Letters: Capitalist Schools, Identity Politics

Capitalist Schools: Dangerous for International Working-Class here ā™¦ We are One International Working-Class here ā™¦

Left-wing students and workers in China used ā€œbig character postersā€ to educate masses and struggle against capitalist-roaders during the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.

Capitalist Schools: Dangerous to the International Working Class

On January 8, 2024, in the Chinese province of Henan, a teacher surnamed Wang, who taught a first-grade class of Suixian Senior High School, forced his students to swear a deadly oath.Ā  ā€œIn the classroom, there is only studying. If I violate this oath, then death to my whole family, first my father, then my mother.ā€ Teacher Wang was later questioned and criticized by studentsā€™ parents. He later admitted his mistake.

Such an oath is outright INCITEMENT OF VIOLENCE against working-class siblings such as family members. It goes AGAINST the communist principles of collectivity, unity, equality, cooperation, and mutuality. The Chinese capitalistsā€™ schools may force students to recite this kind of oath to win working-class students to their dangerously fascist ideologies that advocate violence against members of the same class.

The capitalistsā€™ school system already promotes divisive ideologies such as racism, sexism, individualism, nationalism, religion, and competition. It has divided our class siblings using the grading system. The capitalists more severely exploit students with lower grades or incomplete education. The bossesā€™ teachers who force students to recite oaths that advocate violence against members of the same class bring further detrimental effects to the mindset of our class siblings. They pollute our minds with violent fascist ideologies.

We are working to build a communist world where cooperation, collectivism, and sharing will be primary. In the communist world, we will share our knowledge with, and learn from, others. We will break down the divisions between ā€œmanualā€ and ā€œmentalā€ labor created by class society.

No longer will we be confined to one specific job. We will learn new skills by practice, and we will meet everyoneā€™s needs by distributing the results of our collective labor. When we finally build communism, we will continue to struggle against all these dangerous anti-working-class ideologies left over from class society. These deadly ideologies will one day be gone forever. We invite students affected by the murderous system to join us in the global fight for a communist world without borders, exploitation, and oppression.

FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!

ā€”Red Comrade in the USA

We Are One International Working Class

ā€œI donā€™t even want to call myself a Jew anymore,ā€ said a terribly upset friend who was born in Israel.

ā€œYou were born into a Jewish family, but you were also born into the working class,ā€ I responded. ā€œMainly you are a worker and should think of yourself that way.ā€

ā€œThatā€™s what my parents always said,ā€ she remembered.

Each of us has a personal identity with many aspects. But we are all workers, or allies of the working class. More and more of us identify mainly as communists.

Being a worker (even a communist worker) doesnā€™t make other aspects of our identity disappear. It means they are secondary, though often we struggle to remember that.

Where we grew up, what languages we speak, where we live, our life experiences, all help to shape our personal identities. We may see ourselves as culturally Jewish or Muslim, Christian or Hindu, even if we donā€™t practice the religion.

We may identify with others who share a skill set (surfers, poets, electricians, nurses). Or a passion (fans of Mihlali, Taylor Swift, Shah Rukh Khan, Lionel Messi, Manchester United). Most of us donā€™t let such things divide us from the rest of the working class.

Other things are harder. We know that ā€œrace,ā€ gender, and nationality are socially constructed. That means they are boxes that capitalist society invented to sort us into, on purpose to divide us. They are part of the material reality of the wage system.

So, we canā€™t just say to someone, ā€œYouā€™re not Black (or Palestinian or gay or a woman), youā€™re a worker.ā€Ā  We experience capitalist oppression and exploitation differently, based on what boxes weā€™ve been put in. We canā€™t defeat the divisive ideology of ā€œidentity politicsā€ by denying this reality.

What we can and must say is that the only way to end the oppression we each experience is to unite as the working class and destroy capitalism. To mobilize for communism and uproot the wage system.

To struggle, as a united working class, against all the ā€œismsā€ that divide us. To identify ourselves first, and mainly, as workers. As my friendā€™s Israeli parents told her, fifty years ago.

ā€”A Comrade

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