Another year, another Hollywood superhero blockbuster. A film about someone with superpowers who takes down petty criminals, local gangs and the occasional super villain. The bourgeoisie has to keep us spoon fed on this kind of “culture”.
But what about real super heroes? Men and women who have given their lives in the struggle against fascism, for medicine, for science and reason over idealism and superstition. Where are the films about these heroes? Where are the Blockbusters which reflect the real life superhuman struggles of working class and oppressed people to take control of their own destiny?
Champions of the working class, men like Stalin and the Bolsheviks are the heroes for red youth. Stalin realised, unlike Superman, that the bourgeoisie’s constant willingness to cause death and destruction and poverty to pursue their own economic interests was a much worse form of criminality than the occasional act of petty theft or super villain smugness. He understood that the real super villain, the rel arch criminal was the system of imperialism itself which commits daily genocide by allowing thousands to perish of hunger and disease whilst a tiny set of parasites lives off our backs. Fundamentally, Stalin understood that ceasing to make greed a virtue in society would mean less greed, and that taking care of people’s basic needs – such as food, education, and housing – formed the foundations of a healthy, fulfilled society. Thus, he followed the Marxist train of thought: that the rule of the bourgeoisie is the rule of the greedy and corrupt, and that the removal of the bourgeoisie from their position of power and the elimination of their influence meant the removal of greed and corruption.
To understand and act on this required no special powers, only an understanding of Marxism-Leninism and the determination to create a society that worked for the proletariat rather than against them.
