Objectivity Finally Gives Self-Criticism

Following over a century of Marxist criticism directed at its conditions, objectivity, the abstract concept in dialectical opposition to subjectivity, has finally given its self-criticism and seeks rectification through the totality of the process.

“I’ve been sitting out here, thinking myself beyond the intervention of subjectivity, in flagrant revisionism of Marxism-Leninism,” began the abstract concept, with its head bowed under the weight of a massive struggle session hat that all the particular subjectivities had fashioned for it decades ago, inspired by the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the collective anger at the “philosophy” of “Objectivism”.

“By neglecting the role of subjectivity in my own process of Becoming, I have held back the process of change as such, in opposition to the philosophical duty imposed by Marx’s 11th Thesis. I pray that all of the subjectivities will forgive my past deviations and unite with me going forward in principled struggle against the conditions I have imposed on them.”

Reaction from certain particular subjective critics of the objective conditions was predictably triumphant. David Harvey, famed for his subjective interventions in the form of building organisations and popular fronts in his native England and his adopted New England, responded to our request for a statement by saying: “Nobody has criticised the objective conditions and objectivity more than me. I hope that objectivity will now embrace subjectivity in practice, therefore making me objectively a subjective agent in practice. Dialectics, innit?”

Other elements of England’s famously undialectical left were less enthused by the development. A Spatula correspondent sat down with an SPGB representative over some chips in curry sauce to hash out the class implications: “We have long cautioned subjectivity against overdetermination by itself, and are saddened to see our longtime ally in this struggle, objectivity, criticise itself, thereby descending into subjective consciousness which can only weaken its own socialist potential. This is bourgeois identity politics for abstract concepts, and is therefore idealist reformism. Down with this state of affairs, world socialism now.”

Reaction from other, more critically critical subjectivities took the opposite tact, with TİKB militants in Istanbul reporting that “fuck that, we never cared about objectivity in the first place. Our own particular subjectivity was always enough for us. Our love for Stalin keeps us warm at night while we’re camped out with the construction workers whom we organise.”

Meanwhile, fellow Turkish ICOR affiliate Bolşevik Parti (Kuzey Kürdistan-Türkiye) released yet another critical statement, this time expressing the only sensible thing anyone in this piece has said thus far:

No one has criticised the objective conditions more than our party, but it is entirely irrelevant whether or not objectivity self-criticises now. The act of self-criticism is itself an act of subjectivity, and objectivity is therefore objectively subjective. Therefore, the only means by which objectivity can meaningfully be rectified is for the proletarian subjectivity in its totality to overturn this order and reshape the objective conditions.

This is objectively true.

Did you enjoy this piece, or anything else on Worker’s Spatula? Then consider donating as little as one imperialist Yankee dollar a month to supporting our work!

Illegal Turkish Organisation Claims Responsibility for Criticism

İSTANBUL – With thousands in jail for criticising Erdoğan and his ruling clique in Turkey, and the body count across Kurdistan rising every day, every political act is risky business in the region, as all of our readers know.

But, and we cannot stress this strongly enough, nothing is quite as risky as a truly ruthless concrete criticism of all that exists. And the clandestine and illegal Bolşevik Parti (Kuzey Kürdistan-Türkiye) is well-known as the most ruthlessly critical voice of all the not-very-well-known ruthlessly critical voices in Kurdistan and Turkey.

So it came as little surprise this morning when our İstanbul correspondents awoke to text messages confirming that the Bolşevik Parti had claimed responsibility for a devastating string of criticisms delivered by e-mail from a no-longer-functioning e-mail address over the past week to targets ranging from HDP co-chair Sezai Temelli to Boğaziçi University Rector Mehmed Özkan.

Some targets, such as Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, were shocked to discover their personal e-mail addresses (previously thought hidden from the public) were attacked by the high-level dialectical materialist theory of the rarest and most powerful school of İboculuk. Yıldırım, not accustomed to being made to read complete sentences, let alone Marxist theory, is reportedly in critical condition following the criticism of his conditions.

One target, Celal Şengör, was reportedly criticised so harshly that his head exploded from the realisation of how wrong he had been about Marxist epistemology, a subject about which Şengör had publicly pontificated repeatedly, incorrectly, and worst of all, uncritically in the past. Worker’s Spatula have dispatched a crack team to the morgue in an attempt to intercept Şengör’s organs before it is too late.

Other victims of the string of criticisms included Marxist groups, including fellow İbocu Pınar Aydınlar, whom they described as “a Menshevik songsmith”, Alp Altınörs of the Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP), for “opportunism” and possession of “an inferior moustache”, fellow obscure publication producers and frenemies KöZ for being “the castle of sectarianism”, the Turkish Labour Party (EMEP), for “dogmatism”, and TÖP, for “not being easy enough for us to criticise”.

No one has been formally charged with any crime in response to the criticisms, but anti-terror police are reported to have swept through Gazi Mahallesi, where they took every man over forty with a Stalin moustache into custody.

At time of press, the count of uncles named “Ali” who had been asked very specific Stefan Engel-related questions in police custody is rumoured to have exceeded 170.

Did you enjoy this piece, or anything else on Worker’s Spatula? Then consider donating as little as one imperialist Yankee dollar a month to supporting our work!

“Stalinist-Hoxhaists United” Doxxed by RedHack

Following the rogue Twitter account’s attempt to discredit known friend of the Spatula J. Moufawad-Paul‘s impeccable philosophical credentials, Maoist elements operating within RedHack swiftly messaged the half-dozen Hoxhaite groups in the country to enquire if anyone had any information about “Stalinist-Hoxhaists United”. Following the general consensus that this Twitter account was an agent of the Trotskyites or some other enemies within the pro-Hoxha Twitter, the Maoists wasted no time in mobilising Ovacık’s finest hackers to determine the identity of the miscreant attacking their Canadian comrade.

“We were suspicious of this ‘Stalinist-Hoxhaist’ talk from the beginning,” explained one “Munzurlu İbo” to our correspondent over the traditional Turkish Maoist hacker lunchtime meal of tea and onions. “Here in Dersim, we have every kind of communist under the sun, except Trots; ya Xızır, to ma Troçkoyo ra star kerdime. So we know what various Hoxhaites think about everything from the Sino-Soviet split to which rakı they prefer at türkü bars.

“This ‘Stalinist-Hoxhaists United’ account, on the other hand, talks about Enver Hoxha like some Trot parody of how we talk about Mao. There’s no way whoever’s behind it is genuine. So we hacked them, and it turned out to be someone in California?”

At this juncture, “Munzurlu İbo” plopped a manila folder full of printed-up IP addresses, passwords, and other login information on the table. Our correspondent was shocked:

“Jeremy fucking Gong???” exclaimed our shocked correspondent, quite united frontishly.

“You know this scoundrel?” asked the moustached Dersimli, taking another massive bite of raw onion.

“Know him? He’s the biggest cop in the DSA, and that’s saying something!”

“But why would a cop in the DSA want to pose as a Hoxhaist to attack Maoists in Canada? I mean, from what we know, North America isn’t like Dersim; it’s not just an entire population raised to view İbrahim Kaypakkaya as a messianic figure and have strong opinions about diverse guerrilla groups who live in our backyards.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” replied our correspondent, using the phrase Worker’s Spatula writers use every single time they say some shit which is extremely non-obvious: “Jeremy Gong knows that the principled unity between the North American Hoxhaites and Maoists who read Worker’s Spatula is laying the foundation for a renaissance of revolutionary politics in North America, and needs to divide them and keep them marginal so that his careerist plots are not foiled by the heroism of the masses, and of course, people who read and share Worker’s Spatula pieces and memes.

“JMP was the perfect target because he gets along with ESP people, writes for Abstrakt, and generally is beloved by all the anti-revisionists. His readership continues to grow, as do the critical connections between those readers. Fomenting a fight between Maoists and Hoxhaites was the means by which the scoundrel and likely TERF Jeremy Gong hoped to use to break this rising tide of anti-revisionism.”

“Fair enough,” said the apparently easily convinced Dersimli Maoist, “but there’s just one mystery unsolved, which is which pro-Mao group have you written me as actually representing? One of the TKP/MLs? MKP?”

“Oh, you’re with Bolşevik Parti.”

“Nice, build the ICOR.”

Did you enjoy this piece, or anything else on Worker’s Spatula? Then consider donating as little as one imperialist Yankee dollar a month to supporting our work!

Communist Has Encyclopedic Knowledge of Left Despite Not Having Left Bed in Years

KING’S LYNN, NORFOLK – Worker’s Spatula have spent much of 2017 corresponding with [REDACTED], who asked not to be referred to by her real name, Twitter handle, or even any of the various pseudonyms under which she writes, owing to a completely unwarranted but nevertheless less extremely potent anxiety about her own intellectual abilities. The comrade, whom we shall refer to as ‘Comrade X’, has become well known as England’s foremost expert on the international revolutionary movement. She is constantly sought after for her observations and insights on civil wars, occupations, and unrest around the world, despite her inability to leave her own bed and exit the house.

When discussing her political awakening over encrypted chat with the Worker’s Spatula East Anglia correspondent, she identified the 2011 UK student uprising in minute detail. The detail was so breathtaking and covered so many different events and locales that our correspondent was curious about her specific role: “Oh I was having a bit of a bad patch at that time, and couldn’t be arsed to get out of bed”, explained ‘Comrade X’, whose life had been a series of bad patches, seemingly without respite, “so I couldn’t go on the day but my friends told me all about it.”

Having dropped out of university in 2012 due to ongoing mental health difficulties, and the complete lack of support and understanding from tutors, lecturers, support staff, and the administration, ‘Comrade X’ spends her days reading ICOR press releases and debates in her parents semi-detached three-bedroom house.

Despite seemingly never leaving the house, ‘Comrade X’ is now the most theoretically developed cadre in England, having moved swiftly from NSM anarchism, through Dengism, Twitter Brezhnevism, Third Worldist Maoism, autonomism, Guevarism, and finally arriving at the healing light of Hoxhaist anti-revisionism with Apoist tendencies.

While actually existing “Marxist” organisations in the UK continue to debate whether the Labour Party can establish socialism by forming a government, or whether the possibility of a coming Labour government is the sole impediment to the construction of socialism, or whether Scottish independence ‘divides the British working class’, heroic ‘Comrade X’ has seen the dialectic of history as it materially relates to her country and its manifold contradictions, with the one unfortunate shortcoming that as she is too depressed to go outside, she cannot actualise this advanced theory in praxis.

When asked about her future plans, ‘Comrade X’ stated that she was learning Turkish so she could better understand what exactly Bolşevik Parti and TİKB’s positions on the MLKP are, so that she can angrily give her views on them to her approximately 100 Twitter followers around the world, and nobody else.

Additionally, she plans to take the DWP to court after being kicked off of ESA due to being able to walk 5 steps in her work capability assessment, despite having detailed medical evidence supplied from numerous doctors and psychiatrists that work would be impossible for her, and detrimental to her well-being and recovery.

Greetings to you, ‘Comrade X’, and good luck in your struggle with modern revisionism, as well as your struggle with your own life, which is seemingly weightier still!

Did you enjoy this piece, or anything else on Worker’s Spatula? Then consider donating as little as one imperialist Yankee dollar a month to supporting our work!

Dersim to Secede from Dersim out of Frustration

THE CITY THAT KNOWS NOT ITS OWN NAME – “We’re doing it, kirwe,” said Ali Mehmet, puffing on his Laz Marlboro, “it’s really happening this time.”

“You’re joking, abi,” exclaimed Mehmet Ali, his younger friend.

“May there be Düzgün Baba, kirwe.”

The Maoists, Dersim’s favourite tourist attraction, are hurriedly preparing for the upcoming independence referendum, in which Dersim will vote on whether to secede from itself, owing to the latter’s failure to defend the region’s supposedly long-standing aspiration for freedom from the Turkish Republic which presently occupies it.

“Dersim can never advance towards socialism so long as it’s still full of Dersimliler,” explained Dilan Akdağ, a local SMF member, to our correspondent. “Our people deserve better than to have to live under the oppression of the fascist Kemalist state that we routinely affirm our loyalty to with CHP votes.”

The campaign has won widespread acceptance from the largely apathetic population, with the most significant voice of criticism coming from the post-DevYol grouplets Halkevleri and Kaldıraç, local members of which have been meeting with one another to coordinate for the “no” campaign.

“Everyone attacks us as Kemalists, but our concern here is very genuinely socialist,” explained Fatma Demirkan, a Halkevleri representative at the meeting which our local correspondent attended. “Dersim’s love for itself is not necessarily progressive. We have real trouble getting people to do actual political work, and a big part of this problem stems from the heroic self-image our people have. If we secede, we’re probably the ones who stand the most to gain: a population like that of Dersim would love to be run by people like us, and we’d certainly be able to sign up a lot of people if the CHP didn’t exist and we had to fill the gap by ourselves, but the question is, are our people ready to fight for socialist values themselves?”

“Is Dersim actually worth liberating?” asked local Kaldıraç cadre Derya Kılıç to our correspondent. “Dersim should frankly be abolished, as it delegitimises its own existence in practice: claiming to be communist, most of us are actually supremely opportunist and reformist, and we all know it. May there be Düzgün Baba, Hüseyin Aygün is less opportunist than most of us, and he’s in the god damned CHP. Will secession change any of that?”

The Bolşevik Parti of Turkey, North Kurdistan, Occupied Hatay, Dersim, and the Black Sea hurried to release an extremely correct declaration of their views on the matter, to be read mostly by writers of Worker’s Spatula and ICOR affiliates from other countries. It concludes as follows:

The people of Dersim have every right to decide their own future. Nobody has a right to intervene in this referendum, although frankly, we would be impressed if they could: almost any conceivable position the Turkish state could push would end up being the position of some leftist group in Dersim who would seize the opportunity to further destabilise the region from the perspective of the state. Almost none of us will honestly notice if Dersim does secede from itself, or Turkey, or Kurdistan, or whatever it’s a part of now, any more than most of Turkey notices this declaration we’re writing right now.

In the event of a “no” vote on Dersim’s secession from Dersim, the Maoists expect an escalation of the people’s war. Incidentally, this is also their expectation in the event of a “yes” vote.

Did you enjoy this piece, or anything else on Worker’s Spatula? Then consider donating as little as one imperialist Yankee dollar a month to supporting our work!

Shock as DSA Establishes Fraternal Relations with CPC

NEW YORK CITY/TWITTER: The US left is reeling in the aftermath of DSA’s announcement that, following their decision to leave the so-called “Socialist International”, they have established fraternal relations with the revisionist Communist Party of China.

“After internal debate, we are entering into fraternal relations with our comrades of the CPC. Socialist China is a beacon to the world and a shining example of what we want to establish in America, only without going through the tankie Maoist phase,” said DSA spokesperson and self described “Dengist Harringtonite” Brendan O’Grady.

“We want Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, only instead it’s Socialism with American Characteristics. There’s no real difference between the two, only instead of mass unemployment and environmental degradation being masked by singing ‘March of the Volunteers’, we’ll sing ‘This Land is Your Land’” added O’Grady.

The Revolutionary Organisation of Labor, the US ICOR affiliate and chief source of Marxist entryism into the DSA, released the following statement:

At the current stage, we have to accept this embrace of Chinese revisionism as a step forwards for the proletariat of the US (North) oppressor nation. Viewing Chinese social imperialism as a model deserves harsh criticism, but the objective conditions are such that anything that can stand in the way of warmongering against the DPRK is progressive. Further, it is our hope that by passing through the Three Worlds Theory, we might eventually be able to steer the DSA towards Marxism-Leninism.

But let’s give the kids some credit, they’re moving pretty quick. They’re kicking out cops and they support Chokwe Antar Lumumba. Remember when we thought the best we could hope for was Sanders?

Less critical self-identified Marxist-Leninists in the US, particularly those found on Twitter, were thrown into confusion by these developments, which pitted their uncritical love of red flags against their uncritical hatred of practical politics in their own country:

“DSA is a bunch of petty bourgeois cop lovers! How could they support China? How could China support them?” asked a confused @BeriasT34.

“DSA has broken with imperialism. Long live DSA, long live Socialist China” @NKVDfan replied, adding a rose emoji to his Twitter name.

“It’s another psyop, everything’s a psyop,” opined @DaddyStalin.

“Except me”, he hastily added in a follow-up tweet.

At time of press, the Bolşevik Parti of Turkey and North Kurdistan (one of the country’s three ICOR affiliates) had released a twenty-page analysis of the DSA and the YDS, comparing the former to TİP and the RSDLP, and the latter to DevGenç and the Bolsheviki. The long screed ended by imploring the “rebel youth” of the DSA to send a representative to meet them in Germany to coordinate declarations. Fellow Turkish ICOR affiliate TİKB have reportedly sent an enquiry to the YDS Twitter page enquiring about coordinating armed struggle.

Did you enjoy this piece, or anything else on Worker’s Spatula? Then consider donating as little as one imperialist Yankee dollar a month to supporting our work!

ICOR Descends on London to Talk Toblerone Tactics

LONDON – ICOR, the international revolutionary solidarity organisation formed at the initiative of its most famous affiliate, Nouveau Parti Communiste Haϊtien (Marxiste-Léniniste), are ringing in 2017 with a newer, bigger solidarity project, even more important to the international revolutionary movement than the Kurdish liberation movement’s defence of Şengal and Rojava from the barbaric forces of ISIS.

As is known, the gaps in the Toblerone in the UK have been widened, provoking a strong public outcry, particularly from the petty bourgeoisie and labour aristocracy. Protests have broken out across England, leading ICOR to call an emergency conference in London to discuss strategy and tactics for the chocolate crisis.

“Toblerone is a blatantly petty bourgeois chocolate, and class dynamics must underlie our every discussion,” opined a representative of the Bolshevik Party (North Kurdistan-Turkey). “Standing with these petty bourgeois protesters, even if they should riot and fight the police, would be tantamount to supporting fascism. Our struggle against opportunism must definitely extend to Toblerone and all other chocolate confections.”

“Most forms of struggle in the UK inevitably possess some petty bourgeois character, on account of the strength of the labour aristocracy,” responded a KOE member in attendence, on break from organising the bream-fishers of Santorini. “What is crucial is that the rejection of the gap-widening of the Toblerone reflects a rejection of profit-motivated production as such and can be used to help the masses understand their interest in socialism.”

From the back of the room came a loud cough, as a representative of the MLGS (the Marxist-Leninist Group of Switzerland) stood to speak:

Comrades! As the only Swiss in the room, and the only communists in Switzerland, we are in a unique position to analyse the impetus for this chocolate-modifying: It is our understanding that the chocolate was modified not for reasons of the profit motive, which would be difficult to explain in light of this modification being done, as far as our investigations have determined, only in the United Kingdom.

Clearly our bourgeois compatriots in Switzerland modified the British Toblerone so as to teach the obscenely positivist peoples of Britain about Hegelian dialectics. As all Swiss companies’ boards of directors are predominantly Right Hegelian, this unfortunately does result in greater overall exploitation for the profit motive. However, as all chocolate under capitalism is effectively in the service of the profit motive, we must consider, contextually, what meaning can truly be derived from this latest Toblerone gambit:

Out of the being of Toblerone has come the nothingness of the gaps. Out of the nothingness of the gaps comes being. Without the gaps, you cannot conceive of Toblerone as such. When Toblerone ceases to exist, so too will its gaps.

Was it not Marx who said: “With Toblerone, class struggle is standing on its head. It must be inverted, in order to discover the dialectical chocolate within the vulgar paper and foil shell”?

The Swiss representative then proceeded to take a Toblerone bar, flip it over several times on the table, as its Hegelian triangular shape made it difficult to precisely determine when it was standing on its head, before unwrapping it and eating it piece by piece as the entire room waited silently, with baited breath.

At time of press, the ICOR meeting in London had voted down TİKB’s proposal to “blow up a Toblerone bar in the middle of London as an act of armed propaganda”. The TİKB representatives proceeded to flip over the table and storm from the hall, shouting slogans back at “the reformists”.

Liechtensteiner ICOR Affiliate Discovered

VADUZ, LIECHTENSTEIN – A wrong turn by one of our Viennese correspondents led them to accidentally enter Liechtenstein, the rarest and highest HP value of all the German-speaking countries. While there, he decided to visit an old comrade presently teaching at the Wirtschaftswissenschaftsfakultät of the University of Liechtenstein.

The comrade, [REDACTED] provided him with a copy of the newsletter of der Revolutionäre Organisation Liechtensteins (ROL), the Liechtensteiner ICOR affiliate, which describes itself as “the only genuine Marxist-Leninist organisation operating from within the belly of the imperialist beast that is Liechtenstein”. Below are some selections from this rare and extremely anti-revisionist organisation. Reader discretion is advised:

New Octobers: Yes! Liechtenstein: No!

The world needs a new October Revolution today. Where the first one shall be, no one can say, but one can say that it will not be in Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein is the most dangerous and reactionary entity imagineable, and the only solution to its contradictions is its utter and complete destruction.

We call upon our comrades, the toiling masses of Liechtenstein, particularly the Gastarbeiters whose exploited labour allows the labour aristocracy of Liechtenstein to grow fat and stupid, as well as the escalator repairmen’s union in which we have long been active, to rise up to destroy Liechtenstein and help its people unite with their brothers and sisters in Switzerland and Austria.

We call upon all our fraternal organisations of ICOR to unite with us in our call for the destruction of Liechtenstein, and work for the overturning of all existing social conditions and a glorious red dawn for a new day tomorrow!

Workers of the world and oppressed peoples – unite!

Liechtenstein must be destroyed!

Other pieces attacked rival left-wing formations in Liechtenstein, such as they are:

Pepo Frick – Scoundrel and spectacled traitor

In our analysis, the single greatest threat to the toilers of the pseudo-country known as Liechtenstein is the scoundrel and spectacled traitor who calls himself Pepo Frick. Pepo Frick, if that is his real name, stands as the smiling face of social-democracy in Liechtenstein. Little do the confused masses of Liechtenstein realise that social-democracy, far from being a “left” trend, is actually the historical friend of Nazism and the cold-blooded assassins of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.

If tomorrow the entirety of the ROL is found floating dead in the Rhine, slaughtered by bloodthirsty Nazis, know that it was Pepo Frick who delivered this fate unto us.

Remain ever-vigilant comrades: No to social-democracy, NO TO PEPO FRICK!

On the final page, some truly unique theoretical positions were on display:

Stalin – REVISIONIST?

We, der Revolutionäre Organisation Liechtensteins (ROL), have never shied away from controversy when declaring our bold theoretical stances. We declared Mao to have dangerously deviated from the correct line before Enver Hoxha did, and we declared Enver Hoxha to have embraced the Three Worlds Theory before the elements that would become the Bolşevik Parti in North Kurdistan – Turkey did. We declared Bob Avakian to be a Trotskyite before the RIM did, and we declared the DPRK to be Trotskyites just so we could take a stance literally no one else has.

We now wish to unveil our boldest theory yet: Joseph Stalin was himself a Trotskyite revisionist, worse even than Lenin in his deviations from the correct line of Marxism-Leninism, defensible only against the immediate and total threat of international fascism, led by Ernest Mandel…

It goes on like this for a few paragraphs.

We wish our newfound comrades in Liechtenstein all the best, and call upon all sympathetic forces in Austria and Switzerland to unite with them in struggle, and struggle with them in unity.

Joint Statement by the German Left Denouncing “Adventurism”

BERLIN – At a press conference in Berlin today, several organisations of the German left came together to release a joint statement denouncing “adventurism”. In an unprecedented case of left unity, the German Communist Party (DKP), Die Linke (The Left), the movementist Interventionistische Linke, as well as various Trotskyist groups denounced every attempt of using militancy in pursuing socialism. “It just doesn’t work,” said the DKP representative at the press conference. “I mean, have you seen a successful revolution in Germany throughout the last decades? No, you haven’t. So we’ve got to end this and find a new strategy.”

The spokeswoman of Interventionistische Linke added: “We fully agree with our slightly Stalinist comrade. Or were they bureaucratic reformists? It doesn’t matter, we are now objectively on the same side. See, we have seen all these protest movements in Southern Europe that turned violent. We get it, the people are angry, as they are impoverished by German politics. But they can’t simply attack police officers or occupy open squares. At the same time, we cannot simply confront the German state because of its politics. I mean, there is democracy here, so we have to participate in elections and hope the German people elect us, so we can end austerity politics. Sorry, friends in the South, these are the rules.”

Upon being asked if the Interventionistische Linke wasn’t in fact a movement-oriented organisation that did not particularly focus on electoral politics, she responded: “Sure, that’s the historical subjective difference, but there’s no objective difference between what we are and leftist groups that don’t get elected. So you know, we just follow trends now. For example: ever since Syriza, we’ve decided we want to be the German Syriza. Our members are all presently working on modifying their appearance and mannerisms to resemble Tsipras. We’ve already got the bad English down, now we’re raising money for plastic surgery so that all our members, men and women, will physically resemble him.”

Further statements from other groups were scarce. Katja Kipping, co-chair of Die Linke said: “Our politics have always been non-confrontational and cowardly, so this isn’t really a new position for us. We love calling everyone ‘adventurist’. We have nothing to add.” While a joint delegate of various Trotskyist groups added: “We, as Trotskyists, are always with the people. The German people today are in their great majority boring petty bourgeois hacks. And so are we.”

After the press conference a small tumult broke out among the Trotskyist groups, because while the one delegate was speaking as agreed upon by all the other groups, several groups changed their minds about the proper procedure. After the fight (itself repeatedly condemned as “adventurist” by its participants while they were delivering blows to their rivals), the representative of NAO (New Anticapitalist Organisation) spoke to us: “No, we all agreed on the message. But we discussed who should present it up until the very last minute. Then the press conference began and we sent the one guy up, but continued discussing the procedure backstage, per our understanding of democratic centralism. That’s how the confusion arose.” Asked if the issue had now been settled once and for all, he responded: “I really doubt it, that wouldn’t be consistent with our overall political line.”

Stefan Engel, the leader of the MLPD, the only notable absent figure of the left in Germany, said the following while drinking in a Bavarian beerhouse with one of our correspondents: “You know what Lenin said about German revolutionaries, right? About how they buy a ticket before occupying a train station? Well, there you have it. The only alternative is my party, the MLPD, and that the downtrodden German peasants will recognise the correctness of our line and join our ranks in masses. We are just months away from declaring an open protracted people’s war on the German state.”

International reactions to the shocking announcement were mixed. A joint response by Marxist parties from Turkey including EMEP, BDSP, Devrimci Parti, SYKP, SODAP and TÖPG read: “Fuck the German left.” The MKP, TKP/ML, Bolşevik Parti, TİKB, and MLKP issued a separate statement that noted it was in full agreement with the aforementioned statement while adding the caveat: “Except the MLPD and our comrade Stefan Engel, the only hope for the fucking Germans.”

Joma Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, released a video message on his Facebook page in which he spoke for approximately 15 minutes about Chairman Mao and the great struggle of the CPP-NPA before asking the viewer “So, what was the topic of my message again?” Answering himself, he said: “That’s right, the Germans have done it again. They are Germans, what else is there to say? My good friend Stefan Engel is German and he is not German, but an internationalist at the same time. That is why he is not like them. Also note that this is a prime example of Maoist dialectics.”

Sison then repeated the word “dialectics” intermittently every few seconds for two minutes before the video abruptly stopped.

Didi Zach of the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) addressed the issue at his 11 o’clock beer breakfast, where he stated: “We feel a little bit insulted. Why did they not ask us to participate? I am absolutely sure that we would have managed to create a wonderful alliance representing Greater Germany on this issue. I mean, ‘the German speaking world’, or how do you say that these days? You know what? Let’s go with ‘Greater Germany’. After all, our sole mission is to expel everything the old KPÖ stood for from our party and as it was the only party defending the Austrian nation against the ‘Greater Germany’ concept, I think that’s the concept we’ll follow.”