D2. Socialism

Malam mulai larut ketika sebuah pertanyaan sederhana muncul di tengah obrolan para pemain: “Kenapa game yang tadi terasa biasa saja, tiba-tiba ramai dibicarakan karena memberikan kemenangan besar?” Pertanyaan seperti itu kerap menjadi awal dari perbincangan panjang mengenai slot gacor dan pola game.

Di komunitas pemain, istilah “gacor” sering digunakan untuk menggambarkan permainan yang dianggap sedang memberikan hasil menarik. Dari sana, muncul berbagai dugaan mengenai pola tertentu, mulai dari perubahan ritme permainan, frekuensi simbol bonus, hingga pengalaman beberapa pemain yang merasa menemukan momentum tertentu.

Namun, apakah pola tersebut benar-benar bisa dijadikan patokan? Di sinilah pembahasannya menjadi lebih menarik.

Ketika Pola Game Mulai Menjadi Perbincangan

Bayangkan seorang pemain yang sedang memperhatikan jalannya permainan. Beberapa putaran pertama berjalan tanpa kejutan. Kemudian muncul simbol bonus, disusul kombinasi kemenangan dalam beberapa putaran berikutnya. Pengalaman seperti ini mudah membuat pemain berpikir bahwa permainan sedang memasuki fase tertentu.

Cerita tersebut kemudian dibagikan kepada teman atau komunitas. Pemain lain mencoba permainan yang sama dan mungkin mendapatkan pengalaman berbeda. Dari sinilah istilah seperti “lagi gacor”, “pola bagus”, atau “momentum panas” semakin sering muncul.

Perlu dipahami bahwa pola game yang dibicarakan pemain biasanya merupakan hasil pengamatan pribadi, bukan jaminan matematis. Setiap permainan berbasis RNG (random number generator) dirancang agar hasil putaran tidak dapat diprediksi secara pasti.

Mengapa Pemain Merasa Menemukan Pola?

Ada alasan psikologis yang membuat manusia cenderung mencari pola. Ketika beberapa kejadian muncul berurutan, otak secara alami berusaha menghubungkannya.

Misalnya, seseorang melihat beberapa kemenangan terjadi setelah sejumlah putaran tertentu. Ia kemudian menganggap urutan tersebut sebagai pola. Padahal, rangkaian hasil sebelumnya tidak otomatis menentukan hasil berikutnya.

Hal ini dikenal sebagai kecenderungan melihat hubungan pada kejadian yang sebenarnya bisa terjadi secara acak. Karena itu, pengalaman satu pemain belum tentu berlaku bagi pemain lain.

Memahami RTP, Volatilitas, dan RNG

Daripada hanya berpatokan pada istilah “gacor”, pembaca sebaiknya memahami beberapa konsep dasar dalam permainan slot.

RTP (Return to Player) merupakan persentase teoretis yang menggambarkan pengembalian kepada pemain dalam jangka panjang berdasarkan mekanisme permainan. Angka tersebut bukan berarti seorang pemain akan menerima persentase yang sama dalam satu sesi.

Sementara itu, volatilitas menggambarkan karakteristik distribusi kemenangan. Permainan dengan volatilitas tinggi umumnya dapat memiliki kemenangan yang lebih jarang tetapi berpotensi lebih besar, sedangkan volatilitas rendah cenderung menawarkan kemenangan yang lebih sering dengan nilai yang relatif lebih kecil.

Kemudian ada RNG, yaitu sistem yang digunakan untuk menghasilkan hasil permainan secara acak sesuai mekanisme yang ditetapkan. Kehadiran RNG menjadi alasan mengapa klaim mengenai urutan putaran yang pasti menghasilkan kemenangan perlu disikapi secara kritis.

Dari Cerita Komunitas Menjadi Informasi

Perbincangan mengenai slot gacor sebenarnya tetap menarik jika ditempatkan pada konteks yang tepat. Pengalaman komunitas dapat menjadi bahan diskusi tentang karakter sebuah game, tampilan fitur, tingkat volatilitas, bonus, maupun mekanisme permainannya.

Yang perlu dihindari adalah menganggap pengalaman tersebut sebagai rumus kemenangan.

Seseorang mungkin merasa mendapatkan hasil bagus setelah mengikuti pola tertentu, sementara pemain lain mencoba langkah serupa dan memperoleh hasil berbeda. Perbedaan tersebut wajar karena hasil setiap putaran tidak dapat dipastikan hanya berdasarkan pengalaman sebelumnya.

Menjadi Pemain yang Lebih Kritis

Pada akhirnya, pembahasan tentang slot gacor dan pola game bukan sekadar mencari “urutan rahasia”. Ada hal yang lebih penting, yaitu memahami cara permainan bekerja dan membedakan antara fakta dengan asumsi.

Sebelum memainkan sebuah game, perhatikan informasi seperti aturan, fitur bonus, RTP jika tersedia, serta volatilitasnya. Tentukan pula batas anggaran dan waktu sejak awal. Jangan mengejar kerugian dengan meningkatkan taruhan karena hasil sebelumnya tidak menjamin hasil berikutnya.

Cerita tentang game yang sedang “panas” memang mudah menarik perhatian. Akan tetapi, di balik setiap cerita kemenangan selalu ada faktor acak dan mekanisme permainan yang perlu dipahami.

Jadi, ketika perbincangan tentang pola game kembali ramai, mungkin pertanyaan terbaik bukan “pola mana yang pasti menang?”, melainkan “seberapa banyak dari pola tersebut yang benar-benar didukung fakta?” Dari pertanyaan sederhana itulah pemain dapat melihat dunia slot dengan sudut pandang yang lebih realistis, kritis, dan bertanggung jawab.

fenomena yang ikut berkembang adalah dunia slot online, yang kini menawarkan pilihan permainan jauh lebih beragam dibandingkan beberapa tahun lalu. Jika sebelumnya permainan slot identik dengan tampilan sederhana dan mekanisme yang mudah ditebak, saat ini pengembang menghadirkan berbagai tema, fitur interaktif, hingga konsep permainan yang dirancang agar lebih menarik secara visual.

Perubahan tersebut tidak terjadi secara tiba-tiba. Kemajuan perangkat mobile, koneksi internet yang semakin cepat, serta meningkatnya kualitas teknologi grafis ikut mendorong perkembangan industri permainan digital. Pemain kini dapat menemukan berbagai permainan dengan tema berbeda, mulai dari petualangan, mitologi, fantasi, budaya populer, hingga konsep futuristik. Keragaman ini membuat pengalaman bermain terasa lebih personal karena setiap orang dapat memilih tampilan dan karakter permainan yang sesuai dengan seleranya.

Ragam Fitur Membuat Permainan Lebih Dinamis

Salah satu hal yang paling mudah terlihat dalam perkembangan slot online adalah semakin banyaknya fitur permainan. Pengembang tidak hanya mengandalkan simbol dan gulungan, tetapi juga menghadirkan free spin, multiplier, bonus game, wild, scatter, serta berbagai mekanisme tambahan lainnya.

Fitur tersebut memberikan variasi dalam alur permainan. Namun, penting untuk memahami bahwa keberadaan fitur bonus tidak otomatis menjamin kemenangan. Hasil permainan tetap bergantung pada mekanisme yang digunakan oleh masing-masing game dan unsur keberuntungan yang menyertainya. Karena itu, pemahaman terhadap aturan dan karakter permainan menjadi bagian penting sebelum seseorang menentukan pilihan.

Selain fitur, kualitas visual juga mengalami peningkatan yang cukup signifikan. Resolusi grafis yang lebih baik, animasi yang halus, efek suara, serta desain antarmuka yang responsif membuat permainan terasa lebih modern. Pengalaman tersebut semakin terasa ketika permainan dirancang khusus untuk perangkat smartphone.

Smartphone Mengubah Kebiasaan Bermain

Perangkat mobile menjadi salah satu faktor terbesar dalam perkembangan slot online. Kehadiran smartphone membuat akses terhadap berbagai platform permainan menjadi lebih fleksibel. Pengguna tidak lagi bergantung pada komputer karena banyak permainan telah dioptimalkan untuk layar ponsel.

Dari sisi pengembang, kondisi ini juga mendorong lahirnya desain yang lebih sederhana dan responsif. Tombol dibuat mudah digunakan, ukuran teks disesuaikan dengan layar kecil, sementara waktu pemuatan permainan terus diupayakan agar lebih singkat.

Meski akses semakin praktis, pemain tetap perlu memperhatikan keamanan. Platform yang digunakan sebaiknya memiliki informasi yang jelas mengenai aturan permainan, kebijakan privasi, serta ketentuan transaksi. Literasi digital menjadi semakin penting karena kemudahan akses juga dapat disertai risiko, terutama jika pengguna tidak berhati-hati dalam memilih layanan.

Tren Permainan Semakin Spesifik

Keragaman permainan juga terlihat dari munculnya judul-judul yang menyasar minat tertentu. Ada permainan dengan konsep klasik yang mempertahankan nuansa mesin slot tradisional, sementara lainnya menggabungkan elemen modern seperti misi, karakter, cerita singkat, dan sistem bonus bertahap.

Tren tersebut menunjukkan bahwa pengembang semakin memperhatikan pengalaman pengguna. Mereka tidak sekadar membuat permainan dengan jumlah simbol yang berbeda, tetapi berusaha menciptakan identitas visual dan mekanisme yang mampu membedakan satu judul dari judul lainnya.

Di sisi lain, istilah seperti RTP dan volatilitas juga semakin sering dibicarakan oleh komunitas pemain. RTP dapat digunakan sebagai salah satu informasi statistik untuk memahami karakter sebuah permainan dalam jangka panjang, sedangkan volatilitas membantu menggambarkan pola risiko dan frekuensi pembayaran. Keduanya tetap bukan alat untuk memprediksi hasil pada satu sesi permainan tertentu.

Menikmati Perkembangan Secara Bijak

Dunia slot online akan terus mengalami perubahan seiring kemajuan teknologi. Perkembangan grafis, perangkat mobile, sistem interaktif, dan inovasi mekanisme permainan kemungkinan akan membuat pilihan semakin luas.

Bagi pengguna, memahami perkembangan tersebut sebaiknya tidak hanya berarti mencari permainan yang terlihat menarik. Pengetahuan mengenai aturan, karakteristik game, keamanan platform, serta pengelolaan anggaran juga memiliki peran penting. Permainan berbasis keberuntungan tidak dapat memberikan kepastian hasil, sehingga keputusan yang rasional tetap menjadi dasar utama.

Pada akhirnya, keberagaman dunia slot online memperlihatkan bagaimana teknologi mampu mengubah bentuk hiburan digital. Dari permainan sederhana hingga pengalaman yang kaya fitur dan visual, perkembangan ini menciptakan ekosistem yang semakin kompleks. Dengan informasi yang cukup dan sikap bermain yang bertanggung jawab, pengguna dapat memahami perubahan tersebut secara lebih objektif tanpa terjebak pada anggapan bahwa setiap fitur atau istilah tertentu pasti menghasilkan kemenangan.

Texas Poker, yang lebih dikenal sebagai Texas Hold’em, merupakan salah satu varian poker yang menarik karena kemenangan tidak hanya ditentukan oleh kartu yang diterima. Permainan ini juga menuntut kemampuan memahami situasi, memperkirakan kemungkinan, serta mengambil keputusan berdasarkan informasi yang tersedia. Di sinilah seni membaca kondisi meja menjadi bagian penting dari pengalaman bermain.

Bagi pemain pemula, poker sering terlihat seperti permainan yang sepenuhnya bergantung pada keberuntungan. Padahal, setiap putaran memberikan sejumlah informasi yang dapat dianalisis. Posisi pemain, jumlah lawan yang masih bertahan, pola taruhan, hingga kartu yang terbuka di meja dapat memengaruhi keputusan berikutnya. Pemahaman terhadap faktor-faktor tersebut membantu pemain melihat permainan secara lebih objektif, bukan sekadar menunggu kombinasi kartu yang bagus.

Memahami Informasi dari Setiap Putaran

Dalam Texas Hold’em, setiap pemain menerima dua kartu pribadi, sementara kartu komunitas muncul secara bertahap. Struktur tersebut menciptakan ruang untuk mengambil keputusan berdasarkan perkembangan permainan. Pemain perlu memperhatikan perubahan situasi dari pre-flop, flop, turn, hingga river.

Kartu yang terlihat memang menjadi sumber informasi utama, tetapi tindakan pemain lain juga tidak kalah penting. Misalnya, taruhan besar pada tahap tertentu dapat menunjukkan kepercayaan diri, tetapi tidak otomatis berarti lawan memiliki kombinasi terbaik. Sebaliknya, pemain yang cenderung pasif tiba-tiba melakukan kenaikan taruhan mungkin memberikan sinyal bahwa situasi telah berubah.

Namun, membaca pola taruhan bukan berarti menebak pikiran lawan secara pasti. Pengamatan yang baik seharusnya menghasilkan beberapa kemungkinan, kemudian pemain memilih keputusan yang paling masuk akal berdasarkan informasi tersebut.

Posisi dan Pengaruhnya terhadap Keputusan

Posisi di meja menjadi salah satu konsep penting dalam Texas Poker. Pemain yang bertindak lebih akhir biasanya memiliki keuntungan informasi karena dapat melihat tindakan beberapa lawan sebelum mengambil keputusan. Kondisi ini membuat posisi tidak sekadar menjadi urutan giliran, tetapi juga bagian dari strategi.

Ketika berada pada posisi awal, pemain perlu lebih berhati-hati karena masih banyak lawan yang belum menentukan tindakan. Sebaliknya, posisi akhir memberikan kesempatan untuk mengamati lebih banyak perkembangan sebelum memutuskan apakah akan mengikuti taruhan, menaikkan taruhan, atau memilih mundur.

Pemahaman seperti ini menunjukkan bahwa keputusan poker sebaiknya tidak dibuat secara terpisah. Kualitas kartu, posisi, perilaku lawan, dan kondisi taruhan perlu dipertimbangkan secara bersamaan.

Pentingnya Mengelola Emosi

Kemampuan membaca situasi juga berkaitan erat dengan pengendalian emosi. Pemain yang terbawa kekalahan sebelumnya dapat mengambil keputusan secara impulsif, sementara kemenangan beruntun kadang membuat seseorang terlalu percaya diri. Kedua kondisi tersebut dapat mengganggu penilaian yang rasional.

Pendekatan profesional justru menempatkan disiplin sebagai bagian dari permainan. Pemain perlu mengetahui kapan harus melanjutkan dan kapan sebaiknya berhenti. Pengelolaan batas permainan juga penting agar keputusan tetap berada dalam kendali dan tidak berubah menjadi tindakan mengejar kerugian.

Kesimpulan

Seni membaca situasi dalam Texas Poker pada dasarnya merupakan perpaduan antara pengamatan, pemahaman aturan, penilaian probabilitas, posisi, dan pengendalian diri. Tidak ada metode yang mampu menjamin kemenangan dalam setiap putaran karena unsur ketidakpastian tetap menjadi bagian dari poker.

Justru karena itulah Texas Hold’em menarik untuk dipelajari. Pemain tidak hanya berhadapan dengan kartu, tetapi juga dengan rangkaian keputusan yang menuntut ketelitian. Semakin baik seseorang memahami konteks permainan, semakin matang pula cara mereka menilai setiap situasi di meja.

Perbincangan mengenai slot gacor anti rungkad RTP hari ini semakin sering muncul di tengah perkembangan permainan slot online. Istilah tersebut biasanya digunakan untuk menggambarkan permainan yang dianggap memiliki peluang hasil menarik dan tingkat pengembalian tertentu. Namun, bagi pemain maupun pembaca pemula, penting untuk memahami bahwa istilah populer tidak otomatis menjamin kemenangan.

RTP atau Return to Player menjadi salah satu informasi yang kerap diperhatikan ketika membahas permainan slot. Secara sederhana, RTP menunjukkan persentase teoritis dari total taruhan yang dikembalikan kepada pemain dalam jangka panjang. Misalnya, permainan dengan RTP 96% secara matematis dirancang untuk mengembalikan sekitar Rp96 dari setiap Rp100 yang dipertaruhkan dalam periode yang sangat panjang. Angka tersebut bukan prediksi hasil untuk satu sesi permainan.

Karena itu, istilah RTP hari ini perlu disikapi secara kritis. Nilai RTP teoretis sebuah permainan tidak serta-merta berubah setiap hari hanya karena sedang ramai dimainkan. Informasi yang muncul di komunitas atau situs tertentu bisa saja merujuk pada statistik, promosi, atau interpretasi terhadap pola permainan. Pemain sebaiknya memeriksa sumber informasi dan memahami bagaimana angka tersebut diperoleh sebelum menjadikannya pertimbangan.

Mengenal Arti “Anti Rungkad”

“Anti rungkad” merupakan istilah populer yang menggambarkan harapan bermain dengan kerugian yang lebih terkendali. Dalam praktiknya, tidak ada karakteristik yang dapat menjamin seseorang pasti terhindar dari kerugian. Permainan slot menggunakan mekanisme acak, sehingga hasil setiap putaran tidak dapat dipastikan berdasarkan hasil putaran sebelumnya.

Pendekatan yang lebih profesional adalah melihat permainan secara menyeluruh. Selain RTP, pemain dapat memperhatikan volatilitas, aturan pembayaran, fitur bonus, serta informasi resmi dari penyedia permainan. Volatilitas membantu memberikan gambaran mengenai karakter risiko sebuah permainan, meskipun tetap tidak dapat digunakan untuk memprediksi hasil berikutnya.

Pentingnya Memeriksa Informasi

Kredibilitas sumber menjadi bagian penting ketika mencari informasi tentang slot gacor. Jangan hanya terpaku pada klaim seperti “pasti menang”, “jaminan jackpot”, atau “RTP tinggi hari ini”. Klaim semacam itu sebaiknya dipandang sebagai promosi, bukan fakta yang menjamin hasil.

Pengalaman bermain juga perlu ditempatkan secara proporsional. Catatan permainan dapat membantu seseorang memahami kebiasaan dan pengelolaan anggaran, tetapi pengalaman pribadi tidak bisa dijadikan bukti bahwa suatu permainan pasti memberikan hasil serupa kepada orang lain.

Pada akhirnya, slot gacor anti rungkad RTP hari ini lebih tepat dipahami sebagai istilah yang berkaitan dengan tren dan informasi permainan, bukan jaminan kemenangan. Memahami RTP, volatilitas, mekanisme acak, serta kredibilitas sumber akan membuat pembahasan menjadi lebih objektif. Dengan pengetahuan tersebut, pembaca dapat menilai informasi secara lebih rasional dan tidak mudah terbawa klaim yang berlebihan.

Istilah provider togel online cukup sering muncul ketika seseorang mulai mengenal ekosistem permainan angka digital. Bagi pembaca pemula, istilah tersebut terkadang membingungkan karena provider, operator, situs, dan penyedia layanan pembayaran memiliki fungsi yang berbeda. Memahami perbedaannya menjadi langkah awal agar informasi mengenai togel online dapat dinilai secara lebih kritis dan tidak sekadar mengikuti klaim promosi.

Secara sederhana, provider dapat dipahami sebagai pihak yang menyediakan sistem atau produk permainan kepada operator. Dalam ekosistem digital, peran provider dapat mencakup pengembangan perangkat lunak, pengelolaan sistem permainan, hingga penyediaan fitur tertentu. Sementara itu, operator merupakan pihak yang menjalankan layanan kepada pengguna. Karena itu, nama provider tidak otomatis menjadi jaminan bahwa sebuah situs merupakan layanan yang aman atau memiliki reputasi baik.

Mengenali Peran Provider

Provider biasanya berkaitan dengan teknologi yang berada di balik suatu permainan. Kualitas sistem, kestabilan platform, tampilan antarmuka, serta transparansi informasi merupakan beberapa aspek yang layak diperhatikan. Namun, pembaca sebaiknya tidak menilai sebuah provider hanya berdasarkan slogan seperti “terpercaya”, “pasti menang”, atau klaim peluang hadiah tertentu.

Dalam pendekatan yang lebih profesional, informasi sebaiknya diperiksa melalui sumber yang dapat diverifikasi. Legalitas layanan, kebijakan penggunaan, perlindungan data, mekanisme transaksi, dan kejelasan identitas pengelola jauh lebih relevan daripada sekadar popularitas sebuah nama.

Perbedaan Provider dan Situs

Kesalahpahaman yang umum terjadi adalah menganggap provider sama dengan situs togel online. Padahal, keduanya memiliki posisi berbeda. Provider berada di sisi penyedia teknologi atau permainan, sedangkan situs merupakan tempat pengguna berinteraksi dengan layanan operator.

Perbedaan ini penting karena reputasi provider tidak selalu mencerminkan kualitas setiap situs yang menggunakan produknya. Oleh sebab itu, pembaca perlu melakukan pemeriksaan secara menyeluruh sebelum mempercayai suatu platform.

Hal yang Perlu Diperhatikan Pemula

Ketika membaca informasi tentang provider togel online, jangan terburu-buru mengambil keputusan berdasarkan testimoni kemenangan. Hasil permainan angka pada dasarnya memiliki unsur ketidakpastian dan tidak dapat dijadikan sumber pendapatan yang pasti.

Perhatikan pula apakah sebuah platform menjelaskan aturan permainan dengan jelas, memiliki kebijakan privasi yang mudah ditemukan, serta menyediakan informasi kontak dan ketentuan layanan yang masuk akal. Hindari layanan yang meminta data sensitif secara berlebihan atau menggunakan janji keuntungan tanpa risiko.

Dari sudut pandang literasi digital, kemampuan membedakan informasi, promosi, dan fakta yang dapat diverifikasi merupakan bagian terpenting. Pembaca yang memahami cara kerja ekosistem provider akan lebih mampu mengenali klaim berlebihan dan mengambil keputusan secara rasional.

Kesimpulan

Memahami provider togel online bukan hanya tentang mengetahui nama atau popularitas suatu penyedia. Hal yang lebih penting adalah memahami peran provider, membedakannya dari operator, serta menilai transparansi dan keamanan layanan secara objektif.

Bagi pemula, pendekatan terbaik adalah membaca aturan dengan teliti, memeriksa sumber informasi, memahami risiko, dan tidak menganggap istilah seperti “gacor”, “pasti menang”, atau “jaminan kemenangan” sebagai fakta. Pengetahuan yang baik membuat pembaca lebih kritis sekaligus membantu menjaga keputusan tetap berada dalam batas yang realistis dan bertanggung jawab.

Try Me for Treason: Anti-war Protesters’ Speeches in the Russian Courts  is a film featuring excerpts from four speeches by Bohdan Ziza, Darya Kozyreva, Igor Paskar and Andrei Trofimov. The film is produced on a Creative Commons basis by the Ukraine Information Group. The videographer is Tony Aldis. Readings by John Graham Davies, Leila Mimmack, Gareth Brierley, Maya Willcocks and Nick Evans.

These and six other speeches, in English, are published in Voices Against Putin’s War.

Please share it and screen it below.

Notes about the speeches In Bohdan Ziza’s speech:

The Crimean Tatars are a Turkic ethnic group that until the 20th century made up most of the peninsula’s population. In May 1944, in the space of two days, the Soviet government deported all Crimean Tatars, an estimated 470,000 people, to Kazakhstan, on false accusations that they were Nazi collaborators. Many families returned in the

1990s. Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Crimean community and political groups have been subject to political repression.

In Darya Kozyreva’s speech:

The Cossacks are a Slavic people who lived in eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Under the Russian empire they maintained autonomous military and proto-state formations. Hetmans were military commanders in Cossack and other forces.

The Ukrainian People’s Republic was founded in January 1918 and effectively dissolved in March 1921. In February 1917 the tsarist empire was swept away by revolution; in June that year Ukrainian politicians declared the country’s autonomy; in November Soviet power was established in Russia; the declaration of Ukrainian independence soon followed soon after. The civil war across the old Russian empire continued during the republic’s whole existence. Both the area it controlled and its political colouring changed constantly. The Bolsheviks (Reds, or Soviet forces) and Volunteers (Whites) were the two principal antagonists in the civil war. Symon Petlyura was commander of the Ukrainian People’s Republic army, opposing both. Forces under Petlyura’s command carried out pogroms in which thousands of Jews were killed. In 1926, in Paris, Petlyura was assassinated by the Jewish anarchist Sholem Schwarzbard.

In Igor Paskar’s speech:

Tamara Petkevich (1920-2017) grew up in a communist family. Her father was arrested and executed in the purges of the 1930s, and other family members died in the siege of Leningrad. She was falsely charged with terrorism and served seven years in prison camps, where she joined a theatre group. Her book, Memoir of a Gulag Actress, was published in 1993 and an English translation appeared in 2010. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) is the best-known writer about the Soviet prison camps, author of The Gulag Archipelago, Cancer Ward and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970. Kolyma Tales by

Varlam Shalamov (1907-1982) is also rightly regarded as a masterpiece, unfortunately less well-known outside Russia.

 

More information at bit.ly/againstputinswar.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Crimea Platform, Linva Chernyavskaya, Memorial Political Prisoners, Memorial Political Prisoners; modified by Tempest.

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Dalam praktiknya, hasil putaran slot bergantung pada mekanisme permainan dan faktor peluang. Klaim mengenai kemenangan pasti atau hasil yang dapat dijamin perlu disikapi secara kritis. Pembaca juga sebaiknya memeriksa informasi mengenai penyedia permainan, aturan penggunaan, dan kebijakan platform sebelum mengambil keputusan.

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Memilih platform tidak seharusnya hanya berdasarkan bonus atau promosi. Perhatikan reputasi layanan, keamanan akun, transparansi syarat dan ketentuan, serta kualitas dukungan pelanggan. Hindari layanan yang meminta data sensitif secara tidak wajar atau menawarkan janji keuntungan yang terdengar terlalu bagus untuk menjadi kenyataan.

Pada akhirnya, situs bola, casino, dan slot memiliki karakteristik masing-masing. Informasi yang jelas, pemahaman terhadap risiko, dan keputusan yang terukur menjadi dasar yang lebih penting daripada mengejar hasil secara berlebihan. Jika aktivitas perjudian diperbolehkan di wilayah pengguna, lakukan hanya sesuai batas usia dan aturan hukum setempat serta tetapkan batas pengeluaran agar tetap terkendali.

Perkembangan permainan online terus menghadirkan warna baru di tengah perubahan kebiasaan pengguna internet. Salah satu istilah yang belakangan sering muncul dalam percakapan komunitas adalah “Situs Slot Anti Badai”, sebuah sebutan populer yang biasanya menggambarkan platform dengan pilihan permainan slot yang dianggap menarik, tampilan modern, serta pengalaman bermain yang mudah diakses melalui perangkat digital.

Di balik istilah tersebut, ada perubahan yang cukup jelas dalam cara pemain mengenal dan memilih permainan. Jika sebelumnya perhatian lebih banyak tertuju pada jumlah judul yang tersedia, kini aspek seperti kualitas antarmuka, kecepatan akses, variasi fitur, hingga transparansi informasi ikut menjadi pertimbangan. Perubahan ini membuat persaingan antarsitus tidak lagi hanya berbicara mengenai banyaknya permainan, tetapi juga mengenai pengalaman pengguna secara keseluruhan.

Permainan Beragam Menjadi Daya Tarik

Ketika pengguna masuk ke sebuah platform permainan online, variasi pilihan menjadi salah satu hal pertama yang terlihat. Slot dengan tema petualangan, fantasi, budaya populer, hingga konsep klasik menawarkan karakter permainan yang berbeda. Setiap judul biasanya memiliki mekanisme, tingkat volatilitas, fitur bonus, dan struktur pembayaran masing-masing.

Namun, istilah seperti “anti badai” sebaiknya tidak dipahami sebagai jaminan kemenangan atau kondisi permainan yang selalu menguntungkan. Hasil setiap putaran pada permainan berbasis peluang tetap ditentukan oleh mekanisme permainan yang berlaku. Dalam standar teknis perjudian online yang diterapkan regulator tertentu, generator angka acak atau RNG harus menghasilkan keluaran yang dapat dibuktikan acak dan tidak menggunakan mekanisme kompensasi untuk mengubah hasil.

Karena itu, pengalaman pengguna seharusnya menjadi ukuran yang lebih masuk akal dibanding klaim kemenangan tanpa dasar.

Teknologi Membentuk Pengalaman Bermain

Narasi mengenai situs permainan online juga tidak bisa dilepaskan dari perkembangan teknologi. Penggunaan smartphone membuat akses ke berbagai permainan digital semakin praktis. Desain responsif memungkinkan halaman menyesuaikan diri dengan ukuran layar, sementara sistem permainan modern berusaha memberikan navigasi yang lebih sederhana.

Pada tahap ini, kepercayaan menjadi faktor penting. Platform yang beroperasi secara legal di suatu yurisdiksi biasanya perlu memenuhi ketentuan lisensi, standar teknis, serta kewajiban tertentu terkait perlindungan pengguna. Sebagai contoh, Gambling Commission Inggris mewajibkan operator berlisensi memenuhi berbagai persyaratan mengenai permainan yang adil, keamanan, verifikasi identitas, perlindungan dana pelanggan, dan tanggung jawab sosial.

Hal tersebut menunjukkan bahwa reputasi sebuah platform tidak semestinya dibangun hanya melalui promosi. Informasi mengenai lisensi, aturan permainan, kebijakan pembayaran, serta perlindungan pengguna justru menjadi indikator yang lebih relevan untuk diperiksa.

Ketika Hiburan Bertemu Tanggung Jawab

Di tengah tingginya minat terhadap permainan online, aspek tanggung jawab juga semakin mendapat perhatian. Pengguna sebaiknya memahami bahwa permainan berbasis taruhan memiliki risiko finansial dan tidak dapat dijadikan metode pasti untuk memperoleh penghasilan.

Sejumlah standar perlindungan pemain mendorong operator menyediakan fitur seperti batas setoran, pengingat waktu bermain, serta opsi pengecualian diri. Gambling Commission, misalnya, menetapkan bahwa informasi mengenai perjudian yang bertanggung jawab dan cara memperoleh bantuan harus tersedia bagi pelanggan dalam kerangka aturan yang berlaku.

Dengan demikian, istilah Situs Slot Anti Badai lebih tepat ditempatkan sebagai bagian dari bahasa pemasaran dan percakapan komunitas, bukan sebagai bukti bahwa suatu situs atau permainan mampu menjamin hasil tertentu.

Pada akhirnya, daya tarik permainan online tidak hanya ditentukan oleh sensasi yang ditawarkan. Pengguna yang lebih kritis akan memperhatikan bagaimana sebuah platform menjaga transparansi, menjelaskan aturan permainan, melindungi akun, dan menyediakan mekanisme pengendalian aktivitas. Pendekatan tersebut membuat pengalaman digital menjadi lebih terukur sekaligus membantu pembaca membedakan antara informasi faktual dan klaim promosi.

Perkembangan industri pun kemungkinan akan terus bergerak ke arah pengalaman yang semakin interaktif. Namun, semakin canggih sebuah platform, semakin penting pula pengguna memahami mekanisme permainan dan batasan finansialnya. Dalam konteks inilah, situs permainan online yang menarik bukan sekadar yang terlihat ramai, melainkan yang mampu menghadirkan informasi jelas, teknologi yang memadai, serta pendekatan yang menempatkan keamanan dan tanggung jawab sebagai bagian dari pengalaman pengguna.

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Baccarat sendiri merupakan permainan yang relatif mudah dipahami. Pemain pada dasarnya menentukan pilihan antara Player, Banker, atau Tie sebelum kartu dibagikan. Tujuan permainan adalah mendapatkan nilai kartu yang paling mendekati angka sembilan. Kesederhanaan aturan inilah yang menjadi salah satu alasan baccarat tetap bertahan sebagai permainan klasik di berbagai pasar casino.

Pengalaman Live Menjadi Daya Tarik Utama

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Evolution sendiri telah lama mengembangkan format live baccarat. Perusahaan tersebut bahkan memperkenalkan variasi seperti Live Baccarat Squeeze dan Controlled Squeeze, yang memungkinkan proses pembukaan kartu menjadi bagian dari pengalaman interaktif. Dalam format Controlled Squeeze, pemain dapat mengendalikan proses membuka kartu melalui layar perangkat.

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Variasi Membuat Permainan Tidak Monoton

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The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parents and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all the family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, English edition of 1888

As the deadly toll of Israeli/U.S. genocide on Palestinian children became widely known, it served as yet another horrific example of just how expendable and vulnerable our children are to imperial imperatives and capitalist greed. In response to these atrocities, young people raised their voices in loud protest, including elementary school kids, and took up the struggle to stop the bombing, stop the money flowing to Israel, and to free Palestinian children and their families.

Children are far too often victims of a system that values only profit, not humanity. But children are also actors in their world, and at times are powerful voices of dissent in both individual and collective ways. There has been renewed interest on the left in the questions of the oppression of children within the context of the privatized family, the economy, and the state. How can the radical ideas of Marxism be used as a tool to help us understand and advance these discussions?

Contradictions and precarity of childhood today

The images and realities of childhood today are rife with contradictions.

On the one hand, we have the idealized image of childhood as a state of happy innocence and yet, the United States stands alone as a place where over 400 people remain imprisoned serving life sentences for crimes they allegedly committed as children. Seventy-six percent of them are African American.

Contrast this with the image of the child as one of living in a state of constant vulnerability and fragility demanding adult care and protection in the safe refuge of the family.

Of course, this image of vulnerable child and protecting family runs up against a tragic reality that the U.S. has one of the highest, if not the highest, rates in the industrialized world of deaths from child abuse and neglect and that most deaths occur at the hands of parents and step parents. Not coincidentally, the U.S. provides the least amount of government support of families with children (parental leave, childcare, income support for poor families, mental health services, and healthcare).

A corollary to this family-as-safe-refuge-for-vulnerable-child narrative is the notion that outside the family exist adults who threaten children’s safety and wellbeing on a daily basis: from the greedy and lazy teachers who seek to deny them an education to sexual predators (often overlapping in the rightwing imagination with LGBTQA+ people) that lurk around every playground corner and in every daycare center. These fears predate the rise in rightwing conspiracy theories that have become such a big factor in U.S. politics or the very real conspiracy of Epstein and his rich, well-connected friends to traffic, rape, exploit, and abuse young women for their entertainment.

Of course, another very real threat to millions of children’s well being, high rates of child poverty and food insecurity, makes them more vulnerable to abuse of all kinds. The U.S. is a leader in infant mortality rates in the industrialized world. This is routinely ignored or blamed upon the victims of that poverty themselves by our politicians, media, and churches.

This notion that children are simply victims-in-waiting has a two-pronged effect; first, of making parents and children fearful and mistrustful of others in their communities—particularly the workers whose jobs it is to care for and educate our children; and second, of pressuring families to assume more and more of the responsibility for their children’s care within the confines of the privatized family structure and to blame themselves when this responsibility becomes more than they can financially or emotionally bear.

This other dominant image of children runs counter to that of the innocent and vulnerable. In this image, the child is untamed, rude, impolite, nagging, whiney, bratty, spoiled, undisciplined, unpleasant, and at times, down-right dangerous. For these images we can thank both the inheritance of early U.S. settler-colonialists’ Puritan belief in children as sinners in need of having the devil beaten out of them, but even more directly, to the modern capitalist market’s exploitation and degradation of children.

All these images—from the “precocious brat” stock character of television sit-coms to the Fox News hysteria over the Black “teen takeovers” on Chicago’s Gold Coast—are highly charged with racial and class overtones. The annoying spoiled brat is usually a white upper-middle-class child with somehow well-meaning but over-indulgent parents, and the gangs are always low-income inner-city kids of color with neglectful parents. In the latter instance, the child is seen as displaying the worst of what commentators consider to be human nature or a biological predisposition to anti-social behaviors. In the former, spoiled children are products of human nurture gone terribly wrong (they’ve had their egos artificially raised by too much praise and love). In both instances, tougher, more punitive parenting and schooling, and in the case of the poor and Black kids, carceral solutions are required to overcome these defects.

It is also important to note that transgender children and youth are seen both as a threat to society and victims of permissive parenting simultaneously–think gender-neutral bathroom bans in elementary schools, the attacks on trans kid athletes, and the criminalizing of gender affirming care sought out by parents of transgender kids. As well, the arrest and detention of thousands of children by the Department of Homeland Security and its thugs should make all of us question which children deserve protection and from whom.

Underlying all of this is the assumption in contemporary capitalist society that the child exists as incomplete, a lump of clay in need of shaping, training, sanctifying, schooling, parenting, or jailing to mold the future adult, and worker, they will become.

Nowhere is the child as they exist in the present considered important or worthy of contemplation.There is an explanation for this “child-of-the-future-not-the-present” outlook, rooted in the economic structures of society and the corresponding political and social institutions the economic system gives rise to. Marxism gives us a tool to help us understand how these forces impact actually existing children and the people who care about them.

When confronted with these reactionary images of childhood, it would be wise to remember the words of the great Italian educator and left-wing educational philosopher Loris Malaguzzi, who wrote;

It is necessary that we believe that the child is very intelligent, that the child is strong and beautiful and has very ambitious desires and requests. This is the image of the child that we need to hold. Those who have the image of the child as fragile, incomplete, weak, made of glass, gain something from this belief only for themselves. We don’t need that image of children. Instead of always giving children protection, we need to give them recognition of their rights and strengths.1“Your Image of the Child: Where Teaching Begins” Child Care Exchange 3/94, pg. 55 https://hub.exchangepress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/5009652.pdf

With this framing in mind, let’s turn to the question of how ‘childhood’ has been culturally constructed and reconstructed throughout history.

Prehistory to class Society: The construction of childhood

Let’s define childhood for the purposes of this article. I will use the general term childhood to cover a big portion of the human lifespan, from birth to young adulthood, roughly 0-18, corresponding with the legal definition in the U.S.. Within that span, there is obviously a big difference, on the one hand, between infancy and toddlerhood (when there is complete dependence on caregivers) and, on the other hand, adolescence/post sexual maturation (when independence from caregivers is a biological, if not an economic, possibility).

There are both continuities and divergences across time and place in how human societies have defined childhood in relationship to adulthood. During the Middle Ages in Europe, the human lifespan was roughly 30-35 years, and most people eked out a living doing hard physical labor requiring no schooling. It would make no sense in such a society to consider a 17-year-old a child. But it is also true that no society anywhere ever has viewed a 4-year-old as an adult or a 21-year-old as a child. Every society has had a view of children as comprising a somehow distinct phase of life, although the contours of that distinction vary substantially depending on how families produced and reproduced their existence.

One of the key things that makes human development unique among mammals, even among our closest relatives, the primates, is the huge amount of time between birth and sexual maturity. This represents a big investment from an evolutionary standpoint where infants and children (as well as nursing mothers to some degree) need care and are not a fully productive part of the group.

Why is this beneficial? Humans have evolved with many physical limitations compared to our closest cousins but with one huge advantage: big brains that can think and learn, which in turn evolved to allow us to communicate through spoken language and symbols. These capacities are necessary to collaborate to transform our environment through socialized labor in order to survive. These big brains are designed to learn from their environment and social interaction rather than to operate primarily from instinct, and this process of acculturation—of learning what needs to be known in order to survive—takes a relatively long time to achieve.

Prior to settlements of human beings into agricultural communities (which, in its turn, ushered in the development of class-stratified society), human beings lived in foraging or hunting-gathering nomadic bands: 99 percent of human history has been spent in foraging societies or the smallest of settled agricultural communities. Through anthropological study among the tiny number of these societies which continued to exist until the present, we know a few very interesting and important things about how our ancestors viewed children and childhood. (We also know some falsehoods, as anthropology has messy, sometimes very chauvinist strains as well.)

Across varying social groups in varied terrain, we see these commonalities:

Care of children in these societies is communalized, not privatized. Although nursing infants are held almost continually and breastfeeding occurs on demand (necessarily in close proximity to the mother), they are held by many members of the band, and this sharing of care labor increased as the infant matured. Many anthropologists use the term “allomothering” or “alloparenting” to describe the common practice of shared infant and child care. It is theorized that this sort of practice, where even young infants are in close contact with multiple caregivers, has an important role in helping develop strong social bonds and social intelligence (the ability to discern intention in another through their facial expressions, etc.) among the young. This skill set is very valuable to a species dependent on cooperative labor to survive.

People in these societies live in mixed-age groupings of 20 to 40 people with no peer segregation. People work, have leisure, sleep, and eat in mixed-age groups. Older children are often involved in caretaking and playing with younger children.

Children (as well as adults) gain skills and knowledge without formal schooling or specialized instruction but through what can broadly be termed “play and exploration.” Children learn the skills required in their communities through play in which they imitate adult activities: playing at foraging, hunting, and toy making (tool making).

Children (weaned infants through puberty) spend most of their time in “play” in mixed aged groups with other children, but often within visual range of and interacting with adults.

Children, for the most part, are not expected to be productive (hunting/gathering of food to feed others) until adulthood, although in most of these societies, depending on resources available, children do provide some foodstuffs, provide care for younger children, and play important roles in groups in distributing food and other tasks.

Barry Hewlett and Michael Lamb write their edited book Hunter Gatherer Childhoods: Evolutionary, Developmental, and Cultural Perspectives,2See also: Meredith Smalls, Kids, How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Raise Young Children; Peter Gray, a developmental and evolutionary psychologist,and expert on play in American Journal of Play, 1, 476-522, 2009.

Interestingly, although human offspring are more dependent on adult(s)…than the young of other species, children in hunter-gatherer societies are clearly much more independent than are children in industrial societies like our own, and they contribute to the welfare and provisioning of the groups in which they live much more extensively than one might expect. Many of the contributors to this collection describe a gradual transition from being a dependent recipient of care and provisions to being a participant in the care and provisioning of others—a transition that facilitates the transfer of social and survival skills more seamlessly than the typical patterns of socialization in Western industrial cultures…Comparisons among these chapters underscore a permeability of boundaries between play and work, as well as the gradual nature of the transitions between childhood and adulthood. (p. 412)

This “permeability of boundaries” that characterized early human societies stands in direct contrast to the rigid divisions that capitalism imposes upon both the lifespan and the day-to-day: First, we have the isolation of children and childhood within the privatized family structure, separated from other members of their communities. On a fundamental level, the world of the child and the world of the adult are intensely separated from each other within the family as well.

Children are not just segregated from adults, but also from each other in a multiplicity of ways: same-age classrooms, segregated schools, ability groups (honors classes, special education classrooms, magnet schools, etc.) and in highly gender-specified activities. Today, even children’s book stores contain different boys and girls book sections and legos are colored so we can tell the difference between boys’ and girls’ bricks.

The rigid demarcation between leisure/school/work has been described by Marx and other radical writers as central to the process of how labor is alienated under capitalism. This is becoming more extreme for children today as anything resembling play is taken out of our schools to make more room for more “work” on narrower and narrower bands of subject matter.

Clearly, by looking back at human history we can see that the idea that the private family as the only way to organize childrearing as well as the role of children in society are human constructions that correspond to a definite historical epoch. Therefore, these relations can be reconstructed by humans given new historical, political, economic, and social circumstances.

One of the things that the evidence from foraging societies doesn’t offer us is a roadmap for better parenting or schooling today. While there is much to be gleaned about how children and adults learn and live from this record, it would be a mistake to think we can easily apply these insights within our current contexts. I believe that some of the most well-meaning, sometimes insightful, but also highly moralistic parenting advice and educational philosophy can fall into this trap. For example, many of the insights of “attachment parenting” are based upon the way prehistoric peoples held, slept with, nursed, and reared their young. For working mothers and fathers today who work outside the home, attachment parenting can be held up as an ideal that most families could not attain, thus reinforcing the sense of inadequacy and corresponding guilt that leads one away from the sort of collective solutions based in struggle for a different kind of society that makes parenting easier and more attuned to the needs of children. I think there is much within the left wing “unschooling” philosophy and practice which runs into this same kind of cul de sac.

Children and capitalism

From Marx and Frederick Engels’ historical vantage point, the industrial revolution appeared to be destroying the proletarian family as it pulled men, women, and children out of their previous roles as peasants into modern factory work. All members of families, including children as young as four years old, were forced off the land and into brutal 14-, 15-, and 16-hour shifts, around the clock, in mine and mill. Traditional familial relationships broke down under this system. But, as we will talk about in a moment, capital found that it could not do without the role of the family as a tool for the reproduction of labor; Marx may have overestimated the “breakdown” of the proletarian family in this regard.

The development of capitalism, as Marx writes, “comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.” The role of child labor—both within the so-called “free” labor market and within the plantation slave system at the dawn of the industrial revolution was certainly one of the essential pillars of capitalist accumulation of profit. British industries, Marx wrote, “live by sucking blood, and children’s blood too,” and, he went on, U.S. capital was financed by the “capitalized blood of children.”

Louis Hine, the anti-child labor campaigner and photographer whose iconic images of children’s exploitation helped popularize and expand the struggle against child labor in the U.S. in the early 20th century, described a 1911 scene, repeated tens of millions of times over, “Manuel is 5 years old but big for his age. When the whistle blows at 3 o’clock in the morning, he pulls on his clothes and hurries to the shrimp and oyster cannery where he spends the day peeling the shells off iced shrimp. He has been working as a shrimp picker since he was four.” 3Kids At Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor,  Russell Freedman, p. 1)

Marx identified the tendency of capital to transform any and all people and things—including children—into commodities. Child labor was considered desirable for dual reasons: In some industries and services, such as chimney cleaning, small physical stature was desirable. You have to be tiny to climb up small, dirty chimneys and scrub out the soot. But child labor was also desirable because children were considered more easily coerced, less assertive of their rights, and cheap.

Capital was right about the profitability of child labor but was wrong about children’s passivity in the face of their exploitation. Children have joined the labor movement to fight against their own and their fellow workers’ exploitation in every historic upsurge of labor, from the Chartist Movement in Britain to the Lawrence Strike of women textile workers in the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century, to farm workers struggles in the 1960s to the Indian, Chinese, African, and Latin American labor movements today. Where workers struggle, and where children work, children join—and in some instances lead—the struggle.

The 1899 Newsboy Strike is but one example, when New York City newspaper sellers—some as young as six years old—went on strike for two weeks against the most powerful media titans of their day, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. They faced down vicious repression by police and hired thugs. The strike was sparked by a ten-cent increase charged to the newsboys for a bundle of papers, a fortune to them. A leader of the strike, Kid Blink, said, “Ain’t that ten cents worth as much to us as it is to Hearst and Pulitzer who are millionaires? Well, I guess it is. If they can’t spare it, how can we?” In a mass march across the Brooklyn Bridge, they shut down traffic and brought one of the world’s most populous cities to a stand still for two days. The strike was eventually victorious as the “newsies” forced concessions from the newspaper bosses.

In another example, a mass workers movement across Europe and the U.S. fought for and eventually won laws first limiting the conditions under which child labor was legally employed and eventually outlawing the use of child labor in most cases altogether. This corresponded with the demands by the workers’ movement for universal public education, a demand, which (after decades of struggle), by the end of World War I, was mostly won. Marx and other socialists of his day were at the forefront of these struggles. It might surprise some then to learn that Marx wrote in 1866,

We consider the tendency of modern industry to make children and juvenile persons of both sexes co-operate in the great work of social production as a progressive, sound, legitimate tendency, although under capital it was distorted into an abomination. In a rational state of society every child whatever, from age of 9 years, ought to become a productive laborer in the same way that no abled bodied adult person ought to be exempted from the general law of nature, viz. to work in order to be able to eat, and work not only with the brain, but with the hands too.

While we can quibble over ages at which this kind of integration into productive labor is developmentally appropriate, Marx was essentially arguing that in a sane society, one not built on profit but upon meeting human need, it is wrong to exclude youth as they grow physically and cognitively from socially necessary labor alongside other members of their community. To do so would be to deny them both the rights and responsibilities of full members of that society.

He goes on later in this passage to make clear that all work–for children and adults alike—must include time for the broadest kind of progressive education and that work hours must be limited to make leisure a possibility for all. In a socialist society under worker’s direct democratic control of the economy, the corresponding transformation of work and school into places that actually fulfill, rather than destroy, human potential, the divisions between mental and manual labor, between schooling/working/playing/leisure/creative endeavor, would dramatically decrease. Alongside this there would be a corresponding decrease in the sharp way in which we demarcate child from adult. Why shouldn’t there be a lifelong process of labor and learning, side by side?

Today, under capitalism, children continue to be utilized for the worst kinds of exploited labor, as some of the most profitable corporations and most well known brand names on Earth knowingly utilize children in either direct production or as part of their “supply chain,” including Nike, Apple, McDonald’s and Hershey’s. Even in the U.S., despite laws on the books banning child labor, child labor continues to be a source of profits, especially in the agricultural industry. In Sub-Saharan Africa, which not coincidentally has the world’s lowest standard of living, 25 percent of children under the age of 14 work.

Children in the industrialized global north do not primarily generate profits through their labor for capital. But as a consumer group, children are considered an extremely important market. In the U.S. market, children aged eight to eighteen annually spend somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 billion dollars of their own money annually. Children under twelve directly influence household spending of an additional $196 billion each year, more than half of which goes to soft drinks and fast food. They indirectly influence the spending of over $400 billion annually, all this according to a report for the advertising industry entitled, “The Kids Market” (quoted in Susan Linn, Consuming Kids, 2004, p.1). Little wonder that children, on average, see 40,000 commercials on television alone in a given year. Think back to the image of a child as whiney, nagging, and spoiled that I mentioned at the beginning of this article and put the blame where it squarely belongs, not primarily on bad parenting but on corporate America’s insatiable greed.

Social Reproduction

I now want to turn to children as another source of profit for capitalists: future profits. Children are the exploited workforce of tomorrow, and both their current care and preparation for their future roles in society is a burden borne not by capitalists or their state but instead placed upon the backs of the working-class family, and in particular, women within the family. All of this is propped up by an overgrowth of ideology proclaiming this as the only possible, natural way to organize our lives and relationships.

In most U.S. families today, all of the adults work outside the home. Because most parents work outside the home, most children under five years old receive child care from someone other than a parent. Almost one-quarter of those children under the age of five are in some form of organized child care arrangement, which includes day care centers, nurseries, and preschools.

The average yearly cost of childcare for an infant in Cook County is more than $13,000. Because so few receive any form of government assistance to help pay for childcare, that cost falls on the families of young children themselves. Low-income families spend a much larger portion of income on child care than do others—more than half of their income in cases with parents of children under 5 years old. Half of all childcare workers who care for these children make so little they qualify for public assistance.

No wonder that most families in the U.S. today depend on what is termed a “patchwork” of childcare arrangements for their children, resulting in a constant shuffle between care centers and care givers, with such correspondingly complicated schedules that one caregiver’s illness or car problem can result in a cascade of missed work, missed school, missed appointments and an almost constant state of stress and anxiety for parents and children alike. Some of the most common patchwork solutions for lack of accessible and affordable childcare are reliance on other family members of young children’s care (including a small but significant percentage of under 5s who are cared for at least some portion of the day by older siblings) and alternating shift-work for parents (extremely damaging from social-psychological perspective).

The investment that the United States makes in early childhood care and education pales by comparison to the investments being made by other capitalist countries. One recent study found that the United States spends $600 per year per preschool-age child on early childhood care and education, whereas France spends five times that amount, and Sweden spends seven and one-half times that amount.

Little wonder that so many of the products marketed to children and their families revolve around two things: fast food so that you can simultaneously drive and feed your child, and passive entertainment–iPad and TV being the cheapest babysitters around.

It is absolutely fundamental to the socialist and working class movement more generally that we place socialized childcare—fully funded, accessible in all senses of the word, and of high quality—at the top of our demands for reforms we seek within the confines of capitalism as well as in our planning and vision of a future socialist society.

This overview of the sorry state of childcare in capitalist U.S. gives a description of the reality facing working class families. To understand why we live in a society which refuses to take responsibility for the care of its young, we need a deeper explanation. For this, we need to look at the structure of capitalism itself and within it, the special role of the family.

In the U.S., capitalist profits result from labor power, but capitalism does not produce that labor power. There is no mechanism to ensure labor’s daily and general renewal. The capitalist state therefore develops ideological, legal, and material “support” for unpaid labor in the home, performed for the most part (though not exclusively) by women.

Under capitalism workers are “free”: Our free time is ours–sort of. But the burden for reproduction resting on the shoulders of families necessitates that even this “free” time is in service to capitalism. Capitalism permits a limited range of options—daycare, divorce, and single parenting, for example. Twenty-eight percent of children now live in single parent, overwhelmingly single-mother households, and a majority of children will at some point reside in a single parent household. Yet, all of those forms are still driven and shaped by the capital/labor relationship. For example, public services like government-funded daycare are increasingly driven back into private families under neo-liberal austerity, women’s work is paid less, and therefore the single mother supports her children with fewer and fewer resources.

This doesn’t mean that the sphere of paid work or production is more important than, or superior to, the private sphere and social reproduction. Indeed, Marxist theory shows the reverse to be true: Production in the formal economy is made possible only because of reproductive labor. It is through care and nurturing (reproductive labor) received in the private sphere that capital receives a full functional being–the worker–ready to work at the point of production, while having to pay nothing for her/his/their work-readiness.

Children’s rights

In a very interesting book Seen and Heard, Children’s Rights in Early Childhood Education (2011), author and preschool teacher Ellen Lynn Hall recounts a study in her preschool classroom that sparked her interest in writing on this topic.

Shortly after the United States began its military campaign in Iraq (2003) a 4 year old boy who demonstrated with his parents against the war carried a protest sign into his class and declared, “1,2,3,4 We don’t want your muddy war.” The sign intrigued his classmates, one of whom asserted, “Soldiers don’t have the right to kill people.”

The teachers became interested in this question of “rights” and what the children thought about them. They initiated a conversation among the preschoolers, who had lots to say:

“A right is like you know in your heart it’s okay to do it…you can do it if you want and that’s it.”

“But you can do that only if it’s okay, like you won’t hurt somebody and it’s not safe.”

“People have the right not to be hurt too, right?”

This conversation sparked a week-long project where children in the school compiled a list of all their rights, 61 in all, including:

“Children have the right to have friends.”

“Children have the right to pretend everything and to pretend there’s a beach anywhere.”

“Children have the right to say ‘No!’ or ‘Stop it’ when someone tickles them without asking.”

“Children have the right to say ‘Yes’ when people tickle them too.”

“Children have the right to be listened to.”

“Children have the right to good stuff that makes them happy.”

Children are rarely asked to comment on their desires for their world in the way these thoughtful teachers did, but despite that we have ample evidence that children have very strong opinions on how they want to live. In Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood (2004), Steven Mintz quotes this passage from Benjamin Franklin on the common phenomenon of English colonists who who ran away from home or were taken captive and decided to stay with Native Americans:

When white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived awhile among them…in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them. (p. 8)

Quoted in the same book, a 19th century children’s rhyme speaks to the political thoughts and aspirations of slave children:

My old mistress promised me,

When she dies she would set me free

Now she’s dead and gone to hell

I hope the devil will burn her well. (p. 107)

Working children have been and continue to be participants in the labor movement. They have also been, and will continue to be, participants and leaders in the struggles for social justice across society. The Children’s Crusade during the 1963 Birmingham desegregation campaign is a well known part of the civil rights movement in this country. Over 2000 children and youth were arrested that spring and summer as marchers attempted to shame the white supremacists by forcing them to arrest and attack kids. Of course, the racists had no shame, and so children also paid the highest price in that movement. The KKK firebombing that killed four little girls in a Birmingham church that September was a direct retaliation for the role that young people had played in pushing forward the movement against Jim Crow.

The U.S. is the only country in the world that has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. For this we can thank the U.S. right wing, including so-called “parents’ rights” groups, which mobilize every year against ratification because, as it is argued, recognition of children’s rights drives a wedge between parent and child. This is a scary admission on the part of the right wing that all might not be right between parent and child to begin with if this would be the result of signing the treaty. In fact the UN Rights of the Child is a very un-radical document in many respects, placing the child’s “right to a family” at the top of the list of rights. While the UN’s rights of the child contain many progressive ideals, including the right to adequate nutrition, 25 years after its initial ratification by the vast majority of the world’s countries, five million children die every year from hunger in a world literally awash in food. Clearly, more than a document asserting children’s rights is needed–movements that fight for those rights are an urgent necessity.

A welcome discussion among radical thinkers and activists is developing on the question of children’s rights and liberation, the family and care, and how solidarity, mutual aid, and reciprocity could shape our thinking and practice alongside children in struggle. This article hopes to contribute in small part to those hopeful discussions.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: verkeorg; modified by Tempest.

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Smartphone yang dahulu lebih banyak digunakan untuk komunikasi kini berkembang menjadi perangkat serbaguna untuk hiburan, transaksi, hingga aktivitas berbasis internet. Perubahan kebiasaan tersebut turut memengaruhi pertumbuhan slot pulsa, terutama karena akses permainan digital semakin mudah dilakukan melalui perangkat yang selalu berada di tangan pengguna.

Fenomena ini tidak berdiri sendiri. menunjukkan penetrasi internet Indonesia mencapai 80,66 persen pada 2025, dengan lebih dari 229 juta pengguna internet. Kondisi tersebut memperlihatkan betapa luasnya ekosistem digital yang dapat diakses melalui jaringan seluler.

Smartphone Mengubah Pola Akses Permainan

Salah satu pengaruh terbesar smartphone terletak pada fleksibilitas. Pengguna tidak lagi bergantung pada komputer desktop untuk membuka layanan berbasis internet. Layar yang semakin besar, koneksi data yang lebih stabil, serta performa perangkat yang meningkat membuat berbagai permainan digital dapat diakses dengan antarmuka yang lebih praktis.

Dalam konteks slot pulsa, perkembangan ini juga berkaitan dengan kebiasaan masyarakat menggunakan layanan seluler prabayar. Pulsa dan koneksi data menjadi bagian dari aktivitas digital sehari-hari, sehingga konsep pembayaran atau akses berbasis perangkat mobile terasa lebih sederhana bagi sebagian pengguna.

Namun, kemudahan teknis tidak boleh disamakan dengan jaminan keuntungan. Permainan slot tetap merupakan bentuk perjudian yang memiliki risiko kehilangan uang, sementara istilah seperti gacor, maxwin, atau persentase kemenangan tertentu tidak dapat dijadikan kepastian hasil.

Ekosistem Pembayaran Digital Ikut Mendorong Perubahan

Pertumbuhan aktivitas digital juga berjalan beriringan dengan perkembangan sistem pembayaran. Bank Indonesia mencatat volume transaksi pembayaran digital mencapai 4,66 miliar transaksi pada November 2025, tumbuh 41,12 persen secara tahunan. Pada periode yang sama, transaksi melalui aplikasi mobile tumbuh 15,91 persen, sedangkan transaksi QRIS meningkat 143,64 persen.

Angka tersebut memang tidak secara khusus menggambarkan aktivitas perjudian online. Akan tetapi, data itu menunjukkan perubahan yang lebih luas: masyarakat semakin terbiasa melakukan aktivitas ekonomi melalui smartphone. Infrastruktur digital yang cepat dan praktis kemudian menjadi salah satu fondasi penting bagi berkembangnya berbagai layanan berbasis mobile.

Bank Indonesia juga terus memperluas inovasi pembayaran melalui smartphone. Salah satunya adalah QRIS TAP, yang memungkinkan transaksi dilakukan dengan mendekatkan perangkat smartphone ke terminal pembayaran.

Pertumbuhan Tetap Perlu Dilihat Secara Kritis

Di balik kemudahan akses, terdapat persoalan yang perlu diperhatikan. Smartphone membuat permainan dapat hadir hampir setiap saat, sehingga batas antara hiburan dan aktivitas berisiko dapat menjadi semakin tipis. Notifikasi, promosi, serta akses yang cepat berpotensi mendorong seseorang bermain lebih sering tanpa perencanaan keuangan yang matang.

Karena itu, memahami pertumbuhan slot pulsa tidak cukup hanya dengan melihat kemajuan teknologi. Ada faktor perilaku pengguna, perkembangan pembayaran digital, kualitas koneksi internet, hingga kesadaran terhadap risiko perjudian yang ikut menentukan arah fenomena tersebut.

Pada akhirnya, smartphone berperan sebagai katalis penting dalam transformasi layanan digital karena menawarkan akses yang cepat, personal, dan selalu tersedia. Namun, teknologi pada dasarnya hanyalah sarana. Cara pengguna memanfaatkannya tetap menjadi faktor paling menentukan. Sikap bijak, pengendalian pengeluaran, serta pemahaman terhadap risiko harus menjadi bagian dari setiap aktivitas digital yang melibatkan uang nyata.

As a teenager, I would ride the public bus from the corner of my block to my high school each morning, watching the neighborhood of West Brighton blur behind the gossamer of dew suspended in the air as mist. On the foggiest mornings, I’d peer over the top of Grimes Hill to find the Verrazzano Bridge shrouded, the air thick enough to obscure it entirely, and the edifice all but vanished beneath an opaque sky. “I guess they forgot to put the bridge out today,” my friend would joke. We’d giggle and move on to more pressing matters: midterms, crushes, who saw whom with whom at the mall. The mist was a natural backdrop, turning the world crystalline, a million minuscule jewels refracting the sunlight and diffusing the morning into a languid, rolling onset. As the bus groaned along, the droplets would part to let it pass, and there was an elegance in its cordial shifting aside to accommodate our movements, a symbiosis.

It has been many years since I watched a foggy dawn envelope the Verrazzano. And yet today the bridge still disappears, though under more precarious circumstances. Today, wildfire smog flattens buildings into vague silhouettes. New York City is an amber ghost. The smog, graceless, abides by none of mist’s boundaries; it sticks to my skin, to my face, clings to my eyelashes, and embeds itself between the threads of my clothes. And I am haunted by the image of young girls on the S66 bus in West Brighton, joking to one another about a government employee forgetting to put the bridge out today. A new generation of teens might make the same quips now: “Someone’s getting fired,” one might joke. The other coughs in response. They should have masks on, but they do not, because they are teenagers, and for them, masks faded from normalcy three years ago. This—squinting through a neighborhood mired in murk, hacking through school gossip, heads fuzzy with carbon monoxide and Instagram reels—this is their normalcy.

Today, wildfire smog flattens buildings into vague silhouettes. New York City is an amber ghost.

For much of the northeastern United States, the return of smoke from Canada’s wildfires has become an unwelcome summer ritual. Air quality alerts have stretched across more than twenty states as nearly nine hundred active fires continue to burn across Canada, sending dangerous levels of fine particulate pollution thousands of miles from their source. The fires are expected to continue burning interminably, unquenchable. Residents of New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, and dozens of other U.S. cities find themselves locked indoors, watching an air quality index map on their phone screens display infrared globs of red and purple wading across the pinpoints of their homes.

Three years ago, when wildfire smoke from Canada suffocated New York’s skies, some people here assumed it was a once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe. The effects of climate change were still contested, or even ignored. This was by capitalist design: fossil fuel-funded misinformation has manufactured political uncertainty. That strategy, however, had a time limit, only capable of existing in the space between the general public’s secondarily informed understanding of the issue and their lived experience of it. This year in New York, back-to-back snowstorms pummeled the city this winter, and repeated heat waves have already ravaged the first half of the summer. The polluted air has returned quickly enough to be recognized as patternistic. People can no longer argue whether climate change is coming when the smoke is at our door. We simply look around and know it is the inverse: we are in climate change’s house, built upon the bones of capitalism, adorned with the gilt extracts of imperialism, and ornamented with a novelty rug fashioned out of a taxidermied extinct species.

Yet the extreme quickly becomes the ordinary. This phenomenon is well-documented, coined by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine as “disaster capitalism.” Klein writes: What we have been living for three decades is frontier capitalism, with the frontier constantly shifting location from crisis to crisis, moving on as soon as the law catches up. This is precisely the case in the instance of the wildfires, demonstrated furthermore in the current overall narrative shift from climate denial to acceptance. Canada’s boreal forests have always burned, though the scale, frequency, and intensity of these fires have increased undeniably due to rising temperatures from anthropogenic climate change. The climate crisis can thus no longer be credibly disputed, yet the economic system to which it is intrinsically tied has not changed. So the narrative has adapted in order to create another market to exploit.

From private insurers withdrawing from disaster-prone regions while charging higher premiums elsewhere, to investment firms marketing climate-risk portfolios, to the tech promise that artificial intelligence will optimize energy use even as it drives a massive expansion of electricity demand through new data centers, capital profits from both producing climate instability and managing its consequences.

Rather than mitigating environmental collapse, the perspective of inevitability allows for commercially viable solutions. Entire industries have emerged around the adaptation to a less livable world, so long as the drivers of the livability loss are not questioned. From private insurers withdrawing from disaster-prone regions while charging higher premiums elsewhere, to investment firms marketing climate-risk portfolios, to the tech promise that artificial intelligence will optimize energy use even as it drives a massive expansion of electricity demand through new data centers, capital profits from both producing climate instability and managing its consequences. These industries are bought into upon the urging of governments to prepare for disasters rather than prevent them. Today’s teenagers on the bus, unequipped to process urgency without a solution, may instead respond with resignation. The thing some of them feel most equipped to do, the only resource they know at their disposal, is to click ‘add to cart.’ For others, however, these experiences are radicalizing, and the electricity of their adolescence is channeled into climate action.

Meanwhile, exposure to wildfire smoke is profoundly unequal. Wealthier households can remain indoors with central air conditioning and high-quality filtration systems. Many can work remotely. Working-class people, by contrast, often have little choice but to labor outdoors or in poorly ventilated buildings. Delivery drivers, agricultural workers, construction crews, warehouse workers, sanitation workers, teachers in disinvested and poorly maintained school buildings, and countless others continue producing value while inhaling dangerous concentrations of particulate matter. Research following the historic 2023 smoke event found that exposure to wildfire pollution also followed familiar patterns of environmental injustice, disproportionately affecting communities already burdened by poor air quality, inadequate healthcare access, and economic inequality. The working class bears the brunt of the various, well-documented health impacts of exposure, which in 2023 resulted in 82,100 premature deaths worldwide. And to stay safe this time around, the onus has been placed back onto the suffering individual rather than those driving the crisis

Exposure to wildfire smoke is profoundly unequal…. Working-class people, by contrast, often have little choice but to labor outdoors or in poorly ventilated buildings.

Local governments have largely responded with adaptation rather than transformation. In New York and elsewhere, citizens are advised to monitor the Air Quality Index, remain indoors, purchase air filters, wear respirators, and reduce strenuous outdoor activity. New York State Governor Hochul’s air quality advisory listed recommendations for a variety of groups, directing outdoor workers to “stay hydrated,” and for outdoor camps, schools, and childcare providers to, vaguely, “watch for symptoms and take action as needed.” These recommendations reveal the limits of capitalist climate policy and explain why neoliberal solutions are so disconnected from the scale of the crisis: safety must not disrupt profitability, and that contradiction is resolved by placing the burden back onto the workers.

This assessment is not to disregard the absolute necessity of adaptation and climate resilience measures. The most under-resourced and those that contribute the least to climate change bear the largest brunt of its effects. Working-class communities need cooling centers, flood protection, public health infrastructure, and disaster preparedness immediately. But adaptation under capitalism means adapting workers to conditions with no intention to improve those conditions. Climate change is often presented as a universal threat: we are all in this together. Yet we are not all exposed to it in the same way, and we certainly do not possess equal power to respond to it. The climate crisis is therefore also a crisis of class power, and adaptation without transformation is, in reality, an accommodation of the class divide.

The climate crisis is therefore also a crisis of class power, and adaptation without transformation is, in reality, an accommodation of the class divide.

The wildfire smoke wafting from the north is noxious to our bodies as well as our expectations. The characterization of the climate crisis as inevitable obscures the fact that it is socially produced and therefore contestable. We must reject the separation between the worker and the environment, the absorption of climate politics as capitalist “common sense,” and the notion that the goal is to survive disasters more efficiently. We must push forward the thing that shatters the sedative of perceived normalcy: an alternative.

I traveled back to Staten Island, where I no longer live, one night during the height of the smog. The streetlights on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway undulated in a gloomy haze until the mouth of the bridge opened and the bus slipped down the throat of the outer borough. Through the soot-stained window, I expected to see what I usually see on this oft-traversed route: the glittering city melting back and the inky waves washing up against a vast, dark beach ahead. But now, as I peered through the shifting slats of stringers, I found… nothing. I looked across to the windows on the other side of the aisle, and the view was identical: beyond the layer of grime clinging to the glass, a wall of blackness, as if we were suspended in a void. The residue in the air had congealed in my lungs, and my chest began to convulse in protest. I coughed and coughed, and the spit in my mouth tasted almost nostalgic, like a fine morning mist.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority; modified by Tempest.

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The sun sets on the now-empty cobblestone streets of Erfurt. Just hours earlier, roughly 17,000 activists from across Germany had converged on the eastern German city in one of the country’s largest antifascist mobilizations in decades (“Widersetzen,” literally “to resist”). They failed. Despite mass blockades, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) still held its party congress.

The critique is a familiar one: thousands descend on a city, disrupt business as usual for a day, then head home while the far right carries on. If the blockade failed, what was the point? For revolutionaries, the answer lies in a different question, however: Once the buses leave, what remains?

In Erfurt, quite a lot. Just months before the congress, the city had almost no organized antifascist activity. By the eve of the blockade, hundreds of local residents had passed through action trainings, more than 800 attended a citywide organizing assembly, and over 3,000 Erfurters joined the blockades. One resident remarked that it “felt like 1989 again.”

To understand how this transformation took place, I spoke with two organizers who relocated to Erfurt months before the congress. Their story is about how this city became the backbone of one of Germany’s largest acts of civil disobedience—and the kind of power that is built long before the blockades.

Aaron: Can you introduce yourselves? What kind of organizing were you involved in before Erfurt, and what led you to make the decision to move there?

Carlu: I’m organized in Marx21, a revolutionary socialist organization in Germany. I started organizing when I was 18 in the climate movement with Fridays for Future, then went into Wir fahren zusammen (“We ride together”—an alliance between climate activists and bus drivers), where I really started organizing and talking to people. In 2024 I switched to SGR (SGR, “Students Against the Far Right”) in Freiburg because of the resistance protests against the AfD party congresses.

I organized mobilizations from Freiburg for Essen, Riesa, and Gießen (the previous sites of AFD congresses). At some point I thought, I can do it another time, and maybe 100 or 200 more people will come from Freiburg—but it doesn’t make a huge difference if the city where the congress is taking place isn’t part of the protest.

So Charlie and I decided we had to move there. We had to organize the city itself. Looking back at Gießen (the previous direct action), there was no store open, nobody from the town was really involved. Twenty thousand people came from all over Germany, blocked the party congress for one day, then went back home. We thought we had to do it differently. To win local people over and organize them, we had to move there beforehand.

Charlie: I’m also organized in Marx21, a revolutionary socialist organization in Germany. I started organizing at 18 in the climate movement, first with Ende Gelände (Here and No Further), then End Fossil Occupy (both direct action climate justice groups), later the Kurdish movement, Wir fahren zusammen, and finally SGR around the first AfD party congress in Essen. Since then I’ve organized students at Freie Universität Berlin to travel to the AfD blockades.

After Gießen, a good friend who had gone earlier to organize came back totally frustrated. The local movement didn’t seem to want to blockade the AfD party congress, and he was basically alone. We realized we needed to change things. We had to go earlier and build a real structure that would last longer than a few days.

Aaron: What did you find when you arrived? What organizing already existed, what was the political atmosphere like, and where did you see opportunities or challenges?

Charlie: There was no real structure. There were youth organizations from the conservative CDU (RCDS), the center-left SPD (Jusos), and The Left (Linksjugend [‘solid]), but none of them were really active. There was also an open antifascist meeting once a month, but it didn’t really want to be part of Widersetzen.

There were a few people who had organized Widersetzen the last time, and coalitions like Zusammenstehen, Weltoffenes Thüringen, and Auf die Plätze—broad local alliances against the far right, but none of them were really mobilizing for July 4. When we arrived, maybe five or ten people were organizing.

We also met with a Left Party (Die Linke) politician who told us, “Erfurt is out-mobilized. There’s no chance.”

Carlu: I think they thought, “Okay, we’ll build a little infrastructure so people can come from all over Germany and make the protest happen.” But nobody really thought it was possible to organize people from Erfurt into the civil disobedience.

Aaron: Walk us through those first weeks. Where did you begin, and what were your priorities?

Carlu: The first thing we did was the organizing seminar at the end of March—a weekend training on how to build organizing committees, develop new leaders, and practice one-on-one organizing conversations. We managed to mobilize four or five people from Erfurt. There were about 80 people there from all over Germany, but only a handful from Erfurt. After the seminar, we thought we would go home and come back ten days later. Instead, we stayed. We had so many one-to-one meetings and group meetings to plan that we realized we couldn’t leave.

A few days later we mapped the entire university and the city—all the cafés, bars, restaurants, lecture halls, professors. We mapped everything we could. That was really the starting point.

The next step was an action week at the university. More than one hundred people from all over Germany came to help organize the campus.

Aaron: When did you realize the campaign was really taking off? What do you think made the difference?

Charlie: During the action week we spent three days talking to students across campus. For the first time, local students started thinking, “Oh my fucking God—we can actually win people. We can actually organize this campus.” By the end of the week, there was hardly anyone left who hadn’t heard about the SGR.

Eventually came our first public SGR meeting. We expected to get a room at the university, but the administration refused us any space. So we had two days to organize an open-air meeting with a stage, music, and speeches. More than 600 people came.

The most important thing was that the students organized almost all of it themselves. We helped with moderation and speeches, but every part of the meeting was organized by the students.

A week later we held the first public Widersetzen meeting in the city. We had spent days knocking on doors and talking to people, but we still weren’t sure anyone would come. Within minutes the room was full. More than 400 people showed up. That’s when we knew it was possible to organize the city, too.

Aaron: Once you knew it was possible to organize the city, how did you build the campaign from there?

Charlie: After the first Studis gegen Rechts and Widersetzen meetings, we split the campaign into two. At first we thought, “This is crazy.” We’d only just arrived in Erfurt, and now we were trying to run two campaigns instead of one.

One focused on the university, organizing students through their departments. The other focused on the city. We divided Erfurt into eight neighborhoods and had delegates responsible for each one. At every meeting, there were about 15 to 20 minutes of campaign-wide updates, then people split into neighborhood groups for about 45 minutes to organize locally. Over the months, people organized neighborhood festivals and built their own community groups.

That made a huge difference because it wasn’t always the same five people standing on a stage. As more people stepped into organizing roles, almost everyone knew someone helping lead the campaign—they were their neighbors.

Aaron: As July 4 approached, how did the campaign build toward the blockade?

Charlie: May was kind of a low phase. We spent those weeks trying out different ways of organizing the university and the city. The door-knocking campaign worked. The neighborhood organizing worked. The seminar outreach worked. We were constantly testing things, seeing what people responded to, and building on what worked.

Then came Science Against Fascism week. Students organized more than 70 seminars, going from class to class to persuade lecturers to turn their courses into part of a campus-wide week on fascism and anti-fascism. During the same week, we held the student assembly and, soon after, the city assembly. Those were our first real structure tests.

Then, in the last week before July 4, another hundred people came from across Germany to help organize. We talked to the whole city again. We talked to the whole university again. In the end there were around 3,000 people from Erfurt on the streets.

But actually, my favorite moment of the whole campaign wasn’t July 4. It was the night before.

As more people stepped into organizing roles, almost everyone knew someone helping lead the campaign—they were their neighbors.

We held the final action meeting in a church. People came in six different time slots of about 250 people each to get the information about where to meet the next morning. That was insane. It wasn’t just students anymore. It was the whole city coming to this church.

There was a real focus on the churches throughout the campaign. We held action trainings in churches, meetings in churches, and our plenaries in churches. It changed how people saw Widersetzen. Our strategy was “Erfurt lädt ein”—Erfurt invites you. It wasn’t radicals coming to Erfurt. It was Erfurt inviting people to come.

My parents never would have come to a Widersetzen protest before because they were scared. But they came now because they saw what was happening in Erfurt. It wasn’t just leftists running through the streets. The whole city was there—old people, young people, everyone.

Carlu: One especially memorable moment for me was at the final action meeting. We asked everyone if they were ready to stop the AfD party congress and the whole room stood up.

Really, throughout the campaign we didn’t just ask people what they thought about the AfD party congress. We asked, “What are you afraid of? What do you want to do against it?” Then we invited them to do something. No one had ever asked people in Erfurt that before.

Charlie: Another thing was that we always framed this vision. We told people that on the morning of July 4 they would look out their window and see the neighbor they’d never spoken to putting on a Widersetzen vest. They would put on their own vest, leave home at the same time, and the whole city would begin walking together toward the meeting point.

A friend told us afterwards that’s exactly what happened. She woke up around four in the morning, looked out her window, and saw her neighbor putting on his vest. They’d never spoken before. A few minutes later they left their homes for the blockade. It was the thing we had been telling people throughout the campaign. Then, on the morning of July 4, it was actually true.

One older person told us it felt like 1989 again. The last time they’d felt that sense that something was moving—that history was happening around them—was before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Hearing that was really incredible.

Aaron: You didn’t stop the AfD congress. For many people, that’s where the story ends. But after everything we’ve talked about, that seems like a very narrow way of measuring what happened. What do you think remains in Erfurt now, and what comes next?

Charlie: Of course, in the end we didn’t stop the party congress from happening. We always told people, “We need you because together we can stop this.” But what we achieved was that there wasn’t a single road into the congress that was open. We were so many people that it was impossible to get through the civil disobedience. That was a crazy win.

Of course, we can never trust the state in the fight against fascism. In the end they’ll always find a way around us. It was the SPD Interior Minister marching in the front row of the anti-fascist demonstration while secretly planning with the police to shuttle AfD delegates into the city between 1 and 3 a.m. During the day they marched with us; at night they protected the fascists. That really showed people you can’t trust the state in the fight against fascism—it radicalized people. Even my mom was like, “What the fuck just happened?”

Now it’s their responsibility to … decide what comes next. If they don’t do it themselves, they’ll never really own it.

It’s a win that we made it so the fascists only felt safe between 1 and 3 a.m. They couldn’t move through the city during the day because society was so clearly against them. We didn’t stop them—the state did everything it could to get them in—but we won Erfurt.

And that’s what remains. We built structures and helped people discover their own ability to organize. We had a meeting yesterday (July 8) to look back on the campaign and think about what comes next. People were saying things like, “We have to look at this strategically,” and I was thinking, you weren’t saying that four months ago. They learned so much. They made such big steps. They know themselves what is best for the movement now.

I don’t know exactly what comes next in Erfurt—we still have to talk with the people here. In the end, it’s not our decision. We came here to help start a movement and build structures. Now it’s their responsibility to build the group and decide what comes next. If they don’t do it themselves, they’ll never really own it. They know how to organize now, and they can do it in their own way. We’re trying to put as little pressure on them as possible, because it’s important that they decide what is best for the movement. I really trust them.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Steffen Prößdorf; modified by Tempest.

The post Building an anti-fascist city appeared first on Tempest.

Malam itu, layar ponsel Raka dipenuhi deretan judul permainan yang sedang ramai diperbincangkan. Istilah “slot gacor”, “maxwin”, hingga “jackpot” muncul bergantian di berbagai forum dan media komunitas. Ia sempat mengira ada permainan tertentu yang sedang berada dalam kondisi istimewa dan tinggal menunggu waktu untuk memberikan kemenangan besar.

Namun, setelah memperhatikan lebih jauh, Raka menyadari bahwa istilah populer di kalangan pemain tidak selalu sama dengan fakta matematis sebuah permainan.

Di sinilah pembahasan mengenai pilihan slot gacor maxwin untuk berburu jackpot menjadi menarik. Sebab, di balik istilah yang terdengar menjanjikan tersebut terdapat mekanisme permainan, RTP, volatilitas, serta sistem Random Number Generator (RNG) yang justru lebih penting untuk dipahami.

Popularitas Tidak Sama dengan Jaminan Menang

Istilah “gacor” umumnya digunakan komunitas untuk menggambarkan permainan yang dalam pengalaman tertentu dianggap sering memberikan kombinasi kemenangan atau fitur bonus. Sementara “maxwin” biasanya merujuk pada kemenangan dengan nilai besar berdasarkan batas pembayaran yang tersedia dalam sebuah permainan.

Masalahnya, pengalaman beberapa pemain tidak dapat dijadikan bukti bahwa permainan tersebut sedang “wajib” membayar. Pada sistem berbasis RNG, hasil setiap putaran dirancang untuk ditentukan secara acak. Riwayat kekalahan sebelumnya juga tidak membuat putaran berikutnya otomatis memiliki peluang lebih tinggi untuk menang.

Karena itu, label “gacor” lebih tepat dipandang sebagai istilah komunitas, bukan indikator matematis bahwa jackpot akan muncul.

RTP Menjadi Salah Satu Angka Penting

Ketika membandingkan permainan, Raka kemudian menemukan angka RTP atau Return to Player. Angka tersebut sering dianggap sebagai patokan utama, padahal maknanya perlu dibaca secara tepat.

RTP menggambarkan persentase teoritis dari total taruhan yang dikembalikan kepada pemain dalam jangka sangat panjang. Misalnya, permainan dengan RTP 96% secara matematis dirancang mengembalikan sekitar 96 dari setiap 100 unit taruhan dalam sampel yang sangat besar. Itu bukan berarti seseorang yang mempertaruhkan 100 unit akan mendapatkan kembali 96 unit pada satu sesi.

Perbedaan ini penting. RTP merupakan gambaran statistik jangka panjang, bukan prediksi hasil sesi berikutnya.

Volatilitas Menentukan Karakter Permainan

Selain RTP, volatilitas juga layak diperhatikan. Dua permainan dapat memiliki RTP yang relatif sama, tetapi pengalaman bermainnya bisa sangat berbeda.

Permainan dengan volatilitas rendah cenderung menghasilkan kemenangan lebih kecil namun relatif lebih sering. Sebaliknya, volatilitas tinggi biasanya memiliki distribusi kemenangan yang lebih jarang, tetapi sebagian hadiahnya dapat berada pada pembayaran yang jauh lebih besar.

Bagi pemain yang tertarik dengan istilah “maxwin”, aspek ini menjadi relevan. Potensi pembayaran besar tidak boleh diterjemahkan sebagai peluang mendapatkan jackpot yang lebih mudah. Justru volatilitas tinggi dapat menghadirkan periode panjang tanpa kemenangan berarti.

Membaca Fitur Lebih Penting daripada Mengejar Label

Permainan modern biasanya menawarkan berbagai fitur seperti Wild, Scatter, pengganda, putaran gratis, atau mekanisme bonus tertentu. Fitur tersebut memang membuat permainan lebih dinamis, tetapi keberadaannya bukan bukti bahwa kemenangan besar sedang menunggu.

Pendekatan yang lebih rasional adalah membaca tabel pembayaran, aturan permainan, RTP yang tercantum, volatilitas jika tersedia, serta memahami batas taruhan sebelum memutuskan bermain. Informasi tersebut memberikan gambaran yang lebih objektif dibandingkan sekadar mengikuti daftar permainan yang sedang populer.

Pada akhirnya, Raka mengubah cara pandangnya. Ia tidak lagi mencari permainan yang disebut “pasti gacor”. Ia justru mencoba memahami bagaimana sebuah slot bekerja dan menyadari bahwa tidak ada pilihan yang mampu menghilangkan unsur risiko.

Jackpot Tetap Merupakan Hasil Probabilitas

Daya tarik jackpot memang sulit disangkal. Angka kemenangan besar, animasi bonus, dan cerita pemain yang memperoleh hasil fantastis membuat slot terus menarik perhatian. Tetapi satu pengalaman menang tidak mengubah struktur probabilitas sebuah permainan.

Karena itu, pilihan slot gacor maxwin untuk berburu jackpot sebaiknya dipahami sebagai topik analisis mengenai karakter permainan, bukan daftar permainan yang menjamin kemenangan. RNG membuat hasil putaran tidak dapat diprediksi hanya berdasarkan hasil sebelumnya, sedangkan RTP bekerja pada skala jangka panjang.

Bagi pembaca, pemahaman tersebut menjadi fondasi yang lebih sehat. Jackpot boleh menjadi bagian dari daya tarik permainan, tetapi keputusan bermain seharusnya tetap mempertimbangkan risiko, anggaran, dan batas pribadi. Dengan begitu, popularitas sebuah slot tidak membuat penilaian terhadap peluang menjadi kabur.

Pada akhirnya, permainan yang disebut “gacor” mungkin sedang ramai hari ini dan terlupakan besok. Yang tetap berlaku adalah matematika permainan. Memahami fakta tersebut jauh lebih berguna daripada mengejar janji kemenangan yang tidak pernah benar-benar bisa dipastikan.

The recent publication of reflections by former members of the International Socialists (IS) and its youth group, Red Tide, is a welcome, if overdue, recollection of the successes and failures of building a socialist presence in key industries and among high school students in the United States in the 1970s.

From the Free Speech Movement to the Factory Floor (Haymarket Books) offers first-hand accounts of those who sought to implement a rank-and-file strategy with varying degrees of success as they sought to bring socialism from below to key sectors of the U.S. working class.

Unfortunately, the opening for turning some of the militancy of that period into a socialist base was shut midway through the decade by global conditions that proved insurmountable for the IS, as well as the mass movements of that period.1For a broad outline of the period, as well as a summary of IS labor strategy, see Joel Geier, “When Socialists Joined the Rank-and-File Upsurge.” Largely missing from the collection, though, is the perspectives debate that tried to address how these material changes undercut the IS strategy, requiring an altered approach for building a socialist base. The debate is important because it gave birth to the International Socialist Organization (ISO), whose more measured perspective allowed it to carry forward the project of socialism from below during a decades-long working-class retreat.

Strategy under stress

The IS was founded in 1969 near the peak of nearly two decades of mass social movements and deepening radicalization. By the mid-1970s the conditions that gave rise to this period had changed. By 1976 it was becoming clear to some that the general perspectives and strategy that had guided the IS since its founding no longer fit. After a four-month debate with the IS majority over its “mass work” perspective en route to a “workers’ combat organization” and a deepening commitment to strategic implantation of comrades in key industries and unions, the minority, or Left Faction (LF), was expelled in the opening session of a Special Convention held in Detroit in March 1977. After the expulsion, 52 members of the LF convened at the Veterans’ Memorial Building to establish the framework of a new organization, the International Socialist Organization (ISO). The debate leading to the expulsion focused on strategy and tactics, not the foundational principles defining socialism from below.

Although the current period does not replicate the 1970s, there are many reasons that a new generation of socialists looks to the IS experience of building independent rank-and-file organizations in key industries and unions during the 1970s. Two current organizations—Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) and Labor Notes—are rooted in the IS work of that decade. Both reform organizations were supported by the LF/ISO from their beginning. So, why did the IS expel a third of its members in 1977? The arguments over the 1976–77 IS perspectives provide lessons that the current generation of socialists might find useful in their efforts to build organizations and to construct a perspective that fits the current period and avoids some of the mistakes of the past.

Mass movements prepare the way

It is important to understand the context that led to the founding of the IS in 1969. A mass movement for Black civil rights in the United States and an international antiwar movement against the U.S. imperial war in Vietnam pulled millions into radical activity. In addition, a second wave women’s rights and liberation movement emerged, followed by a movement for gay rights and liberation. These, too, had international links. But it was the uprising of students and the largest ever workers’ general strike in France in May 1968 that captured the imagination of a new generation of radicals looking for revolutionary possibilities. Besides the May events in France that nearly toppled the government, cracks in the Eastern bloc, anti-colonial struggles in Africa, and guerilla insurgencies in Latin America reinforced revolutionary aspirations.

The year 1968 was the watershed year of this period. Beginning with the Tet offensive by the National Liberation Front in Vietnam in late January, which exposed the lie that the U.S. military was winning its war there, and ending with the election of the Republican, Richard Nixon, to the presidency with a plurality of less than one percent of the vote, 1968 screamed for fundamental change. Between Tet and Nixon’s election came President Lyndon Johnson’s near abdication, two assassinations (Dr. Martin L. King, Jr and Robert F. Kennedy), mass uprisings (France, Czechoslovakia), guerrilla struggles (Latin America), and wide disaffection with the Democratic Party after it nominated the war supporter and Johnson’s vice president Hubert Humphrey to challenge Nixon. This turbulent year exposed many of the cracks in the international system of capitalist exploitation, which could no longer impose its will on the masses unopposed.

By the end of 1968, the search for how to organize for revolutionary change was well underway. A generation of activists informed by their experiences now looked for a blueprint, or at least a model, for how to make a revolution. Many looked to the Cuban and Chinese guerilla achievements for guidance. Others looked back to 1917 and the first successful worker-led revolution in Russia. Most of the models were top-down, substituting self-appointed leaders and organizations that would make the revolution for the masses. Working-class self-emancipation (Bolshevism) in Russia had been replaced by a bureaucratic and self-appointed ruling class (Stalinism).2https://www.marxists.org/archive/harman/1967/xx/revlost.htm Reconnecting workers to the tradition of self-emancipation was never going to be easy, but it was worth a try in the context of mass social movements in the United States and Europe, as well as anti-colonial struggles in the South.

Following the breakup of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the summer of 1969, the International Socialist Clubs (ISC) and remnants of several SDS chapters (Seattle, Austin, Chicago, Baltimore, Ann Arbor) met over Labor Day weekend that year in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to lay the groundwork for a national organization. By the end of the year, convinced that the period of radicalization had entered a new stage, the IS was launched, setting its sights on joining the working class. What happened in the effort to build a revolutionary workers’ organization as the period of radicalization began to ebb over the next decade is a history that is both instructive and cautionary. It is the history of the International Socialists and its successor organizations, the ISO, and a third organization, Solidarity.

Revolution in the air

Before neoliberalism, globalization, or financialization entered the lexicon, workers in several sectors of the U.S. economy flexed their muscles—sometimes with their union’s blessing, more often in opposition to official leaderships. For the Left this period became known as the “rank-and-file rebellion.”3Aaron Brenner, Robert Brenner, Cal Winslow, eds., Rebel Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt During the Long 1970s. (New York: Verso, 2010); Dan Labotz, Rank-and-File Rebellion: Teamsters for a Democratic Union. (New York: Verso, 1991).In tandem with a growing restlessness and outright insubordination in the military as the war in Vietnam dragged on, an upsurge of workers challenged the status quo and the post–World War II narrative of upward mobility and middle-class status.4David Cortwright, Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2005). Soldiers who were drafted into a war they only half believed in came home to a country deeply divided. Beneath the flag-waving and imperial chest-thumping a new attitude was born.

The endless war in Vietnam, along with the drive for profits at home, produced a consciousness of resistance among many frontline soldiers and workers alike. A growing attitude emerged that challenged the bosses in factories and officers in Vietnam. Soldiers increasingly refused to follow dangerous orders for a war that seemed pointless (or which they opposed on political grounds). Officers who gave reckless orders became targets for fragging (battlefield assassination).5Allthatsinteresting.com. Gina Dimuro, May 14, 2020.

In factories and warehouses resistance was often expressed individually through “work-to-rule” slowdowns rather than coordinated actions, but united unofficial strikes, often led by rank-and-file militants, were not uncommon. Wildcat strikes grew in this period, accounting for a third of work stoppages, with the 1970 postal strike being the largest (with more than 200,000 workers taking part). Miners struck several times in the decade without official notice and gave birth to Miners for Democracy to fight the corrupt Tony Boyle regime in the United Mine Workers.

Between 1968 and 1971, strikes and labor reform movements reached historic proportions. In auto plants, Black-led shop floor organizations like the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM) fought the company on the factory floor and racism in the union. Even during the 1974 recession there were nearly as many strikes as in the peak year of 1970.6Brenner, Brenner, and Winslow, Rebel Rank and File, 141.

Against this background a revolutionary current emerged. Elements of this current could be found in the early sixties, but it was the watershed year of 1968 when the radicalization broke explosively into the open internationally.7Philipp Gassert and Martin Klimke, eds., On the Edge of World Revolution. (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2018); Chris Harman, The Fire Last Time: 1968 and After. (London: Bookmarks, 1988). Millions of young radicals began to draw revolutionary conclusions from their experiences. It was now time to create the organizations necessary to effectively challenge the status quo of war, hunger, and inequality. Revolution was certainly in the air and nourished a generation eager for change. The May events in France suggested that rebellion was growing in the working class—the material force capable of challenging the capitalist system.

Berkeley ISC leaves campus for the factory floor

The Independent Socialists at the University of California, Berkeley under the leadership of the Marxist scholar Hal Draper was the dominant Left organization there in the 1960s, and played a leading role in civil rights, free speech, and peace movements. Loosely affiliated with ISC groups in Chicago, New York, Ann Arbor, and Baltimore—many of whose members had been comrades in the Young People’s Socialist League and the Student Peace Union—the Berkeley ISC student leaders Joel Geier and Mike Parker determined it was time to establish a national revolutionary organization committed to the principles of workers’ self-emancipation: workers’ control of their workplaces, a government democratically elected from councils of workers, and a movement of workers tied to “neither Washington nor Moscow,” but to international socialism. This socialism-from-below orientation differentiated the ISC/IS from most of the emerging revolutionary groups that identified with the so-called actually existing socialist states of China, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. In the end, it was Maoism that attracted the largest following of the 1970s radicals in the United States.

With the inspiration of the French May, and cracks in the Eastern bloc coinciding with the breakup of SDS in 1969, Geier and Parker broke with Draper, who believed that a national organization was unsustainable and that the period of radicalization had peaked.8https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1971/alt/alt.htm Further, he considered their rank-and-file strategy to be effectively dual unionism and therefore divisive. Meeting over Labor Day 1969, with representatives from various student clubs (including the ISC) and SDS affiliates, the foundation for a national organization was outlined.9https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/is-us/IS-documents/69/69-09.pdf By the end of 1969 the IS had coalesced with a perspective to move off the campuses and join the industrial working class. Toward that goal, Detroit was chosen as the national headquarters and a monthly paper, Workers’ Power, would lead the way.

While it would take a series of internal arguments to cohere the organization, by 1973 the IS was on its way to carrying out its perspective of implementing the rank-and-file strategy.10Kim Moody, In Solidarity: Essays on Working-Class Organization in the United States (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2014), 75–148. The implementation rested on getting jobs in key industries: auto, steel, telephone, and trucking (freight and parcel) were the initial priorities, followed by postal workers in the wake of their impressive wildcat strike. The plan was to establish rank-and-file caucuses in the affiliated unions and to cohere a group of workers who would be a pole for a new kind of orientation,workers’ control of the workplace.11https://solidarity-us.org/rankandfilestrategy/ This would necessarily involve challenging the existing union leaderships that operated under the principle of business unionism—collaboration with the bosses—which had been firmly established in the post–World War II era.

In brief, the perspective of sending students into strategic industries, building opposition groups in unions, and educating a layer of worker-militants to commit to socialism was a monumental undertaking for an organization of less than 300 members. Nevertheless, with commitment high, promising objective conditions, and some early, if modest, successes in locating like-minded workers, any doubts about the strategy were marginalized.

Successes drive the perspective

One measure of success was the number of rank-and-file organizations built in the targeted industries. By 1975, there were four auto caucuses, five Teamster rank-and-file newspapers, and three caucuses in telephone and steel. In addition, teachers in New York and the Bay Area were active in opposition groups in their respective unions. With the help of a targeted pamphlet, The Struggle for Workers’ Power!, and regular Workers’ Power paper sales at main post offices, several postal workers joined the IS in this period.

A significant breakthrough came in 1976 with the Master Freight Agreement (MFA) campaign, led by Teamsters for a Decent Contract, an ad-hoc group of IS implants and fellow militants in the freight industry, as well as United Parcel Service (UPS) workers. The campaign was spread through rank-and-file newspapers and organizations to some twenty cities, and successfully established a national opposition group in the Teamsters Union that materially helped shape a contract outside official union channels.

This success led to a national rank-and-file organization, TDU, launched in September 1976. Its main orientation targeted both local and national leaderships of the Teamsters, offering a rank-and-file alternative. TDU soon established itself as the main reform group in the Teamsters Union and the organization to affiliate with if you wanted to challenge entrenched leaderships in your local.

In tandem with TDU, embedded IS women working at UPS in Cleveland launched their own organization: UPSurge. Based on their experience, they targeted the company rather than the union leadership with a newspaper, UPSurge, and built opposition groups among drivers and package loaders. Their success in the Midwest brought them in touch with a rank-and-file group in Louisville, Kentucky, that boosted UPSurge’s credibility among Teamsters. Targeting company bosses instead of union heads eventually led to friction within the IS Teamster fraction and became a sharp divide in the perspectives debate in 1976–77.

Successes mask underlying conditions

By the time of the 1976 National Convention in July, the IS could point to several successes in implementing the overall labor strategy. Not only had the freight workers been instrumental in building a successful national contract fight, but in the process they had established a viable national rank-and-file organization, TDU. That success led to a handful of key rank-and-file leaders joining the IS, though few stuck beyond the formation of TDU, especially as an economic recession took hold, leading to layoffs and a dampening of militancy. The mass civil rights movements and women’s and gay liberation movements also were forced to retreat to defend their gains.

Independent rank-and-file organizations were replicated in other targeted industries around the country: telephone workers in New York, Louisville, and Seattle, autoworkers in Detroit, California, and New Jersey, steelworkers in Gary and Pittsburgh, and UPS workers in multiple cities showed what was possible. Overall, the successes covered over the many objective and subjective difficulties that were beginning to erode nearly two decades of militancy and protest. As from a flea on the back of an elephant, the view from a limited vista did not produce a picture of the whole animal. The ride was thrilling, but the destination could not be strategically determined with the small forces at hand, despite the high-level of commitment from IS comrades. Nevertheless, the leadership of the IS was prepared to claim success for its perspective at its 1976 Convention in Dearborn, Michigan, and take the next step—mass work.

Misreading the tea leaves

While there were many implementations of the rank-and-file perspective of which the IS could be proud, they were not sufficient to declare victory. Nevertheless, at the 1976 Convention held in the ballroom of the Dearborn Hilton, the national leadership declared that the IS was ready for the “next step in our mass work perspective… In mass work on shopfloors and around economic issues, we try to give a lead to the backward, reactionary, and cowardly workers as well as to the militants.”12https://www.marxists.org/history. “Mass Work, Politics, Building the Party,” 1976 Executive Committee document.

From an orientation on the “militant minority” to a declaration that the IS was now ready to do “mass work” with a membership no larger than 342 (according to the 1976 National Secretary report), raises the question: Who was leading whom? This triumphalist assessment of the organization’s accomplishments suggested that nothing was wrong with the overall perspectives outlined in the 1975 IS pamphlet The Struggle for Workers’ Power, which boldly projected that in the 1976–77 bargaining round,

[W]e will become a workers’ combat group in the lead of a growing rank-and-file movement or be set back severely.

…By three years from now we want [the workers] to be the leadership of the IS, and a working class and black leadership, which has already started the process of constructing factory branches.

We want to double our membership by the next convention [1976]. In the next 2-3 years, we want to have the core of a party—worker cadres, factory branches, national rank and file movements, a weekly paper, a theoretical journal, a strong youth group, and a working class and black leadership.

This outline for the next period was far ahead of the concrete achievements and completely overlooked the material forces at hand. Even if the membership had doubled by 1976, it would still be well short of the numbers needed to carry out these tasks. Indeed, many at the 1976 convention felt that militancy was beginning to wane, though to voice caution without a clear alternative would have led to isolation, or worse. According to National Secretary Glenn Wolf, adherence to the “Workers Combat” perspective would become a condition of membership.13Notes from Steve Leigh, November 1976 joint meeting of Portland and Seattle IS branches.

Radical period begins to ebb

Internationally much had changed since the founding of the IS. By 1974, the Portuguese revolution was in abeyance and in Chile the socialist government had been crushed by a military coup with the help of the CIA. In 1975, the US retreated from Vietnam, thus ending the antiwar movement. The Black Power movement, which gave rise to the Black Panther Party in 1966, was under physical attack as early as 1969 from local and national law enforcement and was slowly being driven to the margins. An Indigenous movement was literally gunned down by federal agents in South Dakota in 1973. These early warnings signaled that defending and building movements would require a growth in solidarity not seen since 1968.

Even the promise of workers’ power seen in the numerous wildcat strikes and other forms of resistance to the boss’s relentless drive for profits was beginning to wane. An economic downturn in 1973–75 and corresponding layoffs had already weakened militancy in the manufacturing sector.14Monthly Labor Review, September 1983.

Domestically, the election of Democrat Jimmy Carter to the presidency in 1976 signaled a shift from the pro-labor Roosevelt era to a program of deregulation and a neoliberal agenda favoring profits at the expense of workers’ needs. Layoffs soon became the norm as capital looked for cheaper locations to retool, either overseas or in the non-union south. Neoliberalism replaced New Dealism as the framework for exploitation, producing a consciousness of self-preservation rather than a spirit of rebellion and solidarity in workplaces.

In retrospect, it is clear now that the IS perspective had reached its limits by 1976. The leadership’s assessment at the Convention that year exaggerated successes and projected a triumphant period ahead. While there were doubters at that convention, they were unprepared to challenge the perspective openly. They did, however, begin to lay the groundwork for a counter-narrative, which would culminate in a formal factional challenge later that fall.

Employer’s offensive

Before turning to the debate that challenged the IS leadership’s perspective, it is important to note the fundamental shift of capital that was underway by the mid-1970s. No longer was capital prepared to invest in the old manufacturing systems, especially in steel, communications, transportation, and auto. The international challenge from one-time foes Japan and Germany forced U.S. manufacturers to close old production systems and seek new locations to retool for profitability.

In the heartland of U.S. manufacturing from St. Louis to Boston, factories and mills were shuttered, giving rise to what became known as “the rust belt.” Jobs that had once given many workers a middle-class life disappeared. International competition for profits now dominated. Workers, especially in the heartland, were the victims. From the promise of a home, a couple of cars, and college for the children, manufacturing workers suddenly found themselves on the dole.

Known as “the employers’ offensive,” this period not only wreaked havoc on manufacturing workers’ lives, but reverberated throughout the working class. Restaurant workers who catered to auto workers, for example, lost their jobs. Detroit, the city built by the auto industry, lost more than 300,000 residents, or 20 percent of its population, in the 1970s. When mortgages couldn’t be paid, whole blocks of houses were abandoned and fell into disrepair, thus hollowing out the city. Weed patches replaced yards, and one-third of schools were shuttered.

Besides the damage inflicted by corporate restructuring, Carter and Congress legislated pro-capital measures to assist in this restructuring. For example, removing regulations on telephone, airlines, and trucking gave rise to cutthroat competition and lower wages. Jobs that moved to the south, where new auto plants were built, were now union free. Wages fell by more than half. Frustrated resistance often turned against foreigners (primarily Asians) for “taking American jobs,” thus replacing solidarity with xenophobia.

By 1980, with the election of Republican president Ronald Reagan, the rout of labor was well underway. To drive home the point that a new era had arrived, Reagan fired striking air traffic-controllers in 1981. Organized labor’s response was to rally in Washington, DC with more than 400,000 workers eager to challenge Reagan’s anti-worker assault. Unfortunately, official union leaderships looked not to solidarity on the picket line, but rather to a march to the ballot box to elect Democrats to Congress in 1982, ignoring the fact that it was a Democrat in the White House six years earlier who had ushered in the offensive against workers. Not only was this a blow to any meaningful resistance to the employer’s offensive, but it initiated doubts in the viability of workers to bring about positive social change through their own initiative.

Warning signals begin to pile up

Yet even before Reagan and the full extent of the employer’s offensive was known, some in the IS began to see the limits of the group’s perspective, especially in its aim of building a “workers’ combat organization” through “mass work.” One clue to these limits seemed obvious to the UPSurge comrades. While UPSurge had built an impressive rank-and-file organization, especially in the Midwest, it was not strong enough to meet the Teamster leadership’s threat to help the bosses fire workers who continued their wildcat strike in 1976.

But it was more than the weakness of UPSurge that signaled the limits of the IS perspective. It was the material pressures on the industrial cadre to adapt to their work environment that exposed the limits of implantation, especially as militancy waned and U.S. manufacturing retooled. Consciousness was shifting away from militancy and solidarity toward self-preservation and adaptation to the emerging neoliberal conditions.

Not comfortable with the exaggerated assessment of the IS leadership at the 1976 convention, and with some prodding interventions from Canadian comrades in attendance, several IS cadre began to question the road ahead. At first, these were informal gatherings of a handful of comrades who mostly asked questions: Why were we only able to recruit a few militants from our rank-and-file work? Why were Workers’ Power sales declining? Are we missing struggles apart from the targeted industries that might be more receptive to our politics? In the wake of the convention several comrades were unconvinced of the strategic role of the mass work perspective and the leadership’s insistence on sticking to the strategy of implantation in strategic industries when layoffs were the order of the day.

Two leading members, Cal Winslow, the industrial organizer, and Barbara Winslow, the women’s organizer, were alarmed by the exaggerated perspective and sought guidance from comrades they had worked with in the British IS in Coventry in 1969. Early in September 1976, the Winslows headed for London, where they met with leaders of the British IS, newly named the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Here they learned that the British were also alarmed at the IS’s exaggerated industrial perspectives.

Upon returning, the Winslows approached several comrades to determine if a formal opposition should be organized to raise concerns about the mass work perspective. With fifty-eight initial endorsers, the Left Faction assembled in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in early November. Twenty-two members attended the first meeting, along with two comrades from the Canadian IS who had witnessed the debate at the Dearborn convention. A Red Tide representative also attended.

The discussions at this first meeting led to the commission of three documents: “A New Course for the IS,” “Women’s Liberation,” and “Black Liberation.” A later document addressed the Portuguese Revolution, charging the leadership with an exaggerated assessment of the Portuguese Revolutionary Party’s strategy. However, most of the discussion held in branches throughout the four months of debate that followed centered on the leadership’s insistence on doubling down on mass work and sending comrades into the targeted industries even though hiring was at a near standstill.

The Left Faction perspective

On December 8, 1976, the Left Faction submitted a counter-perspective, “The New Course for the IS.”15Marxist Internet Archive, IS Documents Archive, Special Bulletin 3, December 11, 1976. Page numbers in brackets. The twenty-two-page document opened with the following assessment: “We believe the IS is in a deep crisis. The organization’s perspectives have failed. The organization’s politics and policies are shifting to the right.”

Countering the leadership’s assessment that the IS was ready to take the next step toward “a workers’ combat organization,” the LF offered a grim appraisal of the primary areas of work. The auto fraction submitted a sobering report: “We recruited and held no one from the plants in the past nine months. In the same period, we lost a number of members” (p. 6). The telephone fraction efforts were going nowhere and “there is deep demoralization and confusion among those who carry on.” From the steel fraction: “There is dissension in the fraction” (p. 7).

Even amid the major successes—the National Master Freight Contract campaign, the founding of TDU, and the UPSurge-led wildcat strike—the leadership admitted that the IS presence had been “liquidated for a prolonged period of time.” In concrete terms this meant that Workers’ Power had ceased to be integral to the activity of building rank-and-file organizations. The “New Course” charged, “More and more the organization takes on the characteristics of a ‘sect’ in its isolated existence, its frenzied activity, its endless internal meetings, its big talk, to no listeners” (pp. 4-5).

The document went on to argue that the IS’s strategy for building a revolutionary socialist current in the U.S. working class by taking jobs in key industries and challenging do-nothing union leaders was a “substitutionist” perspective that had led to a conservatized and demoralized cadre. Further, it challenged that objective conditions were ignored, thus making any weaknesses or failures of the mass work perspective  “the fault or short comings of the members: a voluntarist load that has crushed many fine comrades” (p. 9).

Whether or not the LF’s assessment of the leadership’s perspective was exaggerated, it nevertheless was a strong indicator that a debate was in order, especially considering the unease among most members in the organization that recruitment had virtually ceased. This fact was especially disconcerting when “mass work” became the description for all IS initiatives, no matter how minor.

The LF argued that the leadership’s adherence to a mass work perspective was confusing: “The IS cannot have it all ways. It cannot, at the same time, orient to the left bureaucracy, and to the ‘cowards and reactionaries’ in the rank and file, and also to the militant minority, in particular to the special demands and struggles of the oppressed” (p. 8).

Black and women’s issues were often lost when adhering to the tenets of mass work. In practice the mass work perspective strengthened “the conservative tendencies already strong in our industrial work.” In other words, the IS was missing its audience.

The principle of “every factory must be our fortress” that “must be the key to building a successful revolutionary workers’ party” (p. 10) in the long run, was acknowledged by the LF, but, they argued, “To reduce the question to one of white-collar vs. blue-collar or workers vs. students misses opportunities in the short-term, especially when conditions have changed.” In addition, “There is no way that a group of 300 can either chart the course of the class struggle, nor can it expect to impose ‘consistency’ on history” (p. 11).

The IS was substituting itself for the lack of militancy among the workers of industries it had chosen as key to the class struggle. Both the mass work perspective and the focus on strategic economic sectors were stand-ins for the real struggles of workers, wherever they might break out. By not coming to grips with the objective conditions, argued the LF, opportunities were being missed to build the organization. Many industrialized members in the targeted sectors, let alone long-time militants, were exhausted and demoralized. “Industrialization conservatizes the individual members and leads to conservatism in the entire organization. It focuses the attention of the organization not on the working class, but on its own middle-class members,” the LF noted. In short, “industrialization is a pessimistic, conservative and a substitutionist strategy” (p. 15).

Perhaps the most serious charge leveled at the leadership’s perspective was that, despite the rhetoric of being “best fighters for Black liberation,” there was little concrete attention paid to Black struggles, nor to training the few Black people who had joined the organization. In fact, the most serious Black work was left to Red Tide, which led a campaign to free a framed Black student, Gary Tyler, from a specious shooting charge. The LF believed it was the adherence to seeking jobs in targeted industries strategy that hampered a consistent plan for Black work, or for that matter, serious women’s work.

By 1976, there was plenty of evidence that the IS perspective had run its course and was only being maintained through a “pseudo-bolshevism” and a perverted interpretation of “democratic centralism”—orders from the leadership without the political backing sufficient to convince the membership that it was on the right track.

In reality, the perspective developed over the life of the organization had ceased to either attract new recruits to the IS or inspire many of its most committed adherents in the organization. It was time to change course.

Key to the perspective advocated by the LF was Workers’ Power, arguing that the small size of the IS required it to maximize its resources with concrete propaganda. Rather than tailing “a nonexistent ‘mass’ audience, at the lowest common denominator,” the paper must be “directed to the advanced workers, those in struggle” wherever they might be—not necessarily in predetermined industries. Furthermore, the paper could prove in practice how real democratic centralism works, when “it actually carries our political ideas” and is used as “our chief interventionist tool” (p. 20).

The LF proposed an outward-looking strategy: “It must turn to the actual struggles of the working class. The IS must develop local perspectives based on the actual conditions in each city and workplace” (p. 21). As the LF pointed out, the best guide for revolutionaries, especially with small numbers, can be found in Farrell Dobbs’ books of the Minneapolis Teamster’s struggles of 1933–34. The LF saw the Communist League’s approach in the 1930s as a model for the IS.

The SWP-UK intervenes

Even before the LF was organized or produced documents, the Central Committee of the British IS/SWP raised the alarm in a six-page letter to the National Committee of the IS in September. The main thrust of its concern was the “triumphalist” assessment of the national Teamsters contract campaign, as well as other efforts in building rank-and-file organizations. They cautioned against the immodesty and exaggeration of the leadership’s perspectives. In blunt terms they also dismissed the focus on strategic industries.

To drive the point home, they offered James Cannon’s observation on the first real success of Trotskyists in the United States:

Our comrades in Minneapolis began their work in the coal yards and later extended their organizing campaign away from the general drivers and helpers. That was not a preconceived plan worked out in the general staff of our movement. The drivers of Minneapolis were not by far the most decisive section of the American proletariat. We began our real activity in the labor movement in those places where the opportunity was open to us. It is not possible to select such occasions arbitrarily according to whim or preference. One must enter a mass movement where a door is open.

In short, the letter argued that the leadership’s perspective was “grossly exaggerated” and was in danger of driving the organization “into increasingly false political positions in an attempt to conceal what will become a growing gulf between pretensions and reality.” Unfortunately, this intervention from a fraternal organization was characterized as traitorous, thus branding any opposition as hostile to the IS project even before the LF emerged.

Was a split necessary?

Was the LF’s call for a new strategy so out of bounds that the majority needed to jettison nearly a third of its membership? In retrospect the split seems indefensible, especially given the conditions of the period and the collapse of the IS less than two years after the debate.

By the end of the four-month debate, both sides were exhausted and ready to move on. In lieu of expulsion (Item 1 of the Special Convention Agenda), the LF proposed a seven-point resolution to avoid a split, including disbanding the LF and accepting the majority perspective without demanding positions on the Executive Committee, even though it represented a third of the organization. Behind the scenes, though, including an Executive Committee meeting with an IS/SWP representative, it was clear that the two sides were ready to go their separate ways and prove in practice their perspectives.

It should also be noted that a small middle faction (Workers’ Power) argued for a compromise. This group, which included the well-known Teamster rank-and-file leader Pete Camarata, left the IS a year later. Soon after, the IS ceased to exist.

Conditions determined perspectives post-split

The guiding politics of “socialism from below” as a principle for revolutionary organization was never in question by any of the contending forces, only how to implement it under unpredictable conditions.

While the IS continued into the mid-1980s (and founded Labor Notes in 1979), its paper Workers Power ceased publishing in October 1978. The ISO and its paper Socialist Worker survived for 42 years and grew to be what was, perhaps, the largest revolutionary Left organization in the United States during the period of long retreat. The ISO strategy focused on campuses, especially those with an activist core. For example, anti-apartheid in South Africa and anti-Gulf War struggles helped radicalize students post-1970s. Through this strategy the ISO was able to introduce student activists to the occasional worker struggles that emerged during the 1990s such as the Caterpillar tractor and Staley sugar strikes in central Illinois and the Hormel meatpacker’s strike in Minnesota.

Several years after the IS collapsed, some of its members, along with recently expelled members of the Socialist Workers Party (US), launched the organization Solidarity, with a perspective of regrouping sections of the Left committed to struggles from below.16The ISO was not one of Solidarity’s targets for regrouping the Left. Solidarity continues to operate as a small socialist feminist organization with a bimonthly magazine, Against the Current.

For any organization aspiring to cohere the self-activity of workers, the lessons—good and bad—from the IS’s decade of trying to build rank-and-file organizations are worth examining. However, the internal debate that concluded that period is integral to understanding the full IS story.

Conditions had significantly changed since the IS’s beginning, and the organization had neither the numbers nor the influence needed to carry its ambitious perspectives forward. In some ways, the IS was a victim of its successes, which blinded it to forces much more decisive than a handful of militant rank-and-file organizations and their socialist backers.

One lesson that stands out from the successes and failures of the IS in the 1970s is the need to temper revolutionary objectives with a measure of modesty. The accomplishments of the IS are inspiring and instructive, but overestimating those accomplishments was fatal for the organization.

Nevertheless, as From the Free Speech Movement to the Factory Floor illustrates, the comrades of the IS, who gave it their all, found the decade they joined the rank-and-file upsurge a meaningful part of their lives, rich with lessons for the current generation of socialists.

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