Life in the Party:
SEATTLE (USA), Nov. 15—This synopsis of our last two meetings shows how the International Communist Workers’ Party struggles around a political line.
This collective discussion came out of our work. Every member’s opinion was informed by communist struggle with our friends. “From the masses, to the masses” is how our party functions.
Capitalism always carries with it the curse of corruption. Nonetheless, focusing on corruption can blind us to the root cause of capitalism’s evils.
This system relies on robbery. It is built on a foundation of capitalist exploitation. Every day, the bosses steal most of the value that the working class produces.
The ruling class is selfish parasites. They have built a culture and laws that justify this exploitation.
Gangsters and petty corrupt officials mimic this mentality and behavior. They are small potatoes, but they can make the life of workers insufferable.
Communism will end the thievery of our labor. It will be organized around collective labor providing for our collective needs. This behavior opens the door to a collective mentality, the antidote to corruption.
Futile Calls for Capitalism without Corruption
The ICWP collective in Seattle recently discussed what this means for us workers. We are striving to reach a consensus that can provide a communist solution: one that will end the corruption we see globally.
The newly elected “left-wing” president of Mexico, Lopez Obrador, ran, in large part, on an anti-corruption platform. So far, he’s done little but attack workers.
“Obrador is surrounded by corrupt officials (from past administrations),” said a comrade to begin the discussion. “They make it hard for him to do anything for the workers.”
As an example, he related his experiences with Mexico City cops. They force workers to give them bribes. When you are barely making enough to eat, this petty corruption is a big deal.
On a bigger scale, Obrador formed a new national guard. It was sold as an answer to corruption in the police and regular army. Now the National Guard spends all its time attacking Central American immigrants.
In the U.S., the New York Times calls for a fight against Trump’s corruption. They warn us not to focus on his racism, sexism, xenophobia and promotion of fascism, lest Democrats lose the election.
On a global scale, millions are fighting in the streets. The bosses’ media portray this wave of rebellion as a revolt against corruption. Only infrequently do they mention inequality or other, more relevant issues that are on the minds of the masses. Never does the bosses’ press single out the root cause: capitalism!
We would very much like to hear from other party collectives in El Salvador and around the world. What are your experiences when struggling with our base around the issue of corruption?
The Big Lie
“Didn’t corruption ruin attempts to create communism in Russia and China?” our comrade added.
Every worker knows corruption runs rampant in capitalism. Rather than deny it, the capitalists try to shift the focus. They point to corruption in socialist societies. Sometimes they make stories up.
They conveniently forget that socialism maintains the wage system and exploitation: the material basis of individualism and corruption. While socialism may promote the ideals of cooperation and unselfishness, it forces everyone to “look out for number one.”
Communist-Inspired Masses Will End Corruption
That’s why the ICWP fights directly for communism, a society that ends wage slavery. Socialism, with its maintenance of wages and all that goes along with that, caused these first attempts to fail. We won’t make that mistake again.
“I blame the schools,” our comrade continued, after we discussed how capitalism sets us up for unbridled corruption. “They teach us to step on other people, not to cooperate.”
Education in communism – in contrast to capitalist education — will not mimic and promote capitalist competition. It will be based on collective work.
An anti-corrupt capitalism is an impossibility. Communist-inspired masses will change society and how we relate to our fellow workers. Corruption will become a distasteful memory of decadent capitalism.
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Corruption Meets Its Match
SEATTLE (USA) — “You can’t get rid of corruption,” was a close party friend’s initial reaction when he saw the first draft of the above article.
He changed his tune a bit after reading it. “How can we change workers’ mentality?” was his next thought.
We agreed that capitalist production and the wage system promote individualism. Individual gain is at the heart of corrupt practices.
Even so, communists have led massive fights against corruption based on their vision of a collective society. Starting in the 1920s, right-wing socialists in the garment union opened the door to New York gangsters in their attempt to destroy Communist Party (CP) locals. The communists responded by mobilizing masses of garment workers to physically end the reign of corruption in the furrier section.
The battle came to a head on April 24, 1933. Mobsters stormed the headquarters of the furriers’ union. They were intent on beating and killing the left-wing leadership.
The workers responded with the tools of their trade, including cutting knives. Eventually they drove the hoodlums away.
The communist-inspired workers went on the offensive. The CP organized Defense Brigades throughout the furrier district. They organized a massive demonstration with a flyer that read: “Let Us Take up the Struggle to Drive the Racketeers and Gangsters from the Needle Trade Industry.” Tens of thousands demonstrated and hundreds of thousands of flyers, pamphlets and issues of the CP’s paper flooded the city. [1]
The workers’ collective spirit succeeded for a time. But the contradiction between this spirit and the material basis of capitalism eventually undermined the workers’ success. Nonetheless, we can see the potential for mobilizing the masses to put an end to corruption within a communist society.
The material basis of communism relies on collective production. There will be no money to covet and corrupt. Our needs will be met collectively.
In communism, the party will mobilize great numbers of workers to stamp out the last vestiges of capitalist corruption when they arise. This time the material basis of society, collective production and distribution, will be on our side.
Living and struggling in this kind of society will change our view of what is possible. Communist relations will open a new era.
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- David Lee, “The Convergence of Organized Crime and Organized Labor in New York Garment Industry, 1920-1940,” Master’s Thesis, CUNY City College, 2014, pp. 38-48
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