Bangladesh Uprising Shows: Masses Need ICWP here ♦ Communism Will End Sexist and Racist Violence here ♦
Dhaka, Bangladesh, August 2024: Young woman directing traffic
Bangladesh Uprising Shows: Revolutionary Youth and Workers Everywhere Need the International Communist Workers’ Party
August 20— Hundreds of thousands of students and workers did the “impossible” last June. Taking to the streets of Bangladesh in June, they forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasini to flee the country. They toppled her Awami League government.
But what comes next? Without a mass-based revolutionary communist party, the rebellion couldn’t become a revolution. Instead, US imperialism has taken advantage of the crisis to install a friendly “interim” government.
Its head, Muhammad Yunus, is an economist and development banker with close ties to Wall Street. Yunus, 84, got a Nobel Peace Prize for developing the very profitable “microcredit” scam. This lured many impoverished women in Bangladesh and elsewhere into crushing debt with the bait of “entrepreneurship.”
No capitalist government or scheme will liberate the working class in Bangladesh or anywhere. The only future capitalism can offer Gen Z, and all workers, is one of wage slavery, mass unemployment, environmental catastrophe, and inter-imperialist war. Our way forward must be communism.
Popular Uprising Mobilizes Students and Workers
Bangladesh has 40% youth unemployment. The rebellion started to protest government preferential hiring of descendants of Bangladeshi 1970 independence fighters. In its first week, the government ordered police to murder hundreds of students in the streets. It believed this would crush the rebellion.
Instead, with each murder, thousands more poured into the streets. Workers joined the students. Masses lost the fear of death. Tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, and live ammunition mobilized more. So did cutting the internet. It was 120,000 police against tens of millions of people in the streets.
The outnumbered police panicked. Their vehicles and ammunition became the target of the mass fury. Virtually every police station became a massive skeleton of charred buildings and overturned vehicles.
Soldiers started siding with the rebellion. The government could no longer count on the Army. Finally, on August 5, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had just 45 minutes to escape the wrath of the masses gathered at her palace gates. She fled to India.
Who’s in Charge Now?
The situation remains unstable. Reactionary forces have taken advantage of the disorder to build communal violence between the Muslim majority and the Hindu minority. But masses of workers and youth have joined together to work to build a new order. They mobilized to clean up property destroyed in anti-Indian riots. They prevented the celebration of an August 15 national holiday supporting the old regime.
Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts direct traffic on the streets of the capital city, Dhaka. They check people’s papers and guarantee public order. But soldiers still patrol the streets. Ostensibly, both the military and the new interim Yunus government are in charge.
Over sixty foreign diplomats and international organizations attended Yunus’ first press conference. He urged trade and investment partners to continue trusting Bangladesh. “We won’t tolerate any attempt to disrupt the global clothing supply chain in which we are a key player,” he assured them.
This “global clothing supply chain” is a garment industry which relies almost entirely on super-exploited women workers. They produce 80% of Bangladesh’s foreign exchange, in appalling conditions. They also have a history of militant rebellion.
Behind the Scenes: Inter-Imperialist Rivalry and Conflict
The capitalist rulers of China and India are not happy about the new, openly pro-US regime next door. Sheikh Hasina’s three-day visit to China in July had been a key milestone in deepening Bangladesh-China ties. Her overthrow was a major setback for India, a long-term strategic ally.
The US is Bangladesh’s largest destination for garment exports. US investors already control much of Bangladesh’s capital. US strategists want a long “interim” period (up to three years) of “party building” before elections are held. This would allow the development of pro-US political formations that could prevent a return to the old pro-India, pro-China political bureaucracy under new faces. Meanwhile, the Yunus government would protect US imperialist strategic interests in the Strait of Malacca.
None of these imperialists have the interests of Bangladeshi workers on their agendas. Neither do existing Bangladeshi capitalist parties which seek to exploit Bangladeshi workers on their behalf.
Build a Mass ICWP Everywhere
Events in Bangladesh have shown that the capitalist state is a house of cards. Workers and students showed their power to shut it down. What’s missing is communist organization. Communist workers and students in Bangladesh (like everywhere else), allied with working-class soldiers, can overthrow all capitalist parties and fight for the communist world we need.
ICWP comrades in India have reached out to their fellow workers in Bangladesh. We are developing the limited ties we have among workers and students there. This won’t happen overnight. But it will be advanced by the growth of the international communist movement from India to South Africa to El Salvador to the US and elsewhere.
The Bangladesh uprising shows how the conditions for communist revolution are developing rapidly. Our responsibility, and our privilege, is to build the ICWP to realize that potential.
Communism Will End Sexist and Racist Violence
August 20—Doctors across India went on a one-day strike. They held protests and refused to see non-emergency patients after the rape and murder of a postgraduate medical student in Kolkata on August 9. Local strikes and protests continued for days.
The fascist ruling party BJP suffered a setback in recent elections. It’s trying to capitalize on the mass outrage. It has organized publicity around this case to discredit the opposition party in power locally. Meanwhile it spreads exaggerated rumors about isolated incidents of anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh.
There is a clear link between what happened in Kolkata and the overthrow of Hasina Sheik in nearby Bangladesh. The Modi fascists are trying to rally the masses by showing “muscular support” in protecting both the rape/murder victim and the minority ‘Hindus’ in Bangladesh.
There was a horrific gang rape and murder of a student on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012. India’s rulers used it as an excuse for making the criminal “justice” system more repressive. That did nothing to reduce violence against women, especially against Dalit and Muslim women.
In a typical week, 13 Dalits are murdered, and 21 Dalit women are raped. BJP-connected fascist gangs regularly get away with killing Muslim people and burning their homes.
Sexism, racism, communalism, religious bigotry, and violence are all baked into the capitalist system. How else could a tiny class of billionaire super-exploiters rule over billions of the exploited masses?
We can’t rely on – or try to reform – the laws and state institutions created to serve the likes of Ambani and Adani, Musk and Zuckerberg, Johann Rupert and Carlos Slim.
Instead, we must overthrow them with communist revolution. Communism will end the wage system that forces us to compete amongst ourselves. It will institutionalize cooperation. It will foster unity of working people of all genders, ethnicities, and beliefs.
Eventually communism will make rape and murder almost unimaginable. The steps we take today, spreading communist ideas and building ICWP collectives, bring that day closer.
Read our pamphlet: The Communist Fight Against Sexism here