UITENHAGE/KARIEGA (South Africa), January 7— We had our first collective meeting for the year. Fifteen comrades attended, more than five of them new comrades. The meeting was about setting up the plan of action for the year and explaining to the new comrades what the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) is about.
One new comrade asked, “Before we continue, comrade, I would like you to explain what this party is about and what it is that they want to achieve”.
Comrade S responded, “ICWP seeks to mobilise the masses, particularly the industrial workers to join us in the fight against the system of capitalism that keeps us unemployed, poor, and in an endless state of poverty and exploitation”.
Comrade C said, “It’s my first time hearing about this capitalism system. Can the comrades please explain”.
Comrade Z responded, “Capitalism is the system we live under, the system of bosses where we cannot eat or live if we are not working for the bosses and the so-called investors. But in reality, these investors are capitalists that want to exploit us”.
He went further to say, “For ex ample, I work in a factory getting paid less than R50 (US$3 or ₹277) an hour to produce in six minutes an inner that is worth R2000 (US$120 or ₹11,000). That means in a day I make around fifty inners worth R100 000 (US$6000 or ₹5.5 lakh) but only get paid R250 (US$15 or ₹1400) a day. The difference between the money I get and the value I make for the boss is the money that goes to the bosses’ prof its. That is the surplus. That is the exploitation we want to fight by destroying this system”.
Comrades were shocked by this simple example. This is the exploitation that happens in all sectors of the economy.
Another comrade asked, “So you want to change that, how will you do it?” Comrade S responded, “We are now a small number. Our task for now is to spread the communist message, our ICWP message, by distributing the Red Flag newspaper to the workers and the masses at large. We have collectives all over the world because we are recruiting workers and close friends and family. We started with a smaller number than the people in this room but if all of us recruit one person, in the next meeting we will double our number. That is the method we use to recruit in order to build a mass party that can wage a revolution. That is how we will change this system”.
We then discussed our plan of action. We decided we will meet as our large numbers every second weekend of the month. Where we will discuss the Red Flag articles and plans to execute in order to organise a successful May Day. We discussed the plan to have a youth collective consisting of high school students, as well as college students, because a young female comrade will be going to university. The youth work will be led by two female comrades who are both under twenty years old.
We identified three female comrades who will consistently participate in Zoom meetings to make sure that whenever there is an international Zoom meeting the collective in Uitenhage is represented.
We also identified comrades that will be leading the work in distributing the Red Flag in production plants such as VW and other surrounding factories. With consistency we will recruit hundreds of workers and truly have a mass party fighting for communism.
Aluta continua