Live Reports from the Frontlines
Our work is made possible by the hundreds of communist correspondents across the U.S. whose contributions flood into our offices every day.
Here is a glimpse of those contributions.
My Workplace Is Buzzing with Political Discussion
Megan L, Minneapolis, MN
The politicized atmosphere in Minnesota has taken over even the most unlikely of places—rooms full of gray cubicles.
I work at a large multinational company headquartered in the Twin Cities. I often discuss politics with my coworkers, but since the shooting of Renee Good, my workplace has buzzing with political discussion, even from people who have never discussed politics at work.
Many of my coworkers are upset that our company’s policy is to let ICE in the building first and validate that they have a judicial warrant once they’re inside. Letting a bunch of guys with guns into the building is understandably not a popular decision, especially when handed down by people who don’t even work in the building!
My coworkers and I agree that we should decide how we handle ICE raids. We are feeling an instinctual proletarian urge for worker’s control.
My manager and I talk politics semi-regularly, and he is a self-described anarchist. Last week, I submitted PTO for January 23 and told my boss that some of the unions had called for a day action and I would be taking time off in solidarity.
Today, he told me he realized why I took time off, and then told me that I shouldn’t work or take PTO because Friday was a “general strike,” and strikers don’t take PTO!
This may be coming from my boss, but in a large company like this, the lowest-level supervisors often share the same class interests as those they manage, even if they may be part of a more privileged layer of the working class. I think this goes to show that all layers of the working class in Minneapolis are being drawn into the struggle against ICE, with growing interest in class-struggle methods.
Coworkers Strategize against ICE Terror
Mason M, Minneapolis, MN
I work in a small restaurant, and ICE terror is forcing my coworkers to strategize for our own protection. At work today, ICE vehicles were reported about 10 blocks away. One of my coworkers gave me a whistle. We locked all the doors except for the front, where a coworker stood on the lookout.
Everyone was on high alert, including the customers. Some shared information and strategized with us, and offered their assistance if anything happened. A coworker barricaded chairs. The owner of the restaurant threw a fit, but his “concerns”—for “business as usual”—were easily disregarded.
Now, I imagine this scene being repeated at restaurants all throughout Minneapolis and Saint Paul. While the inflammatory surge of ICE in Minneapolis has become the center of national attention, distracting from important events on a global scale, these events are also bringing many workers into action in their own workplaces. The needs of employee security often directly contradict corporate interests. I don’t think raising class consciousness was Trump’s intention with “Operation Metro Surge,” but it is a direct result of his continual and escalating attacks on the working class of our city.
Spontaneous Anti-ICE Mass Meeting In South Minneapolis
John N, Minneapolis, MN
This evening three RCA comrades attended a community meeting at Whittier International Elementary School in South Minneapolis. People were flooding towards the school from all directions. By the beginning of the meeting, over 1,000 people had filled the entire school was completely. It was standing room only in every large room.
The Whittier Alliance Neighborhood Association organized the meeting and was visibly overwhelmed. They had a small speakers list including a city council member, a state rep, and a park board commissioner. With these speakers came the standard liberal moral appeals. A representative of the South MPLS Tenants Union voiced the need for in-person neighborhood committees organized in every block in the city, providing basically the only source of direction in the entire meeting.
Afterwards, time was provided for residents to break out and “find their neighbors.” Comrades used the opportunity to spread out into the meetings and talk with as many people as possible.
The movement seems to be picking up where the George Floyd uprising left off five years ago. The momentum towards neighborhood action committees is far stronger than ever before.
There is also growing enthusiasm for a turning the January 23 day of action into statewide general strike. Some people are recognizing that the union bureaucrats are acting as a barrier but don’t know what to do about it.
The whirlwind of information, organizations, and lines of communication have been overwhelming for a lot of people. To most everyone we talked to we consistently raised the following ideas:
- Make these mass meetings regular
- Discuss the lessons of the neighborhood committees and generalize them across the movement.
- Elect a centralized leadership made up of delegates from each neighborhood committee. Draw in the unions. Have union members form their own strike committees if necessary to maneuver around their leadership.
- Ultimately, we need to organize city and statewide general strikes to paralyze the city until ICE is forced out entirely.
Our ideas were met with the enthusiasm. One person even admired how our ideas were more clear and well thought out than any other in the meeting. The mood on the ground suggests that this movement will continue to escalate.
Hatred of ICE Drives People to the Communists
Erica L, Brooklyn, NY
The fight against ICE in Minneapolis is resonating with workers everywhere—and it was on display during my cell’s weekly recruiting stall in a subway station.
We usually have a political discussion beforehand to increase the quality of our conversations. But the comrade who started off couldn’t finish a sentence before we were swarmed. People wanted to talk about ICE!
When asked how to fight back, many of them brought up mutual aid, but not in the typical charity way; they saw it as a tool to organize and fight back. When we explained that the working class could defeat ICE by electing action committees linked up city- and nationwide to coordinate a fightback, copies of The Communist and other Marxist literature sold themselves. One person insisted on buying his paper for double price, unprompted.
Fighting Mood at Minneapolis Anti-ICE Protest
Athithi J, Minneapolis, MN
The killing of Renee Good by ICE officers sparked an emergency vigil at Portland and 33 on January 7. There were thousands of people filing into the streets to hear agitational speeches, holding candles and paying their respects to the deceased.
Demonstrators were filled with anger and the mood was electric. Almost everyone our RCA contingent spoke to was outraged and looking to get organized. Many agreed that to fight ICE, we need a revolution. One person, when asked how we could oppose ICE, even said we need a general strike. Another, said without prompting, “We need a revolution … and it must be violent.”
At the end of the protest, a car barreled through the street in frustration, threatening the lives of many protesters. One protestor, with whom we’d been discussion our revolutionary perspectives earlier in the evening, immediately began agitating with the perspectives he heard from us. He said that the ruling class has us fighting amongst ourselves when they are the real enemy.
Interestingly enough, a couple of the contacts we made first clarified by asking us “Are you with the RCA,” showing that we have already established a consistent presence in this city. Another indicated that she was planning on hosting a watch party for The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, something the comrades had already done three days prior.
The Communist practically sold itself at the demonstration, all we had to do was hold it up. It was clear from the mood of the demonstrators that the reformists and the Stalinists do not have the control they once enjoyed over the movement. At the end, the people who remained (which was still a sizeable number) started a spontaneous march through Minneapolis and even marched through Lake Street.
After we returned from the protest, we recorded a video for our social media calling on our periphery to march with us at Saturday’s protest. Fundamentally, this could potentially be the start of a mass movement. We need our forces ready for what is to come.
Workers Are at Their Limit
Jacob R, Bridgeport, CT
At my workplace there is a very strong feeling of frustration throughout the shop. It has reached a point where, every other day, a different coworker approaches me with the same complaint. The workload is excessive, stemming from a management team that doesn’t know how to manage. Even with everyone working 10+ hour days, Monday through Saturday, we are pushed to work harder and faster.
I have had people break down in tears describing their struggles. They cannot balance the little time they have left after work with affording the simplest of needs: housing, healthcare, and food.
When I point to the system that allows for inequality it resonates with them. Many of them send remittances to family in different countries but the rising cost of living has made that near impossible. Not only is it the immediate struggles my coworkers face, but the thought of tax dollars going towards things that hurt others abroad.
From Zohran Canvasser to RCA Member
Austin L, Brooklyn, NY
Nine months ago, I was walking through the snow in Bed-Stuy knocking on doors, telling my neighbors why they should vote for Zohran. I believed I was doing something meaningful, that this was how ordinary people could fight back against capitalism. Today, I can clearly see and explain the real limitations of that approach.
I was in a pretty “doomerist” place. I could feel the crises of capitalism everywhere, but I didn’t have the language to explain any of it. I felt stuck in “lesser of two evils” politics. It was getting harder to lie to myself when I recognized that even the best reforms were not changing the direction of my life or anyone else’s. I wanted a space where my questions would be met with real explanations and real solutions, not just virtue signaling or moral outrage.
DSA let me walk in with no questions asked, but also offered no answers. It felt refreshing at first but that feeling quickly faded into resentment because I didn’t fully believe what I was selling at the doors.
Then I ran into a group of RCA comrades selling The Communist. For the first time, I heard capitalism explained not as a collection of bad decisions or bad policy, but as a system that cannot be fixed—only overthrown. It was the first time the conditions I was experiencing were actually explained with clear and material reasons.
I don’t blame myself or anyone else for canvassing for Zohran. People are frustrated and searching for answers. But now I’m on the other side of those paper sales, looking for the same people who were just like me, people who knew something was deeply wrong but could not find anyone who could explain why.
Zohran Volunteer Finds What He’s Looking for in the RCA
Grant K, Queens, NY
CG, an active Zohran campaign volunteer, was radicalized during the course of the campaign. He said he wanted to “keep going” and “do even more” now that the campaign is over.
He found the New York Marxist School through our Instagram page and attended every session on both days, despite not knowing a single party member.
In discussions during the breaks and at the socials, he learned about the RCA’s perspectives and strategy. After the closing session of the school, he came over and said, “I want to join right now. What do I do?” He joined the party, paying the equivalent of a day’s wages in monthly dues. In addition to joining, he bought six books from the bookstore, and I gave him the two most recent copies of The Communist, and the newest issue of In Defence of Marxism.
I called him the next day. He told me that he’d already read the center spread article from TC 16 and the first 40 pages of What is Marxism? and had prepared a list of questions he was planning on bringing to his communist cell meeting this week.
“Ex-MAGA for Mamdani” Signs Up with the RCA
Wesley Allen, Queens, NY
At Zohran’s final campaign rally in Queens, I spotted a man wearing a hat and shirt that read: “MAGA for Mamdani.”
I asked if the two politicians had something in common that won his support. He said it was their acknowledgement of the cost-of-living crisis and their promises to lower grocery prices.
Now, he no longer has illusions in Trump, but he’s excited for a bold, young outsider to put up a fight against the political establishment.
We discussed the false divisions of the culture war, and we agreed that the main divide in society is between classes.
He asked why I’m a communist. I explained the need for working class independence in the struggle for better conditions—and ultimately revolution. The working class has our own interests opposed to the capitalists. We need our own organizations, our own methods, our own media, and our own party to effectively fight the class enemy.
He agreed and signed up to get involved with the RCA!
When reporters from the capitalist media flocked to interview him, interrupting our discussion, he held up a copy of The Communist for the cameras. Looking at them, he said, “People keep calling me a communist—and I might as well be.”
Later, I overheard another rallygoer explaining that he had voted for Bernie, then Trump, and now supports Zohran. These discussions with workers confirm our perspectives that Trump’s reelection was not a turn to the “right”—much less a step towards fascism—but an expression of a deep class rage that hasn’t found a proper outlet.
The Communist on the Commute
Gregory C, Queens, NY
For the past three months, I’ve been having discussions with an older gentleman who shares my commute home. Every conversation invariably leads to a deeper political discussion about the decay of capitalism and how socialism is the only solution.
Last Tuesday, I showed him The Communist issue 17. We talked about the articles on Zohran and the recent general strike in Italy, and he bought a copy.
Two days later, he told me he read our issue, front to back, and praised it for its clarity. He said it convinced him to subscribe. We had another discussion about the changes in mass consciousness, and I showed him the results of the Cato/YouGOV survey featured on the front cover of issue 16 which say that 34% of young people support communism. He bought that copy without hesitation. It’s not just the youth—even the older generation are seeking a way out of this rotten system!
“This is where I want to be!”
Matthew E, Philadelphia, PA
At one of our tables at No Kings, we shouted, among other slogans, about the need to get organized, “Protesting alone is not enough; we need to get organized!”
A young man zipped up to our table from out of the crowd. “Get organized?” he echoed. “This is where I want to be!”
I greeted him with the same enthusiasm, and we spoke about the need for a Marxist party, the complete vacuum on the left, and the enormous potential for the communist movement in America. He bought our paper, exchanged contacts with me, and we’re going to meet next week to talk about how he can get involved in the party.
Raising the Communist Banner at NYC No Kings
Bea B, New York, NY
20 RCA comrades intervened in the NYC No Kings march. This is essentially an event organized by the Democratic Party, so we were anticipating more liberal views among the crowd. We also were unsure how large or energetic the turnout would be, given that New York has not directly experienced the heightened political atmosphere created by Trump sending in ICE or National Guard troops to other cities. But we showed up to get a sense of the mood and to put forward the communist perspective of what it will take to fight Trumpism!
We prepared ourselves for this by meeting a block away beforehand for a quick political discussion based of the article “The Government Shutdown is a Bipartisan Attack on Workers—Where are the Labor Leaders?” We saw our perspective of how to launch a real fightback against Trump and all the billionaires as our best way to connect with this crowd.
All that was needed was a bit of confidence to hold a copy of The Communist high. People popped out of the crowd to say “I need one of those!”
As we expected, the turnout was mainly older liberals. But comrades did an excellent job of sorting through the crowd and making a beeline toward those we could tell had some potential. Once again, this simply required holding the paper high, shouting our slogans over the heads of some protesters who were not (yet) looking for Marxist ideas, and making our way over to anyone who gave us a nod. In total, we made 11 contacts and sold 30 papers for $151!