Under Lock & Key

The declining rate of profit is an unavoidable problem under capitalism, and a move toward fascism among the imperialists is primarily a result of this declining rate of profit. Some could interpret this to mean that fascism is an inevitable outcome of late-stage imperialism. But fascism isn’t actually in the interests of most imperialists, if they can avoid it. And today, most are in denial that the declining rate of profit is even a problem. In the 1930s such illusions were smashed by the realities of the Great Depression. Since then, the imperialist countries have managed to put off any comparable economic collapses at home.

Barring such extreme conditions, most imperialists don’t want fascism. The protectionism and extreme militarism that come with fascism are bad for most capitalists’ profits. Militarism is good for increasing demand by destroying capital and infrastructure, and creating a market for very expensive military hardware. And some imperialists are just ideologically geared towards fascism for subjective reasons. But the problem is, imperialism is also bad for profits in that the rate of profit declines as capitalism advances. This is an inherent contradiction in capitalism. Profits come only from the exploitation of humyn labor. And so, as more efficient equipment is built, and worker productivity is increased, and automation is expanded, profit margins fall. Similarly, when the proletariat rises up, capitalist profits are also impacted. Both of these contradictions can push the imperialists towards fascism.

With the global markets entirely divided up under imperialism, there isn’t any easy way for the capitalists to increase their individual profits. Only with the destructiveness of world war and re-division of territories can this be changed.

While most imperialists do not favor fascism in their own countries under normal conditions, they do readily export it to the Third World to maintain imperialist interests there. The United $tates is the main force behind fascism in the Third World. These countries are not imperialist so they can not be fascist independently. However, their imperialist masters can and do impose fascism from the outside when they deem it necessary to retain control. We have seen this over and over. In Latin America, where the United $tates fears any sign of bourgeois nationalism, there is a particularly brutal history. Just two examples are seen in the coups to overthrow Allende in Chile and Arbenez in Guatemala. After the coups, the U.$.-backed replacement governments massacred supporters of the democratically-elected governments as well as other activists and communists.

The communists in Germany admonished their fellow Germans after World War II for not heeding their warning that a vote for Hitler was a vote for war. To date, the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) has never promoted one U.$. Presidential candidate over another. In some ways the last two presidents have been notable, as Barack Obama was the first not-white President, and Donald Trump has made some openly chauvinist statements and received support for them. Both elections elicited participation from those who may have been closer to the MIM position of “it’s all the same imperialist brutality” in previous elections.

During the 2012 presidential election in France, MIM talked about Jean-Marie Le Pen as part of the fascist camp. Ey was a far-right leader of the “National Rally” party. While Trump doesn’t lead any particular white supremacist organization, ey certainly makes clear eir support for such groups, and they reciprocate in kind. Trump is very open in promoting various forms of oppression, to the point of promoting terrorism against oppressed peoples.

There are examples of politicians openly supporting the ideologies of white supremacism and neo-nazism from both the Democrats and the Republicans and from the earliest beginnings of Amerikan politics. David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, is a modern example of this. A former Republican Louisiana State Representative, Duke was a candidate in the Democratic presidential primaries in 1988 and the Republican presidential primaries in 1992, showing how this ideology crosses party lines and infuses mainstream politics. In 2016, Duke celebrated the presidential victory of Donald Trump, and the vision of his chief advisor Steve Bannon. Bannon’s openly xenophobic and chauvinist Breitbart News Network contributed to Trump’s campaign success, building an alliance of “Alt-Right” forces behind the president. These were many of the same forces that would later lead the infamous march with tiki torches in Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting Nazi slogans and starting street fights with counter-protestors. These are some of the highlights of the Trump presidency phenomenon that have rightly elicited discussions around whether fascism and white supremacy are seated in the highest office of the United $tates.

Yet we must remember that the history of Amerika is a history of white supremacy. The country was built on the genocide of indigenous people and the stealing of land and resources. Then came the enslavement, exploitation and mass slaughter of Africans. Later, the U.$. Constitution codified New Afrikans as inferior to whites. Former Senator, Vice President, and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun blocked the annexation of Mexico on the grounds that only white people could be free, writing “we have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race.”(1) This explains why Puerto Rico never became a state, why the First Nation state of Sequoyah was not accepted until it was subsumed into a white-dominated Oklahoma, and why the admission of Hawaii faced great resistance that was mitigated by accepting a predominantly white Alaska at the same time.(2)

In this article we offer our analysis of the difference between bourgeois democratic imperialism and fascist imperialism. And we will discuss some of the implications of a shift towards fascism for our organizing work. In “Fighting White Supremacy in Amerika” (this issue) we go deeper into the cultural shift towards increasing white supremacy and our thoughts on ways revolutionaries should respond. We hope this analysis helps others think scientifically about oppression and resistance and the best strategies for organizing in 2019.

What’s in a label?
Should we call Trump fascist?

MIM(Prisons) leans towards caution in the use of the term fascist. First, we don’t want to oversell the distinction between the Trump government and the Obama government. Normalizing imperialism, as if it is progressive, or as if the Hillary Clinton brand would have been less viciously militaristic and brutal for the people of the Third World, is a dangerous outcome of this sort of distinction. And we don’t want to confuse people about the potential for progressive results from imperialist elections. We need to be clear that imperialism is brutal and murderous; it is not a kinder gentler condition entirely distinct from fascism. With integration, it is only in the last 50 years that Amerika has even begun to be conceived of as anything but a white settler nation, and the brutal history of that white settler nation is imperialism, but not fascism. We are entering a period where the majority of politically active people in this country have not lived in an openly racist political system for the first time in this country’s history.

Based on our analysis of the current stage of imperialism, and our caution using the term fascist, we don’t campaign against the Trump regime because it holds and acts on fascist ideology. We campaign against the U.$. imperialist government because it is imperialist and it is the enemy of the majority of the people in the world. We think that this is an important point to emphasize in our organizing today. We don’t want to campaign to change the president, and we don’t want to mislead people into thinking what we really need to do is get these fascists out of office. At this point, our other options of Mike Pence, Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton all have approximately the same enmity toward the Third World and oppressed peoples.

Sometimes we need to be alarmist about terms like fascism. Right now, we see the danger of misleading people on this strategic question to be the greater danger. In our work organizing the petty bourgeoisie towards socialism there might be a time when calling parts of the Amerikan government fascist will help to clarify the contradictions.

Imperialism is National Oppression

In recent years there has been a rise in white nationalism and white supremacy among Amerikans. (See: “Fighting White Supremacy in Amerika” this issue) We should not be surprised that racist ideas are growing again; society’s ideas reflect its structure. And the structure remains one of national oppression until imperialism is overthrown. It’s very hard to justify imperialism without a sense of superiority of some sort. There has to be some reason why virtually everyone in the United $tates is in the top 10% by income globally, and saying it’s because we steal wealth from the rest of the world doesn’t go over as easily as just claiming we’re more productive (read: superior).

Imperialism is the advanced stage of capitalism where a few powerful nations divide up and colonize the world for profit. It is manifested today most violently against Third World peoples who suffer under brutal dictatorships, which serve their Amerikan imperialist masters. These dictatorships ensure the United $tates access to cheap labor and raw materials.

“Whether it is Iraq, Afghanistan or the West Bank, it is clear that without openly adopting fascism, the essence of U.$. imperialism and its allies today is genocide and any tally of the victims of U.$. imperialism will show that it has implemented much more of Hitler’s genocidal plans than Hitler did.”(3)

Why Identify Fascism?

Imperialism is a global system of exploitation requiring war, forced starvation and murder through denial of medical care and other basic needs. Imperialism kills millions! Fascism is imperialism without the cover. Fascism is more overt. When the imperialists are forced to turn to fascism, we can win more of the middle forces to our side as they revile in disgust.

“The difference between bourgeois democracy and fascism is a matter of quantitative changes leading to a qualitative change. The qualitative differences are relevant to us in terms of their effect on our policies towards non-proletarian classes.”(3)

The key is defining when that qualitative change takes place, so we can prevent it or, failing that, appropriately respond to it. And in anticipating the qualitative change we need to ask if we are currently seeing an increase in quantitative changes. In terms of sustained quantitative changes within U.$. borders, a few things might be happening that would be important to note. None of these are required for a shift to fascism, but they are still potential identifiers.

1. Declining economics of the majority, the petty bourgeoisie. As the petty-bourgeoisie loses the economic privileges that put them firmly in the supporting-imperialism camp, they will have more potential to embrace communism as being in their material interests. But they will also be more easily rallied to fascism as an ideology that demands those privileges as a birthright.

2. We might see increasing incidents of white supremacy as quantitative changes leading towards the qualitative change to fascism.

3. Heightened class struggle is a likely precursor to fascism. This presents such a risk to the imperialists that they use fascism to put down the struggle.

“Democratic” Imperialism or Fascist Imperialism

Communists define fascism as a form of imperialism. This is based in our study of the history of fascist systems. There are two forms of imperialism: “democratic” imperialism and fascist imperialism. Fascist imperialism is a dictatorship of the most extremely reactionary elements of finance capital. When talking about governments and countries, we do not use the term “fascist” unless they are imperialist (see our article “The Strategic Significance of Defining Fascism” for more on why this is important.(4)) The exception is that fascism can be imposed by an imperialist government from the outside through a puppet government. But the key point here is that fascism is imperialism. A fascist state power is a capitalist state power.

Including “imperialist” in our definition of fascist states excludes some countries and governments from the label, but it doesn’t help us identify what we should call “fascism.” Our most commonly-used reference on this comes from Dimitrov: Fascism is “the open terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, and most imperialist elements of finance capital.”(5) The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is not open when the people are allowed redress, through the courts, etc. In the open terroristic dictatorship you stop raising money for legal fees, and start stockpiling supplies.

So what will fascism look like? Will we just know it when we see it? (See the article “(Mis)use of the fascist label in the United $tates” for more historical context on this question). Certainly the suspension of bourgeois democratic rights should be a sign that we are no longer in a bourgeois democracy. But sometimes this is insidious. Bourgeois democratic rights don’t exist for migrants. They are severely limited in oppressed nation communities with large lumpen populations. And many new laws, such as the Patriot Act, have been passed to limit civil liberties in recent decades. The Trump administration is continuing this trend, stepping up voter suppression while also attempting to add a census question about citizenship. But unlike these moves, which target the rights of oppressed-nation people, the fascist suspension of bourgeois democracy will be felt by all segments of society. In that sense we can ask ourselves, “is a white petty-bourgeois persyn likely to be killed or imprisoned just for advocating communism?” If the answer is “no,” bourgeois democratic rights are still in place.

I received your response to my article on the wonderful achievements of the Black Panther Party.(1) In this article, I articulated how fascism has taken possession of this country, and what should be seen as its most advanced form. This is the form that comrade George L. Jackson spoke of in Blood in My Eye, “the third face” in power and secure. I also share this opinion, and it is rooted in my philosophy about the obvious place to start and end the colonial war, which will result in the independence of not only our brothers and sisters in the third world, but also the sleeping giant right here in Amerika.

The fact that Amerika has never entered a revolutionary situation is amazing to say the least. However, it does not mitigate the arrival of fascism. This country is indeed a police state wherein the political ascendancy is tied into and protects the interest of the upper class. It is very much characterized by militarism, imperialism, and racism. By those very definitions it would be silly for intellectuals to continue to ponder on the presence of fascism and its shock troops.

Our new “pigs are beautiful” President Donald Trump is trying to reverse the constitution in order to make Amerikkka an all-white nation as the “Founding Fathers” intended for it to be. But in determining this birthright claim, does this not automatically push out the European colonial master? This would seem to be a true statement, but if we look at fascist predatory culture, it shows that anything of any great value that ever traded hands between the Europeans was taken by a force of arms. History in itself is indeed economically-motivated class struggle. We also have the situation of Mexico being seen as a villain of white Amerikkka to glean from. This is the same stance that the earlier Europeans used to justify the extermination of the Indians and the racist attacks against black brothers and sisters who had already suffered the worst form of slavery in history.

There is much truth in your analysis. However, some truths have been mitigated or omitted to fit your contention. The earlier vanguard party’s insistence to only beg for tokens, or to beg for an expansion of the system to include all of us, even after numerous failed attempts, clearly shows their ignorance of the capitalist masters. In a capitalistic society, there must always be an upper, middle, and especially lower class. Asking the government to make certain areas better is the equivalent of making other segments of society a ghetto (poor whites, Asians Amerikans, etc.). This environment is all about winners and losers, which furthers the individualism that destroys trust.

The fact that the vanguard parties rallied around such issues as women’s rights, prisoners’ rights, etc. should not be ignored. However, those rights are still virtually ignored. Women still do not enjoy the same rights as men (i.e. #MeToo), and the prison industrial complex is still part of the imperialist plan to use our bodies as sources of cheap raw materials to build and expand capital. The 13th Amendment even legalizes slavery in the event that one commits a crime. So yes, Amerika is a fascist country. They use the argument of being “humane imperialists, enlightened fascists.” The vanguard parties, instead of pushing for judicial redress which once again failed, should have ushered the populace to go to war against the capitalist masters. Anything less than that is reform.

MIM(Prisons) responds: It’s unclear if this author is arguing that the United $tates has been fascist from the start. Or if there is a change we are seeing recently that marks a new fascist government. The former is an interesting argument. This comrade agrees that imperialism and militarism are part of fascism. And from that basis, one could argue that the genocidal foundations of Amerika look at lot like “the open terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, and most imperialist elements of finance capital” as Dutt defined fascism. [See intro article]

But we make a distinction between the repression of imperialism against oppressed nations, a feature of the brutality of imperialism, and the terroristic dictatorship of fascist imperialism. This is important because of the strategic implications. If the United $tates has been fascist from foundation, during World War II we would have to argue that the United $tates was not a potential ally in the fight against Hitler’s Germany. History does not support this interpretation.

If the author is arguing that there has been some change in the United $tates since World War II, and it is only more recently fascist, then we want to respond to the definitions ey offers more directly. Defining fascism as “militarism, imperialism, and racism” raises the question of how to distinguish that from good ’ole bourgeois democratic imperialism? Imperialism is characterized by militarism and national oppression (and by association, racism). And imperialism is all about protecting the interests of the ruling class. As we discussed in “Fascism, Imperialism, and Amerika in 2019”, white nation supremacy is an inherent part of Amerikan imperialism. So that too is not, in and of itself, a good way for us to distinguish fascist imperialism from bourgeois democratic imperialism. In fact, the author is correct that the “founding fathers” of this country intended for it to be a white nation. Unless we want to argue that the United $tates was fascist from the start, throwbacks to previous policies are not inherently signs of a new fascist government.

Before we speak on fascism in Amerika and its awesome powers in centralizing authority over all lower disenfranchised segments of the population, we must first see how it developed and evolved as an international movement intended for the ruling classes. Fascism is a form of totalitarian dictatorship that flourished between World War I and World War II. Similar governments, some modeled after the Italian system, were established later in countries of Europe, Asia and South Amerika.

Fascism as a world political movement is said to have ended with the close of World War II, which ended in the defeat of fascist Italy and National Socialist Germany. However it is my opinion that after the close of WWII, fascism did indeed emerge and consolidate itself in its most advanced form in Amerika. There are also other fascist countries still in existence, that are in open opposition to the instituted government, and in others as an underground movement fighting the government by employing guerilla tactics.

In general, fascism was the effort to create, by authoritarian means, a viable national society in which competing interests were to be adjusted by being entirely subordinated to the service of the nation. The following features have been characteristic of fascism in its various manifestations:

1. An origin at a time of serious economic disruption and of rapid and bewildering social change
2. A philosophy that rejected democratic and humanitarian ideals, however glorifying the absolute sovereignty of the state, the unity and destiny of the people, and the unquestioning loyalty and obedience to the dictator
3. An aggressive nationalism, which called for the mobilization and regimentation of every aspect of national life and made open use of violence and intimidation
4. The simulation of mass popular support, accomplished by outlawing all but a single political party and by using suppression, censorship, and propaganda
5. A program of vigorous action including economic reconstruction, industrialization, pursuit of economic self-sufficiency, territorial expansion, and of course war, which was dramatized as bold, adventurous, and promising a glorious future

Although fascist movements often grew out of socialist origins (for example, in Italy), fascism always declared itself the uncompromising enemy of communism, with which, however, fascists’ actions have less in common. The propertied interests, fearful of revolution, often gave their support to fascism on the basis of promises by the fascist leaders to maintain the status quo and safeguard property. Once established, fascist regimes ruthlessly crushed communist and socialist parties as well as democratic opposition, regimented the propertied interests, and won the potentially-revolutionary masses to the fascist programs.

Thus, fascism may be regarded as an extreme defensive expedience adopted by a nation faced with the, sometimes illusory, threat of communist subversion or revolution. In 1922 Benito Mussolini set up the first successful fascist regime which initially had about 320,000 members. The party was supported at this stage of its development principally by a number of large landowners and industrialists, high-ranking army officers, subordinate government officials, and the bulk of the police. Oppressed to the fascist party were liberals, and democrats who were impotent to cope with it.

Toward the end of 1922 the fascists occupied police headquarters, railway stations, telegraph offices, and other public buildings in the northern cities of Italy. Although the constitutionally-installed government requested Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy, to proclaim martial law in order to crush the fascists, the King decided to collaborate with Mussolini and invited him to come to Rome to form a government. Mussolini arrived in Rome 29 October 1922. This was known as the fascists’ March on Rome.

After Mussolini’s elevation to power, fascism became totalitarian. Expansion was the keynote of Mussolin’s foreign policy. Among the specific aims of Italian fascist foreign policy were control of the Adriatic Sea, increase of the European area of Italy, enlargement of Italy’s Afrikan empire, and domination of the Mediterranean Sea, which Mussolini called “mare nostrum.”

Although highly suspicious and jealous of the German dictator Adolf Hitler, Mussolini found himself pushed into an alliance with Germany in the so-called Rome-Berlin Axis. The alliance led to Italy’s entry into World War II on the side of Germany, which proved to be a fateful mistake. Throughout the war the fascist regime was dependent for survival on the superior military and economic resources of Germany. As a result, the German influence became predominant, and in effect, Italy became a vassal of Germany. When the Allies invaded Italy in 1944, the Italian population turned against the fascist regime and its German overlord. The people rose in revolt in 1944-45, abolished the monarchy, and established a republic.

Amerika has established itself as the mortal enemy of all socialist activity on earth. Remember that fascism allows no genuine opposition to its rule. It is a geopolitical arrangement where only one political party is allowed to exist aboveground, and no oppositional political activity is allowed. Despite the presence of political parties, there is only one legal politics in the U.S. – the politics of corporatism. The hierarchy commands all state power.

Donald Trump’s documented congratulatory messages to Putin are not simply diplomatic gestures. Trump is a fascist. Trump, like FDR, was born and bred in a ruling class of families. His role is to form a new fascist regime, much like the “new deal,” to merge the economic, political and labor elites. Extreme nationalism has prompted a national emergency to fund a wall to keep Mexicans out. This is much like the violence that was geared at the Indians and against us as blacks.

In my view, worrying who to elect will do us no good. With people like Trump in office the lower class should become more aware of their class enemies. In my view our only recourse is a highly orgnanized class war and then we go on to the restructuring of society. That is the answer.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This author takes a scientific approach to defining fascism. Ey offers five points which define fascism which include economic expansionism and domestic repression along nationalist lines. The first point is of great interest to us: does fascism require a time of serious economic disruption? If so, what does this look like? We didn’t see serious economic disruption with the election of Trump, but this author implies that Amerika has been fascist for longer than the Trump administration. So we ask the question: when did this disruption happen and when did Amerika become fascist?

While we find this author’s history of fascism on point, we wouldn’t say that “fascist movements often grew out of socialist origins” but instead acknowledge that some fascist leaders started off in socialist movements before changing political direction and becoming fascist. This is not surprising as the mass base for fascism is a group communists will also be recruiting from, and we need to be careful that our messages to these people don’t push them in the wrong direction of reactionary national self-interest.

Finally, we’re unsure about what this “new fascist regime” is that the author suggests Trump is building. It doesn’t fit into the five defining points the author offers above, if this is a change from democratic capitalism. In fact, as the author points out, the building of a wall to keep Mexicans out of the United $tates isn’t particularly different from the historic violence against indigenous people or the enslavement of Africans and more recently the oppression of New Afrikans. So we are not seeing the change in Amerikan society that would merit now calling it fascist under Trump.

The colloquial use of the term fascist in the United $tates has become something like, “My boss will write me up if I’m 5 minutes late; he’s a real fascist.” Fascism here is equated with controlling and domineering. And this is exactly how the Liberal bourgeoisie distinguishes their system from others; through freedoms and persynal liberties. The narrative of the Liberal bourgeois governments following WWII attempted to merge the defeated enemy of fascism with the rising enemy of communism, by depicting them both as being bad because they supposedly wanted to control every aspect of your life. The Amerikan system was upheld as far superior and joyous because of the vast array of choices of consumer products (and thereby, lifestyles and appearances). They also claimed to address the necessities of food, clothes and shelter, but these are almost afterthoughts given the opulence of the imperialist countries, particularly the United $tates, following WWII.

A more correct application of the term fascist comes from the likes of prisoners. In the context of prisons, this term is used to describe the concentration camps in the United $tates today, the regular torture and brutality that takes place in these institutions, and the effects of the criminal injustice system on reducing reproduction within the oppressed nations. This is a strategic use of the term in an attempt to win over the more progressive of the bourgeois Liberals who don’t want these more fascistic aspects of imperialism in their country.

George Jackson, and many other Black Panthers, used the word fascist to describe the United $tates government in the late 1960s. At that time the country was facing a major crisis, a revolutionary upsurge, that connected communist governments such as China, resistance movements that were demolishing the U.$. military in countries like Vietnam, and internal semi-colonies fighting for liberation from within the United $tates such as the Black Panthers. At this time Panthers and other revolutionary leaders within the United $tates were murdered in cold blood. Even some white students were killed by the state, indicating the seriousness of the crisis. When your leaders are being killed by the state, and you are not engaging in armed struggle, that is a strong sign that fascism is on its way. The Panthers decided to form the United Front to Combat Fascism, to ally with democratic forces, especially within white Amerikkka, which marked the end of the rise of revolutionary struggle in this country. We won’t try to explain that here, but mention it to say that the Panthers’s shift in strategies to address what they saw as a fascist threat proved wrong in practice.

Political assassinations became a definite tactic of the U.$. government in the 1960s, but the scope was still quite limited. After this period of struggle peaked, the main reason why things turned so quickly in the United $tates is that the white nation was not facing an insurmountable crisis. Their crisis was one of war, a losing war, with a large draft that was impacting the oppressor nation greatly. The imperialists were able to cede this war to the Vietnamese, in a way that saved some face, while appeasing the demands at home. The imperialists learned from this war, and went on to carry out countless counter-insurgency operations throughout the Third World (with far less blood shed by Amerikan soldiers) that continue to this day. The crisis that will bring fascism to the United $tates will likely need to be an irreconcilable economic contradiction within the imperialist system itself; one that normal shifts in policy and resources cannot address.

Also remember that the parents of the Black Panthers lived in a completely segregated Jim Crow society, where New Afrikans were often killed for far less than trying to lead a revolutionary overthrow of the U.$. government. This was during a time when millions lost their lives fighting fascism around the world, but no one was calling the United $tates fascist.

“The imperialists export fascism to many Third World countries via puppet governments. And imperialist countries can turn to fascism themselves. But it is important to note that there is no third choice for independent fascism in the world: they are either imperialist or imperialist-puppets. Germany, Spain, Italy and Japan had all reached the banking stage of capitalism and had a real basis for thinking they could take over colonies from the British and French. … The vast majority of the world’s fascist-ruled countries have been U.$. puppets.” – MIM Congress, “Osama Bin Laden and the Concept of ‘Theocratic Fascism’”, 2004

What MIM wrote about Osama Bin Laden in 2004 is just as true for the Islamic State today. Those who call the Islamic State fascist use an unsophisticated definition of fascism that may mean anything from “bad” to “undemocratic” to anti-United $tates. But the idea that it is in the Third World where we find fascism today is correct.

Much funding for the Islamic State has come from rich Saudis. For this, and other reasons, many people have tried to put the fascist label on the obscurantist monarchy of Saudi Arabia. Despite having almost the same per capita GDP (PPP) as the United $tates, it is by geological luck and not the development of imperialist finance capital that Saudis enjoy such fortune.

A word often associated with fascism is genocide. More recently Saudi Arabia is getting some “fascist” rhetoric thrown at it from the Russian camp for its war on Yemen. What is currently happening in Yemen is nothing less than genocide. A recent analysis by the Yemen Data Project showed that more than a third of the “Saudi” bombings in that country have targeted schools, hospitals, mosques and other civilian infrastructure.(1) We put “Saudi” in quotes here because the war to maintain the puppet government in Yemen is completely supplied by the imperialists of the U.$., UK and Klanada, along with U.$. intelligence and logistical support. The United $tates has been involved in bombing Yemen for over a decade, so it is a propaganda campaign by the U.$. media to call it the “Saudi-led coalition.” In October 2016, the United $tates bombed Yemen from U.$. warships that had long been stationed just offshore, leaving little doubt of their role in this war. A war that has left 370,000 children at risk of severe malnutrition, and 7 million people “desperately in need of food,” according to UNICEF.(2)

This is another example where we see confusion around the definition of fascism feeds anti-Islamic, rather than anti-Amerikan, lines of thinking, despite the majority of victims in this war being proletarian Muslims in a country where 40% of the people live on less than $2 a day.

In countries where the imperialists haven’t been able to install a puppet government they use other regional allies to act as the bad guy, the arm of imperialism. It is an extension of neo-colonialism that leads to inter-proletarian conflict between countries. We see this with Uganda and Rwanda in central Africa, where another genocide has been ongoing for 2 decades. While Uganda and Rwanda have their own regional interests, like Saudi Arabia, they are given the freedom to pursue them by U.$. sponsorship. And we are not anti-Ugandan, because Uganda is a proletarian country with an interest in throwing out imperialist puppets. Even Saudi Arabia, which we might not be able to find much of an indigenous proletariat in, could play a progressive role under bourgeois nationalist leadership that allied with the rest of the Arab world, and even with Iran.

Sometimes fascism is used as a synonym for police state. Many in the United $tates have looked to the war on drugs, the occupation of the ghettos, barrios and reservations, gang injunctions and the massive criminal injustice system and talked about rising fascism. We agree that these are some of the most fascistic elements of our society. But many of those same people will never talk about U.$. imperialism, especially internal imperialism. This leads to a focus on civil liberties and no discussion of national liberation; a reformist, petty bourgeois politic.

If we look at the new president in the Philippines, we see a more extreme form of repression against drug dealers of that country. If the U.$. injustice system is fascist, certainly the open call for assassinating drug dealers in the street would be. But these are just tactics, they do not define the system. And if we look at the system in the Philippines, the second biggest headlines (after eir notorious anti-drug-dealer rhetoric) that President Duterte is getting is for pushing out U.$. military bases. This would be a huge win for the Filipino people who have been risking their lives (under real fascist dictatorships backed by the United $tates like Marcos) to protest U.$. military on their land. This is objectively anti-imperialist. Even if Duterte turns towards China, as long as U.$. imperialism remains the number one threat to peace and well-being in the world, as it has been for over half a century, this is good for the masses of the oppressed nations.

The importance of the united front against fascism during World War II, which was an alliance between proletariat and imperialist forces, was to point out the number one enemy. While we don’t echo the Black Panther Party’s rhetoric around “fascism,” they were strategically correct to focus their attack on the United $tates in their own United Front Against Fascism in 1969. And it was reasonable to expect that the United $tates might turn fascist in face of what was a very popular anti-imperialist movement at home and abroad. What dialectics teaches us is the importance of finding the principal contradiction, which we should focus our energy on in order to change things. Without a major inter-imperialist rivalry, talking about fascism in a Marxist sense is merely to expose the atrocities of the dominant imperialist power committed against the oppressed nations.

Rather than looking for strategic shifts in the finance capitalist class, most people just call the bad sides of imperialism “fascism.” In doing so they deny that imperialism has killed more people than any other economic system, even if we exclude fascist imperialism. These people gloss over imperialism’s very existence. But MIM(Prisons) keeps our eye on the prize of overthrowing imperialism, principally U.$. imperialism, to serve the interests of the oppressed people of the world.

This 2016 election season we heard many people likening Trump and eir proposed policies to fascism. Here we look at statements and actions that ey made, identifying fascist elements, while also going over what else they could be. First, let’s review what fascism is - from MIM’s “Definition of fascism” (which draws information from Dimitrov’s report to the 7th world congress of the COMINTERN and Dutt’s Fascism and Social Revolution), fascism is “the open terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” Further, fascism is “an extreme measure taken by the bourgeoisie to forestall proletarian revolution… the conditions [which give rise to fascism] are: instability of capitalist relationships; the existence of considerable declassed social elements; the pauperization of broad strata of the urban petit-bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia; discontent among the rural petit-bourgeoisie; and finally, the constant menace of mass proletarian action.” So basically, if the capitalists feel like they are going to lose their money deals, if mass amounts of the petit-bourgeoisie suddenly find themselves impoverished, and there is significant fear of actual proletarian revolutionary action, these are conditions that give rise to fascism.

With this in mind, let’s look at one of Trump’s more popular proposals – to build a wall on the U.$./Mexico border to physically keep people from crossing over into so-called United $tates territory. Trump believes immigrants from Mexico impose a threat to the job economy of the amerikkkan labor aristocracy, and also that they are not amerikkkans and don’t belong here. Following the guidelines laid out above, the building of a wall could fall into a reactionary action taken to counteract the threat to the labor aristocracy; keeping the amerikkkan “working class” safe and happy to prevent discontent and ensure that there is no declassing or pauperization. However, it’s more accurate to consider the idea of a border wall to fall under extreme racism and isolationism than fascism. Trump claims that amerikkkan people are better at making money and working than those who might come over from Mexico, and ey wishes to keep things contained within eir own walls than to bring in people from the outside. A similar example of Trump’s isolationism can be found in eir ideas to keep production and trade local rather than global. Ey believes that trade with other countries is stealing jobs from people here, and that people here can do it better anyway. A more fascist way of handling this would be to allow trade with other countries as long as it proved opportunistic and beneficial (which it does for the U.$. financially).

Next, we can look at Trump’s ideas about “destroying radical Islamic terrorist groups.” To make such a statement is highly chauvinist and reactionary, though it is not in response to something ey believes could topple the government. It is more of a show of force both internally and externally. Again, here we see extreme racism – Trump is further bolstering the “us vs. them” mentality that is already prevalent in much of amerikkkan society, identifying a group of people as the other or bad, and rallying people around that idea. A more fascist example of a similar act is the raids, arrests and murders committed by the pigs towards the Black Panther Party (BPP) and other revolutionary nationalist groups in the 1960s and 70s. The BPP was a highly organized group with significant popular support among the New Afrikan nation and it was enough of a threat of revolutionary action to warrant direct reaction. The imperialists felt enough pressure from the BPP to publicly act outside of their established laws to counteract that pressure, though much public opinion was on the BPP’s side. The attacks against nations that are primarily Islamic is imperialist aggression that has been the war cry of Amerikan imperialists for years now.

The biggest thing to take away from this is the understanding that Trump’s actions are often not fascist because they do not need to be. Ey is not facing any of the triggers mentioned in MIM’s “Definition of fascism” at the moment. There is no internal revolution rising, nor is there fear of pauperization of the bourgeoisie. Trump for the most part is what we would call an imperialist, as ey seeks to systematically and internationally oppress some groups whilst bolstering others. That being said, based on Trump’s statements and actions, if Amerikan capitalism was truly threatened by the oppressed internal nations, Trump’s open chauvinism would easily transition to far heavier fascist tendencies.

We don’t support or uphold the current U.$. political process as a viable means for the liberation of U.$. internal oppressed nations and semi-colonies. Bourgeois politics work for the imperialists and the bourgeois class. However, assessing the current election cycle provides a glimpse into the social dynamics of U.$. imperialist society. It allows us to gauge the level of parasitism and privilege that is generally characteristic of First Worlders. In short, we can better clarify who are our friends and enemies as well as determine what actions we need to take in order to push the national liberation struggles forward.

This presidential election season we saw very deliberate rhetoric that contains elements of fascism. Huge numbers of Euro-Amerikans have shown unshakable support for Donald Trump’s idea of how to “make amerika great again.” Trump has made it explicitly clear that ey despises Mexicans. Ey advocates for extralegal violence against people of color, particularly those individuals who had the audacity to exercise their “right” to protest Trump’s racist, hateful campaign. And Trump’s view and treatment of wimmin, while not surprising, reaches a new low in gender oppression. To put it succinctly, Trump represents more than working class jobs for Euro-Amerikans, who feel that Amerika is changing for the worse. Ey is offering them a vision of payback and retribution for all the perceived slights and humiliation that Euro-Amerikans have endured in respect to their place in U.$. imperialist society. Needless to say, a Trump presidency would have serious consequences for the climate and space for organizing for liberation within the United $tates.

Opposing Trump was Hilary Klinton, who may check all the boxes for “minority” support, but will continue along the same path as Obama. Likely, ey will be even more hawkish and ready to engage militarily to defend empire.

MIM(Prisons) responds: The recent U.$. presidential campaign had a lot of people reeling over whether Clinton or Trump is more of a fascist. So we decided to have our special election issue devoted to the question of fascism as MIM(Prisons) sees it. We don’t completely agree with the author’s analysis above, which we hope to explain further in this article and throughout this issue of ULK.

In order to analyze fascism, a study of historical materialism and dialectics is very helpful.(1) Capitalism is characterized by the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Imperialism is an escalated form of capitalism, and Lenin analyzed imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism. So imperialism has the same fundamental contradiction as capitalism (bourgeoisie vs. proletariat), but it is on an international scale and the world is divided into oppressor nations and oppressed nations; it is also divided into exploiter countries and exploited countries (which are not parallel divisions).

When the proletarian forces (the secondary aspect of this contradiction) grow in strength and overcome the bourgeois forces, then the economic system will change from capitalism to socialism. We saw examples of this movement towards socialism in the early-to-mid 20th century across Africa, Latin America, and most of Eurasia, with solid socialist states established in the Soviet Union and China. In response to the spread of socialism, the imperialists committed coup d’etats and backed the installation of fascist leaders in several countries.

We can see that the proletariat defeating the bourgeois oppressors is not a simple process. As the antagonisms between the proletariat and bourgeoisie (and all the inherent sub-classes of these two groups) increase, humyn society reaches a fork in the road. This is called the unity of contradiction. Humynity will be at a crossroads between socialism and fascism. At this point, the secondary aspect (the proletariat) of the fundamental contradiction of capitalism may overcome the dominant aspect (the bourgeoisie), but if fascism grows in strength and popularity, this is a clue that the socialist and proletarian forces are losing. If the communists are doing a good job in their work, then we should see more economic systems turning toward socialism. If they are maintaining those successes well, with cultural revolutions as we saw in China under Mao Zedong in 1966-1976, then we can expect those successes to evolve toward communism worldwide.

Fascism is a form of imperialism, and so this means fascism is a form of capitalism. Fascism is the final attempt for the bourgeoisie to remain the dominant aspect in the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. As the proletarian forces become stronger, the imperialists go to even more extreme measures to protect their beloved economic system. To say we’re in a fascist scenario now, or we’re moving toward fascism, is to overstate the strength of the proletarian forces in the present day. Fascism is enhanced imperialism, so it’s natural that we would see some elements of our current imperialist society appearing more like fascism than others, even if we haven’t moved into fascism as an overall system.

The imperialists want to protect their economic interests, but actually any imperialist who’s good at eir job is a bourgeois internationalist and would put off moves toward fascism until absolutely necessary. It’s a more difficult system for the imperialists to maintain. The mass base that historically pushes for fascism the most, to protect their own material interests, is the labor aristocracy. Living in the United $tates, surrounded by labor aristocrats, our primary task as communists in the First World is to combat labor aristocracy denial. The more that people believe themselves to be oppressed by “corporate capitalism,” when actually they are benefiting immensely just from living within these borders, the harder it will be for us to fend off fascism.

One of the myths of fascism is that average Amerikans would suffer under it. That’s not actually the case – average Amerikkans would benefit from fascism just as they benefit from imperialism. It might be a little less convenient to consume than we do today, and some liberal privileges may be curbed for the “greater good,” but the wealth acquired by the labor aristocrats would still be an extractive process; extracted from the Third World where the United $tates already exercises a much higher level of imperialist brutality more closely resembling fascism than what is experienced in this country.

So how does Trump v. Clinton fit into this dialectical analysis?

Capitalism is characterized by a class contradiction (bourgeoisie vs. proletariat), yet the principal contradiction is nation. So a lot of this question of how the U.$. presidential race fits into the question of fascist development in the United $tates rests on how the national contradictions interact with class contradictions.

Except for a very small minority, on the whole people in the First World are aligned with the bourgeoisie. And this includes oppressed-nation internal semi-colonies. Even organizing among the oppressed-nation lumpen, one of the most oppressed groups in U.$. society, we still see a lot of loyalty to empire.

While this election itself was not much different than other elections, Trump’s rhetoric increases antagonisms along national and gender lines, which encourages the openness of these sentiments in general society. Male and white chauvinisms already belong to capitalism and imperialism, so an increase in these sentiments aren’t necessarily a move toward increased fascism. In this case, Trump’s sexism is just a fluctuation within the realm of imperialism.

Clinton’s election rhetoric (not to be confused with eir practice) was not as antagonistic on national or gender lines. Eir political practice is of course different than eir rhetoric (as with any politician for as far back as this responder has studied). Clinton and Sanders are more avid supporters of the labor aristocracy’s interests than Trump. Clinton and Sanders favor a $15/hour minimum wage, union organizing, etc., where Trump wants to gut worker protections in favor of the capitalists.

Trump’s rhetoric is not bourgeois internationalist. Ey promotes an “isolationist” position, meaning ey wants the United $tates to isolate itself from the rest of the world. (In practice it is unlikely that the Republican party would actually carry out isolationism at this point in time as imperialist profits come from internationalist plunder.) Trump doesn’t support the TPP or NAFTA, whereas Clinton is more of a bourgeois internationalist who does support NAFTA and did support the TPP until it became inopportune for eir campaign. Clinton has more of a geopolitical interest in eir presidency. Trump panders to Amerikkkans’ national interests. Ey doesn’t pander to the imperialists. Clinton panders to both the U.$. labor aristocracy and imperialists’ economic interests.

National contradiction and fascism

How do the national contradictions within the United $tates interact with the international class contradiction (proletariat vs. bourgeoisie)? In other words, we know the Amerikkkan labor aristocracy is pro-fascist in its core, but how would the oppressed nation internal semi-colonies fare?

If Trump’s leadership increases antagonisms between the oppressor nation (Amerikkka) and the oppressed internal semi-colonies, then that would be reversing a lot of the assimilation that has been so important since the 1970s in quelling legitimate uprising of the people in this country. This may be why the republiklans were apprehensive of supporting Trump. They remember (if not persynally then at least historically) how important this assimilation has been to maintain their nation’s political power. They don’t want Trump to disrupt that stability.

If Trump’s rhetoric is dividing the labor aristocracy (along national lines), undermining the integration that helped Amerikkka keep power coming out of the 1960s, this is likely actually bad for the bourgeoisie and bad for capitalism. It reduces the amount of support that the imperialists might enjoy in hard times, because Trump alienates the oppressed-nation bourgeois-affiliated classes.

With more racism, there would be more national oppression, and the oppressed-nation bourgeois classes would likely become targets of the fascist elements. This would align the oppressed nation internal semi-colonies more with Third World struggles. The bourgeoisie doesn’t want to make more enemies unless it has to, especially domestically. So this question of “what about the oppressed nation labor aristocracy?” is parallel to the question of integration and assimilation that we deal with every day in our work already. We see lots of integration but we also see lots of national oppression. It’s hard to predict how the oppressed nations would fare under U.$. fascism, but at least some classes, and likely some entire nations, will be subject to fascist oppression.

In reality today we see the strongest expression of fascism in Third World countries where the United $tates supports or actively installs dictators to put down popular uprisings. A good example of this would be the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, which was brought to power by a U.$.-backed coup in 1973 after the popularly elected government led by Salvador Allende began implementing too many anti-imperialist policies. Pinochet’s government banned all leftist organizations and arrested, murdered, tortured and disappeared tens of thousands of Chilean people who expressed or acted on disagreement with this imperialist-backed fascist dictatorship. There are similar examples in other countries around the world where activists, especially communist organizations, gain significant footholds and Amerikan imperialism then steps in to help fascist governments come to power to suppress this popular uprising that threatens imperialist profits.

People who rally around anti-fascism but not anti-imperialism will do little to liberate oppressed people in the United $tates or around the world. Capitalism is the economic system that makes exploitation and oppression possible, and we need to oppose all forms of capitalism, whether in its highest stage or on steroids.