FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
International Communist Workers Party
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FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM! |
International Communist Workers Party | |
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LOS ANGELES--On the way home from Oceanside, we saw this march. Faced with
several unsolved murders in the neighborhood and a media barrage blaming the gangs, these activists had taken to the streets to proclaim “black lives matter.” We joined them with our signs and Red Flag. As in El Salvador, the ruling class in the US uses gang violence for its own purposes. In this case it hopes to build support for the police who are under fire for an epidemic of racist murders.
“Red Flag is a communist paper that critiques capitalist education,” said a high school student that will soon join the military to a young marine.
“Do you accept donations?” asked the marine.
“Yeah,” the student responded.
“Here’s a dollar.” He took the paper, shook the comrade’s hand and went about his way.
The International Communist Workers’ Party organized a multi-racial group of young and older comrades to go to Oceanside, a town near a US Marine base. We divided into two groups. One group distributed lots of Red Flag newspapers but were not able to engage marines in conversations.
The other group was more successful in engaging the marines. We approached them by asking about where they were from, their reason for joining and their military experience. The conversations led up to talking about the role of capitalist armies, the Red Army and communism.
“Do you consider yourself working class?” we asked. Everyone said yes. “We are here having these conversations with you because all throughout history soldiers have played a key role in making revolution and will play a key role in the coming communist revolution now.”
“We understand that every country in the world from Russia to China to the US mobilizes their armies and military forces to war. But the sons and daughters of the politicians and the capitalists are never part of this,” we said.
“They don’t have to. They have everything they need and more,” responded a marine.
“Yes, and the communism we are fighting for is not the communism of North Korea or China like they try to tell us. That’s still capitalist dictatorship. We’re fighting for a world of true communism where all of us will be involved in all of the decisions that need to be made in the running of society. Where we all contribute and participate however we are able and share all that the earth and our collective labor has to offer, but in order to get us there we need a Red Army that will fight and defend the interests of the working class and not the capitalists.”
Another marine agreed: “Like we are all in the same playing field.” He then added, “I have to look into it more because it wasn’t what I have thought.” He and his buddy took Red Flag and the ICWP military pamphlet.
In talking about our experience on the way back, the student that will soon join the military said, “I didn’t know how they were going to react but in the end they were open about it.” He as well as the rest of us gained some experience about how to talk to comrades in arms about communism.
Sixty-two enlisted personnel and civilians took Red Flag papers from us. About fifteen young marines took the ICWP military pamphlet.
“This was a nice experience,” commented a recent high school graduate. “I need more practice in communicating communist ideas one-on-one. I’m used to distributing the paper in front of factories where workers are rushing in and don’t have time to have conversations. This was good practice. I like how the marines were open-minded and not ‘brainwashed’ as I thought they would be.”