Geopolitical Outlook

  Throughout the duration of the Russia-Ukraine War, the poverty of real Marxist analysis is very apparent in some  very confused sections of the left [1] (as well as those who are purportedly left, but are clearly aligned with right-wing forces) who have committed themselves to either being apologists for Russia’s aggression and to championing multipolar capitalism, or cheerleading for the NATO-led alliance with the desire to draw out the conflict for as long as possible. They refuse to see the war as an inter-imperialist conflict, with U.S. imperialism competing with Russian imperialism over who gets to keep Ukraine as a colony, and who gets to have a puppet government that will be friendly to their respective bourgeois interests. But perhaps one of the most curious aspects of these Western “anti-war” movements is how quick they are to  call for the United States, Canada, the UK, and other U.S.-aligned countries to disarm [2]; as well as being quick to claim that these ...

  The original, cringe-worthy dedication title card of Rambo III , before being edited out in subsequent post-9/11 DVD copies and television airings. The Taliban were one of the groups that sprang from the U.S.-created and U.S.-backed Mujahideen, who were made with the ultimate goal in mind of destroying the Soviet Union. The United States saw an opportunity for its anti-communist goals in the exiled, ousted, reactionary, neo-feudalist landowning class who were willing to betray their country, to undo all the revolutionary gains and progress (which included women's emancipation) made by the popular socialist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, and to bring the country back to what is essentially the stone ages. While the United States does not necessarily preach Wahhabist or Salafist ideology itself, they were very useful tools, due to their highly sectarian nature, in countering the progressive anti-imperialist forces -- whom they saw as foils and bitter 'archenemies...

  Generally speaking, things are not going so well; and so we might as well prepare for survival. Here is a list of things that you could do. Suggestions are welcome, and more may be added later. 1. Get both doses of the vaccine AND continue wearing the masks regardless  of vaccination status.   The pandemic isn't over yet and the virus is still circulating, and it's not over until we've actually stopped it from circulating at such an astronomical rate. And like it or not, fully vaccinated people are still, figuratively speaking, inside "the eye of the storm" as much as the unvaccinated are; 'pandemic' means prevalent over a whole country and/or the world. COVID-19 has not even reached endemic levels. I don't think I need to explain why vaccines are great preventative measures, that should already be a given. Yes, of course the vaccines are still extremely helpful, very useful, and lifesaving; but it doesn't necessarily mean they will 100% stop yo...

  In the former USSR, the Soviets understood that sports were originally supposed to be for the physical and communal benefit, as well as the genuine enjoyment, of the people. By taking capital out of the equation and by allowing the expansion and encouragement of mass participation, the arena of sports actually  flourished under the first socialist state  when it became accessible to the masses. Under such a system, there was no ‘star system’ where a considerable amount of money was poured into handpicking a select, privileged few individuals and turning them into brand names, sponsored, sports “superstars” who received the lion’s share of scholarships and payments (thus defeating the purpose of team work) — while not-so-famous talented athletes from working class backgrounds have no choice but to work second jobs in order to sustain themselves.  If anything, the current Russian Federation owes it to the former Soviet Union for continuing to be a strong Olympic cont...

  Allegory with a portrait of a Venetian senator (Allegory of the morality of earthly things) , by Tintoretto, 1585. Objective, material reality can be measured. In accordance with that, beliefs about the nature of  novel viruses [1] or beliefs about our Solar System evolve over time and are subject to change; and it is because of  ongoing observations, measurements, and advances in science .[2] In contrast to that, morality– or rather, bourgeois morality, does not change on such grounds because it is purely social and cultural.[3] At best, it is a weak argument for or against an issue. There have always been competing doctrines, ideologies, and theories; but ongoing methodical and investigative analyses of evidence points to one of those ideas or concepts as being correct, most accurate, or most principled. For instance, communists who take a principled anti-imperialist stance do not have a problem with North Korea (a.k.a. the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) build...

  My very short blog post which was originally published in January under the title, " 'The health of the individual is the concern of society as a whole' - Defeating Disease ," has been edited, expanded upon, and republished under a new title and can be found on New Power  by clicking here . It has been expanded quite significantly so that it is now a full-length OP-ed and reflection. The COVID-19 global pandemic is now in its second year at the time of this writing.

"Imperialism, or the domination of finance capital, is that highest stage of capitalism in which this separation reaches vast proportions. The supremacy of finance capital over all other forms of capital means the predominance of the rentier and of the financial oligarchy; it means that a small number of financially “powerful” states stand out among all the rest. " —V.I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism . Ch. 3. At the time of this writing, most people by now are probably aware of the news story surrounding the "controversy" of a Reddit-based community called 'WallStreetBets' buying stocks on GameStop (and AMC) [1], hurting Wall Street short-selling hedge fund managers' profits in the process and pushing Melvin Capital to the brink of bankruptcy. These short-selling [2] billionaire investors have lost a staggering $70.8 billion during the month of January, 2021 [3]; this was partly because of a very determined group of small, amateur...

"Comrades, it is impossible to imagine the dreadful situation in the typhus regions, where the population is broken, weakened, without material resources, where all life, all public life ceases. To this we say, “ Comrades, we must concentrate everything on this problem. Either the lice will defeat socialism, or socialism will defeat the lice!” " - V.I. Lenin, "Seventh All-Russia Congress Of Soviets." 5-9 December 1919 These remarks by Lenin were made during a time when the Soviet Republic, in it's very early days, still had a decrepit and severely neglected medical system, and an impoverished population that was overwhelmingly in ill health. All of these things were inherited from the old Tsarist regime. In 1918, months after the Bolsheviks successfully seized power, the Spanish Flu had reached Russian shores, largely due to the fact that WWI Russian prisoners of war had brought the disease home with them after being released by Germany. They saw 150 Spanish Flu...

 1. Soviet New Year tree painting, 1935. 2. Soviet New Year tree painting, 1950. 3. Soviet 1950s New Year's greeting card. 4. "In New Year," (1945) by artist Churabo Nikolai Dmitrievich.  5. A 1938 holiday poster which says, "Thank you comrade Stalin for our happy childhood!" 6. "Happy New Year!" Soviet postcard, 1953. 7. Vintage 1941 Soviet New Year greeting card with Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost). Presumably in commemoration of the Red Army's successes and victories in defeating Fascism during the Second World War. 8. New Year greeting card commemorating the Soviet space program. Unknown year, possibly 1960's or 1970's. 9. "Christmas Tree Bargaining," (1918) by artist Boris Kustodiev. 10. Vladimir Lenin and a gathering around a New Year tree. Made several years after Lenin's death. Unknown year, possibly the mid-1930's.

  Friedrich Engels was born, on this day, on November 28, 1820. In honour of his 200th birthday, here is an excerpt of "Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy" (1844) below. This section in particular is where he addresses and criticizes Malthusianism. Both he and Marx were vehemently opposed to Malthusianism and regarded it as a "libel on the human race." * The struggle of capital against capital, of labour against labour, of land against land, drives production to a fever-pitch at which production turns all natural and rational relations upside-down. No capital can stand the competition of another if it is not brought to the highest pitch of activity. No piece of land can be profitably cultivated if it does not continuously increase its productivity. No worker can hold his own against his competitors if he does not devote all his energy to labour. No one at all who enters into the struggle of competition can weather it without the utmost exertion of his energ...

  The  American Eugenics Society’s flashlight exhibit  at the 1926 Fitter Families Contest, emphasizing the “overpopulation” of “defectives” in the American gene pool. Neo-Malthusianism is the notion that the world needs to be drastically depopulated and that “humans are a cancerous tumor eating up the world’s resources.” Its proponents would have the poor believe that they themselves are responsible for their own misery — rather than the real culprits, the capitalist class who profit from imperialist plunder and environmental destruction. Now that capitalism is entering into a new crisis, alarms are once again being raised for “overpopulation”, and Neo-Malthusianism is making a resurgence, particularly in environmental discourse, with encouragement from the capitalist class. There is no doubt that climate change is a very real and urgent matter, with greenhouse gas emissions leaking into the Earth’s atmosphere due to significantly increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels a...

1) Sampled images from Sir Arthur Newsholme's  Red Medicine: Socialized Health in Soviet Russia   (1933): In a hospital waiting room, Moscow. Photograph by Margaret Bourke-White. Compulsory vaccination on collective farm in Turkmenistan. Photograph by Soviet Photo Agency. Diphtheria immunization in Moscow. Photograph by Margaret Bourke-White. New polyclinic in Leningrad. Leningrad Institute for the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood. Photographs by John A. Kingsbury. In a Moscow creche. Photograph by Soviet Photo Agency. Traveling dental station in rural district near Moscow. Photograph by Soviet Photo Agency. 2) Health campaign and public education posters: "Mud and death are loyal allies,"1920. An influenza, epidemic, and disease-related poster. (*Note: Mud and dirt are the same word in Russian, грязь (gryaz'). In the context of diseases and epidemics, the word 'dirt' may be more applicable. The poster is saying to keep yourself clean as opposed to dirty...