Building Communism Internationally: Workers Everywhere Are More Alike than Different
DELHI (India) — “Our black brother in USA was murdered by police. We must respond to this ICWP leaflet quickly,” said a comrade. “In communism this will never happen. We need communism. That means more communists now.” The word got out quickly. Other comrades in Delhi met that evening and contacted workers in Bengaluru and Chennai.
In emotional and angry meetings in all three cities, comrades agreed to rewrite the leaflet to reflect the similarities between the killings of George Floyd and 23-year-old Faizan in Delhi.
Faizan and friends participated in a mass demonstration against India’s xenophobic citizenship laws on February 23rd. As they walked home, they came under sustained attack from the paramilitary forces. Five of them were severely beaten. As they lay bleeding, fascist police started torturing them. They filmed a video of policemen forcing them to sing the national anthem.
For two days they were tortured in the police station. Faizal succumbed to his injuries. The family found his body with broken jaw, bones, and skull. He was among several dozen who died in Delhi fighting the fascist citizenship laws.
Our leaflet compared the murders of George and Faizan. Capitalism is a killing machine. Countless Dalit, Muslims, migrants in India meet the same fate as black, Latin and immigrant workers in the US and Europe, in Brazilian favelas and segregated townships of South Africa.
Guadalajara, Mexico
Some friends and comrades believed that workers in US and Europe do not suffer like workers here. Often this led them to conclude that it would be difficult to win workers to communism there. These same friends believed that Hindu workers in India would not join in fighting capitalism.
Recent mass demonstrations in India saw women and men, secular, Hindu, Muslim, Dalits, all fighting the fascist police shoulder to shoulder. This working-class unity in the streets translated into recruitment of workers and students from many different backgrounds into the International Communist Workers’ Party.
Our meetings discussed how capitalism tries to divide us by gender, nationality, religion, caste, culture, languages and more. Their media and culture reinforce this. Massive multiracial rebellions in US, sometimes violent, have smashed the myth that workers and youth in the US cannot be won to communism.
A garment worker, overcome with emotion, said: “George is my son. We are all the same.” This is profound. It opens the door wide to recruit and train new communist leaders now.
We published our leaflet in four languages. We took them to our neighbors. Most of us live in areas that are under extremely strict lockdown. But we turned this to our advantage. Neighbors and friends would invite us into their homes instead of keeping us on the doorstep, so police would not see us. This allowed us to have deeper conversations about communism and building a mass party.
In workers’ homes, we get to know them more intimately. We learn about their families, their difficulties with food, poor healthcare, sanitation and debt. We patiently explain how all of these come from capitalism and how none of this will exist in a communist society based on need, not profit. As we can, we bring food to families living in the direst situations.
We have lived in the same areas for years, even decades. We know our neighbors well. But as communist organizers we now look at our relationships differently. We used to share our common stories of hardship and life. Now we understand that we are all the same and the only solution is communist revolution.
We have recruited many workers and students to ICWP since the murder of George Floyd. Our party has expanded beyond three cities. As more and more workers everywhere see that we are the same, that our differences are enriching us rather than dividing us, we are on the path to communist revolution.
Front page of this issue
