LETTERS, CRITICISM AND SUGGESTIONS
Migration Crisis Calls for Working-Class Unity
Thirty years ago in the garment industry in Los Angeles there were 150,000 of us operating the machines. Now maybe there are fewer of us. But we were under the same roof: Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Hondurans and Mexicans. We didn’t care about nationality, because we all came to work to survive.
Now with all these racist attacks we should be more united and we should have the goal of joining and building ICWP, so that one day we smash the borders that divide us workers.
In Mexico, the residents have helped the caravans with food, water and shelter so they can continue on their way north. But different governments have put up roadblocks to this journey.
Thousands are waiting for asylum and more will continue trying to cross, even though it could cost their lives. The Mexican government has become the watchdog of US interests. In the first part of 2019, they deported 130,485 migrants back to the countries of the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras).
Two years earlier, there were thousands also, leaving their places of origin to improve their living conditions.
Now more than ever we need to fight for communism, for a society without borders and without bosses that install governments to control workers in order to fill their pockets with profits. Only under communism will we workers be able to remain with our loved ones and with all the friends we can have. The world will be ours — we who produce everything in this society.
—Comrade in Los Angeles (USA)
Conversation with a Co-Worker About Puerto Rico
“Can you stop by my office for a minute when you get a chance?” I asked a co-worker (let’s call her Blanca) on our first day back after vacation – after we had happily hugged.
Blanca has a big family in Puerto Rico, and she reads Red Flag.
“I want to know what your relatives think about the rebellion going on there” I added.
She came right into my office and sat down. “It really is a rebellion!” she exclaimed. She started telling me about all her cousins and aunts and uncles who had been in the streets. “Even my grandmother wanted to go march, but they talked her out of it,” she said. “And now they want to get rid of Wanda [the new governor] too. She wasn’t even elected. She is part of the same group of corrupt politicians that got pushed out.”
Blanca was excited that there was already an article in Red Flag. She was eager to read it.
“What are people going to do next?” I asked.
“It’s like in the United States, with AOC [Alexandria Ocasio Cortez] and the others. A lot of young activists are going to run for office themselves. They want a real change.”
“But what can they do about the Junta?” (I was referring to the Financial Oversight and Management Board imposed by the US government in the Obama era.)
“They want to get rid of the Junta, too,” Blanca replied.
“How are they going to do that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think they know either.”
Blanca had to go, taking her copy of Red Flag. She agreed to write something for the paper about Puerto Rico, after reading the first article we printed.
I think she understands as well as I do that electing new officials, no matter how young, dedicated or charismatic, is no solution. Without destroying capitalism itself, we can’t end the oppressive policies and corruption that are built into the capitalist political system.
Many others probably understand (or at least sense) this too.
Neither the social-democracy of Bernie Sanders and the “squad” of four young US Congressional representatives, nor the choice between “independence” and “statehood” for Puerto Rico, is a real solution to the crisis that masses are going through.
Bianca and all other Red Flag readers can do something really important by helping them to see that a real alternative – communism – is both necessary and possible.
—Comrade in Los Angeles (USA)
Learning Dialectical Materialism
Our collective has been studying dialectical materialism, the communist philosophy of knowledge and change. New comrades are learning from older comrades who have a bit of experience with dialectics.
Comrades with experience are also expanding their knowledge as a result of this collective studying. This communist knowledge has been illuminating for the new comrades.
We studied the laws of dialectics: the Unity and Conflict of Opposites, Negation of Negation and Quantity into Quality. Analysing these laws in our revolutionary struggle towards communism has helped to clarify and answer some doubts which some new comrades had about the movement.
For example, when one comrade first came to the party, she thought that we were too passive, not urgent enough when we held meetings, distributed the Red Flag and had collective discussions with fellow workers and friends. She thought this was not useful. She changed her mind after understanding how quantity can change into quality (the growth of the party).
She said, “Now I see where mobilising the masses comes from. I see how the party can grow from distributing the Red Flag and having meetings to critically discuss our weaknesses” to resolve our internal contradictions and strengthen the party.
We are putting the knowledge we’ve gained into practice. We realize the dialectical relation between reading and writing. Since we have been reading certain articles, especially page 2, as a collective and discussing them, more comrades have started to write more for the paper. They put the party’s line at the forefront of their writing. We also encourage our friends to read the whole paper not only in the meetings but individually.
We are studying dialectical materialism not just to know about it, but also to improve on the theories and the experiences of our struggle. We need to change this crisis-infested capitalism, which brings exploitation and misery to the working class from India, USA, Brazil, South Africa, etc.
In South Africa, the latest statistics show millions losing jobs from every sector. Unemployment is at an all time high. Mobilising masses to the party has never been more urgent. We are committed to expanding exponentially from the moderate growth of the collectives. Learning Dialectical Materialism helps us do better and overcome our weakness, doubts or any other obstacles.
—A Comrade in South Africa
Thoughts on the capitalist educational system
The capitalist state educational system was not designed to better our lives or pave a way for us to success. It was not designed to liberate us from our miserable destitute lives as capitalists say it was. The state educational system is not beneficial for the working class, but acts in favour of the bosses.
Capitalists are selfish, greedy, and individualistic. They murder the innocent through wars, exploit the working class and manipulate the masses with objectives of making a profit. Why would people with this kind of personality invest millions of rands to educate the children of the very same class they exploit? The secret lies in what is taught inside the school buildings.
Our curriculums consist of production and maintenance skills, but they are written by people who do not have any idea of what is happening in the production process. Capitalists establish school and work policies to dictate the behavior and the mentality of potential workers. Capitalists enforce these policies in schools so that when students are ready to be employees, they can be easily exploited.
Capitalist educational system teaches our children meaningless information that will never be useful to them in later life. Capitalists prepare us to go and work in the industries that fuel not ours, but capitalist growth. At schools we are taught to follow procedures without questioning and not deviate from the rules set for us by the very same people who are sucking the blood of the working class.
The emphasis in schools is on trying to get young people to absorb large quantities of information regardless of whether they need it or not. Passing knowledge in this fashion is detrimental to the minds our young ones. It murders their ability to identify, show and practice what they are talented in.
People learn through practice. Taking a baby for example; babies are not taught through writings – babies learn through speech and by experiencing things. Information given to us today in schools was derived from practice.
Learning through practice is the ideal methodology in a communist society. Chinese can attest to this during the cultural revolution. People were sharing their skills practically. No one sat in classrooms listening to one lecturer preaching unnecessary theories. In communism, the structure of capitalist education will be abolished. There will be no universities, colleges and high schools as there are today. In communism we will share our theory, knowledge and skills through practice, collectively producing our needs while learning from each other. Teachers and students will work and learn side by side.
I am not a mechanic. However, last year I assisted my neighbor – his car had an electrical problem. Then, I knew nothing about cars except steering wheel and tires. My neighbor and I checked the alternator/ moto, battery, switches and distributors until we found what the problem was. We fixed the problem together and what was amazing is that I was learning while helping him at the same time. Days ago, I helped him when he was replacing a car deef (differential). I obtained a skill there as well. My neighbor is not a mechanic, he is learning from the mechanic and I am learning from him.
This is a type of education that will be recognized and acknowledged in a communist society. We do not trade our skills; we share skills necessary to produce our needs.
—Comrade in South Africa
Industrial Workers, Soldiers: Key to Communist Revolution in Pre-World War World
“War industry workers live under an extra contradiction: most of us don’t want wars or threats of war, but that is what the bosses will use our work for. The US is building a bigger Navy to confront rising capitalist powers, especially capitalist China, that want a bigger slice of the profits.”
This important point was buried in the middle of the shipyard workers article in the last Red Flag. We should have highlighted that sentence.
It’s really the main point of the article. As we said elsewhere in that issue, “the struggle among rival imperialists for world domination is driving capitalism worldwide to fascism, wider wars and eventually world war.”
That sharpening struggle among rival imperialists also drives the intensification of exploitation at Boeing. It’s what pushed them to launch the Boeing 737 Max prematurely in an attempt to pry the world market away from their rivals. It’s what pushes Boeing bosses to export production to an off-shore sub-contractor paying $9/hour. Or to non-union shops in Los Angeles that pay $15/hour to a largely immigrant workforce.
Capitalist crisis and inter-imperialist rivalry increase the exploitation of workers in every sector around the world. It’s unescapable. It will eventually lead to world war. And all workers in basic industry—like steel, auto, aerospace, transit and telecommunications—will see their work going to produce weapons, tanks, military aircraft, and weapons of war.
We have to emphasize that to the workers we talk to every day. Otherwise, we’d be overlooking the reality of how the world is changing. We no longer live in the post-World War II era, but in the pre-World War III era. It is our job as communists to explain that to our friends and to the readers of Red Flag.
We need communist organizations in basic industry and in the military. That’s how we can take advantage of the inevitable disruption and suffering of war to put an end to capitalist exploitation once and for all. We can build a new communist world where we produce for the needs of our global family—but only if we’re prepared to seize the moment when it comes.
—Red Flag editorial collective in Los Angeles
