State and repression (2026)

From the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

In December 2025 a military court in Yekaterinburg sentenced five members of a Leninist study circle including a pensioner, from Ufa, the capital and largest city of Bashkortostan, Russia, to between sixteen and twenty-two years in prison. Their activity was as a study group specifically reading Lenin’s State and Revolution. No acts were committed or violence planned, but they were sentenced for terrorism and plotting a coup. Thought alone was treated as a seditious act.

In the US at Texas A&M University, a philosophy professor was barred from teaching Plato because he allegedly advocated particular views on race and gender. Two-thousand-year-old texts, including Aristophanes’ myth of the split humans and Diotima’s reflections on love, are no longer permitted to be read . Students were treated not as thinkers but as ideologically empty vessels.

Two hundred courses in the Texas A&M University College of Arts and Sciences have been flagged or cancelled by university leaders for gender or race-related content as the university undertakes its review of all course syllabi, faculty members told Inside Higher Ed. This review is required as per new rules instituted by the university Board of Regents after conservatives waged a harassment campaign against faculty members who taught race or gender-related subjects.

As Gyorgy Lukacs wrote, ‘Ideology functions effectively only so long as it remains unconscious of itself.’ When ideology is exposed, it must be defended by force or ritual. Lenin had observed that ‘the State is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another.’ Both the Russian state and the university act to preserve the dominance of the master class, only telling truth when it’s convenient.

Plato’s dialectical method encourages dialogue, reflection, and contradiction. Gramsci noted in the Prison Diaries that the master class secures dominance by shaping civil society and consent. The repression of readers and students prevents the proletariat from thinking independently and undermining hegemonic authority.

Such systems do not defend meaning. They defend the conditions of their own performance. They are nihilistic not because they believe in nothing but because they cannot tolerate the process by which meaning is made.

Paranoid ideology and its violent political theatre

A woman was shot in the head three times by an agent of the United States in front of her wife. This was violent ideological theatre, not law enforcement. On January 7 in Minneapolis an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, a poet and a U.S. citizen, during a federal immigration enforcement operation that had already brought thousands of armed agents into the city.

The federal response was instantaneous and unapologetic. Homeland Security officials and President Trump rushed to frame the killing as a response to ‘domestic terror’ and defend the agent’s actions as self-defence, claiming Good ‘weaponised’ her vehicle and tried to run down officers. Local officials, video evidence, and human rights groups reject that narrative; footage and eyewitness accounts show her attempting to drive away, not attack, and the domestic terror label has no basis in law. The FBI immediately seized control of the investigation and cut out Minnesota state investigators, deepening mistrust and raising fears of a cover-up. The killing has sparked large protests in Minneapolis and solidarity demonstrations nationwide, and it has intensified debate over ICE, federal power, and accountability in law enforcement.

The political response to this isn’t a botched PR afterthought like the Met’s handling of the Mark Duggan or Jean-Charles de Menezes shootings, where Blair and Cameron let police take the heat and preserved an appearance of separation of powers. This is different. Trump and his cabinet turned a street killing into ideological propaganda, weaponising it against large parts of the working class and their allies, and signalling that dissent and community defence will be cast as terrorism. That escalation, and the fact that a significant slice of U.S. society is willing to accept these justifications without evidence, tells us something grim about the shape of social conflict under Trump’s second term, conditions that eerily echo the pre-Civil War debates over Bleeding Kansas, where political violence became embedded in national policy and identity.

A.T.

A tale of two futures (2006)

From Issue 20 of the World Socialist Review

As the name implies, socialism is based on what is social. More particularly, it is based on democratic social interaction of people collectively creating the kind of world they envision. It is the antithesis of the anti-social economic system of capitalism based solely on the cold acquisition of profits. Social needs that are met under capitalism are either highly profitable or incidental byproducts. Unfortunately, the quest for the almighty dollar knows no bounds and is seriously taxing our ecological systems. Capitalism puts the cart before the horse, making everything subservient to profit acquisition. With respect to our community green-space, from an aesthetic as well as a biological perspective, this has taken on absurdly rapacious proportions.

Silt, Spaniards & Mosquitoes

The Texas Gulf Coast, where I grew up, does not rest on the continental shelf along with about half of the state itself. Rather, the land mass is the result of billions of years of oceanic inundations of silt. When the Spaniards first explored the Texas Gulf Coast, it was inhabited by the Karankawa Indians, who were known to be semi-cannibalistic and to smear their bodies down with alligator brains as a method of mosquito repellant. Anyone who has ever spent the night in Galveston during one of those rare times when there was no wind would wholly understand the Karankawa’s resort to such drastic mosquito repellants.

I grew up in Houston, but spent a considerable part of my youth as a beach bum in Galveston, Freeport, and Matagorda. Texas beaches have always held a special charm for this writer. They have a special uniqueness in comparison to other beaches I’ve visited. As a hippie youth in the 70s, a group of us would frequently camp out all night on the coast, build bonfires at night and enjoy the wind, sun, and warm surf during the day. The few trinket shops, stores, and eating establishments were ancient Mom ’n Pop businesses or seafood restaurants with historical associations.

The beaches remained fairly free of commercialization. As well, the drive between Houston and Galveston’s beautiful skyline was once a trek fairly bereft of commercial clutter or palpable habitation of any sort, save the wildlife in the region.

Texas Chain Store Massacre

Sadly, this is no longer so. Most of the once pristine and free beaches are now filled with chain stores and commercial establishments, beaches that require payment for use, and the ever-present police. In short, the beaches have become commodified and regulated, no longer the free-access areas they once were. If driving between Houston and Galveston was once a trip through the country, it is now barely discernible where Houston ends and Galveston begins. Endless miles of asphalt, strip-malls, service stations and Wal-Marts make for monotonous eye-space. In other parts of Texas, capitalist developers have ruined age-old parks and community spaces, including many of the wooded areas near Austin. Expensive condos and housing subdivisions are now commonplace. Even within cities such as Houston where old neighborhoods once had beautiful old houses at modest rent rates, and huge oak trees canopied the streets, now stand only monstrous condominiums. Obliterated are the unique old homes, the ancient live oaks and the tangible charm of the neighborhood: all sacrificed to the profit initiative.

From an aesthetic standpoint, this trend sucks blatantly. Add to this the impact on biological species other than our own. Growing up on the outskirts of Houston, there were still cow pastures, huge open fields in which we flew kites and played ball. There was a ubiquitous species of frog that was found nowhere in the world except that part of Texas. Now, due to mindless capitalist expansion, few open fields or cow-pastures exist. Even sadder, the species of frog indigenous to that region is almost extinct. I recall seeing hundreds of them hopping around after a fresh rain.

It saddens this writer to know such wonders are falling to the unfeeling blade of profiteering. To ruin a beautiful patch of land, that took billions of years of oceanic inundations to create, with the construction of a Wal-Mart or a McDonald’s is symptomatic of Capitalist values. No reverence is paid to nature’s wonders: the magic of a sunrise on the beach, the sound of the wind and the waves, nor the discovery of sand dollars and starfish strewn along the shores. Its vision is limited to the quest for profit.

Only the social organization of the world based on true human values can protect and preserve these ecological treasures. Capitalism can never preserve the natural state of the earth when doing so would stand in the way of profit. We must create a social system that will stem the capitalist trajectory toward ecocide. The establishment of socialism is the only solution to this critical problem.

— KG

Politics, Poverty and Gods (2011)

The Halo Halo! column from the October 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

To keep the world ticking over, it seems, God occasionally needs a little help from believers with political clout.

Although, as we are told, God is all-powerful and all-knowing and should therefore be quite capable of identifying problems and sorting them out by himself, the US Presidential hopeful Rick Perry decided recently that a couple of things needed to be brought urgently to God’s attention, namely the state of the economy, and America’s declining moral standards.

The way to go about this is, apparently, a seven-hour, 30,000-strong rally of prayer and fasting. Those attending and praying for God’s intervention to halt America’s national decline included anti-gay and anti-abortion campaigners, Christian bikers and soccer moms (whatever they are).  Gay relationships and abortion are two issues which Perry is passionate about.  “There is hope for America,” he told them all. “It lies in heaven, and we will find it on our knees”.

His attempts to get God’s attention have not always been particularly successful. In April, he announced a three-day vigil of prayer to end the drought in Texas. But Texas is still suffering its worst drought since 1895. Perry, however, is undeterred. Demonstrating the kind of political oratory that made America what it is he went on, “The nation that forgets God is turned into hell”.

“Father,” he pleaded, “Our heart breaks for America. We see discord at home. We see fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of Government, and as a nation we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us, and for that we cry out for your forgiveness”.

How effective the praying will be in kick-starting the economy we don’t know, but as for the fasting part of the operation, well, the burger and other fast-food stands were said to have done a roaring trade. Fasting is obviously very hungry work.

Meanwhile in Somalia where the fasting is not just a voluntary stunt, Allah’s interests are being looked after by the Islamist al-Shabaab insurgent group which controls most of the southern part of the country.

As if poverty and famine were not enough for the people to cope with, al Shabaab have been carrying out amputations and stonings of alleged criminals, enforcing mosque attendance, denying that there is a famine and banning aid groups including the UN World Food Programme. Numerous humanitarian workers and local journalists have been killed.

According to the New York Times on 17 August, while this is going on tens of thousands of Somalis are dying and as much as half the food aid delivered is going missing. Al-Shabaab, though, are ensuring that the people’s morals are not corrupted by the West. They have banned the baking and eating of samosas, a local food item, because they are a Christian symbol.

Forget about religion being the heart of a heartless world. Life (and death) here must be sheer hell.

NW

How Henry Ford Smashes Trade Unions (1940)

From the August 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

[The following article, from the “Nation,” New York, May 4th, 1940, throws light on the attitude towards Trade Unions shown by Henry Ford in the U.S.A.] 

The Ford Reich

Labour-union organisations are the worst thing that every struck the earth because they take away a man’s independence.— From “Ford Gives Viewpoint on Labour,” a booklet distributed in Ford plants.

In June, 1937, “Fats” Perry, then a trusted employee of the Ford plant at Dallas, was assigned to special work of a confidential, and strenuous, nature. On the twenty-third he informed his Superiors that two C.I.O. organisers were on their way from Kansas City. A few hours later two representatives of the United Automobile Workers of America arrived in town and went to a drugstore near the plant frequented by Ford workers. Several Ford workers introduced themselves. Three of them were stool pigeons, and one hurried across to the plant to report the presence of the organisers. Another sought out "Fats” Perry. “ I walked over there,” Perry later testified at the Labour Board hearing, “and one of the boys says, ‘There they stand back there ’ . . . . I heard them say something about Kansas City. I walked up and listened a few minutes . . . and I said, 'Who was talking so much about Kansas City? ’ He says, ‘ I was talking to some of my friends.’ I said, 'You are a union organiser, aren’t you? ’ He said, ‘If you call it that.’ He says, ‘ I am trying to line some of the boys up.’ I said, ‘ You line up out of that door before I throw you out.’ ”

One of the organisers, after being knocked down by the 226-pound “Fats” Perry, managed to escape. The other, a small man, was knocked down and carried out to a waiting car.   An unidentified man in a Ford Motor Company official car,” according to the N.L.R.B. trial examiner’s report, "drove up and told the group who had Guempelein (the organiser) to take him down by the schoolhouse and 'beat hell out of him.’ ” They did.

Perry had a squad of beefy fellows, most of whom had been members of the Ford plant’s champion tug-of-war team. They were paid regular wages but assigned special work. They kept their ears open. They “made the rounds of cafes, domino parlours, barber shops, and similar places in the outlying districts of Dallas.” They were equipped with "persuaders”—blackjacks, pistols, whips, lengths of hose. When not in use these “persuaders,” according to the trial examiner, were kept in the desk of the man who was head of the Ford service department in Dallas. The word "service” has interesting connotations in a Ford plant.

On July 3rd, Baron De Louis, the U.A.W.A. organiser from Kansas City who had managed to escape from Perry and his helpers in the encounter of June 23rd, returned to Dallas. Through a friend in Dallas, De Louis arranged an appointment with a Ford employee. The employee at once notified the Ford office of the meeting. Perry’s service squad was on hand and administered another beating. The squad was kept very busy that July. “On one occasion in mid-July,” according to the trial examiner’s findings, “Rutland (general body foreman at the Dallas plant) received word that two of the company employees had made some pro-union remarks while on a fishing trip He arranged to have them kidnapped by the strong-arm squad, taken into the country, questioned, and dealt with by that group.” On another occasion in July several men suspected of union sympathies, were ambushed at the home of a stool pigeon and beaten. On July 10th every member of the “service” squad was given a picture of W. J. Houston, Dallas attorney, who had acted for the U.A.W.A. An organised search for him was begun. He was located in a drugstore, where he was having a cup of coffee with a friend. One member of the group engaged him in conversation while the others assembled at the soda fountain. As Houston started to leave, he was attacked, knocked down, and severely beaten before police arrived. “Fats” Perry testified that Rutland was pleased. ”He [Rutland] said, ‘I heard you picked up Mr. Houston down there.’ I said, ‘Yes, they picked him up and like to beat him to death.’ He said, ‘That is a good job then. Maybe that will learn him to listen.’ ”

The service squad was thorough. On August 2nd an assistant foreman from the Kansas City plant was in Dallas on a vacation trip. He visited the Dallas office. When he came out, he found Perry and his subordinates waiting for him. They took him for a ride. He succeeded in proving that he was a foreman and anti-union. Perry then drove him back to town, ”shook hands . . . and wished him well.” A travelling salesman who had expressed sympathy for the union had a brother, an identical twin. He was beaten so badly on August 4th, 1937, that he never recovered his health. He died of pneumonia a few months later. The squad did not confine its activities to the automobile industry. On August 6th or 7th, according to the findings of the trial examiner, the general body foreman at Dallas called Perry in and told him “he had received a call from the City Hall police station, telling him that there was a union organiser in town who had been giving them trouble. . . .” The organiser was George Baer, an official of the United Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers. Some of the boys picked Baer up outside a millinery house, knocked him unconscious, took him to the outskirts of town, and beat him up. When Perry arrived, "they greeted Perry with the statement that Baer was . . .  'in pretty bad shape. You better come look at him.' . . . They found Earl Johnson (one of the ”service” men) sitting on Baer on the floor of the car, with one knee in his stomach and the other on his head. Baer’s eye had been knocked out of its socket. Blood covered his face, his nose was smashed, his head was bleeding, and his teeth had been knocked out.” Perry testified, “I said, 'Well, you had better get rid of him. You better put him somewhere.’ And Buster Bevill suggested, ‘Let’s take the son of a bitch down and throw him in the river.' I said, 'No, we couldn’t do that.’ So we drove down the highway a ways and drove up in a field and throwed him out.”

These were some of the methods used by the Ford Motor Company to encourage workers in Dallas to do their bargaining individually. The facts set down here are taken from the record of hearings before the National Labour Relations Board of the Sixteenth Region.

Deep in the Heart of Texas (1948)

From the August 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the many despised racial minorities in the United States are the Mexicans. Many of them are actually American citizens, descendants of those who happened to be on the spot when the United States extended its frontier to the Rio Grande after the Mexican War.

During recent years, however, many Mexicans have taken to migrating across the border into the U.S.A. to work for Southern farmers and planters, mainly as cotton pickers and also to help in the harvesting of seasonal crops like vegetables. They have usually been hired on a contract basis, returning to Mexico after the harvesting has been completed, although a small minority have remained as semi-permanent residents.

The Mexican Government has always kept a watchful and jealous eye on these workers and during the war was able to take advantage of the labour shortage to insist upon certain minimum conditions for them, which the farmers were forced to accept. Realising that it has still got the economic whip-hand, the Mexican Government has now thrown the farmers into a panic by announcing that it henceforth intends to forbid the entrance of Mexican workers into the United States unless Texas (one of the chief states involved) suspends social, educational, and economic discrimination against Mexicans and Mexican Americans in 38 specified school districts.

Says the American correspondent of the Manchester Guardian (6/7/48), obviously enjoying the joke:

“Thus compelled by a foreign Government to live up to the Declaration of Independence, which  Texans have been celebrating as lustily as any other group of Americans, the Texas Cotton Ginners’ Association has promised to go around every one of these districts and persuade farmers and business men of the beauties of tolerance.”

Extra humour is added to the situation, the correspondent points out, because this crusade to impress upon Texas farmers, the virtues of racial tolerance happens to coincide with the Democratic Party’s Convention at Philadelphia which is meeting to decide whether to run President Truman for a second term of office. Truman, who always seems to be dropping bricks, somewhere, has dropped yet another by submitting to Congress a series of laws against racial discrimination. Having done this without apparently first finding out what the rest of the Democratic Party thought about it, he has now asked them to incorporate these laws into their electoral programme. Unfortunately for Mr. Truman, all the Democrats, particularly the Southern Democrats, are very far from seeing eye to eye with him on this issue, and the whole Party has been set into a ferment. As for the Texas delegation, which represents among others the interests of the cotton growers, and other big farmers, they must be suffering from an even bigger headache than the rest. What are they to do? Renounce their prejudices and save their crops or stand by their prejudices and run the risk of losing their crops?

Life must indeed appear hard to the racialist when he has to choose between his pocket and his prejudices.

Stan Hampson