New:
Alan Spector - Talk at "Rethinking the New Left", November 11 2010
This work shocked and amazed me when I first read it 20 years ago. Taken from the memoirs of Moshe Sharrett, Zionist pioneer and former Israeli Premier, it gives examples of Israeli terrorism and 'black operations.'
July 23, 1999: I'm really tired of all the hype about the death of JFKJr, so here are some links to articles that pierce the hype:
There are seven sections to this page. You may "click" on any section heading immediately below to go directly to that section, without scrolling down the whole page. At the end of each section there is a link, called (TOC), which returns you to the table of contents. At the bottom of the whole page there is a box with links to my other pages.
Let me hear your comments and -- especially -- any suggestions for other sites I should consider adding. Thanks!
First let's consider how indoctrination hides the
reality of exploitation from us. 
Here are some selections from the book by James Loewen, Lies
My Teacher Taught Me, a liberal critique of textbooks and, more generally, how the US
population is systematically taught lies and fairy-tales instead of the truths of
capitalist exploitation and all its horrors.
General Sources for Marxist and Communist Analyses
These are the sites I have found most valuable in my struggle to understand the world: the class struggle; exploitation; and all the attendant horrors of capitalism, as well as in evaluating the successes and failures of the old Communist movement.
Progressive Labor Party Home Page
Ever since the anti-war and anti-racist movements of the '60s I have found this to be the
best of the "alternative" sources. Relentlessly anti-capitalist, resolutely
pro-worker and pro-employee generally, it's the best source of class analysis of
the world's events.
(Back to TOC)
STRIKE PAGE! Workers' struggles in the US
and abroad.
Center for Labour Studies
Information Links at University of Adelaide, Australia -- labour studies
worldwide.
Jeff
Coplon did some good muckraking journalism on American labor in the Village
Voice during the 1980s. I'm glad to have preserved some of these articles here,
excellent and always timely.
CAPITALISM looks very different in reality from the rosy portrayal it receives in the mainstream media and textbooks! Look to these sites in order to understand how exploitation affects you, and what you can do about it.
The U.S. Economic Crisis: why all
employees are getting cut-back, fired, and attacked, while the stock market goes through
the roof. By PLP.
LBO: The Left Business Observer
by liberal-left economist Doug Henwood; articles and analysis from the LBO Newsletter.
Analysis you won't read in the mainstream press or see on TV; how corporate exploitation
is covered up by the politicians. Check out Doug's article on Poverty in the US for
some facts that will prove to you that the poor are workers like you!
Links for a class analysis of the world and Marxist theory.
The Marxism
Page: sources for Marxist works on the Web.
The Marx/Engels WWW Archive (University
of Colorado); from the Progressive Sociology Network.
U.S. Intervention in Haiti was analyzed in October 1994 in
an essay for The Montclarion. And here is an essay on why Americans should
protest the Gulf War against Iraq.
"Religion: tool of the bosses":
analysis of religion and idealist thought generally, from the Ancient Greeks to today; why
a "people's religion" is impossible. From PLP. This same pamphlet is also
available here
.
Also, check out the Journalism Criticism section of my Media Page for
the
Noam
Chomsky Archives. Chomsky has excellent research. Beware, though, of his
anti-communism. These articles are mainly from Z Magazine.
"The
Control of History". Michael Parenti's essay on how history is distorted to
serve ruling-class interests.
GANDHI: No Wonder the Exploiters Love Him!
A paragraph from an excellent exposé of Gandhi, as an elitist enemy of the working class.
I hope to have more from this book here when I get a chance to transcribe it!
Alan Spector,
"Class Structure and Social Change: The
Contradictions of Class Relations in Advanced Capitalist Society" (originally
published in Sociological Inquiry, 1965). Excellent defense of Marxist categories
of class struggle, class contradictions, and class struggle in understanding capitalist
societies. A defense of Marxism against its academic detractors.(In PDF format; you need
Adobe Acrobat Reader to read this file).
The "Stalin Question" is one of the most vital issues of our time, I think, because stories about the "horrors of Stalinism" are used to demoralize millions of people who are otherwise fed up with capitalist exploitation and are looking for an alternativ e. The "anti-Stalinists" basically tell us there is no alternative! So serious research on the USSR during the period of Stalin's leadership is vital in helping us understand what the Bolsheviks did that was right, and what they did that was wrong, led away from communism and egalitarianism, and what we must learn from their heroic experiences.
Review of Robert
W. Thurston, Life and Terror in
Stalinist Russia. Though anti-communist itself, Thurston's book explodes many
of the anti-Stalin lies about the first workers' state during the 1930s, making use of the
latest documents from former Soviet archives. This critical review summarizes the lessons
and reveals its limitations. From PLP.
Stalin Reconsidered:
English translation of a Belgian work debunking Cold-War lies about the USSR in Stalin's
time.
Here is the text of a short talk I gave on "Today's
Crises and Thoughts on Joseph Stalin" at the Unitarian Church in Orange, NJ in
September 1994. And, here is a little essay on anti-Stal inism
inspired by Josephine Tey's famous mystery novel Daughter of Time, concerning
the way "official" historians distort history to serve their masters. Your criticisms and comments would be
appreciated.
"The Hoax of the 'Man-Made' 1932-33
Ukrainian Famine".
First of a series of six articles originally published in Challenge-Desafio,
newspaper of the PLP, in 1987. It's the best exposé of the anti-communist lies about the
"Man-made famine", but also contains valuable analysis of anti-communism in
general, and a good discussion of what really did happen in the USSR in the '30s,
and why it turned eventually towards capitalism. (NOTE: This series does not
deny that there was a famine in the Ukraine, and in other parts of the USSR, in 1932-33.
It demonstrates that this famine was not "man-made" or a deliberate attempt to
kill Ukrainians. No one denies that a famine existed).
There are six articles in this series. You can go from one to the other through links at
the end of each, or go to each of them from here:
Jeff Coplon, "In Search of a Soviet Holocaust: A 55-Year-Old Famine Feeds the
Right". Village Voice, Jan. 12, 1988. Now (11.2020) also available
here on the Village Voice online site.
This article dissects the pro-Nazi roots of both the film and the book critiqued in the
series of six articles above, and gives details about the sleazy background of the
filmmakers and "scholars," Conquest and others. A good supplement to the series
above.
Here are some other related articles on Ukrainian Nationalist Nazi murderers:
Mark Tauger has published
several articles and two important monographs on the Soviet famine of 1932-33,
definitively showing that they were not "man-made." Here is a short introduction to his scholarship: "Le
livre noir du communisme on the Soviet Holocaust of 1932-33. A Chapter from Wolfgang
Wippermann, ed., Roter Holocaust?
REAL MAN-MADE
FAMINES:
"PBS Anti-Stalinism Is Based on Nazi
Lies, first of a four-part series from PLP, 1990, that dissects the lies behind the
three-part PBS series "Stalin." You can get to each article from l inks at the
end of the previous one, or you can go directly to each from here:
Review of Clement Leibovitz, The Chamberlain-Hitler Deal.
This book documents in extraordinary detail how the British and French ruling classes did
not "appease" Hitler, but instead encouraged the Nazis to expand to the East,
thus causing World War II. Anti-communism, together with anti-Semitism, was entirely re
sponsible for Hitler's rise, successes, and the Second World War. Leibovitz, an
anti-communist, does not let his anti-communism blind him to the facts -- that the Soviet
Union alone was trying to forge collective security againt the Nazis, and that the ma jor
European powers did not want that, but instead wanted Hitler to destroy communism and so
aided German rearmament, the destruction of Czechoslovakia, and so on.
The exhaustive documentation in Leibovitz's book puts his conclusions beyond any question.
Read the review, and then order the book and read it, as I have done.
Quotation from Molotov showing he believed Tukhachevskii guilty;
from Chuev's Conversations with Molotov. This is consistent with all the best
contemporary bourgeois research, including an article I wrote, which you can j ump to here.
"Communisme,
les falsifications d'un 'livre noir'" is an article in French attacking an
anti-communist book (one arguing that "Stalin was four times worse than
Hitler"!) and defending the communist movement, while pointing out that French (and
Western) colonialism was responsible for millions of murders in the post-WWII period,
while only the communist movement opposed imperialism. It doesn't go far enough, but is
worth reading all the same. From Le Monde Diplomatique, December 1997.
Anti-Racism
Racism is the main ideological force dividing the working class in the US and
around the world. Here are a few sites important for combatting racism. Please let me know
about any others you find!
How the Exploitation of Illegal Immigrants and Lower Class
People Affects All Workers. An essay of mine from The Montclarion, student
newspaper here at Montclair State University. Also here, in PDF format.
Racism, Intelligence and the Working Class:
An exposé of the "new racism" -- genetic determinism, for example -- as another
attack on the working class generally and blac k, latin and immigrant workers
specifically. From PLP. Read it!
Oppose Racist "Violence
Initiative". Excellent pamphlet from the International Committee Against
Racism (1993) exposing the fascist phony science around the attempt to find a genetic
cause for violence. On the PLP space, but not a PLP pamphlet.
"Affirmative Action Helps Workers, Hurts Capitalists".
An essay I wrote for the ACTNOW-L mailing list in February 1995. Please give me
your feedback!
Here is a short letter to The Montclarion in
November, 1996, exposing dishonest "Conservatives'" attacks on Affirmative
Action.
But the best piece I have ever read, from a class analysis, is
the following:
"Defend
Affirmative Action", draft of an article or pamphlet by members of PLP. Well
documented, with an excellent class analysis, it clarified many questions for me. What do you
think?
Review of The Bell Curve. Powerful review by
Prof. Steve Rosenthal of Hampton University demolishes this truly fascist pseudo-science.
"I.Q. Scores Are Up, and Psychologists Wonder
Why", New York Times Feb. 24, 1998. Further proof -- as though
more were needed -- that "I.Q." scores are due to the environment, not to
heredity in any way.
"The Fight Against Racism":
excellent class analysis of racism. From PLP.
"I.F. Stone Breaks the Socrates Story,"
from The New York Times Magazine, April 8, 1979.
Plato is the founder of elitist, anti-democratic, anti-working class thought in
Western culture and, as such, is admired by elitists and their toadies. Alan Bloom, in The
Closing of the American Mind, positively swoons over this lover of dictatorship and
aristocracy. Before his death, the liberal journalist I.F. Stone wrote two articles and a
book on Socrates, revealing why he was executed -- as a teacher of, and apologist for, the
aristocratic terror-regime of the "Thirty Tyrants" and hater of democracy. This
article is by far the better of the two, and far superior to his mealy-mouthed book, The
Trial of Socrates.
The
best account of Plato's and Socrates' role in the foundation of elitist authoritarian
ideology is still Alban D. Winspear and Charles Silverberg, Who
Was Socrates? Winspear -- a Communist Party member at the time he wrote
this book -- shows how Socrates changed his ideology from democratic to aristocratic as he
earned more money, and also has a very clear explanation of the relationship between
Idealism and aristocracy, and Materialism and democracy, which goes far to explain, for
example, why Marx's doctoral dissertation was devoted to the materialist and
pro-democratic philosopher Epicurus.
I'm proud to make this seminal Marxist work available on-line.
"The Negro Question in the South", by Tom
Watson, from Arena (Boston), 1892.
A North Carolina populist leader at the time, Watson wrote this essay to show how racism
was used by landowners in the South to divide black and white farmers from one another so
they would not join to win reforms both groups needed. His essay shows that the economic
and class analysis of racism was understood, at least in large part, long before
communists made it the cornerstone of their analysis of racism.
Subsection: The Racist, Elitist and Sexist SAT Tests.
"SAT Tests' Racist and Anti-Working Class": a letter
I wrote to the editor of The Montclarion in April 1994 responding to a
students' complaints about "reverse racism." The next,
follow-up, letter, gives yet more details, references, and evidence. And an article by
Prof. Linnie Weiland, "A Question of 'Quality'?",
shows how the SAT tests were purposely designed to discriminate against working-class
students, non-whites, and women. "Where's The Merit In the S.A.T.s?", by Eugene
García, Dean of U. Cal/Berkeley's Graduate School of Education. Far too moderate about
these fascist tests, it nonetheless demonstrates how racist and elitist it is that they
are relied on for admissions purposes. "Bring a No.2 Pencil and $6000", byChristina
Brink, from The New York Times, November 21, 1998. Yet further demonstration of
the utter bankruptcy of the SATs: you can buy a high score, as this German
journalist residing in the US discovered. The Anti-Racism Resource Web Site.
Anti-racist WWW sites. Check it out!
Here is a critique of
Leonard
Jeffries, the racist Afrocentrist academic, and the role his philosophy plays for
the racist ruling elite. And here I've posted a more detailed
critique of Afrocentrism, in a follo w-up to the piece on Jeffries.
"The
Whiting of Euro-Americans: A Divide and Conquer Strategy", by Thandeka,
a Unitarian minister. Very good on the invention, literally, of racism in the 17th
century by Virginia landowners, who wanted to keep poor whites and blacks from uniting in
rebellion against them. Along the lines of Ted Allan's much longer essays (see below), and
with a better class line than Lerone Bennett's old
essay "The Road Not Taken." Mirrored here.
"Summary of
the Argument of The Invention of the White Race", by
Ted Allen. A very useful summary, with full documentation, of Allen's thorough
demonstration of how racism was invented by Virginia landowners in the 17th century in his
lengthy two-volume work. Part One
summarizes Volume I; Part Two, the
second volume.
Barbara Fields, "Ideology
and Race in American History." An excellent analysis of the
"discourse" of race, especially in academic discussions of it; an essay that
clarifies much, historically and conceptually, for anti-racists.
What is really going on in politics -- in the U.S. as elsewhere -- is not at all what the politicians and media tell us is going on!
"The
Politics Behind the Shooting of the Pope", from Comment, 1983
(journal at Montclair State College). The CIA was much more likely involved than the
Soviets.
"Vietnam to Yugoslavia:
What I Learned," from The Montclarion (Montclair State
Univ. student weekly newspaper), Thursday, April 15, 1999, p. 14.
"A Little Light on Politics in the US: The
'Conservatives', Part I". 'Conservatives', so-called, are propagandists for
corporate interests; their main aim is to lower the living standard of working
Americans -- 90% of us.
And here is Part Two of this series
The Bosnian crisis, and
US capitalists' interests in it, put into context with a class analysis. And, click here for "When
War Is Called Peace," putting Bosnia in the context of the international imperialist
competition. From PLP.
Why the Attack on Welfare? It's an
attack on the working class as a whole -- on you and me! From PLP.
The Reactionary Right. The
right-wingers are the ideological representatives of corporate fascism; their claim that
they stand up for the "middle class" is pure nonsense. This site, though not
Marxist, let alone communist, has some information on these elitist fakers.
Cold War Hot
Links: Web Sources Related to the Cold War. The Cold War -- an attack on the
working class and all employees, as well as, more narrowly, on communism, defor med
American society and life for decades. Here is some material helpful in understanding it.
"Liberals,
Anti-Communism, and McCarthyism": an essay on the Cold War.
Here is an article
on "U.S. Advisers at 'Torture Class'"
in El Salvador in 1980. Written by Raymond Bonner in The New York Times,
January 11, 1981, it was instrumental in getting him removed from covering El Salvador due
to Reagan Administration pressure.
And here is a New York Times article from
January 1986 that points up how the "religious right" in the US are promoting
Christian fundamentalism, with a social message that defends exploitation and promotes
passive acceptance of the status quo, to attack reform and promote the fascist military in
El Salvador.
"Don't Trust US Rulers!" This is an essay I wrote
to expose the fact that the US is the real "evil empire," with Soviet rulers
trying vainly to "catch up."
"Israeli Rule over Palestinians is Fascist",
another essay I wrote for The Montclarion in 1988, about Israeli fascism and how
the media cover it up.
Young Republicans Support Nazi Group. This is an article
I wrote in 1982 pointing out how anti-communism leads to fascism. The Montclair State
College 'Young Republican Club' put up posters from anti-communist right-wing groups,
including one from a Russian émigré group of Nazi collaborators and criminals. And ...
... here is the sequel, with documentation edited
out of the first article by the student newspaper's editors.
Exposé of US Hostages in Iran, 1979. The US hostages in Iran
were mainly CIA criminals. This fact was buried by the US press, who were complicit in
working up a chauvinistic fervor to cover up US participation in torture and killing for
the US puppet, the fascist Shah. I wrote this for The Montclarion in 1979; with
references.
US Teaches
Torture in Iran, South America -- two New York Times articles from 1979 on C.I.A.
torture instruction, one by Seymour Hersh, "Ex-analyst
says CIA rejected warning on Shah", the other by A.J.
Langguth, "Torture's Teachers." Both feature the testimony of former C.I.A.
agent Jesse Leaf.
U.S. Imperialism Exposed in Attack on Libya, an essay from The
Montclarion exposing the 1986 bombing of Libya by the US as another imperialist act.
Anti-Abortion Movement Is Fascist. This is an essay I wrote in
1985, when the film "Silent Scream" was being dishonestly used by the
anti-abortion movement to push their fascist agenda.
Essay on the 1990-91 Gulf War, exposing it as another act of
U.S. imperialism. I wrote this essay for The Montclarion in 1990.
Another essay on the Gulf War, December 1990, with further
information about U.S. imperialist aims; and another,
published in January, 1991.
"The U.S. Is Just As Guilty As
Pol Pot", an article I wrote for The Montclarion, April 24 1998. At
Pol Pot's death the U.S. media repeated the lie that he had been a Communist, while
omitting completely the fact that the U.S. had financially backed him and the Khmer Rouge
for 15 years, while denouncing them as "Communists" guilty of
"genocide".
Other articles documenting U.S. guilt in supporting Pol Pot for years are here:
- Jack Colhoun (1990), and
- John Pilger (1998), both from CAQ/ Covert Action Information Bulletin. (NOTE: these are .pdf files; you need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader). Colhoun's article is now (May '98) available in HTML format here.
- Pilger's article in The Nation of May 11, 1998, also mirrored here.
- Rouge threat to `expose US, China' . Former Khmer Rouge leaders Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea threaten to expose US role in KR "rise to power" and US carpet-bombing of defenseless Cambodian peasants. AP report, from Hong Kong Standard, Jan. 2, 1999.
- "Pol Pot And Kissinger: On war criminality and impunity" Ed Herman on U.S. crimes in Indochina and U.S. support for the Khmer Rouge.
1996 Presidential Elections
Curious about the Presidential
candidates? Take a look at the "Skeleton
Closet: All the Scandals on All of the Presidential Election Candidates."
'Liberal' and 'Conservative' -- or, rather, 'Libative' and 'Conserveral' -- included.
The Public Interest Research Groups.
Definitely not "radical", with little or no class analysis, Ralph Nader's groups
do some good research from time to time on corporate and political abuses.
Here are a list of both WWW sites and of some specific essays from those sites, that help to expose the authoritarianism, exploitation and murder behind the façade of democracy in the United States.
"Is Nicaragua More Democratic Than the US?", an
essay by Michael Parenti from 1986. Although a Marxist, Parenti accepts capitalist notions
of what "democracy" means (at least in this essay). But his demonstration of
how, even by this weak definition, the US is less democratic than Sandinista
Nicaragua, helps expose the imperialist, exploitative nature of both US foreign policy and
the United States capitalist government itself. From the ACTIV-L Archive.
Philip Agee on The
Gulf War, from Z Magazine, October 1990.
Agee on U.S. Foreign Policy, from Covert
Action Quarterly(CAQ).
Covert Action Quarterly carries many good
anti-imperialist and muckraking essays. Go here for their back issues list;
more essays appearing on-line a ll the time. Here are a few examples:
General
Smedley D. Butler on U.S. Imperialism.
Major General Smedley D. Butler was the most decorated soldier in American uniform. After
retiring from the Marine Corps in the late 1920s, he wrote a series of articles exposing
American militarism and imperialism. Here are large excerpts from the most f amous of
these articles (originally published 1935).
The Consortium, a new journal edited
by Robert Parry, formerly a researcher for PBS, publishes essays on the corrupt,
repressive, and exploitative reality of US politics at home and abroad.
For example, here is an essay on
The October Surprise, and George Bush's
part in conspiring with the Iranian government to keep the US hostages in Iran in
1980 until Reagan became president, so helping to ensure that Carter lost the election to
Reagan.
Pink Noise, a page with jumps to
different interesting sites for anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist research, including:
Finally , a collection of materials from all kinds of reform-oriented organizations.Click here for "Peacenet" from the Institute for Global Communications.
PLEASE! Contact me with your suggestions by clicking here