Workers Need Communism, Not Nationalism
SPAIN, November 8—The Parliament of Catalonia under president Puigdemont declared the Unilateral Independence of Catalonia. The electoral parties like JxSI (Together for Yes) and the CUP (Candidacy for Popular Unity) were the protagonists of this decision. Catalan bosses dreamed of economic and political control of this region, especially with the enormous profits that come from the work at the port, airport, industries, and labor.
Mariano Rajoy, President of Spain, representing another group of bosses, responded with fury and violence against this independence. He activated article 155, which deals with the central government’s control over the autonomous regions in Spain. This allows the State, at any moment of “disobedience to the law and the constitution” to take over.
Arrest warrants were issued for Puigdemont and four of his deputies. They turned themselves in to the Belgian police and were released. Now they are awaiting the decision of the Belgian courts regarding the Spanish government’s extradition order. Ten more of the ex-deputies are now imprisoned in Spain.
This has generated new discussions in the social networks. “I’m up to my nose in disgust when I see how my friends and relatives are arguing about the bosses’ politics and how people have become so rude and so attached to a flag, whatever it is,” said a Catalan worker, a Red Flag reader who now lives in Slovakia.
“Without being very knowledgeable about the history, it sounds to me that the peons are fighting to create a new kingdom with nobility titles, subjects, and lackeys. Well, I can only say that without being a clairvoyant, the problems of the workers will be the same with different bosses,” said a Chilean worker who also reads Red Flag.
“We don’t think that this struggle serves anything positive because the way in which the process has developed in the context of the Spanish State and the European Union will not bring long term positive consequences,” we responded.
Where three years ago Spanish youth were in the streets protesting the dead-end that capitalism provides them, the rulers on both sides have been able to divert this anger and frustration into nationalist lines. The bosses have been able to mobilize tens of thousands of people—including this same generation of young people—behind a nationalist project, building nationalist illusions that somehow capitalism can be better with new bosses and nations.
It terrifies the bosses to imagine that all these young people could be mobilized for communism. In ICWP we say to these new generations that capitalism is terrified of the potential and capacity of the youth have always been the vanguard of a revolution. That’s why we’re taking communist ideas everywhere, so that these young people dedicate their talents to building communism.
Our goal, as the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP), is to unify the working class to fight for a communist system without nations or borders. We are only one class worldwide and we must reject nationalism pushed by the bosses which divides the Spanish and Catalan workers.
The capitalists, whether Puigdemont or Rajoy, will never take care of the needs of the workers. Their nature is to super-exploit the workers and to create great wealth for themselves. Today, the only thing that has been achieved in this struggle is more racism and more political repression. This is precisely what we talk about in Red Flag, the tools that capitalists use to divide the working class, to get workers to confront each other and to continue making profits by using nationalism, racism, sexism, borders and wage slavery.
We must join ICWP and call on everyone to spread communist ideas and mobilize ourselves for communism, fighting directly to defeat capitalism. Only by building a mass party where the collectives work to meet our needs and improve our quality of life. ICWP continues to fight to defeat capitalism and we need the help of all workers worldwide. Only in this way can we build a new world, A COMMUNIST WORLD. A world where workers will be welcome everywhere to produce collectively only to meet the needs of our one international working class. JOIN US!