When U.S. President Donald Trump descended upon Asia in a twelve-day tour spanning five countries, it marked a turning point for the ascendance of China, the relative decline of the U.S., and their sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry. While Trump declared that “America is back” (The Guardian, 11/17), it was more wishful thinking than reality.
Trump’s attempts to appease his alienated working-class base with a hard line on trade and North Korea ring hollow. China’s growing economic, military, and political might are propelling it forward, while the U.S. desperately tries to hold on to its once-dominant position. As history has taught us, most recently in World Wars I and II, the top dog imperialist will never relinquish its power willingly. The tension between China and the U.S. will continue to intensify amid rising fascism in both nations. The inevitable outcome will be world war.  
Workers everywhere must reject all forms of racism and nationalism used by Trump and other capitalist rulers to divide our class and mobilize us to fight and die in the bosses’ wars for control of resources and markets. Workers have just one international class interest: to smash the profit system everywhere. Exploitation on the job, decaying infrastructure, capitalist death care and miseducation, and the rotten culture that oppresses us all stem from this system. Only communism will abolish nations, wages, money, and profits.
U.S. Grows Pathetic, Rising China Forebodes War
The China/U.S. power struggle was on full display during Trump’s trip. While the U.S.-led Asian Pacific Economic Summit was unfolding in Vietnam, the Chinese were countering at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Jakarta. The Filipino press praised Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who “got things done [at ASEAN] in areas that matter: trade and security above all. He strengthened economic ties with the region while practically silencing protests over China’s militarization of the South China Sea” (The Rappler, 11/16).
The Los Angeles Times (11/9) bemoaned the fact that “[n]owhere in Trump’s tour, however, have any of those leaders entered into serious negotiations or made significant concessions.”  Some of China’s minor trade concessions, for which Trump was quick to claim credit, were already in the pipeline. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, an important ruling class figure, admitted that the concessions “achieved thus far are pretty small.” Of the roughly 15 “deals” announced by Trump, most are nonbinding memoranda of understanding that may never materialize (The Japan Times, 11/10).
TPP Failure a Sign of U.S. Decline
As the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations went forward without Trump, his absence had little real effect. Shortly after Trump left Japan, the country’s finance minister made clear that there would be no trade deal with the U.S. (Reuters 11/6/17). With Japan at the helm, the trade ministers forming the TPP-11, the trade pact’s remaining signatories, announced that the agreement would be revised to proceed without the U.S. (L.A. Times, 11/9). This will force Trump to play a weak hand when trying to negotiate trade concessions that could have been obtained through the TPP (Huffington Post, 11/7).
The main wing of the U.S. ruling class is furious with Trump’s “disengagement” from trade deals like the TPP, which had the full support of Barack Obama, a more reliable bosses’ agent. In the British Daily Mail (11/14), Nicholas Lardy, a Peterson Institute expert on the Chinese economy, blasted Trump’s pull-back:
[The Chinese] are gaining strategic importance and geopolitical influence in the region    ... [Trump] can talk about Indo-Pacific blah, blah, blah, but we’re not engaged in trade, we’re not negotiating any new trade agreement with any country in the region.
A weakening and volatile U.S. equates to a slippery slope to war with China.
China’s Bosses: Unity & Fascism
Compare ruling class sniping at Trump to this assessment of the Chinese bosses’ unity coming out of the so-called Chinese Communist Party Congress one month ago:
The supersizing of Xi’s power comes as Beijing steps up efforts to go global ... Xi doesn’t tweet, boast about his IQ or make geopolitical threats he’s not prepared to back up. What he does do is beat economic growth expectations year after year, steadily increase China’s market share and play the long game ... (Japan Times, 10/31).
Xi Jinping, who easily won a second term as general secretary of the Chinese “Communist Party”, pledged that he would make China a great power by 2050 (South China Morning Post, 11/16). In fact, it may happen sooner, with China already “the second largest economy by official exchange rate, the largest manufacturing country and the largest trading nation in the world.” It also has one-third of the world’s billionaires (BBC, 10/19 and Center for American Progress, 4/27).
Speaking at a “China Power Conference” organized by the ruling class think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the senior Republican Senator John Cornyn worried that China will “pose the greatest threat to the U.S.,” sooner rather than later. His two main concerns are China’s state capitalist economy outpacing the U.S., and the aggressive Chinese military buildup in the South and East China Seas (Epoch Times 11/14).
Tumultous U.S. Ruling Class
Meanwhile, the U.S. ruling class is splintering by the day. Republicans could not garner enough votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act and are struggling with passage of their shortsighted tax reform bill, which favors selfish interests of the wealthy at the expense of a growing deficit and widening inequality (NY Times, 11/16). Steve Bannon, the white supremacist loose cannon and former White House advisor, faced off against Vice President Mike Pence, with each backing different candidates in a much-publicized Republican Senate primary race in Alabama (CNN, 9/25).
The Trump- and Koch-led factions of the ruling class continue to vacillate over their relationship. Conservative billionaires are fighting Trump over infrastructure programs, border taxes, jobs programs, and the ban on refugees and immigrants from mainly Muslim countries (Independent, 2/3). The Koch brothers at first backed the Trump tax plan, only to later withdraw their support (Vanity Fair, 11/3).
Conversely, the first term of Xi’s rule was defined by a harsh disciplining of China’s ruling class, with power threats to Xi drummed out of leadership or imprisoned. This approach seems to be paying both financial and political dividends.
Turn World War Into Revolution
At the end, Trump’s Asia trip served only to highlight the growing challenge of Chinese imperialism to U.S. imperialist power. All the signs suggest that the current battle between the U.S. and China is leading to a catastrophic conflict. We can be certain that regardless of who emerges as top dog, the working class will continue to be exploited.
Historically, communist-led revolutions have followed world wars and the mass slaughter of our class amid the bosses’ fight for profits and dominance. Today, once again, only international working class unity and communist revolution can stop imperialist war.

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World’s Bosses Can Offer Nothing for Workers

From the point of view of the international working class, Trump’s Asia trip was a disaster:
The biggest humanitarian crisis in Asia today is the mass murder and forced relocation of hundreds of thousands of starving Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar to Bangladesh. Buddhist rulers have persecuted the mostly Muslim Rohingya people for centuries. Since the military takeover in 1962, the government has excluded the Rohingyas from citizenship. They need official permission to marry and have limited access to education, jobs, and residency. Of course, China’s One Belt One Road initiative has exacerbated this crisis. Not a peep was uttered about these atrocities by racist Trump, Xi, or any other capitalist bosses.
Trump praised Phillipines President Rodrigo Duterte’s “unbelievable job on the drug problem.” This is the same Duterte who said, “Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now there are three million drug addicts (in the Phillipines). I’d be happy to slaughter them.” The U.S. bosses’ relationship with the Phillipines is rocky, as the historical U.S. ally aligns more closely with China.
The Asia trip was trumpeted as a U.S. diplomatic offensive to hem in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. However, neither Russia nor China agreed to any measures against North Korea beyond those already agreed upon (Politico, 11/14). And the chairwoman of the ruling party in South Korea, Choo Mi-ae, told a Washington think tank that the U.S. should “under no circumstances” take any military action against North Korea without the express consent of the South Korean government.
The failure to make any new significant trade deals or forge new alliances to constrain China are both clear signs of the decline of U.S. power in Asia.

BOSTON, November 18—A thousand anti-racist protestors rallied to stop a gathering of 50 fascists at the Boston Common. This follows a similar rally in August, when 40,000 people marched from up and down the East Coast to oppose neo-Nazis like the Oath Keepers, Patriotic Prayer, and other white-supremacist militias. As part of a new generation of gutter racist organizations, emboldened by the brazenly racist Trump presidency, these groups openly advocate “white nationalism” and anti-immigrant racism. They have sent armed vigilantes to intimidate people demonstrating against police killings of Black workers.
This time the fascists were denied a permit. They came anyway, saying they had the right to assemble on the Boston Common, a large and historic park open to all. Though the rally was illegal, liberal Boston Mayor Marty Walsh showed he was squarely on the fascists’ side. Several hundred Boston police, state police and other cops came to protect the fascists. Once again, we saw how the capitalist bosses serve their own racist interests in deciding when and where to enforce their laws. Without the cops, the fascists couldn’t organize!
Death to Fascism, Power to the Workers
Members and friends of Progressive Labor Party arrived in downtown Boston just as the kkkops were leading the fascists Tremont Street to the Boston Common. We held a bullhorn rally right there on the sidewalk, just across from the “alt right” and its armed cop guard. Although we lacked the forces to physically confront both the fascists and the cops, we had a successful 30-minute rally. We were joined by people off the street, including one who stayed to the end. We distributed CHALLENGE and a leaflet titled: “Learn From History – Destroy Fascism Now!” We unfurled our anti-fascist banner and spoke on the bullhorn to receptive passersby and those on their way to protest.
Then we decided to approach the Parkman Bandstand within 100 feet of where the fascists were assembled. As we walked into the Common, we found ourselves in an armed camp, with police stationed everywhere. The bandstand was barricaded to protect the fascists from righteous working-class anger. As we arrived, and the fascists began spewing their racist lies, we raised our banner and took up our bullhorn once again to drown them out. Finally the cops led the cowards out and simultaneously cordoned off most of the protesters so that we couldn’t follow. We chanted as loudly as we could: “Hitler rose, Hitler fell, Nazi scum can go to hell!” and “Death, death, death to the fascists, power, power, power to the workers!”
Before we left, we distributed more than 500 leaflets and close to 50 CHALLENGEs. We reached many people with our militant, anti-capitalist ideas on the need to smash fascist movements before they grow. At the same time, this experience showed us that we need to build up our anti-fascist forces.
Ruling Class Crises Lead to World War
As we explained at the rally, capitalist rulers from Turkey to Saudi Araba to China to the U.S. are disciplining their own ranks because their system is in crisis and they can no longer rule in the old way. The dominant bosses, like finance capital in the U.S., use fascist groups to help them consolidate power and attempt to divide and intimidate the international working class. We made it clear that rising fascism is an essential step toward global inter-imperialist war. Capitalism cannot be reformed to stop fascism. Only communist revolution can smash the lethal profit system and end fascism and imperialist war forever.
What we must learn from history: world events today are similar to what occurred in Europe in the 1930s. In both England and Germany, large fascist movements were backed by big capitalist financiers. In England, working people crushed the black-shirt fascists in the streets. In Germany, they fought the Nazis but lost the street battles. The German Communist Party relied on the electoral process and the dangerous illusion that fascism could be stopped by an alliance with “progressive” capitlists. That grave mistake ultimately cost the lives of 6 million Jewish people and tens of millions of others.
Today the fascists and their backers are clear in their intentions: subjugate Black, Latin, Asian, and immigrant workers; suppress and divide our class; defend the U.S. profit empire. Allowing fascists to organize has consequences. Enough is enough! As we have learned from the horrors of history, we need to stop this scum now, along with the sick capitalist system that finances and protects them! We will continue our struggle in Boston and around the world!

This is the  part of an extensive series about the Bolshevik Revolution and the triumphs, as well as the defeats, of the world communist movement of the 20th century. We welcome your comments and criticisms, and encourage all readers to discuss this period of history with their friends, classmates, co-workers, family, and comrades.

In the pamphlet, The Epic of the Black Sea Revolt (1932), the French Communist André Marty reveals that the “war to end all wars” did not cease after 1917. (André Marty was one of the leaders of the revolt of the French sailors in 1919 and was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison.  Pardoned in 1923, he became a member of the Communist International, and at his suggestion the Soviet Union supported the Spanish Republic against the fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War 1936-9.)
Capitalist nations around the world and white armies continued to besiege the U.S.S.R.  The revolts of French sailors represented one aspect of an immense world-wide movement against the aspirations of many imperialist countries.
Contrary to a popular legend, the “Black Sea Revolt” was not confined to mutinies of the crews on the French warships sent to the Black Sea in 1919. These included rebellions of the French troops stationed in the Southern Ukraine and the Crimea, as well as mutinies of French sailors on ships outside the Black Sea and in French ports.
To every soldier, the armistice of November, 1918, had meant that at last the imperialist war was over! But towards the end of I918, the Allied troops, by virtue of a special clause in the Armistice of November 11, had virtually replaced the German occupation troops in the Ukraine and in the Crimea. On December 18, 1918, the 156th Division dispatched from Salonika disembarked at Odessa. French soldiers there were engaged in severe fighting at the side of Russian White officers against Ukrainian soldiers. The shooting and the cannonade were distinctly heard on board the warships lying in the roadstead ready for battle. The continual skirmishes that followed the landing, and then the departure for a new front opened the eyes of the soldiers, “In France the war has ended, but here we are starting it all over again against a people’s republic!”
At the same time news filtered through to the soldiers and sailors about the powerful rebellions in France from men who had been on leave, from letters and from the new recruits about the workers’ problems there: unemployment and high cost of living, a rising wave of strikes for bread and progress, demonstrations against French PM Clemenceau’s military dictatorship and against the military intervention in Russia.
The French soldiers and sailors saw before them the very soldiers of the Bolshevik Revolution, whose inspiring revolution was rousing the masses of the people in France.
Russian and French Soldiers Unite
On their front, the Russian soldiers were committed to the practice of convincing enemy troops that they had become counter-revolutionaries.  They concentrated their efforts on the most decisive factor, the French Army and Navy.  These soldiers and sailors learned from the Bolshevik pamphlets—published in French—a remarkable knowledge of the everyday needs and demands of the French on the ships and in their trenches.  The men came to realize that the Bolsheviks were actually defending their interests. The Bolsheviks explained what the October Socialist Revolution was, what it stood for, and what it meant for the workers of the whole world.  Soon, French soldiers in Odessa protested vehemently when Russian workers were being led to prison.
The occupied zone extended from Tiraspol, in the Ukraine, and skirted the entire coast of the Black Sea. Protests began with the soldiers refusing to march.  On January 30, a battalion of the 58th Infantry was marched with the object of seizing Tiraspol. The 58th abandoned the battle and turned protests into action by taking the artillery with them and cutting its telephone communications.
On April 5, Odessa was evacuated. Whole units left the city singing the lnternationale. It became necessary to send the entire French army it back to France.
Marty was arrested on April 16 at Galatz (Rumania), together with three other sailors who had worked out a plan for seizing the ship.  That plan was sabotaged later.
Soldiers, Sailors Rebel
A revolt broke out on board the dreadnought  (type of battleship) France. The next day, the crews of the sister ships, the France and the Jean-Bart—the latter the flagship of the Admiral—gathered on deck singing the Internationale, and hoisted the red flag on the bowsprit. Almost at the moment when the red flag was hoisted on the main mast of the France, the troops which had been landed from the ships left the forts and made their way to the shore. When they arrived at the quay, the sailors singing “Down with the tyrants and the war!” flung their ammunition boxes into the sea. In the days that followed they forced the squadron to depart from Sevastopol.
Demonstrations of sailors and soldiers took place in the city of Toulon. The crew of the dreadnought Provence, the flagship of the First Admiral, refused to set sail for the Black Sea. The demands were: “Liberation of all the mutineers of the Black Sea, cessation, of the war of intervention in Russia, immediate demobilization.” The government could not stem this fast movement except by a mass demobilization, by hastening to disarm many warships, and by recalling from Russia all the ships and the forces of intervention.
One fact is beyond dispute. As a result of the Black Sea Revolt, French imperialism was compelled to relinquish its stranglehold on the October Revolution. Then the masses of sailors, soldiers and workers rose in France—not only against the criminal designs of the French imperialists, but also against the official Social-Democratic leaders who had prostituted themselves to the bourgeoisie since 1914: the “ Right” Socialists, the “ Centre “, and the  “Lefts” of the type of Paul Faure, as well as the trade union traitors.
For the international working class the Black Sea Revolt remains an example of what can be done by the power of the working class to demolish an imperialist state machine.

ATLANTA, November 8—The annual American Public Health Association (APHA) convention in Atlanta, which drew 12,000 attendees, was again a hotbed of struggle over racism. Led by members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and many young public health students and workers, the fight to pass two anti-racist resolutions became headline news.
Five Fightbacks and Counting
One resolution, proposed for the fifth time, called upon the United Nations to take responsibility for causing the massive cholera epidemic in Haiti, and also to take action and pay for public health and sanitation measures to stop it. This resolution had been passed in 2016 by a 94 percent margin, but it was for one year and the goal this year was to fight for it to be a permanent policy.
Despite the overwhelming support by workers last year, the policy board again gave it a negative rating this year. Every year these policy arbiters make new and often contradictory demands for changes to the resolution, but ultimately could never be satisfied because their disagreements are actually political. The racist reality is that they don’t care about workers’ lives in Haiti, and the APHA leadership doesn’t want to ruffle the UN.
Last year another resolution, to declare racist police violence a public health problem, was also passed temporarily, despite a negative review from the APHA leaders. They were forced to suspend their own rules to avoid a floor fight. The arbiters made suggestions for changes, all of which were answered by the ten young authors of the resolution, but they still rejected the end product.
Exposing Racist Hypocrisy
At a well-attended hearing open to all, 95 percent were strongly in favor of the resolution. Still, members of the Medical Care section who had endorsed both resolutions still raised certain objections to the resolution. One member agreed with the statement that “police are agents of social control” but said “you can’t say that.” The PLP member said it was the truth and we should say what is true.
Before the final vote about 75 members demonstrated loudly in front of the convention center, with chants such as “No APHA silence in the face of police violence.” Many then entered the hearing room as the debate proceeded. But this chance to call out the police and seriously attack racism was too much for the timid APHA leaders, who like to maintain cozy relations with Democratic politicians and law enforcement. They cut off debate and engineered a defeat by conservative delegates and many “liberals” who were afraid to take a stand against the police.
Young Anti-Racists Undaunted
Ten young public health students who co-authored the resolutions also presented sessions on police violence, racism, and on the conditions in Haiti. They attended other sessions where they leafleted and raised questions. The defeat did not discourage them because they realized that they had raised the issue of racism with thousands and exposed the cowardice and hypocrisy of the APHA leadership.
PLP members participated actively in writing these resolutions and building the struggle around them. In addition, we distributed 1,000 fliers which supported the resolutions but also explained that equitable and excellent health care is impossible under capitalism, because of the constant drive for profit in this system. We gave out CHALLENGE and held our annual breakfast to discuss our politics, our history of activity in APHA for decades past, and discuss the focus for next year. In many sessions we spoke from the floor about racism and capitalism. In so doing we cemented relationships with our young co-authors and made several new contacts.
Capitalist Healthcare Will Always Fail Working class
The APHA is a typical liberal organization, that claims to represent the interests of its members and be genuinely concerned about the public good. However, the leadership is really most concerned about maintaining its status and funding within the capitalist structure of the U.S. Thus they do not speak up in public for even such reformist measures as single payer health care, which is the official policy, and refuse to deal with such touchy issues as racism. PLP, on the other hand, understands that capitalism only cares about working people as a means to make profits. Maximizing the health and health care of workers cannot be a reality under capitalism, because that cost comes out of profits. Capitalist healthcare is set up to give the minimum needed to keep workers working, if that. What capitalism does do is build racism in order to super-exploit black, Latin and immigrant workers and keep us divided against one another, instead of fighting back against this murderous system. Join PLP and smash the divisions of capitalism.