Communist Work Carries on Despite Covid Lockdowns here ♦ Communist Agriculture here ♦ Bring Workers Voices into Articles About War here ♦
Communist Work Carries on Despite Covid Lockdowns
It’s been quite a while without sharing activities from our shores. I guess the Covid – 19 pandemic and the lockdowns have got a lot to do with our inactivity.
Having said that, there has also been some movement albeit limited actions.
I had always been getting a good supply of Red Flags, “Mobilize the masses for communism” and Soldiers pamphlets, and another one that deals with dialectical materialism. I made sure that I share these with workers and students.
There is an interest group of workers that always meet fortnightly over the specific task of influencing who emerges as leadership in the national union. I distribute Red Flag to every member and the response is a positive one.
In the neighborhood, we also have meetings for safety, because of a rise in house break-ins and robbery, I am always ready with a good supply of RF.
Spreading communist ideas through Red Flag couldn’t be easier.
-Metal worker comrade in South Africa
Communist Agriculture: What Was It, What Will It Be?
I gave the last edition of Red Flag to my workmate to read in our lunch hour. There was an article relevant to us at work. However, she read through a lot of the paper and was particularly interested in the article on climate change.
“It says we need communist agriculture” she said. “What does that entail?”
As she is from Romania and grew up there under the Communist Party’s failed socialist attempt at creating communism, I thought she would have an example which might be positive. But she did not really know about the collective farming. She said her grandparents were private farmers performing traditional farming.
I had no answer for her. But I said it was something we should think carefully about.
It made me think about the Peoples Commune movement in China in the 1950s and the Collectivisation of agriculture in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. We should analyse these and other attempts at transforming agriculture in a communist direction and their positive and negative aspects and their successes and failures.
-Comrade in London
Bring Workers’ Voices into Articles about Imperialist Conflict and War
“How can we make Red Flag articles about imperialist conflict and war more useful?” a comrade asked their collective. “I read them all because I work on the paper. But do you?”
“I watch a Japanese TV station NHK,” another comrade responded. “They have a lot about the US-China conflict. Do you think a US-China war can be avoided?” She didn’t mention reading the Red Flag articles about this. Later she said she usually just read the stories and letters about the party’s work in South Africa, India, El Salvador and other places.
“Preparations for that war are already happening,” replied the first comrade. “And the closest the US has ever come to nuclear war (except for the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) was probably over Taiwan.”
“I don’t read anything,” a third comrade admitted. “Including Red Flag. I just don’t read. Other people are like that too. They listen to podcasts.”
“So, we really need to make podcasts of the articles as well as printing the paper,” said the first comrade.
“I have read every word of the papers you have sent me electronically,” said a friend who was attending our meeting for the first time. “I would rather read a paper copy. What I really like is the workers’ voice in most of the articles. It is relatable to me even though I work in a different industry. Everyone has hopes for something different.”
“My partner and I have all the equipment you’d need to make podcasts,” she added. “I would like to help with that.” She agreed to put together a proposal for how that could work. Everyone is excited about this new project.
“Would the RF articles about global affairs be better if they also had workers’ voices in them?” asked the first comrade. “Some of us are thinking about how to do that.”
“Yes, definitely,” others chimed in.
We appreciate the hard work of comrades who research and write the informative Red Flag/Bandera Roja articles about global affairs. We hope that others will step up to help with this. We welcome new ideas about how to make these articles more useful tools to mobilize masses for communism.
-Collective in Los Angeles (USA)
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