Communists’ Pivot to Workers in China

CHINA, April 6—Friends of Progressive Labor Party recently had a study group with industrial workers here. We discussed the editorial “Mapping Imperialist War” from CHALLENGE (March 9) and the article about fighting fascism in India.
We especially appreciated two of the main points in the articles. First, it is absolutely correct to consider the conflict between China and U.S. as imperialist rivalry. As we are hit with one global capitalist crisis after crisis, the world is headed towards war. The deceptive propaganda in China makes concerted effort to conceal the deterioration of the world economy. Economic gimmicks like the negative interest rate cannot solve the basic economic problems. The increasing military expenditure around world boosts the danger of military conflict worldwide.
Second, China military, known as the People’s Liberation Army is no longer the workers’ force.  The PLA was originally known as the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, or simply the Red Army. The composition of this army—the world’s largest—is still workers. The change of pro-workers to capitalist regime in China has made PLA the bosses’ army. It is essential to teach soldiers the class war, as they have a critical role in the future imperialist wars.
Obey No Borders
Our study group members also had some doubts about the strategy of PLP. We believe it is rather difficult to get an international alliance of workers nowadays. We agree that workers have no side in the imperialist wars. But the main task for the workers in the wars is to resist their bosses in their country and weaken their forces. This supports the liberty of other countries. World revolution can hardly be accomplished just by the unity of workers all over the world. The major revolutionary work for workers is within their countries. It is hard to unite workers of different countries within an international organization, because the international organization rarely has the ability and the influence in every country to lead the worldwide revolution.
PLP agrees that it is hard to build an international party and inevitably the effort will result in uneven development. It may even lead to contradictions between comrades working and struggling in different settings. The working class must view itself as one international force—without capitalist-created borders. The bosses don’t limit themselves to exploiting “their own” workers. Why should the working class in one region limit itself to liberating only “their own”? PLP believes giving in to nationalism, which maintain separation of workers, is dangerous and a failed strategy. Nationalism is a bourgeois ideology. Compromising with nationalism was a serious error committed by revolutionaries in the 20th century and should not be repeated in the 21st century. We have a whole wide world to win.