Commitment to Strengthen ICWP in Mexico

A few days ago, we organized a lunch in some comrades' home to reorganize the Party's work in Mexico. To start the discussion, a comrade prepared an analysis of the international situation and mentioned that in 1916, Lenin described imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism. We understand that we are in this stage since capital and production are concentrated in big monopolies. It was mentioned that inter-imperialist rivalry is resolved through war and that the US and Chinese bosses are preparing for this. We analyzed the ways that energy, education and finance reform in Mexico respond to these policies of war and how they affect all of us.
About the Party's work, we agreed to have meetings every three weeks to discuss Party documents and analyze the activities of the collectives. We agreed to have social activities with friends, relatives, and sympathizers to bring them closer to us. We have already carried out the first event. It was also proposed to make a list of the people we know who work in industry and and are in the army to find ways to reach them and inform them of the Party's political line. We also agreed to collectively write more for the paper so that a letter or article is written by more than one person. Some comrades were put in charge of being involved with the teachers' movement of the CNTE (National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers) to bring them ICWP's ideas.
The main outcome of this meeting was the commitment that each member and sympathizer made to strengthen the Party in Mexico and to look for new strategies to reach more friends and relatives with urgency and patience and also a collective plan for follow up work. We want the party to grow and we want to be prepared so that the working class storms heaven with a Communist Revolution.

--Comrades in Mexico

Distributing Red Flags and leaflets at a BART Station

Last week, while distributing leaflets and Red Flag at a BART station, I talked with a young African American male who said that he was enrolled in a state college. I showed him the "Self Sufficiency Standard for Bay Area: $74,541" leaflet which compared the average gross pay of BART workers ($76,551) with government workers in the nine-county Bay Area. He was surprised that in some wealthy counties, government workers' average gross pay was far less than $74,541. I pointed out that the average gross pay for the school district from which I retired was $32,013, less than half the Bay Area self sufficiency standard. He then talked about college financial aid and that he had taken out a $2400 loan, repaying it at $50 a month. I told him about my grandson who went to the same state college for one semester, got a $2400 loan in September, 2011 which accumulated interest and grew to $2600 by January 2012. My grandson's mother paid off the loan; he dropped out of that school and now attends a community college.
I advised the student not to finish college with a home mortgage amount of debt and not to take out more loans. I pointed out, from the leaflet, that the wage system benefits capitalists and enslaves workers. I showed him Red Flag and asked him to read about the ICWP and building for a communist society without money and debt. He took the paper and said that he would read it.

--NorCal Comrade


What We Fight For!

Friends, I am a Red Flag reader. I have sent this suggestion that I would like to see in every issue of the paper. Obviously you can make the changes you think are necessary. But I think that for new or casual readers, it would be good to have something like this. Thanks for your consideration.

What We Fight For:
We fight for a world without the expropriation of that which our hands produce in the earth.
The final objective is to put an end to social injustices, providing for everyone according to his or her needs. This way of living can only be achieved under COMMUNISM.
Red Flag and the International Communist Workers Party, guided by communist ideology, leads the industrial workers, farmworkers, soldiers, and students to organize from North to South, from East to West, to confront and destroy capitalism.
Historically, no country has been communist. For example the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba fought and sacrificed the workers' blood with the hope that socialism would be the transition to communism.
ICWP vows that in order not to repeat the errors of the past, the doctrine of Karl Marx should be surpassed and the advance should be directly to COMMUNISM, since socialism is a reform or extension of the capitalist system that maintains some aspects of capitalism, like wage slavery at the hands of another group of elite bosses.
* We fight to end the bosses' wars that murder the workers of the world to protect the bosses' profits and empire.
* We fight to abolish money, exploitation, slavery, racism, sexism, and individualism.
* We fight to put an end to borders, patriotism and nationalism that are used to divide the workers. * We fight to protect the globe and care for the environment, so that all can have a dignified life.
Communism is ready to blossom! The only disaster for humanity is capitalism, which implements fascism and terror in the form of its courts, police, and assassins, trying to make workers remain passive and confused so that they don't rebel against their true enemy.
Join ICWP, the Party that will lead the communist revolution under a Red Army until the final victory! Together we will exercise justice. The new dawn will be glorious. Long live the workers of the world!

RED FLAG responds:
Thank you, comrade, for your suggestion and for your dedication to helping develop the political line of the ICWP.
Three and a half years ago we took on the task of creating a "communist paper of a new type." We have struggled ever since to have every article explain part of "What We Fight For," and for every issue to reflect all the main aspects of our Party's line. This includes articles about the class struggle and inter-imperialist rivalry, among many others.
Of course, some articles are better than others at explaining what communism means in action today and what communist society will be like in the future. We are all learning. We don't want readers to see our "communist program" as something separate from the class struggles (worldwide or close to home) going on today. That's the main reason why we don't have the kind of statement you suggest for every issue.
However, we are interested in hearing many more opinions on this subject. Do other readers think we should reserve space for a statement of principles in every issue? And what comments do others have about the statement proposed above?

—Red Flag editorial collective

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