West Bengal
Mumbai
The largest general strike in world history brought major cities across India to a two-day standstill (January 8-9) as 150-200 million workers poured into the streets. Factory workers (including aerospace), public transit workers and construction workers marched alongside farmers, office employees, child care workers, social health activists and many more.
This was a political strike against the fascist Modi government and its racist attacks on the working class. The organizers, a coalition of mainly left-led trade-unions, put forward a “charter of demands” for large-scale economic reforms.
But the masses they mobilized in a sea of red flags were looking for something else. Some chanted “Long Live the Revolution!” Leaflets called on unions to “challenge the system of capitalism” and proclaimed opposition to “all the wings of the capitalist class and its representatives.”
What comes next? All the socialist and so-called “communist” parties in India will try to steer this powerful and inspiring display of workers’ power into the dead-end of elections. All parties — except for one. Comrades of the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) are taking advantage of this huge opportunity to make communist ideas become mass ideas. All Red Flag readers everywhere should do the same.
Workers and others inspired by communism will become a material force capable of challenging the capitalist system in a way that unions can never do. They will organize armed insurrection and revolution to destroy all wings of the capitalist class in a way that even the most powerful general strike can never do. And they will build the communist world that the masses in India and everywhere so desperately need. Long live communism!
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