Homelessness Stalks the Land of Minnesota and the USA

"It is another Great Depression for the American people, " Gus Hall, Marxist-Leninist of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), once said. "As hard-won economic cushions like unemployment, welfare and Social Security checks run out, millions are being thrown into the streets, on souplines and in shelters for the hungry and homeless." Economic crisis and poverty, Gus Hall continued, is part of the capitalist pattern "exposed and laid out by Marx, Engels and Lenin." (Gus Hall, Karl Marx: Beacon for Our Times)

More than 13% of the U.S. population, a part of the working class, lives in poverty. Homelessness goes hand in hand with cannibalistic capitalism. It is, Frederick Engels said in 'The Housing Question', a "secondary evil" of capitalism and is linked to the system where capitalists exploit workers. Monopoly ridden American capitalism throws 12 million working class people unto the streets at least once a year. Millions more are "full-time" homeless throughout the entire year, as decaying capitalism forces them to live in shelters, cars or on the streets. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005)

In Minnesota, 9200-9300 people are homeless. American capitalism’s monstrous treatment of Blacks is exposed in the modern day scourge of homelessness. African-Americans are 3% of Minnesota’s population but are 38% of the homeless. (Wilder Research, 2007)


(Socialism will end homelessness forever because, as V.I. Lenin said, "the best buildings, the palaces, the mansions and manor houses" are "taken away from the bourgeoisie." Socialism would build housing for all.)
30 million working class people, including every homeless man, woman and child, could be housed in the vacant homes and apartments of America tonight! 12 million places sit empty year round and 4 million more luxury homes of wealthy parasites are vacant on any given night. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005) A proletarian socialist revolution would, as Frederick Engels said, "expropriate the present owners" and "quarter the homeless in their houses!" (Frederick Engels, The Housing Question, 1872)

The American working class needs to stand up, speak out and fight back today against homelessness! We must advance our own demands with protests and mass people's lobbies. Nationalize the construction of new housing! This is the only way to quickly build millions of good housing units with cheap rent (no more than 10% of the renter's income). Nationalizing the construction of new housing also provides employment opportunities to Black people and other workers. Expand HUD and other government housing programs! Expand welfare--with no lifetime limit. Prevent homelessness by standing against layoffs and housing foreclosures and fighting for universal healthcare! One out of five homeless people are employed by capitalists at low wages. We should fight tooth and nail for living wage, not poverty wage, jobs!

Socialism will end homelessness forever because, as V.I. Lenin said, "the best buildings, the palaces, the mansions and manor houses" are "taken away from the bourgeoisie." Socialism would build housing for all. (V.I. Lenin, Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, 1918)

'Capitalism is the Sick Element in our Society': Marxism and Psychology

Under capitalism psychology, a science which studies the human mind, embellishes the capitalist system of exploitation. Socialism will strike the capitalist fetters from science and sweep the anti-working-class, racist and national chauvinist, sexist, individualist, subjective and idealist ideologies which poison capitalist psychology into the dustbin of history!

V.I. Lenin's is right: "There can be no “impartial” social science in a society based on class struggle. In one way or another, all official and liberal science defends wage-slavery, whereas Marxism has declared relentless war on that slavery." (Lenin, Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism)

"Under capitalism," said William Z. Foster, Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party of the United States, "science is a slave to the class interests of the bourgeoisie." He continues: "Biology justifies the mad class struggle and war; economics puts an unqualified blessing upon wage slavery; history proves that capitalism is perfected; psychology explains away poverty on the basis of the inferior beings, etc." (William Z. Foster, Towards Soviet America)

On the one hand, capitalism breeds mental health problems. On the other hand, capitalism distorts the science of psychology and infuses it with reactionary bourgeois ideology. Capitalism restrains the scientific role of psychology by injecting the venom of anti-working-class, racist and national chauvinist, sexist, individualist, subjective and idealist ideologies into psychology. The great Communist Gus Hall was exactly right: "Capitalism is the sick element in our society."

The fight between materialist and idealist philosophy rages in psychology. "The great basic question of all philosophy," Frederick Engels once said, concerns "the relation of thinking and being, spirit and nature." There are "two great camps": idealists and materialists. Those who believe that spirits or our mind is primary to nature are "idealists." Those who regard nature and the material world as primary are materialists. (Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach)

Marxist-Leninists take a side in the struggle between materialism vs. idealism.Lenin wrote: "Marx's philosophy is a consummate philosophical materialism which has provided mankind, and especially the working class, with powerful instruments of knowledge."


Marxism-Leninism's dialectical and historical materialism makes contributions to psychology:

"1. Marxism rejects as invalid and unscientific all theories of intellectual, emotional or behavioral inferiority of race, class, sex or national minority. It emphasizes the crucial importance of studying human development in the concrete reality of its existence, social and individual.

"2. Marxism approaches the human mind and consciousness as a product of the brain and central nervous system...

"3. Marxism stresses the important relationship of the individual to society. The psychology of individuals in the United States must be examined in the context of a class society with a specific--capitalist--superstructure. The effects of the ideological superstructure on the individual’s psychology is of vital significance in psychological study...

"4. Marxism sees the science of psychology as playing an important role in advancing human development...

"5. Marxism emphasizes that psychology and psychiatry are sciences which need to be advanced through careful, meticulous, comprehensive scientific work...

"6. Science is international in scope and requires the best efforts of scientists in all countries for full progress...

"7. Marxism believes that science advances through struggle, both scientific and social. (Struggle can expose false theories, correct one-sidedness and expose racist and reactionary ideology under the guise of scientific psychological theories.)

""8. Marxism believes that a socialist society can produce great changes in people’s psychological health and welfare. The provision of full, comprehensive, available, free health and mental health care is guaranteed under socialism. Likewise, the guarantee of employment, social security, education, equal opportunity, facilities for working mothers, equal pay, and an ever-expanding economic and social system provide psychological security for people under socialism." (Joseph Nahem, Psychology and Psychiatry Today: A Marxist View, 1981, International Publishers)

"Socialism," William Z. Foster said, "strikes the fetters from science." Science has the freest development under socialism because it isn't misused to defend the exploitation of another class. Contrary to the bourgeois slanders, the emergence of socialism in the Soviet Union showed the world that psychology can be made to be humane and fully scientific!

Jobs or Income Now!

"The forest of uplifted arms demanding work becomes ever thicker, while the arms themselves become ever thinner."--Karl Marx, "Wage-Labor and Capital"

The United States is bleeding jobs. The latest (Dec. 5, 2008) unemployment figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that 533,000 jobs were lost in November. 1.9 million proletarians have lost their jobs this year. Black and Latino working class people are hit the hardest. Capitalism, as Karl Marx pointed out long ago, spreads mass pauperization. The army of the unemployed grows. Economic crisis and poverty, Gus Hall boldly said, is part of the bourgeois pattern "exposed and laid out by Marx, Engels and Lenin."

"The capitalist class," the Communist economist Victor Perlo noted, "has always needed a reserve army of unemployed." V.I. Lenin was right on the mark: "An industrial reserve army of labor is an indispensable attribute of the capitalist economy." Unemployment is a weapon against labor to drive down wages. In times of economic crisis, capitalists lay off workers and impose speed up on workers with jobs. The Soviet Union abolished unemployment. "Not only was there no joblessness in the U.S.S.R.," Hall wrote, "but there was full employment without racism or discriminatory practices."

The working class needs to stand up, speak out and fight back! We require class struggle picketlines, protests and mass people's lobbies that demand Jobs or Income NOW! We must battle for a federal law against layoffs. For a public works program which can provide jobs. Money should be spent to create jobs and rebuild America, not wage imperialist war and occupation. Unemployment insurance and food stamps also need to be extended--with no exclusion of workers on strike.


(V.I. Lenin: 'Only struggle educates the exploited class. Only struggle discloses to it the magnitude of its own power, widens its horizon, enhances its abilities, clarifies its mind, forges its will.')
Gus Hall, the Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party of the United States, put it squarely: "It's time to demand that People Come Before Profits!"

In order to turn the economy around and prevent layoffs, the working class must fight to nationalize basic industries--let the proletariat call the shots! We also need to raise our voices for the 111th Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, a law which would make it easier for laborers to form and join a union in order to bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. Tax the Rich.

Only socialism will finally end unemployment forever. The day approaches when American workers will turn to socialism and completely eliminate joblessness. Socialism will be, William Z. Foster of the Communist Party of the USA of yesteryear eloquently declared, the "climax" of "the everyday struggles of the workers." And Foster is right that "the time will come when the victorious toilers will build a monument to Lenin in New York." But in order to win this society without exploitation, Marxist theory must, as V.I. Lenin taught in What Is To Be Done?, be brought to the working class. We need a vanguard Marxist-Leninist Party and a proletarian revolution!

Revisionism vs. the Vanguard Role of the Marxist-Leninist Party

Revisionist falsification of, and attacks on, the need for a Marxist-Leninist Party and its leading vanguard role come fast and furious. Gus Hall, Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party of the USA, didn't tolerate the revisionist assault: "we have to fight for the concept, and for the absolute need of a revolutionary working class party in the ranks of workers." (Gus Hall, Capitalism on the Skids to Oblivion)

And V.I. Lenin, anti-revisionist to the core, taught that "by educating a workers' party, Marxism educates the vanguard of the proletariat, capable of assuming power and of leading the whole people to socialism, of directing and organizing the new order, of being the teacher, guide and leader of all the toiling and exploited in the task of building up their social life without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie." (Lenin, State and Revolution, 1917)

The Soviet book Right-Wing Revisionism Today rightly says: "The leading role of the communist party in socialist revolution comes naturally from the leading role of the working class in the revolutionary process, as scientifically established by Marxism-Leninism."

Stalin rightly said of a Communist Party in Foundations of Leninism: "The Party is the vanguard of the working class." He continued: "The Party is the advanced organized detachment of the working class. The Party is the highest form of class organization of the proletariat. The Party is the political leader of the working class." The Party is "an instrument in the hands of the proletariat for achieving the dictatorship (of the proletariat)" and for "consolidating and expanding the dictatorship (of the proletariat" once socialism is won.(Stalin, Foundations Of Leninism, 1924)

"To deny it (the Marxist-Leninist Party) the leading role," the Soviet book "Right-Wing Revisionism Today" says, "is to decapitate the socialist revolution."


But revisionism within the revolutionary Communist party of the working class ultimately means the liquidation of the party.

"By revisionism," a Soviet book points out, "Lenin understood an opportunist trend alien to Marxism and socialism that existed within the revolutionary party of the working class." Under the guise of "creative non dogmatic Marxism", revisionism rejects the fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist theory, replacing the basic principles with bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas. (Right-Wing Revisionism Today, 1976, Progress Publishers)

Otto Kuusinen wrote in Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism that revisionism aims to liquidate the Party or transform it into a reformist organization. He said that Lenin's teachings on the Party was one of the revisionist's chief targets. And, whether it's openly stated or concealed, "the theoretical and practical efforts of the revisionists are in the final analysis always subordinated to their attempt to liquidate the Party or to transform it into a reformist organization."

The Soviet book smashes through the web of revisionism: "The surrender of a class and scientific (Marxist-Leninist) position in the activity of a Communist Party invariably leads to that Party's liquidation." (Right-Wing Revisionism Today, 1976, Progress Publishers)

Gus Hall, Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party of the United States, lived through the Earl Browder debacle and wrote often about liquidationism. Gus Hall once stated, "The most dangerous liquidationist trend is not disbanding the Party structure, but eliminating the Communist essence in our mass work." (Gus Hall, "Opportunism--the Destructive Germ," Political Affairs, May 1979)

"Middle Class" Workers

Victor Perlo, who headed the Communist Party USA’s economics commission and launched the People’s Weekly World People Before Profits column, wrote: “[An] important weapon of capitalists in their attempt to split the working class is to define ‘working class’ away, so to speak.”

He once made the point: the capitalists attempt to divide the working class by confusing “class” with “income.” He said "the term ’middle class’ as used by the capitalists, actually refers to people in a supposed ’middle income group.’" (Victor Perlo, Superprofits and Crises, 1988, International Publishers)

Perlo commented, in Superprofits and Crises, that, “‘Middle-class’ workers are portrayed as those whose historic status as wage workers has been so improved that they can plausibly be considered to have advanced out of the working class proper and into the ‘middle class.’”

The science of Marxism-Leninism teaches us to look for the economic and class interests behind ideas, institutions and events in our society. V.I. Lenin, who applied Marxism to the struggles of the working class, cut through the smokescreen: “The fundamental feature that distinguishes classes is the place they occupy in social production, and, consequently, the relation in which they stand to the means of production.”


(V.I. Lenin painted by Brodsky)
The Marxist-Leninist analysis teaches us that what distinguishes classes is not differences in income, habits or mentality, but their relation to society’s means of production.

And the middle class is the small capitalists, owners of means of production, who occupy an intermediate position in between the class of workers and big monopoly capital.

Marxism-Leninism teaches us to oppose ideas that serve the capitalist class against the working class to overcome the power of the capitalists and build socialist society. We need a fighting party of the working class, a Communist Party. V.I. Lenin said "we see in the independent, uncompromisingly Marxist party of the revolutionary proletariat the sole pledge of socialism's victory and the road to victory that is most free from vacillations." (Lenin, A Militant Agreement for the Uprising)

Fight for the Employee Free Choice Act!

V.I. Lenin said, in What Is To Be Done?, that Frederick Engels distinguished three basic forms of the proletarian struggle: economic, political and theoretical.

The class struggle in the economic arena has sharpened up with the fight for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act!! One of the AFL-CIO's top priorities in the 111th Congress, the Employee Free Choice Act would make it easier for working class people to form and join a union in order to bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. It would establish stronger penalties against bosses for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during contract negotiations.

Union workers, especially Black and Latino workers, earn higher wages and get more benefits than workers who don't have a voice on their job with a union. And Frederick Engels was right that unions, broad organizations of workers, are "the real class organizations of the proletariat, in which the latter wages its day-to-day struggle against capital." (Engels, Letter to Bebel, 1875)


(The United Steelworkers (USW), Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers rally in Pittsburgh to call for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, 2007)
Communists join the fight for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act!! Gus Hall, the Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party USA once said: "great weight falls on the union and economic questions--jobs, wages, relief, union rights, strikes...Communists must be resolute, outstanding fighters for these." (Gus Hall, Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)

Karl Marx and Engels advocated in the Communist Manifesto that "Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class." Communists must, V.I. Lenin said, "develop the workers' class consciousness by assisting them in the fight for their most vital needs" and in promoting workers' organization.

But the economic struggle will not abolish capitalism by itself. It must be linked with the political struggle to overthrow capitalist rule. And Lenin called for smashing "the ideological enslavement of the workers by the bourgeoisie" by bringing Communist consciousness to the working class. He stressed this repeatedly in What Is To Be Done?. We need a fighting Marxist-Leninist party, the highest form of proletarian class organization, to smash capitalism and build socialism.

What you can do to join the Fight for the Employee Free Choice Act:

Sign the AFL-CIO's online petition at AFL-CIO Online Petition to Fight for the Passage of EFCA.

Get the word out on your blog or myspace page! Go to the AFL-CIO's site: AFL-CIO on EFCA for more information and to find web buttons that you can post!

Read and Reread Marx, Engels, Lenin

Communist pioneer Frederick Engels put it squarely: "socialism, having become a science, must be pursued as a science, that is, it must be studied." And we need to read and reread the writings of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and V.I. Lenin.

"To understand Marxism," Howard Selsam explained, "there is no better way than to go to the original sources--to read what Marx, Engels and Lenin actually wrote." (Howard Selsam, main editor, Dynamics of Social Change: A Reader in Marxist Social Science, 1983, Fifth Printing, International Publishers)

Studying and rereading the classics by Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and V.I. Lenin will prove that Lenin is right: "the Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true!" (Lenin, Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, 1913)


(V.I. Lenin: "without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement." - What Is To Be Done?, 1902)

Gus Hall, the Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party of the United States, said in Working Class USA that our study of Marxism will be deepened by rereading Marx, Engels and Lenin. Struggle and study must be combined!

Religion is a 'Buttress for Capitalism'

American capitalist reaction whips up religious fervor and attacks on materialism and science, especially evolution, come fast and furious. Brazen religious reactionaries split the working class and divert attention away from capitalist robbery of the workers. These religious sharks carry on a fanatical war to throw women back to the Dark Ages, not fight Wall Street profits.

Not for nothing did William Z. Foster, the Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party of the United States, say that religion is "a buttress for capitalism." (William Z. Foster, The Twilight of World Capitalism)

Idealism and materialism are locked in mortal combat. Frederick Engels once wrote that idealists are "those who assert the primacy of spirit to nature," while materialists, including Marxist-Leninists, "regard nature as primary." (Frederick Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach, 1886)

And, V.I Lenin said, the fight against religious idealism is "subordinated" to a Marxist's "basic task--the development of the class struggle of the exploited masses against their exploiters." (Lenin, The Attitude of the Workers' Party to Religion, 1909)

In this, we can unite with religious folks for working class struggle and the fight for social progress. Gus Hall said this in Karl Marx: Beacon for our Times. And none other than V.I. Lenin pointed out that religious workers should be recruited to join the Marxist Party! On the other hand, religion can not set the terms of the struggle.

"Religion," a Soviet writer pointed out, "is a distorted, fantastic reflection of reality." Afanasyev continues by quoting Frederick Engels: "...All religion, however, is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men’s minds of those external forces which control their daily life, a reflection in which the terrestrial forces assume the form of supernatural forces, Engels wrote." (Engels, Anti-Duhring)


(V.I. Lenin: 'We must combat religion--that is the ABC of all materialism and consequently of Marxism')
"Religion," Afanasyev said, "arose only at a definite stage in society’s development. The origin of religion can be traced to ignorance of the true causes of natural and social phenomena, to the awe-inspiring power of nature’s spontaneous forces and social oppression.

"The crux of religion is belief in the supernatural. Being dependent on nature’s forces, men endowed them with supernatural properties, made them into gods and spirits, devils and angels...

"(Then came the rise of classes and exploitation and) the working people sought in religion salvation from the suffering inflicted on them by exploiting society.

"It (religion) is an instrument of spiritual oppression, ideological enslavement of the working people, a means of strengthening the rule of the exploiters....Being an element of the superstructure, religion in an antagonistic class society seeks to reinforce the economic basis on which it rests, to strengthen the exploiting system....

"(With stories about a better life in Heaven), religion diverts the working people from the...revolutionary struggle against exploitation and for a just, genuinely humane social system...

"The reactionary role of religion is also manifested in its deep hostility to science, to a scientific world outlook....Science and religion are irreconcilable. Science gives man true knowledge of the world and the laws of its development. It helps him master natural and social forces and to organize production. Religion distorts the essence of the world, gives the wrong interpretation of it, stultifies the mind and will of man and deprives him of confidence in the triumph of science and progress." (Afanasyev, Marxist Philosophy, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow)

"The class struggle," William Z. Foster said, "and the development of the revolutionary movement of the workers, guided by Marxist dialectical materialism, (will) weaken the grip of religion upon the people's minds." (William Z. Foster, The Twilight of World Capitalism)

Communists Led the First National Demonstration During the Great Depression!

Many folks are comparing the capitalist crisis of today with the Great Depression, the great economic crisis of 1929-1933. It’s worth a look at those days.

The Communist Party of the United States, as the vanguard of the proletariat, led the first national protest against unemployment during the Great Depression on March 6, 1930. They organized working class folks on Main Street against Wall Street. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, Gus Hall, the Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party, and the Communists led the mass struggles.

Written about the Great Depression, William Z. Foster's words ring with clarity today. He wrote that "with the outbreak of the economic crisis the bourgeoisie immediately embarked upon the same course that it had following all previous crises; namely, to unload the burden of the economic breakdown upon the shoulders of the workers and poorer farmers." (William Z. Foster, History of the Communist Party of the United States, 1952, International Publishers)

The Great Economic Crisis of 1929-1933 meant Fight Back! Carl Winter, Communist leader of the Unemployed Councils in NY and one of the organizers of the National Hunger Marches of the 1930s said that: "The first nationwide organized protest (on March 6, 1930) against the burdens of the economic crisis, being shouldered by the working people of the United States, was organized upon the initiative of the Communist Party." (Carl Winter, "Unemployment Struggles of the Thirties," in Bart, Highlights of a Fighting History, 1979, International Publishers)


(William Z. Foster: The great demonstration of March 6, 1930 was 'a magnificent demonstration of the Leninist leading role of the Communist Party')
William Z. Foster, Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party of the United States preceding Gus Hall, said "With relatively few members, but with a clear head and a stout heart, the (Communist) Party boldly organized the famished unemployed...

"March 6, 1930 (was) the historic national unemployment demonstration, led by the Communists. The Communist Party, the Young Communist League, and the Trade Union Unity League threw their united forces into the preparations. A million leaflets were circulated and innumerable preliminary meetings were organized. The national demonstration was held under the auspices of the T.U.U.L. The central demand was for unemployment relief and insurance, with stress upon demands for the Negro (African-American) people, against wage cuts, and against fascism and war.

"Among the mobilizing slogans were 'Work or Wages!' and 'Don't Starve--Fight!'...

"The March 6th turnout of the workers was immense--110,000 in New York; 100,000 in Detroit; 50,000 in Chicago; 50,000 in Pittsburgh; 40,000 in Milwaukee; 30,00 in Philadelphia; 25,000 in Cleveland; 20,000 in Youngstown, with similar huge meetings in Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, and other cities all over the country. All told, 1,250,000 workers demonstrated against the outrageous conditions of hunger and joblessness. In the demonstrations, Negro (African-American) workers were a pronounced factor...

"Under the leadership of the Communists, the unemployed had stepped forth as a major political force. The great demonstration at once made the question of unemployed relief and insurance a living political issue in the United States. It showed that the masses were not going to starve tamely, as the bosses and reactionary union leaders had thought they would...It was a magnificent demonstration of the Leninist leading role of the Communist Party." (William Z. Foster, History of the Communist Party of the United States, 1952, International Publishers)

The national demonstration inspired many hundreds of class struggle actions of the unemployed across the country. And Gus Hall, the Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party USA, said that "in Minneapolis, (MN) we Communists led the mass struggles of the unemployed." (Gus Hall, Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)

'We Have to Hold the Fire under Obama’s Feet!'

(Note: The popular phrase "to hold the fire under someone's feet" means simply to put pressure on someone and hold them accountable. The use of the phrase in this article is not meant in any way, shape or form to condone violence against Obama or anyone else.)

Barack Obama, in a victory over racism, will be the first Black president in the White House. State-monopoly capitalism and Wall Street imperialism have not been smashed. Nor has racism and white chauvinism been eliminated in the U.S.A. The struggle continues. Hours after the election, anti-war activists in the Twin Cities, Minnesota responded with a protest on November 5 demanding that U.S. imperialism get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and opposing war against Iran. The rally was initiated by Women Against Military Madness. Roger Cuthbertson, a long time activist, hit the nail on the head when he said "we have to hold the fire under Obama’s feet!"

Fighting sprinkling rain, wind and U.S. imperialism, leaders and activists in the peace, union and Communist movements stood boldly with anti-war signs on "the peace bridge" crossing the Mississippi River. Hundreds of cars passed by and members of ATU 1005 waved while driving buses. One young sister at the rally passionately said that U.S. troops need to be pulled out of Iraq because "Enough is enough!!" And her friend, a Latina woman, added in a quiet but determined voice, "Troops out NOW! The struggle continues."

A Black member of the Gus Hall Action Club clenched his fist in the air as he held a Communist sign with the slogan "Say No To Imperialism!"

The system of state-monopoly capitalism and imperialism breeds wars for maximum corporate profit. Imperialism is the breeder of crises and war. Imperialism is, as V.I. Lenin taught, "the monopoly stage of capitalism."


(V.I. Lenin: Imperialism is 'moribund capitalism.')
"Imperialism," Gus Hall, the Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party USA said, "cannot be separated from capitalism." Hall continued: "Imperialism is an ugly monster, spawned and bred in the incubator of capitalism, nurtured by the greed for private profits, fattened on the exploitation of the millions, gorged on the blood, sweat and tears of millions of people in all the continents." (Gus Hall, Imperialism Today, 1973, International Publishers)

The struggle continues and Wall Street imperialism can be fought! We must forge a militant anti-monopoly coalition, with the working class at its core. And we have to, as Roger Cuthbertson said, "hold the fire under Obama’s feet!"

A new social system must be built out of the capitalist welter of war, crises and exploitation of the working class. Only socialism will finally end war forever. And William Z. Foster, a former leader of the Communist Party USA, is right that "the time will come when the victorious toilers will build a monument to Lenin in New York." (William Z. Foster, Toward Soviet America, 1932, International Publishers)

Stalin: 'His Name Stands Alongside the Names of Marx, Engels and Lenin'

We need a historical and objective analysis of Stalin from a working-class and Marxist-Leninist position. Proletarians must reject "condemnations" from anti-communist bourgeois propaganda, Trotskyist or revisionist Big Lies and slanders. Yep, Generalissimo Stalin made mistakes later in his life. But, overall, he was a "left" Soviet leader and part of the anti-revisionist tendency. Our era's Communist Party of the Russian Federation (КПРФ) proudly declares: "the memory of Stalin will live forever!"



(’Thank you, dear Stalin, for our happy childhood!’)

Here’s the stellar Marxist-Leninist past head of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), William Z. Foster, assessing Stalin after his tragic passing:

"On March 5, 1953, in his 74th year, Joseph V. Stalin died as the result of a stroke suffered during his sleep a few days before. This ended over half a century of revolutionary struggle on the part of one of the greatest fighters ever produced by the world’s working class. His death was a tremendous loss to the Soviet people and to the international movement for peace and freedom.

"Stalin was a major theoretician. Perhaps his greatest theoretical work was on the national question, on which he was the world’s leading expert. His epic ideological battle with the Trotsky-Zinoviev-Bukharin wreckers also constitutes a Marxist classic. And just on the eve of his death he gave a last example of his profound capacity as an economist by working out the basic economic laws of capitalism and socialism, in his last work, ’Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.’

"Stalin was a magnificent organizer. His building of the Communist Party, the Soviets, and other immense mass organizations of the Soviet people was a real masterwork. His leadership of the party in the mobilization of the people for the driving through of the successive five-year plans, with their building of industry and collectivization of farming, was organizational work beyond compare.

"Stalin, too, was a militant fighting leader of the masses. His whole life was one relentless battle against the enemies of socialism, both within and outside the party. He was a tower of strength as a military commander in the civil war of 1918-1920, and in leading the Soviet people to victory over the Hitler barbarians in 1941-1945, he displayed a peerless fighting spirit and outstanding military genius. During the Cold War, the arrogant capitalist imperialists also came to dread the indomitable spirit and brilliant diplomacy of Stalin. He was indeed a man of steel, as his name signified.

"At Stalin’s funeral, Malenkov said of this brilliant and courageous leader: ’Comrade Stalin, the great thinker of our epoch, creatively developed the teaching of Marxism-Leninism in the new historical conditions. The name of Stalin rightly stands alongside the names of the greatest men in human history--Marx, Engels, Lenin.’" (William Z. Foster, History of the Three Internationals, International Publishers)

This excellent biography by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute was once reprinted by International Publishers and distributed by the CPUSA:

Stalin

Industrial Workers: 'Front Rankers in the Class Struggle'

A comrade recently said: "I agree with you that industrial workers are the front rankers in the class struggle. However, I would extend "industrial" in modern times to include the service industry."

My response: Service workers are not industrial workers. Service workers are not the same as steelworkers, autoworkers, workers in mass industry and transport, etc. Service workers are definitely part of the working class and they can be militant unionists. But Henry Winston, an African-American militant with the Communist Party USA of yesteryear, made the point that while all working class folks have a common interest in fighting against state-monopoly capitalism, they "do not all have a common place within the capitalist system from which to carry on that fight." And industrial workers are the "front rankers in the class struggle." (Henry Winston, Class, Race and Black Liberation, 1977, International Publishers)

Gus Hall, a great Marxist-Leninist and former leader of the CPUSA, raised the question sharply: "mass production workers are to the working class what monopoly is to the capitalist class. They are the sector of special importance for the working class and for the class struggle as a whole." (Gus Hall, Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)

Henry Winston explained that "the basic industrial sector has a common interest with the majority of wage workers but it does not have an identical place with them in the system of capitalist exploitation and the struggle against it." Industrial workers are "the greatest direct producers of surplus value, the source of capitalist profit." Industrial workers occupy the central position within the capitalist system. (Henry Winston, Class, Race and Black Liberation, 1977, International Publishers)


(Henry Winston: Industrial workers are the "front rankers in the class struggle.")
Jobs in the service industry are flourishing as industrial plants have been closing. "The working class is changing," Gus Hall declared in 1987, but "none of the changes in the profile of the working class diminishes the role of the industrial core." (Gus Hall, Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers) A core that includes, as Henry Winston noted, many Black "front rankers."

"It is these 'front rankers'," remarked Winston, "who will provide the most consistent leadership in raising the struggle to higher levels." Workers in the industrial sector are "decisive in forging the unity of all the diverse segments of wage workers and in forming an alliance between the workers of hand and brain with all the exploited and oppressed." (Henry Winston, Class, Race and Black Liberation, 1977, International Publishers)

"The (Communist) Party," Winston continues, "places its industrial concentration policy at the center of its strategy. Merging theory with practice, it recruits into its ranks the best fighters among the 'front rankers.' At the same time, it also recruits the most devoted fighters from all other segments of the working class. In this way, the Party plays its role in uniting all detachments of the working class, in representing the interests of the entire class. 'This struggle,' stated Lenin, 'places [leads] the working-class movement onto the high road, and is the certain guarantee of its future success.'" (Henry Winston, Class, Race and Black Liberation, 1977, International Publishers)

The Proletariat Alone is a Really Revolutionary Class

Brothers and Sisters, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are the basic classes of capitalist society. The proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class whose mission it is to abolish capitalism and build a classless communist society.

William Z. Foster, the former leader of the Communist Party USA and a great Marxist-Leninist, once said that "The bourgeois contention that there are no classes and no class struggle in the United States is, of course, silly. Here, as in other capitalist countries, are well-defined social classes and a constant struggle is going on between them over the division of the toiler's products and for political control. The class struggle is just as American as Plymouth Rock." (William Z. Foster, Twilight of World Capitalism, 1949)

Years after William Z. Foster penned these words, ideologists from both the right and the left pick up the bludgeon of capitalist ideology to deny the existence of the class struggle and to snort with derision at the working class of the United States. In the 1987 book, Working Class USA, Gus Hall, the leader of the CPUSA after William Z. Foster, penned that "one of the basic theoretical concepts that has of late come under question and suspicion, and is in fact being openly challenged, is the Marxist concept that the working class is the only consistent progressive and revolutionary class in our society." (Gus Hall, Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels made no bones about the working class' role. "Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today," Marx and Engels declared, "the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class." (Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto, 1848)

So, who is the working class? Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote in a footnote to the Communist Manifesto that the proletariat is "the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live." The proletariat (the working class) is defined not by it's income but by it's relation to the means of production. The exploited class, with it's various income levels, doesn't own the means of production so it is forced to sell their labor-power to a capitalist. And the laboring class isn't the hackneyed stereotypes assigned to it by ideologists of both the right and the "left". Gus Hall pointed out that the working class includes both unionized and unorganized workers, Black folks, women and unemployed people and those on welfare, among others. The American working class is multi-racial, multinational, male-female and young and old but it is united as a class.

But Henry Winston, an African-American militant with the Communist Party USA of yesteryear, made the point that the while all toilers have a common interest in fighting against state-monopoly capitalism, they "do not all have a common place within the capitalist system from which to carry on that fight." Industrial workers are the "front rankers in the class struggle." He declared that "the basic industrial sector has a common interest with the majority of wage workers but it does not have an identical place with them in the system of capitalist exploitation and the struggle against it." Industrial workers, "the greatest direct producers of surplus value, the source of capitalist profit," occupy the central position within the system. Winston taught that "it is these 'front rankers' who will provide the most consistent leadership in raising the struggle to higher levels." Workers in the industrial sector are "decisive in forging the unity of all the diverse segments of wage workers and in forming an alliance between the workers of hand and brain with all the exploited and oppressed." (Henry Winston, Class, Race and Black Liberation, 1977, International Publishers)


(Henry Winston: Industrial workers are the "front rankers in the class struggle.")
Afanasyev, a Soviet philosopher, put it correctly said in his book Marxist Philosophy:"the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are the basic classes of capitalist society. The bourgeoisie, in quest of profit, exploits the proletariat and this exploitation is intensified as capitalism develops. The worker's labor is increasingly speeded up and he is reduced to a mere appendage of the machine. The proletariat especially suffers from such intrinsic features of capitalism as economic crises, unemployment and predatory wars.

"The working class naturally cannot reconcile itself to all this. The nature of capitalism which robs the worker of the fruits of his labor and the workers position in society impel him to fight the bourgeoisie. The history of capitalist society is therefore the history of struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. This struggle is law-governed and is the primary source of capitalist development. The struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie grows especially keen in the epoch of imperialism when the economic and political contradictions of capitalism become extremely acute.

"It is the proletariat's mission to abolish capitalism and build a classless communist society, for no other class is consistently revolutionary.

"The bourgeoisie was only revolutionary when it fought the fuedal lords for domination in society. But having captured power, it became more and more reactionary, and now its sole aim is to perpetuate exploitation.

"The middle sections, in particular the peasants and artisans who are quite numerous under capitalism, are not revolutionary to the end. They hold no independent position in society and, with the development of capitalism, they become stratified. The majority...are ruined and join the ranks of the proletariat; only a negligible number breaks its way into the capitalist class...

"The intelligentsia (engineers and technicians, doctors, teachers, scientists and others) cannot be consistently revolutionary either. The overwhelming majority of intellectuals are compelled to serve the exploiting classes.

"The proletariat is the only consistently revolutionary class in capitalist society. It is connected with the most progressive form of production, machine industry, and is constantly growing and developing. The very nature of capitalist production helps unite, organize and educate the working class. The workers are deprived of property and have nothing to lose in the struggle. In fighting for its liberation, the proletariat is capable of organizing and leading all other working people who share its hatred for the capitalist system. By emancipating itself, it emancipates all other working people and abolishes forever exploitation of man by man. On gaining victory, it returns to the working people everything they produce, eliminating the greatest social injustice--a social system in which a handful of oppressors appropriate the fruits of labor of the millions." (Afanasyev, Marxist Philosophy, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow)

Marxism-Leninism Has Not Grown Old and Never Will!

Some folks wrongly say that Marxism-Leninism is "outdated." Boris N. Ponomarev says in the book Marxism-Leninism: A Flourishing Science that:

"Scientific socialism, Marxism-Leninism, is the only basis on which the present deep crisis of capitalist society can be analyzed, and the ways out of the impasse into which imperialism and its ruling element has driven its countries, can be determined...

"Those who maintain that Marxism-Leninism is 'outdated' and that the fundamental ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin are 'incompetent' may be asked: whose teaching is it that provided and continues to provide solutions to all the agonizing problems facing millions upon millions of people in the capitalist world...

"Why are capitalist countries continually gripped by economic crises, who do the poor there grow poorer and the rich grow richer, why is there unemployment, with millions of people deprived of jobs? Why is ruin the lot of millions of farmers? What are the causes of the first and second world wars? Why are militarization and the arms race being intensified in capitalist countries, and preparations are under way for new wars?

"No bourgeois or petty-bourgeois theory has been able to answer these vital and burning questions. Marxism-Leninism is the only teaching that gives substantiated scientific answers to these and other problems of our time, and shows the ways and means of resolving them." (Boris N. Ponomarev, Marxism-Leninism: A Flourishing Science, 1979, International Publishers)


(Stalin: ’Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution. Leninism is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular. Leninism is the further development of Marxism.’)

Protest to Save Main Street Not Wall Street!

Protest to Save Main Street Not Wall Street!

Saturday, October 25 at 3:00 p.m.

Federal Reserve Bank, Minneapolis, 90 Hennepin Ave. downtown (by corner of Hennepin Avenue and N. 1st St.--Near South Side of Hennepin Ave. Bridge)

Initiated by Gus Hall Action Club, a Marxist-Leninist Communist club, but you don’t need to be a Communist to attend!!

Life becomes worse for the working class as capitalists intensify their drive against our living standards. But the U.S. government's given more than $700 billion dollars to bail out billionaires and bankers!! This swindle gives almost unlimited authority for doling out billions to Wall Street fat cats. This bailout bill is not geared to help working-class homeowners, workers in debt or our entire working class. Instead, it shifts the burden of the capitalist’s financial crisis unto the backs of the working class. The bailout of the banks is a bailout of the crisis-ridden system of capitalism. William Z. Foster of the Communist Party USA of yesteryear pointed out that capitalism is "legalized robbery of the working class." Financial crisis and the bailing out of billionaires and bankers is not capitalism "gone wrong." Bailing out bankers is not "socialism." It is the fullest expression of what capitalism really is.

The history of capitalism shows that the capitalist ruling class always tries to throw the burden of economic crisis unto the shoulders of the working class. We need a class struggle program to wage an organized fight to save Main Street not Wall Street. The demands of our protest on October 25 are: Bail Out Main Street Not Wall Street! Finance Projects Needed by the Working Class! Tax the Rich! For a Moratorium on Home Foreclosures and Evictions! Protect Workers’ Pensions and Savings! For a Law Against Plant Shutdowns! Nationalize Industry to Prevent Job Loss! Freeze all Workplace Closings and Job Layoffs! Stop Cuts in the Budgets of Social Programs! Slash the Military Budget!

Please feel free to make a sign with some of these slogans and bring it to the rally at 3:00 on Saturday, Oct. 25 at the Federal Reserve Bank, Minneapolis, 90 Hennepin Ave. downtown (by corner of Hennepin Avenue and N. 1st St.)!

Socialism is the final answer to the exploitation, terrors and hardship of rotting capitalism, breeder of crises and war. See our blog post: FAQ: What is Socialism?


(Karl Marx: 'In crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity--the epidemic of overproduction.')

FAQ: Socialism and Crime

Some preliminary words by the Marxist-Leninists Gus Hall and Henry Winston, former militants with the Communist Party USA, followed by a a picture by a prisoner of Black heroes behind bars, and then thoughts on crime and capitalism and socialism by William Z. Foster:

Our working class communities are all too often torn apart by anti-social crime. William Z. Foster once said that "capitalism, by its very nature, is a prolific breeder of crime." And Gus Hall, the former leader of the Communist Party USA, said that "Street crime--assaults on the property and persons of working and poor people--is a serious crime...

"Crime cannot be excused or justified. However, most street crime has its roots in poverty, hunger, frustration, anger and generations of unemployment...

"While deploring crime in the streets, we have to point the finger at the source of most big city crime--the big landlords and bankers (and) runaway corporations." Gus Hall also said that cuts in social and economic programs goes hand in hand with street crime. "Jobs, education, recreation and cultural centers are the only realistic, effective crime fighters." (Gus Hall, Fighting Racism, 1985, International Publishers)

We must also have an anti-racist approach to abolishing crime. American capitalism's criminal injustice system, with it's prison warehouses for the working class, is permeated by racism. Almost one million African-Americans are behind bars. In the U.S, black people comprise 13% of the population, but constitute half of the country’s prisoners. A tenth of all black men between 20 and 35 are in jail or prison; black workers are incarcerated at over eight times the white rate. We must, to use Henry Winston's words, "challenge the inhuman, racist character of the prison (and policing) system." (Henry Winston, Strategy for a Black Agenda, 1973, International Publishers)


(Picture by Charles Tatum from the Federal Correctional Institution in Sandstone, Minnesota of fighters for Black Liberation.)
William Z. Foster, a Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party USA, rightly said that:

"Capitalism, by its very nature, is a prolific breeder of crime. It is a system of legalized robbery of the working class. The whole process of capitalist business is a swindle and an armed hold-up. In capitalist society what constitutes crime and what does not is a purely arbitrary distinction. The capitalists do not recognize any line of demarcation for themselves. They do whatever they can 'get away with.' The record of every large fortune and big corporation in this country is smeared with brutal robbery of the workers...

"In a society where each grabs what he can at the expense of the rest, naturally the government offers a wide field of corruption...Such corruption is not a special condition, but of the very tissue of capitalism.

"It is not surprising that in a society where the aim is to get rich by any means, crime of every kind should flourish. Faced by low wages and other impossible economic conditions on the one hand and by the corrupt example of capitalism generally on the other, many naturally take the lives of open crime and try to seize at the point of the gun what the capitalist 'big shots' steal through exploiting the workers, by a corner on the stock exchange, or by corrupting the government. The main difference between their operations is primarily one of dimension. Al Capone is an altogether legitimate child of American capitalism, and it it no accident that he is an object of such widespread admiration...

"Socialism, by putting an end to capitalist exploitation, deals a mortal blow at crime of every description. The economic base of crime is destroyed. The worker is enabled to live and work under the best possible conditions. There is no place for human sharks to prey upon their fellow men. Not only does the abolition of capitalism destroy the basis of the so-called crimes against property, but the revolutionized economic and social conditions, involving an intelligent moral code and effective educational system, also greatly diminishes the 'crimes of passion'...

"Capitalism blames crime upon the individual, instead of upon the bad social conditions which produce it. Hence its treatment of crime is essentially one of punishment." And "capitalist prisons are actually schools of crime...

"Socialist criminology, on the other hand, attacks the bad social conditions. While the American (socialist) government will ruthlessly break up up the...gangs that brazenly infest all American cities and will also give short shrift to grafting politicians, its prison system will be essentially educational in character." (William Z. Foster, Towards Soviet America, 1932, International Publishers)

Soviet Union: Where Workers Had Power

Written especially for the Central Valley Communists blog:

Gus Hall, the former Marxist-Leninist leader of the Communist Party USA, said that the former Soviet Union was a society where workers had power. Gus Hall considered the Soviet Union as "the most powerful, successful and influential socialist society." He explained the Russian Socialist Revolution in a few words. "In 1917," Hall writes, "the working class of the Soviet Union decided they didn't need the owners who were getting richer while the people got poorer. In fact it was just this class of leeches that held back all social advances for working people. So the working people took over." (Gus Hall, "Where Workers Have Power," Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)

William Z. Foster, the Marxist-Leninist leader of the Communist Party USA preceding Hall, pointed out that "the Communist Party (was) the brain and heart and nerves of the Russian Revolution, and so it must be in any proletarian revolution." (William Z. Foster, Toward Soviet America, 1932, International Publishers)

And the ruling capitalist classes of the world freaked out! V.I. Lenin, great Communist leader of the Russian 1917 Socialist Revolution, answered their capitalist slanders of the Soviet Union eloquently. V.I. Lenin said: "for every hundred mistakes which we commit and which the bourgeoisie and their lackeys are dinning into the ears of the world, ten thousand great and heroic deeds are performed." (Lenin, Letter to American Workers, 1918)

In his book, Working Class USA, the American Communist Gus Hall exposes the capitalist lies about the Soviet Union. The former USSR was a society where, Gus Hall stated, "workers (had) power." John Eaton, in Political Economy, notes that: "Socialism is planned production for use on the basis of public ownership of the means of production." Leontyev said that "the building of socialism begins only after state power passes from the hands of the bourgeoisie into the hands of the working class." And socialism in the former USSR, Gus Hall wrote in an essay entitled "Where Workers (Had) Power," brought free education, medical and dental care. Employment was guaranteed and workers were the majority on all government bodies. The socialist economy guaranteed that there was no economic crisis or corporate capitalist profit. Racism and discrimination were outlawed as criminal offenses. Unions were a valued part of socialist society. There had been no unemployment in the Soviet Union since 1930. And all profits from production went to funds to provide for the mass welfare, paid vacations and housing for the Soviet people. (Gus Hall, "Where Workers Have Power," Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)



(V.I. Lenin: 'for every hundred mistakes which we commit and which the bourgeoisie and their lackeys are dinning into the ears of the world, ten thousand great and heroic deeds are performed.')

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels taught that communist society had two phases. Socialism, which Karl Marx referred to as "the first phase of communist society" is a transitional stage to highly developed communism, "a higher phase of communist society," where there is a classless social system and full social equality of all members of society. (Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875)

And socialism, "the first phase of communist society," in the former Soviet Union brought enormous gains to the working class. Gus Hall explained that the working class and unions, not the capitalists, called the shots in the former Soviet Union and socialist countries. "In the socialist countries," Gus Hall said, "workers are their own bosses. They are the real economic and political power. There is no drive for maximum private profits, there are no privately-owned corporations, and no tax shelters inducing companies to close plants and move to more profitable locations leaving human devastation in their wake...

"The basic truth is that it is only in a socialist society that trade unions acquire real political and economic power because they work, speak and act for the class in power--the working class...Under socialism people come first and profits are made to serve them." (Gus Hall, "Where Workers Have Power," Working Class USA, 1987, International Publishers)

William Z. Foster correctly said that "In a world thrown into deepening disorder and demoralization caused by the growing general crisis (of capitalism), the superiority of the system of planned socialist economy stands out like a great mountain!" (William Z. Foster, Toward Soviet America, 1932, International Publishers)

And V.I. Lenin was absolutely right that, with the birth of the Soviet Union, "a new era in world history has begun!" (Lenin, The Third International and It's Place In History, 1919)

Superb Books:

Daily Worker Labor Editor and Moscow Correspondent, George Morris, wrote Where Human Rights are Real.

Victor Perlo's excellent text Dynamic Stability: the Soviet Economy Today cited the 1977 Soviet Constitution.

Revolt with a Vote! Communist Candidates are a Must, Says Gus Hall.

Written especially for the Communist Party Discussion blog:

William Z. Foster, former Marxist-Leninist leader of the Communist Party USA and Communist presidential candidate, said that "The Republican party is the party of finance capital, of the great bankers and industrialists of Wall Street....From the Republican party no relief, but only a worsening of existing conditions may be expected." On the other hand, "the Democratic party is no less the party of the big capitalists." It is "the second party of capitalism" which has "a flood of demogogy to delude the masses and to prevent their taking steps against the capitalists by keeping them fettered with the two party capitalist system." (William Z. Foster, Towards Soviet America, 1932, International Publishers)

Nevertheless, Gus Hall, a later leader of the Communist Party USA and Communist presidential candidate, noted that Marxist-Leninists support "the defeat of the most reactionary anti-labor, racist and pro-war candidates." But he makes the point that "class collaboration in the field of politics is a sell out." (Gus Hall, Capitalism on the Skids to Oblivion, 1972, New Outlook Publishers)

Both Foster and Hall fought for a broad coalition against monopoly capitalism and looked forward to working-class political independence from the two parties of capitalism.


(Gus Hall: ’Communist candidates’ are ’a must.’)
Gus Hall said that Communist electoral candidates are a must and ran for president on the Communist Party USA ticket many times. He said, in Labor Up-Front, that Communist electoral candidates "stimulate" movements for political independence. They are "an indispensable element of the people’s anti-monopoly struggle." (Gus Hall, Labor Up-Front, 1979)

"Communist candidates, " Gus Hall said, are "a must." And he noted that "a presidential campaign presents a unique opportunity to speak to millions of our people." Hall continued: "It is an opportunity to influence--and yes, to change--the thought patterns of great numbers. It is an opportunity to present our (Communist) Party, our program and positions to the majority of our people. It is an opportunity to take on the ideological challenge of Big Lie anti-Communism." (Gus Hall, For Peace, Jobs, Equality, 1983, New Outlook Publishers)

Drawing from experience, Gus Hall said that Communist electoral candidates have an opportunity to "struggle against racism, " "to speak to millions about socialism, about nationalization and public takeover" and "expose state monopoly capitalism in every area of life." And "without Communist participation as candidates many issues will never be discussed, debated or even raised, such as: the crisis of capitalism...corporate profits (and) socialism." (Gus Hall, For Peace, Jobs, Equality, 1983, New Outlook Publishers)

But, arguing against Communists who minimize the importance of Communist electoral candidates, Hall boldly states that "abandoning the electoral arena is liquidationism." "Some may argue, " Gus Hall said, "that we can be a factor in the election campaign from the sidelines, without fielding (Communist electoral) candidates. That is not a serious argument. During election campaigns people listen to candidates--their positions, platform, statements, promises, etc." (Gus Hall, For Peace, Jobs, Equality, 1983, New Outlook Publishers)

And Hall exposes the content of the arguments from other Communists against Communist electoral candidates. "For some reason, " he said, "the necessity of running Communist candidates in election campaigns is not self-evident in our Party...In essence, the questions raised are very similar to the ones raised against the concept of a Communist public presence, or the arguments one hears against the Party being an action-oriented organization. They are also very similar to arguments against integrating the Communist essence into our mass work. All the arguments have a familiar liquidationist ring." Gus Hall brings down the liquidationist line when he boldly declares that "to give up the Party’s electoral activity is to retreat before the class enemy’s political pressures and the legal obstacles they place." (Gus Hall, For Peace, Jobs, Equality, 1983, New Outlook Publishers)

FAQ: On Socialism and Personal Property

Please also see previous post: FAQ: What is Socialism?

Will socialism take away your toothbrush (or home and VCR)? No. Will socialism seize the means of production--the land, factories, mills, mines, transport--from the capitalists? Yes.

Both Karl Marx and Gus Hall had things to say about this.

Marx and Engels said, in the Communist Manifesto, that: "Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriation." (Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto, 1848)

Gus Hall, the former Marxist-Leninist leader of the Communist Party USA, explained Marx and Engels' thinking when he answered this question in 1977: "I worked hard to buy a home. If socialism comes to this country would I lose it? Would it become the property of the state?"

Hall answered: "What is good for the people is socialism. Socialism is the most people oriented society in all of history. What is good for the people is the basic guideline to all questions about socialism.

"This year the handful of major stockholders and the banks who own General Motors are going to pocket the hog's share of about $4 or $5 billion dollars of what is referred to as profits. And the president of G.M. will take almost $1 million in what is called a salary. Grand larceny is a more accurate description!

"This is done by picking the pockets of GM workers. That is not good for the GM workers or the people. What happens in GM is what happens in all of the big industries throughout our country. That is the very essence of capitalism. That is why socialism will turn the GM complex into public property. That is why socialism will transfer all of the privately owned industrial properties, the railroads, bus lines, utilities, mines, TV and radio networks, the banks, telephone and the big agri-businesses into socially owned and operated complexes...

"Socialism will not permit anyone to get rich by exploiting other people.

"The propagandists of big business have always tried to frighten people with the falsehood that socialism will take away our homes, our cars and our babies. Socialism will do nothing of the kind. There will be some exceptions, however. For example there are a few mansions around Tarrytown, N.Y., one of which is the Rockefeller’s. That will be taken over because it is not in the interests of the people to permit a few to waste all that potential housing space.

"The land and the operation of the big agri-corporations will be turned into state-owned and people-operated agri-complexes. The people who have small farms and lots will continue to operate them as long as they want to.

"So, my friends, enjoy your homes and cars. Join in the movement for socialism and be assured you will not have to give these things up, because what is good for the people is socialism." (Gus Hall, Basics, 1980, International Publishers)

Main Street Not Wall Street! Communists Fight Back!

Brothers and Sisters,

Working class Americans are grappling with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s and with the Bush Administration’s demand that they hand over $700 billion of their hard-earned tax dollars to bail out Wall Street. No Bailouts for Billionaires!

Since many folks are comparing the capitalist crisis of today with the Great Depression, the great economic crisis of 1929-1933, it’s worth a look at those days. We should note that the Communist Party of the United States was a leader in the fight-back against unemployment, evictions and wage cuts.

William Z. Foster, former Marxist-Leninist leader of the Communist Party USA, wrote that: "The golden era of ’permanent prosperity’ in the United States was brought to a sudden end by the terrific stock-market crash of October 1929. This was accompanied by a headlong fall in all spheres of the national economy, a decline which continued without let-up for the next four years. Over $160 billion in stock-market values were wiped out, basic industry production sank by 50 percent, 5,761 banks failed, and the value of farm products fell from $8.5 billion to $4 billion. Wage cuts for all industries ran to at least 45 percent. By 1933 some 17 million workers were walking the streets unemployed, and many millions more were on part time...

"The crisis was one of overproduction--an explosion of the basic capitalist internal antagonism between the private ownership of industry and the social character of production. That is, rapidly expanding production had far outrun the limited power of the capitalist markets to absorb this output, owing to the systematic exploitation of the toiling masses by the robber capitalists. This condition was accentuated by the anarchy of capitalist production. Hence the general economic glut and violent crisis catastrophe resulted.

"The cyclical crisis was far and away the most severe in the history of world capitalism, in its depth, duration and universality. This exceptional severity was due to the fact that the breakdown took place within the framework of the deepening crisis of the world capitalist system....

"With the outbreak of the economic crisis the bourgeoisie immediately embarked upon the same course that it had following all previous crises; namely, to unload the burden of the economic breakdown upon the shoulders of the workers and poorer farmers. Without the slightest concern for the welfare of their wage slaves, out of whose labor they had amassed their fortunes, the capitalists proceeded to throw millions of workers out on the streets without any relief, much less unemployment insurance...

"There was only one party in the United States from which leadership could and did come for the unemployed--the Communist Party." (William Z. Foster, History of the Communist Party of the United States, 1952, International Publishers)

The Communist Party USA led and participated the mass struggles during the Great Depression, the great economic crisis of 1929-1933, for unemployment insurance. The Communists fought for public work at union wages, against housing evictions and wage cuts and racism. They demanded food for school children.



(Police attack a Hunger March organized by the Unemployed Councils in 1931. Carl Winter said that ’The thrust of the Unemployed Councils, under Communist leadership and influence, was to place both the responsibility and the burden for relief upon the government and the employers.’)

Carl Winter, Communist leader of the Unemployed Councils in NY and one of the organizers of the National Hunger Marches of the 1930s points out that before the Communists could conduct and lead the mass struggles during the Great Depression, "the Party first had to settle accounts with Right-opportunist forces within its own leadership who refused to assume the responsibilities of a vanguard party of the working class." He said that the expulsion of a revisionist leadership and their small band of supporters "was accompanied by a new turn to the masses and serious efforts to organize for the solution of their most pressing problems." (Carl Winter, "Unemployment Struggles of the Thirties," in Bart, Highlights of a Fighting History, 1979, International Publishers)

William Z. Foster, former Marxist-Leninist leader of the Communist Party USA, said that we must "turn towards socialism. For that is the only final answer to the many basic contradictions which produce the terrors and hardships of rotting capitalism." He added that "the capitalist system has become hopelessly obsolete and reactionary. It must be replaced by socialism." (William Z. Foster, History of the Communist Party of the United States, 1952, International Publishers)

Celebrate the 160th Anniversary of the Communist Manifesto!

Brothers and Sisters,

The year 2008 marks the 160th anniversary of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels’ excellent book Communist Manifesto. William Z. Foster, the former Marxist-Leninist leader of the Communist Party USA, wrote that:

"The Communist Manifesto was the first revolutionary program of the world’s workers. It laid down the solid foundations of proletarian thought and action for the workers thenceforth on their road to socialism. It showed them how to protect themselves under capitalism, how to abolish the capitalist system, and how to build the structure of the new socialist society. Marx, Engels, V.I. Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and others were to write many books on Marxism in the ensuing decades, and their writings served to elaborate and to buttress the basic propositions of the Manifesto. Today, (160) years after the great document was written, the Communist Manifesto stands as firm as a rock, a clear guide for the international working class, justified by generations of revolutionary experience, and altogether impervious to the attacks of capitalist enemies." (William Z. Foster, History of the Three Internationals, 1955, International Publishers)


(Marx, Engels and Lenin)

Lenin, the great successor of Marx and Engels, summed up the significance of the Communist Manifesto:

"With the clarity and brilliance of genius, this work outlines a new world-conception, consistent materialism, which also embraces the realm of social life; dialectics, as the most comprehensive and profound doctrine of development; the theory of the class struggle and the world-historic revolutionary role of the proletariat--the creator of a new, communist society." (Lenin, Karl Marx, 1914)

And Lenin could add, with every justification: "This little booklet is worth whole volumes." (Lenin, Frederick Engels, 1895)

FAQ: What is Socialism?

Required Reading: The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx & Frederick Engels.

What is socialism? Below is an introductory but hard-hitting article. But, to start with, here is a soundbite answer for a Marxist-Leninist definition of socialism: A society where the working class holds commands state power and the working class and masses of the people owns the principal means of production--the mines, the mills and the factories--and planned production is carried on for use and not for capitalist profit.


(V.I. Lenin)
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels mentioned that communist society had two phases. Socialism, which Karl Marx referred to as "the first phase of communist society" is a transitional stage to highly developed communism, "a higher phase of communist society," where there is a classless social system and full social equality of all members of society. (Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875)

Maurice Cornforth writes in Historical Materialism that: "Socialism means the establishment of new relations of production, a new economic basis for society, namely, the social ownership of the principal means of production." (Maurice Cornforth, Historical Materialism, 1972, Second Printing, International Publishers)

John Eaton, author of the Marxist book Political Economy, notes that:the "two basic ingredients of socialism as a mode of production" are "(economic) planning and public ownership of the means of production." (John Eaton, Political Economy, 1966, International Publishers)

Eaton says that "the basis of a socialist economy is publically owned means of production, which are used according to a social plan to meet the needs of the community....Socialist production is governed by a plan, consciously conceived and co-ordinated to meet the needs of the community...

"Socialism as an economic system can best be defined by noting the respects in which socialism as a mode of production is the 'opposite' of capitalism. Socialism is planned production for use on the basis of public ownership of the means of production. Capitalism is commodity production for private profit on the basis of private ownership of the means of production.

"The essential respects in which capitalism is the 'opposite' of socialism can be contrasted as follows:

"The regulating principle of capitalism is 'the market' (commodity exchange). The regulating principle of socialism is the 'social plan.'

"The motivating force of capitalism is profit. The motivating force of socialism is the satisfaction of needs.

"The property basis of capitalism is the private ownership of capital. The property basis of socialism is the public ownership of the means of production.

"The political basis of capitalism is the dominance of the wealthy--viz. the owners of capital. The political basis of socialism is the rule of the working people, with their mass organizations playing a major role in government and administration." (John Eaton, Political Economy, 1985, International Publishers)

Maurice Cornforth says that "in capitalist society, the means of production--the land, factories, mills, mines, transport--belong to the capitalists, and production is carried on for capitalist profit. But the essence of socialism is that the means of production become social property, and that, on the basis of social ownership, production is carried on for the benefit of the whole of society.

"With socialism, production is no longer undertaken for profit, but for the sake of producing what people need. The primary consideration is to raise the standards of the people. Production is not carried on for profit but to satisfy the material and cultural requirements of society. And this is ensured because the means of production, all the means of creating wealth, are taken out of the control of a capitalist minority, whose concern is it's own profit, and come under the control of the working people themselves." (Maurice Cornforth, Historical Materialism, 1972, Second Printing, International Publishers)

But "the socialist mode of production cannot develop gradually and within the framework of capitalist society but first requires the winning of political power--that is, State power--by the working class and the masses of the people."(John Eaton, Political Economy, 1985, International Publishers)

Socialism requires the dictatorship of the proletariat. What is the dictatorship of the proletariat? It is, as Otto Kuusinen said, "(state and political ) power in the hands of working people, led by the working class and having as its aim the building of socialism." (Otto Kuusinen, Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow)

Afanasyev wrote that "all previous types of state were tools of the exploiting classes used for the subjection of the working people and designed to reinforce the system of exploitation and to perpetuate the division of society into oppressors and oppressed. The dictatorship of the proletariat, however, is the rule of the working class which...destroys capitalism and builds a new society, a society without exploitation." (Afanasyev, Marxist Philosophy, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow)

Indeed, "the dictatorship of the proletariat is the crux of Marxism." (Afanasyev, Marxist Philosophy, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow)

Socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat expands democracy for working people. On the other hand, a dictatorship is exercised over the capitalists, exploiters and reactionaries so they may not bring a return of their filth and the system of capitalism. V.I. Lenin said "simultaneously with an immense expansion of democracy, which for the first time becomes democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the money-bags, the dictatorship of the proletariat imposes a series of restrictions on the freedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, the capitalists. We must suppress them in order to free humanity from wage slavery." (Lenin, State and Revolution, 1917)

A Forum to Save the St. Paul Ford Plant!!

Brothers and Sisters, we invite you to attend a forum about the St. Paul Ford Plant sponsored by the Climate Crisis Coalition of the Twin Cities (3CTC).

3CTC ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM ON PROPOSALS TO SAVE THE ST. PAUL FORD PLANT

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 7:00 PM

MAYDAY BOOKS

301 CEDAR AVENUE SOUTH (corner of Washington Ave. & Cedar)

WEST BANK, MINNEAPOLIS

We are proud that a member of the Gus Hall Action Club will be one of the speakers at this forum. Gus Hall said "people have to see us, to hear us, to talk to us and to struggle with us--as Communists, as a Communist club." (Gus Hall, For Peace, Jobs, Equality) V.I. Lenin pointed out, in What Is To Be Done?, that Communist consciousness must be brought to the working class. More than ever it must be asserted that "Marxism-Leninism has not grown old and never will"! (Ponomarev, Marxism-Leninism: A Flourishing Science, 1979, International Publishers)

We in the Gus Hall Action Club have also advanced a solution to the crisis of the looming threat of the St. Paul Ford Plant's closure. The Ford Plant should be taken over by the government and run by and on behalf of the workers and the community! And anybody who says that we shouldn’t be raising such an advanced demand as nationalization and public ownership the Ford Plant should read these words by Gus Hall: "It is necessary to project the idea of transferring the industries and banks from private to public ownership through the process of nationalization. The crisis has placed the need for nationalization on the order of the day." (Gus Hall, Basics, 1980, International Publishers)


SPEAKERS AT THE 3CTC ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM ON PROPOSALS TO SAVE THE ST. PAUL FORD PLANT

Michael Wood—Gus Hall Action Club

Alan Maki—Organizer, Director of Organizing,Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

Christine Frank—Volunteer Coordinator, Climate Crisis Coalition of the Twin Cities

David Riehle—Local Chairman, United Transportation Union 650

Forum sponsored by the Climate Crisis of the Twin Cities. Free and open to the public. For more information, e-mail: christinefrank@visi.com or call: 612-879-8937

Gus Hall and the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934

Check out our updated article: Red Heroes of the 1934 Minneapolist Teamsters Strike: Gus Hall & the CPUSA

Trotsky is NOT a Communist Hero

Gus Hall made no bones about it: "Trotskyites, followers of Leon Trotsky, habitually employ splitting tactics in people's movements and promote anti-Communism in pseudo-radical guise!" (Fighting Racism, 1984)

Brothers and Sisters,

The influence of bourgeois propaganda, the lack of availability of authentic Marxist-Leninist books and the influence of revisionism in the Communist movement (see previous posts for a definition of revisionism) has produced a situation where some folks mistakenly believe that Trotsky was a Communist hero. It ain't so. "(Trotsky's) policies," William Z. Foster, former leader of the Communist Party USA, said "would have been fatal to the Russian Revolution and would have brought about the restoration of capitalism in Russia." William Z. Foster explains, in History of the Three Internationals, that:

"Trotsky, whose whole history stamped him as an unstable petty-bourgeois radical and who did not join up with the Bolsheviks until 1917, was a confirmed factionalist and opportunist. Even after he joined the party he continued his opposition to Lenin on many points. When Lenin was in his final illness, during the autumn of 1923, Trotsky made a bid to capture the leadership of the Communist Party. He gathered together the several small opposition groups than in the party and issued an oppositional program, the 'Declaration of the Forty-Six.' The substance of this was to accuse the party leadership of gross bureaucracy, to instigate the youth against the party, to pronounce the N.E.P. a complete retreat, to demand freedom to build factional groupings, to condemn the party for the defeat of the German and Hungarian revolutions, to blame the many economic difficulties upon party mismanagement, and to pronounce the Russian Revolution itself in a state of 'Thermidorian degeneration.'

"It devolved upon Stalin to lead the party fight against this disruptive opposition, and he was to prove brilliantly capable of the task...Stalin, a profound Marxist and a relentless fighter, ideologically shattered the Trotsky case, and at the 13th conference of the party in January 1924, the opposition was condemned overwhelmingly as a 'petty-bourgeois deviation from Marxism.' During this fight Stalin produced his great book, The Foundations of Leninism, which played a big part in the controversy.



(William Z. Foster: Stalin was 'one of the greatest fighters ever produced by the world's working class')

"The defeated Trotsky, tongue-in-cheek, pledged himself to abide by the party decision, a pledge which, however, he immediately began to violate.

"Shortly afterward, the party...was confronted with the basic problem of defining its perspective. Stalin, in early 1925, met this tremendous theoretical task magnificently. He declared, and the Central Committee backed him up, that Soviet Russia possessed all the requirements for the building of socialism. Lenin had previously indicated the possibility, if need be, of building socialism in one country, Russia. Stalin's formulation was a bold departure from commonly held Marxist opinion, which was that in order to make the construction of socialism possible it would be necessary for the workers simultaneously to gain political power in several countries.

"Stalin's basic statement immediately drew fire from the adventurer Trotsky, who came forth with what he called the theory of 'permanent revolution.' Trotsky categorically denied the possibility of constructing socialism in Russia alone. He proposed, instead, an intensification of revolutionary struggle at home against the peasantry (all categories) and war abroad against the bourgeois governments. The fate of the Russian Revolution was at stake in this historic discussion. Stalin succeeded in making the party understand that Trotsky's line would have meant the overthrow of the Soviet government and the end of the Revolution. As a result, at the 14th party conference, April 1925, Trotsky's policy was defeated and Stalin's overwhelmingly endorsed. Again Trotsky agreed to abide by the party decision, but did not." (William Z. Foster, History of the Three Internationals, 1955)

William Z. Foster points out that Trotsky and his friend Zinoviev and their handful of supporters, held "a street demonstration against the party on November 7," 1927.



(William Z. Foster, former leader of the Communist Party USA)

In another book, History of the Communist Party of the United States, Foster says that:

"For several years prior to the sixth Comintern congress Trotskyism, which Lenin had long fought, had become a malignant pest in the Soviet Union. Leon Trotsky, always an opportunist and adventurer, made a reckless grab for the leadership of the Communist Party after the death of Lenin in 1924. The substance of his 'ultra-revolutionary' program was the provocation of civil war against the peasantry as a whole and the unfolding of aggressive foreign policy that could have only resulted in bringing about a war between the capitalist powers and the Soviet Union. His policies to force such an artificial revolution would have been fatal to the Russian Revolution and would have brought about the restoration of capitalism in Russia.

"The Soviet people wanted none of Trotsky's destructive program...At the time of the sixth congress of the Comintern, Trotsky was in exile, as a criminal against the Revolution." (William Z. Foster, History of the Communist Party of the United States, 1952)

And Trotsky became anti-Soviet to the core. "Trotsky, who had been expelled from the Soviet Union in 1929, organized abroad the 'Fourth International' in 1933, which was composed of skeleton groups in many countries. Among its other counter-revolutionary activities, it openly advocated the violent overthrow of the Russian Communist Party leadership and of the Soviet government." (William Z. Foster, History of the Three Internationals, 1955)

We warmly encourage people to read Olgin's Trotskyism: Counter-Revolution in Disguise.

http://marxists.org/archive/olgin/1935/trotskyism/index.htm

Enjoy the 1939 book authorized by the Central Committee of the CPSU: History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks).

Picketline During the RNC to Save the St. Paul Ford Plant and Union Jobs Through Public Ownership of the Plant!

People Before Profits! Save the St. Paul, Minnesota Ford Plant through Public Ownership of the Plant! Stop Union Busting!

Picketline During the RNC to Save the Ford Plant and Union Jobs Through Public Ownership of the Plant!

Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008, 3:00-6:00 pm, Ford's Twin Cities Assembly Plant, Ford Parkway and Cretin Ave., St. Paul, Minnesota



The scourge of plant closings across the U.S. has created a crisis for the working class. Here in Minnesota, as in the rest of the nation, Ford CEOs don't make decisions based upon anything other than maximum profits. Ford wants to weaken and bust unions. Job security for auto workers is not a consideration. Ford announced that it would be closing the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant in 2008 and coerced many members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union to accept buy-out packages. Ford's profits jumped as workers were laid off and the union was kicked in the teeth. Now, Ford has announced that the plant will remain open a few more years. The threat of plant closure and the unemployment of more than a thousand workers still looms.

Enough is enough. The time has come to nationalize the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and guarantee union power and job security by operating it under public ownership. Ford is not entitled to any compensation. The working class has subsidized Ford's manufacturing at the St. Paul Ford Plant for years. We say: "What the tax-payers finance, taxpayers should own!" The St. Paul Ford Plant should be taken over by the government and run by and on behalf of the workers and the community.

Gus Hall, former leader of the Communist Party USA, said at a 1979 People Before Profits rally at Cobo Hall in Detroit, MI., that "workers...have an absolute right--even a duty--to tell the profit mongers: ’This is our city. These are our plants. Here is where we make a living and raise our children. And come h*ll or high water here is where we’re gonna stay. One way or another, these plants will not close.’...

"There is nothing wrong or illegal in the government taking over these plants because there is one sacred and inalienable right that supersedes all others. And that is the right of the people to make a living--to be able to eat, pay rent, raise and educate their children." (Gus Hall, The Working Class Answer to the Deepening Crisis, 1979)

Marxism-Leninism and Art, Culture and Class Struggle

Brothers and Sisters,

I warmly point out that one Marxist recently objected to Bertholt Brecht's statement that "art is a hammer with which to shape reality." This Marxist called Brecht's comment "almost obscene" and said "oh when will we learn to appreciate and engage something so gentle and so moving and so profound as our creative selves." It is interesting to note that "revisionists attack the Marxist-Leninist principle of partisanship in art." And they have in the past "opposed the guidance of art by the Communist Party." (Afanasyev, Marxist Philosophy, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow)

What is the Marxist-Leninist view of the "diverse kinds of art: poetry and fiction, theatre, music, the cinema, architecture, painting sculpture"? "In a class society art bears a class character, it is partisan. There is no ’pure art, ’ no ’art for art’s sake, ’ nor can there be any. The accessibility, the great power of conviction and emotional influence of art make it an important weapon of the class struggle. That is why classes exploit art as a vehicle of their political, moral and other ideas...

"Contemporary bourgeois art, for example, serves the reactionary imperialist forces. It seeks to divert the working people from struggle against the exploiters...Bourgeois art is employed to glorify the capitalist order of things..." (Afanasyev, Marxist Philosophy, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow)

Whereas "a qualitatively new, socialist art has arisen on the basis of the revolutionary struggle of the working class and its advance to communism. Socialist art assimilates the best from progressive art of the past and constitutes a higher stage in the development of art corresponding to the new conditions. Socialist realism is the creative method of this art." Socialist realism's basic principles are "kinship with the people (and) partisanship and bold pioneering in the artistic portrayal of life." And "the organic ties of socialist art with the people, their life and work are unprecendented...Socialist realism is conspicous by its profound socialist content." (Afanasyev, Marxist Philosophy, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow)



’Art (is)...an an important weapon of the class struggle.’

Gus Hall, the former leader of the Communist Party USA, would agree with the statement that "each class creates an art that corresponds to its class interests and aesthetic requirements." (Afanasyev, Marxist Philosophy, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow)

"Culture," Gus Hall wrote in Power of Ideology, "is used by the ruling class as a potent weapon." And "culture, both bourgeois and working class, influences people on an unconscious level. It influences from the inside of developments. No one says 'this is bourgeois culture' or 'this is working class culture.' There are no tags on the outside. Nevertheless, there is a very clear, distinct difference between the two." (Gus Hall, Power of Ideology, 1989, New Outlook Publishers)

Hall continues: "Some have indicated that we should not try to use our ideology to influence cultural developments. But this is an integral part of the ideological struggle--to influence thought patterns...

"The ideological struggle in the field of culture is very sharp. It takes place on the stage, the screen, in music, art and poetry. It pervades fiction and non-fiction, especially history.

"Culture is also influenced by aesthetics, concepts of beauty, color and form. But the more basic influence is the struggle between the two ideologies (capitalist and working class). Yes, we take sides in this struggle, as we do in other areas." (Gus Hall, Power of Ideology, 1989, New Outlook Publishers)