Within the space of merely 17 days, two people were killed and one was wounded by ICE agents in the city of Minneapolis, in the region known as the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul situated in the state of Minnesota, well-known for its progressive politics (and by this we obviously imply progressive politics beyond the Democratic Party).
Despite the notoriety of US public life for law enforcement officers killing civilians, in particular Blacks, quite frequently and almost wantonly, this situation is special because these incidents were of a political nature and have taken place in a country where a more and more openly fascistic policy is being implemented by a president intent on shaking, in clearly reactionary directions, both the US political system and the world configuration of forces to a degree unseen since Hitler. In this article, we will try to draw, in succinct manner, without an extensive exposition of the evidential material and without going back to the basics of our views on the overall significance of Trump, some lessons for the working class and what one would hope may become a resurgent socialist movement in America. For those who protest and whine against a foreigner meddling in US affairs, we have nothing to offer but our contempt, since especially in the case of that country, whatever happens domestically is of great consequence for the rest of the world. The principles of proletarian internationalism not only allow but dictate this kind of discussion if we wish to create a more just world of freedom from the rubble being created by capitalist society.
The capitalist state kills
The first and most banal, nonetheless necessary to say aloud, lesson to draw for both citizens of imperialist countries and those of the vast world of what is called the Global South is that what is often referred to as “American democracy” or elsewhere (in Europe for instance) couched in different terms is simply a veneer that is totally useless when the struggle gets rough. ICE is not the “Black Shirts” of Mussolini, nor the law enfacement agency of Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, to take only two examples, but is, after all, an institution of that famous “American democracy” that has its roots in the different branches of law enforcement in matters of immigration and naturalisation. The latter were reorganised under George W. Bush, who set up the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of 9/11 and created ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). This was back in 2003. More than two decades have gone by. Trump has now started to use this agency as a special force. In other words, at least parts of the state apparatus in America (and the rest of the countries that are conventionally classified as “democracies” with a “rules-based order”) are prepared, when the time comes, to fight the populace as, in other situations, thugs or goons do. The bourgeois state kills when it needs to.
No confidence to be laid in the bourgeois state apparatus
To share on social media, as some have done after the killings, a video showing the attack on Trump by Mark Milley, the former head of the chiefs of staff of the US armed forces, in his farewell speech, and appealing on that basis to the military to fight and defeat Trump is thus an empty illusion of the worst kind. No hopes should be laid in the existing ruling layers of the bourgeois state in the fight against fascism. It is a different matter to work through some levels of government (e.g. especially the lower levels of the judiciary) tactically in order to tip the balance of forces in favour of the popular masses, but building a strategic line that ultimately expects salvation from the higher echelons of the bourgeois state is tantamount to self-deception.
Emergence of a special force
However, although ICE is a part of the traditional state apparatus of “American democracy”, it has been undergoing a very significant transformation in the recent period. So, its specific role and function should be identified. One of the salient aspects of the Big, Beautiful Bill passed in summer 2025 in Congress, a document that is also important for other reasons, in particular the overhaul of the tax system in favour of the capitalist class and the wealthy in general, was that it raised the financial means and the staff recruitment possibilities of ICE so tremendously that it was destined to become, according to certain sources, perhaps the largest or second largest law enforcement agency, domestically speaking, in the US.
This was neither a wanton redistribution of power between the various federal law enforcement agencies, nor simply a reflection of the priority of fighting illegal immigration for the Trump administration. All fascist parties and leaders strive to create an armed force that is accountable and loyal exclusively to the Führer or the Duce. We have been discussing this question for at least a decade, pointing out that the fascism of the 21st century, not only in the US but also in Europe and Latin America, has not developed, for different reasons we need not go into here, paramilitary storm-troops of the kind of the Black Shirts of Mussolini in the 1920s or the SS and the SA in Hitler’s Germany of the 1930s.
We have also pointed out on occasion that in France, for instance, Marine Le Pen, leader of the Rassemblement National, the strongest fascist party in that country, commands great popularity within the trade unions of the police force and, less visibly, within the ranks of the army. However, she has not attempted to use these as her street forces to attack anti-fascist masses, in particular the working class.
This is precisely why we have called these movements proto-fascist rather than “fascist” outright. During his first term, Trump did have some paramilitary forces around him, the Three Percenters, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and others, who were also vanguard forces in the 6 January 2021 storming of the Capitol building, but these lacked teeth. Now Trump has taken a step to cross the boundary between proto-fascism and fascism per se. One year ago, when Trump took office, he was a proto-fascist yearning to pursue fascist policies. Today he is morphing into a fascist leader, using as his storm-troopers ICE armies.
ICE as Trump’s paramilitary force
When US media talk about the two victims of ICE in Minnesota, they routinely characterise them as “US citizens”. This resonates somewhat racist to our ears, for it seems to imply that the killing of immigrants, illegal or not, without status of US citizen may be condoned, which would of course be a despicable prejudice. However, the deeper logic here is that although ICE is supposed to apprehend and deport illegal immigrants, it kills instead US citizens who are trying to support and protect them. This, as well as the fact that the two victims were not Latinos but white Americans, is sound evidence that ICE is being used also against anti-fascists. This makes ICE a gang of storm-troopers of the proto-fascist Trump, which, in the same process, converts him into a fascist tout court. Our comrade Savas Michael-Matsas has lately referred to the same fact by calling ICE the “praetorian guard” of Trump.
Perfect example of fascist politics
The two murders, as well as the rest of the state violence that has visited Minneapolis within the last couple of months, are a perfect example of fascist politics. We do not call Trump and the others fascists because they pursue, or promise to pursue once they are in power, repressive policies. We call them fascist because their main aim is to smash the strength of the working class by dividing it into immigrants and “natives”. Viewed from the other end, these policies are not racist in ordinary sense. Fascism is racist because its overall objective is to divide the working class and reduce it to inaction.
So, the policy being pursued is doubly fascistic. It orders law enforcement to attack one section of the class and when the other section throws itself into the fire in order to solidarize with the attacked section fascist thugs beats and pepper-sprays and clubs and ultimately kills that other section. This is class struggle waged in fascist terms.
The wisdom of Marxism
This entire debate has shown the importance of Marxism as a guide to action. Let us put it as simply as possible: our insistence, for over a decade, on the proto-fascist nature of the entire family of movements from the so-called “populist” or “far-right” movements in Europe to Trump and from Bolsonaro and Milei in Latin America to Modi in India and our further observation that these movements (with the notable exception of Modi’s BJP and its traditional partner the RSS in India) were as yet unarmed, thus leading us to the further specification of “proto-fascism”, together have given us the possibility of predicting the conversion of these movements into a violent turn (the 2021 storming of Capitol, the replay of Capitol in Bolsonaro’s Brazil on 8 January 2023 and now the ICE terror on the streets of Minnesota) and thus proposing an appropriate programme for fighting fascism in all countries. The entire US and Anglophone left-wing intelligentsia has failed this test, by treating Trump as a reformable lunatic and defiantly rejecting the characterisation “fascist” (of the proto-fascist type) for him. This is, once again, if one needed any, the latest instance of the superiority of Marxism, repelled, rebutted and rejected vehemently during the last half century by the large majority of leftists, over all the fashionable fantasies of the period.
Black, Latino and White, unite and fight!
The fact that white Americans are not only standing up en masse for the rights of their class brothers and sisters of mostly, but not exclusively, Latino origin, but fighting and dying for them, shows that our insistence, for years, on bringing together the white working class (not only industrial but in all branches of production and circulation) and the races and nations that are despised and discriminated against by white suprematist fascism was no illusion, but the correct attitude to take, even if for the moment this has been confined to the progressive geographic regions of the US.
Che Guevara on the streets of Minneapolis
It has been almost sixty years since the CIA designed and executed the murder (1967) of one of the greatest heroes of socialism or communism or Marxism, whichever appeals more to the reader. The “San Ernesto” of the Bolivian peasants lives on as a guide to revolutionaries even in the country of the CIA. A reporter interviewed, in the area of Minneapolis where the people observed a vigil for the latest victim of ICE, a gunman armed with a combat rifle how this could be explained to the people of America. In reply, he answered by referring to Che and by paraphrasing him, to the effect that “the enemy has lots of ammunition and the people should use this to bring the enemy down”.
We are not saying the American people are ready for an armed struggle. What we wish to draw attention to is the fact that Che fires the imagination of a youthful revolutionary of a country where the Second Amendment of the Constitution makes the possession of fire arms an untouchable right. America’s struggle against fascism thus has a greater propensity to turn into an armed one than many other countries. Trump is playing with fire.