement from the working people took place. This undermined the democratic social basis of the Soviet state, deprived it of the support of the working people and weakened the struggle with crimes which now disrupted the functioning of society.

Through the “all-people state” the consciousness of the masses of people was imbued with the ideas of overall equality and “pure democracy”. They covered up and camouflaged the principal impossibility of equality between the exploiters and the exploited and between oppressors and the oppressed. Today not only the working people but also opportunists together with renegades from the editorship of newspaper Pravda learned from their own experience that after restoration of capitalism in the USSR actual “freedom” can not be for the exploited if only because offices, publishing house, TV studio, paper stores necessary for the use of “freedom” are in the hands of entrepreneurs and their political hirelings. They now strive to organize information blockade to the Soviet people. The former communist press is now stifled economically and the working people gradually are kept away from newspapers and journals by high prices. But the semi-official press serving restorationists receive government subsidy and are promptly supplied with all that are needed.

Transition to “all-people state” conduced to far-going distortion of Marxist-Leninist theory on the proletarian dictatorship. It is known that in class society any state presents dictatorship of this or that class. It is the class of slave-owners, feudal landlords or capitalists. In this aspect dictatorship presents the substance of power as the state power expressing the interests of economically ruling class in society. In other words, those who decide social problems finally in the interests of this class or classes.

But the concept of “dictatorship” has another meaning reflecting the form, method, regime and mechanism of exercise of power. In this aspect not all states are dictatorial. The regime of state power much depends on the external and internal conditions in which the state functions. In the conditions of growing menace for the power of capital, for example, bourgeois state fairly fast becomes authoritarian and dictatorial the extreme form of which is fascism as the openly terroristic regime of power of big capital.

Bourgeois ideologues and opportunists deliberately confuse the concept of dictatorship as class substance of power with the form and methods of exercise of this power. Incidently they take advantage of the fact that the Soviet state which emerged as a result of victory of proletarian revolution embodied the mentioned two aspects of dictatorship (the class case), because it met the frantic resistance of domestic and foreign counterrevolution. In this connection Lenin and Stalin defined proletarian dictatorship as “domination of proletariat over bourgeoisie which is unlimited by law and relies on violence and enjoys sympathy and support of the working and exploited masses of people” (Lenin, State and Revolution). At the same time it is stressed that proletarian dictatorship presents the widest democracy for the working people as the democracy for the recently exploited majority which is compelled to rigidly restrict the rights of the exploiting minority at the initial stage. With consolidation of the Soviet state these restrictions were gradually removed. Centre of gravity shifted from suppression of exploiters to the educational, administrative and economic work. The state of proletarian dictatorship enacted its laws, securing their observance by all.

Did proletarian dictatorship fulfil their tasks in the USSR?

Now it can be asserted on good grounds that it did not. The point is not only that the heirs of the classes defeated in revolution wormed their way into the leadership of the party and state. The worker-peasant state did not perform the two main tasks concerning the working class themselves. First, the working class as a whole failed to steel and educate itself as the force capable of managing the country. Incidently it ought to be taken into account that it suffered heavy loss in the years of the Second World War. Therefore, after the war it was actually formed anew in the southern and western regions. In the east the working class absorbed considerable number of exiled settlers, former Nepmen and rich peasants who had settled anti-socialist sentiment. Specifically the present support of Yeltsin in Kuznetsk coal-fields can be explained by this.

The possibilities existing under socialism were not used for the political growth of workers. In ’70s-’80s the process of depoliticization of different strata of the working people took place, which led to erosion of their class self-consciousness. Strivings to offer society less and take from it more affected fairly wide sections of population including workers. Their lag in educational level impaired their authority as the leading force of socialist transformation.

Secondly, in the USSR there was by far not completed the process of reeducation and remolding of petty-bourgeois strata in town and country in the socialist spirit nor done away with the private-owner tendencies which restorationists now rely on. In the CPSU the significance of such social stratum as technical intellectuals which rapidly grew in the epoch of scientific-technical progress was not fully taken into account. Contradictions between them and the working class were not settled in time. Considerable lag in the rise of salary of intellectuals was tolerated, which was weakly connected with the result of labour of production collectives. Liquidation of machine and tractor stations in the period of Khrushchev’s reforms impaired the union of the working-class with collective farmers, which soon negatively told on the agricultural production. Purchase of grains from abroad began.

Thus it can be concluded that beginning with the end of the ’50s the Right opportunist leadership of the CPSU objectively retarded solution of social problems of socialist construction and Gorbachev’s perestroika went over to the revival of the social basis of bourgeois counterrevolution. The working class and collective and state-farm farmers were disorganized in face of actions hostile to them of restorationists of capitalism.

It ought to be specially stressed that in the period of long stabilization of world capitalism the leadership of the CPSU failed to avoid basic dangers of party degeneration with which the ruling parties are always menaced.

The first danger is that growth of difficulties in socialist construction and absorption in business routine may cause loss of socialist prospects, which finally develops into liquidationism. The vivid example of that is the practice of Gorbachev’s doctrine. The main causes of this danger are connected with lack of faith in the creativity of the working people—the working class, kolkhozniks and the working intellectuals. This path, as Stalin warned, leads to degeneration of the worker-peasant state into the bourgeois-democratic state.

The source of liquidation “mood” here is the increase of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois pressure on the party and is aggravation of struggle between socialist and capitalist elements in the country. It is characteristic that the capitalist elements in the USSR grew as a result of distortion and violation of the laws of socialist construction in the last three decades. They carried struggle into the sphere of ideology in an attempt to infect the unstable part of communists with skeptical attitude to socialist construction and lack of faith in the communist prospect of the country.

If the first danger of party degeneration is connected with the increase of bourgeois influence on the CPSU as to the line of internal policy, the cause of the second, nationalist danger is the increase of influence on the party as to the line of foreign policy and on the line of struggle between the international monopoly capital and the socialist system of states. Opportunists castrated the class substance of the policy of peaceful coexistence, which led to weakening of influence of socialism on the “third world” and undermined the position of the international communist and working-class movement.

Eventually the path of degeneration and nationalism here was the path of gradual weakening of international policy of socialism. Opportunists induced the Soviet people to consider their country not as part of a whole in the world revolutionary process but as the beginning and end of this process. It was considered that the interests of all other countries and revolutionary parties ought to be sacrificed in the interests of our country. This pseudo socialist nationalism led to the refusal of support of national-liberation forces in other countries and of assistance to brotherly parties and tolerated division of the world into the “spheres of influence” of great powers and deals of these powers between them at the expense of the interests of other nations.

The mentioned principles of foreign policy advocated by opportunism were continued and strengthened by the restorationists of capitalism in the USSR, which trained social consciousness in the spirit of egoism and nationalism at the expense of breaking away from the earlier friendly nations including Slavic ones. Such purpose was pursued by the provocative fuss about the “money of the CPSU” when the brotherly international obligation was passed off as illegal deals, using turncoats from the apparatus of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the State Security Commission.

Only on the basis of consistent internationalism the USSR could maintain the role of the standard-bearer of the world revolutionary movement. On the contrary, nationalist tendencies in foreign policy can lead to isolation and disintegration of the socialist State. The restorationist perestroika proved that nationalism passed off as “patriotism” threw Russia and other “sovereign” states into the embrace of their geopolitical enemies, depriving them of old tested allies in the persons of peoples fighting for peace, democracy and socialism.

The Right opportunist leadership of Gorbachev-Yakovlev-Shevardnadze-Yeltsin proved the reality of mentioned dangers, bringing the USSR to disruption, socialism to capitalization and the CPSU to liquidation. This clique bears direct responsibility for the opportunist degeneration of parties in European socialist countries which our treachery brought to difficult situation. It bears responsibility for the activation of international capital attacking now progressive forces everywhere and for crisis in the world communist and working-class movement. Restoration of capitalism in the USSR in our times is the leading factor of international politics the significance of which goes far beyond the bounds of one country. Therefore the struggle with bourgeois counterrevolution in our country, too, ought to bear international character. The result of the liberation struggle in the whole world much depends on it. In this connection the international communist movement and all the progressive forces the world over should join this struggle. International capital fears international solidarity of the working people and by all means obstructs the formation of the unified front of struggle to which the future belongs historically.

The dramatic events in the USSR testifies to it that the communist parties which followed the opportunist policy of the CPSU in the recent decade are in grave crisis. Part of them, following the so-called “democratic platform in the CPSU” goes over to the social-democratic and bourgeois-liberal positions, finally breaking away from Marxism-Leninism and leaving the ranks of the world working-class and communist movement. Another part of them is in a state of bewilderment, seeks the “third line” and pretends to “centrism”, inheriting the traditions of Gorbachev in this. And finally yet another part of them strengthens the Marxist-Leninist proletarian flank of the working-class and communist movement and reconstructs the parties of Leninist type as the political organizations more fully corresponding to the interests of struggle between labour and capital. The process of demarcation is painful and contradictory but historically necessary.

In the sphere of ideology the process of rebirth, clearance and strengthening in the communist movement requires understanding that with militant anti-Stalinism now one cannot go a long way, nor win victory over the power of capital nor build socialism nor defend social gains of the working people. It now has become clear to many comrades that anti-Stalinism is the most dangerous form of opportunism in the contemporary communist movement which plays the role of the Trojan Horse in it. In this connection the role and authority of the communist parties which opportunists called Stalinist, Maoist or Hoxhaist are rising. In other words, they are the parties which did not accept the opportunist resolutions of the 20th Congress of the CPSU which were duplicated and developed by European communism. Today it is important for these communist or workers’ parties to join the general struggle at all fronts of battle with the force of reaction. It is necessary to put an end to mutual accusation of communist parties and disputes as early as possible and achieve wide unification of communists through unity of action in the struggle with the common enemy.

Opportunism set communist or workers’ parties at loggerheads and set one party against another even in separate countries. Some of them received monetary subsidy on behalf of the CPSU and yet some of them were cursed. Only imperialism gained by this. It is time to deprive it of winning position here. Today for the struggle against capital not distinction between views of communists on the events of history and modern times but unity of practical-political actions in the struggle with imperialist reaction and opportunism is important. The slogan of our great teachers “Workers of all countries, unite!” acquires now special significance.

The bosses of international capital supposed that disruption of the USSR and socialist countries in Europe will help prevent the coming economic crisis by their colonization and conversion into the sources of raw materials and cheap labour. However, the expectation did not come true. With the aid of gangster-like robbery of “socialist barbarians” the “civilized” West is not saved from its own crisis, increase of the unemployed, social tension and explosion of national and racial hatred. Placed on the agenda is the fresh aggravation of contradictions within capitalist countries, which are again fraught with the danger of redivision of the world. Now unified front of struggle against restoration emerged and develops in the East Europe as the counterbalance to the expansion of imperialism, which began seriously to worry the “victors in the velvety revolutions”. By-product of contradictions which are being aggravated in the world is the growth of anti-American sentiment and emergence of neo-Nazist groups on the political arena and even in Russia.

Temporary defeat of socialism in the USSR and Europe objectively transfers the centre of world revolutionary movement to Asia and Latin America and makes China, DPRK, Vietnam, Cuba and Laos the main bastions of socialism. Special responsibility now rests with the leadership of these ruling parties for proletarian staunchness, scientific substantiation, correctness and flexibility of the pursued policy. Today all the subversive activity of imperialism is precisely aimed at and concentrated on them. Today the slogan “Hands off the socialist countries!” ought to sound decisively and aloud as never before. Our international obligation is to support the countries of socialist orientation. Conferences of communists where concrete arrangements on this problem would be made are needed.

The crisis of world socialism now pressingly requires discussion of the problem of revival of the Communist International as the international class organization of the working people. Preparation for the rebirth of the Communist International itself will promote consolidation of the anti-imperialist and progressive forces, their class-social differentiation and effecting of demarcation with opportunists and class collaborators. Acceptance of Pyongyang Declaration* (April 1992) by revolutionary parties can be considered as the first step on this path, I think. In the world liberation movement there will be apparently found the forces which at the present stage will further the cause of consolidation and unification of communist forces. The experience of the Third International which played its role and ceased its activity during the height of the Second World War can offer essential help here.

However anti-communists may be delighted and rage, the crisis of socialism in our days has temporary character. Capitalism saved this time by traitors-opportunists cannot solve even one problem facing mankind. Collapse of imperialism can only be deferred but is not withdrawn from the agenda. Its present “victory” is fraught with danger of graver crisis, aggravation of all world contradictions and struggle for division of the world. The main thing is that Iraqi, Yugoslavian and other “varieties” of provocation of the third world war which can lead to the self-liquidation of mankind are being performed.

Socialism will clear of opportunist filth, sooner or later tide over the crisis and open up its boundless possibilities of self-perfection. Objectively this is the only chance to save peoples of the globe from military, economic, ecological, demographic, information and other global crises, for it most fully reflects the interests common to mankind.

Here much will depend on us, communists, on our solidarity and militancy, and capacity to win the hearts of people and draw lessons from committed errors. Today the role of subjective factor in history the action of which is materialized through classes, parties, their leaders and ideologues rises as never before.

The wind of history inevitably will disperse the cloud of reaction. The cause of communism is just! The future belongs to it! Socialism or death! We will emerge victorious!

― Nina Andreyeva, Unpresented Principles, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang 1993, pp. 247-258.

0 Comments
2024/11/08
15:05 UTC

9

On November 3, the last Lenin Museum in Western Europe closed in the Finnish city of Tampere

1 Comment
2024/11/05
10:01 UTC

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For Land | Shorts #1: Hunting and clearances

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2024/11/02
23:25 UTC

17

The UN vote for the lifting of sanctions against Cuba

2 Comments
2024/10/31
08:09 UTC

10

This Swedish socialist rock song about the importance of protesting and struggling even if it lands you in jail is a banger. English subs are added

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2024/10/30
12:42 UTC

0

UN: Women have lost more than 890 medals in 29 different sports because of transgender people

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2024/10/26
17:00 UTC

14

DPRK on Class Struggle under Socialism

https://preview.redd.it/6w1vp40psowd1.jpg?width=1470&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=126fc35a318718728a6272628fa7be9b4f3234e1

The Effort to Build a Thriving Socialist Country is a Serious Class Struggle

Article by Ri Jong Su

Today, our army and people are speeding up the grand march toward the final victory of building a powerful socialist country.

The powerful country we are building is a state where national power is strong, everything is prosperous and the people live without envy in the world, a state that no enemy dares to approach and where the people’s ideals and dreams blossom into reality. The effort to build such a powerful socialist country is accompanied by a serious class struggle process to sweep away all kinds of hostile forces, including the imperialists, that block it and the negative practices in socialist society.

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un said as follows:

“The effort to build a thriving socialist country is accompanied by a serious class struggle to eliminate everything that is hostile and non-socialist.”

In the past, the founders of Marxism put forth the theory that in a socialist society where the capitalist class has been liquidated as a class, society develops according to material and economic conditions resulting from the adaptation of productive forces and production relations. They believed that the class struggle would end when the working class establishes the proletarian dictatorship and realizes its political domination of society. Therefore, they did not place much emphasis on the class struggle after the establishment of the socialist system.

Even after the establishment of the socialist system, class struggle continues. Even after the establishment of the socialist system, imperialists’ military invasion, economic blockade, and ideological and cultural infiltration continue on a global scale, and remnants of hostile classes remain within, and negative phenomena that run counter to the nature of socialist society appear.

The effort to build a thriving socialist country is accompanied by a serious class struggle against all these hostile elements. Therefore, only when a decisive victory is achieved in a fierce class struggle can a powerful socialist state be built where national power is strong, everything prospers, and the people live without envy in the world.

The effort to build a thriving socialist country is, above all, a serious class struggle process that achieves a decisive victory on the fierce anti-imperialist military front.

From the first day of the emergence of socialism on earth, imperialists have made every vicious move to obliterate socialism. Imperialists have continuously waged maneuvers to obliterate socialism through political and military attacks and pressure, economic sanctions and blockade, and infiltration of bourgeois ideology and culture. The more socialism advances, the more desperately the imperialists struggle to stop and obliterate it. Therefore, achieving a decisive victory in the fierce anti-imperialist class struggle has become an essential requirement for firmly protecting and shining the destiny of the country, the nation and socialism and for successfully building a powerful socialist state.

A powerful socialist country is built through the process of defeating imperialism in all spheres of social life.

Today, the confrontation with imperialists is being waged sharply in all areas of social life, including politics, economy, military, culture and diplomacy. The imperialists’ maneuvers to wipe out socialism are not limited to any area. Therefore, the confrontation with imperialism is an all-out confrontation in all areas of social life, and the struggle on all fronts of our construction of a powerful nation is an anti-imperialist class struggle to destroy the vicious anti-socialist strategies of the various imperialists. The process of strengthening the single-minded unity and military support of our revolution is a struggle to destroy the political and military offensive of the imperialists who are trying to destroy the political and military support of the revolution, and the struggle for a breakthrough in the cutting-edge areas of economy, science and technology is a class struggle to make socialism and capitalism as different as heaven and earth in response to the economic and technological blockade and “strangulation” strategy of the imperialists. In addition, the struggle to raise the country’s external authority and the work of creating a socialist culture are also fierce class struggles and battles against the enemy to crush the imperialists’ vicious isolation and suppression schemes and their crafty ideological and cultural infiltration schemes. Therefore, in order to successfully build a powerful socialist state, imperialism must be defeated in all aspects, including politics, military, economy, ideology and culture, and diplomacy.

From this, the process of building a powerful socialist state becomes a process of class struggle to crush and overwhelm the imperialists’ schemes with the solid unity of the army and the people around the revolutionary leadership, the invincible military power, the country’s independent economic power, the dignified external authority and the superiority of socialism.

A powerful socialist country is built through the process of fighting the imperialists with extreme determination and achieving final victory.

The confrontation with imperialists is a confrontation of power, and the anti-imperialist class struggle is a fierce battle to decide whether to become an independent nation or colonial slaves. Imperialism, which has invasion and plunder as its nature and physiology, does not intend to retreat from the road of counterrevolution. History shows that imperialists have never retreated, having offered independence to the people of colonial countries on their own, and that they make last-ditch efforts as their destruction approaches.

Today, the imperialists are becoming more arrogant and rampant, intoxicated by the change in the Cold War structure and military “victories” over other countries, and are focusing their attacks on our country, which is invariably advancing along the road of anti-imperialist independence and socialism.

The nature of imperialism, which seeks to conquer the world through more vicious and despicable military coercion, political and diplomatic offensives, economic pressure and ideological and cultural infiltration, will not change until death. Only force can work against imperialists who rely on military omnipotence, and only through class struggle against them can we build a powerful socialist state and preserve the peace and security of mankind. We must fight to the end with a do-or-die determination against imperialists who rush toward us with evil intentions.

In the confrontation with the imperialists, we can achieve the final victory and build a thriving socialist country by always taking the initiative and forcing the enemy into a passive and defensive position, and by attacking, attacking and attacking again with the confidence that the final victory is ours even though it is difficult today, without the slightest concession or retreat.

Today’s reality shows that a powerful socialist state is built by the determination of the entire army and people to firmly unite and crush the imperialists with an ultra-strong stance.

The construction of a powerful socialist country is a serious class struggle process that overcomes all kinds of negative practices that run counter to the nature of socialist society.

A powerful socialist state is built in the process of thoroughly overcoming all kinds of negative practices. All kinds of negative practices in a socialist society are dangerous toxins that paralyze people’s sound ideological spirit and corrode socialism, and the struggle against these practices is a serious class struggle between socialism and capitalism in the ideological field.

Moreover, under the conditions in which today’s imperialist reactionaries are viciously running wild, using the negative practices appearing among the workers to realize their anti-socialist strategy, thereby destroying socialist society from the within, creating discontent among the people and hindering socialist construction, if we regard and allow the negative practices appearing in people’s lives and customs as possible and insignificant, it will result in enormous negative consequences.

Negative practices in a socialist society run counter to the inherent demands of socialist society and the interests of the masses and the collective, and they infringe upon and corrode them. Negative practices, including superstitious acts, bad behaviours, commercial wrongdoings, embezzlement, power abuse, bureaucracy and corruption promoted by the machinations of imperialists, are very harmful elements that destroy and corrode the foundations of the socialist system.

The negative phenomena that appear among the socialist workers are internally the relics of the ideological culture left behind by the old society and externally the result of being contaminated by the ideological culture of imperialism.

All kinds of negative practices in a socialist society do not disappear on their own just because the society becomes rich in material wealth and people’s lives become more satisfactory.

The struggle to eliminate negative practices in a socialist society is carried out through the methods of ideological education, ideological struggle and organizational control of the workers, and it becomes a new form of class struggle in a socialist society.

Ultimately, the construction of a powerful socialist state is a process of fierce class struggle against negative practies that are gnawing away at socialism and putting it in danger.

When we wage an all-out confrontation against all kinds of negative phenomena, crush them in the bud, establish a socialist lifestyle throughout society and realize single-minded unity, the independent status and role of the popular masses are firmly guaranteed.

The lessons of history show that if we do not raise awareness in time about the negative practices appearing in a socialist society and do not overcome them from the embryonic stage, the essence of socialism will be lost and the class position will collapse. In many countries of Eastern Europe, no one fought against the negative practices that became the use of imperialism’s anti-socialist strategy and, as a result of not fighting against the prevalence of power abuse, bureaucracy and corruption, many party and government officials were reduced to a privileged class isolated from the popular masses and, as a ultimate consequence, socialism completely lost the support of the popular masses and collapsed overnight.

Today, our army and people, with firm confidence in the final victory of the revolution, are fiercely stirring up the winds of a leap forward in the construction of a thiriving socialist country.

The belief and courage of our army and people is that we can achieve a decisive victory in building a powerful socialist state as long as we have the wise leadership, single-minded unity and powerful war deterrence of our respected Comrade Kim Jong Un.

Our army and people will unwaveringly support only our respected Comrade Kim Jong Un and will definitely build a powerful socialist country, the people’s dream.

Journal of Kim Il Sung University, vol. 61, no. 1, 2015, pp. 35–37.

0 Comments
2024/10/24
11:10 UTC

12

"It seems to be a common feature of bad dogs bred by the U.S."

Press Statement of Kim Yo Jong, Vice Department Director of C.C., WPK

Pyongyang, October 22 (KCNA) -- Kim Yo Jong, vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, issued the following press statement on Tuesday:

The reckless infringement upon the sovereignty of the DPRK by the ROK military gangsters is a hideous military provocation that can never be pardoned.

Seoul will have to experience at first hand so as to know properly how dangerous act it committed and how terrible and fatal the consequences it brought on itself are.

A military provocation against a nuclear weapons state may be led to horrible situation, unimaginable for politicians and military experts in any big or small country in the world with their normal thinking to experience. So, there will be no such instance except one recently made by lunatics of the ROK and Ukraine.

Such deed can be done only by lunatics in the Seoul and Kiev regimes.

Seoul and Kiev are exact counterparts in going about begging and letting loose reckless remarks against nuclear weapons states at random without follow-up capability.

It seems to be a common feature of bad dogs bred by the U.S.

The DPRK detective agencies' investigation into the drones from the ROK is going on and the truth behind the despicable provocation of the ROK military gangsters will be analyzed further in detail.

No one knows how our retaliation and revenge will be completed.

A lot of political motivational rubbish sent by the ROK scum was discovered and removed in many parts of the DPRK on October 21, too.

The brute courage of the Seoul authorities to jump into fire with brushwood on their backs, far from reflecting on their conducts and being prudent, will bring the danger of destruction of all the scum. And they will be denounced by everyone else.

www.kcna.kp (Juche113.10.22.)

0 Comments
2024/10/22
11:55 UTC

9

The Russians are wreaking global havoc. Again

0 Comments
2024/10/21
12:23 UTC

7

What's your favorite type of Socialism

6 Comments
2024/10/20
12:38 UTC

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Initial military training at a Soviet school. Compliance with the standards for throwing a training grenade at a range. USSR, 1984.

0 Comments
2024/10/18
21:53 UTC

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Latest PFLP clip

0 Comments
2024/10/14
19:27 UTC

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This Swedish 70s rock song is about young socialists celebrating the older ones who struggled before them. It’s very well written - English subs are added

0 Comments
2024/10/13
11:39 UTC

7

Announcement of support for Eritrea and Somalia

2 Comments
2024/10/11
12:13 UTC

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