Young Industrial Workers Key for Revolution here ♦ Defeat Imperialism from Puerto Rico to Gaza here ♦
Relationships with Young Industrial Workers and Vocational High School Students: Key to Building ICWP for Communist Revolution
USA, February 13— “I think you’re onto something,” concluded an activist friend of ICWP. He liked the idea of our party approaching vocational high school students with our revolutionary politics.
Friends and comrades in Washington, Oregon, and the East Coast are discussing ways to develop communist leadership among industrial workers. Boeing workers, vocational educators, anti-racist school workers, and anti-imperialist activists have all contributed to the conversation.
A vocational teacher, G, has been struggling to spread communist politics among fellow educators. Many are convinced that capitalism is headed for more exploitation, bigger wars, and fascism. The same question always arises: What can we do about it?
We can bring Red Flag and communist leaflets to these high schools and build long-term communist relationships with the students and educators. This generation of industrial workers will play a key role in our party’s fight to end capitalism’s horrors with communist revolution.
Industrial Workers on the March
Port workers in Oakland and Tacoma refused to handle cargo shipments to Israel. Several joined the mass pickets against the Gaza genocide. Longshore workers in Genoa, Barcelona, and Belgium staged similar rebellions.
When the auto workers’ executive board endorsed Biden in a closed meeting, rank-and-file workers protested “Genocide Joe.” Protesting union members were dragged out during Biden’s conference appearance.
Industrial workers have demonstrated more actively against the Gaza genocide than in past resistance to US imperialism. The students now in vocational high schools can add to these numbers.
US industrial workers are younger now than a few decades ago. In 2017, the average age of Boeing workers exceeded 50 years. The largest age group (a third of the workforce) is now 20-30 years old.
More of these workers are immigrants, women, and/or people of color. The Boeing blue-collar union now needs translations into Vietnamese, Khmer (Cambodia) and Spanish in its paper and at its meetings.
These changes are taking place as US industrial power declines. Meanwhile, industrial manufacture is rapidly expanding around the world.
As imperialist slaughter intensifies, rebellions among this industrial workforce will likely intensify. How can ICWP develop communist leadership to turn this resistance into revolution?
How Can We Unleash Industrial Workers’ Revolutionary Power?
In a new trend, school districts, the US Department of Defense (DOD), and other federal agencies are spending billions of dollars building and expanding vocational high schools.
Some have thousands of students. Many are recruited from “down-and-out” areas where decent jobs are scarce. In Camden and Patterson, New Jersey, most students are people of color or immigrants. South of Seattle, Aviation HS and Maritime HS are enrolling more women. The Los Angeles area has at least a half-dozen of these vocational training centers.
Many of these high schools are directly linked to industry and the DOD. Students may graduate with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification. Large commercial airlines have hired students with FAA certificates straight from their graduation ceremonies.
The DOD steers these students into the armed forces. After a short boot camp, they skip further training. They already learned in high school the industrial skills the armed forces need.
These vocational students and their educators are open to communism. “It’s going to be time- consuming work, but it’s where the party must organize,” G emphasized.
“Red Flag features articles about ICWP industrial work around the world,” G continued. “We need that information. The CIA mind tricks don’t work anymore with these new workers.”
“We need another way of existence!” exclaimed a retired Boeing worker. The reaction to the Gaza genocide shows how many among the new generation of industrial workers do not trust capitalism. To build seriously for communist revolution, we must expand the party’s industrial base and recruit more communist leaders.
The relationships we build with vocational students, their teachers, and the new generation of industrial workers are key to building that international industrial base and a mass communist party.
Defeat Imperialism from Puerto Rico to Gaza
“Zionism is Fascism! The Solution is Communism!”
Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, Jan. 24— Members of Communist Workers and Students for Social Change stand in solidarity with the struggle of Palestinian workers repudiating the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza. We protested in front of the Martin Lockheed facility, one of the main producers of weapons for Israel.
Many organizations, politicians and individuals have shown their repudiation of the genocide in Gaza. They have called for ceasefires, boycotts and for nations to condemn Israel. However, the massacre continues.
The capitalist “democratic” apparatuses do nothing to stop this genocide. Their main interest is to maintain the system of international exploitation, not to improve workers’ lives. Israel is a fascist state. It is the guardian of U.S. oil interests and the status quo in the Middle East. Unconditional U.S. support shows how fascism is capitalism in crisis.
Capitalism-Imperialism: The Root of the Problem
Plans to extract oil from the Gaza coast; intentions to build real estate on rubble and corpses; expansionist projects of a “Greater Israel” usurping territories from other Arab countries.
Gaza is a very familiar story for Puerto Ricans who have lived through colonization mediated by a military invasion.
The U.S. occupation opened the way for U.S. capital in Puerto Rico, similarly the Israeli invasion seeks to expand its capital and that of the U.S.-EU imperialists on the backs of an exploited and massacred working class.
Biden said that if Israel did not exist, the U.S. would have to invent one. Israel is a US military base to control Middle East politics; to have access and control over more oil, including Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iraq. It also gives it direct access and control of markets and trade routes through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The US uses this to counter the China-Russia-Iran influence in this region.
In addition, Israel trains death squads and drug traffickers destined for Latin America. It also trains many of the police who terrorize the U.S. working class. Likewise, Puerto Rico has served as a military base for the U.S., as well as an industrial producer of military uniforms and weapons such as Lockheed Martin.
Who will stop this genocide if not the working class?
As communists we raise the red flag of the international working class in demonstrating against the State of Israel because it is the working class, not only in Palestine, but also in the Congo, Niger, Sudan, Haiti, Argentina, Somalia, Puerto Rico and the whole world, who suffer the consequences of decaying capitalism. It is we, the working class, their wage slaves, who are kept with miserable wages to fuel these genocides, manufacturing their armaments, uniforms, and fighting their wars.
The world capitalist/imperialist system is in crisis and decay, divided by economic blocs (China-Russia-Iran versus US-EU). As the conflict between class interests becomes more acute, they impose fascism seeking to save their genocidal system by dividing the working class. We cannot fall into the trap of allowing ourselves to be divided on the basis of nationalist, religious or regional fundamentalism.
We have to see this from an internationalist and class perspective. We are at a historic juncture where workers realize the injustices in their living conditions and the power they have when they stop production. It is useless to demand a ceasefire from a fascist nation.
To eradicate fascism, we must fight its capitalist roots. We have the capacity to create a new system free of exploitation and this is achieved by building a communist society.