Red Flag Newspaper
International Communist Workers Party
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Red Flag NewspaperInternational Communist Workers Party |
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See articles on ICWP organizing in India here
El SALVADOR—“I was in the war for survival, I had no choice,” said one comrade referring to the armed struggle of the fmln in which he participated. “But that experience taught us the need to fight for a more advanced line. That’s why today I am in the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) in a process of better understanding what to fight for.”
In a recent meeting, the central focus was to discuss dialectics and the struggle against reformism. Many shared lessons about the struggle for communism.
“We are exposed daily to capitalist ideas which can distract us from our goal of mobilizing the masses for communism. However, our task is a constant battle against these ideas and practices.
“Communist ideas must lead our life of struggle. We must discard the idea that we can live in peace, as the former commander and now President Sanchez Ceren says in the fmln festivals of living well,” said a comrade.
A friend said that some reforms had benefited many. This led to an important discussion. We concluded that reformism is a current that extends the life of capitalism. The working class needs Communism to end wage slavery.
The ICWP opposes the reformist ideas that it’s impossible to destroy capitalism and that the ruling class can coexist with the working class. We have to fight directly for communism and train ourselves more, distributing Red Flag newspapers, participating in leafleting in marches and at factories, writing for the newspaper, and organizing communist study circles, among other activities.
Dialectics is the philosophy of change. That’s why it is such a fundamental tool to understand the source of movement and development of things.
The study of dialectics teaches us the law of unity and struggle of opposites, which Lenin called the core of dialectical materialism. It says that things and phenomena of nature carry implicit internal contradictions that are the source of development. For example, life is a contradictory process in which cells within organisms are constantly dying and new ones are being born.
The struggle between the working class and the capitalist class, being the main contradiction of capitalism, has to end with the destruction of capitalism and the triumph of the Communist system. But this will not happen by chance. It will only happen with the commitment and dedication that each worker organized in the International Communist Workers’ Party brings to this effort.
It is important to identify what holds back the advance and growth of the party. If we don’t, we won’t recognize that there is anything to correct. For example, do we devote time in our club meetings to do this?
The workers are mobilizing worldwide. This is an opportunity to win them to fight for communist ideas and a communist world.
The struggle for communism is primary. Get organized in the International Communist Workers’ Party. Long live the working class!
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Today we had the last day of our discussions on dialectics before the schools open. We discussed the fact that the internal contradictions within the party are essential. They determine how it grows. The political line of the party, its composition, its size and its leadership are what determine how it grows.
We discussed questions that the comrades raised. As we know, in this capitalist society that we live in, the so-called leaders are greedy. They don’t serve the needs of the people. They like things for themselves, not for the people. So our comrades were asking how we know that in communism, communist leaders won’t do the same thing. We struggled to come up with communist solutions and answers.
The main answer from the collective was that if a leader operates in isolation that’s where corruption is going to arise. A leader has to be transparent and honest and operate within the collective. They won’t be able to be dishonest.
If he or she has a problem or needs something, the collective will help the comrade acquire what they need, whether it’s food, shoes, or whatever. We will struggle with them within the collective, as the collective.
The last thing to report is that a new comrade inside our collective is from Zimbabwe. This is his second meeting. So we decided to concentrate on his questions. He wants to share with you:
“I want to greet you comrades throughout the world. I’m from Zimbabwe. It’s my pleasure to be part of the movement. But I am just going to add another question. How are we going to connect leaders throughout the world, or will we have one paramount leader or connect them, or do what?”
So this is what we will discuss at our next meeting. We have been encouraging each other to ask more questions because there is no single formula that says this is how communism will work. We need these questions and the discussion about them to advance our political understanding about how communism will work.
What we learned today is how contradictions are resolved. It is about the unity and struggle of opposites. That’s how contradictions work. Contradictions are resolved through struggle.
We as a collective have learned that we have to unite, have arguments and find solutions that work. We had an argument about how engines are manufactured, where and why. We found an answer to that as a collective. That shows we are uniting through struggle. Our discussions show that we are going forward. We are united.
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SOUTH AFRICA, July 30— South African elections on August 3 will elect a new government. The capitalist system in South Africa is in serious crisis. The African National Congress (ANC) has governed since the end of apartheid. It has steadily consolidated Chinese imperialist investment in auto, infrastructure, mining and finance. This has reduced the influence of long-standing British, German and US capital. The election reflects the dog-fight among imperialists as South African capitalists attempt to take advantage of the crisis.
For the working class, no matter who wins the elections, there will be more racism, unemployment, grinding poverty, hunger and horrific living conditions in segregated townships.
President Zuma of South Africa went to Port Elizabeth to mislead the masses to participate in elections. Two clubs of our party offered the working class a communist alternative. The youth collective went inside the stadium where the rally was held and the industrial collective distributed Red Flag outside.
In spite of heavy rain on a cold winter day, the day was productive in mobilizing for Communism. The youth collective had about 450 papers and they were gone in thirty minutes. The industrial collective distributed 300 papers outside.
The response was good and most comrades were enthusiastic. One new comrade was disappointed. Maybe he has things he thinks we should do better. We will find out more in our next meeting. Here are other comrades’ comments:
“This is the first time I distributed the paper. I thought it was going to be embarrassing. But when I started distributing papers to people, they responded and the papers were gone in 15 to 20 minutes. So that was very intriguing.”
“The response of people wanting to get the paper was good. Some were asking about communism. I was skeptical because most of the people there were African National Congress (ANC) members.”
“Some were very reluctant to take the paper.”
“Because of the violence that happened during the week between the ANC, the Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters, I was skeptical to go to the ANC stronghold and to distribute papers there. It took guts because we weren’t on the outside of the stadium. We were inside. Those guys searched our bags twice.”
“The good part is that they had questions and we answered them. It is very important to know what’s going on when we go to these events. When you understand the political line, it becomes like second nature to explain how communism would actually work. You can explain how people need to live. All my anxieties about going inside were laid to rest by the response of the masses when we gave them the paper.”
“At first I was afraid to go inside since it was the ANC thing, but compared to the experience we had on June 16, it was very good.”
“We should go to more of these events. When the South African Communist Party (SACP) has their celebration, that’s another opportunity for us to mobilize for communism.”
“Yes, the SACP is the so-called communist party. If they are SACP members, it means that they acknowledge the problems of capitalism. But they lack the correct political line to fix it.”
“People like the idea of communism and some will strive to get more information about it because it is very relevant to their lives.”
“If we are going to these gatherings, it helps us to know in advance. If we wouldn’t have gone today, we wouldn’t have known about the SACP event. Now we can plan in advance for it.” (See photo, above, of Red Flag at the SACP event.)
We must have newspapers, and all that so that we can mobilize for communism.
Since the event over 80 people have called, wanting to know more about ICWP. We have made follow-up visits and phone calls to these new contacts. We have established a new collective in another working-class township with the help of the young lions. More and more workers and youth are joining ICWP.
ICWP Organizes in South Africa
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