International Socialist Review

[Lakhzovia]

The International Socialist review was founded to become the voice of the global revolutionary movement for the liberation of mankind from the deprivations of capitalist exploitation. We serve to give a voice to the voiceless, counter-act reactionary nationalism and inspire the international proletariat to seize control of their own destiny.

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I set this up as a bit of a personal project to give me an opportunity to write socialist commentary about other players' nations.

However feel free to contribute if you want, just remember that this is a communist newspaper so if you want to write an article about how great and progressive your King is etc. then this is probably not the venue for you.

[Lakhzovia]

The Struggle Against Religious Fascism

A recent item of news coming out of Nya Aland regarding state persecution of religious minorities has been picked up by international news outlets raising once again the Mundus wide issue of religious fascism.

The article from the authoritarian, self-described "Odinist State" reports with apparent glee the arrest and prosecution of six foreign Christians for the alleged crime of desecrating a holy site, their actual crime? Cutting some mistletoe.

If found guilty of the charges they face the possibility of 40 hours of community service, a 6,000Kr fine and a two year suspended jail sentence. While the Nya Aland News reports that the more likely outcome will be a milder sentence of a 3,000Kr fine and deportation it is difficult for any progressive, right thinking human being in the 21st century to believe that any sort of punishment for collecting a wild plant is in any way acceptable.

While in Nya Aland non-Odinists are permitted to reside within the nation those that do are faced with perpetual persecution at the hands of a state which viciously imposes Odinist religious diktat on all within its borders. This has resulted in a brutally oppressive state in which it is against the law to publicly display non-Odinist religious symbols, engage in non-Odinist public prayer, preaching or distribution of religious material among a host of other repressive measures meted out to the 5% of the population who do not belong to the official state religion.

One may be perplexed at the apparent need of the state to forbid in its entirety the free public expression of religion by a 5% minority, could the granting of equality to such a small proportion of society really be that much of a threat to the religious belief of the 95% of the population that are ostensibly followers of Odinism?

The truth of course is that the non-Odinist population pose no serious ideological threat to the belief of the majority of Nya Alanders, instead the minority are victims of the Alandish ruling class' need to enforce their iron rule over the society for the sake of their own enrichment. By wedding Odinist belief to their authoritarian regime they provide themselves with an easy lever of control over the hearts and minds of their people. By whipping up religious-national passions and directing it against outsiders they seek to isolate, and immunise their own suffering masses against the penetration of foreign concepts such as liberty, justice and socialism; Odinism has become a cage in which they have imprisoned the minds of their people, blinding them to their own state of exploitation at the hands of the bourgeoisie.

It must be recognised however that Nya Aland and Odinism are not the sole manifestation of religious fascism on Mundus. The Kingdom of Lodja and its Cult of the Goddess, Ecclesiastical States, Rhandic Orthodox Christianity and the theocratic state of Ahkabnil  to mention but a few all to a lesser or greater extent practice a form of religious fascism, collectively subjecting hundreds of millions of people to the arbitrary dictates of their respective religions while additionally robbing religious minorities of their own rights.

Despite the marked differences in religious doctrines between these faiths all of them share a commonality in function. Originating as a means to achieve social organisation in the earliest years of human civilisation religions played a significant role in starting man along the path to modernity. However just as certain animals will shed and cast off their skins as they mature so do societies, for most of the civilised nations on Mundus this leads to the abandonment of the political role of religion in the political life of society. The march of human progress and the arrow of history have always pointed towards the increasing emancipation of man whether it be from the effort involved in production of life's necessities, the burden of ignorance or lack of political representation, in all cases history has shown that the trend of modernity in inexorably towards greater freedoms for greater numbers.

The tendency for obsolete social forms to be discarded by the growing society in the same way a butterfly discards its cocoon is a result of previous social forms bringing about their own destruction. Why then do such forms persist today in ostensibly developed nations? The reason is simple to deduce from historical precedent. It is a fact that the ruling class of every previous period has attempted to resist the transfer of power to the class that is rising up to replace it, often times this has resulted in violent suppression which either fails or succeeds, if only for a time.

The religious fascist states we see are products of this class struggle. The ruling classes of the respective countries recognise the unnatural and anachronistic nature of their existence in the modern world. Their societies having sufficiently developed to transform into a higher form of social organisation strain against the privileges that their respective rulers have secured for themselves. The recruitment of religion and its fusion with the state apparatus is a means to strengthen their unnaturally prolonged rule and hold together with iron bands societies that would otherwise be torn apart by their own internal contradictions.

Thus it is that we can find, in the 21st century, states where the vast majority of citizens are condemned to serfdom, stripped of any form of political, economic or social rights. This situation is a travesty of justice, but one which cannot last forever. The iron law of history demands that such structures fall, the task for socialists and civilised peoples across Mundus is to fight ceaselessly until they do so.

[Lakhzovia]

Saheristani Elections: Why Socialists Should Boycott the Vote

As Maria Oman Al-Isa, Presidential Candidate for the Saheristani "Socialist Left", announces that she is dropping out of the race in order to improve the electoral prospects of the bourgeois centrists of the Liberal Democratic Party, socialists and workers across Saheristan are left asking: What do we do now?

The toiling classes of Saheristan have been dealt a tremendous blow today as it was announced by the Socialist Party candidate that she had made the decision to drop out of the race and officially endorse the campaign of the Liberal Democratic Party who's campaign had been flagging since the political shockwaves of the assassination of Mullah Fated gave an unexpected electoral boost to Ashkan's campaign.

While the reasoning behind this move is clear to all, socialists cannot help but express outrage at this betrayal of the working class by its highest supposed public representative. This act of craven political opportunism demonstrates the extent of the political degeneration of the Saheristani Socialist Party, for a party of the labouring classes to have resorted to such unprincipled behaviour speaks volumes about the true nature of the party leadership and their contempt for the proletariat.

When socialists participate in elections it is for a very specific purpose, that purpose is to utilise the platforms provided during electoral proceedings to reach out a politically engaged audience with a strong, clear socialist message. The window of elections provides a rare opportunity to force exposed opponents to defend themselves against the prosecuting voice of the proletariat as delivered through the workers' party, if done successfully this not only wins us seats in the legislature or other offices of state, but also allows us to plant the seeds for a popular movement against the worst political excesses of the class enemy. In this way the workers' party is able to exert pressure from without and within the system, stressing it where it is weakest and bringing about the fissures that will allow the eventual breaking of the current regime and its supplantation with workers' rule.

This then is the entire purpose of socialists participating in the elections of bourgeois democracy, not for the sake of illusory power, but in order to use the opportunities presented to us to bring about the complete end of the bourgeois order. For this task to succeed it is of paramount importance that the proletariat be constituted as a politically independent class working entirely for its own interests on its own terms, the role of the proletarian party therefore is to act as the most developed expression of this political independence. This therefore is the true nature of Maria Oman Al-Isa's betrayal and why it is such an unforgivable one, she has sacrificed the political independence of the working class for petty gains. This short termist move has in a single moment lashed the workers to the bourgeoisie, in doing so she has encouraged the most class conscious of the masses to dull their faculties and vote for a party that represents the interests of the Saheristani bourgeoisie.

The promises of the Vizar campaign, to improve education, to invest in industrial expansion are a trap for the working class. While they are being portrayed as progressive in nature the truth is that these are clearly policies that benefit the section of the bourgeoisie that is represented by the Liberal Democrats. The expansion of industry and the need for educated workers to toil in the new factories serve to enrich those who are already rich, the small gains for the labourer who may now find a job with a small advance on their previous salary, are minimal. All that voting for this party will do for the working class is to provide them with more opportunities to be exploited, it does not and never will address the fundamental injustices of the system.

Given the danger present in surrendering class independence to the bourgeoisie, with its prospects of setting the self-emancipation of the working classes back decades, it is only appropriate for the class conscious toiling people of Saheristan to reject the unprincipled betrayal thrust on them by Al-Isa and boycott this sham of an election. In its stead they should begin organising among the most advanced workers for the battle to reclaim the Socialist Party for socialism, oppose the bourgeois project to impede the cause of workers' liberation and give new life to the organs of genuine socialist opposition.

No to Ashkan! No to Vizar! Boycott the Election!

[Lakhzovia]

Bene Gesserit religious fascists weaponising children in their war on civilisation

Shocking news has emerged from Kaitaine where Pravda reports that Bene Gesserit religious fanatics have taken to brainwashing and arming children to act as soldiers in their war of terror against the civilised world.

The Bene Gesserit cult is a fitting example of the type of religious fascism that the Socialist Review has persistently warned against, most recently in our article 'The Struggle Against Religious Fascism'. During its period of dominance in the nation of Kaitaine the cult ruled with an iron tyranny in which the religion's obsession with the creation and preservation of pure bloodlines resulted in the people of the nation lacking any of the freedoms normally taken for granted in civilised societies. For example the cult was extremely controlling it matters of marriage with the cult decided who should be matched to whom and this was facilitated by an entire caste of religious officials who spent their lives scrutinising people's ancestry to determine their social value.

This focus on blood is ostensibly about the religion's belief that certain humans are born with greater or lesser aspects of divinity and that with human effort through eugenics that the final 'saviour' of mankind could be bred. In reality this religious system clearly grew out of a desire to ensure the preservation of the class privileges of the ruling aristocratic houses who the religion cast as being particularly divine. This merging of state power structures and religious ideology, as is usually the case in situations of religious fascism, was to cement the authority and power of the rulers over the society. In this particular case however, so totally was this carried out that the aristocrats themselves fell victim to the excesses of the cult system that sustained them, sacrificing a degree of their own political autonomy in exchange for an unassailable socio-economic position.

The resulting society was so dominated, and so impoverished by the Bene Gesserit fascists that often the only way for the masses to realise any sort of economic or social relief from their suffering was in effect to sell their daughters into the service of the cult, thus ensuring that a constant stream of human life was fed in to the system in order to sustain its unnatural moribund existence. By far the most harrowing aspect arising from the cult's dominance of the political life of Kaitaine was the development of religious military orders aimed at defending the social structure they ruled over from both the external and internal threats that their system generated.

Given the unbearable suffering of the masses under the military dictatorship of the Bene Gesserit it was inevitable that the people would one day rise up and throw off the parasitic fanatics that had spent centuries brutalising them. Kaitaine now is a free, progressive and prosperous socialist state; a beacon to all the worlds oppressed. In the years since the revolution they have systematically dismantled the Bene Gesserit infrastructure, not only in order to free the people from the past, but also in order to protect the future from counter-revolution, the wisdom of which should now be clear to all.

Sadly the battle against the cult is not over and despite having successfully destroyed much of its public network the fanatical core of religious fascists seek to carry through a counter-revolution to restore the previous insufferable conditions. To do so they continue to run a secret networks of 'schools' in which children are brainwashed into becoming the foot soldiers of an army that seeks to use terrorism to bring about the reversal of Kaitaine's liberation.

The brainwashing of children for the sake of terror is a tactic designed to exploit the civilised world's protection of, and trust towards, minors. It is a despicable deed which the world should refuse to turn a blind eye to and should act as an alarm of what horrors the future holds if the cult is not crushed once and for all.

The International Socialist Review commends Kaitaine for its principled and humane campaign against the Bene Gesserit. Now it is time for all socialists to unite in the war against religious fascism, at home and abroad.

[Lakhzovia]

Hands off Lakhzovia! Down with Imperialism!

Lakhzovia, a country whose ongoing crisis has been in the international spotlight for almost a year, made headlines again this week as the nation nudges ever closer to calamity. Amid the confusion of events many in the international proletarian movement have failed to develop a consistent, principled revolutionary perspective raising the question: How should socialists approach the Lakhzov Crisis?

As we go to press events in Lakhzovia, where the Khaliniz Brigades have just launched a murderous internal struggle against their former partners in the Utman Provisional Government, are beginning to spiral out of control, a situation worsened by the threat of imperialist intervention in the region.

While it has been a trend for the international workers’ movement to sympathise with the beleaguered utman people who suffer under the heel of Lakhzov oppression and to vocally support their right to national self-determination this line of argument has become increasingly dangerous, especially with the Utman cause having been co-opted by the imperialist bloc of Rokkenjima and Achkaerin.

It is undeniable that the fascistic Kadassa Regime that rules over Lakhzovia is responsible for the systematic denial of the most basic human rights to the Utman people, brutalising them at every turn in a campaign of cultural genocide and in light of this the left’s hatred of the regime is both justified and correct. If further consideration is given to the regimes historic role in the destruction of the socialist United Peoples’ Republic then the crimes of the government would appear at first viewing to put it beyond the ability of any socialist to support it.

However there is a threat greater to the workers of the region than even that of the Kadassa Regime and that is the Rokkenjiman-Achkaerinese axis that has arrayed itself against the country. This imperialist bloc, while ostensibly stepping in to prevent genocide, in reality has its eyes set on the subjugation of Lakhzovia to its own interests. Thus it is that Rokkenjima found itself able to sign the Pyrettania-Nakim Accord with Kadassa despite being fully aware of the character of his regime while the Achkaerinese had no qualms in engaging with the Lakhzov government to form the Cotf Aranye Partnership which is currently headquartered in the country.

It is clear to all that so long as the only option to gain access to Lakhzov markets, resources and military basing rights was through cooperation with the Kadassa Regime these imperialist states were more than willing to turn a blind eye to Lakhzovia’s violation of the basic rights of its citizens. It was only once an alternative option arose that these states suddenly developed a conscience and found themselves on the side of the oppressed expressing surprise, as if only now learning, of the brutality of Kadassa’s government.

The concern for the Utman, for democracy and for the arrested activists who fought for it is a mask. What the imperialists have discovered is an increasingly intransigent regime, its ego bloated by their pandering to it, and an alternative which they are now pursuing with characteristic self-interest – regime change.

It is under these circumstances that the world proletarian movement has found itself unable to chart a principled path. The temptation exists, and understandably so, to support the imperialist peacekeeping mission and even their ultimate goal of regime change should it come to that, however to do so would prove to be a devastating mistake for the outcome of either would be nothing less than the imposition of double chains upon the denizens of those lands.

If the imperialist axis were to engage in, and win a war against fascist Lakhzovia then they would impose a new regime which even if superficially more civilised would ultimately be a puppet established purely to enable their wholesale plunder of the land. The peoples of the region whether they be Utman, Lakhzov or Axicz would end up less free and stripped of any vestige of power over their own destiny.

As distasteful as it may be for socialists to do so, the only principled stand to take when faced with the prospect of a war between fascist Lakhzovia and the ‘free’ imperialist states is to support the victory of the former and defeat of the latter. Why is this? Because the final victory of the toiling classes of all ethnicities within the country is tied up intimately with the defeat of imperialism; the impulse given to democratic consciousness by the struggle against imperialism will enable the workers to clearly discern the lines of Lakhzov imperialism itself and lead to the overthrow of the Kadassa regime. Simultaneously the defeat of the imperialist bloc will give a mighty impulse to the revolutionary consciousness of the world proletariat.

For this reason the slogan of all principled socialists must be ‘Hands off Lakhzovia! Down with Imperialism!’