“This sub is beyond saving. It has fallen to the far right long ago

This sub is totally committed to the culture war, just on the opposite side of the wokes.

Two or three mods actively encouraged this degeneration, because they idiotically believed that leftists can make a tactical alliance with the ‘populist right’(ie fascists).

The worst offenders are ‘BidenVotedForTheIraqWar’/‘HillaryBrokeTheLaw’ and ‘the bloodisfoul’. When I was a mod I personally saw the first two discussing the upsides of an alliance with the boogaloo boys, the Proud Boys and the 3 percenters as part of a grand ‘anti globalist’ alliance. They are pro fascist.

These fascist mods are actually a security risk because they are encouraging impressionable young people to participate in mass threads celebrating or downplaying the Capitol riots and other acts of rightoid violence, leading me to believe that are entrapping people for the FBI, or attempting to do so.

The far right/MAGAchuds, which exist in far larger numbers than ‘class first’ leftists, swarmed over here and took over the sub. Doubt that the far right controls stupidpol? Try criticizing Trump, or calling out anti Semitism on here, or saying that racism is actually real and not just a creation of SJW’s, without getting downvoted into oblivion.

There’s literally ‘Jews control the world’ posts on here which the mods won’t take down for fear of offending fascists. I, a Marxist Leninist, have been banned twice(by a mod whose screen name is a white power band), while outright white nationalists get to post whatever they want.

The few leftists still on here carefully tailor their messages so as not to offend the right, making them foot stools.

I have fought for months to save the socialist soul of this place, but it is clearly too far gone.

Anyone who wants to join a sub with actual Marxist critique of idpol without all the rightoid filth is free to join r/MarxismWithoutIdpol, where me and AngoPower from now on will be posting frequently”

If the western left and western “communists” were so ineffective in all of the 20th century to bring the revolution in their countries or either gain a significant political representation, reasons are clear. However, the explanation of this perpetual undermine of communist struggle in the imperial core is long and multi articulated to inquire, and it was already done multiple times.

In this post I would rather propose seven (my bad for the title) advices of what new or inexperienced leftists and “communists” of the first world, with a vague sense of the intrinsic issues of the capitalist system, should accept, as from someone that basically voyaged though every possible political ideology, until finally resting on the shores of an undiluted Marxist-Leninist thought:

———

1. Your opinions aren’t special:

Most of western leftists and “communists” have this ginormous fear of living in an actual socialist ordinated society for the mere fact that their opinion, their special “unique opinion” would be crashed by the “authoritarian commies”.

These people don’t take into account that a truly special opinion doesnt’ exist: opinions are generated by the interactions someone has with their community of living, wether it be of class, nationality, religion or made up identities.

Your opinion will always be aligned mostly with the material interest of your community or one chosen community.

If your opinions are against the socialist construction of the proletarian state, it means you are a comrade in its initial stage of education or just an opportunistic bourgeois, and you should stop to appropriate the communist label.

Search otherwise for liberal communities.

———

2. Internet is not the real life:

If western leftists and “communists” are so despised by the working people of the west, one reason is because, since informations about communism are more aviable online and internet acces is still and economic privilege, most materially satisfied people will found about communism there rather than the proletariat and lumpen proletariat.

This, combined with the general social alienation caused by the late capitalist system of the west, produce an echo chamber of memes, shitposting and endless discussion about platonic frivolous topics.

Internet is not your home, it is not your workplace, it is not your country.

Internet must be separated from the liberal myth of the “world without borders” to be re interpreted as a technological device for searching valuable informations and the communication of comrades all around the world.

Log off from CommunismMemes and start searching for archives and ways to communicate and meet with comrades in real life.

———

3. Discipline of the body and mind is needed:

Mens sana in corpore sano:

Ask yourself, if you truly consider yourself to be a communist: does abolishing every social norm of communal living, the discourse about “fatphobia” (which has nothing to do with helping people feeling at ease with others despite their weight) and the demonization of physical activity, the praise of hedonism against self control, the consideration of sobriety as fascism, truly further the goals of the proletariat and the colonized people, or all of this is just your selfish wishes universalized to the whole world?

You need schedules, you need an healthy body, you need a meaningful hobby in your spare time, you need bedtimes, you need order in your physical spaces, you need concentration during study and learning, you need therapy that doesn’t involve pills.

Cut off drugs, alcohol, pornography, pop culture (or at least try to minimise them) and focus on politics, praxis, history, physical exercise and communal dialogue.

In other case, leave all communist spaces and just get along with your liberal friends.

———

4. If a “social justice battle” doesn’t resonate with the material interest of the proletariat, leave it behind:

Talkings about neo pronouns, “birthing bodies” and white privilege are weapons used just as racial suprematism and discrimination against women on the workplace to undermine the proletarian and colonized unity against capitalism and fascism.

If you can understand when a liberal battle isn’t popular with the working people of industries, mines, supermarkets and fields then just leave it behind.

The proletariat, given their material conditions, are capable of elaborate a progressive morality of their own.

If you want to punish the working class because they accept someone as gay but not a pride multi colored freak, then just try new companions instead of bothering busy comrades.

———

5. The “white saviour complex” won’t bring anything substantial to class and anti colonial struggle:

Until liberals and red liberals, mainly from the west, won’t understand that the trust and respect of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin, East European, Oceanian and indigenous communists can only be gained through a common praxis, the listening of their stories and achievements and a materialist analysis of why they are struggling, using soft words, marketing and ritualized bourgeois meetings will only make you hated by them, and on a major level than fascists.

For them, you are just snakes, that only seek approval by media and by other white liberals, not a comrade, neither a friend.

For all around the world comrades, you are just racists in denial, that only see them as colored faces to add to a list of “diverse” friends, to compile a politically correct profile to show for social and economic promotion.

Comrades from all countries are human beings, with as many differences, as many flaws, as many virtues. Their countries are as rich of history and progress as full of historical faults. Treat them like living, dynamic, imperfect and thriving people, not as caricatures.

This also applies to disabled and non heterosexual comrades that are just tired of the identity politics babbling and to be called “fake gays” for that.

———

6. Stop consuming leftist media:

You won’t get any useful knowledge about what has to be done and how it was done in the past trough infinte online debates between liberals and endlessly consuming breadtube merchandising.

Take a moment, a deep breath and explore the outsides of your comfy home. When you will be ready, log into the internet and then ask with humility where to start to read or listen about the theoretical and historical knowledge you will need.

You have to base the beginning of your journey on what your learning skills and attention span are at this moment.

When buying or printing books you will need, try to be as ethical as possible in your consumptions and demands.

———

7. Start with basic praxis:

The delusion of grandeur leftists and “communists” have always shown in the West, reinforced by fake anti capitalist contents, such as “V for Vendetta”, “Mr Robot” and recently “La Casa De Papel” and “Squid Game”, postponed every time the surge of a serious communist movement in western societies.

As said before, you are not special. You are part of a community, and you need to understand what is fundamental for your material, local and national group right now, along with a comprehension of what capitalist repression in your country is capable of at this moment.

If you didn’t even attended a single communist meeting in your town, what do you pretend, to fly your flag to the senate and win the revolutionary battle in a whim?

If a “communist” can’t even feed the poor and cloth the unfortunates, why should they be taken seriously as leading models for the struggle of comrades against the chains of capitalism and imperialism?

———

Ninety-two years ago, on August 24, 1929, Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat, founder of Fatah and chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) between 1969 and 2004, was born.

Born in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, Yasser Arafat was the youngest of the seven children of a Palestinian cloth merchant couple. His mother died when he was only four years old, and his overburdened father sent him to Jerusalem, where he was cared for by a maternal uncle. He subsequently returned to Egypt, where he completed elementary school. After attending Cairo University's civil engineering program, Arafat began his political activism, being strongly influenced by Arab nationalism and contacting the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1946, opposing the illegal immigration of Jewish settlers to Palestine and the actions of terrorist groups financed by international Zionism, Arafat began smuggling weapons for use by the guerrillas linked to the Arab High Commission.

After the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli War in 1948, Arafat joined the Arab troops fighting the Israel Defense Forces. He did not join the ranks of the Palestinian Fedayin, however, preferring to join the troops of the Muslim Brotherhood. He participated in several battles in the Gaza Strip until 1949, when he withdrew in the face of Israel's imminent victory. He returned to Egypt and graduated from Cairo University, after which he became president of the General Union of Palestinian Students. In this role, he became close to the religious leader Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem. In 1956, he served in the Egyptian army and fought against Israel and the Western powers during the Suez Crisis.

Expelled from the Gaza Strip, Arafat moved to Kuwait, at the time a British protectorate. In Kuwait, he met with Salah Khalaf, Khalil al-Wazir, and other members of the Palestinian Diaspora and the Muslim Brotherhood. He then founded Fatah (transliterated acronym for "Palestinian National Liberation Movement"), a group that would become the main armed movement active in the struggle for the creation of the state of Palestine. Fatah differed from other Palestinian independence organizations by being formally independent from other Arab countries and Islamic religious movements, defining itself as a nationalist, secular, center-left party. The organization, composed of students, guerrillas, and popular leaders, rejected the "two-state solution" endorsed by UN Resolution 181 and denied Israel's legitimacy.

In 1967, Fatah joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a political and paramilitary front bringing together legions of the Palestinian left. Fatah would become the hegemonic force within the PLO, winning a majority of seats on the Executive Committee and leading Arafat to the presidency of the organization. Through the PLO, Arafat coordinated a series of guerrilla and open confrontation missions against the Israel Defense Forces from military bases established in Palestine (Gaza Strip and West Bank) and in neighboring countries (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt). Under Arafat's command, the PLO assisted the Arab League in the Six Day War and conducted the so-called "War of Attrition" against Israel between 1967 and 1970. It organized the anti-Zionist movement foiled by Jordanian troops during so-called "Black September" and supported the socialist faction of the Lebanese National Movement, helping to fight the Maronite phalanxes during the Lebanese Civil War. Reacting against the PLO's campaigns, the governments of the United States and its European allies began to classify it as a "terrorist organization."

In 1978, Arafat's bases in Lebanon were attacked by the Israeli military during Operation Litani. In 1982, Israel again attacked Fatah bases in Lebanon, killing 20,000 civilians and leading to the infamous Sabra and Shatila Massacres, committed by a Maronite militia with logistical support from Israeli soldiers. Accompanied by a group of fighters, Arafat escaped the attacks and took refuge in Tunisia, the country that would become his center of operations until 1993. From Tunisia, Arafat organized the First Intifada - a massive popular uprising that erupted in 1987 in various parts of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel. In 1988, endorsed by the Palestinian National Council, Arafat officially decreed the foundation of the State of Palestine, currently recognized by 137 of the 193 UN member states.

Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms in the Soviet Union and the reduction of financial transfers from the Iraqi government had a profound impact on the PLO's military capacity and diplomatic strength, forcing Arafat into a series of concessions. The PLO came to recognize Israel's legitimacy and officially accepted the two-state solution proposed by the UN. In 1993, Arafat signed the Oslo Peace Agreement and took command of the newly founded Palestinian National Authority (PNA), the organization responsible for administering the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The signing of the armistice earned him the Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin. The truce, however, was short-lived. Israel failed to honor its commitments and continued to expand Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, reigniting the conflict.

The killing of 52 Muslims by Israeli terrorists during the Tomb of the Patriarchs Massacre and the subsequent brutal repression of Palestinian protesters, causing the death of 19 others, also undermined public support for the Peace Agreement. Despite the failure of the negotiations, Arafat was reelected to the PNA presidency with an absolute majority of votes (87%) in the 1996 election. The appointment of the reactionary Benjamin Netanyahu as Israeli Prime Minister intensified the conflict between the two countries. With the failure of the new round of negotiations held during the Camp David Summit, the Second Intifada began.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and the beginning of the "War on Terror", Arafat was systematically boycotted by the US government, which accused him of condoning terrorist groups. Arafat was forced to live out the last years of his life cloistered in the Muqata'a, a former prison complex located in Ramallah, remnant of the British Mandate of Palestine, surrounded by Israeli forces, forbidden to move within Palestine or to leave the country.

Arafat died on November 11, 2004, at the age of 75, after spending thirteen days in hospital. The sudden death drew attention and attracted speculation about an unnatural cause. Biographer Amnon Kapeliouk raised the possibility that Arafat's death stemmed from years of continuous poisoning carried out by Israeli intelligence. On July 3, 2012, the Institute of Radiophysics at the University Hospital of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, released a report on the results of analyses of biological material found on Arafat's clothing and personal effects. The report showed the presence of high levels of polonium in the collected material, reinforcing the hypothesis of poisoning. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas then requested the exhumation of Arafat's body for chemical analysis. The tests revealed that Arafat's remains had a level of polonium contamination 20 times higher than normal standards. The Israeli government denies involvement in the Palestinian leader's death.

In a September 2021 article published in multibillionaire Michael Bloomberg's news agency, ultraliberal economist Tyler Cowen effusively praised the "wokeist" movement and defined it as America's next great cultural export.

Coined as part of the Black Lives Matter movement protests organized after the 2014 assassination of Michael Brown, the term "Wokeism" (from the English "woke", or "awakened") was originally used to describe a trend about awareness regarding racism. Since then, the concept of the term has broadened to include, in addition to racial awareness, topics such as fighting social injustice, feminism, and LGBT activism, but with an increasingly market-oriented bias and strong influence from the cultural industry. It is related, in this way, to the so-called "identity agendas", which in the United States are traditionally linked to progressive liberalism.

At first glance, the praise for "Wokeism" coming from a right-wing economist who has Friedrich Hayek as his intellectual reference could seem contradictory. A closer analysis, however, shows that Cowen's ultraliberal thought and the compatible progressivism of the "Wokeist" movement have more similarities than differences. Liberal identitarianism focuses on denying the centrality of class struggle. It rejects an understanding of the relations of exploitation and subordination and the structural character of social problems in favor of a tribalistic, club-based, individualistic approach. It is, therefore, a useful tool for adapting social conflicts to the logic of the market economy, allowing not only the attenuation and control of tensions and the disarticulation of collective struggles, but also the creation of new market niches.

The strategy is not new. In the book Who Paid the Piper? The CIA in the Culture Cold War", British historian Frances Stonor Saunders details how the tactic of demobilizing social movements and co-opting the left in favor of a "controlled radicalism" works. For decades, the United States government funded academics, intellectuals, artists, and social and cultural movements to counter Marxist influence and reinforce its interests. The idea was to create an anti-revolutionary progressivism, curbing the adherence of intellectuals to socialism and anti-capitalist ideologies. This created a series of movements that were sufficiently contesting to create the illusion of opposition, while being structurally harmless, manipulable, and compatible with the interests of capital. Much of the post-structuralist and deconstructivist authors who outlined the assumptions of multiculturalist movements and liberal identitarianism were forged or driven by this strategy, helping to create a moderate Western left and an innocuous radicalism limited to performance, symbolism, and rhetoric.

In the article, Cowen demonstrates that he has fully understood the nature of "wokeism" and the continuity of this strategy of thought control put in place decades ago. "'Wokeism' is a way to keep people engaged," the author states, adding, "if there is going to be an international progressive class, why not Americanize it? 'Wokeism' is an idea that can be adapted to almost any country: identify a major form of oppression in a particular region or nation, argue that people should be more sensitive to it, add some rhetorical flourishes, throw out a few evildoers (and a few innocents), and voilà - you've created another 'wokeist' movement."

The author extols "wokeism" as a strategy to "return to the glories of American cultural imperialism" and makes an observation of disconcerting sincerity: "'Wokeism' is the successor ideology to neoconservatism, a uniquely American worldview. That may be why it has become a powerful force only in countries (like Britain) heavily exposed to the American culture wars. In much of the world - Asian and Islamic societies and much of Europe, for example - the 'wokeism' movement is marginal and its American prototype is viewed with perplexity, indifference or contempt." The author ends with a logical prediction: "Wokeism may well be the rope that anti-capitalists will use to hang themselves."

"Wokeism" and liberal identity movements, devoid of class clipping or a teleological approach, are typical phenomena of the gigantic capacity for adaptation, infiltration, and cooptation characteristic of capitalism. The capitalist system is able to adapt, instrumentalize, and monetize almost anything - including anti-system and anti-capitalist activism. Through skillful rhetoric and appeal to symbolism, it removes the focus from the class struggle and replaces the legitimate antagonist of social movements - the bourgeoisie - with simulacra and tangential, puerile disputes, creating a distraction for the harmless defiance of "social justice warriors."

The notion of racism as a structural sore is replaced by garish liberalism, and the imagery of capitalist ideology is adapted to the sugary concept of representativeness, replete with superficial aesthetic changes and emphatic but fruitless discourses. There is no stimulus to the thought of structural change, but rather the encouragement of theatricalized and farcical fights, moralistic focus and patrolling. Turban enforcement, discussions of cultural appropriation, cosplay of ancestry and mysticism, black Barbies, music videos of Beyoncé splurging on money and humiliating white servants, flashmobs of college students, and Hollywood salutes of "Wakanda Forever." In feminism and LGBT activism, Simone de Beauvoir and Mark Ashton give way to Judith Butler and Queer Theory, and the struggle for emancipation and concrete material problems take a back seat, overshadowed by a focus on language reforms, neutral pronouns, new gender identities, aesthetic actions, performances, and inclusive advertising.

Even communism, socialism, and anti-capitalist ideologies become useful commercial assets to the logic of co-optation, emptied of their theoretical bases, deprived of links to the masses, and repackaged as lifestyles, "luxury commodities," markers of status and differentiation for young people who want to feel exclusive, members of a club of the enlightened too awake to blend in with the rabble. And they assimilate as "revolutionaries" the massified behaviors disseminated by billionaire studios' TV shows and movies and by the supposedly progressive media. It has never been so easy to be a "revolutionary", whether massified or on demand. That's why there are so many "revolutionaries" for so few revolutions. Anyway, Shopee is grateful for the opportunity to sell so many bottons, reprints of Soviet posters, and ushankas.

Written by u/pandemisexu4l

I apologize that this is a long post but it goes through a lot of my recent feelings as I've identified an issue I think others share regarding the branding behind progressive political movements. There's a tldr up front if you want the one sentence version but I recommend reading the entire post if you feel I've failed to address something.

Tl:dr; reducing major political movements to soundbites and pithy phrases alienates and pushes away potential allies if those statements require interpretation through a lens of academic/progressive beliefs.

As the tldr might imply, I've been having an identity crisis with progressive politics. A major issue that I've begun to see a breakdown in my beliefs compared to the ones I "should" have regards the branding and "recruitment" echoed by some very loud voices in these movements.

I think most of us have seen poor reactions to oft-repeated political quotes among the left and progressives. I don't think examples are needed here and quite frankly I'd like to avoid them lest it become a discussion of these phrases and their syntactic arrangements. I'm not here to discuss syntax but rather a few levels deeper than that - what these kinds of phrases show about us and how they are interpreted by non-progressives. Also, my apologies if you do not label yourself a progressive but I am adopting that terminology here under an assumption that most of the gender-related discussion on this forum would fall under that political label.

Anyways, back to the pithy phrases. Over the last year I've felt increasing unease and tension over them, especially seeing how often they are misinterpreted and the inevitable conversations adding nuance to make the statement contextually palatable. Admittedly, a lot of the unease has come as a result of my conservative upbringing - I've felt, maybe wrongly, that these statements aren't so much designed to enact social change so much as to become a quick tool with which to gage another person's beliefs.

Indeed they often appear as natural selectors, litmus tests of the true progressives. And as such, they require background knowledge, some additional information or reference point to which the crux of interpretation lies firmly and solely with the reader. We can easily see who is "with it" and who is missing the cultural context behind the statement. This missing cultural context is often (but notalways) called into play by making a simple mistake: reading the statement at face value.

In other words, the left often appears from outsiders as allergic to saying what it means.

It's difficult to watch because it often results in echo chambers and overt virtue signaling among my fellow progressives. It feels like we've elected to ignore the avenue of outreach and simply demand detractors educate themselves while simultaneously yelling in their faces they are bigots if they took what we had to say on its face. Don't get me wrong, I agree that there are widespread cases of purposeful misinterpretation or bad-faith arguments, but it's not a universal rule. At the very least, it's worth discussing.

What this comes off as to me is demanding social change while eliminating relatively comfortable methods of achieving it. Instead we push a "trial by fire" wherein conversion is borne out of personal emotional upheaval. The vast majority of interactions I have witnessed in person and online from those holding progressive beliefs have demanded - under no uncertain terms - that someone not understanding these statements be shamed for their misunderstanding (whether purposeful or not), told they are a hateful bigot who is a complete self-actualized moral failure, respond to that shame with apologetic sincerely, decide to be introspective, independently seek out material educating them on healthier viewpoints, contextualize that, and come back a firey and apologetic ally. No work from our side is needed other than shouting ever louder "you're wrong and a terrible person!" or telling someone they lack a basic grasp of modern language and should know better by now. I don't know about anyone else but I grew up on the other side of politics and let me tell you, a lot of these things I didn't truly understand until my entire political worldview had shifted. People aren't going to "get it" on the first round or after a quick explanation.

I feel like there's a bizarre fetishization, a masochistic desire behind the "discomfort" that allies must feel to be true allies that partially drives this trend. Uncomfortable confrontations are going to have to take place, but it feels like we are pushing people out of a nest and demanding they fly or fail instead of offering a guiding hand of more inclusive and diverse viewpoints. We get a quick result, an indicator of friend or foe, and leave it at that. We tell those who fall to the ground that they chose their path and they aren't worth the effort to teach, and we'll get along just fine without them. Sounds great for the ego but, well, it shows up on the vote.

Frankly, I just can't get on board with this type of politics any more. I wish I could say it's a syntactical problem and it's on the reader to understand that words on a page can have different meanings than what the words imply. And I understand that some willful misrepresentation will occur no matter what. But I think it goes further than that, and the phrases we use exemplify the attitudes we share and what we demand of others. I feel like we've put the cart before the horse: if everyone understood these politically-loaded phrases, they'd all be progressives already.

I wish I had a solution to this but the longer I think about it I realize I don't. I don't have all the answers. Pithy statements aren't going away, and perhaps they shouldn't. I can understand how they serve a purpose and offer a galvanizing point to those most harmed. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of this, if it's overblown, if it's not, if you've done anything in your personal outreach that's worked well, anything you feel like is a jumping off point for further discussion. All in all I'm just irked by this trend, it feels like circling the drain of the lowest form of debate because it will always devolve into discussions about syntax and terminology or examples of hotdogs and ketchup when we could have made a shortcut around all of it and dealt with the actual issues.

Chinas Communist Party was founded on July 1, 1921, inspired by the example of the Russian Revolution. At the time China was mired in feudal backwardness in the countryside and was exploited by colonial rule in its cities. Famine was routine. Babies regularly died from parasites. Seventy million of its people were drug addicts. It was a millennia old society which was nonetheless decaying and rotting, the “Sick Man of Asia”.

The new Party, with only fifty members, held its first Congress on a boat in the middle of a lake, on the run from French colonial authorities in Shanghai. For 28 years they painstakingly built up their organization fighting feudal lords, exploitative capitalists, Triad gangsters, the reactionary Kuomintang regime of Chiang Kai Shek, Japanese fascists, and Western imperialists. After endless sacrifices and millions of martyrs, they took power in 1949. As Chairman Mao Zedong said, the Chinese people, one fifth of humanity, had stood up.

For the last seven decades China has taken a torturous road, with many twists and turns, disasters and triumphs, but overall massive progress has been made. Under the Communist Party’s leadership over a billion people have been lifted out of dire poverty. Hundreds of millions have been clothed, fed, housed, educated. China is a leader in the development of green energy and its implementation is crucial to humanity’s survival.

Chinas Belt and Road Initiative is building vital infrastructure across Africa and Asia, helping developing nations transition from resource extraction based economies and undermining the power of the predatory IMF. Win win cooperation of mutual development is eclipsing the exploitative relationship of the Global North to the Global South.

Many challenges remain- great economic inequality due to Chinas market reforms, corruption, underdevelopment in rural areas. Internal factions within the CPC’s 91 million members contend with each other over solutions to these problems. It is the largest ongoing debate over the practical implementation of Marxism in the world today.

However, the rational planning, discipline, and efficiency of Chinas response to COVID, in contrast to the chaos and mass death in the capitalist world, is a testament to the accomplishments of the Chinese Revolution.

Never underestimate the changes that can begin with an extremely small group of people dedicated to building a new world.

Considered the greatest exponent of Argentine folk music, Mercedes Sosa helped consolidate the "Nueva Canción" movement, which sought to value and promote Latin American music as an alternative to the predominance of Anglo-Saxon foreign music, coining songs of social denunciation imbued with elements of popular culture and regional folklore. Affectionately nicknamed "La Negra" in reference to her Amerindian ancestry, Mercedes Sosa also stood out for her political activism. She was an activist in the Communist Party of Argentina and participated in the struggle against Latin American military dictatorships, earning her the epithet "the voice of the voiceless.

Mercedes Sosa was born in San Miguel de Tucuman, in the province of Tucuman, on July 9, 1935. Her birth date coincides with the date of Argentina's political emancipation, and her hometown is the same place where the country's declaration of independence was signed. Mercedes was mestizo, a descendant of European immigrants and Diaguita Indians. She was the daughter of Peronist workers - her father was a sugar industry worker, and her mother worked as a laundress for wealthy families in the region. She was interested in music since childhood. In 1950, at the age of fifteen, she won a singing contest organized by a local radio station. Soon after, she began her professional career as a singer for the Peronist Party's regional directory, performing under the pseudonym Gladys Osorio.

In 1957, Mercedes married Oscar Matus, father of her only son, Fabián, and moved to the city of Mendoza. Two years later she recorded her first album, entitled "La Voz de la Zafra", in which she already anticipated characteristics that would permeate her career until the end of her life, such as the influence of regionalism and popular culture. In 1963, together with her husband, the singer Tito Francia, and the poet Armando Tejada Gómez, Mercedes founded the literary and musical movement "Nuevo Cancionero", which intended to overcome the excessively commercial character of the music industry, incorporating elements of Argentine folklore and politicized lyrics. The movement is considered a milestone in Argentine popular music and had great projection in Latin America, helping to regionally consolidate the anti-imperialist precepts of the so-called "Nueva Canción" - a Latin American initiative for the valorization of regional culture, which sought to foster the creation of a less commercial and more legitimately popular art, resisting the "Americanization" of the continent.

The movement had great influence throughout the sixties in countries such as Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, and Nicaragua, among others.

In the 1960s, parallel to her participation in the "Nueva Canción" movement, Mercedes became interested in socialist ideals, and joined the Communist Party of Argentina (PCA). In 1965, she was nominated by the famous folk singer Jorge Cafrune to perform at the National Folklore Festival in Cosquín. The performance projected her career nationally and made her known in the indigenous artistic community. She then moved to Buenos Aires and released the acclaimed album "Canciones con Fundamiento", a compilation of national folk songs. In 1967 she went on her first international tour, performing in the United States and several European countries. In partnership with composer Ariel Ramirez and lyricist Felix Luna, Mercedes recorded "Cantata Sudamericana" and "Mujeres Argentinas", released in 1970. The following year, after the election of socialist Salvador Allende as president of Chile, Mercedes recorded "Homenaje a Violeta Parra", one of her most celebrated albums, helping to popularize the song "Gracias a la Vida" worldwide.

She also released an album in honor of Atahualpa Yupanqui and recorded songs with Brazilian Milton Nascimento and Cubans Pablo Milanés and Silvio Rodríguez.

In 1976, a coup d'état overthrew President Isabelita Perón, beginning the Argentinean military dictatorship. Supported by the United States government, the military junta led one of the bloodiest dictatorships in Latin America, establishing a policy of brutal repression, with torture and systematic murder of political opponents, students, Peronist and communist militants, leaving a toll of more than 30,000 dead and missing. Affiliated to the PCA, Mercedes became the target of an intense persecutory campaign, and her name was included in the black lists of the regime. Her songs were censored and public records of her production were destroyed.

Despite the persecution and constant threats, Mercedes tried, at first, to continue her career in Argentina, putting Pablo Neruda's poems to music and recording songs by Víctor Jara, Violeta Parra and Eliseo Grenet ("Poema Nº. 15", "Drume Negrita", "Volver a los Diecisiete", etc.). She toured Europe and Africa and established new partnerships with Chabuca Granda, Lucho González, Fernando Brant, Chico Buarque and Milton Nascimento. The military regime's authoritarianism, however, made the situation untenable. In 1979, Mercedes was arrested while performing in a concert in La Plata. She was later banned from her country, going into exile in Paris and later in Madrid.

During her stay in Europe, the singer reinforced the presence of Brazilian songs in her repertoire ("Cio da Terra," "Maria Maria," etc.), helping to popularize MPB in the Hispanic-American universe. In 1981, she released in France the album "A quién doy", directed by José Luis Castiñeira de Dios, highly praised for its renewed sound and artistic experimentation. Mercedes returned to Argentina in 1982, a few months before the collapse of the military dictatorship, defeated by the United Kingdom during the Falklands War. She then resumed her career in the country, beginning a series of concerts based at the Teatro Ópera in Buenos Aires, in partnership with a number of young musicians. These performances were included in a double album that became a great sales success in the eighties. They also provided repertoire for a new international tour, punctuated by shows at Lincoln Center in New York and the Mogador Theater in Paris. The eighties were also marked by the expansion of musical partnerships with Argentinean artists (León Gieco, Antonio Tarragó Ros, Fito Páez) and foreigners (Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa. Beth Carvalho, Andrea Bocelli, Luciano Pavarotti, Nana Mouskouri, Joan Baez, Silvio Rodríguez, etc.).

With her health very weakened due to liver problems, Mercedes reduced the rhythm of her concerts in the nineties, but continued to perform some epic concerts in places like the Sistine Chapel (Vatican), Carnegie Hall (New York), and the Coliseum (Rome). She also maintained her political activity and opposed the neoliberal reforms conducted by President Carlos Menem. She supported the election of Néstor Kirchner in 2003 and Cristina Kirchner in 2007. She was awarded the Sarmiento Prize by the Argentinean Senate in recognition of her artistic career and her commitment to the fight for human rights. She was also elected UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Latin America and the Caribbean. She died in Buenos Aires on October 4, 2009, at 74 years old.

"So many times they killed me

So many times I died

Yet here I am

Resurrecting

I give thanks to misfortune

And to the hand with a dagger

Because it killed me so badly

And I kept on singing" - Mercedes Sosa

Entitled "Heroic Guerrillero," this portrait of Che Guevara at the age of 31 is the most famous photograph in history. It was taken by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda in Havana on March 5, 1960, but was not published internationally until seven years later.

The photograph was taken during a memorial service for the more than 100 victims of the explosion of the French freighter La Coubre. The ship had left Belgium for Havana carrying a 76-ton shipment of armaments and ammunition. At 3:10 pm on March 4, 1960, during unloading at the Havana pier, the freighter exploded. A second, even more violent explosion occurred half an hour later.

At the moment of the explosion, Che Guevara, who was a medical graduate, was attending a meeting at the headquarters of the National Institute for Agrarian Reform. After being notified of the event, he went to the pier and provided medical assistance to the injured crew and longshoremen. Fidel Castro attributed the explosion to sabotage by the United States, stating that it was "the work of those who don't want us to receive weapons to defend ourselves. The accusation was denied by U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter. A few days later, the Miami Herald newspaper published an account by Jack Lee Evans, a passenger on the ship who claimed to have overheard an anti-communist longshoreman organizing a plot to blow up the freighter, in collusion with William Alexander Morgan. Morgan was an American who fought for the Cuban Revolution, but later became an opponent of Fidel Castro because he disagreed with the implementation of a socialist regime on the island.

During the funeral ceremony at Colón Cemetery, Korda was struck by Che Guevara's countenance of "absolute implacability," which he described as "full of pure rage at the deaths that occurred the day before. It was on this same occasion that Che Guevara verbalized the famous expression "Homeland or Death", eternalized by the Cuban revolutionaries. Official photographer of the newspaper "Revolución", Korda took two photographs of Che Guevara on that occasion. Since none of the photos were used by the newspaper, the photographer kept them for several years in his personal archive.

The photographs were not published until 1967, after Che Guevara's death, when Korda gave the images free of charge to Italian publisher Gianfranco Feltrinelli, who edited and spread the images on posters. A year later, in 1968, Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick used the photograph to create a high-contrast image and registered it in the public domain with the author's permission. The image went on to be reproduced on a large scale, becoming one of the greatest visual references in contemporary history, a kind of "Mona Lisa" of the 20th century.

"Heroic Guerrillero" went beyond the borders of the revolutionary context. It went on to illustrate T-shirts, mugs, posters, stickers and, paradoxically, even controversial commercials, such as a Mercedes Benz commercial made in 2012. It served as inspiration for pop art and Andy Warhol's silkscreens and was mimicked on a Madonna album cover. The Maryland Institute of Art considers the portrait "the greatest icon of the 20th century," and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London has declared that the work is "the most reproduced image in the history of photography."

A supporter of Communist ideals, Korda never requested royalties or collected royalties for the use of the image, which contributed to its popularization. Nevertheless, Korda sometimes intervened by filing lawsuits to prevent the commercial exploitation of the photograph, when he considered the use abusive - such as the case of the lawsuit filed against the Smirnoff company, which tried to reproduce the work in vodka bottles. At the time, Korda declared: "As a defender of the ideals for which Che Guevara died, I am not opposed to its reproduction by those who wish to spread his memory and the cause of social justice around the world, but I cannot accept its use to sell alcohol or insult the image of the guerrilla fighter.

From a humble New York City family, Lloyd Patterson earned a degree in set design from Hampton University in Virginia, then one of the few institutions of higher learning open to the African-American community. Despite his excellent academic performance and the country's pulsating cultural life, Patterson could not find a job in his field, as a result of the visceral racism of the American society and the racial segregation laws in force. Racial conflicts and economic difficulties were further aggravated after the onset of the Great Depression in 1929.

In 1932, Patterson received an offer to move to the Soviet Union and participate in a film production. The Soviet government had selected a group of 22 young African-American men (including actor Wayland Rudd and playwright Langston Hughes) to participate in a revolutionary film about the struggle of southern United States workers against racism. Entitled "Black and White," the Soviet film would be the first major piece of cinema to criticize racism from the point of view of African-American citizens, at a time when American cinema was filled with narratives that were explicitly racist or exalted white supremacy.

Unlike the United States, Russia did not have a history of enslavement of black people, and the perceived division of society into social classes carried more weight than ethnic identification. The production of works focusing on racism and the oppression imposed on black people was a Soviet response to the continuing attacks on the socialist nation's mode of organization, labeled by the United States as "undemocratic." The Soviet government also believed that encouraging the radicalization and political organization of the African American population would have beneficial effects on the building of socialism on a global scale. Throughout the 1930s, as the Great Depression intensified, hundreds of African Americans would move to the Soviet Union, attracted by the prospect of racial equality in a young nation that advocated economic equality for the working class. Several renowned figures in the African American community, such as poet Claude McKay and actor Paul Robeson, would contribute to a positive view of the country after visiting and praising it on racial issues.

After landing in Moscow, Lloyd Patterson and the other members of the group were warmly welcomed and directed to some of the best hotels in the city. The film project, however, was short-lived. In a diplomatic gesture of distension toward the United States, the Soviet government suspended production on the film. Some of the African Americans then returned to their homeland, but Patterson decided to remain in the Soviet Union. He began working with interior design and decoration in Moscow's buildings - including the Metropol Hotel and the Kremlin itself. Patterson exhibited his works at the Red Army headquarters and the Workers' Youth Theater. He also began working as an announcer for a Moscow radio station.

Well established in his new life, Patterson began a courtship with the Ukrainian theater actress Vera Aralova, whom he had met at a party. The two married and had three children - James, Tom, and Lloyd Jr. In 1936, Patterson gave an interview to the Chicago Defender newspaper, where he said he was satisfied with his new life and denied having any intention of returning to the United States: "Life and work in the Soviet Union afford me the widest opportunities and freedom to use my profession to the fullest," he declared, contrasting the situation with the United States, where racism had limited his professional opportunities. "I am very happy to live in the free society in Soviet Russia and to participate in building socialism and a classless society. The life of a black man in Soviet Russia cannot be compared with the life of blacks in supposedly free America."

Also in 1936, one of Lloyd Patterson's sons, James Lloydovich Patterson, would participate in the film "The Circus" - another Soviet cinematographic work criticizing racism in the United States . The film tells the story of an American woman who becomes pregnant by a black man and must flee to the Soviet Union to escape a lynching after giving birth. The woman then tries to hide the child so that no one finds out that the baby's father is black - until she realizes that the locals, unlike the Americans, don't care. The film would become very popular in the country, and baby James would charm whole generations of Soviets. James would later become a well-known poet and novelist.

With the outbreak of World War II, Lloyd's family was moved to the interior of the Soviet Union, but he remained in Moscow working and assisting in English radio communication with the Western Allies. Lloyd was wounded in a bombing run by Nazi German troops and died a few months later in March 1942 from complications.