The general crisis of U.S. imperialism is having devastating effects on the lives of the masses of people in this country. Unemployment has reached heights unheard of since the Great Depression. Inflation is rising rapidly while production stagnates. Cyclical crises of overproduction are occurring more frequently without full recovery after each crisis. The national debt is skyrocketing to support war preparations. The masses of people are increasingly debt-ridden and are facing greater oppression and the threat of fascism.
The living standards of the great majority of the people are under attack; poverty, inequality, insecurity and hardship are spreading. The weight of the crisis is falling heavily on the working class, especially on the oppressed nationalities, youth, and women who suffer intensely under these conditions. The bourgeoisie is instituting massive layoffs, speedups and wage freezes. Social services, health care and education are all being cut back.
The crisis has brought an increase in the attacks on women and the family, particularly aimed at minorities. These attacks, including forced sterilizations, the “right to life” movement, deportations, unemployment and repressive welfare laws, have led to an increase in the forcible break-up of the working class family.
Also hit hard have been the veterans who fight in U.S. imperialism’s wars of aggression only to return to long unemployment lines. Faced with inadequate benefits, terrible conditions in the VA hospitals, lack of housing and education, and often hurt by less-than-honorable discharges, veterans are suffering more now than in any previous time.
Increasing exposures of bribery and corruption, such as Watergate and the sex scandals in the government, further reveal the effects of the crisis in the cultural, social, and political spheres.
Drugs, alcoholism, pornography, and sexual perversion are being widely promoted by the bourgeoisie. There is a growing climate of moral, social and cultural decay.
The bourgeoisie tries to blame the crisis on the people, saying that overpopulation, the third world countries, undocumented workers, the wage demands of the workers and overconsumption by the masses are the causes of the crisis.
The imperialists use their agents, the reformists and revisionists, to mislead the masses by propagating the views that capitalism will fall by itself as a result of the crisis or that capitalism can be saved through increased government spending or reordering of priorities.
The revisionists cover up the contention between the superpowers with their view that “detente” will lead to more jobs and provide a way out of the crisis. But crisis is inherent in imperialism. The general crisis reflects the overall decline and decay of the imperialist system; full recovery for imperialism is impossible.
The deepening of the crisis creates the conditions for revolution as working and oppressed peoples rise up against the capitalist system which is increasingly stripped bare of its “democratic” and “prosperous” disguise.
As the crisis deepens and the war drive intensifies, the resistance of the masses grows and the threat of fascism increases. This reflects the weakening of the bourgeoisie. Violent attacks on the masses, including legal lynchings, the return of the death penalty and deportations are on the rise. The basic democratic rights of the working class, such as the right to strike, are being threatened. The fascist threat is closely tied to the vicious oppression of the minority nationalities, and these attacks have worsened.
The bourgeoisie is utilizing its “legal” state apparatus while at the same time encouraging and fostering extra-legal terror groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party to carry out its fascist attacks.
The danger of fascism is inherent in the imperialist system. Fascism in power is the open, terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinist and most imperialist elements of finance capital. These very elements include the most decisive and powerful of the U.S. ruling class which are firmly in control of the U.S. economy and state today. These forces, while now employing bourgeois democracy, will attempt to institute fascism when unable to rule in the old way.
The danger of fascist victory is greatest when the working class ranks are divided and weakened. The bourgeoisie is using the revisionists and reformist bureaucrats, who now dominate the trade unions and other working class organizations, to divide and disarm the working class and to set it up for slaughter by preaching class collaboration, white chauvinism, great nation chauvinism and anti-communism. In the absence of a strong, united working class movement, fascism is able to effectively appeal to the broad masses of the petty bourgeoisie, penetrate into the more backward elements of the working class, and widely mobilize all of the declassed elements of society.
It is not inevitable that fascism will come to power. The fascist threat can be successfully fought through the massive revolutionary struggles of a united working class and its allies against imperialism under the leadership of a strong party. This must be combined with a vigilant struggle to expose and expel the reformists and revisionists from the workers’ and other mass movements. Even if fascism should succeed in coming to power, its victory would only be temporary, for the masses would inevitably rise up and defeat it.
In fighting fascism, our purpose is not to save bourgeois democracy, which itself also makes systematic use of repression and terror against the masses, but to smash completely the rule of capital from which the fascist threat stems and replace it with the rule of the working class, eliminating the fascist danger once and for all.
The revisionists attempt to suppress the revolutionary struggles of the masses, saying that these struggles only hasten the victory of fascism. They try to hide the reactionary character of the monopoly capitalist class with their line that fascism comes only from the petty bourgeois para-military elements and the “conservative” or out-of-power elements of the bourgeoisie. They promote the view that the “liberal” imperialist bourgeoisie, including many of the most powerful monopoly groupings, are inherently anti-fascist. In the course of our struggle against fascism, we must expose and defeat this revisionist line.
Our Party must lead a massive revolutionary fightback against the system and the attempts of the bourgeoisie to place the burden of the crisis on the backs of the people. This fightback movement will rally the broad masses to fight in defense of democratic rights and against superpower war preparations, the brutal attacks on the national minorities and the threat of fascism. It will fight against layoffs, unemployment, speedups, cutbacks, forced sterilization, police repression, deportations and the death penalty. It will oppose the KKK, the Nazis and other terrorist groups.
As an essential part of building the fightback, the CP(M-L) must expose the fascist demagogy which tries to appeal to the anti-capitalist sentiments of the people. We must expose all forms of anti-communism which the bourgeoisie uses to attack the proletarian Party, demonstrating to the masses that only the working class and its Party represent their true interests.
The CP(M-L) further demands freedom for all political prisoners; a single-type discharge for all Vietnam veterans and unconditional amnesty for all resisters of imperialism’s wars; stop the cutbacks in education, health care and social services; free health care and adequate housing for all; jobs or income now and no wage freeze.