In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, coverage in the bosses’ media emphasizes the helplessness of humanity in the face of nature’s destructiveness. Under capitalism, we are also constantly bombarded with the idea that people look out for themselves, and can never really work together for a common purpose without a money incentive. 

But workers’ own experiences show that these stories told by mouthpieces for the capitalists are lies. PLP members and friends have volunteered in local relief efforts in the New York/New Jersey area. We have heard about and witnessed both stories of life-saving heroism during the storm and the efforts of thousands of volunteers providing basic necessities to their class brothers and sisters.

 History also shows that workers and peasants in communist-led societies have shown the human desire to work for the collective without material reward in return. The communist-led revolution in China in 1949 brought workers and peasants to power. Production and work was organized based upon national five-year plans.

 These plans were discussed all over the country and decided in advance. In Northern China, near Peking, the capital of China, one area had experienced yearly rains that flooded the farmland because the local mountains were quite dry and had no trees or other vegetation to prevent the water from rushing downhill. To stop this yearly damage to the farmland, the region was scheduled for a “check dam” and reservoir during the Third Five Year Plan in 1963-1967.

The peasants in the local area decided for themselves that there was no need to wait. They put out a call to the communist party and other organizations in Peking in 1957. One hundred and twenty thousand volunteer workers responded. Everyone worked for free. Each factory or office sent no more than 10% of their workers to contribute to the collective labor. The 90% who stayed behind worked a little harder to make up for the labor loss, while the 10% who went continued to have their basic needs met. 

Here are the words of a North American resident who was part of the project:

Of all the factors going in to making the project a success, unquestionably the most vital was the enthusiasm of the volunteers. I did a stint with some people from my office and it was an astonishing experience. Men and women who ordinarily did nothing more vigorous than tickling a typewriter or taking half a turn in a swivel chair were suddenly shoveling earth and toting gravel in baskets slung from shoulder poles, day and night, rain and shine.

Our cuisine consisted of gruel, bits of pickled vegetable, and a coarse corn muffin, but we wolfed them down as if they were epicurean delights. We slept eight in a tent, with only pallets of pine branches between us and the ground, but our slumber was deep and dreamless. I heard many a white collar worker say he never realized manual labor was so difficult and so satisfactory.

In less than five months, the dam was finished. Fifty thousand acres of land, which before were constantly hit by floods, now came under controlled irrigation.

Soldiers also volunteered to help, for no extra compensation. In order to support the workers involved in the project, “Peking’s top-flight opera singers and actors and actresses went out to the site to perform for the workers. The boldness of the plan to build ahead of schedule kindled public imagination” (Peking Review, 1958, Issue 1).

As climate change increasingly affects our fellow workers around the world, it will become more and more important for PLP and its supporters to take inspiration from these historical events. The capitalists have no plan to protect workers from the ravages of their profit-induced destruction of the environment. Our job is to participate in the inevitable expressions of human solidarity, to fight the bosses to meet the needs of those affected, and to convince many of the volunteers as well as the victims of “natural” disasters how only communist revolution can end these scourges. The seeds for this struggle to build a profit-less world that will reestablish harmony with nature are contained in the courageous and selfless actions of workers who today are responding to the destruction of Hurricane Sandy.