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Pop Quiz: 
Everything You've Been Told about Communism IS WRONG

CAPITALISM IS A FAILURE,
COMMUNIST REVOLUTION IS THE SOLUTION

Think you know about communism and capitalism? Think the U.S. Constitution is the highest ideal for a just society? Then take this quiz... and think again.

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Part 1: Some Critical Facts

1. When China was a genuine socialist country under Mao Zedong's leadership during the years 1949-1976, life expectancy:

  1. Got worse, declining from 58 years to 52 years.
  2. Improved greatly, doubling from 32 to 65 years.
  3. Stayed the same at 58 years.
  4. No data, as Mao did not care about human life.

2. Mass protest and rebellion occurred throughout the world in the 1960s. Which was the only government that encouraged criticism and rebellion against people in power carrying out oppressive and elitist policies?

  1. U.S.
  2. France
  3. China
  4. Australia

3. In the last 50 years, governments of the Global South opened up their economies to high-tech agribusiness, bought grain and food goods on the world market producing less of it themselves, and exported agricultural products in demand by the rich countries. These were policy prescriptions of the U.S. and other major capitalist powers, and of the IMF/World Bank. What is the situation today?

  1. The world hunger problem has essentially been solved.
  2. More than 700 million people faced hunger in 2022 and 2.4 billion lacked year-round access to sufficient and nutritious food.
  3. A new kind of “climate-smart” agriculture is putting the world on a positive climate trajectory.
  4. Thanks to these policies, world food prices have been highly stable.

4. Before the Holocaust, the majority of the world's Jews lived in Eastern and central Europe. Liberal anticommunist historians like Timothy Snyder have argued that Stalin and Hitler were both “totalitarian” proponents of genocide. What was the only country in this region during the 1930s and World War 2 where Jews were not persecuted—and where official government policy was to outlaw anti-Semitism and protect the rights and safety of Jews?

  1. Poland
  2. Soviet Union
  3. Romania
  4. Hungary

5. In 1927, with government backing and resources, a massive campaign was launched to free women from having to wear the veil that had been forced on them for centuries and to empower them to challenge traditional gender roles. Where was this?

  1. Egypt
  2. Morocco
  3. Iraq
  4. Soviet Union

6. When asked publicly if the death of half a million children from economic strangulation of a country following an invasion was justifiable—this government leader replied, "This is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it." Who was this person?

  1. Adolph Hitler's foreign minister
  2. Joseph Stalin's foreign minister
  3. Bill Clinton's ambassador to the UN and future secretary of state
  4. Vladimir Putin's foreign minister

Part 2: Two Different Constitutions, Two Different Systems, Two Different Futures: The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America authored by Bob Avakian vs. the Constitution of the United States

7. Which Constitution contains this clause?

[T]he orientation of the government, and that promoted in society overall, must be to not only allow but to value dissent, as well as political, philosophical and in general intellectual and cultural ferment and diversity, and to promote and foster an atmosphere in which all this can flourish.

  1. The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America
  2. The U.S. Constitution

8. The following clause comes from which Constitution?

[D]iscrimination against minority nationalities, in every sphere of society, including segregation in housing, education and other areas, shall be outlawed and prohibited, and concrete measures and steps shall be adopted and carried out, by the government at the central and other levels, to overcome the effects of discrimination and segregation, and the whole legacy of oppression, to which these peoples have been subjected.

  1. The U.S. Constitution
  2. The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America

9. The following clause comes from which Constitution?

The state ... recognizes special internationalist responsibilities to share knowledge and technology, to allocate resources, and to promote initiatives to protect the global environment...

  1. The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America
  2. The U.S. Constitution

10. With regard to international relations, which Constitution specifies that the economic-social-political system must be

contributing all it can to the advance to a world in which all conquest, plunder, and domination, and all exploitation, have been finally ended?

  1. The U.S. Constitution
  2. The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America

11. Which Constitution establishes a “right to employment and income” and the “right to strike,” and holds that a key purpose of economic development is 

Meeting social need, creating a common material wealth that contributes to the all-around development of society and the individuals who make it up, and overcoming oppressive divisions between mental and manual labor, town and country, different regions and nationalities, and men and women...?

  1. The U.S. Constitution
  2. The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America

12. Which Constitution stipulates that “involuntary servitude” is a legal form of “punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”?

  1. The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America
  2. The U.S. Constitution

13. What Constitution has a clause stipulating that the government

gives the highest priority not only to establishing and giving practical effect to full legal equality for women—and to basic rights and liberties that are essential for the emancipation of women, such as reproductive freedom, including the right to abortion as well as birth control—but also to the increasing, and increasingly unfettered, involvement of women, equally with men, in every sphere of society, and to propagating and popularizing the need for and importance of uprooting and overcoming all remaining expressions and manifestations of patriarchy and male supremacy...?

  1. The U.S. Constitution
  2. The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America
ANSWERS

Part 1: 

1. B. Penny Kane, The Second Billion: Population and Family Planning in China (New York: Penguin, 1987), chapter 5. The Nobel Prize economist Amartya Sen has calculated that some four million fewer people would have died in India in 1986, if India had established the equivalent health care system and food distribution network that existed in China under Mao. See, Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, Hunger and Public Action (Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 205, 214.

2. C. At the start of the Cultural Revolution, Mao raised the slogan "it is right to rebel against reactionaries" and called on people to "bombard the headquarters" of capitalist roaders who were carrying out elitist and oppressive policies. Providing resources for posters and newspapers, free use of trains for students, and encouragement in the press were some key ways in which mass criticism and struggle were promoted. See "Decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" (Adopted on August 8, 1966), in Important Documents on the Cultural Revolution in China (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1970).

3. B. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2023 (Rome, 2023).

4. B. The Russian Revolution of 1917 had brought political and social emancipation to Jews in a country with a long history of virulent anti-Semitism and violent anti-Jewish pogroms. Equality of rights for Jews continued under Joseph Stalin during the 1930s and World War 2. By contrast, Jews in Hungary, Romania, and Poland faced organized fascist movements and institutional anti-Semitism in the 1930s—and, later, death camps. See Arno Mayer, Why Did The Heavens Not Darken? The “Final Solution” In History (Pantheon, 1988). About 1.5 million East European Jews—mostly from Poland, the Ukraine, and Russia—survived World War 2 behind the lines in the unoccupied parts of the Soviet Union. See, Mark Edele, et al., Shelter from the Holocaust: Rethinking Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union (Wayne State University Press, 2017).

5. D. This took place in the Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union as part of the larger struggle for women's liberation in the 1920s and 1930s. A recent documentation is Marianne Kamp, The New Woman in Uzbekistan: Islam, Modernity, and Unveiling Under Communism (University of Washington Press, 2008).

6. C. UN Ambassador and future Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made this statement in an interview on the CBS news show 60 Minutes (May 12, 1996) in response to a question about the suffering caused by U.S. sanctions imposed on Iraq following the U.S.'s invasion. On the humanitarian cost of these sanctions, see UNICEF, Information Hotline, "Iraq surveys show humanitarian emergency," Wednesday, August 12, 1999 (www.unicef.org).

Part 2: 

7. A. Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, p. 64.

8. B. Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, p. 51.

9. A. Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, p. 79.

10. B. Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, p. 30.

11. B. Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, pp. 68, 78, 84.

12. B. Constitution of the United States, Amendment XIII.

13. B. Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, p. 76.

 

To get deeper into the history of the Russian and Chinese revolutions, go online to “The Real History of Communist Revolution” at www.revcom.us.

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We are at a turning point in history. The capitalist-imperialist system is a horror for billions of people here and around the world and threatening the very fabric of life on earth. Now the election of fascist Trump poses even more extreme dangers for humanity—and underscores the total illegitimacy of this system, and the urgent need for a radically different system.

The website Revcom.us follows the revolutionary leadership of Bob Avakian (BA), the author of the new communism. Bob Avakian has scientifically analyzed that we are in a rare time when an actual revolution has become more possible in the U.S. He’s charted a strategy for making that revolution, and laid out a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for “what comes next” in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

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