main trend - issue 2

7/31/2019 Main Trend - Issue 2

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Main TrendRevolution is the main trend in the world toda . Mao Zedon

Issue 2 Vol. 1 Journal of Revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Thought


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Col. Mu'ummar Qaddafi

William Z. Foster

Rosa Luxemburg

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Ever since World War Two, U.S.imperialism and its followers have beencontinuously launching wars of

aggression. But the people of manycountries have been continuously wagingrevolutionary wars to defeat theiraggression. The danger of a new worldwar still exists, but revolution is the main

trend in the world today. MAO ZEDONG


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Col. Mu'ummar Qaddafi

FOR FORTY YEARS, or was it longer, I can't remember,I could to give people houses, hospitals, schools, and whenthey were hungry, I gave them food.I even made Benghaziinto farmland from the desert, I stood up to attacks from t

cowboy Ronald Reagan, when he killed my adopted orphandaughter, he was trying to kill me, instead he killed that pinnocent child. Then I helped my brothers and sisters fromAfrica with money for the African Union.

I DID ALL I could to help people understand the conceptdemocracy, where people's committees ran our country. Butthat was never enough, as some told me, even people who10 room homes, new suits and furniture, were never satisfieas selfish as they were they wanted more.They told Americansand other visitors, that they needed "democracy" and"freedom" never realizing it was a cut throat system, wherethe biggest dog eats the rest, but they were enchanted withthose words, never realizing that in America, there was nofree medicine, no free hospitals, no free housing, no freeeducation and no free food, except when people had to beggo to long lines to get soup.


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NO, NO MATTER WHAT I did, it was never enough for,but for others, they knew I was the son of Gamal Abdel Nthe only true Arab and Muslim leader we've had since SalaDeen, when he claimed the Suez Canal for his people, asclaimed Libya, for my people,it was his footsteps I tried tofollow, to keep my people free from colonial domination from thieves who would steal from us.

NOW, I AM UNDER attack by the biggest force in militarhistory, my little African son, Obama wants to kill me, toaway the freedom of our country,to take away our free


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housing, our free medicine, our free education, our free fooand replace it with American style thievery, called"capitalism", but all of us in the Third World know what tmeans, it means corporations run the countries, run theworld, and the people suffer.

SO, THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE for me, I must makeand if Allah wishes, I shall die by following His path, thethat has made our country rich with farmland, with food anhealth, and even allowed us to help our African and Arabbrothers and sisters.

I DO NOT WISH TO DIE, but if it comes to that, to savland, my people, all the thousands who are all my childrenthen so be it.

LET THIS TESTAMENT be my voice to the world, that Iup to crusader attacks of NATO, stood up to cruelty,stoop upto betrayal, stood up to the West and its colonialist ambitioand that I stood with my African brothers, my true Arab aMuslim brothers, as a beacon of light.

WHEN OTHERS WERE BUILDING CASTLES, I lived inhouse, and in a tent.I never forgot my youth in Sirte, I didspend our national treasury foolishly, and like SalahalDeenour great Muslim leader, who rescued Jerusalem for Islam,took little for myself...


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IN THE WEST, some have called me "mad", "crazy", butknow the truth yet continue to lie,they know that our landindependent and free, not in the colonial grip, that my visimy path, is, and has been clear and for my people and thfight to my last breath to keep us free, may Allah almightus to remain faithful and free.

The last statement of Libyan Revolutionary AntiImperialist fighter Col. Mu'ummar Qaddafi.


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William Z. Foster

THE DIFFERENT SOCIAL SYSTEMS of the Soviet UNazi Germany represent the opposite poles of modersociety in their economic structure, their forms of poligovernment, their class composition, their foreign policietheir culture and their outlook upon life generally.socialism of the U.S.S.R. is the beginning of a new

system, whereas Nazi fascism is the most reactionexpression of the dying capitalist world order.

THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE between socialismfascism (which is capitalism) is the most significpolitical fact of our times.This oppositeness in the makeuand policies of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany (a

fascist Italy), would seem to be so obvious as tunmistakable. Yet we have witnessed on all sidesfantastic spectacle of a determined attempt to convince ttoiling masses in the United States and other capitacountries that Soviet socialism and Nazi fascismessentially the same

THE SYSTEMIC LUMPING together of Soviet socialismNazi fascism as totalitarian dictatorships originates icapitalist circles and is assiduously propagated by thinnumerable mouthpieces and agents. Semiliterate polltax Congressmen, wisecracking radio commentatorsslippery newspaper columnists, and other spokesmen fo


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which they fear as the nemesis of their own outwsystem. Realizing that the masses have a deep hatredfascism, they try to direct this hatred against the sociasystem of the Soviet Union by alleging it to be the sas the fascism of Nazi Germany.

THE SECOND AIM of the capitalists campaign of consocialism with fascism is to free their own social sysfrom the stench of fascism. They would have the peobelieve that Nazism is a reactionary growth independentcapitalismBy this means the capitalists in the UnStates and other countries hope to hide from the workand the farmers the fact that the big bankersindustrialists are striving to transform what is leftbourgeois democracy into open reactionary dictatorshipaccording to the Hitler pattern

THESE DETRACTORS of socialism and defenderscapitalism follow the Hitlerian formula that they can mpeople believe any lie, provided it is big enough andkeep hammering away at it. For the most part they conthemselves to generalities, reiterating ceaselessly theicentral theme that Nazi fascism and Soviet socialismidentical


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WHO OWNS THE INDUSTRIES?

THE FOUNDATION DIFFERENCE between socialismfascism (capitalism) is the fact that in a socialist systemindustries and the land are owned collectively bypeople; whereas under fascism these social meansproduction and distribution are owned privately. The widdiffering political and cultural superstructures of the tforms of society, as well as their contrary pol

directions, develop out of their basically different systeof ownership of the industries and the land.

IN THE SOVIET UNION, which is a socialist counindustries and the land are the property of the people, aare operated solely with the objective of improving tpeoples condition. There are no private capitalistslandowners whatsoever to exploit the toiling masses. Theare neither rich nor destitute in the U.S.S.R. Theessence of the Russian Revolution of 1917 was the traof the ownership of the social means of productiondistribution from a private to a collective basis byrevolutionary action of the masses, carrying with it

abolition of human exploitation. Section I, Article 4, oConstitution of the U.S.S.R. states the economic basisthe country as follows:

The socialist system of economy and the sociownership of the means and instruments of product firmly established as a result of the abolition of


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capitalist system of economy, the abrogation of privownership of the means and instruments of production athe abolition of the exploitation of man by man, constthe economic foundation of the U.S.S.R.

NAZI GERMANY, on the contrary, has a capitalist econthe same in all fundamentals as that of the United StaEngland, France and other capitalist countries. The bulkthe wealth of the country is in the hands of a few pThe industries, as before the Hitler regime, remain privaowned. A small clique hold as their personal propertygreat banks, factories, mines, etc., and systematically uthis ownership to rob the German people. In theNewMasses, Feb. 11, 1941, G. S. Jackson showed that in t1938 the profits of the fifteen largest industrial concernGermany averaged 7.7 per cent, as against 5.6 per centhe fifteen biggest American corporations.

THE ONLY IMPORTANT change Hitler broughtregarding the ownership of the industries was tstrengthen enormously the position of the greamonopolists by more active government interventiontheir interest in the shape of state subsidies, favorataxation, repression of the workers, etc. Now, afteradvent of Hitler, the German monopolists far mcompletely dominate the industries at the expense of tworking class, the peasantry, and the small merchantsmanufacturers.


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THE LAND, TOO, in Nazi Germany is privately ownethe big landlords steadily increasing their holdings apower. The same general situation exists in Italy. UnderNazi fascist regime in Germany the big business elemenindustry (and also in agriculture) are eating up the smones and are securing complete control of the natioeconomy. Thus the situation in Germany is just the revof what it is in the U.S.S.R

HITLER HAS NOT collectivized the industries or theHe has only strengthened the big monopolists. Hiscalled national socialism is only a demagogic lie, desito deceive the German working class, which has longlost faith in capitalism and is socialistminded. The wcapitalist character of the economy of Nazi Germanymade clear by G. S. Jackson in her abovecited article,which the following is an excerpt:

The same complex financial setup is present under Ge fascism as under American capitalism. The industrial plathe country is owned and operated by private individuThere are partnerships, limited liability companicorporations, joint stock companies, trusts, monopoliecartels and syndicates. There are stocks, bonds, debenturtreasury notes and mortgages. Money is borrowed frprivate persons, corporations, banks, credit companies athe government, and interest is paid on these loans.


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WHO CONTROLS THE GOVERNMENT?

THE U.S.S.R. AND NAZI GERMANY differ nfundamentally in their government makeup and policiethan they do in their systems of industrial ownership.Inthe Soviet Union the political power is in the hands oworkers, farmers and working intellectualswho comprisalmost the entire nation and it is consistently usethem to advance their interests. This fact is evidenced

the Soviet Governments class composition, as well as bpolicies. Thus, in the two chambers of the Supreme Soof the 1,090 delegates 465 are workers, 310 are farmersare office workers and professionals.

THERE ARE NO CAPITALISTS or landlords, or their athe Soviet parliament. The many thousands of local, stand district Soviets are similarly constituted, and the arcourts and all other government organs are also fully inhands of the people

THE NAZI PARTY is the party of the big businessmthe same principle, if not in the exact form, thatDemocratic and Republican Parties are the parties ofbusiness in the United States. Hitler is the instrumentthe great capitalists, not their master. The big monopolisfinanced the rise of the Nazis to power and they are nfull control of the Nazi regime. The Nazi leaders whonot capitalists at the outset have since enriched themselvon a large scale


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MANY NAZI MOGULS have grabbed vast propeGoering now being one of the biggest capitalistsGermany. What wealth Hitler himself has amassed is bkept a state secret. Undoubtedly anticipating the eventucollapse of Nazi Germany, the Nazi leaders have alsohuge investments abroad. The weekly magazine Friday(April 18, 1941) gives the following figures regardingpeoples financial holdings in the United States and LAmerica: Joseph Goebbels, $4,635,000; Rudolph He$473,000 (plus $1,000,000 in Switzerland); HeinrHimmler, $2,000,000; Joachim von Ribbentrop, $3,165,00Hermann Goering, $2,000,000.

DIFFERENT MODES OF PRODUCTION

JUST AS THE SOVIET UNION and Nazi Germanyfundamentally in the vital matters of which social clasown the industries and control the government, so althey differ in their respective basic modes of productioThe Soviet Union operates upon the socialist principleproduction for use: that is to say, production is careplanned, carried out and distributed upon the basis ofneeds of the people. Whereas Nazi Germany operatesindustries and agriculture upon the familiar capitalprinciple of production for profit, as we have incountry; that is, goods are produced only if they can beprofitably, regardless of the masses real wants. The So


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CAPITALISM, EVEN IN ITS BEST DAYS, cannot compthe U.S.S.R. in the speed and scientific character ofindustrial development. Thus, in the period from 1911936, while industrial production in the capitalist wincreased at the rate of only 1I/2 per cent yearly, thatU.S.S.R. leaped ahead at therapid speed of 28 per cenannually.

IN CONTRAST with the healthy, growing Soviet indussystem, the economy of Nazi Germany displays the bweaknesses and sicknesses characteristic of capitalistcountries generally (including the United States) andaggravated forms. Its system of production for prooperates even more disastrously than the same systedoes in other capitalist countries, because of the lackorganization and democratic rights by the workers, wresultant greater exploitation of those masses.

WITH THE INCREASE of German industrial efficiencfatal gap between the producing power and consuminpower of the masses constantly widens. The inevitablresults are the characteristic clogging of markets, industrshutdowns, mass unemployment and industrial stagnationinseparable from all capitalist economies. Fascist apologisbrazenly lie when they say that Hitler (or Mussolini)abolished mass unemployment and industrial crises. Tfascists have only temporarily obscured these incurabdiseases of capitalism by their present wholesaproduction of munitions and the gearing of the natiowhole economy to the waging of war.


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ONLY BY CARRYING on the horrible trade of orgmass slaughter can the Nazis keep their industries goineven for the time being. This is true also of AmericanBritish capitalism.

THE SOVIET SYSTEM creates an economy of abundAutomatically, the more the workers produce the highethe real wages they receive for their labor. Theiconsumption of commodities keeps pace with theincreased producing power. Consequently, as Sovieconomy makes its unparalleled advance, so do the livstandards of the masses. No other country can or dsystematically plan the material welfare of its people.

IN ALL THE CAPITALIST COUNTRIES, prior to thisnumber of employed workers had been stagnant odeclining, whereas in the Soviet Union their numb

increased from 11,600,000 in 1928 to 30,400,000 inThe U.S.S.R. also is the only country in the world whliving standards of the people are rising, and at a rateequaled anywhere under capitalist conditions. The averagwages of Soviet workers jumped up from 1,566 ruble1933 to 3,467 in 1938; the national payroll increased56,000,000,000 rubles in 1935 to 175,000,000,000 in 1retail sales increased from 15,000, 000,000 rubles in 192174,000,000,000 in 1940The tempo of this improvemenof the peoples material conditions constantly speeds upindustry expands and develops.


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IN NAZI GERMANY, on the other hand, the prevailingsystem creates the economy of scarcity characteristic ocapitalism in all countries. While the German capitalicontinue to pile up their illgotten wealth, the listandards of the constantly more exploited toiling massrapidly fall. The German toilers (and the Italians, too)suffered a deterioration of at least 25 per cent in theirwages since fascism came to power.

THEIR WORK WEEK has been increased from 48 to70 hours and their shop conditions have been greaworsened. Their old age, sick and unemploymeinsurances have been slashed. Restriction of usefproduction is the policy of the Nazi regime, as it isRoosevelt and of monopoly capital in the United StaFascist spokesmen attempt to glorify the spreading mapauperization. Cannons, not butter, cried Goering, thNazi industrial overlord. We are against the easy lisays Mussolini

SOVIET DEMOCRACY V. FASCIST DICTATORSH

PROLETARIAN DEMOCRACYsaid Lenin in 1918, imillion times more democratic than any bourgeodemocracy; the Soviet Government is a million times mdemocratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic


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THESE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES are fully realizedlife of the Soviet state. The people are guaranteeincomparably the most extensive rights of any nation inworld, including the rights of suffrage, speech, organizatiand conscience, the right to work, of recreation, ofeducation, of social security, of racial equality, ofequality, etc

AS AGAINST THE profoundly democratic characterSoviet society, the Nazi regime is altogether autocratiNazi propaganda is saturated with contempt for thmasses and adulation for their socalled natural rulersthe people, the elite, or leaders. This fascist elitein reality nothing more than the organized gang of ageof the most reactionary sections of finance capital, whothe moment, find themselves in power.

THE NAZI PROGRAM calls for all power to the lHitler declared at the 1935 Nazi Congress that The fueis the party and the party is the fuehrer;and in his boMein Kampf (p. 520), he stated also that the NatioSocialist Partymust not be the servant of the mass, bumaster. Mussolinis writings are crowded with simautocratic sentiments, and in this country the Nazi ecLawrence Dennis, states in his Dynamics of War aRevolution (p. viii),let me say categorically that I dobelieve in democracy or the intelligence of the masses.ThNazi regime is organized from top to bottom aroundantidemocratic principles, and the masses of the peopare utterly deprived of all democratic rights.


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CONTRARY TO THOSE who try to lump fascismsocialism together, the fascist dictatorship of Nazi Germahas nothing in common with the proletarian dictatorshipthe U.S.S.R.

AT THE SEVENTH WORLD CONGRESS of the CoInternational Georgi Dimitroff said correctly,fascism inpower is the open terrorist dictatorship of the mreactionary, most chauvinistic and imperialistic elements finance capital.

IT IS NAKED, autocratic domination by the bigcapitalists over the toiling masses,who have been robbedof all parliamentary democracy, and who have had ttrade unions, political parties, cooperatives and othdemocratic mass organizations ruthlessly broken up.In theUnited States we can see the same autocratic tre

developing in the reactionary policies of the big capitaand their political agents. The Nazi oneparty systemrepresents the suppression of all the politicaorganizations of the working class and petty bourgeoisby the dominant big capitalists.

THE PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP, so named by Ka

almost 100 years ago, on the contrary, is the rule otoiling masses. In the U.S.S.R. dictatorship ofproletariat constitutes a temporary form of the socialsociety adopted for that period in which it is still necefor the victorious workers and farmers to hold in checkremnants of the former ruling classes and also to def


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themselves from the external capitalist enemy states. TSoviet regime, however, is heading toward a statelesociety

THE ANTIDEMOCRATIC CHARACTER of Nazioriginating in the reactionary nature of monopolcapitalism and imperialism, is further demonstrated by imonstrous racial theories. With its ridiculously unscienticontention of Nordic superiority, it seeks to make all opeoples slaves to the German capitalist class. Fruits ofbarbarous racialism are the ferocious and distorted fascnationalism, its savage antiSemitism, its sneersneighboring nations and its blazing contempt for Negroeand all colonial peoples.

SIMILAR TENDENCIES are also evidenced in AmericaBritish imperialism. Contrary to all such uncivilized r

doctrines of superiority and Godchosen master peoplethe Soviet Union is based upon the democrainternationalist, scientific Marxist principles of the equaland solidarity of all the races and nations of theWithin the Soviet Unions own borders its many constitupeoples live together in harmony and equality. It is thegreat country in which antiSemitism is punishable acrime. The Soviet Constitution (Article 123) says (andclause is strictly applied):

Any direct or indirect restriction of the rights oconversely, any establishment of direct or indirect privile for, citizens on account of their race or nationality, as


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as any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness or hand contempt, is punishable by law.

IN INDUSTRY, as in politics and other spheres, the Nazis

their leadership principle, to the exclusion of all democracThe employers are the autocratic leaders in the shopsfactories and the workers have nothing to say about settheir wages and working conditions. It is the open shop cto the maximum. The socalled German Labor Front ismonster company union, but more degenerated and employercontrolled than anything we have ever had in the United SHitler tries to justify this monstrous tyranny thus:

The employers have worked their way up to the totheir industry and their efficiency. And by virtue ofselection, which shows that they belong to a higherthey have the right to lead. Every leader of industry

forbid any interference, from the workersTHE WORKING CLASS AND PEASANT WOMAN isa victim of the brutal Nazi dictatorship.She has ndemocratic rights and is reduced to an inferior staeconomically, politically and socially. The Nazi aimmake her into just a breeder of industrial slaves and so

for the capitalist ruling class. She is excluded from pollife and is denied a higher education

IN THIS THOROUGHLY REACTIONARY spirit Hitler1934 Nazi Congress, outlined the status of women undGerman fascism, as follows:


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The world of man is the state, the world of manstruggle, his selfdedication to the community, and thusmay say that the world o woman is a smaller one.world is her husband, her family, her children andhouse.... We do not believe it to be right for wompenetrate into the world of man, into his special spherethe contrary, we feel that it is natural for these worlremain separated.

THE SOVIET WOMAN, contrary to all thisreactionism, enjoys the fullest equality. One of thgreatest achievements of the Russian revolution wasstrike the shackles from doubly enslaved womankind. TSoviet Constitution (Article 12 a) provides that:Women inthe U.S.S.R. are accorded equal rights with men ispheres of economic, state, cultural, social and politlife.

ACCORDINGLY, SOVIET WOMEN are to the forefrontactivities. In the Supreme Soviet, of 1,090 delegates 187women, as against no women in the German Reichstag, aonly half a dozen in the United States Congress. In Sindustry the 11,000,000 employed women get the sawages as men doing similar jobs; they work inoccupations, many of them being factory and famanagers, locomotive drivers, ship captains, surgeonsscientists, etc.; there are 100,000 women industrengineers in the U.S.S.R., as against 10,000 in the restworld.


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IN 1938 WOMEN NUMBER 43 per cent of the studentsuniversities of the Soviet Union and 66,000 physicians,60 per cent of the grand total in the U.S.S.R., were woIn her home life the Soviet woman is also surroundeprotections and freedoms, quite unknown in any othcountry. Small wonder that the birth rate in the U.S.S.more than double that of either Germany, England, orUnited States.

NAZIS AND OTHER FASCISTS shout a great deal abyouth and about what fascism has to offer the ngeneration. But this is all a monstrous lie. The realityin Nazi Germany, as in all other capitalist countries, theis barred to a real life for young people. The Gindustries, the government, the educational system and aother vital social institutions, based on human exploitatiand saturated with crisis and rottenness, are firmly ingrip of the big capitalists and their agents.The only reaopportunity open before the great masses of proletarianand farmer youth in Nazi Germany is to perish on theof battle, and this is now opened also as a future foyouth of the United States.

THE SOVIET UNION, on the other hand, is truly thethe youth. Every line of social endeavor induspolitical, cultural is wide open and clamoring foryouth. In the Supreme Soviet, of the 1,090 delegatesare under 35 years of age. This situation is typical ofphase of Soviet life. In no country in world history hyouth blossomed as now in the U.S.S.R.


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FASCISM TEACHES YOUNG PEOPLE to dieand drives theminto mass slaughter; socialism shows them the way toand provides them the means for so doing.

SOVIET CULTURE AND NAZI BARBARISM

AS THE WORLD CAPITALIST SYSTEM, caught in theof its own incurable crisis, strangles and smothers, so a

its culture withers and dies. Under fascist regimes, whiarose where the capitalist crisis reached a very acute stathe decay of capitalist culture is the most pronouncedfascist Germany education is decadent, science is in decand the arts are stultified. The whole educational appara universities, colleges, schools, etc. has been drasticcurtailed. The only science the fascists are interested ithat which advances their war technique, and the satendency is growing in all other capitalist states.

THE NAZIS HAVE a supreme contempt for the pomind. All they seek is the most effective means to decthe people into obeying their autocratic commands. Hit

says in Mein Kampf (p. 198 ), The receptivity of the massevery limited; their ability to understand small.Only threstricted, socalled elite (the ruling capitalist clique)appreciate or absorb culture. As for the masses, says Hithe primitive simplicity of their minds renders them aeasy prey to a big lie than a small one.On this basis hfeeds them the most outrageous demagogy. In th


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conquered countries Nazi culture reaches its lowedepths of degradation.

THE BURNING OF BOOKS, the persecution of

outstanding scientists as Einstein, the resurrection oastrology, Nordic heathen god worship and other formsmedieval obscurantism, are typical indicators of thcultural barbarism that the Nazis are trying to inflict upthe world. This barbarism is fully in harmony withruthless exploitation of the workers in industry, thsuppression of every trace of democracy, and their bruslaughter of the people as cannon fodder in imperiamilitary adventures.


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AT THE OTHER EXTREME, the Soviet Union represenprogressive cultural tendency. In that country, inharmony with its socialization of industry, its abolitionhuman exploitation and its development of the broadedemocracy, there also exists the most intense promotionculture in all its forms

ONE OF THE MOST striking aspects of the greatcultural renaissance is the tremendous development omass education. The illiteracy of tsarist times, embracnearly 75 per cent of the people, has now been alwiped out. In 1913 Russia had but 859 newspapers, wprinted only 2,700,000 copies; the U.S.S.R. in 1however, had 8,500 newspapers, with a total circulation38,000,000 copies. Today in the U.S.S.R. there are s40,000,000 pupils in the primary and secondary schgrades, as against only about 8,000,000 before trevolution. The Soviet universities and technical schocontain 650,000 students, or about as many as all theof Europe put together

TO THIS END mighty educational work is now goinamong the millions of collective farmers. Every Sovivillage is surging with the new intellectual life broughtby the growing educational system, by the expandiindustrialization, and by the never sleeping care ofSoviet state.


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UNDER NAZI FASCISM, as under capitalism generallyindividual worker and farmer is reduced to a mere cothe great capitalist machine which operates to makwealth for the ruling class and to wage war against onations . His personality is warped and stunted, andpasses through life robbed of its potential beauties arichness. In the Soviet Union, on the other hand, wthere is no ruling, exploiting class, the whole aim oregime is to develop and expand the toilers freedompersonality. Capitalism, especially in its fascist aspecorrodes and destroys human personality; socialismdevelops personality to its utmost. In the Soviet Unthere is literally a new type of man in the making, nin the economic and political sense, but also with regarhis physical, mental and individual characteristics.

Above are excerpts from a pamphlet by William Z. Fostentitled Communism versus Fascism , published in 1941


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Rosa Luxemburg

MEANS OF PRODUCTION have been destroyed on a monscale. Millions of able workers, the finest and strongest sonthe working class, slaughtered. Awaiting the survivors returnstands the leering misery of unemployment. Famine anddisease threaten to sap the strength of the people at its rooThe financial bankruptcy of the state, due to the monstrousburdens of the war debt, is inevitable.

OUT OF ALL THIS bloody confusion, this yawning abyss,is no help, no escape, no rescue other than socialism.Only therevolution of the world proletariat can bring order into thischaos, can bring work and bread for all, can end the recipslaughter of the peoples, can restore peace, freedom, true

culture to this martyred humanity.

DOWN WITH THE WAGE SYSTEM! That is the slogan ohour! Instead of wage labor and class rule there must becollective labor. The means of production must cease to bemonopoly of a single class; they must become the common

property of all. No more exploiters and exploited! Plannedproduction and distribution of the product in the commoninterest. Abolition not only of the contemporary mode ofproduction, mere exploitation and robbery, but equally ofcontemporary commerce, mere fraud.


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IN PLACE OF THE EMPLOYERS and their wage slaves,working comrades! Labor as nobodys torture, becauseeverybodys duty! A human and honorable life for all whotheir social duty. Hunger no longer the curse of labor, butscourge of idleness!

ONLY IN SUCH a society are national hatred and servituduprooted. Only when such a society has become reality wilearth no more be stained by murder. Only then can it beThis war was the last.

IN THIS HOUR, socialismis the only salvation forhumanity. The words ofthe Communist Manifestoflare like a fierymenetekel

above the crumblingbastions of capitalistsociety:Socialism or barbarism!

THE ESTABLISHMENT of

the socialist order ofsociety is the mightiesttask which has ever fallento a class and to arevolution in the historyof the world.This taskrequires a complete


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transformation of the state and a complete overthrow of theeconomic and social foundations of society.This transformation and this overthrow cannot be decreed byany bureau, committee, or parliament. It can be begun andcarried out only by the masses of people themselves.

IN ALL PREVIOUS REVOLUTIONS a small minority of tpeople led the revolutionary struggle, gave it aim anddirection, and used the mass only as an instrument to carryinterests, the interests of the minority, through to victory.Thsocialist revolution is the first which is in the interests ofgreat majority and can be brought to victory only by the gmajority of the working people themselves.

THE MASS OF THE proletariat must do more than stakeclearly the aims and direction of the revolution.It must also

personally, by its own activity, bring socialism step by steplife.

THE ESSENCE OF SOCIALIST society consists in the factthe great laboring mass ceases to be a dominated mass, burather, makes the entire political and economic life its own

and gives that life a conscious, free, and autonomousdirection . From the uppermost summit of the state down tothe tiniest parish, the proletarian mass must therefore replacthe inherited organs of bourgeois class rule the assemblieparliaments, and city councils with its own class organsworkers and soldiers councils. It must occupy all the post


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supervise all functions, measure all official needs by thestandard of its own class interests and the tasks of socialism

ONLY THROUGH CONSTANT, vital, reciprocal contact betthe masses of the people and their organs, the workers andsoldiers councils, can the activity of the people fill the stawith a socialist spirit.

THE ECONOMIC OVERTURN, likewise, can be accomplishonly if the process is carried out by proletarian mass actionThe naked decrees of socialization by the highest revolutionauthorities are by themselves empty phrases. Only the workclass, through its own activity, can make the word flesh. Tworkers can achieve control over production, and ultimatelyreal power, by means of tenacious struggle with capital, hantohand, in every shop, with direct mass pressure, with strik

and with the creation of its own permanent representativeorgans.

FROM DEAD MACHINES assigned their place in productiocapital, the proletarian masses must learn to transformthemselves into the free and independent directors of this

process. They have to acquire the feeling of responsibilityproper to active members of the collectivity which alonepossesses ownership of all social wealth. They have to deveindustriousness without the capitalist whip, the highestproductivity without slavedrivers, discipline without the yokeorder without authority. The highest idealism in the interestthe collectivity, the strictest selfdiscipline, the truest public


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spirit of the masses are the moral foundations of socialistsociety, just as stupidity, egotism, and corruption are the mofoundations of capitalist society.

ALL THESE SOCIALIST civic virtues, together with theknowledge and skills necessary to direct socialist enterprises,can be won by the mass of workers only through their owactivity, their own experience.

THE SOCIALIZATION OF SOCIETY can be achieved onlytenacious, tireless struggle by the working mass along itsentire front , on all points where labor and capital, people abourgeois class rule, can see the whites of one anothers eyThe emancipation of the working class must be the work oworking class itself.

DURING THE BOURGEOIS REVOLUTIONS, bloodshed, teand political murder were an indispensable weapon in thehand of the rising classes.

THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION requires no terror foraims; it hates and despises killing.It does not need these

weapons because it does not combat individuals butinstitutions, because it does not enter the arena with naveillusions whose disappointment it would seek to revenge. Itnot the desperate attempt of a minority to mold the worldforcibly according to its ideal, but the action of the greatmassive millions of the people, destined to fulfill a historicmission and to transform historical necessity into reality.


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BUT THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION is at the samedeath knell for all servitude and oppression.That is why allcapitalists, Junkers, petty bourgeois, officers, all opportunistsand parasites of exploitation and class rule rise up to a mawage mortal combat against the proletarian revolution.

IT IS SHEER INSANITY to believe that capitalists wouldgoodhumoredly obey the socialist verdict of a parliament ora national assembly, that they would calmly renounce propeprofit, the right to exploit. All ruling classes fought to thewith tenacious energy, to preserve their privileges. The Rompatricians and the medieval feudal barons alike, the Englishcavaliers and the American slavedealers, the Walachian boya


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engage in parliamentary debate over questions of life ordeath, but where the millionheaded proletarian mass seizesthe entire power of the state in its calloused fist like theThor his hammer using it to smash the head of the rulinclasses: that alone is democracy, that alone is not a betrayathe people.

An Excerpt from Rose Luxemburgs pamphlet What Does TSpartacus League Want?, published in December of 1918, pto the German Revolution of 1919.


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Only by carrying on the horribletrade of organized mass slaughtercan the Nazis keep their industriesgoing, even for the time being.This is true also of American andBritish capitalism.

William Z. Foster


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From dead machines assigned theirplace in production by capital, theproletarian masses must learn to

transform themselves into the freeand independent directors of this

process Rosa Luxemburg

main trend - issue 2

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