Kim Jong Ill.
posted by Artw on Sep 9, 2008 - 86 comments

Vintage Soviet-era Christmas Cards. They're certainly cheerful! (via)
posted by Jimbob on Dec 20, 2007 - 43 comments

Milo Radulovich, RIP --thrown out of the Air Force during the Red Scares, he fought back--Radulovich's case (and the new medium of TV) showed millions the impact McCarthy was having and the absurd lengths he was going to. He himself wasn't ever accused of being a Communist himself tho: [more inside]
posted by amberglow on Nov 21, 2007 - 32 comments

Feeling nostalgic for those old school Soviet shindigs? Westerners are welcome to North Korea's Arirang Mass Games. Tickets are on sale now. Will tourist dollars/euros be the undoing of North Korea?
posted by oneirodynia on Apr 12, 2007 - 24 comments

New York University's Tamiment Library, one of the world's foremost centers of learning on labour history and the Left, has been given the archives of the Communist Party USA. (alternate non-NYT link) The donation includes 20,000 books, journals and pamphlets and a million photographs from The Daily Worker’s archives. Highlights include the original, hand-written will of Joe Hill.
posted by By The Grace of God on Mar 20, 2007 - 13 comments

Holy Madness! (Flash interface.) The Rubin Museum of Art in New York City has launched a website that allows you to pore over and compare Tibetan Buddhist artwork from their exhibits. Use the "Decode" feature to pick paintings apart and learn about their intricate components.

See also: their ambitious calendar of events.
posted by hermitosis on Aug 17, 2006 - 18 comments

On this date in 1848, The Communist Manifesto was published. Howard Zinn: "I don’t see much point in abstract theorizing or getting into arguments about Marxism, Leninism, etc. ... Theoretical analyses are useful but not crucial. There is a lot of wasted time in such endeavors, but not all is wasted. Marx’s Communist Manifesto was a theoretical analysis, immensely useful and inspiring. His first volume of Das Kapital was useful too. His second and third volumes, and his Grundrisse, were probably a waste of time!" Informal Poll: How many of you have actually read the entire Communist Manifesto? (I haven't.)
posted by mickeyz on Feb 24, 2006 - 42 comments

What A Revolutionary Laff Riot. Something I found interesting, even comical to contemplate, while clicking around: "Earlier in the day, we joined one of the feeder marches, chanting, "Soldiers Turn Your Guns Around, Shoot The Profit System Down!" While march organizers argued with the cops about what street to take, we made speeches linking the war to inter-imperialist rivalry and calling on students, teachers, workers and soldiers to destroy this system with communist revolution." And no, that does not mean I'm a PLP supporter, nor am I urging U.S. troops to mass mutiny (any more than I'd urge pigs to fly). I mean, hey, can anybody seriously picture "Petrograd 1917" happening in today's America?
posted by davy on Aug 7, 2005 - 48 comments

Commies with headphones.
posted by crunchland on Jun 27, 2005 - 18 comments

Wedded by the revolution...
"Dare to struggle, dare to win ... as married gays. After raiding a few Army camps, two communist guerrillas hid in a forest gorge and fell in love. Deeply. That was three years ago. On Friday, under a romantic drizzle in a muddy clearing in Compostela Valley province in Mindanao, Ka Andres and Ka Jose exchanged vows in a heavily guarded ceremony before local villagers, friends from the city and their comrades in arms.
They are considered the first homosexual couple in the New People's Army (NPA) who were wed by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)."
Some reactions. A wedding picture.
posted by talos on Feb 22, 2005 - 30 comments

Fools for Communism: "the world’s final redoubt of communism is not Havana or Pyongyang but American college campuses. 'The nostalgic afterlife of communism in the United States has outlived most of the real Communist regimes around the world....A sizable cadre of American intellectuals now openly applaud and apologize for one of the bloodiest ideologies of human history, and instead of being treated as pariahs, they hold distinguished positions in American higher education and cultural life.'" Here's also History News Network's interview with the authors of "In Denial: Historians, Communists and Espionage": "The facts of history that they [communist sympathizers] got wrong can be, in their view, rationalized, redefined, minimized, or otherwise set aside in service to the idealized future they seek. Many have learned no lessons from the failure of communism; they will ardently pursue the same goals by the same means, albeit under new names."
posted by 111 on May 7, 2004 - 127 comments

Mimosa is a retro look at Russia through engaging and often playful snapshots - it has all the feel of rummaging through a box of photos in an attic. Communist Store Windows offers another, more recent glimpse behind the iron curtain. Both galleries are like shots of peppered vodka.
posted by madamjujujive on Aug 31, 2003 - 15 comments

Truth, Justice, and the Soviet Way What if baby Kal-El's spaceship had crashed on Earth 12 hours earlier, in the Ukraine instead of middle America? The new 3-issue comic book series Superman: Red Son envisions the Man of Steel as a good-hearted citizen of the USSR, helping to spread communism across the world. Wonder Woman is his girlfriend; Batman is an anti-Soviet terrorist; Lex Luthor becomes U.S. president. This alternate-universe jaunt is not just for fun: writer Mark Millar says it's a timely exploration of what happens when one all-powerful country anoints itself leader of the world.
posted by Artifice_Eternity on Jun 9, 2003 - 25 comments

Was Stalin assassinated to prevent him from launching a nuclear attack on the United States? "'The circumstantial evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of non-fortuitous death,' said Jonathan Brent, a professor of Russian history at Yale University. 'And to support this further, we now have solid evidence, non-circumstantial evidence, of a cover-up at the highest level.'"
posted by mcwetboy on Mar 6, 2003 - 44 comments

Goodwill Industries Fires Worker for Being a Communist
Sewing-machine operator Michael Italie was fired by Goodwill for his Marxist beliefs. He had not been proselytizing within the Goodwill plant, and he was not accused of doing so. His political views became an issue after he appeared on television to participate in the Miami mayoral race.
posted by Irontom on Jul 2, 2002 - 51 comments

Communist kitsch is not yet dead.
posted by CatherineB on May 2, 2002 - 9 comments

Nelson Mandela is a “terrorist and a Communist” according to the Canadian Alliance’s laughingstock postpubescent Member of Parliament for Calgary West, who, incidentally, is also a virgin.
posted by textist on Jun 7, 2001 - 24 comments

Doh! Russians believe US citizens to be zombies and fear our Plan 9 from outter space. Former communist residents still remain skeptical of HDTV, among other new American trends like the United States being called a "Superpower."
posted by Brilliantcrank on Feb 23, 2001 - 17 comments