Image: AP

The Russian Communist Party is seeking to internationally copyright the red star symbol, according to the Moscow Times and the Russian-language site Lenta.ru. We commend our comrades’ noble contribution to the worldwide struggle for the dismantling of bourgeois property.

The red star, an icon of communism, is being appropriated by vulgar capitalist institutions such as Macy’s, Heineken beer, and the California Republic. Never mind that many of these counterrevolutionary pigs have been in business since long before the founding of the Soviet Union, as the Moscow Times notes, or that there is no such thing as international copyright law, or that the concept of copyright stands against the central precepts of communism.

From the Times:

State Duma deputy and chief lawyer for the Communist Party (KPRF) Vadim Solovyov said his comrades would send an appeal to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, asking him to ensure “protection of our symbols, including the red star — the symbol of victory that appears on our military flags,” Lenta.ru reported. “Sometimes our symbols are used for commercial purposes, and the state must protect state symbols from commercial use by foreign firms,” Solovyov was quoted as saying. Foreigners “have nothing to do with our symbolism,” he added. Russian companies could still be allowed to use the symbol, as long as they do not “intentionally distort [it] or use in an incorrect form,” Solovyov said, Lenta.ru reported. He did not specify what would constitute the correct or incorrect use of a red star image.

However, there is a Marxist-Leninist concept known as “heightening the contradictions,” which holds that by embracing the present conditions of capitalism or making them even worse, we might accelerate the revolution. By asserting that it is the owner of a symbol that’s supposed to represent the end of individual ownership, the Russian Communist Party is highlighting the absurdities of the copyright system itself, albeit unintentionally. When you look at it that way, they’re just being good Marxists.