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U.S. Elections:

We Do Have a Choice: Communist Revolution

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 “I don’t want Red Flag,” said a Los Angeles bus driver.  “I’m thinking about the elections.”
“Who are you for?” asked a comrade.
“I don’t like any of them,” he admitted.
“Lots of people say that,” replied the comrade. “Whoever wins in November, we’ll all be in trouble in January.  That’s why we need to talk about communist revolution now.”
“You’ve got a point,” he said.
The stakes are high.  The global crisis of capitalism is making it impossible for masses to live in the old way.  The International Communist Workers’ Party will take advantage of this opportunity to grow significantly in the US and elsewhere.  Many, like that bus driver, should join our ranks. 
For that we must fight for communist ideas in a much bolder and more massive way. 
With candidates like Clinton and Trump, the US rulers need us to believe that their capitalist political system is the best we can do.  Even supposedly anti-capitalist forces push “lesser-evil” scare tactics or “third-party” diversions.
We do have a real choice in the US and everywhere:  Communism.
Communist versus Capitalist Politics
“Big money” rules.  This is the consequence of capitalism’s wage system. Governments in class societies exist precisely to help the rich get richer by exploiting and suppressing the masses. 
The wage system means racist super-exploitation and police terror, nationalism and imperialist war.  Elections help capitalists negotiate their disagreements while pretending that the masses have a say.
Communism means a classless society: no wealth, no exploitation. None will be better or worse off than others. 
We’ll produce and share the things we need without money and markets.  Instead we will connect with mutual respect and commitment to collectivity.
Communist politics means mobilizing masses to help make and implement all decisions that affect us.  It means struggle against the racism, sexism and patriotism that the rulers use to divide our international working class.   We must organize directly for the communist revolution that will end capitalism, their material basis.
Communist leaders aren’t a few “electeds.”  Communism develops many leaders who win respect because of their dedication to serving the masses.  They are principled in struggle and open to criticism because they want to learn and advance the cause. 
Only Communism Can Defeat Fascism and Imperialist War
Fascist Trump emboldens his base to act on their worst racist and sexist impulses.  He poses as a “strong man” who will “save America.”  He shamelessly embraces the “America First” slogan of US Nazis in the 1930s.
Could Trump win?  His pal Putin won in Russia.  Brexit won.  Modi won in India and Netanyahu in Israel.   It’s possible, but unlikely.  Trump’s foreign-policy notions (like weakening NATO) and his strong ties to Russian oligarchs contradict the interests of the dominant US imperialists. 
If the Republicans have become the party of open racism and bigotry, the Democrats have long been the party of imperialist war—and racism (see Democrats:  Racist Warmakers, box below). 
Their convention featured military speakers like a former commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan.  When some delegates chanted “No More War!” others shouted them down with “USA!  USA!”
Yet “progressives” are filling social media with the dangerous old threat that failing to vote for Clinton as the “lesser evil” is “a vote for Trump” or even “white privilege.”
The choice at the ballot-box is war (Clinton) or fascism (Trump).  But whichever you choose, you’ll get the other for free.
Choose communism instead. 
Mobilize for Communism, Not for a “United Front”
We learn from the 20th century that only communist revolution can defeat fascism. 
Communists responded to Hitler’s rise by mobilizing masses to fight Nazis in the streets of cities like Berlin.  Many hoped that allying with Socialists would defeat fascism. 
But the Socialist Party (SPD) government authorized, financed and equipped the “White Guards” that suppressed workers’ revolution in 1918-19.  During the 1920s the SPD declared that “red [communist] equals brown [Nazi].”  In 1931, the SPD-controlled Prussian government banned communist anti-fascist squads and May Day parades.  Communists rightly called SPD leaders “social-fascists.”
This is Bernie Sanders’ “democratic socialist” tradition. These “democratic socialists” supported the German government’s declaration of World War I.  It’s no surprise that Sanders now supports war-maker Clinton.
In 1934 the communists did an about-face and called for unity with the Socialists against   fascism.  But “disunity on the left” did not bring Hitler to power.  German industrialists (and their US pals) decided they needed Hitler to destroy the communist-led workers’ movement and mobilize for another world war.
They got away with this because of the mistakes of the communist movement (see Mobilize for Communist Revolution, Not for Elections, box below).  Fascism can’t be defeated nor communism won at the ballot box.  Communism can’t win by building anti-fascist “united fronts.”  Unity with imperialists strengthens imperialism, not communism.
The Red Army and the Soviet masses stopped Hitler.  What if they had mobilized for communism instead of “the Motherland”?
If European partisans had fought for communist power in 1945 instead of supporting capitalists like DeGaulle?
If the Chinese Red Army had spread its communist “supply system” instead of promoting capitalist “New Democracy”?
Today fascism is again rooted in the global capitalist crisis of overproduction and its inevitable drive toward world war.  The only way forward is communism which will tear up this deadly system at its roots. 
Collectively we know many thousands who, like the bus driver, are disenchanted with capitalist politics.  We must boldly and sharply struggle to overcome their every political objection and obstacle. 
We must find tactics and strategies, like communist political strikes against racist capitalist police murders, to mobilize them.  We must engage them in discussion of Red Flag, Mobilize the Masses for Communism, ICWP pamphlets and communist philosophy (dialectical materialism).  They — including you, our readers — must help us improve our line, our literature and our work. 
All this must lead to the growth of Party collectives and Red Flag distribution networks in workplaces, schools and barracks. 
Choose communism!  Help build a mass International Communist Workers’ Party!

DEMOCRATS: RACIST WARMAKERS

US foreign policy, mainly under Democrats, has killed 20-30 million people since the end of WWII.  Most were in Korea (Truman) and Vietnam (Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon). 
The Bill Clinton administration expanded NATO to Russia’s borders.  It intensified mass misery around the world in the name of “open markets” and “democracy.”  That included military interventions in Somalia (1993), Haiti (1994), Bosnia (1995), Iraq (1998), Sudan (1998), Afghanistan (1998) and Kosovo/Serbia (1999). 
Hillary Clinton said in 2008, “If I’m president, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years … we would be able to totally obliterate them.” 
Secretary of State Clinton argued for increasing troops in Afghanistan (2009).  She pushed for US military intervention in Syria. She supported the 2009 military coup in Honduras.  She helped capitalists in Haiti to keep the minimum wage there at $0.24/hour.
Bill Clinton’s 1994 crime bill triggered the steep rise of mass incarceration of black workers and youth over the next two decades.  (Sanders voted for it.) 
Clinton’s “welfare reform” helped double the number living in extreme poverty (less than $2/person/day) in the US over the next 15 years.

MOBILIZE FOR COMMUNIST REVOLUTION NOT ELECTIONS

German communists, following Comintern policy, threw themselves into elections.  Even in 1932 they nominated Ernst Thaelmann for president as the “red candidate of the German working classes.”  Some said “after Hitler, our turn.”  By 1933 they were casting their ballots from concentration camps.
Communists organized workers’ International Brigades to fight Franco’s fascists in Spain.  But they mobilized as a “popular front” for democracy and the Spanish republic, not for communism.  Later they mobilized to “defend the Soviet Union,” not for communism. 
By 1942 the Soviet Union allied with “lesser-evil” imperialists (Britain and the US) against Germany.  In China it united with fascist Chiang Kai-Shek against Japanese imperialism – until he massacred thousands of Chinese communists.
Hitler was scarcely buried when US imperialism dropped its genocidal atom bombs on Japan.  The British imperialists’ partition of India and Pakistan killed millions more.  After World War II, these so-called “anti-fascists” became the biggest fascists of all.
So beware of calls for “anti-fascist unity” with the likes of Michael Bloomberg and Jeb Bush in support of Clinton.  And beware of those who promote the Green Party to “advance the Sanders revolution.” 
The revolution we need is armed insurrection to replace capitalism with a global communist society where the masses organize ourselves directly to meet our needs.


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