communism

This Week’s Extreme Heat Shows Why We Need to Care for Each Other

As disasters mount and official aid falls short, people are turning to informal networks and community groups for direct, fast help.

Environmental Justice Molly Taft Jun 29

Space Force Commander Fired After Badmouthing the Military on a Conservative Podcast

A Space Force lieutenant colonel has been removed from his post after claiming on a conservative podcast that Marxist ideologies are overrunning America’s armed forces, CNN and Military.com reported Sunday. Earlier this week, Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier appeared on The Steve Gruber Show to tout his new book, Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest &…

Tech News Alyse Stanley May 16

Was Boris Johnson Trying to Quote Churchill During His Dystopian Chicken Speech at the UN?

Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a bizarre speech on Tuesday night at the United Nations General Assembly that included plenty of dire warning about the future, including everything from the rise of killer robots to “limbless chickens” on the kitchen table. And as strange as it sounds, Johnson may have been trying to quote former…

Tech News Matt Novak Sep 26

The Communist Manifesto Gets a Comic Adaptation That’s Both Nightmarish and Timely

As widely regarded as Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is, it can be easy to forget that the scathing, seminal critique of capitalism and the bourgeoisie was hurriedly written over the course of a few days after months of procrastination. Turning Karl Marx’s landmark work into a graphic novel might seem like an odd idea, but…

io9 Charles Pulliam-Moore May 15

The FBI Worried About Communist Spies Invading EPCOT

Disney’s Epcot theme park in Florida includes exhibits of countries from around the world, staffed by student ambassadors from those countries. But before the theme park even opened in 1982, the FBI was concerned that EPCOT might become overrun with Communist spies from China, Poland, and the Soviet Union. Documents obtained by Jason Smathers and…

Tech News Matt Novak Jan 14

Bloodiest Christmas Massacres #2: The Killer Who Was Blinded By Hate

It was Christmas Eve, 1985. Seattle attorney Charles Goldmark was at home with his wife, Annie, and their two children, 10-year-old Colin and 12-year-old Derek; all were eagerly anticipating the festive holiday dinner to come. But a murderous, hate-filled stranger would put an end to all of their plans. David Lewis Rice knocked on the…

Tech News Cheryl Eddy Dec 3

Statue of Leader From Communist Empire Transformed Into Leader of Actual Empire

It’s always the most embarrassing part of a fallen regime. All those statues, no longer relevant. Usually they come down, hence the severed head of Vladimir Lenin recently unearthed in Berlin. But what to do with all those Lenins still standing? Turn them into the likeness of a more benevolent leader, of course. That’s what…

Tech News Alissa Walker Oct 24

The Bizarre History of X-Ray Records and Early Music Piracy

Thanks to the internet’s amazing capacity for self-recycling, articles about Soviet pirate recordings made of X-rays pop up frequently in my feeds. These popular, widely-shared posts explain how, in the 1950s and 60s, music fans in the Soviet Union fabricated bootlegged recordings of banned western music—and they used old X-rays to do it. In reality,…

Tech News Attila Nagy Aug 19

Is Man With a Movie Camera Really the Best Documentary Ever?

Earlier this week, the British Film Institute (BFI) published results from a first-of-its-kind poll, asking 340 filmmakers and critics to vote for the best documentary of all time. The clear winner was Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera. But this 1929 avant-garde exploration of the USSR didn’t just eke by, it absolutely crushed the…

Tech News Darren Orf Aug 3

I Can’t Figure Out Whether This College Study is Sexist or Not

It was the 1930s, and America was changing. Women were going to college and communists were marching in the streets. But people really didn’t want those two things to combine. And thus was born a study that had its heart in the right place and its head in the wrong one. Here is the tale…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell May 20

The Melancholy, Crumbling Remains Of Great Socialist Murals

Once, they beamed optimism from walls all across the Eastern Bloc. These murals depicted Socialist progress, and allowed the great Communist leaders to look down on their people from everywhere. But now, they’re fallen into ruin. Check out the disintegrating beauty of great Socialist murals. A mural commemorating Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space,…

io9 Vincze Miklós May 2

Communist Leaders Are Still Watching Us in These Monumental Portraits

The Revolution never dies, comrades — especially when we’ve painted its leaders on massive billboards that loom over your cities and towns. Here are some of the world’s most imposing portraits of Communism’s most famous instigators. A portrait of Lenin in Degtyarsk, Russia (via Anton Novoselov and Wikimedia Commons) Mao Zedong at the Tiananmen (Gate…

io9 Vincze Miklós Apr 22

Instagram Photos Give A Rare Look At Life Inside North Korea

North Korea remains a grim enigma — a lone totalitarian state that few outsiders manage to visit. We glimpse military parades and marvel at the colorful propaganda, but we seldom get much of a sense of what it’s like to live there. But these Instagram photos give a remarkably vivid look at ordinary life in…

io9 Vincze Miklós Mar 26

7 Utopias that Changed the Future

Though “Utopia” means “nowhere,” many real-life societies have been strongly influenced by various concepts of a perfect realm where humans live in harmony with each other. Here are some of the most influential Utopian visions — and how they changed our distinctly non-Utopian world. Sculpture by Cornelia Konrads 1. Heaven Many religions across the world,…

Books & Comics Annalee Newitz Mar 11

Strange Buildings of the Eastern Bloc from the Last Decades of Communism

Communist architecture is often monumental, sometimes minimalist, and always imposing. But in the latter years of most European communist states, traditional Brutalist architecture gave way to something a little weirder — and occasionally even playful. Here are some incredible buildings from this era in late Eastern Bloc communism. Crematorium, Kiev, Ukraine (1975) You can see…

io9 Vincze Miklós Mar 6

Your First Look at the Animated Remake of the Soviet Union’s Most Monty Python-esque Movie

We’ve been waiting for the animated remake of Kin-Dza-Dza since we first discovered this ultra-wacky 1986 Russian movie back in 2008. And now, it’s finally here — and you can check out the first footage above, via Twitch Film. http://io9.com/5015290/final-proof-that-communism-breaks-your-brain In Kin-Dza-Dza, two guys fall into an alien teleportation device, and find themselves on, basically,…

Trailers Charlie Jane Anders Dec 4

An extremely creepy tour of an abandoned Soviet monument in Bulgaria

Remember those derelict Bulgarian war memorials that resemble space fortresses? Well, it turns out they’re just as otherworldly inside. Here’s one intrepid urban explorer’s journey into the shadowy corridors of the shuttered Bulgarian-Soviet Friendship memorial in Varna, Bulgaria. It’s also a case study on why you never tour old Soviet monuments alone. https://gizmodo.com/the-otherworldly-fortresses-that-are-bulgarias-socialis-5630648 In its…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Apr 6

British intelligence investigated whether Charlie Chaplin was a secret Frenchman

Here’s a curious tidbit from spy history: in the 1950s, American intelligence asked Britain’s MI5 to investigate the actor Charlie Chaplin on suspicions that Chaplin was a dangerous communist. But the intelligence agencies were unable to confirm that Chaplin was born in England, leading to an investigation into whether Chaplin was a completely different person…

io9 Lauren Davis Feb 19

Kim Jong-il is dead. Here’s his monster movie.

Now that lunatic dictator Kim Jong-il has passed on to the great rusty amusement park near the Earth’s mantle, we’ve dug deep in the io9 vaults for a look back at his sole contribution to science fiction cinema, the 1985 kaiju flick Pulgasari. A giant iron-eating bull takes on an army of slave laborers in…

Movies Charlie Jane Anders Dec 18

Even the Textiles in Soviet Russia Were Obsessed With Industry

These fabrics mostly speak for themselves, but skinny is that these fabrics are Soviet era textiles from the 1920-1930 period of Russia’s history. And while awesome, the industrial, work-obsessed imagery on display here is hardly subtle. The period in which these cloths were made coincide with Stalin’s rise to power, and the exile of Leon…

Tech News Adrian Covert Sep 29

communism

This Week’s Extreme Heat Shows Why We Need to Care for Each Other

Space Force Commander Fired After Badmouthing the Military on a Conservative Podcast

Was Boris Johnson Trying to Quote Churchill During His Dystopian Chicken Speech at the UN?

The Communist Manifesto Gets a Comic Adaptation That’s Both Nightmarish and Timely

The FBI Worried About Communist Spies Invading EPCOT

Bloodiest Christmas Massacres #2: The Killer Who Was Blinded By Hate

Statue of Leader From Communist Empire Transformed Into Leader of Actual Empire

The Bizarre History of X-Ray Records and Early Music Piracy

Is Man With a Movie Camera Really the Best Documentary Ever?

I Can’t Figure Out Whether This College Study is Sexist or Not

The Melancholy, Crumbling Remains Of Great Socialist Murals

Communist Leaders Are Still Watching Us in These Monumental Portraits

Instagram Photos Give A Rare Look At Life Inside North Korea

7 Utopias that Changed the Future

Strange Buildings of the Eastern Bloc from the Last Decades of Communism

Your First Look at the Animated Remake of the Soviet Union’s Most Monty Python-esque Movie

An extremely creepy tour of an abandoned Soviet monument in Bulgaria

British intelligence investigated whether Charlie Chaplin was a secret Frenchman

Kim Jong-il is dead. Here’s his monster movie.

Even the Textiles in Soviet Russia Were Obsessed With Industry

Anthropic’s New Model Is So Scarily Powerful It Won’t Be Released, Anthropic Says

Musk Asks Court to Give Potential Winnings in OpenAI Suit to OpenAI’s Nonprofit

Pro-Iran Hackers Target Critical U.S. Energy and Water Infrastructure

‘She-Hulk’ Was Apparently One of Marvel’s Most Successful Shows

The World’s First Eye-Tracking Smart Glasses Are Intriguing and Unpolished

Noah Hawley Is Remaking ‘Terrified,’ Which Shouldn’t Happen

Unprecedented Observation Reveals 2 Supermassive Black Holes Locked in a Tight Death Spiral

This Apple MacBook Pro Is Now Under $500 After 78% Off, Grade-A Refurb Deal (16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Touch Bar)

Aqara Thermostat Hub W200 Review: Almost Better than My Ecobee

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

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