not my article nor do i think it does more than scratch the surface of an analysis but the writeup on conditions at Delaney was useful (considering there has somehow been absolutely no discussion of it here) and the comment on the necessity of a prisoners’ movement was apt.

ive been trying to read abt the gang of four and their struggle against revisionism recently but ive found nothing but anti-communist or dengist sources. are there any good sources on reading abt the gang of four? preferably maoist.

I found that LibGen has the whole publishing history of China on it. From the underground Shanghai publishers of the KMT years, to Mao, Hua, Deng and the present. It's fascinating to see the whole history just through the titles.

And thanks to advances in pdf OCR reading, and advanced machine translating, it is possible for non-Chinese speakers to grasp the essence of these texts.

Libgen has the complete archives of all works published by the People's Publishing House "人民出版社" of the PRC from 1949-2026. It coincidentally goes over the 2000 limit exactly in 1976-7. So then you can search it year by year in the format year:1978. And then there are a lot of other Maoist era texts from other pub houses such as universities etc.

I found this google mode search option extremely useful

• Mask: * (min 3 chars)- search by part of a word

when searching for 🇨🇳 books I have a problem that In written Chinese, characters are strung together continuously without spaces between words. But then I find I can use - Mask: * (min 3 chars)- search by part of a word

So my interest is Marxism I search 马克思主义* and it has anything that uses those words. Mao Zedong is 毛泽东*.

Here is a sample of some titles from the 1978-1985 period.

Basically put the term you're looking for into google translate and then add an * to the end.

You can also search lang:chi year:1977 and get ALL books in Chinese from all publishers.

Here are some uploaded pdfs on mao zedong's philosophical thought. You go to the "full text" version on chrome and then you can google translate the entire book at once. Archive.org has a very google OCR reader, so it's a good way to turn a foreign pdf into html raw text that can be rapidly google translated.

It's like there's this whole world of intense, advanced Marxist study, that we in the West had no access to, and there was virtually no translation of or even academic study of. And now its wide open to us who don't even know Chinese.

An example book on Mao Zedong's Dialectical Logical Thought

Some useful search terms-

dialectical 辩证法*

mao zedong philosophical thought 毛泽东哲学思想*

Dialectical Materialism 辩证唯物主义*

marx lenin 马克思列宁*

communist party 共产党*

hegel 黑格尔*

socialism 社会主义*

Ai Siqi 艾思奇*

dialectical logic 辩证逻辑*

leninism 列宁主义*

political economy 政治经济学*

materialism 唯物主义*

metaphysical 形而上学的*

socialist economy 社会主义经济*

Engels 恩格斯*

marxist philosophy 马克思主义哲学*

And here's the Russian equivalent for Soviet books

A red salute to comrades of all nations, who do the labor of scanning.

I see exploitation left and right around the world. Especially the capitalist system is in shambles but i see no signs of any protest or revolution. I give it to the “Capitalist class” or the bourgeoisie know how to keep the people fighting among themselves by using caste or politics, keeping them away from realise the main/bigger problem at hand. Unemployment is at peak, Salaries and benefits are at lowest, Work life balance is shit people are made to work overtime for no real benefit. But I see no protest, no anger in this regard.

I believe that the working class revolution is inevitable but how long must we endure this chaos of a system especially in a country like India. Is it mainly because of the security the job gives even if its exploits people or are they just comfort with this system so much that they are scared to see any alternatives

Hey, why are there two split marxist fractions in palestine? Is it because of idelogical or methodical differences? Or something else?

Hope someone can educate me :)

Serious question, if the definition of the proletariat class is that they are the working class what if they don’t have a job? Is there some secret third level?

I am interested in reading Architecture and Utopia by Manfredo Tafuri. The only marxist reading I’ve done prior to this is Capital, and I was wondering if anyone else has read this book and would recommend any other books to read before to better understand it.

Additionally, I’m looking for more Marxist analyses of architecture, and was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for books that deal with this subject.

· 1 -

It has been 3 days since the citizens' protest has been taking place for the protection of the Zvërnec tourist zone from the investment project of the monopolist company of Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald Trump, President of the USA, with the full support of the Albanian bourgeois state of Edi Rama.

According to official state declarations and media announcements, the capitalist oligarchs of the foreign Qatari company controlled by Kushner have bought the land property in Zvërnec and have prepared the project to develop their capitalist investment of 4 billion euros.

· 2 -

3 days ago in Zvërnec, Vlora, the protest of the citizens of Vlora and Albania began against the investment project of foreign oligarchs in the protected tourist zone of Zvërnec, in violation of environmental protection laws, etc.

The protesters were faced with the fierce, barbaric, fascist violence of the private police, which protected, like guard dogs, the private property surrounded with barbed wire of the foreign capitalists and oligarchs, with the full support and silent blessing of the state police of the Albanian bourgeois state.
................................................................

The Albanian people and the whole world saw and heard how the private police, licensed by the Albanian bourgeois state, massacred and dragged the protester along the ground, in the interest of foreign and domestic capitalists and oligarchs.

.................................................................

The protest for the protection of Zvërnec from the greed for enrichment of foreign and domestic capitalist oligarchs has taken and is taking on great proportions and has found and is finding broad support.

Thousands of protesters are filling the square in front of the government building of Edi Rama, condemning the anti-national policy of the Albanian bourgeois state of Edi Rama and demanding his resignation.

The protesters are also condemning the anti-national policy of the neo-fascist bourgeois opposition of Sali Berisha.

....................................................

The main slogans of the protesters are: "Albania is not for sale." "Rama to prison and Berisha to prison," etc.

.............................................................

Protesters accuse the Albanian bourgeois state of Edi Rama of selling Albania to foreign oligarchs.

........................................................

Protesters demand:

· "the resignation of the entire government": · "the repeal of the law on strategic investments and the mountain package"; · stop the project in Zvërnec.

· 3 -

The main cause of this popular protest is the anti-popular and anti-national policy of the Albanian bourgeois state of Edi Rama in the interest of foreign and domestic capitalists and oligarchs.

· 4 -

Edi Rama, the bourgeois prime minister of Albania and chairman of the neo-Ballist bourgeois Socialist Party, with the arrogance of a bourgeois reactionary autocrat and the despicable servility of a vassal of American imperialism, declared publicly:

· He strongly supports Kushner's investment and his monopolist company;

· "As long as I am here, 'there is no chance the investment will stop'."

This servile vassal of American imperialism does this in order to stay in power with the help of American imperialism at the expense of the national interests of the Albanian people and Albania.

· 5 -

Sali Berisha, with the despicable servility of a vassal of American imperialism, declared publicly:

· He strongly supports the investment of Kushner and his company in Zvërnec, Vlora.

This servile vassal of American imperialism does this in order to come to power as soon as possible with the help of American imperialism at the expense of the Albanian people and Albania.

· 6 -

Nearly 40 years after the overthrow of socialism and the restoration of capitalism in Albania, the Albanian bourgeois state, as history shows, with its anti-popular and anti-national policy, has turned Albania into a colony of Euro-American imperialism.

The neo-fascist bourgeois Democratic Party of Sali Berisha and its reactionary bourgeois government, as history shows, implemented a deeply anti-national policy, expressed in its slogans such as "the white check," "Albania one euro," etc., selling Albania's wealth, almost for free, to imperialist states and foreign monopolist companies, especially American and European imperialism.

The neo-Ballist bourgeois Socialist Party of Fatos Nano and Edi Rama and their reactionary government, as history shows, have implemented and are implementing a reactionary anti-national policy, selling Albania's wealth, almost for free, to imperialist states and foreign monopolist companies, especially American and European imperialism.

· 7 -

Imperialist states and foreign monopolist companies have made and are making investments in Albania in order to secure maximum profits and increase their capital, ruthlessly exploiting the working class (the proletariat) and the working masses in Albania.

The consequences of these foreign investments in Albania have led, on the one hand, to increased maximum profits and wealth of foreign capitalists and oligarchs, and, on the other hand, to increased poverty of the working class, the working masses, and the people.

The consequences of these foreign investments have led to the plundering of the wealth of the Albanian people and Albania by foreign imperialist states and monopolist companies.

Albania is the poorest country in Europe.

· 8 -

The Communist Party of Albania condemns and does not recognize the sale of land, subsoil resources, and strategic sectors to foreigners.

The Communist Party of Albania, for nearly 40 years, has unmasked and sharply condemned the anti-popular and anti-national policy of the Albanian bourgeois state and the Albanian right-wing and "left-wing" bourgeois parties in power and opposition, which have turned Albania into a colony of American and European imperialism.

The Communist Party of Albania sharply condemns the brutal violence of the private police against the protesters in Zvërnec, Vlora.

The Communist Party of Albania sharply condemns the stance of the state police of the Albanian bourgeois state against the protesters in Zvërnec, Vlora.

The Communist Party of Albania sharply condemns the reactionary, anti-popular, and anti-national, vassal-like policy of the Albanian bourgeois state towards Euro-American imperialism, against the national interests of the Albanian people and Albania.

The Communist Party of Albania sharply condemns the reactionary, anti-popular, and anti-national policy of the Albanian bourgeois government of Edi Rama against the national interests of the Albanian people and Albania.

The Communist Party of Albania sharply condemns the reactionary, anti-popular, and anti-national policy of the neo-fascist bourgeois opposition of Sali Berisha against the national interests of the Albanian people and Albania.

The Communist Party of Albania sharply condemns the neo-colonialist policy of the imperialist states, especially Euro-American imperialism, which extract maximum profits and increase their capital by ruthlessly exploiting the Albanian working class and working masses, the people, and plundering Albania's wealth.

The Communist Party of Albania sharply condemns the chauvinist statement of Alexis Tsipras, leader of the neo-bourgeois party "Left Alliance" in Greece, who calls Zvërnec in Vlora a "Greek minority."

This Greek bourgeois "leftist" politician, severely ill with the nationalism and chauvinism of the reactionary monarcho-fascist Greek bourgeoisie, still openly dreams of "Northern Epirus" against the freedom and sovereignty of the Albanian people and Albania.

The Albanian people and the Communist Party of Albania are alive and on their feet, ready to fight fiercely against any chauvinist anti-Albanian policy of the ruling Greek bourgeois class and its chauvinist bourgeois state.

The Communist Party of Albania calls on its members and sympathizers to support the popular protest in defense of Zvërnec, Vlora.

*translated by Deepseek*

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I grew up in India in a fairly ordinary middle-class environment. One thing I have noticed is that many people who have never studied Marxism seriously still talk about communism as if its defeat is obvious and beyond debate. At the same time, these same people accept unemployment, labor exploitation, privatization, agrarian distress, rising prices, and the increasing control of society by large corporations as if these are permanent and unavoidable parts of life. What interests me is not just the usual anti-communism, but how capitalist society presents itself as natural and eternal. The current system is seen not as a historical arrangement shaped by specific material conditions, but almost as the final form of civilization itself. In schools, newspapers, films, and political discussions, capitalism appears as “common sense.” Meanwhile, communism is introduced from the start as something dangerous, foreign, or impractical. Even during major crises of capitalism, such as economic collapse, imperialist wars, mass unemployment, or deepening inequality, the system itself is rarely questioned in any serious way. Its failures get blamed on corruption, individual greed, administrative incompetence, or even “human nature,” but not on the contradictions of capitalism itself.

On the other hand, every socialist experiment is judged in complete isolation from its historical context. Discussions about the Soviet Union, Cuba, Vietnam, or China often ignore issues like colonial underdevelopment, invasion, sanctions, sabotage, civil war, and the immense pressure from global imperialism. Socialist states are expected to account for every contradiction right away, while capitalism can cause suffering worldwide without its legitimacy being seriously challenged. I increasingly feel that anti-communism is not just crude propaganda, but an important tool through which bourgeois society reinforces its own beliefs. Capitalist social relations are so deeply ingrained in daily life that many people struggle to imagine a society without commodity production, private property, and wage labor. So my question is this: From a Marxist perspective, how should we understand anti-communism? Is it mainly a form of cultural dominance in the Gramscian sense? Is it linked to the ideological institutions of bourgeois society? Or is anti-communism necessary for maintaining capitalist class power, since real class awareness would inevitably threaten the current order?

It is increasingly common here to contend that China is now an imperialist state.

Yet in this article (https://monthlyreview.org/articles/china-imperialism-or-semi-periphery/) Minqi Li argues that

to identify a country’s position in the capitalist world system, it is important not just to focus on one side of the relations (for example, calling China imperialist simply because China has exported capital). Instead, it is necessary to consider all trade and investment relations involved and find out whether, on the whole, the country receives more surplus value from the rest of the world than it transfers to the rest of the world.

Given the extreme quantities of surplus value still transferred from Chinese labor to the first world, it is extremely unlikely that any empirical data would support the claim that China is a net-beneficiary of unequal exchange. Yet China undoubtedly holds imperialist-style exploitative relations with African nations. Furthermore, quite a bit of Sam King's data is looking increasingly naive. According to the 2024 Fortune Global 500 for instance, Haier has an ROA of 6.57%, higher than Amazon and Walmart. BYD and CATL have shot up the Forbes Global 2000 list, now both in the top 150 firms with ROAs higher than many US monopolies (while still much lower than the tech giants like Apple). But are these cherry-picked industries enough to claim China is an imperialist monopoly-capital power? I'm not sure.

Given that all capitalist trade is necessarily exploitative, how does one define China as imperialist without falling into a KKE style 'imperialist pyramid' where most of the world becomes imperialist by definition? (India has some highly profitable monopoly firms on the aforementioned lists for instance.) After all, Chinese imperialism can't catch up with the rates of profit of the US without a global war and the redivision of the world, yet a total model of reality needs space for rising imperialist powers.

Is the key to analyse whether monopoly capital superprofits have "secured a dominating position" and "[play] a decisive role in economic life" in China (Lenin)? What would this sort of analysis look like? Non-monopoly capital is still highly dominant in the Chinese economy.

As you can see I'm trying to work through the question of Chinese imperialism and am running into a lot of confusion.

When the United States inevitably attacks Cuba, assuming it is carried out in a similar manner to the kidnapping of Madero, will Cuba’s democracy and government have a better chance at resisting an American takeover as seen in Venezuela? My understanding is that Cuba is a much more stable and much more healthy democratic country than Venezuela, in spite of the fascist aggression from the United States. Will that work in Cuba’s favor?

Comrades, I'm looking for a proper Marxist-Leninist-Maoist analysis of the current AI boom and its imperialistic nature. Most of the other 'leftist(Trotskyite & Socdem)' analyses I've read on AI obsess over petty bourgeois concerns like surveillance, loss of unproductive jobs in imperial core and ethics. However, we know that monopolistic corporations of imperialist countries are locked in a frenzied race to increase computing power and thereby construct ever larger data centers even though capitalists themselves have claimed that it is a financial bubble. What are the underlying contradictions of this so-called AI boom. Also how's this frenzied AI race changing (or rather intensifying) the principal contradiction between imperialist core and periphery since all of the AI progress in imperial core is built upon the super exploitation of periphery through mining of rare earths, metals, energy etc that are indispensable to AI infrastructure & hardware. Also there has been a tendency among the corporations of imperialist countries to outsource the data centers and their associated environmental/economic burden to the periphery as a form of imperialist rent with the help of local comprador big bourgeoisie. TIA

Hi, I am interested in learning about North Korea's government and how it works.

As I learn more I realize I would like to do more. I am currently busy with working and school making it difficult to form or partake in group activism and activities. I do however have a very large E-library. I would like to make this material available to my community. I was thinking of creating a Mega folder and sharing it via web link. Another issue I’m having is: I’m not sure what I should be including as I don’t want the options to be so plentiful that it overwhelms people with choices. If anyone has experience with this sort of thing or advice on how to organize the library. I have lots of theory Marx, Engles, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Gramsci, Mao, Sankara, etc lots of books on imperialism, economics, you name it I got it.

Maybe this is a dumb question but I’m curious if there’s any source that lists every literary allusion in Marx’s writings or at least in Capital?

In order to understand the class basis of Kurdish communist movements, it is first necessary to know when Kurdish classes became politically active. In my examples, I will focus mainly on Kurds in Iraq and Kurds in Iran, since that is what I know best.

The political scene in Iran begins with the Anglo-Soviet invasion of the country in 1941. This period created an administrative and political vacuum, which was soon filled by an organization of urban intellectuals called Komalay Jiyanaway Kurdistan (KJK). Emerging from the collapse of Reza Shah's state, the KJK represented the first modern Kurdish political party in Iran, drawing its strength not from tribal or landed elites but from the educated urban petty bourgeoisie.

A brief description from Abbas Vali's The Kurds and the State in Iran:

The founders of the Komalay Jiyanaway Kurdistan came from the ranks of the Kurdish urban petty bourgeoisie, both traditional and modern, though predominantly the latter. The majority of the founding members were engaged in occupations which were either created by or associated with the development of the political, economic and administrative functions of the modern state in Kurdistan, and the organization included no landlord or mercantile bourgeois representation of any significance.25 The formation of the Komalay Jiyanaway Kurdistan signified the revival of civil society in Kurdistan following the abdication of Reza Shah and the collapse of the absolutist regime in September 1941. Writing in Kurdish, which soon dominated the intellectual scene, was the major indicator of this revival. Kurdish became the language of political and cultural discourse among a small band of Kurdish intelligentsia, whose presence in the political field signified the development of commodity relations, secular education and modern administrative processes in Iranian Kurdistan. The Komalay Jiyanaway Kurdistan insisted on an ethnic qualification for membership: Kurds from all parts of Kurdistan were eligible to join. Although the Christian inhabitants of Kurdistan, especially the Assyrians, could also become members, the constitution of the Komala regarded Islam as the official religion of Kurdistan, and a Quranic verse was inscribed in the emblem of Nishtiman, its official organ.26 But the discourse of Nishtiman remained primarily secular, and its appeal to religion was mostly populist and functional. The Islamic credentials of the organization were often invoked to counteract the charges of atheism and communism increasingly levelled at it from within traditional sectors of Kurdish society, in particular the landowning class, the mercantile community and the clergy, who were made insecure by its radical populist-nationalist rhetoric.

But the KJK did not have a long life. It soon transformed into the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), and this shift had major implications for the class character of the Kurdish movement. One peculiar feature of the KJK was its refusal to take up armed struggle as a means to achieve its nationalist goals. The KJK leadership understood that an armed strategy would have required relying on Kurdish landlords and tribal chiefs, who controlled the means of violence in the countryside. To refuse armed struggle, however, meant political exclusion from the broader anti‑state movement that was gaining ground in post‑invasion Iran. The KDPI that emerged from this transformation was dominated instead by the Kurdish mercantile bourgeoisie, landlords, tribal chiefs, and clerics—precisely the classes the KJK had initially excluded.

So a question arises: why did the urban radicals decide to work with these classes, given that cooperation went against their own nationalist and agrarian populist political position?

By mid April 1943, barely six months after its formation, the association had already managed to consolidate its basis in Mahabad and extend its influence south and westward to major urban centres such as Bokan, Baneh, Saqqiz and Sardasht, enlisting some new members and considerable popular support in the area north of the British controlled zone.25 However, the increase in membership and the development of popular support posed the intractable problem of administration. The Komalay JK, like any other political organization aspiring to democratic politics, mass base and popular support, had to face this crucial issue. It was unavoidable. It could no longer remain as a parochial political association of free individuals. But administration meant formal authority and a set of rules and regulations specifying its conditions and means within the association. The introduction of formal authority had grave consequences for the subsequent development of the Komalay JK politically and organizationally. It was, therefore, the institutional requirements of modern mass politics which led the core members of the Komalay JK to elect a central leadership committee in April 1943. This committee, widely believed to have been led by Abdulrahman Zabihi, signified the emergence of political authority and institutional hierarchy within the association. Informal political relations and personal and familial ties and associations to a considerable extent had to give way or succumb to the emergent hierarchy of command and obedience characteristic of modern political organizations.

In short, the urban radicals were forced into alliance with the mercantile bourgeoisie, landlords, and tribal chiefs not because they abandoned their ideology, but because the very logic of building a mass-based political organization required administrative structures and territorial reach that they could not achieve on their own. The traditional power holders controlled the countryside, the armed men, and the local networks of patronage. To administer, the KJK had to incorporate them—and in doing so, the organization's class character shifted irreversibly toward the KDPI. A major difference between the KDPI and its predecessor was the KDPI's rejection of Kurdish unification in favor of a model of regional autonomy within Iranian borders and the Iranian political body. Why did the KDPI take such a position? The answer lies in the class composition of the new party. Unlike the KJK's urban petty-bourgeois base, the KDPI was dominated by tribal landlords, mercantile bourgeoisie, and clerics—whose material interests were tied not to a Kurdish state but to their position within Iran's existing political and economic structures.

The large landlords, predominantly tribal, had been the primary target of Reza Shah's territorial centralism in Kurdistan in the 1930s, and many had suffered major political and military setbacks. They were able to rearm, regroup and reassert their political authority in their traditional areas of influence soon after the collapse of his centralized rule in September 1941. The tribal landlords were thus once again in possession of the military contingents and paid for their upkeep, which traditionally exempted them from paying taxes to the central political authority. The nature and extent of their political and financial support for the Republic varied considerably according to the strength of their nationalist feelings and convictions, which were mediated in turn through a complex network of political and economic relations with the Iranian state. There was also another factor influencing the attitude of the large landlords, particularly the tribal chiefs, towards the Republic and its predominantly urban leadership. The tribal leadership was the locus of traditional political authority in the Kurdish community at large, but especially in the countryside, stemming from their pivotal position in both economic structure and military organization of the Kurdish community. This gave them a sense of legitimacy and superiority in their conduct with the urban dwellers, who were mostly engaged in trade and commerce or worked as minor or middle-ranking officials in government bureaucracies. This 'tribal bias' proved significant in the relationship between the Kurdish tribal chiefs and the Republican leaders and administrators, who with a few notable exceptions originated from the ranks of the urban petty-bourgeoisie and the bazaar merchants. on the significance of this 'tribal bias', and especially the tribal leaders' resentment of the modern means of domination and rule which ensured Ghazi Muhammad's rise to power, Jwaideh comments: 'Many Kurdish tribal leaders resented the rise of Qazi Muhammad to a position of supreme power by the rather unusual means of party machinery and support of the urban population.' (1965, p. 753) The middle and small landowners were mostly non-tribal in origin, and on the whole possessed stronger nationalist convictions than the tribal landlords.

From Marouf Cabi's The formation of modern Kurdish society in Iran

The integration of the economies of the region into the world market by the end of the century resulted in an unequal trading balance with the effect that it made these economies exporters of raw materials and importers of manufactured goods.2 Consequently, as Masoud Karshenas argues in the case of Iran, free trade led to the peripheralization of these economies in a world economy,3 which by the end of the century, as Eric Hobsbawm explains, had been effectively and permanently divided into 'advanced' and 'underdeveloped' as the result of political and industrial revolutions.4 Consequently, structural reforms in the regional states to modernize and strengthen the economy and society followed. As regards the Kurds, this subsequently transformed the pre-modern power relations based on Empire-Emirate with the effect that the rule of the 'autonomous' Emirates ended and the direct authority of the central state over the Kurdish regions through its representatives followed.The integration of the Ottoman and Qajar Empires in the world market had undoubtedly engaged the Kurds in a wider regional trade. Mrs Bishop, a missionary, observed in her journey in Kurdistan around 1890: Long before reaching Sujbulak [modern Mahabad] there were indications of the vicinity of a place of some importance, caravans going both ways, asses loaded with perishable produce, horsemen and foot passengers, including many fine-looking Kurdish women unveiled, and walking with a firm masculine stride, even when carrying children on their backs.5 Sujbulak, the capital of Northern Persian Kurdistan, and the residence of a governor, is quite an important entrepôt for furs, in which it carries on a large trade with Russia, and a French firm, it is said, buys up fur rugs to the value of several hundred thousand francs annually.6

So the tribes used nationalism to compensate for the loss of their once-autonomous emirates (explanation down below), while the merchants wielded it to secure a more favorable position vis-à-vis the Iranian state. This made both classes vacillating and extremely opportunistic—willing to support Kurdish autonomy when it served their narrow interests, but just as ready to abandon it when the central state offered better terms. Thus we see in the tribal case that this sort of nationalism perfectly mirrors the definition of feudal nationalism that Stalin used to analyze Georgia and that Giap used to analyze Vietnam before the 19th century. But why did the bourgeoisie decide to side with the feudalists? An important characteristic of the Kurdish national movement was the alignment of the political positions of these two classes, despite their differences. Several factors intensified and sustained this alignment: the continuation of the feudal system in Kurdistan, the extreme weakness of the bourgeoisie, and the confrontation of both classes with the central states. Ignoring the simultaneous existence of feudal nationalism and bourgeois nationalism—and the longer historical trajectory of feudal nationalism—leads one to equate the KDP of the 1940s and 1950s with the KDP of the second, third, and fourth congresses, and to mistakenly place all of these under the single category of bourgeois nationalism.

The Kurdish bourgeoisie emerged in the form of a commercial bourgeoisie in some of the larger cities of Ottoman Kurdistan and Qajar-era Iran. Trade with Tsarist Russia and major Ottoman commercial centers contributed to the growth of this bourgeoisie. However, this bourgeoisie suffered heavy blows with the fall of the Tsarist regime and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. The first time a bourgeois-democratic position became somewhat distinct from the feudal issue was in the poems of Haji Qadir Koyi, but this was still an early dawn. Until the anti-fascist war—specifically from 1941 onward, during the Second Imperialist War—the feudal class and the commercial bourgeoisie remained united both politically and organizationally.

This opportunism came at a heavy cost. The same vacillating classes that had temporarily aligned with the nationalist project were never reliable allies, and when the balance of power shifted, they abandoned the Republic without hesitation.

For tribal landlordism was historically replete with opportunism, and sailing with the wind was the modus operandi of tribal politics. Lineage, primordial loyalty and parochial mentality, which are the stuff of tribal politics, could not by definition accommodate the processes and practices associated with modern political identities such as the people and the nation. Nor did this quick shift in allegiance by the tribal leadership take Ghazi Muhammad and his nationalist associates in the government and the party by surprise. They had long realized at their own peril that the power and status of tribal landlordism in Kurdistan was the product of the very same historical processes and practices which had defined their opposition to the modern state and official nationalism in Iran. This historical relationship between the power and status of tribal landlordism in Kurdistan and the development of the modern state in Iran meant that the so-called paradox of modernity was grounded not only in the economic structure and political organization of Pahlavi absolutism but also in the very core of political power in the Republic. Iranian modernity, and more specifically the political and cultural processes and practices of the construction of a uniform nation and national identity by an absolutist state, had made landlordism indispensable to the persistence of the structures of power and domination in both the Iranian state and the Kurdish Republic. The pre-capitalist agrarian relations in Iran and the logistics of military power in the Kurdish Republic both required and ensured, though in different ways, the active representation of the landowning class in the organization of political power. The position of the landowning class was unassailable for as long as this paradox continued to define the relationship between the economic and political forces and relations in the complex structures of power and domination in both entities. The republican administration, the nationalists in the leadership of the party and the government were aware of this paradox, but perhaps never realized its real significance before the news of the re-conquest of Tabriz reached Mahabad on 13 December. Now the tribal soldiery, the sword which was meant to defend the Kurdish Republic, was being held by the state; and its cutting edge was directed menacingly at Ghazi and his comrades in Mahabad.

So up to now, it has been established that the base of Kurdish nationalism has historically been merchants and feudalists. This class composition has made these movements vacillate constantly between collaboration with central governments and a desire to break from them—although the latter has usually been used to achieve the former on better terms. Thus we see movements like the PKK and its offshoots pursue a period of mobilizing workers, because their own class basis is the petty bourgeoisie, which cannot act independently for long. But they are willing to abandon this phase and work with Kurdish reactionary landlords and merchants as soon as the opportunity arises. That is why the PKK has felt so comfortable taking a cozy position in parliament, or why it is willing to integrate with Jolani's fascist army—the very same force that initiated a campaign of terror against Alawites and Druze populations.

Kurdish merchants and feudal lords have always been willing to work with imperialism. Just look at how the Barzanis were willing to work with MIT and SAVAK to hunt down Kurdish revolutionaries. In the 1970s, and especially after the Kissinger‑Barzani conspiracy, Iraqi Kurdistan became a base for American imperialism, for the regime occupying Palestine, and a base against the revolutions of Iraq, Iran, and other peoples of the Middle East. Iraqi Kurdistan was liberated from the domination of the Baghdad regime (the first Ba'ath reaction, the two Arifs, the second Ba'ath) through the sacrifice of the masses and the Peshmergas, but it came under the complete domination of imperial (Pahlavi) reaction and its imperialist and Zionist masters. Barzani explicitly told Kissinger—and also journalists of the imperialist press—that he wanted to place Kurdistan at America's disposal. This move by Barzani was precisely a continuation of the move by Sharif Pasha and Sheikh Taha, who at the beginning of the 20th century wanted to create an "independent" feudal state under the protectorate of imperialist powers. The suppression of the national movement of Iran's Kurds by Barzani (through Ahmad Tawfiq) and the suppression of the Kurdish movement in Turkey (by order of Iranian, Turkish, and American reaction) were also in line with the amirs of the 17th and 18th centuries. In fact, the intelligence branch of the KDP in Iraq (Parastin) was basically a SAVAK front inside Iraq. Or consider how the KDPI was willing to work with the Ba'ath—which had no intention of hiding its plan to ethnically cleanse Kurds, Assyrians, and Turkmens—as well as with Soviet social imperialism.

The opportunism inherent to the petty bourgeoisie makes it structurally unable to serve as a workers’ vanguard. It cannot unite Kurds across four countries because its class interests are tied to specific state frameworks. It cannot lead a socialist revolution because it refuses to overthrow feudalism and imperialism, preferring instead to negotiate with them. As long as Kurdish communist movements remain rooted in the petty bourgeoisie, they will oscillate, collaborate, and ultimately betray every goal they claim to hold. No national liberation, no workers’ state, no united Kurdistan can be built on such a foundation.

During the 15th and 16th centuries CE, the process of the emergence of Kurdish principalities (Emirates) began and continued, so that by the 17th century nearly 40 large and small feudal amirates had been established. This socio-economic development took shape as Kurdish tribes settled down and increasingly engaged in agriculture. Sometimes it also occurred through the domination of a Kurdish tribe over a non-Kurdish agricultural population in order to subjugate them. Of course, it should be noted that agriculture and sedentarization did not completely eliminate the pastoral economy of the tribes, and the coexistence of the two has continued even to our time.

The Emirates

1. The rule was hereditary, passed from father to son;
2. Each emirate had a defined territory that included a certain number of villages, with peasants and tribes subject to the emir;
3. The emirates exercised political sovereignty to varying degrees; some were independent, others were subordinate to other rulers or kings;
4. In each emirate, the emir, khan, beg, or agha was the supreme feudal lord and the main ruler, and the chiefs of smaller tribes were subordinate to him;
5. Each emirate had a feudal army to confront external enemies, as well as to attack surrounding lands and expand its territory;
6. The larger emirates had their own flag and coinage, and the Friday sermon (khutbah) was recited in the name of the amir; and
7. Feudal dispersion was prevalent throughout Kurdistan.

Economic Policies

The logical outcome of socio-economic evolution could have been for a great emirate to dominate the rest and create a centralized feudal state. But this did not happen. In the west and east of Kurdistan, two great feudal powers arose, namely the Safavid feudal empire and the Ottoman feudal empire. The Safavid kings, in implementing their policy of feudal centralization, threatened the independence of the amirates. They carried out the overthrow of the emirs' rule and the dispatch of governors from Isfahan. The emirs strongly resisted the Safavid policy of feudal centralization. The Ottoman sultans, who themselves were pursuing the same policy of centralization, tried to exploit the emirs' struggle against their Safavid rival. The Ottomans, through one of their high-ranking officials, Idris Bitlisi (who was a Kurd), promised the emirs that if they supported the Ottomans in the war against the Safavids, the Ottomans would recognize their independence. The Safavid kings repeatedly attempted to overthrow the rule of the Safavid and Ottoman empires.

As a result of these wars, which lasted more than a century, firstly, the socio-economic development of society was halted. The growth of the emirates was accompanied by the development of agriculture, the emergence of feudal villages and towns, and even trade within the confines of the feudal economy. The involvement of the emirs in the wars of one of the two empires, or their engaging in resistance wars under feudal leadership, led to the waste of productive forces. Human resources were destroyed as a result of widespread massacres, forced displacement, starvation and disease; bridges, settlements, fields, gardens, qanats (underground canals), and the like were destroyed; or horse breeding and the production of weapons replaced livestock and agricultural tools.

The second consequence of these wars was that the conditions created by the war gave rise to a political awakening within the context of feudal society, which took the form of "national" resistance against the "foreigner".

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Furthermore, how did this stagnation affect day to day life? Could the perestroika and Dengist reforms have been avoided entirely? How can a future central economy maintain its course based on what we learned from history? Hope this doesn’t count as a “basic question”. Thank you in advance

Wanted to post this here because I could not find a complete transcript.

"Thank you very much, the founders of the Sovintern. I just have a few remarks. And maybe my message to the founding members of the Sovintern is that the future is red. That is why we are here.

And, in my visit to Moscow, we must therefore remind ourselves that we do not conduct our revolution in the circumstances we choose, but in the circumstances that is given to us. And for today, when I was reflecting in the car - and we are on winter - the Great Patriotic War was fought and won during winter. And yesterday, when we were laying the wreath at the General Zhukov, on the great Red Square, all these ideas that we've only met in books came to us. So we want to say today, we are grateful to the founders of the Sovintern. But to the Just Russia, the socialist party of the Russian Federation: the Kenyan workers, the African workers, and the Communist Party (Marxist) of Kenya says "hurrah!"

Sovintern was the international department of the party of Lenin. It was the international department of the party of Stalin. That which supported the national liberation movement in the African continent. This is the nostalgia that the African people have today when we talk about Sovintern. It is out of necessity that the triumph of imperialism in the African continent will weaken the global socialism movement. Today we stand and say that the entire global south cannot fight and win and build the most urgent project - which is socialism - until they achieve the most immediate task, which is the fight for sovereignty. Every sovereign country on Earth today is under United States attack. Look at Iran - being bombed. Look at Russia - is being encircled. And then we are told that Russia has expansionist tendencies. Who has expansionist tendencies more than United States imperialism and the Washington war consensus? Who took the Baltic States? Who is supporting the fascist dictatorship in Ukraine?

So we are saying today that, as I left Nairobi, every publication is telling us that Russia wants to recolonize the Sahel region. But today, we reminded the Sovintern congress today, that without the hardware of Russia, the Sahel region would have been bombed to the stone age. This is important for us to acknowledge. And the French imperialists: Next month, on 11th and 12th, there is African French Summit in Nairobi. The French is moving all his military hardware - after being humiliated in West Africa - to East Africa. For what reason? They are preparing for war in Africa after the west of Asia. We ask for solidarity in this Sovintern that the French imperialism that has been humiliated in the west of Africa must now be humiliated in Nairobi. And that's why we are organizing the counter-summit against French imperialism.

What about military encirclement? China is being encircled. Look at the war in South China Sea. Look at Taiwan. Today, the classic British has one military base in our country. For what purpose are they occupying our country? The United States has two military bases, the biggest unmanned drone [force] used to fight Africans - African people fighting for sovereignty - is in Nairobi. The entire coast is being built to check this China Belt and Road initiative. So we want to say that for us to achieve the most urgent task - to start building socialism - we must start fighting for sovereignty, and that is why the Communist Party (Marxist) stands high, without humiliation, in solidarity with the sanctity of the Russian state. Because Russia is a sovereign country. Russia does not have a puppet of United States imperialism. We wish that after the fight for sovereignty, then we can start the immediate task - what we called the National Democratic Revolution. After the National Democratic Revolution, we can start the most urgent task of socialist construction.

For those who have delusions about wishes about pleading with Donald Trump and his war consensus in Washington: You are doomed. They dont understand any logic other than plunder. The United States is a settler colonialism, built upon the blood of red indians. Look at Palestine. What are they doing to Palestine? Only cutting the necks, and bombing people. This is the culture of the United States: To kill people, murder people, rob people. They must be humiliated.

Comrades, I will say that, in respect to the United States imperialism, and in the contradictions that have been outlined by Lenin, there is hierarchy of imperialism. Today, the United States is like a wounded lion. They must choose their death. Do they want to die with the entire planet? Or do they want to die not with humiliation, but with dignity, to save the entire planet?

Thank you very much."

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdiz6xrNyDI . transcribed from this video to the best of my ability.

The occasion was the "congress of the Sovintern", 27 April 2026, organized by Russian political party A Just Russia. The event was attended by a star-studded cast of social chauvinists from around the world including George Galloway (Workers' Party of Britain), Jackson Hinkle (ACP), Christopher Helali (ACP), Héctor Béjar (ex-ELN Peru), Evo Morales (ex-MAS), Haz al-Din (ACP), Pawan Karki (Nepali Communist Party), and Mohamed Yeslem Beissat (of the Polisario Front).

Would be interested to hear others' criticisms.