New comrade talks about communism on the job here ♦ Communist garment workers spread Red Flag here ♦ Red Flag is one of a kind here ♦
New Comrade Talks About Communism with Co-Workers on the Job
LONDON (UK)—I work in a drugs manufacturing unit and have begun to introduce Red Flag and Communist ideas to my comrades at work.
A group of us workmates went out for lunch when the weather was good. During our chatting one of my workmates was talking about how the rich always get richer. I decided to introduce to her a copy of the latest Red Flag. I said, “Take a read of this, it’s very informative”. She asked who produced it, and I told her about the ICWP and how we fight for revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and that anything short of that is no good.
The next week, while we were working at the bench in our manufacturing unit, I asked her what she thought.
“I really like the article about bitcoin. It was very interesting,” she said. The discussion went on about money and she said, “Money isn’t really real anymore. We don’t really need it. Why do they keep using it?”
I explained that capitalism requires exchange of goods for money and enslaves us workers through the wage system so they can grab our surplus labour.
She said it seemed like Communism wanted to go back to aspects of our past when we had no money.
I said that is true, but we have no intention of going backwards. We want to go forwards. We can develop technology with cooperative communist relations and would require no money or exchange of commodities. People would get what they need, and we could enhance human life and health.
She agreed that even with the technology today we could already eliminate poverty and disease. She said she thinks Communism is really good but asked, “Aren’t some people just too greedy and would ruin it for the rest?”
I explained that the culture under capitalism has induced this competitiveness and greed and that it is not human nature. However, she was correct to be concerned that these ideas would persist. The revolution would have to continue after the working class takes power. I told her about the Cultural Revolution in China and how Red Guards fought against this cultural baggage which prevented them developing a communist society.
This demonstrates that workers are interested in Communism and can see it is the future. Other “leftists” refuse to engage in the workplace and never talk about Communism or revolution. If they do believe it at all, they think it is some secret that belongs to an elite that workers can’t understand. The International Communist Workers’ Party will prove them wrong.
New comrade in the UK
Communist Garment Workers Fight Fear by Spreading Red Flag
EL SALVADOR, July 8— “We are afraid to get involved with the Party because of the repression by the bosses and the police, who are always there at the factory exit,” said the young woman in a worker couple.
“We have to organize ourselves,” a comrade answered. “There are more of us, and what we need is communism. We can succeed in overthrowing fear and the system that oppresses us.”
We met these former co-workers during the visit and distribution of Red Flag at a maquila factory in the center of the country. We had a moment to talk with them.
The young worker continued, “Yes, I remember how you and the Red Flag help the workers in the factory. We are going to take the newspaper. We’ll read it at home.” This conversation took place while other comrades continued distributing Red Flag to more women and men workers.
A group of five comrades returned to this factory and we distributed 190 newspapers. The plan to distribute Red Flag and the ideas of the International Communist Workers’ Party to other communities of workers in the factories is consolidating. We had talked about this before but, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had not been able to carry it out until now.
Some asked us, “Do you come from the FMLN? Because the letters on the front of the newspaper are red.”
We had the opportunity to explain to these workers, “We are a communist, internationalist Party that is fighting in several parts of the world. Our main base are the women and men workers, as well as the soldiers.” They took the newspaper, starting to read it immediately.
We distributed the newspapers very quickly. We didn’t have enough. But we are getting an idea of the times workers leave work and the number of Red Flags that we can distribute.
It was an excellent experience because almost everything turned out as we expected. Only this time there was a bigger police presence, and they requested reinforcements, since they always protect the bosses. Even so, we were able to complete our mission.
“To answer more repression, more struggle” is a slogan that we workers have. That day we put it into practice. That obstacle was not going to stop us. We carried it out, and everything went according to plan.
Now we hope that this work that we have started will yield good results. A telephone number was placed in the newspaper so that contact can be established. The plan is to spread this practice to other areas of maquila factories in the Salvadoran capital and in the west of the country.
After a meeting to evaluate this day of struggle, we visited and coordinated with other comrades who had marched this May Day for the first time with ICWP. They said, “Of course we can support this. We are going to join this work of distributing the Party’s ideas, through Red Flag, at the factories.”
Red Flag is one of a kind
If it’s true that a single spark can start a prairie fire, then this previous issue was full of sparks the world over.
There was a spark from the factory workers in El Salvador dismissing Bitcoin by arguing “no currency will serve the working class.” Another from auto workers in Chennai, India, angry at job losses and capitalist crisis. There were more sparks from MTA workers in Los Angeles and Boeing workers in Seattle discussing building the influence and membership of ICWP.
All of these discussions were in the factories, the very site from which the capitalists get their surplus value, or profits. They all had something else in common too. They moved from reacting to the attacks on the capitalist class to stressing the need for a communist (not socialist) revolution. In short, they demonstrated a unity in action around the line of the Red Flag—Mobilizing the Masses for Communism.
Red Flag Comrade
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