Article: Hunger Amidst Plenty here ♦ Letters: Communist Glance at Mexico here ♦ Mobilizing for Communism here ♦Fascism or Communism here ♦
Communism Will End Capitalism’s Hunger Amidst Plenty
VANCOUVER (Canada), December 30— Canada is one of the most food-rich countries on the planet. Every year Canadian agriculture produces enormous surpluses of necessities: thirty million tonnes of wheat, twenty million tonnes of canola, millions of tonnes of pulses (lentils, peas), vast quantities of oats, barley, potatoes, fruits, vegetables, meat, milk, and eggs.
Canada is among the world’s top exporters of grain and oilseeds, shipping food worldwide from its highly mechanized, productive farming system at home. The agri-food sector generates well over one hundred billion dollars annually. It produces far more food than the Canadian population itself could ever consume. Canada already produces more than enough calories, protein, and nutrients to feed everyone living here.
Yet the reality for working people is brutal. Despite this abundance, around one in four Canadians lives in a food-insecure household. Millions of people skip meals, cut portion sizes, rely on food banks, or worry constantly about whether there will be enough to eat at the end of the month.
Food insecurity is not evenly distributed. It hits hardest among low-wage workers, Indigenous communities, single-parent households, seniors on fixed incomes, migrants, and people on social assistance. Children are growing up hungry in a country that exports grain by the shipload. This is not an accident or a temporary glitch. It is the normal functioning of capitalism.
The ruling class wants us to believe that hunger is caused by personal failure, bad budgeting, or unfortunate circumstances. But hunger in Canada exists alongside overflowing silos, supermarket waste, and record corporate profits. Food is treated as a commodity, not a social necessity. It is produced to be sold at a profit, exported when prices are higher abroad, and destroyed or dumped when markets are saturated. Under capitalism, the question is never “Do people need food?” but “Can they pay?” If they cannot, the system has no solution except charity, food banks, and moralizing lectures.
This contradiction exposes the lie at the heart of capitalism. Hunger does not exist because we lack resources or productive capacity. It exists because the means of production and distribution are privately owned and organized for profit. Farmers are squeezed by agribusiness monopolies. Grocery chains rake in obscene margins. And workers face rising prices while wages lag. The result: abundance on paper and deprivation in reality.
Communism offers a fundamentally different principle: “From each according to their ability and commitment, to each according to their needs.” In a communist society, food production will be socially planned to meet human needs directly, not filtered through markets and profit calculations. The land, equipment, processing facilities, and distribution networks will be collectively owned and controlled by the masses.
Surpluses in one region will be used to guarantee food security for our class everywhere, not to pad export revenues or corporate balance sheets. No one will have to prove their desperation to a charity or line up at a food bank.
In communism, the question of hunger disappears. Not because food magically increases, but because social priorities change. When society already produces more than enough, ensuring that everyone eats becomes a straightforward organizational task, not a moral dilemma. Canada’s existing agricultural capacity makes this especially clear. Hunger here is not tragic; it is obscene. It is the result of a system that subordinates human life to profit.
The fight for communism is not abstract or utopian. It is about ending the daily violence of hunger in a world of plenty. Canada already has the food. What it lacks is a social system worthy of that abundance.
Letter: A Communist Glance at Mexico
The capitalist system is organized so that the bosses govern through the elements that make it up legally. These are the state and its institutions, the laws, the electoral political parties (right or left), money, the wage system, religion, among others. And illegal elements: piracy, drug cartels, migration, etc.
In the capitalist system, it is impossible for left-wing electoral political parties to govern for the interests of the working class, because they keep intact the elements that make it up. It is necessary to change the root of the capitalist system and destroy the exploiting class in order to truly liberate ourselves.
It is an illusion that left-wing governments are in the interests of the working class. For example, in Mexico, according to data from the World Inequality Report 2026 and the World Inequality Database, in 2002 when the PAN (right-wing party) governed, the richest 1% owned 33.1% of the wealth generated, while the poorest 50% owned 3.2%; However, in 2018, when the left was governing, the richest 1% accumulated 41.7%, the richest 10% accumulated 73.4% of the wealth and the poorest 50% only owned 1.7%.
This phenomenon is happening with all leftist governments around the world such as Brazil. The maneuver of leftist governments is that more wealth is generated or redistributed differently. As a consequence, it trickles down to the working class a little more. But as wealth increases, its concentration is still greater in the exploiting class.
Under the pretext of corruption and austerity, the government of López Obrador and Sheinbaum cut budgets for health, education, science, among other sectors. And it eliminated several trusts financing welfare and infrastructure programs. In this way, they make the poorest believe that the situation is improving.
It does not matter which electoral party governs, because the system of exploitation of the working class is still in force. We do not want more crumbs! We want a world without exploitation, in which the priority is satisfying all the needs of the working class and the care of nature.
That is why we invite comrades to continue joining the ICWP because to be a communist is to build a better world for all and by all.
—Comrade in Mexico
Letter: What Does Mobilizing for Communism Mean?
“Mobilizing masses for communism” is “our guiding principle.” “Our program.” “An apt slogan.” All this in our original manifesto some fifteen years ago. By now we should have a better understanding of its meaning, based on practice.
I read every article in Red Flag carefully, especially those about our work. And it seems that there are two contradictory ways we understand “mobilizing.”
When a government “mobilizes” troops, it prepares and organizes them for active service. It musters or readies them. Mobilizing does not yet put them into action.
But “mobilizing” people can also mean organizing and encouraging them to act in a concerted way, to bring about a political objective. In this sense, “mobilizing” does mean putting them into action.
I understand “mobilizing for communism” in the second sense. We mobilize people to take actions now that, usually in small ways, advance the struggle for communism.
We mobilize them for communism when we convince them to distribute Red Flag. To march on May Day, join a protest, or come to a party meeting. To donate money. To write for Red Flag. To talk to friends and coworkers about communism. To find ways they can put communist ideas into practice in their daily lives. To join ICWP and enrich the collective with their experiences and ideas.
Building communist relationships makes it possible to do this. Doing and discussing communist work together strengthens those relationships. I think this understanding of “mobilizing masses for communism” is key to growing a mass party now. And how the party functions now is key to understanding and explaining how communist society will function
But some reports of Party work seem to reflect the first (military) concept of mobilizing. That is, the present task is to prepare friends now to do communist work in the future. In this model, building communist social relationships means creating a context to talk to people. And, hopefully, to listen to them. Building a mass base for the party now in order to build a mass party later.
Of course, no collective’s work is 100% one or the other of these. Both center personal-political relationships and struggle. But I think the two meanings of “mobilizing” are dialectical opposites.
Our party arose in a period of capitalist crisis and mass struggle. The “Occupy” movement in the US and elsewhere. The “Arab Spring.” This is another such period, galvanized by the Gaza genocide and open fascism. There are huge opportunities for us to grow.
We need to develop, spread, and enact the best possible understanding of mobilizing masses for communism.
—Fired-up comrade
Read the ICWP manifesto Mobilize the Masses for Communism here
Letter: Fascism or Communism?
Fascism in Soviet Russia (social fascism) is the elephant in the room. Ignoring it gives free rein to the ruling class to discredit communism. And they sure take the opportunity to do so.
In France after World War II, communist ideas attracted a lot of workers. The Communist Party (which was not a true communist party) would get a third of the votes at national elections. The CGT was a powerful communist-based union. Many artists and intellectuals proudly claimed to be communists.
Now it is quite the opposite.
After the May 1968 rebellion, the bosses got scared and they orchestrated a propaganda war against communism. Newspapers, books, magazines, and so on were full of revelations about ‘communist’ horrors in the USSR – the Stalin cult, the NKVD, the gulags, the purges, etc., etc. The tone changed, too, about the French Revolution. The king and queen were now “martyred” by the revolutionaries.
In my small French town, very conservative, I had two friends who belonged to the Communist Party. They were loved and respected and they put a lot of work and dedication into spreading communist ideas. In fact, it was their life.
In the 1980s, they totally withdrew, embarrassed and ashamed because they felt they were associated with the mistakes and cruelty of what had become Fascist Russia.
They did not need to be. Communists must keep proudly defending their ideas – not by denying what happened in the USSR – but by condemning it. Purely and simply.
Social fascism was not communism. Communists do not fall back on cruel capitalist ways (prison, labor camps, famine, killings) to terrorize and exploit workers. Let’s quote Che Guevara: “Let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.” Che reserved hatred for the enemy.
As one of my older friends told me once: “Capitalism did not succeed the first time.” Same with communism. It is difficult and long work to convince people. Let’s not get involved in the extent, exaggeration, etc., of the events but instead admit and forcibly say that what happened in the USSR was not communism. It is not that hard.
—Comrade from France
Red Flag responds: We appreciate the comrade’s letter, and we have always said that the USSR was never communist. The comrade’s explanation of the French rulers’ anti-communist campaign after 1968 is helpful. But we think the letter reflects the impact of that campaign’s claims about what happened (or allegedly happened). We don’t agree that the term “social fascism” (in its commonly used sense) is an apt description of the USSR at any point. We expect that other readers will want to contribute to this discussion.