Wage Increases here ♦ May Day Greetings here ♦ The Answer to Trump is Communism here ♦
Letter: Capitalist “Wage Increases” Mean Less Buying Power
As of June 1, 2025, the Salvadoran government raised the minimum wage for workers in agriculture, commerce, and industry. The Minister of Labor, Rolando Castro, had said there would be a 12% increase.
The minimum wage for textile and clothing workers did rise 12% from $359.20 to $402.30 per month before Social Security and AFP (pension fund) deductions. But for other sectors it was different.
A young worker said, “The increase in the minimum wage is not so beneficial because it raises the price of basic necessities, including medicines and our food. We are maquila workers and workers in other jobs of the rotten capitalist system. They take advantage of the poor workers at the national level and also at the international level. It is the same with these wage increases. The only thing we get is more debts”.
He continued: “From my point of view, our communist future is based on us and our children. These salary increases are to get more money from the poor, by raising the price of basic necessities, to make more profits. This is a chain that seems to have no end, until we fight for a communist future, organized in the ICWP and Red Flag.”
The bosses, faced with this pitiful reform of a wage increase, are asking that it be lowered. And that the pay increase which will be accompanied by layoffs be carried out gradually.
Yes, it is the reality of this profit-hungry system. The bosses never want to reduce their large profits, which they achieve thanks to the sacrifices, sweat, and tears of our working class. They start with layoffs, especially of young or inexperienced workers.
When the rumor started of this pay increase, prices started to go up in supermarkets, warehouses, etc. The entire working class already knows this bosses’ trick of transferring the increase to the prices paid by consumers. This leads to a reduction in what the worker can buy. More pay increases, fewer possibilities to buy anything. That’s how this dying system works.
In the system of the working class, organized by the International Communist Workers’ Party, money will not exist. All the basic daily needs of all humanity will be covered. No one will die of hunger, thirst, or lack of medicine. It will have to be to each according to their need, from each according to their dedication.
—Comrade in the maquilas
Letter: A Fighting Salute to the International Working Class
Meaningful and meaningless… that’s what May Day is all about. For many, it is a day off where they can go to the beach or simply relax. It’s a normal day.
However, for many more, it’s a day with valuable meaning. It’s the history of struggle against capitalism’s abuses of the working class. Workers who, for the sake of survival wages, forget history and obscure their thoughts with cheap goods, covering up the truth and discarding memories.
The true working class is the one that doesn’t forget its history and fights for everyone. Fights to remove mental barriers that obstruct the true mission. And seeks, through marches, to send a message that breaks down the contradictions within the working class itself.
Historical facts show that no struggle, no matter how small, should be forgotten. It is our duty to continue the path of liberation from capitalism.
Therefore, a May Day event with many protesters shouting slogans against abuses and carrying banners denouncing, demanding, and calling for people to join the struggle is an act of positive impact worldwide. We are not just a few. We are many who express our communist meaning and conviction.
This May Day, at different times, united with conviction and the same feeling, we marched as an example of struggle, with entire families. We spread the message both verbally and in writing. We distributed Red Flag to raise awareness of the party, which is not just another party. It is the International Communist Workers’ Party, the only one that liberates the world from fascist oppression.
Long live May Day, long live the working class, long live Red Flag, long live the ICWP.
—Healthcare worker in El Salvador
Letter: The Answer to Trump is Communism
Many comrades are confused about Trump. His actions are so erratic that people speculate that he has mental issues. What is he up to?
Let me recommend a book that will help us understand. It’s The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze (2007). It’s an economic history of German fascism from Hitler’s takeover in 1933 to its defeat in World War II in 1945.
Germany before World War I was economically very successful. German technology was the best in the world. German universities dominated academia. German was the language of science and technology. Germany was a rising imperialist power.
However, the other imperialist powers (including Britain, France, and the US) would not put up with the German competition. They went to war with Germany in 1914.
Germany’s defeat in World War I in 1918 destroyed all its success. In the post-war Weimar Republic Germany began to crawl back. But then the massive overproduction crisis of 1929 hit and once again Germany’s position was destroyed.
Tooze explains that by 1933 the German imperialist bosses had given up on their old approach of cultivating German science and technology. They had decided on a different strategy. That strategy was war.
All their resources were devoted to armaments and war preparations. Germany ran out of foreign exchange in 1939, and attacked Poland, launching World War II.
The rest of the book is fascinating but it’s the above part that helps explain Trump.
The US bosses, like the German bosses, have given up on their peaceful strategy because it’s just not working any more. In the case of the US bosses, their peaceful strategy is liberalism.
Liberalism basically supported US domination by supporting US science, industry, and social ideology. They spent a lot of resources doing good things like USAID to convince people that the US bosses are nice guys who care. Liberalism worked for a long time. But with the current US decline, it has run out of steam.
A faction of the ruling class has given up on liberalism. It has decided to dismantle it and redirect the resources that are currently devoted to maintaining liberalism.
Liberalism is so entrenched that dismantling it cannot be done through the usual channels, legally and constitutionally. You need someone who is willing to “move fast and break things.” Hence Trump.
And what happens to the resources saved? There are no signs yet of a crash rearmament effort. Instead, the resources will go to subsidize US industry—and tax cuts for the wealthy.
We must not fall into the trap of fighting Trump’s fascism by joining with the liberals. The answer to Trump is communism. Forward to communism, not backward to liberalism.
—West Coast Comrade