Submitted by Comrade Jeff in Discord. You can find photos and quotes from Russian comrades in the “Marxist History” section below.

Soviet Victory Day in 1945 celebrated unity between Ukraine and Russia; now, the capitalist reincarnations of these countries tear each other apart while Britain's latest inbred adopts a bloody throne

78 years ago, on May 9th, 1945, victorious Soviet peoples jubilantly celebrated the Red Army’s triumph over the fascist invaders of their homeland. Barbarism incarnate, fascists on both the USSR’s eastern and western borders were hellbent on curbing the nation’s nascent experiment in Communism purely for the sake of cruelty and injustice. The euphoria of the Soviet people on Victory Day, accompanied with a poignant commemoration of the Red Army’s fallen soldiers, manifested in an overwhelmingly emotional display of workers’ solidarity. The question is begged whether Soviet Victory Day—the culmination of the struggle between fascism and proletarian society—was so hallowed an event as to be humankind’s most noble ceremony to date.

In this very newsletter, a Russian comrade recounts: “Our ancestors laid down their lives for us, their children and grandchildren. So that we could live happily and avoid more wars and fascism. So that man could no longer exploit another man.”

However, since the unwanted dissolution of the USSR in 1991, this sacrosanct commemoration has been perverted by the loathsome Russian bourgeoisie who misconstrue history and conceal the mechanisms of class war from the masses. The new, ersatz Victory Day has devolved from its original celebration of camaraderie and hope into a display of militarization and nationalism. In a disturbing but subtle distortion of history, the parades now discordantly juxtapose the Soviet banner that decorated the 1945 Reichstag with the flag of the capitalist Russian state, which upon adoption heralded a catastrophic collapse in the economic life of post-Soviet nations.

As petty desire for conquest over territory and influence embroil the recently-capitalist Russian and Ukrainian states in reckless carnage, the last two years of parades have uniquely betrayed the true meaning of Victory Day. Once united against fascism and in building a revolutionary new society, Ukrainians and Russians are now massacring each other in the region’s latest episode of senseless bloodlust—and for what?

Putin cynically asserts his invasion is a last-ditch effort to de-nazify Ukraine, which admittedly does harbor Nazis in its government, military, and at-large. Simultaneously, however, comprehensive documentation implicates the Kremlin in attempting rightist coups in multiple European countries, disseminating far-right propaganda on the far reaches of the internet, and consciously abetting dangerous populists like Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump. A favorite of Boris Yeltsin, Putin is no USSR-revivalist either, as he is wont to plead.

To the contrary, he has spent a career unravelling the positive legacies of socialism in his country, including aggressively repealing workers’ rights and deregulating the economy.

His specious claims of nostalgia for the USSR and enthusiasm for Communist symbolism (although his aversion to Communism occasionally erupts to the surface)

are naught but a thin veneer of deception obscuring his extreme right-wing roots and providing him with just enough credibility to mislead audiences into accepting his stated intentions abroad.

In other such post-Soviet nations, a more headstrong approach to smothering history prevails, where the Soviet banner has been banished outright; including in Ukraine, where increasingly totalitarian measures have been executed to dismember the Left, such as banning the Ukrainian Communist Party totally.

Unlike the Russian Federation’s flag, reminiscent of regression and exploitation, the Soviet flag stands unapologetically for the solidarity of international working people. People’s movements and political organizations all over the world fly variations of the Soviet flag as emblematic of their own struggles, transcending the hammer-and-sickle from its original intent to represent the cooperation between workers and peasants and into a broader clarion call for the unity of the world’s peoples altogether.

Russia generally upholds Communist imagery as if it were simply a historical legacy of their unbroken past—leveraging the fond memory of many citizens of their Communist roots as a way to legitimize their regime despite the ferocious repudiation of those values in practice, just as the recent Victory Day parades demonstrate. The indirect, sophisticated, and inconspicuous nature of this approach to deception is likely superior to brute-force suppression; quashing expression or ideologies wholesale is unseemly, intimidating, and invites rage from the affected and curiosity from the apathetic. Our Russian comrades, then, must have a strength of vigilance equal in measure to the strength of Russian propaganda so as to not to allow Russian capitalists to redirect the narrative. The words of our Russian comrades continuing the fight for Communism in the home country showcase how oligarchs reshape Victory Day to their ends: “Russian privatizers do not like this truth . . . they rewrite [history] themselves, to serve their own class interests. Chatter about ‘protecting historical memory’ and ‘reconciliation’ is always a one-way game.”

In an eerie twist of fate, this year’s contemptible mutilation of Victory Day coincides with the pompous coronation of the latest inbred colonizer to sit on the British throne—the septuagenarian Charles Windsor. A grisly relic from antiquity, the ancient class of royalty was even more oppressive and destructive a class than our own modern bourgeoisie. Charles’ royal peers throughout history, commonly themselves the products of incest and civil wars, were overthrown in revolutions across the world by disgruntled serfs who recognized nobility as the intolerable parasites they were and seized the revolutionary moments necessary to upend them.

The British ruling class has prosecuted the same mission in carefully propagandizing ceremony as their Russian ruling class allies. British successes in so doing are evidenced by the lamentable fact that monarchy, with its recurrent rituals, marriages, and tabloid drama enjoys the attention and approval of most Britons. Despite the coronation costing the struggling island nation an estimated $125 million of taxpayer money while Britain’s social services fall into disrepair, the vast majority of older Britons (81% over 65) continue to observe this holiday eagerly and wish for their indefinite subjugation by wrinkly, aloof aristocrats.

Critically, however—and encouragingly—Britain’s youth are snatching themselves from the clutches of stupor and are rejecting the monarchy in rapidly growing numbers: 18-24 year-olds are the only age group where a plurality prefers a republic to a monarchy.

The British ruling class, noticing this trend, are increasingly echoing Ukraine's favored methods of cracking down on dissent by suppressing protest in broad daylight.

Likewise, the Russian regime has fallen back on blatant crackdown where and when the holding power of Russian propaganda wanes, silencing political opposition and jailing or punishing thousands of anti-war protesters before resistance can gain traction.

Russians must resist falling prey to the same indoctrination British nobility have imposed on their miseducated people. However captivating a spectacle, Victory Day in Russia no longer promotes the values it did in 1945. In accordance with the U.K.’s youth, Russia’s youth indeed nurses the possibility of cleaving asunder their ruling class’s falsehoods and misdirection.

Read the original here: https://drumfire.substack.com/p/the-eclipse-of-a-perverted-victory

“More than 300 children, including two 10-year-olds, were found working at McDonald's restaurants across Kentucky and several other states in violation of federal labor laws, the Labor Department said.

In one case, investigators found two 10-year-olds were working unpaid and until as late as 2 a.m. at one McDonald's restaurant in Louisville, the department said.

The two children prepared and distributed food orders, cleaned the store, worked at the drive-thru window and operated a register, investigators found.

One of them was also allowed to operate a deep fryer, a task prohibited for workers under the age of 16 under federal law.” - Instagram

Translation from comrade_1917 (a trusted Russian communist news aggregate):

“Demand for workers aged 14-18 jumped in Russia - May 3, 2023

The number of vacancies for candidates aged 14 and up on the Avito Work platform increased by 63% in April compared to the same period in 2022, - Izvestia.

Earlier, we mentioned a bill that was submitted to the State Duma for consideration and passed in its first reading. Apparently, due to the unprecedented demand, the document will still be signed.

The lawmakers state that they are going to meet the needs of teenagers who dream to start working as early as possible. The eternal question from Yuri Dud, "How much money do you make?" imposes patterns of behavior on young people. The society of profit, consumption and accumulation, difficult family circumstances dictate their rules to young people, forcing them to choose between education and work.

⏺ It's time to tear off the masks. So, what kind of profits will businesses get by hiring kids?

🗄 You can pay less, because young people are "incompetent." 🗄 you can exploit more, because kids don't know their rights yet; 🗄 additional inspections can be avoided, because teenagers won't complain about working conditions.

On the other hand, the earlier a child is confronted with reality, the sooner he or she will start questioning the system of social relations.”

Translation:

“KIDS, GO TO EARN!

"Work hard, spare no time, and next year I will buy myself an even cooler car." This truth of life, disguised as an anecdote, remains relevant for the adult population of wage workers in all capitalist countries. But it doesn't just apply to adults.

In Russia, the demand for workers aged 14-18 has risen sharply. For example, on the Avito Rabota platform, the number of vacancies for candidates aged 14 and over increased in April by 63% compared to the same period in 2022, Izvestia reports to us.

Hmm, but with such news, how can one not recall the bill on the same topic that was submitted to the State Duma for consideration and adopted in the first reading? Judging by such demand, the document will be signed with a high probability.

What do the pocket legislators of the bourgeoisie tell us? Of course, that they are going to meet teenagers who dream of starting work as early as possible. So that they realize themselves, acquire the necessary competencies. In a word, in the capitalist reality, young Atlanteans should straighten their youthful shoulders.

The fact that all these grabbers themselves created the conditions under which children should earn money, and not study, is hushed up. Children live in a society of profit, consumption and accumulation with and listen to modern "trends" on the one hand. On the other hand, often difficult family circumstances and the materialistic reality of their lives put pressure on them with terrible force. All this makes you choose between education and earnings - earnings. And this is in perfect agreement with the economy of domestic capitalism.

What direct benefit will domestic capitalists receive from the exploitation of child labor?

Now you can pay an employee even less, because young people "still do not know how and do not understand anything." It is now possible to exploit more strongly, because children do not know their rights. And now you can also avoid unnecessary checks. Adolescents are unlikely to complain about working conditions in various instances. If all this is carried out on an industrial scale, then the profit of the rich is obvious. It will even be more convenient for them to extract surplus value in this way.

But there is no evil without good. In the endless pursuit of profit, the capitalists are so keen on reconstructing the relations of the decaying Russian Empire on the eve of the revolution that they are engaged and will continue to engage in excellent class education. We sincerely wish them to act ahead of schedule.

The harsher the exploitation, the sooner capitalism, small and large wage workers, will see its true mug. After all, the capitalists will definitely sell that very rope to the younger generation. And this generation will find what to do with this rope.”

Source: https://t.me/dumai_sam_i_sei4as/1219

Translation: “But there is no evil without good. In the endless pursuit of profit, the capitalists are so keen on reconstructing the relations of the decaying Russian Empire on the eve of the revolution that they are engaged and will continue to engage in excellent class education. We sincerely wish them to act ahead of schedule.

The harsher the exploitation, the sooner capitalism, small and large wage workers, will see its true mug. After all, the capitalists will definitely sell that very rope to the younger generation. And this generation will find what to do with this rope.”

Source: https://t.me/dumai_sam_i_sei4as/1219

Translations of post:

“According to an already established tradition, glorious Russian denazifiers, who have read Berdyaev, Ilyin and Shmelev, conservatively drape the tomb of the founder of the state that destroyed the Nazi Third Reich on Victory Day.

The climax of the 1945 Victory Parade was the moment when soldiers and officers of the Red Army threw the banners and standard-bearers of defeated German formations to the foot of the Mausoleum. Adolf Hitler did not in vain consider Bolshevism the main threat to imperialist Germany. It was the Bolsheviks and the Soviet people who buried the Third Reich.

But the Russian privatizers do not like this truth. "We won't let anyone rewrite Russian history!" - are constantly telling us the representatives of the Russian bourgeoisie. And they rewrite it themselves, to serve their own class interests.

Chatter about "protecting historical memory" and "reconciliation" is always a one-way game. Residents of contemporary Russia are constantly being asked to repent for the "innocently murdered" Tsar and the "crimes of Stalinism," asked to reconcile with Kolchak, Wrangel, Dutov and other white movement warlords, who drowned the blood of Russian workers and peasants.

However, the oligarch-capitalist citizens themselves are categorically unwilling to reconcile with the great proletarian leader and the first leader of the state, whose victory over the Nazi invaders we will celebrate on May 9.

And yet they owe their very existence today to Lenin and the Bolsheviks. It is unlikely that the Provisional Government's Russia would have been able to carry out industrialization like the Soviet one. Even if Russia had not disintegrated as a result of increasing separatism in the early 1940s, how would it have fared against the Wehrmacht war machine? Would it have fared much better than Poland or France?

And the wealth of the Russian oligarchs is the pocketed and sawed-off industry of the USSR, appropriated state property. Finally, where would the Russian ruling class be without the remnants of the Soviet military-industrial complex and Soviet nuclear weapons? The question is rhetorical. How could we not recall the well-known animal under an oak tree from Krylov's fable?

P.S. The life of any society constantly proves that the interpretation of history cannot be classless.”

Translations of post:

“Ninety years ago, the capitalist masters of a progressive, cultured, educated people gave power to chauvinist radical savages guided by an anti-scientific, hateful racial theory. The theory that poisoned the minds and hearts of these people, turned most of it into a mass, made people think that they are superior beings, modern colonizers, who will arrange a new world order, seize the Eastern territories occupied by the Untermensch, and their residents will be turned into submissive slaves or simply destroyed.

The Great Patriotic War was a war against extermination, against slavery, against monopolistic capital, eager to expand and absorb everything around them at the expense of state policy. And our forefathers - ordinary workers, peasants, former tsarist officers who sincerely accepted the Soviet power, and their pupils - fought to live. They fought against the fascist regime that was mad with lust for conquest and their own impunity. There were many victims, many prisoners, many missing. Millions of Soviet citizens lost their relatives, loved ones and homes. But the Soviet people held out. Pushed the "colonizers" back into their barbaric lair, and planted the workers' and peasants' Red Banner over it.

We must remember that this was not done for a "bun and a streetcar" or "in defiance of the terrible Soviet government. It was neither an act of "God's help" nor "throwing corpses over it," in short, not the way the modern ruling class, the descendants of the White Guards and Yeltsin explain the victory. Victory came to our grandparents through blood and hard work, under the leadership of a socialist (and this is important) state with a command economy. A state that lifted up ordinary people, gave them education, jobs, housing, and other previously unimaginable opportunities. After all, in what other country could a peasant's son become a cosmonaut?

Our ancestors laid down their lives for us, their children and grandchildren. So that we could live happily and avoid more wars and fascism. So that man could no longer exploit another man.

But what did we get?”

Translations of post:

“Comrades! May 9 marks not just a victory in the war, it marks the victory of socialism over fascism.

It was not just a war between Germany and the Soviet Union, it was a class war - the most terrible battle in human history was between fascism and socialism. The USSR was building a just, progressive society: on the principles of internationalism, Marxism-Leninism, and working-class power, it was moving humanity into a new reality, a world without exploitation of man by man, without crises, wars, and a giant chasm between classes, on one side of which Jeff Bezos and the English king have more wealth than the rest of humanity put together, while on the other side hundreds of millions of African and Indian children have become walking skeletons from malnutrition and poverty.

Fascism, as the most overt, most open, most terrorist dictatorship of capital, fought for the interests of a tiny minority: bankers, industrialists, oligarchs, monopolists. The Italian Fascists and the German Nazis saw their ideal world as a giant latifundium where billions of people, turned into real slaves, would work almost daily and nightly, while genetically certified, bred and selected members of the "superior" race would appropriate everything these slaves did and live happily on the bones of the masses. The Soviet Union won this war - the most terrible war, the bloodiest war! In the battles for freedom and independence of the world's first workers' state, 8,668,400 people died (6,818,300 soldiers died in battles, hospitals and other accidents, and 1,850,100 people did not return from captivity. The civilian casualties of the Nazis were no less horrific: 13,684,700 people died (of these: 7,420,400 were killed deliberately; 2,164,300 died of forced labor in Germany; 4,100,000 died of hunger, disease and lack of medical care. Millions of people sacrificed themselves, not in spite of the VKP(b), but by its order, for the sake of a bright communist future, for the sake of equality of peoples and equality of people. (Continued in comments) #9 mai #victory day #workers #ssr #coptb #soviet union 15h kptb_russia's profile picture Today we are celebrating another anniversary of Victory Day under extremely difficult conditions. Another crisis has struck the world, capitalists are instilling ethnic discord everywhere and everywhere, the leaders of the labor movement are bribed by the bourgeoisie. Fascism is advancing. But we cannot sit idly by, much less let them down. We must oppose it. If during the war the Soviet people were led by the Communist Party, today it does not exist. Today it must be built. That is what we call upon all comrades who are not indifferent!”

The KKE honors the 9th of May, Day of the Great Anti-fascist Victory of the Peoples

http://www.idcommunism.com/2023/05/the-kke-honors-9th-of-may-day-of-great-antifascist-victory-of-the-peoples.html

Translations of picture:

“Their win doesn’t hide behind the drape.”

Translations of post: ”Preparations for Victory Day always begin with the most important thing - the draping of the Mausoleum. Under stories about the fight against Nazism and the howls about the falsification of history, the iconic historical site, to which the victors tossed Nazi banners, is securely covered with plywood. They usually have ribbons, numbers, blue skies and other crap on them. But this time, in a schizophrenic frenzy, the state has outdone itself: The mausoleum was covered with plywood with a picture of... Mausoleum! That's my authority, that's up to the doctors.

We absolutely deserve to hate Yeltsin. He is an alcoholic and degenerate. But even in his vodka-infected brain, the idea of draping the Mausoleum did not penetrate. This glorious tradition was introduced by his successor, a young up-and-coming politician who only produced galoshes in the USSR. And now I don't watch any parade as a matter of principle. Instead, on May 9 I review the original 1945 parade. I wish everyone to do the same. It is available in color on YouTube. The quality, of course, is not 4K, but you can admire the fit Georgy Konstantinovich on horseback and Red Square without the cheesy "plywood" pornography (one or the other). And this is much more pleasant. And let me remind you that the symbol of Victory is not a "St. George's ribbon," but a Soviet red banner. "Remember and be proud" in deed and not in words? Tie a red ribbon.

Happy Victory Day, comrades! I believe that sooner or later, on this most important holiday for our country, we will see Red Square the way it was seen by the victorious army on June 24, 1945.”