Hi Comrades, I want to open today's newsletter with updates on the book club and the direction of the Discord server:
We recognize the sole mission of this Discord server is to provide Marxist education, and as such, we are adding an essential requirement for server access: All members must attend 3/12 book clubs hosted per month.
We expect this will reduce membership, but we aim to prioritize knowledge over numbers. Experience has taught us inactive members are ineffectual members, and this is a trap we want to avoid. As such, we want to ensure everyone is committed to learning and enhancing their skills. Beyond that, we want to make it easier for you to attend; to accommodate this, we are adding a third weekly book club session at a European-friendly time.
Read more about Discord
Why are we making this move?
Some elements on our server do not engage with Marxist theory; instead, they engage in debates. Debating without a solid understanding is damaging to Marxist movements. Everything deserves analysis and critique, but to do that, a firm grasp of the subject matter is required.
What do we hope to accomplish? Dedicated community.
For the past year, our server has had an open-door policy for new members to walk in with no requirements. This no longer serves our future goals and aims. We want to build a safe space dedicated to Marxist education, and this can only be done with the trust and involvement of our members.
When does the change go into effect? August will be our trial run. We will keep a simple attendance sheet for each meeting. Members who attend three(3) book clubs per month will remain on the server.
Members not attending a minimum of three(3) sessions will have their server access revoked. Options for makeup work, like drafting a reading summary, will be available. We hope this encourages members that cannot attend to instead get active in writing for our newsletter. The Vanguard role will be granted to members participating in six(6) or more monthly sessions.
Conclusion:
We hope all members will rise to the occasion to participate in our book club sessions. We know it is easy to get distracted by the plethora of online media available at our fingertips, so we hope this change will emphasize the importance of education. One is not a communist until one regularly reads and understands Marxist theory, then puts it into action.
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🗺️ Marxist History & Global Comrades
📜 Last Week in Marxist History
Working Class History on Instagram: "On this day, 29 July 1962, fascist aristocrat Oswald Mosley attempted to march through Manchester. However he was attacked by anti-fascists who knocked him to the ground, and had to be rescued and escorted by 250 police, who were unable to prevent the fascist being pelted with tomatoes, eggs, coins and stones. Following the march Mosley attempted to speak but he was drowned out by a crowd of 5,000 anti-fascists who forced police to call off the meeting after just seven minutes. Clashes between local residents and fascist Blackshirts continued for some time, and the police arrested 47 people. As in most similar cases, the majority of those arrested were anti-fascists. We speak to someone who was there that day in the bonus episode to our podcast miniseries about anti-fascism in the 1940s: https://workingclasshistory.com/2020/02/17/e35-37-the-43-group/ To access this hyperlink, click our link in bio then click this photo Pictured: Mosley on the ground"
Fight For A Future on Instagram: "The US is an imperialist state which sees Latin America as nothing more than its own colonial territories. Solidarity with all Latin Americans fighting against US imperialism 🚩
Today marks one of the largest insurrections in the US history. Black people rose up in Detroit against racialized police violence, and the US sent tanks and federal troops to crack down. 43 people were killed, 1,000 were injured, and more than 7,200 were arrested.
💬 Global Comrades
Slavo on Instagram: "Today Putin's regime has committed another crime, one in the long list of many... Boris Kagarlitskiy, a prominent Russian sociologist, activist, writer, blogger and socialist thinker was arrested. Kagarlitskiy was charged with "supporting terrorism"- a bogus charge that can land him in prison for five years! Boris Kagarlitskiy was an outspoken opponent of the imperialist war in Ukraine from the very beginning. Being significantly weakened in the eyes of the public by the Wagner mutiny, the regime can't allow any criticism of its cannibalistic policies. The crackdown on dissent in the recent weeks has gotten much worse. However, even when a far-right pro-war Putin critic Igor Strelkov got arrested, multiple major international news outlets like CNN, BBC and Deutsche Welle have reported that. So far, Kagarlitskiy's arrest has received very little publicity not just internationally, but even in Russia, where outside the leftist social media channels very little was said. Boris Kagarlitskiy doesn't have the influential foreign NGO's, or Russian oligarchs behind him, willing to negotiate his release. Wether one agrees with all his opinions or not, he only counted on the leftist movement, his readers, students and social media followers. I strongly encourage everyone who considers themselves a leftist and believes in free speech to look into this situation and spread international awareness! Only through making the case of Boris Kagarlitskiy more public can we have a chance to see him and many other political prisoners free. Free Boris Kagarlitskiy! Free all political prisoners! Down with capitalism and war! No war but the class war! Workers of the world unite! #freeboriskagarlitskiy #freedomforpoliticalprisoners #freedomofspeech #anticapitalism #anticapitalist #fuckcapitalism #antifa #antifascist #fuckfascism #fuckputin🖕 #antiwar #antiimperialism #peaceinukraine #peace #socialism #socialist #marxism #marxist #marxismo #rva #rvasocialist #rvamarxist”
Reich-Wing Watch on Instagram: "A far-right figure on Twitter, Dom Lucre, had his account reinstated on Wednesday just hours after sharing child porn. The user, a popular conspiracy theorist, was suspended after sharing a post to his more than 580,000 followers that allegedly contained pictures related to a case surrounding an Australian man who was sentenced to life and an additional 129 years in prison in 2018 for sexually abusing children in the Philippines. The suspension immediately led to uproar from other right-wing users, who claimed that Lucre was being censored as part of a vast conspiracy against him. In response to questions about Lucre’s removal, Musk revealed that staff had informed him that the Dom Lucre “account was suspended for posting child exploitation pictures…” Yet despite Musk repeatedly claiming in the past that Twitter would make cracking down on such abusive material as “priority #1,” the billionaire quickly decided that Lucre was worthy of reinstatement. And although countless users saw the pictures in question, Musk further claimed that only select employees at Twitter had viewed them. Oddly, the suspension prompted outrage on the right, despite their constant fear of pedophiles lurking throughout society. To make matters worse, the image appears to have been on the platform for several days before being removed. Lucre even described the image in detail in a separate tweet, noting that it had been taken from a video. The video in question involved the abuse of three children, one of whom was reportedly strangled to death after the filming. After being reinstated, Dom Lucre claimed that he had never shared any images at all and instead merely posted a link to a news article regarding the Australian’s conviction. Not only that, the right-wing influencer alleged that Musk had actually suspended him on behalf of Obama. “Apparently sharing child exploitation material isn’t an action worthy of suspension anymore. A big shift from Musk’s earlier rhetoric that actually he cared about cracking down on it far more than the previous management,” author Paris Marx wrote. https://www.dailydot.com/debug/dom-lucre-elon-musk-child-exploitation-reinstatement/?amp"
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