CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA – Since the May Day, I have realised that being part of the collective is key. It was a great experience for me being able to participate in the May Day celebration even though it was held miles away from where I am right now. The struggles we had as comrades where we looked deep into our weaknesses and obstacles has helped to intensify my work here in Cape Town particularly in mobilizing students for communism. As a result, there are three students at my campus who read Red Flag.
With someone particularly interested in knowing more about the party, certainly the way the masses are won to communist ideas is not the same nor uniform. This is the case with this one student who is my housemate. Putting communist ideas and spreading them through Red Flag is how we try to recruit the working class and build a mass party. The experience we get from this work helps us to advance our organizing and helps us to understand our line better.
Sometimes it takes more than that. It takes more than just distributing Red Flag, it takes talking about communism in every conversation one gets into. This is not always the case. (Well, it was not always the case with me. Usually I would talk about communism when we mobilize or distribute Red Flag or in a meeting).
I saw this in the conversation I had with my roommate. I was watching a movie. The movie starts with a quote in lines of “it’s better to be chained than to be free.” I commented, “That’s crap.”
He asked, “What’s crap?”
I read the quote to him. He asked, “Who said it?”
I said, “It’s some philosopher I don’t know.”
He said, “I hope it’s not Karl Marx. I was in the library today. A whole aisle was filled with books—Karl Marx this, Karl Marx that—who is Karl Marx?”
I just said, “His work is par with the Bible in terms how it is read, but he was a communist like me.”
That is when he opened up and told me about the things he didn’t believe about communism because I had given him the pamphlet Mobilize the Masses for Communism (MMC) and Red Flags, but he always found an excuse not read to them and avoid us talking about it in length.
First, he said he believes communism is a good thing, but he doesn’t believe he will ever live to see it happen.
I told him that we don’t know when communist revolution will happen, but it won’t just happen. It’s up to the exploited class to make it happen. It’s up to us to organize the society we want—a communist society. It will happen when me and you join the movement committed to making this communist society.
He said, “Yes but people are greedy, my man. It’s their nature.”
“No. People are not greedy. It’s not their nature to be greedy. Look, for example, in your family. In your family do you want to eat or take everyone’s food at a dinner table? No, you don’t. You take your share and your siblings get their share according to their need. This is the society we want but it’s impossible to achieve this society without getting rid of capitalism—the system that encourages greed where one man is for himself at the expense of the masses. It will forever feel like greed is natural because greed in capitalism is institutionalized.”
He agreed that communism is the only way people will ever live freely like one big family. He said he is going to give more attention to the paper and MMC and I asked him to accompany me when we go to the farm to distribute Red Flag to wine workers. He agreed provided that he is not busy.
