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Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to
be established , an ideal to
which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We
call communism the real movement
which abolishes the present state of things. The
conditions of this movement result
from the premises now in existence.
------ Marx & Engels The
German Ideology
Communism is not a party programme or a one party state.
Communism is simply the movement to overthrow the conditions
of life imposed by the rule of capital. This statement
is as true today as when in 1848 Marx wrote that workers had
nothing to lose but their chains.
Yet the world of today is not 1848. The spectre of
communism still haunts capitalism, but capitalism has
evolved. This evolution has not ameliorated the need for
revolution only the way the workers respond to it. The 'old'
workers movement was composed of parties, unions and mass
organizations. By and large those organizations have
disappeared or been swallowed by 'mass' society. Those who
seek to rebuild the left, to see a new 1917, or 1936, are
chasing conditions which have long been superseded by the
process of capitalist development. As against looking to
such formal indicators as union membership, party votes or
newspaper sales as indices of class struggle, rather look to
strike figures, wildcats, sabotage and above all resistance
to capitalism in all its forms.
Red & Black Notes is a
libertarian socialist project based in Toronto, Canada. The
focus of the project is twofold : To circulate information
from a libertarian socialist perspective, both current and
historical, and to provide a forum for discussion of those
issues.
Red & Black Notes has no gospel to preach, no
master manifesto for the masses to embrace or ignore, only a
lingering sympathy with those historical currents such as
council communism, which stressed the self mobilization of
working people as a means to the new society. Red &
Black Notes cooperates with other periodicals
and organizations both in Canada and
internationally in the pursuit of this goal.
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Against
Capitalist War! Against Capitalist Peace!
What's
New - Red & Black Notes #22 - Coming Soon
For the Abolition of Wage Labour
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