Hitlerism despises the rural & working masses the same way that radical liberalism does

Hitler is anti-popular anarchism in disguise. He and his movement were nothing more than a rebranding of the individualistic, nihilistic, and idealistic trends within petty-bourgeois or lumpen politics; the kinds of radical liberal politics that oppose class struggle, on the basis that the working masses are too backward to deserve the respect of the enlightened intelligentsia. This is the mentality that produced Nazism; and this came through in how the Nazis systematically attacked the workers and the peasantry, thereby embodying the logical conclusion of all the anti-rural, anti-popular sentiments which come from radical liberals.

I’m drawing attention to this contradiction within Hitlerism because given how effective Nazism is coming to be at winning popular support, it’s apparent that the left has failed at guarding against a Hitlerite resurgence. As white nationalism gets boosted in the algorithms, leftists are utterly unable to provide an alternative radicalization path, because what we call leftism is itself antagonistic towards the bulk of the people. Particularly when it comes to the farmers and the rural workers, the left has lacked an interest in real popular outreach; this is because both the New Left and the far right share an ideological lineage within the anarchist, Trotskyist, and otherwise petty-bourgeois tendencies which view rural people as the enemy.

The far right is trying to sell itself as an ally of the rural and the workers, like it sold itself during the original era of fascism. But what it actually did was assail these groups, at the behest of Hitlerism’s backers in monopoly finance capital. One way that the Hitlerites attacked these masses was by disenfranchising them, as described by Georgi Dimitrov:

Fascism promised the ruined and impoverished peasants to put an end to debt bondage, to abolish rent and even to expropriate the landed estates without compensation, in the interests of the landless and ruined peasants. But actually it is placing the laboring peasants in a state of unprecedented servitude to the trusts and the fascist state apparatus, and pushes to the utmost limit the exploitation of the great mass of the peasantry by the big landowners, the banks and the usurers. 

"Germany will be a peasant country, or will not be at all," Hitler solemnly declared. And what did the peasants of Germany get under Hitler? The moratorium, which has already been cancelled? Or the law on the inheritance of peasant property, which leads to millions of sons and daughters of peasants being squeezed out of the villages and reduced to paupers? Farm laborers have been transformed into semi-serfs, deprived even of the elementary right of free movement. The working peasants have been deprived of the opportunity of selling the produce of their farms in the market.

The other big anti-peasant act by the Nazis was when they vilified the USSR’s peasantry, and asserted that the Soviets had betrayed the urban workers by subordinating them to the rural masses. This was a core anti-communist narrative that the Nazis propagated, and it paralleled the resentment which radical liberals hold towards the rural. The core reasoning behind Trotsky’s “permanent revolution” dogma, in which the revolution supposedly needed to lean upon indefinite military expansion, was that the peasantry couldn’t be relied upon. Trotsky, and the others who held his mindset, saw the peasantry as irredeemably reactionary, meaning Russia wouldn’t be able to build socialism in one country. 

Trotskyism is just one example of the phenomenon I’m describing; the same dismissive attitude towards the “backward” elements of the people, especially the ones from the countryside, is shared by the other idealist left currents. And to see what this attitude looks like on a practical level, we can look at the anti-peasant policies of the Hitlerites.

The underlying trend which leads to this mindset is a desire for negating the indeterminate, rather than the concrete. For waging a revolt not against the monopoly finance capitalist forces which actually represent today’s main contradiction; but for unleashing bloody, destructive spite against every part of society that the given individual views as an enemy. 

Hitler’s desire to destroy the Jewish people came from an infantile, nebulous anger, where he put his own personal struggle at the center of everything. Jews, Romanis, class-conscious workers, and Nazism’s other targets were the ones he decided to direct this anger towards; and when somebody’s mindset is as petty as Hitler’s was, it makes sense that they would gravitate to the anti-social ideologies which view certain races as enemies, and seek to crush capital’s challengers through extreme violence. “Triumph of the will” is about giving this mentality’s proponents an outlet for acting out a temper tantrum, and pursuing violence as an achievement in itself.

These are the ideas that can very easily come out of the “bohemian” social element which Hitler was part of. Hitler was absolutely an anarchist; he lived an idealistic life of artistic and romantic pursuits, which combined with the infantile anger led him to promote an ideology which was very “punk rock” in nature. Nazism fits this category because it isn’t about tradition at all; it’s about tearing down everything that exists within society, which means unleashing the full, unrestrained violent power of the state. 

Most self-identified anarchists don’t come to the same conclusion, but for practical purposes, this doesn’t matter much; especially during the present moment, the left-wing kind of anarchism lacks vitality as a historical driving force, with the anarchist movement now dying down even as popular discontent grows. Right now, the most effective promoters of anarchism are Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, who seek to bring back the version of anarchism as Hitler actually put it into practice. It’s no surprise that these “dissident right” figures are increasingly fusing with the most prominent proponents of neoconservatism, which has its origins in Trotsky’s military triumphalist fantasy. 

The liberals who’ve been facilitating and defending the Gaza genocide, which is our present-day Holocaust, have made a tacit alliance with the Hitlerites. What unites them is a mission to crush the popular revolutionary forces, which are based within the proletariat and the modern equivalent of the peasantry. As finance capital backs a new Hitlerite current in trying to divert people towards destructive anarchism, we must expose the true character behind this ideology. We must show why the Hitlerites are enemies of the working-class people who they superficially posture as being allies of. 

This won’t sway those within Hitlerism’s core class elements, these being the alienated lumpen and the opportunistic parts of the petty-bourgeoisie. But when it’s been sufficiently isolated to these elements, it will have already exposed itself as anti-popular, and will no longer be an effective tool of our ruling class.

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Where the anti-imperialist movement’s unified strength exists, & the urgent need to build on this strength

It’s critical that we take example from the liberation struggles of the Global South, and a major recent lesson from these struggles is the importance of finding unity. I describe this as a recent lesson, even though it’s applied to class struggles all throughout history, because the need for a united front has been particularly urgent since the fall of the Soviet Union. 

Following that upheaval, the liberation movements have needed to figure out a new path. And during this era of grappling, we’ve seen a pattern where the globe’s liberation movements have kept having to pass the same test: a test where different elements within a given movement must either reconcile, or be defeated for the time being. Three stories about this that stand out are Venezuela, Palestine, and Bolivia—with the former two countries seeing their struggles strengthened due to newfound unity, while the latter has seen a major setback due to new divisions.

In Venezuela’s case, the disunity which the movement needed to overcome had its origins in a wrecking operation. An operation that had been orchestrated by the European-funded global Trotskyist influence network, which began sowing serious discord within Venezuela following the death of Hugo Chavez in 2013. It was after then that the Trotskyist International Marxist Tendency gained enough influence within the Communist Party of Venezuela to hijack the organization, push a narrative about Maduro having sold out Venezuela’s people, and anti-democratically shut out anyone who challenged the IMT’s lies. 

These imperialist compradors accused Maduro of that which they themselves were guilty, and used the party’s platform to trick global audiences into viewing the Bolivarian leaders as U.S. neo-colonial tools. Then in 2023, the authentic militants within the party used Venezuela’s revolutionary high court to take action against the wreckers, and end the Trotskyist efforts at silencing dissent within the party. Through this, the militants successfully won back their party; and in the year or so since they won that battle, they’ve been able to rebuild the organization to the best of their ability.

As reported by the Communist Party of Great Britain ML’s writers, the participants in the defensive campaign against the Trotskyists have articulated the true positions that the party holds. As we all work to defend our own movements from the equivalent kinds of sabotage, we must study the statements from these communists.

Luisa González has said that “We communist women are supporting this socialist process. We abhor and reproach the position of that very minor faction that was in the Communist party. Above all that in the election process of 28 July [2024] they supported a candidate of the fascist extreme right, who is also anticommunist. We are deeply offended by that. These actions were taken by citizens who put their hands up [in surrender] and decided to try to put the Communist party on the back foot before the American empire. And from the women’s trench I say to you: the communist women of Venezuela support our president Nicolás Maduro Moros.”

Henry Parra has said that “our party is guided by the scientific conception of Marxism-Leninism, the emancipatory, anti-imperialist and integrationist ideal of Simón Bolívar and by the principles of proletarian internationalism, international solidarity with the peoples fighting for their national liberation, popular democracy, progress, social welfare and socialism.”

It should be a given that these kinds of pro-unity, materially based positions would define any real liberation movement; but there are countless bad actors who seek to draw our struggles away from such principles stances, and we must combat their attacks wherever they’re to be found. 

The members of the Palestinian resistance have taken this task seriously, rejecting the bad-faith arguments of those who seek to separate the different armed anti-occupation groups from each other. And it’s because of their successful struggle against division that Hamas now acts within a coalition among all of the guerrilla organizations inside Gaza.

Hamas used to be at odds with the Palestinian communists, who didn’t want to side with Hamas in its fight with the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah party. This had to do with how Fatah is the largest faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization; but the Palestinian communist movement’s enmity towards Hamas didn’t last, partly because Fatah itself plays a highly negative role within the Palestinian cause. The PLO underwent a transition into compradorship, and this means that when Hamas has fought with Fatah, Hamas hasn’t simply been fighting the Palestinian left (as unprincipled critics of Hamas have asserted). Fatah and the PA are absolutely not friends of the communists, and this has made it easier for Hamas to unify with the communists during these last fifteen years.

Despite all the efforts by saboteurs to encourage infighting between the liberation groups, in Palestine these groups have come together. And what this story has in common with Venezuela’s revolutionary reunification is that when the different parties have set out to reconcile, they’ve found that they share the same role within the power struggle. That they all fundamentally agree on the need to defeat the imperial enemy, whether that enemy comes in the form of U.S. aggressions or colonial oppression by Washington’s Zionist proxy. And in both stories, there’s been a comprador betrayer who the principled actors have found unity in fighting, with the betrayer in Venezuela being Trotskyism and the betrayer in Palestine being Fatah.

In Bolivia, such unity has been shattered for the time being, and this isn’t the fault of the principled actors. It’s the fault of the liberal comprador element that took over the country’s Movement for Socialism Party, and refused to build upon the workers gains that former president Evo Morales had made. President Luis Arce weakened the worker institutions that Morales had worked so hard to strengthen, leaving Bolivia all the more vulnerable to the economic crisis it’s been experiencing. The liberals also unlawfully banned Arce from running again, which was a critical factor that led to the party being split. Now the right wing has won, and the left has been fractured.

These developments are absolutely a loss for Latin America, and for the anti-imperialist cause. When juxtaposed with the recent success stories for revolutionary unity, though, they provide us with insight into what a real united front looks like. A united front is not when the principled elements passively accept the betrayals from the opportunists, like those who’ve vilified Morales wanted him to do with Arce’s comprador faction. Real revolutionary unity looks like when the varying forces which seek the enemy’s defeat overcome their differences, and build strength off of each other. 

Strength is never found in appeasing the bad actors who align with the imperial hegemon. It’s found in putting aside all secondary disputes, and collaborating on the foremost goal of defeating the hegemon. If someone isn’t interested in doing this, seeking unity with them isn’t worthwhile, because they’re affiliated with imperialism. We must prioritize unity with the forces that share the goal of defeating imperialism, or we’ll end up trying to please opportunists who will betray us.

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The variables the Luigi movement introduced, & the revolutionary project that it must precipitate

Photo: Angela Weiss/AFP

Overall, Trump 2.0 is something that is working in the favor of our ruling class. The purpose of letting Trump win was to use him as a vehicle for enacting radical reforms, reforms that were intended to ensure the U.S. empire’s continued stability. And this plan has been successful, because the crises which have come from Trump’s aggressive government cuts, tariffs, and domestic military deployments are for the most part shocks that the elites anticipated. 

On paper, American monopoly finance capital is effective in its efforts to consolidate power, and to avert a crisis that would take on an actually revolutionary character. Yet there are risk factors that have emerged independently from the elite’s designs, and this is leading the elites to take additional measures; ones that are more chaotic and terroristic.

The people become radicalized, & the rulers turn to old fascistic tricks

The rise of the Luigi movement, which has so far produced one other successful vigilante attack against a CEO, is a development that fundamentally threatens the plan our society was supposed to adhere to during the new Trump era. For the economic shocks to pay off, the people would have needed to be diverted away from a revolutionary mass movement. The people were meant to be fully demoralized and demobilized, letting capital’s next attacks go on unimpeded. Yet class solidarity and proletarian consciousness have revealed themselves once again, proving that the masses are a lot more advanced than our rulers want to believe. 

In response, our imperial deep state has continued to escalate its efforts at sowing reactionary violence, with one aim of this being to make the masses live in fear. Last month, when an individual who had been taken in by a fed-run neo-Nazi murder cult attacked a Catholic school in Minneapolis, this did succeed in changing how many people relate to their world. It did make locals and others wonder if they can go to work, or practice their faith, without being murdered or seeing their children be murdered. This is a completely rational fear, and it won’t be able to go away until the terroristic forces behind the shooting have been made a thing of the past. Yet from the terrifying reality that our society is facing, where our own government is cultivating monsters who want our deaths, can come a unity around defeating these forces.

This isn’t the first time the United States has seen its ruling class cultivate fascistic anti-humanism in reaction to growing radicalization among the people. And history shows that when the revolutionary forces aren’t adequately prepared, these reactionary diversions can be highly effective. In 1935, William Z. Foster observed how though the workers were becoming conscious and organized, racial supremacist ideologies were gaining a major presence:

The many fascist and semi-fascist demagogues and organizations penetrating the masses constitute a real menace. Vast numbers of the hungry, confused and politically unorganized and inexperienced masses, seeking a way out of their intolerable situation, are falling victims to the increasing flood of reactionary and fascist demagogy. These masses consist not only of the urban petty bourgeoisie and farmers, but also workers. No reliable statistics or other clear indications are yet at hand to show to what extent this specifically American fascist agitation has penetrated the masses, but that it has made such headway is manifest. The Communist Party is making considerable progress in winning the masses, but the fascist, semi-fascists and other reactionary capitalist demagogues are going much faster. They are undoubtedly establishing a broad mass base; the plain lesson of which is that we Communists must double and treble our united front fight against fascism.

This radicalization that the masses had been undergoing was something which happened on its own, due to the people reacting towards their conditions. It didn’t mean that the communists had already won; they would need to put in the work, and actively insert themselves into the masses. 

Modern anti-fascism requires a struggle against radical liberalism

We know how the story of 1930s class conflict ended: the communist party was led down a “liquidationist” path, and thereby weakened itself to the effect that the American workers movement could be crushed. As we face a new moment of mass radicalization and fascist reaction, we must learn from these past errors. We must ensure that our modern workers organizations stay on the revolutionary path, and go into the masses in a serious fashion. This means empathizing with why so many of the masses have embraced Luigi.

The Minneapolis shooter, and the other murder cult members who’ve chosen an anti-social path, are different versions of monsters like the slain United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Whether someone is physically committing murder, or forcing people into situations where their deaths are inevitable, they’re advancing the anti-human goals of our ruling elites. Our elites hold a distinctly nihilistic, destructive, and ultraviolent view of what a society should be like, so much that they don’t believe in society. They’re the ones who’ve orchestrated the Gaza genocide, which is the ultimate manifestation of all the other kinds of violence that they commit. 

In the face of this violence, many of the masses have already concluded that the perpetrators have forfeited their right to grace or to mercy; which has to do with a philosophic moral debate, one that will need to be settled separately from the practical class struggle. But the fact that these popular sentiments exist means we have the basis to prevail in this struggle.

The support for an uncompromised, ruthless fight against capital is there among the people. And when our rulers work to make sure that the people experience horrors, they’re trying to stop this support from turning into a collective workers organizing effort. They are counting on the people to respond towards the crises we’re facing by becoming anti-social ourselves, and gravitating towards self-destructive projects like the Minneapolis shooter did.

In the modern United States, this effort to divert the masses away from revolutionary politics looks different than it did in Foster’s time. Today’s era is one where the American people are not just growing more economically desperate, but largely becoming lumpenized; i.e. pressured into relying on sources of income that are either illegal, or would be illegal under socialism but get elevated under capitalism. A big example of this is the recent rise in the sex industry, which is not only largely legal but is upheld as “empowering.” 

Our ruling class is working to lumpenize the masses to a degree that wasn’t the case prior to America’s bourgeois cultural revolution, when the old constraints of bourgeois sexual morality got replaced by what Lenin called the “superabundance of sex theories.” One of these theories being that sexual exploitation is actually something revolutionary, instead of a weapon used by our class enemies. This is just one area of the effort to engineer our society’s collapse; there’s a CIA campaign to glorify drug use, as well as a glorification of the gangster aesthetic. (This is particularly being pushed on “generation alpha.”) Our ruling institutions want the youth to respond to their era’s economic bleakness by embracing a lumpen lifestyle, and turning their backs on anything collective or constructive.

It’s from the growing lumpen social base that this new generation of neo-Nazi terrorists is able to find recruits. The Minneapolis shooter was one of the alienated lumpen individuals who could be groomed into violence by trained manipulators within U.S. intelligence, and thereby help inspire more desperate people to continue the murder cycle. The modern version of the old American fascism is a mishmash of radical liberalism and Hitlerism, fusing the superabundance of sex theories, national nihilism, hatred towards the “backward” masses, and “triumph of the will” idealism where violence is seen as an achievement in itself. Nothing less than a strong, mass-centered, collective organizational effort can rescue our society from these forces. As the agents of destruction seek to subdue our popular power, we must stand up together, and use this power without fear.

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If you appreciate my work, I hope you become a one-time or regular donor to my Patreon account. Like most of us, I’m feeling the economic pressures amid late-stage capitalism, and I need money to keep fighting for a new system that works for all of us. Go to my Patreon here. 

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