Abolition originally referred to the struggle to end slavery, but its meaning has expanded. Today, abolition is about dismantling all systems that dehumanize and exploit,  including prisons, police, and institutions that treat people as disposable. Abolitionists do not only fight against oppressive systems. They also work to build alternatives that center care, justice, and collective responsibility. At its core, abolition is about transforming society to eliminate the need for punishment, domination, or forced labor.

The bourgeoisie is the ruling class under capitalism. They own the means of production (factories, banks, land, and technology, etc.) and make their wealth by hiring workers and keeping the profit that comes from their labor. Essentially, the bourgeoisie don’t create value through their own labor. Instead, they live off the value created by others, and use their economic power to shape politics, law, media, and culture in their interest.

The Bolshevik Revolution took place in Russia in October 1917. Led by the Bolshevik Party, it was the first successful socialist revolution in history where the working class, together with poor peasants, overthrew the capitalist government and began building a workers’ state. The revolution followed years of war, poverty, and organizing. It replaced the rule of the Tsar and capitalist class with a new government based on workers' councils, known as soviets. Despite facing foreign invasion and internal counterrevolution, the Bolsheviks aimed to build a new society free from exploitation.

Capitalism is an economic and social system where a small class of people (the capitalists) own the tools, land, factories, and resources needed to produce goods and services. The majority of people (the working class) do not own these things and must sell their labor to survive. In this system, profit is made by paying workers less than the value they create. That unpaid labor becomes surplus value, which the capitalist class uses to expand their wealth and power. Capitalism is driven by competition, private ownership, and exploitation, and it reproduces inequality, poverty, war, and environmental destruction to survive.

Chattel slavery is a system where human beings are treated as property. Under this system, people can be bought, sold, inherited, and forced to work for life without pay. In the Americas, chattel slavery was built on the kidnapping and enslavement of Africans and their descendants. Slavery in the U.S. laid the foundation for the country’s wealth, especially through plantation agriculture. The unpaid labor of enslaved people helped fuel the rise of capitalism and shaped the racial hierarchy that continues today.

Dialectics is a way of understanding the world based on contradiction and change. It teaches that nothing is fixed or permanent, and that all things contain opposing forces that drive development, transformation, and conflict. Rather than seeing history or nature as static, dialectics sees everything, from society to ideas, as in constant motion. Contradictions like rich and poor, oppressor and oppressed, are not just tensions. They are what push history forward.

Dialectical materialism is the worldview developed by Marx and Engels. It combines two ideas: that the material world, including people’s economic and social conditions, shapes ideas, and that change happens through contradictions and struggle. This method rejects the notion that history is driven by abstract ideals. Instead, it studies how people, acting under real conditions, create and transform society. Dialectical materialism helps us understand how systems like capitalism rise and fall, and how class struggle can lead to revolutionary change.

The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is the system we live under today. It means that the capitalist class (the owners of wealth and property) holds power over society. They control the economy, influence the courts, dominate the media, and shape the laws to protect their own interests. This rule is called a dictatorship not because there is a single ruler, but because the state serves one class above all others. Even in systems that appear democratic, real decision-making power remains in the hands of the rich.

The dictatorship of the proletariat is what comes after a successful socialist revolution. It refers to the working class taking power and using it to reorganize society in the interest of the majority. Rather than being ruled by a wealthy few, the people who produce the wealth (workers, farmers, and oppressed communities) gain control of the state. This stage is necessary to defeat the old ruling class, defend against counterrevolution, and build a new society based on collective ownership and equality.

Democratic centralism is a method of organizing used by revolutionary movements. It combines open discussion and collective decision-making with unified action. Everyone has a right to debate and propose ideas, but once a decision is made, the whole group carries it out together. This approach allows for both internal democracy and organizational discipline. It ensures that revolutionary organizations can respond to changing conditions and act with clarity and unity, not confusion or division.

Exploitation is the economic foundation of capitalism. It happens when workers produce more value than they receive in wages, and the difference (called surplus value) is taken by the capitalist. Exploitation is not about bad bosses or low wages alone. It is a built-in feature of a system where one class owns the means of production and profits from the labor of another. Even the best-paid workers are still being exploited if someone else is collecting profit from their work.

The February Revolution was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Sparked by mass protests, strikes, and mutinies (especially led by women workers) it forced the Tsar to step down and ended centuries of monarchy. However, political power was handed to a provisional government controlled by the capitalist class. Though the monarchy had fallen, the economic and social conditions of the masses remained the same. This created the opening for the Bolshevik-led October Revolution, which brought real power to workers and peasants.

Internationalism is the principle that workers and oppressed peoples around the world share a common struggle. It recognizes that capitalism and imperialism are global systems, and therefore, no single country’s liberation can be achieved in isolation. Internationalism calls on us to build solidarity across borders, to learn from each other’s struggles, and to fight as one against a shared enemy. It means understanding that the freedom of people in the Global South is tied to the political work of people in the imperial core, and vice versa.

Labor power is a person’s ability to work: their time, energy, skills, and knowledge. Under capitalism, labor power is treated like a commodity. Workers sell it to an employer in exchange for a wage. But the value workers create is usually much greater than what they are paid. That extra value is taken by the capitalist as profit. Labor power is what transforms raw materials into commodities, and it is the source of all value in capitalist production.

Vladimir Lenin was a Marxist thinker, revolutionary organizer, and leader of the Bolshevik Revolution. He developed key theories about how capitalism functions in its most advanced form, which he called imperialism. He also emphasized the need for disciplined revolutionary organization to win and hold power. Lenin’s ideas built on Marx and Engels, but responded to the concrete realities of the early 20th century. He argued that revolution had to be actively organized and led by the working class. His leadership helped turn theory into practice during one of the most significant moments in world history.

A mode of production is the overall system by which a society organizes how it produces and reproduces life, including food, housing, tools, and knowledge. It includes both the material forces of production (like labor, land, and technology) and the relations of production (who owns what and who works for who). Different historical periods have had different modes of production such as feudalism, slavery, capitalism, and socialism. Each mode is shaped by contradictions between classes and eventually gives rise to new systems through struggle and revolution.

The means of production are the physical tools, machines, land, infrastructure, and raw materials needed to produce goods and services. They are one of the basic elements of any economy. In capitalism, the means of production are privately owned by the bourgeoisie. Workers do not own what they use to produce goods, which is why they must sell their labor power. In socialism, the goal is to place the means of production under collective ownership and democratic control.

Neoliberalism emerged in the late 20th century, especially after the 1980s, as a response to economic crises and global resistance to imperialism. Neoliberalism calls for cutting public spending, weakening labor protections, privatizing social services, and removing government controls on the market. It claims to promote “freedom” and “efficiency,” but in practice it shifts wealth and power to corporations and financial elites. Neoliberalism has resulted in mass unemployment, rising debt, and deepening inequality around the world, especially in the Global South.

Primitive accumulation refers to the violent process that gave birth to capitalism. It describes how land, labor, and resources were stolen or forcibly taken to create the conditions for capitalist production. This includes the enclosure of common land in Europe, the transatlantic slave trade, colonization, and the looting of Indigenous territories. Capitalism did not start through peaceful trade or innovation. It was built through dispossession, slavery, and conquest. 

Productive forces are the tools, knowledge, labor, and natural resources used to produce goods and services in a given society. They include both physical materials like land and machinery, and human capacities like skills, cooperation, and creativity. As productive forces develop (for example, when new technologies or forms of labor emerge) they often come into conflict with the existing social system. This contradiction can drive social change, especially when the old system holds back the potential of new productive forces.

The proletariat is the working class under capitalism. It includes all people who do not own the means of production and must sell their labor to survive. This class produces the wealth of society but has no control over how that wealth is used or distributed. Marx and Engels defined the proletariat as the revolutionary class, because “it has nothing to lose but its chains.” Unlike slaves or peasants under earlier systems, the proletariat is defined by its relationship to wage labor and its potential to collectively overthrow capitalism.

Reconstruction was the period following the U.S. Civil War, from 1865 to 1877, when efforts were made to rebuild the South and bring formerly enslaved Black people into political and social life. It was a time of radical transformation, during which Black communities organized schools, held elected office, and demanded land and dignity. But this period was violently cut short. White supremacist terror, combined with betrayal by the federal government and the Northern capitalist class, destroyed Reconstruction. What followed was the rise of Jim Crow laws and a new era of capitalism.

 Relations of production refer to how people are organized around work, property, and ownership in a given society. They define who owns the means of production, who does the labor, and how wealth and power are distributed. In capitalism, relations of production are based on exploitation. A small class owns the means of production and profits from the labor of the majority. These relations are not fixed. They can change through struggle and revolution, as new forms of ownership and cooperation emerge.

Settler colonialism is a form of colonialism where invading groups occupy land, remove or eliminate the original inhabitants, and build a new society on top of their dispossession. It is not just about extraction. It is about replacement. The United States is a settler colonial society, founded on the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the forced labor of enslaved Africans. Other examples include Canada, Australia, and Israel. Settler colonialism creates lasting systems of racial hierarchy, land theft, and state violence that continue to this day.

Socialism is a system where working and oppressed people control the wealth they create. It replaces private ownership with collective ownership, and it uses society’s resources to meet the needs of the many instead of generating profit for a few. Under socialism, housing, healthcare, education, and food are guaranteed as basic rights. The economy is planned to serve the public good. In short, socialism is about building a new system where the people who do the work also hold power.

Surplus value is the money your boss makes off your work, the part of your labor you don’t get paid for. Under capitalism, you’re always producing more than what you’re paid. For example, say you work a 5-hour shift at Five Guys. In that time, you make 100 burgers. Each buerger sells for $10: that’s $1,000 in revenue. Subtract $200 for the cost of ingredients for those 100 burgers, that leaves $800. You’re wage is $15/hour, so you take home $75 after your shift ends. The other $725? That goes to the capitalist. You did the work, but they pocket most of the value you created. That’s surplus value: the value of your unpaid labor. 

 Wages are the money capitalists pay workers in exchange for their ability to work, also called their labor power. But this payment is not equal to the value workers create. Under capitalism, workers always produce more value than they’re paid. That unpaid value is called surplus value, and it’s the source of the capitalist’s profit.

Ratified in 1868 during Reconstruction, the 14th Amendment promised equal protection under the law and birthright citizenship. It was meant to secure the rights of formerly enslaved Black people. Later, it also became a tool for other oppressed communities, including Chinese immigrants in California, to assert legal rights. But the promise of the 14th Amendment was quickly undermined. As Reconstruction was violently overthrown, white supremacist laws and policies such as the Chinese Exclusion Act and Jim Crow reasserted ruling-class power and reinforced racial inequality in the United States.

A commodity is something made to be sold, not used by the person who made it. Under capitalism, labor produces commodities: objects or services that have both a use and an exchange value. Nearly everything becomes a commodity under capitalism. Bread, housing, education, and even healthcare are all treated as items for sale. The value of a commodity is shaped by the amount of labor it contains and the profit it can generate for the owner.

Jim Crow was not just a set of racist laws. It was a full system of racial and economic control in the U.S. South after the end of slavery. These laws enforced segregation, denied Black people political rights, and kept them locked into low-wage, exploitative labor.The purpose of Jim Crow was to maintain a racial caste system that served the white ruling class, especially plantation owners and industrial capitalists. This system was upheld through courts and police, and by violent white supremacist groups. 

White supremacy is a system created by capitalists to keep white people in power over nonwhite people, pushing nonwhite people to the bottom of the economic, social, and political ladder. It’s deeply woven into the structure of American capitalism, with roots going back to the colonization of the land, the violent conquest of Indigenous peoples, and the kidnapping and  enslavement of Africans.