By Nikos Mottas The contemporary world is defined by the profound contradictions of global capitalism: economic instability, environmental collapse, militarism, and the resurgence of authoritarian and reactionary forces. Across continents, ultra-right currents advance with unprecedented audacity, from Donald Trump and the MAGA movement in the United States, to Viktor Orbán’s “illiberal democracy” in Hungary, Giorgia Meloni’s government in Italy, Javier Milei’s surge in Argentina, the fascist AfD in Germany, and Poland’s newly elected right-wing president.
As Marx and Engels wrote in The Communist Manifesto, “The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” When liberal democratic institutions are unable to stabilize society, the ruling class resorts to authoritarianism, reactionary nationalism, and ideological manipulation as instruments of survival.
The material foundations of this reactionary surge are unmistakable. Decades of deindustrialization, financialization, and austerity have hollowed out the working class, leaving millions in precarious employment, subject to the erosion of social protections and the collapse of public services. Capitalism’s ecological devastation and permanent militarization demonstrate that the profit system is fundamentally incompatible with human survival. The financial crisis of 2008, the COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing imperialist wars have exposed the system’s incapacity to govern or provide stability.
Historical experience provides stark lessons: the governments of Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the United States exemplify the devastation that reactionary, pro-capitalist leadership can impose on working people. Thatcher’s privatizations, attacks on unions, and dismantling of public services left millions impoverished and vulnerable, while Reagan’s rollback of social programs, deregulation, and encouragement of financial speculation deepened inequality and entrenched corporate power. Lenin’s observation in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism remains decisive: “Imperialism is reaction all along the line. Whichever way it turns, whatever its political system, it is compelled to resort to more reactionary methods.”
The failure of liberalism and social democracy has created the vacuum in which reaction thrives. Across Europe and the Americas, reformist parties have implemented austerity, privatization, and cuts to pensions and public services, betraying the interests of the working class while reinforcing the legitimacy of capital. Engels warned that “the bourgeoisie turns everything into a means of oppression, including the working class’s own organizations, when they allow themselves to be captured.” Historical precedent confirms the consequences: in Weimar Germany, liberal governments and Social Democrats implemented austerity and suppressed uprisings, paving the path for Hitler; in Italy, liberal administrations’ failure to confront capital enabled Mussolini’s ascent. Today, as in the past, the collapse of reformist credibility has prepared the terrain for reactionary conservatism.
The ultra-right thrives by exploiting real, material fears — unemployment, housing crises, social fragmentation, and the pressures of migration — while redirecting them toward scapegoats: migrants, women, minorities, or the amorphous “globalist elite.” Social media now functions as a central instrument in this ideological warfare. Platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), controlled by private capital, enable the rapid dissemination of reactionary narratives and the fragmentation of working-class consciousness.
Figures such as Charlie Kirk exploit these networks to channel discontent toward anti-union, anti-socialist, and divisive agendas. Lenin’s insight is prescient: “The bourgeoisie and the government constantly foster new deceits, new lies, and new snares, to lead the working class astray.” Engels similarly noted that “the worst kind of reaction is that which makes use of democratic phrases,” disguising exploitation as populist advocacy. Social media magnifies this effect, transforming everyday grievances into reactionary ideology while reinforcing the ideological hegemony of capital.
Despite their populist veneers, ultra-right leaders are organically linked to monopoly capital. Trump favored billionaires while undermining unions; Orbán enriched oligarchs while dismantling labor protections; Meloni aligns Italy with NATO while implementing austerity; Milei promotes extreme neoliberal policies under nationalist guise; the AfD in Germany consolidates fascist influence and attacks labor and minority rights; and Poland’s reactionary leadership advances conservative market policies at the expense of labor rights. Their function is to divide the working class along ethnic, national, and cultural lines, suppress democratic rights, and secure profits for monopoly capital. Stalin observed in Foundations of Leninism that “The bourgeoisie cannot maintain its power without resorting to violence against the masses; it cannot rule without terrorism.” Reactionary conservatism, far from accidental, is a structural necessity of capitalism in crisis.
Imperialism intensifies these contradictions. Wars, environmental destruction, and neoliberal expropriation displace millions, producing both material and ideological pretexts for ultra-right mobilization. Workers are pitted against one another along ethnic, national, or religious lines, undermining the unity necessary to challenge monopoly capital. Social media accelerates these divisions, creating virtual echo chambers, viral scapegoating, and the reinforcement of nationalist, chauvinist, and authoritarian sentiment. The Marxist-Leninist task is to intervene decisively on this terrain, demonstrating that genuine solutions to economic and social crises lie not in nationalism, austerity, or reactionary populism, but in the overthrow of capitalist power and the establishment of workers’ and people’s power, rejecting all forms of social-democratic or "left-progressive" management of the capitalist economy.
Historical experience teaches that the ultra-right cannot be confronted passively. The rise of fascism in the 1930s revealed the consequences of working-class disunity: in Germany, the machinations of social democrats against communists allowed Hitler to seize power, whereas in contexts where the working class acted decisively and militantly, reaction was resisted. Marxist-Leninist theory explains that fascism and contemporary reactionary conservatism are capitalist responses to systemic crisis, mobilizing extreme ideology to safeguard monopoly profits. Today, leaders such as Trump, Orbán, Meloni, Milei and others, reinforced by social media amplification, exemplify these dynamics.
The rise of ultra-right movements signals the exhaustion of capitalism and the failure of governance through consent. Humanity once again confronts the stark alternative articulated by Marx and Engels: either revolutionary transformation of society or the common ruin of the contending classes. The far right, in its global manifestations, represents the ruling class’s attempt to preserve itself by dragging society backward, exploiting fear, nationalism, and ideology to perpetuate domination.
Only through conscious, organized, and militant action by the working class, led by a disciplined Communist Party and grounded in the material interests of the people, can reactionary conservatism be confronted and a new socialist society be constructed. The stakes are immense, the historical lessons clear, and the responsibility of communists absolute.
* Nikos Mottas is the Editor-in-Chief of In Defense of Communism.
