Reiterating Mao On December 26, His Birth Anniversary

by Farooque Chowdhury

Coutnercurrents.org | December 26, 2017

Reiterating Mao’s teachings is one of the essentials in the area of political education as a new generation is joining people’s struggle.

The class struggle question is one of the areas to learn from Mao Tse-tung [also spelled Mao Zedong] [b. December 26, 1893] as now-a-days confusion dominates political position of a group of “progressives” and “anti-imperialists” engaged with mongering “rights” of sects and sub-sects but “forgetting” rights of the entire working people. An amazing group in a conflict-laden reality! So, Mao’s theoretical formulations on the issue of class struggle demand renewed attention.

On the Role of Mao Zedong

by William Hinton

Monthly Review |  Volume 56, Issue 04 (September,2004)

In 1995 a foreign reporter interviewed me about Mao. She sought me out as someone who had met the man in person and openly admired him over the years. She asked, “What about all the people he killed? What about all those famine deaths? And what about all the suffering and destruction of people in the Cultural Revolution?” With these questions she lined herself up with the current media line on Mao, the line of conventional wisdom, which is to present him as a monster—Mao, the monster. The usually more enlightened BBC reached a new low that week with their Mao centenary program. It made him out to be not only a monster but also a monstrous lecher far gone into orgies with teenage girls. Such a low level of attack! It cheapened the BBC and should have backfired, but you never can tell these days.

Sanders Slams Trump for ‘Bragging’ About Millions of Americans Losing Healthcare

Common Dreams | December 24, 2017

“Instead of bragging about more Americans without health insurance, we should join every other major country on Earth, guarantee healthcare for all people, and end the absurdity of paying twice as much per capita for healthcare, as every other major nation,” Sanders said. (Photo: CNN/Screengrab)

In an interview on CNN‘s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) slammed President Donald Trump for “bragging” about a provision in the GOP tax bill that could leave 13 million more Americans without health insurance and argued that the U.S. should instead be working toward guaranteeing healthcare to all Americans as a right.

“Instead of bragging about more Americans without health insurance, we should join every other major country on Earth, guarantee healthcare for all people, and end the absurdity of paying twice as much per capita for healthcare as every other major nation,” the Vermont senator said.

Capitalism, Exterminism and the Long Ecological Revolution

teleSUR spoke to Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster about climate change & the need to fight for an ecosocialist, revolutionary alternative to the profit-driven world capitalist system.

by Elliott Gabriel

teleSUR | December 22, 2017

 

Even the most stubborn climate skeptics found the events of 2017 difficult to cope with. It wasn’t just a matter of turning up the air conditioner and switching the channel to Fox News: this time, the inconvenient truth came in the form of monstrous wildfires and tropical cyclones ruthlessly knocking down suburban ranch homes and master-planned housing developments.

Books: Moving tribute to a selfless US communist

The Communist and the Communist’s Daughter: A Memoir by Jane Lazarre (Duke University Press, £22.99)

by John Green

Morning Star | December 18, 2017

IN THIS memoir, Jane Lazarre weaves a complex and fascinating account of her father, the lifelong communist, party organiser and Spanish civil war veteran William Lazarre, aka Bill Lawrence, in the form of an intergenerational dialogue.

Her father came to the US at the beginning of the last century to escape the pogroms in tsarist Russia and, already enthused by the ideals of communism, he joined the US Communist Party and became a full-time organiser. He volunteered for Spain in 1936 and became a commissar with the Lincoln Brigade.

Russian Revolution Centennial

 

by John Bachtell

Frontier | Vol. 50, No.24, Dec 17 – 23, 2017

October Revolution took place 100 years ago, on November 7, 1917. Even though the Soviet Union no longer exists, the revolution which gave birth to it reverberates still as one of the greatest history-changing events of the 20th century.

Millions of Russian workers and peasants engaged in an act of self-emancipation. Everything that followed provides those seeking a modern 21st century socialism a wealth of lessons, from both its achievements and mistakes.

The October Revolution occurred in a stormy and desperate time of barbaric world war, poverty, hunger, and insurrection. The demands propelling it were simple: peace, land, and bread.

50 Years of Naxalbari Movement: Birth of a Naxalite

by Subhendu Dasgupta

Frontier | Vol. 50, No.24, Dec 17 – 23, 2017

I lived in a suburb. The locality had particular characteristics. It was a mixed social space. People speaking different languages—Hindi, Punjabi, Oriya, Bangla, different dialects of Bangla, lived here. Together. People of varied religions—Musalman, Hindu, Sikh, Baishnab, Brahmo stayed here. Together. People of West Bengal—ghati, and people who had migrated from East Bengal—bangal. Together. Orthodox and liberals. Together.

It was a mixed economic space. People of different economic stratum—middle, lower-middle, poor earning from organized and unorganized, formal and informal sectors. It was close to a large industrial area and a dock. There were old settlements—para, newly built settlements—colony, settlements of the poor—bustee.