DHAKA (Bangladesh), July 31—I work among garment workers in the city of Dhaka, Bangladesh. I have received Red Flag from a US comrade for over five years. Recently I was contacted by garment workers in Bengaluru.
I want to tell you about my journey of communism. I was a child in 1971 when East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) was oppressed ruthlessly by the rulers of West Pakistan. It is estimated that over 3 million perished in the brutal war.
There was a strong movement for socialism. However, this socialist movement was based on the old notion that one must first fight for nationalist capitalism to crush the semi-feudal system. After nationalist forces defeat the feudal past, it would create the working class to fight for socialism and ultimately communism.
The leftist movement had a mass base. It was supported by millions. Elements of soldiers and workers were actively involved in sabotage and insurrection. However, they blindly followed Mao’s line of two-stage theory.
This opportunism led to the betrayal of the workers and soldiers, who were then suppressed by the rulers of Bangladesh. Many got disillusioned and many more were real communists. I was among those who thought that communism is the only solution.
When I started reading Red Flag, I was instantly in awe with the direct line fighting for communism. I told myself, why do we want to save wage slavery when we want to destroy wage slavery itself from its roots? I was very excited.
But the initial enthusiasm did not last long. I tried to recruit my old friends. They believed very strongly in the socialist movement. Without a base around me, I became passive. I would read Red Flag but did not recruit anybody. My reading of Red Flag faltered. I would only read some articles. Eventually, I would only glance at the headlines and pictures. Every once in a while, stories in Red Flag perked my interest. I knew I had to recruit but that was very difficult.
It was at a low moment in my life that I started reading about dialectical materialism. Why communism can win, growing in waves, small things can turn into their opposites: These headlines grabbed my attention. I was thinking that the masses of workers in the old movement never had a clear guideline to study revolutionary communist dialectics.
Recent articles on India and the worldwide pandemic were explained in a very clear way. It was at that time that I started seriously evaluating my commitment to communism. Then came the ghastly news of workers getting killed in the Dhaka factory. Only ruthless greed can explain what happened. We need communism and only communism.
Now I have taken a new approach, learning from my comrades in India. I must go to the workers directly. I must speak their language. I must learn and listen to them. They bring a gold mine of ammunition with them. With these workers, I must collectively learn dialectical communist philosophy and build the party.
To this end, I have five people around the ideas of Red Flag. Four are young women and one comrade is from an area near Myanmar. I am now regularly corresponding with our comrades in Bengaluru. Their financial support was overwhelming, and it gave us the strength to carry on the fight for communism. Keep up the good work, comrades!
Bangladeshi Red
BENGALURU (India), August 1— “This is how we are going to win in our battle for communism!” said a young garment worker. She and other garment workers were in a meeting when we received letters discussing Red Flag from five new comrades in Bangladesh. Our communist group in Bengaluru collected small donations for our sisters and brothers who were affected by a deadly fire in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The comrades in Bangladesh wanted to know how we can build a large base for communism. “This is a question not only in Bangladesh, but it is also everywhere. Capitalism is a dying system,” said a comrade. “It attempts to survive by attacking the working class through racist, nationalist wars. Look at the situation in South Asia. India, Pakistan, and China, all with nuclear weapons, are willing to sacrifice millions of our workers for profit.”
Another comrade from Bengaluru spoke to clarify how wars are directly affecting the working class. “During the pandemic, our factories were closing like monsoon rains. Workers were losing jobs. Many were dying from coronavirus. The Chinese bosses saw it as an opportunity. They built massive garment factories and upgraded them to produce more garments worldwide. But this did not help the Chinese workers. Their wages dropped to support the upgrading of factories.”
A comrade who has worked for over 20 years has seen many changes. “Both Indian and Chinese workers were suffering due to the crisis of capitalism. But the bosses in both countries were massing up their armed forces. The Chinese armed forces have overwhelming technological superiority built by surplus labor that comes from the workers. So, while they are talking about wars, we see that wars are a way to open markets. Bengaluru is a high-tech capital now. Many innovations are funded by hedge funds from China.”
Our discussion tried to address the question raised by our new comrades in Bangladesh. In a two-hour meeting, many comrades concluded that the working class has the power to change, but the bosses want us to feel we are powerless. This is the biggest weapon the bosses have. It is not their military might, but that they are ideologically winning us to think that the other workers in other countries are the enemy.
We are spreading hundreds of Red Flag in the garment areas of Bengaluru. This is how we are getting new comrades to join and be the leaders of our party. Each new reader is asked to take more Red Flags. We are exploring the possibility of printing Red Flag in Bengali.
A comrade in Bangladesh related a story relating to the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He said that a small group of Marxist intellectuals in China was influenced by the success of the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union. Although the CCP started as a very small group, it built a mass base for socialism and won state power. We can learn from their mistake of fighting for socialism and open the world to communism.
Capitalism will not fall by itself. We need to destroy it.
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