All of Us Must Have What We Need to Live Decently and Realize Our Full Potential
LOS ANGELES, USA—A mechanic we’ll call X came to a recent meeting of MTA (Public Transport) mechanics in the shop. We had had conversations with him before when we had given him this newspaper. He had also come to meetings with the group of mechanics where we explained the Party’s politics. In these meetings he had expressed doubts and questions about communist ideas.
At this meeting, X said he had hopes and expectations of an economically stable life for his family. We asked him what he thought of communism. He answered that he did not agree much with the idea of communism because sharing was not something he liked. He wasn’t sure that communism was something he wanted to fight for.
Then he asked a co-worker “What about you? Do you like communism?”
The co-worker replied “Yes. It’s the best society that the working class could live in.”
X questioned him, “But you like money?”
The co-worker responded, “I live in capitalism. We are conditioned to live this way. For me, money is not what’s important. I want all of us to have what we need to live decently, so that we can develop our full potential as human beings.”
Another mechanic added, “You have to understand that capitalism is in a decline that will probably lead to a third world war. If you read Red Flag, you see that millions of people worldwide migrate from one place to another in order to find favorable conditions for their very subsistence.
“Capitalism can’t provide the working class with economic or social stability,” he continued. “The system doesn’t work for the majority, but only for a very few. You only have to see the hospitals all over the world full of sick people and lacking medicines, or millions of empty houses and millions of people living the streets. Think about how you as a young person probably won’t have a pension when you retire. Many companies are taking away pensions from their workers. Social security is in debt. It’s very likely that young workers will no longer be covered.”
X asked “So, how can we build a movement that can destroy capitalism? I don’t see how that can be possible.”
The same mechanic responded, “The revolutionary communist movement is not as big as we would like, but we have political work in many parts of the planet. There are people around the world discussing our ideas. Sometimes, it seems that the communist movement doesn’t advance. It seems to be stagnant. But sometimes social change occurs so fast that you can see movements that achieve historical changes in a short time.
“An example is the Bolshevik revolution,” he continued, “where for the first time, a state was built for the working class. Then there was the Chinese revolution, where the masses took power from the bosses, and so on successively. So, why are these countries what they are now?
“Due to ideological errors that we can recognize today, they implemented an initial phase of what they thought was communism that maintained the material basis of capitalism, what we know as socialism or state capitalism.
“Now we propose and fight directly for communism. That’s why we talk directly to you about what communism is.”
X responded, “Ok, now I get it. What can I do to help?” (It sounds like it happened fast, but this change was really the result of a whole process of meetings and discussions. )
The mechanic answered, “You can start by giving out the newspaper and talking to your friends about these ideas. There are many people in the various divisions of MTA who know the Party. At a decisive moment they will be willing to support our cause.”
X asked “When and where is the next meeting?”
Another mechanic answered, “The meetings will be here, in the shop and they will be every week.”
And that’s how our discussion ended.
