Seattle: Industrial Workers Build Communist Unity

Boeing Worker Says He’s Ready: Anti-Racist Thousands Inspire Fight for Communist Unity

SEATTLE (US) June 7—Boeing comrades join 5,000 at the largest rally anybody can remember in the Rainier Valley, one of the most diverse working-class neighborhoods in the US. Comrades participated in at least five demonstrations last week, distributing over three hundred Red Flags and 1500 communist leaflets.

SEATTLE (US)—I got the call at 11 AM Saturday. One of the young women I coach told me to rush over to Franklin High School. When I got there, I saw what would become a march of about 400 south end high school students. They were marching to join the huge protest downtown [over ten thousand] against the racist killing of George Floyd and others.

This contingent was organized by the student who called and an Asian woman I didn’t know. It was a group of many races and nationalities, all friends.

They asked me to say a few words. I told a quick story of the 1967 Detroit rebellion I lived through when I was 13. (see Black Boeing Worker Remembers 1967 Detroit Rebellion)

I mentioned how I woke up to a National Guard tank parked outside my house. The mayor gave orders to shoot us, but the soldiers said no.

I’ve learned that short historical stories from the heart and personal experience seem to work best with these students. Everyone listened and it sparked more discussion. It’s great that our youth are not only physically involved in the movement, but mentally as well.

I marched with them for over 2 miles.

When you combine their youth with senior experience, you create truth with power, which will unite. We now have the rise of a movement that’s going to excel and create UNITY. Just remember, it won’t be easy, it’ll take time for our thoughts to marinate and come together.

So said a Boeing worker involved in last week’s protests.

What creates the unity, and unity for what? We debated this long and hard with our friends at Boeing and elsewhere. Everyone in our orbit noted that multi-racial, multi-national groups of friends swelled the ranks of these mass actions.

Workers asked: Is this unity only for the moment? Or can it be nourished and sustained enough to lay the basis for communist revolution? There were doubts.

The kind of unity we need to make a communist revolution requires intense struggle over communist ideas and practices. We struggle against the bosses’ racism, nationalism, economic attacks, raging pandemics, and more. Even more importantly, we must fight against bosses’ ideas in our ranks, and for communist ideas. That’s what we mean when we say, “Struggle with, struggle against!”

One worker said that she understood the struggle between capitalist ideas and communist ideas. “That’s just human nature,” she said.

These clashes of ideas have real-world implications for our class. They deserve to be pondered and debated if communism is to succeed.

We should welcome this internal struggle among the masses and the working class. It points the way to building communist collectives.

For example, the worker who marched with the students participated in the fierce debates about what comes next: communist revolution or more of the same-old reform. This struggle was possible because we are not only co-workers, but tight friends and comrades. Afterward, we asked him to join our party Zoom collective, to help write our leaflet on the lessons of the crisis at Boeing, and to continue our communist work in the schools and at the plant.

His answer: “I’m ready for all that!”

Turn the Guns Around

“You can’t take on the military,” said a Boeing worker after marching with Seattle high school students over the weekend. We were discussing the political direction we will fight for in the days, months and years ahead.

“It’s true you can’t talk of revolution without winning the troops,” said his comrade.

“That won’t happen here,” he countered. “Maybe in the countries that you talked with at the ICWP International Committee meeting, but not here.”

“During the Vietnam War, the generals were pleading with the President to withdraw. ‘We are going to lose the army’ was their message.”

“That was then, not now,” he countered.

Within days, a dozen generals came out against using army troops against the protestors. The worker who had thought you couldn’t take on the military had another idea. If you get some “at the top” to oppose using arms against those demonstrating, then maybe you could neutralize the army.

“But communist revolution requires many soldiers to turn the guns around. A communist movement relies on the commitment of rank-and file soldiers, not the bosses’ generals.”

“Can that really happen?”

The former Joint Chiefs Chairman, Gen. Martin Dempsey, revealed the generals’ real fear: “We have an all-volunteer force….Were we to lose the trust and confidence of the American people, it would make sustaining that all-volunteer force more than difficult,” he told National Public Radio.

Given the history of soldier revolts, this brings up the unspoken but very real fear the brass have that working-class soldiers will join the revolution.   We discussed the communist work we must do in the army to make that happen—now.

Seattle, USA

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