Educators’ & Students’ Future Depends On Communist Counterattack
SEATTLE (USA), April 27 – “What are schools for?” demanded a friend at our pre-May Day potluck discussion. She was commenting on the escalating assaults on educators and high school students.
A teacher who was attacked introduced the discussion. He described how he has been doxed by the far right for months: his private information was published widely online and on a truck around his school. He was put on leave from his job. The school board will not let him talk to his students or fellow teachers during its “investigation.”
Educators and students in the Seattle public schools and all around the US have been threatened because they are standing up to the attacks of US capitalism/imperialism in its death throes. The school board and courts have targeted the teacher comrade and other school employees. At a school board meeting, protestors fought the potential firing of two activists for participating in a demonstration which closed a major freeway for hours. This was an early protest, and the pressure was strong enough that the school employees kept their jobs.
But as the resistance against the Gaza genocide has spread, fascists have counterattacked. Billionaire fascists, including New York hedge fund managers and Republican and Democratic Party hacks and their followers, have flooded the school district with emails, accusations of antisemitism, and other threats and harassment. The congressional committee that previously attacked university students now berates high school activists as well.
Some at the potluck warned that even if comrades got their jobs back, the school board would demand, under pressure from fascists, that educators no longer teach about the deadly history of imperialism, let alone the communist answer.
The capitalist schools exist to promote capitalism and to push the rulers’ racist and nationalist ideology. More of our friends are coming to this conclusion and discussing this with their neighbors, co-workers and friends.
Communist education is for now and the future. It means combining lifelong work and study, theory and practice. Everyone will learn and work their entire lives.
Our response to the fascist attacks will reinforce communist relationships and pave the way to advance communist learning though practical struggle.
What to Do?
Participants, including retired and current high school employees, gave suggestions for answering these attacks. Some advocated going to the union. Others wanted to address this issue with the city council. Some talked about how they had dealt with such attacks before. This included saving students from suspension through political activities, pushing for the firing of a racist high school principal, and fighting to make the union more responsive to the workers.
It’s natural and helpful to recall history, but how we previously dealt with these threats must be adjusted to our time.
“The situation is not like it was when some of us were demonstrating in the late 60’s and early 70’s,” added a comrade. US imperialism is in decline and the potential for world war is greater. It opens many avenues for struggle over communist ideas. Everyone in the multi-generational, multi-racial group at the potluck seemed to agree.
Finding The Communist Path
One tactic is the “legal” path, involving unions and lawyers.
But our long-term strategy concentrates on winning students, school employees, and their families to the need for Communist revolution as the only way to end the fascist attacks on all workers. We will mobilize students, educators, and others associated with three local high schools where we distribute Red Flag.
“Of course we want to get our comrade’s job back,” said a comrade, summing up a long exchange of ideas. “We will work hard for that and will encourage many others to join us. But what is most important is to win more workers and students to become communist fighters with the ICWP. This is how we will measure the success of our campaign.”
The discussions continued via phone and text the next day. Comments included, “It was great that everyone got to talk.” Many praised both the discussion and the end result. A teacher phoned to ask how retired teachers can join the fight.
We have to work quickly, as we want this campaign to begin before the middle of June, when school ends here. High school students from the multi-racial working class and immigrant families in the local schools will someday fill the industrial factories and soldiers’ barracks. They will be a key force for the communist revolution we need.
The expanding relationships our party is building among educators, students, and their families must be aimed at building ICWP’s base and membership. We are not in this for a brief fight, but to change the world.
Read Our Pamphlet: Communist Education for a Classless Society here.