No Quick Fix to Capitalist Misery
GQEBERHA (South Africa), August 21— We met five workers during our regular Red Flag distribution. We offered them the Red Flag. We told them that some of us had been in EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters) but now we are in ICWP. Our party wants to eliminate the capitalists who create inhuman conditions for the working class. We need communism and not a few crumbs thrown at us.
These workers opened up to us and started to say, “How can we join? We need change now.”
We told them that they can join ICWP now. “We will give you Red Flag so you can distribute it to other workers. We will also visit you regularly and explain the need to join our collectives.”
Some of them were very glad that we were fighting for communism. Others were still insisting they needed an immediate solution, like a permanent job or protection from oppressive work conditions.
When they talked about the lack of safety boots, we realized they were all contract workers. They worked in shops of 50 to 100. There are dozens of such factories where thousands of workers suffer inhuman conditions. Most of these factories are owned by Chinese capitalists. The workers are employed by contractors from two to ten months and then they get fired.
Most of these workers are not paid monthly. They make R26 (US$1.38 or 115 Indian rupees) an hour. In a rubber factory with poisonous fumes, the owners offer no safety boots, protective masks, or ear plugs to reduce noise pollution. They work with their bare hands, many with signs of deformed skin. When they ask for something to protect themselves, the bosses tell them that they must buy it themselves, which costs upwards of R600 (US$32 or 2700 Indian rupees).
The workers’ lunch time ended. We exchanged contact information and decided to keep in touch as they are only a 15-minute walk from us.
Afterward, we started thinking deeply about how to answer these workers who wanted a quick solution to the misery of the capitalist system. We realized that they were not alone. Millions of workers in the world want a quick fix.
Some newer comrades who had been in EFF said that when workers lose jobs, if there were retrenchment, EFF would resort to individual violence, intimidation, legal battles, or blaming ‘white’ workers. Our party is struggling against these reformist and racist ideas that only pit one group of workers against another. Our permanent solution is to destroy all the aspects of capitalism with communist revolution.
There is no quick fix. But there is an urgent task. We need to make communist ideas mass ideas. We came up with a creative way to do this.
The ICWP comrades are planning to organize toyi toyi dance in different factory locations. Toyi toyi dance originated in Zimbabwe in the 1950’s as a protest against colonialism. It quickly spread to South Africa. During Apartheid, millions of workers and youth learned to dance toyi toyi. The Sharpeville rebellion of 1960 started with earth shaking rhythm of toyi toyi. After police massacred 69 workers, millions of workers mobilized around the world to fight the capitalist system.
The demand of the South African Communist Party was to fight apartheid system, not to destroy capitalism. This reform struggle disarmed the working class. It brought mostly Black politicians to power. The capitalist system has continued its ruthless violence even more severely than in Apartheid South Africa. Billionaire Ramaphosa instigated the massacre of Marikana mine workers in 2012. The endless shacks, shanty towns, dilapidated hospitals and schools tell the story that wage slavery must end with communist revolution.
Comrades in South Africa aspire to bring this story of toyi toyi with our communist line. We are meeting to organize some 20 comrades for this protest march. More will join as we spread the Red Flag to the masses. We are creatively planning the words and logistics of the event. We will make mistakes in this process. But we are keeping in focus the primacy of the communist world.
Picture at the top of this page: 19 October, 2020: Members of shack dwellers’ movement Albahladi base Mjondolo toyi toyi during protest against the abuse of Covid-19 relief funds in Durban.
Front page of this issue
