IMPERIALISM

Nov. 7, 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the seizure of power by workers and peasants in the Russian Revolution, regarded as the most world-altering event in the history of civilization. To understand the context of this first socialist experiment, how it happened and what caused the many problems it faced, Abby Martin sits down with Brian Becker, long-time socialist organizer and co-author of the new book “Storming the Gates: How the Russian Revolution Changed the World.”

At 81, the great Harpal Brar, Indian-born but long a resident of Britain, communist party founder, and revolutionary theorist, is without a doubt one of the few remaining great Marxist-Leninist thinkers of the old school. In his political career, he has fought not just the capitalist enemy, but all forms of fake and theoretically erroneous leftism, from anarchism to social democracy and Trotskyism, along with communist revisionism (which undermined and eventually contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union from within). This chat with Harpal is simply to be prized. Brar’s work deserves attention and our gratitude. We are glad Caleb Maupin arranged to make this interview widely available to activists everywhere. 

CALEB MAUPIN—Caleb’s chat has important segments dedicated to the twisted peculiarities of Trotskyism, which he correctly denounces as essentially a form of petit-bourgeois anarchistic ultraleftism that objectively always finds itself on the wrong side of anti-imperialist struggles. Trotsky, who despised the Russian peasantry as a backward and semi-Asiatic mass, always insisted  on the need for a “permanent revolution”, a concept related to classical Marxism assigning the central role of revolution to “white” Western Europe, a proposition refuted by Lenin in his analysis of imperialism.

PHILIP WEISS—The Washington Post said “hundreds” were at the rally. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency says “thousands” were at the rally, but the screenshot above doesn’t support that claim. MJ Rosenberg said there were more people at his bar mitzvah.

Ron Kampeas reported last week that while leading Jewish groups sponsored the rally– including the Jewish Federations of North America, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the leading Jewish Republican and Democratic committees– liberal Zionist groups wanted nothing to do with it.

BILL VAN AUKEN—Moïse was shot dead at 1 a.m. by a commando squad armed with military-grade assault rifles. His wife, severely wounded, was flown via air ambulance to a trauma center in Florida. According to witnesses and an audio recording of the raid, the members of the death squad spoke English and Spanish.

Sustained gunfire was preceded by one of the members of the squad shouting out in American southern-accented English, “DEA operation! Everybody back up, stand down!”, an apparent ruse aimed at identifying the gunmen as members of the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

The US State Department issued a denial that the assassins were American agents.