September 1, 2025
Joel Wendland-Liu reviews Armed Struggle?, Gerald Horne's exploration of the state violence and repression that were successfully employed to demolish the Black Panther Party and its influence throughout the 1960s and '70s. Though Horne's recounting, Wendland-Liu writes, we can take powerful lessons about the roles of race and class in the militant drive toward liberation.
September 1, 2025
"Assume a ship under the command of a mad captain headed for certain shipwreck. What would freedom mean to the people on board?" asked MR cofounder Paul M. Sweezy in this previously unpublished discussion piece. "There can hardly be any doubt about the answer…the essence of freedom for the people on the ship is the ability to control their collective fate."
July 1, 2025
Inspired by the Venezuelan project of building socialism via the commune, this special issue looks at attempts to use communal models in socialist projects in a range of different contexts, as well as the theoretical bases for such an endeavor. In their introduction, guest editors Chris Gilbert and Cira Pascual argue that the theme of Communes in Socialist Construction is an important opportunity for engaged Marxist reflection of a kind that offers valuable contributions to the universal body of socialist thought.
July 1, 2025
Ángel Prado, a founder of El Maizal Commune and Minister of Communes since 2024, discusses Venezuela's communal project as both a response to urgent material needs and a long-term strategy for building socialism. Drawing on his experience as a grassroots organizer, he explores how communes are structured, how they relate to the state, and how they embody a vision of popular power. He also reflects on the need for unity within the Chavista movement.
July 1, 2025
Prabhat and Utsa Patnaik consider the historical views of the relationship between the proletariat and peasantry during the revolutionary transition to socialism and struggle against imperialism. While other thinkers have suggested that alliances between the two groups must be shed in order to complete the revolution, the Patnaiks propose a framework of voluntary cooperatization benefiting all.
July 1, 2025
João Pedro Stedile, founder and spokesperson of Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement (MST), reflects on the movement's efforts to build a socialist alternative through land occupations, cooperative production, and political education. He highlights the importance of collective struggle and the MST's deepening ties with Venezuela's communal movement as part of a broader project to construct a just and solidarious society.
July 1, 2025
"To tell the history of resistance," Roberta Traspadini writes, "we need to investigate the territories where people live their daily lives." Using both historical analysis and contemporary data, Roberta Traspadini reveals the importance of Brazilian Quilombola communities as local sites of struggle against colonialism, capitalism, and imperialism. These quilombagem, she argues, reveal the revolutionary legacy that persists among the most marginalized in Brazilian society.
July 1, 2025
Through a detailed exploration of the impacts of collective farming on local soils, Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro engages in key questions around the past and present of communal agricultural production. These insights shed light on not only specific projects, but future considerations for communal farming, framed by the dialectical relationship of nature and society.
July 1, 2025
Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson outlines the ongoing projects and objectives of the Mississippi-based collective Cooperation Jackson. Akuno enumerates the many ways Cooperation Jackson has worked toward improving material conditions and building dual power in support of the Black working and peasant classes in the Mississippi Delta region.
July 1, 2025
Sit Tsui and Lau Kin Chi elucidate the history of China's People's Communes as told through the lens of three present-day rural villages. In these villages, they observe the effects of the project's dismantling and diminishing collective ownership and land management, with the conclusion that a return to collectivism is vital for carrying forward the socialist project.