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Harpal Brar will be speaking on his latest book, Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: Marketisation of the Chinese Economy. which explores the path of China after Mao's death, considering the role of the Great Leap Forward in China's economic development and current success, and the truth behind the political events of the Cultural Revolution. Brar tackles the ultimate question: would China have been better off having continued to use centralized planning, or were the reforms and marketization necessary and beneficial? Harpal Brar, former Chairman of the CPGB-ML, is a prominent political economist, author, and journalist ...

Socialists in the Euro-American left have never really understood the dialectics of the Chinese Revolution from the formation of the People's Republic, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, to the present. Just what is going on with the Communist Party of China (CPC)? Our speaker will help us better understand the dynamics of modern China.​  Our speaker, Kenneth Hammond, is a professor in East Asian Studies & Global History at New Mexico State University. He earned his PhD in History and East Asian Studies and was active in the student movement at Kent State Univeristy. He is also the author ...

As we head into election 2024, the Biden administration, Democratic Partypoliticians, and media pundits have has launched an aggressivecampaign touting the "accomplishments of Bidenomics." Yetaccording to an AP News poll, only 34 percent of Americans say theyapprove of Biden's handling of the economy. Democratic Partypoliticians and pundits echo the theme that the economy is doinggreat, decry unfounded pessimism, and insist that expressions ofdiscontent are reflections of misinformation and MAGA propaganda. This Sunday,Economist Dr. Jack Rasmus will set the record straight for working people: what is going on in the economy in 2024? What is the basisin reality for peoples' discontent ...

On the night of January 12-13, 1948, Solomon Mikhailovich Mikhoels, a prominent actor and director in the Yiddish language Soviet theater and winner of the Stalin prize in 1946, together with a friend, Vladimir Golubov, were killed in a hit-and-run accident on a dark street in Minsk, Byelorussian SSR. Mikhoels was buried with honors and praised in the Soviet press. Nevertheless, rumors that he had been murdered by the Soviet state began to circulate almost immediately. During the 1960s these rumors multiplied, occasionally being repeated in official sources. Beginning in 1991 documents began to appear claiming that Joseph Stalin had ...

Columbia University students started the movement against the University's connection with the wars, seeking divestment. It is clear to all who have not closed their eyes that a genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza by Israel is ongoing with the support and means to conduct it provided by the US government. The protests have taken the form of encampments on university general outdoor premises. But these peaceful protestors were attacked by police and supporters of Israel, both from inside and some apparently from outside of the campuses, accusing them of violence and of being antisemites, even as Jewish students themselves ...

Join us for what will be an excellent panel discussion with: Gloria La Riva - ANSWER Coalition Message from Pablo Menendez - North American musician and bandleader resident in Cuba since 1966 Cheryl LaBash - co-chair of the National Network on Cuba Sun, aUGUST 22, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific Resources: ...

Sun, June 20, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific time Working on documentary film “Déjà vu”, the team of Bedabrata Pain, Sristy Agrawal, Rajashik Tarafder & Rumela Gangopadhyay, took a 10,000 km journey through the heart of rural America. They met farmers across the spectrum covering dairy, grain, poultry, beef and hog along the mid-western agricultural states. They found out why rural people supported Trump. A surprised discovery was that the American farm landscape, like India’s, is dominated by small farmers. They make up 90% of all farms, but produce only 25% by prices of products and that farmer ...

Israel/Palestine: A Historical Perspective from a Palestinian Communist What were the main motives behind the Balfour Declaration, imperialism's November 1917 commitment to carve up Palestine? What was Lenin and the Comintern's position on Zionism and partition of Palestine? Why did Soviet leaders support US imperialism in creating the Israeli state? Why did they arrange to arm Zionist bands, crucial to their 1948 victory? This is the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune. Why do so few in the workers' movement know about the Beirut Commune of 1976, and how its defeat contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union? These ...

Israel, A Beachhead in the Middle East From European Colony to US Power Projection Platform Stephen Gowans is an independent political analyst whose principal interest is in who influences formulation of foreign policy in the United States. His writings, which appear on his What’s Left blog, have been reproduced widely in online and print media in many languages and have been cited in academic journals and other scholarly works. He is the author of two acclaimed books Washington’s Long War on Syria (2017) and Patriots Traitors and Empires, The Story of Korea’s Struggle for Freedom (2018), both published by Baraka ...

THE STRUGGLE FOR IDEOLOGICAL HEGEMONY -  THE ROLE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS (AND THE MEDIA): The Case of Purdue University Harry Targ, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, Purdue University, Blogger at Diary of a Heartland Radical, co-chair of CCDS, and author of books and articles on international relations, Cuba, and the labor movement. Sunday, august 15, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific time The attacks on “critical race theory” are part of an assault by sectors of the capitalist class who seek to shape who and what is taught in educational systems. This talk will address ideological struggles, the ...

Sunday, July 25, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific What Is the Crisis of Soviet History of the Stalin Period, and What Should We Do About It? Professor Grover Furr The history of the first workers’ state, the USSR, during its heroic period, when it was led by Joseph Stalin – that history is withheld from us. It is somothered by lies from influential, dishonest sources. In my talk, I will discuss the following topics: How do we know this is so? What is the situation? Who are the liars? How important is this? And most important: What should ...

ICSS 20210613 The communist party and the United auto workers union - Roger Keeran Sun, June 13, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific At the urging of union organizers today, International Publishers recently republished The Communist Party and the Auto Workers Unions, by Roger Keeran, a book originally published in 1980 and long out of print.  The author will discuss the circumstances around the book's original publication, the significance of the struggles it describes, and its relevance for our times.Resources: https://www.intpubnyc.com/product/the-communist-party-and-the-auto-workers-union/ ...

Rick Sterling will provide an update and analysis of recent events in Syria. Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist based in the SF Bay Area. He has written many articles about Syria, travelled there five times, and has contacts on the ground ...

American public discussion of socialism arguably hit a new level when Wally, the coffee-drinking, do-nothing character in Dilbert, the daily comic strip send-up of office politics, declared his conversion to that point of view. Unfortunately, as Wally's case reminds us, much of this increased socialism talk comes from people who don't like and/or understand the idea. That more of it needs to come from the actual left is clear. Less clear is exactly what we should say when we talk the talk. Simultaneously, a series of recent foreign elections -- most notably Germany's -- have prompted talk of a global ...

Beginning with the recognition that war is not so much between individuals as between states, we therefore examine Engels: "The society which organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machinery where it will then belong - into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax" (Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State). Eugene E Ruyle, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Cal State Long Beach, and President of the East Bay Chapter of Veterans For Peace (Berkeley/Oakland) ...

A huge, unprecedented strike of academic workers started on November 14th, hitting all ten University of California campuses like a ton of bricks. The 48,000 striking workers perform the majority of the teaching and research at UC, yet the pay and benefits for these workers, members of the United Auto Workers union, is way too low especially for high-cost-of-living areas like Berkeley, California. The UC Regents, who run the university and represent the most powerful business interests in the state, have so far refused to bargain over wages. Come to a special session of Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library ...