When the imperial hegemon decided to escalate the new cold war by provoking Russia into intervening, it accelerated the global class struggle. It brought about events that forced everyone within the socialist movement to make choices; choices which have revealed the true priorities of these political actors, and made clear which ones are committed to doing what’s necessary for defeating the capitalist state.
During the struggle’s present stage, the element within the movement that’s shown itself to represent historical progress is the one which is committed to fighting U.S. dominance. The side that’s willing to defy any and all social taboos which have been created by our liberal cultural hegemony. Whether that means being pro-China; voicing solidarity with Russia’s Operation Z; or building an anti-imperialist united front with the parts of the anti-NATO movement that aren’t within the “left.” It’s this element which, due to its dedication towards fighting the narrative and institutional power of finance capital, is also compatible with the big idea the USA’s proletarian movement must embrace when it comes to domestic issues: American re-industrializion.
The imperialism-compatible elements of the U.S. “left’; the ones which either oppose actions like Z outright, or in effect oppose these actions by joining in on the attacks against the anti-NATO coalition; are the same ones that argue a pro-industry program in America is innately fascist. On a basic level, their reasoning on both issues comes from an impulse to conflate anything which challenges liberal orthodoxy with fascism; they feel apathetic towards the anti-imperialist struggle because they see certain figures on the right opposing NATO, and they feel apathetic towards re-industrialization due to also seeing such rightists advocate for industry. This notion that there can’t be a socialist iteration of anti-imperialism, or of industrialization, comes from the same fallacious analytical framework which liberals have been promoting for decades.
There’s an impulse within today’s dominant discourse to blankedly condemn anything illiberal as fascist. And this impulse is shared by the leftists who undialectically call Russia, or the anti-NATO coalition, or industry, “fascist.” Consistent with the modern left’s insular way of operating, this disincentivizes truly investigating the stances and actions of those involved in these anti-imperialist efforts, in favor of flippantly dismissing them as the worst kinds of reactionaries. There’s no interest in seeking out any information from outside the “left” fandom spaces that these people have invested themselves in.
As our economic collapse continues, and the question of how a workers movement can lift up our society’s living standards grows more urgent, this essentially pro-liberal mentality within the country’s left increasingly leads to a rejection of industry. The sentiment which the “left” side of our imperialist institutions ultimately seeks to propagate is that a socialist program for growth (even if it follows the green industrial path that China has, and even if it would be logistically essential for eliminating poverty) is still fascist in character. We’re seeing this with the green capitalist push for “degrowth,” which due to capital’s requirement for profits would inevitably mean austerity. We’re seeing this with the effort to divide the workers by making it seem like MAGA is particularly working class in its demographic character; and like the white workers who have economic grievances are only upset about the prospect of social equality.
The latter kinds of narratives hurt workers of all colors. They construct a caricature of a U.S. worker who doesn’t really have anything valid to complain about, since supposedly the only workers who would act against the liberal order are doing so for xenophobic or otherwise reactionary reasons. It’s a way of looking at the people which makes one inclined to vilify them whenever they do anything liberals would object to (such as support Russia’s anti-imperialist actions, or articulate desire for industry). It’s the same liberal impulse that produced this year’s ultra-left “AntiWarSoWhite” hashtag. Which, in addition to disregarding anybody nonwhite who’s been participating in the movement against Biden’s Ukraine proxy war, is based in an infantile notion of how societal change takes place; if many whites have become newly willing to contribute to the anti-imperialist cause, the correct response is to welcome them in, and help them further their educational journey. Not reject them as irredeemable reactionaries who can only be motivated by bigotry.
The same applies to when the most conscious elements of the U.S. workers demand their suffering living conditions be raised. Should we respond to these calls by blankedly condemning growth and industry, and by extension rejecting the forms of these things (nuclear energy, domestic goods production and agriculture, high-speed rail construction) which have been shown to be compatible with socialism? To do so is to give the workers no good reason to support the socialist movement, since as far as they can tell, “socialism” is about cultivating left organizing and social media influence for the sake of it. Not about doing the things necessary for actually improving the lives of the workers. Whether those things are principled efforts to fight U.S. hegemony, which is instrumental for defeating the state; or implementing a program of industry after the revolution; socialists need to show we’re committed to them. Or else not only will the broad workers struggle fail, but all the social justice causes which the established “left” orgs claim to care so much about will fail by extension.
Why is this country’s left so unwilling to become serious about the revolutionary task it claims to be committed to? Why is it operating according to the “anything illiberal is fascist” mentality, and consequently doing things like embracing degrowth or condemning Russia? Because there’s a deeper ideological error behind this, one that lets the left’s imperialism-compatible elements rationalize acting opportunistically. This is the error of acting like finance capital—the more powerful side of capital represented by the Democratic Party—should be embraced as a lesser-evil alternative to industrial capital.
Because MAGA represents the side of industrial capital; and MAGA’s founder Donald Trump employs fascist rhetoric and tactics; the left opportunists act like aligning with finance capital is a strategic imperative for mitigating the damage done by fascism. This is apparent when CPUSA’s leadership calls for voting blue, while citing anti-fascism as supposed justification for this. Or when radicals promote the rhetoric of billionaire-funded liberal NGOs like NDN Collective, without coming to the synthesis between national and class liberation that’s necessary for rendering these NGOs ineffectual. Or when “socialist” influencers promote finance capital’s degrowth slogan. Or when PSL’s leadership takes the “denounce both sides” stance on Ukraine, then allows for its organizers to promote the destructive “AntiWarSoWhite” slogan. That there’s evidence PSL has benefited from big bank funding makes these actions by it unsurprising; PSL and groups like it have decided to tail liberals, under the rationale that this is necessary for countering fascism.
What aspect of capital is fascism based within though? According to Dimitrov: “Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations.”
By promoting a totalizing vilification of industry, finance capital and its “left” appendages are shielding this finance-left alliance from criticism. They’re portraying all principled anti-imperialist efforts as “fascist,” via a narrative in which it’s made to look like anything associated with industry is synonymous with reaction. This is a lie; as communists, we by definition aren’t on the side of industrial capital, like we by definition aren’t on the side of capital in a bourgeois anti-imperialist country such as Russia. The left opportunists are trying to portray us as being on the side of both, and their arguments for this are interconnected; because pro-Russian Marxists don’t support their opportunistic attempts to exploit social justice causes for counterproductive purposes, they call us reactionaries. It then becomes easy to portray our statements of solidarity with the Russian people’s anti-imperialist struggle as being secretly meant to glorify Russian capital; or to portray our repudiations of degrowth and finance capital fetishism as being secretly fascist in intent.
It’s a way of obscuring the revisionist nature of the “Marxists” who exclusively seek to appeal to liberals and radical liberals; because they’re supposedly the only ones who care about social and national liberation, opposing them is portrayed as by definition fascist. The irony is that it’s these opportunistic forces which are aligning with finance capital, the world’s predominant fascist force.
When finance capital backs Ukrainian Nazis, or implements fascist repressive measures against anti-imperialists, the U.S. “left” is more eager to attack Russia and the anti-imperialist movement than to attack finance capital for committing these deeds. Stalin wrote that: “the victory of the working class in the developed countries and the liberation of the oppressed peoples from the yoke of imperialism are impossible without the formation and the consolidation of a common revolutionary front; the formation of a common revolutionary front is impossible unless the proletariat of the oppressor nations renders direct and determined support to the liberation movement of the oppressed peoples against the imperialism of its ‘own country,’ for ‘no nation can be free if it oppresses other nations’ (Engels).” By forsaking support for the fight of the Donbass people against Ukrainian fascism—a fight that’s only been able to succeed because of Russia’s actions—the U.S. left has disregarded this essential revolutionary task.
The only thing that can come from investing ourselves in this unprincipled iteration of “socialism” is a reinforcement of the existing social system. Which, as Peter Coffin concludes in his polemic against degrowth, is a reinforcement of a fascist order:
Fascism is the only coherent result of the fact that the form of private ownership of the means of production we call Capitalism can no longer develop. To continue to exist uninterrupted, the system must generate violent crises, stagnation, and decay. Fascism is an advanced stage of capitalism in crisis. As this world crisis grows, the number of unemployed, desolate people goes up while it becomes more and more necessary to lower the costs of production. As I said, capitalist exploitation can no longer be coerced; it can only be enforced. Degrowth’s reactionary lineage through insistence on the preservation of capitalism’s ownership dynamics (whether fully intentional or conveniently ignored, promoted by the capitalist ruling class), back through idealist “Small is Beautiful” environmentalism and eugenics, the determination and designation of what parts of the population we cull through various pseudosciences, all the way back to Robert Thomas Malthus…We have lived in the era of Imperial Capitalism for at least a century, and it has cycled in exactly this way. The cycle is decaying more and more, and what we see now is the result of decades of crisis, decay, and war, the ultimate resolution of both.
The imperialism-compatible left has shown it’s not serious about responding to crisis, decay, and war, as the finance capital that produced these things is the force which this “left” is effectively aligned with. The class struggle can only succeed if its drivers are informed by a desire to do what’s actually progressive, what’s actually beneficial to the struggle. The two big parts of this are a consistent effort to help advance the transition to multipolarity; and a program for socialist re-industrialization.
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