Indian Medical Students leaving Ukraine Describe Ordeal here ♦ War Fuels Racism; Racism Fuels War here ♦ Deepening the Struggle for Communism here ♦
New Delhi (India), Feb. 25 – outside Russian Embassy
One Week Can Change Your Life Outlook–Indian Medical Students Leaving Ukraine Describe Ordeal
INDIA, March 1— “Just a week ago I was dreaming of working as a doctor, paying off my loans and living a comfortable life,” an Indian student said. She had just deplaned as a refugee from Ukraine. “When the border guards were kicking and punching us, I felt tremendous solidarity with my fellow students. It did not matter if they came from India, Pakistan, or Nigeria.
“I am in my fourth year of medical study,” she continued. “I wanted to help the poor Ukrainians that were suffering when I left Kiev. They are just like us. I see poor people from everywhere. And I can see with my eyes the rich people who are able to escape these atrocities of war.”
She comes from a poor family in Punjab with many Dalit farmworkers. She took out a loan to go to Ukraine because it would cost her Rs. 1.5 million ($20,000) for five years, whereas in India it would cost Rs 1.5 million each year. When ICWP comrades told her about our struggle during the Punjab farmers’ agitation, she was happy to get Red Flag. We exchanged phone numbers and she assured us she would be delighted to talk with us.
Two ICWP comrades from New Delhi were distributing RF when we heard that medical students from India had arrived at the airport. We immediately went there to meet them. The students described their ordeal.
“We paid exorbitant amounts of money to take a bus from Kiev to the Polish border. Several buses full of passengers were stopped about a kilometer from the border. There was another lane for cars and SUVs that were transporting relatively wealthy Ukrainians to safety.
“At the border checkpoint, very aggressive police lined up all non-Ukrainians. In our line there were Indians, Nigerians and I believe some people from Pakistan and other African countries. The Ukrainians riding in the bus with us were allowed to enter immediately. Others in cars were greeted with fanfare, toys, and hot food. A reception center was set up on the Polish side for people needing medical attention. Their transport was arranged immediately.
“The border police said they would allow one of us for every 50 Ukrainians who crossed the border. It turned out that our lines were not processed at all. More students were arriving, and the lines turned into a temporary camp. After three days of bitter cold with no food, many were hungry and trying to figure out how much it would cost in Poland to fly to India.”
Another student continued the story. “Our border camp became restless. The police were pushing and kicking us. Women were screaming for help. I fell and several other students tried to shield me. I heard very racist, abusive language from the police while they beat us with batons and threw tear gas. Several students fainted; many had broken arms. Imagine, we were all medical students. We could help everybody, but now they were looking at us with racist hatred.”
It was hard to approach the arriving students with Red Flag, among the many reporters, news media and relatives. But we were overjoyed by our unplanned meeting with the returning students. We urgently called our collective. They were also excited with the ammunition this war presents us to destroy the foundation of the money system.
Every blow, every attack is an attack on the working class all over the world that calls on us to end capitalism with communist revolution.
The war in Ukraine is just the beginning of very sharp struggle ahead. The bosses from the US, Russia, Europe, Ukraine, India, and China will use everything they have to expand their brutal system, including nuclear war. All at the expense of the international working class.
But they are also sowing the seeds of their own destruction. The working class has resilience, patience, and the necessity to end capitalism. We must urgently organize workers, students, and soldiers everywhere who are crying out for direction. We must lead them to communist victory.
War Fuels Racism; Racism Fuels War: Comrades Build Communist Base to End Both
SEATTLE (USA), March 6—From the U.S. to El Salvador, from South Africa to India—in hospitals, factories, public transit, the streets, and the schools—our comrades of the International Communist Workers’ Party are fighting to end the bosses’ wars by building the ICWP to prepare for communist revolution.
The Ukrainian war has shown again that racism, fascism, and inter-imperialist war are interconnected. We need to expand communist struggle with co-workers, students, and friends.
“I’d like to support a side, but I just can’t do that in this case,” a Boeing worker said, “especially after we’ve discussed how the Ukrainian government treats the tens of thousands of African, Indian and Middle Eastern people who are trying to flee.”
For communists, no worker is a “foreigner.” But Ukrainian officials are singling out African, Indian, and Middle Eastern students and other refugees of color. They claim that “those foreigners” can’t get out because its priority is to evacuate women, children, and the elderly. However, the news outlets show women from other countries with kids who are not being allowed to leave, either. Ukrainian border patrols have been forcibly removing them from trains and buses.
Many Afro-Ukrainians and their families have lived in the country for decades. The fascist border military treats these Ukrainian citizens just as viciously.
Racism and xenophobia have reached deadly levels. Far-right, racist, fascist, ultra-nationalist paramilitary organizations have become commonplace in Ukraine over the last decade.
Russia has its own share of fascists. Western Europe and the U.S. pose as supporters of Ukrainian democracy, but they also harbor expanding xenophobic, racist movements.
The Western media’s racism is out in the open. A BBC correspondent got emotional while on air and said, “I apologize, but what is happening is emotion-provoking, because I am seeing European people with blue eyes and blond hair killed.”
The so-called democratic leaders are no better. Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov declared: “These are people are Europeans, so all EU countries are ready to welcome them. These are intelligent people.” Apparently, Petkov believes that the millions who have fled poverty and war in the Middle East and Africa are not.
This racism and fascism are not a secondary issue. The ones and twos we win to the communist fight against racism now will prepare the way to end capitalist wars forever—and the racism that goes with them— with communist revolution.
Comrades Born Everywhere Reach Out to Workers from Everywhere
A US comrade hospital worker discussed this with a co-worker, J, who was born in Bulgaria. J didn’t react like the Bulgarian Prime Minister. She rejected the US media’s anti-communism.
J answered another worker who was spouting how terrible communism is by saying, “What you’re describing sounds more like capitalism than communism.” J got her first copy of Red Flag the same week.
Soon, J and her husband M took the initiative to distribute information to their friends about the Ukrainian government’s racist attacks on refugees. M helped produce this article. He has followed up with his friend C, a worker born in Nigeria.
“We have to be careful how we talk about this racism,” C warned. He meant that the vicious racism is centered in the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian and Polish border patrols. He knew that some Ukrainians are trying to help the African, Indian, and Middle Eastern students and workers. M and C discussed parallels between the fascist infiltration of European and U.S. border patrols and what’s happening at the Ukrainian/Polish border.
C had no illusions about the so-called European democracies. He wants to organize a showing of “The Battle of Algiers,” a 1966 movie about the fight against French imperialism. The discussion afterwards will expose the fascism behind democratic humanitarianism.
Widen the Struggle for Communism
While preparing this article, dozens debated whether communism could end imperialist wars and the racism that bolsters and accompanies them. ICWP comrades elsewhere have had many similar discussions, bringing more people around and planting the seeds for a mass party. The more of us make this struggle a priority, the more prepared the working class will be to end capitalism’s reign of terror.
Deepening The Struggle for Communism
Some debates about war and racism developed into conversations about the nature of communism. It was easy enough to agree that the capitalists’ wage system pits worker against worker, company against company, and country against country. One Boeing worker concluded that he won’t support either side in the Ukrainian/Russia war, and that our class never benefits from any imperialist war.
To maintain their wage system, the capitalists must create and spread divisive ideologies like racism and nationalism. Capitalism goes to great lengths to indoctrinate the working class with these poisons. Without it, capitalist armies fall apart.
In contrast, communism is based on collective production for our collective needs. Our survival will no longer depend on a paycheck and competition with other workers.
For communist collective production to work, a new loyalty to the international working class must replace the bosses’ deadly ideologies. Our fight will be for revolution to end the capitalist system, not to back this or that imperialist in a war for profit.
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