Letters, Vol 10, No 15

LETTERS, CRITICISM AND SUGGESTIONS

“The Joker”: Appearance and Essence

“We liked this movie because what it shows is true. Things are really messed up—like in the movie!” said a youth after seeing “The Joker.”

A young worker said, “’The Joker” presented life as it really is.” Many young people feel this way.

Some youth clapped when Joker killed the TV host who made fun of him.

Some think it is a revolutionary movie. That is the appearance. It shows people who support the Joker demonstrating in the streets in clown masks with a sign that says “Kill the Rich!”

The main character, a mentally ill man, kills three young rich white men who attack him on the subway. But as he descends further into mental illness, he also kills a co-worker, a psychologist and others.

The clown masks that the Joker and his supporters wear are reminiscent of the Guy Fawkes masks worn by many in the Occupy movement—a symbol for anarchists.

The movie portrays rebellion against the rich as anarchy and chaos—rather than masses of organized workers, youth and soldiers fighting for a world that meets our needs.

As the review in the last edition said, “Capitalism needs the working class to be disturbed, horrified and left feeling hopeless.”

Angry masses need a plan to mobilize not just to lash out against the rich, but to overthrow capitalism and build a communist society where relationships based on comradeship and collectivity replace money.

Capitalism is the source of today’s growing inequality, racism, sexism, and the stress that causes mental illness. We can get rid of it and build a communist society made up of collectives that nurture all of us, where we produce and create for the needs of the masses, not the profits of the rich.

The appearance of the movie is revolutionary, anti-capitalist. In essence it is a cynical movie that gives the only alternatives to capitalism as anarchy and chaos.

The only real alternative to capitalism is communism. The rulers are terrified that angry youth will opt for communism. Let’s fight to make that a reality.

—Comrades

Celebrating Ten Years of ICWP

“What do you think of the tenth anniversary of the International Communist Workers’ Party?” a comrade asked me.

I am answering that question the best I can in this little letter.

I believe that the birth of the International Communist Workers Party came at a time when it was necessary to leave behind reformist struggles and decide to fight directly for communism.

A very important decision that marks our path and the present… and that will mark our future. There are great advances since the birth of the ICWP. For example the growth in the areas of India and Bangladesh, and the consolidation of the work in South Africa inspires us very much to continue our work here in El Salvador.

In El Salvador we are very impressed and inspired with the quantitative and qualitative growth within the country’s garment factories. There has been a commitment and discipline on the part of the ICWP workers within the factories that has borne fruit… We have a long way to go and a great task in the east of the country to continue with the advances and to be able to travel and reach the point of where our co-workers are in the country’s free trade zone. There is a lot of work to be done…

Courage and always forward comrades.

—Comrade in El Salvador

Greetings, Comrade Readers of Red Flag!

We would like to tell you that in the first days of November we had an activity with comrades from the factory. We told them about the work that is being done in the International Communist Workers’ Party, with the aim of making them aware of this work. The workers listened to it with great interest.

We went on a tourist outing to a beach that is very remote from the factory where we work. There were several people we did not know because transportation for that beach is not usually within the reach of the factory workers.

That’s why I wanted to thank the MTA comrades in Los Angeles, USA, who gave us their support to make this possible.

—Thank you very much, from a comrade in El Salvador.

Experiences We Have Had in the Struggle to Build a Communist World

We know a couple of workers who for many years worked in the textile factory and read our newspaper, but for personal reasons left the factory, and we lost contact with them. A few days ago we met and they asked us if we were still active in the ICWP (International Communist Workers’ Party). We replied that we continued organizing inside the factory.

After talking a little about how their lives were, they told us that they wanted to continue receiving the newspaper, and participate in the collective meetings. We invited them to a meeting and they attended. They said they wanted to continue participating in the meetings, even though they are no longer working in the factory. So we planned to meet at their house and they told us that the doors of their house were open for us to meet and continue talking about the communist line of the party.

We set a day and time for the meeting. Unfortunately, the day we were going to meet, they called to tell us that they had to go on a trip immediately, that they would notify us for an upcoming date. Although we were a little discouraged, we talked with the rest of the comrades in the collective and decided that we would continue struggling with these comrades. We understand that sometimes there are some unforeseen situations. This situation also encouraged us to take other actions that we had been planning for days.

One day later, a worker from another factory where approximately 60 women and very few men work came to visit my family and we started talking about how we were doing at work. I spoke to her about how work is done, what garments are made and how the bosses pay. When she heard these details, she said that where she works, it’s not so different.

“We also work from Monday to Saturday, but so as not to go for only 4 hours on Saturday, we make them up from Monday to Thursday, leaving an hour later. Exploitation is the same everywhere,” she said.

Several comrades in the collective decided that it is necessary to spread communist ideas in other industrial centers. We made the decision to go to distribute our Red Flag newspaper to the factory where this worker works. This action left us very satisfied since we distributed the newspapers and they were well received by the workers.

We will continue to distribute Red Flag in other factories, where exploitation of our class by capitalist bosses is the order of the day. We will work hard to bring this exploitation to an end. In the next article we will give more details of how this action went, in the factory where this friend of the ICWP works.

—Comrades from the Maquilas in El Salvador

More about Communism and Education

In our party club in the east of El Salvador we have been talking about communist education. A phrase I wrote in a letter published in Volume 10, #12 was criticized as being anticommunist. I want to explain my thinking about this.

I said, “The communist revolution must not be a steamroller of the collective consciousness of the masses.” This is a quote from those who saw in perestroika the opportunity to revitalize and safeguard the revolutionary conquest of October 1917 and opposed Russian revisionists like. Boris Yeltsin or Gorbachev who used this historical moment in the USSR to give a death blow to the state of workers and peasants.

It is a call to avoid the mistakes of the past and present, of controlling the thinking of the masses, prohibiting criticism of the rulers and promoting the cult of personality such as that in North Korea.

It is a call to avoid the deformation of the revolutionary project like the infamous “socialism with Chinese characteristics” that condemned millions to poverty and created thousands of millionaires in the “People’s Republic”

A comrade mentioned that we must have control of the state and education to provide a new education to the masses. In that sense the article calls for this new type of communist education to emancipate the collective thinking of the masses. It must not be a means of coercion and repression of the masses disguised as red as it happens in the brutal censorship in China and North Korea.

The article points out the importance of the transformation of material reality to generate a change in the thinking of the masses. The line of the party is constructed daily and collectively. We must not be frightened by phrases or questions that are thorny to us or see criticism as counterrevolutionary or revisionist.

Let’s build our collective vision of the type of education we need for the present and future. Let’s discuss the questions asked in the previous article and do more.

—Student comrade in El Salvador

On the letters about Education and Communism.

The comrade who wrote about Universities in Vol. 10 #12 raised a lot of questions. One, about the role of students in the creation of the FMLN was answered In Vol. 10, #13, so I will focus on another point.

Today our work is the construction of the International Communist Workers’ Party for the world proletarian revolution, so that all sectors of the population can unleash their creativity, courage and boldness, under the leadership of the working class and the Communist ideology that overcomes the limitations of the old movement.

Affection and care are essential for the strengthening of communist social relations. This is something that has cost me a lot to learn and put into practice, so I take this opportunity to send a revolutionary solute to the comrade. I was thinking about him when I read the following paragraph in the Communism and Education letter of Vol 10 # 13:

“Communist practice must be the basis of the education process. The International Communist Workers Party has a plan, Mobilize the Masses for Communism. Establishing reading networks of our Red Flag newspaper in the school, factory, army will help us expand the line of the Party ”

And I thought about him because we have discussed many times how we understand from the Party the relationship between theory and practice. Practice, we argued, to be communist, has to serve the negation and transformation of the current state of affairs. We believe that the 10-year anniversary conference of the Party will be a moment that we can take advantage of in order to take stock of our objectives, strategies and methods of struggle to achieve mass mobilization for communism.

Hoping that this letter serves to nourish the discussion and that I generated some response, we send warm revolutionary greetings from Mexico.

—Student comrade in Mexico

NEW DELHI, INDIA, November 18– Students of Jawaharlal Nehru University overran police barricades during a massive three week protest against skyrocketing fee increases and police attacks. Student comrades of ICWP are giving communist leadership in this struggle. More next issue.

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