-
Steve Biko
“The truth
must not only be the truth. It must be
told.”
-
Fidel Castro
“Radical
simply means grasping things by the root.”
-
Angela Davis
The construction of socialism in the context
of an advanced capitalist economy is qualitatively different from the class
struggles taking place in the superexploited nations of the Third World. In an environment overrun by marketing and
illusion, the quest for genuine reality has become a subculture in its own
right in the countries of the Global North.
In a society where capitalism is reliant primarily on the purchase and
consumption of cheaply produced imported goods from the Global South, this is
hardly surprising. First World workers
are expected mainly to consume, not produce, and, to this end, they are
extended practically limitless consumer credit and encouraged to engage in
deficit spending to buy the commodities that the advertising industry insists
will make them happy, glamorous, desirable, cool, and sophisticated. Commodity
fetishism is a multi-billion dollar industry, and it follows that if we want to
escape from its all-pervasive propaganda and build a reality free from external
manipulation, we must embrace class struggle and engage in the building of
socialism. Without the removal of the
material conditions of the capitalist system there can be no escape from the
illusions it creates to perpetuate itself.
As Antonio Gramsci insisted, the working class must carve out physical
and cultural space for itself. Reality
must be conquered, defined, and asserted at every level of society by the class
conscious proletariat in defiance of the normative universe of propaganda that
profit-seeking capitalism tries to force it to inhabit.
As Marx made clear in The Communist Manifesto, modern conceptions of property are the
result of “the antagonism of capital and wage labor”.[1] In spite of official efforts to downplay and
even outright deny its existence, the class-based nature of capitalist society
is impossible to hide: the working class is essential to the economic elites,
for “who else is there to produce the wealth of nations?” It is for this reason
that the “perennial problem” of politics in capitalist states, as Mark
Neocleous argues, is how to “politically manage” the proletariat so that this restive
but necessary part of the market economy does not get out of hand.[2] This “management” has been characterized by
reactionary propaganda, involving everything from racism to virulent
nationalism to a free-market populism that glories “opportunity” and those who
can “make it”.
However, one of the most insidious ways that
advanced capitalism “manages” the proletariat reveals itself in the massive
effort made by the advertising industry to convince people that happiness is
equated with brand name products and their acquisition. This is what Marx called “commodity
fetishism”. Goods become indicators of
individual status and prestige as opposed to being valued for their usefulness
and practicality. Something akin to a
consumer arms race ensues where status oriented people try to acquire those
goods that are seen as indicators of status: an SUV, a large pick-up truck, a
plasma television set and so on. Even
those who are not very status oriented will still get involved and spend money
in significant quantities in order to retain a "respectable" living
standard; which requires buying into status-conferring goods. Thus advanced capitalist society is caught up
in a cycle of consumption and consumer debt.
This process can only be described as a trap
for proletarians. Capitalist consumer
culture encourages working people to attempt to imitate the tastes of the
capitalist elite and they adapt their lives and spending habits to reflect
this. Progressive economist Thorstein
Veblen described how social status is subject to “diminishing marginal utility”
meaning that the less status one has, the more one is often willing to pay to gain
it. Affluent people who already possess
wealth and status are unlikely to take major risks or make any great sacrifices
to get more. The working classes, on the
other hand, exposed to a constant stream of capitalist propaganda and immersed
in culture of consumerism, often are willing to take such risks.[3]
This is especially true today among the petty-bourgeois elements of
Western society, who are now struggling to maintain their “middle class” status
in the wake of the welfare state’s collapse.
Of course, the minimum of what is considered
to be a decent standard of living constantly escalates, making greater demands
on the poor to keep up or be considered losers and failures. Proletarians continue paying what Steve
Salerno describes as a “vanity tax” (the difference between what a product
actually costs in functional terms and what it ends up costing when status is
factored in), in order to keep up with the vanity of others wealthier than
themselves.[4] The
process of buying and selling becomes elevated until it becomes not an aspect
of society but indeed becomes a society unto itself. Mark Kingwell describes the totality of the
commodification that characterizes a society that has reached the higher stages
of capitalism: “The final triumph of an affluent society is not mere
consumption of goods but a total identification between consumption and the
self in the form of the consumer.”[5]
Needless to say this mentality fits in nicely with the profit motive and the
capitalist imperative of making workers work longer and harder for less and
less – flashy consumerism conceals the brutal reality of systemic exploitation.[6]
Working class and oppressed people can only
begin to build autonomy when they have distanced themselves from this system
that forces them to think like petty capitalists. This requires the construction of material
environments where working people can begin to control their own lives. The building of proletarian institutions in
working class communities based on providing food, employment, education,
healthcare, childcare and similar essential services will be indispensible
particularly in Western nations where the welfare state is collapsing and where
chronic unemployment and underemployment, particularly among youth, is the
order of the day.
As the capitalist system undergoes repeated
crises and the ruling class pushes the cost of these crises down onto the backs
of working class and oppressed people, the only option will be for proletarians
to help one another to the point of building their own economic enterprises and
cooperatives to locally produce goods and materials that the community needs
while providing employment for local people.
Considered expendable throwaways by the capitalist system, unemployed
and semi-employed proletarians will increasingly have to band together in order
to create collective employment opportunities for themselves and in so doing
build new proletarian communities and cultures; viewing themselves collectively
as “being part of a big family working, playing, and living together in the
struggle”.[7] Out
of necessity, they will learn to control their own affairs and their own lives. This is how socialism will rebuild its historical
presence in the Western countries where capitalism is in decay.
The revolutionary vanguard organization must
be involved in this process and ensure that it develops as a generalized push
for working class control over society – ensuring that workers see the beauty
and experience the empowerment of socialism “through their daily practice while
involving themselves in the program”.[8] This collective self-employment by workers
must not be done for its own sake, but as “survival programs” that, in Black Panther
Party co-founder Huey P. Newton’s words “satisfy the deep needs of the community but they
are not solutions to our problems”:
That is
why we call them survival programs, meaning survival pending revolution. We say
that the survival program of the Black Panther Party is like the survival kit
of a sailor stranded on a raft. It helps him to sustain himself until he can
get completely out of that situation. So the survival programs are not answers
or solutions, but they will help us to organize the community around a true
analysis and understanding of their situation. When consciousness and
understanding is raised to a high level then the community will seize the time
and deliver themselves from the boot of their oppressors.[9]
Capitalism, as the 2008 recession showed so
blatantly, has no intention of employing everyone; indeed it depends on the
“reserve army of labor” in order to depress wages and has no problem existing
in a society with chronically high unemployment where workers compete fiercely
with one another for even the most menial jobs.
Capitalism cannot offer everyone a decent job with a living wage, only
socialism can do this, and as such, only the construction of socialism can
ensure working class wellbeing, and all measures must be taken to mobilize
workers toward this end.
Worker-run enterprises, like all other
measures to alleviate working class suffering, must be part of this process but
they must be political, democratic and coordinated with an eye to building the
conditions for revolution. Just as the
Panthers did for the programs they set up, these proletarian institutions
should have a “people’s advocate” from the revolutionary vanguard organization
who can address the individual problems faced by the workers and their
families, whether these are problems of paying the rent, finding affordable
clothing or food, and so on.[10] Workers must educated in the class struggle
and learn to stand in solidarity in the face of all reactionary attempts to
divide them along sectarian lines. The
revolutionary vanguard organization must always be there for them and form an
integral part of their lives and communities.
As working people and revolutionary
organizations adapt to the reality of capitalism in decay, every effort must be
made to demolish the pervasive capitalist propaganda that so many take for
granted. To simulate how a socialist
society will work, working class organizations, cooperatives, community
centers, youth groups, and similar elements of the proletarian movement should
provide people free access to networks, databases, even gaming consoles,
without charging anything for the privilege while consistently pointing out how
under capitalism these things are sealed off and denied access to all those who
cannot pay. In this way, we can reveal
the lies and double-standards of the capitalist system while defiantly treating
information as common property and as a common resource. If we adopt such measures than socialism in
practice will be seen to defy bourgeois stereotypes about censorship and
cultural stagnation.[11] Instead, young people in particular will come
to view socialism as a vibrant, accessible, and fun alternative to the
profit-driven economics of the capitalist marketplace. In short, to win the hearts and minds of
First World youth, as well as the hearts and minds of an increasing number of
youths in the Third World exposed to Western pop culture, we must make
communism cool.
There is nothing silly or foolish about trying
to make communism cool, it is an absolute necessity in a modern world dominated
by instant communication and all-pervasive media which children are exposed to
from an extremely young age. Hollywood
has often been labelled the “dream factory”, a perfect machine for
disseminating the capitalist morality and worldview across the planet. In this regard it is so effective and
pervasive that it is fully capable of communicating the essentials of this
morality and worldview to a three year old child. Even before they are literate, a child in a
capitalist country all too often knows exactly what it is that they want to be:
a flawlessly beautiful and wealthy princess or a Hollywood style action hero
saving helpless people from stereotypical villains and bad guys. Nor is this identification confined to the
West. Impoverished kids in cities like
Rio de Janeiro literally will kill one another and others for the possession of
smart phones and other luxury items considered status symbols by the capitalist
system. As Carolyn Stephens has pointed
out, these kids, like so many people in the Third World, have been sold the
myth of the “American Dream” to the extent that they are willing to rob and
kill each other for a piece of what the media tells them is so essential for
prosperity and happiness. This is
happening to such an extent in some places that overall life expectancy among
youths is actually declining in cities like Rio de Janeiro due to commercially
fueled violence in the pursuit of a capitalist dream that is neither
sustainable nor possible.[12] Already they have assimilated the basic
values of the class system, and it is killing them.
Communism currently has no answer to this
colossal propaganda machine, just as it had no real answer during the Cold War
when the youth of the Soviet Union and other Eastern European states began to
embrace the capitalist worldview through idealized Hollywood imagery.[13]
Unless communism can be made accessible to a pre-literate three year old child
there will be no hope for revolution, not only in the privileged countries of
the Global North but in many Third World nations as well where capitalist media
overwhelmingly frames popular discourse and morality. The success of the “revolutionary art” that
the Black Panthers used extensively to illustrate the nature of class struggle
and anti-colonial resistance to young and semi-literate working class
African-Americans is an example that all communist movements must learn from
and develop to new heights through the use of digital media.[14] Proletarian
class consciousness, along with the consciousness of oppressed people, must be furthered
through the use of every form of media and every type of literature.
Nonetheless, reaching the masses with such a
message under the conditions of advanced capitalism is no easy task. Alienation is a reality under capitalism and
there are countless ways in which capitalism isolates and tears human beings
apart – destroying the collective power of working class people and rendering
them weak and naked before their exploiters.
Capitalist media, particularly in the privileged high-tech context of
the modern West, provides people with innumerable “small worlds” in which to
hide or take refuge in when they want to escape the pain of the big real world
outside: gaming, movies, sports, gambling, pornography, and other activities
and diversions too numerous to count, many of which form the basis of entire
industries.
Given the insulation of Western society and
the compartmentalization of its people into little worlds governed by hobbies,
interests, fetishes, and the like, many, even many poverty-stricken
proletarians, do not feel a sense of immediacy with regard to the need for
radical and systemic change. Indeed
there exist ready-made small worlds that promise the panacea of radical
“change” without sacrifice to the frustrated and idealistic elements of
capitalist society: selling them marketable “solutions” from ethical
consumption to crypto-currencies to downshifting to eastern mysticism.[15] Concern over carbon emissions has been
adopted as a distinct “alternative” to class struggle among those affluent
Western activists who can afford to hold such compartmentalized views of the
world. Such alienation is only possible
in the context of advanced capitalism in decay, where consumerist ideas have
been transferred to the political realm and transformed into commodities. Only in such a hyper-individualistic market-driven
environment do the libertarians, “hacktivists”, and “one-person-crusaders”
become possible.[16]
Under capitalism, rebellion itself becomes
commodified. In the context of the counter-cultural
movements that have emerged in the West since the 1960s, “rebellion”
effectively means wanting to be different and to stand out from the crowd. Given the fact that the desire for
distinction drives much of consumer culture, the simple rejection of conformity
and the desire to deviate from the status quo in the name of personal
gratification only serve to perpetuate capitalism.[17] Joseph Heath and Andrew
Potter make the hollow nature of this supposed rebellion clear: “The value of a good comes from the sense of
superiority associated with membership in the club along with recognition
accorded by fellow members,” but this distinction is unsustainable as everyone
wants what “not everyone can have”, thus eroding the distinction claimed by the
select few.[18]
There is no subversion going on here, only big business taking advantage of
economic opportunities that are impossible to resist. Indeed, a group of "rebels" who
constantly want to stand out and are willing to pay good money to do so provide
almost limitless opportunities for marketing.
Denial, escapism, and false salvation can take
many forms. Fashion and music
sub-cultures can shield their adherents from the big picture in the same way as
those people who find salvation in video games, gaming conventions, and the
recreational camaraderie that psychologically and emotionally protects them
from their jobs, their bosses, and the harsh reality of their own exploitation
as proletarians in capitalist society.[19]
Activism without class consciousness also ends
up playing into the hands of the system.
Liberal efforts to confine the struggles of oppressed peoples and groups
within narrow limits, only serve to reinforce and expand the network of small
worlds that modern capitalism has created.
It leads to a further dividing and conquering of the working class as
individuals cleave to gender, sexual orientation, skin color, etc. Creating new
tribes based on exclusive membership rather than radical mass movements built
on solidarity.[20] This fixation on altering the symbols of
society without altering its fundamental material conditions and relations
ultimately perpetuates the status quo and furthers the control mechanisms of
the capitalist state.
The
capitalist state is content to allow radical political forces to become
“special interest groups”, isolated from the masses, and focused on narrow
goals and narrow constituencies that can be easily manipulated. The radical left in North America in
particular is inhabited by numerous “small worlds”, and as Albert Szymanski
extensively described in the 1980s, this has been facilitated by the widespread
adoption of tolerance and formal freedoms in affluent Western countries:
It can well be argued that the existence of
formal freedoms, which are utilized by only an isolated few to challenge the
dominant ideology and institutions, actually contribute to real unfreedom; that
permitting a few people, who have little or no impact, to speak against the
system is, in fact, more repressive of real freedom than the denial of that
formal right. The existence of a few
small newspapers, critical speakers, university professors or very small
leftist parties on the ballot, implies that formal freedom is real, that people
are free to choose, and, they do, in fact, choose freely to accept the system…Such
“repressive tolerance” is an imperialist mechanism whereby people in the West
are convinced that they are free, and that those in socialist countries are
not. The focus on formal freedoms,
rather than on either substantive liberties, or on the degree to which people
actually use, or are permitted to use, their formal freedom, the range of
popular debate or the effect of the exercise of formal freedom, thus comes to
secure the capitalist system, which since around 1950 has been very stable in
the West, and very effective in preserving its ideological hegemony.[21]
Civil rights campaigns can be pacified through
legislation, even though African-Americans continue to face marginalization and
police brutality. Freedoms can be
legislated for women while patriarchy remains in force. Certain homosexuals can be raised to
celebrity status while homophobia reigns for those who do not conform to
accepted imagery and stereotypes. Token
concessions can divide movements and create small worlds to entrap hearts and
minds. But in the end, the capitalist
state can never immunize the economic system from its own contradictions, nor
can it rescue itself from class conflict and the inevitability of revolutionary
upheaval.
It is the task of communists and
revolutionaries to systematically demolish the small worlds that capitalism
creates and pull those who are in hiding into real world action. Workers must understand the world and their
place in it; becoming fully conscious of the nature of the class struggles that
they are a part of by definition as proletarians. Only by giving the class struggle a concrete
form and understanding, along with the fight for socialism and socialist
revolution, can working people be shaken out of their manufactured complacency
and their diversions and small worlds broken down. The immediacy of class struggle must be their
daily reality; a reality that is consciously understood rather than repressed
or ignored. They must ultimately realize
that they are soldiers in a war that they must win if they are to survive in a
world where fascism is once more on the march.
In this age of austerity, the First World
itself is disappearing for working class people and the harsh reality of naked
capitalism, which is the general experience of working people across the Global
South, is returning with a vengeance.
What has always been the reality in the Third World is now becoming the
reality yet again in the Global North. In
this context, the rise of far-right governments, fascist movements, state
violence, racism and xenophobia throughout the modern West cannot be understood
as an aberration. To quote Szymanski,
Outside the approximately dozen wealthiest
countries...the capitalist world cannot afford the luxury of “repressive
tolerance”. There the most brutal
suppression of civil liberties is necessary in order to preserve the capitalist
system…The correlation between formal civil liberties/parliamentary forms and
capitalism is actually very tenuous.
During the 1940-1980 period only eight capitalist countries (Australia,
the Republic of Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the United
Kingdom and the United States) maintained a continuous 40 year period of even
formal civil liberties/parliamentary forms; and in most of those countries, especially
during and after World War II, there has been significant repression of those
who tried to exercise their rights of advocacy...This is clear evidence that
the right of public advocacy in capitalist economic formations exists only in
the absence of any challenge to the privilege and property that may be
effectively facilitated by the exercise of formal liberties.[22]
The Western working class ultimately has no
choice, the “new normal” they face today is all but identical to the “old
normal” that oppressed their grandparents.
Whether they like it or not, the class war will not go away. They must fight.
Not only must any viable revolutionary vanguard
organization active in the Global North break down the illusions spread by the
capitalist media, it must also inspire people to embrace the truth. All efforts must be made to frame the
discussion and shape the cultural image of communism and socialism into
something that is attractive, desirable, and worth fighting for; something that
gives meaning and belonging to people.[23] It is especially crucial in
the context of modern media that revolutionary leaders and champions of the
people, both past and present, be attractive to new generations of youth, the
same young people now facing the grim future of exploitation, insecurity,
repression and disaster that capitalism is presenting them with. Through the effective use of media,
education, courageous example, and propaganda, revolutionaries must ensure that
genuine heroes replace the manufactured images of Ironman, Superman, Batman,
and similar comic book characters about whom working class people dream –
trying grasp the kind of heroism and adventure that they feel they can never
attain in reality. People must be
immersed in the real excitement, heroism, sacrifice, and hard-fought victories
that have characterized the revolutionary tradition from the beginning and,
above all, they must be encouraged to add heroic chapters of their own. The youth who attend gaming conferences and
comic book conventions must be made to understand that communism is the true
creed of heroes and that they can be a part of it – not passive consumers but
active agents of their own destiny. They
can build a future worth fighting for.
The raising of class consciousness is never a
smooth process. Many Western youths,
deprived of a real education concerning communism or the Soviet Union, know
nothing about socialism beyond the cool tanks and military gear that the Red
Army used against the Nazis during the Second World War because such hardware
is often showcased in video games. These
youths should not be ridiculed, instead communists should use their interests
as a starting point from which to educate and engage them in revolutionary
struggle. In the present environment in
the West, historically based video games are often the only exposure that youth
receive to socialism and to socialist societies and if we want to educate them,
we as communists must meet the people where they are and meet them on their own
terms.[24] We should expose these young people to the
real history that has been kept from them by the capitalist education system
and the media alike.
In contrast to the capitalist marketers and
purveyors of “small worlds”, communists must work to expand the consciousness
of the people. As Mao Zedong once said,
A
Communist should have largeness of mind and he should be staunch and active,
looking upon the interests of the revolution as his very life and subordinating
his personal interests to those of the revolution; always and everywhere he
should adhere to principle and wage a tireless struggle against all incorrect
ideas and actions, so as to consolidate the collective life of the Party and
strengthen the ties between the Party and the masses; he should be more
concerned about the Party and the masses than about any private person, and
more concerned about others than about himself. Only thus can he be considered
a Communist.[25]
Revolutionaries must constantly work to engage
the people, particularly the youth, in the broader struggle, and this must be
done with all the energy and creativity that they can muster. By understanding of the material and cultural
conditions of contemporary capitalist society in the West, communists may attain
victory on this critical battleground of the class struggle.
Communists must introduce the youth to the
real heroes who have shaped the world and liberated whole nations from the
beginning of the revolutionary tradition almost three millennia ago. As a revolutionary vanguard organization, all
communist symbolism, ceremonies, and practices must confirm this tradition of
heroism in the name of human liberation and this must be a fundamental part of
the message transmitted by the vanguard, particularly to the youth.[26] Just
like Cypselus, Spartacus, Lenin, Rosa Luxembourg, and Che Guevara, the real
heroes of today are not to be found on movie screens or in comic books but on
the barricades and in the streets. Real
heroes are real human beings taking control of their own lives and their own
destiny in defiance of the system that seeks to keep them down, and therefore any
working class or oppressed person can be a real hero.
As Gramsci described, capitalist power does
not solely reside in their control over the means of production but is also
present in their ability to weave words, language, history and identity to
distort, disguise, and deceive the people about the nature of their power and
the system of exploitation upon which it depends. Criminals can get away with anything if their
victims do not have a language to express resistance and this is what the
capitalist class, their political front organizations, and media outlets count
on.[27] However, as has been the case throughout
history, the ruling class will inevitably be bitterly disappointed as the
objective conditions of working class oppression lead to inevitable resistance,
the inevitable resurgence of the language of resistance and ultimately the very
real prospect of revolution.
[1] Karl Marx, The
Communist Manifesto, A.J.P Taylor eds.
London: Penguin Books, 1967, pg 97.
[2] Mark Neocleous, The Monstrous and the Dead: Burke, Marx, Fascism. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2005, pg
34.
[3] Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can’t be Jammed. Toronto:
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 2004, pg 116.
[4] Steve Salerno, “Can America afford
the ‘vanity tax’?” Los Angeles Times,
November 27, 2009.
[5] Mark Kingwell, “The real price of
affluence” in The Globe and Mail,
Saturday September 1st 2007.
[6] See Sut Jhally’s brilliant analysis
of advertising and the capitalist system in “Advertising and the End of the
World,” Challenging Media, 1997.
[7] “Liberation Schools,” in The Black Panthers Speak, Philip S. Foner eds. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2014, pg 171.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Huey P. Newton, To Die for the People: The writings of Huey P.
Newton. San
Francisco: City Lights Books, 2009.
[10] Lincoln Webster Sheffield, “People’s Medical Care
Center,” in The Black Panthers Speak, Philip
S. Foner eds. Chicago: Haymarket Books,
2014, pg 175.
[11] This will be crucial in building new sources of
meaning and belonging for young people in the context of socialism and working
class struggle. See Mike Ely, “Communist
foreshocks: words, ritual and symbols,” Kasama Project, March 18, 2012. http://kasamaproject.org/theory/3938-70communist-foreshocks-words-ritual-and-symbols
[12] Carolyn Stephens, “The myth of the city in global
slums,” in The Challenge of Global
Urbanization: Cities as Solutions, The Compass Summit, October 2011.
[13] Michael Parenti, Blackshirts
and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism. San Francisco: City Lights, 1997.
[14] “Revolutionary Art/Black Liberation,” in The Black Panthers Speak, Philip S.
Foner eds. Chicago: Haymarket Books,
2014, pg 16.
[15] A notable example. Carl Mortished, “Fairtrade coffee fails to
help the poor, British report finds,” The Globe and Mail, May 26, 2014. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/fairtrade-coffee-fails-to-help-the-poor-british-report-finds/article18852585/
[16] See Paul Demarty, “The internet in
the epoch of decline,” Weekly Worker, March 27, 2014. http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/1003/the-internet-in-the-epoch-of-decline
[17] Even serious activists are not immune from this, as
the burgeoning network of privately funded NGOs dangles the lure of job
security before their eyes. Dru Oja Jay, “NGOization: Depoliticizing Activism
in Canada”, New Socialist, May 25, 2014.
http://newsocialist.org/751-ngoization-depoliticizing-activism-in-canada
[18] Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can’t be Jammed. Toronto:
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 2004, pg 126.
[19] Gamer culture and the intense
in-group loyalties it inspires among is largely male population is case in
point. See Ian Williams, “Death to the
Gamer,” Jacobin, September 2014. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/09/death-to-the-gamer/
[20] See Sharon Smith, “The politics of
privilege checking,” Socialist Worker, November 18, 2014. http://socialistworker.org/2014/11/18/the-politics-of-privilege-checking
[21] Ibid, pg 303.
[22] Albert Szymanski, Human
Rights in the Soviet Union. London:
Zed Books, 1984, pp 303-304.
[23] See Mike Ely, “Communist foreshocks: words, ritual and
symbols,” Kasama Project, March 18, 2012. http://kasamaproject.org/theory/3938-70communist-foreshocks-words-ritual-and-symbols
[24] Indeed Cuban game developers have
done just that and re-created the Cuban revolutionary struggle in video games,
allowing users to take part in the initial landing of the Granma on Cuban soil
followed by the major battles leading up to the liberation of Havana on January
1 1959. “Cuban video game recreates revolutionary history,” The
Guardian, March 29, 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/mar/29/cuban-video-game-revolutionary-history
[25] Mao Zedong, “Combat Liberalism”, in Mao: Selected Works, Volume II. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. Transcribed by the Maoist Documentation
Project, 2004. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_03.htm
[26] See Mike Ely, “Communist foreshocks: words, ritual and
symbols,” Kasama Project, March 18, 2012. http://kasamaproject.org/theory/3938-70communist-foreshocks-words-ritual-and-symbols
[27] See Adam Turl, “The Broken Memory:
Left Unity and Neoliberal Fragmentation”, emergeleft.com, http://www.emergeleft.com/the-broken-memory-left-unity-and-neoliberal-fragmentation.html
