How Does a Party of a New Kind Act in the Class Struggle?
We read the article about the ICWP Communist Party of a New Kind in Volume 11 #1 of Red Flag. It raises some really interesting points in our view. And these are the things we’ve been struggling around for quite a while now. There are many examples we’ve encountered in the past.
When we were in Rustenburg there was a report we submitted based on conversations with some of the miners in that side whereby they were questioning the line of ICWP because they could see those short term gains unions were putting forward. We were organizing around the vanguard line.
They wanted the party to be in a position whereby it can give also leadership inside the factories whereby they would actively fight the bosses on behalf of the workers, even though those are short term goals. But in a sense they are also important because they also serve as a recruitment tool because workers are more inclined when there is injustice, to rise up against that injustice. And the party should be in the forefront of that. So we cannot ignore this side.
But at the very same time, the article makes a point of analyzing some of the fatal flaws of organizing around this line so that we cannot repeat those same mistakes. So it’s a really good article. There are many questions that we encounter in places where we distribute, because some worker would ask a question about what is it that the party can do to help us now and it always bothers me, because there’s nothing.
I remember a few years back, the first time I went to Marikana. We were distributing the Red Flag at an old mine. Most of the workers who were working there were locked outside the premises. We met some of them. We distributed Red Flag to them and talked with some of them. There was this particular guy called Bulelani. I still have his contact but he no longer stays in Marikana. He was fighting with the boss and he was even physically abused by the owner of this mine.
And he went to the police and they didn’t want to help him because they were siding with the boss. It’s not surprising because historically the police always side with the boss. That’s why they exist in the same place beside the bosses.
And this guy asked, “What is it that you can do for us?” And the only thing we can do for him is that in the future we’ll create a society whereby he can’t suffer the injustice, the humiliation, the exploitation that he was facing now. And at that moment we were powerless. And this still bothers me.
So it is important for the party to really actively consider organizing around this, but at the same time we should be mindful to explore and do our utmost to completely eradicate the system. The only way to do that is to constantly struggle around the line to mobilize the masses for communism. That is our main policy. We are not for some other stage or whatever. We constantly struggle around this line and struggle against liberalism, individualism and all these liberal tendencies.
But it’s really a helpful article and we really enjoyed it very much.
—Comrades in South Africa
Response to the Comrades in South Africa
Thank you, comrades, for raising these important questions.
The party should be active in workers’ struggles countering the bosses’ attacks by showing that the only way to end their attacks is by mobilizing the masses for communism.
At MTA, several years ago, a supervisor yelled at a driver, poking his finger in his face in a confrontation after the supervisor made a racist, sexist attack on the worker’s girlfriend (another driver). The worker fought back and hit the supervisor. He was arrested and later fired.
The party put out a leaflet and Red Flag article supporting the driver’s actions, exposing capitalist wage slavery and calling on the workers to join ICWP and fight for a communist world without wage slavery, racism or sexism. Hundreds of workers read both. This led to more workers reading Red Flag and many advancing their understanding of communism.
We were on the outside, not the inside, at this workplace. Had we had a comrade working there, we could have done more.
Our communist response to the bosses’ attacks depends on the base we have among the workers. We can’t and shouldn’t promise immediate gains. We should always stress that advancing the struggle for communism is our immediate goal: more Red Flag readers, distributers and writers. More study groups and Party collectives.
Whether or not we are able to win workers to understand this, we should still try respond to all bosses’ attacks in some way. We can put out a leaflet denouncing the attack and showing that communism is the solution. Making this a mass issue shows workers that we are fighting back and advances their political understanding.
If possible, we could meet with the worker involved and their friends to talk about our plans to put out the leaflet and get their ideas. We should meet with them afterwards, to talk about their coworkers’ response. This could lead to more ideological struggle, more leaflets and articles, as we try to organize study groups and recruit.
Whether we succeed or not immediately, we would have advanced many workers’ understanding of communism and eventually the need to join and build ICWP to make communist revolution a reality.
This is the political base we will have inside for more responses to the bosses’ attacks. These could go from direct confrontation with the bosses, to work slow downs or stoppages, to political strikes and mass demonstrations for communism. We don’t raise reform demands.
When the miner asked what we could do to help him, could we have written a leaflet, or organized a meeting or rally to call on workers to denounce the boss’ attack on the miner and the capitalist system? We could show capitalism makes all workers wage slaves and uses their police to enforce their wage slavery. We could call for communism as the only answer to such attacks and invite the workers to read and spread Red Flag and join ICWP.
In the heat of the struggle against injustice, we need to show that eliminating wage slavery, racism and sexism with communist revolution is the solution, not reforming capitalism. Whether on the job or elsewhere, this is the way to build ICWP and move the party forward.
—Comrade in the US
A World to Win – A Mass Communist Party to Build
The young man was wearing an anarchist shirt. He joined a conversation I was having with his friend at an anti-fascist rally in the south-Asian community of Artesia. I think he’d already spoken with other comrades who were distributing Red Flag.
“So, how do you plan to run the world on communist principles,” he asked.
Very good question.
I said some things about the Party convincing and organizing masses to participate in making decisions on many levels. And struggling for everyone to think about what’s best for all of us, internationally. About what’s needed, how best to produce it and how to distribute it to meet the needs. And that we’d use communications technology that exists today (like video-conferencing) and invent more.
“But,” I told him, “We don’t have a detailed answer to your question now. We can’t. We need a lot more people – like you! – to help figure it out.
“Once we are able to function as a communist party of maybe 10,000 members in 30 places, I’m sure we’ll have a much better plan for how to run the whole world on communist principles.”
This seemed to make sense to him.
I thought about this more later. When we think about how we should be working together as a communist party now, the starting-point really should be how we think we’ll lead a communist world. And how, before that, we could be a party of 10,000 members in 30 places.
The principle “From each according to commitment, to each according to need” should tell us a lot about what it means to build a mass communist party and to mobilize masses for communism. How does the older slogan, “From each according to ability…” relate to this?
“No nations – no borders!” certainly means building one International Communist Workers’ Party, not a “new Communist International” made up of national parties. How should we build the international leadership collective for ICWP—one that functions and matures as a stable collective while continually developing new leaders?
Can this be done adequately through social media or chat groups? How do we conduct meetings in multiple languages – how could we do this better?
What will it look like once we’ve started to smash the capitalist barriers of cost and border control? Once the whole world is communist?
Our party should be proud of the breakthroughs we’ve made so far! But what’s “good enough” today won’t be good enough for long. Truly we have a world to win. But winning the world is just the start.
—LA comrade
Front page of this issue
