FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
International Communist Workers Party
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FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!International Communist Workers Party |
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After the Savar building collapse crushed and burned garment workers in Bangladesh factories, the bosses are closing factories that they suddenly call ‘unsafe.’ They are throwing tens of thousands of workers from the frying pan of brutal wage slavery into the fire of homelessness, starvation and slow death.
Forbes magazine, blood-thirsty champion of racist wage slavery, wrote , “Bangladesh is too poor to afford safe work places.” In fact, capitalism is unsafe for every worker. Workers produce all value, but the bosses pocket most of this value, selling the product of our labor for profit. Competition among capitalists forces the bosses to squeeze workers even more. The end result: factories collapse, mines cave in, refineries burn and workers die.
Bosses need an army of unemployed to
attack all workers
The existence of a large population of unemployed workers helps the bosses carry out such murderous attacks. Marx called this “a reserve army of labor.” These workers, struggling for bare survival are forced to accept even more vicious working conditions and lower wages when the employed workers are maimed, injured or killed at work.
Factory closures for “safety” reasons are already swelling the army of the unemployed in Bangladesh. This will cause wages to drop not only in Bangladesh but in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, El Salvador, Mexico, etc. Compounding this downward pressure on wages is the crisis in Europe and the US, where workers are spending less and buying cheaper garments.
Unemployed Bangladeshi workers are desperately seeking jobs in Japan, the Middle East and Europe. In Spain, Greece, and Italy, they labor in the fields for months, often not paid any wages at all. About three weeks ago, some Bangladeshi farm workers in Greece, not paid for six months, went on strike. Their racist boss shot at them, injuring 26 workers.
Workers respond with strikes and mass
violence
The workers in Bangladesh are not taking these attacks passively. The last six years has seen violent strikes and fight backs, often led by women workers. Each fire in a garment factory has seen workers striking and blocking freeways. Bosses fear that masses of angry workers will ultimately fight to end the bloodthirsty system of wage slavery. After the collapse of the garment factory, a strike wave spread in Bangladesh. Over 100,000 tea pickers who earn less than 75 cents a day have joined the striking garment workers.
To mislead the workers, the bosses are desperately building nationalism and fundamentalist religious parties. Local and international bosses are also pushing trade unionism and reforms as the “solution.” But the lie that capitalist greed can be ended through reform is a deadly illusion.
In spite of these poisonous ideologies and unions, very large numbers of workers are eager, willing and determined to fight for their class interest. However, without recruiting masses of these workers to our party, the bosses will prevail. We must not allow this sick system to bury or burn more workers.
Communist ideas dominate workers’ action
After the Savar building collapsed, masses of workers and students risked their lives to save their class brothers and sisters. Aspects of communist consciousness surged forward in the midst of poverty, deprivation, despair and death. A fifty-year-old worker put his home address in his shirt pocket, telling his friends and family where it was in case he didn’t return alive. With a hammer and the dim and fading light of his cell phone, he disappeared in the twisted heaps of cement and steel to save the workers trapped deep inside. There were many brave workers like him. Some did not come back; others were able to save the trapped workers.
Bury capitalism! Communism is the future!
We must figure out how to translate these aspects of communism in workers’ lives into conscious commitment to joining the Party to seize power for communism. Wherever our Party is active, we must struggle with our friends to build solidarity with the Bangladeshi workers. We should advance this heroic fight-back by recruiting more readers, distributers and writers for Red Flag. This struggle will strengthen our Party, and we will build the basis for workers in Bangladesh and internationally to join our Party.
Under communism, contrary to capitalist wage slavery, alienation, and depression, society will produce for our needs, not for profits. There will be no unemployment; every one’s work will be needed. Producing for our needs without money will be the most fulfilling, creative and satisfying activity. Everyone will contribute according to their ability and commitment.
From the rubble of Savar, ICWP must emerge with more vigor and determination.
“One thousand one-hundred and twenty-seven!” That’s how a Boeing Red Flag reader greeted a comrade as he came to work last week. “That’s a hell of a lot dead —and too many orphans.”
He was referring to the official count of those killed by the garment bosses in the Bangladesh Savar Plaza building collapse.
“Some around here are blaming the corrupt Bangladeshi government or the lack of unions, but I don’t think that’s it,” replied our comrade. “I think it is the global capitalist system of production: a system organized for the profits of a few bosses, not the needs of the working class.”
“That’s it!” the reader shouted, tired of the half-assed solutions the bosses have been pushing in their media. He took an extra Red Flag to distribute.
In the U.S. and Europe, the press and a host of liberal coalitions push the lie that if the Bangladeshi workers had a voice through unions, they could keep the local bosses’ greed in check. But the history of our class shows the disastrous results of this mistaken strategy. (see 1934 General Strike in Textiles)
Capitalism kills. No amount of good will or militant struggle to make it a more humane system will change its nature.
Nothing can fundamentally change until we produce for our needs, not the profits of the bosses. Bangladeshi workers are fighting back by the tens of thousands, often led by heroic women, supported by many more around the world. Nothing short of mobilizing these masses for communism will do.
From the early morning of May Day, enthusiastic comrades from every corner of the country prepared to distribute Red Flag, Mobilize the Masses for Communism (MMC), and the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) leaflet.
Masses of workers who hungrily search for a solution to capitalism in crisis expect communist literature.
Months before, ICWP clubs worked to organize the logistics of distributing literature and preparing banners and shirts to take communist ideas to the May Day marchers.We had more members this year willing to bring communist ideas to the masses.
This year, the governing party, the Faribundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN), took advantage of the march to show the country the new oil company, Alba Petroleos, which will dominate markets and give birth to a new Salvadoran bourgeoisie.
Although, the leaders of the most important unions have sworn their loyalty to the new bourgeoisie and its party, the FMLN, the masses have not been silent about speaking out on the problems of the health care system, security, gangs and drug trafficking, all results of a capitalist government and system that tries to
fool the masses while arguing they are the “left.”
At the march, workers took Red Flag with enthusiasm; groups of workers asked me for three copies of Red Flag. They will take the papers home and distribute to more workers and their families who will learn about the international work of our party. Other comrades had similar experiences distributing our literature. The specter of communism is indeed spreading among the masses.
It was awesome to see our clubs marching with workers under the slogan “Fight to Victory; Workers to Power.” In El Salvador’s main streets, we saw workers sitting on the sidewalks or, while marching, reading our communist literature with great interest.
To the extent that the masses realize that the FMLN government and any electoral party are incapable of solving the problems of hunger, poverty, and delinquency, the masses are open to new ideas. They are searching for solutions to these problems that result from voracious capitalism which seeks to increase profits and cares nothing about the cost of workers’ lives.
The efforts of comrades committed to the struggle for Communist revolution resulted in distributing thousands of Red Flags and hundreds of MMCs at May Day.
The struggle to build a communist world continues and more workers are joining the ranks of the International Communist Workers’ Party.
Revolution or Death
We will win
A comrade in El Salvador