A Mural in San Juan: “We remember our 4645 dead” and “PROMESA—the US program of fiscal oversight—is POVERTY!
August 5 — “We are tired of the abuse, of so many years of corruption,” said a Puerto Rican protester. “We are here to make a revolution.”
Mass anger has been simmering since Hurricane Maria (September 2017) and even before.
…Over nine months without electric power — after the contract to restore power went to a pal of the US Interior Secretary.
…Layoffs, public school closures, university fee hikes, public pensions under attack – by orders of a fiscal control board (“junta”) appointed by Washington D.C. — after predatory banks forced Puerto Rico into bankruptcy.
…Staggering unemployment, especially among youth. Grinding poverty. Food insecurity for over half the children. While politicians of both parties brazenly enrich themselves through cronyism and fraud.
“There’s an indignation that they walk all over you, day after day,” said a young mother. “The people can’t take it anymore.”
The simmering anger boiled over with the publication of 900 pages of sexist, homophobic, threatening and just plain nasty chat message logs involving President Ricky Rosselló and a dozen top advisors.
One hundred protesters, organized by radical women, greeted Rosselló at the airport on July 11 when he rushed back from France. They demanded his resignation and an end to the “junta.”
The movement ramped up until July 22, when close to a million workers and youth marched on San Juan. That’s over a third of the adult population!
Rosselló had to resign. Pedro Pierluisi, his replacement (for now), is highly unpopular. His brother-in-law is chairman of the “junta.” A constitutional crisis looms.
Masses remain in the streets.
“We are demanding a real and radical change in this country… We didn’t demand the resignation of a corrupted government, for having another equally corrupted,” declared another protester.
Every capitalist government is corrupt, by its very nature. A capitalist state exists exactly to enable a tiny ruling class to squeeze every penny it can from the working masses. No capitalist class, no imperialist power is our friend.
The real, radical change we need is the overthrow of capitalism itself. It’s the reorganization of all of society on communist principles: collectivity, struggle, commitment and sharing.
If a communist party with a mass base were active in Puerto Rico, there would be a revolutionary situation right now. It’s time to build the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) in Puerto Rico and everywhere.
For A Communist World
The ICWP is a “communist party without borders” that fights for “a communist world without borders.” That won’t happen all at once.
As different areas are liberated, we will help each other build and extend communist society. Each revolution will inspire more! Eventually the whole world will be communist and there will be no nations at all.
Capitalists try to make workers believe that we need their money in order to get anything done. But it’s our labor that transforms natural resources into things that people can use.
Communist revolution will enable us to decide collectively what we need and how to produce it without money. We won’t need markets or exchange. Instead, we’ll share.
For example, Puerto Rico has a lot of potential solar, wind, hydroelectric and other renewable energy sources. It could easily become self-sufficient in food. And – most important – it has workers with a wide variety of skills and experience. Why would anyone except a capitalist need money?
All it needs is a party – ICWP – to mobilize everyone to build communism.
Actually, workers everywhere have the ability to organize communist society. Even in the fairly inhospitable Kalahari Desert in southern Africa, the ¡Kung San supported themselves for millennia in an early form of communism.
Make a Difference
Rosselló’s chat message logs have been called “the last drop that overflowed the glass.” Or “the straw that broke the back of the Puerto Rican camel.”
These are metaphors for a very general law of development: Quantitative change can transform into qualitative change. Outrage developed, bit by bit, until it exploded into action. A few people, then some more, and more, turned into something different: a mass movement.
There are small things that any one of us can do to promote communism. Talk about these ideas with friends. Share Red Flag with as many people as you can. Write a letter about the results.
The sum of our actions will be more than the parts. It will become a revolutionary army for communism that will change the whole nature of the world.
Rebellion in Puerto Rico
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