This piece is a contribution to the Pre-Convention Discussion for our 32nd National Convention. During Pre-Convention Discussion, all aspects of the party’s program, strategy, and tactics are up for consideration and debate. The ideas presented here are those of the author or authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Communist Party USA, its membership, or their elected leadership bodies. — Editors

The United States is not a fascist country. We do not live under a fascist government, nor do we live in a fascist society. While pockets of something approximating fascism have existed and sometimes still persist in the United States, most notably racist Klan terror in the Jim Crow south, they are in the process of being struggled against and stamped out. This is proof of the working class’s growing self-awareness, and proof of working class power when organized.

Communists understand better than anybody the limitations of the Democratic Party and other bourgeois democratic electoral formations. But we would be remiss if we did not closely study the class base of their electoral support: the multiracial, multi gendered, multinational working class, among them organized labor. Joe Biden’s election in 2020, and the Democratic sweep of the midterm elections of 2022, were a resounding denunciation of the MAGA movement’s fascistic tendencies. The Trump administration’s racism, sexism, xenophobia, and swooning love affair with big business turned the stomachs of the democratic majority of the United States. The blood shed by antifascists at Charlottesville in 2017 was dripping from Trump’s hands. This is why the Biden campaign mentioned it frequently. Biden knew that he could only be elected by winning over the class forces in this country that despise fascism and everything it stands for. His electoral success was not a working class embrace of neoliberalism, zionism, or imperialism. It was a unified struggle by the many millions of Americans who organized against the Trump administration and against everything that it stood for. Even Covid-era stimulus money (recall that some of the checks were signed by Trump himself) could not sway our class from its desire for peace, economic and social justice, and democracy.

Dialectical and historical materialism are powerful tools at our disposal. Communists can closely examine the world around them, study the history and data, and make informed decisions. In a fascist state, the labor movement would not be making such incredible gains. The National Labor Relations Board would not be able to operate in any way that benefited the working class. Killer cops would not go to jail on federal and state charges, as did Derek Chauvin. Racist cops in Mississippi would not be jailed by a federal court for decades for torturing African Americans. Trans people would not be able to get their passports changed to reflect their gender, and women could not order abortion pills by federal mail.

Above all else, the CPUSA would not be allowed to exist under a fascist regime. Understanding that Communists are the natural enemy of fascists, one of the first orders of business for a fascist state is to demobilize, lock up or kill all of the Communists they can find. This is because Marxism-Leninism offers the clearest analysis of fascism and the most effective strategies for organizing against it.

To muddle our analysis by insisting that fascism is already here, or that the Democratic party is fascist, or that liberals are fascists or the midwives of fascism, or that Democratic party voters are voting for fascism, is to disarm ourselves against the fascist threat. It is defeatism to shrug our shoulders saying that both parties are fascist, and a disservice to the many antifascist militants in our own country who have been killed, injured, and locked away in prison while struggling against this extremely serious threat. To assume that January 6th was a hyped-up myth, or to belittle its gravity, is a dereliction of our most solemn duty as Communists and workers in the belly of the beast.

While the situation in Gaza is bleak beyond measure, hindsight and dialectical and historical materialist analysis is valuable. There has, at least since the Vietnam war, never been this kind of sustained democratic upswell against US imperialism. This is because the progressive forces in our country have gained enormous leverage in the streets, at the ballot box, and on the shop floor. The very fact that the AFL-CIO has come out to the left of the Biden administration on the genocide in Gaza is proof that the organized sections of our class are on the march and collectively testing our strength. To call the environment this happened within “fascist” is to deny reality and remove ourselves from the class struggle and sit on the sidelines. It hampers our growth as a party and removes us from the masses.

In 2024, the venue where hundreds of millions of workers engage politically remains the ballot box. To pretend like this is a sham, or to engage with it in an idealist fashion by endorsing candidates who are neither Communist nor actually plan on winning, would reveal that we are a party that is removed from the day-to-day lived experience of the average worker in this country. Indeed, because of our deeply flawed political system, only tens of thousands of workers swayed by arguments that there is no difference between who wins in November could hand the election to the most fascistic forces ever to occupy the White House.

When the January 6th traitors are pardoned, when racist killer cops roam with total impunity again, when we are unable to opt-out of forced motherhood, when trans people are made illegal, and when gangs of fascist paramilitaries hunt us down like vermin in the streets of our largest and most diverse cities, say then that there’s no difference between a movement propelled by progressive, working class forces and the one propelled by bona fide fascists!

Comments