Wrote this up, sent it a couple of places, hopefully it'll be online somewhere before next week. Let me know what you think:
RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER (MARX AND ENGELS, 1874) Trevor Seigler
Rudolph was born to proletariat reindeer in the great factory of toys on the North Pole. His father was worked to death by the yearly demands of factory overseer and allegedly "jolly" fat man Santa Claus, who endeavored every year to take the many gifts that his serfs (or "elves") had made over the course of months and distribute them to bourgeois children the world over all in the course of one night. Rudolph's mother, from the aristocracy, had married beneath her class and was forced to subsist on the kindness of strangers to put her young son through state-operated schools, where young Rudolph learned his station in the military-industrial complex of Santa's Workshop.
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Rudolph was ostracized by his more prestigious peers for his inability to acquire wealth and his awkwardly shiny red nose. Some bourgeois reindeer insisted that you could even say it glows, but Rudolph was afflicted with an allergic reaction to fumes spitted out by the workshop's ironworks. At first Rudolph aspired to rise above his class in a desperate attempt to woe female deer, but he soon realized that his attempts to improve himself would never yield him the respect and acclaim granted to his better-off bourgeois reindeer brothers.
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Hermie was thrust into the worker's class at an early age, and spent many years manufacturing general-issue toys for Santa to take and deliver on Christmas Eve. Long concerned that his work was not rewarded with little more than a bowl of porridge, Hermie filed a complaint with his supervisor that called for a more equitable profit-sharing plan for the serfs of the workshop. Hermie cited unsafe working conditions and how the serfs were not given a fair amount in compensation for all their hard work. Hermie was promptly laid off by his capitalist overlords.
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On the run after a political tract denouncing Santa was traced to him, Rudolph met Hermie and devised a plan to overthrow the workshop's masters and make the enterprise a collective one. "We must let the elves know that they need to control the means of production," Hermie told his comrade. "Yes, but also let them know that if they refuse to work, Santa will be unable to fulfill his contractual obligation to the bourgeoisie establishment on Christmas Eve," Rudolph added. While refining their logic, they met Klondike Joe, a miner from Russia who confused material wealth with self-worth. Joe's entertaining song "Silver and Gold" was rejected as typical capitalist propaganda, and soon he came over to their side of the debate.
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On the Island of Forgotten Toys, Rudolph and his companions found products of labor that had been deemed "unworthy" and abandoned by Santa during his Christmas Eve trek. "We were judged unworthy," said the Doll Who Couldn't Cry, "and the little bourgeois boys and girls demanded 'better' toys. We were not put to use, simply left alone here instead." Rudolph promised that, when the worker's revolt came to pass, he would rescue them from their unproductive fate and allow them to share in the people's work.
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On Christmas Eve, Santa found that he was in need of a reindeer with the ability to illuminate his path around the world. "Rudolph, with your nose so bright," the capitalist pig asked, "won't you guide my sleigh tonight?" Rudolph agreed to only after getting Santa to concede control of the workshop to "the people" of the North Pole and instituting health reforms to combat the common ailment of Black Lung disease amongst the serfs. Hermie became the foreman for the workshop, but worked alongside his employees and insisted that he was their equal. Klondike Joe donated his former wealth of silver and gold to be melted and manufactured into tools that all the elves could use. As Rudolph led Santa's sleigh for not only the bourgeois households but also those of the working man, he called out to his brothers back at the pole "Remember strength in numbers! And have a Merry Christmas!"
***
Several years later, Santa had to be overthrown in a People's Revolt, and the bourgeois practice of giving gifts was rejected in favor of everyone sharing their belongings. Rudolph demurred from leading the People's Republic of The North Pole, choosing to retire instead to his humble cottage next to the Abominable Snowman. Klondike Joe took over and became a bloodthirsty tyrant. But the dark times passed, and the People's Republic eventually held off capitalist efforts to re-institute Christmas as a gift-giving or -receiving holiday.
The End
