SocialistStories حكايات اشتراكية

This book (79pg) by Marek Edelman was written just after the end of WWII, in 1945. It is an account of the heroic armed struggle of Jewish groups and individuals inside the Warsaw Ghetto against the fascist, occupying Nazi murderers. Marek Edelman was the highest leader of the ŻOB (The Jewish Combat Organization, the organization which united and directed Jewish armed resistance to the Nazis inside the Warsaw Ghetto) to survive the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He was a member of the Jewish Labor Bund in Poland before and during the war, and later was a prominent supporter of the Solidarnosc movement against the stalinist government of Poland. The Jewish Labor Bund was a socialist, anti-zionist group and they advocated staying in Poland and fighting for socialism and equality. Edelman himself was radically anti-zionist, and viewed himself as a Polish Jew who would thus obviously stay in his home country Poland, which he did after WWII.

This book (222pg) edited by the well known Indigenous Scholar Miguel Leon-Portillo is one of the rare books to tell the story of the rape and genocide of mexico from, not only the perspective of the victims, but actually in their words. The book contains several extracts from rare Aztec testimonies of the genocide of mexico, with short introductions by Leon-Portillo to explain the background and peculiarities of the given text.

This book (277pg) by Kenyan marxist Ngugi wa Thiong'o takes place after the end of the Mau Mau struggle. The book follows certain people and shows how they were affected by the "state of emergency" that the british colonialists declared during the Mau Mau struggle.

This book (220pg) by amerikan communist William Pomeroy is about the post-WWII armed struggle of the Filipino resistance group Hukbalahap (aka Huk) against the puppet Filipino governments that were simply the local running dogs of amerikkkan imperialism, and many of who were actually colonial officials during the period of amerikkkan colonial occupation and also during the fascist japanese occupation. The Hukbalahap was originally created on 29 March 1942, shortly after the japanese occupation of the phillipines and the start of mass repression that the japanese carried out routinely in it's occupied territories. It was created as an armed resistance organization to the japanese fascists, and was composed of communists, socialists, and trade unionists, and occupation wise made up mainly of peasants, with a smaller percentage of workers.

This play (109pg) by Dario Fo was written in the unconventional style which Fo himself first made popular, i.e. "narrative theatre" (teatro di narrazione). In such narrative plays, there is only one person, and there is no action or dress or background or anything like that, but just a narrator-actor telling a story, very similar to the popular storytelling which influenced Fo's style so much.

This novel (241pg) by Black South African writer Sipho Sepamla, was written about the 1977 Soweto Uprising (they normally call them "riots" because the participants weren't white). It discusses both the students' movement which led the uprising, as well as the armed resistance groups which operated in South Africa during the period of white-rule (and now, thanks to the heroic sellout of Mandela, there is Black rule over economic apartheid, with the white torturers and murderers still free, and white ownership of an vastly unproportionate amount of land still continuing).

Declaration of War in Kenya
by The Revolutionary Peasants and Workers of the Mau Mau Resistance

When the war was declared in 1952
Our country was turned into a huge prison.
Innocent people, men, women and children,
Were herded into concentration camps,
Under all kinds of harsh repression.

Kenyan patriots were arrested and killed,
Thousands of others were subjected
To slow death in Manyani
And Mackinnon Road concentration camps.

KAU leaders were arrested
And taken to Kapenguria
Where they faced a Kangaroo court.

The Betrayer
by The Revolutionary Peasants and Workers of the Mau Mau Resistance

Long ago the British came upon us
With weapons of war
And they successfully fought us
And drove us out and took our land.
Go away, go away, you whites,
The time is soon coming
When you will be crying for mercy.

There is a great wailing
In the land of the African people
Because of land hunger.
The wise and even the foolish,
Who among you does not see
The overcrowding in our land?

You whites are like beasts in sheep's clothing

This short play (41pg) by Brecht is a beautiful play about one of the most well known resistance figures of Europe, Joan of Arc. She is often portrayed as insane, which is not surprising since any one who fought against british [brutish] imperialism was subject to demonization and dehumanization. In reality, Joan of Arc was an intelligent, brave, strong peasant girl, who began fighting against british imperialism and occupation when she was only sixteen. In the play you can see her intellect, and the court dialogue is kept very close or the same as what she said. Of course Brecht does add his own interpretation in, especially in the street scenes and the end where Joan refuses to sell out and betray her people. Of course this may be a little fictionalizing on Brecht's part, but I don't think that it is far from the truth in any case.

This is a beautiful play (30pg – it takes place during the Spanish Revolution), and it is basically a theatrical presentation of the argument between advocates of non-violence, and advocates of real change, and real struggle (i.e. advocates of armed resistance). Brecht is very effective, rhetorically and logically, in putting forward the argument for armed struggle, and I also like that he gave a fair view of religion's role in violent resistance (which is often hard for non-believers), since he not only mentioned the role of the clergy in advocating “non-violence” bullshit, but he also made it a point to say that many priests, and other clergy had died fighting against the fascists. Yet, as the eloquent and entertaining writer that Brecht is, the play does not lack at all in emotion or entertainment, although it is heavily focused on advocating a certain political message, and personally I even cried at the end, that is how beautiful, engaging, and timely it is.