July 25, 2026— What attracts your attention in Red Flag/Bandera Roja (RF/BR)? Most readers say that it’s letters and articles about ICWP’s work in faraway places.
That’s extremely important. RF/BR unites us as one international party. It helps us organize around one line everywhere. It connects us regularly even when we can’t all meet.
But unity also comes with struggle. Sometimes letters share open political disagreements. More often, articles and letters reflect unstated disagreements. Or they raise questions.
For example, for too long, articles about ICWP’s work showed that some collectives were engaging seriously with the genocide in Palestine, but others were not.
The RF/BR collective struggled consistently to place Palestine front and center. We guaranteed articles in almost every issue. Some articles showed comrades’ consistent involvement with protests in Los Angeles and Tel Aviv against the genocide. This led to party growth. Others, from South Africa and India, showed how work around Palestine strengthened comrades’ consciousness of working-class internationalism. It deepened their commitment to the party.
That led to many discussions in ICWP meetings. We made some progress. More collectives took up the issue.
In general, struggle is how we advance the line and the work of the party. Our party, no matter how unified, would stagnate and become irrelevant without struggle.
We don’t just mean inside ICWP. Our members need to be with the masses constantly, continuously, and consistently. We need to listen to our co-workers, friends, and relatives. To find out what they think. To figure out how to respond effectively in what we write and what we say.
If you are one of those co-workers, friends, or relatives, we need to hear your ideas and opinions. Of course, as we often say, we want you to join us. But whether or not you join, you help us by sharing your questions or your objections.
Sometimes we hold back from criticism and struggle. We don’t want to alienate or insult or demoralize anyone. We may fear that sharp struggle will weaken or divide the party. But sharp comradely struggle strengthens our relationships and our party.
Another example: Comrades have described, in RF/BR, important conversations in Los Angeles high school classrooms about anti-ICE protests and the Iran war. But we have not read much about how comrades build a base with students and their families outside of class. That raised questions. After a recent discussion, we hope to read more.
Practice is Primary
We want RF/BR to be a new kind of communist paper. One where the analysis and theory are grounded as firmly as possible in ICWP’s practical work of mobilizing masses for communism.
Communist work is anything we do to put our line in practice. Raising communist ideas in the mass movement or non-party organizations. Having conversations that deepen ties and promote struggle over communism. Organizing our party. Building communist social relations. Recruiting to ICWP.
Our line and the way we present it develop through this work. In conversations among friends and comrades. In the thick of the class struggle as we fight to build a mass communist party.
ICWP fights for communism and nothing less. What does that mean in practice? In massive anti-fascist struggles? In the way we live and work?
When do differences in practice reflect or become political disagreements?
The main way we figure this out, collectively and internationally, is through RF/BR. We are learning as we try to teach. We make mistakes. We don’t always agree on what is or isn’t a mistake.
That’s why we emphasize articles based on practice. It’s why we ask everyone to read letters and articles about ICWP’s work critically. To discuss and write letters about them. And why all our collectives need to write about our work regularly. Friends, too!
This is part of helping each other learn to evaluate our work. To improve it. To enrich our collective understanding. To move, step by step, toward the communist world without borders that we all need.
And please get in touch if you’d like to help edit, translate, illustrate, design, or do technical work on Red Flag/Bandera Roja!
Read Mobilize the Masses for Communism here