LOS ANGELES, USA, June 30—Five comrades from our garment club and four other comrades went to the march against Trump’s policy of “zero tolerance,” that is the separation of immigrant families.
The center of the city was overflowing with people and families of all ages and colors. Our signs called for unifying our global family with communism. Our signs attracted a lot of attention. Many took pictures of them.
Many other people carried their signs with slogans about the humanity of having families together. Others had slogans against borders and supporting immigrant workers.
We had very good political discussions about socialism and communism. One youth asked if we are Maoists (he says he is reading a book by Mao). We answered that no, that we fight directly for communism. Then he asked, “How will you deal with problems of social behavior in communism?”
We explained that there will not be jails, nor police. Instead the masses themselves will take control of the neighborhoods and in the same way the big cities. He asked a lot more questions about communism. At the end, he took Red Flag and said he would read it to see more about what we advocate as communism.
A latina worker took five copies of Red Flag and with much confidence and boldness she passed them out to her friends in her group.
A young white guy who was pro-capitalist told us that socialism had destroyed the lives of many. We answered that it was capitalism that was the cause of hundreds of millions of deaths world wide. The discussion continued and the tone got sharper on both sides.
A latino youth, who was behind him, supported us with hand signals every time we said something about communism. Then another white youth approached us and began saying that he agreed with us.
The pro-capitalist youth got angry with the other white youth and tried to attack him verbally, but he did not succeed and he left. Both the other youths took Red Flag. They both said that they would look for more information about us on the ICWP website.
We distributed the 625 Red Flags that we had brought. Self critically, we didn’t mobilize enough comrades and enough communist literature, since when we finished distributing what we had, there were people still coming to the protest.
We were encouraged by the response of those who enthusiastically took Red Flag, by the atmosphere of anger against anti-immigrant racism and by the discussions that were openly about communism. This made us think about how to make the most of these kinds of opportunities. These are opportunities for other comrades and friends to have the experience of putting communism forward in the struggle in the streets.
Taking these experiences to our work places will give us more confidence that the masses are open to communism and confidence to struggle with them to mobilize together with us in the fight for a communist world.
Mass Protest in Haiti
Militant mass protests erupted in Haiti on July 6 after the government, spurred by the IMF, tried to raise fuel prices by 38% to 51%. They continued—and escalated to a general strike — even after the prime minister suspended the price hikes. This continuing rebellion shows that the anger of the Haitian masses goes beyond simple reform demands. It will not be calmed even by the July 17th resignation of Haiti’s president. We urge readers with friends in Haiti to spread Red Flag’s message of communist revolution. We would like to hear from anyone who can help translate this message into Haitian Creole or other languages.
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