Valdai Club

The foreign policy of US President Donald Trump has become one of the key factors influencing the revision of traditional principles in international relations. His approach, based on the slogan “Make America Great Again,” has led to significant changes in the global balance of power, reformatting alliances and reinforcing trends toward deglobalisation, Oleg Barabanov writes.

Moreover, all this is happening on an almost daily basis. For the most part, absolutely unpredictably. As a result, almost the entire world is left holding its breath, waiting for another morning in America and Trump’s latest interviews. As a result, both the news feed and the first political reactions in other regions of the world, located in different time zones, have now shifted in time. Morning in Washington is early evening in Western Europe, late evening in Moscow, and nighttime in China. If earlier, by the end of the working day, quite naturally, the intensity of the news agenda subsided, now everything has changed. The evening/nightly news from Trump is now awaited with no less tension than the traditional morning and daytime news in many countries.

The ambition and radicalism of both Trump’s plans and actual steps make it possible to define his actions as a global revolution. Or, at least, as an attempt to spark one. In classical Marxist-Leninist theory, the term “revolution” itself clearly does not refer to the extreme right spectrum of the political landscape that Trump represents, but to its opposite left-liberation and to class movements. From a Marxist point of view, instead of using the term “revolution” in relation to Trump, one could characterise it in other ways: “ultra-right protectionist turn” or something similar. Another Marxist term, “triumph of blatant reaction”, is probably inapplicable here in its pure form. Since any Marxist will agree that Trump's globalist opponents are no less rabid reactionaries in themselves, questions only remain regarding their subspecies.

However, let's not quibble over terms and their purist interpretation. Let's perceive the revolution in its most neutral sense as the collapse of the old order (without going into details regarding its driving forces). In this context, judging by the dimension of Trump's plans and by the first short-term results of his actions, everything that is happening can well be called a global revolution.

Let's now consider the psychological qualities that distinguish a revolutionary, or rather, a leader of a revolution, from an ordinary politician. Here we can highlight three components: seeing the goal, believing in oneself and not noticing obstacles. All these characteristics are quite present in Trump's psychological portrait. Naturally, they are embedded in Trump's decades of experience in business, and his aggressive and assertive style of doing business. Also notable are his reduced sense of danger, readiness to take risks and desire to achieve his own goal, no matter what, which he developed partly in connection with this.

But here it’s appropriate to ask questions. After all, it would seem that any impudent businessman; any, so to speak, market trader is a ready-made revolutionary type. This is far from true. World history is replete with examples of big businessmen entering politics, but none of them have carried out the kind of revolution that Trump is now carrying out. What feature makes him unique then?

It seems to me that two things need to be distinguished here. One is the willingness, no matter what, to turn a profit, which in the context of politics, unfortunately, often turns into a corruption-generating "deal.” There are plenty of such figures, and many professional politicians, again unfortunately, will give businessmen a big head start here. The “development” of state budgets in a number of countries has long become practically a national sport. However, from another perspective, the key condition is the willingness to change the system, to change all the rules of the game, and the absence of fear to do so. Because it is one thing to “push” the system (even in any crude way) to obtain one’s own corrupt rent, and another thing entirely to change it completely.

Few are ready for this. For the average brazen corrupt official with a low sense of danger, this is not even necessary. He will find opportunities to enrich himself perfectly well within the system, without changing it, even if by fate or chance he winds up at the very top. But Trump turned out to be ready.

Let's return from psychology to social theory. Marxism-Leninism teaches us that for any revolution to be successful, it is necessary for the revolutionary situation to be ripe. This is determined by the following four parameters. The first is that “the upper classes cannot manage”; the loss of the ability of the old ruling class or elite group to govern and exploit “as before”. The second is “the lower classes do not want” what they have; the unwillingness of the broad masses of the people to live in the old way. The third is the oppression of the working classes above the usual level. And the fourth is the presence of a political party as the vanguard of the revolution.

Without these signs that society is ripe, there can be no socio-political revolution in the strict sense of the word. There can only be a top-down, superstructure coup, when one group of the elite (or exploiters, as you like) seizes power from another such group. Accordingly, the key question here now is: is there is a global social base which the Trumpist revolution can deliver stability? Or is this just another ultra-rightist coup, of which there have been many in history, only global in its consequences rather than limited to one country?

The first three parameters of a revolutionary situation (the upper classes cannot manage, the lower classes do not want to persist, and the growth of oppression) are generally interconnected. In fact, in the domestic context of the United States, one can say that both the election of Trump in 2016 and, especially, his recent re-election were the result of such a revolutionary situation. Populism alone cannot explain its success. For populism to be accepted by broad sections of society, objective social conditions for it must exist. You can use as many derogatory epithets as you like, such as “rust belt”, “blue collars”, and talk about the social split of the USA between the “advanced” coasts and “narrow-minded”, “underdeveloped” hinterland. But the fact remains that the broad masses of the USA have qualitatively changed the political system of this country twice. The reason for this, in Marxist terms, is precisely the presence of a revolutionary situation.

Let's look at Europe. Here, over the past couple of decades, we have seen the same thing. High results, and often the victory of non-systemic parties in elections, be they ultra-left (like Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain), or ultra-right (like Alternative for Germany, Marine Le Pen in France, similar cases in the Netherlands and other countries, Calin Georgescu in Romania), or initially anarchist, but then leaning to the right (like the Five Star Movement in Italy) - all this is evidence of widespread civil discontent with the existing system of power. In essence, the same revolutionary situation.

Sometimes it is possible to put an end to such a situation through political manipulation, such as the second round of elections in France, where all the forces of the old order, despite their strife, unite against Marine Le Pen and her party. Then there are extremely hypocritical "broad coalitions", when the parties of the old order, completely putting aside their values ​​​​and election platforms, unite in artificial structures in order to prevent the forces of civil protest from coming to power. But the essence of this does not change.

Thus, three signs of a global revolutionary situation are evident. The fourth of them is now acquiring key significance. This is the presence of a political party (in the broad sense of the word) as the vanguard of the revolution; not so much within the United States itself, but on a global scale. The question of a "Trumpist International" is not new. Stephen Bannon tried to form it during Trump's first term, but it did not work then. Will it work out now? This is the key question of the current revolution.