“It’s a war now.” – On Friday, a telecommunications blackout isolated Bangladesh from the rest of the world, as the nation of 170 million braced for escalating violence following days of intensifying clashes between students and security forces. 🧵 After the deadliest day of ongoing student uprisings in Dhaka, Bangladesh prepared for even harsher crackdowns, including a total ban on all protests. The death toll has now reached 64.

On this day, in 1972, Ghassan Kanafani was assassinated by Israel. Who was he and what does he represent to the Palestinian struggle? 🧵 Kanafani was a Palestinian revolutionary socialist and resistance leader.

The Israeli Mossad assassinated him along with his 17-year-old niece in a car bombing in Beirut, Lebanon.

France’s far-right National Rally Party is on the cusp of power. For the past 13 years, Marine Le Pen has tried to rid the party of its neo-Nazi image but it remains a viper’s nest of racists and neo-fascists. Here are the receipts. 🧵 France’s National Rally was founded as the National Front in the 1970s, with former members of the Nazi collaborationist Vichy regime and Waffen SS, and it was led by Holocaust minimizing war criminal Jean-Marie Le Pen.

The oldest active Marxist guerrilla took up arms precisely 60 years ago today in Colombia under the ELN (National Liberation Army) banner, emerging from the aftermath of civil conflicts and the rise of a new (old) elite following independence. Read on to discover their journey. 🧵 Like many Latin American revolutionary movements, the ELN emerged from the continent’s tumultuous 19th century upheavals. Colombia’s independence shifted power from Spanish colonialists descending to Spanish-Colombian elites, creating a ripe environment for radical resistance.

Today, 74 years ago, marks the official beginning of the Korean War in 1950, largely overshadowed by WWII and the Vietnam War. Not only did the war go on to shape today’s Korea, but its scars are still very much felt to this day. 🧵 The end of WWII in 1945 also ended almost four decades of Japanese occupation of Korea. Immediately after, the Soviet Union and the US agreed to temporarily divide the peninsula along the 38th parallel.

One year ago today, Russia's Wagner Group began its mutiny against Moscow, thrusting private military companies (PMC) into the global spotlight like never before. Despite the media attention, the bigger phenomenon of “guns for hire” used by governments worldwide has largely remained under the radar. Let's take a closer look. 🧵 The death of Russian Wagner leader Prigozhin and their 2023 mutiny put the phenomenon of private mercenaries in an unprecedented spotlight. However, state hired mercenaries are neither new nor exclusively Russian.

Here’s how German colonialism in the Pacific turned the Polynesian word “Kanak” into a racist slur in the German language. 🧵 New Caledonia and its Indigenous Kanak population have been making international headlines recently. But did you know that racist Germans today use the term “Kanak” as a racist slur against people with Turkish roots? Here’s how it began...

Did you know that between 1969 and 1978 the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen was influenced by Maoism? Yemen’s socialists successfully built a welfare state with high-quality education, guaranteed employment, and subsidized housing. Read on. The NLF’s left-wing took control in a bloodless coup in 1969. It renamed the country the “People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen,” embraced Marxism-Leninism as its governing philosophy, and aligned with the Soviet Bloc.

The media describes October 7 as the “worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.” Only it’s not true. The worst massacre of Jews was in Argentina, and it was enabled by Israeli weapons. Claims that the Palestinian offensive into Israel on October 7, 2023, caused the worse massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, are simply not true. The 1970s death toll of Jews during Argentina's dictatorship, that was armed with Israeli weapons, was far higher.

Yemen and its people are paying the price for their support of Gaza. Despite all their efforts, the US and its European allies have failed to deter the Yemeni forces via bombs and warships. Now, they’ve launched a new economic war using the Saudi-backed government in an attempt to force Ansarallah to end their blockade in the Red Sea. Yemen is the only country to take military action in support of Gaza. The political group Ansarallah, which controls the Yemeni Armed Forces, has been blocking ships from reaching Israel and also attacking Israeli targets. They demand an end to the onslaught on Gaza.

At the age of 21, Ho Chi Minh left his country to find an answer to the question of Vietnamese liberation in the international revolutionary movement. He lived in London and Paris, becoming involved in the global socialist movement. In France, he even became a founding member of the French Communist Party. 🧵 Later, he studied and worked in different governmental institutions in the Soviet Union and China, serving as a senior Comintern agent around Southeast Asia. In the late 1930s, he went to China to serve as a guerrilla forces trainer to the Communist armed forces.

Today marks the anniversary of the 1970 liberation of imprisoned communist Andreas Baader by journalists Ulrike Meinhof and her comrades. This event led to the formation of the Red Army Faction (RAF), a Marxist urban guerrilla group that engaged in armed struggle against the West German state for nearly 30 years. The communist journalist Ulrike Meinhof orchestrated the daring liberation of her comrade Andreas Baader from prison. This event marked the birth of the RAF guerrilla movement.

Even though most of Eastern and Central Europe was liberated by Soviet troops, lies, myths, and misconceptions about the Red Army remain prevalent, especially in the West. Here are some of the most common myths debunked. 🧵 🟡 “Human Wave” Tactics

The “human wave” belief is part of a wider idea that Soviet tactics were unsophisticated, with commanders senselessly throwing their troops at the enemy. The truth, however, is that the Red Army employed sophisticated operational art such as deep battle tactics, emphasizing coordination of strategic, operational, and tactical levels.

On this day in 1975, the communist Vietnamese People’s Army liberated the Republic of Vietnam’s capital, Saigon, from the anti-communist regime and defeated US imperialism, ending the 20-year-long Vietnam War. 🧵 The takeover of Saigon was preceded by decades of war brought by the US invasion in 1955, which divided the country in two and established an anti-communist dictatorship in the south.

On this day in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded. But did you know that in its early days, Nazis filled the ranks of what would become the largest peacetime military alliance in the world? One of the first voices to suggest an alliance between the Nazis and the West to contain the “Soviet threat” was Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and chief architect of the Holocaust.

Today in 1971, “Che Guevara's avenger,” the German communist Monika Ertl assassinated Roberto Pereira, a brutal Bolivian colonel responsible for Che's death. Read on for the full breathtaking story. 🧵 Surprisingly, Ertl was the daughter of a Nazi propagandist who had fled to Bolivia. She was raised surrounded by her family's Nazi friends, such as Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie, aka the "Butcher of Lyon", who British director Kevin Macdonald alleges orchestrated Guevara's murder.

Germany's most wanted: Retired guerrillas rather than hundreds of wanted neo-Nazis on the run?

Criticism is mounting that the pursuit seems more like a state vendetta. Let's delve deeper into this German phenomenon. 🧵 The recent arrest of Red Army Faction veteran Daniela Klette in Berlin has reignited a nationwide manhunt for her two comrades still on the run. The "RAF-trio" escaped arrest for over 30 years.

Who is who of Colombia's Marxist guerrillas? 🧵 🟡 National Liberation Army (ELN)

Founded in 1964, the ELN initially sought to emulate the tactics of the Cuban revolution. However, in 1989, it officially abandoned this approach in favor of adopting the "Poder Popular" (People's Power) as its political program with the "aim of destroying the oligarchy while building self-government for the masses."

Did you know the US dropped more bombs on Vietnam than were dropped by all sides during the entire Second World War? Did you also know that Vietnam’s communist guerrillas brought the world’s largest army to its knees anyway? 🧵 On this day in 1965, the US began the operation Rolling Thunder. Vietnam was a country divided into the communist North, led by the revolutionary Ho Chi Minh, and the US-occupied South.

Did you know that Chiang Kai-Shek, who shaped today's Taiwan, was responsible for the massacre of 30,000 communists in Taiwan? 🧵 The February 28 (228) Massacre is considered to be one of the most important events in Taiwan’s modern history, marking only the beginning of decades of White Terror on the island.

On this day in 1958, Cuban guerillas led by Fidel Castro kidnapped then Formula One reigning world champion, Juan Manuel Fangio. Their goal was to bring international attention to their cause and embarrass the dictatorial regime of U.S.-backed Fulgencio Batista. 🧵 In the summer of 1958, Batista was hosting the Grand Prix in Cuba. Many famous drivers took part as Batista dug deep into the funds he had plundered from the Cuban masses to put on a spectacle for the bourgeoisie and tourists.