A short review for Robert Service: Comrades a History of World Communism.

This is going to be a very short review because I want to issue a warning to someone wanting to buy this book more so than give an overview and opinion.


Usually it is easy to tell when a book is going to be overwhelmingly biased. When I was reading the back of this book and the reviews online I didn't get the feeling that Robert Service was an anti-communist (specially seeing as he has written biographies about Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin). In fact from reviews online he seemed to write fairly. Upon reading this book I now feel like I was ripped off by the book store.


The book is very much filled with personal opinions written as truths and the writer even degrades to name calling towards soviet supporters from the 30's and 40's. One point in the book he claims that a reporter was duped by the soviets when the reporter visited a labor camp. He claims the reporter visiting the labor camp wrote positively about the USSR because when he went to a labor camp the local soviet government replaced the labor workers with guards so they appeared well fed and that rehabilitation was working and that the laborers were in good conditions. And his source for this assertion? It isn't a document ordering guards to act as laborers or anything official what so ever. No, he sources the reporters positive letter as a source. The book is filled with false sources like this through out.


The book is also filled with baseless assertions such as claiming that Marxism is dead and communism is dead. As though Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, While perverted types of socialism there is also NK and China, Venezuela and Bolivia, Uruguay just elected an ex-guerrilla just don't exist. These type of false statements are made through out. It is hard to believe he has read anything that was not written by McCarthy himself by his writing style. Whats more upsetting is that I already bought his Stalin Biography. Guess that is money and time I will never get back.


Written by: Dustin Slagle

Religion, Should it be Banned Under a Revolutionary Government?

It is a complicated question with a complex answer that varies between many different groups and individuals.


Most communist are atheist or follow the slogan that "Religion is the opium of the masses." But as Maoist we are taught that;


"To link oneself with the masses, one must act in accordance with the needs and wishes of the masses. All work done for the masses must start from their needs and not from the desire of any individual, however well-intentioned. It often happens that objectively the masses need a certain change, but subjectively they are not yet conscious of the need, not yet willing or determined to make the change. In such cases, we should wait patiently. We should not make the change until, through our work, most of the masses have become conscious of the need and are willing and determined to carry it out. Otherwise we shall isolate ourselves from the masses. Unless they are conscious and willing, any kind of work that requires their participation will turn out to be a mere formality and will fail.... There are two principles here: one is the actual needs of the masses rather than what we fancy they need, and the other is the wishes of the masses, who must make up their own minds instead of our making up their minds for them" (1)


The first four sentences of this quote spell out exactly what a communist stance should be towards the banning of religion. Especially in the USA it would be impossible to expect the proletariat to allow a revolutionary government to ban their religion. Religion is important to the proletariat. And to ban it would be to go against the wishes of the masses. It is also important to point out that some nations with strong religious roots have turned to communism our socialism.


It is an error to call for the banning of religion in a nation as a whole. It shows people who espouse this would run the nation as the few ruling over the masses. But I would never suggest that we ban religion as a whole.


But it can also go both ways. As a comrade of mine said "right wing deviations should be banned" I think watched and monitored would be the best at first followed by state criticism and propaganda against right wing deviations of religions. Then when the masses are ready and support it we can close down the right wing deviations of religions. The other side of the coin is that some religions and certain sects of different religions are left wing in nature. They would support a revolutionary government that is centered around empowering the masses over the few. They would support a government that puts needs above profits and material want.


Religion will only be our complete enemy if we constantly attack it and threaten to ban it. Not all sects will oppose a revolutionary state. Some sects should even be reached out to and brought into the communist and socialist circles. Many of sects espouse social justice at their services. Should we alienate these people because of a quote by Marx? NO! It is foolish how communist act towards the religious peoples when we need to be engaging them.



Written by; Dustin Slagle


1, Quotations from chairman Mao, the Mass line. Taken from Marxist.org

The Occupy Movement. Here to Stay?

There are many opinions and different ideas about what the Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWS) stands for and really what it is in general. But what are the concrete things we can see the OWS changing for everyday Americans (or for the world) and how is it changing the cadre of other organizations?


As for the things that the OWS has changed in the daily lives of the average person. I can't see any. Most people I talk to on my bus commutes, at school etc only know what they have seen on the news. Most are indifferent or think it is silly to camp in the middle of town as a form of protest. One person who rides the bus with me often is a guy named Jamal and he said (paraphrasing) 'these protesters mainly look like hippies, the government is not afraid of them. How do they expect to force change when the government is not afraid of being forced to change?' (he asked rhetorically).


There have also been charges that some of the local occupy are corrupt. I was told "sometimes when a proposition was blocked by a large group, the people who put forth the proposition would wait til the people who blocked it left then they would bring it back up to be voted on so it could pass" This may possibly be an anomaly but it seems like this could be a major problem with this sort of democracy.


To be frank the OWS has not changed the everyday lives of the average proletariat. But I do see a change in the advanced of the working class and even a new energy in the advanced section of workers (proletarian revolutionaries).


I saw this weekend at a local event that the OWS has really influenced the people in my area. At the event people were doing hand signs as they do in the GA here locally. Though I found it annoying, people would respond when "mic check" was yelled. I really felt a more sense of unity among the different groups at this event also (not too much unity, it was still a leftist event). There was open talk of breaking laws and of revolutionary actions and even a class where we discussed what we would want out of a revolutionary nation. These were from some of the same people who attacked me in the past as a ultra leftist etc. Even the numbers of this event was larger than any normal crowd in my local area for any left event.


I think this new radicalization of the left in my area is very exciting. I hope even if the OWS goes away that the new feeling will stay. That more people will become radicalized and realize that reformist pacifism is not a plausible way to change anything. That when the government is faced with change it doesn't want or like that it will attack the people, rather they are peaceful or not.


I fear that the OWS in some places will tire out and be co-opted into the parliamentary road of trying to change things. This historically has been the death of many and most radical movements (and people) who walk this path. It tends to make groups and individuals content with the political and economic status quot because they are apart of it and can brush off revolutionary's with a simple 'we are doing what we can'. Working for small gains within the government also tends to relax the anger to the extent you lose some of or all the anger of the masses. Health care that was passed here in the states is a great example. We had independents and democrats pissed at the democratic party because we were not getting any real health care that would help the poor people, not to mention the democratic party hardly lifted a finger to try and pass a real health care bill. but since their members got a compromise and passed "something, anything" it quelled the anger and the people returned to the democrats. This will probably be the similar outcome if the OWS is absorbed into the parliamentary road.




Written by: Dustin Slagle

My Recent Absence From Blogging. (My Proletarian Life)

I have not posted anything for well over a month now. I wanted to explain the reasons why I have been unable to write.


First of all I would like to explain that my life is very busy and full of stress I am a dad of a toddler and I don't live with his mother (though we are together) so I am constantly trying to find ways and time to spend with my family.


I do not have running water (no hot water for two years, no running water for nine months as of December 2011) and back in October the electric company turned out our power (number one reason I was unable to write) and charged us over one thousand five hundred US dollars for a meter that got messed up somehow and they stuck us with the bill. I was out of electricity for about three weeks. In that time I also happened to be at a very low place money wise and had about twelve dollars to feed me for about two weeks. So there were a lot of things on my mind at the time besides my blog.


I was also going to school three times a week (now two because I couldn't focus on my work and had to drop a class) and being distracted caused me to slip on my grades. Again I had to concentrate on my school work before my blog. I have one class up to a passing grade and the other class I am close to getting a passing grade.


When the electricity was out all of our food spoiled, so again I was busy with trying to get some money to get food into the house. And through all of this, the stress has cause a condition I have called Ulcerative Colitis or UC to have an abnormally long flare up. It seems as though when tough times come they make sure to test our strength to the fullest. Also they shut off our gas (which is how we heat our house and have for years, we have no central heat or A/C) making it impossible to heat the house.


I don't write this to complain or to cry about my position in life (I'm well aware that some have it far worse) I just wanted to offer a glimpse into my life at the current time and offer a reason for my absence in posting. Look for my regular posting to begin really soon. Most likely on the occupy movement and the Oakland Commune. Thank you to all who continued to check the site while I was away!


Written by: Dustin Slagle

Some Thoughts on the Occupy Wall St. Movement.

I, like most of the American left have been following the Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWS) very closely. Unfortunately due to finals and my partner plus myself being sick. I've not been able to go down to my local occupy movement.

When the "occupations" first started I was very wary of their origins and who was behind organizing them etc etc. This obviously was eventually discussed on Facebook between me and a friend to which Mike Ely from the Kasama Project asked me: "Share with me your "I don't know what I feel about it"? I am curious why some decent people are so ambivalent." Besides the fact that I was flattered that he called us "decent people" he raised a great point. Before I could answer him my friend replied with about the same answer I would have given: "I'm definitely down with the Occupy Wall Street end of things. They seem to have pretty good politics. I'm just a little worried about the Occupy St. Louis end. Looking at the page, it seems like there's a bunch of Zeitgeist Movement types, which makes me kind of nervous...So if the protest is going to be about limiting the financial sector, getting corporate money out of politics, preserving/strengthening the social safety net, and building a democratic, egalitarian, left-wing movement for radical change, I'm totally in. I'm just nervous that it might not be."

And I agree with this so I just added my two cents: "Ive gone to go to things close to this message and when I got there it was just a bunch of move on people raising money to lobby. Should have known by the fact that no anarchist or commies were invited."

To this day I am unsure of who or what started this movement. Another thing that baffles me is how it changes from city to city. Some cities seem to be led by radicals while other cities are being hijacked or were led by liberal the whole time. So it is hard at this time to really speak about or address the OWS movement as a whole because the orientation, the class background and direction of the OWS movement at this time is very blurred.

Permits: One thing I've heard differ from city to city is the question on rather or not to obtain permits for assembly in these public spaces.

Let me be very clear here; if you have a permit then you are not occupying a space. You are permitted to hang out in that spot. 'oh but that is just being ultra-leftist' some might say. But the truth is that you are as my comrade put it: "All we've got is a giant hang out spot"

The same quoted comrade above brought up another great point (and you can and should read the whole article here) that is the "pro-police" activity that has been occurring in some cities. The pigs are our class enemies, period. They defend structures like wall street. That is their job. Their pay rate may land them in the "99%" but they defend the 1% and thus are only logically our class enemy. Not to mention it shows how unorganized this movement is by the fact that the police are attacking this movement in some cities. Even in New York itself where all this started the police have attacked protesters. So show some solidarity with the people from your own movement and stop pro-police demonstrations and stop letting them control your occupation.

The populist nature of the movement: good or bad? I have actually had someone tell me that there is no basis for the claim that this movement is populist. My response is simple; How can a movement who's main slogan is "we are 99%" not be coined populist?

One reoccurring theme I hear from both the left and the right about these occupations is that "we don't know what they stand for or really what they want." I disagree because we do know what they want, they released a list of demands when all this started.

My problem with the populism? Is that it really lacks class analogy. The top twenty percent of the population in the US owns around 83% of all the wealth. Leaving the bottom 80% of the population with only 17% of the nations wealth (1). I must reiterate the lack of class analogy. The next 19% are no better than the top 1%. I'm sure most of those 19% would love to be in the 1%. I know "we are 99" is a better slogan than "we are 80" but siding with the other top 19% just doesn't sit well with me.

What do I think are the positives with the populism? I have thought for a long time now that any movement in the US has to be semi-populist to be successful. I like that a left leaning movement that is large and in the media is pinning "us against them" even if I disagree with the amount of "them" (the rich) they are pinning themselves against.

Plus as an anti-capitalist it is inspiring to see all the "eat the rich" "tax the rich" and "smash wall street" style signs. I truly think if we took the populism out of these occupations that they would disappear fast.

Final Thoughts? There is still a lot to be seen as far as what the future holds for the OWS movement. There is very lose organization going on, some cities are very radical while some cities are playing liberal pacifism. Denouncing each other in some cities, signing papers promising not to denounce each others groups in other cities. To me it is all still very confusing and I am eager to see the outcome and results from this when all is said and done.

One thing I think deserves mentioning is the international solidarity these occupations have received from many of nations, including but not exclusive to: Australia, Russia, France, Brazil, South Africa and many more nations. And another very interesting development is a Chinese protest that echoed the OWS protest.

Written by: Dustin Slagle

(1) William Domhoff. "Wealth. Income and Power". Who Rules America. UCSC, July 2011. WEB. October 14 2011. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Review: Ho Chi Minh A Life by William J. Duiker

Ho Chi Minh is one of those historical figures that will always have a cloud of mystery surrounding their lives. Ive read a lot about Ho Chi Minh from multiple sources and with all of them put together I didn't know half of what I learned from reading this book.


I read a few reviews of this book before reading it and one person was upset that the author didn't go into enough details about the Vietnam war. I think he went into enough detail of Uncle Ho's life during the Vietnamese war with out focusing too much on war details and it balanced out quite nice.


Ive always seen Uncle Ho as a mixture between a Vietnamese nationalist and communist. After reading this book I believe he was truly both. Though at times through out the book it seems as though Ho Chi Minh was having second thoughts about communism. This was mainly because the Vietminh during WW2 were largely ignored by the USSR. In fact through out the book the author points out how the USSR failed to help the Vietnamese struggle. Uncle Ho said himself that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam had received more assistance from the US than that from the USSR through the course of the war(page 342).


This was all despite the fact that Ho Chi Minh had served as a Comintern for several years. This lead to a very confusing atmosphere within the Vietnamese independence movement. At the National People's Congress of the Vietminh front on August 16th 1945 in Tan Trao the meeting took place under portraits of Lenin, Chairman Mao and General Claire Chennault (a US general)(page 305).


I was hoping that upon reading this book that I would know more about the uprising against the French in Vietnam. This book goes into great detail about Ho Chi Minh's life before and during the french resistance. Uncle Ho spent most of the planning years in south China, collecting assistance and gathering their forces. I was surprised to read that the wife of Sun Yat-sen (the ex-leader of the KMT) actually was very close to the CPC and even helped Uncle Ho while he was in China (page 210).


Another thing that stuck out in this book was Uncle Ho's dislike for Trotskyist. Uncle Ho saw Trots as "Utopian" and "unrealistic" He said to his Indochinese communist party comrades "The Trotskyist have betrayed their reactionary essence everywhere, and in Vietnam as well. our party must dissociate itself from them most resolutely. There must be no compromises."(page 226).


He had even sent a letter from China to the Central Committee of the ICP in 1938 and in point four of this letter Uncle Ho wrote: "We can not make any alliance with or any concession to the Trotskyite group. We must do everything possible to lay bare their faces as the running dogs of the fascist and annihilate them politically"(page 235)


Some Trotskyist were even arrested and executed by the ICP(page 320).


Something I took away from this book was the great amount of help that the DRV received from the CCP and how hard Mao and other leaders from China worked to help the Vietminh and later the Vietcong defeat their oppressors. Especially seeing as how for almost a decade the USSR ignored the Vietnamese people (periodically page 416-419).


China even made great sacrifices at their own cost to help the DRV, granting the DRV diplomatic recognition knowing that its relations with France and western nations in general would suffer because of it (page 420). Though eventually Stalin agreed to send assistance to Vietnam after WW2 "Because of limits of natural conditions, it will be mainly China that helps you. What China lacks we will provide."-Stalin. To which Mao assures Ho Chi Minh "Whatever China has and Vietnam needs, we will provide"-Mao. On the train ride home Mao told Uncle Ho that "Getting something from Stalin is like taking meat from the mouth of a tiger." (page422).


During the Vietnam war between the US and the Vietcong forces, many farmers had to lay down their farm equipment to go and fight in the war. This lead to a shortage of food in the DRV. But again the Chinese Communist came to the aid of the DRV and the Vietcong, saving many from starvation during the war by sending generous amounts of rice to the DRV (page 553).


It was because of the endless help of the CPC that the DRV chose the Chinese model of socialism (page 428) over that of the USSR in its earlier years before the CPC moved away from its Maoist and more democratic model and became hostile towards Vietnam.


One theme through out the book, that you can tell the author really wanted an answer to in his research was if Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist or a communist. I think the author was correct when towards the end of the book when he claims that Ho Chi Minh was some one who wanted national independence for Vietnam. He is also correct I believe in saying that Ho Chi Minh was both a nationalist and a communist. Even if he was a nationalist before a communist one can not discount his many denunciations of world capitalist and imperialism in general. One also has to believe that a non-communist would have never implemented the extreme land reform that the DRV did with such a great success. The land reform program helped to radicalize the peasantry and motivate them to fight against the landlord and rich peasant classes(page 488).


Over all the book was easy to read and the series of events was easy to follow and made sense when reading it, I never felt confused as to what year it was or what country Uncle Ho was in. I was happy how in-dept the book went into about his Comintern years with such great detail.


When reading this book I could really tell that the author was passionate about this writing. I also could tell that he worked very hard on gathering facts from many different sources to write this book. There were point in the book where I could simply never put it down. I lost quite a few hours of sleep to this book and I'm glad I did.


If I had to rate this book from 1 to 10 I'd give it a 8.9, and I don't give easy ratings to anything. This is one of the best biography books Ive ever read. Second only to "Che: A Revolutionary Life". And that says a lot, thank you for writing this book Mr. Duiker it is a great achievement.



(all page numbers taken from paperback version)



Review written by: Dustin Slagle

It Hurts Doesn't it Palin Supporters?

I hope most of you reading this by now have heard of the new book that just came out called The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin.

In this book the author makes claims that Sarah Palin had an affair with a business partner of her husband. Apparently she also did cocaine with her husband(1). Blowing her image wide open to criticism.

Of course the Palinites have gone to extreme lengths to denounce this book as lies and just general misinformation.

Her own husband (probably in denial) came out calling the author a liar and "This is a man who has been relentlessly stalking my family to the point of moving in right next door to us to harass us and spy on us to satisfy his creepy obsession with my wife,"(2)

I just want to ask the republicans and Palin supporters one question: How does it feel?

As Maoist we know how it feels to have someone release a book about some one who inspires us, and that book is full of lies. The book "the private life of Mao Zedong" was written by a Dr who claimed to be Mao physician yet no evidence exist that points out that this Li Zhisui ever even met the red sun. Let alone this is a second release of this book. His first edition didn't sell. But when he added bad things about Mao it started selling like crazy among capitalist nations. I think he even apologized to Mao's family for the lies he put in this book to sell it.

The book: "Mao the untold story." is another case where people quote untrue things from this book to me all the time. Academic experts have criticized the book for its falsifications of interviews and selective sources. Professor Andrew Nathan of Columbia University said of the books sources: "many of their discoveries come from sources that cannot be checked, others are openly speculative or are based on circumstantial evidence, and some are untrue." David S. G. Goodman, Professor of Contemporary China Studies at the University of technology, Sydney said of the book: "the 'facts' in The Da Vinci Code are about as reliable as those to be found in...Mao: The Unknown Story." Goodman argued that the style of writing was "extremely polemic" and that the book could even be thought of as a "form of fiction" where "a strong narrative" is "a substitute for evidence and argument." And many other criticisms were made of the book's facts, even by people's who studies are specific to modern China.

And what were the writers response to these criticisms? "the academics' views on Mao and Chinese history cited represent received wisdom of which we were well aware while writing our biography of Mao. We came to our own conclusions and interpretations of events through a decade's research." Wow, this is suppose to be a research/history book of a leader of China and the writers say themselves the cited 'RECEIVED WISDOM' and what takes the cake here in what is suppose to be a book on history, there for a non-fiction they say "WE CAME TO OUR OWN CONCLUSIONS" How was this book ever printed in the first place? Even worst: "we came to our own conclusions AND INTERPRETATIONS OF EVENTS"(3) I'm sure most people who would read this has had to write a research or argument paper at some point in their life. Never has a teacher in the history of ever allowed a student to cite their own conclusions and interpretations of events as evidence. A conclusion is the only place a student would be allowed to use this. So as writers of a research/history book it is completely unacceptable for this to happen.

But yet I still have these books quote to me all the time to point out the horribleness of Mao's personal life. At least now there is a book I can use to quote from to attack republicans on their hero's personal life. So I ask: How does it feel?


(1) "Sarah Palin: Bio Says She indulged in Sex and Drugs Husband says Biographer Has 'Creepy Obsession'". Montreal Gazette. AFP. September 16 2011. Web. September 16 2011. http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Sarah+Palin+says+indulged+drugs/5410793/story.html

(2) Philip Elliott. "Palin Camp Denounces Racy Bio of Former Governor. Yahoo. AP. September 15 2011. Web. September 15 2011. http://news.yahoo.com/palin-camp-denounces-racy-bio-former-governor-162709708.html

(3) (all quotes take from wiki page for easier access to reader) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao:_The_Unknown_Story#Criticism

Proletarians! Walking Like Capitalist?

Most anyone living in the United States has a friend or family member in retail. If not then you have at least had someone try to sell you something you don't need for way too much money.


One thing I have noticed about my proletarian brothers in sisters in my personal experience is that at work and even after work they seem to pride themselves on how much they know about the money of the business they work for. For example one of my friends who made minimum wage would always brag about knowing how much money the restaurant made in a night, week etc. Because the bosses told him this small bit of information he would bend over backwards for the bosses no matter what. He would call people in for them do inventory for them and never asked for a raise in wages because he was their "friend" (aka a worker who did everything except ask for a raise). But because his bosses would tell him stupid information about the company and let him eat sword fish when he would work fifty plus hours a week he felt important to the company. I say felt because he was threatened at work by a co-worker and the bosses told him to deal with it. So he had to quit.


Another friend of mine was bragging to me that she had sold people some things they didn't need and got them to buy three hundred dollars worth of shit they didn't need. She was saying this like it was some kind of accomplishment. You would have thought she got all of the three hundred dollars. But she doesn't even make commission, she gets paid seventy cents over minimum wage. But yet she is proud and happy to have exploited these average everyday people for the mass benefit of her bosses and exploiters.


It drives me crazy to see this behavior specially by the poorest class in the USA. In the first example I gave you, the person is now homeless because he did the same thing at his new job and started drinking 12 year old scotch and smoking seven dollar cigars and just generally acting like he was of a higher class. But we see how much his capitalist friends helped him when after two years of breaking his back for them and never getting one raise they fired him.


What I have the hardest time understanding is where this behavior comes from. I don't understand why so many workers care about the business side of the company they work for let alone want to act like they have a steak in it. I'll never understand why someone in sales who doesn't make commission would care about selling people things they don't need. In fact I'm sure that makes them a horrible person.


The last thing I would like to rant about is the poor proletarians who complain about the Unions. That same guy Ive mentioned said on many occasions "why should one person get paid a days work everyday for three days for a job that takes one day""a non-union could probably do all three jobs on one day for one days pay." This baffled me and led to almost a strangle match. But the serious question is; why are proletarians feeling this way? Why are they acting and talking/walking this way? What has labor, communist etc failed to do so much that the proletarians of this nation think they are some mystical "middle class" and aspire to be the new bosses? Maybe it is time to do some self reflecting in the movement and make a huge change.