The present stage of the global anti-fascist struggle, the one that mainly consists of Russia fighting fascist Ukraine, is one that we must learn from as we prepare for the struggle’s next stage. It’s shown us that the ideological element which most loudly proclaims itself to be “anti-fascist” is the same one that will take the wrong side when the class conflict escalates further. We’ve found this out from how the bulk of the left in the USA has joined with the Democratic Party, the State Department, and the imperialist media in condemning Russia for its efforts to defeat Ukrainian Banderite Nazism.
The history of the U.S. left during the 20th century provides context for why it’s now the “Antifa” types, and the “progressives,” who are among the most vocally opposed to Russian anti-fascist resistance. What happened following the suppression of the country’s old communist movement was that “communism” in the United States, once effective at mobilizing the working masses, became just another appendage for liberal academia. The Frankfurt School guided developing 60s radicals towards left anti-communist ideas, while the U.S. empire adopted a strategy of supporting the New Left as a weapon against the Soviet Union. The outcome was that even among political actors who called themselves “Marxists,” the consensus came to be that the liberal finance capitalist wing of the ruling class should be supported against conservative small capital.
The rationale for this tacit alliance with the ultra-monopolists depends on a view of what fascism is that disregards fascism’s economic character. Within the worldview that this leftism-invested type of “Marxism” puts forth, fascism is fundamentally social in nature, rather than economic. The criteria for whether something is “fascist” centers around whether it’s socially and culturally conservative, replacing fascism’s proper definition of being a tool for the capitalists to wage class warfare. By this reasoning, Marxists need to enter into a united front with finance capital and its liberal proxies, because supposedly this is the only way we can combat the fascist threat. So long as the liberals are socially left-wing, they’re seen as precious allies who we need to hold on to at all costs.
Now that the U.S. empire has brought Banderism back to power within Ukraine, and used this 21st century fascist state as a cold war weapon, we see a stark example of what such an alliance between liberals and “Marxists” means. Because the vast majority of ostensibly communist groups within the U.S. have opposed Russia’s action to counter the Banderites, effectively showing they don’t believe that Donbass lives matter. And their reasoning for this is that Russia’s government represents the opposite side of the culture war, which somebody necessarily becomes invested in when they base their practice around leftism.
Because of Russia’s domestic politics, this current within the global socialist movement has concluded that Russia was in the wrong for rescuing the Donbass Russian speakers from an attempted invasion by Kiev. Russia being socially conservative is seen as the primary contradiction, rather than U.S. hegemony or the ethnic cleansing effort by a fascist state. So the left has concluded that Russia should have remained passive, and let the Banderites escalate their mass murder of Donbass communities completely unimpeded.
As the Banderite regime further exhausts its manpower, and Russia continues to absorb this conflict in a vastly more resilient way than the imperialist countries can, we need to pay attention to the ideological factions in the United States which have condemned Russia. They pose a kind of fascist threat that’s more insidious, and more institutionally powerful, than the kinds of fascism which come from capital’s lower levels. Because fascism is a practice that finance capital utilizes in order to fight against revolution, fascism’s core basis can be found in the political elements that finance capital supports. And finance capital, being the driving force behind imperialism, is most strongly backing the elements which support its geo-strategic goals. The elements that either directly facilitate the new cold war, or provide narrative cover for this war by vilifying Russia and other U.S. target countries.
Assisting U.S. hegemony in these ways is the biggest warning sign that a “socialist” political actor or entity will take an anti-revolutionary stance during the class war’s most crucial juncture. We’ve already seen how the anti-Russian left groups were going to respond when Uhuru got raided and indicted: by forsaking solidarity with this repression’s victims. The organized left has abandoned Uhuru because Uhuru firmly aligns itself with the global anti-imperialist cause, rather than joining in the united front with liberals which most left orgs are part of.
Uhuru’s commitment to combating U.S. hegemony has led it to support Russia’s action, and to closely ally with pro-Russian groups (like the CPI) that are considered untouchable on the left. So the actors who claim to be the biggest allies of Black liberation have ignored the case, or only briefly talked about it and then acted against Uhuru’s interests. Because of this betrayal, the Biden administration is being enabled to put Black revolutionaries in prison, and to create a legal precedent that would end freedom of assembly. The irony is incredible: because of the “red-brown” stigma that the organized left has applied to Uhuru, fascist policies are being greatly furthered. Criminalizing dissent by first targeting minorities is one of the most fascistic things you can think of, and the bulk of the “anti-fascists” have nothing to say about it.
To take the threat of fascism seriously, we need to recognize the significance of left-liberal complicity in Banderite ethnic cleansing, and in the recent suppression of Black revolutionaries. These aren’t relatively minor issues; they’re things that should be causing the Marxists who’ve embraced the pan-leftist strategy to reevaluate who they want to make alliances with. We cannot act dependent on the left, or we’ll end up compromising with fascism at the moment when this is most dangerous. Uhuru has shown the outcome of making such a compromise: the liberal fascists become empowered, and the very survival of our cause becomes jeopardized.
We shouldn’t act like the Uhuru case is lost, because at this stage it still isn’t. The trial for the indicted members is September 3, and we need to make as much noise as possible about it between then and now. And should we lose this battle, we must keep making noise. This is both because in principle we can’t give up, and because exposing the liberal fascists for their Uhuru show trial is a crucial part of how we correct the USA’s communist movement.
The Uhuru case is an opportunity for us to separate communists from liberals, as it demonstrates just how eager the liberals are to betray us. The default practice for modern U.S. communists is to tail liberals, so many of them are acting like fascism and the jailing of communists won’t come unless Trump wins. Yet these things are happening right now. If Trump wins, as is likely, he’ll just be continuing the Democratic Party’s war on our liberties.
This is the crucial thing for us to keep in mind as we see the liberal media repeat what it did with Trump in 2016, where he was made out to be an equivalent to Hitler. The truth is that the equivalent to Hitler exists within the institutions of finance capital, not within the insurgency from capital’s lower levels; these insurgents represent a fascist threat insofar as they can assist finance capital. It’s possible for their rightist social policies to have such a role, because the ruling class is willing to utilize both leftism and rightism to advance its goals. This does not mean all social conservatives are fascists, which communists need to recognize in order to end the left-liberal domination over Marxism.
The key is to distinguish between the leaders of MAGA, and the followers of MAGA. The selling point for MAGA was that it supposedly could defeat monopoly finance capital; this is why so many within the MAGA base have a proto anti-imperialist consciousness. We need to separate this layer of disillusioned Americans from the MAGA leaders, who’ve gotten votes by appealing to these anti-establishment sentiments and then continued the monopolist policies. They said they would end the wars and defeat the deep state, then they continued and expanded on the War on Terror’s policies. Trump and his loyalists have escalated the new cold war, intensified the bombings, and more recently facilitated the passage of an infamously massive aid bill for the present military efforts.
At this stage, the new cold war’s architects view Trump as a figure they can control, so they’ll have no problem with him winning. They’ll then continue to promote the “anti-woke” psyop, the inverse to the “woke” psyop that’s formed the basis for anti-Russian leftism. Both psyops have the same purpose: to steer the discourse away from anti-imperialism and class struggle. A way we can bring the Americans with a proto revolutionary consciousness away from the anti-woke psyop, and towards an authentic anti-imperialist project, is by pointing out how Trump and the other anti-woke leaders in practice act like Democrats. There’s much widespread discontent about the Ukraine and “Israel” proxy wars, largely because we’ve entered into an era where the economic costs of foreign wars are highly tangible. So when Trump is allowed to fail at defeating the deep state again, the backlash towards him will be more serious than last time.
The ruling class is using both wokeness and anti-wokeness to advance imperialism, and the fascist domestic policies that come with it. We can resist this fascism by recognizing that the MAGA base are not simply a bunch of fascists; we promote such Democrat narratives, and we isolate the class struggle to left-liberal circles. Which incentivizes Marxists to forsake solidarity with fascism’s targets, from Uhuru to the Donbass. There can be no more tailing of elements that don’t have the struggle’s interests in mind. To win against fascism and the social system it defends, we need to get out of leftism, and advance a struggle that’s actually based in the masses. I’m not just talking about the antiwar-minded elements within the MAGA base, though they’re one part of who we need to reach. I’m mainly talking about the vast amount of workers who are too alienated from bourgeois electoralism to be politically involved, and who are looking for a genuine path to systemic change.
Escaping the control of the monopolist-aligned, opportunistic elements is key to gaining such popular support. Fascism can only win if it succeeds at keeping the people divided over culture war issues, and cut off from any potential revolutionary leadership. We can take on such a unifying leadership role if we break from the forces that seek to protect monopoly finance capital.
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