How can we explain the chaos of bourgeois politics?

We are currently witnessing an acceleration of history. Not a day goes by without a new, often unprecedented and largely unpredictable event occurring on the international stage. Let us consider a few recent examples: who could have predicted Trump's re-election after his attempted coup in January 2021? Who could even have imagined that such an attempted coup could take place in the United States? What about the divorce between the United States and Europe, with tariffs and customs duties being used as weapons of blackmail, after decades of close cooperation between these countries? What about the policy of annexation, practised not only by Putin in Ukraine, but also claimed by Netanyahu towards the Palestinian territories and by Trump towards Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal? And then there are the scenarios of endless and barbaric wars (Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen, Sudan...) that have multiplied, even though Bush Sr. announced in 1989, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the advent of a “new era of peace” and a “new world order”?

We can all agree on the shock caused by the scale and unpredictability of many events that have dominated the news in recent times. We can also all agree about the need to denounce the period of barbarism into which we are increasingly entering. But if we do not want to be mere passive subjects of a rotten system that increasingly calls our future into question; we must make an effort to understand its evolution, its internal dynamics and the origin of these events. To this end, this article aims to show how the phenomena we witness on a daily basis are the expression and result of a process of disintegration of the political apparatus of the bourgeoisie, which operates at the international level and began at the end of the 20th century.

A major expression of this was the collapse of the former ‘Soviet’ bloc, followed by the gradual disintegration of the Western bloc.

The bourgeoisie, a class that has accumulated long experience in governing society

The proletariat, the revolutionary class of our time, if it is to develop a concrete project for the future society in order to advance its historic struggle for communism, has only two tools at its disposal: its unity and its consciousness. On the other hand, the bourgeoisie, the class that currently holds power, did not need to develop a great consciousness and grand projects to seize political power, because the very development of the capitalist economy gave it the material basis to impose itself politically. As the ruling class in society and the exploiting class, the bourgeoisie is incapable of imagining a future beyond capitalist society, so its conception of the world is fundamentally static and conservative. This has consequences for bourgeois ideology and its inability to understand the course of history, because it does not envisage the present as something ephemeral, in constant evolution. It is therefore incapable of making long-term plans and seeing beyond its own mode of production. The difference between the revolutionary class consciousness of the proletariat and the ‘false consciousness’ of the bourgeoisie is therefore not just a matter of degree; it is a difference in nature.

But this does not mean that the bourgeoisie is incapable of grasping reality and drawing on its past experience to develop tools to ensure its domination. Indeed, unlike the proletariat, which, despite being a historical class, does not continuously assert its political presence in society and is subject to all the political fluctuations of different events, with moments of open struggle and others of retreat, the bourgeoisie has the advantage of being the ruling class that holds power and can therefore dispose of all the means necessary to survive as long as possible.

Some parts of it, such as the English bourgeoisie, have accumulated several centuries of experience in the struggle against the previous feudal power, then against other countries, as well as against the proletariat itself. This experience has been used intelligently by the various bourgeoisies in the management of their political power, particularly since the dawn of the phase of decadence at the beginning of the 20th century, when the historical crisis of capitalism began to call into question the survival of the system. It is important for the proletariat to understand that the policy of the bourgeoisie in this period of decadence, regardless of the decisions of this or that government, is always to defend the interests of the ruling class as a whole.

The political game of alternating right-wing and left-wing governments
Democratic control of society

Since capitalist society is based on the exploitation of one class by another, of the working class by the bourgeoisie, the latter needs, in order to perpetuate its control over society for as long as possible, to hide this truth and present things not as they are, but in a distorted way, basing its ideology on the myth of ‘equality between citizens’, making people believe, for example, that we are all equal, that everyone shapes their own destiny and that if someone has problems, it is because they created them themselves by not making the right choices.

The most effective tool of the bourgeoisie for governing a country and ensuring its class domination is therefore the democratic mystification, a system that gives people the illusion that they play a political role as individuals and that they matter in society, that they can even aspire to leadership positions. If today the bourgeoisie maintains, at great expense, a whole political apparatus for the surveillance and mystification of the proletariat (parliament, parties, trade unions, various associations, etc.) and establishes absolute control over all the media (press, radio, television), it is because propaganda is an essential weapon of the bourgeoisie to ensure its domination. Democratic consultations such as elections, referendums, etc., are the practical tools used by the bourgeoisie to obtain from the so-called ‘sovereign’ people, mystifyingly considered as masters of their own destiny, the mandate to decide the fate of society.

Amadeo Bordiga gives us a brilliant description of this mechanism: "Our criticism of such a method must be much more severe when it is applied to society as a whole as it is today, or to given nations, than when it is introduced into much smaller organisations, such as trade unions and parties. In the first case, it must be rejected without hesitation as unfounded, because it does not take into account the situation of individuals in the economy and presupposes the intrinsic perfection of the system without taking into consideration the historical evolution of the community to which it applies. […] This is what political democracy officially claims to be, when in reality it is the form that suits the power of the capitalist class, the dictatorship of this particular class, with the aim of preserving its privileges.

It is therefore not necessary to spend much time refuting the error of attributing the same degree of independence and maturity to the ‘vote’ of each voter, whether they are a worker exhausted by excessive physical labour or a debauched rich man, a shrewd captain of industry or an unfortunate proletarian ignorant of the causes of his misery and the means of remedying it. From time to time, after long intervals, the opinions of these and others are sought, and it is claimed that the fulfilment of this ‘sovereign’ duty is sufficient to ensure the calm and obedience of those who feel victimised and mistreated by the policies and administration of the state”[1] [1].

The classic left/right bipartisanship and the game of alternation

The bourgeoisie exercised this power of control for a long time, as long as it was able to do so, for example by directing the popular vote in one direction or another according to its wishes, by financing the various channels of political propaganda. This game was played in a particularly sophisticated manner in the last century in countries such as France, Italy, Germany, the United States and others, where there were historically right-wing and left-wing factions, through an alternation of right-wing and left-wing governments.

To fully understand this point, we can refer to what we wrote in a previous article in 1982: “At the level of organizing to survive, to defend itself -- here, the bourgeoisie has shown an immense capacity to develop techniques for economic and social control way beyond the dreams of the rulers of the nineteenth century. In this sense, the bourgeoisie has become ‘intelligent' confronted with the historic crisis of its socio-economic system…

In the context of state capitalism, the differences between the bourgeois parties are nothing compared to what they have in common. All start from an over-riding premise that the interests of the national capital as a whole are paramount. This premise enables different factions to work together in a very close way -- especially behind the closed doors of parliamentary committees and in the higher echelons of the state apparatus…

In confronting the proletariat the state can employ many branches of its apparatus in a coherent division of labor; even in a single strike the workers may have to face an array of trade unions, press and television propaganda campaigns of different hues, campaigns by several political parties, the police, the ‘welfare' services and, at times, the army. But to see a concerted use made of all of these parts of the state does not imply that they each see the total framework in which they are each carrying out their function.”[2] [2]

As the proletariat is the greatest enemy of the bourgeoisie, the latter resorts to cunning, particularly in phases of heightened class struggle, to ideologically trap the exploited class. A typical and particularly interesting example is that of Italy after the Second World War. Italy at that time had the Italian Communist Party (PCI)[3] [3], a Stalinist party linked to the Soviet Union, but which still enjoyed strong support among workers. At the same time, Italy, in accordance with the imperialist blocs established following the 1945 Yalta Conference agreements, found itself within the sphere of influence of the United States. As a result, the Italian bourgeoisie, under strong pressure from the American bourgeoisie, used all its resources for more than 40 years, mainly through the Christian Democracy (DC), to maintain its control over the country and ensure alignment with American foreign policy, which aimed to keep pro-Soviet parties such as the PCI out of government.

However, May 1968 in France and the Hot Autumn of 1969 in Italy made the social climate explosive and forced the bourgeoisie to take measures to contain the social storm. Thus, the left-wing parties and trade unions became more radical, with slogans that tended to rally, but only in words, the demands coming from the grassroots. At the same time, a whole campaign was launched, orchestrated by the left-wing parties and made credible by the reactions of the centre and right-wing parties, according to which it would be possible, through grassroots efforts, to catch up with and overtake the Christian Democrats in the elections and finally impose a left-wing government that included the PCI. It was in the 1960s, and especially in the 1970s, that this race took place, which served in part to deceive the proletariat, in Italy but not only there, into believing that it was enough to achieve an electoral majority for electoral promises to be fulfilled.

In fact, the PCI never came to power[4] [4] due to an explicit American veto, but with the varied political composition of Italy at the time, it was possible, depending on the circumstances, to form centre-left governments with the presence of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), and even governments supported by the PCI. This is how the period of the left ‘in power’ began in many countries, a powerful mystification aimed at channelling the aspirations of the masses of the time into the dead end of bourgeois parliamentarism.

But keeping the left in power, when objective conditions do not allow this left (nor, for that matter, any other faction of the bourgeoisie) to satisfy the needs of the proletariat, is not the best policy to follow, or at least it cannot be applied for too long without discrediting this important faction of the bourgeoisie. That is why, in the 1970s and 1980s, we saw a succession of right-wing and left-wing governments in various countries around the world, depending on the intensity of the workers' struggles underway. The policy of keeping the left in opposition proved particularly effective, as it allowed the various bourgeois left-wing parties and the trade unions to radicalise themselves and denounce government measures without fear of having to implement what they were demanding in demonstrations and in parliament.

The fall of the Berlin Wall
Why this historic event and what changed

The process that led to the end of the imperialist blocs and the beginning of an era of chaos was the product of an impasse in the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This impasse was due, on the one hand, to the inability of the working class to sufficiently politicise its struggles throughout the 1980s by giving them a revolutionary dynamic; on the other hand, the bourgeoisie itself, faced with the worsening economic crisis, failed to steer society towards a new imperialist war, as had been the case before the Second World War. In the 1930s, thanks to the ideological weapon of anti-fascism, the bourgeoisie had succeeded in enlisting the proletariat behind its warmongering objectives. But at the end of the 1980s, the proletariat was not politically defeated.

It was the deepening of this impasse that exhausted the leader of the weakest imperialist bloc, the ‘Soviet’ Union, in the militarist effort of maintaining the Cold War, thus causing the bloc to implode[5] [5]. Crushed under the weight of the crisis of the system, to which it was unable to respond with economic and political measures commensurate with the situation, the ‘Soviet’ imperialist bloc collapsed into a thousand pieces. The rival American bloc thus found itself without a common enemy to watch and defend against. This led slowly but surely to a growing tendency among the various Western powers to detach themselves from American protection and embark on an independent path, and even to increasing challenges to the bloc's ‘leader’.

Naturally, the United States attempted to counter this drift, which called into question its leadership and role as a superpower, for example by trying to rally the European powers behind it in a showdown with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, triggering the first Gulf War of 1990-1991[6] [6]. Under duress, and albeit reluctantly, no fewer than 34 different countries, including the main European powers, the countries of South America, the Middle East, etc., submitted to America’s will by participating in a war provoked by the United States itself.

But when, with the second Gulf War in March 2003, the United States once again sought to demonstrate that it held the keys to controlling the global situation, inventing the story that Saddam Hussein possessed "weapons of mass destruction", far fewer countries joined the coalition and, significantly, countries with the weight of France and Germany this time around firmly opposed it from the outset and did not participate.

At the same time, we must remember the wars in the Balkans, which affected the former Yugoslavia, a country bled dry after a bloody separation into seven new nations, and where the diverging interests of the former allies of the Western bloc became even more apparent. In the early 1990s, the government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, which was pushing for and supporting the independence of Croatia and Slovenia in order to give Germany access to the Mediterranean, directly opposed not only American power but also the interests of France and the United Kingdom. This led to a series of wars in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and finally Kosovo, which continued until the end of the century, passing through a whole series of shifting alliances which demonstrated the increasingly cynical and short-term nature of imperialist relations in this period.

The crisis of social democracy, the collapse of the Communist Parties and the crisis of leftism

The new international scenario created by the break-up of the blocs, which, as already mentioned, marks the beginning of what we call the phase of decomposition, the final phase of the decadence of capitalism, could not fail to have consequences for domestic politics and for the role and relative importance of the various parties.

On the one hand, the disappearance of the blocs meant that it was no longer necessary to maintain the same government alliances as in the past. This sometimes led to the need to dismantle, by any means possible, the old political alliance that had guided the formation of the various governments. Once again, Italy is an excellent example: after having been controlled for a long time, on behalf of the Americans, by a conglomerate of forces including political parties (the DC at the centre), the Sicilian Mafia, Freemasonry (P2) and the secret services, the attempt by the section of the Italian bourgeoisie that aspired to play a more autonomous role and free itself from this control after the fall of the Berlin Wall met with enormous resistance from this alliance, leading to a series of assassinations of politicians and magistrates, bombings, etc.[7] [7]

On the other hand, the significant decline in the militancy and, above all, the consciousness of the working class caused by the fall of the Soviet Union, which until then had been falsely presented by the media as the epitome of socialism, led to a crisis in the left-wing parties, which were no longer indispensable, or at least didn’t merit the prominence they had acquired, to contain a working-class pressure that had been greatly reduced. This led to profound political change in various countries and the end of the right/left alternation.

The weight of decomposition on the political apparatus of the bourgeoisie

If we consider the essential characteristics of decomposition as it manifests itself today, we see that they all have one thing in common, namely the lack of perspective for society, which is particularly evident in the case of the bourgeoisie on the political and ideological level. This consequently determines the inability of the various political formations to propose long-term, coherent and realistic projects.

This is how we characterised the situation in our ‘Theses on Decomposition’: "Among the major characteristics of the decomposition of capitalist society, we must emphasise the bourgeoisie's increasing difficulty in controlling the evolution of the situation on the political level. At the root of this phenomenon is, of course, the ruling class's ever-increasing loss of control over its economic apparatus, which constitutes the infrastructure of society. The historical impasse in which the capitalist mode of production finds itself, the successive failures of the various policies pursued by the bourgeoisie, the permanent rush forward into generalised debt through which the world economy survives, all these elements can only have repercussions on a political apparatus that is incapable of imposing on society, and particularly on the working class, the ‘discipline’ and adherence required to mobilise all forces and energies towards world war, the only historical ‘response’ that the bourgeoisie can offer. The absence of a perspective (except that of ‘saving the furniture’ of its economy on a day-to-day basis) towards which it can mobilise as a class, and while the proletariat does not yet constitute a threat to its survival, determines within the ruling class, and particularly its political apparatus, a growing tendency towards indiscipline and every man for himself. It is this phenomenon in particular that explains the collapse of Stalinism and the entire Eastern imperialist bloc. This collapse is, in fact, one of the overall consequences of the global crisis of capitalism; nor can it be analysed without taking into account the specific characteristics that the historical circumstances of their emergence conferred on the Stalinist regimes (see ‘Theses on the economic and political crisis in the USSR and the Eastern Bloc’, International Review, No. 60 [...]).

This general tendency towards the bourgeoisie's loss of control over the conduct of its policy, while it is one of the main factors in the collapse of the Eastern bloc, can only be accentuated by this collapse, due to:

• the worsening of the economic crisis resulting from the latter;
• the dislocation of the Western bloc following the disappearance of its rival;

the exacerbation of particular rivalries between different sectors of the bourgeoisie (notably between national factions, but also between cliques within the same national state) brought about by the temporary receding of the prospect of world war.”[8] [8]

The decline of the traditional bourgeois parties created a certain political vacuum at the international level, both on the right and on the left. Moreover, a context in which there were no longer any directives from above began to favour the entry onto the political scene of adventurers and financial magnates with no political experience, but eager to settle matters in their own way. This marked the beginning of a shift in the national political landscape of various countries, which we will attempt to describe below.

Instability and increasing fragmentation of the political apparatus

This acceleration of the crisis in the system at all levels manifests itself in different ways. The fundamental problem is the bourgeoisie's loss of control over the country's political dynamics. This is reflected both in its inability to steer the population's electoral choices towards the most appropriate government team for the situation, as it did in the past, and in its difficulty in formulating valid strategies to contain (let alone overcome) the crisis in the system. In short, the bourgeoisie increasingly lacks the ‘thinking head’ that in the past had enabled it to mitigate the difficulties in its path.

The first effect of this is a loss of cohesion within the bourgeoisie, which, without a common overall plan, is unable to maintain the unity of its various components. This leads to a tendency towards ‘every man for himself’, with increasing difficulty in creating stable alliances. This is evident at the level of individual countries, where it is increasingly difficult to form stable governments due to increasingly unpredictable election results.

In France, after the success of Marine Le Pen's populist coalition in the European elections, Macron surprised everyone by announcing the dissolution of the National Assembly and calling new legislative elections. However, the result was an unmanageable Parliament, divided into three roughly equal blocs: the left (in a very fragile manner, momentarily united by electoral opportunism), the Macronist centre and the far right. After months of institutional deadlock, a centre-right government was formed, only to be torpedoed by a parliamentary vote of no confidence after only three months. Subsequently, Bayrou's centrist government was formed, a minority government and therefore completely precarious. At the time of writing, Bayrou has been overthrown, and Macron's very presidency is being questioned by a large part of the electorate.

In Britain, too, bourgeois politics is marked by great instability, with five new governments in seven years. And the prospects for the current Starmer government have dimmed since the Labour Party's victory in last year's elections with 34% of the vote, as its support has fallen to 23%, while Reform UK, the populist nationalist party led by Nigel Farage, is the most popular, according to the latest polls, with 29%.

In Germany, following the fall of Olaf Scholz's government, formed by the SPD, the Greens and the Liberals and described by the Infratest dimap institute[9] [9] as “the most unpopular in German history” [10] [10], Friedrich Merz's new government, supported by a coalition between the CDU and the SPD, is already losing ground according to the latest polls, while the populist, nationalist AfD party is gaining ground and is now only 3 points behind the CDU.

Pedro Sánchez's Spanish government, based on an alliance between the PS and several Catalan and Basque regional parties, was formed and is being maintained thanks to historic concessions, such as the amnesty law for the leaders of the independence movement involved in organising the illegal referendum on Catalan independence held in 2017. This government is therefore supported by political blackmail from one party over another.

We have cited examples from the most powerful countries in Europe (but similar situations also exist in Austria, the Netherlands and Poland, among others) because, compared to the governments that existed in these same countries in the not-so-distant past, the current administrations pale by comparison. For example, Willy Brandt in Germany, promoter of Ostpolitik and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971, was Chancellor from 1969 to 1974; Angela Merkel, considered one of the most powerful women in the world, held this position from 2005 to 2021 (a full 15 years!) and Margaret Thatcher, nicknamed the Iron Lady, who left her mark on a long period of political influence, was British Prime Minister from May 1979 to November 1990, a total of 11 years! This comparison makes us realise how fragile, volatile and precarious the current situation is.

But the same fragmentation is evident at the international level, where Brexit[11] [11], decided by the 2016 consultative referendum, and then Trump's ‘tariff’ operation[12] [12] this year, to name just a few major examples, have marked, one after the other, important moments of rupture in previous international collaborations between states.

The rise and fall of the environmentalists, a product of decay

In a context where communism was considered a failure, when the working class no longer demonstrated in the streets as before, but where economic pressure remained and environmental disasters were multiplying, environmental movements of all kinds began to emerge around the world. The first appeared in the 1970s and 1980s and spread and developed in various countries, advocating not only respect for nature but also the rejection of militarism and war.

Unfortunately, viewing environmental problems in isolation and not as a manifestation of how capitalism destroys nature, especially in its decadent phase, led individuals protesting against these problems to believe that things could be resolved within the existing system and to join new bourgeois offshoots, each with its own leader seeking a political space in which to express themselves.

However, these movements remained very much in the minority, even when they sought to compete in elections, and proved to be short-lived. This can be explained by the fact that these movements often arose and fought for specific environmental causes: opposition to the construction of a dam or nuclear power plant, pollution caused by large industries, etc. Consequently, once attention shifted away from the specific issue, the weight of opinion surrounding it also ceased its support.

However, in some countries, such as Germany and Belgium, ‘green’ political parties have managed to ‘break through’ and even enter government. Founded under the impetus of certain personalities, including Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a leader of the 1968 student movement in France, the German Greens have grown steadily since the early 1980s, winning 27 seats (5.6%) in the Bundestag in 1983 and victory in the regional elections in Hesse in 1985, where Joschka Fischer, another leader of the movement, was appointed Minister of the Environment. The discrediting of the other traditional parties naturally favoured the growth of ‘newcomers’ such as the Greens in Germany. But the problem is that, as we have tried to develop above, governing a country is not an easy task. It is true that the bourgeoisie has accumulated a wealth of experience, but this cannot be easily and immediately transferred to a newly formed party. On the other hand, the German Greens immediately proved to be just like any other bourgeois politicians. After presenting a superficial election programme in 1980 that even talked about ‘dismantling’ the German army and initiating the ‘dissolution’ of military alliances such as NATO and the Warsaw Pact, in 1999, for the first time, they had renounced their pacifism, when Joschka Fischer defended the deployment of NATO aircraft to bomb Serbia. The same situation was repeated when the 2021 election manifesto opposed sending weapons to war zones and called for a ‘new impetus for disarmament’, priorities that were subsequently included in the coalition agreement on which the Scholz government was formed. They then made a U-turn in keeping with their bourgeois nature, thanks to the work of Vice-Chancellor and Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Robert Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, the two most prominent members of the Green Party in Olaf Scholz's cabinet. Both succeeded in tugging at the Chancellor's sleeve to urge him to send heavy weapons to Ukraine. Habeck's response in Kiel to protesters who called him a ‘warmonger’ was significant: “In this situation, where people are defending their lives, their democracy and their freedom, Germany and the Greens must be prepared to face reality”[13] [13].

The decay of the bourgeois political apparatus
The rise of the far right and the strengthening of populism

A striking phenomenon that has occurred in recent decades is the rapid development of populist movements and, in their wake, far-right parties. A quick look at current government formations around the world shows, for example, that in Europe, seven countries, including Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland, have already established a government majority with a significant populist component, while in other cases, such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the populist movement has gained considerable political representation or achieved resounding success (Brexit). The phenomenon is continuing to grow, to the point where some of its representatives now hold important ministerial positions, in Italy and the Netherlands for example. In South America, with Bolsonaro in Brazil and Milei in Argentina, and in Asia, with Modi in India, populists have been elected as heads of state. Last but not least, in the United States, the most powerful country in the world, a populist adventurer at the head of the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement has won a second term as head of the federal state.

The tendency towards the political ‘vandalism’ of these movements, which manifests itself in the rejection of ‘elites’, the rejection of foreigners, the search for scapegoats, the retreat into the ‘indigenous community’, conspiracy theories, the belief in a strong and providential leader, etc., is first and foremost the product of the ideological putrefaction conveyed by the lack of perspective in capitalist society[14] [14], which affects the capitalist class first and foremost.

But the breakthrough and development of populism in the political life of the bourgeoisie has been determined above all by one of the major manifestations of the decomposition of capitalist society: the increasing difficulty of the bourgeoisie to control the evolution of the situation on the political level, through its most ‘experienced’ parties, which have lost not only their credibility but also their ability to manage and control the situation on the political level: “The return of Trump is a classic expression of the political failure of those factions of the ruling class who have a more lucid understanding of the needs of the national capital; it is thus a clear expression of a more general loss of political control by the US bourgeoisie, but this is a world-wide tendency and it is particularly significant that the populist wave is having an impact in other central countries of capitalism: thus we have seen the rise of the AfD in Germany, of Le Pen’s RN in France, and Reform in the UK. Populism is the expression of a faction of the bourgeoisie but its incoherent and contradictory policies express a growing nihilism and irrationality which does not serve the overall interests of the national capital. The case of Britain, which has been ruled by one of the most intelligent and experienced bourgeoisies, shooting itself in the foot through Brexit is a clear example. Trump’s domestic and foreign policies will be no less damaging for US capitalism: at the level of foreign policy, by fuelling conflicts with its former allies while courting its traditional enemies, but also domestically, through the impact of its self-destructive economic ‘programme’. Above all, the campaign of revenge against the ‘deep state’ and ‘liberal elites’, the targeting of minority groups and the ‘war on woke’ will stir up confrontations between factions of the ruling class which could take on an extremely violent character in a country where an enormous proportion of population own weapons; the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, would pale into insignificance in comparison. And we can already see, in embryo, the beginnings of a reaction by parts of the bourgeoisie who have most to lose from Trump’s policies (for example, the state of California, Harvard University, etc). Such conflicts carry the threat of dragging in the wider population and represent an extreme danger to the working class, its efforts to defend its class interests and forge its unity against all the divisions inflicted on it by the disintegration of bourgeois society. The recent “Hands Off” demonstrations organised by the left wing of the Democratic Party are a clear example of this danger, since they succeeded in channelling certain working class sectors and demands into an overall defence of democracy against the dictatorship of Trump and consorts. Again, while these internal conflicts may be particularly sharp in the USA, they are the product of a much wider process. Decadent capitalism has long relied on the state apparatus to prevent such antagonisms from tearing society apart, and in the phase of decomposition the capitalist state is equally forced to resort to the most dictatorial measures to maintain its rule. And yet at the same time, when the state machine itself is riven by violent internal conflicts, there is a powerful thrust towards a situation where “the centre cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” as the poet WB Yeats put it. The ‘failed states’ we are seeing most vividly in the Middle East, Africa or the Caribbean present an image of what is already brewing in the most developed centres of the system. In Haiti, for example, the official state machine is increasingly powerless in the face of competing criminal gangs, and in parts of Africa inter-gang competition has risen to the height of ‘civil war’. But in the US itself, the current domination of the state by the Trump clan more and more resembles the rule of a mafia, with its open espousal of the methods of blackmail and threat ."[15] [15]

This situation has very significant repercussions on the entire global political and economic scene. Indeed, as long as the various countries, despite competition between them, managed to maintain a policy of cooperation on certain issues, such as economic policy in particular or imperialist policy, the fall into the abyss of decadence and decomposition of the system could be slowed down, at least in part. But today, the blind and irresponsible policies (from a bourgeois point of view) of many countries, including the United States itself, not only fail to slow down the crisis of the system, but in fact accelerate it.

Irrationality and loss of sight of the interests of the state

These deep divisions within the bourgeoisie express the weight of ‘every man for himself’, which means that the various components no longer feel bound by a higher interest in defending the interests of the state, or that of an ‘international order’, but rather pursue the interests of particular political factions, cliques or specific economic families, at any cost. Furthermore, it is often the case that interest groups that rise in society to the point of winning important government positions have no prior political training. All this means that the politics pursued by the bourgeoisie today are increasingly characterised by a high degree of improvisation and irrationality which, naturally, in a context of growing disorder, only accelerates global chaos. We have already mentioned totally irrational measures such as the decision to hold a referendum on Brexit in Britain and Trump's tariff policy. We will simply add a few details about the composition of the team for the second term of Trump, the leader of the most powerful country in the world: everyone can examine for themselves what is happening in a similar way in other countries.

Here is a judgement that appeared in an Italian newspaper (certainly not a left-wing newspaper!) at the beginning of the year: “No president has ever recruited such a crowd of criminals, extremists, scoundrels, crooks and undesirable individuals.[16] [16]”. Let's take a closer look at some of the members of the Trump administration. Trump's first choice for Attorney General was Matt Gaetz, but he had to withdraw. The reason? Not because he was his lawyer, the one who had guided him with diabolical skill through his legal troubles. The real reason was that he was facing charges of sexual harassment and drug use, which is certainly not ideal for a Minister of Justice.

Then there is the sensational case of notorious anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appointed to head the Department of Health and Human Services, despite having declared his desire to abolish polio vaccines and being known as a conspiracy theorist. More than 75 Nobel laureates opposed Kennedy Jr.'s appointment as Health Secretary, saying it would ‘endanger public health’. More than 17,000 doctors (out of 20,000), members of the Committee for the Protection of Healthcare, opposed Kennedy Jr.'s appointment, citing the fact that Kennedy has undermined public confidence in vaccines for decades and poses a threat to national health. Epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves of Yale University, who also opposed Kennedy Jr.'s appointment, said that putting Kennedy in charge of a health agency would be like “putting a flat-Earther in charge of NASA”.

Pete Hegseth, a notorious homophobe, has been appointed to head the Pentagon (with a budget of $800 billion and 3 million employees). And, surprise surprise, he is also being sued for sexual harassment.

As for the other members of the government, reports suggest that most of them are extremists, poorly trained or particularly anti-establishment. What unites them is their absolute loyalty to their leader. Trump doesn't care if they swear allegiance to the Constitution; he just needs them to swear allegiance to him and to prove it.

Trump immediately distinguished himself by eliminating thousands of civil servants whom he considered troublesome or who, in his view, performed duties incompatible with his mandate. But he was even more brutal towards those who directly opposed him, using vindictive methods worthy of mafia feuds.

The policy against those whom Trump considers traitors is their direct elimination. Various examples illustrate this:

• On 22 August, the FBI raided the Maryland home of John Bolton, who served as national security adviser in the first Trump administration but later became highly critical of the president.
• A grand jury investigation has been authorised into the origins of the investigation into Trump's ties to Russia.

• Another investigation is underway into California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, who is accused of tax fraud but who had accused Trump of profiting from stock market fluctuations following various tariff announcements.
• Another investigation is underway against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who filed a legal brief to end the arrests of immigrants.
• the dismissal of Fed Governor Lisa Cook, who opposed Trump's demands for lower interest rates and was then accused of falsifying documents in order to obtain more favourable terms for a mortgage...
• the latest news concerns former FBI director and Trump opponent Comey, who is being prosecuted for ‘serious crimes’.

Gangsterism and vandalism

What was previously considered a characteristic of peripheral, so-called Third World countries, namely gangsterism and vandalism in politics, is now widespread in the world's most advanced countries, including the United States, a country once hailed as the beacon of democracy. Once again, the Trump case is proof of this.

Let's start by saying that Trump inherited both racism and good relations with the Italian-American mafia from his father, Fred Sr. [17] [17]. While his father had good relations with the Gambinos, Genoveses and Luccheses, his son has them with the Franzeses and Colombos. The episode that led to the construction of Trump Tower is particularly well known. In 1979, when the first brick was laid, a strike at the cement factories blocked the sale of this material. But Trump circumvented the union blockade by buying it directly from S & A Concrete. The hidden owners of the construction company were Anthony ‘Fat Tony’ Salerno of the Genovese family and Paul Castellano of the Gambino family, two families already close to his father and whose leaders met regularly at Cohn's, Trump's versatile lawyer at the time. But he also made important deals with the Russian mafia: in 2011, Trump emerged from ten years of lawsuits, multiple bankruptcies and £4 billion in debt... and this time he was saved by ‘Russian money’ from Felix Sater, whose father, Michael Sheferovsky, was a close friend not only of the Genovese family, but also of Semion Yudkovich Moguilevitch, the ‘boss of bosses’ of the Russian mafia.

Numerous women have already claimed that Trump raped them at beauty pageants or other events. We also know that Trump paid a lot of money to silence the two women who accused him of having illicit relationships with him, porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy playmate Karen McDougall. This accusation led to his conviction, but he was exempted from prosecution. In early 2024, two separate juries found that Trump had defamed writer E. Jean Carroll by denying her allegations of sexual assault. He was ordered to pay a total of $88 million. Also well-known is his association with Epstein, who was accused of rape, abuse and, most notably, international child trafficking. He appears with Trump in dozens of photos. Finally, Trump was also found guilty of thirty-four counts of falsifying business records, which were revealed during the investigation into payments made to Stormy Daniels.

Will the proletariat be able to take advantage of this loss of control by the bourgeoisie?

All the elements we have reported in this article clearly demonstrate a weakening of the bourgeoisie's ability to manage its political system and therefore an increased difficulty in dealing with the global crisis of the system, economically, environmentally, etc. There is no doubt about that.

But we must be careful not to imagine that this weakness of the bourgeoisie can be converted into an advantage, a strength for the proletariat. There are at least two reasons for this. The first concerns the process that will lead to revolution. The growing weaknesses of the bourgeoisie are by no means assets that enable the working class to develop its strength. Since the project of this class is completely antagonistic to everything that capitalism represents, the weakening of the bourgeoisie does not benefit the proletariat (which has only its unity and consciousness at its disposal). Secondly, while showing clear signs of decline, the bourgeoisie displays considerable vigilance and lucidity in matters of class struggle, the result of two centuries of experience of confrontation with the working class. This experience leads it not only to be vigilant, but above all to prevent any working class action by exploiting the very effects of decomposition against the proletariat itself.

For example, all populist propaganda, which often resonates with some of the most vulnerable and least class-conscious sections of the working class, is constructed by exploiting people's fears of competition for jobs or housing from immigrants or those who are ‘different’. Secondly, and more importantly, it exploits populist hype to draw workers into anti-populist campaigns in defence of the democratic state.

However, the manifestations of decomposition (through ecological crises, increasingly frequent environmental disasters, but above all the spread and intensification of wars, naturally accompanied by the worsening of the economic crisis) are increasingly forcing certain elements to seek an alternative to the current barbarism, even if they are still very much in the minority. The economic attacks that the bourgeoisie is already forced to wage against the workers will be the best stimulus for the class struggle and will allow for the future political maturation of the struggles. This alone will enable workers not only to defend themselves against the mystifications of the bourgeoisie, but also to regain an understanding of the deep-rooted causes of the current crisis of the system and turn it into a source of strength in their struggle.

 

Ezechiele, 27 August 2025

 

[1] [18] Amadeo Bordiga, “The Democratic Principle [19]”, 1922, MIA (Marxists Internet Archive).

[2] [20] “Notes on the Consciousness of the Decadent Bourgeoisie [21]”, International Review n° 31, 4th quarter 1982: The Italian Communist Party had lost all its proletarian character as a result of the process of ‘Bolshevization’ (in fact, Stalinization) between the late 1920s and early 1930s.

[4] [22] In reality, at the end of the war and immediately after the proclamation of the Republic, the PCI had been in power with the DC and other left-wing parties (PSIUP and PRI) from July 1946 to 1 June 1947. The reason for this was that in 1942-1943 there had been major strikes in the north of the country and several proletarian political groups had been formed, including the Internationalist Communist Party, which had quickly gained hundreds of members. The formation of this ‘national unity’ government, which brought together the various forces that had fought in the Resistance, served to convince a proletariat that had been showing signs of awareness that it now had valid representatives even within the government and that it therefore no longer needed to fight. It is no coincidence that, once it was certain that the proletarian uprising had subsided, the bourgeoisie withdrew its support for the PCI and other left-wing parties and formed only centre or right-wing governments until the turbulent years of 1968-1969.

[5] [23] For an analysis of these events, see our “Theses on the Economic and Political Crisis in the Eastern Countries [24]”, International Review n° 60, 1st quarter 1990. For more on the concept of the phase of decomposition, see also the “Theses on Decomposition”, [25]International Review n° 107, 4th quarter 2001.

[6] [26] “Crisis in the Persian Gulf: Capitalism Means War! [27]” International Review n° 63, 4th quarter 1990.

[7] [28] For an analysis of this interesting point, see “Mafia Attacks: Settling Accounts Between Capitalists,” Revolution Internationale n° 215 [29], September 1992 (in French).

[8] [30] Excerpts from points 9 and 10 of Theses on Decomposition [25], already cited.

[9] [31] “Wissen, was Deutschland denkt [32]” (“Knowing what Germany thinks”)

[10] [33] “Scholz trails conservative CDU/CSU in election polls [34]”, In Focus website.

[11] [35] “Brexit, Trump: setbacks for the ruling class, nothing good for the proletariat [36]”, International Review n° 157, Summer 2016.

[12] [37] “Capitalism has no solution to the global economic crisis! [38]”, World Revolution n° 403, Spring, 2025.

[13] [39] EUROPATODAY – “Germany sends tanks to Ukraine because pacifists have become interventionists [40]”

[14] [41] See point 8 of the “Theses on Decomposition [25]”.

[15] [42] “Resolution on the international situation (May 2025) [43]”, International Review 174, Summer 2025.

[16] [44] “Gangs of America alla corte di Trump [45]”, Il Foglio, 27 January 2025.

[17] [46] As a young man, his father was arrested for being one of the most active members of the KKK.