“All Workers, All Exploited, We Have No Borders”
CHENNAI (India), January 2— Thousands of workers, including many Dalits, joined a mass protest supporting Gaza relief efforts. Our ICWP auto collective could only send four workers to this Wednesday protest. They distributed two hundred copies of Red Flag. Three workers we met were so impressed by our call for communist revolution that they attended our collective meeting the following Sunday.
“I have come because I read in Red Flag that capitalists are driving us deeper into worldwide war. I participated in the Gaza protest,” said Manoj. “I see that the choking population in New Delhi, kidnapping our Muslim neighbors in India, and bulldozing Palestinians, is no different than the ICE terror in the US. We are all wage slaves. We have the power to change the world.”
Manoj works in a factory that supplies ignition systems and crankshafts to Ford, Volvo, and Suzuki. Comrades in our collective work producing advanced manufacturing infrastructure in a supply chain vital for automobile production. From nuts and bolts to sensors, wiring harnesses, automotive batteries, and more than 30,000 parts, everything needed to assemble a car.
“I work six days a week, over ten hours a day, and can hardly afford an apartment,” said a comrade. “I used to proudly wave the Indian flag and recite the national anthem. And then I would buy the cheapest clothes made in Vietnam, the cheapest cellphone made in China.
“Six years ago, I started reading Red Flag. I saw that we are all workers, we are all exploited, and we have no borders,” he continued. “Our class makes everything. And the capitalist class that depends on us can only survive by extracting more profit from us.”
Another comrade said that he has distributed hundreds of Red Flag in the past eight years.
Contradictions in Capitalist Auto Production
Forty years ago, there was one car per thousand people in India, and one per six million in China. Today, China produces more cars than any other country. Over 300 million people in China own private cars. That’s about 214 per thousand people, a number expected to double within five years!
India still has relatively low car ownership at 26 per 1000 people. That’s also expanding furiously, making it the third largest auto market. While markets in China, South Korea, Vietnam, and India have exploded, car ownership in the US, Germany, France, Italy, and Japan has remained relatively stable.
Rising car ownership creates contradictions that capitalism cannot resolve. On the one hand, capitalism requires moving workers efficiently from home to a factory. But private cars choke freeways, highways, and roads to a virtual standstill, emitting pollution and harming workers’ health. New Delhi’s hazardous air pollution will be repeated in every metropolitan area and will kill millions of workers.
Another contradiction is that to produce more cars, capitalism must invest massively in efficient, automated factories. The US capitalist class once led automobile production. It lagged as Germany and Japan dominated efficient car pro duction and flooded the market. But Germany, Italy, and Japan were defeated in World War II, and the US had many troops and bases there. So, US capitalists partially resolved the contradiction by forcing Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea to invest in US auto manufacturing.
Contradictions Among Imperialists Mean World War
The US capitalist class cannot allow Chinese capitalists to invest in the US or Chinese cars to invade the US market. Unlike Europe and Japan, Chinese workers overthrew imperialists in 1949. Socialism brought state capitalism there. China’s new capitalist class has become an imperialist power, displacing US domination and production worldwide.
Russia has re- emerged as an imperialist power. It has formed an opportunistic alliance with Chinese imperialists to provide “partnership without limits”. This means unlimited Russian gas and oil to China. The Indian capitalist class also benefits somewhat. It can’t alienate China because 70% of India’s products come from China.
These two powerful imperialist powers are preparing for world war. They are building Arctic routes from Vladivostok to Chennai, by passing the Middle East. The capitalists try to divide us: from Gaza to Sudan, from the Middle East to Ukraine, from the oil fields of Venezuela to Iran. They use religion, nationalism, racism, and sexism, preparing for world war.
War creates opportunities ‘without limits’ for our class, which only communism can liberate.
In 1946, a British naval armada was stationed in Chennai to protect British imperialists. A communist group seized a battleship, sending shock waves from Indonesia to Iran. The communist-inspired masses made it impossible for the British imperialists to maintain their presence in India.
We today can learn from this example that organized workers and soldiers can change the world. We are confident that Manoj is not alone: there are millions who can be recruited to ICWP.
