SOUTH AFRICA—A year ago we decided that we were going to organize the May Day event where we live because in South Africa there are no marches. Usually events happen in stadiums and halls.
When we started planning the event we had a target of 500 people, industrial workers, students and soldiers. The youth collective focused on universities and colleges as well as industrial areas. The workers’ collective was going to focus on workers and soldiers in other parts of town.
We did that. We intensified our visits to colleges. We talked to students. We got some contacts and invited them to May Day.
During the month before May Day we printed flyers and posters. We distributed them in the surrounding areas. We were also driving around street by street, loud hailing inviting workers to come on Workers’ Day.
Doing this led to challenges within our collective. We struggled with each other to overcome them because sometimes we are not disciplined in our organizing. Sometimes comrades would be absent from the day’s activity, often attending to personal matters.
We discussed how to overcome these obstacles. Understanding that the work of the collective was more important, we guaranteed that the work of the Party did not stop because some individuals were absent.
We made sure that those individuals who were absent received a report of the day’s work. We also told them of the next day’s work. We made sure that there was continuity. All of this organizing was new to us, but its success really showed us that we learn through practice, by implementing our understanding of mobilizing the masses for communism.
The masses respond to our Party’s line. On the actual event’s day, over 200 adults and 250 children came to the May Day mass meeting. They listened intently to speeches explaining what ICWP and communism are all about. The masses who are disgruntled with capitalism agreed with most of the things the comrades pointed out. Many wanted to join ICWP to fight for a communist future. They all agreed that capitalism has no future, that it needs to be abolished by our communist revolution, that we need a classless communist society where everything is produced collectively to meet the collective needs of the working class and no one is more privileged than another.
The May Day success gave us inspiration to continue to mobilize the masses for communism. Workers were eager to listen to us, unlike those who attended the event organized by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) where President Zuma was booed by the masses. Of course we are not interested in their failures but such incidents give us the opportunity to mobilize for communism these masses disgusted with the ANC and other capitalist political parties.
It gives us the opportunity to win these masses to join ICWP to crush the capitalists-imperialists, their political parties, and their racist murderous system.
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