India, El Salvador: Garment Workers Organize for Communism

Communism will Defeat Deadly “Green Revolution” here ♦ Report from India here ♦ Planning and Persistence in El Salvador here ♦

India, November 26– general strike in support of farmers

Red Flags of Communism Will Defeat Capitalists’ Deadly “Green Revolution”

DELHI, INDIA, December 15— “I am a son of a poor farmer, I am here to support them,” said Shyam, raising his fist defiantly. He was among over 1.2 million farmers and their supporters who are camping outside the capital.

Fascist Prime Minister Modi and Indian capitalists are pushing a “Made in India” campaign to convert vast farmlands, currently supporting 600 million people, into large agribusinesses.   The farmers are pushing back. They have overcome roadblocks, frigid weather and live ammunition. They are prepared to stay for six months.   On November 26, 250 million workers went on strike to support the farmers. Comrades participated with co-workers and have massively distributed Red Flag.

Shyam has lived in Delhi since age 17. He could no longer live on the small plot (less than 1 acre) that his father shared with five of his brothers.

ICWP members distributing a leaflet about communism spoke with Shyam. “Your father and over 170 million others are on the verge of crushing poverty,” they reminded him. “They pay for water, electricity, fertilizer, pesticides, cattle. And the little they earn is largely taken by middlemen who buy and sell to the markets.

“Instead of your father working alone,” comrades continued, “imagine 170 million farmers, with millions more workers, producing everything, not for profit, but for the masses’ needs. We would abolish banks and money.

“Without money, we will produce healthy food instead of the pesticide-soaked fields of Punjab and elsewhere. We will produce houses, health care, everything without police, unemployment, gangs or profits for the bosses. This is communist society. We need to organize for communist revolution.”

ICWP comrades are vigorously organizing to bring masses the vision and message of communism. We are impressed by the hundreds of thousands of protesting farmers, the miles and miles of people and their tractors. They have brought their food supply. Every day they organize thousands of Langars: community kitchens where food is cooked and distributed free to everybody. They have set up free pharmacies and refuse to call them “shops.” This is what communist life looks like.

Not far away, some older Sikhs were telling stories of their sons in the army. “Our entire Sikh regiments of tens of thousands are made up of people like my son,” said one. “They told us that they are not going to shoot us.” Millions of young soldiers from farmer and worker families, when inspired by communism, will be a potent force for revolution.

Capitalism’s “Green Revolution” Was a Disaster for the Masses

Fascist Modi declared that “Farmers are misguided. They cannot cling to the past. We have to free land, labor and law.” He and the Indian capitalists dream of a $5 trillion economy by 2024.

In reality, Modi’s “free land” means land transformed to agribusiness. His “free labor” means forcing workers into contract labor and squeezing their last drop of blood. His “free law” means allowing judges to implement fascist laws against Dalits, Muslims and eventually all workers.

Nothing stays the same. Today’s small farmers will become tomorrow’s hungry workers or soldiers. Their only way forward is to join with communist industrial workers and fight for a new kind of society, not just to change one capitalist ruler for another.

In the late 60’s and early 70’s India was repeatedly rocked by rural rebellions. This was partly a response to the “Green Revolution” that industrialized much of the countryside.

In Mexico in 1963-64, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Norman Borlaug introduced new varieties of crops, dependent on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Small farmers couldn’t compete with agribusiness, especially during NAFTA. This quickly spread to India and elsewhere.

It produced bumper crops but left millions of peasants landless and jobless. Those still working the land were massively exposed to cancer-causing chemicals. Capitalist agriculture produced food that, for generations, led to obesity, diabetes, and fast foods that deplete the body’s nutrients.

India is now experiencing a new epoch of the green revolution, combined with the market concentration of globalized supermarket chains (helped by e-commerce and social media).

India’s main crops (including rice, wheat, soya, and maize) are almost exclusively produced by GMO and biotech interventions. Crops are exposed to pandemic failures and consumers to cancers, respiratory diseases, cardiovascular catastrophes.

The “Green Revolution” is drenched in the masses’ red blood. It is a form of what Marx called “primitive accumulation of capitalism” – forcing yeoman farmers off their land and into the working class for the sake of super-profits.

In communism, food production and distribution will be carried out not by private farmers but by everyone collectively. This will end capitalist profit and, with it, the unhealthy food that kills the masses and the pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and insurance that are integral parts of the capitalist food chain.

Party members and friends in India, mainly industrial workers and youth, are giving leadership to the broader masses by distributing communist literature and contributing to our understanding of the communist society we fight for.   The current strike wave in Bengaluru of Toyota workers, bus drivers, and iPhone assemblers, as well as the millions of farmers and their supporters in Delhi are creating huge opportunities for us to do that everywhere.

Mass Farmer Protest in Delhi

Report from India: Garment Workers Spread Communism

December 6—In the garment work we have six active members who are distributing Red Flag to the masses. We know all of them at some level, but our main task is distributing Red Flag. We do engage with people during the distribution and that is how we gauge who to invite and struggle with in our cells and study groups.

The six comrades distribute Red Flag to the close coworkers who work exclusively in the gar­ment industry. However, many of them, including our comrades, are laid off. They see them in their homes on a regular basis. Many of our friends and neighbors distribute Red Flag occasionally.

We had a huge success when we put out our literature in the language Kannada. We estimate that most of the papers were very quickly gone. Mostly, our close friends each distributed any­where between 5 to 100 copies. This was our best work because out of this work we have a group of 8-10 new workers coming to meetings. The Red Flag gives confidence to the party that our small party is the future.

Many people initially think of us as Commu­nist Party of India -CPI- or Communist Party of India (Marxist) – CPM. And they are unwilling to accept us. But we explain to them about our goal as immediate communism.

Some of our friends think it is impossible be­cause small re­forms will better equip the workers who are living in a misery. Similarly, we have many in the trade union who want very mil­itant reforms.

For example, many people get injured on the job when they work on sewing machines. Their fingers get caught and they bleed heavily. The union has a demand that any injured worker will be sent to a clinic. There was no such thing before that. Many such examples give an idea that re­forms are better than the workers being at the mercy of the bosses.

Sexual harassment of women is very common. Many women are young and have children. It is horrific to see them abused because they think being abused is a bitter pill they have to swallow to raise their children.

In one incident, a comrade was badly abused and raised her voice in front of the manager. Her reaction was completely unexpected. The bosses are not used to hearing such thing. But among other women, they were in support of her. This changed the morale in the shop. A similar thing would be impossible in the trade union. They would form useless committees, lawyers and in the end very little. This support eventually led some of the women workers to be supporters of Red Flag.

India, December 15—Women farmers join the protests

Planning and Persistence: Building ICWP in the Factories

EL SALVADOR— “I have read Red Flag with my partner,” said a friend with eight years of ex­perience working in the factory. “It has served as a model for us, because little by little we have understood that to be a communist is to leave sex­ism aside, for me not to feel superior to her. We are enthusiastic about reading the newspaper.”

Then he added, “On the other hand I have a friend and co-worker from the factory who I will talk to about the International Communist Work­ers’ Party (ICWP). He is reliable, and I think that he will be one more in the struggle for commu­nism.”

Recently, the members of the factory workers’ leadership cell met with comrades and readers of Red Flag to talk about how we can recruit more members to the Party and change this rotten cap­italist system for a better world, the communist world.

In one meeting a comrade and a reader from another factory told us, “We are upset because the bosses immediately opened the factory. They have imposed schedules on us from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm Monday through Friday. That takes up a lot of our time, but even so they don’t stop us in our battle to defeat them.

“We have done the impossible to meet with you and share news about the capitalist situation and our anger. We want to continue to spread the Red Flag and we will continue doing that, so that the masses of workers inside the factories join the Party.

“We must continue fighting and seeking change. The ICWP through Red Flag has taught us to believe that in the future we will work in a just way. We will produce what we need. There will be no more bosses who take advantage of our labor power to produce their commodities and their profits. We are ready to fight to continue to meet in the cells and participate in May Day and any other activity that is organized,” said these comrades.

“Do you remember how I used to follow Maria even to the dining room, at lunchtime?” asked a party leader in the maquilas. “It was hard for me to talk to her,” she continued, “but we shouldn’t give up so easily. We have to find a way to talk to our co-workers in the factories.”

Time got away from us, and then it was late and we had to leave. Each participant took two more newspapers to share and thus to enlarge the ICWP. Part of the plan of work is to invite work­ers from different factories every week to some­where we can discuss the best ways to organize. This is a struggle to convert those Red Flag read­ers into new communist organizers.

Finally, we want to thank the internationalist comrades of ICWP, who are always in solidarity with the workers’ participation in these factories in El Salvador. This shows in theory and practice what it means to be members of the ICWP.

Dozens of Party members will receive the Red Flag newspaper accompanied by a communist solidarity envelope and toys for their children. Thank you very much, comrades, for this demon­stration of solidarity. Let’s all continue to fight to change this system of misery and to establish the system of our working class, communism, world­wide.

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