May Day, San Salvador, 2014: Let’s Destroy Capitalism & Build Communism—ICWP
El Salvador is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, with a high degree of poverty, crime and super exploitation. But it has a very militant urban and rural working class and student population.
Eight years ago these masses had the illusion that the fmln (ex-guerrilla group) in power would change things and a better future would shine for the working class.
Now, after eight years of fmln governments, nothing relevant has changed in the capitalist system. But the discontent of the masses has changed. Today our task is not only to expose the electoral politicians, but to mobilize more and more people to fight for communism.
A group of capitalists want to direct the discontent of the masses at capitalism and its electoral parties ARENA and fmln into looking for a new “independent” leader.
Nayib Bukele, bourgeois mayor of San Salvador, is the political figure who gets the most media attention and is the most popular in current Salvadoran electoral politics.
His expulsion from the fmln and his launching as an “independent” candidate for the presidential election of 2019 has generated a momentary stir throughout the country, since Bukele was one of the winning cards of the fmln for these elections. Two years ago everyone claimed that Nayib would be the fmln candidate for President. Little by little his possibilities were diminishing but he was never ruled out. Bukele has criticized the fmln (without a materialist analysis of the process of the left in the country and from a bourgeois perspective). He attracts thousands of people outside and inside the country.
We must face and question these “New Ideas” that do not help in any way the organization of the working class, nor represent a true revolutionary process.
Bukele seeks to create an organization “without leaders and vertical” in which everyone can be part if “they want the best for the country,” that is, what he believes is the best. Since these two fmln administrations have shown us that to win elections and occupy positions in the bourgeois state is no victory for the working class, the masses must not trust a bourgeois adventurer this time around.
When the fmln presented Mauricio Funes as its presidential candidate in 2007, as communists we called on the working class not to fall for the false hopes of capitalist electoral change. Eight years after the fmln took over the presidency (the third year of its second administration) all those hopes have been diluted.
In this context the Party collectives need to discuss the main reasons for the disenchantment of the masses with the fmln and the inclination by the masses towards the Bukele project, starting from a communist analysis that for years we have collectively built as members of ICWP. The simple fact that the masses are detached from the electoral parties is not an opportunity if we do not study the causes of this distancing.
The working class has experienced revolutionary processes of change throughout the world. These have taught us great lessons to build the organization of the working class that will achieve the elimination of the material base of capitalism, and build a communist society. Theoretical material has been produced to learn about and understand these processes more deeply.
As ICWP we put forward our plan, our project, and our political line to mobilize the masses for communism through Red Flag. This is our tool that allows us to relate with the masses and listen to their questions, criticisms, and discontent with the left processes of the past (some of which we ourselves have also committed) and to strengthen the line with their experience and try to add more members each time to our clubs.
Making our ideas and our Party massive is our task at all times. Only the mass organization of the working class for revolution will create new social relations and the structure upon which the new communist society will be built. We need to strengthen our clubs, our study groups and our newspaper. We can no longer continue to expect anything from a project like the fmln or a bourgeois with a messiah complex. We need our organization, our party, our new society.
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