The sleeping giant has awoken. Millions of industrial workers around the world have struck, demonstrated, fought and bled: straining to break the chains that bind them to capitalist exploitation. This weekend we saw the first sprouts of growth of the International Communist Workers' Party in key industries, nourished by this mass heroism.

The feeling was akin to the elation described by Red Army troops after surrounding the Nazi 6th Army at Stalingrad during WWII. "I can't believe this is happening," is how a leading ICWP organizer put it, a veteran of a dozen-year "liberation" war herself.

We were keenly aware that our meeting was nowhere as momentous as Stalingrad. Accordingly, we spent most of our time planning concrete steps to expand this beachhead.

As we often do, we began with a general discussion of the present state of affairs.

We surveyed the mood of the working class worldwide.  Differences exist around the world, but every country and industry is pregnant with communist potential.

The bosses' system is in economic, political and increasing military crisis. The old world order established after WWII is fraying. We are in a pre-revolutionary period as well as a pre-world war period.

After this discussion we got down to brass tacks.

South African Autoworkers; U.S. Aerospace Workers; Salvadoran Garment Workers

The heart of the meeting consisted of three reports. Our new South African comrades gave the first.

A Boeing comrade presented a communist strike solidarity letter signed by sixty of his fellow aerospace workers and nearby soldiers to these comrades to kick off the discussion. (See box.)  The international, anti-racist pictures of this "ceremony" were, to say the least, impressive.

A new recruit from Port Elizabeth, S.A., had worked in 5 auto subcontractor plants, each more  exploitive than the last. He spelled out how each paid less than he and his daughter needed to survive.

He kept "resigning" hoping to find a job that would pay the bills. Now he realizes the answer lies in recruiting to ICWP to mobilize for communism, not quitting one hellhole only to end up in a worse one.

He learned how to effectively provide communist solutions for his friends in different plants. Some worked in a union plant, others in a non-union plant. The initial approach may differ, but the only solution is communist revolution.

Another comrade explained that Mandela had not sold out later in life. He always served the bosses, just like the "revolutionary" leaders in El Salvador who now run the government.

The Boeing aerospace report focused on individuals we are trying to recruit. A young comrade, recently returned from the Seattle summer project, described how much more receptive Boeing workers were today than a couple of years ago.

Another young leader urged those his age to get jobs in industry or the army, key areas to concentrate on. A third outlined how young people who are not yet ready to enter these areas of work could help industrial concentrations.

Before the maquila workers gave their report, a young leader presented a slide show on South Africa. An eye-opening clip of furious women expressing their hatred for the governing African National Congress (ANC) followed.

A comrade translated their angry comments from Xhosa to English: another from English to Spanish. Maquila workers commented that the clip convinced them that they were fighting for the world's workers, not just for themselves. They weren't alone.

The Salvadoran garment comrades decided to meet among themselves more frequently. Up until now, most meetings have been with the area leadership.

These more timely discussions are necessary to overcome obstacles like little free time and money,  in order to discuss the paper and basebuilding. They promised wider Red Flag distribution, more frequent articles and after-work social events.

These reports inspired comrades around the world to make concrete plans to enter the industrial working class. For instance, three different groups of teachers from Mexico plan to survey their students to find relatives and friends that already work in industry.

Hard Communist Work Ahead

We proposed another international industrial workers' conference in about a year's time to insure our progress. We'll use the Party's new pamphlet Bigger Industrial Working Class: Bigger Communist Potential Worldwide in every club to launch our preparation for this conference.

All of us, including comrades from Honduras and Spain, left the conference aware of the hard, practical work ahead if we hope to have the kind of conference the working class needs.

The bosses want the industrial working class to go to sleep. That won't happen if we expand on the small breakthroughs represented during this weekend.

This conference showed us the possibility:  The international industrial working class can be the engine of communist revolution.

To the 220,000 brothers and sisters in the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) on strike in South Africa:

We, the undersigned, express our solidarity with Numsa Metalworkers and Engineers that have shut down a large portion of South African industrial production. Your fight is our fight!

Like you, we have to deal with a huge subcontractor sector that super-exploits workers. Your labor brokering is our employment agencies.

Like you, we are chained to longer and longer contracts.

Like you, these contracts abolish our ability to legally strike.

The working class around the world demands the fruits of our labor. To secure these fruits we have to ask the question, "Who has the power, the bosses or the workers?" To gain this power we have to break the limits of economic trade union strikes. We have to build for political strikes against the bosses' system.

The bosses' system, capitalism, thrives on exploitation. The internationalism we need must aim to replace factories dedicated to the bosses' profits with ones dedicated to production for our class's needs.

We join you in our common fight for workers' power.

Next Article