Red Flag Newspaper
International Communist Workers Party
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LOS ANGELES—In a recent meeting of the Party collective of garment workers, ex-garment workers and others, we read the Red Flag editorial entitled, “Developments in Refugee Crisis…Join ICWP” (Vol. 6 #16) and saw some clips from a video about the struggle of the refugees in Europe. Then we made a communist analysis of this situation.
During the discussion, a comrade said, “The refugee crisis shows many important aspects, for example that the capitalist wars in Syria, throughout Africa, and in the whole Middle East are the root of these problems. These wars are linked to the inter-imperialist rivalry between the US and China and Russia. But the most important aspect is to understand how international workers’ solidarity contains the seed of communist ideas and sentiments.”
The idea wasn’t just to show the horrors of capitalism but to emphasize that the masses are open to communist ideas. We also wanted to show how to use this in our work places and among our political base to advance the growth of our Party, the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP).
The majority of those present, all latinos or latinas, have experienced the horrors of wars, repression, poverty, and the need to emigrate in order to survive. The comments about the plight of the refugees in Europe recalled the plight all have suffered personally crossing the deserts and mountains and seeing many fall on this road of death. The consequences of capitalism are attacks on the whole international working class.
A comrade strongly emphasized the need to become communist leaders, to take a step up from only being friends of ICWP, or semi-active members. He struggled with everyone there to be bolder in taking communist ideas to our work places.
A woman who works in garment said, “We don’t have machine guns.”
The comrade raised the newspaper Red Flag and said, “This is our machine gun.”
This time more comrades took more newspapers to distribute among their friends and co-workers.
In this communist club, all are immigrants. At different levels, all are helping to build a revolution and a communist world. Hundreds of papers are distributed, every edition, among garment workers and hundreds of leaflets about the refugees in Europe have also been distributed.
We invite workers to join our communist study groups, to distribute Red Flag, and to help to build our next mass May Day march in 2016.
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LOS ANGELES, September 26--Today marks the oneyear anniversary of the disappearance of 43 normal school students in Ayotzinapa, Mexico. Close to 200 marchers chanted in the streets of Los Angeles, “Here and there the struggle will continue” and “Ayotzinapa lives, the struggle continues”. The ICWP was present and helped lead some chants such as “We want a world without borders” and “Down with capitalism.” More than 200 Red Flag newspapers were distributed to marchers and onlookers. At the end of the march we were able to take the microphone. A comrade said, “We’re from the International Communist Workers’ Party. We are here in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Ayotzinapa. We mobilize the masses for communism, a world without money, exploitation, racism or borders. We urge you to join this mobilization.”
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SEATTLE, WA—The media are heralding Boeing’s new laser cannon as a military breakthrough. The company had one successful test after a string of failures over the last decade.
The laser cannon joins a long list of “game-changing” technologies. Each was supposed to make the U.S. military invincible. Remember the multibillion-dollar Star Wars Missile Defense fiasco? The US government started it in 1983 under Reagan. They spent $30 billion to try to set up an elaborate nuclear defense system, including using lasers, to target and stop the Soviet Union. It was finally scrapped as unfeasible. Once again, reality doesn’t live up to the hype.
The bosses’ over-reliance on technology stems from their fundamental weakness: over the long haul, they can’t rely on working-class troops.
Communists can. That is why we will win.
History’s Lessons
The Vietnamese won two wars against technologically superior forces. They defeated the French and then the U.S. imperialists.
“Then what did we get out of the war?” asked a Boeing machinist.
After some thought our comrade answered, “U.S. soldiers learned to revolt.”
The Pentagon concluded that 47% of their troops in 1971 had been involved either in resistance or outright rebellion. The U.S. Army with all its advanced technology was “approaching collapse” and “near-mutinous.”1
In the end, the Vietnamese were defeated by their own political compromises. The goals of national liberation and socialism were their undoing.
The 1917 Russian revolution could not have happened without millions of soldiers turning their guns on the capitalist regime.
Just as significant was the military defense of the new socialist state. Fourteen foreign imperialists invaded; soldiers from fourteen invading armies mutinied.
The imperialists supported reactionary forces collectively called the White Army. They equipped the White Army with the latest technologies, like machine guns.
The new Red Army relied instead on the commitment of communist troops. They developed new military strategies and tactics.
They didn’t have a lot of motorized vehicles. Their cavalry avoided a frontal assault, which had proved disastrous for imperialist divisions during WWI. Instead they circled around hundreds of miles in back of the White Army.
They had to act on their own initiative behind enemy lines, relying on the support of the people.
The White Army didn’t have this support. They collapsed when the Bolsheviks cut off their supply lines.
The Soviets used a more up-to-date version of this strategy in WWII to crush the Nazi 6th Army at Stalingrad.
This is not the history we get from capitalist schools or popular sources. Even “left wing” sources emphasize what the capitalists have done to us. Workers need the history that shows us what we have done and can do to the capitalists.
When we search history to learn how to defeat the bosses, we focus on how things change when masses are mobilized for communism. We see opportunities.
The bosses’ portrayal of the laser cannon could dishearten us if we don’t take these hard-won historical lessons to heart. The U.S. imperialists brag that the laser can shoot down missiles. They advertise it to show they can beat imperialist competitors. And most importantly, they advertise it to show the futility of workers’ revolution against such a powerful foe.
It’s a different story when they huddle behind the closed doors of their imperialist military think tanks. Stephen Biddle, called the best American defense analyst of his generation, worries.
He knows technology isn’t decisive to win wars. No sane armed force would frontally attack what he calls “a wall of steel,” a frontal attack on a well-armed enemy with mass troop strength. Dispersion of many troops over hundreds of miles and “small unit” initiative are key to winning a war.
We can win because mobilizing the masses for communism is at the heart of developing mass initiative. We trust the working class to lead every aspect of society including the military aspect. We’ll build an invincible Communist Army of leaders.
When it comes to the bosses’ reliance on technology, the emperor really doesn’t have any clothes.
1 “The Collapse of the Armed Forces” by Colonel Robert D. Heinl, Jr., Armed Forces Journal, 1971