undefined

This needs to be a real command.

{} + 0
>> 0

0 + {}
>> "0[object Object]"

I'm going home.

Really the only thing most of these tests seem to be good at is having people puzzled and/or laughing at their results.

I think we need a ProleWiki article on this. I'll see what I can do.

ProleWiki was able to track down a copy of the book in the original Spanish and we are proud to be able to offer, for the first time ever, an English translation of this important work.

Amazing!

This is Digital Humanities when full digital and no humanities. Seems like a bunch of tech bros who like to do data-crunching without properly familiarizing themselves with the subject first.

I used to use the Squawker app on Android. I heard it also withered together with Nitter. I had already quit a month earlier (didn't have an account) and it has made me feel much better since most of who is left on Twitter are rightist trolls anyway. No regrets.

So, in Greece there is a discussion on a law proposed by the centre-right government which will allow homosexual pairs to be officially married and adopt children and the Communist Party has declared that it will vote against it.

Today they published a lengthy text explaining their controversial decision with arguments like claiming the law will abolish the proletariat's rights to "maternity" and "paternity" in favour of having "parent 1" and "parent 2" and possibly more, according to what is apparently dictated by European law (which it claims will be detrimental to the interests of the child). It makes the (probably not totally wrong) argument that there are too few children for adoption in Greece and too many people already waiting to adopt a child, and that might lead pairs to seek children through surrogacy, thus reinforcing the commercialization of birth and exploitation of women. And then it goes on to say that it is wrong to totally disregard biological sexes and their needs, rejects the theory that gender is a social construct and makes the claim that the liberalisation of gender policy leads to estrangement of the proletariat from class struggle (!). And after all this, they still claim to be protecting the interests of people of all sexual orientations.

I am pretty new to marxism and this position confuses the heck out of me. Is the Party position as controversial as I think it to be, or is there something that I am failing to grasp in its analysis?

The bright future

Really didn't expect to see the (old) Greek flag, but there it is, included towards the end of tier 7. So here's a little bit of history that nobody has asked of, yet I hope will prove to be an interesting reading. It is about the two "Mountain Governments" of Greece, both formed by the Communist Party -during, and in the aftermath of- WWII.

The first one was formed during the war, when the communists led the struggle against the Nazi occupators. Communist led ELAS and EAM guerillas, as well as right-wing EDES, had organized themselves and waged partisan war against the Nazi with remarkable success. They managed to establish the first free government of liberated Greece in 1944 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Committee_of_National_Liberation/) in the areas that they had managed to free, in spite of both Athens' Nazi-installed collaborationist "government" and the old bourgeoisie government that had fled to Cairo when the war broke out. The government-in-exile, led by king George II, was pretty powerless in its current situation, but for Western countries it remained the "official" government which represented Greece. Meanwhile, the "Mountain Government", largely (if not mostly) communist-led, planned some important educational reforms in the liberated areas, and even held its own elections. The remarkable thing about them is that, for the first time in Greek history, women were allowed to vote.

When the Nazi left Greece, the bourgeoisie government felt safe enough to return from abroads. The Provisional Democratic Government was dissolved several months after it had been formed after a government of national unity was established in the now fully liberated Greece. Communists argued that the newly formed government was problematic because it included former collaborators of the Nazi and it served the interests England, who had found the chance to meddle extensively with Greek affairs. Guerilla forces were forcedly disbanded in favour of a national army, which the government tried to "cleanse" from anybody they considered to lean even slightly towards the Left. Prosecution of former members of EAM and ELAS began. A peaceful demonstration of EAM was violently crushed by the English armed forces and local right-wing armed paramilitia. White terror began, forcing a lot of people into hiding. This is how the Greek civil war broke between the anti-communist bourgeois government, supported by right-wing militia and England, and left-leaning factions of EAM-ELAS.

In these conditions the Communist Party organised partisans into a small army (Democratic Army of Greece), seized some mountainous areas and proclaimed a new government in 1947 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Democratic_Government). It didn't last long, either. The Athens government won de-facto in 1948, and the second "Mountain Government" was dissolved in exile, in 1950.

Neither time did communists really have a chance to prove themselves in long-term government, as both of those goverments were provisional and existed in the midst of a war.

Wow, that turned out longer than I expected it to be. Still, I hope it was not too boring. The truth is, there is way too much history behind these events, entire books are dedicated to the events of those years. I just wanted to share the basic facts about it in the hope that somebody finds it useful/interesting.

Unfortunately, even if it was the case, the only thing in common with the former USSR would be geographical IMO. I don't think it would even be close to socialism. Any thoughts on this? If there actually was a possibility of establishing a real socialist state in the former USSR, who do you think would lead the change?