The Ruse of Reason
Bamboozled by the twists and turns of politics which at one moment lift them up with sizable number of seats in Parliament and in the very next sees them plummet…
Marxism
Educational Dual Power: Learn the Marxism-Leninism the Academy Will NEVER Teach You!
The American political philosopher, Michael Parenti, said that the only thing about regular working people that the ruling class cares about is what they think. The owners of capital spend…
The Collective Creativity of Workers: From Unconscious Sleeping Giant to Builder of Barricades Part II
Imprisoned by romantic ideas about what art and artists are like, our notions of creativity seem to begin and end with individuals. But there are moments in capitalist societies when…
The Collective Creativity of Workers
From Unconscious Sleeping Giants to Conscious Builders of Barricades Part I Orientation One purpose of this article is to get you to think of creativity in a whole new way.…
What’s Our Left Strategy Going Forward in the US?
After this week’s Democratic National Convention—which went well on their terms for what the Democratic leaders wanted—I strongly believe Kamala Harris will defeat Donald Trump for the presidency. When one…
The Dialectics of Unity and the Left
In societies fractured by class antagonisms, the ruling elite who control the means of production, and hence, the politics, judicature, education, etc. of society, requires that those whom they extract…
On the Marxist Critique of Heidegger
How Marxists should approach the critique of Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger is undoubtedly one of the most creative and influential philosophers of the 20th century. Virtually all areas of philosophy,…
Party Vs Movement, and the Way of Consensus
I strongly believe that the oppressed people particularly the working class have nothing without an organisation. I also subscribe to the Leninist principles of organisation. The foremost being that a…
Why Are Definitions Problematic? Ask Garrido #2
Hey y’all. This post is part of my series called ‘Ask Garrido’, where subscribers can shoot me questions on philosophy, Marxist theory, and geopolitics to answer through Substack. You can…
‘Too Soon to Tell’: On Revolutionary Temporality
It is said that Zhou Enlai once, when asked about the impact of the French Revolution, replied that it was still ‘too soon to tell’. We tend to assume…
Five of Lenin’s Insights That Are More Pertinent Than Ever
The day Lenin passed awayA soldier of the death watch, so runs the story, told his comrades: I did not want toBelieve it. I went inside, andShouted in his ear:…
2024: Rebuilding the Global Left
Writing about the passing year, a friend of mine recently lamented the state of the world, expressing a very bleak view of the future. It was doom and gloom everywhere…
Santa Claus and the Contradictions of Bourgeois Ideology
A comrade recently pointed my attention to a comedy skit by Foil Arms and Hog called “Santa is Captured by the Russians,” where for two minutes Mr. Clauss is interrogated by the…
Why Are Intellectuals Divorced from Working People?
This article is a transcript of a presentation for a panel on the subject, hosted by the International Manifesto Group, the Critical Theory Workshop, and the Midwestern Marx Institute, with…
Dilemmas of The Left
Nowadays leading newspapers and channels are barring their doors to anything written from a prominently left point of view.This has been a trend since the early years of the second…
Death, the Crisis of Meaning, and Capitalism
The Moving finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out…
Marx and the Present Crises of Capitalism
Capitalism is going through its greatest crisis since the 1930s. The banking system has been saved from meltdown (at least for the time being) only by extensive government intervention in…
120 Years of Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk: Education and Progress in “Of the Meaning of Progress”
Aristotle famously starts his Metaphysics with the claim that “all men by nature desire to know.”[1] For Dubois, if there are a people in the U.S. who have immaculately embodied this statement, it…
Book Launch Presentation: The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism
In an 1875 letter to Wilhelm Bracke, Marx would say that “Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes.” This is the living spirit of Marxist…
Alienation in Marxist Tradition
Since they were first published in the mid-nineteenth century, Karl Marx’s early writings on alienation have served as a radical touchstone in the fields of social and philosophical thought, generating…
The Significance of the Paris Commune 152 Years After
I would like to thank the International Manifesto Group for hosting this event, and for inviting me to say a few words about the relevance of that heroic experiment in…
Adieu Paresh Chattopadhyay
The evergreen Marxian socialist scholar and critic of Marxism, Paresh Chattopadhyay (PC) left us on January 14, 2023, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, at age of 96.He was emeritus professor of…
Five Characteristics of Neoimperialism
by Cheng Enfu & Lu Baolin Building on Lenin's Theory of Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century Neoimperialism is the specific contemporary phase of historical development that features the economic globalization…
“Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church” projects synthesis of Marxism with Christianity
“Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church” ,written by Christians for National Liberation and published by Foreign Languages Press earlier this year illustratively portrays the synthesis of Marxism with…
Marxism and Anarchism
Recently Arun Kumar Sinha posted in Marx_Forum, Murray Bookchin’s pamphlet ‘Listen! Marxist!’ This was published in the '50s in which he admonished and rebuked the ‘Marxists’ community. To Marx_Forum Dear Arun,…
Book Review: Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation. By: Marcello Musto
Marcello Musto, Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan (2021). 164 pages Marcello Musto’s anthology of Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation[1] is both comprehensive and concise, containing within…
TKP-ML celebrates 50th Anniversary
On April 24th we commemorated the 50th anniversary of The Communist party of Turkey -(Marxist Leninist) or TKP(ML).With the tenacity of a boulder withstanding a thunderstorm it resisted the Turkish…
Sinification of Marxism
Marx regarded peasants as incapable of revolution, and it was the industrial proletariat that Marxists reposed their faith to defeat the Capitalist class in Europe. However, it was a different…
Revisiting Lenin’s Views on Religion on his 152nd Birth Anniversary
Fascist groupings and their associated policies of religio-fanaticism are in the ascendant throughout the world. While some are emerging from the political peripheries - slowly but steadily gaining traction on…
Book Review : A guide to freedom through Marxist education
by Dr. Dilnaz Boga and Rohit Ranjan We are living in times when societies across the world are struggling with socio-economic, political, ecological and spiritual crises. Simultaneously, disparities between social…
The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography
The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography. By: Marcello Musto Marcello Musto’s The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography provides an illuminating glance at the work…
Socialism And The Individual
I do not find Vijay Parshad's idea of the place of the individual in socialism very convincing.Though I salute the strength and courage of his conviction in the world-wide fight…
Before and Without Marx
Some peoples possess shamans to explain how the world works. We have charlatan economists and politicians posing as intellectuals who claim to be able to reveal the mystery of running society. The ideas of…
How Tricontinental Pens History: “One Hundred Years of the Communist Movement in India”!!
Tricontinental published their “One Hundred Years of the Communist Movement in India” on September 1, 2020 [1]. We are dealing with it only snappily. From here one can learn what may…
On The Philosophy Of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
Arguably No Marxist thinker or leader today in the World or in the last few decades has had such a profound grasp of the ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as Professor Joma…
Thomas Hobbes – The Communist?
The British materialist philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is one of the fathers of social contract theory and modern political philosophy. His magnus opus – Leviathan[i] – is a text which…
American Slavery and Global Capitalism
Edward Baptiste’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism attempts to provide a material analysis of the development of Slavery in the United States leading up…
Critique of the Misunderstanding Concerning Marx’s Base-Superstructure Spatial Metaphor
Karl Marx’s 1859 preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy[i] represents one of the clearest reflections of the development of his and Engels’ thought. In what amounts…
The Relevance of Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man and its Failures
Posing the Question This year marks the 57th anniversary of Herbert Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man (1964). This text, although plagued with a pessimistic spirit, was a great source of inspiration for…
Marxism and Intersectionality
In her 2020 text Marxism and Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality under Contemporary Capitalism, Ashley J. Bohrer sets out to demystify the erroneous conception that the traditions of Marxism and…
Marx in this pandemic point
“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…
Understanding India’s Migrant Workers’ Crisis through the Prism of Commodity Fetishism
As the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic intensifies in India, migrant workers are returning back to their villages. Imposition of new restrictions to contain the virus - like the…
Friedrich Engels’ 200th birthday, visit the Wuppertal
A ghost goes through Europe: The ghost of communism This year it is 200 years since Friedrich Engels was born in the German town of Wuppertal in the Rhine district. …
The Proletarian Uprising of Punnapra-Vayalar: 74 Years Later
The most romantic and probably the only proletarian insurrection of the subcontinent is also the most tragic and the most damned. The Punnapra-Vayalar revolt of October 1946 was Travancore's ill…
Re-Organisation Of International Communist Movement
Today the International Communist Movement faces a major task of averting the crisis within the International Communist Movement of re-organizing the Communist International. It is plagued by many trends like…
Tribute to Immortal contribution of Comrade Harbhajan Sohi
Without doubt late Comrade Harbhajan Sohi or HBS was one of the finest theoreticians in the history of the Communist Movement and amongst the greatest leaders and protagonists of the…
Revolutionary Group Dynamics: How Minorities Influence Majorities, From Group Complicity To Collective Creativity
Orientation From the macro to the micro When it comes to stereotypes of the masses of revolutionary people, the masses have built barricades that look like forts which they hide…
Historic Paris Commune Day Greetings To The Working Class
Today, March 18, is a red letter day for the working class and all true friends of the workers in the country and throughout the world. For, on this day,…
Marx’s alternative
“It is true…
Communism, Socialism: Any Difference?
In this book, we, like Marx and Engels, have used the names “communism” and “socialism” to mean the same relation of production. Marx and Engels had used the two names…
The Agony and Pathos of Lenin’s Last Days
Ever the clear-eyed realist, Lenin knew what the Revolution had failed to achieve. And this knowledge tormented him in the last weeks of his life. Vladimir Lenin in…
Karl Marx and Religion: Definition, Sources, Ideology and Criticism
The living Karl Marx was a dismal failure. He passed most of his life in poverty, dependent on the charity of the capitalist Friedrich Engels. His writings were never sufficiently…
On the True Nature of Revolutionary Theory: A Response to Dr. Pravat Ranjan Sethi
Dear Comrade Dr. Pravat Ranjan Sethi, Thank you for your most knowledgeable reflections on revolutionary theory and practice. I enjoyed them and benefited from them, as I am sure…
Karl Marx on 200th Anniversary: Marxism after Marx
Karl Marx was possessed of demonic genius that was to transform the modern world. —Saul K. Padover (1978) For all the horrors committed in Marx’s name, the German philosopher has for…
When Karl Marx Fails: Discourse on Class and Caste Politics in India
There is a long standing debate as to whether Marxism played any role in the Dalit’s struggle for social emancipation and justice. The debate is characterized by two currents of…
Marx in Bangladesh
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…
Karl Marx In Bihar At 200
Quotes from Karl Marx’s works reverberated in the unprecedented 5-day long conference organized by the Asian Development and Research Institute (ADRI), participated by the delegates from 18 countries across the…
Marx, Marxism and the Indian Context
The principles of Marxism and the Indian communist movement “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling materialforce of…
Confusion in finding Marx in Bangladesh
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…
“What Marx Brought to Light” and “Marx and Darwin”
On the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth, this excerpt from "The Material Basis and the Method for Making Revolution," a talk given by Bob Avakian in 2014, speaks to…
Annual Subscription
Join Countercurrents Annual Fund Raising Campaign and help us
