Building a Truly Collective Communist Party here ♦ Everyone’s Contribution Valued here ♦ From Each according to Commitment and Ability here ♦
Building a Truly Collective Communist Party
SEATTLE (USA) — “I want to be clear about this,” said a long-time friend in Portland who has rekindled his interest in joining a communist party after many years. “I still believe a communist society is the only answer. I believe in communist revolution. I know the only way to get these two is with a party. But I have questions about building a truly collective party.”
He is writing something on the political content of collectivity. How it applies to a party and education. We agreed to continue this discussion in future Red Flags.
This friend works in education, focusing on anti-racism. He agreed to send us something he wrote on how we need comrades, not allies. He believes that all writing should be collective.
Collectivity and its relationship to communist work seems to be on many friends’ minds. A neighbor couple was discussing collectivity just before we left on this trip. Their question was how individualism became a code word for capitalism, especially among “conservative Americans.”
Hospital Worker Joins Party Collective
A comrade who joined our collective during the Portland visit had some answers about how to build the ICWP. She is very enthusiastic. She described the conditions at the huge medical complex where she works, and her struggles with a half-dozen hospital workers and other friends.
One friend is very brave. Everyone at her job knows what this friend thinks, and they all see her reading Red Flag. Another friend she has known since he was a child. A third was very active last summer and wrote for the paper. Over dinner, the new member worked out a schedule to visit all of them with the post-May Day Red Flag.
We hadn’t been able to meet with these friends and comrades because of the pandemic. Last weekend, we had three meetings in two days. We talked with our Portland friends and comrades about building the party and also about the global pandemic.
The collective will discuss the work of our new comrades. In this way—with many twists and turns—we can build a collective in Portland.
The communist plans we made mean devoting more time to visits and coordinating better. With the addition of the Portland comrade, the Northwest collective now includes three health care workers. Other health care workers are in or close to collectives around the world. We plan to organize an international Zoom meeting geared toward these workers.
Join ICWP—Everyone’s Contribution is Valued
“Thanks for being here for us,” M would often say as I distributed Red Flag outside the transit division where he works. He has been reading Red Flag almost from the beginning.
He said it again when I returned after being away for a year due to the pandemic. I answered as usual, “Thank you!” But later I stopped to think about a better response.
“I have something to ask you,” I said when I saw him this week. “How do you think you can contribute to the cause?”
He was in a rush but stopped up short. “That’s a good one. I have to think about that,” he replied. A few seconds later he declared, “I already do! Every day!”
“You talk to people about it?” I guessed.
“Yes! I pass the paper along to my brothers and sisters. And you have so much online, now my sister N is really interested. She reads a lot. She sends things to other people she knows.”
“That’s great!” I said as M moved off, again in a rush.
My collective met a few days later – our first-time meeting and eating together in person in over a year. We talked about the changes we’ve seen. Most of us had stories about people we know who are more consciously anti-capitalist and more open to communism than before. We acknowledged that we have not yet taken full advantage of this. One comrade reported she’d invited three more people to join our meetings (either the in-person dinners or on Zoom) and several said they will.
I told the story about the transit worker and his family. There is a plan to try to meet his sister and to move beyond the brief conversations at his job site.
We agreed that this comrade worker is already doing the main work we expect from party members, except for being part of a collective. When we meet with him and his sister, we will try to work out with them how they can work with one.
Too many people we know seem to think that being a good party member means being available 24/7 or attending a lot of meetings. Or they think there is some yardstick to measure “commitment” and that they fall short.
This transit worker is committed to spreading communist ideas among his family. The commitment of other party members and friends, comrades all, is demonstrated in their actions.
For some, that means talking about communism with people we know or in groups we belong to. Or mass-distributing literature and attending rallies. Or helping write and produce Red Flag. Or just participating in the collective and supporting the work. There are many ways we contribute, and we value all of them.
And we want everyone who contributes, in any of these ways, to feel confident that they are full members of the International Communist Workers’ Party. To be part of a collective that helps us all do better communist work together.
Comrade in Los Angeles (USA)
Communism: From Each According to Commitment and Ability; To Each According to Need
Many years ago, I was invited to a school about dialectical materialism, which I knew little about. A friend told me that it was complicated, that I wouldn’t be able to understand it at all without reading a lot of philosophy books. But it was taught in a very understandable way. Everyone gave and heard examples from everyday life and politics about change, contradictions and struggle. I saw that, while still new for me, I could understand it, learn more, and even begin to use it. Applying it is a life-long process of learning and struggle.
This shows that while people have different abilities and experiences that they can contribute to the collective struggle for communism, these abilities are not static. Everything changes. We can all learn new abilities and improve old ones in the fight to mobilize for communism.
ICWP has changed Marx’s slogan from “From each according to ability” to “From each according to commitment and ability; to each according to need.” This is our slogan today and will be in communism.
Capitalist ideology claims that capitalists and higher paid professionals have more “ability” than the rest of us. They paint the world as static, and claim that ability is something inborn, or natural. They use this to justify class society’s racism, sexism and all exploitation.
In fact, both commitment and ability can increase. Commitment to the working class and to communism is primary, the product of collective struggle to understand and mobilize for communism. With increased commitment people can learn new abilities. The communist masses can and will learn to do many things that they (and we) have never done before.
A recent article said that “Comrades who work long hours in a factory…have more ability than most to build communist relationships with other factory workers.” I think it should have said that when they have the commitment to mobilize their co-workers for communism, they will develop many new abilities to do that.
Today we struggle for more comrades and friends to write for Red Flag. Rather than depend on a few “experts,” collectives struggle to reach out to newer comrades and less confident writers, who have a lot contribute, and encourage them to help write articles for Red Flag.
This applies to leading a study group, building communist relations and communist collectives. It means learning how to be patient, comradely and principled in the struggle for communism—a lifelong struggle for me and others.
People have different abilities that make the collective stronger. We need commitment to learn from them in order to advance.
It takes commitment and struggle for each of us to “move out of our comfort zones” and do things we haven’t done before-like give a speech for the first time.
When communism abolishes money, commitment to communism, based on communist relations, will motivate people to work to produce for everyone’s needs.
That will motivate masses of people to learn new abilities to eliminate pandemics, racism, sexism, nationalism and all capitalism’s poisons.
Commitment to communism will guarantee that everyone’s communist understanding and leadership develops.
A Comrade
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