Author: Joe Attard

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School of Communism

Does communism mean bureaucracy?

The degeneration of the Soviet Union into a dictatorial parody of socialism, at the hands of Stalin’s counterrevolutionary clique of bureaucrats, is one of the great tragedies of world history.

Today, our critics use this example to argue that communism always results in a small clique at the top controlling everything.

But as Jerome Mellatus, leading French communist, explains: the rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy was a product of the backwardness of Russia and the failure of the world revolution. Lenin spent the last years of his life fighting this degeneration in vain. 

To avoid repeating history, we must build communism on healthy foundations.

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School of Communism

Did communism really fail?

We are often told that the fall of the Soviet Union was incontrovertible evidence of the failure of communism. 

This concerted campaign of slanders and lies, which falsely ties communism to the bureaucratic crimes of Stalinism, is spread by the ruling class and their cronies in order to undermine the struggle to overthrow capitalism today. 

In this talk, Niklas Albin Svensson from our international leadership explains how and why the USSR collapsed. He demonstrates that it was not communism, but a bureaucratic deformation which failed.

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Dialectics: the algebra of revolution

In order to transform the world, we must first understand it. In this speech, the RCI’s leading theoretician, Alan Woods, explains dialectics: a revolutionary school of thought, which holds that nothing is fixed or static. 

Taking his starting point from the great idealist German Philosopher Hegel, Karl Marx placed dialectics on a sound materialist basis. 

This great philosophical revolution developed into dialectical materialism – a revolutionary philosophy that explains the most general laws of motion of nature, human society and thought itself.

This remains the most powerful theoretical tool communists have at their disposal for understanding the world – the prior condition for bringing about its complete transformation.

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Launch of the Revolutionary Communist International

Communism is international, or it is nothing. This was clearly understood by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, who all recognised the necessity to unite the struggles of workers, regardless of all national divisions against their common enemy: capitalism.  

Today, that message is more relevant and necessary than ever.

The capitalist system is in a deep crisis worldwide. Everywhere the workers are threatened with collapsing living standards, unemployment, wars and endless suffering. 

Millions of workers and youth are looking for a way out of the crisis. The reformists have no answer. They no longer stand for meaningful reforms, but counter-reforms and cuts.

A clean break is necessary.

In this talk, Alan Woods, lead theoretician of the RCI, explains why the time is ripe for launching a new Revolutionary Communist International and outlines the tasks that lie ahead for communists today.

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School of Communism

Welcome To The School Of Communism

In June, hundreds of revolutionaries from all over the world gathered in Italy for the founding conference of the Revolutionary Communist International, with thousands more participating online.

In addition to officially establishing our new International, the conference was a school of communism, with around 20 sessions on all aspects of our theory, history and thought. 

This podcast series provides recordings of all of the speeches from the founding conference of the RCI. 

You’ll find episodes about our philosophy, our perspective on the most pressing issues facing workers and youth today, and answers to common slanders about what communists stand for. 

Together, these talks represent the complete programme of our international. If you’re inspired by what you hear, and agree with our point of view: join us at marxist.com/join-us.htm

Links and information about getting involved are included in all the episode descriptions, and you can learn more about the RCI on our main website: marxist.com. You can also listen to our main weekly podcast series, the Spectre of Communism.  

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Spectre of Communism

Interview with Fiona Lali: Suella is a symptom, capitalism is the disease

Fiona Lali recently shot to prominence, and stunned former British Home Secretary Suella Braverman, when she publicly branded Suella a “war monger” and a “liar” for her support for the genocide in Gaza. Fiona’s words chimed with millions of workers and youth who have seen this clip, and who are sick and tired of this rotten imperialist system, of the hypocrites who run it, and of the commentators, media and ‘opposition’ that do nothing to challenge it.

In this exclusive interview, Fiona presents the communist approach to war and imperialism, and explains why we need to kick out not only individual Tory politicians, but the whole capitalist system.

Fiona Lali is national campaigns coordinator of the Revolutionary Communist Party (the British section of the International Marxist Tendency), which will be holding an important national online meeting this Thursday, to coordinate the immense wave of student protests sweeping British universities. Register for the event here: https://communist.red/palestinemeeting

If you’re a communist in Britain and you agree with Fiona, join the RCP today in the fight against the war mongers in Parliament and the system they represent: https://communist.red/

For those beyond Britain, the IMT is a worldwide, fighting, communist organisation, and this June, we are founding a new Revolutionary Communist International (RCI). You can join us! Find your section of the IMT at https://marxist.com/ and sign up to attend the founding conference of the RCI, which you can join online at: https://schoolofcommunism.com/

Finally, we recommend listeners check out the podcast of the RCP in Britain, where Fiona will be hosting daily news updates starting tomorrow: https://communist.red/category/marxist-voice/

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Spectre of Communism

Encampments for Palestine: reports from the front lines

As the horrors of Israel’s war on Gaza continue to escalate, a wave of student protests has erupted in solidarity with the Palestinians: drawing comparisons with the anti-Vietnam War movement. Starting in the USA, the encampments quickly spread internationally, meeting with press slander and brutal police repression. In this special episode, we speak with four student communists from Canada, the UK, Austria and the USA, who have been active in encampments at various universities, to hear about their experiences of this inspiring struggle. 

What is the mood at these encampments? What kind of opposition have they faced from university authorities and state forces? What sort of demands are being raised? We cover all of this and more! Offering context and our general perspective, we welcome back as well Fred Weston from our International Secretariat to talk about the situation in Gaza, Israel’s operations in Rafah, and what is necessary for this movement to escalate.

We recommend this statement on a communist programme for the encampments. 

Here is our latest statement on Rafah, which also contains our proposed strategy for escalating the protest movement. 

We also suggest recent articles on the repression and attacks against students in Canada and the United States.

Divest and disclose: open the books!

Not a cent, not a bullet for the Israeli war machine!

Free Palestine!

Intifada until victory, revolution until victory!

—

Register now for the founding conference of the Revolutionary Communist International! https://schoolofcommunism.com/ 

Subscribe and listen at your preferred platform, and find us on social media, here: https://linktr.ee/specom 

#CommunismPodcast 

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Spectre of Communism

Why we need a Communist International – season FINALE!

In June, the International Marxist Tendency will take the monumental step of founding a new Revolutionary Communist International (RCI), to provide communist workers and youth around the world with a bold rallying point in the struggle to overthrow capitalism. In doing so, the RCI will build on the immense revolutionary legacy left behind by the Third (Communist) International, founded by Lenin and the Bolsheviks as the world party of revolution. Register now for the founding of the RCI!

This week’s episode of Spectre of Communism podcast welcomes Fred Weston, a leading comrade of the International Marxist Tendency, to explain the historic revolutionary importance of the Communist International. In doing so, Fred demonstrates the palpable need for a similar organisation in the world today. 

You can watch a video recording of this discussion on YouTube.

This episode will be the finale of the first season of the podcast, which will return with new weekly content after a short break.

In addition to registering for the founding conference, we also recommend reading the recently published Manifesto of the Revolutionary Communist International (available in 20 languages), which will constitute the founding document of the RCI.

We also recommend Ted Grant’s 1943 article, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Communist International’ (cited in the episode).

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Spectre of Communism

Why AI under capitalism is a failure

Advances in artificial intelligence continue to make headlines, as AI has begun to play a role in everything from art and journalism to conspiracy theories and unemployment. While AI is clearly here to stay, it is equally clear that the capitalist class has no interest in using it to its fullest. Once again, capitalism’s brutal inefficiency and systematic misuse of such technology is profound evidence of the need for communism and economic planning.

To discuss the real potential of AI and how this is squandered by the ruling class, this week’s episode of Spectre of Communism podcast welcomes Daniel Morley, a leading member of the Communists in Britain. Countering both the excessively jubilant and the existentially morbid approaches to AI that are common from capitalist commentators, Daniel gives a concrete appraisal of this technology in the class struggle today, and brings out some of the possibilities for the use of AI under a planned economy.

For more on artificial intelligence and its role under capitalism, we recommend this article.
And for more on the recent speculative bubble in the AI sector, see this article.

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Spectre of Communism

Art, culture and the Russian Revolution

Communism is often presented by its enemies as being at best uninterested in art and culture, and at worst openly hostile to anything but the crudest propaganda. This is completely at odds with the approach of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, and genuine communists today. The Russian Revolution ushered in an explosion of artistic creativity, which for the first time was unshackled from the constraints of class society. This is the legacy that communists must defend. Watch the video episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QILJ_lXw6U

To discuss the important place of art and culture in the Russian Revolution, this week’s episode welcomes Nelson Wan, a leading member of the International Marxist Tendency in Britain. Nelson explains the communist approach to art and culture, and describes some of the immense achievements in this field made by figures such as Sergei Eisenstein, Konstantin Stanislavski and El Lissitzky.

This episode is the most recent part of a series of podcasts celebrating the life and ideas of Lenin, 100 years after his death in 1924. For a complete defence of the incredible achievements of history’s greatest revolutionary, we recommend In Defence of Lenin by Alan Woods and Rob Sewell, now available from Wellred Books.

Manifesto of the RCI: https://www.marxist.com/manifesto-of-the-revolutionary-communist-international.htm

Register to attend the RCI conference: https://schoolofcommunism.com/

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