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2026 kicks off to the sound of imperialist war drums and class struggle

Marxist Perspectives · 2026-02-20

Core Argument

The central thesis is that the opening months of 2026 reveal the deepening crisis of US imperialism, which is simultaneously accelerating global instability and generating new opportunities for revolutionary organisation. Jorge Martín argues that Trump's apparently erratic behaviour — the military intervention in Venezuela, threats against Greenland, the mass ICE raids in Minneapolis — is not simply the product of individual psychology but the logical expression of a strategic recalibration forced by US imperialism's relative decline. The United States can no longer act as global hegemon; its response is to consolidate control over its own hemisphere while disentangling from commitments elsewhere, particularly Europe. This strategy, however, is generating unintended consequences: it is accelerating the dollar's decline, pushing former allies toward China and Russia, and provoking mass resistance at home and abroad. The article's most important claim is that the Minneapolis uprising represents a qualitative leap in class consciousness — a movement that went beyond protest to organise neighbourhood defence committees and discuss a general strike — and that this signals the early stages of a political radicalisation that will eventually break from Trump's reactionary populism toward the left.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is grounded in the Marxist theory of imperialism as developed by Lenin and Bukharin, updated for the multipolar configuration of the twenty-first century. The article treats inter-imperialist rivalry not as a secondary phenomenon but as the primary driver of geopolitical events, with the US-China contradiction as the central axis. The concept of relative decline — that US imperialism remains the most powerful single force but can no longer impose its will unilaterally — is deployed to explain the shift from global hegemony to hemispheric consolidation. This is not presented as a permanent retreat but as a strategic redeployment, a point that distinguishes the analysis from liberal declinism.

The economic analysis draws on the Marxist understanding of fictitious capital and speculative bubbles. The gold and silver rally, the stock market surge alongside mass layoffs, and the K-shaped recovery are interpreted as symptoms of overaccumulation and the displacement of productive investment by financial speculation. The reference to Galbraith's anecdote about the shoeshine boy is a classic Marxist warning about the penetration of speculative logic into working-class households, which when the bubble bursts will have devastating political consequences.

The analysis of the Minneapolis uprising is explicitly Leninist in its focus on the question of leadership. The article notes that previous revolutionary waves since 2008 — the Arab Spring, the Indignados, Black Lives Matter — all lacked revolutionary leadership and therefore exhausted themselves. The current wave, the article argues, is building on those experiences, and the task of Marxists is to provide the missing leadership. This is a direct application of the Marxist theory of the revolutionary party: spontaneous mass movements are necessary but insufficient; they require conscious organisation to avoid defeat or co-optation.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article is exceptionally concrete about the current conjuncture. It identifies the following specific developments:

  • The 3 January attack on Venezuela and the subsequent installation of a compliant government under US supervision, with Delcy Rodríguez effectively operating as a semi-colonial administrator whose budget requires Marco Rubio's approval.

  • The National Security Strategy published in November 2025, which explicitly states that the US can no longer be global hegemon and must first recover control over the Western Hemisphere. This document is treated as the key to understanding Trump's strategy.

  • The collapse in gold and silver prices in February 2026, following a 100% increase in gold over twelve months, interpreted as evidence of extreme volatility in speculative markets and deep uncertainty about the dollar's future.

  • The Minneapolis uprising against ICE raids, which involved neighbourhood defence committees, mass walkouts, and discussion of a general strike — a movement that forced Trump to appear to back down.

  • The Gen Z revolutions of September-October 2025 in Indonesia, Nepal, Madagascar, and Morocco, which the article insists are not finished but merely paused, as the conditions that produced them remain.

  • The economic stagnation of Europe, particularly Germany's third or fourth year of zero growth, and the inability of European powers to act independently of the US despite being humiliated by Trump.

  • The erosion of the dollar's reserve currency status, with central bank gold reserves exceeding dollar reserves for the first time in 2025, and foreign holdings of US Treasury bonds falling from 50% to 30%.

The article is unusually specific about the limits of US military power: the Venezuelan operation required 20% of the Navy and 150 aircraft to capture one man and his wife, and the South Command cannot maintain such deployments for long. This is a materialist check on the impression of US omnipotence.

Where the Argument Continues

The article is itself a summary of a longer discussion at the RCI's February 2026 meeting, and it points to several places where the analysis is developed further:

  • The US comrades' articles and podcasts on the Minneapolis uprising, including two Against the Stream episodes, are explicitly recommended for a fuller account of the movement's organisation and significance.

  • Alan Woods' article "The meaning of Donald Trump: a Marxist analysis" from 2025 is cited as the theoretical foundation for understanding Trump as a product of capitalist crisis whose coalition will unravel when he fails to deliver.

  • The RCI's earlier analysis from one year ago (February 2025) is referenced repeatedly as having predicted the shift in US strategy, and the article implicitly invites readers to consult that earlier material.

  • The question of France and Italy's general strikes in September-October 2025 is flagged for further discussion, suggesting that the RCI has produced or will produce more detailed analysis of those movements.

  • The Your Party phenomenon in Britain (800,000 registrations) and the growth of the Green Party under Zack Polanski are noted as symptomatic of leftward radicalisation but are not analysed in depth, indicating that these are ongoing subjects of study.

Connections

The article connects to several key texts and thinkers in the Marxist tradition:

  • Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism — the theoretical framework for understanding inter-imperialist rivalry as the driving force of world politics.

  • Bukharin's Imperialism and World Economy — particularly relevant for the analysis of the dollar's decline and the attempt to build alternative currency arrangements.

  • Trotsky's theory of uneven and combined development — implicit in the analysis of how the US must retreat to the hemisphere while China advances globally.

  • Galbraith's The Great Crash 1929 — the anecdote about Kennedy Sr. and the shoeshine boy is used to illustrate the penetration of speculative logic into everyday life.

  • The RCI's own corpus — particularly Alan Woods' article on Trump and the earlier February 2025 analysis of the world situation.

  • Contemporary Marxist analyses of US decline — the article sits within a broader tradition of Marxist writing on the multipolar world, though it is more politically engaged and less academic than much of that literature.

Key Quotes

  1. "The United States can no longer be the global hegemon. The first step in dealing with this new situation is recovering control over the Western Hemisphere."

  2. "US imperialism is revealing itself very openly as a protection racket. 'You are with us, you pay us protection money, and everything will be nice for everyone. But if you don't, there will be consequences.'"

  3. "The increase in the price of gold and silver... tells you that the capitalist speculators are very worried about the general state of the economy. The US dollar is going down, which was the safe currency of last resort previously."

  4. "In Minneapolis, what we had was thousands of people, thousands of ordinary working class people and middle class people who never participated in politics before, getting organised in neighbourhood committees, following ICE patrols around, really organising surveillance of ICE operations."

  5. "Trump, in a distorted and reactionary way, has tapped into a mood of working class anger at the establishment. The article says once people are disappointed because Trump will not be able to make America great again — that is to give people well-paid jobs — people will become demoralised, disappointed, and the pendulum will swing violently in the opposite direction."

  6. "The only limit right now is our own ability to train and educate, and integrate more people into the organisation... In a period of very sharp political radicalisation, a small organisation with a bold approach, with a clear communist identity in a time when we are, in many places, unique in having that identity, can grow very fast."