Dictionary of Revolutionary Marxism

—   Se - Sg   —

“SEA CHANGE”
See: DIALECTICAL LEAPS — Popular Terms For

SEATO
See: SOUTHEAST ASIA TREATY ORGANIZATION

SECOND INTERNATIONAL — Basel [Basle] Congress (1912)
        See also: BASEL MANIFESTO

“The Basle Congress of the Second International (November 24-25, 1912) was convened as an extraordinary congress in connection with the Balkan War and the menace of a European war. Its manifesto emphasized the imperialist nature of the impending world war and urged socialists everywhere to ‘take advantage of the economic and political crises’ the war would create to ‘accelerate the downfall of capitalism’. Kautsky, Vandervelde and other Second International leaders voted for this manifesto, but were deliberately oblivious to it when war broke out in 1914 and sided with their imperialist governments. [See: Lenin, LCW 21:208-17, 307-08.]” —Note 312, Lenin, SW I (1967).

SECRET POLICE
A government organization charged with spying on and eliminating or neutralizing dissent. Secret police are typical features of fascist regimes, but are also found in bourgeois democracies. The FBI, for example, acted as a secret police force during the 1960-1970s when it undertook a program known as COINTELPRO that was designed to infiltrate, disrupt and neutralize activist and militant groups (mostly left-wing and Black groups fighting for social justice and equality). As long as they still rule society, the bourgeoisie will continue to act in this way, at whatever level of spying and political suppression of the working class and masses that they deem “necessary”.
        While a secret police (of sorts!) may also be necessary to protect the revolutionary gains of the proletariat after they win power, it is absolutely essential that such an organization not be used to control or intimidate the proletariat itself, or to replace mass vigilance. As Mao insisted, the primary means of controlling any attempts by the old or new bourgeoisies to recapture state power must be through the enlightened vigilance and efforts of the masses themselves. The security agencies of the socialist state should be at most a supplement to the basic Marxist method of educating the masses in their own interests, and of organizing them to act to advance those interests through the democratic method of the mass line. —L.C.
        See also: KGB,   OKHRANA,   SOVIET UNION—Security Agencies

SECT   [In politics]
In the non-pejorative sense, a sect is simply “a group adhering to a distinctive doctrine or leader”. [Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10^th ed.] However, the word ‘sect’ also carries with it the connotation of small size, and being outside of the mainstream. Thus a revolutionary sect is a small group which is outside the mainstream of the revolutionary movement. All new political parties either start off as sects, or else form out of other parties or mass movements which themselves started out as sects. There is nothing necessarily wrong about starting out small and different from the mainstream; but it is foolish and self-defeating for any political group to permanently remain just a sect, i.e. a small group unconnected to the masses and the mass movement.
        See also SECTARIAN (below), and: CULT

“The International was founded in order to replace the socialist or semi-socialist sects by a real organization of the working class for struggle. The original Rules and the Inaugural Address show this at a glance. On the other hand, the International could not have asserted itself if the course of history had not already smashed sectarianism. The development of socialist sectarianism and that of the real labor movement always stand in indirect proportion to each other. So long as the sects are justified (historically), the working class is not yet ripe for an independent historical movement. As soon as it has attained this maturity all sects are essentially reactionary....
         “And the history of the International was a continual struggle of the General Council against the sects and attempts by amateurs to assert themselves within the International itself against the real movement of the working class.” —Marx, Letter to Adolphe Hubert, Aug. 10, 1871, MECW 44:252.

SECTARIAN [Adj.]
        1. [Primary sense in Marxist politics:] Having and promoting ideas which prevent or obstruct a political group or party from connecting up with the masses and the mass movement, and from transforming existing reformist mass struggle into revolutionary mass struggle. (See also: mass perspective.)
        2. [Secondary sense in Marxist politics:] Being unwilling to work with individuals or groups (other than your own) for some common purpose, or obstructing such cooperation and “united fronts” through hostility and disrespect towards those with ideas differing from your own.

SECULAR STAGNATION
Long-term economic stagnation, i.e., the extremely slow expansion of a capitalist economy (or in other words, the very slow rate of growth of GDP). For the most part, bourgeois economists and commentators try to claim that “from a theoretical perspective this should be impossible” (see “Say’s Law”). But in the capitalist-imperialist era these periods of prolonged secular stagnation have become so prominent that they can no longer simply be dismissed as impossible. The problem for bourgeois economists is then to try to explain why this “impossible thing” is nevertheless happening. And they have no good explanations.
        From the point of view of Marxist political economy the explanation for secular stagnation is simple: it is merely a long stage in the development of an overproduction crisis, a stage which will eventually get even worse—in the form of an outright depression.
        See also: STAGNATION

“Secular stagnation [is] the chronically weak growth that comes from having too few investment opportunities to absorb available savings.” —Free Exchange column: “Aging is a drag”, The Economist, March 30, 2019, p. 78.
         [This statement is somewhat remarkable for a bourgeois commentator in that it spells out a little further than usual that secular stagnation is due to a shortage of good investment opportunities. But the question then is obviously why is there at that point a shortage of good investment opportunities? The real answer is that in a period of worsening overproduction it makes no sense to invest in building new factories and buying new machinery to expand production when the capitalist enterprises already cannot sell all that they can produce! But this answer is unacceptable to the bourgeoisie; they can’t admit that there is a flaw in capitalism that inevitably leads to this result. And this article, too, makes the erroneous claim that “slower growth is more a choice than an inevitability”. It attributes the slowing growth to the demographic aging of the population, which supposedly leads to falling rates of growth in productivity. And why is this the case? The article speculates that companies with older workers may be less inclined to adopt new technologies. On and on the excuses go! And never facing up to the blatant fact of growing overproduction. —S.H.]

SECULARIZATION   [Religion]
The current relatively fast and continuing decline of religious observance, belief, or relevance to the lives of modern peoples.
        See also: RELIGION—Decline Of In The West,   RELIGION — Decline Of In The U.S.

“About six months ago, Americans’ belief in God hit an all-time low. According to a 2022 Gallup survey, the percentage of people who believe in God has dropped from 98% in the 1950s to 81% today; among Americans under 30, it is down to an unprecedented 68%.
         “Up close, the trend looks even more dramatic. Only about half of Americans believe in ‘God as described in the Bible,’ while about a quarter believe in a ‘higher power or spiritual force,’ according to a Pew poll. Just one-third of Generation Z say they believe in God without a doubt.
         “Congregational membership, too, is at an all-time low. In 2021 Gallup found that, for the first time ever, fewer than half of Americans – 47% – were members of a church, synagogue or mosque. Yet another crucial measure of institutional religion in the U.S., the percentage of people identifying as religious, is also at a low: About 1 in 5 adults now say they have no religious affiliation, up from 1 in 50 in 1960.
         “In short, when it comes to three key realms of religious life – belief, behavior and belonging – all are lower than they have ever been in American history. What’s going on? In my view, it’s clear: secularization.
         “However, despite these seemingly unambiguous numbers, debate about whether secularization really is happening has persisted. Indeed, for several decades now, many academics have continued to doubt its trajectory, especially in the United States....
         “In our 2023 book, Beyond Doubt, however, religion and secularism scholars Isabella Kasselstrand, Ryan Cragun and I argue that religious faith, participation and identification are unambiguously weaker than they have ever been. This is not only true in the U.S, but many parts of the world, as seen in surveys of people in countries such as Scotland, South Korea, Chile and Canada.
        “Our book lays out data on declines in religion in areas that have traditionally been home to many different faiths. In 2013, for example, 10% of Libyans and 13% of Tunisians said that they had no religion. By 2019, those numbers had more than doubled. Declines in belief in God are apparent in countries from Denmark and Singapore to Malaysia and Turkey.
         “But why? In our analysis, the transition from a traditional, rural, nonindustrial society to an urban, industrial or post-industrial society is a key part of the answer – along the lines of the first sociologists’ predictions. As these changes take place, religion is more likely to become unyoked from other aspects of society, such as education and government. Additionally, there is an increase in the amount of religious diversity in a given society, and there tend to be changes in the family, with parents granting their children more freedom regarding religious choices.
         “In nearly every society that we examined that has experienced these concomitant phenomena, secularization has occurred – often in spades. Of course, compared to most other wealthy countries, the U.S. is quite religious. Fifty-five percent of Americans, for example, say they pray daily, compared to an average of 22% of Europeans.
         “Still, we argue that the latest numbers regarding religious belief, behavior and belonging in the U.S. paint a clear portrait of secularization. Beyond the more universal factors, other developments that have been detrimental to religion include a strong reaction against the political power of the religious right, and anger at the Catholic Church’s child sex abuse scandal.
         “The consequences of religion’s weakening are unclear. But while its meaning for America remains an open question, whether secularization is happening is not.”
         —Phil Zuckerman, professor of sociology and secular studies, Pitzer College, “3 big numbers that tell the story of secularization in America”, Feb. 27, 2023, full essay online at: https://theconversation.com/

SECURITIZATION
[In contemporary financial capitalism:] The bundling together of numerous individual mortgages, or outstanding credit card debts, or auto loans, or other forms of debt into packages, against which bonds are sold to investors. This allows the banks or other financial companies which issued the loans to no longer care whether the loans are ever paid off, and therefore to escape the risk ordinarily involved in making such loans. Those foolish enough to buy the bonds, however, thereby take on risks which they have no real way of even properly evaluating. In short, securitization is a method for the banks and big financial corporations to cheat investors.
        See also: COLLATERIALIZED DEBT OBLIGATIONS (CDOs),   COLLATERIALIZED LOAN OBLIGATIONS (CLOs)

SECURITY CAMERAS
Surveillance cameras watching and/or recording human activity in a specific area. These are generally closed-circuit (CC) television systems which record the images on data drives or backup systems. These security cameras are already very widespread and are rapidly becoming more and more ubiquitous. Two major factors are especially promoting this: 1) The technical improvement and declining cost of such systems; and 2) The growing fascist trends in capitalist society which lead the ruling class to be ever more concerned to monitor the every move of every person in society.

“The number of cameras employed for surveillance will exceed 1 billion by the end of 2021—an almost 30 percent leap from the 770 million cameras in service today. China is expected to account for more than half the total.” —Wall Street Journal report, as summarized in The Week magazine, Dec. 20, 2019, p. 16.

“Worldwide, by one estimate, the total volume of sediment that humans move each year is more than 24 times the amount supplied by rivers.”   —“Human-Driven Change Will Be Marked in Rocks”, New York Times, March 6, 2024.
         [The massive and rapidly growing human influence on nature, including geology, is the reason that many people now think that the contemporary era should be named the “Anthropocene”. However, despite mounting evidence such as this item about sediment, as of March 2024 the conservative community of professional geologists has not yet become completely convinced of the need for this change. —Ed.]

SEEING
See: LOOKING AND SEEING

“SEEK TRUTH FROM FACTS”
A phrase from Mao’s writings, which was later given a perverted, revisionist interpretation by Deng Xiaoping. Deng distorted Mao’s meaning that revolutionaries must pay careful attention to objective conditions, into something very different—the assertion of an agnostic and opportunistic empiricism in which MLM theory is ignored and discarded. In this revisionist re-interpretation, “seeking truth from facts” has come to mean a bourgeois anti-theoretic reliance on pragmaticism.

“Secondly, there is the Marxist-Leninist attitude.
         “With this attitude, a person applies the theory and method of Marxism-Leninism to the systematic and thorough investigation and study of the environment. He does not work by enthusiasm alone... To take such an attitude is to seek truth from facts. ‘Facts’ are all the things that exist objectively, ‘truth’ means their internal relations, that is, the laws governing them, and ‘to seek’ means to study. We should proceed from the actual conditions inside and outside the country, the province, county or district, and derive from them, as our guide to action, laws which are inherent in them and not imaginary, that is, we should find the internal relations of the events occurring around us. And in other to do that we must rely not on subjective imagination, not on momentary entusiasm, not on lifeless books, but on facts that exist objectively; we must appropriate the material in detail and, guided by the general principles of Marxism-Leninism, draw correct conclusions from it. Such conclusions are not mere lists of phenomena in A, B, C, D order or writings full of platitudes, but are scientific conclusions. Such an attitude is one of seeking truth from facts not of currying favor by claptrap. It is the manifestation of Party spirit, the Marxist-Leninist style of uniting theory and practice. It is the attitude every Communist Party member should have at the very least.” —Mao, “Reform Our Study” (May 1941), SW3:22-23. [Contrast this Marxist-Leninist view to the perversion of the phrase “seeking truth from facts” as used by the capitalist-roaders below. —Ed.]

“Pragmatism, according to the dictionary, is a philosophy holding that practical consequences are the criterion of knowledge. More specifically, Webster’s Dictionary describes it as a method in philosophy which determines the meaning and truth of all concepts by their practical results. Despite its American origin, Chinese leaders are gradually finding the concept acceptable, whether as a general philosophy, or as a method in philosophy. Indeed, the press in China has their own definition for pragmatism: To seek truth from facts. The saying is regarded as applicable to the modernization drive, and to practical as well as ideological matters.” —“From the Editor”, Monsoon, a monthly magazine in Hong Kong promoting the political line of the capitalist-roaders who usurped power in China a few years earlier, Vol. 3, #7, August 1980, p. 2.

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS
        1. Uncomfortably aware of oneself as the object of observation by others; ill at ease.
        2. [In the philosophy of mind:] Conscious of one’s own actions or internal states of mind as belonging to oneself; aware of oneself as an individual. Having the capacity to introspect, or to contemplate an internal model of the world which includes yourself in it. See: CONSCIOUSNESS

SELF-CRITICISM
        See also: CRITICISM AND SELF-CRITICISM,   CONFESSIONS—False or Insincere,   CONFABULATION

“Conscientious practice of self-criticism is still another hallmark distinguishing our Party from all other political parties. As we say, dust will accumulate if a room is not cleaned regularly, our faces will get dirty if they are not washed regularly. Our comrades’ minds and our Party’s work may also collect dust, and also need sweeping and washing. The proverb ‘Running water is never stale and a door-hinge is never worm-eaten’ means that constant motion prevents the inroads of germs and other organisms. To check up regularly on our work and in the process develop a democratic style of work, to fear neither criticism nor self-criticism, and to apply such good popular Chinese maxims as ‘Say all you know and say it without reserve’, ‘Blame not the speaker but be warned by his words’ and ‘Correct mistakes if you have committed them and guard against them if you have not’—this is the only effective way to prevent all kinds of political dust and germs from contaminating the minds of our comrades and the body of our Party.” —Mao, “On Coalition Government” (April 24, 1945), SW 3:316-317.

SELF-CULTIVATION
See: MASLOW, Abraham

SELF-DETERMINATION OF NATIONS
See: NATIONAL SELF-DETERMINATION

SELF-EXPANSION OF CAPITAL
See: VALORIZATION

SELF-INTEREST
        See also: INDIVIDUALISM

“Alas! At this point I have a very strong feeling that there are many who use the excuse of altruism to seek their own egoistic gain. Truth is good; falsehood is bad. To act in self-interest may be small-minded, but is at least true. To pretend to be benefiting others when really acting in self-interest is a great falsehood. To extend self-interest to the greater self of benefiting all mankind, to the greater self of benefiting all living things, and to the greater self of benefiting the universe, this is to go from a small truth to a great truth.” —Mao, as a young man in 1917-1918 and before becoming a Communist, “Marginal Notes to: Friedrich Paulsen, A System of Ethics” (which Mao read in Chinese translation), Mao’s Road to Power, Vol. I: The Pre-Marxist Period, 1912-1920, ed. by Stuart Schram, pp. 201-2.

SELF-RELIANCE
Self-reliance is a virtue to be strongly encouraged in individuals, in social organizations, in government units and, indeed, pretty much everywhere. On the other hand, it can sometimes be made a fetish of, or even become an excuse for not helping others (on the grounds that they should be “more self-reliant”). In that case what is fundamentally a “good thing has been turned into a bad thing”.
        Self-reliance is an especially important principle to stress in a socialist economy. Although there is an overall production plan, and local production plans within each enterprise or production group, these plans will often prove very difficult to successfully fulfill unless each unit really has a spirit of self-reliance. This is, in part, why a successful socialist economy must be based on the genuine enthusiasm of the workers, who will bring that spirit of self-reliance with them as part of their enthusiasm for socialism. It also explains, in part, why the the phony “socialism” (actually state capitalism) in the Soviet Union during its last 35 years was such an economic disaster. Why, indeed, should the workers under any form of capitalism be enthusiastic or promote self-reliance at the work place?! They only work there.

“On self-reliance. Self-reliance is very important. It should be practiced not only by a state, but also by a factory, a people’s commune, and a production team. In managing people’s communes, those which practiced self-reliance showed real achievements whereas those communes and production teams which were supported by loans did not fare so well. At present, we have three truly self-reliant communes in the whole country: one is the Ch’en Yung-k’ang commune in Kiangsu Province; another is the Ch’en Yung-kuei commune in Shansi Province; and still another is the Ch’en X X commune in Ch’u-fou, Shantung Province. These three communes have never asked for a penny from the state as they were built up completely on the strength of their own effort.” —Mao, “Interjection at a Briefing by Four Vice-Premiers” (May 1964), SW 9:86-87.

SELF-REPRESENTATION
How a person represents themself to others. (How a person privately represents themself to themself is called self-image.) Organizations, including political parties, also have self-representations which they promote publicly, or public images which they try to control. Honest individuals and organizations try to be honest in representing themselves—including both their positive and negative aspects—while dishonest individuals and organizations (and especially corporations and bourgeois or opportunist political parties) must, of necessity, lie to the public and do their best to cover up their actual nature and nefarious activities. This is why press agents and public relations are such a huge business in contemporary American society.
        Of course, we should always be a little cautious about fully believing what individuals and organizations say about themselves, even in cases where they actually are trying to be honest. (See also in this connection the entry on CONFABULATION.) But in the case of bourgeois or opportunist individuals, organizations and parties, we should go way beyond mere caution and approach what they say about themselves with very serious skepticism. We should never forget that they are indeed a bunch of liars who are determined to put at least a “positive spin” on everything they really believe or do.

“This determined defense of the most pronounced Bernsteinians [revisionists] is not supported by any argument or reasoning whatsoever. Apparently, the author believes that if he repeats what the most pronounced Bernsteinians say about themselves his assertion requires no proof. But can anything more ‘shallow’ be imagined than this judgment of an entire trend based on nothing more than what the representatives of that trend say about themselves?” —Lenin, What Is To Be Done? (Feb. 1902), LCW 5:357.

SELF-VALORIZING VALUE
See: VALORIZATION

SEMANTICS
The branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of words and sentences. The sub-branch concerned with the meaning of words, specifically, is known as lexical semantics. Scientific semantics should not be confused with the bourgeois pseudo-scientific academic sect which goes by the name of General Semantics.

SEMI-PROLETARIAN
        1. A peasant who spends part of each year working as a wage worker in a town.
        2. A poor peasant who owns no land, and who must therefore work as an agricultural laborer for other (richer) peasants. Also often called a rural proletarian.

SENECA, Lucius Annaeus   (c. 4 BCE-65 CE)
Roman philosopher; one of the great representatives of Stoicism. He was the tutor of the young Nero and later his advisor when he became Emperor. Seneca was implicated (probably falsely) in a plot against the Emperor and was ordered by Nero to commit suicide—which he did.

SENIORS
See: OLD PEOPLE

SENSA
An ambiguous term in contemporary bourgeois philosophy which may refer either to those real objects in the world which are sensed (i.e., sensibilia def. 1), or else just the sensations themselves (i.e., sense data).

SENSATIONALISM or SENSATIONISM
The extreme empiricist theory associated with Ernst Mach that only sensations (or sense data) actually exists, or at least that this is all that human beings are capable of comprehending. According to this idealist theory, sensations are not only the source of all human knowledge, but may actually be all that really exists.
        This is similar to the idealist philosophical theory known as phenomenalism.
        See also: SENSUALISM,   SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM

SENSATIONS   [Philosophy]
The mental processes (such as seeing, hearing, or smelling) which are the result of the immediate stimulation of one of the bodily senses. In everyday usage, we often refer to somewhat unusual, unexpected, or unexplained things, such as tickles, itches or pains, or sudden feelings of warmth or coldness, as “sensations”. However, the more abstract usage of the term (which is that found in philosophy) also covers the ordinary and routine seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling or tasting of things in the world around us.
        In philosophy there are various doctrines about the nature of sensations and how they fit in with our overall conception of the world. The materialist conception is that sensations are (typically at least) caused by the real physical world around us. (In exceptional cases sensations may be due to the malfunctioning of our bodies.) We understand that our perceptions inform us about the nature of the objective world, and that these sensations reflect the nature of the real physical things in the world. (See REFLECTION THEORY.)
        However, philosophical idealists often hold that our sensations are entirely mental phenomena which do not reflect the nature of the material world or inform us about the true nature of objective reality. In some cases they go so far as to claim that only mental sensations exist, and that there is no material world at all that lies behind these sensations! (This extreme viewpoint is known as “radical empiricism” or subjective idealism.)
        See also: SENSUALISM,   SENSE DATA,   SENSATIONALISM

SENSE DATA
Raw sensations, or the private “data” (or what we immediately perceive) from our senses. Thus, the sensory qualities of things (colors, shapes, smells, etc.) which we supposedly experience directly, without any rational interpretation, and without any consideration of the physical objects which may be causing them. Thus the concept of sense data, as it is most often used in philosophy, is one of a strongly empiricist and idealist character. Empiricists usually make “sense data” the foundation of their theory of knowledge.
        The traditional empiricist claim goes something along these lines: “We never see or otherwise perceive or sense, or at least directly perceive or sense, the real material objects of the world, but instead, only sense data, or our own ideas, impressions, sense-perceptions, or the like.” This notion is related to the silly Kantian theory that human beings are incapable of knowing anything about the true nature of any real world object, the so-called “ding-an-sich”. But by this strange logic, what would it even mean to “directly” perceive the world?! This could only be some sort of religious comprehension based not at all on any bodily senses.
        Modern science has demonstrated quite well that seeing is not like an automatic image forming in the brain (as in a camera), and that similarly all the other senses also involve complex computational processing in light of previous knowledge. We have evolved to survive in the world, and thus our senses must help us comprehend the objective world. Therefore no epistemological theory whose foundation is raw, unprocessed, subjective “sense data” can possibly be correct.
        See also: SENSIBILIA,   QUALIA

SENSIBILIA
1. Those things which are sensed; the immediate objects of sense perception. The things in, or aspects of, objective reality that we sense. (This is a materialist conception.)
2. [In the philosophy of Bertrand Russell and some other extreme empiricists:] Those subjective entities (tastes, smells, images, etc.) which no one at the moment is directly sensing, but which are otherwise like the “sense data” that people have when they are sensing things. (This is an idealist conception.) This idealist concept of sensibilia, i.e., the notion of “unsensed sense data”, is obviously incoherent.

SENSUALISM   [Philosophy]
Another name which has been used for the basic doctrine that holds that sensations are the source of knowledge. Of course there is some truth to this idea if it is properly interpreted.
        If sensations are understood to be a reflection of the objective world, which are processed by the brain in light of previous knowledge and experience, then we have a materialist theory. This was more or less the path taken by the materialists of the Enlightenment (Holbach, Helvétius, and later by Feuerbach), and certainly by the most recent physiological science.
        On the other hand, if sensations are regarded as subjective impressions with no relationship to any objective world, we are on the path of subjective idealism, and idealist philosophers such as Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Mach, Avenarius and Bogdanov.
        Consequently, the recognition that knowledge of the world comes through sensation is by itself neither a materialist nor an idealist theory. It depends on what sensation is understood to be, and how it fits in with a broader understanding of reality.

“SENTINEL AREA”
A geographic area which, by showing early signs of a development or problem, should give advance warning that the development or problem will likely soon become more widespread. Thus the early outbreaks of AIDS/HIV in the “sentinel areas” of San Francisco and New York City should have alerted the medical profession and the U.S. government that a much more general spread of the disease was imminent. Similarly, the early local areas where the current U.S. opioid epidemic first appeared, such as the small town of St. Charles, Virginia, in 1997-98, should have alerted (but also didn’t) the medical profession and government as to the potential eventual seriousness of that now nationwide and still worsening social crisis (as of 2018).
        In the sphere of the world capitalist economy a similar thing has occurred at times. For example, the very serious era of intensified stagnation in Japan—which began circa 1991 and which as of 2018 has continued now for more than a quarter century—should have alerted (but didn’t) the economics profession to more globally widespread stagnation (“in-and-out-of-recession”) in the near future. As usual, what was happening in what should have been recognized as a sentinel area was ignored or misconstrued by bourgeois economists. It seems that sentinel areas are very commonly unrecognized in a great many cases until after the fact because incorrect dominant theories (medical, economic, social, political and otherwise) do not prepare people to keep an eye out and be alert to them. This is another aspect of the social stupidity of the current bourgeois system.

“SEPTEMBER 13 INCIDENT” (1971)   [Chinese: jiǔyīsān shìjiàn   九一三事变 ]
The attempted escape of Lin Biao and his son by air, heading towards the Soviet Union, after the failure of his attempt to kill Mao and stage a coup d’état, and the resulting crash of the airplane in Mongolia, killing all aboard it.
        From the Second Plenary Session of the Ninth CCP Central Committee (August 23-September 6, 1970) onward, it seems that Lin Biao, with the support of Chen Boda and others, was attempting to enhance his personal political power, while—if possible—weakening that of Mao. Mao took growing exception to these moves, and seems to have decided to remove Lin himself from power. Fearing this result, in March 1971 Lin directed his son to draw up a plan entitled “Outline of the 571 Project”, a plan for an armed coup d’état, and have it ready to implement. (“571” was a pun for “armed uprising” in Chinese.)
        In August 1971 Mao was on an inspection tour of southern China. Word reached Lin and his cohorts that Mao had criticized Lin on this trip, and so Lin decided to put their coup plan into action and to assassinate Mao while on his tour. Lin gave the order to his agents on September 8. But on September 11th, Mao unexpectedly left Shanghai early, so the scheme fell apart. In desperation, Lin requested special airplanes be sent to him. His initial plan then was apparently to fly to Guangzhou and set up a rival government there. But Zhou Enlai and other government officials got wind of this plan and stopped it. Lin Biao then had no other choice but to give up or try to flee the country. It was that attempted flight to the Soviet Union which proved to be the end of him. The rest of Lin’s clique either died in that plane crash, committed suicide, or else were arrested and brought to trial.

SERF
An alternate name for peasant, especially in Europe.

“Peasant Reform—the emancipation of the serfs carried out by the tsarist government in 1861. The Reform was made necessary by the entire course of Russia’s economic development and by the growth of the mass movement among the peasantry against feudal exploitation. The Peasant Reform was a bourgeois reform carried out by serf-owners. Its bourgeois essence was the more obvious ‘the less the amount of land cut off from the peasants’ holdings, the more fully peasant lands were separated from the landed estates, the lower the tribute paid to the feudal landowners by the peasant (i.e., the lower the “redemption” payments)’ [Lenin, LCW 17:121] The Peasant Reform marked a step in Russia’s transformation into a bourgeois monarchy. In all, 22,500,000 serfs, formerly belonging to landlords, were ‘emancipated’. Landed proprietorship, however, remained. The peasants’ lands were declared the property of the landlords. The peasant could only get an allotment of land of the size established by law (and even then only with the landlord’s consent), and he had to redeem it, that is, pay for it.
         “The Peasant Reform merely undermined but did not abolish the old corvée system of farming. The landlords secured possession of the best parts of the peasants’ allotments (the ‘cut-off lands’—woods, meadows, watering places, grazing lands, and so on), without which the peasants could not engage in independent farming. Until the redemption arrangements were completed the peasants were considered ‘temporarily bound’ and either rendered corvée service to the landlord or paid quit-rent. The redemption of their own allotments was a direct plunder of the peasants by the tsarist government and the landowners. The peasants were compelled to pay hundreds of millions of rubles for their land and this led to the ruin of the farms and to mass impoverishment.
         “The Russian revolutionary democrats, headed by Nikolai Cheryshevsky, criticized the Peasant Reform for its feudal character. Lenin called the Peasant Reform of 1861 the first act of mass violence against the peasantry in the interests of the nascent capitalism in agriculture—the landowners were ‘clearing the land’ for capitalism.” —Note 56, Lenin SW I (1967).

SERVE THE PEOPLE
[To be added... ]
        See also: PATERNALISM

“The motive of serving the masses is inseparably linked with the effect of winning their approval; the two must be united. The motive of serving the individual or a small clique is not good, nor is it good to have the motive of serving the masses without the effect of winning their approval and benefiting them.” —Mao, “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art” (May 1942), SW 3:88.

“SERVE THE PEOPLE”   [Speech by Mao]
A famous speech delivered by Mao Zedong on September 8, 1944, at a memorial meeting for Comrade Chang Szu-teh, which was held by the departments working directly under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. (Chang Szu-teh was born in a poor peasant family and joined the Red Army in 1933 at the age of 17. He took part in the Long March, and became a selfless Communist soldier in Yenan. He died in a kiln accident.) This work by Mao, along with two others (“In Memory of Norman Bethune” and “The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains”) were collectively known as the “three constantly read articles”. They promote the proletarian world outlook and firm devotion to the masses and the public interest.
        “Serve the People” is included in volume 3 of Mao’s Selected Works, and is available online at: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_19.htm

SERVICE INDUSTRY
That part of the economy which provides services rather than producing articles for sale. As capitalism has developed, and (among other factors) productivity has tremendously increased in manufacturing, the proportion of the economy devoted to producing services rather than material commodities has greatly increased. (See: PETTY’S LAW.) As of 2010, about 83% of the workers in the private (non-governmental) sector in the U.S. were service workers. Of course, another reason for this change, which is very negative for the U.S., is that its manufacturing base is being rapidly moved overseas for the purpose of increasing profits through the extra exploitation of lower-wage foreign labor.
        See also: SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES

“Most prostitutes are of course women, and in modern capitalist society most of them are technically (i.e., by the definition of technical terms) either workers (working for employers such as pimps or in houses of prostitution) or else are petty bourgeois (self-employed). However, outright slavery or something damned close to it for prostitutes is also still quite common even in advanced capitalist countries such as the U.S. And some prostitutes who are now employed workers, or self-employed, originally became prostitutes because they were forced into it (or, in essence, because they were originally enslaved). But even prostitutes who have never been enslaved, strictly speaking, are still wage slaves or something close to that, and in no other ‘line of work’ is that term more apt! For those who were not outright enslaved, it was the force of capitalist economics that pushed them into wage slavery in this form.
         “Prostitution is an inherently degrading and very dangerous occupation. Moreover, it is an occupation which should not exist, and which will eventually no longer exist. (It will be economically impossible in a future communist society, where even money no longer exists.)
         “My reluctance to use the term ‘sex workers’ is in no way based on any denial that (most) prostitutes are either hired or self-employed workers. It is instead a matter of the connotations of that phrase which imply that prostitution should be viewed as respectable and non-degrading work, like any other labor. Our goal is to overthrow the capitalist system, in part so that we can get rid of things like prostitution, not to somehow make it respectable and a fine occupation. In other words, I agree that prostitutes (in large part) technically are ‘sex workers’, but I oppose the despicable motives of many of those who want to  call them that in present capitalist exploitative society.” —S.H., adapted from a letter to a friend, September 2011.

SEXISM
The view that one sex is superior to, or should be given social primacy over, the other. Since during all human history (at least of class society) men have dominated and oppressed women, in practice sexism almost always means views which support this domination and oppression of women. Sexists believe that there are “natural” intellectual and psychological differences between men and women which supposedly justify this domination and oppression, and special privileges for men. Revolutionary Marxism is of course totally opposed to any form of sexism. And we believe that whatever significant differences there are in average “intelligence” or psychology between men and women in the present society are due virtually entirely to the differences in the ways men and women are brought up and educated (or mis-educated).
        See also: WOMEN — Oppression Of

SEXUAL CRIMES
See: WOMEN—Sexual Crimes Against Under Capitalism,   RAPE—Tacit Acceptance of in Bourgeois Society

SEXUAL PARTNERS
Most people have more than one sexual partner in their lifetimes. As marriages become less stable in modern capitalist society, more people get divorced and remarried. And formal legal marriage as an institution may in fact be in the process of dying out in late capitalist society. (See: MARRIAGE—Trends in Contemporary Capitalist Society) Young people now more frequently live together without marrying, often because of economic necessity. And they even “date” for longer periods without actually living together, also often for reasons of economics and the instability of many personal lives today. Ideally this would all be in part for the purpose of determining whether they were compatible as long term mates, though even really discovering that may be less possible these days. As capitalism collapses, so do the social and family lives of the people.

“Average number of sexual partners a person in a wealthy country has in his or her lifetime: 10.   Average number in a poor country: 6.”   —“Harper’s Index”, Harper’s Magazine, December 2007, p. 17.

SEZ
See: SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE

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