Letters from USA, Mexico, South Africa

March 30—Workers at the General Hospital of Atlacomulco, in the State of Mexico, protest bad conditions and lack of personal protective equipment.

Put International Communist Working-Class Solidarity into Action

A recent car caravan in Tacoma (USA) demanded the release of immigration detainees and prisoners at high risk of COVID-19.

I sent the following email to family, friends and former co-workers. The response was favorable. For example, a college teacher where I volunteer said she would join a caravan. She thought two of her colleagues, who are immigrants, would also join.

With the coronavirus pandemic has come an increase in racism and xenophobia, in the US and around the world.

Undocumented workers [around the world] are locked up (“detained”) or live in squalor in migrant camps. They have minimal access to health care and are especially vulnerable to getting sick.

Only communism can address these issues in a way which will eliminate them once and for all.

In communist society, if a health concern were discovered, there would be no benefit in hiding this information. Everyone would be expected to look out for the greater good of the community.

There would be no question of how much it costs, because there would be no money, nor risk of people being laid off. We would mobilize workers, students and soldiers to work in whatever way necessary for the good of our class.

We would be able to mobilize factories to quickly re-tool for whatever we need to fight the disease. Medical equipment would already have been stockpiled for emergencies. Plans to change manufacturing would already be in place for potential health crises.

There would be no proprietary information, copyrights, patents, etc. to impede the sharing of information and the building of medical equipment, testing medicines, etc.

Right now, groups in Washington have sponsored caravans at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma. Two hundred fifty detainees there, in cramped, unhygienic conditions, went on a hunger strike over the COVID-19 virus.

We can join these caravans to protest the internment of these workers while talking [via the internet now and in person later] to participants about the need to end capitalism.

Most importantly, there will be no immigrants or foreigners in communism, only cherished members of the international working class!

—Seattle comrade

Distributing Red Flag in the time of the Coronavirus 

The crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has created changes in my habits and has forced me to form new ones. The use of social networks to distribute Red Flag has been one of the most important.

Some friends to whom I had offered the newspaper before and who hadn’t accepted it, I have now sent it to them over the internet without asking them if they wanted it or not. The response has been generally good: “Thank you, it is interesting.” “You have made me read something.” “You stubborn fool, thank you.”

With my family in Los Angeles, USA the political struggle has always been intense and sometimes I’ve stopped talking about politics to cool the situation down a little. But this time I intensified it again and the results so far have been good with a sister-in-law, and now, we have shared more information.

I sent her the link to the newspaper and asked her to send it to her friends. The answer was immediate, “I already did. I sent it to several friends, but especially to my friend the former guerrilla.”

Every Saturday we connect to Guatemala by video, to talk to the family. This time a couple of family members told us that they had been hiding in a house for two months, and how stressful the experience was.

Then it was my sister’s turn. She told of her experience when she was imprisoned for two months for fighting the Ku Klux Klan. “I was in prison for fighting fascism, not for committing any crime.”

Everyone was quiet, listening, and suddenly someone began to applaud, and everyone, from Guatemala to the U.S., began to applaud. Some were crying with emotion.

Earlier I had sent the Red Flag link to a nephew, and he told me that he was going to pass it on to his sister. They were both present at that meeting. He told me that he had also passed it on to another cousin and other friends, all students.

This is very small, but it will do.

I have to keep talking to everyone. I have to keep struggling with them politically so that they keep passing on the paper, so that I have more opportunities to recruit workers into the party.

Now more than ever, workers are open to communist ideas. The coronavirus pandemic has created conditions to recruit members to the Party. The masses are angrier with the bosses and their governments. The workers are realizing that capitalism does not work. The masses are hungry not only for food, which is now missing from their tables, but also hungry for economic, political and social change.

The International Communist Workers’ Party is the alternative. Capitalism is rotten, it can’t be reformed. Let’s throw it into the dustbin of history. Let’s all join the struggle for Communism.

—Comrade in Los Angeles, USA

Small Rebellions Today Will Become Huge Storm

Capitalism has been unable to control a virus that has so far infected one million and killed tens of thousands. Most are workers who have felt the onslaught of COVID-19. Such a system should not exist. It’s urgent to crush it and build a new society: A Communist Society.

The López Obrador government has quarantined the entire country as a preventive measure because of the pandemic. But there is much uncertainty and worry, especially among the 31.3 million poor workers and those who are engaged in informal work.

These workers come from the provinces to the big cities, and face racism and discrimination. They only live from day to day. A woman on public transport expressed the opinion of many: “The rich people are to blame. They travel the world and bring the disease. We can’t even dream of that because we are poor.”

Like a good populist, López Obrador has offered thousand-dollar credits to small businesses. He said that in both the formal and informal economies, the beneficiaries would be “humble and hardworking people.”

But millions in the informal sector are invisible to government agencies and will receive nothing. And they start to rebel: they keep going out in the streets to work. They are exposing themselves to contagion and death. Because where hunger rules, there is no presidential decree that counts.

Millions of workers voted for López Obrador. Many continue to have confidence in him and support his anti-scientific religious decisions and comments about stopping the virus. This is very dangerous because it could send many thousands, and perhaps millions, of workers to fill up the hospitals.

But little by little the confidence in López Obrador is being diluted. The protests of hospital workers, the looting of supermarkets, and the riots in the immigration centers that have left deaths and injuries, are the beginning. A small storm, which threatens to become a huge gale for the bosses in Mexico and around the world.

The coronavirus crisis and the recession that already exists in working-class homes will lead to bigger rebellions.

We in the International Communist Workers’ Party are aware of this, and we are ready to assume our role in the liberation of our class.

We are fighting for a Communist Revolution. Our comrades in Mexico, El Salvador, India, South Africa, the US and all over the world where communist ideas are spread by our Red Flag newspaper are fighting to achieve that goal. Join the struggle for a better world.

Distribute our Red Flag newspaper.

—Comrade in Mexico

Collectivity and Class Consciousness Motivate the Masses 

I have reconnected with some friends who had previously participated in May Day activities with us. They know about our communist line. One topic of conversation has been worries about how Lopez Obrador is handling the coronavirus crisis in Mexico.

One friend criticized the irresponsibility of the government. “In Cancun, many people are living off tourism and are unprotected. People have to go out to work.”

As one worker said, “How can I stop working, if my family depends on it for a living?”

Another friend became more open and interested after a political discussion. She said, “Yesterday I was talking to my colleagues about the virus and I thought, it’s only a matter of politics; but now that you have told me how the situation is, I see it more seriously. Obrador doesn’t care about us, only his own interests. I worry about my children.”

Another friend expressed her pessimism. “I think there is not much we can do, I feel discouraged. I don’t understand what you’re saying.” But after the discussion, she felt more optimistic. “Sometimes someone has to get you thinking, like you’re doing with me.”

I have to keep talking to them, especially about communist ideas.

Lopez Obrador has said that he will not stop his projects, regardless of the lives of millions of workers. He is clinging to his so-called achievements, such as the lowering gasoline prices. But the fact is that gasoline prices have fallen worldwide.

On the other hand, thousands of people have confronted the lack of medical supplies by organizing to solicit or donate equipment, knowledge, experience and labor to help fight the virus where needed, without any personal interest or benefit.

Seeing this mobilization of people and the discussions of communist politics reminds us that there is no stronger motive than class consciousness, some helping others, collectivity. These large mobilizations of the working class around the world make the bosses tremble.

Part of our work as communists is to denounce the bosses and their system, not to fall into reformism, much less believe in their words. Every communist must give leadership, fighting for a communist society. We must not be afraid. There is a world to be won. Join our struggle. Join the ICWP.

—Comrade in Mexico

No Help from Guatemala Authorities for Mayan Workers

The coronavirus pandemic is real. In my village of Patzún, Chimaltenango, Guatemala, the authorities did not take the warnings seriously. Now, there are several people infected. We are Mayan people with limited resources, health centers lack medical supplies.

The incapacity of the local rulers to protect their workers made it possible for more people to become infected. It is sad to see, when they know the magnitude of the problem and do not take the necessary measures to protect the population.

Now the municipality is surrounded by the army and the police, and there is a curfew. I urge all people to take preventative measures seriously. This pandemic is not a game; it is life or death by exposure.

—Mayan worker, a friend of the Party in Los Angeles

Editor’s note: Around the world, millions of workers are experiencing the same situation. It is caused more by the capitalists than by the virus itself. They have deepened these crises by putting their profits ahead of the workers’ needs.

South Africa: Drowning in Corona

Aluta, Comrades! as we embark on a journey for Communist revolution. It is Corona vs. Bleach in the black Community in South Africa. The virus is spreading like bad news   Panicking is nearer because in most places, especially the people residing in the informal settlements, can’t afford to buy food, gloves, masks and the expensive sanitizers. The Government is struggling to supply the masses with those things without success.

Innocent souls are killed and beaten to a pulp. Hospitals are packed way beyond capacity. It is frightening and it’s even very difficult to put food on the table, especially unemployed souls who depend on handouts and quick jobs in the community. The taxi industry is suffering as well.

Just now, at the month’s end, people were standing in lines struggling to get food although they had Money. Old souls between the ages of 70 to 80 died in one of those long lines waiting to get inside to buy food.

As a member of ICWP, I humbly ask the comrades to ACT NOW AND FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM. The future of Planet Earth is in our hands.

—Comrade in South Africa

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