Strengthening Communist Ties and Building the ICWP in the Maquilas here ♦ Using Red Flag to Build ICWP and International Communist Consciousness here ♦ Seattle: U.S. Workers Part of Our Global Family here ♦
SOUTH AFRICA, November 22, 2022—Civil Service Workers on Strike
Strengthening Communist Ties and Building the ICWP in the Maquilas
EL SALVADOR, December 27—To build the work of the International Communist Workers’ Party, we concentrated building collectives. Little by little, with a lot of dedication, we were able to establish the first three collectives. We met twice a week with 6 to 8 workers, women and men.
Organizing them took time, but we have made progress. This allows us to get closer as comrades, to learn about aspects of our lives, which strengthen ties among us. We learn from each other, and we grow politically. We also have the aim of increasing recruitment, which will serve to build workers’ power.
Each group has a day and time scheduled to meet, after the workday. This process has been creating a sense of responsibility while we build communist social relations, so necessary for the fight for communism.
Likewise, at some point in this struggle, these comrades will be able to form collectives in the communities where working-class families live, expanding communist ideas and constructing the fabric that will be the basis of the party.
We mobilized our comrades for May Day under pressure that we hadn’t had for several years, but we came out stronger from it.
After the health crisis, the employers organized different schedules, so that some comrades no longer started at the same time. In view of this situation, it was necessary to see each other at lunchtime. This represents an obstacle because we have a few minutes, nothing more, to share. For this reason we hold extended meetings every two months that our family groups also attend.
Inside the factory, communication is quite difficult because we are being watched all the time. But the working class always breaks those locks. We strive to prevent workers from turning to reformism as it means prolonging wage slavery.
One principle that we try to practice is solidarity. A few months ago, when approximately 800 workers were fired from the APS factory, a new comrade who was one of those fired returned to the factory where we work. She contacted a worker who was her partner in APS, told her about our party, and passed her Red Flag. Among all the comrades of the ICWP we made a collection of basic necessities to support them in this very difficult moment. Now she meets with us.
We also distributed a flyer denouncing these layoffs. We have organized within the factory under attacks by the bosses and union representatives. The fear of losing our job, isolating ourselves from the workers themselves, are obstacles that we must face. But there is a clear main objective. The communist philosophy tells us that everything changes, that nothing is impossible. But this requires permanent political work.
Recently we met with the comrades from the countryside. They shared their experience in the revolutionary struggles. We also talked about the need to always take security measures into account, due to the current situation.
In our collective meetings, we always mention that we deserve to live in a society without wage slavery where there is no fascism, racism, sexism, and xenophobia. Without exploiters or exploited, where our labor power will not be for sale.
We say that we will work based on our needs, and solidarity will be a main practice of a new world. Our practice must be well-planned and conscious. We cannot leave anything to chance. No change that favors the working class will come from the bosses. We will build that!
Conference Report: Using Red Flag to Build ICWP and International Communist Consciousness
Thanks to everyone who contributes to Red Flag/Bandera Roja by writing and helping to write; to those who do the work reported in our pages; who translate or send photos and suggestions. We all help to produce our newspaper, as well as distributing it.
RF/BR is our weapon, or our tool, as P said yesterday. It doesn’t do communist work. We use it to do the work. And like any weapon or tool, one needs to learn how to use it. Our goal today and going forward is to learn to use it better.
The recent India article has important lessons about this. Let’s read the first part together in the workshops.
First, it shows that reading stories from elsewhere helps raise our awareness of being part of an international working class. Who has other examples of this? And how can maquila workers in El Salvador respond to the comrade in India?
Also, the comrade from India said that Red Flag gave her the opportunity to tell her story. As T said yesterday, we each have our own story of finding and joining ICWP. Let’s share our stories in RF/BR to help others.
The article called for this conference to emphasize the fight against sexism. We often put this struggle forward in a not very dialectical way: “We need more women giving leadership.” We must ask: What are the contradictions that we encounter? Here are a few:
- Some women workers are very angry with capitalism that super-exploits them. They often do double work: for less pay (in the factory) and no pay for the “second shift” at home. But this same situation that makes them want to fight for communism can make it hard for them to attend meetings or leave them too tired to read the newspaper.
- Others have similar experiences but think –influenced by religious ideas or popular culture– that sexism is “natural” and can’t be changed.
- Sometimes women comrades give important leadership in the practice of the Party – like the work of building communist relationships – but we don’t always recognize this as leadership. We might think of leadership only as giving speeches or running meetings.
We need letters about our experiences with contradictions like these. Sometimes, how we have resolved them, to help others. Or, more often, when we don’t know how to resolve it, we should write and ask for help.
We need to think and write more about how communism will change the material conditions that foster sexism and how the struggle will continue.
M said yesterday that understanding the contradictions in the imperialist world helps her better understand where she lives. That’s why we must read the historical and analytical RF articles too. We need to improve the way we write them. We ask for your suggestions and even complaints.
The most important thing in the editorial process of RF/BR is the ideological struggle to put forward a sharp communist line. Here too contradictions arise: more voices mean different opinions and more variation in how we explain communism.
These differences can help us advance our line. We can’t be liberal and say, “everything is good.” Instead we must struggle in a comradely way to resolve disagreements. That means more comments and letters.
And we need more comrades to participate in the RF/BR editorial collective’s Zoom meetings. I invite you to help as you can.
Comrades, we are moving forward with Red Flag among the masses. Reports and letters about these experiences, especially conversations in the factory or among friends and relatives, will improve our newspaper.
Red Flag depends on all of you. Give yourselves a round of applause before we go back to our workshops!
Conference Report from Seattle, US. US Workers are Part of Our Global Family
SEATTLE (USA), Dec. 27—The political work in the El Salvador maquilas (sweatshops) shows how ICWP can grow among new, younger industrial workers. We can do similar things in the US.
Last fall, Seattle comrades were surprised by the enthusiastic response to our communist line during the educators’ strike. We shouldn’t have been, considering the massive Black Lives Matter marches and other demonstrations against rampant sexism and the xenophobic separation of families at the US-Mexico border.
But now we must make concrete plans to grow as part of the international mobilization for communism.
After the educators’ strike, we identified six friends whom we invite to all our collective meetings. This multi-racial group of all genders includes two industrial workers, a Filipino activist, and an educator.
Most meetings start with a discussion about what is holding people back from joining ICWP and our relationships with them. Our friends are clear on the mounting political danger in the US But we must struggle against the idea that the way forward is reserved for some other country.
Concentrating on industrial workers can break the grip of this cynicism.
Boeing produces commercial jets, space rockets and weapons of war, employing 142,000 workers. The largest number are in the Seattle area. The workforce is the youngest in decades, as older workers died or were forced to retire.
Twelve thousand US companies make parts for Boeing, employing more than a million workers. Many of these supply-chain employees work in southern California.
The union contract expires in 2024. So, the battle between reformist answers and communist alternatives will no doubt increase.
How do we prepare as communists? Should we aim for a summer project in 2024?
Would it help to revitalize our political work by distributing Red Flag outside the factory gates and inside the factory with our networks? Should we aim for articles/letters about struggles we are engaged in among US industrial, transportation and medical workers in every issue?
Recently, a woman who is organizing at a Filipino telemarketing firm toured the US. Fascism forced the organizers to rely on networks inside the building. She had confidence that her friends would spread the message through their own networks.
We have done this at Boeing with one crucial difference: we built these networks based on communist politics. We encourage our friends to distribute Red Flag so the discussions about communism spread. The resilience of these networks depends on building stronger political and social relationships.
Party-Led Industrial Workers Show How Communism Will End Borders
A few years ago, ICWP made the separation of migrant families at the US-Mexico border a big issue at Boeing. Before a scheduled protest, party members and our base organized more than a dozen stop-work discussions in a building that housed 1,700 Boeing workers.
A Boeing friend and his wife visited those who were camped out around the prison. A frustrated camper asked, “Why are they picking on us?” Our friend described how, over decades, the local capitalists pitted one group of workers against another and that we need a global revolution. He organized debates in the factory and raised the issue among immigrant high school students.
Production dropped as workers debated our communist vision of a world without borders. They were moved not by their immediate self-interest, but by a vision of a new communist society.
Our comrades and friends had disrupted production before. It was, however, the first time we stopped production to support workers we didn’t know, of a different nationality, over a thousand miles away.
Workers everywhere can be won to communist global solidarity. Only more and better communist practice —as was attempted among Boeing workers around the issue of separation of families—will prove it possible.
Our line will be determined by a new generation of communist leaders and the nature of the communist struggle they engage in. Will a two-year campaign around the Boeing work help? What is the relationship between the new generation of Boeing workers and the retail, warehouse, and school workers? How do we win them to a view of international communist revolution?
Intensive detailed focus on communist work is the way to prove US workers can take their rightful place in the international mobilization for communism.