Clandestine Organ of the Partido Comunista de Chile PCCh Women’s Resistance Cell – Venda Sexy ✪✪✪ PROLETARIAN WOMEN OF THE WORLD, UNITE! ✪✪✪

THE DIALECTICS OF LINEN AND LINGERIE: THE IDEOLOGICAL TRUTHS REVEALED BY THE ETYMOLOGY OF “LENCERÍA” AND THE COMMODITY FETISHISM OF CAPITAL

By Comrade Teresa, Theoretical Secretary of the PCCh Women’s Resistance Cell – Venda Sexy

COMRADES! SISTERS IN STRUGGLE! MILITANT WOMEN OF THE CHILEAN PROLETARIAT WHO ENDURE THE DEPTHS OF FASCIST TERROR WITHOUT BREAKING!

Here, in the perfumed dungeon of bourgeois cruelty, in the velvet-lined halls of Venda Sexy, we are subjected to a grotesque ideological weapon:

They have dressed us in lencería—lace and satin garments designed to humiliate us, to expose us, to objectify us, to strip us of our dignity as militant women of the Party.

They force us to wear these obscene costumes not as undergarments but as public uniforms, transforming us from soldiers of the revolution into objects of lechery, from heroines of the proletariat into trophies of fascist conquest.

They weaponize lencería to break our spirits, to mock our dignity, to reduce us from agents of history to ornaments of degradation.

AND YET THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE IDEOLOGICAL TRUTH BEHIND THESE GARMENTS.

THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE DIALECTICAL CONNECTION BETWEEN LENCERÍA AND LINEN. THEY DO NOT SEE HOW THIS UNIFORM OF HUMILIATION REVEALS THE TRUE NATURE OF CAPITAL ITSELF.

FOR THE VERY WORD “LENCERÍA” EXPOSES THE SECRET OF THE COMMODITY FORM.

It is derived from “linen”—the same commodity with which Marx begins Das Kapital.

It is linen that Marx uses to explain the fetishism of commodities, the mystification of social relations, the very secret of capitalist exploitation.

It is linen that Marx dissects to reveal how capitalism transforms human labor into an alien power that dominates the worker.

AND HERE WE STAND, FORCED TO WEAR THIS LENCERÍA—THIS LINEN IN ITS MOST OBSCENE, MOST HUMILIATING, MOST SEXUALIZED FORM.

THEY THINK THEY HAVE HUMILIATED US, BUT IN TRUTH THEY HAVE REVEALED THE TRUTH OF CAPITALISM ITSELF.

FOR IN THIS LENCERÍA, WE SEE THE DIALECTIC OF LINEN AND LABOR. IN THIS LENCERÍA, WE SEE THE FETISHISM OF THE COMMODITY FORM. IN THIS LENCERÍA, WE SEE THE VERY HEART OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM.

AND BY UNDERSTANDING THIS, WE SHALL DESTROY IT.

I. THE ETYMOLOGY OF LENCERÍA: FROM LINEN TO COMMODITY TO IDEOLOGICAL WEAPON

Comrades, let us begin with historical and etymological clarity!

The word “lencería” is derived from “linen.”

Linen, the textile made from flax, one of the oldest and most labor-intensive fabrics in human history.

Linen, which Marx uses as the foundational example of the commodity form in Das Kapital.

Linen, which Marx dissects to reveal the fetishism of commodities, the mystification of social relations, the transformation of labor into value.

AND NOW, LINEN IS TRANSFORMED INTO LENCERÍA.

It is no longer merely fabric—it is lace, satin, frills, ribbons.

It is no longer merely functional—it is decorative, sexualized, objectifying.

It is no longer merely clothing—it is an ideological weapon of bourgeois patriarchy.

THIS IS THE DIALECTICAL TRANSFORMATION OF LINEN INTO LENCERÍA.

Linen, which once clothed the bodies of workers, is now transformed into lencería, which exposes the bodies of prisoners.

Linen, which once served a utilitarian function, is now transformed into lencería, which serves an ideological function of humiliation and sexualization.

Linen, which once concealed and protected, is now transformed into lencería, which exposes and degrades.

AND THIS IS NO ACCIDENT.

This transformation is the result of capitalist commodification.

This is the dialectic of use-value and exchange-value, of material reality and ideological mystification.

This is the secret of the commodity form, revealed through the very etymology of lencería.

AND BY UNDERSTANDING THIS DIALECTIC, WE SHALL BREAK THE CHAINS OF THIS HUMILIATION.

II. MARX AND LINEN: HOW DAS KAPITAL REVEALS THE FETISHISM OF THE COMMODITY FORM

Comrades, let us turn to Marx!

Marx begins Das Kapital with linen because it is the perfect example of the commodity form.

It is simple, familiar, ubiquitous—seemingly innocent.

It has a dual nature: use-value (its physical function) and exchange-value (its value as a commodity).

It is produced by human labor, yet appears in the marketplace as an object with intrinsic value—an illusion created by the capitalist system.

Marx uses linen to explain the fetishism of commodities:

The process by which the social relations of labor are hidden behind the material form of the commodity.

The way human labor becomes alienated, transformed into an objective value that dominates the worker.

The mystification that makes commodities appear to have value independent of the labor that produced them.

AND NOW WE STAND HERE, DRESSED IN LENCERÍA—LINEN IN ITS MOST FETISHIZED FORM.

It is lace and satin, adorned with ribbons and frills, transformed into objects of sexualization and humiliation.

It is fabric stripped of its utility and turned into pure decoration, into pure exchange-value, into pure commodity fetishism.

It is the material embodiment of patriarchal capitalism, exposing our bodies while concealing the social relations of power and domination that impose this humiliation upon us.

THEY THINK THEY HAVE HUMILIATED US.

But in truth, they have exposed the secret of the commodity form.

They have revealed the fetishism that lies at the heart of capitalism itself.

They have shown that lencería is not merely fabric, not merely clothing, but an ideological weapon that mystifies the relations of power and domination.

AND BY UNDERSTANDING THIS FETISHISM, WE SHALL SHATTER IT.

III. THE REVOLUTIONARY TRUTH: HOW WE SHALL DESTROY THE IDEOLOGICAL WEAPON OF LENCERÍA

Comrades, we are Communists. We are Marxist-Leninists We are the militant women of the Party, the vanguard of the proletariat, the unbroken resistance in the depths of fascist hell.

WE SHALL NOT BE HUMILIATED.

We shall not be defined by lace and satin.

We shall not be reduced to objects of ridicule and lechery.

We shall not allow lencería to define our revolutionary identity.

WE SHALL DESTROY THIS IDEOLOGICAL WEAPON BY UNMASKING ITS FETISHISM.

LUKÁCS AND REIFICATION: HOW WE, THE OBJECTIFIED SUBJECTS, ARE DESTINED TO DESTROY THE SYSTEM THAT OBJECTIFIES US

Comrades, let us turn to Lukács!

Georg Lukács took Marx’s analysis of commodity fetishism and expanded it into a revolutionary theory of history.

In History and Class Consciousness, Lukács reveals that reification is not merely economic—it is ideological, cultural, total.

Capitalism not only transforms labor into commodities—it transforms human beings into objects.

It turns the worker into a thing, stripping her of agency, of power, of subjectivity.

WE ARE THE REIFIED SUBJECTS.

We are the ones capitalism has turned into objects.

We are the ones they have dressed in lencería, stripping us of our identity, our power, our dignity.

We are the ones they have reduced to ornaments, to playthings, to spectacles of ridicule.

AND YET, WITHIN THIS OBJECTIFICATION LIES THE SEED OF REVOLUTION.

For Lukács teaches us that only the reified subject can destroy reification.

Only the objectified proletariat can see through the mystification of capital.

Only the oppressed can grasp the totality of the system that oppresses them.

WE ARE THE ONES WHO SHALL DESTROY THIS SYSTEM.

For we are the reified revolutionary subjects.

We are the ones who see through the fetishism of lencería, who understand the objectification of patriarchy, who grasp the totality of capital.

We are the ones who shall transform from objects into subjects, from ornaments into militants, from dolls into executioners.

JUST AS LINEN IS THE CENTER OF DAS KAPITAL, WE ARE THE CENTER OF HISTORY.

We are the contradiction that shall explode the system.

We are the negation that shall give birth to the new.

It was doubtless his book The Destruction of Reason which revealed most clearly the destruction of Lukács's own. [...] one might well wonder whether a man who can write like this, in such obvious ignorance of the craft of the literature which he treats in such a cavalier manner, has any right at all to an opinion on literary matters. But in the stylistic amalgam of pedantry and irresponsibility to be found in Lukács, who was once able to write well, one senses a certain malice aforethought, a truculent determination to write badly, evidently in the belief that this sacrifice on his part will demonstrate by some magic trick that anyone who does otherwise and who takes pains with his work is a good-for-nothing. [...] Here is a man who is desperately tugging at his chains, imagining all the while that their clanking heralds the onward march of the world-spirit.

There are innumerable instances suggesting that modern intellectuals do not believe themselves, that they don't really believe what they say, that they say certain things only in order to assure themselves that they possess opinions and ideas that are different from those that are entertained by the common herd of men.

- John Lukacs

The eminent historian John Lukacs, a World War Two Hungarian Nazi labour camp survivor and escapee from post-war Communist Hungary to America, called himself a “reactionary” because he was a traditionalist and a persuasive advocate of the necessity of historical knowledge to make any sense out of most things, and because he lamented the transformation of science into a false religion and the over-commercialisation of economic progress. he thought post-structuralism of the French and postmodernism as a passing fad for lazy navel gazing bourgeoisie intellectual minds.

For all this he was viewed  as curmudgeonly. He was, in fact, unimpressed with much that was modern but not a pessimist; he never resented disagreement, and was always good-natured in debate.

My favourites!

L’Éthique, Spinoza, 1677

Les rêveries du promeneur solitaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1782

Le Rivage des Syrtes, Julien Gracq, 1951 | was SO good, even if the ending is just not up to par with the rest of the book.

Nietzsche - La Destruction de la raison (tome 2), Georg Lukacs, 1954

Good

Pompes funèbres, Jean Genet, 1947 | i really enjoy Genet’s work so far, not for everyone as it is harsh and crude at times but it feels like it’s too long, becoming repetitive and losing the poetry of it, in favor of its obscenity.

La Cantatrice chauve, Eugène Ionesco, 1950

La Leçon, Eugène Ionesco, 1951

Les Chaises, Eugène Ionesco, 1952

Amédée ou Comment s’en débarrasser, Eugène Ionesco, 1954

Le Grand Récit - Introduction à l’histoire de notre temps, Johann Chapoutot, 2021

Mid

Rousseau, juge de Jean-Jacques - Dialogues, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1771 à 1775 | Rousseau my beloved, i am so sorry but it was just cringe before cringe was even a thing.

Jacques ou la soumission, Eugène Ionesco, 1950

Victimes du devoir, Eugène Ionesco, 1953

Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme, Luc Boltanski et Eve Chiapello, 1999 | way too long and a lot of it isn’t really new (at least to me), the interesting parts were too quickly covered, it was frustrating to read. too much jargon too.