Using Red Flag to Build New Communist Cells here ♦ Fighting for a Better World here ♦ Fascist Law Won’t Stop Communist Struggle here ♦
Using Red Flag to Build New Communist Cells
EL SALVADOR—During the pandemic I felt as if we had reached an impasse in the work of winning the masses to communism. I read the newspaper online. We didn’t see each other with our comrades. We called each other by phone and that way we informed each other about the situation of the comrades in the factory. That’s how we spent the first year of the pandemic.
In 2021, I chose to get together with my family and some friends, and we talked about communism. Then I shared the ICWP newspaper. I distributed seven copies of Red Flag among relatives, and I suggested that they share the communist readings as a family group.
We had been meeting for several months. As we were warming up to communist ideas, the “exception regime” appeared. We suspended the meetings for almost two months. We resumed them two weeks ago. The place where we meet is under some trees in the open air, and police and soldiers occupied that place for several days on several occasions.
Now we gather again, around 8 to 19 people every Sunday. I also share the newspaper with two friends, I give them a newspaper and they share the reading. I have also managed to contact a doctor friend who had lost contact due to the pandemic and today we are meeting again. I sent him the newspaper with another person.
In the meetings we talk about communism, how we believe life can be without using money, about producing what we need, not for profit for anyone, where there will be no bosses who are getting rich.
One reader friend asked: “What do the unions do for the workers? Do the unions agree with communism?”
My answer was that the unions have never been, nor will they be, fighting for the working class. They negotiate the terms of our exploitation with the bosses behind the backs of the workers. They do their business and the highest union leaders are favored. Then they go out telling the working class the agreements they made, saying that it is the only thing that can be achieved. Sometimes nothing, but they have already received their benefits. They do not fight to end exploitation.
The comrade reader said, “Then they never fight for the workers, we should not support them in anything. We workers must continue to win more people until we break this capitalism, and communism arrives once and for all.”
We conclude that only communism will liberate the working class from capitalist exploitation.
Comrade in El Salvador
Fighting for a Better World
I’m a factory worker and supporter of the International Communist Workers’ Party.
In 2018 a friend and co-worker told me about the Party, but then they changed our area and we no longer had contact. After years passed, we met again and talked about Red Flag again. I asked him if he still met with party members. He said yes, and that they had created meeting cells where they shared the organized work.
He invited me to one of his meetings and I liked it a lot. I am very motivated to continue.
In the meetings, I’ve taken away many experiences that have helped me to think differently, to fight for a better world.
I am new to reading the newspaper and I want to continue learning about communist ideas. We maquila workers are already tired of discrimination and forced labor for a starvation wage that is not enough for anything.
—ICWP Supporter in El Salvador
Fascist Law Won’t Stop Communist Struggle
El Salvador—The broad state of emergency adopted by the government is an attack on the working class, violating all basic rights that capitalism claims to provide, all in the name of “PUBLIC SECURITY.”
This has become a gag rule more than anything. This government does everything necessary to continue its fascist-capitalist dictatorship, promoting fear among the masses with the goal of continuing to oppress the working class and suppress opposition.
This has been a topic of discussion since before our May Day march. Using the police, the army, and their politicians, the government wanted to sow fear in us so we would not invoke our right to march or to speak.
Because of this law, many were afraid. But at the same time, those of us who marched defied the rulers. We raised the slogans “NO GAGS OR FEAR”, “all together for our revolutionary communist struggle to end this fascist capitalist system.”
When we met with workers after the march, we delivered our Red Flag newspaper. Worker E commented, “I would have very much liked to attend, but this government that we have and with this Law of Exception that they forced on us, they tried to silence us and scare us, and they succeeded because it happened to me. I thought about my family, if something happened to me, that scared me.”
“The same thing happened to me,” said L. “The same fear oppresses us, and we have no way of saying anything.”
Listening to the comments, we discussed everything that we experienced during the march and the enormous satisfaction that it gave us that together we fought for our communist ideas. This gave us courage and helped those who did not attend lose their fear.
Seeing the entire organization of our ICWP party, which is mobilizing the masses for our revolutionary communist struggle in different parts of the world, they commented, “We feel the party’s support and we will attend the next march.”
We will continue to meet always for the struggle to get more readers of our newspaper and for more comrades to join our cause and our party. They will get to know about everything that is other workers experience around the world through the news published in our Red Flag newspaper.
In the face of gag rules, we step up our fight for communism!
—Young Comrade
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