Minneapolis here ♦ Industrial Workers Key Force here ♦ Letter: Let’s Continue here ♦
Minneapolis: Masses Defying Fascist ICE Are Capable of Communist Revolution
USA, January 26— Thousands braved sub-freezing temperatures in Minneapolis, marching against the occupying army of fascist federal immigration agents (ICE). The cold-blooded murder of Renee Good provoked more anger than fear. “It could have been me – let’s see who else we can get to go with us,” activists say.
Tens of thousands more are spreading the Resistance in many cities across the USA after ICE’s assassination of Alex Jeffrey Pretti. And of Keith Porter, Jr. and at least six others so far this year.
Many compare ICE and other “Homeland Security” forces to the Nazis. US agencies do openly use Nazi slogans and images to recruit their homicidal kidnappers. But the German Nazis took inspiration from the US rulers’ history of genocide, enslavement, and racism. ICE terror is rooted in the slavecatchers, the KKK, the Texas Rangers, and more.
US imperialism installed fascist regimes worldwide. Its CIA and School of the Americas exported fascist terror. It trained death squads from Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador, and elsewhere in counterinsurgency and torture techniques.
The diversity of voices rising against fascism is powerful. But the struggle to understand fascism is important too. Some look at Minneapolis and say, “This is not who we are!” But if “we” means the US capitalist rulers, it is exactly who they are and have always been.
It’s Not Just Trump – It’s Global Capitalism!
“Our paper is about smashing capitalism with communism,” a Seattle comrade told people at a protest against the Minneapolis ICE murders.
“Hell yes!” many young people replied. “I’m done with the Democrats.” “I need something stronger.”
Our International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) believes that capitalism must be destroyed. Everywhere we go, we find workers who no longer believe that reforming capitalism has any possibility of helping anyone. Groups like the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense have re-emerged as an armed force confronting the fascists.
Fascism is the true face of capitalism in crisis. “Democracy,” though an appealing slogan, can no longer hide the fact that we live under a class dictatorship of the capitalists over the working class and broader masses. We can end that class dictatorship only with communist revolution. With the destruction of the entire system of profits violently extracted from wage slavery. With the construction of a new communist society rooted in collectivity and sharing. Without money or borders or nations or racism.
Successful revolution requires organizing for communism among young workers in the bosses’ armed forces. Many of them receive military pay so low, they qualify for SNAP food assistance! Ten percent are from immigrant families. We can win many to our side.
Imperialist War, Civil War, and Communist Revolution
The multiracial working-class solidarity in Minnesota inspires us. It also shows that communism is possible. Block by block, people are organizing themselves to defend their neighbors. To guarantee they have food when it’s unsafe to go to work or the market.
Can’t you imagine how this could extend to organizing production as well as distribution? Decision-making as well as defense? To communist workers’ power?
If we can imagine it, we can fight to make it real. We can build the ICWP as a nucleus from which this communist world can grow.
Many are making connections with what’s happening internationally. A weekly demonstration in San Jose, CA (USA) against genocide in Gaza has grown rapidly as people grasp the link between Gaza and Minnesota. They’re unsurprised that the Zionist military has trained ICE agents.
A comrade distributed our pamphlet Genocide in Palestine Demands Communist Revolution. “The people I usually see there are more interested now,” he reported. “They’re not ready to join ICWP but they want to participate in discussions.”
“Is there going to be a civil war?” asked a Los Angeles friend. “World war? Nuclear war?”
Conflicts between US imperialists and their Chinese and Russian imperialist rivals are already exploding into war on many fronts. Until the working class establishes communism globally, nuclear war will remain a catastrophic possibility.
Deadly civil wars rage today in Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, more. Could it happen (again) in the USA?
Probably not soon. ICE exists today as an armed force not under the US military chain of command. It has recruited “Proud Boys” and other racist thugs and January 6th rioters. Its budget is greater than the Israeli army’s.
But the main section of the US ruling class is not fundamentally opposed to anti-immigrant terror. They just don’t like the optics. That’s why they just replaced Greg Bovino with career “Homeland Security” fascist Tom Homan (originally an Obama appointee).
The civil war we need is a class war to destroy capitalism. We must intensify our response by mobilizing masses to fight for communism.
“The fascist rulers want to dominate and control us through fear,” said a comrade in El Salvador. “But historically we have united and fought. And we can do it again and win.”
Industrial Workers: Key Force for Communist Revolution
Minnesota is heavily industrial. Hundreds of thousands of production workers live in the Twin Cities area. Huge companies like MMM manufacture precision technology and industrial materials. General Mills is a global food conglomerate. Niron Magnetics is a start-up partly financed by GM. It is building plants to produce magnets without using rare earths.
Only about 10% of Minnesota’s industrial workers are unionized. But unions, committed to reformism, are not capable of defending workers in the current capitalist crisis. Let alone abolishing wage slavery.
The January 23 protests in Minneapolis were called a “general strike.” But in a strike, workers collectively stop production. Many small businesses shut down on January 23, but no industrial worker walkouts were reported. Nor was it the largest “strike” in eighty years, as some news outlets reported. Over a million workers, mostly immigrants, flooded downtown Los Angeles on March 25, 2006, to protest the anti-immigrant Sensenbrenner bill.
Why does this matter? Because we must see our fight against ICE terror as a class struggle, not as a “fight for democracy.” And because industrial workers (with soldiers) are key to taking control of production and transforming it. Key to mobilizing masses for communist revolution.
Only communist revolution can defeat the fascism born of capitalist crisis. That’s what the capitalists most fear. That’s why the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce released a letter calling on the government to “de-escalate.” Signers included leaders of over sixty companies, including 3M and General Mills. Trump’s immigration and tariff policies are worsening the capitalist crisis and threatening their profits. What’s more, the mass resistance to ICE threatens the stability of capitalist wage slavery.
When the capitalists propel the masses into motion, intentionally or not, they risk losing control over them. They risk open class war. And revolution.
Letter: Let’s Continue the Fight
Protests have intensified across Minneapolis and beyond after the killing of Renee Good by ICE (fascist immigration police). Renee was not just a name in a headline. She was a neighbor, a mother, an activist, and a member of the community in Minneapolis.
Her death has become a rallying cry for people demanding ac countability, transparency, and a fundamental change in how federal enforcement operates in our neighborhoods. Even before any investigation, federal authorities pushed a narrative claiming she ran over an agent. Many of us call bullshit. That explanation feels like a lie meant to protect power, not reveal truth.
What we’re witnessing is a pattern of federal agents targeting and brutalizing working-class people for standing up, speaking out, and protecting one another from fascist enforcement tactics.
I myself patrol around the neighborhood and I am afraid that it can happen to me or any community member in my neighborhood. We need to continue the fight and continue to organize because all of our rights are being taken away for filming, speaking up and alerting the people there. Our first amendment is being revoked.
—Afraid but Not Backing Down in Los Angeles (USA)
Read the ICWP manifesto Mobilize the Masses for Communism here