The Rise of Fascism and How Communism Will Defeat It
LOS ANGELES (USA)—“I’m exhausted,” texted Angela, an emerging Party leader. The previous evening, she had led an ICWP virtual forum on the anti-fascist fight in Portland. “But I’m really proud of how we worked together,” she continued. “In spite of all the issues, it was a very successful forum.”
A new generation of communist leaders is developing around the world. Angela is one of them. And it can’t come too soon.
Young people worldwide are leading the fight against fascism, from the murder of George Floyd in May and through the police shooting of Jacob Blake in August. Among them are friends in Portland who read and contribute to Red Flag. We invited one of them to speak about the situation at a virtual forum.
Angela took responsibility for organizing and leading the forum. She reached out to the friend in Portland as well as comrades in South Africa. She wrote and delivered a brief introduction to the forum and led the discussion.
There were problems. The Portland friend, a medical worker, was exhausted from fighting Covid-19 in understaffed conditions and couldn’t participate. The comrades in South Africa, as well as the comrade whose Zoom connection we had mailed out, encountered power outages.
Veteran comrades helped out with a new Zoom link, a slide show and a brief narration of the struggle in Portland and around the world and ICWP’s participation in it. In attendance were comrades and friends from El Salvador and Mexico, as well as various parts of the US.
A comrade in Seattle spoke about fighting in the streets there. He was recovering from surgery on an arm broken by a rubber bullet from the Federal Agents. He criticized the anarchist formation in Capitol Hill, which fell apart because of a lack of organization and discipline.
He discussed the limited nature of the demand to defund the police. As long as capitalism is in place, he emphasized, the bosses can rely on private police forces, which they have done in industrial battles in the past.
A young comrade talked about how he used to go to protests alone, as just one more person on the street. But after struggle in the Party collective, he now goes to these protests with other comrades and with Red Flag, because the change we need is communist revolution, to get rid of fascist policing once and for all.
“I found my people,” said a friend as the discussion turned to the need for revolution, rather than relying on voting for Democrats. She later posted to an ICWP chat group, “For someone who has always felt alien, rejected and/or berated by friends and family members over my thoughts/beliefs about humanity, society, politics and governance, it was so validating to not be the odd person out, for once. While I think I’m somewhere between socialist and communist (still learning about both), I do feel that I have found my tribe!”
“What will be a crime in a communist society?” asked a comrade. “How will we deal collectively with anti-social behavior?” asked another.
The comrades in El Salvador described discussions (some reported in Red Flag) with former guerrilla fighters about how anti-social behavior was dealt with in liberated zones.
They explained that after the FMLN victory and the dismantling of the old police force, the formula for the new repressive police force was: 25% FMLN members, 25% Death Squads members and 50% civilian members. Under the old regime their job was to kill workers. Under the new regime—which is the same capitalist regime in new clothes—their job is still to kill workers.
“I thought it was very useful to hear from the people in El Salvador about their struggles against the police,” the Seattle comrade commented afterward.
The masses are rising up in the cities of the US and around the world against fascist policing. We are fighting to turn their struggle into a movement for communist revolution.
When we end class society and its racist exploitation, we will no longer need the repressive force that keeps the bosses in power. We will work together, sharing what we produce, and eliminate the conditions that now create criminal behavior.
This requires a communist party committed to that struggle. This very successful forum was a step forward.
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