Organize for communist world here ♦ International Women’s Day here ♦ Mexico: capitalists fight here ♦ Anti-fascist youth here ♦ Contradictions here ♦
The following speech opened a recent ICWP International Meeting.
Organize for the Communist World Workers Need!
February 21— We’re meeting at a moment that is significant in many ways. Across the United States and globally, we’re seeing fascism intensifying and escalating aggression abroad. Immigration raids in cities like Los Angeles and Minneapolis reflect deeper contradictions within US capitalism. At the same time, the United States continues to posture militarily toward regions like Iran and the rest of the Middle East, inching us closer to World War III.
When imperialism expands outward, repression tightens inward. Migrants, students, and working-class communities become the testing ground for state power.
We’ve seen students and workers respond. In Los Angeles, students have mobilized against ICE activity in their communities, staging walkouts in mass protest. In Minneapolis, students walked out and fought back to protect classmates and teachers from ICE pelting snowballs at them. These struggles have been multiracial, multigenerational, and rooted in solidarity. It shows that class unity is becoming more of a reality.
Resistance without strategy has limits.
Spontaneous defiance is powerful, but it doesn’t automatically transform into sustained working class power. If we are serious about building a world that serves workers instead of the bosses, then my role as a communist must evolve.
As a communist and educator, I feel this contradiction personally. My work in the classroom requires me to build trust and critical thinking. That is already political. My greatest asset is my ability to connect with my students to help them question what they are told and think structurally about the world around them.
One of my students has been reading Red Flag and even wrote a letter to our paper. That is how organization grows through dialogue and political development. My plan is to nurture that curiosity, deepen their understanding, and potentially win them to the Party. That work may seem small compared to mass protests, but it is foundational.
One of the main contradictions in my club right now is strengthening my own commitment to building communist relationships among students while I’m still working to survive inside capitalism as a non-tenured teacher. I’m also committed to my students and have developed trusting relationships with them. My students know we are in solidarity with one another.
It can feel like balancing on a tightrope: survival with revolutionary responsibility.
Working with my comrades who distribute the paper outside my school while maintaining appropriate boundaries with students is interesting. When students come to me saying they read Red Flag, and when one chooses to write for the paper, that’s meaningful. It shows political growth grounded in trust, not pressure. Even though I sometimes feel overwhelmed, I can honestly say I’ve been building strong relationships with students who are open to our politics. That steady work matters. It’s a foundation for deeper commitment.
The battles we’re seeing students and workers start to have are a springboard for potential political development. As an educator, I must not lie to my students about the realities of the world we live in. And I must move them towards communism.
The fight against ICE raids, the fight against war abroad, and the fight for dignity in education are not separate issues. They reflect symptoms of the capitalist system that prioritizes profits over human need. It is my duty to my class siblings to channel this anger so students and workers are won to organize a mass Red Army which will defeat this system which separates and exploits us to fight wars we do not benefit from.
If we are to meet this moment seriously, we need long-term commitment. The battles and bloodshed in the streets matter. The protests matter. But so do the conversations, the study groups, and the steady work of building class consciousness. That’s why we participate and distribute Red Flag at these events.
This is how we build the communist world workers need: through organized, collective struggle grounded in theory and practice.
Long live communism!
Letter from Costa Rica: International Working Women’s Day, March 8, 2026
After more than two centuries, oppression, exploitation, and discrimination against women still prevail.
This date emerged from the heart of the international labor movement (Copenhagen, Denmark, 1910; New York, 1911). And from the struggle unleashed by female textile workers in Russia during the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
Nationally and internationally, feminist movements have established important legal tools for the protection of women’s rights. However, social inequality has not been resolved. Costa Rica is dominated by a capitalist, patriarchal, and colonialist system. Feminicide and femicide, disappearances, trafficking, sexual slavery, and so-called “child marriages” are on the rise. Homophobia, xenophobia, infamous pedophilia, and other atrocities are legitimated.
Neoliberalism, together with the rise of different expressions of the right, now led by Trump and servile accomplices such as Milei, Bukele, Netanyahu, and many others, have installed and perpetuated a multiplicity of structural violence against girls, young women, and women. This, in addition to their expansionist, warmongering, and predatory policies against Mother Earth.
The massacre of more than 150 girls, victims of war, is unheard of, as an Iranian school in Hormozgan, Iran, was viciously bombed by the United States Armed Forces. Along with all the victims in Palestine due to the genocidal capitalist-fascist-patriarchal-Zionist siege and its allies.
The impact of the oppression of women in unpaid reproductive work in the home continues. It conditions the family to be an instrument that legitimizes patriarchal oppression and the economic subordination of women.
In Costa Rica, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of femicides and all types of sexual violence against girls and women of all ages. In the last two months alone, there have been eight more “registered” femicides than in 2025. Most remain unpunished. Victims who report the crimes face state policies and judicial processes that are complicit in these abuses. They are even subjected to institutional revictimization.
As part of the global crisis of capitalism, women who are most exposed to this violence come from sectors that are most excluded and oppressed at the socio-cultural, economic, and geographic levels, making them even more vulnerable. Every day, there are more disappearances of girls and young women and systematic harassment in workplaces, such as factories and agricultural industries. This is a clear reflection of the power relations between employers and workers.
We believe that feminism with class consciousness and commitment is a fundamental way to transgress social and gender inequality, as an expression of the interests and needs of different social sectors, especially rural, indigenous, and working-class sectors in general, by achieving the abolition of all oppression derived from capitalist exploitation.
—Comrades in Costa Rica
Letter: Drug Wars in Mexico: Capitalists Fight Over Wealth Produced by Workers
MEXICO CITY, February 24— The struggle for the wealth produced by workers has been presented as a war on drugs. The Trump administration declared drug cartels as “terrorist” organizations. It is pressuring the Sheinbaum government to arrest and extradite their leaders.
The leader of the Jalisco Cartel was killed, with US intervention. This created an atmosphere of uncertainty regarding possible attacks by his followers. This paralyzed activities in several states.
These cartels have a symbiotic relationship with political and economic power. They are part of the bourgeoisie that reaps high profits and influences. And that determines municipal, state, and federal governments. Banks are also involved, laundering illicit profits into the formal sector.
All of this represents an arrangement among each country’s elite, who ultimately reap the benefits.
The two drug lords captured most recently began their operations in the US. Later they established their base in Mexico. What is being pursued is the money they have accumulated. The “persecution” is a pretext to pressure Sheinbaum’s government to favor US capitalists more. To distance itself from dealings with the Chinese and Europeans, who continue to advance their investments.
The Mexican ruling class has a degree of sovereignty, although US imperialism generally persists in its dominance. However, it cannot prevail in certain sectors of the economy. Europeans dominate the banking sector. Asian and European car manufacturers have a market. Trump would like them to leave, but Ford, GM, and Stellantis cannot cover the entire market. Nor can they lower their prices. So they cannot blame the Mexican government for facilitating the Asian and European operations.
Some analysts say that for the government to yield more to US interests, they would have to reach higher-level officials linked to criminal groups. However, they have not succeeded so far.
The working class suffers the consequences of this conflict: misery and death. It is intimidated in the streets and workplaces. Manipulated by the subsidized income of pensions and scholarships from “social benefits” and by differentiated consumerism across various social strata.
The only solution is for workers to develop class consciousness by joining the International Communist Workers’ Party and mobilizing the masses for communism.
The rulers promote the false idea that there are good guys and bad guys in the dispute. However, it is a fight among themselves for capital. They are thugs in the pursuit of wealth.
Obviously, there is a capitalist/imperialist crisis regarding Mexico’s resources, such as materials and labor. But there is also a great internal struggle among the bosses. Many news outlets, including major networks, reported that drug cartels had taken over the Guadalajara airport. But the president and a general stated that the news was fabricated using AI, orchestrated by TV Azteca. The masses can’t trust any of these capitalists!
Letter: Reflections on the Role of Youth Against Fascism
Fascism does not appear out of nowhere. It arises in times of crisis in the capitalist system, when the ruling classes attempt to maintain their power through repression, racism, extreme nationalism, and the destruction of workers’ organizations.
This is the ideal moment to rebel against exploitation, racism, authoritarianism, and this exploitative capitalist system. It is important to understand that fascism cannot be fought with indignation or reforms alone, but with organization, solidarity, and political clarity.
Young people have always played a decisive role in this struggle. At many moments in history, young people have been at the forefront of resistance. They have organized protests, spread ideas, defended solidarity, and confronted the hatred promoted by fascism. But at the same time, without a clear line of organized struggle like that of our International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP).
Fascism advances when young people are disorganized. When we allow fear to replace our consciousness. When hatred divides us, the main objective of this rotten system against our class.
It is necessary to build organization, consciousness, and collective struggle. That is why ICWP’s political and organizational work takes on fundamental importance. We must fight harder to win more young people to join our party.
The energy, creativity, and rebelliousness of youth can become a powerful force when organized collectively. With class consciousness. And our communist political line.
The newspaper Red Flag is a tool for this struggle. It is the voice of the entire working class that fights against the oppressive system. That fights for a communist society. Spreading these ideas, organizing, mobilizing, and winning over more comrades is our task.
The ICWP calls on young workers and students not to fall into the traps of hatred and division. The real way out of the crisis of capitalism is not fascism, but the organized struggle of the working class for a society without exploitation.
—Comrade in El Salvador
Obstacles and Contradictions
I recently attended an inspiring international conference. The discussions were valuable, but I noticed problems in how dialectical materialism was being applied.
The first concerns the word “contradiction.” Several speakers described trying to get someone to do something, say, attend meetings. They said we must understand that person’s “contradictions.” At first this seemed odd. It became clear they really meant understanding the obstacles preventing attendance—what is holding the person back.
But contradictions are not obstacles. In dialectics, a contradiction consists of two aspects in struggle. Each side limits and shapes the other. It is inaccurate to treat contradiction as a barrier that must be removed.
Understanding someone’s internal contradictions is essential if we want to help them move forward. However, in general we do not completely eliminate contradictions, at least not right away. For example, it will take generations before the contradiction between workers and bosses completely disappears. In the meantime, we weaken the aspect we oppose and strengthen the aspect we support.
What I heard at the conference, however, leaned heavily toward weakening the “negative” side. This produced an almost entirely defensive approach.
Consider a comrade who skips meetings because they fear judgment from more experienced members. One response is to reduce that fear by reassuring them that others are not judging them. That may help.
But there is also a positive approach. We can ask why this comrade wanted to attend in the first place. What motivates them?
Suppose they feel strongly about sexism. We could ensure that sexism is meaningfully addressed in upcoming meetings and let them know their concerns will be taken seriously. Their commitment to fighting sexism may strengthen their confidence and outweigh their fear. By reinforcing the positive aspect of the contradiction, we help shift the balance internally rather than merely trying to suppress the negative side.
There is also the question of materialism. One speaker suggested that we win people to communism simply by talking to them.
For a small number of people, especially those shaped by intense struggle, that may be enough. But for most, words alone are insufficient. People want to see practice. They want to know whether we live up to what we say. Materialism means recognizing that action—shared, concrete activity—carries decisive weight.
Fortunately, there were several discussions about collective actions, for example about comrade Soso organizing her friends to fight for a math teacher. Of course we don’t fight for reforms, but hiring a math teacher hardly counts as reforming the system!
Beyond workplace struggles, we can organize other collective efforts—such as a chorus, a picket squad, or a street theater group. Shared activity builds trust, confidence, and political understanding. Through such experiences, people see in practice what the International Communist Workers’ Party stands for.
If we apply dialectical materialism concretely—treating contradictions properly and grounding our work in collective practice—we strengthen both our theory and our organizing.
—Comrade in Canada
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