Communist Relationships and How We Build Them here ♦ Friends of ICWP in Costa Rica Seek Unity here ♦ University of California strike here ♦
November 16—Graduate student workers are on strike at all the University of California campuses. Strikers in Berkeley have welcomed Red Flag and our pamphlet, Communist Education for a Classless Society, on the picket line.
Communist Relationships and How We Build Them
Comrade M and I chatted about recent Twitter news. We discussed social media outlets’ usefulness for having political conversations, circulating information quickly, and rallying people together. However, idealized online relationships seem to have replaced material ones. This can be problematic since the ruling class controls much of our access. They often restrict it, as in Iran, when the masses mobilize. While useful, they cannot match the value of in-person relationships forged through, say, discussing communist ideas over coffee or a group meal or marching together on May Day.
Relationships built on capitalist values are transactional. That is, one acts only with the expectation of something in return. They are temporary, selfish, and exploitative. We see them in lopsided agreements between capitalist superpowers and poor but resource-rich countries. They invest the bare minimum and expect maximum returns. These relationships are quickly abandoned when nothing’s left. They leave us feeling used and hesitant to form future connections.
Relationships built on communist values are accepting, nurturing, rewarding, and of mutual benefit. The human record proves our need for kinship and working collectively for the good of all. Our political work helps us build respectful and supportive connections and we contribute to each other’s growth and development. We’ll continue building these relationships under communism by living, working, and making decisions together.
We can build these connections now by sharing our communist ideas with family, friends, and co-workers. It’s important to create or seize opportunities to help them identify with others on the job and with those around the world. We can read and discuss Red Flag together. We can also collectively contribute to – and help distribute – it. We can support and defend people at work or in social situations and help them understand how the bosses benefit from racism, sexism, homophobia, and nationalism.
We build and grow these relationships by challenging our friends and comrades. For example, I had already worked with ICWP for a few years when comrade G asked me “You help with workshops, contribute to articles for Red Flag, and we distribute it together. So, why have you not joined the party?” I had no good answer and joined that night.
Comrade M and I discuss all the things we’d like to do for the party, but we often let life get in the way. We decided that we don’t have to do them all at once and have started to write letters to Red Flag together. We can all contribute, in some way, to mobilizing the masses for communism!
Weathering the pandemic taught us that social media can be used to build relationships. It also taught us how important meeting and working in-person is to them.
—Comrade in the USA
Friends of ICWP in Costa Rica Seek Unity
ICWP comrades met virtually with friends from the Movement of Workers and Peasants (MTC) of Costa Rica. They are reading Red Flag and other party documents. In this meeting we put forward our line of “direct struggle for communism” and “one class, one party.” They sent this letter:
Why is it important to assess possible articulations between both organizations?
Establishing links between both organizations is a vital organizational task since it strengthens the mass organization for the common and comprehensive welfare of our peoples and the working class for the definitive extermination of capitalism.
Union creates power. Starting from this idea, any space for the exchange of thought and organizational experiences among people and organizations is valid and necessary. Without denying divergent criteria, it enriches common perceptions and feelings in defense of causes beyond any border.
In addition to allowing us to make new readings of reality by clarifying our minds in the light of concrete practices and struggles, we will build new learnings to define joint positions in the face of a globalized world of social injustice.
What are some elements or ethical-political criteria that constitute the first meeting points and/or consensus that we have found in this first space?
We are united in defense of the working class. We unite and mobilize as part of the population, of those forgotten by political systems. The richest always join forces to continue perfecting mechanisms, legislation and policies that guarantee the exploitation and submission of the most dispossessed sectors.
We are learning from experiences with women workers in the maquilas (sweatshops), from other worker and peasant movements. You learn from our struggles in defense of workers in the pineapple and banana plantations. In defense of natural corn seeds versus Monsanto’s genetically modified hybrids. From fights for decent housing where women heads of households are assuming a leading role at the political and organizational level. From the fight against privatization and criminalization/judicialization of the human right to social protest.
In short, we are united by the struggle for a dignified life and to seize power to build countries and nations based on relations of social justice without any trace of racism or discrimination of any kind.
We need to consolidate states under the principle of adhering to the interests, experiences, knowledge and needs of our peoples; that is, the working class, with a deep collective sense. This is the basis for transgressing all individualistic schemes and patterns imposed by the capitalist, neoliberal, colonialist, patriarchal system.
What can be some initial lines of action within a sense of dialectical practice that can nurture this link?
We started by experimenting with possibilities of using social media in the service of our struggles. From this, to plan and theoretically-methodologically design other similar spaces to delve into different topics. We do this in an atmosphere of trust, respect, debate, and exchange from our specific positions, without ignoring disagreements.
The fight for the defense of human rights, the fight of our peoples in general, has no borders. We appreciate this space for articulation. Its first steps have allowed us to reaffirm the need to continue defining new lines to strengthen our ties as fraternal peoples.
—Comrades of MTC -Costa Rica