[Editor’s Note – The Partisan is excited to publish two articles shared with us by the new revolutionary artist publication Toreador. This article, written by the Toreador Editorial Board, explains the vision, analysis, and principles underlying their new organization. Toreador has informed us they plan on launching a website as well as print copies of their first edition in the coming weeks and months. We thank the comrades for choosing our publication to share their launch announcement and encourage all our readers to reach out to Toreador.Editorial@proton.me to find out how to get involved as well as with any feedback or questions.]
By The Editorial Board of Toreador
May 2025
Chicago, IL
It is springtime in the errant Empire of America. As the genocide in Palestine is livestreamed for the world to see, migrants are hauled off to concentration camps by America’s ersatz Hitler. The tariffs have come, and the cost of living soars simultaneously with mass layoffs. Students and activists who raise political art around their campuses are summoned by school administrations for questioning, or simply have their doors barreled in by the FBI. A year ago, while the country was “Ridin’ with Biden,” sixty-eight student protesters are mass-arrested at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. A complaint was levied to the University of DePaul for a banner depicting a Palestinian child held at gunpoint while the bombs rained down on the Gaza Strip, and working-class artists who threw DIY shows which called attention to police brutality had their events raided by the bulls1 and were escorted out in handcuffs. This spring, much is different and the same. Even the revolutionary-minded artist who has not yet been subject to the repression of imperialism-in-decay knows in the back of their mind: the weeds are here, and they’re growing.
Art does not particularly need to take an explicitly political stance to fall victim to this fate, however. The ruling class has taken issue with independent art in general. Even a nominally “apolitical” DIY function or venue can be shut down because they don’t pay their tax to the city, or because they are in a neighborhood targeted by gentrification. The access to potential gallery and exhibition spaces safeguarded by a city tax and licensing fee, ensuring only the most worthy petit-bourgeois is able to unlock its doors. “Neighborhood Cultural Enrichment” has a steep price tag and a tight vetting process. Meanwhile, independent and working-class artists roll bones on waiting for wealthy (NFT) collectors, startups, advertising, and e-commercites to grace their pitiful pocketbooks.
The reality seems grim. In short, if our art is not subsumed into monopoly-capitalist structures, generating capital for the ruling class, taxed by the ruling class’ state, if it is not producing either meaningless, mind-numbing content, or blatantly pro-war and pro-fascist content, it will sooner-or-later be censored, repressed, or disregarded entirely.
Chicago is a city of DIY, one of the last true bastions that remains within the major urban centers of the empire. DIY offers an alternative to the inherent censorship in bourgeois cultural institutions, where creativity and political expression should be able to exist unadulterated. While the external factors existent within these institutions of the wealthy work to repress, exploit, and bar poor and working-class artists from entry, there are a number of internal issues that affect independent DIY scene(s). Abuse, predation, exploitation, and all manifestations of misogyny are unfortunately rampant, be they venue/gallery owners, artists, musicians, or ill-intentioned attendees, they take advantage of their own clout and/or others’ vunerability for nefarious reasons.
This is all well-known in the Chicago scene, and these basic objective conditions have led to a great deal of conversation amongst its masses regarding what can be done to combat these issues. The last several months have seen artists of all stripes come together to discuss how to keep our venues and shows safe from the city, their pig enforcers, and serial rapists and abusers; these discussions have progressively taken on a more and more explicitly political character as time has gone on, with increasing talk of anti-capitalism, anti-racism, anti-misogyny, etc., as well as coordination across the scene for overtly political causes such as fundraisers/benefit shows. Adjacent to these large discussions, a number of reading groups have been organized which discuss what it means to be a practicing revolutionary artist, and the realities of producing art in a capitalist-imperialist society. It is within this context that our publication, Toreador2, has emerged.
It is our understanding that the repression and censorship of revolutionary culture will not stop any time soon. On the contrary, it will only become more pronounced as imperialism further decays and all the major contradictions of the world intensify. Neither will the emergence of abusers, rapists, misogynists, or chauvinists of any type cease to be a pressing concern in our scenes in the foreseeable future. All these things are intertwined, and these elements, too, will only increase as fascist ideology, patriarchy, and alienation are reinforced through the decay of liberal-democracy and the fast-track to fascism. We cannot rely on anyone but ourselves—that is, the exploited and oppressed people—to address these issues. This kind of proletarian self-reliance requires organization, and it is precisely this type of self-reliant organization for the self-defense of the people which we believe makes the artist revolutionary.
With our publication, we aim to provide a platform which is independent from, and openly hostile towards, the political, economic, and cultural institutions of the ruling class; a platform which can popularize the culture and ideas of the exploited masses while combating the influence of reactionary capitalist culture, and can facilitate the organization and mobilization of revolutionary artists against our common exploiters. Within our pages readers will be able to find an assortment of short stories, poetry, prose, and visual art which capture the rebellious spirit of the working and oppressed people, mixed with reviews and critique of both popular and underground media, theory, news regarding the political and cultural movements of our class, as well as concrete calls to action.
Submissions for Issue 1 of Toreador are open now, and may be sent to Toreador.editorial@proton.me.
Purpose and Goals of Toreador
- To mobilize artists and consumers of art—especially its working class and oppressed elements—in political action.
- To organize and promote revolutionary artists of all mediums; to facilitate and develop the growth of a revolutionary working-class art movement.
- To render direct and actionable support to the working class and broad revolutionary movement.
- To popularize the understanding that all art is political and the task of the revolutionary artist is to promote revolutionary politics.
- Critique for the dual purposes of bettering revolutionary art and of combating the influence of reactionary art.
Principles of Toreador
- Working class independence. We are opposed to the struggles of the working class being subsumed into the ruling class political apparatus, and reject all the political parties and organizations of the ruling capitalist class including its NGO, non-profit industrial complex which serves as an auxiliary to capitalist dictatorship. We uphold that the working class must establish its own political party and mass organizations to lead their struggle.
- Sympathy for the socialist reorganization of society. We support and work towards the construction of a socialist society ran by and for the working class, which necessitates political and economic struggle to wrest control of society away from the ruling capitalist class. This is the only means by which capitalist exploitation and oppression can be defeated.
- All art is political. We reject the concept of “art for art’s sake” and any possibility of art being depoliticized. Art exists within a political world. The instruments of art are produced under a global system of capitalist exploitation. The venues, galleries, record labels, management and distribution companies, etc. exist within the context of political and economic relations of production and distribution. The ideas which art captures originate from and reflect particular class ideas which reproduce the ideology of that class. These basic facts are indisputable, and no amount of “attempting” to make “apolitical art”—itself being a political choice—can circumvent this reality.
- The task of the revolutionary artist is to stir people to revolutionary action. The revolutionary artist is not merely the artist who comments on political ideas or fancies themselves revolutionary. The revolutionary artist actively participates in the revolutionary struggle and stirs others, through their art and otherwise, to political action.
- Anti-imperialism. We understand that the biggest threat and chief enemy of the global working class is the global ruling class’ domination and super-exploitation of oppressed nations around the world. In particular, we recognize U.S. imperialism as the main enemy of the people of the world. We further understand that this relationship of imperialism vs oppressed nations applies to the internal colonies of the United States including the New Afrikan, Chicano, and indigenous nations in addition to the overseas colonies.
- Anti-racism. We understand racism to be a weapon of the imperialist ruling class derived from imperialist domination of the colonized world used both to justify the subjugation of the oppressed nations to the oppressor nations, and to divide the working class itself in an attempt to prevent coordinated internationalist action. We reject any and all manifestations of racism, and seek to combat them internally and externally.
- Anti-misogyny + proletarian feminism. We likewise understand misogyny to be a tool of the imperialist ruling class to prevent unified action of the working class across gender lines. To combat this, we uphold the principles of proletarian feminism, which places emphasis on working-class women, working-class unity, and the importance of educating, mobilizing, and organizing working and oppressed women into the revolutionary struggle. Marx, quoting Fourier, had said that “the degree of emancipation of woman is the natural measure of general emancipation.”
- Anti-opportunism; anti-electoralism; anti-reformism. Opportunism is the practice of trading the long-term goals of the working class and revolutionary movement in exchange for short-term gains. Electoralism is the policy of seeking solutions for the oppressed and exploited masses through the electoral process under capitalism. Reformism is the policy of seeking compromise with our enemies in the popular and revolutionary struggle. We understand that the basis of exploitation and oppression under capitalism lie in the foundation of capitalism itself; that the contradiction between the working class and its class enemy is irreconcilable; and that, flowing from these concepts, we must never lose sight of the long-term interest of the working class: socialism. As such, all three of these tendencies must be combated in our work.
- Democratic Centralism. That is, we understand our organizations must be both democratic in decisions and united in carrying out political work. This means that all members must share their political opinions among Toreador membership but should carry out democratically agreed-upon work regardless of individual disagreements in strategy.
