6
Dispatch → Bulletin → News
The Red St★r Volume 8 Issue 1
News Service of The Leftist Assembly Vol. 8 · Iss. 1
Comrade Quotes
Down with this fraud! Down with the liars who are talking of freedom and equality for all, while there is an oppressed sex, while there are oppressor classes, while there is private ownership of capital, of shares, while there are the well-fed with their surplus of bread who keep the hungry in bondage. Not freedom for all, not equality for all, but a fight against the oppressors and exploiters, the abolition of every possibility of oppression and exploitation-that is our slogan!
Freedom and equality for the oppressed sex!
- V. Lenin, Soviet Power and the Status of Women, 1919
Hello Comrades,
Welcome to issue Eight of the Red Star! I am proud to announce the new edition with the new General Assembly, as per tradition of the Red Star.
It is now post election season, and I do welcome our new General Assembly! Congratulations to all those elected, and a good show to all those who did not make it. This election marked the highest number of candidates running for Senator. I hope in future elections that we’ll break the record for most Secretary and Prime Minister tickets as well as break our last record on Senator tickets.
In world happenings, in West Virginia there has been a teachers strike. Public schools have been closed for over a week. The strike has ended on the 7th with a victory for the public workers, who won all five of their demands.
In Australia, the CFMEU, the union representing the building and construction, forestry and furnishing products and mining and energy industries has announced a historic merge with two other unions, the MUA, the Maritime Union of Australia, and the TCFUA, the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia. They will be merging together by the 27th of March. This new super union, named the CFMMEU, or the Construction Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union will be comprised of 140 000 workers, or one of the largest in Australia. The CFMEU is notorious for being a militant union. The CFMEU has a strong history with the Communist Party of Australia, with the president of the CPA being a union organiser in the CFMEU.
In my local politics, I have been voted in as branch secretary as well as youth representative of my local branch of the Communist Party of Australia. All very exciting, and I hope I can serve the proletarian movement both online and in my local life.
Less wholesome news is coming from India, with the far right BJP toppling a statue of Lenin. The BJP has wrestled power from the Communist Party of India Marxist. Sitram Yechury, the leader of the communist party has announced their displeasure for “BJP's fascistic trait has been well displayed at Tripura's Belonia where they dismantled Lenin's statue.”
In China, the Communist Party of China has voted to change their Constitution to abolish term limits. This has sparked much debate on the left over many different topics, the ever raging debate on whether China is actually socialist, is this a step returning to Maoism? What does the abolition of term limits mean for the CPC, and subsequently, the People’s Republic? Is this even a big deal? As many countries like New Zealand, Australia, the UK and the like don’t have term limits. More will be illuminated in time.
Stephen Hawking died on the 14th of March, the same day was the 135th anniversary of Karl Marx’s death. Hawking, alongside his vast contributions to physics and cosmology, also had a long history of being anti-war, pro-universal healthcare and many other things. Despite some of his personal flaws, he was paragon for people with disabilities. He proved that all life is valuable and that every human being has something to offer humanity.
Karl Marx who alongside Friedrich Engels wrote the theoretical basis of Marxism. Marx is often thought of as one of the most influential thinkers of humankind, and he definitely is in regards to sociology. Marx’s critique of the capitalism remains today as one of the most stunning and concrete analyses of such a system. Marx would never finish his critique in Capital. Despite this, Engels managed to put together his notes for volumes 2 and 3 to publish them posthumously.
We remember these men. Rest in power.
March is Women’s history month, so with that I will be starting a 2 part series for this month celebrating some of the many achievements by women in the socialist cause. Feminism is a natural and integral part of all socialism.
Finally, university is in full swing for me, so from now on, my contributions will be diminishing while I focus on my studies (5 assignments don’t finish themselves!). So for the Red Star to continue publishing, it will require more input from the region as a whole. If any of you have any submissions for the Red Star, be it a small submission or your very own full length article, please send them to me here.
Unity in Diversity,
- Veg,
Editor of The Red Star
Comrade The final horseman has graced us with some fantastic posters!
Thank you to Comrade The final horseman for these fantastic posters.
And thank you to our female Comrades!
Reflections on his term in government by Comrade
KavagradThe March elections have come, and, as every Minister will at the end of a term, I face the possibility of not retaining my position post-election. As a non-Senator, I will have to be approved for my post by a vote in the GA, and I could be rejected there, which would spell an end to my time as Minister of Recruitment.
However, the conclusion of my current term is not a time for anxiety over what comes next, but rather to look back upon the last 10 weeks, and review the progress that TLA has made in recruitment with pride, as well as explaining my thought processes on the subject, and explaining to newer members how I came to hold this post in the first place.
The Bit Where I Talk About Myself
Newer members and non-members of our region are unlikely to know that my time in this region has not been long, relative to many others that have, hold or are running for elected offices. I joined this region in November 2017, a month before the last election cycle. I have been on NS intermittently since 2012, and have found myself at the top of several Leftist regions during my time. However, the issues that I saw in these regions often came from the same root cause: there simply weren’t enough active members in these regions. Upon entering TLA, I had already resolved to ensure that wherever I ended up did not go the same way. At the December elections, my manifesto centred heavily on measures designed to improve recruitment and engagement. One of these policies was the creation of a Minister of Recruitment.
I was elected as a Senator (4th out of 6 in that race, I believe), and quickly proceeded to TG our Secretary, 
South Miruva (who I cannot give enough praise to when it comes to his term, by the way), imploring him to create the post that I thought should be created. I will be honest, I never expected to be offered the role myself, but I had very little hesitation in accepting the post. Be the change you want to see, and all that. I honestly had no idea whether I could actually reverse what had been a trend of negative growth up until that point, but I felt that somebody had to try, and it might as well be the guy that ran on the recruitment platform.
The Statistics
I have been blown away just looking at some of the recruitment statistics I’ve collected in my time as MoR:
In this term, our total population has increased by over 50%, and our WA population has jumped by over 20.
At the start of this term, we were the 7th largest Leftist region on NS, and we have since jumped above CTSN and TRTHNBB, into 5th place.
We have sent over 7000 Recruitment Telegrams since January 2018. That equates to over 350 hours, or 2 weeks, of continuous recruitment efforts. This also means that recruitment efforts average approximately 6 hours per day.
Since November 2017, we have gained over 120 new members that remain with us to this day. Without them, our numbers would have halved since January, from 115 at the beginning of January, to just 55 now.
This also means that over 2/3 of our current membership have arrived since November 2017.
Going Forward
Should I retain my post, I will be more dedicated than ever when it comes to recruitment. I have ideas to continue to improve our recruitment process, by use of both the MoR and MoFA. I intend to make changes to the existing recruitment telegram in order to make the region more enticing to potential comrades. I will also be self-imposing a target of 2000 recruitment telegrams sent every month, with a public explanation should I fail to hit said target. Finally, I will try to work with the next Minister of Foreign Affairs to offer founderless Leftist regions the opportunity to merge into TLA, instead of having their communities shattered by raiders and imperialist forces.
I hope this article has provided a valuable insight into not only our recruitment efforts at present, but also planned recruitment efforts in the future.
-Comrade Kavagrad
A short article talking about our imperfections, and why self reflection is so important by comrade Vegemiteisgross
It’s natural to make mistakes. It’s also natural to not know the answer to everything.
Self criticism is the reflection of your past and current actions, and reflecting on the effects of these actions. It is a way of growing and learning, to see the failures in yourself and fix them. It is done not only on the individual level, but also on more collective levels too. Without justly criticising your own actions, one cannot truly grow, as they cannot see the effects of their own actions.
Self criticism should not be done only as a reactionary policy, while reaction is oven the cause of the need to self criticise, indeed, it is the cause most of the time in my experience, self criticism should be done regardless. In the interests of developing a scientific understanding of socialism, you must analyse your actions and deeds. I do not publish these articles on the fly, waiting for a reaction to a mistake, I will draft, redraft, read and reread my articles many times over before publishing, to ensure that these articles are of sufficient quality.
Similarly in the event of making a mistake, the most important things are thusly: You must recognise that you have made a mistake, you must inform the people that your mistake affects, that you have made a mistake, you must then change.
As an example, I have written in my Introduction to the Labour Theory of Value article that the labour theory of value only affects capitalist production. This is an untrue statement. Labour will always create value. The way the labour theory of value works, in its current form is relevant to capitalist production, but perhaps a socialist society would realise value differently. Either way, labour will always create value.
It’s important to note that self criticism is not a temporary tool to be used and then forgotten, it is a permanent and powerful tool to be used as often as feasibly possible. If it is not used regularly, it is too easy to grow shrivelled and conceited, failing to realise your own faults, or the faults in your organisation.
But it is not just any sort of self criticism that is needed. There needs to be a level of self criticism which will raise the consciousness of the working class, to really actualise the working class movement in their quest for superiority over the oppressor class. Why I mention my Introduction to the Labour Theory of Value article is specifically because such an article can be used to raise the consciousness of the oppressed, so they realise how capitalist production affects them and the logical conclusion of capitalist production. Self criticism is not to be used as a way to berate yourself. It is a tool to strengthen your analysis.
It is only human to make mistakes. What truly must be done to advance is to recognise them and grow.
Source:
Stalin, J. ‘Against Vulgarising the Slogan of Self-Criticism’ Marxists.org
An awards ceremony by The final horseman
This month I awarded three medals to comrades within our region. Two were the "Red Star Medal" awarded to both Vegemiteisgross and Libertasnia for their incredible contributions to the region's literary culture via their work on our regional newspaper The Red Star.
The third medal was awarded to South Miruva for the honorable and lawful completion of their term as Secretary of the Assembly.
Part one of the two part series On Women’s History Month.
Angela Davis is a prominent political activist, professor and author.
She was born in 1944. Growing up as a child she faced the harshness of American racism, she is quoted saying, “I grew up in Burmingham, Alabama. Some very very good friends of mine were killed by bombs. Bombs that were planted by racists. I remember from the time, I was very small. I remember the sound of bombs exploding across the street. I remember our house shaking. I remember my father having to have guns on his disposal at all times because at any moment, we might expect to be attacked.” (Davis, A. 2011)
Davis would become an integral part in both the Communist Party USA as well as the Black Panther Party. She was the leader of the CPUSA, and had very close relations to the BPP through the Civil Rights movement.
Davis has continued to be highly influential, giving a range of speeches, pamphlets, books and interviews on many diverse subjects including, but not exhausting:
Black Liberation
The Civil Rights movement
Class Relations
Veganism/Animal Liberation
Communism
Feminism
Prisons, including the Prison Industrial Complex
The USSR, GDR and Yugoslavia
Davis continues to be a highly influential academic, releasing incredible texts such as Women, Race & Class and Women, Culture and Politics.
Davis was a prominent leader in the Civil Rights movement, she also co founded the organisation Critical Resistance, which aims to bring down the prison industrial complex, Davis herself spent eighteen months in prison after being falsely accused of murder, among other false charges. She was freed from prison after the court found her not guilty. Davis has recently broken her retirement and has been made an honourary chairwoman and featured speaker at the Women’s March on Washington after President Trump’s inauguration. She has also been making speeches at prominent universities.
Throughout her life she has faced the pressures of racism, sexism and classism. She has seen the rise and fall of many prominent movements, and yet these movements live on through her.
I can highly recommend the Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975. It is a very influential documentary. 
It is available on youtube for free here.
I shall finish this article with two fantastic quotes by Davis:
“Racism, in the first place, is a weapon used by the wealthy to increase the profits they bring in by paying Black workers less for their work.” - Davis.
“Feminism involves so much more than gender equality & it involves much more than gender. Feminism must involve consciousness of capitalism.” - Davis
Sources:
Angela Davis in the Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, Directed by Goran Olsson, Produced by Annika Rogell.
