First Published: The Worker, for Hawaii, Vol. 1, No. 2, November 1975.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The first thing that struck us when we first walked in the room were the two huge red banners that stretched across the entire length of the room, boldly proclaiming “Celebrate the Victories of the Working Class!” “Celebrate the Founding of the Revolutionary Communist Party!”
A guy from the Revolutionary Communist Party had talked to us about the celebration a couple of weeks earlier. He said the RCP was sponsoring events like this in almost every major industrial city across the country. It was a chance to join together to celebrate the victories of our class, the working class, especially the founding of the RCP, an organization that was formed to help build the fight against the rotten system we live under.
An RCP spokeman got the program rolling, by reading a message from the Party’s Central Committee, its national leadership–the same statement that was read to a couple thousand other workers at similar celebrations around the country.
The message pointed out how millions of us workers throughout the nation are part of one working class. It said that for the first time in 20 years, since the old Communist Party, USA betrayed the working class and sold us down the river, we now have a Party that represents our interests and will fight side by side with us in all our struggles.
Some people showed a slideshow about the tremendous victories workers have won all over the world. It talked about things like the Russian and the Chinese revolutions –how the working people suffered under the capitalists and landlords, how they fought against them, and how they eventually overthrew their oppressors and began building socialist societies under the leadership of the working class.
The best thing about the slide-show was that it showed how all of us, whether we live in Russia, China, Vietnam, the Portuguese colonies in Africa, or right here in the U.S., are part of the same international working class, and fighting the same class of wealthy capitalists.
The slideshow talked about how the Russian workers suffered a big setback in the late 50’s, when the bosses crept back into positions of power, and turned Russia back into a capitalist country. Now the workers are back where they started from, chained to the bosses’ profits like before the Revolution. This made it really clear how just fighting the bosses today isn’t enough. We’ve also got to guard against them and their front men sneaking back into our ranks and then stealing power away from us later on.
The RCP spokeman gave the main talk. Everyday we’ve got to face things like low wages, layoffs, and speedups, rotten health care, junk schools for our kids, and the growing danger of another world war, because the capitalists only care about increasing their profits. They don’t give a damn about us, he said, and that’s why millions of workers hate them so much.
He said there’s no way to really solve our problems under capitalism. We’ve got to fight like hell for everything we can get as long as the capitalists still run the show. But eventually we need a revolution–we have to overthrow these exploiters and put the working class at the wheel. He pointed out that the formation of the RCP will greatly strengthen our fight, because now the entire working class has a single battle plan to lead us forward to victory. He stressed the need for us to organize our ranks and intensify the struggle against our enemies.
Later, some people sang songs about struggles and victories of the working class, and we watched a skit about workers in a factory who wildcatted over layoffs and unsafe working conditions. We ended the night by standing and singing The Internationale, the anthem of workers throughout the world.
One thing is for sure–it’s going to be one hell of a battle getting rid of the bosses and their system that has kept us down for generations. But the enthusiasm shown by everyone who came to the celebration made it clear people are determined to face the challenge and carry it forward.