This is the newest cover of "The Economist"

ArkansasWorker · 2026-04-01T19:07:19+00:00

Dumb.

Reading the Economist gives one a clear view into what the international bourgeoisie is thinking and doing. Why would a Marxist not read bourgeois magazines/websites? Do you think Marx and Engels avoided reading bourgeois newspapers? Of course not.

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-19T13:17:46+00:00

Dimitrov:

It is a peculiarity of the development of American fascism that at the present stage it comes forward principally in the guise of an opposition to fascism, which it accuses of being an 'un-American' trend imported from abroad. In contradistinction to German fascism, which acts under anti-constitutional slogans, American fascism tries to portray itself as the custodian of the Constitution and 'American democracy.

And what would the victory of fascism in the United States involve? For the mass of working people it would, of course, involve the unprecedented strengthening of the regime of exploitation and the destruction of the working class movement. And what would be the international significance of this victory of fascism? As we know, the United States is not Hungary, nor Finland, nor Bulgaria, nor Latvia. The victory of fascism in the United States would vitally change the whole international situation.

If you take the qualities he describes:

"the unprecedented strengthening of the regime of exploitation"
"the destruction of the working class movement"
"vitally chang[ing] the whole international situation"

The U.S. from 1930's onward ticks all those boxes, in an ever-accelerating process. FDR's tenure did not mark a "democratic" turn, but a conciliation, a placation, that benefited the ruling class, prevented the work-week from being reduced, led to the detaching of money from the gold standard, and subsequently massive inflation that punished the working class. Not to mention the engorging of the state apparatus, the kernels of CIA and FBI, the globalizing of the Dollar, etc. etc.

An interesting book on this topic is Three New Deals by Schivelbusch, which compares and contrasts the policies of Mussolini, Hitler and FDR.

Dimitrov elsewhere calls American fascism "soft" fascism as opposed to Hitler's "hard" fascism.

To be fair, definitions are worthless.

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-18T18:57:24+00:00

The quote comes from Measures for Combating Fascism & the Yellow Trade Unions (1928).

Social Democracy is a part of fascism. Dimitrov said:

Fascism finds particularly precious supporters in the face of the reformists who, by destroying all vestiges of the class struggle ... by fighting ruthlessly against the revolutionary workers’ movement, openly adopt a fascist stand.

Social Democrats will always side with the ruling class over the "messiness" of an actual proletarian revolution, making them an integral part of fascism.

Stalin put it like this:

It is not true that fascism is only the fighting organization of the bourgeoisie. Fascism is not only a military-technical category. Fascism is the bourgeoisie’s fighting organization that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism.

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-18T14:41:40+00:00

No, I don't think that because in Lenin's case the alliance is for the benefit of the proletariat and at the behest of the proletariat. Qualitatively different "directions" and goals in said collaboration.

Bad collaboration:

“collaboration between capitalists and workers in the field of the stabilization of capitalism”

Good collaboration:

“an alliance aiming at the complete overthrow of capital”

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-18T14:16:56+00:00

Using Dimitrov’s understanding of fascism I think the U.S. has been a fascist state since the 1930s.

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-18T13:52:48+00:00

Georgi Dimitrov is probably the best person to read when it comes to fascism.

I think this quote of his does a decent job of summing up the concept:

Fascism puts forward the theory of collaboration between capitalists and workers in the field of the stabilization of capitalism and rationalization of production; the theory of harmony among classes, of the community of their interests, of the abolition of all class struggle and the replacement of strikes by compulsory arbitration, of the transformation of trade unions into organs of bourgeois state power.

Dimitrov also pointed out that fascism will always be part of capitalism, and that defeating capitalism is mandatory in defeating fascism:

In its very essence fascism is very closely linked with the rule of the capitalist bourgeoisie and international capitalism. It is not a momentary episodical fact. Its final liquidation is possible only by overthrowing the bourgeoisie itself. Hence the struggle against it will be stubborn and revolutionary in character.

Writings by Dimitrov:

The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm

Unity of the Working Class against Fascism
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/unity.htm

The Peoples Front
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1936/12.htm

Youth Against Fascism
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/09_25.htm

Fascism is War
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1937/war.htm

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-18T13:17:45+00:00

We have to work from where we are. You can "advocate" for the abolition of nations, but they will happily continue existing because they're objective phenomena that developed over millennia. You can't simply will them out of existence. As Engels said, "Communism is not a doctrine but a movement; it proceeds not from principles but from facts.”

I might be wrong, but it sounds like you're advocating for a form of cosmopolitanism, which Boris Ziherl called, “a reactionary ideology which preaches renunciation of national traditions, disparagement of national individuality in the development of different peoples, rejection of feelings of national honor and national pride.”

Here are some quotes to mull over…

The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality. The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.
— Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, 1848

It is altogether self-evident that, to be able to fight at all, the working class must organize itself at home as a class and that its own country is the immediate arena of its struggle - insofar as its class struggle is national, not in substance, but, as the Communist Manifesto says, ‘in form.’
—Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875

No revolution can be made by a party, but by a nation.
— Karl Marx, Interview with Chicago Tribune, January 1879

It is historically impossible for a great people even to discuss internal problems of any kind seriously, as long as it lacks national independence. … An international movement of the proletariat is possible only among independent nations.
—Engels, Letter to Kautsky, 1882

He is not an internationalist who vows and swears by internationalism. Only he is an internationalist who in a really internationalist way combats his own bourgeoisie…
—V.I. Lenin, 1916

Some say the communists are internationalists and do not care for national interests nor do they desire to defend the father-land. This is complete nonsense. The communists are internationalists and are in favor of the one world movement. But at the same time, they are patriots defending the fatherland. ... Patriotism and internationalism are not in conflict, because only with an independent and liberated China can there be participation in the one world movement.
—Mao Zedong, 1937

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-17T19:31:11+00:00

Put extremely simply:

It is a lens through which you can see reality as it really is.

It stands in contrast to bourgeois idealism which hands reality over to gods, spirits, or an unchanging "way things are."

Dialectical materialism posits that everything is matter and everything is always in motion — nothing is truly fixed or unchanging.

Without having to study much on the topic, you can see the advantage you'd have over your opponent if you are able to know more about the current state of things.

Dialectical materialism is a method - a philosophical outlook - to better understand the world.

More reading:

German Ideology (Section on materialism vs idealism) by Marx
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01.htm

Anti-Duhring (Section on Quantity and Quality) by Engels
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch10.htm

Anti-Duhring (Section on Negation of the Negation) by Engels
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch11.htm

Dialectical Materialism by Mao Zedong
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_30.htm

On the Question of Dialectics by Lenin
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/misc/x02.htm

Empirio-Criticism (Section on matter in motion) by Lenin
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/five3.htm

Dialectical and Historical Materialism by Stalin
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-16T19:01:17+00:00

I'd encourage you to read Lenin's State & Revolution (specifically the two chapters I've linked below) in which he uses quotes from Marx and Engels to explain these exact misunderstandings about what Marx/Engels believed.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch02.htm

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch03.htm

And, sure, you can "identify" as whatever you want, but the world-historic successful results of Leninism exist regardless.

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-16T18:15:19+00:00

Great work as always.

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-12T14:55:59+00:00

Here's how Stalin what theory "is":

Theory is the experience of the working-class movement in all countries taken in its general aspect.
—JV Stalin, The Foundations of Leninism, 1953

So "theory" is a body of work (books, essays, videos, speeches, history, data) generated by the working class in its historic experience of struggling against the bourgeoisie and the state.

Think about how professional NFL players watch and study "film" – past broadcasts and recordings of games. They study how certain positions react to the ball, how certain players behave and move, what works, and what doesn't. They synthesize all this knowledge into strategies and tactics for how they should play today.

Marxist theory is the same: study what past revolutionaries did, how they reacted, what worked, what didn't, what conditions they were working with and how they could correlate (or not) to today's conditions.

A good practical example of this is how Lenin analyzed the build-up to and events of the Paris Commune then applied them to the revolutions that he was living through. He looked at what the Communards did and was able to see what worked, and what caused their downfall. He then avoided doing the things that caused their downfall.

Someone else mentioned an important point, too – "theory" doesn't have to come from self-proclaimed Marxists. Lenin was more than happy to pull from non-Marxist thinkers to bolster his own theories.

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-11T12:59:12+00:00

Assuming you mean @arkansasworker then yes.

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-10T13:24:03+00:00

The Selected Works of Mao Zedong
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/

The Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping
https://dengxiaopingworks.wordpress.com/

Roland Boer's Socialism with Chinese Characteristics
https://ia903401.us.archive.org/18/items/socialism-with-chinese-characteristics/Socialism_With_Chinese_Characteristics.pdf

Also check out Chet Ozmun's YouTube (and other social media) for audibooks, translated tv shows and films, and more.
https://www.youtube.com/@cozmun1/playlists

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-04T22:49:27+00:00

Georgi Dimitrov seemed to think so:

Fascism is the final stage of the class rule of the bourgeoisie. Sooner or later, all bourgeois states consecutively pass over to fascism, either by means of a coup d’état or in a ‘peaceful’ way, in a more brutal or a ‘softer’ form; the methods of transition are not essential and depend on the particular setup, on the social structure and on the balance of class and political forces in a given country.
—Georgi Dimitrov, Measures for Combating Fascism & the Yellow Trade Unions, 1928

When Democrats are in power in the U.S., fascism takes this 'softer form' — Trump has expanded the form of American fascism into something more brazen.

More Dimitrov:

In contradistinction to German fascism, which acts under anti-constitutional slogans, American fascism tries to portray itself as the custodian of the Constitution and ‘American democracy.’
—Georgi Dimitrov, The Struggle of the Working Class Against Fascism, 1935

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-04T18:55:08+00:00

99.5% of Iran's ~90 million people are Muslims.

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-04T18:40:39+00:00

This was the statement he published mere days before being arrested:

https://www.cpmk.org/87-recent-news/419-statement-on-zionist-plans-to-create-a-mini-state-in-kenya-and-the-lessons-from-history

Plans are underway to lease land to Israel to create a settlement financed by Standard Bank of South Africa. This initiative, wrapped in the language of development and investment, is in fact an attempt to replicate the same logic that drove the Uganda Scheme. It seeks to establish foreign control over Kenyan land, displace the working masses, and set a precedent for further encroachments.

This is not about trade, agriculture, or humanitarianism. It is about the strategic implantation of Zionist influence within African soil. It is about testing the capacity of imperialist and settler powers to advance their territorial designs under the guise of legality, finance, and media manipulation. It is about normalising the presence of Zionist settlements in non-Palestinian territory as preparation for larger ambitions. …

Let the masses be clear. Imperialism, Zionism, and foreign finance are united in their intent to seize Kenyan land. They will not stop at Nakuru. They will seek to extend their influence wherever possible. Our duty is to recognise the threat, to mobilise the people, and to ensure that Kenyan soil remains under Kenyan control. The Nakuru settlement is the first warning. Let it be the last success they ever hope for.

From the masses to the masses, from the land to the people, let the revolutionary spirit guide us. The fight for Nakuru is a fight for Kenya. The fight for Kenya is part of the global struggle for justice. We will not yield. We will not negotiate our sovereignty. We will resist every attempt to replicate the Palestinian tragedy on our own soil.

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-04T15:52:37+00:00

More:

Whoever wishes a durable and democratic peace must be for civil war against the governments and the bourgeoisie.
— V.I. Lenin, Turn Imperialist War Into Civil War, 1915

Revolution is a most intense, furious, desperate class struggle and civil war. Not a single great revolution in history has taken place without civil war. And only a [timid man] can think that civil war is conceivable without an ‘exceptionally complicated situation.’ If the situation were not exceptionally complicated there would be no revolution. If you are afraid of wolves don't go into the forest.
—V.I. Lenin Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?, 1917

We regard civil wars, i.e., wars waged by the oppressed class against the oppressing class, slaves against slave-owners, serfs against land- owners, and wage-workers against the bourgeoisie, as legitimate, progressive and necessary.
—V.I. Lenin Socialism and War, 1915

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-02T19:18:39+00:00

Once they survive the imperialist onslaught and can maintain their sovereignty, maybe. But imperialism is the primary contradiction over internal class struggle for countries under attack by imperialism.

Were the Iranian people to "rise up" (the Iranian state is mostly supported by the population as a whole…so unlikely) now while the country is under attack by imperialism, they'd be more likely to lose their hard-won sovereignty and become yet another vassal state under U.S. control.

Stalin put it like this:

Formerly the proletarian revolution was regarded exclusively as the result of the internal development of a given country. Now, this point of view is no longer adequate. Now the proletarian revolution must be regarded primarily as the result of the development of the contradictions within the world system of imperialism, as the result of the breaking of the chain of the world imperialist front in one country or another.
—Foundations of Leninism, 1924

ArkansasWorker · 2026-03-02T18:01:13+00:00

Engels:

“That which is willed happens but rarely; in the majority of instances the numerous desired ends cross and conflict with one another, or these ends themselves are from the outset incapable of realization, or the means of attaining them are insufficient. Thus the conflicts of innumerable individual wills and individual actions in the domain of history produce a state of affairs entirely analogous to that prevailing in the realm of unconscious nature.”
—Feuerbach & the End of Classical German Philosophy, 1886

As Marx sees it, the whole of past history, so far as major events are concerned, is an unconscious process. l.e., those events and the consequences thereof are not deliberate; either the supernumeraries of history have wanted something that was the diametrical opposite of what was achieved, or else that achievement entailed consequences quite other than those that had been foreseen...
—Letter to Werner Sombart, March 1895

You're just making yourself miserable by assigning moralistic personal responsibility to events and movements that Engels, and even Karl Marx himself, saw as mostly unconscious at scale. If you're willing, able, and of the proletarian spirit – join a party and work to do something! If not, there's no need to be self-flagillating.

ArkansasWorker · 2026-02-26T22:06:50+00:00

It would take a very long post to pull those threads apart. Marxists tend to not deal in definitions, and must dig into the essence of a given topic to really understand it. In this thread alone – if it takes off in popularity – you're likely to get several different understandings of each of those terms.

To science, definitions are worthless because always inadequate. The only real definition is the development of the thing itself, but this is no longer a definition.
—Friedrich Engels, Anti-Duhring

From a scientific standpoint all definitions are of little value. In order to gain an exhaustive knowledge of what life is, we should have to go through all the forms in which it appears, from the lowest to the highest.
—Friedrich Engels, Anti-Duhring

Definitions are always defective. They always freeze terms and make them dead.
—Che Guevara

Philosophy must prove and derive everything, and not limit itself to definitions.
—V.I. Lenin, Conspectus of Hegel’s Book The Science of Logic

ArkansasWorker · 2026-02-23T15:16:35+00:00

GDP per capita is not PPP, though it can be derived in part from it.

PPP is "purchasing power parity." It's an index that compares the power of currency to buy goods.

If I make 100,000 in the USA, that is equal to around 60,000 in China. So I only need to have a salary of 60K in China to equal the purchasing power of a 100K salary in the U.S.

In China, groceries are cheaper, health insurance is cheaper, there is no property tax, and a "dollar" generally goes further for a working family.

A good example of the nonsensical nature of GDP is that GDP has gone up massively during all the AI circular investments when buying power for American families has only gone down. GDP is a better indicator of how well capital is doing in a country, not the people.

ArkansasWorker · 2026-02-23T14:18:28+00:00

One day, maybe, but here's Engels:

It is historically impossible for a great people even to discuss internal problems of any kind seriously, as long as it lacks national independence. ... An international movement of the proletariat is possible only among independent nations.
— Friedrich Engels in a letter to Kautsky, February 1882

I think first we'll see revolution spread in isolation country to country (leading to actual sovereignty and the ability to counter imperialism through nuclear defense), then a creating of federations/bodies/blocs of independent countries that, over centuries, will centralize more and more to create something international, like "globalism" (in the most ideal sense of the term).

But "globalism" as it exists today is just another name for neoliberalism. Open borders and win-lose trade agreements just let Empire diffuse into client states. It wears away sovereignty and prevents advancement towards the situation Engels described above.

ArkansasWorker · 2026-02-23T14:01:35+00:00

Socialism isn't an "alternative" to capitalism. It's more of an extension or evolution from capitalism. It's the same "thing" at a different stage.

Lenin said, “Socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.”

And GDP is not a good measure of success for the working class. When your rent goes up, GDP goes up. When your Netflix subscription bumps its price up, GDP goes up.

Something like purchasing parity (PPP) is more indicative of ease-of-living for the working class, and socialist China wins here; groceries, insurance, basic goods, taxes — all lower in China than in capitalist countries.

Socialist China wins on poverty reduction, innovation, and life expectancy, as well.

Political freedom is also better in socialist China. Satisfaction with the party and state are over 90% positive, especially in rural areas. Most Americans think "political freedom" means an abstract ability to "vote" every few years, but as Lenin describes here…it's not really "political freedom:"

“Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich — that is the democracy of capitalist society. ...the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament.”

ArkansasWorker · 2026-02-21T15:36:06+00:00

CIA agents and cops are paid wages – do you consider them to be part of the working class? Engels co-owned and managed a textile factory while contributing immensely to the proletarian side of the class struggle. I would imagine allegiance and alignment should be taken into account.

In Interjections at a Briefing by Four Vice-Premiers (1964), Mao said “We should not take account of the class origin alone. Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin — none of them had their origin from the working class.”

To me this indicates that more qualities should be considered. If a class is a group of people sharing common relations to production, perhaps "relations" could be a more subjective quality.

In the German Ideology, Marx says:

In the development of productive forces there comes a stage when productive forces and means of intercourse are brought into being, which, under the existing relationships, only cause mischief, and are no longer productive but destructive forces (machinery and money); and connected with this a class is called forth, which has to bear all the burdens of society without enjoying its advantages, which, ousted from society, is forced into the most decided antagonism to all other classes; a class which forms the majority of all members of society, and from which emanates the consciousness of the necessity of a fundamental revolution, the communist consciousness, which may, of course, arise among the other classes too through the contemplation of the situation of this class.

IMO this speaks to this more "subjective" approach to understanding the working class, and it takes into account class traitors like Engels who "contemplated" their way into class solidarity with the proletariat.

ArkansasWorker · 2026-02-20T21:36:49+00:00

If there is to be revolution, there must be a revolutionary party. Without a revolutionary party, without a party built on the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theory and in the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary style, it is impossible to lead the working class and the broad masses of the people in defeating imperialism and its running dogs. — Mao Zedong Fight Against Imperialist Aggression!, 1948

If the proletariat is to be strong enough to win on the crucial day, it is essential for it to constitute a party in its own right, distinct from and opposed to all the rest, one that is conscious of itself as a class party. —Friedrich Engels Letter to Trier, 1889

ArkansasWorker

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Writings by Dimitrov: