Fight for the Liberation of Our Class
I congratulate the comrades of the ICWP who organized the online May Day celebration. I am grateful for having participated in this important event. Three comrades from Puerto Rico participated in this event on Sunday, May 3. We express our solidarity with the worldwide struggles for a communist society. I was struck by the commitment expressed by comrades from different parts of the world. It was an internationalist meeting. I also observed the revolutionary quality of the participants. Let us continue to fight for the liberation of the working class!
Comrade in Puerto Rico
May Day Zoom Rally: Impressive and Motivating
Greetings to comrades and friends in any part of the world where you are building our party, ICWP!
The growing crisis of the capitalist pandemic that kills HUNDREDS OF thousands of workers around the world did not prevent our party from celebrating our day, International Workers’ Day!
The recent virtual conference was impressive and motivating. It showed the commitment of comrades from different countries of the world to build a communist future for our class.
Communism is the only antidote to capitalist pandemics, which is why we must openly present communist ideas to our friends.
Our social relations must always be political especially since, due to the current conditions, the workers are more open to discuss politics.
—A Comrade in Texas, USA
Capitalist Fragility and Communist Resilience
Workers are astounded at how quickly and easily the corona virus overwhelmed the capitalist world. Billions are under lockdown. Every day thousands die, and huge countries like India and Brazil are basically defenseless.
Some workers blame it on stupidity and incompetence – on the part of our bosses, but the causes are deeper than that, baked right into capitalism. Competition forces bosses to operate their businesses and healthcare systems on a “mean, lean” basis, to save money. That means operating with the fewest workers and the least stockpiling of inventory.
This barely works under normal conditions and collapses under abnormal demand.
But under communism, there will be no money, no corporations, no profit; and no competition. We will have plenty of resources – billions of communist workers set free from wage slavery and racist and sexist exploitation.
We will work for resiliency based on redundancy.
A redundant system is one that is given extra resources to make it tougher, more solid, less likely to fail. More resilient. For example, airplanes have two engines although they can fly with only one. They have two pilots, although one is enough to fly the plane.
The internet has stood up very well, unlike the 737 Max. Vinton Cerf, one of its inventors, said that “resiliency and redundancy” were very much part of its design.
The bosses understand redundancy, but the pressures of competition mean they can’t use it systematically. However, under communism there will be no competition, and redundancy will be a basic principle.
Understaffing will be replaced by overstaffing – more workers assigned to a task than are normally required. For example, there could be more hospital workers, overlapping more often, with shorter shifts.
The tools and equipment used will be multipurpose, tougher, safer, easier to use. And there will be stockpiles of materials that will be needed under abnormal circumstances.
A boss reading this would think we are crazy. Who’s going to pay for this wasteful over engineering (or in our terms, where do we get the resources)? The answer is billions of workers and modern, highly productive technology.
And we don’t have to wait for communism to use redundancy – redundancy should be part of our daily work building for a communist revolution.
For example, Red Flag is accessible both online and (normally) in print. It is available in Spanish, English, French and other languages. When we meet someone who is interested in our ideas, we make sure that more than one person stays in contact with them, and with their friends and family as well. These ties are built around collective struggle on the job, in the classroom, in the community. Everyone can make a contribution to our new society.
Redundancy could be summed up as “more is better, up to a point”. More motors, more pilots, more editions of Red Flag. But mostly we need more people.
That is why it is so important that workers join ICWP. The more members we have the more we can do, and the better we can do it. There will never be too many comrades. There will always be some way you can help. Make us unstoppable!
—Comrade in Canada
Workers Must Choose: Communism or Fascism?
The author of Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, Jessica Bruder, spent three years living in a camper, driving across the US to document the lives of itinerant people (nomads) forced to give up traditional housing and go on the road for work.
The US government defines nomads as “unsheltered people” and counted 192,875 unsheltered people in the US in 2016. They estimated that at least half lived in their vehicles. Many are over 60 years old, and the vast majority are “white.” Many nomads had achieved the “ American dream” of home ownership but lost homes for a variety of reasons – being laid-off from jobs, getting bad bank loans, losing everything in the 2008 market crash, etc. Feeling like they had lost a rigged game; they gave up their homes, rent, mortgages and moved into vans, RVs, and trailers.
Nomads connect with each other via the internet. They share places where they can park overnight without being routed out and where they can find temporary work.
Bruder worked for a week at one of these places, Amazon’s largest warehouse, as big as nineteen football field covered by concrete! This warehouse had 22 miles of conveyer belts to shuttle boxes. The belts often jammed, throwing heavy boxes off the belts. During the week that Bruder worked, a man was knocked flat onto Amazon’s concrete floor. Amazon medics said he could keep working, walking fifteen miles a day on the concrete floor.
Amazon also uses robots to move merchandise from shelves to workers to be organized. These robots often collide carrying 750 pounds of stuff, run over items, and crush items like pepper spray, once causing seven workers to be hospitalized due to respiratory problems. Amazon keeps ambulances in their parking lot, knowing the workers may be seriously injured or killed under these working conditions.
Bruder describes the nomads as resilient and enterprising; however, their survival is precarious, as is true for all workers (and retired workers). Covid-19 has killed an estimated more than 276,000 people worldwide so far (5/9/2020). These deaths were preventable, but our deaths mean nothing to the world’s ruling classes, just as the huge number of houseless people means nothing to them.
According to Bruder, nomads are resourceful, and able to tolerate a relatively isolated lifestyle. Most nomads also value patriotism, which perpetuates racism and xenophobia. Add to this the fact that the vast majority of nomads are white; it’s not hard to imagine them being won to fascism.
Nomads and all other workers need communism. A communist society with no money, in which all workers, regardless of age, physical ability, or skills, have shelter, food, medical care, and safe working conditions.
Let us work now to spread communist ideas and consciousness. Read and distribute Red Flag and JOIN ICWP.
—Comrade who likes to read