"Don't be surprised to see Mugabe standing next to God vetting people into heaven" Zanu Pf youth leader

"...We want to assure you President Mugabe that as long as you are alive, you are our life President. No other person’s name qualifies to be on a Zanu PF ballot paper except you. Even if you die, we will hold the Politburo at National Heroes Acre. Truly speaking, in heaven there is God and here on earth there is an angel called Robert Gabriel Mugabe. You are representing God here on earth. But he is an angel. Who doesn’t know that God’s angels are called Gabriel? I promise you, people, that when we go to heaven don’t be surprised to see Robert Gabriel Mugabe standing beside God vetting people into heaven. Gushungo, you are an angel. Amai Mugabe, you are a wife of an angel so when people enter heaven and when it’s Zimbabwe’s turn, you will be seated there, with secretary for administration (Ignatius) Chombo having names, while you will be vetting those whom you know”- Kudzai Chipanga, Zanu PF Youth Leader
2 June 2017

ZANU PF is Zimbabwe's ruling political party.

9 SAD REALITIES OF TYRANNICAL COUNTRIES

This is a list of some of the common gloomy experiences of people living under dictator governments. Throughout history, the world has witnessed loads of dictatorial leaders, their practices and methods of oppressing the people they rule are quite similar to some extent. (Examples are not exhaustive).

9. CITIZENS ARE SUBJECT TO ARBITRARY ARRESTS AND DETENTIONS

Unfair trials leading to arbitrary arrests and detentions almost sum up the justice systems of dictator governed countries. A survey by a North Korean human rights organisation revealed that half of human rights abuses experienced by North Korean defectors under Kim Jong-Un involved arbitrary arrests and detention.

Imprisonment involved guilt by association sentences, a reference to prison terms that extend to the family members of the individuals charged with a crime. The North Korean authorities sentenced people, including foreign, to long term prison terms after unjust trials. A United State's (US) student, Frederick Otto Warmbier was convicted of 'subversion' after he admitted to stealing a propaganda poster.

He was sentenced to '15 years hard labor' on 16 March, 2016 and was denied communication and contact with the US embassy for at least six months. In early January 2016, Kim Dong Chul, a 62 year old US citizen born in South Korea, was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor on 3 April, 2016, on the charges of espionage but the authorities failed to provide details about the alleged spying activities.
And at one time, the United Nations reported up to 120 000 people under arbitrary detention in four known political prison camps.


8. ONE TV CHANNEL OR RADIO STATION STATE IS POSSIBLE

Despite the growth in technology, private broadcasters in some dictator led countries are restricted, citizens depend on government run and censored television and radio stations. In the Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea led by Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mbasongo, all broadcast media are state-owned and one time the country's radio described the dictator as 'the country's God'. RTV-Asonga is the only private radio and television network in the country, however it is owned by the president's son Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

In other top dictator countries, North Korea's television receivers in the country are locked to government specified frequencies, in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Television is the only television channel broadcasting on the local frequency, and President Isaus Afwerki's Eritrea is the only sub Saharan country without a single private media outlet.

7. MASSES LITERARY FEED ON GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA

Dictatorships have robust lie-based propaganda structures to blind masses from the status quo and to conceal their nature from the international community. Germany, during Adolf Hitler's rule from 1933 to 1945, the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda was a Nazi government agency responsible for enforcing the Nazi ideology. It controlled Germany's arts, music, theater, films, books, radio, education and press.

Productions during the era were aligned to reminding the Germans of the 'struggle' against foreign enemies and Jewish subversion. Film, 'The external Jew' portrayed Jews as wandering cultural parasites, consumed by 'sex and money'. 'The Triumph of Will' praised Hitler and the Nationalist movement. Newspapers, 'Der Sturmer' (The Attacker) published anti-Semitic cartoons to depict Jews.

Concentration camps officials compelled prisoners many of whom would die in the gas chambers to contact relatives by postcards and letters telling them that they were treated well and living in good conditions. In 1944, the Theresienstadt camp ghetto, in preparation for an international Red Cross team visit underwent a 'beautification' scheme. Before inspection, camp officials made a film casted by the residents (Jewish) as demonstration of benevolent treatment of the Jewish 'residents' of Thereinstadt, when the film was completed; the 'cast' was sent for killing at the Birkenau Killing Center.


6. POLITICS IS A VIOLENT FIELD

Political support for dictatorial leaders is mostly zealous and the supporters, at times no matter how poor, are ready to physically fight against any opposition sentiment. Yahya Jammeh who was president for 22 years in Gambia from 1996 to 2017 had a strong base for zealous supporters that even included juveniles.

Just after his ousting on 19 January, 2017, prior to the inauguration ceremony for the start of the new president Adama Barrow, on 18 February, the Gambian police detained more than 50 of Yahya Jammeh for harassing the followers of the new leader. Yahya Jammeh's supporters insulted and threw stones at the people returning from Barrow's inauguration ceremony and 26 of those arrested were juveniles.

And also, during his reign he had been known to rely on a close circle of fanatically violent supporters. 'The Junglers' were his 'death squad’; they helped him sow fear in Gambians. The United Nations in 2015 reported that the squad carried out arbitrary arrests, detention, torture, enforced disappearances and extra judicial killings.


5. TORTURES: FOR POLITICAL PRISONERS ARE QUITE MANDATORY

Torture is inevitably a necessity in order to access the truth in dictator country prisons. Notably torture was used in forcing confessions in Stalin's Russia during his reign between 1929 and 1953. In one of Stalin's detention centers, Sukhanovskaya prison or special facility 10, political prisoners were subjected to horrible tortures. A few of the 35, 000 people detained at the prison between 1939 and 1952, came out of the facility alive. Semyon Samuiloic who spent time in the facility said, "Our food for a day was two sugar lumps, a ration of heavy bread, and a bowl of undercooked pearl barley porridge". He also said he heard cries, sobs, women wailing, blows and interrogators shouting "Beat him in the balls".

Vseilod Meyernold, another prisoner at the facility, said he was beaten on the soles of his feet with a rubber strap. He confessed to working for British intelligence, and also incriminated his fellow director, Sergei Einstein, the writer, IIya Ehrenburg a composer, Dimitry Stankovich, including other figures of the arts world. He was later shot dead in the prison on 2 February, 1940. There were reportedly 52 methods of torture in the prison, including, beating prisoners on the most sensitive parts of their bodies, sleep deprivation for 10 to 20 days, during interrogation, prisoners were made to sit on a leg of an upturned stool, so that any slight mistake would send the leg into their rectum, and trussing up inmates with a long towel that was forced between their lips like horse's bridle and then pulled down- then tied under their feet, and forcing needles and pins into their fingernails, while fingers are being crushed on a door, or being forced to drink the interrogator's urine.


4. CORRUPTION IS ALMOST A MUST

The level of corruption is despicable in dictatorial countries. Much of the wealth amassed by leaders and their immediate followers comes through the system of corrupt governance through things like bribes, unlawful seizures, funds diversion etc. Ali Abdullah Saleh the dictator of Yemen from 1979 to 2012, according to a United Nations commissioned sanctions panel acquired an estimated amount of US$60 Billion through corruption.

The panel reported he had his asserts hidden in at least twenty countries with the help of his business associates and front companies. The funds used to generate Ali Abdali Saleh's wealth came from Yemen's gas and oil contracts he asked for money in exchange for granting companies exclusive rights to prospect for gas and oil. Also, his friends, family, and his associates stole money from the fuel subsidy program, which was up to 10% of Yemen's gross domestic product. The panel also received information from a confidential source that Ali Abdullah Saleh had a number of alternative identity passports provided to him by other states which enabled him to hide asserts under false identities.

His wealth would place him 5th in Forbes list of the richest people. And Yemen during his reign was one of the poorest countries in the world, ranked 154 out 187 on the United Nation's Development Index, with more than 54% of the population living below the poverty datum line.


3. LEADER TARGETED SANCTIONS END UP AFFECTING THE COMMON MAN

Throughout history international law enforcers have slapped dictators with economic sanctions in the hope that public discontent arising from the harm produced by sanctions will be channeled to the ruling elite, which is then pressured to conform to the sender's demands (Galtung, J. 1967:388).Thus the leader would be faced with the choice of either giving in to the sender or being unseated. Typically, sanctions cut off trade, and investments. However, widely the effect has been far from the expectation.

During Iraq's Saddam Hussein's reign from 1979 to 2003, the entire Iraq populace suffered from the United Nations imposed sanctions for seven years while the dictator remained in power. United Nations agencies and human rights organisations reported malnutrition due to absence of medicines and water purification systems, blocked shipments to Iraq of harmless but vital goods, ranging from medicines to sewage treatment facilities. On October 28, 1996, UNICEF leader then, Carroll Bellamy held a news conference about the crisis and she said that 4.500 children were dying every month due to hunger and disease conditions imposed by the sanctions. The World Food Program announced that 180.000 children under the age of 5 in Iraq were malnourished.


2. MOST LEADERS ARE ROOTED TO SOCIALISM, BUT ACTUALLY PRACTICE CAPITALISM

Works of Karl Max and Lenin in formulating the theory of socialism undeniably went a long way in influencing most political revolutions around the world. Socialism worked in overturning capitalistic imperialism. It was the founding principle of most freed countries lead by presidents who later became dictators. Surprisingly, rather than having public ownership of national wealth dominate the country’s economic sentiment, closer ties to the eastern bloc of the world that includes most of Asia and Russia became the only socialistic aspect of the governments.

AHosni Mubarak of Egypt who held on to power from 1981 to 2011, adopted the doctrine of Arab socialism carried on from Gamal Abdel Nassa. When the Egyptian crisis arose in the year 2011, on January 25, it emerged that the ruling party National Development Party (NDP), ran a business cartel and used it to monopolize the country's wealth and businesses. 40% of Egyptians were living under the International line, and basically most Egyptians were living on or under US$2 a day, in some cases 300 Egyptian pounds (US$51) per month. And on employment, joblessness was at its toll, each year 700, 000 academic graduates chased only 200, 000 new jobs. Hosni Mubarak himself had an assumed net worth net worth of US$40 - 70 billion.

1. THE LEADER'S NET WORTH IS USUALLY MASSIVE

Despite the poverty endured by most people living in dictator led countries, their leaders are usually filthy rich and at times have a net worth above the country's government budget by a very wide margin.

The Libyan dictator Moammer Ghadafi who ruled the country from 1969 to 2011 had a net worth of over US$200 billion and during his reign the Libyan government budget was always below US$50 billion.

According to the United Nations, 40% of the Libyan population of 6.4 million lived below the International poverty line and considerable cases in extreme poverty. Of all his wealth, little was invested in national infrastructure like schools and hospitals or any kind of economic diversification.

Quadaffi's wealth was kept in government institutions like the central Bank of Libya and the Libyan Investment Authority, and the leader was able to withdraw money at will. Some of his wealth was spent on buying political support from African and European leaders, in late 2006 and 2007 a French-Lebanese business man Ziad Takkieddine, as he told 'Mediapart' a French investigative site, for three times carried suitcases containing cash between €1.5 and €2 million for Nicholas Sarkozy's campaigns.


References

Link 1: mmpz_weekly_media_review_2011_7_110225.pdf

Link 2:  https://books.google.co.zw/books?id=btd9BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA69&lpg=PA69&dq=villagers+are+forced+to+attend+mugabe+zanu+pf+rallies&source=bl&ots=YSunSI9_ny&sig=e9biWUqCqv0vA_DQzImP0W3x8xM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9sq_pm4DTAhUHahoKHW16DlwQ6AEIFDAD
 (Alternative: http://reliefweb.int/report/zimbabwe/zimbabwe-intimidation-countryside-escalates)

Link 3: https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/01/12/north-korea-rights-catastrophe-deepens

Link 4: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2016/04/18/North-Korean-defectors-report-50000-cases-of-rights-abuses/1341460991383/

Link5:https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/asia-and-the-pacific/north-korea/report-korea-democratic-peoples-republic-of/

Link 6:  http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA1G0OF20140217

Link7:https://books.google.co zw/books?id=hZVhuV7h5hwC&pg=PA242&lpg=PA242&dq=Teodoro+obiang+nguema+mbasogo+television+and+radio+station&source=bl&ots=FffYoCyzml&sig=iqqyPve8zsnjsFqDxdxzkq1koPU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwipmrjhooDTAhXCPxoKHbT6D4IQ6AEIGDAE#v=onepage&q=Teodoro%20obiang%20nguema%20mbasogo%20television%20and%20radio%20station&f=false

Link 8: www​.afrol.com/articles/19044

Link9:http://www.google.co.zw/url?q=http://students.depaul.edu/~lwagne11/E-Portfolio/Nazi%2520Film.doc&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwiM4vz-poDTAhUsBsAKHavyDzoQFggPMAI&sig2=xrNpBmG9UgJ3CSg3td2WLg&usg=AFQjCNEuIPXQudB4CFy4IjCq0H_C5620FA

Link 10: https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/mobile/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005202

Link 11: https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/mobile/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005202

Link12:http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/02/20/511375/Gambia-Adama-Barrow-Yahya-Jammeh-Foday-Conta-APRC

Link13:https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/03/lets-take-back-our-country/426852/

Link14:https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/09/17/gambia-two-decades-fear-and-repression

Link15:https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/ekaterina-loushnikova/comrade-stalin’s-secret-prison

Link16:https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/ekaterina-loushnikova/comrade-stalin’s-secret-prison

Link 17: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-31632502

Link 18: worldBankfigure.untribune.com/Yemen's_sales.

Link 19: galtung_67.pdf

Link 20: https://www.globalpolicy.org/global-taxes/41475.html

Link 21: https://www.unicef.org/media/media_pr_nutrition.html?p=printme

Link 22: K019866971.pdf

Link 23: http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/reign-of-egypts-mubarak-marked-by-poverty-corruption-despair/

Link 24: http://theweek.com/articles/487229/hosni-mubaraks-stolen-70-billion-fortune

Link 25: https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwindurgy/2011/10/25/did-moammar-gadhafi-die-the-richest-man-in-the-world/#7a49bf3b76cf

Link 26: Libya Full PDF Country Note.pdf

Link 27: http://m.thenational.ae/news/world/africa/poverty-persists-in-libya-despite-oil-riches

Link 28: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22220272

Plane makes emergency landing because of a Laptop battery

A JetBlue plane made an emergency landing in Michigan after smoke was detected from an overhead bin on a flight from New York to San Francisco.
And it was because of a lithium laptop battery of a passenger's laptop battery. After two and a half hours on flight, kaily Honnibal, 18 a passenger on the plane, head a message on the PA system. "Sounds like fire in 25!"

She looked back and saw smoke.

"I was scared," she told CNN.

"When you see a fire on the plane and you're in the air air, there's nothing you can do."

The plane, a JetBlue Airbus A321, with 158 passengers and crew on board landed safely at Gerald Ford International Airport in Grand Rapid, Michigan, at around 8 pm.

The fire had been extinguished by the time the plane landed.

So far this year, there have been 12 fire related incidents on flights caused by lithium batteries or lithium battery powered devices, according to the FAA.

Source RT News.

Britain bans troubled Air Zimbabwe

Britain's government site has said, Air Zimbabwe has been refused permission to operate flights to the EU because the airline has been unable to demonstrate that it complies with international air safety standards."

The site further says, "British government employees travelling to and within Zimbabwe has been advised to use careers that aren't subject to the EU operating ban."

This is despite comments by Minister of Transport J. Gumbo that only two flights had been affected.

"It should be noted that the ban is on two specific aircraft that fly long haul to Europe," he said.

"The airline has not been banned from-flying to Europe. If we corrected that ban on the two planes will be lifted. The previous management was found wanting on the way they maintained those two. It's politics at play but its set conditions on those aircrafts which we have to correct. It is good for Air Zimbabwe, there are some checks and balances which are for our benefit."


Zimeye

In this country, a boss should always be bald and have a big belly. My uncle isn’t bald,

With acclaimed Congolese writer Alain Mabanckou joining Africa Writes on July 2nd,  we’ve teamed up with AFREADA to run a global writing competition with the chance to win £100!

We are inviting writers, anywhere and everywhere, to participate in a 500-word short story competition which is loosely based on Mabanckou’s amusing and heart-warming story, Tomorrow I’ll be Twenty. Told from the perspective of 10-year-old Michel living in Pointe Noire, Congo, the story begins:

In this country, a boss should always be bald and have a big belly. My uncle isn’t bald, he hasn’t got a big belly, and you don’t realise, the first time you see him, that he’s the actual boss of a big office in the centre of town…

The rules are simple: …open a Word Document and continue the story.
We want you to pick up where Mabanckou left off, but you are not bound by the circumstances of this particular story. Go wherever the spirit leads but be mindful of our one and only rule: the story must be told from the perspective of a child living somewhere in Africa.

We are offering a £100 cash prize to the winning story, which will be published in AFREADA , and announced at the Africa Writes opening R.A.P party on June 30th.

If you think you’ve got what it takes, read the guidelines below and get to work!

Entry Guidelines:

• All entries MUST start with the opening lines of Tomorrow I’ll be Twenty, by Alain Mabanckou.
• All entries must be no more than 500 words (including the excerpt)
• All entries must be emailed to
editor@afreada.com as Microsoft Word attachments.
• Please put “AFREADA x Africa Writes Competition – Your Full Name ” in the subject line.
• In the body of the email, please include your contact details, social media handles and a short bio (100 words max).
• Deadline: Sunday, 18th June. 23:59 BST.
Questions? Click here and go straight to the comment section!

Mahindra keenMahindra keen to lead E-vehicles race to lead E-vehicles race

Mahindra electric vehicle

India's Mahindra announced on Wednesday that it will be setting up a new facility to make battery packs to power e-vehicles. The plant will be located in Pune, Chakan (India) and will increase Mahindra's production of battery packs by 10 times more.

Mahindra is working on new technologies that will lead into production of high powered vehicles with a maximum speed of 200 km/ph and will travel in between 350-400 km on a single charge.

The company hopes to "lead the electric mobility revolution" in India according the senior executives.

We're taking a leap of faith as we expect a steep ramp up in demand in the coming year,"  said M&M managing director Pawan Goenka.

Currently, M&M imports battery cells and assembles 400-500 units per month in Bengaluru, against the dependence of electric car production.

The new facility will have a capacity of 60 000 units, approximately 5 000 per month.

P. Goenka said Mahindra will work towards bringing down manufacturing costs of electric vehicles by 20% in order to reach sustainable pricing. And Mahindra hopes the cost of imported battery cells to soon come down by two thirds.

Source ET: OA by Vatsala Gaur

India plans make all its cars electric by 2030

India's government announced plans to make all of its cars electric by 2030. "By that year, not a single petrol or diesel car should be sold in the country," said Piyush Goyal who is the power minister of India while speaking at a confederation of Indian Industry last month.

India currently imports $150 billion in oil making it the 3rd largest oil consumer among all the countries in world. The numbers of 'fuel' powered vehicles has been growing with its economy and is expected to continue rising. NITI Saying, India's 'think tank', said replacing fuel powered cars would save India $60 billion in energy by 2030-and reduce carbon emissions by 37%.

India hopes to pair an increase in electric car use with solar power, "the reason is likely due to deep connection being drawn between the future of EVs and the future of solar pwer, including using EV batteries as storage for solar energy, which helps with grid balancing".

The NITI Ayoong 15 year plan includes limits on the registration of gas cars, subsidies for the EV industry, and the use of taxes from gas car sales to create electric charging stations.

Source Quartz

Police use teargas to disperse MDC-T supporters in rural area

From Washington- A Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) meeting was dispersed using teargas by the Zimbabwean Republic Police.

MDC-T supporters, and party vice president Thokozane Khupe ran for survival when police used the teargas to stop the meeting.

Some elderly women are reportedly hospitalised following the incident. Police were not immediately available for comment.

Read full story

Source: Voice of America (Zimbabwe)

China sells more electric vehicles than the US

352, 000 new electric vehicles (EVs) were registered in the year 2016, and only 159, 000 EVs were registered in the United States of America (50%+ in the state of California).

Analysts cautioned Chinese numbers in EVs sold could decrease due to subsidies, however estimates of the remaining (fair) much higher than the United States.
A consulting firm, Navigant, put Chinese sells at 250, 000, but predicted registrations would double in 2017.

Rebecca Lindland, a Kelly Blue Book analyst said, "It was inevitable that China's EV adoption was going to surpass the US's mostly because we're so resistant to EV's". According to Lindland many Chinese drivers' first cars will be electric and the younger generations may never own a gas powered vehicle.

China has now taken the lead in the EV industry and use. China reportedly wants 11% of all car sales to be electric by 2020-which will likely add up to nearly 3 million EVs yearly. "New Energy Vehicles," accounted for about 50% of all plug-in electric vehicles sold in 2016.

The US car market stood at around 17.5 million units yearly, while China sold over 28 million vehicles last year and increased its market share.

China has also been injecting capital in charging infrastructure and financial incentives.
Xinhua News reported the Chinese government will deploy 100, 000 EV charging stations in 2017, to bring a new total of 250, 000. The US has 41000 vehicle charging stations.

Electric vehicles- in China are exempted from the $6000-$ 10. 000 (per car) excise taxes, while giving special lane access and other perks, says the International Energy Agency.

And the US is planning reducing the EV tax break amounting up to ($ 7 500 in estimate, for buyers).

Other factors to consider; Tesla and Chevrolet are racing to release their mass-market EVs in 2018 that cost around $35 000, but China is manufacturing simpler versions at very low price, however the vehicles aren't classified as mass-market. The Chinese "low-speed electric vehicle" (LSEV) uses basic battery (usually lead- acid) and electric motor technologies.

The low-speed electric (LSEVs) have a top speed of about 40mph (70 km) and cost about $5000.

"The whole Shading province (population 90 million) is riding LSEVs" says Dennis Zuev a mobility researcher at Lancashire University.

"Even in big cities" he says.

LSEV cost around $5 000 and can travel up to 40mph and do not require a driver's license or license plates to operate.


Source: Quartz

United Airlines froze giant rabbit to death

Owners of a giant rabbit that mysteriously died on board of United Airlines flight from London to Chicago in April are seeking compensation from the airline. The owners say it was frozen to death after it was ‘literally’ frozen to death by United Airlines staff.
The airline has disagreed saying the 3ft (90cm) animal, which died on the plane in April, was frozen to death after it was mistakenly kept in a freezer by airline employees who also allegedly went on to cremate its corpse without the knowledge of the owners.

The Iowa group that owned Simon, a 10-month-old continental giant rabbit, sought compensation from the airline as they believe that ‘Simon’ would become the biggest rabbit on the planet, inheriting the trait from his 4ft 4 father, ‘Darius.’ As of 9 May the airline was given 7 days to respond before legal action could be taken.
“United Airline can issue any statement they like but their company’s credibility is under question when they immediately cremated the giant rabbit, Simon without anyone’s consent,” Cook said, according to Reuters. “They destroyed proof”.

Charles Hobart the airline’s spokesperson denied that Simon died in a freezer, adding that when Simon arrived in Chicago, he was apparently in good condition and was seen hoping around in his kernel 35 minutes after landing.

RT News

BBC: A look at Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, What is it? Realistic theories that shape our economies

UK’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell believes there is so much to learn from reading Das Kapital. What is it?
The book was written in the middle of the 19th century by the renowned German philosopher and economist Karl Marx. Das Kapital is essentially an explanation of how the capitalist system will destroy itself.

Following his set ideas on class struggle in the Communist manifesto and other writings-how the workers of the world would seize power from the ruling elites.

Das capital is hard to read. It is a product of 30 years of work, Marx’s study the condition of the mid 19th century factory workers in Britain at the peak of the Industrial revolution. Das Kapital is part history, part economics and part sociology.
Francis Wheen, Marx’s biographer, pointed out it reads at times like a Gothic novel “whose heroes are enslaved and consumed by the monster they created.”

Marx argues that capitalism is an unstable way to structure the society for it will eventually collapse because of its own contradictions. He is unclear about the time this collapse will loom.
And he doesn’t explicitly state the structure of the communist society that will overtake and replace capitalism, only that it will free workers from their servitude (he did not complete work on the theory, he died in 1883).

Das Kapital was first published in 1867, he had settled in London with his family at the time, and Friedrich Engels a rich son of a cotton mill owner was his financial sponsor.
Marx continued to refine the ideas set out in the first volume for the rest of his life, although the next two volumes would not appear in print until after his death.

Ds Kapital ‘contained’ ideas that went on to inspire revolutions in Russia, China and many other countries around the world in the 20th century as ruling elites were overthrown and private property seized on behalf of the workers.

The book also would exert a powerful influence over many in the Labour Part and trade Union movement, even if they did not always share his vision of a global worker’s revolution.
Marxism became a way of interpreting the world-the simple idea at its core was that history was a battle between opposing social classes could be applied to everything from study of literature and film to the education system.

It also became a byword for totalitarianism as one-party states and dictators proclaimed Marxism as their guiding philosophy.
Some argued that this was a perversion of Marx’s ideas as  set out in Das Kapital, and that the Soviet Union, for many-the ultimate example of Marxist state, was really just a form state capitalism, where the factory owners had been replaced by government bureaucrats.

But the Soviet’s Union’s collapse in the early 1990’s dealt a major blow to the credibility of Marxist theory and it went out of fashion on university campuses and in mainstream left wing political parties that inspired to gain power in the west, such as the labour party.

Marxism underwent a revival in the wake of the 2008 global financial crash, however, which some saw as a classic example of capitalism in crisis just as Marx had predicted.
You can obtain a copy here.
This article is a BBC publication.