FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
International Communist Workers Party
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FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM! |
International Communist Workers Party | |
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“Shut the whole system down!” chanted thousands of Los Angeles youths. “We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
“Everyone around me is against capitalism,” said a young black professional woman who is an activist in New York City.
It’s not just black youth who respond with continued outrage at the murderous racism of killer cops from New York City to Ferguson, MO to Los Angeles and beyond. It’s not just Mexican students who still march against the massacre of 42 normalistas from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero.
Racist state terror has marked capitalism since its start. It intensifies during systemic crises, as the rulers fear losing their grip on the masses. But, as we’re seeing today, it can provoke more anger than fear.
Racism is one of capitalism’s main tools to divide and conquer us. But, as we’re seeing today, it can provoke the international working-class unity needed to tear down – not just shut down! – the system.
Anger and unity are not enough. The masses must grasp that the only alternative to racist capitalism is international communism. No group of workers can remain passive in the face of the recent wave of racist terror.
*We must seize this critical opportunity to recruit massively into our Party and expand the distribution of Red Flag. We can then mobilize even broader masses for this communist alternative.
*We must guarantee that every Party collective organizes to make racist state terror an issue in our workplaces, schools and communities. We must link it to the racism we see on the job and in the classroom.
*We must move friends, relatives, and coworkers into action based on the understanding that racism rose with capitalism and can be ended only by mobilizing for communism. Industrial workers and soldiers have a key role to play.
Racism is not prejudice that somehow got “institutionalized.” It’s a cornerstone of capitalism.
Without racist terror, capitalism couldn’t have spread in the 17th century from England around the globe, forcing the commoners of three continents into wage or chattel slavery. It couldn’t have expropriated and decimated indigenous populations in Africa and the Americas.
Without racism, imperialism couldn’t have extended the reach of capitalism to every corner of the globe. It couldn’t have massacred millions in the Congo, the Philippines, Algeria, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Iraq.
Without racism, capitalists couldn’t have defeated the rebellious masses when they rose up in Barbados, Virginia, Jamaica, Haiti, India, El Salvador, and even England itself.
Without racism, a tiny handful of capitalist exploiters could not, today, maintain its deadly hold on the massive and mighty working class.
It’s not just the US. For example, about half of all Brazilians, but over 70% of those in poverty, are black or “mixed-race.” Wages of non-white Brazilians average less than half that of whites, and unemployment is higher. Their life expectancy is six years less than whites’. This racism props up one of the most unequal distributions of wealth worldwide.
Among capitalist nations, liberal Sweden has the highest differences in employment between native-born and foreign-born citizens, especially ethnic Swedes and people of African descent. Its urban areas are segregated, with people of color concentrated in low-income housing projects. Mosques have been burned.
To end racism, we must unite as one international working class to destroy capitalism. The rulers are waging a conscious, intense ideological struggle to hide this truth. We must recognize and expose their poisonous lies.
Many more US workers, especially non-blacks, must be won to reject the rulers’ demonization of black youth and their calls for intensified police repression. In the US and Europe, we must mobilize to fight anti-immigrant fascists.
Everywhere, we must struggle sharply to keep racism from blinding workers to our common class interest. This is a battle we can’t afford to lose.
The so-called “anti-racism” movement hides this common interest behind a smokescreen of “identity politics.” It highlights prejudice instead of racism. It guilt-trips whites and builds cynicism among youth of color, telling us we can only be “allies” instead of comrades.
Pacifism, religious or otherwise, disarms the struggle. It has us beg for reforms, even die for reforms, instead of fighting for power.
“Black Power” nationalism won’t help the black masses. Look at South Africa. Today, a generation after Apartheid fell, the average black income is only one-sixth that of whites. Economic inequality has increased and is the highest in the world. The new black bourgeoisie collaborates with imperialism in exploiting the black working class.
Capitalism will end, and with it the material basis of racism. The communist fight against racism – now and after the revolution — can become the jackhammer that smashes the walls of segregation the rulers have erected to divide us.
Building our communist future, and our Party today, requires conscious, intense ideological struggle to unite the masses, women and men, across “racial” and national lines. Relatively integrated workplaces such as Army barracks, Los Angeles MTA (transit) and Seattle-area Boeing plants are important places to start.
The material basis of communism will be the sharing of work and its fruits “from each according to ability/commitment, to each according to need.” On this foundation, and with constant political struggle, racism and nationalism, and the very ideas of “races” and “nations,” can become a relic of the past.
Truly we have nothing to lose but our chains. We have a world to win.
