Red Flag Newspaper
International Communist Workers Party
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EL SALVADOR, March 3—The March 1st elections for mayors, representatives to the legislative assembly, and representatives to the Central American Parliament gave the FMLN a great advantage over the ARENA Party and others. Now the FMLN controls the Presidency, the Assembly and the majority of the mayors. But capitalism continues—and will continue—to ravage the working class.
“The FMLN has become the largest political force in the country…now we have the strength of 67% of the population,” said Medardo Gonzalez, Secretary General of the FMLN.
Voting for a defender of capitalism to decide our destiny is putting a noose around our own necks. To fight for what we want, we have to fight a revolution for a communist society in which we all participate collectively every day in the decisions that affect our lives.
More than two and a half million working men and women went out to vote for the capitalist politicians. Most unions and organizations mobilized their base to support the FMLN, many of them workers with illusions about changes in their lives but who are also fed up with capitalism.
History has shown us the contrary. By analyzing past elections many people have realized that electoral processes are only a trick played on the working class because they mean perpetuating the status and privilege of the exploiting classes.
Most important, elections do not transform or revolutionize the life of those men and women workers who have been convinced by the FMLN that the way to achieve a better life is through elections and not through communist revolution.
The International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) and our newspaper Red Flag guide and organize the workers to put an end to the electoral circus. Our party shows the alternative of a communist world, without exploitation, money or bosses. We can win people to this, both those who vote and those who don’t.
Dialectics and our communist literature show us that elections are part of the structure of the capitalist system. They are designed to elect our executioners and at the same time to keep us entertained and divided while the exploitation of wage slavery continues.
Our goal is to mobilize millions of people in the world to break with bourgeois philosophy and the politics of wage slavery, the source of the problems that we men and women workers of the world endure every day, like hunger, lack of medicine, housing, clothes, shoes, etc.
In Communism there will be no elections. People will naturally take leadership as part of collectivity, to drive projects forward that allow us to revolutionize our society and live with dignity. We will encourage millions of people to become leaders, that is, by Fighting for
Communism. Men and women workers will organize ourselves through Party clubs in the workplaces where we work and learn.
Work is the cornerstone of human society and development, seen from a dialectical materialist point of view. Decisions will be made collectively using methods of discussion and decision-making in groups and “round tables.”
We will take into account the principles and fundamentals of communist philosophy and political economy: from the smallest factory to the decisions that will be taken at the level of communes, regions and worldwide.
Organizing men and women workers for communism begins with discussions with our fellow workers, relatives, friends, members of the communist ICWP club to which we belong, about the reality that we confront as the daily product of the market economy.
It is not an easy task, but the experience of the past and the mistakes corrected from the old communist movement offer us ideas and actions to make decisions in large groups and give leadership to the masses of working men and women.
The struggle continues. The FMLN and ARENA are leading the struggle to keep capitalism alive. We in ICWP are fighting to destroy capitalism and build a communist society.
We must organize among all the workers, including in the base of the electoral parties, their unions and mass organizations, to work politically with the workers. They need to see that the only way to change their lives is joining and fighting together with ICWP for a communist revolution and not more capitalist farces.
Distributing Red Flag to organize and mobilize the masses for Communism is how we will win battles against capitalism and its electoral lies.
LOS ANGELES, March 3—Hundreds demonstrated today against the racist murder of a homeless black man, known on the streets as “Africa.” The LAPD shot and killed Africa on Sunday, March 1, on Skid Row. He was unarmed but five cops, including a black cop, surrounded Africa, tasered him and then shot him multiple times, killing him. All of this was caught on video.
Africa had a history of mental illness, like over 60% of the homeless people on Skid Row in Los Angeles, where more homeless people live than in any other US city. The majority are black.
Furious demonstrators marched and carried signs like “1000 more homes, 1000 less cops” and “Body Cameras Don’t Stop Police Murder!”
Many gladly took copies of Red Flag. A Red Flag distributor asked a demonstrator, “How about homes and useful work for EVERYONE and NO cops?” The demonstrator liked that a lot. That’s the world ICWP is fighting for, a communist world with no wage slavery, cops or racist terror. Every person will be valued for whatever contribution they can make to the collective, and the needs of every person will be met to the best of the collective’s ability.
This exchange led to good discussions about the need to fight directly for communism, not to try to reform capitalism. Reform fights won’t lead to communism: we need to mobilize for it directly. In communism, those who are homeless now will help build homes along with experienced construction workers and others, for themselves and everyone else who needs them. No one will go hungry or worry where they will sleep at night. Everyone will contribute what they can and receive what they need.
The murder of Africa is part of the rampant racist police killings throughout the US to terrorize angry workers and youth. In each case, from Omar Abrego, to Michael Brown, to Tamir Rice and now Africa, following the racist killing, the bosses’ media spews attacks on the victim, blaming him for his own death. After they threw him into the streets for being poor and mentally ill and after they killed him, now the bosses media are trying to justify this racist killing saying that Africa supposedly robbed a bank fifteen years ago, for which he went to prison. True or not, none of this justifies his racist murder!!!
The stress and alienation of capitalism contribute to more people suffering from mental illness. Starting in 1980, under Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, the US government closed mental hospitals to save money. This kicked many mentally ill people into the streets (part of cutting back social services to all US workers), making their isolation and illness worse
Capitalism in general and US imperialism in particular has made unemployment and homelessness mass phenomena. Capitalism is incapable of providing useful jobs for all even in “normal” times. In a crisis like now, millions worldwide are unemployed. In the US more than 3.5 million are homeless. Many are veterans who fought for “their country” and have been tossed out like garbage.
Homeless people are our brothers and sisters. Unable to sell their labor power, they are chewed up by capitalism. The bosses see them as trash whose lives aren’t valued.
Los Angeles is in the midst of a decade-long gentrification program in downtown LA, building high end restaurants and expensive loft apartments. As part of this, the LAPD is doing its job for the bosses by harassing, attacking and now killing homeless people on Skid Row, part of downtown. This increasing police attack includes forcing them to take down their tents every morning. Cops are trying to drive out homeless people, but they have no other place to go.
This racist murder is an escalation of this attack, which is an attack on all workers. We need to spread Red Flag and expand the fight for communism where every worker will have useful work, a safe place to live, and be valued and cared for.