intro

“capitalism: An economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and producers compete to maximize their profits.

“socialism: A political theory advocating public ownership of the means of production and the sharing of political power by the whole community.” - The Illustrated Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words

“All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and allowed to live only so far as the interest to the ruling class requires it.” - Karl and Freddy

“In its struggle for power the proletariat has no other weapon but organisation. Disunited by the rule of anarchic competition in the bourgeois world, ground down by forced labour for capital, constantly thrust back to ‘lower depths’ of utter destitution, savagery, and degeneration, the proletariat can, and inevitably will, become an invincible force only through its ideological unification on the principles of Marxism being reinforced by the material unity of organisation, which welds millions of toilers into an army of the working class.” - Vladimir

“To be sure, the line of development is toward internationalism, but the point of departure is ‘national’ — and it is from this point of departure that one must begin.” - Antonio

“Building socialism is based on the work of the masses, on the capacity of the masses to be able to organise themselves to better guide industry, agriculture and the country’s economy. […] Centralised planning is the mode of existence of socialist society, its defining characteristic and the point at which man’s consciousness finally succeeds in synthesising and directing the economy towards its goal: the full liberation of the human being in the context of communist society.” - Ernesto

“Socialism does not mean that life will be planned for everyone ‘from above’. It is not only public ownership of the means of production, but also public control. Therefore Socialism is only successful to the extent that the great majority of the people participate in the direct organisation and administration of the affairs of their country.” - Willie

I, “Charles Marks”, bring you [insert name] my half-baked theories and ill-informed opinions via this web log (more commonly known as a ‘blog’) from a hidden location somewhere in England.

This is not an act of self-indulgence but is carried out in the hope of assisting the formation of a hegemony of socialist ideas within the proletariat (that is to say the working class) for the purposes of bringing about a socialist revolution in which the proletariat will be hegemonic and can expropriate the bourgeoisie (that is to say the owning class).

Though the actual form this hegemony will take cannot be outlined in detail it is certain that for the revolution to survive and advance its character and content must be anti-capitalist (which implies a commitment to a planned and managed economy under democratic control) and anti-imperialist (which means respecting the right of nations to self-determination).

For the socialist revolution to occur at all there must be organisational unity of working-class forces (either in the form of a unified party or a coalition of parties) and an understanding of the impact that imperialism has on the proletariat of imperialist countries.

Ahem.

Got that?

Right, sorted…