El Salvador Sweatshops: Communist workers plan collective response to Bosses’ attacks here ♦ Al Aqsa Attack here ♦
Gaza, April 15: Protest against Israeli Police attack on Al Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem (see below)
El Salvador Sweatshops: Communist workers plan collective response to Bosses’ attacks & martial law
EL SALVADOR, April 16— “As you know, the war between Russia and Ukraine is affecting us,” the boss said. “We are paying more for thread, fabric, and transportation, so we won’t be able to pay the wage increase that was supposed to be mandated. However, we must meet the goals of production.”
“I have been tremendously angry for a week,” said Comrade V, “ever since the factory boss grabbed the microphone and made more than seven hundred workers turn off the machines, to make this announcement.”
The boss is wrong. The war is between NATO, sponsored by the United States, against Russia, on Ukrainian territory. The bosses don’t care about the workers’ miserable conditions caused by wage slavery and the effects of the war.
The bosses do not give advance notice when they are going to meet with the workers, to prevent them from preparing or participating. The meetings are closed, with no opportunity to speak. That shows the bosses’ fear of the working class. They even forbid you to look them in the face. There is a story about a worker who stared at this racist boss and got fired for it.
“Why don’t we as a party respond to this? Why don’t we put forward an open position?” asked a comrade.
We must understand that our ideological struggle against the capitalist system also develops with the creation of an environment of struggle against this rotten system and in our advance for a communist world
“I believe that if we as a Party took the floor at that moment and had said that we too are paying more in the stores for everything we need, more workers would have felt united with us,” reflected comrade V. “I know that this is not what we in ICWP are fighting for. There is a contradiction here. We are fighting for a definitive change, for the communist system, where there will be no exploitation of our working class and no money.”
But this situation and the comrade’s suggestion have made us discuss what we should do the next time this happens.
Comrades from other parts of the world have also made their points about this. They have made it clear that the workers should discuss and learn more about how these struggles help us advance with the Party’s communist ideas.
Recruit more workers to turn off the machines of capitalist horror
Now we are inviting workers for a communist May Day and telling the history of the Chicago martyrs. They fought for the eight-hour day. But today we work eight hours, and what they pay us is not enough to live as we deserve. We do not fight for reforms that make wage slavery last longer. What we need is to break this chain of exploitation. This will happen only by fighting for communism
We have discussed the strategic plan, where men and women workers from the factories will have their action to carry out, and other activities will be carried out by comrades from other areas.
We need to expand the distribution networks of Red Flag. The newspaper is a key tool to organize more workers to the party. It is also important to make and distribute communist leaflets.
The bosses’ terror is turning against them. Even in the face of their fascist measures, the workers are willing to continue the fight for the communist revolution. We will be with our Red Flag in the main streets of the capital here on May 1st.
Women and men factory workers, former guerrilla fighters, teachers, students, workers and comrades from other areas will fight the bosses and their servants. We do not advocate reforming capitalism, but destroying it with communist struggle, organizing for the International Communist Workers’ Party.
Israeli Police Attack Al Aqsa Mosque
East Jerusalem, April 15, 2022—A large force of Israeli police raided the Al Aqsa Mosque where thousands of worshipers had gathered for early morning Ramadan prayers. Police tear-gassed and beat worshipers. They fired stun grenades and rubber bullets at those in the mosque, who improvised barriers and threw rocks at the cops. The police attack injured about 150 Palestinian Muslims. The Al Aqsa Mosque had long symbolized resistance to Israeli fascism. A large demonstration was expected there later that day.
Fascist Jewish groups in East Jerusalem had reportedly asked for the police raid on Al Aqsa. Some claimed that rocks had been thrown from Al Aqsa into an adjacent area near the Wailing Wall, where Jews pray. Israelis have long tried to drive Arab residents out of East Jerusalem, and Palestinian nationalists have proposed it as the capital of a Palestinian state.
Muslim Ramadan, Jewish Passover and Christian Easter coincided this year. Some had hoped that this would be an occasion for unity among followers of the three religions, which all have holy places in East Jerusalem.
However, religious conflicts are driven mainly by capitalist nationalism in Israel/Palestine and elsewhere. Capitalist use religion to divide and oppress workers and organize mass violence against them, especially against Muslims in Israel, India, Myanmar, and much of Europe.
Only a communist revolution can overcome these religious conflicts (communalism). Some people will still practice their religion in communist society, if they still feel the need, and if it’s not a cover for anti-communist organizing. But we won’t allow religion to divide the masses.