This painting “Mao Returns” appeared on the radical Chinese site named Utopia “Wu You Zi Xiang.” We heard about this painting when it appeared on Revolutionary Frontlines.
Details on this painting have been provided by a reader:
Archive for the ‘Maoism’ Category
Painting from China: Mao returns… and the shit’s gonna fly
Posted by kasama on August 29, 2011
Posted in >> analysis of news, art, China, Mao Zedong, Maoism | 3 Comments »
EROL: Maoist critique of Hoxha’s Comintern orthodoxy
Posted by Mike E on August 28, 2011
Mao Zedong's road of protracted peoples war emerged in opposition to the Comintern's strategy of basing revolution on urban workers and using rural base areas to seize urban areas.
In the last months the EROL archives has posted a rich new body of past communist writings. (EROL is the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-line)
We wish to extend special thanks to Paul Saba, whose work has been tireless and extremely important to both our common ongoing project of communist summation and coming project of communist regroupment.
In the next few days, we will point out some of the remarkable documents now available online.But for the moment we will start here:
Over and over, we have received requests (on Kasama) for reposting a particular document: the Revolutionary Communist Party’s sharp and extensive critique of Hoxhaism.
This 1979 piece on Mao and Hoxha was one of the more effective and powerful polemics made on a number of key questions dividing the international communist movement in the late 1970s — in the wake of the counter-revolutionary events engulfing China after Mao’s death.
We have gotten these requests because the dispute between Maoism and Hoxhaism is one of the sharp historic collision points between creative Marxism and dogmatic Marxism — and because Hoxhaism concentrated a number of arguments for Comintern-era thinking that have maintained power within parts of the international communist movement.
This document is extensive, and we will simply make it available here. It was first published in the RCP’s theoretical journal The Communist #5.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Beat back the dogmato-revisionist attack on Mao Tsetung Thought
Comments on Enver Hoxha’s Imperialism and the Revolution
by J. Werner
Introduction
Upon first examining Enver Hoxha’s new book, Imperialism and the Revolution, one is tempted to dismiss it as a petty and shallow hatchet job and refer the reader to the works of Mao Tsetung, which make clear that most of the charges hurled at Mao are simply the worst type of blatant misquotations, distortions and downright lies, and also refer the reader to the many Soviet criticisms of Mao which, while sharing the same method and most of the same arguments as Hoxha, at least have the virtue of a more systematic and well-rounded presentation of the revisionist line.
Posted in >> analysis of news, China, comintern, Mao Zedong, Maoism, Marxist theory, New Com. Movement, RCPUSA | 38 Comments »
Waiting for revolution in Nepal: Interview with People’s Liberation Army fighter
Posted by kasama on August 24, 2011
Sabin, fighter in Nepal's Peoples Liberation Army. Photo credit: Zack
The following piece was written from Nepal’s remote Rolpa district as part of the Winter Has Its End revolutionary journalism team.
“During the battle, some of the Royalist Nepal Army soldiers left the camp. Some crawled into the toilets to save their own lives. That was the condition of the RNA.”
“If the revolution does not succeed, it will be very difficult for us.”
Introduction and Interview By Jim Weill
For ten years, the Maoist fighters of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) waged a guerrilla war for power starting in now-famous rural base areas in the Rolpa and Rukum districts of western Nepal. They fought first against the Armed Police in the rural countryside, and then against elements of the Royalist Nepalese Army (RNA).
After negotiations in 2006, both major armies were regrouped in specific areas – the NA in its barracks and the PLA in new bases called “cantonments.” Over the ensuing years, the political focus of the opposing forces has been in the capital, Kathmandu, where the king had been overthrown and where different class forces put forward contrasting proposals for a new Nepal. Part of the controversy has been what to do with the two opposing armies – with reactionaries demanding the disbanding of the PLA, and the revolutionaries demanding the subordination of the NA to popular rule, and with both sides calling their opposing proposals “a process of integrating armies.”
We met Sabin, a platoon commander of the PLA, during a visit to Rachibang commune, in the Rolpa district. Sabin is also a district committee member of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and is on leave from the Dahaban cantonment due to his wife’s pregnancy.
* * * * * * * * * * *
How did you become involved in the PLA?
People in Rolpa were quite oppressed and politically conscious. The government suppressed the people, so we were always in favor of revolution and destroying the monarchy. When the new party was formed by 1994, we were quite affected by its plan and the demands that the party brought. We thought this (CPN Maoist) should be the revolutionary party. I joined by 1996. Later I actually participated in the birth of the party, being involved in Young Communist League (YCL) and organizational work. At that time I was a part-timer. Then my organizational work was in the YCL and the student revolutionary front. In 2002 I became a full-timer in the PLA.
Posted in >> analysis of news, communism, Jim Weill, Maoism, Nepal, peoples war, revolution, UCP Nepal (Maoist), winter has its end blog | 1 Comment »
Theory to the rising generation: A Marxist School in Nepal
Posted by Mike E on August 23, 2011
Photo Credit: Thomas Van Beersum
This first appeared on the Winter has its end journalist blog.
By Liam Wright
Walking down the wet street through Swayambhunath, a part of Kathmandu where the famous monkey temple resides, we passed a number of Nepali people who were going about their day to day; brushing their hair in the street, selling their wares, playing with the one domesticated dog I’ve seen so far (compared to the strays you see around every corner).
I’ve been in Nepal for two and a half days now, having just joined the Winter Has Its End team.
Today is my first interview.
We’ve been invited to attend a Marxist school. We’re told that it isn’t specific to any faction of the Maoists, or in fact any Marxist party. But instead the school is meant to educate young people in the basics of Marxism. It focuses in particular on those who have not yet been politicized but are curious. It starts from a beginners course, with intermediate and advanced levels yet to be developed.
Posted in communism, Liam Wright, Maoism, Marxist theory, Nepal, UCP Nepal (Maoist), winter has its end blog | 4 Comments »
Needed in China: Another revolutionary long march
Posted by Mike E on August 22, 2011
Children at school in a Chinese village. photo taken this year.
We have published previous reports from our correspondent (who half-jokingly adopts the title of Kasama South China Bureau) — those previous reports touched on prostitution, capitalism, and anti-government sentiments.
by Kasama reporter in South China
As they passed through Sichuan province on the Long March, the First and Fourth Front Armies could well have seen schools like the ones shown above in a photo taken this year near Xichang.
China is an enormous country and there are enormous areas of isolated, rural communities of very poor people. The days of mass campaigns to serve the people and send teams to learn from, and help the peasants are long gone.
The particular irony of this impoverished school is that Xichang is also known as “Space City” because of the nearby launch facilities for the Long March rocket.
This biting irony was not lost on the Chinese media that publicized this photo asked why these conditions still exist. A lot of people are demanding an answer in an increasingly confrontational way.
The government stopped issuing statistics for “sudden mass incidents” in 2005 but since then there have been reliable estimates from the Shanghai Jiaotong University annual report on crisis management.
The numbers tell the story:
Posted in China, communism, Cultural Revolution, Maoism | 4 Comments »
The vital mix and its input to our communism
Posted by kasama on August 16, 2011
by Mike Ely
I have many thoughts on each of John-John’s questions — and (i suspect) a rather different starting point.
This is a discussion about both the past and the future. What do we need or want from the past? How creatively do we prepare for the future? How much of the theory we need will emerge from our own coming practice?
I’m a partisan of appropriating what was revolutionary in the past — I think it is precious and that there is no way of facing the future without it. I am skeptical of the idea that our theory should come mainly from our own practice (since that is usually an approach that goes over to routinized and unimaginative activism). Yes our ideas and organizations will be tested (and transformed) in coming fires — and we need to prepare now energetically and expect then to be transformed again and yet again.
Posted in Bill Martin, Black Panthers, communism, Cultural Revolution, Kasama, Maoism, Marxist theory, Mike Ely, New Com. Movement, philosophy, RCPUSA, Stalin and Stalinism, theory, Young Lords Party | 3 Comments »
New pamphlet: Greece’s Communist Organization
Posted by kasama on August 11, 2011
Click to download
Our new Kasama pamphlet contains two essays on the Communist Organization of Greece. — a creative revolutionary formation playing a leading role within Greece’s “movement of the squares.” It is now available for download in printable PDF format. And will soon be available in epubs format for e-readers.
Download the pdf pamphlet
The pamphlet features Eric Ribellarsi’s essay Greece’s Communist Organization: Learning to Swim in Stormy Weather.
What unfolded in Athens’ Syntagma Square was not expected, and for much of the left in Greece, there is a real fury that something like this dared to develop without them. There is a painful irrelevance settling in on strategies that have no faith in the people and their uprisings, and instead wish to fold everything into official political arena and its parliament.
The one thing in this experience that I have been most impressed with was the KOE’s creativity and willingness to shift when something unexpected happens, and at the same time holding on to a revolutionary strategy. Without calling for imposing a very different situation on our own in the U.S., I will say that I think there is a great deal to learn from the methods of revolutionaries like the KOE and others. And there are also things to learn about the intense tensions this has produced in and around KOE – as they try to resist tailing a new movement, as they try to replace discarded assumptions, and as they face inevitable generational differences (which are naturally intensified by new and younger recruitment).
Posted in >> analysis of news, comintern, communism, Eric Ribellarsi, Greece, Kasama, Kasama pamphlets, Maoism, New Com. Movement, theory, vanguard party, winter has its end blog | Leave a Comment »
Nepal: Peoples Army fighters rejects dispersal & disrespect
Posted by kasama on August 10, 2011
Soldiers of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), now officially organized as the Young Communist League, stepped out politically against schemes to disperse and degrade the encamped Maoist guerrilla army.
On August 8, they held a disciplined and militant manifestation in the streets of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu — putting themselves and their demands squarely into the crisis gripping Nepal. Will the PLA be dispersed and disarmed? Or will they prepare for a new wave of revolution? In many ways, the futures of their country and the surrounding South Asian region hang on those questions.
This is a product of the Winter Has Its End journalism team that is now starting to produce video reporting of events. The team writes in its introduction to this video:
“What will the Peoples Liberation Army soldiers do? Where do their loyalties now lie politically? What is the New Nepal they dream of? This demonstration gives a hint of their continued militancy, cohesion, and revolutionary determination.”
Posted in communism, Maoism, Nepal, peoples war, UCP Nepal (Maoist), winter has its end blog | 1 Comment »
When the poor rise up: Is it terrible or is it great?
Posted by kasama on August 9, 2011
“A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery.
“It cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous.
“A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.”
This is a very basic question of world-view and class stand — including right now when the whole world is awash in propaganda and hand-wringing denouncing the rebels of London.
If we don’t speak out for them — what are WE about?!
Here is a crucial essay from communist history — a story of orientation when class struggle breaks out, in all its shocking and disruptive forms.
Peasants rose up in China’s rural Hunan province in 1927, — and many observers, virtually ALL of them, even among the communists, declared it was “terrible.”
After all, there were excesses in these disturbances. The urban educated ones found these rough out-of-control farmers terrifying. There was often no sign of tight control OVER the peasant associations. And there was a sense of “where will this go if not contained?”
Indeed!
Mao Zedong, then a young communist activist, went to Hunan for one month of investigation during this 1927 uprising. He declared that all these critics were fundamentally confusing right and wrong — and more, were unable to see what was arising and most promising within society.
“All talk directed against the peasant movement must be speedily set right.”
We are publishing a few excerpts from this essay — and the reason for this should be obvious: The great uprising in Britain has even well meaning people muttering — and too often people question whether it is OK to react to police murder in such extreme and shocking ways. If we don’t get this right, we won’t get anything right.
Posted in >> analysis of news, China, Mao Zedong, Maoism, Marxist theory, revolution | 7 Comments »
China’s Revolution: The little-known history of bare-foot doctors
Posted by kasama on August 5, 2011
Here is a revealing feature of revolutionary history — how socialist revolution made medicine available in a vast and impoverished countryside by relying on the people themselves. Kasama has covered this before, here are two additional pieces that deserve to be shared.
Source: Dunning, Brian. “Mao’s Barefoot Doctors: The Secret History of Chinese Medicine.” Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc., 24 May 2011. Web. 29 Jul 2011. http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4259
Today we’re going to take a look at how Chinese alternative medicine spread into the Western world. Promoters of alternative medicine claim that this ancient wisdom was (and is) in common use throughout China, and the Western world is becoming aware of its value. Skeptics of this position point out that alternative medicine was only used in Chinese rural areas where conventional treatments were not available, and it became popular because it was inexpensive, not because it was effective. The actual history brings some interesting perspective onto both of these points of view.
So let’s go back and visit revolutionary China, around the middle of the 20th century. Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward was in full swing, precedent to the Cultural Revolution. At the beginning of this period, most Chinese were one of the world’s isolated populations, to whose doorsteps modern innovations had not yet arrived, much like many Africans, Indians, and Indonesians. They lived largely unaware of what was happening in science and technology, and their worldviews were dominated by local traditions. Medicine was rarely seen by any of these populations; when someone was ill, traditional treatments based on centuries of unscientific beliefs were what was known and applied.
Meanwhile, throughout most industrialized population centers in the world, including China’s big cities, hospitals practiced the leading edge of medicine. Chinese oncologists prescribed chemotherapy for cancer just like in other parts of the world. Patients in great pain would be given opiates. As early as 1949, the Chinese Academy of Sciences was one of the world’s leading research institutions in life sciences and medicine. One difference that you would have seen between Chinese hospitals and those in other nations was the use of acupuncture, which was and still is in relatively wide usage; however, with an important proviso. In China, acupuncture is only used for pain relief, never as a treatment, and always in conjunction with conventional painkiller medications whenever available. It’s essentially an ornament alongside the same basic treatments used in other modern hospitals.
Posted in >> analysis of news, China, Cultural Revolution, Maoism | Leave a Comment »
China’s barefoot doctors: What happened?
Posted by kasama on August 5, 2011
A photograph from the official promotion of the barefoot doctor program in the early 1970s.
by Jeffrey Hays
Barefoot Doctors
Doctors in the Mao era
In the Mao era, around 1 million “barefoot doctors” were give six months of training and sent out to countryside to open rural clinics, provide immunizations and offer basic medical care. They often wore straw hats and carried small wooden medical boxes from their shoulder.
Some of barefoot doctors only had an elementary school education. One 68-year-old man said he took an aptitude test on the suggestion of his mother. “They asked me, why does a train run so fast. I’d never seen a train before, so I racked my brain.”
The barefoot doctors traditionally roamed the countryside, visiting around a dozen farmers a day, charging them a nominal registration fee and giving out medication for free. They didn’t do anything too complicated. One doctor told the Los Angeles Times, “I don’t treat serious illnesses. I don’t know how.”
Posted in >> analysis of news, China, Cultural Revolution, Maoism | 1 Comment »
Review: Early days of Chinese communism in official film
Posted by kasama on August 1, 2011
The film “The Beginning of the Great Revival” is a huge event in China (and therefore the world). The Chinese government is seeking to preserve the legitimacy of its party and state by revisiting the formative liberation struggle emerging out of the global shocks of World War 1.
This film both describes stirring moments of courage and class struggle — while it legitimizes one of the earth’s leading oppressive governments.
It is the celebration of a brutal ruling party — carried out by vividly describing the world-changing birth of a truly revolutionary party.
Clearly this film’s arrival is a cultural event with the kind of complexity that dialectics was invented to describe.
Kasama has already posted the trailer for this film. Here is our first review by a reader, coming from our correspondent in South China. (It is the latest of the reports by our Kasama reporter in China.)
The Beginning of the Great Revival
by Kasama correspondent in south China
You can tell me a movie is engaging the audience in China when people quit answering their cell phones. On the afternoon I saw The Beginning of the Great Revival, this point
occurred as the rebellious students of the May 4th Movement poured into Tiananmen Square to denounce the Versailles treaty that ended WWI. Like many points in the movie it was well crafted and powerfully evocative.
A young woman silently confronts a line of soldiers by holding a banner written in her own blood. Students appeal to soldiers guarding government ministers and win them over as they pour into the compound and roughly confront those in authority and then set fire to the building. Finally, the government brutally strikes back.
Posted in >> analysis of news, communism, Communist Party, film, film review, Maoism | 5 Comments »
Nepal’s Jayapuri Gharti: A woman running toward liberation
Posted by kasama on August 1, 2011
Photo credit: Jed Brandt, 2010
The following first appeared on the Winter Has Its End journalists’ blog.
“I had to run away from home in order to involve myself in politics.
“There was another conservative idea that women should not go outside with their children. But we had a lot of women go outside with their children during political events, rallies, and uprisings.
“The extreme patriarchal system treated women like beasts, animals. The people’s war broke all these things. We broke approximately 75% of the conservative thinking. So, maybe 25% of that thinking continues.
“The central committee of the women’s association decided that women should wear shirts and pants. They have a campaign to make shorter hair as well. The concept was that women who keep very long hair were ‘nice and good’.
“In the village, women would wear very long and difficult dresses. You couldn’t run or fight in these things. The sari made it very difficult to do outdoor work or engage in social activities.”
* * * * * * * *
Women’s Liberation in Nepal, Past and Future:
Interview with Jayapuri Gharti
Intro and Interview by Jim Weill
Without the courageous contributions of people like Jayapuri Gharti aka ‘Namuna,’ there would be no revolution in Nepal, no people’s war, no constituent assembly, no radical change in social relations. Gharti is from the Rolpa district, a largely rural area of Western Nepal, and has been involved in feminist and communist politics since 1990. She is a member of the Central Committee of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal – Maoist or UCPN(M), a leader of the All Nepal Women’s Association, and was a fighter in the Maoist people’s war (1996-2006). During the current peace process she has been at the forefront of struggles for political equality and women’s liberation.
Can you tell us about the history of women’s struggles in Nepal before the people’s war period?
Nepalese women were very much oppressed by patriarchal society. They had to stay under their father’s or husband’s or son’s rule. They didn’t have voting rights until 1977, when they got very limited voting rights.
Society didn’t want women to involve themselves in politics or to get education. Women had no right to private property. Socially and culturally, the women of Nepal were second-level citizens. The tradition was, for example, that women should not eat their food before their husbands. If they did that, the tradition said, the husband would die. Wives had no right to speak to any other people, except their husbands. If they did that, they would be punished. Women were also expected to do all the housework.
Posted in communism, Jim Weill, Maoism, Nepal, UCP Nepal (Maoist), winter has its end blog | Leave a Comment »
Greece’s Communist Organization: Learning to Swim in Stormy Weather
Posted by kasama on July 31, 2011
KOE demonstration against the International Monetary Fund
This article first appeared on Winter Has Its End journalists’ website.
by Eric Ribellarsi
We in Kasama, and many others, have been engaged for several years now in trying to imagine new ways to fuse revolutionary ideas with the popular discontent of the people. It is part of what drew our Winter’s End reporting team to Greece and what draws us now to discuss the Communist Organization of Greece (known as the KOE, and pronounced ‘Koy’).
All around the rim of the Mediterranean Sea there has been an eruption of massive anti-government movements. Many people in the U.S. know about the “Arab Spring” that swept North Africa – starting in Tunisia, then Egypt, and Libya – and erupting in nearby Yemen and Syria. Meanwhile, similar mass movements also filled the city squares on the European, northern side of the Mediterranean – though these movements in Greece and Spain have been much less well known than eruptions on the southern, North African side.
Among the common features of these “movements of the squares” is that they have drawn large numbers of youth into political life – often with a sweeping sense of rejecting previous politics (both existing governments and the oppositional parties). There is a sense that everything “before” is corrupt, complicit and exhausted, and everything “after” must now make a break. And while there are obviously deep concerns and frustrations that drew people into the squares, it also stands out that the politics of these eruptions were extremely unformed: People have had only a vague sense of what they wanted to put in the place of current politics.
Posted in >> analysis of news, communism, Eric Ribellarsi, Greece, Maoism, winter has its end blog | 8 Comments »
Ilham’s Story: Torture to the beat of Jamaa al Fna drums
Posted by Mike E on July 29, 2011
The trial of Moroccan political prisoner Ilham Hasnouni starts on August 2. (Her name is sometimes also given as Ilham Elhasnouni.)
Efforts are being made to have her story known around the world.
In the sharp struggles that follow North Africa’s “Arab Spring” — the suppression of political activity in pro-U.S. countries is often made invisible in the U.S. media. And Morocco, under King Mohammed VI is treated as an enlightened, modernizing corner of the region.
Here, in the following piece, arrested student activist Ilham gives her own description of Moroccan realities — as she tells the story of her arrest, interrogation and imprisonment.
* * * * * * * * * * *
by jZineb El Rhazoui
It was midweek, on October 12, 2010, that a well-dressed young man, about 20 years old, rang the doorbell on the Hasnouni family home.
“Ilham, there’s a guy here to see you,” her brother said, thinking that the young man on their doorstep was some fellow student from Ilham’s college. After waiting just out of sight, five men suddenly rushed the open door, threw Ilham’s brother to the ground, as their mother let out a desperate cry. A black vehicle was waiting just a few steps a way.
“I was shaken,” Ilham now says in written testimony from Marrakech’s Boulmharez prison,
“I quickly realized it was the dogs of the Makzen [the Moroccan regime]. That black car was the last thing I saw before they blindfolded me. During the ride I was beaten and subjected to verbal abuse of many kinds.”
The young university student was arrested, without warrant or warning, in the wake of an intense period of political clashes at Cadi Ayyad University. The student rallies and demands were answered by a police invasion on May 14, 2008.
Posted in communism, Maoism, Morocco, political prisoners | 1 Comment »
Morocco: Free Ilham Hasnouni!
Posted by kasama on July 29, 2011
Click for full picture
The following appeal came with a note pointing out that this communist student activist, Ilham Hasnouni, is the youngest political prisoner in Morocco. This has been her first arrest and yet she has already been in prison for ten months, without trial or sentence — and subjected to intense physical and psychological torture.
Ilham’s father has appealed to the world, “”Don’t forget Ilham.” And added that the first time he saw her after the arrest, the mistreatment had been so extreme that he had difficulty recognizing his own daughter.
Note: Ilham Hasnouni’s trial date is currently set for August 2. The note accompanying this article suggests adopting her picture (see right) as a Facebook profile image from now until August 2, in solidarity with this unbroken and imprisoned fighter.
Ilham’s name is sometimes also written as Elhasnouni in some reports.
There are (in addition to Ilham) three other Moroccan communist militants still held in prison — Mourad Echaouini, Youssef Elhamdiya and Abdelhak Etalhaoui.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Twenty-one year old Ilham Hasnouni is a Maoist militant from Marrakech University in the North African country of Morocco. She has been active with two organizations, the Basist Democratic Road organization (BDR) and the Union National of Student of Morocco (UNSM). She was always firmly in the front ranks of the struggles there with her comrades — against the reactionaries, against the privatization of Morocco’s universities, against injustice, and for the liberation of the Moroccan people.
On May 15, 2008, the UNSM initiated a major campaign for the demands of the students — leading to a historic revolt of students at Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakech.
The immediate response of the reactionary government was harsh repression. One fighter was assassinated. Eighteen comrades and two groups were rounded up and arrested. Of those arrested seven activists were sentenced to a year in prison. A second group of eleven comrades were also sentenced. Among them was Mourad Echaouini who was condemned to four years in prison. He is still behind bars. Another militant got a three year sentence. The rest were condemned to two years each.
Posted in communism, Maoism, Morocco, political prisoners, students | 3 Comments »
Greece: Reporting from Rebel Exarchia
Posted by kasama on July 28, 2011
Mural in Exarchia, Greece. Photo: Eric Ribellarsi
The following are three reports from the Winter Has Its End team — describing people they met in the radical Athens neighborhood of Exarchia.
by Eric Ribellarsi.
An Ecosystem with Black Flags and Turkish Maoism
Before coming to Greece, I’d heard about Exarchia. It is fabled as a strong-hold of anarchists, so much that the police are often afraid to enter it. It has been a strategic center for launching militant political movements throughout the city. It was also a very important place during the 2008 uprisings that shook the country, for it was hear that 15 year old Aleksandros was murdered, sparking the uprisings. This I knew, but what I saw went even beyond all of that.
Walking through Exarchia for the first time, I immediately saw that the graffiti here was the most densely concentrated I have seen in my life (sorry Detroit). And the art is radical as fuck. The walls were lined with red stars, circle-a’s, images of rebels with gas masks, portraits of the murdered young radical, Aleksandros. Political posters were on every wall, on top of other politics posters. One popular image seems to be Felix the cat (a symbol of anarchist syndicalism) emblazoned on a red star.
Posted in anarchism, Eric Ribellarsi, Greece, Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, Jim Weill, Maoism, winter has its end blog | 4 Comments »
Remembering Charu Mazumdar: Still that spring thunder stirs us!
Posted by Mike E on July 28, 2011
Charu Mazumdar, leader of the armed Naxalbari uprising of peasants and founder of the modern Maoist movement
Charu Mazumdar was the communist leader of India’s 1967 uprising in the village of Naxalbari — an opening shot of a fierce revolutionary wave that raged for years. This daring act of revolt created the Naxalite movement — the heart of India’s modern revolutionary effort.
Charu Mazumdar became one of the most wanted men in India, and was captured by police in 1971. He died ten days later at 4 am on July 28, 1972 — in Lal Bazar lock-up – a prison notorious for torture. Today, July 28, we remember him and the many martyrs in India’s great historic struggle for liberation and communism.
In 2007, several of us were looking for a form to write our first Kasama manifesto. We wanted to use a style sharply different from Bob Avakian (whose rambling, self-indulgent style reflects key weaknesses of his method). We chose to study closely the “Eight Documents” of Charu Mazumdar (plus early pieces by Turkey’s Maoist Ibrahim Kaypakkaya). The result was the format we adopted — “9 Letters to Our Comrades.”
Charu’s work can be found in his own section of the Marxist Internet Archive.
Here is a brief biography of Charu Mazumdar from an archive of Indian communist documents:
Posted in India, Maoism, Naxalite, peoples war | 7 Comments »
Resistance Festival of Greece: The Squares of the World are Speaking
Posted by Mike E on July 18, 2011
Photo credit: Eric Ribellarsi
The following describes the Resistance Festival of Greece., a three day forum and music festival hosted in July 2011 by the Communist Organization of Greece (KOE). It is the second reportback from this festival and initially appeared on the reporters’ blog Winter Has Its End.
Kasama has been sharing a number of reports on the crisis and resistance in Greece.
By Jim Weill and Eric Ribellarsi
The following are some quick notes taken during the plenary of the Resistance Festival. They are fragmented and without much summation, but they should give our readers an idea of the general conversation that took place.
One of the most interesting sessions at the 2011 Resistance Festival in Athens was called the “The squares of the world are speaking.” It featured representatives from Tahir Square in Cairo, Puerta del Sol in Madrid, the movement against austerity in Argentina, and Syntagma Square in Athens.
Behind the panelists was a large banner that said “The peoples come to the fore – The fear is changing sides.” It is now oppressive governments who are afraid and the people who are on the offensive.
Posted in communism, Eric Ribellarsi, Greece, Jim Weill, Maoism, winter has its end blog | Leave a Comment »
Eyewitness in China: Corruption, Cynicism, & the Memory of Mao
Posted by kasama on July 15, 2011
We received the following report from a long-time supporter of Kasama.
Kasama Comrades! Greetings from your Kasama South China Bureau!
I hope you will not mind me sharing some observations.
The Three Wise Men
Billboard in south China mocked among the population
No sooner had I last remarked about the fading image of Deng Xiaopeng when the city officials here erected a huge billboard him as well as Mao, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. The joke around town now is that the three wise men are not very wise and no one is referring to Mao.
The only upside to seeing this ugly lie is to hear the denunciations in a carload of people as you drive by, usually of Jiang Zemin.
The current president of the PRC, Hu Jintao, is also not exempt from popular scorn as I learned at a restaurant when young business woman launched into a vehement attack on Hu for wasting the people’s money in buying up German debt.
The most hatred, however. is directed at one of the revisionist hierarchs who did not make the bill board – Li Peng, the former premier who declared martial law in Beijing in response to the Tiananmen demonstrations. It was the combination of Li and Deng that launched the military assault on the students and workers and it is Zeng and Hu who represent the leadership of the Communist Party of China since the massacre in Beijing.
Posted in China, Maoism | 1 Comment »
