Worker’s Spatula New Year’s Message and Self-Criticism

“No, we see your point,” explained our host, politely. “His analysis of international relations IS good, but I don’t think we’ll be converting the entire party to Shi’a Islam on the basis of that alone.”

“We’re recording,” interrupted the Yank. “Read the statement.”

“COMRADES!” began a bearded comrade with an obnoxious English accent, drops of butter tea dripping down his moustache, “We, the central committee of Worker’s Spatula, the rebel base of Marxist-Leninist internet irony, are here in a mountain camp in Bhutan, in solidarity with the local Gonzalists and their popular war against Bhutanese happiness! MABUHAY!”

“Down with mirth! Fuck joy!” interrupted one of the guerrillas in the back.

2016 marked the first full calendar year of Worker’s Spatula activity. Despite a generally pessimistic mood in some corners, in many ways, we count this past year as a success: We successfully defended Jeremy Corbyn against the Blairites, we defeated Hillary Clinton through our accelerationist agent, the Donald, and we sold a few t-shirts.

Per our original self-description, we take no responsibility for the many setbacks the world revolutionary movement has suffered over the course of the past year. Further, we are responsible for all progressive motion and unity among the revolutionary masses and their vanguard. So one would think we have no room for self-criticism, but we do. And not only because we’re being hosted by Maoists.

First of all, during our New Year’s self-criticism last year, we promised video propaganda. We did produce one low quality video, and wrote two or three others, but we made the grievous error of trusting the Yanks with video production duties. Needless to say, we should’ve known from Hollywood that the US is the last country you can put your faith in for quality video work. Hopefully and إن شاء الله, 2017 permits us to produce those and other videos for your viewing enjoyment.

More importantly, if we’re perfectly honest with ourselves, Worker’s Spatula is altogether too accessible to people who don’t spend all day reading ROL newsletters and founding documents of Turkish Marxist-Leninist groups from the 80s and 90s. We are simply not weird and obscure enough. Sometimes we even catch anarchists reading our work. It’s extremely disheartening to see, and represents clear evidence of some deviation from the correct line handed down to us from the prophet Vladimir Lenin (SAW).

Prepare for a new year which is more brutal, more dialectical, and more materialist. Prepare for jokes that Die Linke people won’t get, and GegenStandpunkt will hate themselves for chuckling at. We’re going to make jokes about Hegel and Gramsci and Left Communism, we’re going to talk about the THKPC-MLSPB instead of the MLKP, and we’re basically going to make 90% of our readers and 50% of our own staff declare the Spatula to be a hateful, unreadable mess barely worth mentioning.

We’re going to make the RCPB-ML look like the fucking CPB.

And yet somehow we’re going to keep gaining followers, because this is the internet, and quality and quantity keep transforming into each other in the ways we least expect.

In this spirit, we call on all of you to make a New Year’s resolution with us: MAKE YOUR RESOLUTION, REVOLUTION. Resolve to join Worker’s Spatula in our regular reading of revolutionary texts, the Spatula Reading Group, and become part of the process of our interventions in practical politics by responding to them!

On the first and fifteenth of every month, we’re going to assign a different revolutionary text for collective reading. It may be from the Marxist-Leninist canon, or perhaps it will be Hegel, but we will provide a link to the text online.

We want you, the readers, to write a one-page summary, or response with your reactions, preferably in terms of how you were able to relate the reading to the material conditions in which you are doing revolutionary politics. Through this online reading and recontextualising, you will be taking part in the dialectic that underlies Worker’s Spatula. You can push the spiral upwards! Push it! Push it good! Push it real good!

Taking part in this campaign is a great way to improve your Marxist reading and help expand Worker’s Spatula’s collective consciousness of the theoretical and practical struggles in your life. We encourage all to take part, and to e-mail us at mastursublator [at] gmail.com

Finally, in spite of whatever setbacks may loom large in your sight, we hope all comrades will cling tight to hope and struggle on to great victories in the new year! In particular, we hail Oscar Temaru’s inevitable victory in the upcoming French presidential elections. When the power of the Spatula and the revolutionary masses are united, miracles are possible! We are right, we will win!

WORKER’S AND OPPRESSED PEOPLES OF THE WORLD – UNITE!

Upon completing the reading of the statement, all present raised their Kalashnikovs skywards and fired into the heavens whilst the Yank screamed: “DIALECTICS, MOTHERFUCKERS!”