Introduction

Digital communication dominates much of Communist organizing. With the advent of easy access to modes of communication such as email, web forums, social media platforms, and SMS & RCS messaging, organizers have shifted a large part of their information sharing channels to digital means. Many organizations eschew in person meetings all together in favor of audio or video calls. This shift has followed a broader cultural trend with little criticism from socialist and Communist formations. Criticisms that have been shared generally stem from the anarchist sections of the national movement and are not taken as seriously by the Marxist sections.

The predominance of digital communication, specifically the forms of the group chat and the video call, has changed how organizers relate to each other and the conditions of the struggle. In many ways, these new forms of relating to each other have allowed for incredible connections between organized Communists and the masses. 

Services such as the Internet Archive, the Marxist Internet Archive, and many independent publications make the entire history of revolutionary literature easily and freely accessible. As one comrade puts it, “Marx wanted to read a book in French, so he bought French language copies of his favorite books and translated them word for word. All we have to do is find a pdf!” A wide range of podcasts, blogs, newsletters, and social media posts continue to proliferate Communist ideas. Apps like Zoom, Jitsi, and more allow organizations to hold education events such as study groups with attendees from around the state, country, or even the world. However, these connections have led to scant material organization. Many Communists communicate digitally, but do not relate to each other primarily as comrades. They produce Communist media and meet when possible, but do not develop materially powerful Communist organizations. Despite the commonly touted mass character of social media it has not proved very effective for bringing the masses together to fight for proletarian interests, nor for bringing organized Communists into materially consolidated formation. In fact, undisciplined argumentation carried out on social media has played a major role in the fracturing of the Communist movement in Amerika. Much of this digital arguing has been carried out in the name of struggle, without interrogation of class character of the digital programs by which the communication is taking place. 

Over time a reliance on digital means to communicate has formed. The causes of this reliance have been explored at length, but the effect on Communist organizing created by it has yet to be deeply interrogated. The predominance of digital communication is both a product of the physical social fracturing of Amerikan workers, while also now being a factor in prolonging the stagnation of the movement. Dependence primarily on group chats and Zoom meetings to facilitate organization generally results in an ineffective primary organization, as the physical presence requisite for developing political power among the proletariat simply does not exist. In the context of creating Communist revolution, this physical presence must be understood as the basic factor of material organization. The organized far-right is developing survival programs in the regions outside major cities and towns, and their power is not derived from digital communication networks. As Phil A. Neel says in Hinterland, 

“By providing material incentives that guarantee stability, combined with threats of coercion for those who oppose them, such groups [as the Oath Keepers] become capable of making the population complicit in their rise, regardless of ideological positions. In fact, Kilcullen points out that in such situations (epitomized by all-out civil war), support for one faction or another simply does not follow ideology. People don’t throw their weight behind those they agree with, and often many in a population can’t be said to have any deep-seated ideological commitment in the first place. Instead, support follows strength, and ideology follows support.”

We, the organized Communist movement in Amerika, do not currently have the power to combat these fascist forces. We must begin developing a material political base through material connections with the proletarian masses, and we must develop our primary organizations on material bases, lest they fall into the liberal trap of perpetually seeking influence rather than power. We must learn from the errors of the Young Hegelians and seek not just to work in the world of slogans, in the world of media, but in the world of the material.

Secondary to such inefficacy, some philosophical and linguistic contradictions arise. When fostering material relationships between comrades becomes secondary to maintaining digital relationships, material is deprioritized. Idealism is a belief system that is constantly being socially reinforced. We must steer the masses towards materialism, while studying the philosophy and constantly attempting to rid our organizations of Idealist conceptions. There is a uniquely digital idealist obfuscation of the difference between material reality and virtual reality. This foggy distinction has been wholesale accepted by Amerikan society. We must push back against this obfuscation, and make clear that organizations facilitated primarily through digital means are not materially Communist in the sense that said relationships will not develop forces towards proletarian interests. 

A major factor in the development of the obfuscation between these two distinct forms of relating to one another is the language with which the technology was/is still advertised with. Many terms used historically to describe the material world were adapted metaphorically to describe the “landscape” of the “digital space”. This language was presented to the proletariat by the bourgeoisie through advertising media. The rhetoric of this advertising was subsequently adopted on a mass scale by the Amerikan public. This language, and the rhetoric it’s based in, is simply inaccurate in describing the forms with which we communicate, and how that communication determines our relation to one another. If we as Communists seek to create lasting and effective organizations capable of working intra-formationally then we must understand how we communicate, how our communication fails, and how we primarily relate to our comrades. Do you relate to the other members of your organization primarily through digital means, or do you sit next to them? Can revolution be made by comrades who do not work next to each other? These questions are not insignificant, as we have seen many flimsy structures predicated on digital communication crumble in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd Uprisings. For instance, many of the mutual aid organizations established during 2020 and 2021 have been unable to maintain structural formation, and the BLM movement has all but vanished.

Predominance

We on the left seem largely incapable of coming together physically. Facilitating even the smallest political organization is not a convenient task, least of all for those proletarians attempting to do so. With a labor force more socially fractured than ever it is exorbitantly difficult to facilitate spending time with one’s loved ones, much less dedicated political cadre. The immediate nature of SMS messaging makes it a very useful tool for proletarian life. Members of an organization who work one or more jobs will have trouble scheduling routine meetings in person. A group chat allows for many disparate people to communicate simultaneously without the hassle of a schedule being necessary. 

However, we have another option. The most advanced elements can consciously dedicate more time and more labor to the movement as it develops. We can drive to each other’s houses, we can organize within our community, we can perform effective fractional work among preexisting material organizations of the masses. Immigrant support groups, mutual aid groups, student study and action groups, anti-apartheid groups, Latino/trans/disabled civil rights groups, etc are where the intermediate and advanced elements of the masses are currently located. The intermediate elements are those people that show potential for being developed into organized Communists, while the advanced sections are already Communists, and going to them in person to listen to them is possible. They tend to be scattered, usually alone in their political understanding, but sometimes with small groups of like-minded Communist-sympathetic workers. We, the organized advanced elements, can organize centralized study groups that consolidate these intermediate and advanced elements from different backgrounds and develop them further, both practically and ideologically, into pre-party formations and eventual party cells. These material tasks are more inconvenient, but the convenience of digital communication comes at the price of heavy limitation and operational vulnerability.

Operational Security

It is vital to remember that these digital communication forms are owned by capitalists. Communists should treat every communication using capitalist owned technology as if it can be seen by the running dogs of the bourgeoisie. This is not to say technology such as Zoom or Signal shouldn’t be used, but that it is imperative we be conscious of who owns and controls the channels with which we communicate. These services are designed to collect data about the way we use them, about our habits, our relationships, the way we text each other, the way our faces move when we speak. The Israeli Offense Force has been (not so) secretly using digital facial recognition technology for at least a decade. The IOF trains Amerikan police and intelligence operators. This sharing of technology and tactics that led to the mass sharing of itemized data measuring the activity of human life has given the bourgeois and its lackeys a large vista of knowledge already. We should not continue giving our enemies information about us.

Speaking with comrades in a room presents far less inherent security vulnerabilities than texting them, as cell phones can be turned off or put in separate rooms. Physical presence also reinforces the sense of collective belonging that is so rare in contemporary Amerika. Such a belonging is, for many, a necessary prerequisite for constructive struggle. Quoting again from Hinterland, Neel writes,

“Since this material community of capitalism unifies only through a wide-ranging alienation that forces all individuals into dependence on its own impersonal infrastructure, the emergence of new, intensive communal practices are a recurring threat. All unity that is not the unity-in-separation offered by the mechanisms of the economy poses at least some level of risk, since such spaces offer the germinal potential of a dual, communal power capable of seizing and repurposing this infrastructure to truly human ends.”

The Social Phenomenon of Disability

While group chats and video calls can be very helpful for ensuring our disabled comrades can engage in organization, it must be asked what we are really saying when those comrades are constantly relegated to being represented by pixels on a screen. If we truly care about enabling everyone in our communities to organize we must first make it possible for them to come at all.

Predominant capitalist infrastructure does currently make disabled comrades less capable of materially engaging with the movement the same way capitalist infrastructure makes disabled comrades less able to materially engage with all of their surroundings. That is what disability is. We should recognize it and start establishing transportation networks and physical communication networks to actually allow everyone to engage materially, rather than accepting measly capitalist reforms that are insufficient for our task.

We must develop organizations with the material capacity to require able bodied members to lend their time and labor to those members experiencing disability. Seeking to change each individual member’s mind on whether or not they want to pick up the comrade that can’t walk nor drive ignores the organization’s responsibility to create structures that incentivize certain social behaviors over others. Having the organizational capacity to discipline members that don’t share in the labor of transporting comrades experiencing limited mobility ensures able bodied comrades will materially engage (albeit, lightly) in the struggle to end disability as a social phenomenon. As more comrades of all abilities are able to attend they will bring more accurate sense data to meetings, and the social-productive basis of disability will be laid bare.

Practical Issues

Within a Communist formation struggle is the necessary type of communication with which collective correctness is reached. Without the proper communication channel to conduct struggle an organization will fail to develop political positions or programs, as well as fail to mediate disagreements between comrades. In organizations that overly rely on digital communication the failure of struggle stems from the fact that the primary mode of relating member to member is incomplete. 

In many ways developments in digital communication have heightened the efficacy of certain aspects of pre-digital mediums, however the general understanding of engagement with physical mediums such as written/printed words on paper, or more specifically speaking to someone face to face are not idealized in the way the understanding of engagement with digital mediums tends to be. A group of people writing letters to each other would not call themselves a Marxist organization, nor a cadre. However the error is made with digital communication. It is thought that because we see the text, images, videos, audio, profile pictures, etc of these other disparate Communists we are in organization with them. The truth is Communist organization must be material, and its social basis must be material. Texting and video calls are not a material basis sufficient for struggle in the Communist movement.

The nuances of human communication extend beyond the capacity for photons to accurately represent. Approximations such as emojis or a raise-hand button fail to accurately replicate their respective real world counterparts. In group chats, frenzied influxes of messages are difficult to parse, as well as generally unfocused. Nuggets of truth are ignored, as is any message deemed unimportant or simply drowned out. Synthesizing new ideas from the hodgepodge of takes and quips, generally produced by Zoom calls and group chats, requires an immense amount of personal labor and organizational form. Such organizational form and labor capacity is usually lacking in organizations over-reliant on digital communication.

Here we see that labor capacity and organizational form are in vital need of development, as well as an understanding of the way these two aspects relate to what respective form of communication is primary. Often failures to develop these two crucial aspects are blamed on a lack of discipline practiced by its members. It is thought that if only comrades could use digital communication in a disciplined manner, then the organization would develop. However, as Communists we must recognize that general individual adherence to discipline is a direct outcome of an organization’s ability to promote and develop discipline. For example, take an instance from my own organizing experience in 2021. In a now defunct organization, the primary channels of communication were a series of group chats. More than seven respective group chats existed, their purposes not being worthy of note as they were never fulfilled. The only programs of activity were sporadic Zoom meetings. Decisions were chosen by vote of thumbs up emoji. Eventually the central committee decided to address the issue of organizational stagnation. This came after a vote was called in the general body group chat. Of twenty-six members only six voted. Had the vote been called at an in person meeting the issue of abstention could have been identified and struggled over. In such a case the struggle would take place within conditions conducive to development, as all members would be present and engaged at the same time. The group chat form does not allow for assurance that all members are engaged nor even present and is incomplete as a primary mode of relating comrade to comrade.

One way for a Communist formation to assure presence, engagement, and conditions favorable to development is to meet routinely in person. Routine meetings ensure allotted time to the necessary facilitation of a formation. Audio or video calls can suffice, but they are not ideal due to the nuances of communication obscured by the technological limitations discussed prior. An added effect of routine meetings is the reinforcement of organizational discipline. Through the struggle of facilitating in person meetings we learn valuable organizing skills, and practice fundamental aspects of discipline such as comradely communication and punctuality. In such a physically disconnected time for many people in Amerika simple socializing is largely in need of practice. We must actively teach ourselves collective social responsibility, starting consciously with those revolutionaries close to us.

Routine, in person meeting itself is not sufficient for the purposes of a Communist organization. Such a standing meeting acts as a material basis for struggle, but that basis must be struggled on to develop the organization. Unity must be assured through struggle over various topics consistently, lest false unity develop into a destructive force. 

For example, I was a member of a study org that met in person biweekly to study and conduct a business meeting. It went well, until a split occurred over the basis of the group being primarily friendly rather than on Marxist principles and a unity of purpose. This study organization had formed out of the liquidation of a former org that was based primarily in a series of group chats. Coming out of the first org we recognized the necessity of a material social basis. Coming out of the second study org we recognized the necessity of assuring unity. The primary factor that made the difference in establishing a social basis for proper, disciplined struggle capable of assuring unity in our now third form is the material nature of meeting routinely in person. 

Philosophical Issues

Aside from the practical issues, over reliance on digital communication can illuminate certain philosophical and linguistic issues. One such issue is the misconception that physical presence and communicating via digital media can be described as equally materially in the context of Communist organizing.

Communicating digitally and in person meetings are different in one key way: one is media, the other is not. Media represents the material world, and media exists in the material world, but a picture of a pipe cannot be said to materially be a pipe. One cannot smoke out of a picture of a pipe. As Communists we seek to work and struggle in the material world, not just the representations of it. Images produced by visual technology and the humans they represent are not the same. In person there is no bandwidth limit, there is no lag, there is no edge of the frame, there is no disparity in microphone quality. In person there are full, human people to relate to materially, to form organizations with. When these two real things are confused for each other, important distinctions between identity, speech patterns, and presentation crumble. 

Take, for instance, the lifespan of a working group for a now defunct organization I worked with. The primary mode of relation of the group was a weekly in person study session. Some members attended an International Working Women’s Day event which sparked discussion and education on the topic. A distinctly proletarian feminist philosophy was burgeoning in the organization due to the immediate threat of sex-assault. That and the social reinforcement of regular discussion and study. We talked about what we knew of manipulation and abuse, engaged with feminist art, and theorized how to ignite more involvement with the movement.

Soon after this feminist boom a member was expelled due to serious chauvinistic actions. Following their expulsion it was decided that a working group should be established to address the issue of gender chauvinism. This could have been a moment for progressive organizational development, but instead the group’s momentum was halted completely by the creation of the Prol-Fem Working Group group chat. Now that the focus of the group was digitally centered the engagement dissipated. 

What existed before was a loose, informal, material basis of regular congregation. By creating a group chat we replaced this congregation with a rigid set of points on a screen. The effect of removing the basis for social practice was clear: social practice slowed and eventually halted completely. 

We were correct to recognize that the group needed structure. Our error was that rather than interrogating the necessities for structure we created a group chat. It was the form of the group chat that de-prioritized the material content of feminism that we engaged with before, and presented a singular, digital structure to send information to. We needed material structure to formalize a special meeting of the working group, and establish necessary roles as the group developed. Instead we attempted to form structures digitally, removing the informal structure that did exist.

Without a basis of material presence social practice loses its importance and power. The material nature of Communist organizing is obfuscated when media is considered synonymous with material presence.

Conclusion

By idealizing forms of digital communication as spaces to organize within we severely limit our capabilities as Communist revolutionaries. To be “in” a group chat, to be “on” the internet is to interact with technology that accesses those forms of communication. It should never be confused with occupying space. In a time when that confusion is being so acutely exploited by the bourgeoisie to obfuscate the differences between media and reality, let us heed the words of Olufemi Taiwo literally when he implores us, “to build the kinds of rooms we could sit in together.”

A Walmart spokesman gave the following statement regarding the closures:

The decision to close these stores was made after a careful review of their overall performance. We consider many factors, including current and projected financial performance, location, population, customer needs, and the proximity of other nearby stores when making these difficult decisions

This is a perfectly normal decision for any capitalist firm to make; it is the inevitable logic of the capitalist firm put into action.

Like all capitalist firms, Walmart Inc. exists for one reason, and one reason alone: to generate profits for its shareholders, especially the monopolist families who own the largest stakes. If one of its locations is “underperforming,” if it is failing to generate profits at an acceptably high rate, then the firm will dispassionately cut its losses and shutter its less-profitable stores — no matter how many workers are left jobless in the process,; no matter how the poorest and most vulnerable consumers in the surrounding community are affected. Such retreats are individually of little consequence to a massive firm: Walmart Inc. owns around 5,000 locations within the U.S. alone. Closing a few “underperforming” stores is nearly insignificant to the corporation’s monopolist major shareholders. And so, Walmart’s executives, as the dutiful servants of these monopolists, will reflexively amputate their “excess” properties without a second thought, the same way a millipede might instinctively amputate one of its own multitudinous legs.

All of this is straightforward enough. But the U.S. corporate media has an odd way of “interpreting” Walmart’s closures.

In a December 2022, interview with CNBC, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, made the following remark:

Theft is an issue. It’s higher than it’s historically been. [McMillon cites no evidence for this claim, because there is no evidence.] And we’ve got safety measures, security measures, that we put in place by store location. I think local law enforcement being staffed, and being a good partner, is part of that equation… It’s really city by city, location by location. It’s store managers working with local law enforcement. And we’ve got great relationships there, for the most part. That’s the way we approach it.

Note that McMillon regards the U.S. Empire’s police forces not merely as a public “service,” but as a “good partner” to the capitalists. His characterization is absolutely correct: the police in this country, as in all capitalist countries, exist not to “protect and serve” the people, but to protect the private property, and thus the profits, of the capitalists, and to serve the capitalists by repressing, through everyday brutality and terror, the poor and the racially oppressed masses — the so-called “criminal elements.”

When asked if it “matters” that police sometimes neglect to arrest shoplifters “below certain levels” — as if anyone should care that someone walks out of a Walmart with a few unpaid-for cans of food, or a pack of socks, or a handful of school supplies — McMillon replied with a warning: “If that’s not corrected over time, prices will be higher, and/or stores will close.”

McMillon’s warning is at best a half-truth. Shoplifting is an infinitesimally small component of that determination. But exactly how small?

Lost merchandise is known as “shrinkage.” According to reliable reports in the capitalist press — that is, by the capitalists’ own admission — Walmart’s shrinkage amounts to approximately $3 billion per year, against a nearly $300 billion in total annual revenue (or, a loss of about 1% of its annual revenue). Of this shrinkage, about one-third is due to normal accidental breakage, another third to “employee theft,” and the last third to shoplifting. Thus, in sum, shoplifting costs Walmart about 0.3% of its total yearly revenue — a drop in the bucket, and a drop that every retailer, from mega-corporations down to the corner stores and street vendors, accounts for ahead of time, in the form of insurance. In other words, practically speaking, shoplifting costs Walmart Inc. absolutely nothing whatsoever.

When Walmart and other retailers raise prices, the underlying reason is not shoplifting. Prices rise, generally speaking, as a “normal” adaptation to inflation. At certain moments, prices may also rise when certain capitalists gain a momentary advantage in the market — for example, when they’ve rooted out competitors and cornered the market, when they’ve formed trusts and achieved a local monopoly, or during moments of acute crisis, when demand spikes and it becomes possible to price-gouge consumers.

Why, then, do Walmart’s corporate executives and spokespersons claim that petty theft is to blame for rising prices? In order to cast blame away from their firm, as an actor within a capitalist market; in order to fool its consumer base into blaming the public at large, and especially the poor — those most likely, owing to the desperation of poverty, to commit petty theft. This scapegoating of the poor appeals to reactionaries, especially to middle-class “small business owners,” professionals, and wealthy homeowners, who share with the capitalists an interest in exploiting and repressing the working-poor.

Some corporate media outlets have latched onto McMillon’s “old news” December 2022 interview with CNBC. These outlets are now spinning a narrative that Walmart’s Portland closures were forced by purportedly “rampant” shoplifting and “record-breaking retail theft” — that the mega-corporation has been so horribly bullied, abused, and taken advantage of by local poor people that it now has no other choice but to abandon Portland. Apparently, we are supposed to believe that Portland has descended into a kind of hellish anarchy, with hordes of bandits roaming the streets, mercilessly driving retailers out of business — one stolen can of soda and bag of chips at a time.

The fascist Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, even went so far as to allege on Twitter: “This is what happens when cities refuse to enforce the rule of law. It allows the mob to take over. Businesses can’t operate in that environment.” Liberals, including Portland’s Democrat mayor, Ted Wheeler, quickly pointed out to Governor Abbott that several Walmart locations across Texas have closed in recent years — but this is beside the point.

Needless to say, this hellscape-Portland narrative is nonsense, and only the most gullible, slack-jawed, dead-eyed, corporate-media-poisoned dolts will buy it for a second.

Actually, there is nothing exceptional about circumstances surrounding the Portland closures. Portland has not, in fact, descended into a hellish chaos of roving bandit mobs, like something out of a post-apocalyptic action film.

In fact, Walmart’s announcements of closures in February included ten locations across several states, including Arkansas, D.C., Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wisconsin; only two of those listed were in Portland. At the time, the company announced that the closures were due, simply and straightforwardly, to “underperformance.”

Even some liberal economists — those who aren’t out for blood, for expanded police militarization against poor and racially oppressed communities, at least — have acknowledged the unlikelihood that Walmart is closing its Portland stores due to shoplifting. A better explanation is that Walmart simply failed to corner the market in Portland; its overall market share was smaller and less competitive, and thus less profitable, than it wanted, so it packed up and left to find more fruitful territory. In one article, a market analyst is quoted as follows: “Walmart typically needs to be where they can be a big player and capture all the shares. There are some locations where they’ve struggled to gain a strong foothold, and they’ve left those places.” This explanation, straight from the mouth of a liberal professional whose very job is to advise capitalists on profiteering strategy, is straightforwardly correct.

Why, then, is the U.S. corporate media shamelessly lying about a purported Portland “crime wave” forcing retailers out of business?

Because the U.S. corporate media, in all its shades, is the loyal mouthpiece of the ruling monopoly-capitalist class.

That’s why even an event as mundane as an enormous retail firm closing a few of its less profitable stores must be twisted by “our” corporate media into a Poor Law narrative about the rapacious, self-destructive greed of the stupid, unwashed, savage poor, who must be reigned in by “our” military-dictatorship police, lest these animalistic masses tear apart “our” country’s very social fabric by a thousand cuts of petty theft.

The U.S. corporate media’s hatred of and contempt for the poor masses knows no bounds, and its propensity to demonize these masses with clumsily spun narratives and outright lies is untempered by any sense of human decency, journalistic integrity, or shame. But this wretched profession serves a purpose: in broadcasting their hatred and contempt for the vast majority of this country’s, and the world’s, human beings, for the poor and the dispossessed, the corporate media talking-heads serve, day by day, to normalize the misanthropic ideology of the capitalists. Our rulers will gladly watch as we starve, as we succumb to plague by the millions, as we suffer daily state-terror at the hands of the fascist police — so long as they can stave off a decline in their rate of profit, just a little longer. But the rate of profit is declining all the same, for this decline is a process built-in to the capitalist mode of production; it is a fundamental law of capitalism, and it will bring even the biggest firms crumbling down, just as erosion flattens even the tallest mountains.

The Cuban Revolution has undeniably taken a monumental step forward toward the total emancipation of the oppressed. As this paper reported, Cuba’s new Family Code “is, in no uncertain terms, the most progressive and comprehensive law in history, anywhere on Earth, with regard to the emancipation of women, LGBT people, children, the elderly, and disabled people.”

But not everyone is celebrating. The Western capitalist press, serving as the propaganda arm of U.S. imperialism, is desperately sputtering and stumbling over itself to drown out any celebration of revolutionary Cuba’s historic victory. To this end, the capitalist press is peddling a multifaceted, deeply incoherent narrative — a cacophony of anti-Communist propaganda, joined by such vaunted outfits as the Associated Press, The New York Times, and Reuters. Various anti-Communist NGOs funded by the imperialists — the usual suspects, like CIVICUS and the NED — have also crawled out of the woodworks.

Most have focused on dampening Cuba’s world-historic victory by oversimpliyfing the new Family Code as “legalizing gay marriage.” At the same time, any hint of faint praise for revolutionary Cuba is carefully qualified by attacking the revolution for a “slow” pace of progress, despite the fact that revolutionary Cuba has already outpaced every country in the Americas, and most countries in the world, in the struggle for LGBT emancipation.

As we reported in the Red Clarion, Cuba’s new Family Code does, in fact, enshrine marriage equality as law — but it does so much more than “just” that.

The new Family Code is a comprehensive legal code, laying out the legal dimensions of families, children and the elderly, women, LGBT people, and disabled people. It is uniquely progressive in the world on every front. We could go on, but we will instead encourage readers to read our full summary of the new Family Code.

Yet, the Family Code has been oversimplified in the capitalist press of the United States and other Western countries as something resembling the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which tenuously legalized same-sex marriage in the U.S. — and which is now on the verge of being overturned by the current Court, dominated by far-right fascist Trump-appointees.

So, why the oversimplifications?

The capitalist press has been forced to acknowledge the most widely known and reported aspect of the Family Code: marriage equality. But the capitalists can still subtly manipulate public perceptions by “failing” to thoroughly report the facts surrounding the popular referendum — to “tell the whole truth.”

The more rabidly anti-Communist outlets accuse the Cuban government of forcing an “unwanted” Code on the people, despite the fact that the Code was passed in a popular referendum. Hardly a single capitalist news outlet, even the “moderates,” can admit that the popular referendum expressed the political will of the people. Instead, the capitalist press explains away the new Family Code’s popularity by denying the political agency of Cuba’s people.

One of the news agencies most obviously guilty of this is Reuters. “Cubans Split over Liberal Family Code as Referendum Nears” — this was the headline of an article, published by Reuters in March 2022, in the lead-up to the popular referendum. The article baselessly asserts that, “Tepid support for the reforms … threatens to hand state-backed supporters a defeat,” citing as its source three so-called “experts.” One of these “experts,” who works for a German state-sponsored think-tank, falsely claimed that the Family Code had been, “compiled by state authorities, rather than being a grassroots movement.” In fact, the Family Code underwent multiple, significant alterations in accordance with suggestions voiced by the public at the nearly 80,000 grassroots community meetings held during the four-month-long public consultation process leading up to the referendum.

We hardly need to point out now that the predictions of Reuters and its “experts,” that the new Family Code would be rejected, were predictably and embarrassingly wrong: The Code was instead ratified by a two-thirds supermajority.

The more conspiracy theory-minded are coping and seething with the assertion that the popular referendum was really a sham effort by the Communist Party of Cuba to “stabilize the regime.” For instance, the Miami Herald cites nameless (likely fictitious) sources to paint the popular referendum as “a smokescreen for a government that is in desperate need of … legitimacy.” The truth, of course, is that the Cuban government enjoys the support of the overwhelming majority of Cubans, and therefore already has “legitimacy” by any truly democratic standard; this is not changed by the fact that an insignificant minority of Cubans oppose the revolution and the Communist Party.

Reuters also indulges in its share of conspiracy theories. In an article headlined “Cuba Uses Media Blitz to Promote ‘Yes’ on New LGBT-Friendly Laws,” published a few days before the vote, Reuters accused the Communist Party of “flooding state-run media with stories and celebratory images” of LGBT people and putting up “roadside billboards touting diversity,” all in order to convince the Cuban public to support the new Family Code’s historically unprecedented expansion of LGBT rights. (How truly evil, those Communists!) The conspiracy theorists at Reuters claimed that the Communist Party’s mass public education campaign on LGBT rights, launched in the months leading up to the referendum vote, was an underhanded effort to dupe the Cuban public and cover up “anger” and “widespread protests” — demonstrations which, in actuality, have at most attracted a few hundred paid activists in Havana.

Reuters only cites “analysts consulted by Reuters” to justify its conspiracy theories. One of these “analysts” is the same German sham “expert” Reuters consulted in the previous article, who makes the truly bizarre claim that, “many people will vote [out of] loyalty to the government, much more than on content” — as if Cubans were incapable of independent thought; as if the Cuban electorate wouldn’t vote “Yes” on the Family Code for the simple and obvious reason that the majority supports the rights of LGBT people, women, children, the elderly, and the disabled. This “expert” assertion that citizens of revolutionary socialist states are mindless robots is a classic anti-Communist smear. Another of these so-called “analysts” is a right-wing fascist “dissident” — the sort who are broadly ignored as irrelevant extremists by the Cuban public, but are beloved by the rabidly anti-Communist Western capitalist press as “pro-democracy activists.” Reuters quotes this “dissident” (who lives not in Cuba, but in Madrid, Spain) as actually advocating against the Family Code — against the expansion of LGBT and other rights — for no other reason than to “punish the regime.” The “dissident” takes off the “pro-democracy” mask and admits that anti-Communists are, in truth, against democracy and emancipation. 

Why the baseless pessimism toward the people of Cuba? Why the sham “experts” stating easily disprovable falsehoods? Why the indulgence in conspiracy theories?

Doesn’t Reuters brand itself as a respected, trustworthy, “value-neutral,” and “objective” news agency?

Among other distortions appearing in the capitalist press is the widely-repeated line that the recent popular referendum was “rare” and “unusual” in Cuba — another easily disprovable falsehood. The Associated Press, for instance, released an article headlined, “Cuba Holds Unusual Vote on Law Allowing Same-Sex Marriage,” in which it characterized the referendum as a “rare” event. In fact, popular referenda are a normal feature of Cuba’s robust participatory democracy, and have been held many times in the past. The most recent such popular referendum was held in 2019, only 3 years ago, when an overwhelming 90.6% (with a voter turnout of 90.15%) of the electorate ratified Cuba’s new Constitution. The only “exceptional” aspect of this year’s popular referendum on Cuba’s new Family Code was the unprecedented level of public grassroots participation: The public consultation leading up to the referendum involved nearly 80,000 mass community meetings across Cuba and among Cubans living abroad, attended by a total of over 6.5 million Cubans (75.93% of the electorate).

Again, why the distortions? Isn’t the Associated Press one of the largest news agencies in the world, and isn’t it meant to be an “objective” source?

The fact is, the capitalist press cannot afford to admit the truth about Cuba. A two-sided pressure compels these agencies and outlets to manipulate, distort, falsify, and lie.

On the one hand, to tell the truth about revolutionary Cuba would force the capitalist press to acknowledge the progressive, democratic, and emancipatory nature of the Cuban Revolution — and, by extension, Communism. The mass media monopolists in the West will never allow this. The capitalists invest untold billions of dollars in their propaganda machines, because demonizing Communism is a crucial pillar of the capitalist class dictatorship. They must, at all costs, convince the oppressed that another world, free of exploitation, war, and all oppression, is impossible.

On the other hand, acknowledging the progressive, democratic, and emancipatory nature of the socialist revolution would expose a sharp contrast between the advancements of revolutionary Cuba and the reactionary backslides of the fascist U.S. Empire.

Let’s look specifically at the rights of LGBT people in the U.S. Empire today, and compare this abysmal situation with the progress of LGBT emancipation in Cuba.

So far this year, nearly 240 anti-LGBT bills have been filed in state governments across the U.S. Empire. In February 2022, Texas instituted a program denying life-saving medical care to transgender children, while threatening parents who accept and affirm their transgender children with prison sentences. Texas has been joined, to greater or lesser degrees, by the states of Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, Utah, Idaho, and California — yes, even “liberal” California — all of which have passed (or are considering) laws banning medical care for transgender children in particular and transgender people generally. The states of Alabama, Minnesota, and Oklahoma are considering or have passed restrictions on the rights of same-sex families. In recent years, many of the same states have instituted laws that prohibit public school teachers from even discussing the existence of LGBT people. Across the country, we’ve seen LGBT pride parades and other events get attacked by cops and civilian-fascist demonstrators. At the center of it all, the current far-right Supreme Court, having overturned Roe v. Wade (the right to an abortion), is threatening to put marriage equality next on the chopping block. And it doesn’t stop there: In addition to entertaining challenges to the Obergefell decision, the far-right fascist wing of the Court has threatened to overturn the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision, which legalized homosexual intimate contact, and the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision, which legalized inter-racial marriages.

This is the awful state of LGBT rights in the U.S. Empire. Meanwhile, only 90 miles away from U.S. shores, Cuba’s electorate has ratified the most progressive, comprehensive law regarding the rights of LGBT people — as well as women, children, the elderly, disabled people — and the nature of the family in world history.

The capitalists can’t allow this hypocrisy to be exposed, but it will be exposed, one defiant voice at a time, all the same. No anti-Communist cacophony can drown out the fact that Cuba is thriving, while the U.S. Empire continues to descend into fascism.

We must proclaim “Death!” to this fascist settler-colonial empire, and, in the same breath, proclaim, “Long live the revolution!”

Viva Cuba! Viva la revolución! Hasta la victoria siempre!