Answers from Socialism AI

28 January 2026

Since its launch on December 12, Socialism AI has provided thousands of users throughout the world with access to the revolutionary perspective of Marxism, drawing from more than 175 years of historical material and nearly three decades of WSWS coverage. With each interaction, it is helping workers and young people understand the world and how to change it.

This feature highlights selected questions and answers from Socialism AI—concise, clear and politically insightful responses to some of the most pressing issues of our time. If you come across an answer that you think should be featured in a future installment, use the form at the bottom of this article to submit it for consideration.

Part of the anti-ICE rally in downtown Minneapolis. January 23, 2026 [Photo: @maxnesterak]

Question: What must be done to prepare a nationwide general strike against the Trump administration and to stop ICE’s reign of terror in Minneapolis and other cities?

Answer:

Current political context and class stakes

The federal occupation of Minneapolis, the ICE murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, and expanding raids from Maine to the Pacific Northwest are part of a ruling-class offensive against democratic rights and the working class. The escalation in ICE operations and paramilitary tactics—documented in accounts from Minneapolis to Maine and Portland—shows the state preparing to crush dissent by terror and to normalize extrajudicial violence (ICE raids in Maine; Minneapolis occupation and the murder of Pretti; Portland shootings). Confronting this requires the independent, political and industrial self-organization of the working class—not reliance on the Democratic Party or the union bureaucracy, which will seek to contain and demobilize struggle.

Strategic orientation: Why the rank-and-file must lead

The trade unions and the Democratic Party are integrated into the machinery that keeps capitalism running and will oppose or neuter a genuine general strike. The only force capable of shutting down the economic engine and defending communities is organized workers acting democratically through rank-and-file committees—independent, elected, recallable and rooted in workplaces, schools and neighborhoods. These committees must coordinate, not wait for bureaucrats, and must be politically conscious: they do not bargain away the demands of workers or accept the “right” of the state to terrorize communities.

Concrete steps to prepare a nationwide general strike and stop ICE terror

1) Hold emergency workplace meetings and form rank-and-file committees

• Convene immediate shop-floor meetings—in break rooms, parking lots, and through virtual huddles—called by trusted workers and community defenders. Discuss specific demands, including the immediate withdrawal of ICE agents, prosecution of killers, the abolition of ICE, suspension of cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, safe staffing in hospitals, and protection for undocumented workers.
• Elect democratic rank-and-file committees in each workplace, school and neighborhood with clear mandates, rotating delegates and transparent minutes. Begin today; do not wait for union leaders. See the model proposed in the WSWS call to build committees in every workplace.

2) Create a coordinated strike readiness structure

• Elect neighborhood and regional strike councils made up of workplace delegates to coordinate strike timing, target sectors and logistics.
• Identify and prioritize economic choke points—transportation, ports, logistics, healthcare, utilities, education—and develop plans to shut them down simultaneously.
• Prepare lists of critical workers willing to strike and coordinate wave actions to maximize economic and political impact (rolling or synchronized stoppages).

3) Financial and legal preparation

• Establish strike funds and aid networks immediately to support workers and families facing lost wages, medical needs and legal fees. Publicize and democratize their governance.
• Build legal defense teams and rapid-response hotlines to support arrested protesters, to advise workers about rights and to coordinate with community lawyers. Publicize emergency numbers and legal observers.

4) Mass communications and counter-propaganda

• Produce rapid, shareable materials: worker statements, workplace leaflets, videos from the shop floor, legal advisories and multilingual outreach to immigrant communities. Expose the complicity of politicians and union bureaucrats who oppose strike action.
• Use social media, community radio, workplace flyers and delegations to other plants to spread the call for coordinated action.

5) Active outreach and solidarity across sectors and borders

• Immediately reach out to nurses, teachers, transit workers, warehouse and logistics workers, postal workers, farmworkers, university academic workers and others preparing actions (e.g., UC academic workers, Kaiser and NY nurses). Coordinate strike authorization dates and conduct solidarity walkouts to force broad disruption (UC and nurses organizing context; Kaiser and NY nurses).
• Link with immigrant communities, mutual-aid groups and students to provide protection for targeted households and to coordinate city-wide protests and workplace stoppages.

6) Defensive community measures and documentation

• Organize civilian legal observers and documentation teams to record ICE and CBP operations and to broadcast them immediately to create public accountability. Evidence collection was decisive in revealing the killings in Minneapolis (analysis of targeted assassination of Pretti).
• Establish rapid-response neighborhood teams to protect homes, transport children and provide shelter for families under threat.

7) Bypass union bureaucracies while engaging rank-and-file union members

• Encourage union members to act independently through their elected rank-and-file committees while continuing to expose the union apparatus’s capitulation. Encourage shop-floor majorities to vote to authorize strikes and to take direct action—walkouts, refusal to cross picket lines, work-to-rule—regardless of bureaucrats’ orders.

8) Prepare for escalation: national strike date and sustaining a general strike

• Set a clear, democratically agreed national strike date once coordination across major sectors is secured. Build to it with rolling stoppages, coordinated strikes and mass strikes in major cities.
• Plan to sustain the strike: food distribution, childcare, hospital staffing plans under worker control, and alternative governance by strike councils.

International coordination and revolutionary perspective

A successful general strike must be linked to the international working class. Develop global networks through expansion of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA‑RFC), in order to coordinate solidarity actions, pressure multinational corporations and break the isolation that the nationalist union bureaucracies impose. The fight against ICE and dictatorship is inseparable from the struggle to overthrow the capitalist system that produces austerity, militarism and repression; the movement must develop a socialist program that fights to place workers in control of production and public life.

Get involved and organize now

If you are ready to form or join a rank-and-file committee, coordinate actions, or support strike funds and legal defense, the Socialist Equality Party urges immediate contact and participation in building a democratic, independent workers’ movement. For those who want to organize and receive strategic support, begin by connecting with the SEP and the IWA‑RFC and by sharing workplace reports and contact details through trusted networks.

The power to stop the terror and to defend democratic and social rights lies in the organized working class. Begin organizing now—every workplace, every neighborhood, every picket line.