Collective Struggle and Communist Philosophy Help Us Recruit New Party Members
EL SALVADOR— “I feel solidarity with women workers from other countries. I joined the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) when I saw that my comrades constantly support them. We recognize them in the factory as Red Flag,” said a young maquila worker at the recent International Communist Conference celebrating ten years of struggle of ICWP.
In Party meetings since January 2019, we invited maquila workers, farmworkers, teachers, students and state workers to the conference. Some commented proudly and enthusiastically about how long they had been party members.
Originally, we expected 20 comrades to come. When it was clear that more workers wanted to attend, party comrades internationally raised the extra funds needed. Thirty-two comrades attended. They included sixteen maquila workers, veteran farmworkers who had been FMLN guerrillas, teachers and students.
These days of comradely communist relations and struggle were a victory for the growth of the Party.
A young friend of the party organized interesting activities with the children who came with their parents. This was a taste of the future. In communism, women and men comrades will collectively nurture children so that all adults can participate in production. We will deepen communist relations and struggle to meet the needs of our international working class family.
Day 1. We shared videos of the struggles in India, including children and students, where women gave leadership. These struggles have led to increased distribution of Red Flag and other party literature. The masses’ spirit and the communist work of our comrades inspired everyone.
They felt connected to this struggle against racist, sexist capitalism. Some maquila comrades saw the similarities in how garment workers of India and El Salvador are exploited. There has not been any recent uprising of the masses in El Salvador, but sooner rather than later it will happen.
Day 2. A maquila worker welcomed us. She explained how she has changed her life and that of her family since her family group joined ICWP. She called on everyone to recruit more workers to organize the party.
Then a comrade party leader said that the masses internationally are fed up with racism, sexism, exploitation, and wars. They are looking for alternatives. Our responsibility is to bring them the alternative of communist revolution.
When ICWP started, some said, “They are a small group” that “will not last even three months, maybe one year.” But today we are celebrating ten years of struggle. The ICWP is active in India, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, El Salvador, the United States and elsewhere. Workers and youth in forty countries read Red Flag. There is huge potential to grow. Workers everywhere are open to communism.
He explained that dialectical materialist philosophy is an important tool to understand how change occurs, to advance the struggle for communism. It allows us to discover the main contradiction that we need to sharpen to advance in recruiting more workers to the party.
A comrade worker said, “On May Day I heard the slogan, ‘Communism is coming and no one can stop it.’ I liked it a lot.”
For communism to come, we have to bring communist ideas to more workers and recruit them.
Another worker said, “In ICWP each of us can take responsibility to recruit workers for the party. If we want fruits, we have to have more commitment.”
The ex- FMLN guerrilla comrades said they had fought against repression in the 70s and 80s. The change they wanted did not come. But that did not break them. They never gave up. They are now fighting for communism in the ICWP.
“I see the workers in struggle in France and many places. The working class is tired of capitalism. We have this opportunity to continue our struggle to build the Party,” one said.
The South African comrades gave their report about a visit to the miners in Rustenburg with the goal of involving them again in Party activities. Many miners read Red Flag, but we have to visit them more regularly to recruit them to the Party.
The comrades from Mexico said that they are working to consolidate their relationships with young students. Someone suggested that they organize an international conference in Mexico in 2020.
Later, three workshops discussed our communist practice. We tried to understand better the contradictions of capitalism and how to overthrow it. We discussed the internal contradictions that hold back recruitment. These were some conclusions:
Our line says that we have confidence that workers will mobilize for communism. But we have to improve our practice. If our work doesn’t reflect our line, the line will change for the worse.
In one workshop, we struggled to increase a worker’s distribution of Red Flag. She hadn’t realized that she should distribute the paper to workers outside her job site, at home and at co-workers’ homes. This will open up many more opportunities. Another worker said, “This conference has inspired me to look for people in other areas and recruit them to ICWP.”
A teacher has introduced communist ideas to some students and fellow teachers. There is great potential to go further. Her collective must help her organize activities, discussions and study groups about the need for communist revolution.
Inter-imperialist rivalry and attacks on workers are sharpening. It is urgent to organize workers and soldiers.
To understand and change reality, we need to study the development of dialectical contradictions.
The high energy of the discussions, the great interest shown by each ICWP member, and the general desire to recruit more rural and urban workers, soldiers, and students made this conference an important advance toward our goal of building a communist society.
Communist Fight Against Sexism from India to El Salvador
In a previous edition of Red Flag we read and discussed collectively in our cell of men and women maquila workers, what a comrade has faced in India. She faced sexual harassment and verbal abuse by the bosses.
The determined way in which she sought help from the unions and the response they gave leaves them looking very bad to the working class. They said that’s the way things are and nothing could be done.
An organization sought to report the case using the laws of India. Nothing happened. This greatly impacted us because we compared it with the situation that other women face in El Salvador. They are similar.
But we also value the work of a young Red Flag reader who changed the route of this case by bringing Red Flag to this worker. The workers read previous articles about the situation that women here in the maquila factories in El Salvador have faced. We think that meeting with her was important because she could feel the solidarity of the group. That helps a lot in these cases. But organizing the party there at the factory would help even more.
A comrade who was at the conference of our International Communist Workers Party, upon hearing the story, identified with the case of the co-worker in India, because she has experienced similar abuses by the bosses at work.
We think that we have to fight very hard to organize more women and men workers into the ICWP and put an end to capitalism. Only communism will be free from these kinds of problems since there will be an education that does not promote sexism, racism, where from childhood there will be an emphasis on respect for people. We will fight against these behaviors.
To our comrade in India, revolutionary greetings, and all our solidarity. Together we will build a just society free of sexism. Together we will build Communism
—Comrades in El Salvador
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