And to those people we say the age old adage, “Read Settlers”

National liberation, national renaissance, the restoration of nationhood to the people, commonwealth: whatever may be the headings used or the new formulas introduced, decolonization is always a violent phenomenon.

…

Decolonization is the veritable creation of new men. But this creation owes nothing of its legitimacy to any supernatural power; the “thing” which has been colonized becomes man during the same process by which it frees itself.

In decolonization, there is therefore the need of a complete calling in question of the colonial situation. If we wish to describe it precisely, we might find it in the wellknown words: “The last shall be first and the first last.” Decolonization is the putting into practice of this sentence. That is why, if we try to describe it, all decolonization is successful.

The naked truth of decolonization evokes for us the searing bullets and bloodstained knives which emanate from it. For if the last shall be first, this will only come to pass after a murderous and decisive struggle between the two protagonists. That affirmed intention to place the last at the head of things, and to make them climb at a pace (too quickly, some say) the well-known steps which characterize an organized society, can only triumph if we use all means to turn the scale, including, of course, that of violence.

You do not turn any society, however primitive it may be, upside down with such a program if you have not decided from the very beginning, that is to say from the actual formulation of that program, to overcome all the obstacles that you will come across in so doing. The native who decides to put the program into practice, and to become its moving force, is ready for violence at all times. From birth it is clear to him that this narrow world, strewn with prohibitions, can only be called in question by absolute violence.

~ Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

Your point, that the oppressed should stay subservient and exploited because the struggle for liberation will bring about violence from the oppressor, ignores the generations of violence done onto the vast majority of the world and the violence that continues to weigh upon and threatens to crush everyone under this capitalist-imperialist hellscape. You should fight because of that violence.

On a less serious note, look at that mf with a submachine gun leaping at me through the air cuz im jerking it to some porn. Let a girl do her thing geez

The image is called, Strengthen attack dynamics, resolutely wipe out pornography, gambling and drugs It’s a propaganda poster published in the People’s Republic of China in 1997 and is from a series of propaganda called Talk about civilization and create a new style propaganda posters.

I was just searching through Chineseposter.net and came across this and thought it was interesting. For me, I feel that this poster, as well as the others in the series serve as a primer to think about the ways societies with differing histories, economic modes of production, and global relations may view crime, social issues, or even what is considered impolite in public spaces (see the no spitting poster in the series). I think it’s cool to look through the site and see how the art style of posters changed over time. This series is distinct from the more modern posters and of course are different from those made in the cultural revolution, not just in style but content.

He meant colonized countries that have been underdeveloped by the imperialist countries.

Still doesn’t make the phrase less racist to use to describe a racialized and super exploited country and people.

I agree with this. For the philosophy section of our education program, my comrades and I utilize Luna Oi’s translation in our curriculum.

The Following is the book list and some supplementary material for our Introduction to Marxist-Leninist Philosophy section. Id share our Reading and Lecture notes for the texts, but I don’t know how to share documents/files without doxxing myself:

• Curriculum of the Basic Principles of Marxism Leninism, Part 1 (Weeks 1 - 4)

  • Week 1 Supplementals:
    • Luna Oi!: The Origins of Marxist Philosophy (33 min)
    • Anime: The Leader: Karl Marx
  • Week 2 Supplementals:
    • Rev Left Radio: The Fundamentals of Marxism: Historical Materialism, Dialectics, and Political Economy
    • RevolutionaryTh0t: Do You REALLY Understand Dialectical Materialism?
    • Rev Left Radio: The Dialectics of Nature
  • Week 3 Supplementals:
    • The Marxist Project: Fundamentals of Marx: Dialectics (12min)
    • Luna Oi!: How Marxists Study History: Book Talk with Midnight Books (27min)
  • Week 4 Supplementals:
    • Hampton Institute: A Brief and Imperfect Explanation of Dialectical Materialism

• Dialectical and Historical Materialism by Stalin (Week 5)

  • Week 5 Supplementals:
    • Luna Oi!: Engels on Historical Materialism and Revolution

• On Practice by Mao (Week 6)

  • Week 6 Supplementals:
    • None

• On Contradiction by Mao (Week 7)

  • Week 7 Supplementals:
    • On Contradiction (1h 23m)

For the OOP or people reading this later, I think it’s super advisable to read with others if possible. Also, don’t get the Zizek edited copies of On Practice or On Contradiction and try not to use Socialism 4 All as a source for audiobooks.

Thank you so much for this comment.

After reading through some of the ‘Midterms Containment Thread’ over on Hexbear, I think statesians need some reminding.

I finally put down Between Two Fires. After reflecting on my critiques of the book I gave in last week’s book discussion thread, I decided to not finish it. But thankfully some of my comrades really wanted to read The Wretched of the Earth, so we’ve been reading that and, as expected, it’s amazing. I just listened to the On Violence section twice on audiobook and plan to go back and read through the PDF copy I have. I know Rev Left has a Red Menace episode covering the work but if anyone has any study guides or resources for Wretched of the Earth that my group and I could use, please send them my way!

In addition to WotE, my on again off again book is still Dialectics of Chinese Labor: Trade Unions Under Market Socialism by Immanuel Ness. I’m going to leave the summary and link to a free copy in this message below because I really do recommend this book (though i haven’t finished it yet). Like I said last week, the book is kind of repetitive in the way that it sets up each chapter but other than that I think it’s a good read.

The PDF is free on the authors website, linked below. https://labourdialectics.org/

Who’s that on the bottom row second from the right?

In fact I don’t.

beautiful

It always depends on the context but yeah.

I’ve been reading two books.

I’ve been doing a lot of painting at work the last two weeks which has given me the opportunity to listen to an audiobook recording of ‘Between Two Fires.’ It’s a grim dark fantasy that takes place in the 1300s during the plague and the apocalypse from the christian bible. The story follows an excommunicated knight, an alcoholic gay priest, and a little girl. It’s got its good parts, and I’ve enjoyed a good chunk of it, but I don’t think I can recommend this book, and I’ll explain why in the spoiler.

[CW for talk of SA] Critique of Between Two Fires

The second book I’ve been reading is Theory related, Yay! It’s called, “Dialectics of Chinese Labor: Trade Unions Under Market Socialism” by Immanuel Ness.

The summary on the website is,

A Marxist sociology of state owned enterprises (SOEs), trade unions, and workers in China’s gig and platform economy — from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping. This book challenges the myth of the “passive worker” and argues that, against the grain, the labour movement is working.

It’s a book that rightfully criticizes western labor organizing and unions, but its main thesis is to challenge the western narratives made against the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. It talks about how Chinese workers have organized and adapted to reform and opening up, rural to urban migration, and the rise of the digital platform economy. It also discusses the relationship between the union and the CPC which is cool to hear explained as a transmission belt between the party and the workers.

The book is quite repetitive, but I fully recommend it. The PDF is free on the authors website, linked below. https://labourdialectics.org/

I feel that it’s almost a certainty that the US and other imperialist states are infiltrating and trying to steer all of the protests to whatever ends are most advantageous to them, or the least harmful.

It seems that the US state department is funding the electoral arm of the student movement in Albania right now through several different organizations/NGOs. I happened to listen to a Madleton Pendleton video the other day where they went through the donor list of the student movement’s public facing org. While the information is coming from a youtuber and that means it’s not a certainty, I feel that it’s safe to assume the imperialists have their hands in as many pots as they can reach and student movements, with their lack of discipline and no ideological or party line, are easy to reach pots. We saw the color revolution in Nepal and how that ended.

Of course I’m not disparaging the protesters in Albania, France or anywhere. Their struggles are righteous and born from serious and real hardships. I hope for nothing but the best for them, genuinely, but the ruling class doesn’t need to start the fight, they just care about how it ends and they have most of the pieces on the board.

Y

Damn, 3-4 years to recover their inventory is much shorter than I would’ve expected. 2030 is relatively pretty soon