FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
International Communist Workers Party
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FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!International Communist Workers Party |
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August 16 is the
second anniversary of the infamous massacre of miners from the Marikana
platinum mines in South Africa by troops of the ruling African National
Congress. Today, comrades of these
fallen are distributing Red Flag to all the mine shafts.
Communist
internationalism cannot be contained. The bosses train us to think only of
"our" industry in "our" nation, but workers' internationalism spreads like a
subterranean fire. In South Africa, this is the case, literally!
Miners are sharing the
copies. When one is finished, one passes the copy to the next comrade.
The comrade who got
this started read the whole International Communist Workers' Party (ICWP)
industrial work pamphlet. He called it a "powerful document."
"Things are tough
there," reports a comrade from another South African city. "The comrade says workers are very
encouraged about the news on the Red Flag and are looking up to
us. They feel rejuvenated and look
forward to continued ties."
Comrades elsewhere
also feel rejuvenated by the news we're receiving from South Africa. We are looking up to them, too!
As Red
Flag goes to press, South African news media are reporting the end of a
month-long strike of 220,000 metalworkers and engineers that shut down auto
production and halted construction of power plants. However, some employers are
threatening to lock out strikers, so this struggle may well continue.
The union (Numsa) plans to organize a new electoral party for what it
calls the "leaderless working class."
But growing numbers of metalworkers and others are taking leadership
into their own hands by joining and building the ICWP.
In Seattle, 60 workers
and soldiers
signed letters of communist solidarity to the South African
strikers. We should have done more of this, in more places, sooner.
Our comrades in South
Africa, emboldened by our Party's modest efforts to build communist
internationalism a continent away, decided to write a Party leaflet for the
strikers. They ran out of the first
run. They printed more to distribute throughout adjoining working-class
neighborhoods. They ran out again.
The growth of ICWP and
Red
Flag among these industrial workers in South Africa shows that when the
most oppressed workers are offered communist ideas, they will take the lead in
developing and spreading them to become a force more powerful than the weapons
of all the oppressors.
Industrial workers
like the Marikana miners are key to communist revolution.
LOS ANGELES—"We
are going to have to walk, so what!"
"Why are they going to
go on strike?"
"Of course we support
the strike!"
These have been some
of the comments of workers who are Red Flag readers in the garment
industry about the possible strike of MTA drivers.
Thousands of men and
women garment workers know about the possible strike. They know that this
strike will stop transportation for tens of thousands of workers who are taken
to centers of exploitation in the garment industry. Many will have to walk, or
use bicycles. Others will get their co-workers, relatives, or friends who have
a car to drive them to their workplaces. They have done this in previous
strikes and will do it again.
It is more likely than
before that garment workers will go into the streets with political
strikes, with slogans against capitalism, its deportations, and wage slavery.
Our base can make this leap in critical times, like
these today.
An average of 1000
garment workers
receive every edition of Red Flag. They are the basis for
many to join study groups, helping to develop the class struggle in their work
places and joining the International Communist Workers' Party (ICWP). If the strike takes place, these workers
could take the lead in bringing many garment workers to the picket lines in
support of the drivers and also see our potential to organize a communist
revolution.
"I'm sick of this job. Although I work
even on the weekends, I can't get out of debt," said a worker. "We will
demonstrate our hatred of the factories that are like jails and concentration
camps, where the conditions are so bad that the workers have to bring their own
water, get their own health insurance, and have to eat in the street."
Let's go into the streets calling
on all the other workers to fight for a communist world without borders or the
chains of wage slavery.
Thousands of garment
workers in the streets demonstrating our repudiation of capitalism would be a
great advance in the organization and development of the party of the working
class, ICWP. The marches and political strikes would help thousands discuss
communist ideas, how to build a world without borders or exploitation. Garment
workers and drivers in political strikes would give the working class of the
world a guide, a leadership for the goal to follow. This goal is the struggle to
build a society based on producing to meet the needs of the international working
class, not for the bosses' profits.
The drivers' strike
can be the spark so that other workers don't only support the drivers morally
but go beyond that to go out to protest and organize as the working class with
a common dream, to get rid of the chains with which oppress us.
Our strength will not
depend on politicians or unions but on the collective strength of the same
workers with communist ideas.
The bosses and their
press will try to divide us with a pack of lies about the drivers' struggles.
They will tell us that the drivers are greedy, that
they make too much money, and that it's their fault that the bus fare was
raised, etc. But they will not say that it is capitalism in crisis
which is exploiting us garment workers, just like it is exploiting the
bus drivers.
We should walk, not to the
centers of exploitation but into the streets with the red flags held high and
with the slogan of a world without borders or exploitation, fighting for a
communist world.