Donald, Decline and Decay

Communist Revolution Will Defeat Imperialist War and Fascism

“Great-power competition is now the primary focus of U.S. security,” declared war secretary Mattis in January 2018.

The world’s biggest capitalists vie to maximize profits by dominating labor, resources and markets around the world. This imperialist rivalry – exploding periodically into world war – has driven world events for a century.

Except when revolutionary masses have risen to fight for workers’ power.

Empires rise on the backs of the workers they exploit – especially abroad. And when these empires fall to their rivals, they crush those workers’ lives and bodies.

It’s said that “when elephants fight, the grass gets trampled.” But the working class isn’t grass! We are the most powerful force in history.   Fights among imperialist rulers are opportunities for us to destroy their deadly racist system with communist revolution.

US Imperialism in Decline – Rulers in Disarray

The US dominated for 70 years through a combination of military might, diplomatic alliances and economic clout. But it’s no secret that US imperialism has been losing ground, especially to an openly capitalist China.

With Trump in the White House, the US decline is rapidly accelerating.

On the diplomatic front, Trump revels in isolationism — North Korea notwithstanding. He insults long-time US allies, as at the G7 meeting in Canada. He shreds whatever may remain of US imperialism’s threadbare claim to “moral leadership.” He guts the State Department. (Said Mattis: “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition.”)

One analyst compared this to the fall of past empires: “In none of those cases will you find a great power willfully dismantling its own alliances.”

Former US allies are scrambling for new partners. China is already the main beneficiary.

Many leading US imperialists soon denounced Trump’s presidency. “For all the rot that is visible in America’s standing and ability to influence global affairs,” wrote a former Bush advisor, “more is spreading beneath the surface. … [They] augur something much worse tomorrow…. like the world of the late 1920s or early 1930s: disorderly and unstable, but with much worse to follow.” What followed then was world war.

Others embraced Trump’s slash-and-burn diplomacy along with his open racism and support for fascists. They like that he promotes unquestioning patriotism while dividing the US working class. They were happy to use Trump to cut taxes on the rich while slashing social programs.

But Trump’s new tariffs – especially on steel and aluminum – are another story. Even short of a full-scale trade war, these import taxes cut into the profits of manufacturing firms, large and small. Retaliatory tariffs—are already hurting hurt US exports.

Wall Street financiers and their allies in manufacturing oppose these tariffs. But so do the Koch Brothers, whose “Oil Patch” capitalist faction has fought bitterly against the main (Wall Street) US imperialists. Koch money is pouring into congressional campaigns of “free trade” politicians (even some Democrats!) running against hard-core Trump supporters.

It’s Not Just Trump – It’s Capitalism’s Internal Contradictions

The decline of US imperialism stems from the very process of capitalist development that once brought it to the top.

Money capital separated itself from industrial capital. Capitalists living off their investments were increasingly isolated from those who organized and managed production.

This domination of finance capital characterizes imperialism, along with the export of capital (foreign investment). As Lenin said, finance capitalism “is a state of parasitic, decaying capitalism [that] cannot fail to influence all the socio-political conditions of the countries concerned.”

Capitalist economists have warned since 2012 that “too much finance is bad for the economy.” One argued in 2013 that the financial sector had “consumed America’s economic growth.” It was hauling in a record 9% of total US production, some $1.4 trillion, without producing anything. It didn’t even make the economy run better.

Another analyst noted three years later that “financialization” – supported by Democrats and Republicans alike — intensifies inequality. And workers know it. Many lose faith in openly capitalist politicians. They may look to “populists” like Trump or Bernie Sanders.

We can’t let that happen. Trump’s populism is fascism, pure and simple. It can’t be defeated with “democracy” or even “socialism.” The only way to defeat fascism – the political form of decaying, parasitic finance capitalism – is communist revolution.

Stories in this paper from Seattle (USA) to El Salvador to South Africa show that masses are ready, willing and able to embrace communist ideas.

Let the imperialists focus on “great-power competition.” Our task is to focus with laser-like intensity on the revolutionary class struggle for communism.

Red Army soldiers and communist-led civilians smashed the fascist Nazi army at Stalingrad, 1943.

AS WE GO TO PRESS: June 26—The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld Trump’s Muslim Travel Ban 3.0. This racist attack on Muslims and all workers is consistent with other sharp fascist attacks by the Supreme Court this session. Only communist revolution can defeat fascism.

January, 2017

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