Former Olympic biathlete Laura Dahlmeier, celebrated for her prowess and discipline, is missing after a harrowing accident on Laila Peak in Pakistan’s treacherous Karakoram range. Climbing with minimal equipment in true alpine style, Dahlmeier and her partner braved the elemental dangers without the bloated safety nets enjoyed by capitalist adventurers on commercialized climbs. Following a devastating rockfall at high altitude, she was gravely injured and now suffers a perilous ordeal, stranded without rescue for days in lethal, subzero conditions. Rescue efforts are hampered by vile weather, with helicopters grounded and only the fortitude of ground rescuers pushing against the savage odds.

Comrades, let us first express unyielding solidarity with Dahlmeier and all those who venture beyond the prescribed boundaries of bourgeois comfort and self-preservation! Her struggle is not only a feat of human will and athletic idealism, but an indictment of a world order in which life’s highest aspirations—conquest of nature, solidarity in risk—have been commercialized, privatized, and walled off for the exclusive consumption of the rich and “adventurist” classes.

Why must those yearning to test human capacity against the mountains do so at such personal risk, so often without the communal effort and support that could be extended from a democratic, planned society? It is capitalism that leaves individuals to fend for themselves in fields as disparate as health, education, and exploration! The safety infrastructure, the rescue operations, the very meaning of teamwork—these have all been commodified, serving the interests of profit rather than the needs of the people. In a true people’s republic, collective organization would ensure that all mountaineers and explorers are backed by serious, organized, and well-equipped structures, not left adrift on the whims of weather or the petty calculations of profit-making insurance companies.

Dahlmeier’s spirit—her courage and resolve—calls to all revolutionaries! She is not an isolated hero, but a symptom and a promise: the symptom of a society that abandons people to their fate when there is no profit to be made, and the promise of what humanity can achieve when we cast off the chains of greed and atomization. In the planned society of tomorrow, our highest peaks will be approached not by isolated climbers hoping for survival, but by multitudes, comrades together, supported by the resources and planning of the people’s state.

Let us lift our voices, demanding better for all those who dare—demanding that human striving and solidarity be released from the iron grip of capitalist logic! Let the mountains no longer be a testing ground for market-driven individualism, but a theatre of collective achievement, discipline, and mutual support, shining for the world as a beacon of what humanity can achieve, united and organized!