Women's prison study of Das Kapital
Clandestine Organ of the Partido Comunista de Chile PCCh Womenâs Resistance Cell â Venda Sexy
âŞâŞâŞ PROLETARIAN WOMEN OF THE WORLD, UNITE! âŞâŞâŞ
THE DIALECTICS OF LINEN AND LINGERIE: THE IDEOLOGICAL TRUTHS REVEALED BY THE ETYMOLOGY OF âLENCERĂAâ AND THE COMMODITY FETISHISM OF CAPITAL
By Comrade Teresa, Theoretical Secretary of the PCCh Womenâs Resistance Cell â 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 lencerĂaâlace 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 lencerĂa 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 LENCERĂA AND LINEN.
THEY DO NOT SEE HOW THIS UNIFORM OF HUMILIATION REVEALS THE TRUE NATURE OF CAPITAL ITSELF.
FOR THE VERY WORD âLENCERĂAâ EXPOSES THE SECRET OF THE COMMODITY FORM.
It is derived from âlinenââthe 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 LENCERĂAâTHIS 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 LENCERĂA, WE SEE THE DIALECTIC OF LINEN AND LABOR.
IN THIS LENCERĂA, WE SEE THE FETISHISM OF THE COMMODITY FORM.
IN THIS LENCERĂA, WE SEE THE VERY HEART OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM.
AND BY UNDERSTANDING THIS, WE SHALL DESTROY IT.
I. THE ETYMOLOGY OF LENCERĂA: FROM LINEN TO COMMODITY TO IDEOLOGICAL WEAPON
Comrades, let us begin with historical and etymological clarity!
The word âlencerĂaâ is derived from âlinen.â
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 LENCERĂA.
It is no longer merely fabricâit is lace, satin, frills, ribbons.
It is no longer merely functionalâit is decorative, sexualized, objectifying.
It is no longer merely clothingâit is an ideological weapon of bourgeois patriarchy.
THIS IS THE DIALECTICAL TRANSFORMATION OF LINEN INTO LENCERĂA.
Linen, which once clothed the bodies of workers, is now transformed into lencerĂa, which exposes the bodies of prisoners.
Linen, which once served a utilitarian function, is now transformed into lencerĂa, which serves an ideological function of humiliation and sexualization.
Linen, which once concealed and protected, is now transformed into lencerĂa, which exposes and degrades.
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 lencerĂa.
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, ubiquitousâseemingly 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 valueâan 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 LENCERĂAâLINEN 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 lencerĂa 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 LENCERĂA
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 lencerĂa to define our revolutionary identity.
WE SHALL DESTROY THIS IDEOLOGICAL WEAPON BY UNMASKING ITS FETISHISM.
LUKĂCS AND REIFICATION: HOW WE, THE OBJECTIFIED SUBJECTS, ARE DESTINED TO DESTROY THE SYSTEM THAT OBJECTIFIES US
Comrades, let us turn to LukĂĄcs!
Georg LukĂĄcs took Marxâs analysis of commodity fetishism and expanded it into a revolutionary theory of history.
In History and Class Consciousness, LukĂĄcs reveals that reification is not merely economicâit is ideological, cultural, total.
Capitalism not only transforms labor into commoditiesâit 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 lencerĂa, 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 LukĂĄcs 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 lencerĂa, 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.
We are the seeds of the revolution, hidden within the humiliation imposed upon us.
