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Red Sailor Writes:

Organize for Communism & Make Friends

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Rebellious sailors during the Vietnam War

Our experiences in the US Navy have shown us that our military brothers and sisters share a deep-seated concern for our working-class interests We come from working-class families and we live in working-class neighborhoods. Sailors know there is a unique connection, on a working-class level, among all people who go out and earn a living. We don’t respect the lifestyles of capitalists, who live off of the work of other people, or the children of capitalists, who are unfamiliar with hard work and often actually envy the authentic life of workers.
There are a few sailors who cling to the capitalist myth that they can join the ranks of the elite if they just work hard enough. While hard work is essential to making a difference in the world, the capitalist system is not an even playing field. We don’t need to be sociology professors to know that the circumstances we are thrown into are sometimes stifling. Meaningful upward social mobility, even with endless effort, is a rare exception rather than the rule.
The US Navy at the moment is not quite on the mutinous edge, as Russian sailors were right before they took control of the Potemkin in the early 1900s or as the sailors on the USS Kitty Hawk were during the Vietnam War. But circumstances change quickly and in some cases revolutionary opportunities arise surprisingly fast. This is why it is essential that comrades work in the military. Communists need to be in the right position when events begin to shake up the system. Any serious movement must have people influencing and organizing inside the military.
Huge qualitative leaps of change do not occur often, so in the meantime we should be building up our influence inside the military. The more influence we have on the inside, the more power we will have when big changes present themselves.  These big changes build up in time and when the proper circumstances are set, it only needs to be ignited by a seemingly random event. For the Potemkin mutiny, for example, it was rotten meat being served to the crew. The conditions had been brewing for a while and the rotten meat was just the spark that started the fire. But the mutiny would never have succeeded if the sailors had not previously planned and organized a course of action.
On the whole, enlisting in the Navy as a communist is a fulfilling experience. I am making a contribution to an important cause. On one hand, I have influenced a lot of Sailors’ lives, and most respect the struggle for the working class. On the other hand, I never anticipated how much the Navy and other sailors would affect me. I never thought I would make so many lifelong friends while I was enlisted. I have grown leaps and bounds by becoming a sailor and struggling with sailors to fight the good fight, that is, struggling to advance communism. 

 

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