EL SALVADOR—A few days ago a group of ICWP comrades met in a beautiful town with a cool, mild climate. The woman who welcomed them presented the comrades with a delicious watermelon which was super-red inside. Before starting the meeting, we carried out a small communist practice of collective work when a comrade had to move some shade tree seedlings to the coffee fields. The rest of the young ICWP members undertook this task together. This action was even more refreshing than the cool climate.
After discussing the agenda, a young man was asked to begin with an analysis of the international situation. He gave a very helpful explanation of the sharpening of the capitalist crisis in countries like Turkey, Spain, Greece, and Brazil. He concluded that the whole problem of capitalism also affects workers in small countries like El Salvador.
The other youths also contributed, clarifying that the facts that are discussed in these kinds of meetings come from Red Flag. They said that we should deepen the analyses so that we don't just look at the appearance of the problems. Instead we should learn how to be objective while criticizing the situations around the world, and investigate who is really behind each protest action. "It's not as simple as thinking that every protest is led by the left. There are many protests which are led by the capitalists. We must be careful about simplifying the analysis. What we want isn't the same as what is actually happening," said a young comrade.
A young party leader added, "The uprising in Brazil is directly due to the anger and indignation of the masses. The contrast between the Soccer Confederation Cup, the world-class stadiums alongside the lack of medicine and hospital equipment, and the rising transit fares, generated anger in the masses.
"We can't see all movements against one set of imperialist bosses (China or the USA) as if they were just manipulated by the other. The masses also get outraged and rise up. Clearly, this doesn't mean that it is a revolutionary moment, it's only a moment of effervescence among the masses."
This generated a strong discussion about reform and revolution, about the depth of these "spontaneous" movements and their lack of communist leadership, and the urgent need to assume the leadership of the working class through ICWP.
After this broad and strong, but comradely, discussion, we shared a delicious cup of coffee cultivated in the mountains by friends of ICWP. We had no need to envy the coffee sold in capitalist businesses, and this coffee was even more delicious: it hadn't the slightest trace of being a commodity, and was seasoned with proletarian ideology. The next point was to plan a number of communist activities and how they would be carried out. This led to reflection about preparing ourselves for current and future acts of capitalist repression. "The lived experience makes us carry out every activity with a lot of discipline since we face the class enemy who threatens us every day," explained a comrade.
The last point was the task of writing for Red Flag. Everyone agreed that it is necessary and extremely urgent to write more and better. Every member of ICWP must write consistently for our paper.
The meeting ended over a pot of beans and rice that the hosts had prepared. Between jokes and smiles, all the comrades said good-bye, each one to continue organizing in the places where they work or study.