LETTERS, CRITICISM AND SUGGESTIONS
It is a season of discontent worldwide
A protesting bus driver killed by the hated fascist Carabinero (police) in Chile. In response, all the bus drivers walked off their job. The general strike in Chile saw half of the population of Chile marching on the streets. Personal details of every Carabinero now are making rounds online, exposing them to the revenge by the masses. Violent clashes have intensified in Iraq, Haiti, and the African nation of Guinea where million people participated in confronting the president. As one analyst commented, “If it can happen in Chile, it can happen literally anywhere at any time.
The deepening crisis of overproduction is putting workers and capitalist face to face in violent struggle. Neither the capitalists nor the working class can live the same old way. Tens of millions around the world are open to communist leadership. The bosses’ response to resolve this crisis is more repression and cuts in basic necessities so more capital can be invested to in the means of production. This creates an army of the unemployed. And since profit can only come from the exploitation of the workers, it intensifies the crisis.
This development,”therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally in evitable.” (Marx)
A few issues back, a reader from India wrote, “The field is wide open for real communists.” While it is true, it is also full of obstacles. The main obstacle is internal to the party. How we resolve our internal contradictions is crucial.
—Internationalist Comrade
Capitalism Needs War
I have just read a history book, The Empire of Guns, by Priya Satia, that argues capitalism is war driven. The book awakened a new awareness of the way I understand the present-day crisis. Capitalism could not exploit us without the continual use and threat of war.
With that outlook in mind, I thought of making three alterations to the useful article “Communism will end the horror of world capitalist crisis.”
“But when industrial crisis deepens, banks and other financial capitalists compete for shrinking opportunities for profitable investment. They increasingly turn to speculation on the one hand and wars of destruction or conquest on the other. “
“Economic wars lead to shooting wars – up to and including world war.” True but generalizations are never as powerful as actual events. The 1999 NATO war on Yugoslavia reduced the Zavasta Auto plant to rubble and left the workers jobless. The bombs dropped on Yugoslavia subdued the whole of Eastern and Central Europe. The area’s low-cost workforce was put at the service of Western, not Russian, imperialists. In the auto industry, Ford, Fiat, Volkswagen and General Motors moved plants from the West to East and Central Europe and a higher rate of profit was made. Wars of conquest and destruction are central to capitalist economics.
Finally, I would add to the criticism of the Unions. They play a reactionary role. They never talk of inter-imperialist rivalry. While they claim to defend the quality of our lives, actually they defend the wars of their imperialist masters.
—Comrade in Northern California
Inviting Transit Workers to Join ICWP
I have been distributing Red Flag to transit workers for several years. The response is always positive. Many workers take the paper and some take two papers to give one to a friend or family member. They say things like, “Give me one for my mother, she likes it.”
But I have been too willing to leave things at that—like trying to boil water without turning up the heat high enough. Inspired by the article from South Africa in the last issue of Red Flag, I decided I had to sharpen the struggle we began earlier. The next time I distributed the paper, I asked workers to join us.
The response was very interesting. A few workers asked, “Oh. Do you have meetings?” Some said, “Maybe later.” Two workers gave their contact information to get together to talk about the Party. It’s too soon to give the results, but I should have been doing this all along.
The other day a worker stopped to ask, “What do you think about what’s going on in Hong Kong?” I told him that it was a mass movement around voting that wouldn’t change the masses’ situation. I gave him our leaflet about Ecuador and told him about the mass rebellion there. He hadn’t heard about it. He agreed that the US media is publicizing the rebellion in Hong Kong to attack China but keeping the mass rebellions in Ecuador and Haiti quiet.
I told him that some soldiers joined with the striking workers. He said, “That sounds like a revolution.”
I said for that the workers need a revolutionary Party, ICWP that fights for communism. I asked him if he wanted to join us.
He said, “Hmm—I’ll think about it.”
Thanks to the Comrades in South Africa!
—A comrade in Los Angeles (USA)
Haiti: Masses, in the streets for eight weeks, seek alternatives to their capitalist-imperialist hell
Catalonia: Workers Must Fight for Communist Revolution, Not Nationalist Politicians
The workers in Catalonia took to the streets on October 11 to demonstrate after the Spanish State imprisoned pro-independence politicians.
In a previous issue of Red Flag, (Vol 8, Number 13) we discussed the need for communism instead of nationalism. Many workers have been beaten by police forces such as Mossos de Escuadra (the autonomous police of Barcelona) and the national police. But the demonstrations have been escalating and continue to grow.
Now the demonstration is not just against the imprisonment of these politicians. The masses are fighting the system. At the street level, protestors are being interviewed. They are asked if they are pro-independence. Some answer yes. But also a large majority says that they fight against the oppressive system to free the people.
This is a great opportunity to win workers to the ranks of the International Communist Workers’ Party. We need to sharpen the struggle and bring communist ideas to the streets. The struggles of the workers (such as Ecuador, Chile, Syria, South Africa, etc.) have to lead the communist revolution.
Nationalism is only a tool that the system uses to deceive the masses and make them believe that some politicians are better than others.
In the end all politicians are still part of the capitalist system and the only thing that feeds this system is the true wage slavery of the working class. Communism will do away with money, borders, and racism. It will lead to the liberation of workers. They will be able to live a life of quality without being a wage slave. They will have opportunities to study, and to have decent housing and a healthy life. We will produce what we need, not for capitalist profit.
We have to learn to fight not for politicians but for an international communist revolution.
—Comrade in Spain
Why I Fight
Even as an anti-imperialist, it is possible to become numbed to the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly assaults on the working class, the oppressed people, and the environment. But it took me scouring the internet for videos, audio, and photos of the late October 2019 raid on a housing area in Syria where the purported leader of the Islamic State Caliphate, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed.
The noise of the helicopters hovering over the soon to be victim, machine guns and small arms blazing bullets upon bullets upon the compound, the colossal bombing of the compound after the murders had ceased, an act designed to leave little evidence besides rubble and human remains.
The sickening to my stomach made me realize this is why I am a revolutionist, and this is one example of why I will never stop working for the liberation of suffering humanity from imperialist wars, military aggression, and domination by capitalism and imperialism. We need communism.
The best response to this act of banditry so far has been the boos that Trump received at the World Series Game. Large numbers of fans held banners calling for his impeachment and yelling slogans such as Lock Him UP and holding signs calling for his impeachment. It’s high time for this, but it’s also high time for more people in the USA to oppose military imperialist aggression and domination. No support for the troops or their officers in the carrying out of imperialist military orders.
—A comrade
Workers Need Communism, Not Unionism
I recently attended my union’s annual meeting. It was the usual, we are great; this is why; and what politicians should we support? Oh, and give us money to support these politicians.
We are supposed to be preparing for a strike and the treasures’ report included that there is no money in the “strike fund.” Our union president is discouraging an open-ended strike, but has had a difficult time getting shop stewards to agree to his agenda. The union president wants a publicity stunt to continue to grow membership and put money in his pocket, while members are hung out to dry. Now they plan a five-day strike in November.
Most members hold on to the illusion that the union makes us strong. However, communists know that workers don’t need unions and don’t need bosses. We are strong and powerful without them, because the bosses can’t do without our labor power. Unity makes us strong and there is no “union” without workers. We need the correct political line for our weapon because without this we can never win more than a battle.
This was the 3rd annual meeting I attended and at each meeting I distribute Red Flag. Many now recognize me and the paper. Many thank me, some ask for additional copies, and a few reject the paper. My 50 papers were gone within half an hour. As I knew this would likely happen, I should have been better prepared. It would have also been helpful if I had written an article prior to the meeting about our specific struggles so I could point this out to them. Lastly, it would be helpful to get people’s contact information.
I have a few internal contradictions. One is between individualism vs collectivity. I have my collective that could have struggled with me, if I had made it a point to talk to them about this.
We discussed this in a recent club meeting and plan to work more collectively for party work around the upcoming five-day strike activity.
—Comrade in California
Climate Change Movement: An Opportunity, Not a Distraction
“Only when the profit motive and money are totally out of the equation can we truly focus on cleaning up the environment. No task is insurmountable under communism. Collectively, guided by communist ideas and principles, we can change the world.”
So concluded, truly, a letter in the last Red Flag.
The letter, however, misleadingly suggested that climate change is a distraction (if not a hoax). And that capitalist media hype it so that “young workers focus their energies on climate change, not xenophobia, racism and sexism.”
It is true, as the letter says that climate issues have pushed some into despair and passivity. However, many others, especially youth, have been propelled into activism. The climate change movement is an opportunity to put forward communist class struggle to counter reformist all-class-unity ideas.
We need to use every issue and every attack to make the case for communism.
Reformists propose different reforms for different issues. They argue about which is more important or urgent. Communists aren’t stuck in these contradictions. We have one solution for all issues: Get capitalists and their money and profit motives totally out of the equation.
Capitalism can’t solve any of these problems because they are baked into its essential nature. But we can: by mobilizing masses for communist worker’ power through armed revolution. By continuing to mobilize them to build a new communist world.
In Los Angeles (USA) we have taken Red Flag and other communist literature to mass climate mobilizations and to organizations we’re in. Many welcome communist ideas. Many have already concluded that capitalism is not “sustainable.” Some carry signs saying “System Change, Not Climate Change.”
The letter’s information about the environmental movement may be useful. Some of us remember how “Earth Day” in 1970 was offered as a distraction from the US war on Vietnam.
But it wrongly suggests that climate change is a non-issue just because capitalists fund the research. That’s like pooh-poohing Newtonian physics because Newton worked for the Royal Mint and believed in astrology. (He did.)
Only capitalists, their foundations and their governments, have the money needed to do most science today. Money that they stole from workers’ labor.
In the communist world we fight for, workers will decide what needs to be studied. Workers will participate in designing and doing the research. Workers will decide how to use the results. Money and profit motives will be out of the equation.
Fifteen years ago, climate scientists predicted things we are seeing now. These include loss of sea ice and faster rises in sea level. Communities are already having to migrate from islands where they lived for centuries. Warming oceans are fueling fiercer hurricanes and typhoons.
No wonder people are worried. Our task isn’t to tell them to stop worrying. It’s to convince them to become communists. If they see climate change as an urgent problem, they need to see communism as the urgent solution. Let’s write more about that.
—Collective in California (USA)
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