Defend Our Communities!
Defend Peoples’ Struggle!
With Trump’s presidency, we are facing an era of open fascism in the highest seat of power in the world. There have been swift maneuvers to consolidate and ramp up fascist attacks on the people in all spheres of life including education, health care, migrants, workers, and beyond, expanding the strength and utilization of state institutions like ICE to directly attack the people, all while the Republican faction’s continued and heightening expansion of US war provocations and military build up drag the people of the world closer to world war. Under Trump, we will be further afflicted by the plagues of imperialist crisis, war and militarism, and fascism which all pose an existential threat to our lives & sovereignty.
Following Biden’s “Countering Domestic Terrorism” (CDT) initiative, which masked repressive violence with progressive rhetoric, Trump has taken a more openly anti-people position against progressive and revolutionary movements for justice and liberation. Fascism of the ruling class will be waging war on all fronts against the people of the US and the world, and so we must be prepared to fight fascism & imperialist wars on all fronts to defeat it. There is a need to build a united movement of the broadest range of people waging a unified fight together against fascism and war.
Thus, ILPS-US has updated our framework - “Defend Our Communities! Defend Peoples’ Struggle!” Everyday communities are under attack, from migrant parents to LGBTQ students. We have to defend our families, neighborhoods, and workplaces from fascism. And as people organize against these issues and rise up in struggle, we must defend the right to fight back!
Join us in Defending Our Communities! Defend Peoples’ Struggle!
The US chapter of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle is inviting all organizations to join us in the Defend Peoples’ Struggle (DPS) campaign. From mass ICE deportations to emboldened police brutality to expansive military operations, the Trump Presidency ushers in a new era of heightened repression and increasing attacks against our people and movements. There is an urgent need to organize and build a mass movement to fight back!
Use our Defend People’s Struggle Toolkit to develop your campaign
Our Analysis
Fascism
Fascism is the principle and practice of big business elites attempting to hold state power amidst their most desperate times of crisis through tight control of political and economic authority, which openly relies on unchecked armed force and scrapping democratic processes in order to suppress or eliminate the enemies of its rule on behalf of a “superior nation or race.” The latter is used as a tool to win over the most backwards-minded segments of the masses, with a focus on the failing small business owners and those forced to take up criminal activity for survival, as a means of making them feel they are part of a “revolution” against the fascists' political rivals (rival political elites, “lesser” peoples, but most notably the revolutionary workers’ and peoples’ movements that threaten imperialism itself). Open terrorist rule has already been waged against people who are most exploited under monopoly capitalism – such as working class Black families and migrants at the border facing police/military terror and surveillance.
The Trump administration demonstrates other main features of fascism, like big business elite character (CEOs in major industries elected into cabinet), anti-revolutionary and anti-people nature (weaponizing terms like “Black identity extremist"), militarized bureaucracy (illegally placing active military officers in charge of civilian institutions), absolutism (MAGA slogans), and a fascist-maintained mass base (January 6th Capitol takeover). Trump has already begun implementing many aspects of Project 2025, which aims to eliminate state checks and balances to pave the way for absolute rule by one leader carrying out open terrorist and fascist rule. It is within this context that we must broaden and consolidate the anti-fascist united front, linking with communities in struggle against the anti-people attacks. Because fascism is primarily an attack against the working class, DPS must incorporate fights of workers as the core of the anti-fascist united front.
Imperialism
Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism, remains the dominant political-economic system in the world today, and the US is still the strongest, albeit declining, imperialist state. Monopoly business owners control access to land, infrastructure, media production and finance on a scale unprecedented in history. As a smaller number of people control a greater portion of the world’s production and resources, competition for economic and political advantages leads to militarist buildup and violence on a massive scale. The ruling class holds power over all aspects of society, and when confronted with a crisis, they will flip the “emergency switch” of fascism, abandoning the old way of ruling and resorting to open terrorist rule to maintain their power. To defeat fascism, it is ultimately necessary to uproot and overthrow its source: imperialism. As an anti-imperialist alliance, ILPS takes up the struggle against fascism as an inherent duty. DPS is inherently an anti-fascist campaign, but must be raised to anti-imperialist struggle to address the roots of fascism.
On the development of ILPS-US Defend Peoples’ Struggle (DPS) campaign
ILPS-US Country Chapter members have been leading or developing local campaigns against state repression for some time now against local manifestations of federal jurisdiction, or state, county and municipal crackdowns - taking action against the repression of those victimized by imperialist tactics within the US itself, like racist police terror and attacks against migrants. As the US state consolidates its executive power while pouring more and more public funds towards military and police budgets, the need arose for a national campaign to unite all our members towards fighting the rising fascism, repressive institutions of the state, and US-led war provocations. From this, the DPS campaign was united on in the ILPS-US 2022 2nd National Assembly as a campaign against state repression. In 2023, the DPS campaign mainly took the form of supporting defense campaigns and propaganda and interrelating state violence, displacement, and attacks against the community as a result of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held in San Francisco.
In 2024, DPS began emphasizing more direct opposition to state repression as well as U.S.-led military aggression and the U.S. export of counterinsurgency abroad. We confronted the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at their 75th Anniversary Convening in Washington D.C., specifically its “counter-terrorism pillar” and to raise the anti-imperialist perspective and defense of national liberation struggles in opposition to war provocations and counterinsurgency. We also worked around the U.S. elections in opposition to the two ruling class parties as fighting to lead the war machine and unleashing repression on the people.
