LETTERS, CRITICISM AND SUGGESTIONS
Communism & Education
I read a letter in Red Flag called “About Universities,” (Vol. 10 # 12). I think it is important that the comrade has this kind of discussion in his university. The student sector has an important potential to add to the ranks of our Party.
Learning the history of the revolutionary struggle must be a collective effort. The comrades who work in the fields and the city have much to contribute to this issue, since they were important actors in the 1980s war in El Salvador.
The participation of these workers – like the men and women workers of the maquilas – is necessary in this discussion, which we will take to these sectors.
Historically, since the arrival of the Spaniards, the peasants were subjected to repression. They were stripped of their land—both small plots and communal lands. Through acts of violence and barbarism, using the army and the church, the landowners seized large tracts of land, leaving the peasants in poverty.
This provoked changes in the economic, social, political and cultural aspects of life. All that inequality, that has been a constant in capitalism, has motivated thousands to organize and fight.
In 1832 there was an insurrection known as “The Rebellion of Nonualcos,” led by the indigenous leader Anastasio Aquino in the central part of El Salvador.
One hundred years later, during a farmworker-led rebellion, General Martínez, a genocidal army officer, ordered the massacre of thousands of agricultural workers in the western part of the country, in what is now known as The 1932 Massacre.
There were also important historical events such as the strike of the railroads in 1945. That decade was one of intense reformist struggles mostly led by rural and city workers.
In subsequent years, workers, bakers, students, and teachers were developing a strong organization against the governments in turn. The seed was sown, and it germinates in each revolutionary process.
Today the International Communist Workers’ Party organizes internationally to fight directly for Communism.
It is important that students talk about education, not as we know it today, but rather how it will be in communism.
There are very many examples of how during the civil war here some agricultural worker comrades learned on the march to be radio operators, to heal wounded companions, etc. (See our pamphlet, Communist Education for a Classless Society—available at icwpredflag.org/epe.pdf)
The questions posed in that letter should be discussed by all students around the world. I believe that science, knowledge, will be developed for the masses, science for people.
In communism, education will not be a commodity. The development of science and technological advances will be to serve the working class. We will use new methodologies so that people from the beginning of their lives are developing skills and tools for collective life and the appropriate conditions for humanity.
Communist practice must be the basis of the education process. The ICWP has a plan, to Mobilize the Masses for Communism. See:
icwpredflag.org/mmce.pdf Establishing networks of readers of our newspaper in schools, factories, and the army will help us expand the ideas of the Party.
We are charting the route, lets all go onward to build Communism—a classless society.
—Comrade Veteran of the Salvadoran Civil War
Airport Workers Unite- for the Good of All!
On Tuesday morning, the Los Angeles International Airport witnessed a beautiful, dynamic show of solidarity as a force made of various unions, and future union members, held a strike that temporarily halted all traffic into the airport.
This action was taken in response to low wages, lack of respect for union workers and violation of contracts by the bosses.
These actions are uniting workers from various areas of employment. Drivers from both Lyft and Uber are working on the idea of their own union: Motor Vehicle Alliance. Other unions are working in solidarity to gain the living wage of $15 per hour. Some cities in the United States actually require a wage approaching $34 per hour to sustain a household! We see that wages have stagnated for the average working family, while international businesses are thriving.
Though we know that merely forming unions is not the true answer to the struggle between capitalist bosses and the working class, the actions show the bosses that they need to pay attention to their workforce and its needs!
—A comrade and a friend in Los Angeles
Comments about the South African Report
The article on page 2 in the last edition of Red Flag quoted the South African comrades as reporting “on their limited progress in establishing networks of Red Flag readers inside factories” because comrades working there and the workers they are trying to recruit are not permanent but casual (temporary).
They solve this problem by meeting “with new readers from the factories in their homes. In this way, they recently recruited three comrades who work at another plant.”
This is an excellent solution to forge communist relations with the casual (temporary) workforce that capitalism in its drive for maximum profits has created not only in South Africa but worldwide. But I don’t think it addresses the issue facing these workers.
Obviously they should continue doing what has proven to be so successful (visiting workers and recruiting them in their homes). But I think we can do even more with a little extra added effort which could move us in the direction of answering the question of how do we organize communist class struggle on the job.
The comrades openly distribute Red Flag at these auto plants. We should put out a leaflet that we can use every time there is a change of temporary workers at the factories where we distribute Red Flag. This would massify the issue and our communist analysis and vision. This is based on our experience in the US where many more workers will take a leaflet rather than Red Flag.
The leaflet could address the question of exploitation, wage slavery, crisis of overproduction, racism, sexism and explain how this problem is a product of capitalism and how only communist revolution can end it. We can also link this and other problems workers face on the job to broader issues like xenophobia, fascism and imperialist war.
Besides calling on workers to read, distribute, write for Red Flag, and join and build ICWP, we should put forward some short-term tactics to respond to the capitalists’ daily attacks like this one. We can call on workers to organize slow-downs, strikes and demonstrations, not for making those temporary jobs permanent, but against capitalism and for communism. That is to say no demands of any type – just actions and slogans against capitalism that point towards communism.
—Internationalist comrade
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