Communism

She's to the left of Boric, according to some Chilean comrades.

The "authoritarian" tag makes me wince though, however, I understand the relatively recent history of the country as well.

Here:

Voters in the presidential primary of the Unity for Chile (Unidad por Chile) coalition have selected the Communist Party’s Jeannette Jara as their candidate to face off against the right-wing candidates José Antonio Kast and Evelyn Matthei in November’s general election.

Jara scored a stunning 60% total in a four-candidate race on Sunday. Her next closest challenger was Carolina Tohá of the Democratic Socialism party, who took 27.7% of the ballots. The parties in the Unity for Chile coalition pledged to support whichever candidate won the primary, however, so all the left and progressive forces in the country are now rallying behind Jara.

“Today begins a new path that we will walk together, with the conviction to build a fairer and more democratic Chile,” Jara declared on social media after the Electoral Service announced her win. “In the face of the threat from the far right, we respond with unity, dialogue, and hope.”

At a rally with supporters Sunday, she urged her compatriots to “hold on to each other and not let go, so we can face Chile’s far right with the broadest possible front.”

She was immediately congratulated by President Gabriel Boric, who is barred from running for re-election due to constitutional limits on presidents serving consecutive terms.

“Jeannette Jara immediately steps up to lead the forces of progressivism toward the future,” Boric said Sunday evening. “What lies ahead will not be easy, but Jeannette knows about tough battles. Now, let’s all work together for unity to rally the majority of our compatriots to continue building a fairer, safer, and happier country.”

Jara, 51, is one of the most prominent political leaders in the country. Before stepping down to run for president, she served as Minister of Labor in the Boric government. In that position, she spearheaded successful efforts to reduce Chile’s workweek from 45 to 40 hours and raise the minimum wage.

Opponents hail from fascist families

Kast, her main opponent in the general election, is making his third try for the presidency. Last time around, he lost to Boric, capturing 44% in the second round after having led in first-round balloting.

Kast is part of the right-wing royalty of the Chilean ruling class. His parents were German immigrants who arrived in Chile in the early 1950s. His father, Michael Kast Shindele, was a member of the Hitler’s Nazi Party and a lieutenant in the military of the Third Reich.

He escaped from U.S. custody and then fled the de-Nazification campaign in Germany after World War II. He settled in Chile, where, together with other relatives, he set up a sausage factory that made the family one of the richest in the country.

The fascist politics brought over from Europe were passed down through the generations. One of Kast’s brothers, Miguel, was a “Chicago Boy” economist and labor minister for the former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet. He helped impose neoliberal policies that crushed the Chilean working class, with an emphasis on privatization, deregulation, and attacks on unions.

As a politician, Kast has consistently pushed a reactionary platform premised on giving free rein to big business and handing over control of social policy to ultra-conservative forces. He advocates major tax cuts on the wealthy, a rollback of labor and other progressive legislation, a halt to immigration, and bans on things like emergency birth control and same-sex marriage.

Former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet reviews his troops in Las Vizcachas, Chile, on Sept. 7, 1995. Both of Jeannette Jara’s main opponents, José Antonio Kast and Evelyn Matthei, have long family connections to the fascist Pinochet dictatorship and actively defend its legacy. | Santiago Llanquin / AP

His frequent praise for the years of the Pinochet dictatorship have generated controversy but also endeared him to leading capitalists, the military, and the religious base of voters who all fondly remember the years of tyranny that saw tens of thousands of trade unionists, students, Communists, socialists, democracy activists, and indigenous people murdered.

In 2021, running against Boric, Kast framed the election as “a choice between freedom and communism.” With an actual Communist as his main opponent this time, the red-baiting is expected to reach new extremes.

Also in the race is right-wing candidate Evelyn Matthei of the Independent Democratic Union, who has earned the endorsement of some sections of the capitalist class and the foreign business press. The Economist magazine in 2024 proclaimed her “The woman who will lead Chile’s counter-revolution.”

She served in the government of former President Sebastián Piñera, is a consistent defender of the Pinochet dictatorship, and also comes from a fascist pedigree. Her father, Fernando Matthei Aubel, was the son of a German military officer and was trained by the U.S. Air Force in the 1950s.

After the Pinochet coup in 1973, he returned to Chile and was promoted to the rank of general. During the dictatorship, he served as a government minister and was implicated in campaigns of political repression and trafficking of bacteriological weapons, which were tested on political prisoners.

In the last years of the dictatorship, Evelyn Matthei was head of a government body tasked with privatizing Chile’s pension system. During the struggles to democratize the country’s political system and overturn military rule in the late 1980s, she was the leader of the campaign that sought to continue the dictatorship and was elected to parliament as a pro-Pinochet deputy.

The latest opinion surveys have her in third place, at 10% support.

Unity and hope

The platform of the Unity for Chile coalition has put the issues clearly on the table for voters. It declares: “Chile must decide where to go in the coming years: Deepen the path of change or enter an authoritarian drift.”

Jara and the coalition make the case that the far-right is seeking to “roll back our rights” and promotes an “exhausted free market model that makes life precarious.” The alternative, they argue, is a coalition of “those who have historically fought for profound social change: the communities, unions, feminists, youth, indigenous peoples, socio-environmental movements, and cultural figures.”

It recalls the Popular Unity coalition that elected socialist Salvador Allende to the presidency in 1970, who was killed during the 1973 U.S.-backed Pinochet coup, but the left program seeks to go beyond the past to build an even stronger progressive front to address the economic challenges of today.

The Jara candidacy is sparking excitement among grassroots forces. At a meeting of activists just before the primary election, leaders from a number of movements spoke about the nature of the Jara campaign.

“We women support those who have stood by us,” said Karen Palma, a vice president of Chile’s main labor federation, the Workers’ United Center of Chile (Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Chile, CUT). “Jeannette promoted the 40-hour work week, pension reform, and the minimum wage.”

Jeannette Jara is the presidential candidate of the Unidad por Chile (Unity for Chile) broad front coalition for the Novemeber elections. | Photo via Communist Party of Chile

Lautaro Carmona, president of the Communist Party of Chile, praised the united front stance taken by all the parties currently participating in the government. “A new step has been taken, a very important step, which reflects the will, determination, and conviction to contribute decisively to a single and united candidacy within the governing coalition,” Carmona said.

“We have an experienced leader, with proven capabilities in state affairs, with social leadership and a deep commitment to training, development, and empathy regarding major national issues.”

Carmona said Jara’s nomination “reaffirms that this leftist force is not limited to a single party, but rather formalizes its willingness to build a new government supported by a broad coalition, composed of eight parties committed to the transformation and rights of the vast majority, especially workers.”

**Struggles ahead **> Jara’s campaign will face a tough battle against Kast and Matthei. Economic conditions remain tough for many Chileans, and opinion polls show crime is on the minds of many voters—issues which her right-wing opponents will surely try to latch onto as their main appeal.

She is also seen as the would-be successor to the current Boric administration, which has been playing defense on several fronts ever since losing a referendum vote to replace the Pinochet-era constitution in 2023.

Constitutional reform was a major part of Boric’s campaign for the presidency, so losing that vote—coupled with economic headwinds—have allowed the business-controlled press in Chile to paint a picture of a flailing government.

However, the Communist Party and its allies are jumping into the fight with a program that they believe the Chilean people will support. It centers on public security with a social focus, combatting organized crime by returning control of neighborhoods to communities.

On the health front, it seeks to strengthen the public system via direct investments in primary care and reduced waiting times, and supporting health workers to ensure they can provide what their patients need. It says that more resources are needed in health care, not privatization.

On the economy, the Communists say it’s necessary to “redistribute to grow.” A Jara presidency will push for more progressive taxation, increasing taxes on the super-rich while boosting public investment in infrastructure, education, and technology.

“What is often presented as grand ideological debates,” the Communist Party said in its platform, “is translated here into simple and profound issues: having a fair salary, living in a safe neighborhood, feeling that the state respects and listens to you. It’s a program that doesn’t stop at abstract promises, but offers tangible responses to real life.”

^ Frankly, I have a good feeling about this.

> “Leninists have rarely grappled with these facts, let alone provided a compelling explanation for them. In other words, they have assumed, but not actually demonstrated, that the dual-power / insurrection model of Russia 1917 — a revolution that toppled an autocratic, noncapitalist state, not a parliamentary regime — is relevant for capitalist democracies. Similarly, Post at no point provides any evidence for his assertion that only workers’ councils, not a socialist-led government elected by universal suffrage, are capable of leading a break with capitalism.”

The October Revolution overthrew the provisional government which was a parliament, although there was already a deep crisis caused by WWI at that point

Also, Leninists have talked about these facts

The rise of opportunism in imperialist countries due to the labour aristocracy and the super exploitation of the Third World, the cooption of communist parties in imperialist countries

On another point:

The Bolsheviks didn’t make the dual power situation happen

What happened was the masses spontaneously set up the Soviets in a time of deep political and economic crisis

The point that Leninists make is that in a time of crisis, the masses spontaneously take action (and this has happened in capitalist democracies too), the role of communists is to lead these movements to overthrow the state. The reason why this hasn’t happened is because of the rise of opportunism and the split in the working class

Ironically, the very ‘socialist’ parties that work through Parliament that this articles advocate for actually block this process from happening by diverting the energy into voting

Another point:

> "At the same time, the vast majority of elected left governments have never even tried to move down Kautsky’s suggested path due to the moderating pressure of labor bureaucratization and the immense economic power of the capitalist class."

This also reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the split in the working class and the social basis of these left government

He’s implying that these left parties are radical but they are held back by ‘moderate Labour movements’

But the left parties spring up from the same class basis of these moderate labour movements they represent the interests of the section of the working class that make up these moderate labor movements

Also, if such a radical working class movement exists outside Parliament that is going to push this theoretical socialist party left…. Why doesn’t it just overthrow the state altogether and take power for itself?

> "Avoiding the dead-end of social democratization will above all require a very intense and sustained degree of mass action and independent working-class organization outside of parliament. Without this, even the most well-intentioned government will flounder."

Like… why do all this dancing around? Such a militant movement should and could overthrow the state if parliament becomes so hostile to it

The entire premise of this imaginary scenario is that a militant working class movement exists but only does stuff to keep its elected officials in check

Or when the state and capitalists block its agenda

I also just think the fact that it uses AOC and Sanders as examples kinda ruins the legitimacy of the article because these politicians are imperialists

A few more points:

> "Second, reclaiming Kautsky’s strategy should prompt socialists to focus more on fighting to democratize the political regime, a tradition that has gotten lost since the era of the Second International. Whereas liberals and social democrats generally accept existing governmental rules and structures, Leninists have often been reluctant to proactively fight for major democratic reforms because they seek to completely illegitimate the current state."

Leninism actively promotes the fight for democracy and democratic rights. Pro-migrant rights, solidarity with prisoners, being against anti-protest laws, police brutality etc. Lenin was very clear that these political battles have to be engaged with so we don’t fall into economism. I say again, just look at the BPP (Black Panther Party)

> "Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and other newly elected radicals have raised working people’s expectations and changed national politics. Socialists should participate in this electoral upsurge to promote mass movements and to organize hundreds of thousands of people into independent working-class organizations"

These politicians were always imperialist btw, it’s just become very obvious post October 7. Also, very crucially, these politicians were encouraging support for the Democrats, a racist pro-imperialist party but one that was willing to give concessions to some workers. This is opportunistic. This doesn’t mean that socialists shouldn’t engage with such movements (I think US communists know better than I do) but that engagement always has to keep in mind that those politicians don’t represent the interests of all workers and they certainly don’t represent the interests of workers in oppressed countries, if anything I imagine communists would be trying to expose this.

This article is based in Euro Communism, essentially this kind of thinking means that they see the ‘global north’ (once again a term I really hate) is so stable, will never go into an intense crisis, etc that revolution is impossible. So your only hope is to basically form mass socialist parties and hope you get voted in. But at that point you’re not socialist parties, you’re just giving workers a bigger share of the imperialist pie.

Let's contrast these article with the praxis that Che and Fidel reached in Latin America.

These quotes represent Che's ideas on the following:

> "Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted."

He further clarifies that a revolutionary situation arises when:

> "People must see clearly the futility of maintaining the fight for social goals within the framework of civil debate. When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law; peace is considered already broken."https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1963/09/guerrilla-warfare.htm

> "It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist; the insurrection can create them. ... [But] where constitutional legitimacy exists, however flawed, guerrilla warfare is premature."

He stresses that mass disillusionment with the state is a prerequisite:

> "The confidence of the electorate in any of the old forms must be completely shattered, confidence in the ability of the old system to honestly organize any aspect of public life shaken to the core."

https://faculty.chass.ncsu.edu/slatta/hi216/documents/che.htm

Guevara's broader writings reinforce this principle:

In a 1959 interview, he condemned electoral systems as tools of oppression:"Democracy cannot consist solely of elections that are nearly always fictitious and managed by rich landowners and professional politicians."

https://bigother.com/2020/06/14/che-guevara-on-love-injustice-and-revolution-and-socialism/

He linked revolutionary violence to the failure of institutional justice:"Justice remains the tool of a few powerful interests; legal interpretations continue to be made to suit the convenience of the oppressor powers."

https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1964/03/25.htm

Theoretical Consistency in Anti-Imperialism

Guevara framed armed struggle as a response to exhausted alternatives in global contexts:

> "The feeling of revolt will grow stronger every day among peoples subjected to exploitation, and they will take up arms to gain by force the rights which reason alone has not won them."

https://bigother.com/2020/06/14/che-guevara-on-love-injustice-and-revolution-and-socialism/

Guevara agreed that the law of value remained under socialism but argued that measures taken by the Revolution to undermine the capitalist market meant that the law could not serve as the dynamic catalyst to productivity and efficiency in the same way as it did under capitalism.[8] Socialisation of the means of production and distribution had 'blunted' the tools of capitalism.[9] Marx described a commodity as a good which changes ownership, from the producer to the consumer. Consistent with this definition, Guevara insisted that products transferred between state-owned enterprises did not constitute commodities because when they were transferred from one state factory to another there was no change in ownership. The state itself should be considered as one big enterprise.[10] For Guevara commodity-exchange relations between factories threatened transition, via 'market socialism', to capitalism. He stressed central planning and state regulation as substitutes to such mechanisms.

Enphasis on:

For Guevara commodity-exchange relations between factories threatened transition, via 'market socialism', to capitalism. He stressed central planning and state regulation as substitutes to such mechanisms.

Why develop? We understand that the capitalist categories are retained for a time and that the length of this period cannot be predetermined, but the characteristics of the period of transition are those of a society that is throwing off its old bonds in order to move quickly into the new stage. The tendency should be, in our opinion, to eliminate as fast as possible the old categories, including the market, money, and, therefore, material interest - or, better, to eliminate the conditions for their existence.'

It was partly because material incentives became the main way to motivate people, the relationship between firms was set up in a way that it was about each firm being responsible for its own profits and losses, they had to purchase their inputs etc, and it encouraged firms to do dodgy things so they could be like “oh look we beat our target, bonus pls” etc

His planning system did have some material incentives but his idea was that it would be phased out and people should be motivated using moral incentives. To him the law of value should ‘fade away’

Using his analysis, the USSR didn’t collapse because it had a planned economy. It collapsed because its planning system undermined socialist consciousness, its leadership lost touch with the masses, and it developed a class who had a material interest in undermining the state, due to keeping the law of value.

https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/yaffeh/che-critic.htm

Edit: After Che left Cuba, they used the soviet model which had some benefits and allowed Cuba to enter the soviet trading system which brought even more benefits, but then that model had to be abandoned because what Che said would happen did happen: corruption, individualism, petit bourgeois consciousness, inefficiencies etc because the soviet model had a big emphasis on material incentives, bonuses if you over fulfilled the plan, etc

A bit after Che left they implemented the Soviet system, then got rid of it the 80s, then the special period happened after the socialist bloc started collapsing.

Under the Soviet system firms literally operated like businesses

Che's Balanced Flows System planning was an attempt at firms would simply be transferring the goods between each other, their finances would be managed centrally by the central bank etc

His idea was that firms in the country wouldn’t be buying and selling from each other and therefore the Cuban economy would be ‘one giant factory’. There would still be stuff sold to consumers, still be wages, money etc

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Heo6QxpGWyQ

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/8194866

It seems the infighting within the bourgeoisie has ramped up in recent years.

Different factions at play.

What are they?

Are they segmented based on industry and sectors and geography as usual?

Or different boundaries altogether?

i can't marry before bringing socialism!

it's time for some communism in your life...don't you think?

Think of a world that changed fundamentally after Marx died. His books became forgotten, and never received circulation beyond the German language. In that world, there has been no Soviet Union. There has not even been an attempt at socialism anywhere, because there was nothing to drive it.

We don't live in that world. We live in one where all those things existed, and continue to exist, and continue to effect influence on us, traveling through time with ourselves as the catalyst.

https://www.tiktok.com/@socwithsyd

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTjusLw4s/

As an 11-year-old boy in 1941, I yearned to join the frontlines of the Great Patriotic War, my heart swelling with the same fervor as the heroes whose tales filled our radios. The station, guarded like a fortress, remained beyond my reach, but the war etched itself into my soul. I witnessed mothers’ tearless eyes, wives clutching folded flags, and children who grew old too soon. War, I learned, is a thief - stealing futures, leaving scars no victory parade can heal.

For 31 years, I served the Soviet Army, rising from private to colonel. I trudged through Azerbaijan’s scorching steppes, stood vigil in the Caspian sands, and endured the Arctic’s biting cold on the Novosibirsk Islands. My comrades - soldiers, officers, their families - bore hardships unimaginable to most. Why? Love for the Motherland, a pride stoked by stories of Papanin’s Arctic explorers, Chkalov’s daring flights, and Ostrovsky’s How the Steel Was Tempered. These were our compass, teaching us that sacrifice was the forge of greatness.

Yet history, I fear, is a double-edged sword. Today’s youth are accused of moral decay, but how can we blame them when our media pours poison into their jugs? “What is poured in, pours out,” warns a Georgian proverb. We once filled minds with tales of courage; now, screens scream of greed. I ache wondering: Where are the Zoyas and Matrosovs of tomorrow?

The shadows of fascism loom again - not as a ghost, but as a neighbor. In Ukraine, it’s enshrined in policy, a vile echo of 1941. I’ve walked Tbilisi’s streets, where gratitude for Russian sacrifice once bloomed, now choked by misplaced hatred. History repeats: In 1709, Mazepa’s betrayal mirrored today’s geopolitics. Europe’s leaders, like sleepwalkers, replay the 1940s, pitting nation against nation.

We stand at a precipice. The Cold War’s chill has thawed into a nuclear spring. Russia, again, bears the shield against chaos. But politicians - heed Kennedy’s clarity! War leaves no winners, only orphans.

To the young: You are not “worse” than us. You carry new battles - not against fascism, but apathy. Seek truth beyond headlines. Let your jugs hold courage, not cash.

I am Shamil Chigoev, a son of Ossetia, a soldier of history. My voice is one of millions who remember the cost of peace. Listen, before the sirens drown us out.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/63008977

So as we can see in this video of the alleged assault Ibrahim was convicted of on harvard campus there are at least several other people filming with their phones from different angles however this is the only video I can find online. And its just a consolidation of 2 videos. But it doesn't show the beginning of the incident and the view of Bharmal “assaulting” the israeli student is ultimately non existent.

The reality is it seems clear that the narrative is being manipulated by hasbara tactics. If there are so many cameras filming this altercation and theyvwere obviously filming before the beginning of the video that was released then where are they and why have they not been shown. Considering the fascist trump regime is using this as pretext to strip Harvard of funding(which they likely don’t need considering their super high tuition rates) but this is scary, dangerous and unprecedented.

What are everyone else’s thoughts and does anyone know if the other videos have been released anywhere and where to find them if so? I dont mean to sound like there is a conspiracy to obfuscate the facts and smear a Palestinian rights advocate but woth the behavior of the israeli lobby, their owned representatives in our government, and all the media outlets subservient to the Zionist regime i don’t believe it is a far fetched idea to put down.

Vladimir Lenin with another banger; why, Lenin should be a YouTuber or something!

you know how it is...the old rightoid meme of "hard times make strong men and shit"

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/28258019

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/28169276

Every single time it has been implemented it has been a success; drastically improving the conditions of the vast majority of the lives of the people in those countries, establishing the world’s most proven successful education system, offering the only avenue for nations to escape imperialism, overthrow occupation, and develop up and out of poverty from under conditions of exploitation, eliminating unemployment, progressing science and culture more than ever before in their nation’s timeline of existence, and providing the most value-efficient and successful healthcare systems the world has ever seen.

Continuing to this day, Marxist-Leninist governments remain, in nearly every case, the absolute best government in their respective nation’s entire histories — especially for the poor and minorities — and are deeply missed by the majority of people that lived under communism (and no longer do), who also overwhelmingly regret it’s end. Communists saved the world from Hitler and fascism, took humans to space; they united and advanced China from a backwards, subservient nation to the position of the next world superpower. Communism made Cuba an international leader in medicine, who recently saved the much richer Italy during COVID-19, developed the DPRK into a cutting edge nuclear power, and liberated more of the planet from the most powerful empires in the world — more often and more successfully — than any other ideology or system, ever before and ever since.

Capitalism has violently forced its way into nearly every facet of every corner of the world, and socialist states are the only projects that have ever threatened to resist, repel, and overturn that domination, and it is only Marxist-Leninist projects that have ever neared the completion of that objective, thus far, in history. Communism works, and it works so effectively, all the time, so much so that the only way to get it to stop working is to have the most powerful empires in existence intervene in opposition to it, and even they can only boast mixed success. Communism has always worked, it will always work, and it continues to work right now, even as you continue to deny it.