Need to Go More to the Masses About Our Communist Future
SOUTH AFRICA, May 2 – “The May Day mass meeting we organized was a great experience,” declared Lindelwa. “It inspired us as a youth collective and me personally.
“The night before, we were here to prepare the food. We were all saying, ‘this is the day!’ We had planned this and had gone around the area distributing the pamphlets. When we began to decorate the hall, we were nervous. But when it was all red with our banners and flags, it really gave me confidence. I could see that it really sparked something for the people who came. It was quite good that over 200 people were inside the hall listening.”
“I was interested in the speeches my comrades made,” said Anathi. “I liked the history of May Day. There was a line that workers fought for the rights and dignities that we enjoy today. But what encouraged me was knowing that there is a lot more to fight for than our rights and dignities.”
“The comrades explained what ICWP (International Communist Workers’ Party) and communism is all about. And some people were really keen and agreeing with things that we were saying,” added Qaqamba. “The masses here are really disgruntled. We were saying to them that it’s not just here in South Africa that the working class is being exploited and living in horrible, unbearable conditions. People were agreeing with that and trying to understand that we have to be united as one class to fight the capitalists and their capitalist system.”
“I was not more part of things because I spent most of my time in the kitchen,” said Buhle. “But I listened to the comrades talk directly to the masses to explain our line and the response was really good.
“There was a comrade who was part of our collective last year. He came to our meeting to tell us he was no longer a communist, that he was resigning. He said that we wouldn’t succeed, that we wouldn’t even last a year. But he came to May Day. He was in the hall wearing our T-shirt. He told me that he is a communist. He is eager to come back and learn about communism. We invited him and he participated. It was positive for me to see someone who renounced us come back and participate.”
“Our party has grown much bigger from where it was a couple of years ago,” commented Zimkhitha. “As I was listening to the crowd, people were asking, ‘what’s this?’ They wanted to learn more about communism and ICWP. We look forward to the upcoming school.”
“We planned this May Day for about a year,” reflected Bongani. “It was a good experience. People came in numbers. Others gave us contact information. They want to learn about ICWP. So, we are going to have a communist school. I think we should engage more and tell more people about ICWP.
“It was my second conference,” Bongani continued. “From the past conference, we learned a few things. We were able to handle the issues that came up. I hope that next year it will be an even better experience, on a larger scale, that people will come in greater numbers.”
“Yesterday was good,” emphasized Nceba. “It was a good turnout according to our plans. The response was good. Nevertheless, there are challenges. I realized that people were on point about May Day because it symbolizes workers’ day for all people. People should put that day aside. All people should understand that May Day is important for all workers. I think we should mobilize more people in order to get even more.”
Buhle agreed: “We had some good experiences and some bad ones that we need to keep struggling through. Nonetheless, these things will allow us to draw lessons and allow us as individuals and as a collective to be better communists.”
“An older person said that he’s really inspired by the struggle that us young people are waging,” reported Qaqamba. “It is inspiring that the work we do really inspires a lot of other people. They see that we can no longer live in such conditions, that we have to fight. It shows that when we mobilize and talk to the masses, the results will be great.
“We need to go more to the masses,” Qaqamba continued. “I think we need to talk more about what a communist future will be like.
“As much the intensifying fight and competition between the capitalists is showing the nature of the system and providing us with opportunities, to that extent we have to be sharp in explaining to the masses and the working class what our communist society will actually be like. How we are going to live in a collective way to eliminate all manifestations of capitalism: racism, sexism and xenophobia. To explain that we are one race, the human race, and we need to be united in fighting our enemy.
“May Day gave us great confidence and we are looking forward to the school to help us build our party here and all around the world.”
