On March 8th, Trump accepted Kim Jong Un’s invitation for a face-to-face meeting before the end of May. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other advisors warned against it.
Two weeks later Trump appointed John Bolton as National Security Advisor. Bolton had advocated “the legal case for striking North Korea first” in the Wall Street Journal in February.
Bolton has said openly that the meeting will be useful only to get negotiations over quickly so a military confrontation can start sooner.
Inter-Imperialist Conflicts Spinning Out of Control
“If events spin out of control,” wrote the New York Times, “Mattis could be forced to choose between his loyalty to the chain of command and the moral imperative to avert a catastrophic war.”
The main US imperialists are strongly opposed to Trump’s North Korea initiative. They are preparing to escalate military operations in southwest Asia (the “Middle East”) which is strategically critical to the US in a way that northeast Asia is not.
US industrial, agribusiness, high-tech and finance bosses also oppose Trump’s tariffs on China. They fear that a trade war would do “irreparable harm” to crucial efforts to break into the huge China market.
These rulers are weaker than ever before. Their imperialist rivals China and Russia, and regional powers (or would-be powers) like North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are not the only ones who can take advantage of that.
Workers, soldiers and youth must take advantage of this crisis to step up preparations to destroy deadly imperialism with communist revolution.
US imperialists’ fear-building headlines aim to direct the masses’ energy into impeaching Trump and electing Democrats in November. That would be a serious mistake.
War is a direct and inevitable result of a system based on private property in the hands of a few, who compete to exploit the masses. Communism immediately abolishes private property and exploitation and, with it, war – except for the revolutionary war to wipe out all remnants of class society.
China Rising, US Declining
World War II ended in 1945 with the US firmly in control of the Pacific Rim – and with the Chinese rulers succumbing to a massive communist-led revolution.
Chinese communist leaders fought for “national liberation” and then “New Democracy.” But many Red Army soldiers took home the idea of moving quickly to communism. A huge struggle developed, culminating in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. The communist forces lost, defeated mainly by their internal weaknesses in the face of massive force.
Today the “Communist” Party of China – and its junior partners in North Korea – have degenerated into capitalist gangsters.
While Trump was appointing Bolton, Kim slipped into China to meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping. They patched up relations after months of anti-Chinese maneuvers.
The Chinese imperialists hope to regain regional leadership that slipped when the two Koreas began talking directly around the Seoul Olympics. They don’t want war, which could cripple their economy. But having nuclear-armed China “at the table” raises the stakes for the Trump crew that’s planning to attack North Korea.
Working Class Rising
In China, military veterans demonstrated for two days in February 2017, rattling the ruling class. In March 2018, women factory workers in Guangzhou who make Michael Kors handbags went on strike for eight days. Mass evictions from large Chinese cities have spurred a wave of protests.
In South Korea, ship workers and public-service workers have battled the bosses. Even in repressive state-capitalist North Korea, the widening income gap is leading to rumbling among the masses. Some have reportedly said that the wealthy and powerful “should be bumped off first if a war breaks out.”
These workers, and many more like them around the world, will one day reclaim their communist heritage.
We invite multilingual readers to translate ICWP’s communist literature into every language possible. With these weapons the international working class will turn fights among imperialists into a final battle to defeat all of them.
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