Few people in history are more slandered than Vladimir Lenin. From school textbooks to the capitalist press, the ruling class are desperate to blacken Lenin’s name wherever they get the opportunity. But how should communists respond?

Yesterday afternoon, active-duty member of the US Air Force Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, in protest against US imperialism’s complicity with the war on Gaza. The news of this brave act of self-sacrifice by a single man has powerfully echoed through the hearts of hundreds of millions of men and women.