Who does the President of Colombia represent? here ♦ Need Communist Organizing in the Military here ♦
Who does the President of Colombia represent?
“Did you hear what the President of Colombia said in New York?” asked a new friend.
“Yes” answered a comrade.
“He said we need to fight for humanity!” said the friend.
“It sounded good,” said a second comrade.
“Yes, he said that. But we have to be careful. We have to look at the class nature of things. The President of Colombia represents the rich, not the masses of humanity as he pretends,” replied the first comrade. “When he said, ‘We have to fight for ‘humanity,’ he means for the rich who are opposed to the US imperialists and who support the Chinese imperialists.”
The other comrade said, “He hates Trump and US imperialism. But he represents the interests of Chinese imperialism that wants to take over from the US to be the new exploiters.”
“Ohhh. You are telling me that the Chinese rulers are the new rich people. They are taking over everything here and in the world,” responded our new friend.
“Yes. Chinese imperialism is rising, and US imperialism is declining. In the 1950’s the US looked like the “good” imperialists. Now China does. But there aren’t any good imperialists. They give some free things, like libraries and stadiums. But other projects are multibillion dollars loans which must be paid back with interest. They are trying to convince the masses that they should support China.”
“I see,” said the friend. “It’s like the rich want to fool us into fighting for them because poor people will fight and fight hard, not like them.”
“Yes. We have to fight—but for our own interests, not for the interest of the supposedly ‘lesser evil’ rich people. We need to fight for a world where the masses produce everything for our own interests, not for the rich. Where all the oppressed people contribute what the can and get what they need.”
—Internationalist comrades
Need Communist Organizing in the Bosses’ Armed Forces
“Did you hear what the president of Colombia just said?” A friend texted me excitedly. “It reminded me of the discussion we had that time at your house.”
I hadn’t heard. So I did a quick search. In New York City for the UN General Assembly, President Petro of Colombia had spoken at a rally against the genocide in Gaza. He called on “soldiers of the army of the United States not to point their guns at people” and to “disobey the orders of Trump, obey the orders of humanity.”
My mind flashed back to that conversation with my friend many months ago. He is active in supporting Indigenous people’s struggles in Central America. Sometimes the repressive forces backed by US imperialism seem too powerful to defeat. Is revolution even possible? I had talked about the critical importance of organizing for communism inside the capitalist and imperialist militaries. And some of our comrades’ experiences doing communist military work.
I texted back that I had just seen Petro’s comments. That refusing to fight for US imperialism is a good thing. That some Israeli military personnel are refusing repeat deployments in Gaza. But that it’s still a jump from “refusal” or “resistance” to the communist revolution we need.
My friend reads Red Flag and respects our party. Many other people respect him— including me. We have our differences. But as contradictions sharpen globally and locally, I think many like him will be taking communist ideas more seriously. Our party must be ready for them.
—Older comrade