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Very interesting stuff, at this rate you'll be crossing the Atlantic in time to re-enact Red Dawn.
Hello comrades! Last times we saw what happened in space, now let's see what happened on the Earth surface.
This chapter will be divided in 2 parts.
Music suggestion :
Or you could listen to this one, do as your please
A RED WIND OF ANTIIMPERIALISM (1956-1973), PART ONE (1956-1963)
In 1956, the Egyptian socialist government of Nasser nationalized the Suez canal, with the full support of the socialist countries.
In the following months, France, Britain and Israel signed a secret deal to attack Egypt. Israel would attack first, followed by an anglo-french ultimatum. The Suez crisis has started.
In the meantime, in Hungary, a counterrevolution started.
The 23 october, honest Hungarian socialists protested against the errors comitted by the Rákosi and Gerő administrations. Soon, fascists, reactionaries and conterrevolutionaries funded by the Western imperialists profited of the unapiness to organize a counterrevolution. The honest Hungarian people, led by Nagy, called the forces of the Warsaw pact in Hungary to help to restore order. The Nagy government was uneficient and became inflitrated by counterrevolutionaries elements. Hungarians patriots led by János Kádár left the Nagy government and formed a new government of honest Hungarian peasants and workers; this people's government asked Soviet help to crush the counterrevolution.Hungarians, helped by the Soviet Union, crushed the counterrevolution.
The events in Hungary and Egypt happened in the same time, and the imperialists couldn't use too much propaganda while they were invading Egypt. Anti-war protests in France and Egypt, aswell as Soviet pressure, forced Israel to evacuate occupied lands in Egypt. UN resolutions called for peace, and even if defeated military, Egypt largely politically won the crisis.
The young Indian state, antiimperialist and left-winged, was saw by the Soviet leadership as a progressive force, advancing toward socialism. The Soviet Union helped India to develop its economy and reach socialism.
In South Korea, important protests occurred against the US rule. Despite the Maccarthyist policies of the South Korean government who slaughtered thousands of communists in the 50's, an underground organization, the Korean Antiimperialist League, was very popular among workers. Major strikes and blockades occurred, mostly peaceful, where the South Korean workers blocked the economy. Kim Il-Sung of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea saw this as a golden opportunity to reunite the country, and sent armies, with the full support of the Soviet Union, to help the South Koreans in their fight against the US puppet regime. The events happened extremely quickly, and the USA, already busy with the Cuban revolution, reacted too late : Korea was already reunited.
Don't know how this happened, but it's too beautiful to not profit from it!
In 1959, Castrist forces entered La Havana. This victory was the outcome of a protracted people's war, started by Fidel Castro in 1953 with a failed attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba. The movement intensified in 1956, with the installation of an armed guerilla in the Sierra Maestra. Under the influence of Ernesto Che Guevara, the castrist movement became marxist, and Cuba became a socialist state in 1959. An agrarian reform going against American interests was started and agreements with the Soviet Union were concluded.
Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, the leaders of the Cuban revolution.
Under the Soviet influence, India finally reached socialism. The Soviet Union funded a lot of socialist companies, who worker according to socialist principles. India intensified its trade relations with the Soviet Union, China and other socialist countries, while reducing its ones with the capitalist countries. The Red Army was ready, in case the imperialists would try to bring back India into the global capitalist market by force, to intervene in defense of this Soviet ally. With an important part of its production and trade already operating under socialist principles, the already left-winged government started to include more and more communists. Soon, the transition to a full socialist economy was voted, and the People's Republic of India was declared.
Right after the independence of Belgian Congo in 1960, political troubles started. Belgium and the USA, worried by the pro-Soviet and antiimperialist orientations of the Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, supported the secession of the regions of Katanga and South Kasai.
In the Congolese government, the general Mobutu did a coup d'état against Lumumba, managing to make his rival assassinated, and formed a new government. Antoine Gizenga and Lumumba's partisans declared a socialist People's Republic of Congo in Stanleyville, in the east of the country. Their armed forces, the Simbas, were supported by the Soviet Union, who recognized the Stanleyville government as the legitimate Congolese government and sent support.
Patrice Lumumba and Antoine Gizenga
The Soviet Union established relation with the Ghanaian government of Kwame Nkrumah. Nkrumah, a Panafricanist, called the Conference of Accra in 1958, where many antiimperialist african personalities participated. He orientated his country to socialism and defended the idea of the Socialist United States of Africa, officialy adopting Marxism in July 1962. Under the marxist theory of Conscientism, Ghana would evolve to socialism.
Ghana isn't in my sphere currently, only allied
Kwame Nkrumah, soviet stamp
After the independence of Indonesia, the president Soekarno tried to balance the opposing forces of the army and the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party). His antiimperialist policies made Indonesia adopt close ties with the Soviet Union and China.
Soekarno meeting with Mao Tse-Tung, in 1956
After one year of intense fight, the Congolese communists finally threw the imperialists and their puppets out of Congo in 1961. Although the Soviet Union sent important support, few volunteers from the Red Amry joined the Simbas. However, many Cuban volunteers joined, including Che Guevara.
In Bangladesh, at this time occupied by Pakistan, after an important protest crushed in violence, Bangladeshi separatists asked foreign countries for support. The Soviet Union supported the Bangladeshi cause, to weaken the Pakistani rival of its ally, India, aswell as supporting self-determination. There would be no outcome of these events, and Bangladesh would remain East Pakistan.
Nuclear missiles were secretly installed in Cuba in 1962, in reaction to the installation of American missiles in Turkey. However, the Soviet manoeuvre was quickly spotted by American secret services, and Kennedy decided to a military blockade of Cuba.
The Soviet leadership choose to call off missile convoys, and instead to rely more on its ICBM. Molotov criticized this policy as an adventurist irresponsable move. He opposed nuclear warfare, who wouldn't make revolution advance more.
Some concessions were asked to the imperialists in exchange of the withdrawal of missiles, such as the withrawal of American missiles from Turkey and stopping temptatives of coup d'état against Fidel Castro.
It would be the only détente moment between the imperialist and socialist superpower : the menace of mutual assured destruction.
Sorry, but I need this infamy reduction! (you can see my infamy level before/after the event)
Already supported by the Soviet Union and enacting a lot of socialist reforms, the panarabist president of Egypt, Nasser, led his country to socialism. Only the Soviet Union answered his call to invest in his country, building the Aswan dam aswell as many industries on the Indian model. The local industry was nationalised by Nasser. Even if he didn't adopted Marxism-Leninism, the country was pretty much economically marxist. At his death in 1970, the Egyptian Communist Party, which already gained many positions in the Nasser government under Soviet influence, took power and achieved the transition to socialism, but the economy was already mostly socialist during Nasser's rule.
This is all for the part one, the part two is coming soon!
This chapter will be divided in 2 parts.
Music suggestion :
Or you could listen to this one, do as your please
A RED WIND OF ANTIIMPERIALISM (1956-1973), PART ONE (1956-1963)
In 1956, the Egyptian socialist government of Nasser nationalized the Suez canal, with the full support of the socialist countries.
In the following months, France, Britain and Israel signed a secret deal to attack Egypt. Israel would attack first, followed by an anglo-french ultimatum. The Suez crisis has started.
In the meantime, in Hungary, a counterrevolution started.
The 23 october, honest Hungarian socialists protested against the errors comitted by the Rákosi and Gerő administrations. Soon, fascists, reactionaries and conterrevolutionaries funded by the Western imperialists profited of the unapiness to organize a counterrevolution. The honest Hungarian people, led by Nagy, called the forces of the Warsaw pact in Hungary to help to restore order. The Nagy government was uneficient and became inflitrated by counterrevolutionaries elements. Hungarians patriots led by János Kádár left the Nagy government and formed a new government of honest Hungarian peasants and workers; this people's government asked Soviet help to crush the counterrevolution.Hungarians, helped by the Soviet Union, crushed the counterrevolution.
The events in Hungary and Egypt happened in the same time, and the imperialists couldn't use too much propaganda while they were invading Egypt. Anti-war protests in France and Egypt, aswell as Soviet pressure, forced Israel to evacuate occupied lands in Egypt. UN resolutions called for peace, and even if defeated military, Egypt largely politically won the crisis.
The young Indian state, antiimperialist and left-winged, was saw by the Soviet leadership as a progressive force, advancing toward socialism. The Soviet Union helped India to develop its economy and reach socialism.
In South Korea, important protests occurred against the US rule. Despite the Maccarthyist policies of the South Korean government who slaughtered thousands of communists in the 50's, an underground organization, the Korean Antiimperialist League, was very popular among workers. Major strikes and blockades occurred, mostly peaceful, where the South Korean workers blocked the economy. Kim Il-Sung of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea saw this as a golden opportunity to reunite the country, and sent armies, with the full support of the Soviet Union, to help the South Koreans in their fight against the US puppet regime. The events happened extremely quickly, and the USA, already busy with the Cuban revolution, reacted too late : Korea was already reunited.
Don't know how this happened, but it's too beautiful to not profit from it!
In 1959, Castrist forces entered La Havana. This victory was the outcome of a protracted people's war, started by Fidel Castro in 1953 with a failed attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba. The movement intensified in 1956, with the installation of an armed guerilla in the Sierra Maestra. Under the influence of Ernesto Che Guevara, the castrist movement became marxist, and Cuba became a socialist state in 1959. An agrarian reform going against American interests was started and agreements with the Soviet Union were concluded.
Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, the leaders of the Cuban revolution.
Under the Soviet influence, India finally reached socialism. The Soviet Union funded a lot of socialist companies, who worker according to socialist principles. India intensified its trade relations with the Soviet Union, China and other socialist countries, while reducing its ones with the capitalist countries. The Red Army was ready, in case the imperialists would try to bring back India into the global capitalist market by force, to intervene in defense of this Soviet ally. With an important part of its production and trade already operating under socialist principles, the already left-winged government started to include more and more communists. Soon, the transition to a full socialist economy was voted, and the People's Republic of India was declared.
Right after the independence of Belgian Congo in 1960, political troubles started. Belgium and the USA, worried by the pro-Soviet and antiimperialist orientations of the Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, supported the secession of the regions of Katanga and South Kasai.
In the Congolese government, the general Mobutu did a coup d'état against Lumumba, managing to make his rival assassinated, and formed a new government. Antoine Gizenga and Lumumba's partisans declared a socialist People's Republic of Congo in Stanleyville, in the east of the country. Their armed forces, the Simbas, were supported by the Soviet Union, who recognized the Stanleyville government as the legitimate Congolese government and sent support.
Patrice Lumumba and Antoine Gizenga
The Soviet Union established relation with the Ghanaian government of Kwame Nkrumah. Nkrumah, a Panafricanist, called the Conference of Accra in 1958, where many antiimperialist african personalities participated. He orientated his country to socialism and defended the idea of the Socialist United States of Africa, officialy adopting Marxism in July 1962. Under the marxist theory of Conscientism, Ghana would evolve to socialism.
Ghana isn't in my sphere currently, only allied
Kwame Nkrumah, soviet stamp
After the independence of Indonesia, the president Soekarno tried to balance the opposing forces of the army and the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party). His antiimperialist policies made Indonesia adopt close ties with the Soviet Union and China.
Soekarno meeting with Mao Tse-Tung, in 1956
After one year of intense fight, the Congolese communists finally threw the imperialists and their puppets out of Congo in 1961. Although the Soviet Union sent important support, few volunteers from the Red Amry joined the Simbas. However, many Cuban volunteers joined, including Che Guevara.
In Bangladesh, at this time occupied by Pakistan, after an important protest crushed in violence, Bangladeshi separatists asked foreign countries for support. The Soviet Union supported the Bangladeshi cause, to weaken the Pakistani rival of its ally, India, aswell as supporting self-determination. There would be no outcome of these events, and Bangladesh would remain East Pakistan.
Nuclear missiles were secretly installed in Cuba in 1962, in reaction to the installation of American missiles in Turkey. However, the Soviet manoeuvre was quickly spotted by American secret services, and Kennedy decided to a military blockade of Cuba.
The Soviet leadership choose to call off missile convoys, and instead to rely more on its ICBM. Molotov criticized this policy as an adventurist irresponsable move. He opposed nuclear warfare, who wouldn't make revolution advance more.
Some concessions were asked to the imperialists in exchange of the withdrawal of missiles, such as the withrawal of American missiles from Turkey and stopping temptatives of coup d'état against Fidel Castro.
It would be the only détente moment between the imperialist and socialist superpower : the menace of mutual assured destruction.
Sorry, but I need this infamy reduction! (you can see my infamy level before/after the event)
Already supported by the Soviet Union and enacting a lot of socialist reforms, the panarabist president of Egypt, Nasser, led his country to socialism. Only the Soviet Union answered his call to invest in his country, building the Aswan dam aswell as many industries on the Indian model. The local industry was nationalised by Nasser. Even if he didn't adopted Marxism-Leninism, the country was pretty much economically marxist. At his death in 1970, the Egyptian Communist Party, which already gained many positions in the Nasser government under Soviet influence, took power and achieved the transition to socialism, but the economy was already mostly socialist during Nasser's rule.
This is all for the part one, the part two is coming soon!
Last edited:
Thanks you all for your support, comrades 
Enjoy the part 2!
Music advice (Choose one) :
A RED WIND OF ANTIIMPERIALISM (1956-1973), PART TWO (1963-1973)
“How close we could look into a bright future should two, three or many Vietnams flourish throughout the world”
-Che Guevara, Message to the Tricontinental, 1967.
In 1964, Kurdish guerillas in Iraq fighting against the local government required Soviet help. Soviet soldiers were sent to fight with the guerilla. The Iraqi government, supported by the United Kingdom and Turkey, ordered to the Soviet Union to withdraw its forces. The United States expressed its disagreement, but couldn't intervene, due to its involvment in the Vietnam war.
Kurdish peshmerga (fighters) during the second Kurdish war, in Iranian Kurdistan.
The Soviets refused to withdraw their support, starting the second Kurdish war.
The Soviet armies entered and occupied most of Iraq and Turkey. Many opposants to the impopular governments of these countries welcomed the Soviets as liberators. While the Soviet Union was waging war against its ennemies, local communist parties declared the Turkish People's republic and the Socialist Republic of Iraq. The Soviet Union recognized these countries.
Advance of the Red Army in late 1964
Meanwhile, in the anti-imperialist Indonesia of President Soeharto, the PKI (Communist Party of Indonesia) penetrated all levels of government extensively. The party gained increasing influence, at the expense of the army, thus ensuring the army's enmity. By late 1965, the army was divided between a left-wing faction allied with the PKI and a right-wing faction funded by the USA.
In an attempt to curtail the right-wing military's increasing power, the PKI and the left-wing military formed a number of peasant and other mass organizations.
In a context of tensions with neighboring Malaysia, the PKI called for arming the masses. Large sectors of the right-wing army were opposed to this.
On the night of 30 September and 1 October 1965, six Indonesian generals were killed. The killers announced the following morning that the new Revolutionary Council had seized power, calling themselves the 30 September Movement. They took the President Soeharto under their protection.
The masses, armed by the PKI with Soviet weapons, joined the revolution against the imperialists puppets in the military. In the following months, many right-wing officers were purged. The revolution, starting in 1965, would secure power by 1968. The Soviet Republic of Indonesia was born.
By 1965, the Iraqi conservative government collapsed. In Baghdad, Saddam Hussein and Husain al-Radi, the leaders of the Marxist-Leninist-Ba'athist coalition, did a coup d'état with the support of the majority of the population and proclaimed the Socialist Republic of Iraq. They transferred the control of Iraqi Kurdistan to the Kurdish state.
In the same time, the Turkish government was crushed. A similar coup to the Iraqi coup happened.
The British tried to land in West Turkey and Algeria, but were repelled.
After the British defeat in Turkey, the Red Army landed in Rhodes. The island, occupied by Britain since WW2, was transferred to Greece.
In the meantime, the Red Army quickly landed in Cyprus to overthrow the capitalist government and set up a socialist state.
After the transfer of Iraqi Kurdistan to the Kurdish state, Kurdish guerilla warriors entered Iran. The Red Army followed them.
In 1968, the UK recognized the Turkish People's Republic, the Iraqi Socialist Republic and the new borders of Greece, after their landings were repelled and defeated.
Iran was still at war with the Soviet Union. The war ended some months later after the heroic battle of Zanjan and the occupation of Teheran.
Much closer to the Soviet Union than the actual Vietnam, this “Second Vietnam” was won much faster. The war in Indochina, meanwhile, was still raging, and the non-intervention of America in the Kurdish war gave to the Soviet leadership an idea...
Seven years after the adoption of Marxism by Ghana, the transition to a socialist economy was achieved in 1969. Kwame Nkrumah would be remembered as an hero of the African Revolution after his death, in 1972.
On 1 September 1969, a group of about 70 young army officers known as the Free Officers Movement and enlisted men seized control of the Lybian government and, in a stroke, abolished the Lybian monarchy. The coup was launched at Benghazi; and, within two hours, the takeover was completed. Popular reception to the coup was enthusiastic, as the monarchy was extremely impopular. No deaths or violent incidents related to the coup were reported.
The Free Officers Movement was headed by a twelve-member directorate that designated itself the Revolutionary Command Council. In its initial proclamation on 1 September, the RCC declared the country to be a free and sovereign state called the Lybian Arab Republic, which wpuld proceed in the path of freedom, unity, and social justice, guaranteeing the right of equality to its citizens, and opening before them the doors of honorable work. The rule of the Turks, Italians and the reactionary government just overthrown belonged to dark ages, from which the Lybian people would move forward as free brothers to a new age of prosperity, equality and honor.
The Soviet Union immediately proceeded to work with the Revolutionary Command Council, and gave them antiimperialist support.
In 1972, while the king of Afghanistan was in Italy for medical treatment, his cousin, Mohammed Daoud Shah, plotted against him and led a coup d'état, overthrowing the king and abolishing the monarchy. Daoud declared himself president of Afghanistan. However, the People's Democratic Party of Aghanistan (PDPA), while supporting him against the monarchy, didn't supported Daoud after his coup. The PDPA led quickly after the Sawr Revolution, a continuation of the Great Antimonarchist Revolution. Military units loyal to the PDPA stormed the presidential palace in Kabul, overcame the resistance of the Presidential Guard and killed Daoud. The rebels captured the radio station and broadcasted revolutionary news, mobilizing the masses to make them join the revolution against the Daoud regime. With Kabul in control, the PDPA established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
End of the update.
Enjoy the part 2!
Music advice (Choose one) :
A RED WIND OF ANTIIMPERIALISM (1956-1973), PART TWO (1963-1973)
“How close we could look into a bright future should two, three or many Vietnams flourish throughout the world”
-Che Guevara, Message to the Tricontinental, 1967.
In 1964, Kurdish guerillas in Iraq fighting against the local government required Soviet help. Soviet soldiers were sent to fight with the guerilla. The Iraqi government, supported by the United Kingdom and Turkey, ordered to the Soviet Union to withdraw its forces. The United States expressed its disagreement, but couldn't intervene, due to its involvment in the Vietnam war.
Kurdish peshmerga (fighters) during the second Kurdish war, in Iranian Kurdistan.
The Soviets refused to withdraw their support, starting the second Kurdish war.
The Soviet armies entered and occupied most of Iraq and Turkey. Many opposants to the impopular governments of these countries welcomed the Soviets as liberators. While the Soviet Union was waging war against its ennemies, local communist parties declared the Turkish People's republic and the Socialist Republic of Iraq. The Soviet Union recognized these countries.
Advance of the Red Army in late 1964
Meanwhile, in the anti-imperialist Indonesia of President Soeharto, the PKI (Communist Party of Indonesia) penetrated all levels of government extensively. The party gained increasing influence, at the expense of the army, thus ensuring the army's enmity. By late 1965, the army was divided between a left-wing faction allied with the PKI and a right-wing faction funded by the USA.
In an attempt to curtail the right-wing military's increasing power, the PKI and the left-wing military formed a number of peasant and other mass organizations.
In a context of tensions with neighboring Malaysia, the PKI called for arming the masses. Large sectors of the right-wing army were opposed to this.
On the night of 30 September and 1 October 1965, six Indonesian generals were killed. The killers announced the following morning that the new Revolutionary Council had seized power, calling themselves the 30 September Movement. They took the President Soeharto under their protection.
The masses, armed by the PKI with Soviet weapons, joined the revolution against the imperialists puppets in the military. In the following months, many right-wing officers were purged. The revolution, starting in 1965, would secure power by 1968. The Soviet Republic of Indonesia was born.
By 1965, the Iraqi conservative government collapsed. In Baghdad, Saddam Hussein and Husain al-Radi, the leaders of the Marxist-Leninist-Ba'athist coalition, did a coup d'état with the support of the majority of the population and proclaimed the Socialist Republic of Iraq. They transferred the control of Iraqi Kurdistan to the Kurdish state.
In the same time, the Turkish government was crushed. A similar coup to the Iraqi coup happened.
The British tried to land in West Turkey and Algeria, but were repelled.
After the British defeat in Turkey, the Red Army landed in Rhodes. The island, occupied by Britain since WW2, was transferred to Greece.
In the meantime, the Red Army quickly landed in Cyprus to overthrow the capitalist government and set up a socialist state.
After the transfer of Iraqi Kurdistan to the Kurdish state, Kurdish guerilla warriors entered Iran. The Red Army followed them.
In 1968, the UK recognized the Turkish People's Republic, the Iraqi Socialist Republic and the new borders of Greece, after their landings were repelled and defeated.
Iran was still at war with the Soviet Union. The war ended some months later after the heroic battle of Zanjan and the occupation of Teheran.
Much closer to the Soviet Union than the actual Vietnam, this “Second Vietnam” was won much faster. The war in Indochina, meanwhile, was still raging, and the non-intervention of America in the Kurdish war gave to the Soviet leadership an idea...
Seven years after the adoption of Marxism by Ghana, the transition to a socialist economy was achieved in 1969. Kwame Nkrumah would be remembered as an hero of the African Revolution after his death, in 1972.
On 1 September 1969, a group of about 70 young army officers known as the Free Officers Movement and enlisted men seized control of the Lybian government and, in a stroke, abolished the Lybian monarchy. The coup was launched at Benghazi; and, within two hours, the takeover was completed. Popular reception to the coup was enthusiastic, as the monarchy was extremely impopular. No deaths or violent incidents related to the coup were reported.
The Free Officers Movement was headed by a twelve-member directorate that designated itself the Revolutionary Command Council. In its initial proclamation on 1 September, the RCC declared the country to be a free and sovereign state called the Lybian Arab Republic, which wpuld proceed in the path of freedom, unity, and social justice, guaranteeing the right of equality to its citizens, and opening before them the doors of honorable work. The rule of the Turks, Italians and the reactionary government just overthrown belonged to dark ages, from which the Lybian people would move forward as free brothers to a new age of prosperity, equality and honor.
The Soviet Union immediately proceeded to work with the Revolutionary Command Council, and gave them antiimperialist support.
In 1972, while the king of Afghanistan was in Italy for medical treatment, his cousin, Mohammed Daoud Shah, plotted against him and led a coup d'état, overthrowing the king and abolishing the monarchy. Daoud declared himself president of Afghanistan. However, the People's Democratic Party of Aghanistan (PDPA), while supporting him against the monarchy, didn't supported Daoud after his coup. The PDPA led quickly after the Sawr Revolution, a continuation of the Great Antimonarchist Revolution. Military units loyal to the PDPA stormed the presidential palace in Kabul, overcame the resistance of the Presidential Guard and killed Daoud. The rebels captured the radio station and broadcasted revolutionary news, mobilizing the masses to make them join the revolution against the Daoud regime. With Kabul in control, the PDPA established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
End of the update.
Last edited:
The Warsaw Bloc and the states supporting the revolution grown larger and larger! Given that you have already defeated, Iran, maybe they could be a potential future target, if your infamy permits it?
Infamy is hard to manage, but you'll discover how I manage it in the next non-thematic update (next update will be themaric like the Space Race one)
BTW, here is the world map for 1973, forgot to post it
With Afghanistan under Communism, you had better be careful; we all know what happened when Russia invaded Afghanistan IRL.
Will you be liberating the oppressed Azerbaijanis (and religious minorities that may exist there) in Tabriz in your next war against Iran (on top of making it communist)?
Excellent AAR! I am sitting at the edge of my seat, awaiting the next success of our glorious Soviet Union!
Red salute! Today, as promised, here is a thematic update, or, to be more exact, it will feature events that have no gameplay influence, but strong narrative one.
But, dear reader, before you start reading, a little warning : this update is long and contains a lot of far-left-wing/third worldist/maoist ideology. If you're not well versed into this kind of things (if you're a right-winger for example), some parts could sound alien to you. So feel free to tell me if something in the update is unclear!
Now you know this, let's start!
1966/1968 : THE WORLD IS EXPLODING
THE TRICONTINENTAL CONFERENCE.
(music suggestion)
“The two currents of the world revolution will be represented there : the current emerged with the Octber Revolution and that of the national liberation revolution.”
-Mehdi Ben Barka
The Tricontinental conference was the outcome of the efforts to unite revolutionaries from the three continents oppressed by imperialism : Asia, Africa and Latin America. The idea was evoked in the 50's. It would happen 10 years later, in Havana, in January 3 to 15 1966. 500 delegates, representing 82 third world countries, gatered to create the OSPAAAL (Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America), and establish the foundations of a world revolution. Even if he was absent from the conference, fighting in Bolivia (where he would die in 1967), Che Guevara was the most representative icon of this era. He toured the entire globe with one idea in mind : unite all peoples in a common struggle against imperialism. In 1967, he sent a message to the Tricontinental, which will pass to posterity : create two, three, many Vietnams. This event, major in the history of the third world, made the imperialists tremble.
The Tricontinental Conference didn't appeared spontaneously. Its roots can be traced to the anticolonial progressive struggles in the early 20th century. In 1927 was created the League against Imperialism and Colonial Oppression in Brussels. Many young anticolonial militants participated in the opening conference, such as Jawaharlal Nehru or Messali Hadj, would become later the leaders of their national liberation movements.
The racist ideology of imperialism was threatened by the World War Two.
Firstly, racism, which was created by the imperialist bourgeoisie to make the European proletariat accept colonialism by hierarchising races, became inacceptable due to Nazi ideology, which used racism between whites. After the defeat of the fascists, the bourgeoisie distanced itself from its former puppets : their actions were no more than the application in Europe, between whites, of what was done by Europeans to their African and Asian colonies, and they didn't wanted anyone to realize how tied to capitalism fascism was.
Secondly, racialized colonials, fighting in the imperialist armies against the fascists, realized that the white man was, well, only a man, and that its superiority was a myth. They heard all the speeches from the resisters against nazi occupation about national independence and struggle for liberty, and, of course, a contestation of the occupation of Africa and Asia emerged : The French, the Belgians, the Dutch, the British want their countries to be independent from Germany. What about us? We should be independent from France, Belgium, Netherlands, Britain...
All this turmoil explain the intensification of the anticolonial struggle after WW2, and why it led to decolonization.
But soon after decolonization, the colonized realized that having a flag, an anthem and an UN seat wasn't enough. Even if their countries were independent, at least on paper, they were still part of the capitalist global market. And the economic relations with the former metropoles didn't changed. Fighting against colonialism wasn't enough : the struggle had to continue, against imperialism and neo-colonialism this time.
In this context, the link with Latin America naturally emerged. These countries experienced independence more than one century ago, and experienced similar problems. Hence the revolutionaries from Asia and Africa turned their eyes to Latin America, and studied these countries to understand why exactly decolonization resulted in neo-colonialism.
In the 1950's, the Moroccan socialist Medhi Ben Barka evocated the idea of a solidarity of the three continents oppressed by imperialism. It would result on the Tricontinental Conference in 1966. But he would never participate in the conference : he disappeared some days before the opening, probably murdered by imperialists.
Despite the absence of Ben Barka, the conference still happened. The goals of the movement were formally established :
-Unite all national liberation struggles stimulated by the Bandung conference and the Chinese and Soviet communist parties
-Combat apartheid
-Struggle against globalism, imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism and liberalism.
Numerous decisions were took at the conference :
-Support to Cuba during the US blocade
-Support to Vietnam
-Support to Kurdistan
-Designation of the USA as the main ennemy
-Denouncing the plunder of the Third World
-Creation of the OSPAAAL
-Creation of the OLAS (Latin America Solidarity Organisation)
Only delegates from Africa, Asia and Latin America were allowed to vote. Of course, progressives from imperialist countries were allowed to participate, but only as observers. However, the question of some movements inside the imperialist countries was posed, and it was decided that some minorities, such as Afro-Americans, would be accepted as full members of the Tricontinental. Even if not geographically part of the three continents, they were considered part of, politically. Their struggle was the same, against colonialism and imperialism.
Two years later, the second Tricontinental conference was opened in Cairo, Egypt. Not only the aims of the movement were confirmed, but an important decision was took : the creation of the OSPAAAL armed forces, with the help of Soviet adivors. In the Soviet Union, many looked at the Tricontinental, and when the second conference decided to create armed forces, the possible Soviet help became obvious. The Antiimperialist Fighters Corps was formed in the Red Army, with the goal of helping militarily every antiimperialist progressive force. It would prove useful, especially for open fields battles and advanced technologies, something the antiimperialist guerrillas weren't accostumed of.
Logo of the OSPAAAL
1966/1968 : THE WORLD IS EXPLODING
THE FIRST CULTURAL REVOLUTION.
(music suggestion)
“The masses, and the masses alone, are the motive force in the making of world history”
-Mao Zedong
Ideology :
With the Great October Socialist Revolution, the first worker state, the Soviet Union, was established. However, due to an harsh context of civil war, isolation and external threat, the proletarian rule was hard to maintain. To survive, the Soviet Union had to rely on bureaucracy. While having advantages, this way of organizing the state had inconvenients too. The bureaucracy, despite being here to serve the masses, sometimes had the tendency to become an exploiting force, serving some parasitic Communist Party members. This New bourgeoisie threatened the very basis of socialism, as it could easily get power and restore capitalism. [1]
The New bourgeoisie, however, wasn't alone in the Party. The Party was united with the masses, and wasn't monolithic. The history of the CPSU was the history of class struggle within the Party, and progressive forces formed a political line to combat ultra-leftist and rightist deviations such as Trotskyism or Bukharinism, wich were no more than the expression of bourgeois ideology.
Led by Stalin, honest marxists-leninists fought against the New bourgeoisie. They managed to become the leading line in the Party, leading the masses on the right path to communism.
However, the New bourgeoisie wasn't completely defeated, and the struggle continued. It wasn't limited only to the Soviet Union : every socialist country faced the same problems. In fact, class struggle didn't diminuish under socialism : it increases, because the dictatorship of the proletariat not only has to fight against foreign reactionaries, it also has to fight against an internal enemy that emerges in its own ranks, class enemies who wave the red flag to oppose the red flag.
This analysis, now widely accepted by all Marxists, that it was contradictions within socialist system that creates new bourgeois elements, was a breakthrough idea back then.
Previously it was believed that the main threat to socialism was external imperialist aggression, and internal threats were treachery or imperialist subversion. Socialism isn't the victory : it's the beginning of the working classes offensive towatd the victory of communism.
While the Soviet struggle against the New bourgeoisie, with frequent Party purges, was enough to prevent them from stabilizing and taking power, it didn't stopped it to appear in the first place. And the New bourgeoisie almost managed to seize power, right after the death of Stalin. This system was efficient, but unstable, due to the fact that it was based on a wrong analysis.
While socialism was at this time the class rule of the proletariat in alliance wit the peasantry, and a mode of production in which production is planned for social needs and not for profit, it wasn't a static system, as socialism isn't meant to be a static system. What defines socialism the most clearly is the road on which it's travelling.
It's very obvious that to truly revolutionize a society, to really change things, cultural change aswell as economic change is needed. A new type of society requires a new political and social consciousness : old ideas will reproduce old ways, new ideas will create new ways. This idea was at the core of the Cultural Revolution.
The idea was to promote a culture of goodness, fairness and equality. These things the masses already recognize as good, the just things to do, but that are bad and will lead to tyranny according to the bourgeois ideology, based on the premice that bad is good and good is bad.In China, many minds, including Mao Zedong, were thinking about ways to improve the system. Of course, it wasn't limited to China. In every socialist country left-winged mind was thinking about ways to improve socialism, what was the best line to adopt, etc. But it was slow.
The most widely adopted line to achieve communism, in 1965, was the theory of productive forces : this theory stated that to achieve socialism, evolution of productive forces was enough. Following this doctrine, the Soviet Union adopted a Taylorist way of organizing production.
The events :
In 1966 things would start to evolve much faster.
People from all over China arrived in Beijing to discuss about the new society they were building, in an act of mass participation. They came to the universities to debate with party cadres and intellectuals. Students were also discussing on how should universities be run.
All these people met in Beijing with the goal of creating this new society, based on socialist principles, by ending inequality in political power, access to economic resources and education.
Over a million students were in Beijing, to openly criticize their reactionary and authoritarian teachers and education systems. They complained that teachers were creating experts with no political consciousness. This risked to put economy on the commands of politics, which would result on a restoration of capitalism. The result was that reactionary and revisionist administrators and teachers were paraded through the street with dunce caps and were subjects to public criticism. The students decided what they would be learning. The education system was democratized and the students organized it.
1966 mass rally in Beijing
Red Guards, meanwhile, searched for evidence of capitalist and feudalist activity, such as hoarding wealth or practicizing feudal customs. This was a political movement to uproot the old ideas and customs of the exploiting classes, which let their footprint on the exploited masses. Discouraging these practices made the masses more aware of a possible capitalist restoration.
The revolution quickly extended to the rest of the country. In Shanghai, the Workers General Headquarters had build up strenght in hundred of factories by criticizing management practices that reduced the initiative of the workerd. In January 1967 these rebels workers seized power from Shanghai's old party apparatus. In a desesperate try to stay into power, the revisionist party leaders organized conservative factions among the workers and tried to bribe them with a wave of economism, which attempted to sabotage the rebellion with an increase of the wages. Similar episodes would happen through the entire GPCR.
In 1967, the GPCR spreaded to India. Similarly to China, many people gatered in the largest cities of the country to criticize their government, asking it to pursue a socialist roading. Many accused the Indian government of capitalist roading. The fact that the Indian socialist state was established peacefully made it more subject to a restoration of capitalism. It was in India that the GPCR was the most violent. The right-wingers in the government, who reluctantly accepted Marxist socialism, sent the police against the protesters. In the small village of Naxalbari [2], a peasant uprising started the “second phase” of the Indian GPCR by spreading it to the countryside. Left wing poor peasants rioted under the “Land to tiller” and “Down with Bukharinists” slogans. Even if the Indian government pursued a land reform, the efforts were sabotaged by the right-wingers who wanted to pursue a reform similar to the NEP that was instaured in the early Soviet Union. In fact, the land reform didn't benefited to the poor Indian peasants. The crushing of the uprising by the Indian police triggered violent reactions through the entire country. Peasants struggled, rebelled, organized, and created a new communist party which controlled vast areas in the countryside, and pursued a radical left-wing land reform. The reformers were inspired by the Chinese GPCR and emulated most of its achievements (see last part : the Achievements of the GPCR). The violent struggle between the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) and the Indian government continued for approximatively one year. The communist members of the Indian government supported the uprising, and the struggle that happened in the countryside had effects in the government, where left-wing and right-wing attempted to defeat and purge each other.
Peasant militias in India, 1968
Things would improve in 1968, when the GPCR finally reached the Warsaw Pact countries and the Soviet Union. In Czechoslovakia, the economy wasn't working very well under the leadership of the unpopular and revisionist leader Novotný. In January 1968, Novotný was overthrown by several members of the Politburo with the support of the Soviet Union and Alexander Dubček was put in power. Although not an antirevisionist, he started to implement several reforms, calling his project Socialism with a Human Face. The Chinese Communist Party saluted his rise and struggle against the revisionism of Novotný, but didn't endorsed his reforms. In fact, Dubček was a market socialist, close to Titoist ideas, but he was very popular among the masses. Dubček started to reform the country following market socialist principles but assured the Soviet Union that Czechoslovakia would stay in the Warsaw Pact. Free elections where the Communist Party would compete against other political parties would be held later.
Alexander Dubček
But, quickly, Socialism with a Human Face depassed Dubček himself. The masses were rising, discussing about a lot of subjects. An important Worker's Control movement developed. Workers’ councils were formed, there were perhaps fewer than two dozen of them, although these were concentrated in the largest enterprises and therefore represented a large number of employees. But the movement took off, and by January 1969 there were councils in about 120 enterprises, representing more than 800,000 employees, or about one-sixth of the country’s workers. This occurred despite a new mood of discouragement from the government from October 1968. From the beginning, this was a grassroots movement from below that forced party, government, and enterprise managements to react. The councils designed their own statutes and implemented them from the start. [3]
With the whole mass movement being supported by Maoists, Dubček decided to visit China and meet with Mao Zedong. Vyacheslav Molotov was also in China at this time, and the three leaders discussed a lot about the events that were shaking the whole socialist world. Although originally sceptic about this wave of change, and while the Soviet leadership was hesitating about crushing the Prague Spring, Molotov was convinced by Mao's ideas. Dubček, a liberal fidel to his idea of market socialism, wasn't fully convinced but wasn't against the ideas of Mao. Mao and Dubček agreed on the idea that the problems of Czechoslovakia had to be fixed by the Czech and Slovak workers.
The free elections in Czechoslovakia were won by the Czech and Slovak Movement for Worker's Control, which competed with the Communist Party. As the worker's control was already implemented in the biggest companies in the country, it was extended to all of the companies of the country by 1969, under principles inspired by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, such as the 2-1-3 (see last part).
In Poland, after the important manifestations of early 1968, these principles were applied in the country.
Of course, these developments, and having Molotov agreeing with them, affected the Soviet Union. A Worker's control movement was created, which quickly became very popular among the masses and in the left-wing of the CPSU. The Comecon, who was one of the most left-winged institutions, made the new organization of industry the norm in every foreign Soviet-built factory. This affected greatly India, where the peasant movement was dominant in the countryside but lacked support for cities due to the dominance of the right-wingers here. But of course, the changes in the Soviet Union greatly affected India, and with importants parts of its economy under full 2-1-3 worker's control, the right-wingers lost an important power base and were overthrown during the General Uprising of 1970, the third phase of the Indian GPCR.
In 1970, most of the Warsaw pact (not including the German Democratic Republic led by the rightist Honecker), India and China were changed by the Cultural Revolution and Socialism With an Human Face. Although very similar, the movements had differences due the nature of their countries : India was the country were the GPCR brought the most changes, followed by China. Both countries followed the GPCR, which affected both countryside and cities of these mostly agrarian countries.
Other countries were also affected, of course. In the Socialist camp, altough not following the GPCR or SWHF, Cuba experienced great changes. The Castrist leadership managed to improve society in many ways, with the reduction of the profit motive being one of their great achievement. Cuba would later be recognized for its healthcare, the best one in Latin America, better than USA's one, and an excellent one according to the standards of the socialist world... and this, with some of the less paid doctors! In the Middle East and Africa, however, there was few change, as these countries already experienced important anticolonial struggles. In the Warsaw Pact, as mentioned before, the German Democratic Republic led by Honecker experienced no change at all. Yugoslavia, following their revisionist policy of market socialism, experienced few change : in fact, there was a lack of coherent class struggle policy in the Yugoslav Communist Party. Many feared a restoration of capitalism in this country, due to this lack of awareness.
The capitalist countries were also affected. The late 60's and early 70's would be one of the most left-winged ages outside of the socialist world. Everywhere on the world, there was a great advance towards communism. In France, the famous Mai 68 happened, later known as the unachieved revolution. In the USA, the important wave of leftism was crushed by a new McCarthyist policy starting in 70's.
Achievements of the GPCR :
The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact followed Socialism With an Human Face, who was more urban oriented. As these countries, especially the Soviet Union, were already more advanced, less change was needed. The most significant change in these countries was the application of the 2-1-3 management, an idea originating from China.
India and China followed the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It was more agrarian oriented.
The 2-1-3 :
One of the most important ideas of the GPCR was the rejection of the traditional Soviet one-man management system, replaced by the “2-1-3” system:
-Two participations (of cadres in labour and workers in management)
-One reform (of unneeded regulations)
-Three combinations (of skilled workers, technicians and administrators to solve problems)
With this method, peasants and workers questioned people in the charge of production. When factory leaders didn't listen to the workers, they where simply removed from power and replaced by others who would listen. This problem was solvad by having everyone participate in decision making, and by having managers perform daily work functions like everyone else. This reinforced the idea of equality : managers had no power over the workers, they were workers themselves. Workers didn't repond to a boss, because boss didn't exist.
Healthcare and Barefoot Doctors :
Although being well developed in the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries, basic healthcare services were almost non-existent in the Chinese or Indian countryside. Hundreds of millions of peasants were left without any basic rudimentary healthcare. It was also hard to get any advanced medical knowledge, due to the medicine schools being distant.
While the 2-1-3 was an important change, the invention of the system of barefoot doctors, a system with the goal of shortening the medical service gap between cities and countryside. After five years of GPCR, there were more than one million of paramedicsworking in the rural areas, many of them were educated youth sent in villages. It was simply sending doctors to places where there were none, and providing medical services was a part of the training of young doctors, not in medical schools but in places where it was useful and could do the most good.
Originally 28 of these specialist paramedics were trained in Shanghai. While serving the people in the countryside, their tasks were disease prevention first, and to combine mental and manual labour.
“Calluses on hands, mud on feet, medicine kit on shoulder, poor and lower-middle peasants in mind.” -Mao Zedong. Barefoot doctors practicising in China during the GPCR.
Just arrived in a village, the first thing the Barefoot Doctors did was to train several people in the village on disease prevention, so they could begin building their local health care staff. While this was being done, the Barefoot Doctord would spend a third to an half of their time among these same peasants they trained and provided healthcare. This created a medical corps that had a very strong tie to the masses.
The tasks of these doctors went far beyond diagnosis and treatment of illnesses. They administered vaccinations, explained the correct use of pesticides, introduced new sanitation methods and thaught mothers about nutrition and child care. Many of the newly trained village teams included midwives that assisted in childbirth. This, alone, massively reduced infant and childbirth mortality.
This policy changed the lives of hundreds of millions in the Chinese and Indian countryside. Life expectancy greatly increased, by ten years, it was the quickest increase of life expectancy ever experienced. In 1949, the average life expectancy at birth in China was 39 years. 25 years later, around the death of Mao, it was 63, with most of this progress being due to the GPCR.
(Who said “communism is a failure and can only succeed in video games?” At least, Maoist China led the quickest increase of life expectancy ever.)
Similar policies happened in Cuba. While the country didn't officially endorsed the GPCR, it started similar medicine policies. Cuban doctors are always the first to go to the poorest in the world and give their services for free. One of the achievement of the medicine policies of the GPCR and Cuba was the evolution of doctor's mentality : it was one of the first jobs which got totally ride of the profit motive. Socialist countries are countries with the highest numbers of doctors, and these doctors live in poor conditions and receive low wages, because they believe in what they're doing.
An urban and industrial version of the Barefoot Doctors was also developed : the Red Medical Teams. Volunteers from workplaces would take a basic course in medical services. They would then have follow up teaching where they learned more advanced medical techniques and procedures.
It was an effective system which provided many more medical, and very devoted, medical personnel for few extra cost. In fact, the Chinese, Indian and Cuban healthcare system would surpass the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries by late 1980's. These reforms almost didn't affected the latter, which already had developed healthcare covering the entire countries, but working the “traditional way”. By starting from scratch, but with the more efficient socialist medicine, China, India and Cuba quickly surpassed every capitalist and socialist country. Cuba was often refered as the Vanguard of Socialist Medicine. This showed a new development of Socialism : Brother countries were reaching the level of the Soviet Union, increasing equality among nations by improving themselves.
[4]
Radical Ideas :
It's also worth mentioning that the Communes established through Socialist world had some degree of autonomy. Some of them experienced particular ideas. Sometimes, these ideas were far ahead of their time, way too advanced for the actual society. They were the kind of ideas that were applied on a very small scale, by the people who found it, but would be recorded and who would reach a larger public in a more or less distant future. This literal explosion of ideas led to over optimism sometimes, making some people seeing full communism as achievable in a few decades, in opposition to the original Mao's 100 year plan.
Many communes tried the experiment to move past the idea of family. The idea was to not have traditional nuclear families. For example, childrens were considered the responsibility of everyone in the commune.
A radical change was the almost complete destruction of fashion. Nothing was banned : it was just considered unimportant. The idea of expressing oneself through clothing was considered infantile and senseless : why pointlessly wear clothes to make a statement when you can openly participate in the construction of society? People weren't judged on appearance, but on their ideas, actions, and what good they could contribute. In capitalist countries, the opposite was prevalent, and developed in the late 60's, because the masses can't exercice real power in the bourgeois democracy, despite the explosion of ideas and radical leap to the left that happened on the entire globe at this time.
Combat Corruption : Barefoot Politicians?
Another great achievement of the GPCR was the great campaign against corruption. While a “classic” anti-corruption campaign was done, for many people it was obvious that the problem was rooted somewhere, and couldn't disappear if it wasn't destroyed at its roots.
An idea that was implemented nationwide, was the extension of some principles of the 2-1-3 into the state administration. Not only the cadres, but also the political leadership of the countries would've to participate in labour. It also made easier for the common worker to get involved in national politics, with the creation of many mass organizations affiliated to the Parties, or even with the implementation of some form of multipartism in Czechoslovakia.
A simple idea was proposed, this time not originating from the socialist world, but from small Maoist parties in imperialist countries : make any position of power giving more harm than benefit to the holder. This would ensure that every individual joining a political organization wasn't doing this by profit motive. This Theory of Incorruptibility was drawn from two practices : the practice of Barefoot Doctors and the practice of purges of corrupted people by every incorruptible revolutionary leader, being Robespierre, Cromwell or Stalin. The defenders of this theory argued that profit motive was being eliminated from medicine, and that the life of any politician was hard under an incorruptible leader. Theorizing this would improve the struggle against corruption, by helping to create institutional incorruptibility. And it did : the Soviet Union, using this theory for a 15 years plan against corruption, which was a rising problem before, managed to greatly reduce it.
Public shaming of corrupted politicians. The masses exerced their dictatorship over the political elite.
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All of these events fortified, secured, and to some extent re-established genuine proletarian rule in most parts of the socialist world, overthrew the capitalist roaders within the communist parties and within socialist societies more generally who, consciously or not, were attempting to destroy socialism and bring back capitalism.
The need for a whole series of periodic additional cultural revolutions of that sort occuring throughout the entire period of socialism was envisionned in the mid-70's, when the first GPCR was coming to an end.
The GPCR had less influence in socialist Africa, Middle-East, Cuba and Indochina, due to the already intense antiimperialist struggle in these countries. However, a certain form of Cultural Revolution happened in Indonesia which turned socialist recently, mixed with the “traditional” social revolution socialism always bring. For some GPCR theoricians who agreed with the analysises of the Tricontinental, the GPCR happened in these countries, but the national liberation struggle being the leading trend in these countries, the proletarian rule had no need to be fortified, it had to be established first, the GPCR manifested itself in these countries as a simple quantitative change of the revolutionary practice, while the change was qualitative in other socialist countries.
[1] As it happened in IRL Soviet Union, China, etc...
[2] This really happened. Today, the Naxalite movement, which is a Maoist guerilla, is still active in India, waging the Protracted People's War
[3] Source : https://systemicdisorder.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/prague-spring/
[4] IRL Cuba is well known for its barefoot doctors
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Now, this is finally the end of this update, thank you for reading it entirely. Next time, we will see the glory of the Red Army, again.
But, dear reader, before you start reading, a little warning : this update is long and contains a lot of far-left-wing/third worldist/maoist ideology. If you're not well versed into this kind of things (if you're a right-winger for example), some parts could sound alien to you. So feel free to tell me if something in the update is unclear!
Now you know this, let's start!
1966/1968 : THE WORLD IS EXPLODING
THE TRICONTINENTAL CONFERENCE.
(music suggestion)
“The two currents of the world revolution will be represented there : the current emerged with the Octber Revolution and that of the national liberation revolution.”
-Mehdi Ben Barka
The Tricontinental conference was the outcome of the efforts to unite revolutionaries from the three continents oppressed by imperialism : Asia, Africa and Latin America. The idea was evoked in the 50's. It would happen 10 years later, in Havana, in January 3 to 15 1966. 500 delegates, representing 82 third world countries, gatered to create the OSPAAAL (Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America), and establish the foundations of a world revolution. Even if he was absent from the conference, fighting in Bolivia (where he would die in 1967), Che Guevara was the most representative icon of this era. He toured the entire globe with one idea in mind : unite all peoples in a common struggle against imperialism. In 1967, he sent a message to the Tricontinental, which will pass to posterity : create two, three, many Vietnams. This event, major in the history of the third world, made the imperialists tremble.
The Tricontinental Conference didn't appeared spontaneously. Its roots can be traced to the anticolonial progressive struggles in the early 20th century. In 1927 was created the League against Imperialism and Colonial Oppression in Brussels. Many young anticolonial militants participated in the opening conference, such as Jawaharlal Nehru or Messali Hadj, would become later the leaders of their national liberation movements.
The racist ideology of imperialism was threatened by the World War Two.
Firstly, racism, which was created by the imperialist bourgeoisie to make the European proletariat accept colonialism by hierarchising races, became inacceptable due to Nazi ideology, which used racism between whites. After the defeat of the fascists, the bourgeoisie distanced itself from its former puppets : their actions were no more than the application in Europe, between whites, of what was done by Europeans to their African and Asian colonies, and they didn't wanted anyone to realize how tied to capitalism fascism was.
Secondly, racialized colonials, fighting in the imperialist armies against the fascists, realized that the white man was, well, only a man, and that its superiority was a myth. They heard all the speeches from the resisters against nazi occupation about national independence and struggle for liberty, and, of course, a contestation of the occupation of Africa and Asia emerged : The French, the Belgians, the Dutch, the British want their countries to be independent from Germany. What about us? We should be independent from France, Belgium, Netherlands, Britain...
All this turmoil explain the intensification of the anticolonial struggle after WW2, and why it led to decolonization.
But soon after decolonization, the colonized realized that having a flag, an anthem and an UN seat wasn't enough. Even if their countries were independent, at least on paper, they were still part of the capitalist global market. And the economic relations with the former metropoles didn't changed. Fighting against colonialism wasn't enough : the struggle had to continue, against imperialism and neo-colonialism this time.
In this context, the link with Latin America naturally emerged. These countries experienced independence more than one century ago, and experienced similar problems. Hence the revolutionaries from Asia and Africa turned their eyes to Latin America, and studied these countries to understand why exactly decolonization resulted in neo-colonialism.
In the 1950's, the Moroccan socialist Medhi Ben Barka evocated the idea of a solidarity of the three continents oppressed by imperialism. It would result on the Tricontinental Conference in 1966. But he would never participate in the conference : he disappeared some days before the opening, probably murdered by imperialists.
Despite the absence of Ben Barka, the conference still happened. The goals of the movement were formally established :
-Unite all national liberation struggles stimulated by the Bandung conference and the Chinese and Soviet communist parties
-Combat apartheid
-Struggle against globalism, imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism and liberalism.
Numerous decisions were took at the conference :
-Support to Cuba during the US blocade
-Support to Vietnam
-Support to Kurdistan
-Designation of the USA as the main ennemy
-Denouncing the plunder of the Third World
-Creation of the OSPAAAL
-Creation of the OLAS (Latin America Solidarity Organisation)
Only delegates from Africa, Asia and Latin America were allowed to vote. Of course, progressives from imperialist countries were allowed to participate, but only as observers. However, the question of some movements inside the imperialist countries was posed, and it was decided that some minorities, such as Afro-Americans, would be accepted as full members of the Tricontinental. Even if not geographically part of the three continents, they were considered part of, politically. Their struggle was the same, against colonialism and imperialism.
Two years later, the second Tricontinental conference was opened in Cairo, Egypt. Not only the aims of the movement were confirmed, but an important decision was took : the creation of the OSPAAAL armed forces, with the help of Soviet adivors. In the Soviet Union, many looked at the Tricontinental, and when the second conference decided to create armed forces, the possible Soviet help became obvious. The Antiimperialist Fighters Corps was formed in the Red Army, with the goal of helping militarily every antiimperialist progressive force. It would prove useful, especially for open fields battles and advanced technologies, something the antiimperialist guerrillas weren't accostumed of.
Logo of the OSPAAAL
1966/1968 : THE WORLD IS EXPLODING
THE FIRST CULTURAL REVOLUTION.
(music suggestion)
“The masses, and the masses alone, are the motive force in the making of world history”
-Mao Zedong
Ideology :
With the Great October Socialist Revolution, the first worker state, the Soviet Union, was established. However, due to an harsh context of civil war, isolation and external threat, the proletarian rule was hard to maintain. To survive, the Soviet Union had to rely on bureaucracy. While having advantages, this way of organizing the state had inconvenients too. The bureaucracy, despite being here to serve the masses, sometimes had the tendency to become an exploiting force, serving some parasitic Communist Party members. This New bourgeoisie threatened the very basis of socialism, as it could easily get power and restore capitalism. [1]
The New bourgeoisie, however, wasn't alone in the Party. The Party was united with the masses, and wasn't monolithic. The history of the CPSU was the history of class struggle within the Party, and progressive forces formed a political line to combat ultra-leftist and rightist deviations such as Trotskyism or Bukharinism, wich were no more than the expression of bourgeois ideology.
Led by Stalin, honest marxists-leninists fought against the New bourgeoisie. They managed to become the leading line in the Party, leading the masses on the right path to communism.
However, the New bourgeoisie wasn't completely defeated, and the struggle continued. It wasn't limited only to the Soviet Union : every socialist country faced the same problems. In fact, class struggle didn't diminuish under socialism : it increases, because the dictatorship of the proletariat not only has to fight against foreign reactionaries, it also has to fight against an internal enemy that emerges in its own ranks, class enemies who wave the red flag to oppose the red flag.
This analysis, now widely accepted by all Marxists, that it was contradictions within socialist system that creates new bourgeois elements, was a breakthrough idea back then.
Previously it was believed that the main threat to socialism was external imperialist aggression, and internal threats were treachery or imperialist subversion. Socialism isn't the victory : it's the beginning of the working classes offensive towatd the victory of communism.
While the Soviet struggle against the New bourgeoisie, with frequent Party purges, was enough to prevent them from stabilizing and taking power, it didn't stopped it to appear in the first place. And the New bourgeoisie almost managed to seize power, right after the death of Stalin. This system was efficient, but unstable, due to the fact that it was based on a wrong analysis.
While socialism was at this time the class rule of the proletariat in alliance wit the peasantry, and a mode of production in which production is planned for social needs and not for profit, it wasn't a static system, as socialism isn't meant to be a static system. What defines socialism the most clearly is the road on which it's travelling.
It's very obvious that to truly revolutionize a society, to really change things, cultural change aswell as economic change is needed. A new type of society requires a new political and social consciousness : old ideas will reproduce old ways, new ideas will create new ways. This idea was at the core of the Cultural Revolution.
The idea was to promote a culture of goodness, fairness and equality. These things the masses already recognize as good, the just things to do, but that are bad and will lead to tyranny according to the bourgeois ideology, based on the premice that bad is good and good is bad.In China, many minds, including Mao Zedong, were thinking about ways to improve the system. Of course, it wasn't limited to China. In every socialist country left-winged mind was thinking about ways to improve socialism, what was the best line to adopt, etc. But it was slow.
The most widely adopted line to achieve communism, in 1965, was the theory of productive forces : this theory stated that to achieve socialism, evolution of productive forces was enough. Following this doctrine, the Soviet Union adopted a Taylorist way of organizing production.
The events :
In 1966 things would start to evolve much faster.
People from all over China arrived in Beijing to discuss about the new society they were building, in an act of mass participation. They came to the universities to debate with party cadres and intellectuals. Students were also discussing on how should universities be run.
All these people met in Beijing with the goal of creating this new society, based on socialist principles, by ending inequality in political power, access to economic resources and education.
Over a million students were in Beijing, to openly criticize their reactionary and authoritarian teachers and education systems. They complained that teachers were creating experts with no political consciousness. This risked to put economy on the commands of politics, which would result on a restoration of capitalism. The result was that reactionary and revisionist administrators and teachers were paraded through the street with dunce caps and were subjects to public criticism. The students decided what they would be learning. The education system was democratized and the students organized it.
1966 mass rally in Beijing
Red Guards, meanwhile, searched for evidence of capitalist and feudalist activity, such as hoarding wealth or practicizing feudal customs. This was a political movement to uproot the old ideas and customs of the exploiting classes, which let their footprint on the exploited masses. Discouraging these practices made the masses more aware of a possible capitalist restoration.
The revolution quickly extended to the rest of the country. In Shanghai, the Workers General Headquarters had build up strenght in hundred of factories by criticizing management practices that reduced the initiative of the workerd. In January 1967 these rebels workers seized power from Shanghai's old party apparatus. In a desesperate try to stay into power, the revisionist party leaders organized conservative factions among the workers and tried to bribe them with a wave of economism, which attempted to sabotage the rebellion with an increase of the wages. Similar episodes would happen through the entire GPCR.
In 1967, the GPCR spreaded to India. Similarly to China, many people gatered in the largest cities of the country to criticize their government, asking it to pursue a socialist roading. Many accused the Indian government of capitalist roading. The fact that the Indian socialist state was established peacefully made it more subject to a restoration of capitalism. It was in India that the GPCR was the most violent. The right-wingers in the government, who reluctantly accepted Marxist socialism, sent the police against the protesters. In the small village of Naxalbari [2], a peasant uprising started the “second phase” of the Indian GPCR by spreading it to the countryside. Left wing poor peasants rioted under the “Land to tiller” and “Down with Bukharinists” slogans. Even if the Indian government pursued a land reform, the efforts were sabotaged by the right-wingers who wanted to pursue a reform similar to the NEP that was instaured in the early Soviet Union. In fact, the land reform didn't benefited to the poor Indian peasants. The crushing of the uprising by the Indian police triggered violent reactions through the entire country. Peasants struggled, rebelled, organized, and created a new communist party which controlled vast areas in the countryside, and pursued a radical left-wing land reform. The reformers were inspired by the Chinese GPCR and emulated most of its achievements (see last part : the Achievements of the GPCR). The violent struggle between the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) and the Indian government continued for approximatively one year. The communist members of the Indian government supported the uprising, and the struggle that happened in the countryside had effects in the government, where left-wing and right-wing attempted to defeat and purge each other.
Peasant militias in India, 1968
Things would improve in 1968, when the GPCR finally reached the Warsaw Pact countries and the Soviet Union. In Czechoslovakia, the economy wasn't working very well under the leadership of the unpopular and revisionist leader Novotný. In January 1968, Novotný was overthrown by several members of the Politburo with the support of the Soviet Union and Alexander Dubček was put in power. Although not an antirevisionist, he started to implement several reforms, calling his project Socialism with a Human Face. The Chinese Communist Party saluted his rise and struggle against the revisionism of Novotný, but didn't endorsed his reforms. In fact, Dubček was a market socialist, close to Titoist ideas, but he was very popular among the masses. Dubček started to reform the country following market socialist principles but assured the Soviet Union that Czechoslovakia would stay in the Warsaw Pact. Free elections where the Communist Party would compete against other political parties would be held later.
Alexander Dubček
But, quickly, Socialism with a Human Face depassed Dubček himself. The masses were rising, discussing about a lot of subjects. An important Worker's Control movement developed. Workers’ councils were formed, there were perhaps fewer than two dozen of them, although these were concentrated in the largest enterprises and therefore represented a large number of employees. But the movement took off, and by January 1969 there were councils in about 120 enterprises, representing more than 800,000 employees, or about one-sixth of the country’s workers. This occurred despite a new mood of discouragement from the government from October 1968. From the beginning, this was a grassroots movement from below that forced party, government, and enterprise managements to react. The councils designed their own statutes and implemented them from the start. [3]
With the whole mass movement being supported by Maoists, Dubček decided to visit China and meet with Mao Zedong. Vyacheslav Molotov was also in China at this time, and the three leaders discussed a lot about the events that were shaking the whole socialist world. Although originally sceptic about this wave of change, and while the Soviet leadership was hesitating about crushing the Prague Spring, Molotov was convinced by Mao's ideas. Dubček, a liberal fidel to his idea of market socialism, wasn't fully convinced but wasn't against the ideas of Mao. Mao and Dubček agreed on the idea that the problems of Czechoslovakia had to be fixed by the Czech and Slovak workers.
The free elections in Czechoslovakia were won by the Czech and Slovak Movement for Worker's Control, which competed with the Communist Party. As the worker's control was already implemented in the biggest companies in the country, it was extended to all of the companies of the country by 1969, under principles inspired by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, such as the 2-1-3 (see last part).
In Poland, after the important manifestations of early 1968, these principles were applied in the country.
Of course, these developments, and having Molotov agreeing with them, affected the Soviet Union. A Worker's control movement was created, which quickly became very popular among the masses and in the left-wing of the CPSU. The Comecon, who was one of the most left-winged institutions, made the new organization of industry the norm in every foreign Soviet-built factory. This affected greatly India, where the peasant movement was dominant in the countryside but lacked support for cities due to the dominance of the right-wingers here. But of course, the changes in the Soviet Union greatly affected India, and with importants parts of its economy under full 2-1-3 worker's control, the right-wingers lost an important power base and were overthrown during the General Uprising of 1970, the third phase of the Indian GPCR.
In 1970, most of the Warsaw pact (not including the German Democratic Republic led by the rightist Honecker), India and China were changed by the Cultural Revolution and Socialism With an Human Face. Although very similar, the movements had differences due the nature of their countries : India was the country were the GPCR brought the most changes, followed by China. Both countries followed the GPCR, which affected both countryside and cities of these mostly agrarian countries.
Other countries were also affected, of course. In the Socialist camp, altough not following the GPCR or SWHF, Cuba experienced great changes. The Castrist leadership managed to improve society in many ways, with the reduction of the profit motive being one of their great achievement. Cuba would later be recognized for its healthcare, the best one in Latin America, better than USA's one, and an excellent one according to the standards of the socialist world... and this, with some of the less paid doctors! In the Middle East and Africa, however, there was few change, as these countries already experienced important anticolonial struggles. In the Warsaw Pact, as mentioned before, the German Democratic Republic led by Honecker experienced no change at all. Yugoslavia, following their revisionist policy of market socialism, experienced few change : in fact, there was a lack of coherent class struggle policy in the Yugoslav Communist Party. Many feared a restoration of capitalism in this country, due to this lack of awareness.
The capitalist countries were also affected. The late 60's and early 70's would be one of the most left-winged ages outside of the socialist world. Everywhere on the world, there was a great advance towards communism. In France, the famous Mai 68 happened, later known as the unachieved revolution. In the USA, the important wave of leftism was crushed by a new McCarthyist policy starting in 70's.
Achievements of the GPCR :
The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact followed Socialism With an Human Face, who was more urban oriented. As these countries, especially the Soviet Union, were already more advanced, less change was needed. The most significant change in these countries was the application of the 2-1-3 management, an idea originating from China.
India and China followed the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It was more agrarian oriented.
The 2-1-3 :
One of the most important ideas of the GPCR was the rejection of the traditional Soviet one-man management system, replaced by the “2-1-3” system:
-Two participations (of cadres in labour and workers in management)
-One reform (of unneeded regulations)
-Three combinations (of skilled workers, technicians and administrators to solve problems)
With this method, peasants and workers questioned people in the charge of production. When factory leaders didn't listen to the workers, they where simply removed from power and replaced by others who would listen. This problem was solvad by having everyone participate in decision making, and by having managers perform daily work functions like everyone else. This reinforced the idea of equality : managers had no power over the workers, they were workers themselves. Workers didn't repond to a boss, because boss didn't exist.
Healthcare and Barefoot Doctors :
Although being well developed in the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries, basic healthcare services were almost non-existent in the Chinese or Indian countryside. Hundreds of millions of peasants were left without any basic rudimentary healthcare. It was also hard to get any advanced medical knowledge, due to the medicine schools being distant.
While the 2-1-3 was an important change, the invention of the system of barefoot doctors, a system with the goal of shortening the medical service gap between cities and countryside. After five years of GPCR, there were more than one million of paramedicsworking in the rural areas, many of them were educated youth sent in villages. It was simply sending doctors to places where there were none, and providing medical services was a part of the training of young doctors, not in medical schools but in places where it was useful and could do the most good.
Originally 28 of these specialist paramedics were trained in Shanghai. While serving the people in the countryside, their tasks were disease prevention first, and to combine mental and manual labour.
“Calluses on hands, mud on feet, medicine kit on shoulder, poor and lower-middle peasants in mind.” -Mao Zedong. Barefoot doctors practicising in China during the GPCR.
Just arrived in a village, the first thing the Barefoot Doctors did was to train several people in the village on disease prevention, so they could begin building their local health care staff. While this was being done, the Barefoot Doctord would spend a third to an half of their time among these same peasants they trained and provided healthcare. This created a medical corps that had a very strong tie to the masses.
The tasks of these doctors went far beyond diagnosis and treatment of illnesses. They administered vaccinations, explained the correct use of pesticides, introduced new sanitation methods and thaught mothers about nutrition and child care. Many of the newly trained village teams included midwives that assisted in childbirth. This, alone, massively reduced infant and childbirth mortality.
This policy changed the lives of hundreds of millions in the Chinese and Indian countryside. Life expectancy greatly increased, by ten years, it was the quickest increase of life expectancy ever experienced. In 1949, the average life expectancy at birth in China was 39 years. 25 years later, around the death of Mao, it was 63, with most of this progress being due to the GPCR.
(Who said “communism is a failure and can only succeed in video games?”
At least, Maoist China led the quickest increase of life expectancy ever.)Similar policies happened in Cuba. While the country didn't officially endorsed the GPCR, it started similar medicine policies. Cuban doctors are always the first to go to the poorest in the world and give their services for free. One of the achievement of the medicine policies of the GPCR and Cuba was the evolution of doctor's mentality : it was one of the first jobs which got totally ride of the profit motive. Socialist countries are countries with the highest numbers of doctors, and these doctors live in poor conditions and receive low wages, because they believe in what they're doing.
An urban and industrial version of the Barefoot Doctors was also developed : the Red Medical Teams. Volunteers from workplaces would take a basic course in medical services. They would then have follow up teaching where they learned more advanced medical techniques and procedures.
It was an effective system which provided many more medical, and very devoted, medical personnel for few extra cost. In fact, the Chinese, Indian and Cuban healthcare system would surpass the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries by late 1980's. These reforms almost didn't affected the latter, which already had developed healthcare covering the entire countries, but working the “traditional way”. By starting from scratch, but with the more efficient socialist medicine, China, India and Cuba quickly surpassed every capitalist and socialist country. Cuba was often refered as the Vanguard of Socialist Medicine. This showed a new development of Socialism : Brother countries were reaching the level of the Soviet Union, increasing equality among nations by improving themselves.
[4]
Radical Ideas :
It's also worth mentioning that the Communes established through Socialist world had some degree of autonomy. Some of them experienced particular ideas. Sometimes, these ideas were far ahead of their time, way too advanced for the actual society. They were the kind of ideas that were applied on a very small scale, by the people who found it, but would be recorded and who would reach a larger public in a more or less distant future. This literal explosion of ideas led to over optimism sometimes, making some people seeing full communism as achievable in a few decades, in opposition to the original Mao's 100 year plan.
Many communes tried the experiment to move past the idea of family. The idea was to not have traditional nuclear families. For example, childrens were considered the responsibility of everyone in the commune.
A radical change was the almost complete destruction of fashion. Nothing was banned : it was just considered unimportant. The idea of expressing oneself through clothing was considered infantile and senseless : why pointlessly wear clothes to make a statement when you can openly participate in the construction of society? People weren't judged on appearance, but on their ideas, actions, and what good they could contribute. In capitalist countries, the opposite was prevalent, and developed in the late 60's, because the masses can't exercice real power in the bourgeois democracy, despite the explosion of ideas and radical leap to the left that happened on the entire globe at this time.
Combat Corruption : Barefoot Politicians?
Another great achievement of the GPCR was the great campaign against corruption. While a “classic” anti-corruption campaign was done, for many people it was obvious that the problem was rooted somewhere, and couldn't disappear if it wasn't destroyed at its roots.
An idea that was implemented nationwide, was the extension of some principles of the 2-1-3 into the state administration. Not only the cadres, but also the political leadership of the countries would've to participate in labour. It also made easier for the common worker to get involved in national politics, with the creation of many mass organizations affiliated to the Parties, or even with the implementation of some form of multipartism in Czechoslovakia.
A simple idea was proposed, this time not originating from the socialist world, but from small Maoist parties in imperialist countries : make any position of power giving more harm than benefit to the holder. This would ensure that every individual joining a political organization wasn't doing this by profit motive. This Theory of Incorruptibility was drawn from two practices : the practice of Barefoot Doctors and the practice of purges of corrupted people by every incorruptible revolutionary leader, being Robespierre, Cromwell or Stalin. The defenders of this theory argued that profit motive was being eliminated from medicine, and that the life of any politician was hard under an incorruptible leader. Theorizing this would improve the struggle against corruption, by helping to create institutional incorruptibility. And it did : the Soviet Union, using this theory for a 15 years plan against corruption, which was a rising problem before, managed to greatly reduce it.
Public shaming of corrupted politicians. The masses exerced their dictatorship over the political elite.
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All of these events fortified, secured, and to some extent re-established genuine proletarian rule in most parts of the socialist world, overthrew the capitalist roaders within the communist parties and within socialist societies more generally who, consciously or not, were attempting to destroy socialism and bring back capitalism.
The need for a whole series of periodic additional cultural revolutions of that sort occuring throughout the entire period of socialism was envisionned in the mid-70's, when the first GPCR was coming to an end.
The GPCR had less influence in socialist Africa, Middle-East, Cuba and Indochina, due to the already intense antiimperialist struggle in these countries. However, a certain form of Cultural Revolution happened in Indonesia which turned socialist recently, mixed with the “traditional” social revolution socialism always bring. For some GPCR theoricians who agreed with the analysises of the Tricontinental, the GPCR happened in these countries, but the national liberation struggle being the leading trend in these countries, the proletarian rule had no need to be fortified, it had to be established first, the GPCR manifested itself in these countries as a simple quantitative change of the revolutionary practice, while the change was qualitative in other socialist countries.
[1] As it happened in IRL Soviet Union, China, etc...
[2] This really happened. Today, the Naxalite movement, which is a Maoist guerilla, is still active in India, waging the Protracted People's War
[3] Source : https://systemicdisorder.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/prague-spring/
[4] IRL Cuba is well known for its barefoot doctors
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Now, this is finally the end of this update, thank you for reading it entirely. Next time, we will see the glory of the Red Army, again.
You mean, helped its ally?
Well, I have less problems than the actual Soviet Union, as I avoided the disastrous policies of Khrushchev and Brezhnev
I'd love to, but warscore doesn't agree (102 points, why are you doing this to me WS!?)