Minneapolis, MN—A multiracial collective of students and workers from Progressive Labor Party (PLP) brought the heat of antiracist communist politics and organizing to the city of Minneapolis this weekend. In subzero temperatures, we proudly stood shoulder to shoulder next to tens of thousands of other students and workers demanding an immediate end to the ICE nazis’ racist and fascist assault on the city.
The ongoing racist raids, arrests and deportations are rooted in the capitalist profit system, which can only exist from the division and intense exploitation of the international working class. Facing this truth, we shared the goal and vision of a communist revolution led by the mass PLP to overthrow the hated bosses and their wretched system and build an egalitarian worker-run society in its place!
ALL OUT for the general strike!
Our plan to travel to Minneapolis coincided with the call of unions and social organizations to hold a general strike on January 23rd. The ICE gestapo has ratcheted up their invasion of the area over the past weeks, sending thousands of agents to make arrests of our immigrant worker siblings while executing mother of three Renee Good in cold blood on January 7th.
The working class here has responded to the raids with passion and skill, organizing rapid response networks and mobilizing the masses to protect their neighbors, family, co-workers and friends through direct action. The general strike is the logical escalation of the class struggle: withholding our labor in a mass coordinated way across different industries to confront the bosses’ plans and damage their ability to make profits.
In inspiring solidarity, with the wind dropping the air temperature to around -30º, the working class showed up around 100,000 deep in the downtown commons area to participate in the strike. Our PLP collective chanted and spoke amidst enraged masses of workers rallying, chanting and marching to demonstrate the earth-shaking power of a unified working class.
Throughout the action, we marched with our red communist flags high, distributing hundreds of copies of CHALLENGE and leaflets. We sharpened the tone and militancy of the chants, stressing the need for multiracial working-class unity to challenge the bosses: “Asian, Latin, Black and white – Workers of the world, unite!” We peppered these chants with speeches that were well-received, especially by connecting the history of slavery to racist police terror and the murder of George Floyd with the genocides in Palestine and Sudan, and that our goal should not just be to kick the hated ICE out of Minnesota. General strikes can teach us our own power, but the only way to end this terror everywhere is to use our power to uproot the vicious capitalist society requiring such ruthless force to maintain their imperialist system. To do that we need a mass Red Army waging revolutionary violence and millions of workers building a mass international PLP. Anything less and we will repeat this same murderous cycle.
Capitalism keeps murdering us – Justice for Alex Pretti
The morning after the general strike we awoke to the horrifying news that the ICE fascists took the life of yet another worker in Minneapolis. 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti was wrestled to the ground by at least six agents and shot dead on a crowded street at point blank range.
Just as they did after the racist murder of Black worker George Floyd in 2020, liberal racist bosses like Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz rushed to do damage control and provide cover for the murderers, pleading for calm and a peaceful response.
They were answered with a resounding HELL NO! As usual, the liberal misleaders like to pose as an alternative against Donald Trump and project a more friendly face of capitalism, but through hard experience workers see through their treachery. Their attempts to mask the brutal reality of the system make them the greater long-term danger to our class.
Connecting with local workers we met from the day before, our collective rushed to the growing scene of rebellion on Nicolett Avenue. The ICE fascists were quick to unleash crowd control, making arrests and shooting clouds of tear gas. But they failed to repel the working-class wrath and were forced to retreat as hundreds of workers weaved through a flimsy police perimeter to gather near the site of Alex’s murder.
Barricades were quickly erected by workers at street intersections to the north and south of the site of the shooting to keep ICE and any kkkops out. Businesses along the street opened their doors in solidarity to the antiracist fighters as spaces to warm up, strategize, and get free food, beverages and hand warmers. Members from our PLP collective who work in healthcare connected with other workers in a donut shop to create a street medic space for any people who were potentially injured in clashes with the police or ICE.
Soldiers: Turn the guns around!
Later, at that day’s mass vigil for Alex, we learned the Minnesota National Guard was staging to clear the area, prompting some to compare soldiers to kkkops and chant of “f*ck the Guard!” Amidst this chant, a woman took the mic and movingly spoke as a former soldier who refused orders to kill in Iraq and shared that many soldiers didn’t enlist to commit racist crimes, aren’t police, and often question their orders. In the stunned silence, a PL’er inspired by the veteran’s passion connected their experiences in Iraq to the murders of Shantel Davis, George Floyd and now these latest martyrs and said that only communist revolution can avenge them and bring the world we deserve.
Grief turned into militant cheers, and in the conversations that followed, we learned the soldiers nearby were in contact and questioning their orders. We were able to send messages to refuse orders to harm their class siblings, and to join us and turn the guns around. Ultimately, the Guard wasn’t sent out – but with our contacts here we can plant the seeds for future rebellions.
Contrary to the capitalist bosses and their mouthpieces’ constant lies that communism can’t work because it goes against “human nature” and other nonsense, Minneapolis gave genuine examples of communism in action. Workers of every background came together to organize, share, and defend one another without any motivation of personal gain. As one of our friends put it, it was “the dream within the nightmare.”
The class struggle continues
The mass openness to communist ideas in this atmosphere isn’t a coincidence. For the apparent future, our class will remain in mortal struggle against these capitalist parasites and the fascists protecting their property and wealth. But the fighting example of workers across Minneapolis as well as the entire world shows how rapidly the illusions of capitalist strength vanish in the face of workers’ power. Minneapolis demonstrates that our class has the potential and spirit to destroy this capitalist system before it destroys us. ALL POWER to the international working class! We salute the antiracist fighters everywhere – JOIN PLP, FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
