Developing Communist Leadership in Heat of Oaxaca Class Struggle

OAXACA, MEXICO, January 13 — Last December, 37 comrades attended a communist school here. A broad discussion included an analysis, with examples, exposing the evils of capitalism, studying political economy, and stressed the urgency of continuing to build a base for communism. But, in a new dynamic, we formed work-groups to answer such questions as:

Why does poverty exist?

Why are there wars, and can they be avoided?

What is communism and how does it work?

Why do we need a party to build communism?

Why should we fight directly for communism, not for socialism?

Then each work-group reported on its understanding of these questions, enabling the majority to participate. It was encouraging to hear some of the new participants explaining that war is inevitable due to the nature of capitalism or that the only war that will exist under communism is one against hunger, racism, sexism, etc.

Discussions focused on the lessons of the 2006 uprising against the Oaxaca state government and its murderous Governor, Ulysis Ruiz. One lesson was that, if we fight consistently for the Party’s line of organizing a movement of workers and students with the long-term goal of communist revolution, we get results.

Fighting for PLP’s politics in the heat of the uprising wasn’t easy. Internally Party members disagreed. Some thought our main role should be to support the uprising while others felt it was more important to sharpen and develop the ideological struggle for communism. We concluded that they aren’t necessarily opposites — we were part of many of the actions, including proposing more militant workers’ struggles — if we focus the action on our communist outlook and expose the illusions in reforms and reform leaders.

This produced results: recently some communities who were among the most militant, today are disillusioned with APPO — a coalition of unions and mass organizations — and see PLP as an alternative. Recently a group of families who regularly read CHALLENGE and gave mass leadership in these struggles agreed to meet with PLP. Another positive aspect was the presence of new youth, creating the potential for future leaders among young workers to build the Party.

At an afternoon dinner at some comrade’s home, we continued discussing what communism is and how it will work. Despite the fatigue of those who had traveled all night to come to the schools, our enthusiasm lasted well into the night. 

An older comrade, whose activity had been somewhat distant from the rest of the Party’s, asked for support to carry out the Party’s political work in his community, which we’ll be planning shortly.

In order to gain greater ability to carry out the Party’s politics among the masses and develop new political leaders who will guarantee building for communism, we’re planning three communist schools in 2010.

Greetings to all comrades worldwide as we advance qualitatively and quantitatively this year in the fight for the international working class. LONG LIVE COMMUNISM! rc`_ing back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”('War is a Racket,' Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler)