TO THE EDITOR:
I am a communist, a devoted member of the Democratic-Socialists-of-America, and have a tattoo of the hammer-and-sickle. I also have a major problem with Stalinist memes.
There are a portion of socialists who cling to the bureaucratic, undemocratic deformed USSR even after their brutality and suppression of socialist uprisings in Hungary in 56’ and Czechoslovakia in 68’. I suggest reading Ted Grant’s “Hungary and the Crisis in the Communist Party”.
Stalinist memes are extremely unrepresentative of socialism today. There have always be those who make Marx’s theories a bastardized religion – un-nuanced, dogmatic and frankly anti-Marxian. It’s sad that though many folks know the names of the admittedly wicked Stalin and Mao, so few know the names of Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Victor Serge, Eugene Debs, James Connolly, Antonio Gramsci and Anton Pannekoek. The hammer-and-sickle represents them also. We mustn’t forget that Albert Einstein, MLK, Helen Keller, Oscar Wilde, Malala Yousafzai, George Orwell, and Nelson Mandela are all socialists.
Nevertheless most of these Stalinist memesters are isolated homebodies. They exist almost exclusively on the internet – much like the alt-right. Socialists believe in democracy and freedom in the economic sphere and eliminating the inequality that has the top 1 percent of Americans owning 40 percent of the wealth, combating global-warming and making automation and technological advancements work for ALL, not just the few.
I invite you to pick-up a copy of Jacobin/Viewpoint/Dissent magazine, check out the Carolina-Young-Democratic-Socialists on Facebook, message us and come out to a meeting. Solidarity.
Daniel Cail
Music Composition
Junior
