A
Adventurism
To seek out conflict with the enemy without having plans or popular support.
B
Bourgeois
The owning class, the class which owns the means of production and employs workers to make profit, required to paying workers less than what their work is worth to stay in business.
C
Capital
The relationships that allow capitalists to invest money into producing commodities and sell those commodities at a profit, as well as the physical objects (factories, tools, money, etc.) involved in the process. Capital must always reinvest itself and expand its markets.
Capitalism
The current mode of production, or how things are made and distributed in our society. The social relations between people, where production is socialized but the means of production and the profits are owned by private individuals and companies (as private property).
Chauvinism
To support your own in-group in its oppression of other peoples.
Class
Groups of people defined by their economic relationship to society.
Class-consciousness
The awareness that you as a person are part of an economic class and the desire to fight for your class’s interests. Can also refer to having a “mismatched” class consciousness i.e. a petit-bourgeois who holds a proletarian class-consciousness.
Colony
The captive territory of an empire, characterized by high labor exploitation, low quality of life, and resource extraction. In the case of settler-colonies, also characterized by the implantation of a foreign settler population whose goal it is to take the land and resources and establish a ’new’ homeland by genocide. Also called the periphery.
Commandism
To take an arrogant view of organizing and to treat the masses as sheep to be herded.
Commodity
Anything that can be bought or sold. Human labor is a special commodity because it can produce value through labor, which adds value to other commodities.
Communism
The future mode of production characterized by the abolition of private property and the ownership of the means of production in common. In essence, an economic democracy.
Contradiction
A relation defined by the opposition between two forces. They may remain in equilibrium, but eventually one side will overcome the other. The resolution of contradictions is called negation.
I
Imperialism
Monopoly capitalism, describing the stage of capitalism when large monopolies dominate economic life and the world is dominated by empires, or a single empire, and there are imperial wars waged between empires and against the colonized regions. Imperialist countries are those which exploit (neo)colonies.
L
Labor
Human activity which transforms materials from nature to meet human needs.
Labor Aristocrat
Also known as bourgeoisified proletariat, the section of the proletariat in imperialist countries which are paid inordinately large wages that come from the global exploitation by imperialist countries of (neo)colonies. This wage bribery results in imperialist and petit-bourgeois consciousness.
Lumpenproletariat
The part of the proletariat, criminalized or otherwise socially excluded from employment and productive labor.
M
Marxism
The scientific critique of capitalism as argued by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, also known as scientific socialism. Proposes revolution, not reform, as the solution to abolish capitalism and focuses on class struggle as the driver of history.
Means of Production
The tools, factories, knowledge, etc. required to make commodities and the relationships between them.
Metropole
The “home” country of an empire, where surplus value accumulates from its captive territories. The metropole countries are called the imperial core.
Monopoly
When one company or corporation has most or all of the market of a specific industry (ex. Amazon and online shopping).
N
Neocolony
A colony which has gained formal political independence, but in practice still relies economically on a relationship to imperialist countries, retaining the same traits that characterize colonies.
O
Opportunism
To seek personal gain and power at the expense of political principles.
P
Party
A political organization created to fight for a certain class and a certain ideology.
Petit-bourgeois
The unsteady small-owning class which must also work themselves to stay afloat, either failing in their business and becoming proletariat or winning against competitors and becoming bourgeois.
Proletariat
The working class, people who don’t own the means of production and must sell their time and skills to the owning class to survive.
R
Reformism
To seek small gains which are easily taken away rather than to seek revolution.
Revisionism
To downplay the revolutionary goals of communism and communists.
S
Settler-Colonialism
The ideology and the social relations that emerges from the historical process of colonization which divides a country into settler and indigenous populations. Settler-colonialism acts as a release valve on class struggle within the settler state by sending settlers to the frontier to commit genocide against indigenous populations and steal land, while super-profits from internal colonies are given over to settlers as a bribe.
Socialism
The transitional period between capitalism and communism.
Subproletariat
Referring to the part of the working class which subsists off of gig work, piecemeal work, and part-time jobs.
T
Tailism
To mindlessly follow the spontaneous actions of people regardless of correctness.
U
Union
A group of workers at a certain workplace or company who act together to fight for higher wages and better conditions at work. Unions may or may not become politically conscious as well as economically conscious.
US Hegemony
The ability of the US to use economic and military force against other countries to force them to do what it wants (ex. The kidnapping of Venezuela’s president Maduro).
V
Vanguard
The part of the proletariat which is most theoretically and practically skilled and advanced in the science of revolution, ready to lead the rest of their class towards revolution and overturning capitalism.