Must do better

 In an article titled The USSR flag and student communism: a controversial combination, we read:

'The ideological concept of communism originated in 18th-century Western Europe as a result of the work of German philosopher Karl Marx.'

Marx lived and died during the 19th century, 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883.

'The brutal totalitarian practices initiated by the USSR’s leaders, particularly Joseph Stalin, lead to enormous suffering.'

Indeed, but they had nothing to do with socialim/communism.

Marx wrote; 'the existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery' (Vorwärts, 7 and 10 August 1844).   Speaking about the modern state Engels, Marx's collaborator,  pointed out:      'The more it proceeds to the taking over of the productive forces the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The wages workers remain wages workers—proletarians' (Anti-Duhring)    Lenin wrote of Russia in 1918: ‘reality says that State capitalism would be a step forward for us; if we were able to bring about State capitalism in a short time it would be a victory for us’ (The Chief Task of Our Time).

It was Lenin who instituted severe censorship, established one-party rule and resorted to terror against his political enemies.    Stalin took these measures to further extremes.

‘Future society will be socialist society. This also means that with the abolition of exploitation, commodity production and buying and selling will also be abolished and, therefore, there will be no room for buyers and sellers of labour power, for employers and employed—there will be only free workers… Where there are no classes, where there are neither rich nor poor, there is no need for a state, there is no need also for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power’ (Anarchism or Socialism? 1906).

Ironically, the author of this piece would thirty years later, in a complete volte-face, declare the USSR to be socialist. That same year, on the 28th August, Pravda proclaimed him divine: ‘O Great Stalin, O Leader of the Peoples,Thou who didst give birth to man, Thou who didst make fertile the earth, Thou who dost rejuvenate the Centuries, Thou who givest blossom to the spring… ‘ And a mere mortal observed:

‘There are in the USSR privileged and exploited classes, dominant classes and subject classes. Between them the standard of living is sharply separated. The classes of travel on the railways correspond exactly to the social classes; similarly with ships, restaurants, theatres, shops, and with houses; for one group palaces in pleasant neighbourhoods, for the others wooden barracks alongside tool stores and oily machines… It is always the same people who live in the palaces and the same people who live in the barracks. There is no longer private property, there is only one property – State property. But the State no more represents the whole community than under preceding régimes’ (What the Russian Revolution Has Become, Robert Guiheneuf, 1936).

And today, ‘Russian elites and oligarchs are probably some of the best in the world at hiding their wealth…’ (Washington Post, 11 April, 2022).

And finally, this howler:

'Trinity College Dublin Students Union (TCDSU) President...offered his perspective: “I am from Eastern Europe. I am a communist. I am not offended by the display of this flag … [The hammer and sickle] is a symbol of the communist movement globally, and this is a movement of equality, justice and the liberation of humankind.” '

Verily, 'flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead. When independent-thinking people (and here I do not include the corporate media) begin to rally under flags, when writers, painters, musicians, film makers suspend their judgment and blindly yoke their art to the service of the “Nation,” it’s time for all of us to sit up and worry' (Arundhati Roy, c. 2008).