kites journal

13/03/2023

A World To Win #12, 1988. Berger, Dan. Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity. AK Press, 2006. Bin Wahad, Dhoruba, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Assata Shakur. Still Black, Still Strong: Survivors of the US War Against Black Revolutionaries. Semiotext(e), 1993....

A World To Win #12, 1988. Berger, Dan. Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity. AK Press, 2006. Bin Wahad, Dhoruba, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Assata Shakur. Still Blac…

13/03/2023

The following study guide was compiled by the Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (US) (OCR) to assist comrades in developing into communist cadre by providing them with a grounding in the communist tradition, key communist principles and concentrations of revolutionary strategy, and operational principles for functioning like communist cadre. The texts marked “supplementary” need not all be studied at once, but can be used to deepen and expand your development after the initial study course is completed....

The following study guide was compiled by the Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (US) (OCR) to assist comrades in developing into communist cadre by providing them with a grounding in the co…

13/03/2023

Neither the CP nor the RCP can be resuscitated. The CP carved out its revolutionary heart long ago, and there is no cure for zombies. Any resurgence in membership and interest it may be experiencing today reflects the pathetic reality that is internet “communists” looking for some sense of belonging. The RCP still has some revolutionary trappings, but it is so far degenerated and its organizational structure is so impervious to criticism/self-criticism that it cannot be a vehicle for revolutionary transformation....

Neither the CP nor the RCP can be resuscitated. The CP carved out its revolutionary heart long ago, and there is no cure for zombies. Any resurgence in membership and interest it may be experiencin…

13/03/2023

1968–72 Moving mountains: the early RU What eventually became the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (hereafter RCP) came out of the revolutionary movement of the Sixties, so our summation necessarily begins there, with the formation of the Revolutionary Union, the precursor to the RCP. The widespread revolutionary mood in the late 1960s did not preordain that dedicated militants would seek to build a new communist vanguard party....

1968–72 Moving mountains: the early RU What eventually became the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (hereafter RCP) came out of the revolutionary movement of the Sixties, so our summation necessar…

13/03/2023

Ontologically speaking, decades are not demarcated by definite decimals, but by the spirit, and, for our purposes, political struggles that marked them. “The Sixties” connotes a period in US history of growing revolt against the established order that culminated in a revolutionary movement by the decade's end. It opened with an increasingly militant Civil Rights Movement against the oppression of Black people in the South, an oppression that was enforced by outright, legally sanctioned segregation and legal and extra-legal white supremacist violence and terror....

Ontologically speaking, decades are not demarcated by definite decimals, but by the spirit, and, for our purposes, political struggles that marked them. “The Sixties” connotes a period in US histor…

13/03/2023

Antecedents Mao succinctly summed up that “Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated.”1 Before there were Marxists, before there was an attempt to organize a communist party, there was, of course, class struggle on the North American continent. The oppressed and dispossessed waged courageous revolts against their oppressors for centuries: the Indigenous peoples against colonizers, slaves against slave masters....

Antecedents Mao succinctly summed up that “Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated.”1 Before there were Marxists, before there was an attempt to organize a communist party, th…

13/03/2023

In this document, we present our summations of the politics and practice of the two communist vanguard parties that have existed in the United States—the Communist Party, USA (hereafter CP) and the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (hereafter RCP)—as well as briefer summations of the revolutionary movement that emerged in the late 1960s and the decade of revolutionary potential diverted, the 2010s....

In this document, we present our summations of the politics and practice of the two communist vanguard parties that have existed in the United States—the Communist Party, USA (hereafter CP) and the…

23/02/2023

New issue of kites: a journal of communist theory and strategy!

leftwingbooks.net/products/kites-a-journal-of-communist-theory-and-strategy-8-march-2023

Pre-orders are now available for kites #8. Due out March 2023, the next issue of kites consists entirely of a major new document from the Organization of Communist Revolutionaries, “The CP, the Sixties, the RCP, and the Crying Need for a new Communist Vanguard Party Today: Summing up a century of communist leadership, organization, strategy, and practice in the United States so that we can rise to the challenges before us.” A significant amount of preview content has already been released and can be sampled at kites-journal.org.

kites is a journal of communist theory and strategy for revolution focused on North America. It emerged in 2020 from the initiative of two organizations: Revolutionary Initiative (RI) in Canada and the Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (OCR) in the US. Its Editorial Committee is composed of a few communist revolutionaries from across North America, and operates as an independent entity.

17/02/2023

The following is preview content from the forthcoming document The CP, the Sixties, the RCP, and the Crying Need for a Communist Vanguard Party Today: Summing up a century of communist leadership, organization, strategy, and practice in the United States so that we can rise to the challenges before us by the Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (US). This document will be published in early 2023 as…...

The following is preview content from the forthcoming document The CP, the Sixties, the RCP, and the Crying Need for a Communist Vanguard Party Today: Summing up a century of communist leadership, …

13/02/2023

by the kites Editorial Committee Published February 2023 2023 opened with three high-profile murders by police across the US. In Los Angeles, Keenan Anderson was tasered six times and died of cardiac arrest due to the brutality of the police. In Atlanta, Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán was shot dead by police while taking part in a protest occupation to prevent Atlanta forestland from being bulldozed to make way for the construction of “Cop City,” a massive police training facility....

by the kites Editorial Committee Published February 2023 2023 opened with three high-profile murders by police across the US. In Los Angeles, Keenan Anderson was tasered six times and died of cardi…

07/02/2023

The following is preview content from the forthcoming document The CP, the Sixties, the RCP, and the Crying Need for a Communist Vanguard Party Today: Summing up a century of communist leadership, organization, strategy, and practice in the United States so that we can rise to the challenges before us by the Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (US). This document will be published in early 2023 as…...

The following is preview content from the forthcoming document The CP, the Sixties, the RCP, and the Crying Need for a Communist Vanguard Party Today: Summing up a century of communist leadership, …

28/01/2023

The following is preview content from the forthcoming document The CP, the Sixties, the RCP, and the Crying Need for a Communist Vanguard Party Today: Summing up a century of communist leadership, organization, strategy, and practice in the United States so that we can rise to the challenges before us by the Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (US). This document will be published in early 2023 as…...

The following is preview content from the forthcoming document The CP, the Sixties, the RCP, and the Crying Need for a Communist Vanguard Party Today: Summing up a century of communist leadership, …

18/01/2023

The following is preview content from the forthcoming document The CP, the Sixties, the RCP, and the Crying Need for a Communist Vanguard Party Today: Summing up a century of communist leadership, organization, strategy, and practice in the United States so that we can rise to the challenges before us by the Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (US). This document will be published in early 2023 as…...

The following is preview content from the forthcoming document The CP, the Sixties, the RCP, and the Crying Need for a Communist Vanguard Party Today: Summing up a century of communist leadership, …

14/01/2023

The following is preview content from the forthcoming document The CP, the Sixties, the RCP, and the Crying Need for a Communist Vanguard Party Today: Summing up a century of communist leadership, organization, strategy, and practice in the United States so that we can rise to the challenges before us by the Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (US). This document will be published in early 2023 as…...

The following is preview content from the forthcoming document The CP, the Sixties, the RCP, and the Crying Need for a Communist Vanguard Party Today: Summing up a century of communist leadership, …

11/01/2023

The following is preview content from the forthcoming document The CP, the Sixties, the RCP, and the Crying Need for a Communist Vanguard Party Today: Summing up a century of communist leadership, organization, strategy, and practice in the United States so that we can rise to the challenges before us by the Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (US). This document will be published in early 2023 as…...

The following is preview content from the forthcoming document The CP, the Sixties, the RCP, and the Crying Need for a Communist Vanguard Party Today: Summing up a century of communist leadership, …

22/12/2022

This is the interview given by Jose Maria Sison in September 2022 to kites, which was published in transcript form in October 2022 as "On 'Foreign Monsters' and the People's War that Persists." A version of this video with subtitles is immediately forthcoming.

This is the interview given by Jose Maria Sison in September 2022 to kites, which was published in transcript form in October 2022 as “On ‘Foreign Monsters’ and the People’s…

22/12/2022

Jose Maria Sison, 1939-2022 An Obituary by the kites Editorial Committee Comrade Jose Maria Sison has passed away at the age of 83 after two weeks of hospitalization in his place of forced exile in Utrecht, Netherlands. He lived his whole life in struggle and service to the Filipino people, to the international proletariat, and to the oppressed and struggling peoples of the whole world....

Jose Maria Sison, 1939-2022 An Obituary by the kites Editorial Committee Comrade Jose Maria Sison has passed away at the age of 83 after two weeks of hospitalization in his place of forced exile in…

27/10/2022

An Interview with Jose Maria Sison, Founding Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines Commissioned by the kites Editorial Committee (September 2022) Editorial Introduction In September 2022, kites had the pleasure of interviewing Jose Maria Sison, the Founding Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which was founded in December 1968 and which went on to found and lead the New People’s Army in the people’s war that was launched in March 1969....

An Interview with Jose Maria Sison, Founding Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines Commissioned by the kites Editorial Committee (September 2022) Editorial Introduction In September 20…

15/10/2022

Today, when people in North America join protests against injustice, try to understand what's behind all the oppression in the world, and look for strategies to end it, they soon encounter Leftist and postmodernist politics, especially on social media, and are quickly inculcated in Leftist and postmodernist world outlooks.1 Since Leftist and postmodernist politics and world outlooks are impediments…...

Today, when people in North America join protests against injustice, try to understand what’s behind all the oppression in the world, and look for strategies to end it, they soon encounter Le…

01/09/2022

by Aiyanas Ormond kites received the following submission from Aiyanas Ormond, a leading activist within the International League of People's Struggles chapter in Canada who also has considerable experience and knowledge on the question of the bourgeoisie's drug war, gained in part through eleven years of work in the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. Beyond their specific analysis of the drug war, these theses also provide a model for making specific class analysis—defining who are our friends and who are our enemies—and outlining a program for class struggle based on that analysis....

by Aiyanas Ormond kites received the following submission from Aiyanas Ormond, a leading activist within the International League of People’s Struggles chapter in Canada who also has consider…

06/08/2022

kites Issue #7 Editorial by the kites Editorial Committee As the crisis of the world capitalist-imperialist system deepens and the bourgeoisie has no resolution, and in the absence of an international communist movement posing a revolutionary alternative, not just individuals but whole classes are losing their damn minds. The COVID-19 pandemic—not so much the virus itself, but the accompanying social instability, failed government policies, and mass discontent fueling conspiracy theories—pushed things over the edge, and the psychosis of imperialism is setting in....

http://kites-journal.org/2022/08/06/the-psychosis-of-imperialism/

kites Issue #7 Editorial by the kites Editorial Committee As the crisis of the world capitalist-imperialist system deepens and the bourgeoisie has no resolution, and in the absence of an internatio…

18/07/2022

Ukraine and the Present War Amidst a History of Great Power Politics and Inter-Imperialist Rivalries by F.O. Marthoz (July 2022) INTRODUCTION How the imperialists fight each other while blaming another Europe is at war once again, for the third time in a little over a century: the specter of communism, we are told, is haunting its battlefields. A strange and most unholy alliance is once more attempting to exorcise this specter....

http://kites-journal.org/2022/07/18/contested-nation/

Ukraine and the Present War Amidst a History of Great Power Politics and Inter-Imperialist Rivalries by F.O. Marthoz (July 2022) INTRODUCTION How the imperialists fight each other while blaming ano…

24/06/2022

In light of today's heinous US Supreme Court decision:

https://kites-journal.org/2022/03/01/between-gilead-and-onlyfans-notes-on-the-oppression-of-women-in-21st-century-capitalism-imperialism/

04/05/2022

An investigation into the “Freedom Convoy” movement Click through this image for a PDF of this article. by Jorge, Paul, and Arthur The world of the ruling class is in flames, the internal war in the enemy camp is exacerbated, and the masses are increasingly pushed to resist in a thousand ways. In this context, our task as communists is and will always be to take on the legitimate discontent among those social bases which the reactionary social groups leverage....

http://kites-journal.org/2022/05/04/war-in-the-enemys-camp/

An investigation into the “Freedom Convoy” movement Click through this image for a PDF of this article. by Jorge, Paul, and Arthur The world of the ruling class is in flames, the internal war in th…

02/05/2022

An interview with Coni Ledesma of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. Editorial Introduction from kites The Philippine revolution has an exemplary record of women's leadership and participation. In 53 years of protracted people's war, the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People's Army have swam against the tide of semi-feudal social relations to involve women at every level of the revolution and the building of new forms of political power....

http://kites-journal.org/2022/05/02/it-is-only-in-participating-in-the-revolution-that-women-can-work-for-their-liberation/

An interview with Coni Ledesma of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. Editorial Introduction from kites The Philippine revolution has an exemplary record of women’s leadership a…

07/04/2022

A Summation of the MRP by Tyler and an exchange with Kenny Lake In response to our call for summations,1 kites received a summation of the “Maoist Revolutionary Party” (MRP), a short-lived organization in Philadelphia in 2019–20, from Tyler. While this summation offers some insights into the arrogance and lack of revolutionary principles that led to the MRP's demise, we wanted to dig deeper into the fundamental questions of ideological and political line at the heart of the matter....

http://kites-journal.org/2022/04/07/tin-man-maoism/

A Summation of the MRP by Tyler and an exchange with Kenny Lake In response to our call for summations,1 kites received a summation of the “Maoist Revolutionary Party” (MRP), a short-lived organiza…

01/03/2022

All of the images that accompany this editorial are original submissions from comrade Ruby Lois. By the kites editorial committee International Women's Day on March 8th was initiated by the international communist movement over a century ago as a recognition of the centrality of women's liberation to communist revolution. In contrast to the patriarchy, violence, and degradation women face under capitalism-imperialism, where the proletariat, under the leadership of communist parties, has seized power and embarked on the socialist transition to communism, tremendous advances have been made in overcoming the oppression of women.1 In 2022, with no socialist states in existence and with the bourgeoisie having fortified an effective regime of preventive counterrevolution, archaic forms of patriarchy persist while new forms of women's oppression have been constructed, aided and abetted by the new technologies of the Silicon Valley bourgeoisie....

http://kites-journal.org/2022/03/01/between-gilead-and-onlyfans-notes-on-the-oppression-of-women-in-21st-century-capitalism-imperialism/

All of the images that accompany this editorial are original submissions from comrade Ruby Lois. By the kites editorial committee International Women’s Day on March 8th was initiated by the i…

06/02/2022

INTERVIEW of the (new)ITALIAN COMMUNIST PARTY WITH KITES JOURNAL

For the full interview click the follow link: http://www.nuovopci.it/eile/en/interviewkites/kites_interview_to_(new)ICP.html

5 February, 2022

Dear comrades, the (new)Italian Communist Party has recently released an interview to kites journal review ([email protected]), which published it in its issue 5-6 on December 2021. kites (www.kites-journal.org) was founded in 2020 boosted by two North American organizations: Revolutionary Initiative (RI) from Canada and Organization of Communist Revolutionaries (OCR) from US. It is a publication aimed to the discussion about revolutionary strategy and tactics that communists have to adopt in North America and in their respective activity contexts. Until now, they published five issues of the review. Our interview is about issues concerning international communist movement, starting with the summation of the first world proletarian revolution (1917-1976). Thus, the interest for it isn't limited to North America (US and Canada) nor to Italy. We think that its study will be useful to all those who will make it in order to develop a frank and open debate about these issues. We are available to deal with problems about these issues which every reader would submit us. We wish you a good reading!

Central Committee of the (new)Italian Communist Party

19/01/2022

An Interview with Umberto Corti of the Central Committee of the (new) Italian Communist Party Part 2 of On Granite Conviction: Revolutionary Communism in Italy Today Editorial Introduction from kites In April 2021, the kites Editorial Committee conducted this interview with comrade Umberto Corti of the (new) Italian Communist Party ((n)PCI). The (n)PCI was established in 2004 after five years of clandestine preparatory work that stood upon two decades of political and theoretical activity that critically evaluated the errors, summed up the experience, and built upon the contributions of the Marxist-Leninist currents and armed communist organizations of the 1960s and ‘70s....

http://kites-journal.org/2022/01/19/banish-pessimism-and-defeatism/

An Interview with Umberto Corti of the Central Committee of the (new) Italian Communist Party Part 2 of On Granite Conviction: Revolutionary Communism in Italy Today Editorial Introduction from kit…

05/01/2022

by Conrad Drexel kites received the following from a reader in Southern California whose previous submission,“Catching Fire: Participant Reflections on the Summer of Protest and Rebellion,” appeared in kites #3.1 As an introduction to the culture by way of personal experience, when I was coming of age in the mid-late ’90s, skateboarding was a refuge for outcasts and rebels....

http://kites-journal.org/2022/01/05/kick-push-but-dont-coast-skateboarders-and-the-2020-summer-rebellion/

by Conrad Drexel kites received the following from a reader in Southern California whose previous submission,“Catching Fire: Participant Reflections on the Summer of Protest and Rebellion,” appeare…

23/12/2021

kites received the following submission, which is based on interviews with healthcare workers in a hospital setting during the COVID-19 pandemic, from a reader in a major US city. While this piece is the result of an initial investigation, it gives more than a sense of the possibilities for communists to integrate with the massive concentrations of proletarians in the lower rung of the healthcare industry....

http://kites-journal.org/2021/12/23/code-blue-the-living-nightmare-of-healthcare-work-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/

kites received the following submission, which is based on interviews with healthcare workers in a hospital setting during the COVID-19 pandemic, from a reader in a major US city. While this piece …

18/12/2021

by Comrades George, Maggie, and Arthur Many people inside and outside of Canada see this northern country as a society and a state which—while in many ways similar to the US—is friendlier, more progressive, and maybe even a bit socialist in comparison, given its system of socialized emergency services and basic medical care. This report calls bu****it on all that. Through the last two years of global health crisis, uprisings against police violence, the catastrophic destruction of climate change-induced extreme weather events, and a deeply-divided, faltering economy, it’s never been more apparent that a tiny fraction of society continues to amass obscene wealth to itself while a growing majority of the people are being pushed down into endless struggle for their livelihoods and lives....

http://kites-journal.org/2021/12/18/chronicles-of-the-struggling-and-dispossessed-an-investigation-into-the-other-side-of-canada/

by Comrades George, Maggie, and Arthur Many people inside and outside of Canada see this northern country as a society and a state which—while in many ways similar to the US—is friendlier, more pro…

18/12/2021

Issue #5-6 Editorial1 by the kites Editorial Committee This special double-issue of kites contains the results of social investigations carried out by kites readers in the summer of 2021 in a few regions across the US and a dozen cities and regions across Canada. While these results are only initial, they cover a wide swath of the proletariat and other popular classes, from one coast to the other, from a housing project in New York City to homeless encampments in Minneapolis, from skate parks to hospitals, from regions choked by heat and fire to those where hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children who were victims of the Indian residential school system have been identified....

http://kites-journal.org/2021/12/18/there-are-more-things-in-heaven-and-earth-than-are-dreamt-of-in-your-philosophy/

Issue #5-6 Editorial1 by the kites Editorial Committee This special double-issue of kites contains the results of social investigations carried out by kites readers in the summer of 2021 in a few r…

29/11/2021

kites received the following submission from a group of readers who undertook a social investigation project this summer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This report is drawn from those conversations and interviews, which took place in the time period following the murder of Daunte Wright in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center and the conviction of killer cop Derek Chauvin but before the partial eviction of George Floyd Square and the killing of Winston Smith....

http://kites-journal.org/2021/11/29/everything-changed-nothing-changed-minneapolis-a-year-after-the-rebellion/

kites received the following submission from a group of readers who undertook a social investigation project this summer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This report is drawn from those conversations and…

17/11/2021

by kites readers A small, multinational crew that has been reading kites journal united with the call to do social investigation about how the last year of pandemic and protest affected the lives of people. This past summer we spent dozens of hours talking with residents of the Queensbridge housing projects in Queens, New York. Made famous by a number of excellent rap songs, Queensbridge is the largest and most populous housing project left in New York City (NYC)....

http://kites-journal.org/2021/11/17/queensbridge-projects-and-the-nycha-mare-of-disrepair-and-neglect/

by kites readers A small, multinational crew that has been reading kites journal united with the call to do social investigation about how the last year of pandemic and protest affected the lives o…

01/11/2021

By Kenny Lake For all their aversion to collective discipline and democratic centralism, for all their anti-vanguardism, for all their donning of dogmatic ideologies and petty sectarian bickering, it’s striking how firmly united most Leftists under the age of 35 in the US are on the notion that passing out free food, doing community gardens, and (maybe…most never get this far) some NGO-style tenant organizing will lead to…revolution?...

http://kites-journal.org/2021/11/01/revolution-has-vanished-replaced-with-fantasies-of-dual-power-counterpower-base-areas-abolition-and-other-bottom-up-bourgeois-democratic-illusions/

By Kenny Lake For all their aversion to collective discipline and democratic centralism, for all their anti-vanguardism, for all their donning of dogmatic ideologies and petty sectarian bickering, …

18/10/2021

by the kites Editorial Committee The title of this intervention is doubly ironic. First, because “abolitionism” is so often itself a grift, with the creation of an abolition-industrial complex consisting of Angela Davis speaking gigs, academics writing abolitionist books, activists securing Ford Foundation funding and partnerships with major corporations, nonprofit organizations garnering government and grant money to pay their employees higher salaries, and media appearances by abolitionists used to boost their following, fame, and finances....

http://kites-journal.org/2021/10/18/abolish-grifterism/

by the kites Editorial Committee The title of this intervention is doubly ironic. First, because “abolitionism” is so often itself a grift, with the creation of an abolition-industrial complex cons…

03/10/2021

A Case Study of Opportunism and a Summation of Efforts by Renters Together in Lawrence, Kansas by Akio Author’s Preface Communists can’t succeed if our practice and ideas aren’t ever-developing with the political landscape, and we can’t develop as such if we never face our failures. This is precisely the hard lesson that forced Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China to learn to summarize their experiences and to use their failures to come up with new strategies that would carry them to victory....

http://kites-journal.org/2021/10/03/lessons-from-beyond-the-grave/

A Case Study of Opportunism and a Summation of Efforts by Renters Together in Lawrence, Kansas by Akio Author’s Preface Communists can’t succeed if our practice and ideas aren’t ever-developing wit…