Palestinian Liberation and the Tasks of US Labor
Activists block a port in Tacoma, WA in 2023. KOMO News.
Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza has shocked the world. This genocide is only possible through the provisioning of arms, ammunition, and funding from the US capitalist empire. Without US capitalist backing, the regime would collapse quickly, as apartheid South Africa did some thirty years ago. So where is the US working class?
A militant US working class is vital to the struggle against capitalist imperialism. To stop the genocide against the Palestinian people, US workers would have to engage mass strikes and shut downs of the country’s ports. But mobilizations of this scale appear beyond the abilities of today’s US proletariat. Why? Because the US proletariat lacks sufficient political education and organization.
Our Current Tasks
The Israeli occupation’s current genocidal campaign will likely be brought to a halt by international pressure before US workers can mobilize in any significant numbers. But the overall struggle against the Israeli occupation will continue for at least another decade before the regime is toppled. Therefore, the most politically advanced members of the working class must prepare the proletariat for the struggles ahead — and win what can be won in the present.
We, as the most politically advanced members of the working class, must help workers progress from an economist consciousness to an internationalist political consciousness. We must also develop the internal organizational structures necessary to carry out militant mass mobilizations. Through these structures we will lead the working class through escalating mobilizations which will bring material improvements to the working class and disrupt the imperialist wars.
From Economic Strikes to Political Strikes
Today, many workers don’t fully grasp the connection between the imperialist wars carried out by the US capitalist class overseas and the economic exploitation they face at home. They do not realize that the bourgeoisie extracts surplus value from workers in the US and exports that value in the form of capital all around the world. Thus, the Israeli occupation is merely a US-backed military outpost which the imperialist bourgeoisie maintains to guarantee the unimpeded flow of capital through West Asia.
Directed and sustained political education is required to explain these connections to the working class. That political education must also be linked with practical struggle through which the workers achieve material gains. Economic demands for better wages and conditions have to be integrated into the overall effort to politicize the working class. This combination of political education and practical struggle is what causes worker consciousness to progress from a purely economic outlook to a political one. This is how the working class will progress from economic strikes to political strikes and shutting down ports.
Organizing on the Shop Floor
US labor unions are not completely incapable of mobilization. Union leaders have mobilized tens of thousands of union members to campaign during bourgeois elections. But even symbolic marches in support of Gaza have been few and far between.
US labor unions are nearly all silent regarding the genocide in Gaza. This is due to the capture of union leadership by the bourgeoisie. As the labor lieutenants of capital, union leaders have constructed an undemocratic, opaque, and ossified system to control the working class.
The solution is not a caucus or slate strategy to challenge union leadership. This would only divert worker energy into a dead system. Instead, new structures must be built with the objective of radicalizing the masses.
When the majority of a union’s rank and file has been won over to — and are led on the shop floor by — the communist position, then the reactionary union leadership functionally has no power. It is a mind disconnected from its body.
Therefore, advanced workers must form small steering committees with the express purpose of agitation, education, (re)organization, and mobilization. Steering committees must lead the political education process, holding reading groups and study sessions on Marxism, international solidarity, and labor history.
Mobilization
Steering committees must not be disdainful of small mobilizations for small goals. In order to build militancy, we must first build the workers’ confidence. Workers must see that they can win — and that their actions can materially improve their lives. Armed with theoretical knowledge, workers will be prepared to engage in class struggle.
Building on small victories, the proletariat can escalate both the intensity and the character of their mobilizations — rising from economic strikes to political strikes.
Workers will not become militant overnight. But it’s critical that the US proletariat begin building fighting workers organizations. For Palestine — and for all countries in the global south — the oppression of US capitalist imperialism will never end until the US working class defeats its domestic bourgeoisie.
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Capitalism is exploiting workers, killing people of color, and destroying the planet. But we can fight back and we can win. As communists, we can build a society where the needs of society are socially owned. If you are ready to organize the working class and build a revolutionary movement, contact one of our organizers today!