The previous article, “Capitalist Competition for Profits Causes Depressions,” showed that competition and the falling rate of profit make capitalist economic depressions inevitable.
Worldwide depressions and world wars create, on a global scale, the potential for communist revolution.
This is exactly what the 1929 depression and World War II did. They intensified and spread the class struggle between capitalists-imperialists and the working class.
The current depression, and the looming World War III, will do the same. Already, hundreds of millions of workers are in motion against capitalism.
In 1929, workers around the world were radicalized. The 1917 Russian Revolution had led masses to believe firmly in the need for a revolutionary communist party to lead them to victory. Millions organized and joined communist parties in over 65 countries. They flocked to the Third Communist International.
But their revolutionary potential was betrayed by that International. Starting in 1935, it fought only for reforms and allied with Western imperialists in World War II in order to “fight fascism.”
History shows that capitalism, based on wage slavery, can’t be reformed to meet the masses’ needs. It must be destroyed violently.
Reformism was the burial ground of the old communist movement. Even communist parties that had led violent revolutions to overthrow capitalism, instituted socialism, not communism.
Socialism was supposed to be a step to communism. However, it kept money, wages (wage slavery) and production for the market. This made it, in essence, state capitalism administered by the communist parties.
Those communists eventually became capitalist exploiters and oppressors of the working class. They got rich from the surplus value they stole from the workers’ labor power.
That is why ICWP fights for communism and nothing less. Only communism can eliminate the capitalist money system and its wage slavery. This will lay the basis to forever eradicate racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, borders and nations.
Workers and Youth on the March: Mobilize Them for Communism
As today’s depression, fascism, racist police terror and war unfold, greater numbers of workers and youth will be put in motion. They yearn for a radical change.
It is ICWP’s duty and honor to mobilize them for communism. Only communist revolution and the building of a communist world can end capitalism’s deadly competition and quest for profits.
In communism nothing will be bought or sold. In pre-class communist societies, our hunter-gatherer ancestors shared the products of their labor, as best they could, amongst all. The communism we fight for is based on that principle.
Communist relations of respect and love, not money, will motivate everyone to fight for and build a society where everyone contributes according to their ability and commitment. ICWP collectives will plan, produce and distribute everything according to need.
Only communism can liberate the earth from the ravages of capitalism. Capitalism has turned it into a commodity and “it is subject to just as much exploitation as labor.” (Engels)
Communism will enable humankind to run on renewable energy, not fossil fuels. Living in harmony with nature, we will reverse global warming and all of capitalism’s ecological disasters.
Masses have responded enthusiastically to Red Flag in the US, South Africa, India, El Salvador, and elsewhere. This gives us confidence that they will mobilize for communism. For this, we must build Party collectives that become indispensable to their lives at work, schools, neighborhoods and military barracks.
This is the most important task for humanity’s future. Will angry masses be won to nationalism and fascism? Or to the communism we need? The alternatives are fascism and World War III, or Communist Revolution. Our choice is clear.
It is a monumental task. We can’t do it without your and your family’s, friends’ and coworkers’ participation. Join us!
“We Have Space” Sept 20—Thousands of people marched in Berlin and other German cities, urging the European Union to take in the 12,000 migrants left without shelter after a fire destroyed their biggest camp in Greece.
Read our pamphlet: FIGHT FOR THE DAY WHEN NO WORKER WILL BE CALLED A FOREIGNER
Available here