FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
	International Communist Workers Party
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LOS ANGELES– “I have so many students, it feels like I’m a grindstone in a giant mill,” a community college teacher told a guest speaker. 
“You are working in a system that works against what we’re trying to do,” the speaker replied.  “Capitalism is coercive.  It thrives on desperation and exploitation. You work for a system that has failed the community.”
His remarks struck a chord.  He had identified an important contradiction.  This explained why so many students, faculty and staff are often frustrated. 
Another teacher noted that the speaker presented no alternative.  He just talked vaguely about “letting students know you’re on their side” and “empowering resistance.”
The only system that can serve the working-class masses is communism.  Communism is cooperative.  It thrives on revolutionary optimism and voluntary labor to meet the masses’ needs.
Today the US rulers are pressuring community colleges to grind out workers with technical skills for industry and the military. 
In contrast, communism will combine lifelong learning and work.  We will all continually develop our ability and commitment to contribute to society in many different ways. Above all, we will learn to build communist social relations of mutual aid and worldwide comradeship.
Communist society will erase the separation of “mental” and “manual” labor and blind reliance on “experts.”  All young people will learn to be communist leaders instead of being schooled as wage-slaves.

Capitalist Individualism versus Communist Comradeship

The US community college system mushroomed after World War II.  It was part of US imperialism’s Cold War strategy. 
The Soviet Union wasn’t communist.  Its “socialism” was at its core capitalist.  It maintained a money economy with wages, markets and privilege.  By the end of World War II, the Soviet Union was becoming a full-fledged imperialist power.
But anti-communist ideology motivated the expansion of community colleges.  The 1947 Truman Commission argued that they would produce “effective, informed and responsible” citizens who would identify with the US government.  Students would develop “ethical principles consistent with democratic [capitalist] ideals.”  They would help “maintain a free [not communist] society.”
The California Association of Junior Colleges declared in 1948 that junior colleges were “committed to the democratic way of life.”  They put “the individual man as the highest value in the world.” 
Capitalism means dog-eat-dog competition for maximum profits.  It is the material basis for the ideology of individualism.  This me-first mentality is deadly for workers.  Only through collectivity can we end exploitation and build the communist world we need.  
Communism values our interdependence and common interest.  In communist society these values will motivate us to work and share.  We will welcome every individual’s contributions.  That’s how the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) is today.  Check us out and you’ll see!

Revolution no Reform

During the 1960s, the number of community colleges doubled.  This was a period of mass struggle worldwide.  The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution fought “capitalist-roaders” in the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.  Anti-imperialist rebellions rocked Algeria, Vietnam and many other former European colonies.  
US soldiers and sailors mutinied against the Vietnam War.  Black workers led a strike wave that swept basic industry.  The civil rights movement erupted into urban rebellions. 
Masses rose up against police violence, slumlords and racist unemployment.  The rulers gave them – community colleges!  “If there was no [Watts] rebellion, there would be no Southwest College,” a daughter of that college’s founder said in 2001.
The rulers hoped that this reform would blunt class-consciousness.   They encouraged youth to try to “succeed” by escaping the working class instead of fighting to destroy class society.  Some were co-opted and many were disappointed.
Today, community colleges enroll over half of all US undergraduates.  Individualistic illusions still attract many. Yet their stark contrast with reality creates huge opportunities for communist mobilization among students (many of whom are workers) and even college teachers.
Many more must read the ICWP pamphlet Communist Education for Classless Society. Download it here. If you like what it says, contact us to join the Party or a study group.

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