QUEENS, NY, April 2—Following Trump’s election, LaGuardia Community College students, faculty, and staff began mobilizing to begin a Sanctuary movement. The Trump administration is increasing its’ racist and sexist attacks on the working class. They are bringing us ever closer to world war. We have to increase our efforts to organize a multiracial working class to fight back. A sanctuary movement is a good start. Let’s also make it a step on the road to a world run by the working class, communism.
The threats against immigrants, Muslims, women, and transpeople were on the minds of the more than 100 people who gathered in December. Many were politically active for the first time. At least 40 percent of students at LaGuardia Community College were born in other countries, 57 percent are female, and 86 percent are “non-white.” Even more are the children of immigrants, and many are Muslim.
Link Sanctuary Fight to Capitalist Inequality
From this initial meeting, groups have been mobilized to learn and train others about legal protections, find resources for students and family members struggling with immigration status, develop a rapid response network, integrate lessons into syllabi, and to connect with community organizations. Many of the workers and students involved in these efforts want to link the sanctuary fight to the bigger problems of capitalism, such as racist police terror, poverty, health care, education. As we build this sanctuary movement, we should expose and organize to destroy the whole capitalist system.
The college administration’s response has been to pull many of the leaders into an ad hoc committee, now dubbed LaGuardia Rising, to work with attorneys to find “suitable responses.” Staff and faculty have been told that the word “sanctuary” is a call to illegal actions, leaving many worried about their jobs.
Nevertheless the Sanctuary Coalition, a loosely connected group of committees and individuals who are dedicated to resistance, are working in parallel to train anyone who is interested about resources and basic protections for immigrant students, build a rapid response network, and disseminate information.
Town Hall: Whom Do the Cops Serve?
A town hall meeting brought in hundreds of community members in mid March, students are visiting classes with the support of faculty to educate other students, and students reached out with a table at the college Club Fair to build the movement. Many at the college are mobilized.
Some leaders are working with the administration, who assured the community that Immigration Customs Enforcement would never be allowed into classrooms: If ICE personnel come to campus with judicial warrants, college security will get the students instead. What’s the difference if you are picked up by ICE or brought by college security to ICE? At the most recent Town Hall meeting, some students discussed working with the police. This is a trap. The cops serve the billionaire bosses. They protect the bosses’ property and profits.
The concern is deep and sincere, but the movement is riddled with contradictions. Questions abound. Should students hide their immigration status to protect themselves and their families, or should they boldly declare themselves undocumented as a political action? Are students who are already registered as DREAMers at risk? Should Sanctuary activists work with the college administration? As we build this anti-racist and anti-sexist movement, questions will be answered and issues will be resolved. We invite everyone fight against anti-immigrant racism to  the Progressive Labor Party’s May Day march on April 29th (see the ad on page 8).

NEW YORK CITY, April 5—The pianist hit the ivory and ebony keys. The singer used her voice, and the Haitian and church communities gathered together let out a whoop of excitement during our sixth annual fundraiser to benefit grassroots work in Haiti.  120 people attended on a miserably rainy evening in a church basement to raise funds for reforestation projects in Southeast Haiti.
The organizations at the dinner are trying to develop volunteer work within their local communities in Haiti, to reforest areas that have serious soil erosion due to the loss of great forests.  In another room there was a slide show of the work being done. Several thousand dollars were collected that evening with a silent auction, a raffle and an entrance fee.  The work to bring people together and the struggles to maintain the continuity of the participating groups, create a deep respect for each other. It is with this kind of practical work against a tide of racism and sexism that strengthens this growing unity.
The struggles to free Haiti from French slavery and the worker’s battles to ensure life and emancipation have never disappeared in Haiti.  The battle is always to try to eke out a living in a nation that was impoverished by Western imperialist nations.  For the past 75 years or so, the United States has played the role previously played by European nations. That is, drawing every penny of value possible out of the labor and the land of Haiti.  United States troops have invaded and occupied Haiti so U. S. banks could collect their bloody profits. Today United Nations troops still occupy Haiti. Their biggest “contribution” is bringing cholera to this poor country. Meanwhile the various “non-profit” aid organizations mainly benefit themselves and do virtually nothing for the Haitian workers.
Haitians were the first slaves to free themselves with a revolution in 1804 and had been forced for over a 100 years to repay the value of what was “stolen” from the slave owners – namely themselves. One of the speakers said that the capitalist class would never let Haiti forget, because they still remember and tremble at the thought of the Haitian revolution. Along with fighting deforestation and all the other evils brought on by capitalism and imperialism, Haitian workers need another revolution. We need to support our Progressive Labor Party comrades in Haiti as they fight for a Haitian revolution that will be part of the worldwide revolution for communism.
At our fundraiser the Haitian style black rice, the rice and beans, griot, chicken, salads, vegetable stews, macaroni au gratin were gathered up, and taken to tables where people talked and enjoyed each other’s company, argued, and laughed. Many people who came also produced the food. The kitchen had been jumping all evening in preparation with, what appeared, as seamless collaboration between the two communities.
Then the performances began. One of the musical groups, playing jazz, had people jumping up and dancing to the rhythm. Later a Haitian group sang songs of love, of life, of struggle.  The many people who could not speak Haitian Kreyol loved the sound and the cadence of the music. It is hard to express the overwhelming feeling of joyous community and solidarity.
The leader of the Haitian organization and church members gave speeches. Music and poetry were in the air, and a deeper commitment was made to future organizing. When it was time for the cleanup, every single person present moved in amazing grace and, within 15 minutes, the hall was almost pristine.  The kitchen took longer. Everybody helped. This is how everyone should live.  Without each other we live in the capitalist nightmare of isolation.  This was a small antidote for all the isolation and madness of a society that values money over people – that values profit over the needs of the many.
At this gathering, many of us could see both the “beloved community” of the Civil Rights movement, and the future of communism. Care for those who need the care and destroy the capitalism that creates poverty, division, racism, sexism and war. The future is bright!

As May Day, the international workers’ holiday, nears, a look at the world’s first success at workers’ power:
One hundred forty-six years ago, in 1871, armed workers ran the French bosses out of Paris and established the Paris Commune. France was a world superpower. Germany had a growing industrial base and its own super-power ambitions. "We, the members of the International Working Men's Association, know of no frontiers," declared the communists. But competition between French and German capitalists led to war in 1870. The French army was soon routed.
The Parisian masses, though sympathetic to communism, were still swayed by nationalism. They demanded arms to defend the city from the besieging German army. The bourgeois government organized most adult males into its National Guard. However, these Guard units, made up of the working class, organized their own leadership committees in each district and a workers' Central Committee to unite them.
On March 17, 1871, the government gave in to the German army and fled to suburban Versailles. When troops returned the next day to fetch arms they had left behind, angry workers confronted them. The troops refused orders to shoot into the crowd. They handed their weapons to the workers.
The Central Committee of the National Guard took over City Hall and ran up the Red Flag of workers' revolution. For the first time in the history of class society, the working class had taken power.
Building Equality
The Central Committee called for new elections. "The men who will serve you best are those whom you choose from amongst yourselves," it urged the workers. Red flags were everywhere.
The Commune kept the bourgeois form of elections, but the victorious workers did not simply take over the bourgeois state machine. They smashed it and began to build something brand new: the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
The masses were the real masters of the Commune. Twenty thousand activists attended small club meetings daily to offer criticisms and make suggestions. Elected officials considered all proposals and usually acted on them. Officials who disregarded the masses were subject to immediate recall.
The workers' government disbanded the bourgeois Guard units. It suspended all decrees of the old government. Workers pulled down the Victory Column, symbol of French imperialism. They elected a HungarianGerman communist to their governing body, declaring that the Commune represented workers everywhere.
The workers' government wiped out state support of religion and took over church property. It capped officials' salaries so that none made more than a worker's wage. It took away bosses' rights to fine workers. It took over workshops that had been closed because of the economic depression and turned them over to workers' cooperatives.
This working-class dictatorship was the necessary prerequisite to abolishing the wage-slavery of capitalism. The Commune held power for ten short weeks. It proved for all time that the working class can, must, and will rule society.
Why Did The Workers Lose in 1871?
The French bourgeoisie used tax money taken from the workers' sweat to pay off the German government to release French prisoners of war. In May, after a bloody civil war in the streets, these soldiers re-took Paris for the bosses. The communist movement was quick to draw some of the lessons of this heroic and historic struggle. Others we only recognized a century later.
 Workers need to smash the bosses' state. But the Commune did not go far enough. It was lenient with counter-revolutionaries and renegades. It allowed the French bourgeoisie to regroup, instead of organizing a Red Army to hunt it down. The bourgeoisie was not lenient at all after it crushed the Commune, murdering 100,000 workers (including children). The Commune was not able to link up with Communes in Lyons, Marseilles, and other cities. The working class dictatorship needs to arm and organize the masses, but it also needs a Red Army.
The Commune organized workers into political clubs, but not into a Communist party. There was plenty of democracy (discussion of policy) but not much centralism (united action). The political form of bourgeois democracy undermined the working-class goals of the Commune.
The Commune did not move quickly enough to abolish capitalism. Had it expropriated the Bank of France, the French bourgeoisie would have had a much harder time raising a counter-revolutionary army.
The Commune recognized the need for equality among workers and revolutionary cadre. But we can see now that equalizing wages was no substitute for abolishing the wage system altogether.
As we march for Communism this May Day, the Progressive Labor Party will carry forward the spirit of the Paris Commune.
For more on the Paris Commune and the lessons communists drew from it, read Karl Marx's book, The Civil War In France; Frederick Engels, The Great Lessons of the Paris Commune.

Thousands of workers in South Korea protest against THAAD (U.S. missile system) and the capitalist warmakers’ willingness to sacrifice workers’ lives.North Korea’s latest ballistic missile tests have exposed growing tensions between the U.S. and Chinese ruling classes. On March 6, a week before U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson began his tour of Asia to build support in the region, North Korea launched four ballistic missiles that landed within 200 miles of Japan’s coastline. On March 19, North Korea announced the successful test of a new high-thrust rocket engine that “could help with the country’s development of ICBMs—intercontinental ballistic missiles” with the potential to reach targets in the United States (cnn.com, 3/19). Despite pledges to “cooperate” between Tillerson and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in containing North Korea’s military ambitions, recent developments show how these major powers are building toward war (New York Times, 3/19).
U.S. Aim: Defend South Korea or Attack China?
The Korean Peninsula, a historic buffer and invasion route in East Asia, lies at the convergence of vital imperialist interests of the United States, China, Russia, and regional power Japan. The aggressive U.S. response to North Korea’s missile tests represents an escalated threat to a 60-year nuclear balance of power. Stating that “all options are on the table,” including military force, Tillerson made it clear to both North Korea and China, North Korea’s main ally, that the U.S. is moving beyond negotiations and economic sanctions (Bloomberg, 3/17). The U.S. immediately started deploying its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD) in South Korea, the U.S. proxy in the Peninsula since 1948.
According to China’s capitalist media, THAAD’s radar capabilities are designed to spy on China’s missile systems and military movements and undermine its self-defense against a potential U.S. preemptive strike (CNN, 3/7). China sees the “defense” system as a provocative “attempt to hem in its strategic position—and as a betrayal of the closer ties it has developed with South Korea over the last five years” (Foreign Affairs, 2/8). As South Korea’s largest trading partner, China has retaliated by attacking the South Korean economy. The Chinese bosses have imposed a travel ban to South Korea, resulting in billions of lost revenue, and have targeted the South Korean Lotte Group, which owns the land where THADD is being built. Citing code violations, China has shut down over half of Lotte stores in China (Bloomberg, 3/8).
Meanwhile, North Korea’s missile test has opened the door for Japan, China’s main regional rival and the main U.S. ally in the region, to participate in U.S.-South Korean joint military drills, which North Korea considers “a rehearsal for invasion” (NYT, 3/5). Japan plans to send its Izumo helicopter carrier on tour for the first time through the South China Sea, the shipping route for $5 trillion in annual global trade and a looming flashpoint between Chinese and U.S. imperialists.
China is also looking to exploit U.S. President Donald Trump’s rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which had been negotiated by Barack Obama to bolster U.S. economic power in China’s backyard. Predictably, China is moving to fill the void. Both China and South Korea are joining signatories to the blocked TPP in trade talks in Chile. Chinese bosses will be pushing their alternative trade alliance, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (Reuters 3/13). U.S. rejection of the TPP may alienate Japan, which was counting on the partnership to boost its
economy. It could also lead a number of U.S. allies to hedge their bets in the sharpening inter-imperialist competition.
At present, subduing North Korea is in the interest of both Chinese and U.S. rulers. At the moment, neither the U.S. nor China is prepared for a direct conflict. In an attempt to avoid giving U.S. bosses another pretext to increase their military influence in the region, China disciplined North Korea by suspending all coal imports, which account for nearly 40 percent of North Korea’s total exports (NYT, 2/18). But China’s bosses are reluctant to push North Korea too hard and risk triggering regime change and further destabilization on the Peninsula.
South Korean Instability Threatens U.S.
THAAD may not be a permanent fixture. The recent impeachment of South Korean President Park Geun-hye, who welcomed the system, could lead his successor to reconsider it. Already hurt by economic pressure from China, South Korean businesses are weighing their options.
Despite its strength as the 11th-largest economy in the world, South Korea is facing a crisis of unemployment, particularly among its youth. In February, its unemployment rate among 15-to-29-year-olds exceeded 12 percent (Business Times 3/15). According to the South Korean daily newspaper Hanyoreh, sellout unions are willing to agree to lower wages and cut hours to provide more work for youth (3/15).  
Thousands of workers in South Korea are protesting in front of Lotte stores against THAAD—and the capitalist warmakers’ willingness to sacrifice workers’ lives. Many are first-time fighters; a large number are women. One farmworker said, “These rallies and such I had never done in my life. I believed that politics had nothing to do with me. All I have to do is vote for someone who can represent my region and country and that’s it…Now my perspective has changed a lot.” (Foreign Policy in Focus, 2/8).
These workers illustrate the ability of our class to fight back and seek class-conscious leadership. Protesting the South Korean government or U.S. imperialism is a good first step. At a time when billions of workers could be threatened or conscripted by the next world war, winning these workers to a communist line is more important than ever.   
Regardless of the future of THAAD, it is clear the U.S. will push back against China in this pivotal region. From the Caribbean to the Mediterranean to the South China Sea, it is becoming harder for the bosses to conceal their buildup to war. As they advance in their preparations, we must continue to prepare as well—for communist revolution.

*****

North Korea: No Friend to Workers

At the end of World War II, in the wake of its occupation by the defeated Japanese fascists, the Korean Peninsula was “temporarily” divided into North and South. Former fascist collaborators controlled the South in alliance with the Japanese, who were now protected by U.S. rulers. The North was led by anti-fascists who had fought these collaborators.
In June 1950, a war erupted between North and South. The U.S. said the North invaded, a claim open to dispute. On June 25, the early editions of the New York Times ran an Associated Press dispatch reporting that the South’s troops had crossed into North Korea. But later editions dropped that story and launched a full-scale media offensive claiming the North had initiated the clash.
Whatever actually happened, the conflict became a proxy war between the Soviet/China-backed North and the U.S.-backed South. For three years, the Cold War became hot; one million Koreans lost their lives. The U.S. drove the North’s army toward the Chinese border. Commanding General Douglas MacArthur wanted to cross into China, but the tide turned when massed Chinese volunteers drove the U.S. forces back into the South. U.S. President Harry Truman fired MacArthur, and eventually the U.S. ruling class decided it had no choice but to settle the conflict at the original North-South dividing line. That line stands to this day, with 30,000 U.S. troops still massed in the South.
By the late 1950s, the Soviet Union—having kept many capitalist features, including the wage system—abandoned the struggle for communism and regressed into a state capitalist regime. The North Korean leadership, caught up in the Cold War against the U.S. and its South Korean puppet, became a Soviet puppet. Following the Russian example, it developed into its present state.
Workers throughout the Korean Peninsula, on both sides of the bosses’ line, are suffering under the capitalist yoke. Only communism will free them from exploitation and the constant threat of imperialist war.