US High School Students Salute Comrades in South Africa

We are part of a high school ICWP collective in Los Angeles, California, USA. We meet regularly to study, plan events and read and discuss Red Flag (RF) which you guys also have over there. Some of us have read and discussed party literature like Mobilize the Masses for Communism and are currently studying the party's pamphlet Dialectical Materialism: The Philosophy of Struggle. We also have developed an extensive Red Flag network in which we distribute a little over hundred.

We recently saw a video of you guys. We noticed that some of you were wearing the red ICWP shirt; many of us have that shirt. With that same shirt we proudly marched together with other workers on May Day, our international working class day.

In the video we were able to witness that all of you, like ourselves, need and want a real change in our lives. We are very excited, and it's very heartening that in this great part of the world the ICWP is known and it is growing. We invite you and encourage you, like we do ourselves, to continue participating in ICWP activities. And believe us, comrades, all of the pain, struggle and wait will be very well worth it.

In a recent meeting we read your article in Red Flag. We would like to know what questions you guys have. We, like you, are fighting for communism; we are both helping to mobilize the masses for a better world. The better world we all want: a world with no borders and no bosses, a world where the poor aren't forced to live in the worst conditions and where the rich exploit us all; there won't be poor nor rich. Everyone will work and everyone will help out however they are able to.

Together we are fighting to extend communism all over. Together we are breaking down barriers so that our futures change. Together we are waging struggles so that the party of Red Flag will organize under only one flag all over the world.

In ICWP we will bring together our unbreakable power; we shall be a red world like the color of our blood. We are showing all of these racist exploiters, politicians and all capitalists that the ICWP grows each year and that we will take back all that belongs to the international working class.

These damn politicians and capitalists spend their time in their huge mansions when not travelling all over the globe with their great fortunes and their great luxuries while millions of children or entire families go hungry.

Let's continue the fight, South African comrades. We know that we will defeat all of these capitalists. Let's continue the fight for our families, continue the fight to achieve every worker's dream of eliminating the savage wage system. Long live ICWP!

We invite you to read, study and discuss Mobilize the Masses for Communism, Dialectical Materialism: The Philosophy of Struggle, and other party literature and fight to develop and extend Red Flag networks. We have a world to win. In the study of dialectics we learned that there are contradictions everywhere and that the only way to resolve them is through struggle.

"In Communism, Will There Be Soccer?"

El Salvador—The new World Cup is here. This country again was left out of the multi-million dollar profits. A sports fan said, "Have you read yet about the underhanded things that the Salvadoran teams are involved in?"

"That is nothing compared to the millions of dollars that Qatar spent in bribes so that they could host the world cup in 2022," responded another sports fan. $5 million were distributed initially, according to official figures.

Soccer is enjoyed by millions of people. According to official FIFA figures, 270 million people around the world regularly play soccer. Many more play informally. Many of them don't even imagine the lucrative deals that revolve around the beautiful game. Every four years comes the high point when products inundate television screens. "You have to buy a new television," "drink this drink," order the multi-national companies.

This year's World Cup—an elitist event—has shown that the working class is not uncritical and no longer believes that "bread and circuses" are the solution. Workers are taking to the streets to say that first world stadiums are  not worth it when the most basic services—health care, jobs, education, and housing—are rotten.

The workers are indignant, because while billions are spent on stadiums, the hospitals lack medicine and a high percent of the poor have no place to live, no water or electricity.

Incidents of corruption have been made public. For example, the cost of transportation of the stands was to be $4,700, but the consortium in charge has charged $1.5 million to the Brazilian government, 318 times the original cost. This company, thanks to its contacts and its donations to politicians, was awarded 25% of the projects.

These enormous costs, supposed to have been paid by private business, will be paid by the working class: the costs are socialized and the profits are privatized. A Brazilian or Salvadoran worker will never be able to pay the entrance fee to see a World Cup game.

"So is soccer bad?" "In communism there won't be soccer?" ask many friends of the International Communist Workers' Party. The answers are clear: soccer is a sport that helps maintain healthy, athletic bodies. In communism there will be sports. Millions of men and women workers will practice this and other sports without the goal of getting profits for the bosses.

Capitalism is the virus that contaminates sports that should be healthy recreation for our class. In communism we will develop athletic qualities and promote soccer as part of the socialization of the whole working class. The best goal that will be scored in the communist system will be to make the sports merchants who profit from the skills and abilities of young athletes disappear. ICWP organizes and motivates the working class for communism. Read and distribute Red Flag, our newspaper.

--Comrade in El Salvador

World War III is Inevitable

The article "Imperialism Creates its Own Gravediggers" was very helpful in showing that the industrial working class is the biggest in history, and winnable to communism. It points the way forward.

But it could have also explained that because of the nature of capitalist competition, declining rate of profit, and overproduction, world war is inevitable. More workers worldwide are wage slaves producing more goods in more factories. This sharpens the competition for markets, raw materials and cheap labor. This then makes the inter-imperialist rivalry for those markets fiercer, and eventually they have to destroy the productive capacity of their rivals.

But more wage-slaves world wide, furious at the bosses' attacks, super exploited at levels never before seen, and future soldiers in the imperialists' armies, have a huge potential for communist revolution internationally. To make that a reality, we need to build ICWP internationally, especially among industrial workers and soldiers. 

As the article explained, the imperialists are dividing the world, but these divisions are not neat. Everywhere they are locked in conflict with each other. In the face of China's growing investments in Africa, AFRICOM (US military) has troops and drones in most African countries and plans for more. The US is actively fighting for control in Eastern Europe, Germany and Russia's back yard. China is making huge advances in Latin America. The canal the Chinese bosses plan to build in Nicaragua directly challenges US control in the Central American region.

China, Brazil, India and Russia seek new markets, resources and cheap labor to profit from, but the US is the military power most likely to launch the war. It is in decline and needs to defend its empire from rising capitalists-imperialists that are hounding it. Chinese, Russian and other imperialists are also preparing militarily.

Since World War III is inevitable, we should continuously show how the contradictions are sharpening. That way, workers can see that only by mobilizing for communism can we put an end to deadly competition and mass murder for profit.

--An LA comrade

Engineers, Workers Must Smash Division of Mental and Manual Labor

"Boeing Engineers" (V.5  #8) presented important information about how workers worldwide are feeling the pressure of intensified exploitation as capitalists compete for the profits of our labor.  Also, it usefully noted that the bosses divide and weaken our class by creating distinctions between "mental" and "manual" labor (among many others) that communism will end. 

The division of labor between engineers and production workers is an important example of this.  Engineers "design" things; machinists and assemblers "make" them.  Even the capitalists know that work is smoother when engineers are close to production.  Workers also know how designs can be improved, but they are usually not asked and have little incentive to volunteer information that will probably be used to exploit them more.

Engineers are trained in college to think like management when designing products and production processes.  We should write more about this.  But clearly the bosses have historically paid engineers more to keep them from allying with workers instead of management.

The current attacks on Boeing engineers show that their real interests lie in uniting with production workers and the rest of the working class to mobilize for communism.  I think that the article could have been stronger if framed around this political point instead of around the narrower economic point about intensifying exploitation.

I hope that future articles will include conversations with Boeing engineers as well as production workers about the capitalist division of "mental" from "manual" labor (even though the two are intertwined in production) and how communism will end it.

--LA Comrade 

Ukraine: Who's to Blame?

Dear Red Flag: I have recently discovered and become very positively impressed with your website icwpredflag.org and its proletarian politics.

As regards your latest view on the situation in Ukraine, I agree that it is dominated by various aspects of imperialism. But I see a danger, for the international proletarian fight against capitalism and its manifestation in fascism, to equate what the Nazi-dominated regime is doing in and from Kiev with what 'Putin' is said to be doing or not doing, and with what the proletarians in the east and elsewhere in Ukraine are doing to cast off being dominated by Kiev's NATOist Nazis.

--Comrade in the United Kingdom

Red Flag Responds:

On May 2, Right Sector fascists and other Ukrainian nationalists murdered at least forty pro-Russian protestors in Odessa, Ukraine. This attack highlights the fascist character of the U.S. allies in Ukraine. The Russians were burned to death in the Trade Union Palace where they had sought sanctuary from a pro-Ukrainian mob.

But just because the Ukrainian nationalists are fascists, it doesn't follow that the pro-Russian forces are anti-fascist, pro-working-class fighters. They weren't waving the red flag, but wearing the ribbon of Russian patron Saint George.

Russian Prime Minister Putin is trying to sell the story of Russia vs. Ukraine as a fight between fascists and anti-fascists. The May 9 Victory Day celebration march through the streets of Sebastopol, Crimea, and other cities featured photographs of Russian soldiers who had fought the Nazis in World War II, overtly portraying the current struggle as a continuation of that fight.

The Red soldiers who defeated the Nazis would turn over in their graves if they could see what Putin is doing in their name.

Putin has overseen the emergence of Russia as an imperialist power, a key oil and natural gas supplier to most of Europe. He has reformed the military, aiming to make Russia a key strategic imperialist power. His policy of mass privatization led to a sharp increase in mortality, especially among unemployed male workers.

Putin's creation of "National Champions," such as Gazprom and United Aircraft Corporation, expected to advance the interests of the nation while they make a profit, illustrates the creation of a fascist corporate state. Virulent nationalism justifies Russian expansion.

Putin is no anti-fascist. The struggle in the Ukraine is not a struggle between fascists and anti-fascists. It is part of a fight between U.S. and Russian capitalist/fascists over who will rule the world.

Working Class Youth: The Only Decent Future is Communism

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), worldwide unemployment will continue to worsen, even though "gradually," to reach over 215 million unemployed people in 2018. During this period about 40 million net new jobs will be created a year, a number lower than the number of people expected to enter the job market, which is about 42.6 million each year.

The number of NEET youth (those who are neither employed nor receiving education nor training) has continued to increase sharply since the crisis began in 2008. In some countries, it is estimated that about one fourth of the youth between 15 and 29 years old find ourselves in this situation. The worldwide youth unemployment rate has risen to 13.1 percent, which is three times greater than the adult unemployment rate.

The electoral politicians tell us that they will save us from poverty, unemployment, and violence. In reality, they create all this. Throughout the world they terrorize us with their fights for business, some illegal, all for profits, that end up in "legal" businesses like banks and industries. They have even reduced the migration of Central Americans to the US through killings by drug dealers.

Mexico occupies fourth place among the 40 countries considered by the ILO in the percent of "NEETS." It is only surpassed by Turkey, Macedonia and Israel, nations where the number of young "nini's" is growing rapidly. Spain is just two rungs below Mexico.

While the capitalist system adds more years until workers can retire, many youth find ourselves at home without having the financial capacity to study or work because the jobs require a "minimum of two years of experience." But how can we have experience if they don't even give us the opportunity to sell our labor power?

In Mexico in recent months, about 1,200,000 Mexicans were out of work in the formal sector of the economy (three out of every four who tried to find a job), without including those who lost their jobs before, in previous administrations.

The ILO warns that, besides the current job insecurity recorded in Mexico, the weak generation of formal jobs is more than disturbing.

There are millions of us NEET youth not only in Mexico but in the whole world. This is a product of the capitalist system in crisis. But many of us are fighting for communism, organizing, distributing Red Flag, and mobilizing the masses for communism. We are convinced that the system affects all of us and that's why it is urgent to change it.

I am a youth from El Salvador and a member of the International Communist Workers' Party. It is evident that the ILO, together with the bosses, are correct to worry because the NEET youth, hand in hand with ICWP, are a threat to the capitalists since we can be builders of a communist revolution.

The working class needs to liberate ourselves from all the capitalists and for that we need to join ICWP now!

--NEET Red Youth

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