RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
August 18—Bullets flying from every direction and the constant barrage of tear gas shells means that almost every corner of the largest favela of Rio de Janeiro is engulfed. Police in attack helicopters have declared a war on the residents of Jacarezinho. These barbaric attacks start in the darkness of the night. Fear and panic of the residents quickly turn into anger and defiance.
A black woman with a newborn child has just lost her husband to a police bullet. She comes out of her shack urging the residents to come out and fight back. “If we don’t, they will kill us all one by one.” The residents heed her plea. The crowd gathers, attracting more. Rocks and unspent tear gas shells are thrown back at the police on horses. Fear grips the heavily armed police who beat a hasty retreat.
The workers in Jacarezinho are willing and ready to fight back. This mass anger can and must be converted into a fight for communist revolution to destroy every aspect of the blood thirsty capitalist system that cares for nothing but maximum profit. Anything else will continue endless cycles of police brutality, mass hunger, homelessness and wars for profit.
The spirit of Jacarezinho reverberates in Houston, Mumbai, South Africa and everywhere else around the world. Our battle cry must be fight for communism without fear and with confidence that the bosses’ days are numbered. In their declining stage, the bosses become more brutal, violent and intimidating. But they are digging their own graves.
Brazil is one of the largest countries in the world with vast deposits of natural resources, minerals and oil. The history of Brazil for the last five hundred years is the history of genocides of the native population, dehumanizing slavery, pillage and plunder of the natural resources and relentless attacks on the working class by local capitalists and imperialists.
Brazil is facing one of the sharpest crises of capitalism. In 2003 Lula da Silva came to power after his Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores) won the parliamentary elections. Lula’s government made a significant change by opening up Brazilian resources to the Chinese imperialists. The rapidly expanding Chinese economy devoured Brazil’s cheap natural resources and invested billions of dollars in Brazil’s oil industry. However, when the Chinese created mountains of cheap goods that could not be sold in the world markets, their need for Brazilian oil and minerals rapidly declined.
Brazilian capitalists and banks faced imminent bankruptcy. Their response was to produce even more natural resources cheaper than before. The only way they can accomplish this is by massive cut backs in health, transportation and education budgets along with significantly reducing wages of the workers.
The International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) is organizing workers around the world to create a communist society where the natural resources will be used for the need of the international working class and not for profit. Rebellions in the favelas and strikes in the factories must be converted into fight for communism. The bosses are desperately trying to revive Lula to save them from the wrath of the working class. Lula is not a friend of the working class; he never was. Lula and his party represent the rich capitalist in Brazil. His pro-working class speeches are to mislead the working class. He is our enemy.
Some readers of the Red Flag in Brazil are more interested in ICWP now. Formation of ICWP groups can lead to a significant fight for communism. Brazil has the largest black working class in the world. By developing communist leadership in Brazil, we are on the path to communist revolution that will end once and for all the horrors of capitalism. Join ICWP and spread our revolutionary vision by distributing Red Flag.
2014 Rio de Janeiro Teachers’ strike
FRANCE
May 1, 1871—Barricades in Paris defended by women
September 4 – “Ça va péter” – it’s going to blow. That’s the opinion of Pascal R., a bus driver from a family of bus drivers.
French workers like Pascal are fed up.
They’re fed up with 30 years of mass unemployment (over 10% in general, over 25% for youth). They’re fed up with “precarious” (insecure) jobs, sometimes contracts for only a few months at a time. They’re fed up with minimum-wage jobs. They’re fed up with going hungry on welfare and unemployment insurance. They’re fed up with retiring into poverty. They’re fed up with everyday sexual harassment and sexual assault.
True, many have racist sentiments. But many others, especially youth, are fed up with anti-immigrant racism and brutal police. And they’re fed up with terrorist blowback from overseas wars.
Pascal, like more than half the eligible voters, didn’t vote at all in the latest presidential election. Few workers have faith in any politicians. That includes President Macron, the newly elected Kennedy-like idol who promises to ‘transform’ France.
When it blows in France it won’t be the first time. The first modern explosion, in 1789, was the French Revolution. Some revolutionaries went beyond just calling for the overthrow of the nobility. Among these were Gracchus Babeuf and the “Conspiracy of Equals,” who were among the first revolutionary communists.
It was in France that the working class first stepped forward as an independent force. During the revolution of 1848, workers fought in the streets around their own issues and demands. They were eventually defeated but their struggle helped to inspire the Communist Manifesto.
Two decades later, after a disastrous war with Prussia, the National Guard (mainly workers) led masses of other workers in a revolt that established the Paris Commune. Communist veterans of 1848 played a big role.
For the first time ever, the working class had taken power. The Commune of 1871 lasted only two months. But it had a lasting impact on the formation of the first socialist parties and on the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
The French bosses are haunted by the memory of the last time France blew up, in 1968. Inspired by mass movements around the world, students occupied the universities. They united with workers, who occupied the factories. There were demonstrations where a million people sang the communist anthem, the Internationale.
However, the Socialist and “Communist” Parties settled for reforms, including a comprehensive “labor code.” They saved the French bosses from revolution. Several serious attempts were made to build a new communist movement. But they couldn’t break free of the old movement’s commitment to nationalism, to socialism, and to Maoist personality cults.
Socialists in France managed to preserve a ‘leftwing’ image for most of the last century. That image is finally wearing thin. The Socialist Party’s unrelenting neoliberal agenda and its attempt to scrap the labor code have discredited it. Its presidential candidate got only 6% of the vote in the 2017 election and has since quit the party!
The traditional right-wing party, the Republicans, is in disarray and split over whether to support Macron. The neo-fascist National Front lost badly in the runoff against Macron and is fighting amongst themselves. Only Jean-Luc Mélanchon, the French Bernie Sanders, improved his position.
Macron and the French bosses are playing with fire. Their latest ‘reforms’ make the labor code optional in small factories, undoing many of the 1968 reforms. Furthermore Macron’s ‘innovative’ ideas are the same old same old: tax cuts for the wealthy and austerity for the poor. For example, Macron is cutting 5 euros per month from rent subsidies for the poorest tenants.
The biggest labor union, the CGT, is calling for a demonstration on September 12. Mélanchon’s party is holding its own demonstration on September 23.
Sooner or later ça va péter– again. This time the masses must sweep capitalism away with communist revolution. But it won’t happen spontaneously. Communism requires communists – the ICWP – everywhere, including France. We have to find ways of mobilizing workers like Pascal for communism. We’ll help guarantee this by translating more Red Flag articles into French.
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