FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
International Communist Workers Party
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FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM! |
International Communist Workers Party | |
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After the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks expropriated the apartments of the upper classes, and assigned families to them, one family per room. All of the tenants shared the kitchen and bathroom. The housing authorities deliberately mixed people from different social classes. The aim was to create a truly collective society. But it was also the Bolsheviks' solution to the urban housing shortage. Communal apartments remained the most common form of housing in Soviet cities for several generations.
Red Flag, as a communist newspaper, represents the interests and demands of the proletariat and the oppressed people throughout the world. The majority of workers are renters and do not own homes. Communism abolishes private property. Workers will not have to pay for housing.
September 24, 2016 saw protests across the USA against the dictatorship of developers, landlords and the rental housing industry. The protests were called by a variety of organizations, many centered around the hash tag, #RenterStateOfEmergency. The demonstrations focused on tenant evictions, property gentrification, the rising cost of rental housing and the lack of affordable housing in the United States.
Communism brings about free and quality housing for all. Homelessness will be eliminated. All housing will be owned by the people and be used to provide shelter and homes. Instead of producing commodities for sale, everything we produce—food, clothing, shelter, tools and toys—will be produced for need. We will eliminate market relationships, and that includes the housing and rental market. Led by their party, the working masses will produce and allocate housing based on need. No more will some people live in mansions while others sleep under the freeway.
We will most probably be taking power in the aftermath of war. What housing is still standing, including the mansions of the wealthy, will be the property of the working masses. The ruling class and their families will be eliminated as a class. Their property, which is built by the working class, will be seized by the working class and turned over to the masses for housing, education, sport, science, museum, art galleries, musical performance venues, or other needs of society and life.
Decisions about housing will be part of the collective decisions about the communist society we will be building. Housing under capitalism reflects and reinforces the racist divisions that the wage system needs. When we seize power, we will be fighting to do away with the last vestiges of racism. We will struggle for racially integrated housing as a positive good to build the solidarity we need.
Capitalist housing isolates families and places the burden of housework and childcare on working women. Our predecessors in the Soviet Union and in China knew this, and fought sexism and individualism in several important ways. Communal apartments in Russia (see box) and communal cafeterias in China are some examples. When we seize power, we can make similar choices.
Housing under capitalism reflects the class divisions. We have learned from the history of socialism that keeping money and the wage system created the material basis for the reemergence of privilege, and that included differences in housing. Communist distribution based on need will mean that no one lives better or worse than anyone else.
While the protests in September in the USA were historic and very important, the leadership of this movement is misleading the masses because it fails to identify capitalism as the source of the problem. It advocates that reforming various laws or policies of city planning boards, rent control boards, or state or national government will solve the problem of homelessness and a lack of housing justice.
The United States is an imperialist system that privatizes all home ownership, be it houses, apartments, or condominiums. Because of private ownership of property, the property owning and renting class and the finance banks have total control over the workers, the poor, and the masses - all of whom must have a place to live. The housing and rental crisis in the US is a result of capitalism.
The capitalist system can only be overturned and a communist system created in its place if millions of people organize and fight. The struggles for rights for renters, the working class and the poor are very important and communists must participate in these fights and struggle for the elimination of capitalism and the creation of communist life. Red Flag Newspaper fights for communism and the building of the International Communist Workers Party. Join us in this important battle.