Strikers Welcome Communist Ideas here ⊠Conversation with Striker here ⊠Amid Tsunami of Capitaist Crisis, fight for Cooperation, not Competition here âŠ
Striking Teachers, Students and Workers Welcome Communist Signs, Red Flag, Leaflets
LOS ANGELES (USA), December 6 â Teachers and workers in the California State University system held a series of one-day strikes over pay and working conditions. The strikers and supporters enthusiastically welcomed ICWP members on the picket line with signs denouncing genocide in Gaza, the attacks on workers and students, and calling for communism.
Among about a thousand participants, over 350 took Red Flag and 500 took our communist leaflets. Some asked for extra copies of the paper. Some stopped to talk. About ten gave us their contact information. Two teachers we had known before, but hadnât seen recently, welcomed us. They promised to get together after the holidays to âcatch up.â
Our leaflet anticipated this openness to communist ideas. It said that the 2023 strike wave showed that the US is entering a pre-revolutionary period. It described three preconditions for revolution listed by VI Lenin, a leader of the Russian Revolution.
First, the masses canât live in the old way. As capitalismâs crisis intensifies, dragging down workersâ living standards even more, workers will question capitalism and become more rebellious. Untold numbers of youth already identify themselves as socialists, anarchists, or communists.
Second, the rulers canât rule in the old way. In their drive to WWIII against the rising China-Russia-Iran imperialist bloc, they will intensify the exploitation of the masses, creating tremendous anger, rebellions, and revolutionary potential. They will need fascism to ruthlessly put down these rebellious masses. This is already starting: see the article âThe Empire Strikes Back.â
Third, there must be a revolutionary communist party with a base in the working class, especially among industrial workers and soldiers, capable of leading the revolution. This one is in our hands. It requires us to mobilize the masses for communism, and nothing less. To explain what communism is, take on anti-communism, and discuss the need for a mass party worldwide.
Capitalism-imperialism in this historic period can only go in one direction â as Gaza and Ukraine show â towards greater, more destructive and genocidal wars. No matter what the US imperialists do to those who dare teach the truth, the masses will not switch from repudiating the genocide to supporting it.
Capitalism will never bring about peace. Collectively we can abolish the capitalistsâ competition and resulting inevitable wars for profit by fighting for a communist world. Thatâs the only way forward for humanity.
Moving Forward: Building Communist Relationships
A week before the teachersâ strike, students there demonstrated against a 36% tuition hike and against the genocide in Gaza. We distributed over 110 RF and made contacts. We have met separately with two students and a teacher for longer conversations. We talked about why we fight directly for communism, and the need for a communist party and that ICWP is that party. They are reading our literature. We plan to meet again after the holidays.
We asked the teacher if she had heard about Epifanio Camacho, a member of ICWP who had worked with Cesar Chavez organizing the Farm Workers Union. She said she hadnât but would like students to hear Camachoâs story and about Cesar Chavezâ anti-immigrant racism.
Several other teachers we met at the strike live and teach outside LA. They are excited that we plan to visit them to talk about ICWP. They are active in the teachersâ struggle and against the genocide in Gaza.
One showed the paper to a neighbor and said he liked it. She also offered it to another teacher who said he already had it and was in touch with us. They liked our article âThe Empire Strikes Backâ and showed it to other teachers.
We have talked with others who are enthusiastic about our literature. We are inviting them to meet with us, to learn about communism and spread the fight for it by joining or building an ICWP collective.
Another series of one day strikes will start on January 22, on all 23 CSU campuses. We plan a communist presence with a leaflet, signs, and more comrades and friends, to build ICWP and the fight for communism. Join us!
Conversation at the CSU teachersâ strike between a comrade and a striker
âWe are from Mississippi but moved to Detroit. Our parents and grandparents were industrial workers. Some worked in the auto plants.â
âWhat a coincidence! I also worked at an auto plant.â
âHow did you like it?â
âWorking on the assembly line producing one car a minute was brutal on oneâs body. But I liked factory work because the company only owned my body. My mind was free to roam. I wrote leaflets, prepared speeches, and meetings, elaborated on discussions I had with people. Then de-industrialization set in.â
âYes. It also happened in Detroit. These higher paid industrial jobs disappeared. They moved out of the country or to Southern states where wages were lower.â
âI always looked at it as a vicious, premeditated mass racist attack on the US Black community. Somewhat of a collective punishment for Black workers having led the mass anti-racist urban rebellions that shook the racist US rulers to their boots during the 1960s. And for having led antiracist, multi-racial, and anti-imperialist rebellions in the US Armed Forces against the fascist US rulersâ genocide in Vietnam. These rendered the US Army in Vietnam unreliable. It was, after the relentless, indomitable fighting spirit of the Vietnamese masses, the most important reason for the US leaving Vietnam.â
âI never thought of it that way.â
âIt continued with the flooding of the ghettos with Crack cocaine and the mass incarceration that followed. The destructive effects on Black workersâ lives have been generational. Only a communist revolution can put an end to all this pain and misery for the profits of the few.â
We agreed to meet again to keep talking. We hope to see him after the holidays.
Amid Tsunami of Capitalist Crisis, Fight for Cooperation, Not Competition
The party leaflet regarding the strike at Cal State claimed that this is a pre-revolutionary period, that we cannot live in the âold wayâ. I agree we are definitely headed that way.
But I think the other side of Leninâs construction â âthe rulers cannot rule in the old wayâ – is the primary driver today. That is, inter-imperialist rivalry, war, proxy or otherwise, Russia/China versus US, is changing all our lives dramatically.
The US-provoked Russian invasion of Ukraine is a turning point. This war, along with BRICS+ and significant de-dollarization/debt are creating desperation in disintegrating capitalism â in the âWestâ. The rulers are counterattacking relentlessly with inflation, unemployment, austerity, debasing culture and alienating ethos. Their system does not work. It cannot work. No longer. Not at this time in history. Gaza is an extension, a double exclamation point!!
We are living a tsunami of world capitalism in dire crisis. The masses must be convinced that there is only one way out â communist revolution. Nothing less, nothing else offers hope for the future.
We must hammer away at the prison that is competition – to smash it with the burning desire for cooperation.
Capitalism is based on hierarchy, competition to be the âbestâ, the âsmartestâ, the richest. This ultimately and absolutely inevitably leads to imperialism and war.
We fight for unity and equality. We fight for the masses, not the few âwinnersâ â who only succeed at the door of othersâ misery. Down with the parasites! No masters! No experts!
How to make our flyers and agitation more communist? The key is the difficult question of competition/cooperation. Capitalism praises, âIâm better than youâ thinking. We know the opposite is the story of human history and the future of humanity.
A strike for reforms, wages, less parking fees or tuition wonât get us there. But the act of striking, of uniting as one, fighting as one, learning as one, puts our class on the road to communist revolution.
I am excited to follow our young comrades in this struggle. Many others are also watching.
Older Comrade
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