• Monthly Review
  • Monthly Review Press
  • Climate & Capitalism
  • Money on the Left
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Mastadon
MR Online
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact/Submission
  • Browse
    • Recent Articles Archive
    • by Subject
      • Ecology
      • Education
      • Imperialism
      • Inequality
      • Labor
      • Literature
      • Marxism
      • Movements
      • Philosophy
      • Political Economy
    • by Region
      • Africa
      • Americas
      • Asia
      • Australasia
      • Europe
      • Global
      • Middle East
    • by Category
      • Art
      • Commentary
      • Interview
      • Letter
      • News
      • Newswire
  • 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

  • US Imperialism in Crisis: Opportunities and Challenges to a Global Community with a Shared Future
    Sam-Kee Cheng A late 1940s Soviet poster showing a US military service member lounging on top of a German factory, smoking a cigar. The text beneath reads DER DOLLARIMPERIALISMUS [dollar imperialism].

    1. Introduction The predominance of US economic, political and military power in the world was established at the end of the Second World War.1 With just 6.3 percent of global population, the United States held about 50 percent of the world wealth in 1948. As the only power which had used nuclear weapons on civilian […]

Lost & Found

  • Journalism, democracy, … and class struggle
    Robert W. McChesney Bob McChesney on Saving Journalism

    Our job is to make media reform part of our broader struggle for democracy, social justice, and, dare we say it, socialism.

Trending

  • Wood gavel and open handcuffs symbolizing freeing judge decisions
    High Court opens door to police accountability
  • Karl Marx
    150 years since the Critique of the Gotha Programme
  • Cristin Milioti in Black Mirror Season 7
    Black Mirror still absorbs
  • BRAIN DRAIN slideshare.net
    America’s great brain drain
  • Law concept: habeas corpus. Under United States law, a writ of habeas corpus is a command from a court to the custodian of a particular individual (usually the state or federal prison system) to release that individual. A petition for a writ of habeas corpus is a common mechanism by which a criminal case can be reviewed even after the appellate process has run its course.
    Trump administration moves to eliminate Habeas Corpus
  • Patriot | Missile Threat
    The real Trump revealed
  • South African President Cyril Ramaphosa / French President Emmanuel Macron
    The Colonial past haunts French Military operations in Africa
  • President Maduro was unscathed from the attack (Hugoshi)
    ‘Neoliberal and authoritarian’? A simplistic analysis of the Maduro government that leaves much unsaid
  • Floyd
    People get ready: Protest on the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder
  • Aerial view of Santa Rita strip copper mine near Silver City, NM
    Donald Trump’s feverish lust for green energy resources

Popular (last 30 days)

  • Langley/Burkina Faso
    The U.S./EU/NATO’s Regime change playbook for Burkina Faso and Captain Ibrahim Traoré
  • Cpt. Ibrahim Traoré
    The rising star of Cpt. Ibrahim Traore – Burkina Faso’s spirit of Sankara
  • Tump and Putin
    Russia rejects Trump’s freeze of the war in Ukraine
  • Trump's Tariffs: Economic Warfare or Winning Strategy?
    The Trump Tariffs and the U.S. Labor Movement
  • Why does the US support Israel?
    Why does the U.S. support Israel? A geopolitical analysis with economist Michael Hudson
  • BAP demonstration in Washington DC gathered outside the Embassy of Burkina Faso, in defense of the Alliance for Sahel States, October 2024.
    Now is the time for all anti-imperialists and all justice loving people to stand unequivocally in defense of Burkina Faso
  • Illustration by MintPress News
    Wiz acquisition puts Israeli Intelligence in charge of your Google data
  • Wood gavel and open handcuffs symbolizing freeing judge decisions
    High Court opens door to police accountability
  • A Political Life by Hugo Ott
    Heidegger’s feeble excuses
  • Karl Marx
    Marx’s ontology: A clarification

RSS MR Press News

  • EXCERPT: Colonial dreams, racist nightmares, liberated futures (from the introduction to A Land With A People) May 19, 2025
  • LISTEN: Erald Kolasi on the podcast ‘Real Progressives’ (The Physics of Capitalism) May 19, 2025
  • On the brilliant Bob McChesney April 21, 2025
  • Andy Merrifield, author of Roses for Gramsci, at The Marxist Education Project April 20, 2025
  • NEW! ROSES FOR GRAMSCI by Andy Merrifield (EXCERPT) April 7, 2025

RSS Climate & Capitalism

  • Ecosocialist Bookshelf, May 2025 May 19, 2025
  • Humans have observed less than 0.001% of the deep seafloor May 8, 2025
  • Ecosocialist Bookshelf, April 2025 April 10, 2025
  • Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World April 2, 2025
  • Will Mpox be the next global threat to human health? April 2, 2025

 

RSS Monthly Review

  • May 2025 (Volume 77, Number 1) May 1, 2025 The Editors
  • The MAGA Ideology and the Trump Regime May 1, 2025 John Bellamy Foster
  • Neoliberalism and Neofascism May 1, 2025 Robert W. McChesney
  • Decolonization and Its Discontents May 1, 2025 Pranay Somayajula
  • China’s “Triple Revolution Theory” and Marxist Analysis May 1, 2025 Cheng Enfu

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons License

Monthly Review Foundation
134 W 29TH ST STE 706
New York NY 10001-5304

Tel: 212-691-2555