MEXICO, September 27 — The fascist repression against the students of the Ayotzinapa Rural Teaching College, which took place in Iguala, Guerrero on September 27, is a reflection of the violence that the ruling class has been willing to use to enforce its plans against the working class. Six people, amongst them 3 students, were killed in that police and paramilitary attack, and to this date, 57 youth are still disappeared.
Events like this has become a daily occurrence as the world capitalist crisis deepens and the imperialist rivals, such as the U.S., Russia and China get ready to fight in wider wars.
One example of the effects of this crisis and the preparations for war on the working class in Mexico is the imposition of the reforms recently “passed”: Energy reform allows the U.S. to have more control over energy resources (which is vital to the U.S. in case of an imperialist war), while the education and labor reforms guarantee access to a cheap labor force, trained and docile, and represents more oppression and exploitation of workers.
The passing of the reforms previously mentioned was framed by the fascist terror created by the army, the police and the crime cartels, the support of all the electoral political parties, the passivity of the working class and the unity of the most important ruling-class groups in Mexico and the U.S.
It is expected that implementation of the reforms will face further working-class resistance and bigger disagreements amongst the members of the ruling class and its politicians who will try to position themselves to increase profits. For these reasons the bosses will use fascist terror to repress working-class resistance and to discipline their own class.
Under these conditions of increasing fascism and low resistance to ruling-class attacks, the massive protests of the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) students against changes to their internal regulations and curriculum is very significant. This struggle is part of the entire working-class resistance to the reforms imposed by bosses. It cannot be restricted to the academic arena, as some groups argued; it is a reflection of the class struggle.
The changes that the authorities and bosses are trying to put into effect at IPN are part of the education reform, designed to repress the polytechnic community’s political participation, making higher education more technically oriented and reduce teachers’ benefits. These reforms respond to the needs of the capitalist system to reduce enrollment in public education to benefit the business of private education and turn public schools into cheap labor factories, where they trained. Docile workers who don’t require the instruction of a highly qualified technician.
Under capitalism, education is a business and one of the most important means to indoctrinate youth with nationalist, sexist, individualist, and racist ideology. The struggle of the Polytechnic students opposes these two aspects. The unity they are developing with workers and students in other schools like UNAM, UAM and UAEM will be important to defeating attacks by school authorities and the ruling class. We must remember that Polytechnic students played a key role in the 1968 student movement involving strikes and ruling-class massacres.
The attacks confronted by Polytechnic teachers and students will not end as long as there is a capitalist system. It is essential for capitalism to minimize the living conditions of the working class because this is a determining factor in maximizing their profits. Capitalists will try by any means to cut down salaries, retirement pensions, and health and education services. We workers must fight against these cuts, but as long as the bosses have political, economic and military power, for the most part they will win.
This is why we must understand the urgent need to organize an international party, not an electoral party, to lead millions of workers in a communist revolution to abolish the oppressive capitalist system and build a new communist society. This is the goal that in the last century inspired millions of workers around the world, including many of those who were part of the 1968 movement. We must honor their memory renewing our commitment to the fight for a just and egalitarian society.
From Ayotzinapa to Casco to Ferguson, the struggle of the working class for its liberation will put an end to capitalist oppression!