Camarada Forte @lemmygrad.ml Forward, comrade!
“The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.”
Who would've thought in 1945 that a Nazi government would support a Jewish supremacist government somewhere in history
(cool fact: the Nazis had a friendly relationship with Zionists, look for "Haavara Agreement")
To me, this sounds like a problem in the relationship with your students. Maybe you can back off a little bit and instead of presenting content from your classes directly, you could spend a class or two forging a better relationship with your students, like asking what they like, what could make the classes interesting, anything that would make them have an active participation in the class. You could research and bring fun activities to do to make their learning more interesting. Try to establish a closer relationship with your students, a personal and affective connection
If you spend a class bringing them suggestions that you can do and they collectively decide what they would do in the next class, I'm almost certain they would be more active then. If not, maybe it's the location? You mentioned you are giving classes in the canteen, maybe they get distracted easily there, as it's not a classroom, etc.
In Brazil I recognized one by listening to a rap song by Racionais MC's about Marighella and he complimented me lol
I'd say this, from the thread the comrade linked here. Also, there is not a "Marxist-Leninist take" on everything, it's not the scope of Marxism-Leninism to "have an opinion" on everything, Marxism-Leninism is a theoretical framework which guides revolutionary praxis
My personal take on this is that death penalties should have a democratic process behind it, it's the safest path. No one is irredeemable, but some deaths are warranted, for symbolic, political, social reasons. Once the facts have been established and their crimes fully investigated, the death of a serial killer may bring comfort to several families affected, for instance. Or the leader of a genocidal fascist movement may be politically and/or symbolically warranted
Exceto o Faustão rsrsrs
It can come from various sources. The Party asks for contributions from all members, and a part of the collective funds can be directed towards supporting a few professional revolutionaries. There were other ways the Party could gather funds for that, even bank robbing like Stalin famously did. But a Party can sell stuff, organize raffles, etc., I see this as the main basis behind supporting professional revolutionaries.
Lenin had a few "gigs" to earn money. After he received his law diploma, he practiced law in Samara Regional Court for a while, but he also gave private lessons to people. He advertised this work in newspapers at the time.
In principle, a professional revolutionary doesn't need money at all. They only need a place to live and food. Party members could have spare rooms in their houses which any professional revolutionary could stay for a while, meanwhile their food is guaranteed by any peasant, cook, etc. from the party willing to share and prepare food. You could have professional revolutionaries solely dependent on class solidarity, money doesn't necessarily have to be a concern when your party is organized enough.
I understand CIA deeply studied LSD and its potential use in interrogations, but that CIA supplied LSD to hippies is new to me
Not sure how hippies live in other countries, but the hippies here usually don't have a house, have nomadic lifestyles and usually sell their arts and crafts. The fact that they live vulnerable lives could place them as lumpenproletariat, though the fact that they produce things to sell and sell it themselves, could place them as a petty-bourgeois. The hippie ideas you describe, "free love", "non-violence" is perfectly in line with a petty-bourgeois mentality too.
Well, to be fair, the only difference between your "definitions" and my descriptions is the fact that you emphasize marriage in polygamy, while I argue this is not necessary. Marriage is an institution which is restricted in our society, only allowing two partners to be married at once. Hence why the emphasis on marriage may be insufficient to describe how these relationships "survive" in a monogamous marriage institution.
The polygamous relationships I've seen didn't have marriage in common, but coexistence, that is, all partners shared a relationship with each other, usually by living together or hanging out together. This is the major difference between other forms of non-monogamous relationships.
Commenting so I can make myself a mod to this community (other "mod" has been away for 3 years)
EDIT: No idea how Lemmy works
Polyamory is not for everyone
Monogamous relationships are centered on a single partner with whom you share intimacy and sexual desire. This type of relationship can already bring out some challenges, like jealousy, resentment, fights, or insecurities in general. Even with a shared agreement that you and your partner will exclusively dedicate their intimacy with yourselves, these feelings already pop up here and then.
Polyamory, polygamy, or non-monogamous relationships in general can have different "formats", but this type of relationship is solely focused on dialogue and internal agreements. Here is the main points and difference between them:
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Open relationships: usually there is a single partner with whom you develop intimacy and sex, but both agree that sex outside the relationship is allowed, but not intimacy.
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Polygamy: it's based on a shared relationship between more than 2 partners. Like 3 people under the same relationship, and having a relationship with each other. Intimacy and sex is usually shared among all partners, but it sometimes happen that 2 partners do not share a relationship. For instance a relationship where a woman has 2 boyfriends, and the boyfriends may have a friendship between each other, but not necessarily have sex together.
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Polyamory: it's an absolute non-exclusive relationship, similar to open relationships, but intimacy and sex is allowed. It tends to revolve around two partners, each allowed to have other non-exclusive relationships, be them casual or fixed.
It's an illusion to think these types of relationships are exempt from insecurities, jealousy, and that every person involved in the relationship are confident enlightened higher beings incapable of feeling insecure. This is a distorted characterization of these relationships. In polyamory, you'll still have to deal with jealousy, envy, resentment, and insecurities in general, both from yourself and your partners, but it can be a thousand times more intense than monogamous relationships.
There's always that male chauvinist who loves the idea of dating two women, but they can't fathom the idea of the woman he loves meeting, loving, kissing and having great sex with another man. For men, indoctrinated on the idea of sexual exclusivity (for women, not them lol), it can be quite tough to accept this situation and learning to deal with it. Polyamory is a journey in dealing with your deepest insecurities, and learning to deal with your partners' insecurities as well. It's definitely not an easy task, because it's already not easy to be responsible with a single partner's emotions, let alone two or more.
This is why I say polyamory is not for every one. Though it's solely based on dialogue and mutual freedom, it involves much more responsibilities than monogamous relationships, and it's way tougher to deal with insecurities and self-esteem crises. You need to be prepared to suffer a lot, and be ready to deal with your own issues, and also talking to your partners about it.
I've been in a non-monogamous relationship for 4 years now, and it's been a ride. For the most part I felt self-confident, but here and then I felt really bad, like anxiety, low self-esteem, jealousy and envy. Even though it happened only a few times, it was one of the worst sensations I've ever felt in my life. And even though I have a second partner, this shit's not easy, and it doesn't get easier lmao. For me, I adopt this relationship because of self-discovery. You learn more about yourself by exposing yourself to certain situations, and you find in yourself things to work out on.
Open source games are so refreshing. They focus on gameplay much more than anything else
How long are you in this party? If in your experience you find that it's possible to alter some policies of the party, then it's definitely worth it struggling from the inside and fight for a more revolutionary line, even if it's not a "ML" party. I expect however, that sooner or later you'll find something in the party that cannot be changed because of limitations of the organization.
Democratic centralism does not exist outside the context of an organization lol. And we're definitely not an organization.
Comrade, 7 years is not easy to simply overcome like it was nothing... A person 7 years by your side affects your own identity even, so it's expected to be quite traumatic to experience a break up. You must be feeling like you lost a part of yourself, which in a sense, you did indeed. What you're feeling is completely understandable and justified, you're not wrong in feeling like this. I am currently in a 4 year long relationship and I would be as miserable as you if we broke up for some reason.
To engage in meaningless hookups and to go to social gatherings pretending you are okay is just postponing the inevitable, and may in fact be harmful to you psychologically. If you have close friends you can count to, I'd recommend seeing them occasionally, but outside of a party context. You're definitely not in the spirit to party about anything.
You need to live your grief to its fullest. You need to cry, you need to stay alone for a while and spend enough time being miserable, because that's how you feel. You need to express and feel your emotions instead of faking them to others, and you should definitely consider therapy. I know therapists can be annoying and seem useless, but just having someone to talk to is already something good for you, even if they can't really help you or you feel "ok".
You won't feel satisfied in any other relationship until you learn to love yourself. The pain you're feeling is because for 7 years you've loved yourself as an extension of your girlfriend, and now that she's gone, you need to learn to love yourself apart from her.
Isso se sustenta no episódio em que os camponeses da LCP peitaram mais de 3 mil militares do governo Bolsonaro.
Sei que tiveram alguns confrontos com a LCP em algumas ocasiões, mas 3 mil militares? Tem alguma fonte pra aprofundar nessa informação? Quanto ao PCB-FV, eu vejo a mesma situação do maoismo brasileiro, notoriamente composto pela pequena-burguesia, mas que se apoia moralmente na LCP. Muitas organizações maoistas tem pouco ou nenhum vínculo com a LCP, exceto ideologicamente. Já vi muito maoista pequeno-burguês, urbano, usando as atividades da LCP para dar um ar revolucionário a si, mas com pouca militância exceto no Twitter. Hoje em dia tá até bem menos comparado com uns 2 anos atrás.
Fora essa caricatura que infelizmente serve a todas organizações maoistas brasileiras atualmente, não conheço mais sobre o PCB-FV. Não sei sobre a apropriação da teoria militar por essa organização, mas que utilidade tem esse conhecimento se a organização tem no máximo uma centena de militantes em todos o país?
Bem pelo que entendi, então, só esses partidos maoistas ultra-sectários, menores que o próprio PCB que já é minúsculo, é que são a verdadeira reconstrução comunista?
Olha, eu não desmereço as iniciativas desses grupos. O trabalho editorial e de publicação de livros da Nova Cultura é uma iniciativa interessante, que começou com preços bem baratos (eventualmente ficando mais caros com o tempo). O trabalho editorial é simples, nada muito robusto, mas bem organizado, nunca tive problemas com entregas ou coisas do tipo e já pedi vários livros. Os esforços da URC nesse quesito são memoráveis, mostrando como até com poucos militantes é possível fazer um trabalho editorial relativamente bom.
Mas fora essa iniciativa, a URC é completamente irrelevante no cenário político atual. Menos relevante ainda que PCB e UP. O dogmatismo maoista jamais chegará nas massas brasileiras, essa exaltação e culto a Gonzalo e Mao não dialoga com os problemas imediatos do nosso povo. Mas agora sabemos porque o PCB não chega nas massas, por conta de uma direção que distorce o centralismo democrático, sabota iniciativas e impede a verdadeira capilarização do partido na classe.
Tanto Mao Zedong quanto Lênin encararam tendências oportunistas dentro de suas organizações. Isso é um processo natural, manifestação luta de classes no seio do partido. O Partido Operário Social-Democrata Russo, partido que Lênin disputou no século 20, rachou-se em facções internas em 1903 depois que a direção do partido ativamente sabotou as decisões do Congresso. O PCB passa por uma situação semelhante agora. O Partido mudou bastante ao longo de sua história, passando por diversos processos de disputas contra linhas oportunistas, tendo um misto de vitórias e derrotas. O que estamos vendo agora é mais um novo processo de luta contra o oportunismo, cujo resultado só poderemos analisar no futuro.
Todo partido comunista passa por processos de disputa, o PCB cresceu bastante de 2019 a 2022, e o Comitê Central começou a caducar diante dos novos quadros formados pela UJC. A UJC em si passou a ser muito mais organizada que o próprio Partido com o tempo, mostrando como o PCB sofria por métodos artesanais. A linha do Partido sempre cai à direita conforme há uma cristalização de quadros, que é o caso do PCB.
Manifesto em defesa da Reconstrução Revolucionária do PCB
"Seguimos lutando pela Reconstrução Revolucionária do Partido Comunista Brasileiro, tomando o espírito de iniciativa e de crítica e autocrítica como o coração de nosso centralismo democrático. Tomamos o caminho da luta, não o da conciliação, como acreditamos ser o dever dos comunistas."
Fischia Il Vento, Italin anti-fascist song (based on Katyusha)
Original (Italian)
Fischia il vento e infuria [urla] la bufera, \ scarpe rotte e pur bisogna andar \ a conquistare la rossa primavera \ dove sorge il sol dell'avvenir. \ A conquistare la rossa primavera \ dove sorge il sol dell'avvenir. \ \ Ogni contrada è patria del ribelle, \ ogni donna a lui dona un sospir, \ nella notte lo guidano le stelle \ forte il cuore e il braccio nel colpir. \ \ Se ci coglie la crudele morte, \ dura vendetta verrà dal partigian; \ ormai sicura è [già] la dura sorte \ del fascista vile traditor. \ \ Cessa il vento, calma è la bufera, \ torna a casa il fiero partigian, \ sventolando la rossa sua bandiera; \ vittoriosi e alfin liberi siam.
English
The wind whistles, the storm rages, \ our shoes are broken but we must march on, \ to conquer the red spring, \ where the sun of the future rises. \ to conquer the red spring, \ where the sun of the future rises. \ \ Every street is home to the rebel, \ every woman has a sigh for him, \ the stars guide him through the night, \ strong his heart and his arm when they strike. \ the stars guide him through the night, \ strong his heart and his arm when they strike. \ \ If cruel death catches us \ harsh revenge will come from the partisan \ already certain is the harsh fate \ of the vile treasonous fascist. \ already certain is the harsh fate \ of the vile treasonous fascist. \ \ The wind stops and the storm calms, \ the proud partisan returns home, \ blowing in the wind his red flag, \ victorious, at last we are free. \ blowing in the wind his red flag, \ victorious, at last we are free.
What could mods do?
A comment on the Russia/NATO war
There are many Marxists who look at the US/NATO war against Russia without historical materialism. They condemn Russia and the war in Ukraine as an "inter-imperialist war" between Russia and the US, but this is wrong mainly because they ignore the historical aggression movement of the "traditional" imperialist countries.
One such movement was the expansion of NATO, where the EU and the US were funding NATO and EU membership campaigns, especially in former socialist republics. They took advantage of nascent states and low institutional complexity to spread propaganda in these countries, initially through television and today through the Internet. They manipulate the public opinion of an entire nation, just to serve their interests.
And worse, NATO demands from these countries "political reforms" in order to enter NATO, which eventually resulted in extreme right-wing governments in these countries.
NATO has been expanding eastward into Russia, settling in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, then Estonia, Latvia, Romania, and Bulgaria, with Estonia and Latvia bordering Russia. Furthermore, NATO has already stated if I'm not mistaken since 2008 that it intended to host Ukraine and Georgia, and not only that, it has frequently held military exercises with these countries. Both Ukraine and Georgia border Russia, Ukraine being the country that has the longest border with Russia.
In Ukraine, a government has been in place since 2014 that has openly advocated neo-Nazism and incorporated Nazi militias into its army. It promoted the persecution of ethnic Russians within the country and for 8 years the Ukrainian army assaulted the population of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. School children were taught to hate Russians with children's stories portraying the Russian nation and its people as barbarians, monsters, as every government does with its enemies.
And now, with the Russian invasion, Finland, which also has a long border with Russia, has joined NATO. We already know what the historical trend of this will be. In addition, NATO has an indirect presence in Asia, mainly in South Korea and Japan, due to the presence of US troops in these countries (more than 80,000 soldiers in all).
It is very clear that NATO has been expanding toward Russia since the late 1990s, setting up governments hostile to Russians in its member countries for the sole purpose of generating a conflict with the country. In this way, it becomes possible to fragment the whole of Russia, to facilitate the plundering of that country's natural and human resources, and especially to prevent a competitive country from outgrowing the USA.
The idea that Russian aggression is part of an "inter-imperialist" conflict attempts to equate the US with Russia, as if both countries are waging war for similar reasons, or as if both are in the same position. The US/NATO has been hostile to Russia for decades, it's decades of constant aggression. To any Russian, who has seen it up close all these years, the war was a surprise, but everyone knew it was inevitable.
Marxists who defend the thesis of "inter-imperialist war" to condemn Russia and the US on the same "level" ignore all this historical development, and on top of that they use the argument that in Russia there is a right-wing conservative party in power. Or worse, they say that Russia is a bourgeois state and therefore does not deserve support.
It is true. In many aspects the Russian government is anti-communist, even. But all over the world we have bourgeois dictatorships or conservative governments. To take only this criteria of support would result in condemning the "inter-imperialist" war between the U.S. and Iraq, equating aggressors and aggressed. Because both are bourgeois dictatorships, therefore they do not deserve special consideration.
In the case of the war in Ukraine the "aggressor-aggrieved" relation is more subtle, because in the immediate appearance Russia invaded Ukraine. The aggressor-aggrieved relationship is between Russia-Ukraine, right? That seems to be the view of our Marxists, apparently. Losing sight of the background of NATO's actions, this war becomes a meaningless thing, as if Russia is wanting to take Ukraine for itself, to export its capital and control Ukraine's markets. It is a very similar discourse to the one NATO reproduces, of the invader Russia.
So who does the "imperialist Russia" discourse serve? Exactly the NATO side. Exactly the usual imperialists, which we are sick of knowing, the imperialists of the North Atlantic, the US and Europe. This discourse is aimed at undermining support for Russia in other nations, and gradually manufacturing a consensus that justifies a war against Russia.
The two sides of the war are not equal, and they do not wage war for equal reasons. Russia is a bourgeois dictatorship, as in much of the world, but it is part of a positive movement regarding the world market, an alternative movement to the US hegemony that for decades has plagued the countries of the world with its political and economic interference. Russia's partnership with China also adds strength to this alternative movement to the US-dominated institutions, the domination of the dollar, and the arbitrary interference in other countries.
We need to use our collective knowledge to develop a GPT-style algorithm trained on the collected works of Marxist authors from all countries
Title is self-explanatory. The benefits of this would be tremendous, if correctly trained and perfected, it would be the greatest tool to democratize knowledge about Marxism.
There are already several open-source large language models on the internet out there, but I think the biggest bottlenecks is the knowledge on deploying such models and computing power to run such a thing.
Thread to discuss about this subject
We have succesfully upgraded the server!
Thanks to all donators, mostly from Patreon and Liberapay, we managed to upgrade the server so we have more space to store the content produced in the wiki.
We have stored every fund we have in a Brazilian bank, away from the dollar, and because it's easier to manage given the current staff of administrators. Upgrading the server cost us in total R$1243.40 (~US$247.39). This includes taxes in international transactions (R$13.91 Brazilian international exchange fee + R$57.09 exploited by PayPal) and a US$49.50 service we requested so the disk could be extended. The VPS server itself cost us US$183.5 for a whole year.
After paying for the host, we now have available R$3342.46 (~US$664.48) in funds. There is currently no plan for this money, and we are just storing it so we can pay for hosting for more years. We reserved a part of this money (R$2500.00) in savings which have earned us an extra R$33.17 passively, which is a minimal, but safe investment, and still better than just letting the money alone.
Any suggestion on what to do with this money is welcome. Thank you all for making ProleWiki sustain itself for one more year!
Thanks to @[email protected] for the tips, using bones was the best approach indeed
Follow-up post about ProleWiki's book club
The first ProleWiki book club happened 12th February at 8PM UTC, and it was conceived and led by RedCustodian, with @CriticalResist helping set it up, and Clover helping with the reading.
It was a great success and signs that ProleWiki is starting to become an organic entity, because this is perhaps the first time that a major decision was made without my contribution to it, because I was not directly involved in the conceiving to the execution of the book club.
More than 2 years ago, when ProleWiki was merely 2 months old, I made some comments (some very idealist) on the direction of social ownership of ProleWiki: > We hope that in about a year or so, ProleWiki is able to exist without me individually and becomes a valuable resource to revolutionaries from all over the world, socially owned by all contributors.
It took way more than a year, but we finally have an expression of this goal, which is a somewhat big decision being taken without my contribution. I think this is pretty symbolic of the direction of our organization, which is slowly, but steadily growing.
Even though some big decisions are still directly in the hands of CriticalResist and myself, especially administrative ones, ProleWiki couldn't have maintained an unity among its editors without some level of democracy inside our server. Editorial decisions about the content of our wiki is no longer a decision solely made by the administration, and the administration promotes a culture of consultative democracy in most of the bigger decisions of our project.
As an important disclaimer, I should add that the administration does not hold up democratic values merely because we hold up an ideal and we are noble defenders of democratic centralism. Democratic centralism works, and it gives integrity to an organization. When decisions are discussed previously, sometimes exhaustively, the chances of disagreements are close to a minimal, and only in a free criticism environment can discussions happen until their exhaustion.
On strange individuals, trolls, borderline spammers and such
If you see around any individual interacting with others through strange antics, displaying weird or troll-like behavior, bot behavior, or similar, either on Lemmygrad or Lemmy, feel free to publish a people's court case about them if you think they are negatively affecting the Lemmygrad community as a whole.
The usual best way to fight trolls is indifference. So if you think someone is constantly annoying, please block them, and if possible, publicly express your dissatisfaction, so that everyone is aware.
Some trolls like Wisconcom can cause a major disruption in our community, and that's when we usually step in debating about the issue publicly. You are free to do so in People's Court as well, it's the place to collectively solve perceived problems within our community. You are also free to criticize the actions of the administrators,[^1] under public scrutiny.
[^1]: criticize our actions, not our political positions. This would be perhaps more appropriate in Leftist Infighting
Cyberpunk Mao Zedong, as imagined by Midjourney
Looks nothing like him lmao, but that's the best I got. I tried numerous times for a result like this.
Parameters used: Mao Tse-tung, cyberpunk, hyper realistic, neon --q 2 --v 4
I had to use "Mao Tse-tung" because "Zedong" was banned by Midjourney. Funny stuff
Cyberpunk Fidel Castro, as imagined by Midjourney
Using the parameters Fidel Castro, cyberpunk, hyper realistic, neon --q 2 --v 4
Cyberpunk Karl Marx, as imagined by a neural network
Made with Midjourney using the parameters Karl Marx, cyber punk, neon, hyper realistic --q 2 --v 4
Cyberpunk Stalin, as imagined by a neural network
Made with Midjourney using the parameters Joseph Stalin, cyberpunk, hyper realistic, neon --q 2 --v 4
What's your opinion on conspiracy theories regarding George Soros?
If you happen to come across right-wing media, propaganda and discourse, you'll notice here and then a mention of George Soros as an evil mastermind behind geopolitical events, "globalist agenda" and such.
Why do you think there's a focus on George Soros? We are aware of Soros' interference in global affairs through his funding of color revolutions worldwide, but why would the extreme right-wing have an aversion to Soros?
This discourse regarding Soros can be found in the Brazilian extreme-right as well.
Wisconcom has made edits on RationalWiki claiming we are "pro-CCP" propaganda
Most of the edits were made by Wisconcom himself. Observe how Wisconcom will pander to imperialist propaganda (claiming Tiananmen Square was an "atrocity" to "own the revisionists" 👌👌👌), and even call us "tankies" in the article.
This should illustrate Wisconcom's opportunism very clearly. He engages in chauvinistic propaganda just to portray a project he was banned from in a bad light, even if it means being anti-communist.
Lenin on his language acquisition method
Lenin spoke, besides Russian, French, German, learned basic English on his own and also knew a bit of Italian from his wife Krupskaya. He was able to read Italian newspapers. He also possibly knew Polish, Swedish and Czech at a very basic level. In his biographies, some count up to 11 languages Lenin was acquainted with, and three languages spoken fluently besides Russian.
> "I have just written a letter to Mark in which I described in exceptional detail how best to establish a “regime”; as regards mental work, I particularly recommended translations, especially both ways—first do a written translation from the foreign language into Russian, then translate it back from Russian into the foreign language. My own experience has taught me that this is the most rational way of learning a language."
(Letter to his sister Maria Ulyanova, from Munich to Moscow dated 19 May, 1901, Collected Works, vol. 37)