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  • Monthly Review Essays

About Stansfield Smith

Stansfield Smith is an anti-war activist focused mostly on combating U.S. intervention in Latin America. He was a member of Chicago Committee to Free the Cuban Five, which has become Chicago ALBA Solidarity. He can be reached at stansfieldsmith100 [at] gmail.com.
  • History of the Opium Problem: The Assault on the East, Ca. 1600 - 1950 by Hans Derks

    Britain’s century long Opium trafficking and China’s ‘Century of Humiliation’ (1839-1949)

    Stansfield Smith

    In 1500, India and China were the world’s most advanced civilizations.

  • Just a few of the political prisoners in the United States (from top-left to bottom-right): Mumia Abu-Jamal, Julian Assange, Alex Saab, Leonard Peltier, Joy Powell, Veronza Bowers

    The United States has many political prisoners. Here’s a list

    Originally published: Multipolarista on August 9, 2022 (more by Multipolarista)

    The U.S. government has many political prisoners, including journalists; national security state whistleblowers; Black, Indigenous, and Latino revolutionaries; foreign diplomats; Muslims detained without trial; women who defended themselves from attacks; and environmental activists.

  • [Source: telesurenglish.net]

    Why is the Nicaraguan Government demonized by both Liberals and Conservatives when Nicaragua has seen great progress under the Sandinistas?

    Originally published: CovertAction Magazine on March 28, 2022 (more by CovertAction Magazine)  |

    Women Have Made Particularly Significant Gains Under the Second Sandinista Government Since 2006.

  • Segundo Paro Internacional de Mujeres - 8M - Santa Fe - Argentina

    The gains of Nicaraguan women during the second Sandinista Government

    Originally published: Dissident Voice on February 15, 2022 (more by Dissident Voice)  |

    Women in the Third World (and increasingly in the imperial First World) face problems of violence at home and in public, problems of food and water for the family, of proper shelter, and lack of health care for the family, and their own lack of access to education and thus work opportunities.

  • United States Marines with the captured flag of Augusto César Sandino in 1932

    21st Century U.S. coups and attempted coups in Latin America

    Originally published: Dissident Voice on January 6, 2022 (more by Dissident Voice)  |

    During the 21st century, the U.S., working with corporate elites, traditional oligarchies, military, and corporate media, has continually attempted coups against Latin American governments which place the needs of their people over U.S. corporate interests. U.S. organized coups in Latin American countries is hardly a 20th century phenomenon.

  • Manufacturing the Enemy: The Media War Against Cuba

    A case study of corporate media disinformation

    Stansfield Smith

    Corporate America’s disinformation relies on politicians, media and NGOs to implant their messaging. An essential part of combatting that messaging requires us to question our own views, as none of us are entirely immune to disinformation techniques, which have in effect become an advanced science.

  • Donation baskets for GM strikers

    What the Chicago Teachers Union and United Auto Workers strikes teach us

    Stansfield Smith

    The strikes have enabled the workers to feel their real strength. These two strikes give us a sign of the role the trade unions, the most powerful organizations of working people, will play in the future.

  • Can the Bolivarian Revolution Survive the Venezuelan Crisis?

    Dissecting ROAR’s article “can the Bolivarian revolution survive the Venezuelan crisis?

    Originally published: Orinoco Tribune on April 22, 2019 (more by Orinoco Tribune)  |

    ROAR published an article Can the Bolivarian revolution survive the Venezuelan crisis? containing the views of different professors, but with only two worth reading: Dario Azzellini’s and George Ciccariello-Maher’s. Of the others, Raul Zibechi appears to be the chosen faux left commentator committed to repeating U.S. ruling class propaganda against Venezuela.

  • The US coup in Venezuela- New attempt to eradicate the Chavista Revolution

    The U.S. coup in Venezuela: new attempt to eradicate the Chavista Revolution

    Originally published: Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal on January 26, 2019 (more by Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal)  |

    For over two years we have been told Putin’s Russia has interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. We now find the U.S. government has decided it can unilaterally invalidate the actual presidential elections in Venezuela and recognize a person of its choosing as president.

  • Map of NATO enlargement since 1949

    Is Russia imperialist?

    Stansfield Smith

    Is Russia Imperialist is a look at capitalist Russia today and its place in the world economic system. In this article we look at the degree capitalist Russia today shares in the features outlined by Lenin in his book Imperialism. We consider the role Russian capitalist monopolies play in the world imperialist system, the nature of Russia’s export trade, the export of Russian capital, the world role played by Russian finance capital, and finally Russian military power.

  • What Does Democracy Look Like? Cuba, Its ALBA Allies, and the United States

    Stansfield Smith

    Arnold August.  Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion.  NY: Palgrave Macmillan / Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing / London: ZED Books, 2013.  For full information: . Arnold August has written an important book on the developing participatory democracy and people’s empowerment in those ALBA countries that form the bulwark of 21st century socialism and […]

  • Cities Pay Millions for First Amendment Violations and Police Violence.  Will Chicago Be Next?

    Stansfield Smith

    The US court system has found criminal police conduct (beatings, false arrests, other violence and felonies) at anti-war/anti-G8/FTAA/WTO protests to be so flagrant that payouts to the victims of police illegality and violence have cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. The payouts for unprovoked police violence and illegality, below, do not include what cities […]

Monthly Review Essays

  • The Migrant Genocide: Toward a Third World Analysis of European Class Struggle
    Iker Suarez A banner at a memorial rally for victims of the 2014 massacre of migrants at Tarajal, 2021.

    Over 10,000 people died in transit to Spain in 2024 alone.[1] On June 2022, the border fence of Melilla, one of two Spanish enclaves in Morocco, was witness to a massacre that killed or disappeared over a hundred African migrants.[2]  A recent BBC investigation revealed that Greek border guards systematically repeal immigrants already on Greek […]

Lost & Found

  • Strike at the Helm: The First Ministerial Meeting of the New Cycle of the Bolivarian Revolution
    Hugo Chávez Mural of Chávez in Caracas. (Univision)

    On October 7th, 2012, after hearing of his victory as the nation‘s candidate with 56 percent of the vote, President Hugo Chávez Frias announced from a balcony in his hometown that a new cycle was beginning the very next day, October 8th.

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