Auto Workers’ Communist Collective Grows here ♦ Global Auto Industry in Crisis here ♦
India: Auto Workers’ Communist Collective Grows
CHENNAI (India), January 27— “Will there be a war, or are we going to see peace? What will happen to our car industry in Chennai?”
Many autoworkers in the Hyundai factory ask these questions. They know that a crisis is developing in South Korea. They also referred to the recent India-China agreement to withdraw thousands of troops to de-escalate potential war in the Himalayas.
ICWP comrades in the auto factories have consistently distributed Red Flag for many months. We were there when Hyundai opened its EV (electric vehicle) assembly plant near Chennai on the major highway connecting to Bengaluru.
This plant looks like a fortified military barracks. Thousands of cameras, barbed wires, watch towers, armed guards, and strict entry points make it impossible for political literature to be distributed.
But the ICWP comrades have some things that capitalist bosses don’t. One asset is our deep personal relationships with our friends. Another is that our comrades know well that wage slavery can never meet the needs of the masses.
Ones and Twos Will Lead to Thousands and Millions More
Our friend Kumar got a job in this Hyundai factory. He works on the high-performance battery pack, which is then assembled in Creta Electric. Kumar is one of 5,000 trainees. There are 3,000 permanent workers and over 10,000 contract workers.
Kumar’s work is designed to isolate him from other workers. It is extremely repetitive and complex. It is supervised by sensors and cameras. A small mistake will end his trainee apprenticeship. He needs his job, but he hates it passionately. He found his passion when he started reading Red Flag in 2023.
Kumar read in Red Flag about the war in Ukraine and then the genocide in Gaza. Gaza affected him most because in India, the ruling BJP fascists were jubilant seeing the massacres there. Chennai has many Muslim residents. The local elections were fought with the BJP trying to come to power using Gaza as an example to “teach Muslims a lesson.”
Kumar’s vision was expanding. He saw the need for change. Comrades invited him to ICWP meetings. They had to travel a long distance to make that happen. As he was getting more serious about the party, he constantly asked a question that was bothering him. “I like ICWP, but what difference will it make if I join? I am one among millions of other workers.”
Comrades would reply, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” But they did not raise it as an empty slogan. These other comrades responded to his heart-wrenching question by offering classes on the communist philosophy of dialectical materialism.
In these classes, Kumar started to understand the critical concept of contradiction. If we understand the contradiction, we can work on our vision of communism. After many weeks of these classes, he became confident that what is small and apparently insignificant, like our party, has the potential to be dominant and powerful to overthrow capitalism.
He started to see his contradictions in his factory. He can reach out to many more of his trainees because they are just like him. Lunch breaks and weekend meetings are possible, and he distributes Red Flag to co-workers individually outside the factory. That is more work, but it builds deeper relationships.
A breakthrough came recently: three of Kumar’s co-workers joined ICWP. This has significantly strengthened our party collective in Chennai. Very soon, we are going to meet with our comrades in Bengaluru’s garment industry.
Our goal is to recruit the masses like Kumar’s coworkers. We have confidence that our action will inspire many. Red Flag must become the tool of the masses for the communist revolution.
Global Auto Industry in Crisis
Chennai is India’s auto hub. Tens of billions of dollars are invested there. Auto manufacturers from China, Vietnam, Korea, Europe, and the US compete fiercely to increase production and make a profit. Almost 80% of the components in EV manufacturing come from China.
The electric vehicle (EV) industry, in particular, is in a deep crisis. There were more than 500 EV companies in China in 2019. Now there are fewer than 100, but these 100 companies produce three times more cars than in 2019. A similar pattern is seen in India and elsewhere.
The nature of capitalism requires maximum profit, destroying smaller capitalist enterprises. In the EV car industry, the more prominent capitalists buy smaller capitalists and eliminate the ones that can’t compete. The biggest EV market is dominated by BYD in China and Tesla in the US. Hundreds of companies, like Hyundai, are trying to compete. This global surplus production will lead to war.
Read the ICWP Manifesto:
“Mobilize the Masses for Communism” here