The decay of capitalism is making itself felt more sharply every day. This has led to a growing radicalization of workers and youth with millions rejecting the system. According to a recent poll, one million Canadian youth want communism. Fightback, the Canadian section of the International Marxist Tendency has launched a campaign titled “Are you a Communist” with the aim of organizing this growing layer of communists in Canada. As part of this campaign, we are opening the pages of our magazine to ask the question: why are you a communist?
If you are one of these hundreds of thousands of communists in Canada and would like to explain to our readers why you are a communist, you can make a submission of no longer than 500 words to our editorial board at eb@marxist.ca.
I started medical school in 2021, watching COVID-19 tear across the globe. I had begun coming to communist conclusions after watching the ineptitude of the ruling class in handling the pandemic. Workers were being sacrificed to the capitalist machine as deaths soared, while record profits were made. I had hoped that being in medicine would allow me to fight for truly universal healthcare and a better world, but just one month into my education I was brutally awakened.
We had several lectures talking about how great Canadian healthcare is! “It’s universal! Everyone in Canada can go to the hospital and get the care they need!” I was told that this is as good as it gets, and that to think it could be any better was utopian! Fortunately, I had already seen through the illusions—there are overflowing hospitals with patients treated in hallways, enormous wait times, and doctor shortages across the country! COVID only brought this process to the surface for everyone to see. Now, more than 80 per cent of Canadians agree that there is a crisis in our healthcare system. Now, healthcare is crumbling, and it is the fault of capitalism.
Under capitalism, all social programs are subject to the profit motive. The only reason we even have public healthcare is because of the sacrifice and struggle of Canadian workers. The victories of the past have been subject to decades of cuts and privatization. Across Canada, the capitalists are making every effort to turn a profit from an inherently unprofitable service. More and more surgeries each year are being done by private clinics, while family doctors are turned into business owners who are forced to see as many patients as quickly as possible. In this age of austerity, the capitalists have deemed it too expensive to provide even satisfactory healthcare. Without a struggle against these cuts, the wealthy ruling class will continue to strip things to the bone until there is nothing left.
Now, in my third year of training, I am currently in a rural community in northern Alberta. These issues have been brought into the clearest view. Many of the patients I see are struggling to put food on the table, working themselves into the ground in the process. They cannot afford their medications, wrestle with addiction, and lack mental health support for their problems. How can we ever expect anyone to live a healthy life under such barbaric conditions as this?
Since I joined Fightback and the IMT at the end of 2021, I have been given a sense of revolutionary optimism despite all of this. Things cannot continue like this. We must fight for truly universal free healthcare that is accessible to every worker! As Che Guevara said, “If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine!” Join the communists and fight to confine the injustices of capitalism into the dustbin of history!
