Maquilla Workers Lead International Conference here ♦ Women Communist Leaders Step Up here ♦ Collective Experience here ♦ We have a World to Win here ♦
Women and Men Maquila Workers Lead International Communist Conference
EL SALVADOR, January 20—Comrades recently met to evaluate the December 2023 Conference of the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP).
The leadership of young men and women workers in the maquilas represents a great advance in the struggle for Communism. For example, M, a young worker, gave the report on the maquilas. The report highlighted the difficult situation that the workers live in due to the exploitation of the capitalist bosses, but the strength they must fight for the changes that only communism can give to the working class.
Another example is a young working-class couple who actively participate in the party’s collectives. To be able to attend meetings, they have organized themselves into different collectives. On the day she meets, when she leaves work, he cares for their young son. And when he meets, she does it. This shows their commitment to the struggle for communism.
Attendance at the conference was one of the positive points. The number of participants increased significantly, as expected. Participants were mostly workers, young students, health workers, farmworkers, and comrades from other countries.
The participation by the comrades of the Movement of Workers and Peasants of Costa Rica showed how the struggles coincide and a path to share. Strengthening the ICWP’s communist relations with the Costa Rican workers builds on work that has been ongoing for many years with this collective.
The report on military work was inspiring. It made it clear that “Revolution without weapons does not exist, and soldiers have greater ties to the working class than with those who send them to die in war. This shows the need to organize in the army.”
Many Party organizers became more committed to working with soldiers and their families, most of whom are our working-class neighbors.
Studying communist philosophy is a central theme. It helps us to understand reality, and how we can make change and overthrow the capitalist system. It is important to continue the study groups to deepen our understanding and try to develop it from practice. To use communist philosophy to fight the idealism that the capitalist exploiters need to impose.
The Red Flag report created an opportunity to encourage more workers to write for our newspaper and to discuss the importance of distributing it massively. This is one of the challenges we have, in addition to increasing the distribution from hand to hand.
The evaluation also concluded that we should make better use of time and plan activities in the spaces before the main days of the meeting.
We believe that the conference was a communist advance at local and international level.
An important observation is that workers must have a broader view of the context of war. It is an instrument used by the empires. We are not isolated, and war affects the entire working class of the world. Military spending increases the profits of the economic elites and impoverishes the working class. The genocide in Gaza continues and, at the same time, there are other expanding war fronts.
It’s up to us, the working class, to organize to fight to end it by dedicating our lives to Communist revolution.
International Conference: Women Communist Leaders Step Up
My journey to El Salvador was very impactful. I have seen the party growing from my visits to El Salvador last year and then this year. As a visitor from another country, for whom language was not a barrier. I observed all the comrades’ emotions at the two-day conference. I met interesting comrades from different parts of the country and the neighboring country.
My engagement and conversations with the women comrades impressed me most. I have seen them growing and raising important points about how they see key questions. When we talked about the Palestine/Israeli issue, they expressed how they feel solidarity with the masses in Gaza. They drew a whole picture of capitalism from what is happening both in Gaza and El Salvador.
A few comrades who were very silent last year made a lot of important points at this conference. And important arguments. They showed how they see the struggle as a family.
I’m not trying to explain the problems of capitalism. I’m talking about how there is a connection to the party. The women comrades have so much empathy and aggressiveness. They are ready to sacrifice. They came with their partners. Whole families were together to fight against capitalism and fascism. They know, they’re growing, they’re teaching their kids. They go between their work, the party and family, and show how they are all together to fight against capitalism with the goal of communism.
It shook me up and impressed me. Especially the women comrades’ development there.
—A Comrade
A Collective Experience in Constant Transformation
We came to the ICWP international conference deeply grateful for having been invited for the second consecutive year. We set out from Costa Rica with the goal of sharing our struggles and challenges.
We are members of the working class, housewives, youth, and farmworkers confronting a capitalist government increasingly determined to strip us of historically achieved gains. They are determined to take away the right to decent housing, education, and public health. The right to defend territories and to have land and conditions to plant food using principles of food sovereignty.
We also aimed to get to know more deeply, together with our brother and sister workers without borders, about the socio-political, ideological, and economic context in which day by day they develop and struggle to achieve work and a life of true dignity and social justice. Where human rights are respected in all their dimensions.
Virtual and face-to-face spaces of exchange meant for us the possibility of learning, evaluating, and growing collectively. Of valuing our differences in an atmosphere of trust, respect, and commitment to collective growth. We all distanced ourselves from any trace of the individualism conditioned by the dominant capitalist, patriarchal, and colonialist culture.
Thanks to all the women and men, we came closer to their experiences on the family level, in the community and in the workplace. There they systematically suffer the abuse of those who hold power, who are allied with the interests of capital accumulation internationally.
We learned that every comrade from the maquilas in El Salvador, in South Africa, and in every country in the world has the true authority to position their knowledge, affections, and daily experiences in our agendas of life and struggle. They experience daily super-exploitation that denies them access to decent working conditions and fair wages. They became our main teachers on what it means to fight and defend rights in a scenario rooted in relations of social inequality. That threatens in every way their job security, food, and their physical, socioemotional, and family wellbeing.
We returned to Costa Rica with a greater conviction and determination to continue struggling. We are united by the same feelings and worldwide lessons necessary to transform all the infamous relationships that have historically been imposed on us by the power groups in each country we come from, be it El Salvador, Costa Rica, South Africa, India, the United States, Mexico, Palestine…
Dear friends, thank you for the more than political, ethical, human, militant and fraternal space. Thanks for your clarity and human warmth as the working class and youth who invite us to share in our country the knowledge spun together with you. To continue fighting against any mechanism, action and policy that favors the dominant class of the world.
Long live the working class and youth in struggle and resistance!
—Workers and Peasants Movement (MTC) in Costa Rica
ICWP Conference: “We have a world to win!”
We have come to the end of another year of struggles and victories. One victory is the recent international conference. It was a success and there was a lot of political growth. We workers and students were present to develop and do better work that allows us to expand the line of the International Communist Workers’ Party.
We want to congratulate the comrades who, with experience and practice, showed us that it is possible to achieve a communist world.
The military report caught my attention and that of the group, as I could see. The report clarified what we have discussed in the collectives about the need to organize in the army.
Listening to the young man’s personal experience was important. But the most important thing was the commitment to follow the ICWP line. I could see how other comrades identified with this experience. In conversations after the meeting they also expressed their experiences to me and how useful military knowledge can be.
The working class of the maquilas showed interest in being in a cadre school like this.
Well, we clearly understand that by organizing in the party we do not lose anything. On the contrary, the chains of slavery will end. We had thought that this is how it would be. Now we will continue organizing to participate in the communist May Day march. Long Live the International Working Class!
We have a world to win. Long live ICWP.
—Comrade in Struggle