A Revolutionary Action Program to fight COVID-19!

Workers and Oppressed: Don’t trust the State of the Rich and Powerful! Trust only Yourselves!

 

12 points against the crisis by the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), April 2020, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

The pandemic caused by the novel Coronavirus 2019 (or - as it was renamed – SARS-CoV2) is used by various bourgeois states worldwide to implement a lockdown, to suppress democratic rights and to force people to apply “social distancing”. Many self-proclaimed leftists argue that the lockdown measures are necessary and should be supported in order to prevent the collapse of the healthcare system. This is completely wrong!

 

In one study of the Imperial College of London the scenario of a full lockdown is described as the most effective of all measures based on the current amount of hospital beds, intensive care units, etc. The scenario is based on a duration of at least 5 (!) months which is indeed the minimum time span for an epidemic to flatten under the given circumstances. It is nearly impossible that the bourgeoisie will keep the full lockdown for so long making the measures ineffective to begin with. Most bourgeois governments have failed to prevent the virus from spreading, as well as to develop a health infrastructure to fight the epidemic. Right now, health workers around the globe are forced to work under poor and dangerous conditions, and are being repressed when they complain about this.

 

However, spreading fear and panic about the pandemic and mobilizing massively the state apparatus allows a perfect distraction from the real reasons of the current great recession: the crisis and decay of capitalism. In addition the few weeks of lockdown give the ruling classes enough time to establish a “new normal” were our democratic rights are massively reduced under the cover of a permanent threat by COVID-19 and similar pandemics.

 

The RCIT has analyzed in numerous articles and documents the real reasons for the Lockdowns. We opposed these measures from the very first moment. Without democratic rights to demonstrate and to assemble, we can not fight against the current economic attack or for any immediate health care measures. Neither is a lockdown necessary for successfully fighting the pandemic as we can see in South Korea.

 

Below we present a short Action Program against the current health crisis. It is a minimum program for the immediate tasks in the struggle against the pandemic. Any long-term solution is impossible as long as the ruling class – owning the economy and controlling the state apparatus – remains in power. Liberation is only possible when the working class and the popular masses overthrow capitalism and open the road to an international socialist society without exploitation and oppression!

 

The following demands can only be realized if the workers and oppressed organize themselves in action committees, in trade unions and popular mass organizations, etc. Only if the masses have their own fighting organization will it be possible to force the capitalists to make any concessions and to organize aid for those in need.

 

The RCIT calls all revolutionaries to collaborate internationally in order to defend our class and all oppressed against the attacks of the bourgeoisie and the threat by the new coronavirus.

 

Comrades, brothers and sisters: Act Now because History is Happening Now!

 

 

 

To All Revolutionaries: Join Forces and Fight Back!

 

#1: Reject the ban of assemblies, rallies, demonstrations, strikes and other democratic rights by any means necessary! Oppose the Lockdown! Fight against any surveillance! Hack and reprogram or destroy artificial intelligence used by the state, the repression apparatus and their lackeys!

 

#2: For an international solidarity campaign to focus all forces on helping our brothers and sisters in the Global South to survive the pandemic! Such a solidarity campaign must include practical help like aid supplies of food, hygienic products, medication and many more. Fight for the immediate cancellation of all debts! The campaign must include help to fight other diseases like HIV and Ebola! Nobody should die from preventable diseases – free vaccination, medication and therapy in all semi-colonial countries, put under control of the local health staff, the workers and poor but financed by the expropriation of the multi-national corporations!

 

#3: Organize and support a broad health campaign by the international labor movement and the organizations of the oppressed in order to inform the public how to prevent an infection. This includes proper way of washing hands, sneezing into one's elbow, not touching the face and covering the mouth and nose when you attend gatherings, public places, etc. Organize action committees, supported and guided by health workers to actively spread information on proper prevention measures.

 

#4: Help people who feel sick respectively observe any symptoms (like a running nose, a cough, etc.) to stay at home without worrying for their job via strong and militant trade union work. Popular committees should also support the urban and rural poor who are self-employed via collection of financial aid in the time of illness! Oppose all wage cuts, sackings and austerity packages!

 

#5: Inform people who stay at home because of symptoms to immediately contact a doctor in case of severe health problems. Also doctors should be contacted via phone if people have a suspicion that they are infected. Mobile phones, food, sanitary products, etc. should be provided by the labor movement if needed.

 

#6: Mobilize progressive doctors and experts by the labor movement and the organizations of the oppressed to volunteer their medical support to the poor.

 

#7: Demand the mass production of testing kits, respiratory protective devices, etc. Fight for internationally coordinated research programs by teams of medical experts to jointly develop a vaccination respectively a cure for the new coronavirus. Their work must be monitored by the labor movement! Organize demonstrations and strikes up to the expropriation under workers control for companies which produce respectively could produce medical facilities as well as the pharmaceutical industry. The life of people must not depend on greedy profit calculations of private corporations!

 

#8: Encourage people older than 60 years respectively people with underlying health condition to engage in activities with others for a shorter period of time during the spread of viruses like the coronavirus, the flu and other infectious diseases. They should meet with others more often but shorter instead of long meetings at home. Friends, families and others must be rigid in their own hygiene and prevention control.

 

#9: Fight for the immediate employment of hygiene and prevention teams to support the healthcare workers who should assign restocking, passing documents to other health departments, feeding of patients free from dysphagia and similar tasks to these semi-skilled teams. Administrative tasks should be limited to a minimum and if possible delegated by the skilled healthcare workers in order to concentrate on the care for the patients.

 

#10: Healthcare workers must get proper rest, massive increase of their wage, access to healthy food and water for free 24/7 and must be tested regularly in order to prevent weak immune system and infections! Organize political strikes for a massive investment in the health care system financed by the expropriation of the super-rich! Don't stay at home and let them alone! Fight for them because they fight for us!

 

#11: Organize self-defense units to protect infected people against any chauvinist respectively reactionary attacks. The health of the self-defense units must be monitored by health workers and the team members of the units should not rotate. Additional self-defense units must be organized in order to protect mobilizations like rallies and strikes against attacks of the repression apparatus and to defend migrants against racist attacks.

 

#12: Focus on political mobilizations and activities to fight against the massive attack on our democratic rights and the threats on our health! All revolutionaries need to join forces based on a revolutionary program to fight against the reactionary offensive of the ruling classes!

 

 

 

International Secretariat

 

 

 

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The RCIT has published numerous statements and articles on the COVID-19 crisis of which several have been translated into different languages. They are all collected at a special sub-page in our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/collection-of-articles-on-the-2019-corona-virus/

 

In particular we draw the attention of readers to our new Manifesto:

 

COVID-19: A Cover for a Major Global Counterrevolutionary Offensive

 

We are at a turning point in the world situation as the ruling classes provoke a war-like atmosphere in order to legitimize the build-up of chauvinist state-bonapartist regimes

 

Manifesto of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 21 March 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/covid-19-a-cover-for-a-major-global-counterrevolutionary-offensive/

 

We also recommend to read, support and spread the Open Letter on COVID-19:

 

Act Now because History is Happening Now!

 

A call to all revolutionary organizations and activists to join forces against the global counter-revolutionary offensive under the cover of COVID-19

 

Open Letter of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 26 March 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/open-letter-act-now-because-history-is-happening-now/