SocialistStories حكايات اشتراكية

This short book (131pg) by the russian/french Communist Victor Serge was written while Serge was still in the Soviet Union and had access to the very recently discovered archives of the czarist secret police. Written to help revolutionaries abroad deal with reactionary repression, it details the workings of the Okhrana (czarist secret police) as well as others: its handling and use of informers, its records and quasi-academic approach to compiling extensive information about revolutionary organizations, etcetera. Yet it also delves into the issues of revolutionary repression, and other tactical and political issues that face a revolutionary movement.

Mr. President
by Maina wa Kinyatti

You who have made yourself
Proprietor of our history
Defender of backward ideas
We are you captives
You can keep us in captivity
As long as you wish
You can murder us
But you cannot succeed in suppressing
Our revolutionary writings
You cannot cage ideas
You cannot murder ideas
Ideas belong to the people

In spite of your efforts
The fire of revolution
Will grow and spread
From universities to factories
From factories to the mountains
From the forests to the river banks
Your days are numbered

Ode to Pacification
by Mario Benedetti

I don't know how far the peacemakers will take their
metallic roar of peace
but there are certain insurance brokers who sell
policies against peacemaking
and there are those who'll seek the death penalty for
those who don't want to be pacified

when the peacemakers aim, they fire, of course to make peace
and sometimes they even make peace for two birds with one stone

clearly, there's always some fool who refuses to
be pacified behind his back
or some idiot who resists a gradual peace

This fascinating play (85pgs) by Mario Benedetti is about torture, and has found a lot of praise from comrades who went through the horrible ordeal of torture at the hands of the amerikkkan-trained security forces in South America. To introduce it, I think it would be best to put here the introduction which Benedetti wrote for this play:

Enjoy this very short story by socialist Mario Benedetti:

Completely Absentminded

It gives me great pleasure to introduce Dario Fo (1926-), an Italian radical leftist playwright, and the best playwright I have ever read by far. Although you may be wary of political theater, or as Fo put it "Political theater has become a kind of byword for boring theater, conceited theater, pedantic theater, mechanical theater, a non-enjoyable theater," Dario Fo's plays are one of a kind. What do I mean by that? I mean that Dario Fo, while always focusing on social and political issues in his plays, always combines this with irresistible humor. I have never seen even a mediocre imitation of what Fo does in his plays, combining politics and humor more successfully than could be thought possible. That being said, I have read many of Fo's plays already, many several times, and will be posting them all eventually, so if you enjoy this play, don't worry there is more to come!

This is another humorous story (2 pages) from the Czech author Jaroslav Hasek which mocks government "efficiency" and how the repressive state attempts to entrap people. Enjoy!

Liberation:

An Investigative Expedition - Jaroslav Hasek.pdf

This very short story or sketch is by Czech author Jaroslav Hašek (1883-1923), an active anarchist who was drafted to fight in WWI and was subsequently captured by the Russians. Later he became a supporter of the Bolsheviks and he stayed in Bolshevik Russia until 1920. Hopefully I will post several such stories or sketches by Hašek, who is most known for The Good Soldier Švejk. Hašek almost always writes in a satirical, comical vein although many of his works, like this one, do address social and political issues. This story describes a toll-collector on a certain bridge in Prague, the type of arrogant, petty official we all have had experience with. So enjoy this somewhat lighter example of socially conscious literature comrades:

Liberation:

This story was written by the Sicilian writer Giovanni Verga (1840-1922), about a small rural town's revolt during the time the Italian nationalist Giusepped Garibaldi was in Sicily. Not only does this work depict a minor revolution of the peasants and the poor, it also shows how empty bourgeois nationalism is for the lower class, for freedom from foreign domination may improve the lot of the lower classes, but in the end bourgeois nationalism still perpetuates a subjugation of the lower classes, and works against genuine class struggle in every way possible.

Liberation:

Liberty - Giovanni Verga.pdf