“From each according to ability/commitment, to each according to need.” It sounds great! But how do we put it into practice?
We learn from history and theory, but the answer must mainly grow out of our communist practice today. How we evaluate it objectively, using criticism and self-criticism. How we manage disagreements and learn from mistakes. How we, step by step, engage the masses in this work.
All Party collectives are laboratories for studying communist practice, including the Red Flag/Bandera Roja working group. Some things we are learning:
- The main thing needed to move RFBR forward is to involve more comrades and readers, from more places, more actively, in the work. That includes writing, discussing, criticizing, and editing as well as translation, layout, pictures, and of course distribution. Our collective is already becoming stronger as younger comrades have taken on more responsibilities. We need more of this.
The collective needs to more actively invite others to participate in meetings. This includes organizing collectives to guarantee translation of article drafts into Xhosa, Hindi, Afrikaans, and more.
- RFBR will become more useful as we build stronger communist relations with more youth and workers. Their ideas and concerns will help us plan and write better articles.
Massive distribution of RFBR (especially in workplaces) can change the relationship of class forces as communists become more engaged in workers’ struggles. Especially those that fight and overcome the bosses’ attempts to divide us (as in India). Reports about communist fights against the bosses’ attacks on our class will inspire more readers to join us.
- More new writers and editors mean more points of view, more questions, more disagreements. That’s good! Let’s be as clear as possible about them. Let’s try to answer or resolve them as comradely and objectively as we can. Let’s get better at using criticism/self-criticism (in meetings, letters, and articles) to advance the work. Struggle about articles helps advance the work.
Ideological struggle is the lifeblood of our party. While RFBR must present our line clearly and sharply, we must make room for the struggle to continue.
- Developing a communist outlook means learning to think about the needs and interests of the whole working class. Articles often start with a story (“we did this”) but a second draft should bring out the point of the story. Contributions from other comrades and other areas can make it stronger. The RFBR collective can help.
Writing about big struggles elsewhere can help broaden our outlook and develop comrades as leaders of the whole international party. Let’s write more about revolutionary transformation. And we all need to learn how better to analyze global crises (economic, environmental, imperialist, war, and fascism) and how they affect the global working class.
We all need to learn how to write better articles about this, about communist theory, armed communist revolution, and about ideas and experiences fighting sexism, racism, communalism (religious prejudice), casteism, xenophobia, and more.
Comrade reader, Red Flag/Bandera Roja needs you! The RFBR working group expects to plan an international Zoom discussion about this – but don’t wait. Talk with your collective or contact us directly about what you can do.
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