- Bourgeoisie The Bourgeoisie is the social class of the modern capitalists, people that own the means of production (the tools, buildings, and raw resources used to produce commodities) and employ wage laborers. The bourgeois make their money by extracting surplus value from their workers in the form of profits.
- Capitalism Capitalism is a socio-economic system where private individuals (Capitalists) own and privately control the factories, farms, large businesses - the means of production. Workers (wage laborers) have very little to no input at all about the choices of what, where and how things are done in the company.
- Communism Communism is a stateless, moneyless, classless (equal) society where people’s needs and desires are met in full following the motto “from each according to their need, to each according to their ability”. This is the socio-economic stage that comes after socialism. Read More.
- ML ML is an abbreviation for Marxist-Leninist, individuals who follow the political theory/ideology synthesized by Stalin. They use Dialectical and Historical Materialism to analyze society scientifically, and believe in the need for a Vanguard Party of the proletariat, comprised of individuals well educated on theory, in order to foster the necessary class consciousness to overthrow capitalism. Read More.
- MLM/Maoists MLMs/Maoists refers to the synthesis of work by Gonzalo, who is widely denounced outside of Maoist circles for the terrible things that he committed during his rule, such as the Lucanamarca Massacre that he openly took credit for. MLMs also tend to denounce modern China and other Already Existing Socialist countries as “not socialist enough”. MLMs are often criticized as allowing oneself to call themselves a marxist, while being anti-communist and idealist.
- Proletariat The Proletariat is the social class of people that sell their personal labor power in exchange for a wage. They are often referred to as the working class. There are quantitative differences between members of the proletarian, e.g. how much money they earn, but they are united by the need to sell their labor power for a wage.
- Socialism Socialism is a socio-economic system where the state is controlled solely by the proletariat, and progressively brings ownership of factories, farms, and large businesses out of the bourgeoisie and into the hands of the proletariat, thus shrinking the capitalist class/capital’s influence. The motto of socialism is “from each according to their work, to each according to their ability”. While Socialism is a progression from capitalism to communism, it may not be constant in each area across each measurement, it is the overall movement over time and who it serves that is key. Read More.
- The State The State is an idea we often take for granted and assume that it has always existed, but it has not. It is inseparable from the idea of class society. When Marxists refer to the State, we are not referring to the government or a country, but the tools of oppression wielded by the ruling class to oppress the non-ruling class. Under capitalism, there is a state of the bourgeoisie, wielded against the proletariat. The state reinforces the system it exists in, and includes the police, the military, prisons, schools, media, and more.
- Ultra Ultra, short for “ultra-left”, is a loose slang term for those leftists that might be called puritans, they ignore material conditions and often denounce existing socialist countries, call for immediate revolution regardless of the material conditions, etc. They typically refuse to adapt to modern times and don’t accept that the raw theory of Stalin/Mao/Whomever can’t just be uncritically applied to wherever in the 21st century.