by _JustAPotato
More and more Western countries are experiencing what the bourgeois media call a “shift to the right.” But this is neither a coincidence nor merely the result of dissatisfaction among the proletarian class. It is a deliberately employed tool of the ruling class to expand its hegemonic power worldwide.
Reactionary politics primarily serves to divide the working class – through racism, xenophobia, and blind, one-sided loyalty to one’s own nation and thus also to one’s national bourgeoisie. At the same time, it pursues the goal of facilitating the growth of large corporations: reducing bureaucracy, abolishing worker protection laws, and above all, militarizing the nation.
Western capitalism has reached a point where it has exhausted its growth potential within its own sphere of domination. Resources, land, and labor have been largely taken over. We are in a phase of general crisis, in which internal contradictions – such as overproduction and falling profit rates – become insoluble.
Capitalism cannot stand still – it must keep growing, endlessly. But we all know that this is impossible with finite resources, limited land, and a finite number of workers. Should the capitalist, then, realize that their system cannot function in the long term? Ideally, yes – but capitalists are bound to the laws of capitalism: capital accumulation and profit maximization. Anyone who ignores these laws will perish in the struggle for competition
The Western bourgeoisie uses its influence over the state (whose role and relationship to the ruling class I explained in Issue I of The Red Flame – Avant-garde of the Masses). Through their control over the media, they can shape public opinion and steer us in a direction that strengthens reactionary politics. They do not merely influence the state – it is a subordinate organ of the capitalists. They control our formation of opinion and what we are taught in schools, newspapers, and news broadcasts.
A central tool is the deliberate creation of enemy images: in Germany, it is Russia; in the USA, China, Islamists, and communists; in France, African migrants. These enemy images are used to win the support of the civilian population for – exactly:
Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism – the stage we live in today. As Lenin describes in Imperialism – the Highest Stage of Capitalism, it has five essential features:
The concentration of production and capital, creating monopolies;
The merging of bank and industrial capital into finance capital;
The growing importance of capital export over commodity export;
The formation of international capitalist associations that divide the world among themselves; and
The territorial division of the earth among the biggest imperialist powers.
These features form the foundation of today’s world order – and explain why imperialist policy is inseparably linked with war preparation and the expansion of domination.
Imperialism therefore inevitably brings militarism, the threat of war, and often fascist forms of rule (even though fascism is not inevitable – Dimitrov’s definition: Fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, chauvinistic, and imperialist elements of finance capital). Capitalists – they are often a way out. Since the possibilities for growth within their own country are limited, capital, land, and labor must be stolen from other countries (colonialism in Africa, Asia, and the Americas) or destroyed (as in the Second World War). After crises and wars, productivity often rises sharply, and the economy can be “rebuilt” – until the next crisis.
This is the endless cycle we communists will break.
Closing words: The shift to the right is no accident of history – it is the bourgeoisie’s preparation for new wars and oppression. Our task is clear: to nip fascism in the bud, smash imperialism, and overcome capitalism. In the Marxist-Leninist understanding, anti-fascism is inseparably linked to anti-capitalism: fascism is not merely an “aberration” or a mistake, but the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, chauvinistic, and imperialist elements of finance capital. It therefore cannot be permanently defeated without simultaneously overthrowing the capitalist system. Whoever wants to nip fascism in the bud must smash imperialism and establish the power of the working class.
Only through the international solidarity of the working class can we break this chain of crisis, war, and misery. Workers of all countries, unite – you have nothing to lose but your chains!