Karen Krenz
Associate Editor

Jacob Ginsberg
Contributing Editor

We are living in a very dangerous and tumultuous period of history which contradicts the long-standing view that we have been living in the “end of history.” Many have considered our country’s 250 years of existence to be proof of the stability of its political system. Many times, in history, historians took the analysis that the fascist leaders, the ‘Mussolinis’ and ‘Hitlers’ were clowns— they were ‘farcical characters;’ meaning they were disconnected from the real class interest of the capitalists. After a closer analysis, it became evident that these so-called ‘farcical characters’ were in reality, using very logical tactics to maintain their class rule. The capitalist class which had ushered in democracy over monarchy has now begun ‘to put a straight-jacket’ on democracy; they consider it a hindrance to continue to maintain their class rule. When bourgeois democracy is no longer useful, the bourgeoisie try to get rid of it. When the softness of the velvet glove is no longer useful for continued class control, the bourgeoisie resorts to the harshness of the iron fist.

Georgi Dimitrov talks on the rise of fascism when capitalism is in a crisis. Capitalists are drawn to reaction in this crisis and there is a struggle within the bourgeoisie to go towards fascism,

 …the accession to power of fascism must not be conceived of in so simplified and smooth a form, as though some committee or other of finance capital decided on a certain date to set up a fascist dictatorship. In reality, fascism usually comes to power in the course of a mutual, and at times severe, struggle against the old bourgeois parties, or a definite section of these parties, in the course of a struggle even within the fascist camp itself—a struggle which at times leads to armed clashes, as we have witnessed in the case of Germany, Austria, and other countries. All this, however, does not detract from the fact that before the establishment of a fascist dictatorship, bourgeois governments usually pass through a number of preliminary stages and institute a number of reactionary measures, which directly facilitate the accession to power of fascism.

 Today, in the courtroom, the attack on the First Amendment is represented by Trump’s Executive Order 14161 “Protecting the US from Foreign Terrorists and other National Security and Public Safety Threats”, the unnumbered executive order on “Designating Antifa as a Terrorist Organization”, and National Safety Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) on “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence” which are meant to suppress the labor movement in the US. All of these orders are a direct attack on the ability of Americans to speak their mind and to exercise their constitutional right to peacefully assemble and protest.

The Trump Administration has used the facade of ‘making the federal government more efficient,’ when in reality, it is weakening the public sector union movement by eliminating unionized federal workers and replacing them with non-union, lower-paid employees. ICE is denying American citizens’ right to the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments. ICE and other federal agents are denying people the right to assemble to peacefully protest and record ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents. They are also denying people their Second Amendment rights with the murder of Alex Pretti and their Fourth Amendment rights with the seizure of people out of their homes by agents without just cause. However, the First Amendment violations are the most egregious.

Federal agents have attacked people for filming and peacefully protesting. Renee Nicole Good was expressing her rights as a legal observer to ICE arrests, and was murdered when an agent fired multiple shots into her car. Alex Pretti was protesting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents and was helping a woman who was shoved down by agents. Pretti was attacked without provocation by agents with fists and blunt objects, he was shoved down to the ground, maced, then disarmed of his legal concealed carry firearm that he never touched or reached for. Afterwards, he was murdered when multiple agents emptied their guns into him.

Public Sector Unions are being prevented from the “right to assemble” through an executive order that dissolved recognition of federal unions. Under the guise of “National Security”, the Trump Regime stripped hundreds of thousands of federal workers of their collective bargaining agreements through Executive Order 14251, Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs (E.O. 14251), and Executive Order 14343, Further Exclusions from the Federal Labor-Management Relations Program (E.O. 14343). Trump’s executive order proclaiming this came at the same time when Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was mass-laying off thousands of federal workers and siphoning the data and personal information of millions of Americans. The capitalist’s aim is to gut the public sector and declare it “inefficient” since the agencies are unable to carry out their work. The “solution” is to replace unionized workers who have extensive legal protections with underpaid scabs who lack the protections of collective bargaining agreements and related laws. Federal unions traditionally had dues taken out of paychecks and given office space at worksites for union work. These have disappeared from attempts in the current environment to weaken labor and progressive workers in the public sector and society.

Historical Context

The attack on the First Amendment requires that we analyze our country’s history from its inception in the Bill of Rights, passed by Thomas Jefferson’s leadership, to the current constitutional crisis that the Trump Administration has exacerbated.

The first attack on the right of freedom of speech, expression and assembly was that of the struggle for independence and the formation of a democratic nation. Thomas Jefferson was denounced as an agent of the French Revolution by the mercantilist property owners, exemplified by Alexander Hamilton and his Federalist Party, which turned towards reaction. The Alien and Sedition Laws of 1798 were based upon the theory that the rising democratic movement in the United States was merely an extension of the forces behind the French Revolution. The Federalist Party feared that the democratic clubs in the new United States were reminiscent of the Jacobin Clubs in France.

Defenders of the First Amendment, embedded in the Bill of Rights, were slandered as agents of a foreign power, namely Republican France. Reactionaries called the rising forces of democracy “seditious,” and their inspiration and leadership as “alien”. Jefferson was pictured as an “agent of the French Jacobins,” while “French gold” was supposed to furnish the means of his struggle. Jefferson’s election as President in 1800 was a rejection of the policies behind the Alien and Sedition Laws. Throughout history, reactionaries always tend to use similar tactics against progressive ideas and their adherents (the Federalists would go on to create a counter revolution in the War of 1812 against the newly-founded democratic America).

Legislation like the Alien and Sedition Acts gave birth to the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the 1950s. After 1947, anti-Communism influenced all of America’s democratic processes. A notable example was the anti-Communist oath demanded of Associate Justice Byron White when he became a Justice of the Supreme Court. He had to sign an affidavit stating he was not now and never had been a member of the Communist Party. Such “loyalty oaths” violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution he was supposed to protect.

John Foster Dulles, a foremost political adviser, admitted that our government was engaged in a tidal wave of “artificial hysteria.” America’s ruling class has historically made a supreme effort to halt progressive legislation and ideas. The capitalist class resorts to loyalty oaths through such reactionary formations as the HUAC and its comparative legislation as the Smith Act and the McCarran Act. It resorts to punitive prison sentences against those who refuse to adhere to a foreign policy that leads to wars of aggression against America’s neighbors.

Comrade Stalin said the following on both the ultra-left and right opportunists: 

 “[…] the “Left” deviations in essence the same thing as the Right opportunist deviation, then what is the difference between them, and where do you actually get two fronts? Indeed, if a victory of the Rights means increasing the chances of the restoration of capitalism, and a victory of the “Lefts” would lead to the same result, what difference is there between them, and why are some called Rights and others “Lefts”? And if there is a difference between them, what is it? Is it not true that the two deviations have the same social roots, that they are both petty-bourgeois deviations? Is it not true that both these deviations, if they were to triumph, would lead to one and the same result? What, then, is the difference between them?

If the Rights say: “Let the kulak alone, allow him to develop freely,” and the “Lefts,” on the contrary, declare: “Strike not only at the kulak, but also at the middle peasant, because he is just as much a private owner as the kulak,” it must be admitted that there obviously is a difference.

…

There you have a picture of the specific platform and the specific methods of the “Lefts.” This, in fact, explains why the “Lefts” sometimes succeed in luring a part of the workers over to their side with the help of high-sounding “Left” phrases and by posing as the most determined opponents of the Rights, although all the world knows that they, the “Lefts,” have the same social roots as the Rights, and that they not infrequently join in an agreement, a bloc, with the Rights in order to fight the Leninist line.

 That is why it is obligatory for us, Leninists, to wage a fight on two fronts—both against the Right deviation and against the “Left” deviation.”

Stalin’s words are a guide to understanding the clear difference between the ultraleft and right deviation when it comes to the Marxist-Leninist position today on the First Amendment. It is plain to see the high sounding “Left” phrases of the ACP which in reality are objectively supporting the suppression of speech by monopoly capital.  [5]

The Ultra-left on the First Amendment

The ultra-left places little importance on the issue of the First Amendment. Multiple groups in the US either lack a stance on the First Amendment or take an ultra-left position arguing that the United States and the Constitution itself are all instruments of the bourgeoisie. For example, the Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL) states that while the Bill of Rights is seen as the only guarantor of basic political rights in the Constitution, they ignore its historically progressive nature for its time.[1]

 The Trotskyites take an even further ultra-left position. The Revolutionary Communists of America (RCA) (ironically a Trotskyite organization, not a Communist one), states that besides the Bill of Rights there was nothing “democratic” in the US Constitution. To quote:

                “…the Bill of Rights was a concession by those who held the most power, in order to give the illusion of a genuinely popular democracy, a concession ultimately designed to   prevent a popular revolt against the new federal government.”[2]

To the ultra-left, the Bill of Rights and First Amendment are nothing more than a “legal thorn” in the side of the monopoly capitalists that while it may give the workers some legal rights also serves the ruling class as a way to foment acceptance by more reactionary elements of the working class to their interests and policies both abroad and internationally.[3] Therefore, according to the ultra-left, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution should be done away with as they are instruments of the ruling monopoly capitalist class.

This understanding lacks a historical materialist analysis. The ultra-left forget that levels of consciousness change as the relationship to the means of production changes in class society. The First Amendment was a product of the most progressive thinkers at the time, and since its inception, reactionaries in monarchies and now capitalism try to curtail and limit it for all progressive forces.

Right Opportunism on the First Amendment

There are those who call themselves “Communist”, but they are “Communist” in name only. They are detached from reality where they only exist online in a petty-bourgeois environment removed from any working class. They call for free speech for fascists but call for suppression of “liberal” and “woke” speech, decry “cancel culture”, all while distorting the spirit of the First Amendment. They admire Alexander Hamilton while ignoring that Hamiliton was a Federalist that was opposed to the Bill of Rights being added to the Constitution. In reality, these people are Right-deviationists and opportunists.

They criticize liberal and woke speech, decry cancel culture, all while distorting the spirit of the First Amendment which objectively benefits fascists (state differently?).

 A questionable-backed seemingly-manufactured formation who call themselves the “American Communist Party” (ACP) is an example of the petty-bourgeois right deviationist trend. They are reminiscent of the government COINTELPRO operations of the past. The ACP frequently denounce science, Enlightenment thinking, and incite hatred against LGBT+, workers, and immigrants, yet cry when they get banned on various social media platforms for spouting hate while hosting meetings with reactionaries and neo-nazis.

Recently, printed in their March 2025 edition of their “theoretical journal”, an interview with the ACP quoted:

 “Trump has proposed creating a national fund and potentially buying TikTok with it. This would be a monumental return to a Hamiltonian style American economics, which is a lot closer to a socialistic style of banking than the current federal reserve. If TikTok gets bought with this national fund, that means that the first amendment (freedom of speech, press, etc.) is protected under it. As someone who belongs to a communist Institute that, after amassing almost half a million followers on TikTok, has had seven accounts banned, this would be superb for disseminating revolutionary, anti-imperialist information.”

 Here, the right-opportunist ACP platforms a right-winger, who uses their own social media stats and history, to hail a possible buyout of a social media platform as “free speech, press”. Objectively they champion a backdoor form on suppression of speech no different from what corporations do already on platforms like Meta. TikTok was bought on January 22, 2026 by billionaire monopoly-capitalist Larry Ellison, who is on Trump’s so-called ⁠President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Since then, TikTok frequently suppresses speech and expression of leftist thought.

 Trump’s idea of a “national fund” is not controlled by the working class in any way. Nationalization by itself is not inherently socialist unless it is controlled by the working class. In the United States, “nationalization” of companies, especially when ordered by the government, results in primarily benefiting monopoly-capitalists by letting them reap all rewards with no cost once the companies and institutions are re-privatized. In U.S. the only examples we have are during wartime, for instance in WWI the railroad industry was nationalized, then after the war, they were re-privatized.

 These capitalists further restrict First Amendment freedoms of speech like what Meta under Mark Zuckerburg has done with Facebook. Elon Musk’s X and Steve Huffman’s Reddit have similar suppressions of progressive speech. These platforms then give freer rein to rightwing voices that opportunists like ACP are closer to than progressive groups.

PCUSA Position on the First Amendment

For communists in the US, the defense of the first amendment is of vital importance. It is a proud American tradition to defend the right of workers to speak their mind, especially in the face of persecution from the bosses who try to limit the ability of workers to organize. In American history, the attack on the First Amendment has always precipitated from the interests of the capitalist class to further the growth of reaction. If the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA), did not defend itself in court against the fascist-minded McCarthyites in the 1950s, the ability of anyone to question monopoly capital in this country would have ceased to exist openly.

The victory of the CPUSA in its movement to defend the First Amendment was a victory for the average American. For us to not defend the First Amendment would guarantee the ideological victory of reaction over the workers movement. Lenin was clear that such left-sectarian tendencies are a “Left-wing Communist” failure, and in particular the slogan of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) “After Hitler, us.”

In fact, every victory of the working class is reliant on the existence of the First Amendment to organize freely against the aims of monopoly-capital. Indifference or refusal to defend this most vital civil liberty is to objectively aid reaction, and ultimately, disarm the workers in allowing the victory of fascism. Through his experience with the IWW and the anarcho-syndicalists, William Z. Foster proved that indifference towards struggle against reaction surrenders the fight and allows reactionaries free reign to influence the working masses.

Reactionaries revel in ultraleft apathy and destroy democracy in darkness. Both the Right and the ultra-Left are bringing up something alien that is not in the interest of the working class. The First Amendment is crucial for those who seek social change.