Red Flag Letters

Red Flag aspires to be a newspaper of a new type for a party, dedicated to mobilizing the masses around the world for communism. We’re breaking new ground and learning as we go. We will inevitably make mistakes—and disagree about what the mistakes are that we’re making. The letters page is a good place for comrades to engage in criticism and self-criticism, and help us learn to write in a way that will advance the work. We ask writers to be brief, and to criticize in ways that are sharp, but comradely. Collectively we have a lot to learn.

I am a teacher. I want to share with you the experience that I had in a teacher training class that we had on the weekends. I met a teacher whose training began when he was 11 years old in the refugee camp of Colomoncagua Honduras, during El Salvador’s armed conflict in the 1980’s. He worked in the shops and in the afternoons he taught reading (they were called popular teachers).
As part of the training in our current class, they gave us the task of writing a story for elementary school students. He shared part of his story and asked me to read it and tell him if I understood the text.
When I stated reading it, I discovered that it was a communist story.
It was something related to the senses. It began with the sense of taste and in his story he said that the food was prepared with joy so that all the people could savor those delicacies. Nobody lacked food; there was enough for everyone… and so his story continued.
I immediately said, “This is a communist story!”
He looked at me and said, “How do you know?”
I answered, “I know communist ideas, being organized in the International Communist Workers’ Party—ICWP and I’m glad that you also have this way of thinking. We are fighting for a communist system in which all of humanity has food and no one dies of hunger.”
In a subsequent conversation he already trusted me and he told me his story of how he became a teacher.
We kept talking and I told him about Red Flag. He told me that he hadn’t read anything like that. I offered to bring him the newspaper. I told him how workers organized in ICWP use this newspaper as our tool for deepening and spreading communist ideas, about how communism must put an end to the capitalist system through worldwide proletarian revolution. He is interested in reading Red Flag which I will deliver to him the next time we get together.
We should take advantage of any space to carry out our Communist work.
--Comrade Teacher in El Salvador

Today’s strike of workers in India is very inspiring, though we know the limitations of the trade unions’ goals. But I think it will be helpful for mass mobilization for communism.
In Bangladesh also many things are happening. The state rulers are determined to launch the Rampal coal-powered electricity plant in the Khulna district, near the Sundarbans. This mangrove forest, the world’s largest, is supposed to be protected.
The Rampal plant is a partnership between India’s state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation and the Bangladesh Power Development Board. The contract is beyond illegal. But the fascist government of Dhaka [capital of Bangladesh] is on hardline to do that.
Moreover here university students are demanding their accommodation but the authority is denying them. There is no internal law and order at all. Rape, killing, robbery are increasing day by day. You know the practice of such rulers and their followers’ deeds. These are boiling the citizens’ anger against the ruling class.
The conditions are very beneficial for the mass mobilization for our party. The so-called Communists here are not doing the true job. We need dialectical materialism to sum things up. Fake Communists can’t find the true way to fight against the capitalists. Only we can build a true communist movement.
Red salute, comrades!

Recently I had some discussions with a colleague regarding the idea of the political strike, in addition to other demands related to the upsurge in the fightback against cop terror in the US at this time.
In our conversation, we agreed that a political strike must have a specific demand and that this strike should be international in scope, if at all possible. We spoke of the 2006 movement in Los Angeles and other cities in support of immigrant rights, and how that date should be considered a political strike, albeit one of the largest of its kind in the US.
The political strike we envision could be generally focused on demanding an end to pig terror, and demanding justice for all the victims of cop terror. This would raise that political demand that, since the US is unable to protect Black people and the oppressed people from cop terror, that the international working class be called upon to do so through the ICWP.
I hope that this proposal will be discussed, debated, and considered as one way to bring a revolutionary political orientation to the upsurge of struggle against police terror.
-a comrade

Among other roles, the wage system divides workers almost like a wall or border fence. On the front pages of the last Red Flag there was an article discussing possible fight backs against planned cuts in the wages of Los Angeles MTA (transit) workers. On the back pages, there was a letter analyzing possible fight-backs against cuts in the wages of LA garment workers.
The last issue of Red Flag pointed out MTA workers can have their job assigned to Foothill Transit and Magic Denim garment workers (LA) can have their jobs assigned to workers in Mexico. As we can see this aspect of the wage system only differs slightly from the slave system.
In chattel slavery, the worker could be assigned any job, anywhere, any master (boss) wanted.
In wage slavery any job can be assigned any worker, anywhere, any boss (master) wants. The system creates a huge gap between “high” paid and “low” paid workers. The one supposedly a stable, law abiding, backbone of the system; the other, marginal and suspect. But it is only appearances.
The reality is that both groups are disposable. The wage system only has use for a worker (high paid or low paid) if he or she can make a profit for the boss (master).
Red Flag should unite these two groups. Our paper is pioneering the development of communist propaganda where we take a single issue and demonstrate its connection to the whole capitalist system. Alongside that, we should also develop communist agitation where we take a single issue and build a communist campaign around it calling for meetings, demonstrations, marches or strikes against the wage system. Students could help too.
This is solidarity in action!
--Veteran comrade

The last mobilization we had was very good. We ended up running out of 500 Red Flags. More questions were asked and answered and the DVD’s were played. The masses were so shocked when we were playing The Unknown War (WWII) and the epic battles of the Russian front. Good enough that our masses getting the Red Flag were all soldiers. As they were busy watching the DVD they couldn’t keep quiet. They are hoping to join us at the next political classes or conference.
--South African comrade

“You Can’t Eat Money!”

As we go to press, the National Guard has been activated in North Dakota and riot gear-clad police have arrested at least twenty protestors at the construction site of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and thousands of Native Americans and their supporters have occupied the site, demanding that the construction of an oil pipeline under the Missouri River be stopped.
The Obama administration has called a temporary halt to the process, but the long-term struggle continues.
Under capitalism, the decisions about energy are driven primarily by profit and secondarily by political opportunism. In a communist society we will need to make hard decisions that weigh immediate human need for emergy against the long term preservation of the planet. But in communism, the masses led by their party will make these decisions--not the capitalists and their politicians.

I had a discussion with my friends from school and classmates about communism. The first thing we talked about was exploitation of workers by the capitalists. One of them said that when he finishes his degree he will join the workforce to work and save enough money and start a business so that he can stop being exploited.
That brought the issue of selfishness to the discussion. Many of them doubt that there can be a place where people work for a collective because they believe that the element of selfishness and corruption will always be there.
As the discussion continued one of them raised the issue of fear of coming out of the comfort zone. Some people do know that they’re exploited but they fear that they have many family members who depend on their salaries. So if they fight capitalism they will end up with no jobs and that means no income for them.
Another thing on the menu was the issue of the wrong understanding about communism. Some of them think that in a communist society the government owns everything and allocates everything to the people. The explanation to the wrong understanding about a communist society was that in a communist society there will be no classes, meaning there will be no government because that will create another class.
To summarise the discussion, the main issue was individualism and how will a communist society defeat it. Some people are conditioned about or from it from an early age, so as they grow it becomes a part of their lives.
--Comrade Lwaze in South Africa

I’ve just received some pamphlets on soldiers and Mobilize the Masses for Communism from the post. I want to thank you for these documents and express my gratitude. Workers really appreciate them. They always ask me for more. I am going to distribute them first thing on Monday at work.
Something I have been observing over a period of time is that workers are starved of reading material. Hence they are easily persuaded by capitalist print and electronic media. So the ease of access and availability of the relevant reading material will go a long way in shaping the correct understanding of working class ideology and practice.
--A comrade in South Africa

On August 3, South Africa held its local municipal elections. The African National Congress (ANC), which has been in power for the last 22 years, lost three major cities: the Nelson Mandela Metro (Port Elizabeth area), Thswane, and Johannesburg. They lost them to the DA (Democratic Alliance).
The ANC’s losses provide us with great opportunities to mobilize the masses for communism. The masses in South Africa are tired of the arrogance and empty promises of the ANC and its corruption. As a result they are looking for alternatives.
The shift of power from the ANC to the DA does not mean better things are about to come for the working class. It simply means that they are about to continue as before. The DA was in power in Cape Town before the elections and is still in power. The working class lives in horrific conditions there: it is number one in gang violence nationally; it has more shacks. Voting for the DA is not the solution.
The only solution is to join the ICWP in fighting the very system that created these problems: capitalism.
The masses saw that the ANC was not the Party that cares for their needs. Therefore, most people did not vote. People are tired and looking for alternatives and a solution.
This provides us with the opportunity to mobilize these masses to fight for a classless communist society where the needs of the working class are primary. A society that struggles to meet the needs of all our brothers and sisters.
We urge our comrades and class brothers and sisters to join our party, the ICWP and help provide the only solution to the problems created by capitalism. We can do this if the masses in South Africa and around the world make communist ideas their own and spread them to every corner of the world. That is how we can put an end to this horrific capitalist system.

FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!

International Communist Workers Party

Letters to Red Flag

	FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
	International Communist Workers Party


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