Uniting the Struggle of the International Working Class

The governments of all the Americas, from Washington to Buenos Aires, as well as in every continent, raise the flags of patriotism and mobilize workers for the defence of the fatherland.

In some cases, it is a matter of territorial disputes between bourgeois states, behind which hides the conflict between national and transnational capitalist corporations for control over raw materials or for the dominion of strategic localities from the point of the theatres of military operations, or for the movement of commodities and raw materials.

In other occasions, patriotic slogans are raised when the functioning of the national economy and its shares of profit and rent, as part of surplus value obtained by the exploitation of wage workers, are threatened.

But wage workers don’t benefit from new territories annexed to the country nor from a smooth growth of the national economy. In both cases, a battle for the defence of the fatherland only economically benefits capitalist enterprises.

Workers won’t obtain any benefit from the Venezuela and Guyana conflict or from the conflict between Venezuela and Colombia. Neither will the situation of the Bolivian workers improve with a reconquering of the Atacama Corridor, Bolivia’s historic access to the sea, which today is in the hands of Chile.

Likewise, there won’t be any change to the exploitation of workers if Argentina takes sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. Its the same case with every territorial dispute in the whole world. There will be no difference for proletarians between the control of raw materials such as petroleum or gas, copper, Steel, iron, etc., by the national bourgeois states or by imperialist consortium with concessions for their exploitation. In any of these situations, capitalism only goal is the search for maximum profit through the exploitation of the labor-power of wage workers.

Wage workers don’t even benefit from the riches generated by their labour in the different economic activities which are accomplished in the actual territory of the country in which they now live, much less will they benefit from the annexations or retaking of territories on the part of the national bourgeois state. In the end, private property in land will walk all over the sovereignty of the national states of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeois governments agitate for the defence of the fatherland while elsewhere they sign agreements with transnationals to do business, giving away the national sovereignty they claim to defend.

The workers in the entire whole world have to ignore these calls by the bourgeoisie, petit bourgeoisie, politicians and unionists to line up to defend the fatherland and national economy, because in doing so, they’re only defending the interests and businesses of the capitalist class.

There is no socialist fatherland. When the con artists talk of a socialist fatherland, they only vindicate bourgeois nationalism and the continuance of capitalism under the camouflage of a leftist and opportunist discourse that aims to put the workers at the tail of the bourgeoisie, deceiving them with the lie of a false socialism or road to socialism.

The working class has nothing to gain in national unity between wage workers and their employers, between those who are exploited and those doing the exploiting. This road doesn’t lead to revolutions and a break with capitalism, and can only enable the over-exploitation of the working class.

While the bourgeoisie, the politicians and the union leaders play the game, they call on workers to fight high prices of primary goods and services and against a black market. The real working class movement needs to be united and organized by the rank and file and across borders has to raise the international flag of struggle for
 – an across the board increase in wages,
 – for the reduction of the working day,
 – for salaries for the unemployed,
 – for the reduction of the age of retirement,
 – for the elimination of overtime and extra hours of work and
 – for better working conditions and environment.

And when the spokesmen of the bourgeoisie raise their voices to say that the workers are damaging the nation and its economy, the response of the workers’ movement should be: the proletarians don’t have a fatherland!! We not interested in defending what we don’t have!!

General Strikes need to be employed as a reflection of working class unity in action. We need to be breaking with regime unions and establish the emergence of class unions where workers are organized without regard for their nationality, trade, race, religious faith, or political leaning. Strikes need to be organized across industries and workplaces uniting workers with joint demands.

The proletariat is the only revolutionary class, and by its nature is pushed to overthrow capitalism and create a society without exploited or exploiting and without national borders, commodities, or wage labour. With the conquest of political power, the proletariat will implement its dictatorship, the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the international communist party, and will practice its class program, the communist program.

Revolutionary communists call for the unity of action in the economic struggles of workers on a local, national, and international levels. We also need to remember to:
 1. Reject imperialist wars, without aligning with any of the contending governments, evoking revolutionary defeatism and the confrontation against the government and employers in every country.
 2. Reject calls for national defence and the taking sides in territorial disputes between countries, as reflections of inter-capitalist conflicts for the control of raw materials and market shares.
 3. Reject government repression and intimidation of workers’ economic struggles on the basis that workers’ demands are “anti-national”, “pro-imperialist” or “terrorist” conspiracies.
 4. Resurrect the strike and demonstration as the principal methods of struggle. These need to be undefined, without minimal services and include workers of different trades and industries. Organizing strike funds to give support to propaganda and to attend to the necessities that might themselves to the movement of the struggle.