Pakistan: workers erupt in response to crashing economy

PAKISTAN, December 16—High inflation of wheat and sugar; low wages and factory closures. The working class has been forced into the streets, chanting against the brutal capitalist system which is producing poverty, unemployment, nationalism, and other horrors. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is spreading class-consciousness among workers associated with different trade union organizations, government employees’ organizations, student unions, and more. We are striving to bring communist politics in practice.
Economy spirals into chaos
Pakistan’s economy is dependent upon the financial support of lending mafias and capitalist monetary institutions. Under prime minister Imran Khan, the economy is crashing. It has nothing to deliver except unemployment, starvation, chaos, political instability and social destruction to the working class masses. Capitalist bosses are hungry of profit, so they are making the lives of the working class more miserable by increasing prices of basic commodities. Right-wing capitalists, mafias and corporations financed the election campaign of the ruling party and are now extracting more than what they spent during the last elections in 2018. They are super-exploiting the working class.
Recently we were involved in a struggle to unite different trade unions and groups of working class people against all aspects of capitalist exploitation—unemployment, low wages, price hikes, poverty, and workplace harassment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) dictated policies. Thousands of workers across more than 61 labor organizations and trade unions united under the umbrella of the All Pakistan Employees, Labor and Pensioners Movement (APELPM).
This APELPM brought thousands of workers to Islamabad, the federal capital of Pakistan.  Participants in this demonstration protested against the capitalist bosses’ vicious policies. The protest is a message to the bosses that workers are united. However, the protests in Islamabad have set a new precedent in the history of the country in terms of worker’s joint struggle. Last time such overwhelming workers unity was demonstrated in 1968-69.
Protesters sat in front of the Parliament House, while chanting, “No To IMF, Long Live the Workers’ Union, Go Imran Go.” They were demanding raises in their salaries in proportion to the recent price-hike due inflation. Active and retired workers were angry that the government failed to raise salaries and pensions for government employees in the current fiscal budget presented in June 2020.
Police used water cannons, batons, tear gas shells, cruelty and other fascist tactics to stop the working class from demonstrating in front of the Parliament house. But after a vigorous face-to-face fight with police, workers defeated the police. Bosses used all their power to empty the area from demonstrating workers but failed. Finally the government decided to sign an agreement with the demonstrators. They accepted the demands and begged the protesters to vacate the area. Next, the workers need to move beyond economist demands and join the political fight for the whole working class’s liberation.
A system in crisis makes workers pay the price
Workers cannot get medicines for themselves or their families from hospitals. They cannot afford to send their children to schools, so they send them to work as beggars or to work at automobile workshops, restaurants or bakeries, earning very little. All the subsidies on wheat, flour and some other basic items have been withdrawn by the government. This makes basic items that used to be subsidized beyond the reach of many working class people.
So-called leftists here in Pakistan, and also all over the world, are afraid of talking about communist revolution. These so-called progressives are using terms like nationalism, secularism, democracy, equality, and to some extent socialism, but never communism. They are hiding the truth that only a communist society can serve humanity. But we in PLP are talking about communism, the creation of a society and the need of an international revolution led by the international communist Progressive Labor Party.
PLP is consistently and enthusiastically participating in different activities of working class people wherever we are active. We are bringing revolutionary communist ideas to workers around us to challenge the bosses and their capitalist system. We always try to play an active political role while organizing sit-ins, strikes, protests and rallies.
We are not hiding the truth that only an international communist revolution under the red banner of PLP can bring prosperity and peace to the lives of the working class.
We emphasized that the bosses are making agreements just to get demonstrators out of this sensitive area. They may give some reforms to the workers to avoid their struggle in the near future, but it’s very true that the working class cannot achieve their goals of equality, justice and prosperity under capitalism. We must establish a communist society through an international communist revolution under the leadership of the international revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party. Join us.