FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
International Communist Workers Party
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FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM! |
International Communist Workers Party | |
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LOS ANGELES — “Hey come to support, we’re having a candle light vigil. Our fellow operator was shot to death with her son in the car,” an MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) worker texted a comrade.
Denise Berry was driving when she and her son reportedly laughed at a car with a man’s feet hanging out the window. The car followed them. Denise, alarmed, pulled over next to a police squad car, seeking help. The other car pulled up next to her and the man riddled her car with bullets from two hand guns, killing her and wounding her son. The cop then shot and killed the shooter.
MTA workers in and out of uniform showed up for the vigil, along with Denise’s relatives and other friends, to demonstrate their solidarity with their fallen comrade. Denise worked for four and a half years at MTA Division 18.
This outpouring of support shows that most workers already have the ethic that we need to build a completely different world: a communist world that values all our lives. It shows the potential for solidarity like this to develop into the communist unity the working class needs to confront all the unsafe and deadly conditions capitalism creates for us.
We hold capitalism responsible for the alienation and insanity, the drug epidemic, the racism and the devaluing of human life that can lead to tragedies like the death of Denise Berry. But let’s keep our eye on the ball. The main threat to our lives is the racist capitalist ruling class itself, not a few corrupted elements among the masses.
The MTA worker who sent the text is a new member of the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP). In a recent meeting of the MTA ICWP club, he and other transit workers discussed the communist philosophy of Dialectical Materialism. We gave examples of how internal contradictions are the essence of understanding the nature of a process or thing.
“If I take this paper in both hands and try to rip it, it will rip,” said a comrade. “But if I use the same force on my notebook, the internal composition of the notebook keeps it from tearing.”
“I see,” said the worker. “We want to be like that notebook to the bosses, so whatever force they use will not break us.”
But how do we build that strength? “How do we mobilize the masses for communism?” he asked.
Internal contradictions are primary. The main aspect of winning communism is the ideological struggle between communist and capitalist ideas among workers. That’s true now and it will be true during and after the revolution.
This is why we have to talk to workers at MTA and everywhere about communism. That is why we have to build Red Flag networks and ICWP clubs or cells in every workplace.
Regular Red Flag distribution outside seven MTA divisions has helped to make communist ideas more massive. Many workers take bunches of Red Flag to give to friends or to leave in the lunch room. This “internal” distribution must grow for our work to make a qualitative leap in development.
After the death of Denise Berry, the ICWP MTA club met to discuss what it means to mobilize the masses for communism in situations like this.
Comrades talked about what it would look like to organize a political strike against the whole capitalist system. It might mean stopping work for five to ten minutes against any attack against the working class whether on the job or in our neighborhoods or anywhere else in the world. A political strike for communism would inspire workers internationally.
The MTA comrades left the meeting with a draft of a statement to think about and discuss with co-workers. This group is enthusiastically building for the May Day events.
Let the communist spirit of solidarity and collectivity prevail in our May Day celebrations! Let our communist flags fly proudly and high in May Day marches in El Salvador, Spain, South Africa, Mexico, and the United States, announcing the approaching red dawn!
April 8 – Protests in North Charleston, South Carolina, USA continue after Michael Slager, a white police officer, was arrested on a murder charge after killing Walter L. Scott, a black worker. Slager was caught on video shooting Scott in the back after stopping him for a broken taillight and then handcuffing the dying man.
The protest shown was organized by a group formed after the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. US rulers are widely publicizing Slager’s indictment in a desperate effort to restore the faith of the angry masses in the capitalist legal system. They want to steer anti-racist youth into a reform movement demanding “justice” and video cameras. They fear the revolutionary potential of these youth. For the same reason, the bosses’ media gave wide publicity to the election of two black officials in Ferguson this week.
South Carolina has become an important manufacturing center, especially for automotive (BMW, Bridgestone, and 250 other companies) and aerospace (100 companies). Boeing’s Charleston 787 Dreamliner plant alone employs thousands of workers.
According to the FBI, US cops kill over 400 people every year. Other sources put the figure closer to 1000, including disproportionate numbers of black and latin men. The racist murder of Walter Scott was not a “bad decision” by one cop, as the North Charleston mayor said. It’s part of the systematic racist terror that capitalism needs to divide and suppress the working class, especially in this period of intensified global crisis.
The capitalists particularly fear the revolutionary potential of industrial workers and soldiers. These workers, mobilized around communist ideas, can lead the way in ending capitalist wage slavery, the root of racism.
