Do communists favour violence? Communists are often depicted by the ruling class as violent individuals who will settle at nothing until society is made to drown in its own blood. It came as no surprise to us, therefore, when Denmark’s largest digital media outlet, BT – interviewing a leading comrade of our Danish section on their historic decision to found a Revolutionary Communist Party – spent the interview trying to get the comrade to admit that they stand for violence.
The crisis in the communist movement – we need to go back to Lenin We publish here a contribution by Alan Woods to the pre-congress debate of the Brazilian Communist Party – Revolutionary Refoundation. The PCB-RR gathers the comrades who were bureaucratically expelled from the PCB in July – August 2023, after they raised a whole number of political differences, including regarding the question of the character of the war in Ukraine. We would like to thank the Provisional Political Committee of the PCB-RR for the opportunity for this exchange of ideas amongst Communists and we wish them success in their congress, which is taking place at the end of the month.
Beethoven: man, composer and revolutionary This week marks the 200th anniversary of the public premier of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, one of the most astoundingly brilliant musical compositions in history. Despite being functionally deaf by 1824, Beethoven personally conducted the premiere in Vienna, continuing his wild gesticulations after the final note had faded, amidst rapturous applause. The performance and the piece itself, often called the ‘Marseilles of Humanity’, were a defiant rallying cry for freedom and brotherhood in a period of counterrevolutionary reaction. To mark the occasion, we republish ‘Beethoven: man, composer and revolutionary’ by our editor-in-chief, Alan Woods.
