The Left Chapter

15/09/2025

Comrade Zhou Enlai enjoying food and drink with workers at the Hantan No. 1 Cotton Mill in Hebei province, 1961 -- Photos of Zhou Enlai #35

15/09/2025

🌱🍌📈| Alcanza Matanzas un crecimiento sostenido en el programa de recuperación del plátano.

👉 Por primera vez en su historia, la provincia de Matanzas supera la cifra de 10 mil hectáreas dedicadas al cultivo del plátano, un resultado ascendente que marca un punto de inflexión en la estrategia de recuperación de este vital renglón alimentario.

🔗 https://acortar.link/YU0dUb

15/09/2025

Five theses on the situation in Nepal

Via Vijay Prashad and Atul Chandra

"Several narratives are circulating about the current upheaval, but two dominate:

Systemic governance failure: Years of unmet promises, corruption, and opportunistic alliances produced a legitimacy crisis not for this or that party, but for the establishment. The present upsurge is explained as a popular backlash due to the cumulative neglect.

Color Revolution thesis: That the protests are engineered by an external force, most of the fingers pointing at the United States and at the US Congress’ National Endowment for Democracy’s funding towards Hami Nepal (established in 2015).

Both theories make it easy for the stakeholders within Nepal to deflect responsibility – either onto foreign meddlers or onto a vague idea of the “political class”. There is no discussion in these theories of the underlying bourgeois order and its problems in Nepal: a century-long patronage economy, the control of land, finance, and government contracts in the hand of an oligopoly with close ties to the monarchy, and a growth paradigm depending on the export of migrant workers and of debt-financed infrastructural development. The structural sources of peoples’ grievances are flattened into simplistic, but evocative concepts such as “corruption” and “color revolution”.

Neither of these theories are totally incorrect or correct but are only partial and their partiality can be very misleading. This article cannot by itself correct that partiality, but it hopes to offer some ideas for discussion. The five theses below are intended only to frame the debate that we hope will be held not only over Nepal’s predicament, but that of many countries in the Global South."

Scene from the protests in Kathmandu, Nepal in September 2025. Photo via People's DispatchBy Vijay Prashad and Atul ChandraIf your house is not clean, then the ants will come through the door and draw in the snakes.The crisis in Nepal escalated in early September, bringing down the center-right gove...

15/09/2025

Revolutionary Cuba 1975: Sixteen Years of Socialist Construction in Photos #48: Ships of the Fishing Fleet

15/09/2025

One of the last photos taken of Ho Chi Minh before his death in September, 1969

15/09/2025

Final stage of Spanish Vuelta cycling race shut down in solidarity with Palestine

On Sunday (September 14), during the last stage of the Vuelta a España—a premier three-week cycling race in Spain—over 100,000 Palestinian solidarity protesters gathered in Madrid. Large parts of the race route were blocked by demonstrators who threw barriers onto the road and attempted to halt the race. Due to the solidarity actions the organizers were forced to call off the final stage with around 50 kilometers remaining and canceled the podium ceremony, officially declaring Danish rider Jonas Vingegaard the overall winner.

The protests centered on opposition to the presence of Israel Premier Tech, a team owned by Israeli-Canadian Sylvan Adams, and broader condemnation of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Image from the protest via Ione Belarra on FacebookVarious SourcesOn Sunday (September 14), during the last stage of the Vuelta a España—a premier three-week cycling race in Spain—over 100,000 Palestinian solidarity protesters gathered in Madrid. Large parts of the race route were blocked by de...

15/09/2025

Unpaid work is theft by the bosses and must end!

End Unpaid Work – Rally on Parliament Hill

Join us as we raise our voices to demand an end to unpaid work! This is a crucial moment to stand together and make ourselves heard by decision-makers in Ottawa.

Too often, flight attendants are expected to perform essential safety and service duties before boarding, during boarding, and after landing, all without pay. This work is not optional. It is vital to passenger safety and airline operations, yet it continues to go uncompensated.

This rally is our chance to stand united and ensure our voices are heard by decision-makers in Ottawa. We are more than just the faces of the airline; we are highly trained safety professionals who deserve fair pay for every hour we work.

Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Time: 12:00 - 14:00 EDT
Location: Parliament Hill, Ottawa

If you have an Unpaid Work Won’t Fly t-shirt, please wear it. Do not wear your uniform.

If you don’t have an Unpaid Work Won’t Fly t-shirt, we kindly ask that you wear a plain red t-shirt.

A limited number of Unpaid Work Won’t Fly t-shirts will be available on site.

ATTENTION MEMBERS - check your email for the digital version of this bulletin which contains links to register for the pickup location where you’d like to catch the bus for the rally.

PLEASE NOTE: Registration will end on September 9th at 21:00 EDT.

Keep an eye on your email, more information will be communicated soon.

In Solidarity,

Shanyn Elliott
Co-Chair, Component Mobilization & Engagement Committee

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Mettons fin au travail non payé – Rassemblement sur la Colline du Parlement

Joignez-vous à nous pour élever nos voix et exiger la fin du travail non rémunéré! C’est un moment crucial pour rester solidaires et nous faire entendre par les décideurs à Ottawa.

Trop souvent, les agents de bord sont tenus d’accomplir des tâches essentielles de sécurité et de service avant l’embarquement, pendant l’embarquement et après l’atterrissage, sans aucune rémunération. Ce travail n’est pas optionnel. Il est vital pour la sécurité des passagers et le bon fonctionnement des compagnies aériennes, et pourtant il continue d’être non payé.

Ce rassemblement est notre occasion de nous unir et de faire entendre nos voix auprès des décideurs à Ottawa. Nous sommes bien plus que le visage de la compagnie aérienne; nous sommes des professionnels hautement qualifiés en sécurité qui méritons un salaire équitable pour chaque heure travaillée.

Date : Mardi 16 septembre 2025
Heure : 12 h 00 – 14 h 00 (HAE)
Lieu : Colline du Parlement, Ottawa

Si vous avez un chandail Travail non payé c'est du vol portez-le. Ne portez pas votre uniforme.

Si vous n’avez pas de chandail Travail non payé c'est du vol nous vous demandons de porter un chandail rouge uni.

Un nombre limité de chandails Travail non payé c'est du vol sera disponible sur place.

ATTENTION AUX MEMBRES – Vérifiez vos courriels pour la version numérique de ce bulletin, qui contient les liens pour vous inscrire à l’endroit où vous souhaitez prendre l’autobus pour le rassemblement.

VEUILLEZ NOTER : L’inscription prendra fin le 9 septembre à 21 h (HAE).

Surveillez vos courriels : plus d’informations suivront bientôt.

En toute solidarité,

Shanyn Elliott
Co-Présidente du Comité de mobilisation et d'engagement de la composante

15/09/2025

"Unite Against the Profiteers" urges Communist Party of Britain

"Genuine concerns about housing, jobs, living costs, security and the NHS are being hijacked by right-wing and fascist forces who will do nothing to improve the lives of working-class people", Alex Gordon told the Communist Party of Britain's executive committee on Sunday (September 14).

He was speaking the day after after many thousands of 'Unite the Kingdom' demonstrators marched through central London led by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon ('Tommy Robinson') protesting against immigration and asylum-seekers.

But Mr. Gordon warned that the event was part of a "sophisticated strategy using well-funded networks to link every major social and economic problem to incomers seeking, refuge and a decent life in Britain alongside their neighbours and workmates". The world's richest person, US and South African multi-billionaire Elon Musk, was among the guest speakers at Saturday's anti-foreigner demonstration.

"Instead of uniting people against big business profiteering and rip-off landlords, the intention is stigmatise migrants, peddle a false patriotism and divide people along ethnic and religious lines", the CP industrial organiser charged.

Elon Musk addressing Robinson's fascist rally via videostream -- screenshot via X"Genuine concerns about housing, jobs, living costs, security and the NHS are being hijacked by right-wing and fascist forces who will do nothing to improve the lives of working-class people", Alex Gordon told the Commu...

15/09/2025

Images of Soviet Riga, Latvian SSR, 1970s & 1980 #12: New Dwelling Houses in Jugla

15/09/2025

Soviet Ulyanovsk 1987 -- 18 Photos of the USSR's Tourist Destination and Lenin's Birthplace #6: Monument of I. N. Ulyanov (Lenin's father)

15/09/2025

15/09/2025

Conversation at the birch trees, sketch N. Zhukov USSR, 1959 -- Daily LIFT #1732

From the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 1979:

Nikolai Nikolaevich Zhukov

Born Nov. 19 (Dec. 2), 1908, in Moscow; died there Sept. 24, 1973. Soviet graphic artist, People’s Artist of the USSR (1963), corresponding member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1949). Member of the CPSU since 1945.

Zhukov studied at the industrial arts technicums in Nizhny Novgorod (1926–28) and Saratov (1928–30). From 1943 he was the art director of the M. B. Grekov Studio of Military Artists. He worked on a front-line newspaper (1941–45) and on the newspaper Pravda (1942–43). He created a series of thematic easel drawings (including the V. I. Lenin series, done in watercolor, pencil, India ink, and autographic lithography, from 1940; About Children, done in pencil and watercolor, 1943–68; The Nuremberg Trial, Italian crayon, 1946; all in the Tret’iakov Gallery and other museums and in the artist’s possession). He also did illustrations (for the book The Story of a Real Man by Polevoi, published in 1952; Memories of Marx and Engels, published in 1956) and posters. He received the State Prize of the USSR (1943, 1951) and was awarded the Order of Lenin, two other orders, and medals.