MLK Day Rally-Masses Want Real Change here ♦ Strengthening South Africa Party Collective here ♦
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Rally: Organizers Promote Capitalist Reform, Masses Want Real Change
SEATTLE (US), January 17— “How is communism different from socialism?” Many asked this as we distributed Red Flag and the ICWP anti-racism pamphlet at the MLK Day rally here. The crowd was smaller than in pre-pandemic years, but hundreds attended, mainly young people of color.
People responded well to our ideas of not having borders or money or profits and of sharing the work and the joy. A comrade asked them to send us their comments about the paper.
While we talked about communist revolution, speakers were trying to win young people to capitalist “reform.” That’s why the US rulers celebrate MLK’s “dream” and never mention his condemnation of capitalism and the US war on Vietnam.
In previous years, these rallies featured local anti-racist fighters. This year’s speakers were mainly clergy and Black capitalists. Young “entrepreneurs” talked about how they had made their money and how other young Black people can do the same.
This is a vicious attack on young workers, trying to convince them that they can enjoy the fruits of capitalism. A deadly ideology.
The people there weren’t buying this deception. Many were angered by a large electronic sign reading SPD (Seattle Police Department) Stands by You. They know the SPD history of racist murder, especially of young Black men.
A retired Boeing worker commented that of course the ruling class will pick Black bosses to speak. The system produces these people from all races, people who are selfish and don’t think of the working class. Get mine and move to the top, while the rest get pushed to a lower and lower bottom.
But the many people who took Red Flag were not interested in discussing capitalism. They wanted to talk about what we mean by communism and what communist life would look like. They were interested in how, unlike socialism, communism will have no money, no banks, no wages and no markets. We would live by communist principles: “From each according to their ability and commitment, to each according to their need.”
One woman, there with her partner, had lots of questions. She asked, “What about people who want to do drugs?” She said that drug use is rampant in her family. She liked the idea that in communism there would be no way to profit from anything, including drugs, so there would be no incentive for anyone to push drugs.
“But what if somebody wanted something special, a fancier car or jewelry?” she asked. She nodded in agreement when a comrade said, “We would produce for our needs. When everybody has housing and clothing and health care and good food, then we can decide what we want to do with other resources.”
She recently found out that she has indigenous roots and agreed with the comrade who said that many first nations had had a certain kind of communism: everyone was taken care of and there was no production for wealth.
She and the comrade exchanged phone numbers and have spoken since. Our new friend said, “Our conversation made my day!” They agreed to talk more about communism soon.
Strengthen South Africa Party Collective by Increasing Everyone’s Commitment
On the 1st of January we hosted an end-of-the-year dinner with ten comrades from two collectives. The dinner focused on the review of our year. Since 2020 we had a lot of challenges as a collective. Part of that was having to acclimatise to the covid-19 restrictions imposed by the government.
The issue that mostly affected us was the physical separation, not being able to meet. However, in 2021 that was different. We had mostly adapted to the situation. We performed better and met a number of our targets. These targets included writing for the Red Flag regularly, which we fairly did, and having online meetings which we didn’t do as well. But we had a few. The easing of restrictions allowed physical meetings to take place.
Going into 2022, we are learning from the experience that we had in 2021 and trying to improve our work. Primarily, focusing on sustaining and expanding our article writing. That is, developing and encouraging more comrades to write for the Red Flag—not just a few.
We have set a target of developing a comrade (comrade N) to take more of a leadership role. This comrade has the potential and time since he currently is not working nor studying. He has written articles in the Red Flag before but on an inconsistent basis. We are struggling with him trying to find out what is holding him back. If we can manage to win the full commitment of the comrade, that would be great for the party as he will act as a coordinator between different collectives. This will ensure smooth progress in our work.
We have identified as a weakness that over the years the collective has increasingly relied on a few comrades. This is a collective mistake we wish to rectify since the collective must function as a whole, not just rely on a few individuals. We understand that some are more committed than others. However, we also know that it is the collective that is central to the work of our party.
So, for 2022 we are more focused on strengthening the collective by increasing and strengthening the commitment of every individual in the collective. This will ensure that the collective relies less on a few individuals, and instead on more comrades.
We also have plans for recruitment and the consolidation of the Rustenburg mine workers who are friends of the party. We have the May Day celebrations to look forward to. We will further discuss these plans in the coming weeks to move the party forward.
—Comrades in South Africa
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