“And the first birthright of capital is equal exploitation of labor-power by all capitalists.” Marx thus describes a reality dominated by capital. Today, in this pandemic point, when death is sweeping away thousands of lives in countries, in India and Brazil, in cities, in New Delhi, Mumbai and Reo de Janeiro, when ordinary citizens are gasping for oxygen, when their[Read More…]
“Digital” economy and work, like the imagined and claimed “4th industrial revolution”, are mesmerizing many scholars that lead them to chorus: “Blue-collars are gone, gone are smoke spewing chimneys, so is Marx”. But, do facts support those scholars’ choir “Cancel Marx” even if data related to blue-collar employees are ignored? The ILO report The World Employment and Social Outlook, The[Read More…]
Lenin, the proletarian revolutionary, was born on this day – April 22, 1870. Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, led the Great October Revolution in 1917 in Russia that has changed the world forever. The epoch-making revolution by the exploited stood as unparallel among all revolutions as the revolution overthrew all the exploiting classes while all the past revolutions replaced one exploiting[Read More…]
A climate summit is going to begin. Ahead of the summit, the World Meteorological Organization released a report on April 19, 2021, which has warned: Time is fast running out. The report – State of the Global Climate 2020 – finds that concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG) continued to climb in 2020, despite lockdowns imposed to slow the present pandemic.[Read More…]
Afghan-chessboard is difficult. Now, with the US president’s latest Afghan-move, the chessboard is going to be more difficult, and more complex. It’s now neither a Stunning Queen Sacrifice nor a Bishop Endgame. Is it a Desperado Sacrifice or a Rook and Pawn Endgame? It’s difficult to ascertain now. US President Joe Biden has officially announced that US troops will leave[Read More…]
Scientific pursuit, struggles in the arena of production, and class-war making language dynamic and rich is related to the issues of the world around – nature and processes in nature, dialectics, basis and super structures and relation between these, power and powerlessness, class and class struggle. Whatever individual contribution in the universe of language is made, it’s ultimately the product[Read More…]
The old tone is now set again. There’s Navalny, a Russian opposition politician the Empire finds useful, and there’s concern by Mr. Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor of US President-elect Joe Biden. Alexey Navalny was detained in a Moscow airport upon his return from Germany on January 17, 2021. Mr. Sullivan has demanded Russia immediately releases Navalny. It’s that[Read More…]
Hundreds of protesters breached the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, forcing lockdowns as the US Congress was convening a joint session to count the certified 2020 Electoral College votes. The entire episode, although with a few gaps, was in the mainstream media. Death number, arrests, etc. accompanied. There’re some more things. What came out was an exhibition of bourgeois politics. A[Read More…]
All aware citizens know the state of Bangladesh environment. Bangladesh courts of law regularly rule in favor of environment. Bangladesh media cover the area every day. Bangladesh environment activists regularly stand for environment. The commoners take care of environment and nature within their capacity, which is chained by capitals. And, some capitals regularly, everyday and all the time, exploit and[Read More…]
People are at the center in the pandemic now ravaging the world. It’s in terms of toll and contribution from the people. It’s in economy, and consequently, in life. Bangladesh is no exception. The stories of suffering are broadly the same in all lands: hunger/hunger-scar, less-/least-accessible health care, death. Reports from the country considered the world’s richest, smartest, wisest, most[Read More…]
Environment can’t escape contradictions. Exploitative economy with its antagonistic connections to environment creates antagonistic contradictions with and within environment; and, the antagonistic contradictions are inescapable in the economy. Capitalism intensifies the contradictions. Two revolutionaries, Marx and Engels find: “Our own age, the bourgeois age […] has simplified class antagonism. More and more, society is splitting into two great hostile camps,[Read More…]
To profiteers, this pandemic is very good; it hasn’t hurt their profit-making mechanism. Net worth of US billionaires has soared by $1 trillion – to total $4 trillion – since Pandemic began, a report released on December 8, 2020 by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) said: “The total net worth of the 651[Read More…]
The on-going pandemic is unprecedented. None will question this statement today. It’s unprecedented in terms of not only number, extent, speed, etc. It’s also without any precedent in terms of the power and resources the world economy, capitalist, exploitative, owns and the vulnerability the economy faces. It’s the economy’s sheer hapless condition, plain powerlessness, downright inability. Together with these, the[Read More…]
Many news from the Empire interest many readers, as the Empire itself is interesting. It’s interesting due to its economy, politics and diplomacy, part of its geostrategic and geotactical games, and for its audacity and arrogance, and for its hated character, and for its perished core, which lies in its home, in its economy. International news agency AFP’s news-report “Pandemic[Read More…]
Maradona, Number 10, is our love. People stand with Maradona. People are in solidarity with Maradona. People mourn. Our Maradona stands with the oppressed, the exploited. Maradona was with that spirit called Rebellion. Rebellion is the spirit of the oppressed, of the exploited. Rebellion is the spirit against the oppressors, the exploiters, the imperialists, the empire. It’s the human spirit.[Read More…]
![Notes on US presidential election: Show of a politics [Part III]](https://cdn.countercurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/trump-biden-200x150.jpg)
The on-going presidential election process in the US has bared the mainstream politics’ face more manifestly than any other recent growth. The exposure is so stark that the mainstream discourse is admitting a few facts in its style, and this acknowledgement is unmistakable. Free and fair election is at risk Larry Diamond, author of Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian[Read More…]
Comrade Haider Anwar Khan Juno’s life is full of struggles. Now, he lives in his work and memories of his comrades and friends. Haider Anwar Khan Juno (b. December 29, 1944) breathed to his last on October 29, 2020 in a Dhaka hospital. He was 76. Comrade Juno was suffering from pneumonia and following complications. He left behind wife, daughter,[Read More…]
![Notes on US presidential election: Show of a politics [Part II]](https://cdn.countercurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/biden-trump-debate-200x150.jpg)
Politics of the ruling classes in all lands is fundamentally always violent, full with coercion. It varies in appearance – covert or overt. The variation depends on, to say in a simple way, circumstance, which is, in real sense, state of [1] class struggle/class contradiction, [2] ruling classes, [3] machines for rule. These are evident in power of classes, antagonistic[Read More…]
Election politics in the US is a show of the politics the ruling classes in the country pursue. Presidential election politics is at times an apex point of that politics. The entire politics of the dominating classes in the country is a case for study of the bourgeois politics. A careful study of the politics tears down all masks and[Read More…]
The U.S. presidential election debates show a lot of the country’s politics the ruling classes’ political representatives produce for public’s consumption – an act of manipulation of public psyche. Following are a few points from the latest debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, two contending candidates from two factions of the same dominating classes: Wearing mask all the time[Read More…]
The Bolivia-victory says: We return. We, the people, return crossing ages, foiling frontiers, crushing conspiracies the Empire and its gang of imperialists hatch. Following the latest Bolivia-election-victory Evo Morales, the guerrilla turned lead fighter in a bourgeois-electoral arena, has vowed: “We’re going to return to Bolivia; that’s not in debate.” The former president of Bolivia announced: My great desire is[Read More…]
The old game is again in that state: a formalized factional fight of the ruling classes in the US. It’s the presidential election there. All dirty tricks available are in use in the intra-class fight as the masters follow the much pronounced, and unprincipled dictum: All is fair in […] war. Ergo, the arena named election is overabundant with lies[Read More…]
Billionaires are “smart” enough. Their wealth now, in this pandemic, tops trillions of dollars. A new report – Riding the Storm, billionaires insights 2020 – by UBS and PwC reveals that the world’s uber-rich have increased their already-huge fortunes by more than a quarter; and this “miracle” happened amidst the ongoing pandemic ravaging life of billions of the poor in[Read More…]
Toll the current coronavirus pandemic has already claimed hasn’t desisted imperialism and its media to indulge with politics of pandemic and a vaccine – the Sputnik V. The vaccine is “criminal” as it’s Moscow-made. The global toll, according to the Johns Hopkins University, has crossed a grim line a few days ago: More than a million – a 10-months toll[Read More…]
Andre, your last moments in Karaköy, İstanbul are yet unknown. But, we know you with your actions and stand – anti-imperialist. Andre Vltchek, (1962 – September 22, 2020), a fighter, was always on the move. He was moving from South Africa to Indonesia, East Timor to Bosnia, Congo to Mexico, Sri Lanka to Peru, Syria to Hong Kong, and many such[Read More…]
Farooque Chowdhury interviews Michael D. Yates In its desperate race to survive its series of crises, capitalism keeps clinging onto its old tool of dividing the working class. But, since commencing its political fight, the working class has uplifted a different call: Workers of the world unite! More than one hundred years ago, the proletariat in Russia trampled over all[Read More…]
A report said: “Siberia, the proverbial coldest place, […] is experiencing record warm temperatures, melting sea ice, and massive wildfires — changes to the environment that even the scientists most urgently tracking the climate crisis didn’t expect to see for another several decades.” (Bridget Read, “The Arctic is on fire, and we should all be terrified”, The Cut, July 6,[Read More…]
Countercurrents has posted an article – “Crime, Justice and Capitalism” – by Mister Bhabani Shankar Nayak (Coventry University, UK) on July 12, 2020, which deserves a few explanations. The spirit and orientation of the article – anti-capitalism – is nice. It joins today’s millions tormented and tortured by capitalism. The voice must be appreciated. However, a few points raised in[Read More…]
Now a days, anyone can take away anyone’s gold. It just needs turning Guaido, and master’s backing. Master’s law is there to help Guaido turn a gold grabber. The United Kingdom’s English High Court (EHC) has ruled that Juan Guaido is Venezuela’s legitimate president. According to the EHC, Nicolas Maduro is not the country’s president. The discovery of a self-proclaimed[Read More…]
Super cyclone Amphan has recently left trails of devastation in the southwestern part of Bangladesh, and in parts of the neighboring in Indian state of West Bengal. The death toll, according to EcoWatch (May 22, 2020), was at least 84. The UN’s office in Bangladesh estimated that 10 million people were affected and 500,000 people may have lost their homes.[Read More…]
Current domestic developments in the Empire’s political-sphere are a re-exposure of an old fact – failure of the centuries-old bourgeois “republic”. The propagandists of the Empire engage all their skills to hide the fact, and sermonize to other countries: democracy, equal opportunity, rights. But, today, anyone from any peripheral country can ask: what about Minneapolis and the following developments, dear?[Read More…]
Freedom, one of the most mischievous concepts, covers much and many: individual, society, country, class, philosophy, political science, jurisprudence, teacher, student, education-boss, artist, author, singer, worker, capitalist, economic, political, ecological, cultural, ideological, conscience, thought, expression, association, press, plunder, exploit, appropriate, expropriate, dominate, protest, resist, revolt, overthrow domination. In cases, opposing positions arise. The positions clash regularly, and invariably. With varied[Read More…]
The pandemic is helping to understand a few facts of the current state of geo-politics. One of these facts is China’s voice – voice with all its meanings. China has called for international cooperation against COVID-19, popularly named coronavirus, to tide over darkest hours. China has said: Cooperation and solidarity are the most powerful weapon to prevail over the epidemic.[Read More…]
Fred Magdoff, Professor Emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont and author of many articles and books on ecology, agriculture and economy, frequent Monthly Review contributor and closely associated with struggles of the working people, discusses the coronavirus pandemic in light of capitalism and agriculture in the following interview conducted on April 2, 2020 by Farooque[Read More…]
Deaths, pain, starvation and uncertainty overshadow the working people in this May Day. The world’s working classes witness the world capitalist system’s inefficiency and failure as the current pandemic ravages countries. Reports from every country tell the same story: following deaths, uncertainty and hunger are haunting the working classes. The number of the unemployed is surging in countries. Major economies[Read More…]
Lenin, today, April 22, on his 150th birth anniversary, teaches lessons crucial in this capitalism-ravaged world, a world that witnesses murder at mass scale with the cloak of a pandemic. And, this pandemic is one of the direct consequences of capitalism, the system that slashed public healthcare for decades in countries, sold out public healthcare to private capital, enslaved science[Read More…]
Undaunted Cuba’s act of solidarity, in real terms, in today’s pandemic ravaged world is a modern day epic. Now, none, but the Empire, declines the fact. Cuba’s role in facing the pandemic in countries is unparallel in human history: the island-country facing the longest-ever imperial economic blockade in human history is reaching humanity in countries with medical assistance in defeating[Read More…]
Farooque Chowdhury Interviews Michael D. Yates In the backdrop of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, Michael D. Yates, decades-long union activist, director of Monthly Review Press and former Associate Editor of Monthly Review magazine, discusses condition of the working people and steps required. The interview of Professor Michael Yates, whose academic fields include labor economics and the relationship between capital and[Read More…]
by Farooque Chowdhury and John Bellamy Foster In the backdrop of the ravaging coronavirus pandemic, John Bellamy Foster, editor of Monthly Review, the famous socialist magazine, discusses the pandemic in relation to the present condition of capitalism and economic crisis in the following interview conducted by Farooque Chowdhury in late-March, 2020. Foster, professor of sociology at the University of Oregon,[Read More…]
The entire human world is fighting to defeat a demon today. It’s coronademic – coronavirus pandemic. The fight demands a globally concerted, unified effort. Venezuela should not be left lurching in the pandemic-wilderness even if one of its original sins is to resisting imperialism. But, the Bolivarian Republic is being obstructed in its fight against the pandemic. Imperialism is carrying[Read More…]
The ramping coronavirus pandemic is questioning capitalism as at least a billion people around the world are confined in homes. Millions of workers have already lost jobs. A bleak future waits for them. Governments are struggling to face the situation. The United States, considered the most powerful, the most resourceful, the wisest and the smartest state, is actually in a[Read More…]
Afghanistan, a classic case of imperialist intervention, was having two presidents only days ago. Years ago, almost the same scene was on the stage of that political theater – two claims for the single chair of president. That was in 2014. The players were the same – Ghani and Abdullah. Later, a compromise was reached. Tomorrow will also find a[Read More…]
Clara Zetkin, one of the daughters of the working classes, is as bright as ever in the annals of working people’s struggles for rights – rights to life and dignity. Clara, an epitome of proletarian struggle, steadfastness and courage, always stood for the proletarian people, and never confused the women question with a bourgeois worldview. Clara (July 5, 1857-June 20,[Read More…]
The sultan of Turkey has come to his realization: “Operation Spring Shield”, the sultan’s adventure in the Idlib, Syria, is harmful. Within days of embarking on the adventure – intrusion in the territory of Syria – he has made a “glorious” retreat. His March 5 Moscow meeting, “uneasy, but productive talks”, has prompted the realization. Since the mid-night of March 6,[Read More…]
Languages, connected to economy including market, trade and commodity, are in conflict and in collaboration with contending class forces. Thus, in general, and not taking into consideration stages society passes, languages are [1] inseparable question of democracy, and, in particular cases, of democratic struggle, and [2] a tool for subjection. The two contradictory positions depend on conflicting classes using it[Read More…]
A responsible voice from the US foreign affairs establishment now tells: US foreign policy is amoral. Ms. Marie Yovanovitch, former US ambassador to Ukraine, has made the observation. She was speaking on February 12, 2020 at Georgetown University on receiving an award of excellence in diplomacy from the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. The 33-year diplomatic veteran has worked[Read More…]
In today’s tumultuous world, the US faces many threats. It’s, sometimes, terrorism. It’s, to an important part of the state machine, climate crisis. Mr. Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, has now identified the central threat. He has also suggested steps. Mr. Pompeo’s assertion and suggestion tell something about the Empire: hiding from facts or fooling self. Mr. Pompeo[Read More…]
A Brussels, January 30, 2020 datelined AP report – “EU: Russia, China use ‘digital war’ to undermine democracies” – cites European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova: Russia and China are waging a “digital war” with fake news and disinformation to undermine democracy in Europe. She said: “Digital war” is a favored method of Russia and China because “they see that[Read More…]
INTRODUCTION With usual high hope and promise, the Davos annual ritual is on the stage. But, the promise and hope appear false. The World Economic Forum (WEF) Switzerland meeting beginning from January 21 has become one of the voices of the world capitalist system as it considers itself “the foremost creative force for engaging the world’s top leaders […] to[Read More…]
Mr. Slavoj Zizek has tried to interpret recent development of the UK Labour Party – its election debacle – but has only exhibited his misunderstanding of the entire capitalist scenario. The heading, if the heading is by Mr. Zizek and not by the editor, of his article in RT on December 17, 2019 – “Big Capital will use every tool[Read More…]
US imperialism’s Afghanistan War reveals imperialism’s limit. It’s, as Mao said decades ago, a paper tiger. The war is the evidence. The just published The Washington Post report – “The Afghanistan Papers: A secret history of the war, At war with the truth”, (by Craig Whitlock, December 9, 2019) – carries the story of this limit. It’s, to some, a[Read More…]
“We are next to none in our love for humanity. Far from having any malice against any individual, we hold human life sacred beyond words. We are neither perpetrators of dastardly outrages, nor, therefore, a disgrace to the country […]” This was the statement by Bhagat Singh and B K Dutta in the sessions court, Delhi, on June 6, 1929.[Read More…]
Cuba is the “criminal-country”. That’s central reason that pushes imperialism to punish Cuba. Following imperialism’s directive and advice, a number of countries have rejected Cuba’s offer for medical help during those countries’ hours of need, when natural disasters battered parts of the countries on different occasions. Now, in the latest series of punishing Cuba, imperialism backed coup-authorities in Bolivia harassed[Read More…]
While Empire-blessed dirty dictators, notorious for murdering and looting, survive, Evo Morales, the socialist leader forced out of presidency by an Empire-engineered coup in Bolivia, had to take political asylum as his physical security was threatened in Bolivia. The Empire-fed bloodhounds are after Evo. Even, he was denied airspace for his safe air transit to Mexico, his place of political[Read More…]
Imperialist imprint in the just carried out Bolivia coup is visible. Donald Trump, the US President, has said in a statement: “The United States applauds the Bolivian people for demanding freedom and the Bolivian military for abiding by its oath to protect not just a single person, but Bolivia’s constitution.” Who these “people” are? The fascists, the rich, the appropriators,[Read More…]
Amidst a right wing coup, Bolivian President Evo Morales was forced to resign Sunday. Evo’s forced exit from the Bolivian presidency was a right wing coup by army and police chieftains with imperialist backing. Prior to the putsch, imperialism-backed rightists organized unrest, violence and arson including setting fire to residences of two governors’ and of Evo’s sister. The rightists organized[Read More…]
A group of great scholars unremittingly condemns the Great October Revolution and the Bolsheviks for leading the revolution. They deny looking at the reality the revolution and the Bolsheviks were encountering. A look at the telegrams and messages Lenin sent, and taking into consideration the circumstances in which those were sent help perceive the reality within which Lenin and his[Read More…]
“Bhagat Singh”, writes Professor Chaman Lal, “was searching for the ultimate ideology of human liberation from all kinds of oppression and exploitation, he had almost become a committed Marxist through his contacts with Kirti group of Ghadrite revolutionaries of Punjab.” Professor Chaman Lal discusses the revolutionary in the “Introduction” of his The Bhagat Singh Reader (HarperCollins Publishers India, Noida, Uttar[Read More…]
by John Bellamy Foster and Farooque Chowdhury [The following interview of Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster, completed on August 5, 2019, was conducted by Farooque Chowdhury for Kolkata’s famous socialist weekly Frontier and has appeared this month in their special Autumn issue. It was thus originally intended for a non-U.S. audience. Monthly Review is publishing it as well because[Read More…]
[On Bhagat Singh’s 112th birth anniversary, this article, 1st part of a series, introduces Bhagat Singh Reader by Professor Chaman Lal] The Tribune’s lead informs execution of Bhagat Singh, and Rajguru and Sukhdev, his comrades. Bhagat Singh. The revolutionary. The visionary. The ideological warrior. The organizer. The voice of the exploited. The perspective was this sub-continent, brutalized, tormented, muzzled, appropriated[Read More…]
Poverty is in human discourse for long. From Aristotle to St. Thomas Aquinas to Machiavelli to David Hume to Hernando de Soto to the World Bank to local level NGOs, poverty is an issue of impassioned discussion. “‘Poverty’ on a global scale was discovered after the Second World War; before 1940 it was not an issue.” (“The development of poverty”,[Read More…]
People in Venezuela shall defend the Bolivarian Revolution. To defend the land, the people are prepared for battle. This is the promise by the people in the land the revolution is moving forward with its transforming process. Therefore, Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, has said: Venezuela is “prepared for battle” if the US imposes quarantine. “We are all prepared[Read More…]
Facts force out myths. The following facts narrate condition of a part of teachers, students and an education system in a society that overflows with resources. A survey of teachers, 1,038 in total, from 45 US states, conducted in July 6-10, 2019, found: Ninety-six percent of teachers surveyed pay for school supplies for their students. (Fishbowl, “96 percent of teachers[Read More…]
Rex Tillerson, former US secretary of state (SoS) tells about state of a state. Tillerson’s seven-hour closed-door testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in May reveals facts related to an important arrangement of the state – a machine – he once represented. A few of these stories are amazing while a few astonishing and embarrassing; and the whole lot[Read More…]
Scientists, to some people, are bad. The cause: Scientists present horrifying facts about climate. To many others, scientists are good persons, doing incredible work, helping humanity. With latest findings on climate crisis, scientists are making the world aware: Get rid of the system creating the crisis. Climate crisis is hurting all in the global South and North. Parts in[Read More…]
The European Alps is not free from the curse – glacial melt. Scientists have found that the European Alps could lose its glaciers up to 90 percent by 2100 if greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue unchecked. (Zekollari, H., Huss, M., and Farinotti, D.: Modelling the future evolution of glaciers in the European Alps under the EURO-CORDEX RCM ensemble, The Cryosphere, 13,[Read More…]
Glacier melt in the Himalayas today is twice as fast as it was before 2000. With conditions remaining unchanged, the glaciers are likely to lose two-thirds of their total ice. Images, once secret, from Cold War-period US spy satellites helped find out the fact. Hexagon, a US spy program in the 1970s-’80s, launched 20 satellites to photograph secretly our world[Read More…]
It’s a question: Who won in the trade conflict – China or the US? The answer is as difficult as the question. Probably the outcome is still to be visible. News of the Xi-Trump 80-minute meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 Osaka summit has already reached news-hungry-audience. According to news-reports, the two countries are going to restart trade talks.[Read More…]
The facts that the recently released 2019 ITUC Global Rights Index by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) again exposes the bourgeois democracy. Advanced/matured bourgeois democracies are denying bourgeois democratic rights. Labor is the main victim of this denial. The 2019 ITUC Global Rights Index (Brussels, Belgium; henceforth Index) presents much significant information on workers’ rights in countries from both[Read More…]
Comrade Marta Harnecker has passed away. Comrade Marta died on June 15, 2019, of cancer in Canada. A relentless fighter, comrade Marta Harnecker (1937 – 2019) made valuable contributions in the areas of theory related to revolution for socialism in the broader Latin American perspective. Her struggle was for a humane world. Marta Hernecker’s was not an adventurist-head and not[Read More…]
Does it help if readers don’t have time to think over the articles they come across? The mainstream media (MSM) continuously bombard its audience with stories. It’s its 24/7 business. The MSM continue telling one type of stories while continue hiding another type. It continues, and gives no respite to the brains of its audience. Does the style, or tact,[Read More…]
Children in conflict zones are one of the most affected “parties” in today’s world. They, especially children from the poor-households pay the most. A recently released report – Stop the War on Children (2019) – by the Save the Children, UK highlights many facts related to the children in conflict zones. It’s a commendable effort in defense of children. The[Read More…]
“Self-proclaimed ‘interim president’ Juan Guaido”, Ian Bremmer writes in Time, “gambled this week [Last week of April] to try to force the ouster” of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. (“The quick read about… Venezuela’s faltering revolution”, May 4, 2019) On the pre- and post-coup attempt situation, now identified as Guaido-gamble, Time writes: “[T]here was genuine hope that this was the beginning[Read More…]
Fred Magdoff is Professor Emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont and author of many articles including “A rational agriculture is incompatible with capitalism” (Monthly Review, March 2015) and “An ecologically sound and socially just economy” (Monthly Review, September 2014), and of books including The Great Financial Crisis (with John Bellamy Foster, editor, Monthly Review) and[Read More…]
Today is May Day – a day for the labor to celebrate, a day to vow for carrying forward its political struggle for emancipation of humanity, a day to reiterate its position on the questions of capital and capital’s political power; and a day to learn from the working people’s history of struggles. This land – Bangladesh – is rich[Read More…]
Labor around the world is facing a hostile situation to the extent and intensity unprecedented in labor’s history. At the same time, labor in the Global South and Global North is theoretically, organizationally and politically unarmed. In this perspective, Timir Basu, a revolutionary once organizing the poor peasantry, and after passing hard time behind bar, organizing the labor, and delivering[Read More…]
May Day is one of the most important days to the exploited people. Michael D. Yates, director of Monthly Review Press and former Associate Editor of Monthly Review magazine, focuses on US labor and its movement in the following interview taken in April 2019 by Farooque Chowdhury. Professor Michael Yates, whose academic fields are labor economics and the relationship between[Read More…]
John Smith, former oil rig worker, bus driver, telecommunications engineer, longtime activist in the anti-war and Latin American solidarity movements, and author of Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis (Monthly Review Press, January 2016), discusses the question of imperialism in the following interview taken by Farooque Chowdhury during July 2018-February 2019. The interview, in slightly[Read More…]
Arresting Assange in London is now a world-news. Audience of news media is now fully aware of the developments centering the whistleblower. Therefore, no description of that part of the story is required. From now on, descriptions from court-battles will follow. And, there will be few more descriptions: (1) the crafty way bourgeois states deal the question of free expression.[Read More…]
John Smith, former oil rig worker, bus driver, telecommunications engineer, longtime activist in the anti-war and Latin American solidarity movements, and author of Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis (Monthly Review Press, January 2016), discusses the question of imperialism in the following interview taken by Farooque Chowdhury during July 2018-February 2019. The interview, in slightly[Read More…]
Capitalism produces much news meaningful to understand the system. Minimum wage John Bel Edwards, Governor of Louisiana, US, says: “We need to raise the minimum wage.” John Bel Edwards writes in a mail widely served: “As Governor of Louisiana, I’ve fought to raise our minimum wage. “Our current rate of $7.25 an hour forces families to face impossible scenarios every[Read More…]
John Smith, former oil rig worker, bus driver, telecommunications engineer, longtime activist in the anti-war and Latin American solidarity movements, and author of Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis (Monthly Review Press, January 2016), discusses the question of imperialism in the following interview taken by Farooque Chowdhury during July 2018-February 2019. The interview, in slightly[Read More…]
Today, it’s impossible to ignore the question of imperialism in any discussion concerning people as imperialism is distorting and destroying all aspects and areas of life. Ignoring the question of imperialism is synonymous to betrayal of people’s cause. John Smith, former oil rig worker, bus driver, telecommunications engineer, longtime activist in the anti-war and Latin American solidarity movements, and author[Read More…]
The glorious War for Liberation in Bangladesh turned powerful with the participation of people – the downtrodden, the exploited. They came from poverty-ruled rural areas; they came from machine shops chained to capital; they came from educational institutions – teachers and students primarily identifying with the aspiration of the exploited. To this huge human spirit, the bell of liberty was[Read More…]
Donald Trump, the US president, has identified The New York Times as “A true enemy of the people”. (The New York Times, “Trump Attacks The Times, in a Week of Unease for the American Press”, February 20, 2019, by Michael M. Grynbaum and Eileen Sullivan; an article on the issue also appeared in print on February 21, 2019, on page[Read More…]
Imperialism has initiated provocation for beginning its planned military intervention in Venezuela. Imperialism is treading a bloody path, the path it prefers. It needs the blood-soaked path. Already it has spilled blood along Brazil border. The MSM including Reuters, BBC, The Independent reported on February 22, 2019: Incident of death and injury at Venezuela’s border with Brazil. However, an AFP[Read More…]
Imperialists’ move to steal Venezuela’s assets and their secret preparations over a long period are now becoming known. The US, the self-appointed guardian of “democracy”, has already seized $7 billion in assets of Venezuela by imposing sanctions against PDVSA, the state oil company of Venezuela. The imperialist power, declares that it likes “to help prevent the further diversion” of assets[Read More…]
First phase of imperialism’s direct intervention in Venezuela has started. The US has “officially” recognized a self-proclaimed president of Venezuela as the country’s president while the rightists are trying to create chaos on Caracas streets. Guaidó, the self-proclaimed president, have been recognized by Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay and Peru, the countries collaborating with the US[Read More…]
Class struggle defined traverse of the Baangaalee people’s victory-1971 in Bangladesh. The people’s War for Liberation achieved the victory by defeating Pakistan in 1971. Dynamics of class struggle also determined pace and forms of the political and other struggles the Baangaalee people were waging since August 14, 1947, the day the British colonial rulers transferred the bifurcated sub-continent to their[Read More…]
Third of the three interviews by Subhasis and Arijit from the cradle of the revolutionary uprising, which dispel many distorted analyses on Naxalbari Aneek, an independent, radical Baanglaa monthly from Kolkata, India, in its 53rd years of publication, interviewed three leaders of the Naxalbari Uprising. The leaders with working class background were organizing armed struggle of the poor-landless peasantry[Read More…]
Thanks to Professor Bruce Lerro for his ideas- and questions-filled article, “Facing the music: religion, nationalism and sports have enchanted the working class; socialism hasn’t”, posted in e-journal Countercurrents on November 19, 2018. Professor Bruce Lerro correctly points out propaganda material, media, mode and tact the ruling classes constantly use to confuse the working class for keeping the working class[Read More…]
“California is a state of geographical extremes: the deserts, the Sierras, the long ocean coast, and the central valleys. It is a critical agricultural state, and every visitor ought to travel through the San Joaquin, Imperial, or Sacramento Valleys to see the sources of the food we eat. Go during a harvest and watch the brown-skinned men, women, and children[Read More…]
The working class, if it decides to win in class struggle, has to assess the power of capital. Without this assessment, the struggles the working class carries on against capital turn to adventurism or capitulation or puerile disorder. Consequently, the struggle lurches in a political wilderness, or, resorts to individual heroism, formulating programs that reach the level of utopia, produce[Read More…]
What has the working class achieved so far in its war for emancipation? Are not the exploited of the earth encountering unfinished work in their struggles against the most experienced and resource-rich class the world has witnessed till today? These questions are apposite while examining the class struggle on the world stage. Michael D. Yates has probed the questions in[Read More…]
Again, Professor Michael D. Yates raises critical questions in chapter 3 of his recently released book Can the Working Class Change the World? (Monthly Review Press, New York, October 2018): “How much has the working class changed the world so far? Can it go further and bring about a global transition in which capitalism is superseded by a radically democratic[Read More…]
“Capitalism is a hegemonic social order. Capital seeks to dominate as many aspects of our lives as possible and to control every institution, from state to schools. Very little escapes its domination, including our thoughts. Its two essential underpinnings are exploitation of wage labor and the expropriation of nature, the non-market labor of women, and the bodies of black[Read More…]
The Working Class has millions of tales. These are narrations of contradictions; these are descriptions of deprivations; these are tales of toil and torture; and most of these tales are untold and unknown. However, stories of success are built with the toil of the working class, a class exploited, a class in chains. Michael D. Yates, director of Monthly Review[Read More…]
Can the Working Class Change the World? It’s a fundamental political question in every economy and society, relevant to all concerned with and aware of class interests tangled in exploitative production relations. Politics in countries has centered around this question of class power. At times, the question has shaped geopolitics on the world stage. Michael D. Yates re-examines the question[Read More…]
Díaz-Canel, the president of Cuba, has reaffirmed the firm commitment: We will not give up; we will not betray; and we will never surrender. President Miguel M Díaz-Canel Bermúdez was delivering a speech in early-October, 2018 during the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the beginning of Cuba’s independence struggle in La Demajagua. Amidst slogans of Viva, Díaz-Canel declared: Socialism[Read More…]
Lamenting Lenin is a regular ritual of a section of scholars donning, on occasions, a red apron. These scholars, a few of them pose as an ardent disciple of Marx, accuse Lenin of practicing autocracy as they point to measures the Soviet Power had to take during its early days. The rant The condemnation-business is transcontinental, beginning from Russia to[Read More…]
Sweden, an amazing economy to many utopians or to the naive about capitalism, is experiencing pains capitalist economies feel. Capitalist crisis has already torn down that façade of the utopia. Ordinary citizens in Sweden are seeing the dream demolished. It is being manifested into politics, into electoral process in Sweden. At the same time, ordinary citizens are trying to stand[Read More…]
Abolish all exploitation, completely eliminate the division of society into classes, mercilessly crush the resistance of the exploiters, establish a socialist organization of society, and achieve the victory of socialism in all countries were declared as the fundamental aim of the newly established Soviet Russia, a Republic of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies. And, the Declaration of Rights[Read More…]
Mr. Saral Sarkar has done a nice job with his article “From Marxist Socialism to Eco-Socialism — Turning Points of a Personal Journey Through a Theory of Socialism”, (Countercurrents.org on September 16, 2018), in which he has attempted to look back at a lot of issues: his political learning from his student days’, juvenile imagination on socialism, Marx, Lenin, Mao,[Read More…]
“The US has delivered an object lesson in how not to conduct diplomacy”, said the first sentence of an editorial of Dawn, a leading Pakistan daily. (“US aid cut”, September 3, 2018) The claimed “object lesson” was in reference to the US permanent aid cut to Pakistan of $300 million. The US announcement came only days proceeding to the planned[Read More…]
“Learn about the dangers of the Internet before you start using it!” “Anyone who thinks their computer or smartphone is not installed with government software is a child. We are all on the grid and we are all traceable to someone.” These are only two comments from many on an Associated Press report headlined “Lawsuit lays bare Israel-made hack tools[Read More…]
The long Rohingya run is passing more than a year in its current phase – a huge number of the Rohingyaas in Bangladesh. Amidst diplomatic dialogues, and imperialist intrigues the Rohingyas staying in Bangladesh are passing difficult days. The Rohingyaas’ days are harsh and hard, very difficult to bear. Their days are uncertain and undignified also. Living on doles is[Read More…]
A decisive political fight between two powers – the exploited and the exploiters – engulfed the path of the Great October Revolution following the victory of the Soviets in October as the revolution changed class equation/array of class power. A new vista for the working people was unfolding. Kerensky’s expectation After the February Revolution, the Soviets and the Provisional Government[Read More…]
Samir Amin lives as long as peoples’ revolutionary journey moves forward. And, peoples’ revolutionary march is unending as revolutionary advancement opens path for further revolutionary advancement. Samir Amin walks along peoples struggling against exploitation, against imperialism in countries. Samir Amin transcends all borders capital creates to divide peoples struggling against exploiters, against all divisive politics, against all sectarian ideologies, which[Read More…]
The attempt to assassinate Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela, has failed. This news is days-old. But, the facts are reiterated boldly. And, there are a few questions, and a few answers to some “progressives” now in close collaboration with imperialism. The assassination attempt was made while Maduro was addressing the nation on live TV during a military celebration in Caracas.[Read More…]
Bangladesh student spirit marched ahead of the mainstream politics as streams of school students overflowed Dhaka roads recently – beginning from the last day of July. The unprecedented heroic move is historic and significant as it turned out flowers were blooming in the urban monsoon setting. Then, usual in a society super-charged with factional conflicts within dominating classes and with[Read More…]
Road rage in Bangladesh is not new. And not new is death due to road rage. The new phenomenon is the student spirit has stood against road rage. To the students, life matters. A movement against road rage has recently been carried out by the students in Dhaka. They stood for life. And they stood against disregard to life. It[Read More…]
All these news are alarming: “Sweden Wildfire: Blistering heatwave sparks fires within Arctic Circle as Europe boils”. “Two major forest fires raged out of control Monday on either side of Athens, killing at least 50 people, burning houses, prompting thousands of residents to flee and turning the sky over Athens a hazy orange from the smoke.” “At least 44 people[Read More…]
It’s now Nicaragua. Rightists induced extremist violence and deaths, armed gangs triggered bloody strikes, and imperialism imposed sanction have gripped Nicaragua for months. All of these are part of imperialist intervention in the Latin American country defying the world imperialism. Imperialist intervention is an already-turned-old game currently going on in a number of countries. The imperialist operation is moving in[Read More…]
Marx was not aloof in the Bangladesh socio-economic-ideological-political reality. Incessant class struggle in the society along with development of ideas cropping up in the soil of class conflict was a home for Marx, the scientist-theoretician of the revolutionary proletariat. The society’s antagonistic classes compelled him to play a role in defining goals of the society, of the exploited in the[Read More…]
The great, grand BBC was covering the Kim-Trump Singapore summit live. And, as usual it failed to forget its attitude to North Korea: A great show of news-neutrality! The coverage (June 12, 2018) began at 4:32 as it said: “A historic day begins. “Welcome to the BBC’s live coverage of a historic day. The meeting between US President Donald Trump[Read More…]
The hardcore warmongers aren’t happy with the just completed Kim-Trump Singapore summit. The warmongers love warmongering and war as these increase their amount and rate of profit. Reactions to the latest diplomatic development in the Korea region speak this love. The warmongers feel pain as they find Kim, the North Korean leader, in a favorable position. Hence, to this group,[Read More…]
The US democracy is facing threat. This has been claimed by Hillary Clinton, former Democratic presidential candidate, former senator and former first lady of the country. Thence, there’s no scope to consider the cautionary signal in a casual way. A Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 25, 2018 datelined Associated Press report (“At Harvard, Clinton warns of threats to American democracy”) said: Hillary[Read More…]
Putin’s latest assertion signals that the world imperialism is going to face tough days in future. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, said: “Either Russia is a sovereign country, or there is no Russia.” The world imperialism is not habituated to listen to such assertions. It’s also a tough message to hirelings of the world imperialism. The masters and their lackeys[Read More…]
Misrepresentation creates confusion, and confusion misleads many. Misrepresentation is unfair also as it carries seeds of injustice. A recent two-parts-article in a Dhaka English daily (“Karl Marx in Bangladesh”, The Daily Star, Dhaka, May 5 and 6, 2018, https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/perspective/karl-marx-bangladesh-1571515 and https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/perspective/karl-marx-bangladesh-part-2-1571884) is an example of this practice. The article narrates, as it claims, “the intellectual or conceptual footprints of Marx[Read More…]
Karl Marx was born, two centuries ago, on this day – May 5. In today’s world, it’s impossible to ignore Marx, the greatest proletarian revolutionary. Rather, the exploitative economic system makes Marx essential for building up a decent world. Today, it’s necessary to convey Marx to the new generation being strangulated by the world system of exploitation. Frederick Engels is[Read More…]
Interview of Monthly Review analysts In view of the historic May Day, May 1st, analysts from Monthly Review, the famous independent socialist magazine, identify tasks the working classes should press with. In the following interviews, conducted in early-April, John Bellamy Foster, Professor and Editor of Monthly Review; Fred Magdoff, Professor Emeritus, and one of Monthly Review’s closest associates; and Michael[Read More…]
![Economics and Politics in Early-Soviet Russia and Lenin’s Stand [Part II]](https://cdn.countercurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/lenin-200x150.jpg)
Lenin creates controversy as the Bolshevik leader stands against exploiters; and consequently, theoreticians defending exploiters don’t spare any opportunity to condemn Lenin. Immediately after the Great October Revolution, Lenin had to encounter a reality, which was beyond perception of theoreticians busy with bourgeois ideas strengthened by petty-bourgeois imagination. In the situation immediately after initiating the Revolution, Lenin describes “the incredible[Read More…]
[Part I] Lenin yet, about 150 years since his birth, creates controversy. Funny figures make funnier statements while a group of scholars, white, pink and “red” in color, continue condemning the Bolshevik leader – a bold show of class conflict in the areas of ideology and politics. This reality makes it an imperative to reiterate Lenin’s analysis and class position[Read More…]
Imperialism again carries on direct aggression against Syria. And, with its bloody claws, heinous imperialism again asserts its age-old axiom: Everything is and will be dominated; no effort for a peaceful life will be allowed. The US, UK and France – an imperialist alliance – have bombed multiple government targets in Syria in an early Saturday morning operation. And, with[Read More…]
Satya Ranjan Maitra epitomized love for and allegiance to people, serving people, and revolutionary proletarian practice in Bangladesh. Satya Maitra breathed to his last on April 8, 2018. He was 96. Of this near-century, colonial and neo-colonial political sytems sent him to prisons at different times, which in total was more than two decades. Satya Maitra was suffering from[Read More…]
Following are three political incidents/developments from two matured bourgeois democracies. Alleged bribe Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, isn’t shameful for all the election bribery he allegedly accepted gladly from a foreign “friend”, who was murdered later, and in this murder ploy, the French leader was an aggressive participant. A stark show of bourgeois politics with “friendship”! The interventionist is[Read More…]
Second of three interviews from the cradle of the revolutionary uprising Aneek, an independent, radical Baanglaa monthly from Kolkata, India, in its 53rd years of publication, interviewed three leaders of the Naxalbari Uprising. The leaders with working class background were organizing armed struggle of the poor-landless peasantry in the Naxalbari region since the earliest days of the revolutionary initiative. Following[Read More…]
A farmers’ march in India has triumphed, for now. Countercurrents (Countercurrents.org), an e-journal from southern India, headlines on March 12, 2018: “Historic Victory for Farmers of Maharashtra”. The victory is in Mumbai, India’s financial-heart, hundreds of kilometers west of Tripura, an industrially less-developed state, where, only days ago, Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) experienced massive rightist assault, and, rightists,[Read More…]
The incidents of the recently-exposed poor and poverty in the US [an article on hungry children, evicted old lady and other poor people carried by Countercurrents.org on December 21, 2017 & Frontier on-line, December 22, 2017] tell a few aspects that trail the exposed poverty. Tracking the aspects helps lay bare a few facts; and the facts help take away[Read More…]
Tripura, an eastern-India state, is experiencing post-election violence, which is completely a rightist onslaught on its opposition political activists, the progressives. The onslaught has not spared a statue, a statue of Lenin; and thus it has confirmed the onslaught’s political character: extreme rightist; and extreme right is extreme anti-working classes; and working classes are the biggest segment of people. Thus,[Read More…]
Nic Robertson, CNN’s international diplomatic editor, writes about Russian president Vladimir Putin’s two-hour annual State of Nation speech: “It is bombastic talk in the extreme: a waggling of military parts in the faces of other nations, most likely right now the United States”. (CNN, “Russia’s ‘invincible’ missile is chilling for everyone”, March 1, 2018) The mainstream media leader primarily searched[Read More…]
Turkey’s assault on Afrin for the last few weeks has made it difficult to define a battle line in the imperialism-intervened Syria. The people in Afrin are experiencing death and destruction as Turkey is bombing and bombarding Afrin, yet a part of Syria. The Kurdish people in Afrin are being driven to caves and basements. And, the sectarian rights-mongers[Read More…]
Renewed initiative for a peaceful and decent Colombia is facing fatal hurdles as assassinations and assaults are being unleashed against the Revolutionary Alternative Force of the Common (Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común, acronym FARC), the political party formed by the former FARC leaders and activists. Blood of progressive activists is being spilled by the ultra-rightist/conservative forces in the land[Read More…]
Kashmir stirs emotion, debate, politics, sense of rights, legal and geopolitical questions, terrible memories and sad stories, sense of urgency, demands, activism, pains, poems and songs, allurement, greed, mobility, hatred, plans, killings, conspiracies, skirmishes and war. A major part of political psyche in and around the region has been anchored in Kashmir. Most of the mainstream media reports focus on[Read More…]
The problems mentioned in this article are in view of recent developments in a number of countries including Iran. The questions appeared stark during the days imperialism was preparing ground for invasions/interventions in Iraq, Libya, Syria and a group of progressives from these countries effectively or indirectly lent support to imperial interventionists (2i). All the banner bearers: Rightists, ultra-rightists,[Read More…]
A new research by scientists at the San Diego State University finds, to put it briefly, a correlation between over-use of Smartphone and teens’ increased unhappiness. All major news providers have prominently presented the news of the study. Overall finding of the study annoys all parents, guardians and responsible citizens. It’s not the only study that finds such annoying facts[Read More…]
Reiterating Mao’s teachings is one of the essentials in the area of political education as a new generation is joining people’s struggle. The class struggle question is one of the areas to learn from Mao Tse-tung [also spelled Mao Zedong] [b. December 26, 1893] as now-a-days confusion dominates political position of a group of “progressives” and “anti-imperialists” engaged with mongering[Read More…]
A 7-year-old girl in the US needs food, blanket and a toy. So, the little girl wrote to Santa, “This Christmas I would like a ball and a food. I need a [blanket].” A “1st grader asks for food, blanket in heartbreaking letter to Santa” headlined Good Morning America report by Morgan Winsor in mid-December, a winter day, said: “Ruth[Read More…]
Politics is not absent in the philosophy and culture of punishment ruling machines practice; and there’s nothing like class-neutral politics although a group of bookmen always suffer with annoyance and pain while they enter into discourse with issues like politics and punishment practiced by the poor and the exploited, and especially in case of the Great October Revolution. Punishment[Read More…]
Russia’s tsar regent Boris Godunov exiled, as punishment, a 300-kilogram copper bell to the Siberian town of Tobolsk, in the east, from Uglich in 1591. The exiled bell had to cover a distance of 2,200 kilometers. The bell’s crime: to the tsar regent, the bell appeared as a symbol of political unity of the rebel residents of Uglich. The bell,[Read More…]
First of three interviews from the cradle of the revolutionary uprising Aneek, an independent, radical Baanglaa monthly from Kolkata, India, in its 53rd years of publication, interviewed three leaders of the Naxalbari Uprising. The leaders with working class background were organizing armed struggle of the poor-landless peasantry in the Naxalbari region since the earliest days of the revolutionary initiative. Following[Read More…]
“[I]n this open step the sheep wander from Asia into Europe, and the Kirgiz shepherd drives them back again into Asia without knowing that he has crossed a geographer’s frontier.” Thus describes Geroid Tanquary Robinson a part of Russia in Rural Russia under the Old Regime, a History of the Landlord-Peasant World and a Prologue to the Peasant Revolution[Read More…]
Sumanta Banerjee (b. 1936), political and civil rights activist and social scientist, moved to the revolutionary position of the Naxalbari peasants’ upsurge in the north-eastern India while working as a journalist for The Statesman in the late sixties, and joined the movement in 1973. He had to resort to underground life while carrying on his revolutionary tasks in rural and[Read More…]
The tsarist Russia, the empire-system for which a section of today’s intellectuals feel love, was experiencing rapid capitalist expansion and growth till the World War I. Absence of profit wouldn’t have driven capitalists to the expansion. And, labor pushes up growth. And, having profit is impossible without toilers’ strained muscles and wet brows. And, the Great October Revolution is by[Read More…]
The antiquated and autocratic tsarist political system was more than enough to provide rationale for the Great October Revolution, which has been dealt widely by many political scientists and politicians. Condition of the proletariat in the country the Revolution was organized – Russia – bolstered the rationale. Political developments in the country and political fight the proletariat was waging[Read More…]
The moment the Great October Revolution proclaimed its victory “the English and French press was filled with horrible stories about the servants of the revolutionaries, the massacres of the propertied classes, the ruin of the innocent ministers of Kerensky and of the Tsar’s regime, about the anarchy in the streets of Petrograd and the chaos in the provinces.” (Morgan[Read More…]
Denouncing Lenin and his “band” of Bolsheviks by their class enemies is endless while discussing the Great October Revolution. One of the few denouncements bases its arguments on “machines and money”. The main argument put forward by this machines and money-group is: as an economy Russia was “not” matured for the Revolution, and Lenin with his “band” of Bolsheviks thrust[Read More…]
A century has passed since the Great October Revolution. But the Revolution still stirs debate – one camp defending it while another condemning the historical development. It’s the normal within a class-based reality. Only a stupid and a lunatic will feel hurt with the condemnations of the Revolution the bourgeoisie carry on a regular basis as the Revolution harmed[Read More…]
The Great October Revolution in Russia changed the world forever. Since November 7, 1917, a century, the world has ceased to be the same: the world is no more under absolute control of the world capital all the time, the world can’t be absolutely dictated by the world imperialism all the time, the world can’t be compelled to carry[Read More…]
Incidents in St. Louis in the US are not exception in US social scene. Labor regularly protests against anti-labor measures in France. People gathered near the courthouse in St. Louis to protest a court ruling on September 15. Hundreds of people took part in the massive protest. At night, protesters blocked highways, damaged public and private property, broke windows, threw[Read More…]
It’s a tale of creation, a tale of struggle. It’s a narration of survival, a narration of lesson to survive. Sundarban Sramajeebee Haaspaataal, the Sunderbans Toilers’ Hospital, is the central character in the story. It’s a social organization in all its senses. It has been built up bit by bit with dream-love-labor-sacrifice-patience of many human beings. Farm laborers, poor peasants,[Read More…]
A few reports Dawn, a leading newspaper from Pakistan, carries are not only revealing and startling; but significant and meaningful also. Most of the reports cited below are from the newspaper’s September 6, 2017 issue. Foreign minister speaks: We acted like a proxy A report said: “Following the BRICS nations’ ‘regional security concern’ over the militant groups allegedly based[Read More…]
by Farooque Chowdhury and Fred Magdoff Amidst imperialist interference, the people in Venezuela are carrying on the task of reorganizing their society. Real-life picture in Venezuela is far different from new-reports the mainstream media continuously circulates. The following interview of Christina Schiavoni, a researcher and food sovereignty activists, provides a different view of the life of the Venezuelan people than[Read More…]
Only about 11 years ago, Saddam Hussein was sitting in a Baghdad court and facing trial. His crimes were defined and dissected by the world-masters. And, Saddam, shackled and subdued, was delivered the masters’ judgment: face a knotted rope from gallows. Only about 14 years ago, smoke was billowing up from Saddam’s presidential palace compound in Baghdad. An invading force[Read More…]
Timir Basu, editor of Frontier, the famous radical weekly from Kolkata, India, for about 40 years, was organizing the poor peasantry during the Naxalbari-days identified as the Spring Thunder Over India. As a young professional revolutionary with a political program for radical change of the entire system Timir Basu was practicing the revolutionary ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Mao’s thoughts. Timir Basu’s and[Read More…]
The Empire’s unhappy mood with Venezuela is old news. It is now showing its teeth to the Latin American nation. It’s now talking in military terms. The mainstream media including the AP, CNN and Miami Herald said in one of their latest dispatches: Mr. Donald Trump, the US president, said August 12, 2017 that he wouldn’t rule out possibility of[Read More…]
People are celebrating the recently concluded elections of the Constituent Assembly in Venezuela although the mainstream media reports completely ignore the fact.
Venezuela is now super-charged with struggle for democracy as propertied interests and imperialism are mounting a campaign against the Venezuelan people’s initiative to determine their political arrangement. Now, there is a news report by the mainstream media (MSM) that bombs are being prepared by a group of protesters in their struggle for “democracy”. The group is also planning to[Read More…]
Venezuela, it seems, is a riddle to the audience of the mainstream media. Yet the riddle conceals a fact. A conflict between opposing interests is roaring in Venezuela, and attempts to stoke that conflict are being intensified by the imperialist-interventionist quarter as the day for a vote on the proposed Constituent Assembly—July 30—is nearing. Every day the mainstream media showers[Read More…]
There’s warning and concern, there’s assurance and optimism, and, there’s accusation and threat. All these were delivered and expressed by Mr. Donald Trump, the US president. The US president was in Warsaw, a historic city, and was delivering a speech in front of people gathered at Krasinski Square, and was speaking at a news conference. All these happened on[Read More…]
Sudeb, a young revolutionary walking along the path of proletarian revolution, was shot at and beaten to death by jotedar’s [owner of a large farm landholding or a de facto sub-proprietor, often with land leased out to sharecroppers] henchmen at Keshpur, Midnapur in June 1970, said press reports. Sudeb’s father wrote: “Let no other father face the terrible task[Read More…]
Che is unvanquished. Proletarian revolutionaries and revolutions don’t get vanquished as they move from one phase to another through class struggle. So, the torch of liberation that Che Guevara carries never gets eliminated; the flame of freedom that Che ignites never gets extinguished; the dream of equality that Che livens never gets wiped out. Today, the day Che Guevara[Read More…]
Naxalbari is still alive. Half a century has passed, yet the struggle is as bright as the crimson sun. Naxalbari is alive in the politics of people. The politics of dominating classes with all its power, and after so many years, is still failing to ignore Naxalbari, now, name of a politics, and has failed to wipe out Naxalbari[Read More…]
The costs to be calculated The most important part of these intervention-costs lacking in most of these calculations are the cost and price the intervened countries, the societies and the people in these countries had to pay/are paying. In any of the countries going through intervention process, there’s no scope of pursuing productive, democratic, and educational-cultural-intellectual activities in usual, normal[Read More…]
![Intervention: Inter-Parliamentary Union’s No To The imperialist Procedure [Part I]](https://cdn.countercurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/uncle-sam-200x150.png)
The Venezuela government has recently accused the US of financially propping up violent opposition groups in the country: Promoting an “unprecedented and systematic attempt” to intervene in the internal affairs of Venezuela. A statement of the foreign ministry of Venezuela said: “US financing and logistical support for violent groups in Venezuela have facilitated an armed sedition”. The statement added:[Read More…]
Commoners in Bangladesh are raising their voices against rape. There are protest march, meetings, stand-ins. Days ago, an incident of a rape came out to public light. The victims were two university-students. The incident occurred weeks ago in the capital city of Dhaka. But, the victims dared not to lodge any complaint with the concerned authority as the perpetrators were[Read More…]
It was 1830, the July Revolution forced abdication of king Charles X in France, and Louis Philippe became constitutional monarch. Twenty-eight years prior to this development in France, in 1802, the first factory law was introduced in England; and the law pertained to child labor. In the same year, John Dalton introduced atomic theory into chemistry. In the Congress[Read More…]
One hundred years ago, the proletariat in Petrograd celebrated the historic May Day in jubilation and honor. “Thousands of people turned out for the 1917 May Day parade. They carried […] banners and posters, which became the main elements of the decorations in Petrograd.” (Natalia Murray, “Feast in a time of plague, May Day celebrations of 1917-1918”, Baltic Worlds, vol.[Read More…]
With the pounding of 59 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles on Shayrat airbase in Syria the Empire has widened its aggression in the strategically crucial country. The sounds of destruction announce imperialism’s and aggression, interference and intervention. This is the sound of “peace” imperialism likes to impose on peoples of other countries. Speaking from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Donald[Read More…]
“Portraying the current crisis [the political development in 1971-Pakistan] as something from the theater of the absurd, he [Bhutto] observed that framing a constitution for Pakistan without the participation of the PPP [Pakistan People’s Party] would be ‘like staging Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark’.” (Richard Sisson and Leo E Rose, War and Secession, Pakistan, India and the Creation of[Read More…]
The “all”-correct mainstream media has recently “discovered” a very, very hard fact: journalists are kept under surveillance. Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND), the country’s foreign intelligence agency, spied upon scores of foreign journalists, said media reports from Germany. The business went for almost two decades. At least 50 telephone and fax numbers, and email addresses from journalists and editors around[Read More…]
Aspiration for unchained participation in all walks of life is at the core of the spirit of Ekushey February, the Language Day observed on February 21 by the Baangaalees, and now observed as International Mother Language Day throughout the world. Aspiration for unchained participation is the spirit peoples nourish transcending time and ages all around the world as it’s a[Read More…]
Bourgeois democracy is facing threat from within. It’s the perception of the world elites. The elites are going to gather in Davos, a snow covered village in Switzerland, in their annual moot – the World Economic Forum (WEF); and their annual flagship report – The Global Risks Report 2017 (GSR) – prepared on the basis of perception of hundreds of[Read More…]
The following news-report by Fox News says: “On New Year’s Day, priests across Venezuela reportedly were instructed by Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, the archbishop of Caracas, to read […] a text during the homily encouraging parishioners to take a stand for democracy and not be intimidated by the socialist rule of Nicolas Maduro.” The January 4, 2017 datelined news-report says:[Read More…]
Fidel shows the way the world moves, and the path to be trodden. In this January day, the first day of the year, lessons from Fidel are to be reiterated, are to be spread around with renewed vigor. Revolution unrolled its flag of victory over Havana in a similar January day in 1959, and a long, arduous journey began.[Read More…]
The Battle Cry: Independence is humanity’s yearning. Independence is humanity’s lifeline. Independence is bud for humanity’s blooming. Rangalal Bandyopadhyay, a poet from Bengal under British boot, affirmed the position with two questions: Shaadheenataa-heenataay ke baacheete chay …? Daashatta-sreenkhal balo ke pareebe pay …, is there anyone liking a life without independence? is there anyone willing to have a shackled[Read More…]
Fidel, dear comrade, red salute. You embodied humanity’s struggle for a free, dignified life, a life free from exploitation, a life full of love and with flowering of humane living. You are alive in our struggle. You are alive in humanity’s struggle against all forms of exploitation, against all forms of bondage, all forms of indignity. Your stand made you[Read More…]
Decades ago, Andre Gunder Frank wrote: “[T]he solutions to the problems of underdevelopment become even more impossible within the capitalist system which creates them, and as the bourgeoisie is less and less able even to face these problems with bourgeois programs, the long exploited people themselves are being taught and prepared to lead the way out of capitalism and[Read More…]
It was March 1969. Andhra Pradesh State Assembly was in its budget session. T Nagi Reddy was delivering a speech in the Assembly. While announcing his resignation as member of the Assembly and the path he was choosing to carry forward the struggle for emancipation of the people he was making his observations on the condition of the country, policies[Read More…]
‘Fractured freedom’ of Kobad Ghandy is a classic in it’s own right but with aberrations 
Climate change will be disastrous even after latest world pledges, says report 
In Responding To COVID Crisis, Prioritise Human And Environmental Health, Learning Lessons From The First Wave 
Comprehensive Health Reform Program Will Benefit All Developing Countries 
The Second Wave of Covid: The role of the political leaders – Has self-interest superseded people’s welfare? 
Spending More On Nukes: STRATCOM’s Nuclear Death Wish 
Guru Tegh Bahadur, Sikhism and Mughals 
India and the Second Wave of COVID-19: How the Modi Government Complacency Caused the Horror 
Palestine’s Moment of Reckoning: On Abbas’ Dangerous Decision to ‘Postpone’ Elections 
Hartosh Singh Bal to be given the first Mooknayak journalism award 
Marx in this pandemic point 
BJP Suffers Defeat in Strongholds Varanasi, Ayodhya and Mathura in Panchayat Elections 
Torch of farmers agitation in Delhi border continues to shimmer like a Prairie fire Migrant Workers Stranded Yet Again 
Critical Comments on the Principal Scientific Advisor’s Interview 
COVID Disaster Is Transforming How India Handles Its Dead 
Going to Court: The EU Sues AstraZeneca 
U.S.’s new normal: hotter, wetter, shorter, heavier, drier and more extreme weather 
Decimation of an Empire: Understanding the Left Front’s Debacle in West Bengal Assembly Elections 2021 
The Hindutva Cow Urine Cultural Nationalism And The Corona Crisis 
Despite Giving Good Results, Cess-Based Welfare of Workers Faces Uncertain Future 
Tackling Corona: Think Local, Act Local 
Can Guantánamo Ever Be Shut Down? 
Wage Stagnation in the Global North 
Humanity Must Choose Between Two Very Different Approaches to Checking Climate Change 
Question and Resist the Power 
Breakthrough in Afghan peace process! 
Tribute to actress Nargis on 40th death anniversary 
Release Akhil Gogoi Immediately 
Surveillance, counter Russian “propaganda”, Snowden and World Press Freedom Day 
African Human Rights Vs. Western Human Rights 
Is America hoping its withdrawal from Afghanistan makes that war-ravaged country China’s problem now? 
67 Years In The Peace Movement 
Understanding the Wider Health Crisis is Important for Adequate Response 
Burning on Both Ends–Relations of Dominance Cause Distress on Both Sides 
Hurricane alert! 
Squad & Co: Unite as a Block to Downsize Biden’s Military Budget 
Reports from Afghanistan: General’s comment, blast, cost 
Quibbling Over Cruelties: Human Rights Watch, Israel and Apartheid 
On the Insidious Discourse of “Terrorism” in the US and How it Functions to Demonize Palestine Advocates and Muslims 
When I founded Countercurrents.org in 2002, Disha Ravi who was arrested for sedition yesterday was a two-year-old toddler. In 2002, the CO2 level in the atmosphere was 370 ppm. Now it is 415 ppm. In just 19 years CO2 levels increased by just over 2ppm/year. The level of cumulative greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, including Methane, Nitrous Oxide etc is[Read More…]
