Image is from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ recent article on Kashmir.
It looks like the spat between India and Pakistan could be dying down, due to a new ceasefire. As of the time of me writing this paragraph, it seems both sides want to maintain it (despite some reports of violations here and there).
Both sides have declared victory, which is completely expected given their mutual political parties and nationalist histories. It’s a little harder to say which side has actually won, as both sides seem to have managed to shoot down aircraft and hit military bases. India has, in my opinion, had the more embarrassing moments, but international conflicts aren’t cringe compilations. I feel no good-will towards Pakistan’s comprador government, but it is at least nice to see Modi knocked down a few pegs. Regardless of the final technical victor, it’s obvious that - if the ceasefire is maintained - who won are the hundreds of millions of people who won’t have to live in fear of dying in nuclear hellfire.
This conflict is a good example of what multipolarity will truly entail. Countries that have been previously limited in their nationalist ambitions by American pressure will now take opportunities to revolt, sometimes against America itself, and sometimes against other countries in their regional neighbourhood. It’s also why, as communists, our goals do not stop at multipolarity; it is merely the establishing act of a new era of agitation against peripheral and semi-peripheral capitalist countries that are forming powerful national bourgeoisie classes as the international American capitalists are forced away.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
This is a big question, and not actually news, but you are all well-read nerds so I figure you can help me out. Why was it that 1700s Europe was able to industrialise and allow capitalism to emerge, but not other societies? What societal structures prevented, say, classical Greece or medieval China or the middle east in the golden age of Islam, from utilising steam power? Why did burghers emerge in Europe as a powerful class? If anyone could point me to some reading about this topic, that would be great.
Also, a fun worldbuilding idea I’ve played with is ancient Rome or Greece undergoing a sort of industrial revolution and utilising steam power. What changes would have to occur for this to happen?
This is a huge topic, with a lot of scholarship and debate within the historical academic community. So for China specifically (it’s a book about why Song dynasty China, despite having a lot of the preconditions for industrialization, didn’t industrialize), probably the best place to start is The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy by Kenneth Pomeranz. I don’t agree with all the conclusions of that monograph but it’s a great first foray into the questions and concerns of this kind of longue durée history. Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century by Giovanni Arrighi makes this argument that the Chinese state was strong enough to stop capital from taking over and that the way capitalism formed in the West is actually rather odd; this is a wonderful book but it requires quite a bit of context, and you might even be better off starting with his more broad account of the rise of capitalism called The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origins of Our Time, which (despite its name) covers around 500 years from the formation of capitalism in Renaissance Italy up to the modern era. Fernand Braudel’s three part Capitalism and Civilisation, from which Arrighi draws a lot of his ideas, is phenomenal but very long and again requires even more familiarity with the historical period.
If you just want a quick summary of all the above, distilled into something quite short but still well done, I’d recommend The Origins of Capitalism and the ‘Rise of the West’ by Eric Mielants. It’s not specifically focused on China, but it does cover the “capitalism requires the state” bit and why capitalism happens in Western Europe and not anywhere else. For some additional counterfactual history of why the West got rich and the East didn’t, I recommend ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age by Andre Gunder Frank and Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam-Power and the Roots of Global Warming by Andreas Malm (this book in particular is important, since it doesn’t cover the larger question of why the West and not China, but it does push back and disprove a lot of Pomeranz’s points about coal power).
You can also check out The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View by Ellen Meiksins Wood for a specific look at how the capitalism virus spread from England to the rest of the world, but she kind of disagrees with a lot of the historians above. A lot of the argument comes down to how you define capitalism and where it starts. Wood would argue that capitalism doesn’t “start” until the agrarian revolution in England, whereas historians like Arrighi and Braudel would place it a bit earlier in the merchant republics of Renaissance Italy and their financialised capital-intensive economies.
shout out to Trump for actually doing the so called white genocide by dislodging Afrikaners from south Africa
We can handle it here, a few more racists is just another drop in the bucket. good for South Africa to be rid of such filth
very funny prank to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment up to a fever pitch and then trick a bunch of boers to emigrate here
Wish they would send them to the polders in netherlands
I’m so uncomfortable with any settler nation importing more (literal) nazis. Also iirc the govt of RSA was yet to confirm they weren’t people suspected of crime
speaking of libya, they seem to be starting again
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/12/un-urges-calm-as-heavy-fire-clashes-erupt-in-libyas-tripoli
Gustavo Petro posted a video on twitter, Some Maoist Lessons, about the chinese revolution and Colombia. Translation in the replies
You killed the man, not the idea
Al-Akhbar analysis of Syrian Al Qaeda regime Millei-style neoliberal economic “reforms.”
To make matters worse, the state-run Syrian Trade Corporation was dismantled, its operations frozen, and its vast inventory liquidated through public auctions. This corporation was a merger of the General Consumer Corporation, the General Corporation for Storage and Marketing, and the General Corporation for the Distribution of Textile Products; it had direct sales links to citizens and state employees in most Syrian cities.
Trade liberalization took center stage, with the government promising to cut tariffs on imports by 60% within a month of its arrival. The administration also made efforts to remove trade and transportation barriers with neighboring Jordan and Turkey. Turkish exports to northern Syria surged to $219 million in January alone, marking a 35.5% year-on-year increase. Cheap Turkish products have now flooded the market and can be seen being bought on the sidewalks at the expense of Syrian goods.
Turkish exports to northern Syria surged to $219 million in January alone, marking a 35.5% year-on-year increase. Cheap Turkish products have now flooded the market and can be seen being bought on the sidewalks at the expense of Syrian goods.
There’s also the question of how these goods are being paid for. I doubt the Turks accept Syrian pounds. Syrians must be accumulating Turkish Lira and other foreign currency debt, or there must be some kind of unconditional transfers with Turkey providing Syria with Lira in exchange for “nothing”.
Kinda wish there was more to read on what’s going on here.
Guarantees a mass fracturing of the jihadist factions and the creation of new ones as the economy deforms into a free-for-all circus, reactionary cartels forming city-state like blocs while more populist rural uprisings bloom as Syrian agriculture is twisted and deflated NAFTA style by Turkish agribusinesses
A bad quarter in Turkey is all it takes for this bullshit to collapse, unless the Saudis and Gulf freaks want to front cash for the entire Syrian economy a la Ukraine-style
they already willing, think it was qatar or saudis pushing to remove sanctions to pay civil servants, explicitly. Loyal peers will get slice of privatization auctions, and they would be like post-ussr russia.
True but that’s more of a one-time payment thing to facilitate the big privatization cash grabs, after it’s done they won’t fund Syria like Ukraine has been funded for three years, Syria will be lucky if it gets even a year worth of funding
After the initial down payment, the Peninsulares will downgrade funding to only their most loyal factions and brigades while dumping the expensive hangers-on
This will have the effect of accelerating the creation of city-state cartels and factional splinter groups
eh, considering how minuscule the salaries were i don’t think it would be even that problematic? like 100 million a year to have local jihadis on call to annoy china/central asia
100 million is nowhere near enough to subdue a country the size of Syria, folks have to remember ISIS wasn’t a hundred millionaire operation, it required billions of dollars to govern one metro-city and several small cities for a couple of years
The Saudis and Gulf tyrants over the last twenty years have pumped tens of billions (alongside US intelligence support) to create these Jihadist groups and these orgs are high maintenance money grubbers
I really try to reiterate to people that ISIS are not religious extremists. They are mercenaries. They take Islam less seriously than all the “moderate” Muslim groups. They drink, do drugs, have sex out of marriage, and breach every law of god constantly. They slaughter good and innocent Muslims for no reason whatsoever.
it is enough to pay civil servants, and tell the rest to adapt to the market or however it was called in 90s russia. (and frankly, if i understand correctly, it’s basically how syrians already lived after sanctions: do some jobs in informal economy, don’t get stopped to be fined)
Without genuine oversight alot of that money will not go to civil servants or civil infrastructure, it’ll be pocketed as Turkish capital deforms both the real and informal Syrian economies
I guess that QoL might increase if the new admin handles liberalization correctly since they are not sanctioned anymore afaik. Although the likely scenario is that they’re gonna get squeezed out of everything by western corpos like Libya.
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/colonial-legacies
another bit about congo from nlrYesterday, the Zionist occupiers assasinated 12 year old Mohammed Bardawil because he was last surviving witness to their massacre of paramedics last month in Gaza.
May they all die soon.
Death to pissreal.
most merciful zioniSSist operation
Al Qaeda emir Jolani meeting with Trump in Riyadh. Reportedly, all sanctions against Syria will be lifted in exchange for complete and total submission to US, including normalizing with israel and expelling all Palestinian resistance factions.
Throwback to 39 years ago when Reagan met leaders from a different wahhabi death cult financed by the Saudis…
I know they have technically been saying it for a decade, but the complete alignment of Western liberals around “Al Qaeda is actually good and the sanctions should go now so Syrians can afford buy bread” is one of those things that is just truly black-pilling.
Syria is now tuked by terrorists that were lapdogs of NATO and Zionazis. New outlets are now reffering to the leader as a “former insurgent”, whitewashing his terrorist past.
Will Canada bring them in for a speech, perhaps?
is the mega broken on sync for anyone else? It just refuses to load even tho i can view other threads fine.
The Zionist baby-killing air force has bombed 3 hospitals in 3 days. There is footage from yesterday’s attack on Gazas European Hospital in which the demons bragged about using massive “bunker buster” bombs.
President of Bolivia, Luis Arce, declines his candidacy for the August presidential elections.
- Telesur English
Thank god get this traitor fuck out of here
Arce explained that this decision stems from his conviction not to be a factor of division within the Movement for Socialism (MAS) and the popular camp, and from the need to consolidate a united front that defends the Plurinational State and social achievements.
The president called on all leftist sectors and leaders to take responsibility in closing ranks around the candidate with the greatest chance of advancing, prioritizing the political program above any individual interest. He highlighted that only through maximum unity will it be possible to deepen the revolution and confront the fascist and imperialist threats aiming to destabilize Bolivia.
With his decision to decline candidacy, Arce announced he will fully dedicate himself to government management, urging the Plurinational Legislative Assembly to approve pending laws, especially international loans vital for the country’s development.
Honestly, shout out to Arce here. I don’t the Morales power struggle arose out of anything more personal than their belief that they were each best fit to lead the project of building Bolivian socialism. I never thought Arce was a comprador or a stooge (though the self-coup was a move), and this is the move an honest comrade would make at this moment.
Arce sicked the police on unionists and indigenous groups. Fuck him forever he is a traitor indeed. Why didn’t he step down during the nationwide protests calling for him to step down instead of using the state to violently kill and beat them? If he was an honest comrade he should have killed himself in shame
I wonder if that means he’s going to support Andrónico Rodríguez for president and Evo Morales as the VP?
The ticket could also be Andronico President and David Choquehuanca as VP (again), which was supposed to be the 2020 ticket before Evo intervened and basically forced MAS to accept Arce as the Presidential candidate.
It has been a punishing period for UnitedHealth, starting in December when executive Brian Thompson was targeted outside of a New York City hotel and killed. While unrelated to the financial operations of the $340 billion healthcare giant, its shares have tumbled severely since the attack.
UnitedHealth cut its 2025 forecast last month following its first quarterly earnings miss in more than a decade. On Tuesday the company withdrew that financial forecast entirely, saying that medical costs from new Medicare Advantage members were higher than expected.
Shares of UnitedHealth, which have plummeted 38% since the deadly Dec. 4 ambush of Thompson in midtown Manhattan, fell more than 16% Tuesday to levels last seen almost five years ago.
Other big insurers tumbled as well, with Elevance, Humana and Cigna falling between 4% and 7%.
There are many factors that have caused companies to lose value in the last few months, I am curious where UHC would be without this killing though. It’s interesting that they saw their first quarterly earnings miss in over ten years. It’s hard not to assume that Thompson’s death contributed to the company’s current issues directly.
While unrelated to the financial operations of the $340 billion healthcare giant, its shares have tumbled severely since the attack.
Their shareholders are literally suing them for overreacting to the assassination lol
BURKINA FASO-VENEZUELA MEETUP IN RUSSIA
This year’s Victory Day celebrations in Moscow looked less like a standard show of military might and more like a summit of the unbowed, bringing together leaders from Africa, Asia and the Americas, signalling that the age of a one‑pole world is fading.
Burkina Faso President Ibrahim Traoré and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who expressed admiration for the Pan-Africanist revolution taking place in Burkina Faso, whose name means ‘the land of upright [people].’ Both men recognised the role of the West in subjugating the Global South. Maduro has faced several regime change attempts, such as through the West backing US-linked Venezuelan right-wing interventionist Juan Guaidó.
On the other hand, Burkina Faso’s government has confirmed seven coup attempts since Traoré took power following a successful people-backed coup d’état. Both Maduro and Traoré have pursued pro-people policies. For instance, Maduro has championed social spending and initiatives like constructing homes for low-income families. In Burkina Faso, Traoré is building factories and gold processing facilities and modernising agriculture. Plus, Burkina Faso is building the all-too-important anti-imperialist confederation of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) alongside Mali and Niger, a step toward continental unity
Bolivia: Luis Arce Surprisingly Abandons Presidential Race, Preaches Leftist Unity - agenzianova
The decision follows a long history of divisions within the Movement for Socialism (MAS)
Article
The President of Bolivia, Luis Arce, has announced that he will not run for office again in the elections scheduled for August 17. The decision, made public a few hours before registration for the presidential race opened, follows a long path of divisions within the Movement for Socialism (MAS), the party that has governed the country almost uninterruptedly for over 20 years. “Today I make known to the Bolivian people with absolute firmness my decision to withdraw my candidacy for the presidential elections next August,” Arce said, calling for unity in his political party, to prevent the “fascist project” designed to “destroy the plurinational state” from winning. The appeal was especially directed at his predecessor, who was once a political ally, Evo Morales, who is seeking a new mandate despite the various legal impediments certified by the Constitutional Court. “From this stage I challenge former President Evo Morales not to insist on being a candidate for the presidency,” he said.
An economist, 61 years old, Arce has also long been responsible for a social and economic crisis in the country that has brought his government’s approval ratings to their lowest levels in years. The crisis in the availability of the dollar, which the Central Bank has kept tied to a relatively stable exchange rate with the Bolivian for years, and the poor supply of fuel, crucial in a country whose structure makes road transport dominant, are at the root of numerous social protests, often resulting in prolonged closures of the main roads. A poll in view of the presidential elections, published at the end of March by the company Captura, assigned Arce about 1 percent of the preferences.
The hope of the incumbent president is that the unity of the left-wing forces, once united in the MAS and now divided into three segments, can be recomposed. In addition to those of Morales and Arce, who was for a long time Minister of Finance in the governments of the “cocalero” leader, there is in fact a third front that refers to Andronicus Rodriguez, president of the Senate who surprisingly launched his candidacy in recent days, when the head of state was still in the running. A decision that had opened controversy for the possible further fragmentation of the vote, but which today, in light of Morales’ renunciation, could be less serious. The political fracture between Arce and Morales, the former considered distant from the leftist values proclaimed by the latter, has led over time to the division of the MAS into two blocks, both in parliament and in the country, protagonists of intense political and legal clashes. Lastly, in November 2024, Evo was ousted from the party he had led for 27 years, forcing him to take refuge in a new political force – Evo Pueblo – which proclaims total distance from the MAS.
Morales has theoretically exhausted the maximum limit of presidential mandates recognized by the Constitution, having also lost a referendum that he had called precisely to overcome the obstacle, but he does not intend to give up the race, denouncing a maneuver against him orchestrated by the right. The indigenous leader is also the protagonist of a delicate judicial affair: accused of sexual violence against minors and human trafficking, he is the subject of an arrest warrant that has been evading for months, sheltered by his most loyal supporters in the region of Cochabamba, which has always been his political and electoral bastion. Not infrequently, protests against the government’s actions have been confused with clashes between supporters of Arce and those of Morales, a leader whom the president accuses of wanting to act only to prolong his political trajectory to the detriment of the interests of the people.
