New Communist Collectives here ♦ Capitalist Production Divides Workers here ♦
Strengthening Communist Relations and Building New Collectives
EL SALVADOR, February 11— “Welcome to our home, comrades. We hope you will always come back to meet with us,” said the mother of the workers who had invited us to meet there. She and her daughters had participated in the recent international conference held in this country.
This warm welcome gave us the confidence that allows us to strengthen communist relations with members and friends of the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP).
Several months ago, one of her sons had an accident at work. “I thought I was going to lose my arm,” explained the young worker. “They made me operate a machine without any experience. My fingers and much of my arm are damaged.” He has had to fight to get medical attention and to avoid being fired from the factory where he works. It was a serious accident and the bosses wanted to fire him. He and his wife attended this meeting.
Comrades of ICWP have provided him, and will continue to provide him, with support. The Party collectives in the factory were attentive to the state of his health, supporting him however they could. The principle of communist solidarity in our Party was the beginning of our relationship with this family.
Those who have read a majestic work by Maxim Gorky called “The Mother” will identify with this mother and fighter for communism.
She is a strong pillar in this family. She shared her family history, which has been a life of struggle in this exploitative system, to keep her family of seven workers, women and men, united together.
This was an opportunity to be able to meet with workers who are already at new factories and were previously part of party collectives where they worked before.
A comrade worker said, “I have been working in the other factory for three weeks now, and I hope to be able to do good work for the Party there. In this factory there are no unions, and we hope to be able to distribute the Red Flag newspaper to more workers.”
A worker leader replied, “We have readers there and have distributed leaflets there. We hope that the distribution of Red Flag can begin as soon as possible.””
All these workers attended the international conference. This is a way of continuing the political follow-up work. It is producing an effort to organize in the community where they live, to massify communist ideas.
During the meeting, we discussed how the comrades in South Africa have shown that same principle of solidarity with workers from Mozambique. These workers are looking for better working conditions due to the crisis of capitalism that forces them to migrate and look for work in other countries.
The ICWP comrades in South Africa have responded in accordance with our struggle that in communism no worker will be called a foreigner. They are supporting these class brothers and sisters. All these actions of workers organized in ICWP count.
After sharing the family history with the mother of our comrades, we were invited to eat some delicious pupusas. The mother had dedicated a great part of her life to working in a tourist area, where she had made them.
Capitalist Production Divides Workers–Communism Unites Us
EL SALVADOR, January 26— How would we resolve an incident between workers in a factory in the communist system? That question arose in a meeting of an ICWP collective. We had witnessed an incident between a male and a female worker in a module. There had been an aggression against the male comrade because he wasn’t working fast enough to advance in the production.
This incident was provoked by interest in earning a little more money. It is not the only such incident that has happened in the factory.
When the workers saw this, they went to an ICWP comrade to tell her what happened. She made it clear to them that in this system of capitalist exploitation, the bosses like and urge violence so that we workers are divided, because they are terrified of workers’ unity.
“We should pass our newspaper Red Flag to these co-workers who were involved in this fight and explain to them whom the division of workers favors,” suggested a comrade.
“Problems between workers are sometimes unavoidable, but the way we resolve them will make the difference,” answered another comrade. “We are training ourselves along communist lines, with discipline and respect for our co-workers. In the communist system, first of all, we will not produce for profit. If there is a problem, we will stop production and solve it collectively.”
The factory bosses create production modules of 10 to 15 workers each, to speed up the production of garments to be sold. In communism, collectivity will be for our class interest, not for the bosses’ profits.
Sometimes the problems at work are caused by fatigue due to long working hours, and because of the demands of the boss to increase production, setting higher goals. All this causes the workers to be stressed by the pressure to achieve these goals and to earn a little more money.
This case is a clear example of the super-exploitation suffered by both men and women workers in the factory. It was a reaction of an exploited worker with a yoke around her neck. The stress and fatigue caused an argument with a co-worker so she could meet the production goal.
We are the working class. In communism, all the problems that arise will be resolved in a comradely way. All the divisive ideologies and practices will be eliminated by putting an end to the wage system.
That’s why those of us organized in ICWP try to incorporate more workers into the collectives. There we discuss how to have better political education and better relations between workers. We seek to have a classless society and live in a world without money, where we will put an end to wage slavery.
The struggle against capitalism, to overthrow it, is only for communism. United we will win! We will not work for profit, but on the basis of meeting workers’ needs. The working hours will be only those necessary!
It is our challenge to continue advancing, mobilizing the masses for our communist revolution.
Long live the Communist Revolution! Death to Capitalism!