– N. Ribar –
Within hours of Donald Trump’s re-election as the 47th President of the United States, calls began for what is broadly known as “the left” to unify into a coalition termed “The Resistance” against Trump’s “fascism.” This old playbook stems from Trump’s first term, when operatives of the Democratic Party stated that Trump’s win was illegitimate, that is, that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but Trump won due to an antiquated electoral process known as the Electoral College. This claim gave impetus to a wide range of constant protests from “The Resistance,” from the Women’s March after inauguration day in 2017 until the end of Trump’s first term.
One can certainly note that this time, their party, the Democratic Party, is not united in the slightest after Trump won the popular vote, as seen by the numerous inter-factional disputes playing out on the dreadful TV “news” stations. Numerous bureaucrats are convinced that the reason for this outcome was that Kamala Harris was too “woke,” while others such as Bernie Sanders immediately claimed that the Democratic Party abandoned the workers. Detractors of the first argument claim that Kamala spent the whole campaign distancing herself from “woke,” while detractors of the second argument such as Nancy Pelosi insist that the Democrats have not abandoned the workers. None of this is a genuine analysis of why they failed to defeat Trump in the election — it is all a smokescreen, whose real reason lies in various factions positioning themselves for the 2028 Democratic presidential primaries.
This disunity of the political elite has not stopped their foot-soldiers at the base from calling for a new “Resistance” however. Numerous people are planning demonstrations, such as one on Inauguration Day in 2025, to oppose Trump. Some of these forces have stated that this time, they will not allow the Democratic Party to “co-opt” “The Resistance” as they did in Trump’s first term merely to harvest votes for themselves. This is a political and social impossibility, however, because as Trump is inaugurated and begins to govern, it won’t take long for slogans to emerge regarding “ditching the MAGA Republicans,” indeed “ditching Trump,” during the 2026 congressional mid-term elections. And the minute anyone raises an objection to this one-sided slogan, the doll-drum of accusations of being an enemy and an agent will begin.
These matters are not of so much importance for those who are building the new world of socialism and communism, not confined within the old thinking of inter-factional civil war. What is important is to clarify what the stand of communism is regarding the source of the increasing misery people are facing on a mass scale. It is for this reason that those who, under the banner of communism, are spending their entire time devoted to the cause of “The Resistance,” are misleading the people and delegitimizing the doctrine as a whole in the eyes of the people. These individuals and groups evidently have not the slightest clue what communism is, either as a social system or as a world outlook.
Let us take at a very common example in the United States of America — the phenomenon of those who actively and avidly supported the candidacy of the Democrat Bernie Sanders during the 2016 and 2020 presidential primaries. Since that time, an increasing amount of people who believe themselves to be politically-involved have claimed to become communists because they have seen the outright filth and rot of the Democratic elites, and believe that other means are more opportune to achieve their aims. The line of thinking goes: well, if my socialism cannot be accomplished through democratic, electoral means, then we must move on to revolutionary, violent means.
Unlike popular belief, the demarcation between ordinary modern social-democrats, or as they are sometimes called “democratic socialists,” and communists, has nothing to do with who is electoral and who is violent. This understanding is a fundamental distortion of Marx, who never once said polemicized against anyone on the basis that they were electoral and he was violent. Those who believe this are likely referring to Marx’s famous quote in The Civil War in France, which states that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes.” If one closely examines this work, Marx is not making a distinction whatsoever between electoral and violent, least of all did he say that this was the reason why the Paris Commune failed. The key stress, as is made evident in the next paragraph where he describes the historical evolution of the old state machinery and that it is ripe for overthrow, is that there is the new society, on the one hand, and the old society, on the other. The distinction is between new and old, that is, it is a problem of outlook, ideology, of forces in diametric opposition governed by historical laws to struggle resulting in the overthrow of the old society by the new society. The demarcation in modern capitalist society is between the forces fighting for the new, led by the modern proletariat, and the forces fighting for the old, led by the bourgeoisie.
The purpose for this explanation of Marx is all those who have come to “communism” as a “tool,” as a “method,” as a particularly violent variant of beliefs which allows them to more effectively pursue their aims. But what about their aims themselves? Are these old or new aims? Are the aims of the left those of the old or the new? This is no place for an explanation regarding the historical origins of what is called the left, but suffice it to say that left and right are inventions of the French Revolution. In those days, “left” and “right” were two labels attached to the opposing sections of the bourgeoisie. “Left” was and is not associated with the fundamental and infinite transition of society to higher and higher stages dictated by historical laws, just as “right” was and is not associated with dragging the economy and society back to a low-level stage of development such as slave society. These two labels — left and right — were and are merely associated with different factions of the bourgeoisie, both of which have different means and beliefs as to how they can extend the life of a social system, capitalism, which today is in deep crisis and decay, ripe for the new society. Communism, which represents this new society, is not “left” nor “right” just as feudalism wasn’t “left” or “right” when it supplanted slave society.
To revisit the earlier point, as long as there is no re-evaluation of the aims themselves among the left who have become “communists” because they believe in violence, there can be no communism. What kind of revolution? What kind of violence? To have revolution and violence is one thing, but these things are mere forms and not the essence. To have a type of revolution and violence which will only further entrench the old order does not favour the masses of people. To have revolution and violence which will retain the contradiction between the social character of production and the private appropriation of surplus-value, which will further impoverish the people, should not only be ignored by the communists, but should be opposed as a means to drag the people into the factional squabbles of the class in power. This point is well-known in terms of imperialist war, but as bourgeois society increasingly heads into chaos and the factions split into civil war, this point is lesser known. The vital question the great Lenin taught communists to ask when evaluating events is “In whose interest is this?” This is how one keeps their mind sober amidst the multi-faceted flurry of lies spread by the propagandists of the rulers through their press, spokesmen, etc.
Examining a related topic, for those who claim to be communists but still have the mentalities and aims of one faction of the bourgeoisie, some explanation on the topic of dialectics and contradictions is required. It is well-known that Marx and Engels only retained the kernel of Hegel’s dialectic, casting away its outer shell. But what is relevant is that the world develops as a single whole, divided into contradictions. Engels formulated this law of dialectics as the struggle and unity of opposites, with the primary contradiction in any given society being class struggle. Present-day society is divided into two primary classes — bourgeoisie and proletariat — which are products of the same capitalist social system. What they have in common is that they are both born to and out of society, and respond to it in accordance with their class interests. Out of this unity stemming from being born to society and out of this struggle as irreconcilable opposites, the new society must necessarily come into being against the old society.
In everything, there is the proletarian, and then there is the bourgeois. These two are completely separate axes. That is, they are not on the same axis. Certainly, there is the morality of the left and of the right, the ethics of left and right, the ideology of left and right, the worldview of left and right. But the problem is viewing either of these two as closer to the communist morality, ethics, ideology and worldview than the other. Neither is closer because they are both bourgeois — that is, they rest on their own sub-contradiction (left vs. right) on the side of the bourgeoisie within the larger contradiction between bourgeoisie and proletariat. Communists fight for the proletarian social, political and cultural new, for the new communist man, defined by lofty morals, self-improvement, mass education, etc., not for the reaction and degeneration of left or right.
To put things more concretely, those on the left typically advocate for a society defined by morals such as intersectionality, reparations, diversity, racial privileges, decolonialism, equity, solidarity, decriminalization and inclusion, as well as for the less innocuous hedonism, nihilism, promiscuity, drug-taking, pornography, lawlessness, anarchy, crime and prostitution. The left views all of these problems still through the lens of the old society, within the old state and social order. When the new society is born, an entirely new way of thinking is also born, and an entirely new morality will be born as well, which will take up the problems which have given rise to bourgeois morals in an entirely new, rational way in accordance with the new social production and social system. Communists cannot take up these problems as the forces of the old would, who extend the degeneracy and decay of society regardless of party or faction in power.
Of course, some will still think: but shouldn’t we still ally ourselves with the more “accepting” left because, after all, the right in the United States is today advocating for “fascism”? Shouldn’t we join this aimless movement called “The Resistance,” even if it only serves to prop up the Democratic Party? This stance convolutes the entire problem and muddies the definition of fascism.
The oft-cited quote by Dimitrov is that fascism in power is “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” There is no doubt that Donald Trump advocates for a section of capital, his aim is profit-making. But there are numerous elements on which the Democrats are more reactionary, chauvinist and imperialist than he is. For example, in the present war in Ukraine, the Democrats spare no means to aid the neo-nazi Kiev regime in their savage crusade for the extermination of the heroic Russian people. The Kiev regime is today the most reactionary force anywhere in the world today, a mercenary of the most reactionary sections of Western capital, even willing to sacrifice the Ukrainian people and nation. It is run by the most degenerate fascist scoundrels and dregs of humanity, terrorists on a mass scale driven by drug abuse, only reminiscent in history of the Hitlerites. Is this “The Resistance” communists should be backing? Meanwhile, Trump claims that he will personally intervene to bring about peace between Russia and Ukraine. This indeed would be positive, but we should have no illusions as only time will tell.
What about the topic of medicine and food? The Democrats are the political force in the U.S. fighting for all of the rot and corruption responsible for the unscientific response to the COVID-19 pandemic and for creating today’s massive physical and mental health crisis. This force’s ideology in medicine and social science is neo-Malthusianism and misanthropy. Meanwhile, Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the position of U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, whose program merely consists of re-evaluating food safety, banning toxic chemicals, ending corporate influence, studying vaccine approvals and solving the chronic health epidemic. This would also be positive, but neither should we have illusions about this. In response, the Democrats are already launching a new wave of mass hysteria (driven by their pharmaceutical funding) that measles, polio and smallpox will return merely by virtue of questioning big pharma. This is in no way an endorsement of Trump, nor is it stating that he is any “better” (after all, as I have discussed, he is trapped within the old just as others on the “left” and “right” are), it is simply pointing out that the Democrats are not politically beneficial from the vantage point of the new.
We also know that manifestations of fascism comes from blind ignorance, a lack of thinking, through the yielding of the masses and their interests to this most reactionary sector of capital. The moment someone accepts a statement or analysis without thinking it through, this is the beginning of fascism. Some say that Trump engages in demagogy, therefore this definition fits well. But people did not vote for him because he tricked them, but because the anarchy and crisis has severely increased since Trump left office. Still others would argue that historical fascism promised to stop the capitalist anarchy and crisis with its own capitalist “fascism” and “national socialism,” but the opposite is true. Fascism in Germany, for example, did not come to power because of a poor economy or, as some leftists think, as a response to socially liberal values such as homosexuality or transsexuality in Weimar Germany. This is one of the greatest myths spread by the Western bourgeoisie whose specific purpose is to deceive that fascism came into power in opposition to it, when in reality fascism came into power with the encouragement and (political, economic and military) aid of the Western bourgeoisie. Fascism was a mere rampart by the West to “go East” in a vain attempt to smash humanity’s liberated base, the Soviet Union. The fact that this demon escaped from their control and attacked the West first is due to the geo-strategic genius of the Soviet leadership. Internally, fascism came to power as a last-ditch attempt to terrorize the German masses and stave off the new society of socialism and communism. Fascism is the most degenerate, most reactionary system known to mankind, and Adolf Hitler is history’s most degenerate individual. One only needs to know that Hitler had his own vagabond drugged-up criminal gang, which broke all the German laws and engaged in looting, theft, intimidation, rape and killing. This force was called the brownshirts, and later the SS.
During the campaign Donald Trump promised stability, ending the wars, the crime, the chaos, the anarchy, the inflation, the crisis. He spoke of many concerns people are facing. And he proposed solutions which worked during the period when small capitalism was growing into monopoly capitalism, measures such as tariffs. In this way, he could state that they would “Make America Great Again” — as in the days when capitalism was vibrant and rejuvenating. It is no surprise therefore that he won at a much larger margin than in 2016. This does not mean Trump voters are “backwards,” “uneducated” or “racist,” it simply means that the people blame the Democrats and the left for all the misfortunes befalling them, and because this force even refuses to admit that these misfortunes exist. The people, the masses, are extremely wise, and the U.S. election proved that most of all they are desperate for stability in their lives. Trump fundamentally cannot fulfil many of his promises because at this stage the old society is not capable of doing these things, because historical and social laws cannot be defied successfully by will alone. In this circumstance, communists must stress that only by acting in accordance with these laws can the matters of concern to people be addressed, including but not limited to ending the many converging crises. Only by heeding the call of history and building an harmonious economy and society based on the law of balanced, proportionate development can one guarantee the future, the stability of the people.
This is the work communists must take up, not base themselves on joining with all sorts of nefarious forces who can only drag the people down. In fact, when communists associate themselves with such figures, they discredit themselves in the eyes of the masses. Only when we take up our own independent work can we move even an inch closer to the greatest social transformation in the history of mankind, which is destined to come, no matter what the forces of the old do, no matter what distortions of the name of communism come about.