Fascist âRegime of Exceptionâ Represses Working-Class Students here ⊠Trade Unionism is a Dead End; Education Workers Need to Fight for Communism here âŠ
Fascist âRegime of Exceptionâ Represses Working-Class Students
EL SALVADOR, June 16â âI donât want to go to school anymore,â said a young high school student to his family, who are organized in ICWP. âIâm very angry because I donât know what they want. They forbid everything. Iâm not learning as I would like to. I feel harassed. The police come every week and tell us not to dress a certain way, because if we do, we are sending a message that we are related to the gangs.â
His grandmother asked, âIf you donât feel comfortable with the education of the capitalist system, how would you like communist education to be?â
âDifferent, with different schedules, with a different way of learning,â the young man answered.
âWell, to achieve this we must fight for Communism. It is the only option. To get a clearer idea, letâs read the pamphlet, Communist Education for a Classless Society,â the grandmother suggested.
The Bukele government imposed the fascist âregime of exceptionâ in March 2023, supposedly to deal with the gang issue. But what it really aims to do is nothing more than to have a scheme of repressive control by an authoritarian state to stay in power. To silence and intimidate the working class through the presence of the army in the streets and in the communities.
This also allows the presence of the police in the schools. This is now part of the daily life of students and teachers. It is a situation that should not be normalized. As communists we must fight to mobilize the masses for communist education. We fight for a classless society, for Communism.
The government uses the media and all possible social networks to threaten to jail youths and prosecute them as adults, which means twenty years in prison.
Once again we live in a militarized country that has used this tool of the regime of exception before. The government approves it every time with threatening speeches, saying that mistakes and criticisms will be repaid dearly. âWe are going to apply the regime to youâ has become the real threat to anyone who dares to think.
Students and the entire working class are living under repressive forms already known in the decades of the 1970s and 80s during the armed conflict between the military dictatorship and the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front).
Communist Versus Capitalist Education
The education system in El Salvador is divided into public and private sectors. Among the private schools, there are elite schools and some religious schools. The police do not go to these schools, thus dividing the student population by social class.
Insecurity and other problems are a product of the rotten capitalist system. These are not fought due to threats to the students. Workers, students, and soldiers organized in ICWP can make the change that is so needed!
Capitalist educational institutions respond to capitalist class interests. The training received is to prepare students as future workers to be exploited.
Capitalist schools function to kill childhood creativity and critical thinking.
Communist education wonât rely on teachers and five or more hours a day in school. Instead, everyone will be able to share their experience and knowledge. They will learn in practice in areas where work takes place, and not wait long years to apply what they have learned. To learn, students do not need to have the police in front of them threatening them. There is no good education under the capitalist system.
We need communist education for the emancipation of production from profit, to study to advance collectively. Everything that is achieved will be at the service of humanity: that is, to incorporate knowledge into daily life. Study will not be separated from work.
âLetâs fight for a classless society and for communist educationâ.
Trade Unionism is a Dead End–Education Workers Need to Fight for Communism
MEXICO, June 16â On June 11, school workers (teachers, employees, and manual laborers) from several states of the republic who belong to the National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers (CNTE) concluded the protests they started on May 15.
A Red Flag reader tells us, âHours of discussion in the state assembly of Section 22 in Oaxaca ended in the decision for a âtactical recess,â which angered the most militant.â
There is nothing strange about workersâ demands not being met. Under the capitalist system the ruling class and its governments are in charge. What is not yet evident to most workers is how limited the union struggle is, even when it takes place outside the official bureaucracy, as with the CNTE. Moreover, even within the dissident leadership itself, some leaders did not adequately defend the demands, regardless of the governmentâs refusal to meet them, as just happened.
The workers must develop their class consciousness and overcome union reformism. They must organize themselves as a CLASS and therefore into a political party, joining the ICWP.
Fight for the Total Emancipation of Labor from Capital
The important thing is that they make the goal of communism their own. Communism is a society without buying and selling and therefore without money. Without the use and exploitation of labor power by the capitalists or their governments. Without wars between the great powers in which the workers and their children are killed.
In periods of struggle, as in the past, the teachers and school workers who always participate have some victories, even if short-lived. But every year they must start all over again because the government takes away what they âwon.â
Defeats, even more than victories, must make these militant fighters see the insufficiency of the panaceas in which they have believed, such as the fight for reforms, the union struggle. They must come to see the need for the total emancipation of labor from capital.
Although the government announced that it had granted millions to the teachers, their list of demands was not even taken into consideration. The non-conformists criticized the negotiating commission: â…thank you, the answers are insufficient, but with the cash…it is enough to propose a tactical recess.â
The government reiterated that the misnamed âeducational reformâ had already been cancelled. However, the USICAMM (System Unit for the Careers of Men and Women Teachers) maintains control over the hiring, promotion, and permanence of workers and teachers.
The reform of the 2007 ISSSTE (Pension) Law will persist. The government promised that retirements will be at 100% of their last payment âaccording to the IMSS [Mexican Social Security Institute] average.â But they never said how much that average is. They also promised that the retirement age âwill be gradually reduced,â but this was not a commitment.
They answered the demand for a 100% wage increase by claiming that âbasic education teachers have been given a 47% increase during the six-year term and indigenous education teachers a 100% increase.â The reality is that each year they gave a 3.5% to 4% increase to the base salary.
The ideological development of the working class does not result only from joint action and discussion but from the political work of communists. Therefore, ICWP members and sympathizers must take responsibility for forging this consciousness. Help distribute Red Flag and Join Us!
ICWP Pamphlet:
“Communist Education for a Classless Society”
available at here