On this page: Red Flag is your voice here ♦ Youth likes Communist ideas here ♦ Questions from new member here ♦ Friend wants communist world here ♦ Never give up here ♦ Poland here ♦
Workers and Youth: Your Red Flag Is Your Voice
“You are part of a very exciting experiment in starting to mobilize for a communist revolution and aa communist world,” said a comrade opening a recent international meeting about Red Flag. “How do we produce a paper relying on workers and youth like you, not on professional journalists? How do we unite theory and practice? How do we help ourselves and others see our communist future in the work we do today? How can we encourage more friends and comrades to contribute the articles we need?”
Workers and youth, especially those targeted by racism, sexism or communalism, are used to hearing that their ideas don’t matter. We know they do! Their ideas – in addition to their passion and commitment – are vital to developing everyone’s understanding of communism and how to fight for it.
That’s why Red Flag needs more articles describing conversations about the party, communism and more with co-workers, family and friends. It’s why we need to find and use creative methods to get the voices of many more workers and youth into Red Flag.
Some comrades already send in contributions as audiotapes. Some write them on their phones as text messages. We need more of this. One worker comrade writes his ideas on slips of paper from his job, and other comrades help put them together. We can do more interviews.
Contributions get better when they are more collectively written, discussed and edited. Those that come in earlier (by the Friday before the new Red Flag comes out) get more feedback from the editorial collective.
A comrade from India reported on an exciting new plan for a series of podcasts that explain the Party’s line. The collective that will produce these has asked for more volunteers. If you can help, tell the person who gives you Red Flag or contact icwpredflag@anonymousspeech.com.
Looking ahead, we need to build more local collectives that see producing Red Flag as a crucial part of their work. This is key to increasing our capacity and developing new leaders.
This international meeting showed that we are already on this path. Nine comrades helped to lead different parts of the meeting. Several explained how they had gotten more involved in producing Red Flag. One left the meeting and immediately got a younger relative to write a letter for the next issue.
Two young comrades and a newer comrade stepped up to help, very capably, with simultaneous translation. One young leader did her part after being up all night with a sick child. Another participated after working all night. Their contributions make a difference, and their commitment is inspiring.
Red Flag is striving to become the voice of communist workers and youth around the world. Please join us in that struggle.
Communist Ideas Are a New Opportunity for the Youth
Hello comrades! A very special greeting to each and every reader in different areas. I am a ninth-grade student. These days I have started reading Red Flag. I have liked the ideas that the International Communist Workers’ Party has. I have read the articles of maquila workers. I have realized how the ruling class has treated workers in these times of crisis. But for me I think it is an opportunity to see the reality of life today.
We talked with the person who distributes the newspaper about how, in capitalism, today’s youth do not have opportunities for a better life for the future. It’s like us poor are destined to always live like this. When I read the newspaper and find ideas of a life where there will be no bosses and where the workers will no longer be enslaved, it makes me think.
It really gets my attention because at my age I have heard about the abuse and mistreatment that exists in the factories by the employers, where the boss demands that the worker work more for a minimum wage. Because I would not want to live like that anymore. That’s why I think communist ideas are a new opportunity for the youth. From the little that I have read, communism will make a better change for each worker where everything will be different, because we will no longer have so many problems.
I believe that when communism, with its energy, moves the masses from capitalism to communism, we will have to remain united. It will not be easy, but it will not be impossible. The strength of youth is also a challenge to fight for a better world. The work of building the party is not easy: to be able to defeat capitalism and have a victory, but it will not be impossible. Everything will be in its time. I encourage all members of the party to continue fighting against the enemy, which is capitalism.
—Comrade student daughter of industrial workers
Bolshevik salutes, comrade!
Hope all is well there. Comrade, I have gone through the manifesto Mobilize the Masses for Communism, but I asked some questions on VICTORIES. You mentioned three victories: Paris Commune, the Great October Socialist Revolution and the Chinese revolution. Don’t you think that the establishment of peoples’ democracies in eastern and central Europe was also a great victory, which undermined western imperialism?
You said, “the defeat of the Nazis in 1945 laid the basis not for world communism but for a new Soviet empire that called itself socialist but renounced world revolution.” How can you say so? You admit that Chinese Revolution was third great victory. Then why do you forget the decisive role in the victory of Chinese revolution played by the Soviet Union under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik)?
Don’t you think that the victory of the Chinese revolution and the establishment of peoples’ democracies were great advancement to world revolution? Why are not you ready to differentiate the pre- and post-Stalin Soviet Union? It was the Khrushchevite renegade revisionist clique who betrayed the great and mighty cause of socialism.
However, comrade, I want to join you in ICWP. Is it possible to start recruiting in Pakistan? We have a golden opportunity. I have some differences with my understanding of communism, but we can advance now.
—Comrade in Pakistan
Red Flag responds: Thank you, comrade. We welcome you to ICWP! We invite other comrades to write letters answering the different questions you raise.
Wants a Communist World
Thanks, comrade. It was nice meeting you, too. We are here for the same cause. We are fighting for communism. And hopefully the whole world will get under this system really soon and our struggle will be successful. Thanks once again.
—Friend in Pakistan
Never Give Up!
I wanted to share a wonderful experience with a longtime friend. She and I worked together in the 1980’s and became fast friends. Even when I left that job, we continued to see each other, talk on the phone, etc. We agreed on many things, but politics was not one of them. She considers herself a liberal; I am a longtime communist. We would have struggles over world events, and always disagree strongly at election time, since I think voting is just a capitalist ruse.
She is cynical about the potential for a revolution for communism. I believe her cynicism comes from being brought up in a religion that stresses original sin. She has long since left the religion, but that kernel stays in her mind.
Our strong friendship continues and we have agreed to disagree. I try to highlight humans fighting back, how people try to help each other all over the world. She reads and listens to too much of the bosses’ media and tells me awful stories.
Last week I got an email from her that her grandson, who is in college, had interviewed her for a paper he is writing for his Women’s Studies class. He wanted her “historical” take, since she has lived through a lot.
Here is what she told me about her response: “You would’ve been proud of me. I unexpectedly kept returning to the topic of capitalism. And how it impacted women’s rights for those in lower socio-economic groups.”
I was so happy and told her so. All those years of base-building and struggle did eventually have an effect. Now I need to convince her that the answer to capitalism is building a base for communism. Time to try again to get her to read an article or two from Red Flag.
The struggle continues!
Seattle Comrade
POLAND, October 31— More than four hundred thousand women and men took to the streets of Poland for nine days to denounce the high court decision to make abortion illegal, even in the case of severe birth defects. As we go to press the decision has not been formally published—showing the fear the rulers have of this kind of mass anger. It’s still unclear what will happen to this decision. What is clear, however, is that the fight against sexism will require abolishing its basis in class society, and building a new, communist world, where we can work and play together as working class siblings.
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