Letters to Red Flag

Developing More Communist Leaders

The Red Flag article about developing more communist leaders sparked a helpful discussion in our party collective. An older member summed up the main point: Masses are in motion worldwide as fascism intensifies. Many are questioning the capitalist system. They are interested in what we have to say about communism. We need more comrades and friends to step up their efforts.

She described how her own commitment to communism was deepening as she “stretched” to take on more responsibility for the party.

Then a newer member agreed to take responsibility for a Red Flag distribution that she has “helped” with for about a year. She asked for the information she would need to do this.

Another very dedicated comrade is frustrated because her family responsibilities (on top of a full-time job) take up so much time. She would like to “step up” but doesn’t know how. We are trying to find ways that she can help follow-up (using electronic media) with some of the contacts we are making at rallies and with others who are already around the club.

A close friend who meets with the collective agreed to take on several responsibilities for this year’s May Day dinner. She volunteered that she would make a point of reading Red Flag in both Spanish and English in order to become a more effective translator.

Then everyone got very involved in a discussion about a “strategy” meeting that two friends asked a comrade to set up. One had attended our New Year’s Day discussion and really liked it. Both are frustrated because all the activity against the Trump regime’s fascism seems to be scattered and ineffective.

How can we meet to discuss “strategy” when they are fighting for reforms (like saving the Affordable Care Act and stopping the Muslim ban) and we are mobilizing for communist revolution? Two comrades suggested that we start by talking about our “vision” for the world. We think there would be a lot of common ground there.

There was some disagreement about whether we should try to frame common short-term “goals” that we could share with our friends. But their goals are reforms. Ours aren’t.

For example, our goal would not be to “save the ACA” but to convince a certain number of people that only communism can provide the health care everyone needs. We would work with them on their goals while making our goals clear and fighting for them.

Now, in2017, we have a better idea of how we can set up the meeting our friends want without being opportunistic or reformist. We have a more long-term perspective on building ties that can sustain long-term political struggle with these friends who are very committed to the cause of the masses. Our immediate goal is to bring a bigger and more politically diverse group to the May Day dinner and the May Day march.

— A party collective in California

Capitalism is the Material Basis of Racism

I find ICWP’s general line extremely impressive, inspirational even. But I have some pretty serious reservations about how the party’s line on racism is presented—and, perhaps, about some aspects of that line.

There are two basic conceptions of where racism comes from that compete for the allegiance of anti-racists: a liberal conception and a communist one. Some of the time ICWP’s formulation of the communist position on race seems exactly right but there are important problems with other formulations.

In several places, having put forward the communist line, the ICWP publications go on to explain the relationship between racism and competition between workers that doesn’t clearly enough distinguish between the communist position and the liberal one.

Consider this from the pamphlet ‘To end racism mobilize the masses for communism’:

“Capitalism’s racist terror enforces this super-exploitation. Its wage system forces us to compete with each other in a labor market in order to survive. Thus capitalism creates the material basis for its ‘divide-and-conquer’ politics.”

Anyone who already understands the communist position will know that it’s not being claimed that whites and blacks are being forced to compete as races against one another. It’s not being claimed that benefits for one race will have to come at the expense of the other.

But the second sentence could just as well have been used by a liberal theorist to articulate the liberal position that whites benefit at least in the short run from their “privilege.” The reader who’s new to thinking about communism could easily fail to see what point is being made.

In lots of other places the “material basis of racism” is identified with competition for wages in ways that could easily be understood as articulating the liberal position. This identification is compatible with either a liberal or a communist conception of the source of racism. The real material basis of racism is the necessity for capitalists to invent races to undermine workers’ solidarity.

Of course, we need to get rid of wages in order to get rid of capitalism and to finally eliminate racism. But it’s not true that racist attitudes are always grounded in workers’ concerns about competing for wages. Moreover, when ruling classes rely on racism to persuade workers to fight against other workers in inter-imperialist wars they do not typically rely on lies about competition for wages.

The material basis of racism and sexism is capitalism which requires racism and sexism to undermine the natural tendency of oppressed workers and their allies towards solidarity in class struggle.

There are lots of places where what ICWP says completely nails it. I think that ICWP’s position on racism (and sexism) would be greatly improved if the contrast to the liberal position were explicitly formulated (in those terms) and if the complete communist position were consistently articulated.

—Long-time non-party Red

The above letter is excerpted from a much longer and very thoughtful one. We deeply appreciate this effort and will print more in future issues. Meanwhile, we welcome readers’ comments.

What Is the Material Basis for Continuing Anti-Jewish Racism?

Since January of 2017 there have been no less than 60 single or repeat instances of phone-called threats to Jewish community centers in the United States. There also was a February 10 vandalism of a Jewish cemetery. What is the material basis for the continuation of racism against the Jewish people? Red Flag opposes racism of all types, and fights for communism to end the basis for racism. Thank you.

— A Comrade

Red Flag responds:

The capitalists need racism to divide the working class—always.

Racism against Jews has a long history, dating back to feudalism. Christian European rulers used it to justify their “crusades” of conquest. They blamed Jews for epidemics and other problems faced by the impoverished masses. Their anti-Semitism distracted Christian masses from a brutally exploitative system.

Hitler justified his imperialist war for world domination with “Aryan purity.” That justified the racist genocidal slaughter of Jews, communists, Roma people, and the disabled. He attacked Jews to divert the Christian masses’ anger away from capitalism. Anti-Semitism helped to win workers to German nationalism and to sacrifice and fight for Germany in World War II.

Trump and his chief adviser Steve Bannon have unleashed a torrent of racism. Their targets are immigrants, including from India, black workers, Latino/as, Muslims, and Jews. Their rabid racism encourages the deadly racist atmosphere described in the letter above.

Bannon was the editor of Breitbart, an openly anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim online rag. Its “clash of civilizations” line exposes the material basis of anti-Jewish racism today. That’s the rulers’ need to divide and exploit the working class.

This is a time of sharpening crisis. US bosses need to win part of the working class to attack other workers and go to war for the interests of declining US imperialism.

They disagree on how to do this. Democrats push multi-cultural nationalism. The Trump forces tell Christians that they must fight for “civilization” (really, for US imperialism) against Muslim people.   Their latest “Christian crusade” again attacks Jews.

The good news is that millions who hate racism are energized and united. That includes black and immigrant workers, Muslims and Jews, and many white Christian US citizens.

Muslims raised money to restore a vandalized Jewish cemetery. A Jewish congregation gave the key to its synagogue to the imam of a mosque that was torched.

We can and must win these millions to see that only communist revolution can put an end to capitalism’s racism, fascism, nationalism and imperialist war.

We are one working class worldwide. We have the same enemy: racist capitalism. Most important, we can share a bright future by mobilizing massively for a communist world that can make racism, bigotry and borders into relics of the past.

Make It Happen!

“I have been reading this paper for years,” said a Los Angeles bus operator. “And nothing is happening.”

“Some things are happening,” I replied. I told him about the growth of our Party in South Africa, India and elsewhere. I mentioned the wave of mass protests in the US in recent months.

But I could see that’s not what he meant. He meant that he couldn’t see anything happening at his workplace or among other bus operators. So I said, “People like you are the ones who are going to make things happen. Can you set up a meeting with a few friends? I can come, or another comrade, and we can talk about what to do.”

“Let me think about it for a while,” he responded. I think he was a little surprised by the idea.

If you, too, are wondering when “things will happen,” you should think about it too. We’re ready when you are.

—Los Angeles comrade

IN MEMORY OF COMRADE CHECHO

El Salvador—“He was a front line fighter,” is how a comrade began his story about the life of “Checho.” A comrade reflected on this and said, “And he continued being one until the last day of his life, because he continued fighting in ICWP.” This comrade had died the week before.

“He marched with us on several May Days. Remember the meal that we had in the house together with the industrial comrade from Los Angeles who visited us?” he continued remembering. “Checho was there and at many other Party meetings.”

From a very young age, the comrade was a guerrilla fighter who fought to destroy the capitalist system and create a communist system in favor of the world’s working class. After the guerrilla stage was over and when the armed conflict in El Salvador ended, Checho, like many fighters from the FMLN, felt unprotected and alone, facing the new way of life, far away from the solidarity and collective social relations with his former comrades-in-arms.

It makes you enormously angry to see how our fighters, after having given their whole youth for the sake of a process that they believed was correct, and as a result of all the accumulated and never-treated diseases, end their life far from a hospital or conditions worthy of a fighter for the working class.

One of the farmworker comrades of the Party three years ago took the Red Flag newspaper to him and told him that it was necessary to keep fighting for a communist system. He received the paper and in the midst of all the darkness of a rotten system he saw the light of a new struggle for his working class.

For comrades like Checho, we vow to win. The struggle for communist revolution will continue to be our guide, and we will not retreat in mobilizing the international working class.

We express our solidarity to the community with whom he shared his ideals for a better world for our class.

Comrade Checho, until victory!

Letters from South Africa

Communist Dialectics and T-shirts

Greetings Comrades,

We are going back to the study of dialectics. One of the areas needs help with this, so another collective will help; the two collectives will study dialectics together. This study of dialectics enhances our political line and helps us know how to analyze things that are happening. That way, people will be motivated to come because we can give them a picture of what is happening and what the solution is. This will be very helpful going forward.

As we have indicated, we have run out of our ICWP T-shirts at the time that workers need them the most. So, since we must mobilize the masses, it makes sense that we use the T-shirts as well. We must ensure that the T-shirts become available as Red Flag is. Before we were thinking that they are not as important as Red Flag, but seeing how the workers respond to the T-shirts, we want to emphasize that we need them.

— Comrades in South Africa

Powering Up for Communism

Since I have joined the ICWP, I am always engaging myself with the dialectics of our revolution and wherever I go I always make sure that I have Red Flags in my car.

Whenever I am mobilizing the masses for our revolution, I always draw a broader picture of our revolution and the differences between the ICWP and the political parties which are run by the capitalist system. Even if I noticed that some of the masses don’t pay attention to what I am saying to them, I normally exchange numbers with them in order for me to call and visit them whenever time permits, in order for me to get to know them one by one.

The best tool that I normally use is to share the dialectics with them and watch the DVDs that I have. If they don’t have an electrical power or a DVD player, I plug my DVD player into my car so they can view the DVD’s about our revolution.

When I am mobilizing the masses, I always tell them about the silent war that exists globally.

The obstacles which I am currently facing right now are the two issues of fuel and the catering for my collective. How do I overcome such obstacles? I normally cook from my house and borrow cash from friends in order to get fuel for the mobilization. I simply repay such money back on a monthly basis.

Aluta comrades.

— A Comrade in South Africa

Red Flag comments:

This letter and the other letter and article from South Africa show the advances of ICWP. We ask Red Flag readers to donate what money they can so to help the comrades mobilize more workers for communism. Thank you.

U.S. High School Students Respond to Letter from South African Comrades

Thank you for the “Fascism and Trump” letter in the last Red Flag. It’s inspiring to all of us knowing what you comrades are doing in South Africa. The letter helped us see the true sides of the story clearly. We agree that Donald Trump wants to keep capitalism in charge. Trump doesn’t care about the wellbeing of the working classes. He only wants to control and push us back. That’s where we communists come in and say “enough is enough!” We have to change this capitalist economy which won’t be able to maintain itself; it is not stable.

Trump plans to use the authorities to keep American businesses in America, but that isn’t going to solve anything. Capitalism only survives by making profits. It needs to expand to other areas in search of cheaper labor, to exploit the working classes even more. The poor become poorer, and the rich become richer.

We agreed that we have to take communist action against Trump and all the fascists that have taken control or are trying to around the world. Communist actions like increasing Red Flag circulation and networks, building more study-action Party clubs, building more communist relationships and bringing communist ideas and the need to join the ICWP to the rebelling masses

We discussed that fascism is a sign of weakness. It means capitalism cannot rule in the old way with their democracy. Fascism’s aim is to divide, weaken and control the working class. It promotes patriotism and war to save capitalism. All around the globe masses of working people are rising, rejecting and pushing back all of this fascism. Our history has shown that the communists defeated the fascist hordes and we will do it again.

Capitalism has taught everyone that to achieve justice we must defend and fight for our rights. Workers will never achieve justice under capitalism or get their human needs satisfied. We believe the only way for us is to go forward: abolish capitalism, no profits, no money. If we keep mobilizing for communism with our comrades in Latin America, South Africa, India, and other places that ICWP finds itself, we will sooner rather than later achieve communism.

— Young Los Angeles Comrades

Communists and Friends Don’t Wait to Tear Down the Walls of Racism, Xenophobia

We often talk to our friends and co-workers about how only under communism will we finally be able to put an end to racism. But there are many ways to fight racism in the present, leading up to the day when the working class tears down all the borders between the bosses “nations”.

One friend of ours from Somalia is an activist and filmmaker. She is doing a project where she invites Muslims and non -Muslims to sit down to dinner together. Some of us were invited recently, and we all made new friends.

After a delicious meal, she had us all sit in a circle and asked some prepared questions. These questions were common “icebreakers”, and the goal was to draw out something about each person that would reveal their inner self.

There were a lot of interesting answers, but not very political. So, several comrades purposely injected bits and pieces of a communist vision in our responses. Many were nodding their heads and smiling. Eventually we identified ourselves as communists, and one person asked if we would have borders. When we said NO, he responded “I’m for that!”

Afterwards, as people were getting ready to leave, phone numbers and emails were exchanged. On the way to our car, a friend of a friend told me, “I want to know all about communism!”

The rest of the ride home was a discussion of communist ideas. Was socialism a cousin of communism? No! Will communism do away with nations? Yes!

There are a lot of people out there trying to figure it all out. And some of them are willing to create a social gathering where we can openly talk about communism. We should go to a lot of these, especially as May Day draws near. Self-critically we did not invite people to march with us on May 1st. Next time we will be sure to bring invitations to our May Day communist contingent.

Seattle (USA) comrades

Posted 3/17/2017

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