Build a Mass ICWP to End Capitalist Wage Slavery
PUNJAB (India)— “Why are you here with a handful of comrades?” friends and neighbors asked Virendra Singh, a farmworker from a small town. Last November, Virendra and millions more jumped into trollies going to the outskirts of Delhi. They came to fight the fascist government-imposed laws that would bankrupt many and push them into bare-subsistence wage slavery.
Delhi was bitter cold as Himalayan winds swept the valley. Virendra, with two million others, braved the cold winter and fought months-long pitched battles against the police. Then in March they suffered temperatures as high as 48 C (119 F).
When the sowing season began, some farmers returned to their towns and villages, continuing their fight there. However, their numbers dwindled. Many farmworkers bitterly gave up their fight, thinking the government too powerful.
Now Virendra faces the second wave of Covid-19. He explains to eight comrades in his study group, “I am here because I believe we have to smash capitalism’s wage slavery. We need communism. If you join us, we can all build a bigger International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP). When millions of us join, we can destroy capitalism. No more banks, loan sharks, and lifelong poverty.” He tells this to everybody in his town.
Virendra’s Story: The Story of the Masses
When Virendra’s grandfather was working, he borrowed Rs. 12 from a local lender, who charged 200% interest. He carried this debt for the rest of his life and passed it on to Virendra’s father. When his father was in his mid-50’s, the government announced socialist programmes. His debt was forgiven. He got a small piece of land.
Virendra explains: “But we found that having the land, we needed loans from the government and bank to sow seeds, fertilize the land, and buy other equipment. We struggled for several years until our land was foreclosed by the bank. Now I work as a casual farm worker looking for a job every season.”
Wage Slavery and Capitalist Crisis
Virendra’s comrades discuss that life in capitalism is a constant struggle for survival because we are wage slaves, at the mercy of the class that exploits us. Our oppressors use their money to suppress us. They use their army, court system, and banks to keep us wage slaves. The capitalists use a large part of the money they steal from us to finance projects that create more value for themselves.
A comrade used billionaire Adani as an example. Adani virtually controls food grain in Punjab and many states. His gigantic silos are filled with grain while millions are starving. He owns supermarkets, highways, ports, coal, oil and airports. Some of his vast investment is funded by international banks. His alliance with Walmart competes with other capitalists like Amazon and Reliance.
These three corporate giants alone control a population of 1.4 billion people. To win greater market share they are overproducing everything from food staples to cars, oil, coal, and houses. Their vicious competition overflows the market with goods because workers cannot buy what they have produced.
The corporations buy expensive machines to produce more goods with fewer workers. But since their only source of profit comes from paying workers much less than the value workers produce, their rate of profit declines over time. To counter this decline, they force fewer workers to work harder to produce more and cheaper.
Marx called this “the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.” The bosses are forced to produce more by wage cuts that leave the workers in ever-increasing poverty. Some bosses go bankrupt.
Imperialist Competition: Fascism and War
Today a few billionaires worldwide control everything. However, those capitalists still need to compete for maximum profits worldwide. We call them imperialists. The rulers of China, the US, Russia, Europe, India, and others are in a sharp fight to control the world’s markets. This escalating crisis is leading to world war and fascism.
Nothing in this capitalist/imperialist world needs to be saved. Comrade Virendra is very clear about it. Others he is talking to are beginning to think like him. Communism is the exact opposite of world war, profit, greed, banks, money. In communism, masses will collectively produce only to meet everyone’s needs.
Build ICWP
Then the urgent question for us is how we can organize more comrades to ICWP. Comrade Virendra joined after months of struggle with a comrade from Delhi. Over several months they built a lasting relationship. Day and night, they and other comrades were together, preparing food, cleaning dishes, washing toilets, and talking about communism. The comrade from Delhi also joined another collective formed to fight violent attacks on Muslims there.
From this we learn that there are millions around us whom we can recruit. The bosses are weak because they rely on us. When we fight for communism, we seize their power to exploit us.
By patiently building lifelong communist relationships, we forge bonds more powerful than their repression. We have a world to win!
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