Maquila Workers Organize New Party Collective here ♦ Facing Crisis, Workers Need Greater Organization not Elections here ♦
“Let’s Destroy Capitalism and Let’s Build Communism — ICWP”
Maquila workers Organize New Party Collective
EL SALVADOR, March 7—”I work in a maquila. I brought my two children and my husband. We all read Red Flag,” commented a worker.
The workers’ leadership in the factory is strong. They have recruited new members. They organized this meeting that reflects the advance of the party in the industrial zone of El Salvador.
This new group had its first extended meeting of the International Communist Workers’ Party. Three family groups attended. There were eight people in all. Three other workers could not be there for various reasons, but they sent messages committing to attend the next activity.
Eight ICWP members also attended. They spoke about the history of the Party and about the historical journey to reach the point of fighting directly for communism, the guiding principle of our movement.
A worker commented, “Where I work, we produce ice cream. The boss bought a machine a couple of months ago that cost him a million dollars, so he could produce thousands of pallets in a few hours. He fired ten workers. When he realized that he needed workers for the rest of the production, he hired back those he fired. That showed us that the boss is the one who needs us.” This worker is an ex-soldier and the husband of another worker.
He continued, “I was in the army. I worked as a medic. We learned to do surgeries in practice. I had the opportunity to realize what communism was, outside of the official version of the bosses and army officers. For me, communism is those people like you, who fight for the dignity and well-being of other workers. That’s why I’m here.”
We explained to these new comrades that ICWP worldwide and locally is making a great effort to reach the different factories and barracks, to build thousands of communist workers’ cells. We do this to protect us from the bosses’ attacks, and, as our main goal, to build a new economic, political and social system: communism.
“In communism there will be time for recreation, culture and leisure for the workers. We are not machines; we are human beings,” said a teacher who was actively participating for the first time. She explained to us very excitedly, “In communism the work will be necessary to meet human needs, not for the profits of bosses. I agree with the Party.”
Three young people attended: two university students and one high school student. They participated in the discussion. One said, “We understand that it is a process, and that capitalism does not allow young people to develop. We need to be organized in the Party. I had a teacher who, if she heard you talk about communism, would be the first one here.” Someone responded that he should invite her to the next meeting.
At the end of the meeting, we asked the people new to the Party if they were willing to continue in the fight for communism and attend upcoming ICWP meetings. They responded positively. In their faces you could see their interest in the work and political line of the Party, reflected in Red Flag. We invited them to discuss, contribute their ideas, and write for Red Flag, newspaper of workers for workers. Then they went to enjoy the swimming pools and the sea, on a day of radiant sunshine.
Facing Political, Economic and Social Crisis, Workers Need Greater Organization
EL SALVADOR, March 8— “We need a new vehicle for struggle that takes up the principles of a Communist Party. One that inspires the new generations with the histories of past struggle. That doesn’t allow unions and reformist organizations which have sold out to the system to divert the support of the workers for a better world,” wrote a health worker to a comrade.
The elections for parliament and municipal authorities just occurred. The working class didn’t find any solutions to our problems in the results.
Our only real alternative is to organize ourselves into urban worker / farmworker and student cells within the International Workers’ Communist Party, to fight to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. We must be in the workers’ struggles against abuses in cases like that of the workers at the Florenzi factory. They have trusted in the capitalist legal system, but it has once again shown them that it is always on the bosses’ side.
An election to elect rulers is a business. It represents an investment for a group of new or old entrepreneurs to become richer. These groups don’t care about the lives of the workers and their families. Their sole objectives are to accumulate greater wealth, and to lull the masses of workers to sleep. From the moment of their election, they will make a new family business from the State treasury for themselves and for their friends. This is what all the electoral parties have done.
How will we choose leaders within a communist society? Our class must make decisions that serve our own interest instead of choosing between politicians who represent the capitalists’ interests. The masses will be involved in the process through party structures built in each work center, study center and barracks. Decisions will be based on the needs of the collectives and the global working class. They will not respond to individual millionaires. Further, decisions will be made on a daily basis.
“Participation in the bourgeois and reactionary parliaments does not only happen in socialism,” commented a young man. For the revisionist groups, the permanent organization of workers, not only in electoral situations, is not a priority. As ICWP we alert the working class in El Salvador not to fall into the games of the electoral parties. They only sell their propaganda during the campaigns.
After the election they make deals in their offices that result in the millionaire debts that all us workers will pay. The populist government of Nayib Bukele already did that a year ago during the COVID-19 quarantine.
Let’s organize ourselves in communist cells, linked to an international party, ICWP. Let’s develop our understanding of philosophy. Let’s question the bosses’ system and, above all, let’s unite as a working class to fight for a communist world. We are going to organize political strikes by developing communist class consciousness in the collectives inside and outside the factories and barracks.