Red Flag Letters

This is the paper of the working class. We get no funding from the capitalists, their foundations or NGOs. This newspaper is not a commodity produced for sale. We are fighting to abolish commodity production. However, we have to pay for the costs of producing and distributing the paper, as well as for other expenses of building an international party. The box below includes a suggested donation of $20/year which is about the current cost of mailing a single copy to a U.S. address. We accept any donations, large and small. Please give generously.

My parents were rural teachers from 1948 until their deaths. They were part of the generation that “hispanicized” 90% of the Mixteca indigenous population in Puebla, Guerrero, and Oaxaca. They were trained in the Teacher Training Institute as they began as teachers after finishing the sixth grade.
The National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) which includes support staff like secretaries, custodians, cooks, teachers of skilled trades, etc., was formed in 1923, with the participation of communists inspired by the Russian revolution. (The Mexican Communist Party was formed in 1919.) However, they did not achieve the development of a line of dividing the working class from the bourgeoisie. Instead they sought to improve the conditions of exploitation (use of labor power). In one way or another, the line of class collaboration triumphed.
Teachers like my parents were effective instruments for the development of capitalism. They opened schools and filled gaps with unpaid labor or “community work. “ They built the “national identity” (with the bosses) in the schools, honoring the national anthem and the national flag every Monday.
During World War II the communists let down their guard supposedly in order not to hurt the Allies’ war efforts. After the war, they tried to “re-conquer” the unions, which the government had coopted. The rulers decided that the unions were the result of its effort and interest in the population and that workers, farmworkers, and the “public sector” were integral parts of the government. Whoever didn’t believe this was a “traitor to the country” and was repressed. The teachers repeated this governmental ideology, like the majority today in the SNTE.
The communists believed that they could develop communist fractions in the unions or alternative (“red” or “independent”) unions as a tactic to build a Party and make a revolution. They did not understand that the union, from being an instrument of defense, had become part of the capitalist state. The overthrow of the state would be necessary before the ruling class would allow unions to “serve the workers.”
In 1958 a major strike broke out in the schools. It ended up being repressed, first by pro-government goon squads and finally directly by the government. Hundreds of teachers were fired. They burned their professional “titles” in the main Plaza in Mexico City, in front of the government palace. However communist convictions were hidden due to security and timidity. This same year a railroad strike broke out which ended with the leaders being jailed.
The working class has not stopped fighting. In the middle of the 1960’s, the split between the Soviet Union and China occurred. Communists around the world understood the importance of the Soviet leaders’ renouncing Communism and as a consequence tried to form new Communist Parties. Unfortunately they followed the nationalist and reformist examples of the old movement, now under Chinese and Cuban influence.
The valiant promoters of the National Coordinating Council of Education Workers (CNTE) came from this trend. Many have been murdered. However, they promoted trade unionism (material improvements within capitalism), not the elimination of wage labor and participating in the Oaxaca State Institute for Public Education (IEEPO).
“They did not do everything well nor did they do away with dishonesty.” (Hdz Luis Navarro in La Jornada.)
We in ICWP call and work for the immediate elimination of wage labor, the abolition of the commodity system in which goods are produced to buy and sell. Production must be to directly meet the needs of the population without buying and selling. Therefore workers will produce without the mediation of money, the mystification of the commodity (that which is bought and sold).
We workers, freely associated, will eliminate the borders set up by the capitalists. We will make racial and sexual prejudice a crime. We invite all the education workers to take this road by joining our Party!
--A Comrade in Mexico

Future Soldier Spreads Communist Pamphlet

I am currently in high school and I have been in JROTC (a military training class) for a year. I have read the International Communist Workers’ Party military pamphlet and I think that people in the military need to read it, a lot of them, so they can see the problems that have been really going on and what we can do about them.
The poem “General, your tank is a powerful vehicle” affected me and it makes so much sense. Nothing works on its own. It helped me realize that the things we use in the military have to be handled and operated by someone. We have brains and knowing who and what we’re fighting for is important.
In the section “The bosses have their wars of necessity- we have ours!” it is saying that we the working class, produce all the products and materials and the bosses produce nothing at all. We deserve to control what we produce. We need to fight for this.
Communists both now and then have changed the way people in the military think about communism. Being in the military has opened their eyes and they have seen what the communists have really seen.
There are communists not only in the United States. Communist are all over the world. People don’t like how their government works and all the bad decisions that they have made. Everyone in the world has their own opinion about things but they all want to see a big change.
People in El Salvador have suffered. They needed to survive the attacks of invasions and attacks by their own army. They had it difficult. They had limited supplies. However, they were able to overcome and beat the enemy, with the help and support of many of the soldiers themselves.
Communists join the military to start their organizing and their protests. They want to be ready. I think all military personnel need to think about communism. Sometimes they just hear about communism and say no because people talk about it and they make it sound bad.
I plan to give the military pamphlet to at least ten of my friends in JROTC. The way I am going to distribute the pamphlet is by asking them what they think about communism and what do they really think is going on with the governments. I want to hear what they think.
--Future Soldier
The pamphlet referred to is available at icwpredflag.org/MIL/mpe.html

The shootings at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon hit especially close to home. My family lives in the Pacific Northwest, and I have one family member who attends a community college and another who teaches at one.
When our family gets together, I always try to raise current issues. I discuss with them not only why I have been a communist for decades, but also what a vision of a classless society might be. What are the possibilities we are fighting for?
It is wonderful to imagine a world in which the united working-class figures out how to address day-to-day and long-term struggles in the best interests of our class.
Many of my liberal friends believe that the answer to situations such as Roseburg is gun control. Possibly they believe this is the best we can do under capitalism: contain the damage; be sure the “shooter” does as little harm as possible.
And they are right in the sense that these events cannot be stopped, perhaps not even tamed, under the society in which we currently live.
But the real cause of these horrible murders was not the guns, but the social isolation, fear, anger, and helplessness felt by the shooter. How might this change under communism?
First, there wouldn’t be people who are isolated as this man was. No one would need to feel alone. As people live and work and play and study together, they would learn about each other and learn to appreciate each other.
We would know our neighbors and coworkers in a way that is very difficult under capitalism, which praises individualism and competition, even though many of us try. We would be working side-by-side in a cooperative way, preparing meals with friends, sharing childcare and household chores.
The slogan “mind your own business” is not a communist slogan. We will all look out for each other in a positive way, not in the sense of gossip.
Even under capitalism, if your child or best friend or a close colleague is in trouble, you would step in to try to help. This is what people do. But under capitalism we are taught that we do this only for the people closest to us.
In a communist society, we would understand that what benefits other members of our class also benefits us; what hurts them, hurts us. If a person is angry or depressed, we will collectively figure out a plan to help.
Because we are materialists and we use science as a tool to understand the world, we will be able to uncover the real causes of people’s problems. No one would have to tackle their problems alone. And hopefully no one would conclude that killing others or themselves is the solution to their pain.
Perhaps you have another idea how this issue might be addressed under communism. Please discuss this with your friends and family and coworkers and write to Red Flag with some possible solutions to antisocial behavior once capitalism is not the dominant culture.
—Pacific Northwest Comrade

Workers who build Volkswagens, from Brazil to South Africa, from Spain to Mexico, from China to the US, and in nearly every country in Europe are wage slaves—tied to their jobs by the necessity to pay the bills. So the revelation that Volkswagen has been caught programming its software to evade pollution tests is not just more news of capitalist corruption.
It’s an example of the way inter-imperialist rivalry increases the insecurity of the working class. Will VW go under? Will plants close down? Will our fellow workers be out on the streets?
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has exposed this deception, and threatens to fine Volkswagen up to $18 billion. This is not about protecting the environment, but about attacking a key rival of the US capitalist-imperialist blood suckers. Both US and German bosses are the enemies of the working class. Attacking VW serves the interests of US car manufacturers, which is no surprise. The EPA is an arm of the US state, which protects the interests of the US capitalist class.
Capitalist competition requires that every capitalist do all it can to increase its advantage over its foes. Cheating on pollution tests is one way to do this. However, the main competitive edge that capitalism uses—requires in fact—is racism. This is perfectly legal, of course. No government agency will fine VW for paying South African workers less than German workers and using the threat of moving jobs to South Africa to push German workers’ wages down.
We have Red Flag readers in many of the countries where Volkswagen has factories. It would be good to hear how this crisis affects them. We should also write about cars in general, including how they inevitably pollute the planet. How will we clean up the planet when we have state power? How will we organize transportation in a communist society? I would love to read what others think about these topics.
—Former VW owner

FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!

International Communist Workers Party

Letters to Red Flag

	FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
	International Communist Workers Party


To Contact ICWP, send an email to: icwp@anonymousspeech.com Tweet