Wednesday 21 November 2018

Small Worlds and the Big Picture: Tasks of Communism in the 21st Century West


“The most important weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
-          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

It is capitalism’s imperative to transform everything into a commodity.  In this context the worker is a product, an object with an assigned value.  Their lives is not their own, although in every advanced capitalist society on the planet there exists an unprecedented propaganda apparatus to convince them otherwise.  Capitalism’s propaganda, as expressed through every imaginable medium and form of media, is meant to convince the commodified proletarian that the purchase of the products that they see on their television screens will grant them subjective mastery of a world that is objectively crushing them.  Confronting this level of propaganda presents its own unique challenges for revolutionaries today in their efforts to mobilize working class and oppressed people.  This is especially true in the context of the First World, where this propaganda has effectively colonized all culture.
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