Ice Buckets and Red Flag

Last week my teenage granddaughter challenged me to dump icewater on my head and give $10 for ALS research. Silliness aside, this challenge reflects the reality of medical research in a society where profit is primary over human need, and a cure for a disease can only be found if there's money to pay for it. This  challenge raised $80 million from 1.7 million donors  last month to fight against a progressive and fatal disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord and for which there is no known cure or effective medicine.

Under capitalism, medical research must get funded, labs set up, staff hired. Getting research grants is a competitive process, so scientists don't collaborate: sharing your results would give the competition an edge. All of this drastically slows down the search for treatment and cures.

And, of course, when they do find a cure, it will be for sale at a profit.

In a communist society without money, we will mobilize society's resources to collaborate  to find a cure for such diseases. Decisions about where resources will be dedicated will be made collectively; with the participation of patients, families, and health care workers. Medicine and medical care will be available to all, based on need rather than ability to pay. Diseases like Ebola, which is a disease of imperialism, will be eliminated. We will live in a healthy environment and make  production decisions based on workers' health, not on capitalist profit.

For working people to live healthy lives, we have to get rid of capitalism. But bringing communist ideas to the masses takes funds, to print and mail our paper. And it costs a lot to bring workers from around the world together to build an international Party. But you won't see us on Facebook pouring buckets of ice water over our heads. You'll see us at the factories and bus divisions, at the schools and barracks, distributing Red Flag. We hope you will take multiple copies for friends and fellow workers and give a generous donation to ICWP to help us hasten the day when all workers live healthier lives. 

—Red Grandmother

Bring Communist Ideas to the Masses in Motion

In a previous edition of Red Flag, a letter entitled "The Working Class in History" put forward the view that most workers are anti-capitalist but, because there isn't a mass communist party to lead them, they do their best to stay under the bosses' radar.  The author emphasized, correctly, that many workers are open to communist ideas. However, I think the writer got it wrong about workers passively waiting for communist leadership.

The week after we printed that letter, residents of Ferguson, Missouri, defying a curfew, marched in the streets in angry protest over the police murder of Michael Brown. While the protests became more organized in the weeks that followed, they began immediately. Angry working people speak up and fight back—around the world.

In Los Angeles, the cops killed another un-armed black man the following week. Protests followed. Police murder, designed to terrorize,  brought forth a collective and angry response.

People are angry. They look for answers. But they don't automatically come to anti-capitalist or communist conclusions. We took Red Flag to the protests in Los Angeles, and a sign saying "Don't Pray for Justice; Fight for Communism,"  People engaged us in conversation, took the paper and gave us their contact information.

Angry people fight back, with or without communist leadership. But without a Marxist analysis and the vision of a communist world, the fight will be a reformist dead-end. Bringing communist ideas to the masses in motion is our job.

—Student of history

First Article