Is Trump a fascist?
The discussion of fascism must first be based on a historical understanding of its essence, its causes, and its goals, as well as a revolutionary response to fascism.
Fascism — what it is and what it is not
The tendency of mass movements in rebirth to label Trump and his accomplices as fascists has sufficient, observable reasons: shifting all responsibility onto a fictitious enemy, contempt for legal institutions, allowing a armed gang serving the most brutal imperialists to run rampant, the disappearance or outright abolition of democratic rights, naked and disgusting worship of conglomerates, and large-scale reactionary white terror.
The problem is that these phenomena are not unique to Donald Trump or his actions serving American imperialism. In fact, the increasingly reactionary trend is an inevitable part of the decline of imperialism; it is a response to the crisis of imperialism, a desperate act of self-rescue. During the so-called “illegal fascist” government period [note: Biden era], executive power and presidential privileges had already been strengthened, and since Trump once again became the “Butcher-in-Chief,” everything has become more extreme. People’s democratic rights have always been limited and trampled upon, but not yet to the level of fascist regimes. We observe that the American ruling class can still maintain control over the masses through the old bourgeois democratic methods, no matter how absurd or laughable this democracy may be — it has always been so; in short, even in the face of the current extreme crisis, the ruling class does not need fascism.
The Peruvian Communist Party describes the American political and economic system in its “International Line” as follows: “America has formed an economy centered on the monopoly of non-state property; politically, it exhibits a bourgeois democratic system with gradually restricted rights, which is a reactionary liberalism; militarily, the United States is the strongest Western country, with a longer development history than the social-imperialist Soviet Union.” Of course, we must point out that since the disintegration of social-imperialist Soviet Union, the United States has become the world’s only hegemonic imperialist superpower.
Understanding the basic starting point of fascism and the reactionary nature of imperialism is the definition proposed by Comrade Georgi Dimitrov at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International: fascism is “Fascism is the openly terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, chauvinist, and imperialist elements of finance capital.” This definition still holds today, but it is incomplete — it must be combined with an understanding of modern bourgeois states and the democratic crisis they cause.
Comrade Dimitrov continued: “Fascism is not a state power that ‘rises above the proletariat and the bourgeoisie’… nor is it a ‘rebellion of petty-bourgeoisie seizing the state apparatus’… No, fascism is neither a super-class regime nor a petty-bourgeois or rogue proletariat rule over finance capital. Fascism is essentially the rule of finance capital itself, a terroristic revenge organization against the revolutionary sections of the working class, peasants, and intellectuals. In foreign policy, fascism manifests as the most brutal chauvinism, inciting savage hatred against other nations.”
From this, we can conclude that fascism tends to appear in the face of real or imagined revolutionary threats, to counter the combativeness and organization of the masses. Currently, due to the unbalanced development of the world revolutionary situation, these factors have not yet reached a climax in the United States.
It must be pointed out that this definition served the communist fighters who defeated fascism in World War II: including the Soviet Red Army, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, and countless guerrilla units; it was these forces that made the greatest sacrifices to stop fascist aggression, all under the correct and rigorous leadership of Stalin, and we will forever defend Stalin’s name and his glory as a great leader of communism.
Chairman Mao Zedong elaborated on the issue of bourgeois states in his “On New Democracy,” explaining: “As for the so-called ‘regime’ issue, it refers to the form of the regime’s composition, which means the social class that organizes the state apparatus to oppose the enemy and protect itself. Without an appropriate form of regime, the state cannot represent the nation.”
The bourgeois state is an armed administrative tool of the bourgeoisie, and its essence does not change whether it is democratic or fascist; the state maintains rule through terror, fascism implements naked terror rule, while democracy covers terror with the guise of democracy, providing certain restrictions and formal rights to those capable of enjoying them. The bourgeois dictatorship always relies on reactionary white terror, but it tries to act as a mediator in class conflicts between industrial and financial capitalists and the working class, similar to social democracy and bourgeois trade unions, although fundamentally serving capitalists. Fascism strips the state of all semblance of mediation.
As fascism emerges from bourgeois democracy, political power does not change hands — only the government system changes. Therefore, fascism is deceptive in its constantly changing ideology; it can claim to be a defender of the constitution or an opponent of the constitution. What must be examined is the organizational form of the political power institutions utilized by today’s imperialist ruling class.
Gonzalo’s definition of fascism is as follows: “For us, fascism is the negation of the principles of liberal democracy, the negation of bourgeois democratic principles born and developed in 18th-century France. These principles are being abandoned by reactionaries and the bourgeoisie worldwide. The First World War revealed the crisis of bourgeois democratic order, and fascism then appeared. […] Ideologically, we also see fascism as a kind of eclectic system without a clear philosophical definition. Its ideological system can be described as a hodgepodge assembled according to pragmatic principles […] When we talk about unitarianism, we understand it as building the state on a large association of organizations, which means negating parliamentary systems. This is key […] What do they want to do? They want to build associations, that is, organize producers and all social members into a tightly organized guild according to unitarian principles. Let’s imagine a situation where all small business owners, farmers, merchants, technicians, students, clergy, soldiers, and police elect their representatives to form a large association. […] As for confusing fascism with concepts like terrorism and repression, we believe this is wrong. Specifically, the state is organized violence, a classic Marxist definition. All states use violence because the essence of the state is dictatorship; otherwise, how could they maintain oppression and exploitation? They cannot. Therefore, fascism develops broader, more sophisticated, and more evil violence, but it is a serious mistake to equate fascism with violence — it is only a part, a manifestation of reactionary violence.”
Although fascism appears in both imperialist countries and third-world countries, the fascism in the latter is based on the foreign financial capital dictatorship managed by imperialist running dogs.
Precedents of fascism in imperialist countries
To better understand the above, let’s examine four examples in chronological order of how imperialist countries have moved toward fascism: from the Meiji Restoration to the Showa period in Japan, Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, and the Soviet Union from 1956 to 1991.
Japanese fascism
To begin exploring the development of fascism in imperialist countries, we must first examine the initial emergence of fascism, which is its essential germ in Japan, predating the formal fascism of Italy. This is very important because, in essence, fascism often conceals its form, and in some rare cases, certain fascist forms are not truly fascist in nature. To understand this process of Japan as the true birthplace of fascism, we recommend studying the role of American colonialism in Japan and how it facilitated the Meiji Restoration; it was during this period, after 1868, that fascism truly took shape. Japan achieved industrialization through imperial control and forcibly established state-controlled monopolies, a unique development of capitalism that rapidly led it down the imperialist path.
The core idea of the Meiji Restoration was: Japan is a sacred country, the emperor is a god, gods are humans, and all humans are equal before gods; the gods are the sole rulers of the people. The Meiji Restoration was Japan’s capitalist revolution. Capitalism developed in Japan along the path of worshiping the sacred emperor; after the First Sino-Japanese War (1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1905), Japan became an imperialist country.
The special development of Japanese capitalism and its rapid evolution into imperialism created conditions for fascism. The army was regarded as the only “pure” organization absolutely loyal to the emperor, and the army itself tended to directly control the national economy. Large-scale national plans and extensive social welfare projects aimed to both expand military expenditure and resist socialist threats and the widespread influence of the October Socialist Revolution. Japan’s corporativist model predates the later Italian fascist model. In fact, Japan was already on the fascist path when the Communist Party was founded; history proves that Japanese imperialists had long foreseen the threat posed by the Communist Party.
Japanese militarist fascism peaked in the early 1920s. Facing the rise of communism and the panic over losing colonies as a maritime imperial power, Japan experienced large-scale labor unrest; to maintain and expand Japanese colonialism, suppress labor unrest, and overcome economic crises, the military under the right-wing imperial rule and the central bank controlled by the imperial family abolished constitutional monarchy and parliament. Abroad, they launched invasions using Manchuria as a springboard.
According to Keiko Hiraoka, Chairman of the Japanese People’s Front: “The military and Japanese warlords are implementing fascist policies under the command of the emperor. In other words, they implement policies by ‘mocking the enemy.’ Therefore, this is called Japanese militarist fascism.”
Italian fascism
Italian fascism is worth studying because the term “fascism” originates from here; according to bourgeois historians, fascism first appeared here, but this is not accurate — they often mistake fascism as a mere ideology rather than a regime. Fascism is always an ideological eclecticism. Italian fascism is just the first appearance of formal fascism, but its essence already existed in Japan. The ideological eclecticism of fascism is fully reflected in the fact that: in 1940, Mussolini ordered the collection and destruction of “his” Doctrine of Fascism. In his view, he only changed his ideas about some of its propositions.
As fascism as fascism, i.e., formal fascism, it claims to deny liberalism (individualism) and socialism, considering the former — especially democracy and progress in classical liberalism — as weak, and socialism (communism) as its main threat due to its reactionary nationalism. Therefore, it sees itself as a revolutionary and anti-communist force — reaching the extreme in counterrevolution.
Fascism attempts to force industrialists, workers, and the state to cooperate to suppress class struggle and protect the interests of large monopolistic and financial capital. To achieve industrial strength, Italian fascism invested heavily in welfare and public works. This was seen as a necessary measure to curb genuine socialist demands. By the early 1920s, Italy’s economy was largely under fascist control. Under this background, fascism began to advance along corporatist lines in state and social organizations.
First, labor unions were incorporated into the nationalized system, strengthening fascist unions, which later also achieved integration. All workers were forced to join state-controlled fascist unions. Although the state retained the sole mediating right, in this arrangement, the monopolistic capital increasingly integrated into the corporatist state held the final decision-making power. Under Italian fascism, monopoly was enforced through state cartels. State control over monopolies was common, but direct nationalization was less so. This changed in 1934 when fascists claimed the state owned and controlled over three-quarters of industry. By 1939, Italy’s state-owned economy exceeded that of any other capitalist country in the world.
German fascism
Hitler’s fascism did not initially involve state monopoly capitalism but developed through Nazi Party Program Articles 13 and 14: “We demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germanic Reich, including Austria, and the abolition of the Treaty of Versailles,” and “We demand the confiscation of war profits and the nationalization of trusts and monopolies.” Article 24 states: “The party believes that only by the principle of ‘service before self’ can our nation be permanently revived.” To start this process, Nazi fascists carried out comprehensive privatization of existing state monopolies, forcing mergers of enterprises to serve the interests of the restructured fascist ruling apparatus, but the ruling class in Germany did not change, nor did the state itself.
The Hitler government implemented large-scale public spending, austerity policies, and slave labor, with government intervention in the economy leading to instability and dependence on military expenditure. By forcing enterprise mergers and offering favorable contracts, the Nazis gained support from German monopoly capitalists — many of whom were party members. Of course, unions were suppressed and replaced by state-controlled fascist unions. Everything shifted toward military spending and rearmament.
In 1933, the German Labour Front (DAF), affiliated with the Nazi regime, began confiscating assets of all suppressed unions, gradually becoming the only “union.” Almost simultaneously, collective bargaining was banned, and DAF members appointed by Hitler were tasked with maintaining labor order, increasing exploitation, and promoting production growth.
Similarly, loyal fascist monopoly capitalists, educators, artists, and clergy gathered in the government.
Soviet social-imperialist fascism
Mao Zedong pointed out that after Stalin’s death, Nikita Khrushchev launched a military coup and restored capitalism, turning the former socialist country into an imperialist state with a socialist facade. In 1964, in a conversation with Chinese national planning leaders, he said: “The current Soviet Union is a bourgeois dictatorship, a big bourgeois dictatorship, a Hitler-style dictatorship, a gang of hooligans, worse than De Gaulle.”
His instruction to intellectuals was that they must convey this in their theoretical work; this is not an exaggeration or sensationalism. What does he mean by “worse than De Gaulle”? Charles de Gaulle in France, to some extent, borrowed from the Bonapartist tradition (not unlike the United States), restructuring the bourgeois democratic state based on presidential authoritarianism, as an extreme reaction to the threat posed by armed masses led by some of the now revisionist French Communist Party leaders. Gaullism negates the balance between the executive and legislative branches, tending to strengthen the executive (see Article 49, paragraph 5 of the French Constitution), while Soviet social-imperialists achieved nearly complete dominance.All of the country’s socialization. When the state transforms from a proletarian state into a bourgeois state, it begins to resemble Nazi Germany rather than De Gaulle’s France.
German corporativism reappears in the Soviet Union. Under the rule of Khrushchev and his successors, the trade unions fell under the control of the fascist state, completely subservient to it, transforming from socialist-serving proletarian democratic institutions into tools serving the brutal exploitation of the new imperialist bourgeoisie. This is why the Peruvian Communist Party explicitly states in its international line: “The Soviet Union is a fascist dictatorship based on a state-monopoly economy, politically establishing a bureaucratic bourgeoisie, although its development period is shorter [compared to the United States], it is a country with a powerful military force.”
The danger of mistaking reactionarization for fascism
The Trump administration is extremely reactionary, the most naked manifestation of the old state reactionarization in the decay process of American imperialism—it originates from its decayed insides. This is the desperate madness of American imperialism to maintain its world hegemony, but it is not fascism because it does not seek to reorganize government agencies based on corporates to achieve social corporatization. Trump’s policies do not reflect any development of fascism in imperialist states: no large-scale public works, no extensive welfare, no socialist threat making it necessary, and more importantly, they do not represent an agenda to significantly increase state ownership of the economy and means of production.
In the United States, the vast majority of industries belong to the private sector, serving the state; the state does not plan the economy, does not command the economy, and does not own most of the economy. The parts owned by the state are usually limited to infrastructure, public services, and a few utilities, all facing privatization threats. This is the goal the Republican bloc hopes to achieve through state bureaucracies. This is a typical form of rapid decay of democratic liberal bourgeois government, a naked and unstable reactionarization process—this process echoes the economic base of American society, spreading throughout society but existing independently of Trump’s will.
The same process is evident in the opposing imperialist mafia; their tone and surface rhetoric are merely to conceal this essence. This situation makes the struggle for control of bureaucracies more intense and sharp, with hostility and threats constantly escalating, forcing the ruling class to desperately try to drag the masses into an increasingly absurd electoral farce.
When fascism is used as a label to mask the independent processes within the two-party system, this diagnosis is wrong, firstly because it belittles the essence of fascism. This label, through false analogy, denies history, thus disarming the people in their struggle against the ruling class and its increasingly reactionary state machinery, turning them toward struggles against this or that government, almost always ending in a return to electoralism, ultimately voting for the same reactionary forces that embody the same fundamental process.
Revisionists, like Democrats, sloganize “Trump fascism,” essentially to “save American democracy.” On one hand, the fight must be for democratic rights and to defend all achievements of the people; but on the other hand, this struggle is based on an illusion—the rotten bourgeois democracy of the United States is not reactionary and aligns with imperialist interests. Behind all this is a huge sellout of the people’s struggle, helping the Democratic mafia to rebuild its mass base; it seeks to use the people for its purposes and will not bring any liberation. Just look at the mass protests against Trump or Musk under their influence: these protests often wave imperialist flags, raise reactionary, chauvinist, and nationalist slogans, and support specific imperialist plans like USAID or competition with Russia.
The Democratic mafia, under the guise of fascism, tries to deceive the masses into support through intimidation, falling along the same tracks as their so-called fascism. Recent elections confirm this: after calling Trump a fascist, Harris held a peaceful inauguration for Trump and peacefully transitioned to what she called fascism. Once this is achieved, the Democrats begin to exploit protest movements. Here, fascism is merely a rhetorical tool used to insult enemies and incite supporters.
The goal of socialists is not to save the rotten, reactionary bourgeois democracy but to prove to the masses that as long as financial capital continues to rule, workers’ democracy cannot exist; to make people understand that as long as this dictatorship persists, the deprivation of democratic rights, concentration of power in the president, and reckless white terror will intensify. This means fundamentally fighting against and resisting its roots, not just its specific manifestations.
Just like in the 1940s, revisionists use fascism as an excuse to tie American workers to the imperialist ruling class, in exchange for “social peace” and more scraps, swelling their already bloated bureaucratic apparatus. These agreements are deals with the devil. This can be seen from their electoral failures, loss of members, and declining influence in society. Revisionism has achieved its goal here: disarming the class and leading it astray.
On the other hand, some claim that the United States has always been a fascist country. Although this extreme left deviation contains some correct anti-electoral aspects, its mistaken assessment of fascism actually promotes fascism. If state terror is equated with fascism, then all states in history could be seen as fascist states; this term would lose all meaning, making it impossible to identify and oppose fascism when it truly appears. Unlike the dialectical materialist analysis that understands fascism’s development under specific historical conditions, this non-historical perspective that sees all reaction as fascism ignores internal contradictions within the enemy, places the masses in the enemy camp, and leads to hysteria and pessimism.
This view often stems from anarchist and postmodernist perspectives on the state and power, considering organized power and hierarchy as inherently problematic, thus viewing the state as essentially fascist. It does not distinguish between bourgeois revolutionary periods and decline periods, nor between bourgeois states and proletarian states. Like fascism, postmodernism denies the progressiveness of the Enlightenment and classical liberalism during the bourgeois revolution. Similar to fascism, this view inevitably leads to extreme subjectivism, irrationalism, and anti-communism.
Pushing this view to the extreme inevitably opposes organization, centralization, collective discipline, and the proletariat’s strategic struggle to seize power. It forms alliances based on superficial standards, alienates the masses; mocks the left, pushing workers into opposition. Meanwhile, genuine fascists and bourgeois parties use this to persecute the left and conduct reactionary mass work among workers, making them susceptible to inflammatory propaganda and reactionary populism.
Many honest people fall into the rhetoric promoted by revisionism, the Democratic mafia, and anarchism because of their outward similarities to fascism. Therefore, the duty of serious Marxists is not to follow suit but to insist, as historical materialists, that as long as the ruling class remains monopolists and financiers, reactionarization will only intensify. “The Worker” insists that our class’s best weapon is organization, and the fighters emerging from our class must profoundly realize that our fundamental task is to rebuild a Communist Party capable of establishing necessary fighting organizations in the arduous and glorious struggle to seize power.
