Liberation Audio

Explore China's contemporary political economy through the legacy of the Communist Party. Topics include the role of markets in development, income inequality and corruption, China's economic and political order, efforts to combat corruption and regulate monopolies, response to COVID-19, and the path towards socialism.

The following is an edited version of an internal document initially written in late 2015 and formed part of the basis for party-wide discussions in the Party for Socialism and Liberation in early 2016. The document examines the new possibilities and difficulties posed by the proliferation of social media from the perspective of the Leninist party. Ben Becker evaluates the resulting qualitative shifts in mass communication, obstacles to vertical organization, the individualizing tendencies of social media, and other tensions between social media and democratic centralist organizations. It analyzes this latter question by comparing social media with the original “collective organizer” for Leninists: the party newspaper. The final section of the article articulates the new security issues raised by social media. Because there are few works that address this issue in a systematic and action-oriented way, we publish it here as a resource for newer party comrades and others in the struggle as they grapple with the (often frustrating) realities of organizing in such an online environment. Read the full article: https://liberationschool.org/social-media-and-democratic-centralism-opportunities-and-challenges/

Ahn Hak-sop was an officer in the Korean People’s Army of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) during the Korean War. In 1952, he was captured by the United States and its proxy forces while on his way to a meeting in the southern part of Korea. He served decades as an unconverted political prisoner before finally winning release in 1995. Today, he is still active as a peace and reunification activist in the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea). Liberation School interviewed Mr. Ahn in November 2019 at a peace church in the Civilian Control Zone just south of the 38th parallel that divides the Korean peninsula.

On May 25, 2020, 44-year-old white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on 46-year-old unarmed Black man George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds, sadistically murdering him. Floyd was accused of using a counterfeit 20 dollar bill at a local convenience store in the middle of a pandemic that left tens of millions of Americans out of work and deeper in poverty. Floyd was a victim of the capitalist system, one of the tens of millions who were out of employment. The deadly encounter between Floyd and Chauvin was captured on video by community members and went viral shortly thereafter. The next day, the Black working-class communities of Minneapolis led thousands of people of all nationalities demanding justice and accountability, inspiring a nationwide protest movement against racism and police brutality that brought an estimated 35 million people into the streets in righteous and militant indignation. Solidarity protests were held in 60 countries all over the world from Palestine to Haiti to South Korea and more. As brutal force and thousands upon thousands of arrests were employed to repress the movement, the racist underbelly of so-called U.S. democracy was on display to the entire world. One year since these rebellions began, many reforms have been passed and changes made to combat racism. Politicians and corporations have pivoted to allay the rage of the masses of people across the country sick and tired of racist police terror and the entire system of capitalism with its disgusting inequality. All across the country organizers, activists and progressive groups have demanded radical change, with some raising the slogan “defund the police” and “abolish the police” — representing a marked shift in the struggle for justice. Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/how-justice-for-george-floyd-shook-the-ruling-class-to-the-core/

In class 3, students learn about how the key Black communist figures and organizations of the 20th century shaped the struggle against racism, the labor movement and the overall revolutionary struggle in the U.S. We also cover how the U.S. government repressed Black communists and attempted to divert the Black liberation movement away from its revolutionary tradition.

In the final class, we draw from the historical context of the first three classes to explore why the PSL understands the struggle for Black liberation to be a national liberation struggle. We analyze the relationship between this struggle liberation and the struggle for power today.

The first class examines how the development of each class in early American society (enslaved Africans, Southern planters, Northern industrialists, Western free soilers, and more) was largely defined by its relationship to the Slavocracy. Conflicts between these various classes, particularly the northern capitalists and Southern planters, led to a Civil War that shook the social, political and economic foundations of the country.

The second class covers the post-Civil War efforts to reconstitute Southern society on a new basis. We focus on Reconstruction, America’s “unfinished revolution” and the Southern populist movement to learn about the pursuit of Black political power and multinational working class solidarity in action.

Within two months in a town, in Muong Thanh Valley of northwest Vietnam, anti-imperialist Vietnamese fighters besieged and defeated over 16,000 French colonial troops and spelled the downfall of the French empire. Dien Bien Phu was one of the greatest victories of the oppressed in all of history and inspired revolutionaries and progressives around the world. We cannot understate this victory and we cannot understate the central role women played. Women have always been in the struggle in Vietnam and often were at the forefront in the resistance against the French that culminated in Dien Bie Phu. Without the central and leading role of women, the fight for national liberation against the French would not have been victorious. Read the full article here: https://www.breakingthechainsmag.org/the-legacy-of-vietnamese-women-in-the-national-resistance-struggle/

Part 2 of the Program of the Party for Socialism and Liberation In order to guarantee the interests of working and poor people who make up the vast majority of the United States, a new revolutionary government run by and for the workers and poor will be established. The present capitalist government—the role of which has been to defend the big-business system of exploitation by a web of hundreds of measures, legal and illegal, and has been accessible only to the super-rich elite—will be abolished. Read the full program here: https://liberationschool.org/program-of-the-party-for-socialism-and-liberation/