FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
International Communist Workers Party
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FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM! |
International Communist Workers Party | |
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Academic Communism or Class Struggle
I recently got close to some members of the FMLN, the electoral party, who distort the class struggle and who, like the 21st Century socialists, dress reforms and wars between empires with the Red Flag of the international working class, a great betrayal.
Youth and adults who come to the FMLN looking for alternatives to the problems of the system only encounter an illusion, with a dead end. They offer the struggle for reforms, which do not resolve the structural problems of the capitalist system, like hunger, poverty, insecurity, drug dealing and money.
Because of this the cells of the International Communist Workers’ Party must carry out political work with people regardless of their age who are in the “political base” of these electoral parties, civil organizations, unions, in our homes, etc. But not with those who are aware of the situation of poverty in which the great majority of men and women workers are forced to live but completely ignore this or look the other way to protect their privileges. These prefer to embrace a university career or study Capital from the comfort of their desk.
One problem reflected in the “left” parties is the affinity or twisted desire to elevate theory to a higher level than practical work. They train many youth, like those I met, with the slogan of fighting for the people, but in everyday real life they are purely academics who fill their mouths with “For the People United.” But they despise leaving their comfort zones to go to the masses and lead them for a communist revolution. And the most important thing is that many youth and adults who want to contribute and be part of the class struggle fall into this trap.
In this case, ICWP and we comrades around the world are aware that theory and practice must be at the same level for the quantitative and qualitative development of the workers’ movement. We need to train communists and communist cells with a solid foundation that is both practical and theoretical so that we are not seduced by the bosses or won to the counterrevolution.
The cells of the International Communist Workers’ Party must reach out to as many workers as possible. Comrades, this letter is a call that we not forget the development of our party (ICWP) and our newspaper Red Flag; from the birth of our party (the result of previous struggles by our comrades and the resolution of political contradictions) to the last international meeting where Red Flag has touched lands in Africa and continues to expand eastward. This is an inspiration when we find ourselves in difficult or adverse situations for the development of communist work.
—Comrade in El Salvador
Don’t Let Religion Divide Us
“You should put more about God in your paper,” suggested a bus operator at Division 18 who usually takes Red Flag and stops to talk. “Then more people would want to read it.” We didn’t agree. But we offered to print a letter about that if he wrote it.
A few days later, I was talking with an operator at Division 7. He is also a regular reader of the paper who likes to converse. He brought up something reflecting his religious views. So I asked what he thought of the other guy’s comment.
“Oh, that’s not right,” he said. “This paper isn’t about religion. It’s about taking care of business.” Then he said, very seriously, “You are doing God’s will. You don’t have to talk about God to do that. You should keep on doing what you are doing.”
He continued, “Some people don’t want to read the paper because they think communism is like Russia or China. But that’s not what communism really is. If they read this paper, they will find that out.” I agreed. I suggested that he write a letter to the paper about it.
The pages of Red Flag are open to readers’ questions and opinions on things we write about and also things we don’t write about that are important to them. To understand and mobilize for communism, we need lots of frank conversation. Often we’ll disagree but find ways to move forward together.
People who read the same religious texts (like the Bible or the Koran) often come to opposite conclusions about poverty, racist exploitation, imperialist war, and the dictatorship of the rich over the rest. Some decide that we must suffer in this life for the sake of an afterlife. Others say that we must be “God’s hands” and set the world right.
I am a life-long atheist. For me, communism is grounded in the real needs (physical and social) of the masses. We can understand it better by discussing it with lots of people and studying political economy, history, and dialectical-materialist philosophy. If you agree, you should join us.
But if you believe that we are doing “God’s will” by mobilizing the masses for communism, you too should join the Party and help with this work. Conversations about religion will go on for a long time. We need to change the world now.
—Los Angeles comrade
Our Party is becoming younger
Red greetings comrades, I thought that the two weeks stay was a bit short , but it has equally printed an indelible mark for our party to grow in the right direction. The revolutionary seeds have been planted and with patient, persistent nurturing can only grow stronger and bear the revolutionary fruits to feed the masses for communism. I likened it to a fire made out of solid wood that takes a while to burn and is long-lasting to cook the pot to feed the masses for communist revolution. From day one, we struck the right chord and each day that passed by was eventful. I personally learnt a lot, I learnt something new about ourselves and everyone we interacted with. It was like a crescendo, in Latin, they say, poco-poco, little by little, gradually growing out loudly.
We learnt about the universal laws of dialectics and their applicability and interaction. We learnt that the main contradiction in a capitalist mode of production is between the bosses and the workers. This contradiction cannot be reconciled. Any attempt to do so only serves the interest of the bosses with tragic consequences for the working class. It can only be resolved by communist revolution. The bosses dominate, exploit, alienate the workers from the fruits of their labour. We also dealt with political economy which showed how the contradictions between use value and exchange value occur in a commodity-producing society. We’ve seen that the falling rate of profit leads to inter-imperialist rivalry and inevitably to war.
Interestingly our party is becoming younger; we had in our midst a large number of roaring young lions. They are all still at school but have demonstrated maturity in grasping our correct political line. We gave them the pamphlet Mobilize the Masses for Communism, Red Flag and the T-shirts which have become so popular—everyone is clamouring up for them. All the dialectical materialism DVD’s are gone . All that is left for us to do is to consolidate the gains that we’ve made and build a stronger party that is ready to fight in the ideological terrain to combat all forms reformist-revisionism.
--A Comrade
Red Flag Explains the World
This is a tribute to all my working-class brothers and sisters around the world. I would like to send this message of gratitude for helping me see the light. Before I knew the Red Flag I was like a blind man walking. I thank those comrades who have sacrificed to make this paper possible.
I am a South African comrade who is unemployed. Before I read this great paper I was blind to the reason why unemployment is a common trend not only in South Africa but in the rest of the world. I was unable to explain why there is so much hunger, poverty, disease. The rich lived in luxury while the working class struggled for few crumbs but we created everything.
Because of the Red Flag I know that the capitalists are parasites sucking the life out of the working class. They are just a cancer that must be removed. The only way of doing that is to mobilize the masses through the Red Flag so that we embrace communism and understand that only communism can smash this brutal system.
I want to tell you that we must wage vigorous and constant struggle against capitalist ideas and practices that contradict communism. We must weed out revisionist ideas that would have us believe that capitalism cannot be defeated. We are succeeding in smashing nationalism which spreads poison among the working class. Fighting for our line without fear and with full conviction, we are recruiting many to ICWP. Long live communism.
--Young South African comrade.
From Soweto to Ayotzinapa
I just read an article about the 43 students from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero who disappeared, and it is very painful. I can imagine how their parents, families, relatives and friends feel. Capitalism and its elements are brutal in uncountable ways. It kills, it exploits the society and working class. It’s unbearable. It must be destroyed. It’s long overdue. Its life span must come to an end—as in yesterday. It does not value the lives of the society and working class—it values money and profit and will do anything possible to achieve this evil.
Even though I am in South Africa, my heart is marching with the students of the Los Angeles high school in solidarity with the students of Guerrero, Mexico. This event reminds me of that historic event of June 16, 1976, of the high school students in Soweto—masses who were brutally murdered by the police. This horrible event in Guerrero has led me to wait not a second more to destroy the capitalist system. I have zero tolerance for this homicidal system. I will mobilize the masses for communism like a mad man. I want this evil system to die with its people. Not even one capitalist must be left breathing; they must experience the brutality and slaughtering of the Guerrero students.
—A comrade
Communist Philosophy Helps Us to Fight Capitalism
We were visited by an ICWP comrade in South Africa. I saw the comrade the first time about seven months ago and then again at the international meeting recently. When I met the comrade the first time, I was not yet a member of ICWP. In fact I had many doubts about communism. After my first visit with the comrade, we continued to meet every week regularly and with lots of struggle I joined ICWP, convinced that communism is the only solution.
The international meeting of our party advanced my understanding, it was very useful. I came back with lots of enthusiasm. Since the comrade has been in South Africa, we have been holding daily meetings and mobilizing the masses for communism. What we learn in theory, we put it in practice. This helps us to understand the theory better and improve our struggle. The visit by the comrade has been very good because all these days we have been studying communism, dialectical materialism and political economy. Now we have very clear understanding of the contradiction of capitalism and how it can be resolved by eliminating money and wage system. This requires us to mobilize the masses for communism.
We are now growing as a communist movement. Our meetings are growing in numbers. New comrades now see that ICWP is the only party that can free the working class from the brutal system called capitalism.
We really enjoyed the classes. This material we studied is very important for new and old comrades because it helps us mobilize the masses even more effectively. We gained knowledge about how contradictions are resolved by intensifying the differences.
Our first meeting was very big, with new members on board. Many of those members had a lot of questions and nationalist ideas about changing the society. They disagreed with communism, just as I did the first time I met the comrade. But after having communist classes for a week, with lots of honest struggle, studying dialectical materialism, political economy, now they agree that communism is the only way to destroy capitalism. We enjoyed a big braai (BBQ) and consolidated our forces in a social environment of collective struggle to advance our struggle to mobilize the masses for communism.
—A comrade
Revolutionary greetings comrades,
I must confess how things have turned out is beyond my imagination. I remember when we were planning for the visit, the comrades were very eager to show the positive side of our work. Some were a bit embarrassed to expose our weaknesses.
I struggled with the comrades that we must not hide our weaknesses. The visit must reflect the concrete material conditions existing on the ground. It must reflect concretely the challenges we are confronted with on the daily basis and how we overcome them. What are our strengths and weaknesses? What do we do to change what we have identified as our weaknesses into our strengths?
I think that having done this exercise is now paying off. It would not have helped us papering over the cracks. I think that we are now beginning to take the first step in the right direction. Like a child, we are beginning to crawl.
I know that the classes we held on dialectical materialism and political economy will go a long way in preparing and shaping our ideological thinking as a class that can change history. I am now convinced with what I see taking place, unfolding in front of my eyes, that capitalism is a system based on production for profit maximization by the few. Only a communist revolution will bring it down.
All other measures only serve to strengthen and perpetuate its class rule. Our robust interactions and engagements in the past few days have exposed this tyranny and its tendency to replicate itself in open and disguised nationalist and parasitic brands of capitalism.
We have ICWP which has a clear and correct revolutionary political line of mobilizing the masses everywhere for communism. The visit laid bare enormous tasks that are needed to be done and gave us the confidence to accomplish them. We will definitely soldier on and with renewed enthusiasm continue to work with our new comrades. With our young lions, the roar is going to be even louder!!!
--A Comrade
LETTER OF SUPPORT FROM SEATTLE WORKERS TO FAMILIES OF THE 43 STUDENTS OF AYOTZINAPA
Greetings to the families and friends of the brave students of Guerrero, Mexico.
We would like to add our voices to the many around the world who were appalled at the abduction of the 43. Your fight is our fight!
This unforgivable, violent act was carried out by racist police who receive their orders from a fascist government controlled by the capitalist ruling class. It is the same here in the US, where Michael Brown was killed by police in Ferguson.
There will never be justice for these young victims or their families as long as the capitalist bosses own the factories, farms, the media, the banks, the Internet, and control the military, the police, and the courts.
The working class will always be exploited until we mobilize ourselves to fight for a communist world; a world without banks or money, without wars or borders. Where we produce for need, not profit. Where mobilized masses create education and health care structures that serve the needs of our class, not the profit system.
We share your anger and grief in these terrible times. But we hope that you will be encouraged by reading about similar struggles in the pages of Red Flag, the newspaper of the ICWP. Together, we can work to mobilize the masses for communism.
--Members and Friends of the International Communist Workers’ Party, Seattle, Washington
What Future Awaits Mexico?
It is hard to believe in a good future for Mexico. To have a hope would be sad, unfortunate and unbelievable when human lives are destroyed in broad daylight. It is clear that the capitalist system feels the proximity of its own suffocation. Since it is unable to control its anger and desperation, its representatives show their incapacity to resolve the social problems, responding with the worst aggressive, bloody and murderous methods.
Today the media has focused on the disappearance of the 43 Normal (teachers’ college) students from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero. They criticize, question and indicate the supposed culprits, but let’s be realistic, how will this event end? Where will we go with events like these that are happening nationally every day? What will happen to the guilty? Who are carrying out the investigations?
Whatever the answers, Red Flag readers must know that no parent or relative of the disappeared would be able to replace their son when, after so much publicity, it is concluded that they have been murdered.
The well-known policy of the system is to build up a whole scandal to try to hide that the intellectual authors of these bloody events are the rulers themselves. Clearly, in the end, what can they do with the guilty when they are from their same class? What can the authorities do when they themselves are the leaders of organized crime?
After all, nothing will happen, all will go unpunished and all the system’s media will talk of the government’s heroism. With the necessary lies they will try to silence all the voices that now rise up, because this is a way created by all the capitalists to stop at all costs the growth of revolutionary consciousness. The most they could conclude is that the families will be compensated with certain quantities of money while the guilty are only removed from their posts to occupy others. But will this be the solution?
It’s time to take the blindfold off our eyes. We have to look at all the events that have occurred on the local, state, national and international level and stop believing blindly in the electoral political parties and their loyal followers in the unions, who are nothing more than the clear reflection of the capitalist system, resolving everything in capitalism’s interests and with money. It is time to look for new alternatives because this system no longer has any credibility. Let’s read ICWP’s literature, and even though it will be a future slow in coming, it will be a more secure future.
It is time to give the students the opportunity to read Red Flag so that they know about another alternative for the future, encouraging them to make their viewpoints and suggestions known.
In that way they would be grateful to the members of ICWP if your newspaper can suggest other literature that explains society. We need Red Flag to deepen our understanding, since personally it has been difficult to get good literature, considering that many sources of information that the government doesn’t like are simply banned from being sold or prohibited.
--Red Flag Reader
More on Contradictions
In the last issue, Red Flag published an article on the history of dialectics, called “All Contradictions are Antagonistic.” I think this title is a serious mistake. The article argues, correctly, that the Soviet concept of “non-antagonistic” contradiction is a bogus idea, used to cover up the internal conflicts of socialism. But the concept of antagonistic contradiction doesn’t make sense, either. What is antagonistic supposed to mean? Soviet writers claimed that antagonism is a kind of social relation that is produced by exploitation. That certainly is not present in all contradictions. Others claimed that antagonistic contradictions have to be resolved by violence. This is certainly not true of contradictions in the party. Many other definitions have been tried out, but the best view, I think, is to recognize that “antagonistic contradiction” is a bogus category, invented to try to make “non-antagonistic contradiction” seem to be a legitimate notion. This concept was never used by Marx, Engels or Lenin, and our use of it can only create confusion.
--A dialectics student
For Communist Media:
Some comrades recently had a conversation about the role of the media under capitalism, and how it would be different in a communist society. A comrade from Mexico City said that the only reason he watches Univision and Televisa is to see what lies they are going to tell. Not only do they lie about news and events, but also they use movies, TV shows and literature to portray the working class in a negative way. This brings on cynicism and passivity. It leads one to believe that it is impossible to fight the bosses’ system.
We then discussed what the media might be like under communism. First of all, they would be “owned” by the masses; they would be the voice of the working class. They would tell the truth about what was happening all over the world AND would encourage the working class to mobilize the masses for communism.
We would have a dialectical materialist approach to news. This means that articles would analyze the contradictions in a process, finding the main contradiction to move the process toward communism. This is not limited to just describing a situation or exposing this system —it’s about how to effect change. This is the opposite of building cynicism, because it gives the working class the tools to analyze events and mobilize the masses.
Under communism, there will not be so-called “professionals” who work only in media. Everyone would have a responsibility to write for the media and work on production and distribution, no matter what they do. And it won’t be an individual or even a group of individuals expressing their opinion about something.
Of course, the term “freedom of speech” is often said to be a person’s god-given right. In fact, the ruling class controls the media; they determine who has the freedom, politically and financially. The Party will struggle with workers to understand that their interests are the same as workers everywhere.
Therefore, the motivation will be to produce not for one’s individual ego but for the whole of humanity. So the question will be “will this film or book help our class move forward to communism?”
What does this mean for us as Party members and friends of the Party right now? It means that we need more comrades and friends writing for and distributing Red Flag and other party literature. This means that more of the working class and its allies will be won to mobilizing the masses for communism.
Intensifying this struggle generates good media. Good media advances this struggle.
--Seattle readers
EAST LOS ANGELES, November 21—One hundred friends, relatives, and neighbors of Eduardo Bermudez and Ricardo Lara gathered at the corner of Verona and Hillview streets, where LA County sheriffs killed the two men in a rain of bullets early on November 15th. Witnesses said that Eduardo and Ricardo were complying with orders when the sheriffs opened fire. Speakers angrily and tearfully demanded “justice” for two workers who were well-known and respected in this stable, cohesive community. But dozens of workers and youth eagerly accepted copies of Red Flag from a comrade who declared, “There is no justice for workers under capitalism, in the workplace or the streets or the courts, here or in Ferguson or in Iguala. That’s why we need to fight for communist power instead of demanding justice.” The comrade and a friend also exchanged contact information with a worker who took a stack of extra papers for her family.