FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
International Communist Workers Party
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FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM! |
International Communist Workers Party | |
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Voting Tightens Noose around Our Necks
The Red Flag article about the movie “Selma” is useful in showing how Hollywood pushes illusions to the working class and the oppressed masses that the right to vote will bring justice to black youth and workers. It really shows how capitalism in crisis needs the liberals to put out this kind of propaganda to tie the masses of workers to capitalist rule.
That is exactly what the Social Democratic Labor Party in Germany did to usher fascism to power in the 1930s. The Social Democrats in Germany said that when Hitler came to power it would be a quick way to expose him.
Hitler was sworn in as chancellor and head of a coalition government on January 30, 1933. Hitler asked German President Paul von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag (German parliament) and hold new elections on March 5, 1933. Von Hindenburg agreed.
On February 27, the Reichstag building was set on fire. A Dutch communist was arrested for the crime. The Nazis accused the international communists of the act. Hitler urged President Hindenburg to pass an emergency decree to suspend civil liberties to counter the “ruthless confrontation of the Communist Party of Germany.” The government instituted mass arrests of communists, including all the communist parliamentary delegates.
Hitler armed the storm troops and incorporated them into the state apparatus as “auxiliary police” to suppress the Communist press and any pro-working-class propaganda. They arrested all militant workers and held the election. With the Communists gone, Hitler was able to consolidate his power.
The Independent Labor Party and the Social Democrats, ignoring the terror, claimed the election constituted a “democratic mandate.” In their view the victory of fascism was a “victory of democracy.”
Yes, that is what the capitalist democracy in decay looks like. Voting for our executioners doesn’t change anything except tightening the noose around our necks and preaching defeatism. The only solution is armed communist revolution to uproot the main cause of our misery, which is capitalism, once and for all.
—Comrade in California
Lesson of Civil Rights Movement: Communism, Not Reformism
A speaker at a recent meeting of a peace/justice group talked about Anne Moody, who died in January. Anne, daughter of black sharecroppers, risked her family ties, her future, and her life as a civil rights activist as a student at historically-black Tougaloo College.
She was part of an integrated group of young people who braved a racist mob in a 1963
Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1968 she published an autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi.
Later she wrote, “No matter how hard we in the movement worked, nothing seemed to change; we made a few visible little gains; yet at the root, things always remained the same.”
Those “visible little gains” would have included the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
She continued, “The movement was not in control of its destiny… We were like an angry dog on a leash that had turned on its master. It could bark and howl and snap, and sometimes even bite, but the master was always in control.”
Anne fought to end racism, not just for the “right to vote.” She fought for “every ethnic and racial minority, every suppressed and exploited person, every one of the millions who daily suffer one or another of the indignities of the powerless and voiceless masses.”
The speaker said that this fight had to be for “equality.” That didn’t mean a “fair chance” or “everyone getting the same.” Instead, as the author William Ryan said, “the idea of sharing… is the basic idea of equality.”
She gave some examples of how people have lived in non-class societies based on sharing and have fought for them over the centuries. (Information about this is at http://icwpredflag.org/DepthE/HE1_4.pdf )
She emphasized the recurring communist theme “from each according to ability, to each according to need” and proposed this for the movement today.
She described Anne Moody’s metaphorical “leash” as reformist ideology. It was the belief that the masses are inescapably “voiceless and powerless.” This led to reliance on the loud and powerful and the limited hope for a “few visible little gains.”
The speaker’s attack on reformism gave this group something to think about. A few gave her the “thumbs up” but others looked a little unhappy.
Anne and her comrades were taunted as “Communists.” She probably worked with members or supporters of the Communist Party through groups like the Southern Christian Educational Fund and the Highlander School.
But the Communist Party never offered a vision or program for communist revolution that could have provided Anne and many others with a way forward.
We can’t let that happen again. Let’s honor the memory of Anne Moody by boldly
bringing our communist political line to the masses of young people who are again rising in anti-racist struggle.
—LA reader
Garment Workers in El Salvador Build ICWP, not the Bosses’ Electoral Parties
EL SALVADOR—One night while I was on the bus, I got a call from a comrade who told me that the workers from the factory wanted to talk to me. He said that I had to be there at lunch time and to be on time, since they don’t have much time for lunch, but that I really had to be there.
I happily accepted the assignment. The unity between workers and students, who are the children of the working class and its future members, is a vital force for communist revolution.
After class, I went to the factory. I have to admit I was afraid because of the area where it’s located. I took several buses and finally arrived. I saw hundreds of workers running out of the factory to take advantage of the few minutes they have for lunch.
I met with two of our comrades. They gave me a letter that they had written in their Red Flag study group. (See below.) Happy to see each other, we sat down to have lunch and talk.
We talked about the recent elections. “This will go on until the activist workers in the electoral parties get disillusioned with them,” said a comrade. Both commented that in each electoral campaign season, there are many sharp discussions inside the factory, many workers identifying with one or the other party. “There is a lot of division, fights and arguments among the workers during the campaign.”
We talked a little about whether or not we would need leaders and how we would choose them if we need them. “I think that we need
leaders, not that they be more or less than everyone else, but leaders who guide, taking every one into account,” said a comrade
worker. He added, “We would choose him or her from the same group.”
“We already focus on what matters, our party. We’ve kept working,” said the worker leader. They said that they meet regularly, with some difficulties, but that they try to do it. They take Red Flag and our communist line to other workers.
The political practice of these comrades should be an example for all the members of ICWP, especially all the youth. We young people have to build ties with workers. We need to learn from their experiences, from their strengths and their errors. This alliance will be a headache for the bosses, but clean, fresh water for the working class.
We ended the conversation with plans for May Day. “We hope to bring 20 co-workers. We’ll need dozens of t-shirts for those who will come from all over.” Enthusiastic, but at the same time thinking about how to organize, we exchanged ideas about how to motivate the workers to march.
With an experience that I must repeat, I went back with enthusiasm and the conviction that we are on the road to victory.
—Young Communist, future industrial worker
Workers’ Study Group Writes
Workers in a Red Flag study group had a spirited discussion about the recent March 1st elections in El Salvador. There were many personal views about who would rule our country, whether it would be a party of the left or of the right.
Impatient to comment in the discussion, a worker said angrily, “We always end up the same, no matter which party wins. I don’t believe in them anymore.”
At the end, we concluded that no electoral party could change our living conditions. They only seek their own convictions and not the change that would benefit the workers’ families. They don’t look out for what’s best for the masses.
We’re angry because everything stays the same. We can only expect a change with the International Communist Workers’ Party. We think about how it will be when we take power.
“We had never heard of ICWP,” said a new comrade in the study circle.
That’s why we will continue working to change the world with communist ideas. Without fear, without looking back, we shout loudly from east to west, “ICWP is here.” That’s the only way we will see a better future for the whole working class, without dictatorship, nor inequality. We fight to make a new world.
Greetings to all the readers of Red Flag! Forward!
—Workers’ Club in El Salvador