UITENHAGE (South Africa), 16 June 2026 — “Comrades, we must have meetings in between our monthly general meetings so that we read the Red Flag and understand the articles better as we do them as a group, not as individuals”.
These sentiments were shared by a comrade who says she struggles to understand some of the terms we use in the Red Flag.
Another comrade said, “Me, comrade, I read the paper copy of Red Flag because I don’t have a phone. Therefore, whenever I am just sitting alone, I read the Red Flag. My proposal is that we should have these bi-weekly meetings and we can just compile a list of terms we don’t fully understand so that we can send it to experienced comrades to explain”.
This followed a discussion in which we were continuing our struggles of overcoming our collective challenge and contradictions of not reading the Red Flag as much as we should.
We discussed how a toddler overcomes contradictions when it tries to walk. How a toddler never gives up and always tries to walk and taking “baby steps” and repeated attempts. We said if we, like a toddler, take repeated steps, reading one article at a time, one meeting at a time, and increasing the number of meetings we have, we will resolve our contradictions. Like a toddler, small, repeated steps turn quantity into quality.
Reading and understanding the articles in the Red Flag increases our understanding of our communist line. Hence, we then change qualitatively (our political understanding) and then we turn quality into quantity by increasing the number of comrades and workers we recruit.
Another contradiction is between communist and nationalist ideas, the idea of being disinterested in articles that do not mention South Africa. Another comrade had said, “Sometimes, comrade, and I will be honest, we see an article from Mexico, and we do not see the relevance to our lives. And even our neighbours ask, “What does Mexico have anything to do with my life here in South Africa”?
We explain to the comrade that we have to always make sure that we show the interconnectedness of events of global capitalism. Capitalists will have us believe that the problems of mass unemployment are unique to South Africa and that if we replace one political party with other then we will be fine.
One comrade said, “The global system of capitalism is like a faulty or damaged car. The capitalist will have us believe that if we change the driver of the car then our car will function better. But in reality, we have to get rid of the car and replace it entirely. That means we have to get rid of capitalism and replace it with communism”.
Therefore, we have to see ourselves as the international working class. And see ourselves as leading the international working class all around the world for communist revolution.
Reading Re Red Flag together in between monthly meetings will help us understand that we are not just “South Africans”. Rather, we are part of an international working class, with comrades in the working class in Mexico. Their struggles are our struggles. And that is how we spread communism and defeat capitalism in all corners of the world.
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