Protests in Spain

May 27--Protests erupted in Barcelona, Spain, against the closing of CanVies, a community center which had operated outside the bosses' laws for the past seventeen years. Rioting in this working-class district over a period of several days threatened to disrupt the tourism industry in Barcelona, and brought a vicious police response.

     Working-class youth in Barcelona, like all over Europe, have faced soaring unemployment rates since the global economic crisis began in 2007. (The Spanish bosses admit to a 50% youth unemployment rate.)  This violent protest is taking place in the context of nation-wide protests against the monarchy and continent-wide protests against the austerity agenda of the G-7 Summit in Brussels.

     Hatred of capitalism is a mass sentiment in these protests. ICWP is working with these youth to win them to communism.

Spain: Don't Be Fooled by Fake "Left"

Today, as usual at election time, the political parties sell their souls to the devil.

The PSOE (Socialist Party of Spain) criticizes the ruling PP (Popular Party, Spain's right-wing party) for actions like cuts in health care, education, infrastructure, and social security.  The PP, in turn, claims a miraculous "success" of getting out of the economic crisis, the biggest lie that we live today.

But now other opponents have appeared on the scene: the party PODEMOS (We Can) which until now has refused to call themselves a political Party, but instead a Platform, whose program includes all types of citizen proposals.

Amidst this struggle among capitalists, obviously the fake left and the right wing of Spain have stolen the people's money, but we also have to talk about the new ones: PODEMOS. At first their platform called itself "radical leftist," calling for unconditional support for platforms like that of 15-M and various collectives of the Occupy movements in Spain.

They also emphasized that everything will move and be operated according to the collectives and their needs. But now PODEMOS has participated in the elections for the European parliament, winning 5 seats. They promised to leave the Eurozone, and to create better programs to help the neediest. Now, after seeing themselves as moderate winners, their discourse with one "depends." Now they talk of "common sense."

It is clear that capitalist political parties everywhere on the planet will never be the solution to the workers' problems. They always make promises that later they forget, or afterwards are simply not convenient for their pocket books. The capitalists are always in motion to create new fake "left" tendencies and thus try to stop the advance of the masses.

The International Communist Workers' Party always proposes an internationalist vision about these serious problems, when seeing the masses fooled by all the capitalist propaganda. We bring communist ideas to the working class in a mass way. This includes talking about these deceptions and being self-critical in the collectives, studying Red Flag, discussing how we address the issues and how we communists carry them out in action. The clubs, the main basis for our advance, should train leaders to bring the ideas everywhere in an organized way to defeat the false ideas of democracy.

Let's fight for communism and defeat capitalism with more members in our ranks. Let's fight for Communism because it is the only political line to get out of the crisis, racism, sexism, and wage slavery in which capitalism keeps us.

--Comrade in Spain

Discussing communism with my family, through Red Flag

I visited my family and brought them Red Flag for the first time.  There hadn't been a chance to discuss the paper with them before.  One of my brothers read it and when I visited them again, he asked what it was about.

I told him that Red Flag is a communist paper, written by workers in different countries.  It shows how bad the capitalist system is for the working class and lets us know how workers are fighting for the destruction of capitalism and the construction of communism.

He said that he had already heard of communism.  I asked his opinion about what he had read in Red Flag.  He said that in Red Flag he read ideas that are very good for the working class, but he thought that the distribution of Red Flag is dangerous because the repressive government is watching the workers, and that we should be careful.

On this last point, we discussed how governments defend the interests of the bosses.  We communists are aware of that and we should learn to take security measures, but it is worth it because only communism will liberate the workers from exploitation.

He commented that it will be hard to get to communism, because his experiences working in government programs training older women had made him realize that it's complicated to change ideas and to get people to be responsible.  Also, when one talks to them about new ideas or about organizing, many people just expect to get something from you.

I told him that the capitalist system has educated the workers with individualistic ideas.  Through its material base, which is money, it has instilled the idea that we shouldn't organize ourselves if there are no economic benefits.  However, the ICWP is educating people with communist ideas, struggling to get rid of individualistic ideas, inspiring an organization without narrow economic interests, to destroy capitalism and build communism.

We discussed that the destruction of capitalism might be slow, but this will depend on how quickly we spread communist ideas.  The majority of people don't want to keep being exploited. This shows that they are against the system, but they lack the communist ideas needed to fight for the destruction of capitalism.

I told him that in many parts of the world, like in South Africa, many workers have recently joined ICWP because they have personally suffered from exploitation. They have learned that we shouldn't fight for reforms within the system, but that the only solution for the working class is communism.  Lastly, we talked about how important it is for him to keep reading Red Flag, because in that way he will understand the reality of the capitalist system, which exploits and creates class differences everywhere in the world.

--Comrade in Mexico

FMLN = More Capitalism! We Need ICWP

EL SALVADOR, May 28— "We are three days away from the inauguration of the new President!" This was said excitedly by someone who was with some friends.
One of them answered him immediately. "Yes, so that everything will be the same." The discussion concluded with this comment. The first only smiled and said weakly and resignedly, "There's no other choice."
The next weekend there was a gala inauguration of the President-elect Sánchez Cerén of the FMLN. What do the election and this inauguration mean for a new five year term? Simply the continuation of the inhuman capitalist system.
History has shown us that voting and periodic elections have never given the results the working class needs, only reforms that don't change anything so that exploitation marches on. Thus elections mask the reality of the poverty that capitalism creates. They are displayed in the media, also under the command of the oppressor class, the bourgeoisie.
Comrades, hearing this exchange of words is a call to continue unceasingly in our struggle, the struggle of all. Capitalism is responsible for killing the hopes and aspirations of humans, making them believe that the way we live now is the way we will always live, and that there is nothing we can do about it. There are workers who are outwardly resigned, who think that there is nothing that can be done, and that's not true. Everything remains to be done.
The electoral political parties of the "Left" sell themselves as the solution to these evils. But it's not true. The accelerating rightward movement of these parties is clear and irreversible. They are now leading accomplices in the betrayal of all who have fallen in the struggles that they now praise hypocritically.
An X on a voting form does not change anything. Only the masses under the Red Flag of ICWP can achieve the world that we so long for and for which millions have fought.
Workers of the world, women and men, we have a duty to history and to the future. It is not about putting ourselves in front of a cardboard box and electing someone to diplomatically administer bourgeois exploitation. It is about organizing ourselves and mobilizing the masses for communism, because this is the only way to shed our chains. Let's stop being pawns in this deadly game. We will continue advancing and on the way we will meet each other and march together towards communism.

--Young Comrade

To End Sexist Violence: Fight For Communism

Class society has only existed for ten thousand years. Before that, for about two hundred thousand years, human beings lived in nomadic gathering and hunting societies.

The archeological record and the evidence of societies like the !Kung San in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa show that these societies practiced a fierce egalitarianism. People, being nomads, had few possessions. Food and water had to be shared for the survival of the group. Children were raised collectively. Women had as much access to food, protection, and social support as men did.

The emergence of agriculture, private property in the means of production, and class society brought with it the beginnings of the oppression of women.

Sexism is not innate; men and women in pre-class society lived in mutual respect and cooperation. The oppression of women is the product of class society. I need to remember that, because I, like every other woman I know, am deeply angry.

We are angry at the violence that has been visited on women and girls around the world, from the schoolgirls in Nigeria, to the cousins raped and hanged in Uttar Pradesh, India, to the women (and men) killed in Santa Barbara, USA. Millions of women have responded in anger, echoing the fear of women around the world that we will be the recipients of sexist violence. Millions of men have responded in solidarity. 

Sexism doesn't exist on its own. It intensifies the racist oppression created by capitalism—a system where the rich and powerful maintain their position by increasing the exploitation and oppression of the masses.

I want a world where our nieces, daughters and granddaughters will be respected. And I want a world where our nephews, sons and grandsons are taught to see women as comrades and equals.

The only way to achieve that is to be clear about the cause of sexism and sexist violence—class society—and the solution—a communist world, without money and exploitation, where we work together for the common good and share what we produce. 

That's where our anger—and the anger of our brothers and male comrades—must be focused. Fight for communism!

--A comrade

Workers in Salinas Protest Police Murder

SALINAS, CA –On May 20th, the police murdered Carlos Mejia, 44. They were caught on video shooting him to death as he was trying to walk away. That night and the next, over 1000 people gathered to protest the racist cops. On Sunday, May 25, thousands, including many farmworkers and their families, marched against the racist cops. It was the third police murder in 3 months. Politicians called for Federal investigation of the police. But the growers and all bosses use their cops to terrorize workers to super-exploit them.

"I came out today because you never rest," said Salinas resident Maria Marquez. "The police cars are out everywhere. Our family, our children, are out on the streets and we don't know if they are safe. It has to end one way or another." This will end by masses of angry workers joining ICWP to fight for communist revolution to wipe out the racist murderous profit system, building a communist system to meet workers' needs.

Understanding Dialectics: The Internal is Primary

I was glad to see the article on dialectics in the last Red Flag by a collective of comrades from Mexico. Their article used concepts from dialectics to analyze various important contradictions in the world today.

Although the article makes many correct points, I think there is a better way to express some of them. In particular the article's use of the concept of "external contradiction" leads to some confusions. The article defines "external contradictions" as those between social classes, and calls contradictions within a class as "internal." I think that a better way to analyze contradictions is to see them all as internal to some system or process.

Contradictions between classes are internal to the capitalist system and imperialist rivalries are internal to the international capitalist class. Contradictions like racist or sexist conflicts can exist inside the working class. Contradictions like wanting to overthrow capitalism and also wanting to become a boss are sometimes present inside an individual worker.

There are several reasons that it is important to see all these contradictions as internal. Contradictions can only happen when the two sides have some kind of unity. The contradiction is a struggle inside this unity.

Some important principles of dialectics make use of the fact that all contradictions are internal to something. Dialectics explains change as happening from internal causes, that is, from contradictions. Marx's statement that human history is the record of class struggle illustrates this idea.

Mechanical materialism, the opposite of dialectics, says that change in something is only caused from the outside. The dialectical principle "Internal contradictions are primary" says that the main causes of change in any system or process are internal, although external circumstances can make a difference as well.

Although causes are internal, when systems are contained inside other systems, we need to focus on the right system. The cause of a particular worker's being unemployed is not usually internal to the worker. Instead the worker's unemployment probably results from the momentary needs of some group of bosses, within the capitalist system.

The difficult question of how to understand contradictory systems inside larger contradictory systems is the difficulty that the article's authors are wrestling with. Red Flag should have more articles that make dialectical analyses of our movement and the system we fight against.

--Dialectics Fan

"Think and act as you and me, instead of you or me"

It is heart-wrenching to see a positive working attitude vanishing little by little. It is obvious that new employees don't see driving a bus as a long-term career. Management in its efforts to increase efficiency, aided by our supposed defenders union leaders, has crossed the threshold in demoralizing the drivers, especially the new ones.
Older drivers see where most of the company's growth has been. They no longer think it is a good company to work for and are getting ready to leave. The only message new drivers get is, "Be glad you got a job!" An incentive for working at MTA was that, if you started young as a driver, after 23 years of service you could retire. Now you are forced to work until 60 years of age, regardless of years of service. If the environment isn't employee positive, studies show that after 7 years the employee's productivity and efficiency greatly decrease, not to mention the negative psychological effects on them.
When the rulers (management) and their assistants (union leaders) lose their senses, then the ruled must come to their senses. If we are dissatisfied, we must act. The Contract and Elections are around the corner. Every long journey requires a first step. Let us stop making excuses. Our present actions will dictate the future that we deserve. The Present is a product of our past; our future will be a product of our present.
Let's start thinking and start acting as you and me, instead of you or me. If we act, there is a chance to succeed or fail but if we do not act, we would have failed automatically. If plan "A" does not work, the alphabet has 25 more letters. Smart people know that there is a lot to learn, and that, there was a time when they did not know what they know now. When smart people get criticized, they learn from it.
We have to get out of denial and face what is not working for us, no matter how uncomfortable or challenging it may be. To succeed we must take action. Our words say how we think, our actions say who we are.
If we do not act, it is like giving our consent to be neglected and harassed. Those who are not willing to help others will never be able to help themselves.

--An MTA Operator

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