OAXACA—PLP members and friends marched along thousands of education workers, the fighting members of union Section 22. We waved our red flags, chanted, and carried a big banner that read:
!A Revolutionary Communist May Day, THE ELECTORAL CHARADE IS A BOSSES DICTATORSHIP, Destroy capitalism, Build Communism!
Comrades helped distribute 3,000 leaflets (see box below).
This great mobilization happened during the 72-hour strike by the Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE). There was massive participation of teachers from Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero, Michoacán, Mexico City, Valley of Mexico, and many more.
The main demand is the repeal of the Education Reform, which ends labor and union rights, such as job security and retirement benefits.
Taking advantage of the electoral circus for president and senators, the CNTE is organizing for a national strike, looking forward to a general strike with other unions—Frente Único de Sindicatos Independientes & Organizaciones Nacionales, which is set to begin in the middle of May or June.
During this electoral process the working class is being bombarded by the media to elect their new oppressors in the capitalist imperialist class. Again, they want to impose a government loyal to the political and economic interests of the Trade Treaties and supported by the Structural Reforms.
On the other hand, we are pushing for class struggle, spreading our political line and getting more members who want a revolutionary communist change.
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A version of this flyer was handed out on May Day
The upcoming election in Mexico is about which economic and political bourgeois group will keep the presidency. The candidates have been clear, that the economic model will not change in essence. The exploitation by the profit system will continue. In the electoral charade, the only ones who win are the capitalists. The workers lose when they fall for the capitalists’ game of ‘being a good democratic citizen’ legitimizing the bosses dictatorship and helping reproduce their governmental machinery.
Labor faker AMLO
The capitalists hope for a big voter turnout, especially those motivated by the dread of the extreme violence of president Enrique Peña Nieto’s government. The frontrunner for the July 1 election is Andrés Manuel López Obrador, nicknamed AMLO. According to El Nuevo Herald, he has an 85 percent of being elected as president.
He is the former mayor of Mexico City and framed as a “leftist.” His style is sometimes called Trumpian: a nationalist “Mexico first” agenda. He accuses other politicians of wielding their influence only for personal gain. He promises to make Mexico less dependent on foreign trade and pledges to reduce inequality.
However, he insists he will not pick out foreign companies and that fighting corruption will make Mexico more attractive to investors. David smilde, senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America, points out that when Obrador was mayor, he seemed “like a moderate progressive trying to work outside of Mexico’s traditional political class” (LA Times, 5/9).
Like other fake leftist politicians in Latin America, like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela or Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, capitalism and its need for profits remain in power. There may be temporary measures to allay some of scourges of poverty, but as soon as profits fall so does the investment in the working class. Only if capitalism is actually overthrown and workers run society in our collective interest can we prevail.
While politicians are united in their interest to oppress the working class, they differ in which section of the national bosses and imperialist they pledge allegiance to.
López Obrador and members of his Morena party “have been vocal about expanding their trade partnerships with countries like China — a stance largely in line with the priorities of current Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto” (Politico, 1/7). This worries the U.S. imperialists.
Obrador’s “two main challengers are political moderates, but their rivalry is no less bitter for that. One [José Antonio Meade] is backed by the government. The other [Ricardo Anaya] is feeling heat from the federal prosecutor” (The Economist, 3/28).
No such thing as a good politician
We have to transform this social irritation into revolutionary consciousness to call on al sectors of the working class to change the system, into a system of social equality, communism.
The July 2018 election is held within the context of extreme social inequality: on one side, one of the most exploited and oppressed working class in the world and a multimillionaire capitalist class on the other. This capitalist system lets the bosses pay the lowest salaries in the world while making the workers work long hours. If the workers try to rebel, the “law” lets the bosses get away with violent repression and disappearances. This, no doubt, is a fascist dictatorship of the capitalists over the working class.
We know about fascism of the capitalist system in Mexico because of the high levels of violence we have to endure, the deaths, disappearances, and the displacement of hundreds of people. This is higher than that of the countries openly at war. We cannot talk of democratic elections with this conditions! The violence against women, specifically feminicides, grows at the same time as the labor conditions get worse.
Some sectors of the capitalist class in Mexico, as well as the world, like López Obrador for the presidency of Mexico, which might determine if he wins, even though some sectors do not like him, and will do anything to stop him. We think that the bourgeois might use violence before the elections to justify the use of repressive force to control the electoral process.
Increasing crisis worldwide
Capitalism is in crisis worldwide as World War III looms between Europe, Russia, Chin, and the U.S. Inter-imperialist rivalries are worsening living conditions for workers as local politicians align with one world ruler’s interests or another. In Mexico, all the candidates are moved by the power strings of the imperialists and the local bourgeoisie.
None of the candidates proposes anything other than capitalist exploitation and imperialist war, their program does not represent the millions of dispossessed. The working class has but one way to change things, organize around working-class democracy: democratic centralism. Democratic centralism is when we can discuss, openly, the political and organizational decisions to change the capitalist system of exploitation. Then, we carry it out the decision to the best of our ability before evaluating.
We have to build study and action groups in all schools, factories, and communities, so we can study reality and consciously transform society. Democratic Centralism promotes self-criticism and criticism to make us better communists.
We call on all workers to join PLP, a communist party that rejects elections! With PLP we will smash capitalism and replace it with communist society!