In December 1998, Fidel Castro addressed the VII Congress of the Union of Young Communists in Havana, Cuba, a year after the catastrophic “market failure” in Asia, when global finance deserted the region, leaving deserted economies stretching from Korea to Malaysia . “The world is globalizing rapidly,” Castro told Cuban youth, and this globalization is “an untenable and intolerable world economic order” based on the cannibalism of nature and the brutalization of social life. Capitalist ideologues defend greed as the basis of society, but this, Castro warned, is nothing more than an ideological statement, not a statement based on reality. Similar ideological claims—pertaining to the rational functioning of markets, for example—encouraged Castro to insist on the urgent need to wage a “battle of ideas” to defend the richness of human experience against the limitations of market fundamentalism.
“It’s not the guns; It is the ideas that will decide this universal struggle,” said Fidel, “and it is not the ideas because of their intrinsic value, but because they adapt to the objective realities of today’s world. They are ideas based on the belief that the world has no other way out mathematically, that imperialism is unsustainable, that the system they have imposed on the world is leading them to catastrophe, to an insurmountable crisis.”
That was in 1998. Since then, the situation has become even more serious. In late January, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists set the doomsday clock at 90 seconds to midnight, “the closest it has ever been to a global catastrophe.” The self-appointed managers of the “world order” (the G7 countries) responsible for this journey towards annihilation continue to dominate the battle of ideas. We can no longer allow this.
Shehi Shafi (Young Socialist Artists/India), Read Marx [Leer a Marx]2023
I am writing these words from the Casa de las Américas in Havana, Cuba, which is a home to the arts and culture of not just Cuba but all of Latin America. Founded in 1959 by Haydée Santamaría (1923-1980), one of the pioneers of the Cuban Revolution, the Casa became a benchmark for the need to advance the class struggle on the cultural front. For Fidel, institutions like the Casa, with which we collaborate on our dossier Ten Theses on Marxism and Decolonization, are an essential part of this clash of ideas, this confrontation with a vision of reality contrary to human progress. “Ideas are not just a tool to raise people’s awareness of the struggle,” Fidel told the youth in 1998. not in an inspiration, not in a guide, not in an orientation, but in the main instrument of the struggle”. As he so often did, he quoted José Martí, the great Cuban patriot: “The ditches of ideas are worth more than the ditches of stones.”
In our dossier, thesis eight dealt with the erosion of collective life. There we stopped:
I am writing these words from the Casa de las Américas in Havana, Cuba, which is a home to the arts and culture of not just Cuba but all of Latin America. Founded in 1959 by Haydée Santamaría (1923-1980), one of the pioneers of the Cuban Revolution, the Casa became a benchmark for the need to advance the class struggle on the cultural front. For Fidel, institutions like the Casa, with which we collaborate on our dossier Ten Theses on Marxism and Decolonization, are an essential part of this clash of ideas, this confrontation with a vision of reality contrary to human progress. “Ideas are not just a tool to raise people’s awareness of the struggle,” Fidel told the youth in 1998. not in an inspiration, not in a guide, not in an orientation, but in the main instrument of the struggle”. As he so often did, he quoted José Martí, the great Cuban patriot: “The ditches of ideas are worth more than the ditches of stones.”
In our dossier, thesis eight dealt with the erosion of collective life. There we stopped:
Neoliberal globalization eliminated the meaning of collective life and deepened the desperation of atomization through two interrelated processes:
The collapse of societal collectivity and the rise of consumption amplifies despair, which translates into different types of withdrawal symptoms. Two examples of this are: a) withdrawing into family networks, which cannot withstand the burden of the loss of social services, the growing burden of care work in the family and the ever longer travel and working hours; b) the transition to forms of social toxicity through routes such as religion or xenophobia. Although these pathways offer ways to organize collective life, they are not organized for human progress but to limit social opportunity.
Red Books Day, a gesture to save collective lives, emerged from the International Union of Left-wing Publishers (UIEI), a network of more than forty publishers. On February 21, 1848, 175 years ago, Marx and Engels published the Communist Manifesto. UIAL chose this day, February 21st, to encourage people around the world to go to public places, from the streets to cafes and union halls, and read their favorite red books (including the Manifesto) in their own language.
Paolo C. Ratti (Italy), Lapidary Free, 2023.
In 2020, more than 30,000 people from South Korea to Venezuela attended the public reading of the Communist Manifesto in their own language. The epicenter of Red Book Day was in the four Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, where the bulk of the public readings took place. No doubt Bharati Puthakalam and the Tamil Nadu State Secretariat of the Communist Party of India (Marxists) organized most of the events, from a morning reading of the Manifesto under the Statue of Labor in Chennai Marina to evening readings in the Union Halls. Peasant organizations affiliated with the Communist Party of Nepal held readings in rural areas, while Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST) held readings in occupied settlements; in Havana, study groups met to read the Communist Manifesto, while in South Africa it was first presented and read in Sesotho. Left-wing publishers such as Expressão Popular (Brazil), Batalla de Ideas (Argentina) and Inkani Books (South Africa) also joined the effort. Many people pointed out that they were opening a book by Marx for the first time and were excited to read his captivating prose; This has prompted them to set up circles to study Marxist literature.
Due to the pandemic, Red Book Day 2021 was largely celebrated online. The enthusiasm remained great. Založba Publishing House (Slovenia) released a film called Dan rdečih knjig [Día de los Libros Rojos] This included having its authors read the manifesto, while Yordam Kitap (Turkey) asked its authors to read it in Turkish and organizing a conversation with Ertuğrul Kürkçü, the leader of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), about the communist manifesto became. Small social distancing gatherings were held in Kerala, where the manifesto was read in Malayalam and English, and in Brazil, where MST fighters organized readings in camps. No corner of India was short of Red Book Day events, from readings in Assam to public events in Karnataka to book discussions in Tamil Nadu.
Yoni Lingga (Indonesia), I read banned books [Yo leo libros prohibidos]2023
The highlight of Red Books Day 2022 was half a million people in Kerala reading EMS Namboodiripad books at 35,000 gatherings across the state. Several schools in Perinthalmanna (Malappuram) held a three-day book festival entitled The Battle of Literature in the Prohibition Era during the Purogamana Kala Sahitya Sangham [Asociación de Arte y Literatura Progresista] hosted programs across Kerala. At the Vijaywada Book Festival, Prajasakti Publishing House hosted a popular Communist Manifesto bookstall, while evening classes reminiscent of the early days of the peasant movement were held in the villages of Maharashtra.
Readings took place in Indonesia and Turkey, Brazil and Venezuela. Films were shown and music was sung. Social media was flooded with Red Book Day hashtags in multiple languages. The South African homeless movement Abahlali baseMjondolo organized a talent show at the eKhenana occupation centre. “The price of land and autonomy is always paid in blood. But the struggle is not just a shared suffering. It is also shared joy,” the organization explained.
Zach Hussein (Palestine/USA), We have a world to win [Tenemos un mundo por ganar]2022.
At sunset on Red Book Day 2022, members of the neo-fascist organization RSS entered the home of Punnol Haridas, a member of the Indian Communist Party (Marxist), in Thalassery, Kerala. Haridas, a fisherman, was hacked to death. “Today I had to write about my favorite red book,” wrote V. Sivadasan, MP and CPI(M) leader, “but I ended up writing about my comrade who was hacked to death by RSS terrorists.”
In 2023, the fourth edition of Red Books Day promises to continue the previous ones and fight to save our collective lives from the atomization of precariousness.
Last week, a powerful earthquake struck Turkey and Syria, killing more than 30,000 people so far, displacing millions in the region and leaving them vulnerable. In Syria, US-imposed sanctions have delayed the delivery of critical international aid. Many people also believe that the high death toll is a result of the Turkish state’s negligence. After the devastation caused by the 1999 Gölcük-Marmara earthquake, an “earthquake tax” was introduced, raising nearly $4 billion between July 1999 and July 2022. They were used for rescue services and security measures. In an attempt to save collective life at this terrible moment, the HDP’s Ertuğrul Kürkçü called for “transforming earthquake solidarity into a social movement” against the prevailing neoliberal system. If you would like to donate to relief efforts, you can do so here.
In today’s world, on one side are the red books and the urge to push the boundaries of humanity and left-wing culture; on the other side violence and bloodshed, the hideous side of barbarism. Red Book Day affirms the culture of the future, the culture of humanity. It is a decisive front in the battle of ideas.
Source: https://thetricontinental.org/es/newsletterissue/7-libros-rojos-2023/