Some (Very Brief) Thoughts on Marxism Conference 2026

16 September 2026.

A warning: this qualifies as a (curt) typestream, since I did not write any thing down after I watched it, but I did wish to say something, ere I forget it all. My comrade did not watch it with us, so this is my personal view, rather than that of Thoughts of a Comrade. The conclusion is that I thoroughly enjoyed every part with the hideous exception of the end of Day I, and the beginning of Day II. Comrade Khrachvik, Comrade Garrido, Comrade Ozmun, and the Platypus comrades were all excellent. Also, the Comrade organising in the south side of Chicago (alack that his name has fallen from memory), though a question-poser and not a speaker, was equally excellent. Altogether, this was a wonderful event, which I hope may continue to be held every year.

Let us move to the few specifics of which I can still recall, unfortunately there are not many details I remember. What can I add to the above summary, then? The Platypus-ACP conference or round-table segments were wonderful, second only to Comrade Ozmun's piece during the first conference/round-table of Day II, which was my favourite piece, I think.

The neutral thing I remember is that, although I was initially excited for Comrade Slava Jalil's piece, and whilst there were many good bits, every one in the room watching with me let out a groan in unison when she began to spout breeding panic-tropes. Mark that I was the only ideologically anti-natalist watcher in the room, which ought to indicate something. I did not like it when Dave McKerracher started to worship and kiss the feet of the pregnant goddess in nearly every single video (including their thumb-nails), and I do not like it here.

Now for the bad. There were only two actively annoying segments, and they all come down to our Supreme Leader and Marshal-Commander of the Islamic-American Working Class, Haz al-Din. This may be the longest part of the article, I warn the reader fairly. For it was the most egregious, indeed I hesitate not to say excruciating part, not merely for me, but again for every watcher in the room.

'Behold, is it not recorded in the chronicles as the prophets spake? That our Mongol Warlord has converted this very day, Abrahu Aggvar! See how the chairman of the clans takes his place beside the Absolute, as the Caliph Jihadlord he was prophesied to become, vengence be upon him!'

—II Book of Fanaticries

I simply disliked Comrade al-Din's theology sermon on Hegelian-Islam. Indeed, I have come across the 'secular' (more accurately post-Calvinist in denial) version of this— Gnostic or Hermetic, what have you, —Hegelian Fanaticism. The whole 'rational-actual' platitude is a blank card to insist upon the validity of seemingly any thing one pleases. I strongly oppose this 'Hegel Shelfaoth', this 'Lord and Saviour' of mystic shelves, to fashion an epithet from Comrade Colletti's severe critique. The only man I could countenance worshipping, and I am being sincere in this, is Comrade Stalin. So I disagree with the Hegelian mysticism of Comrade al-Din's idiosyncratic exegesis, and his odd commitment to Islam, in so far as it does any thing for me, makes me find his message even less appealing. To wrap this up, Comrade al-Din quoted a bunch of Islamic theologians, very few, if any, Marxists, and therefore began losing his audience in real time. But inexplicably, in spite of his clear defeat by audience (dis)approval, he hijacked the first part of Comrade Ozmun's piece (using a convenient cover of technical difficulties) to continue his Hermohammedic ramblings— very irritating, as my fellow watchers agreed.

One small thing, but those Islamic banners in the background were a stupid decision. When Fox News states that the ACP proudly flies Jihadic battle-flags, it need not resort to photo-shopping them in, for Fox may simply point to these war-flags of clan al-Din as all the sufficient proof necessary! Regardless of what the banners actually were, why was the chairman of a nominally communist party seated under them, as opposed to the banners of porletarian revolution? Even to be seated under a vertically-hung French Tricolour should have been the preferable, appropriately revolutionary emblem, in my humble opinion. What a disaster in propaganda-work this choice of banner was. The Yankee National Party has already mastered this very basic design of propaganda, yet somehow this ACP, the 'advanced vanguard of the proletariat', the 'dialectically and historically scientific Leninists', and all the rest, could not manage to match the competence in craft of the small nationalist party. The inheritance of the legacy of Soviet and socialist propaganda is not being adequately upheld.

Apologies for becoming so ornery, but the conference was such a good experience besides these passing idiocies, that it irks one more deeply than it otherwise should. Well, these are my thoughts. I pray that Comrade al-Din is not quite so involved in the next Marxism Conference, which as I said, I am most certainly looking forward to.

Post Scriptum: I also hope that they shorten the length betwixt panels next time. Thirty minutes is fine, but an hour to an hour and a half? The breaks were too long. The 'technical difficulties' with the microphone is obviously a thing which I hope does not happen again next year.