Exchange White Flags of Hunger for Red Flags of Communism
Here in El Salvador, in recent days, many families are putting up any piece of white cloth they find, outside their home or on the roads. It is a sign that they no longer have any food.
Thousands of workers have been laid off due to the pandemic. They, and others who were engaged in the informal economy, cannot continue to bring food home. Hunger is an evil of capitalism that has always been present. But is now more visible and widespread in the midst of a state of emergency in which collective transport has been paralyzed. Also, we have specific days to go out according to your identity number.
Everything becomes increasingly difficult for our class. You cannot leave because the repressive fascist police can take you to quarantine centers if they don’t consider your arguments valid. Or, in the worst case, they hit or shoot you as they have done with young people from the marginal areas of the country.
We have to keep fighting, talking to our collectives, mobilizing the masses for communism so that this horror of a system ends and we can break our chains. Let those white flags be exchanged for red flags that lead us to communism!
But right now, what communist practice can we carry out? Not only with our party members and friends, but with these communities.
In communism no one will go hungry. We will produce the food that is necessary to feed ourselves. We will not need money in order to have what we need.
Let us continue organizing for our International Communist Workers’ Party. This crisis will not be solved with a change of government. It will be solved with a change of systems at its root.
—Comrade in El Salvador
The Community of La Esperanza (El Salvador) Needs Food
Communist Struggle and Solidarity Against Fascist State Repression
EL SALVADOR, May 19— The COVID-19 pandemic has served as a chance for the rulers of El Salvador to establish a terrorist coup through the police, the army, and disinformation against the working class.
Several cases of police murder have surfaced. In one community, a 22-year-old food-factory worker was killed. The police said it was for being a gang member. “I do not think that’s true. I know her and I know she was working in the same factory as my two children,” said a lady.
The case of this young woman worker occurred a few kilometers from where, on April 10, a police officer shot another young man twice in the leg. The young man had refused to give him a $50 bribe to avoid being sent to a confinement center for having violated the government-imposed coronavirus quarantine. Several police and soldiers from these delegations have apparently been caught carrying out these fascist acts.
This follows the order issued by the fascist President Bukele to use lethal force. In addition to all the measures implemented through laws and decrees such as mandatory quarantine, instead of healthy containment, they have military containment. Thousands of workers have had to stay home without wages and without food.
Many people say they agree with the way Bukele is managing things. They think he does it to save lives. We of the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) are clear that he is taking advantage of this situation for the economic interests of the groups of which he is a part, and preparing the ground for the next elections.
The ICWP collective is expanding our communication networks with friends, readers and members. We are raising the need to organize collectives in communities and to fight directly for Communism. Fascism is one of the weapons of capitalism. Only a communist system will have a different approach to face health crises that arise, including to emphasize preventive health.
Solidarity in this time of crisis is needed for those without daily sources of income, who are forgotten by the capitalist state, who must face the urgent question of what to feed their families. This is how ICWP comrades from other regions of the world are supporting their comrades in El Salvador. They are enabling us to buy basic food baskets, which has made it possible for us to deliver these to workers in the maquilas. Their employers never paid anything during these two months that they have been in quarantine.
Our Red Flag newspaper must be the tool of the voiceless, a way of organizing in these difficult times, a beacon in the darkness of disinformation, the voice that overcomes fear, a space that sets the tone for the revolutionary alternative of the ICWP.
Let’s not return to normal—normality is the problem
Let’s work together to take back the value we created!
I have been working for the same boss for 20 years, like many workers in the factory in El Salvador where I work. Now, with this emergency that we are living all over the world, our contracts have been temporarily suspended. But workers cannot live without money. So now many workers are making masks. For that, the bosses have selected workers who are letting themselves be exploited even more than they are used to.
Many of them explain to us that the same crisis forces us to take risks in order to buy food. But it also opens the doors for us to think ideologically that things cannot be like this. Communism is necessary to pull out the bitter roots of capitalism so that a better life will flourish. A life which is just and collective, where there are no bosses, where everything is based on meeting the masses’ needs. The call to our class is to continue to be active and mobilize the masses for communism. Only in this way can we fight the class enemy.
The night shift is being made to work up to 12 hours. Among those workers, a co-worker developed a fever. They sent her home. She went to a clinic where she tested positive for Covid-19. The following day the man from human resources told the workers not to go around making bad comments about this, that they had already taken out the machine that the sick worker used and disinfected it. He said that if they made comments, they were going to be out of a job like other people. That’s how they are threatening the workers.
Days later, the co-worker from the factory died. The bosses do not want to accept that it was because of Covid-19 so that the workers aren’t afraid and continue generating their profits.
This gives us, the International Communist Workers’ Party, the strength to continue fighting for the change we need so that all the workers stop being exploited. We have been left out of the group of people who are making masks because they know that we belong to the party. We all know the party is of the working class, so this affects the boss. That does not stop us; it gives us more strength to continue so that someday we will be able to work for ourselves, not to make the rich richer. Let us work together to take the value we create away from the rich.
I thank the international comrades who have shown solidarity with us of the maquilas. Thank you very much.
—Comrade in El Salvador
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