Author’s Note: A PDF is attached at the bottom of the page.

In the wake of the third ‘No Kings Day’ march, we provide a critique of the Communist and Anarchist Left’s tendency towards mass politics. The latter section revolves around Crimethinc’s recent call for “anti-authoritarian blocs” at the last two anti-monarchist actions.

Introduction

On Saturday, March 28th, millions of Americans marched to the beat of anti-monarchism. An obvious but nonetheless curious dilemma is immediately raised here: There is no American Monarch. Although we have tried our best over the centuries, God has never cast His hand to our great rulers, choosing them as our anointed national saints. No, in the name of God, our great nation has only emancipated itself further from Him in all social aspects. As such, we only have ourselves-what little is left of humanity in America-to blame for any so-called abuses of authority. In a Democratic Republic, it is not monarchy which has shown its true character.

With the rallying cries of the democratic-bourgeois camp ringing hollow and nonreal, it is the those branded as the “Far-Right” which demonstrate the most convincing grasp on reality. The gears of Democracy thus turn for them slowly, and they wait idly by, doing nothing, watching the liberal machine hallucinate and sputter for life. The liberals do not look right, they must consider, because they can no longer recognize the fronts they attack and defend. Democracy provided the foot-soldiers, the AI bubble and the sky-high rents, but these liberals have seemingly now accosted Democracy as Monarchy, or even Fascism! Now as these liberals seek to overturn Fascism, our Rightist truly becomes the last defense of Democracy. 

Should a real “Fascism” emerge from these conditions, we can’t say much that hasn’t been said. As Gilles Dauvé put it almost 50 years ago, it is not a question of “Fascism Or Democracy”, but “Fascism And Democracy”. There at the march against nonreal Monarchy, we are little more than Democrats and Fascists ourselves, marching spectacularly on Rome and the halls of power, for the preservation of both. Regardless of ideological bent, it is mass-political technique which produces the same motions through all of those at this march. Lines continue to blur, and a duo of Democratic and Fascistic camps emerge. Yet in the interim, either camp represents both movements.

The avant-garde of the counter-revolution are those most cunning savants of capital, who have not only managed to demolish the Communist movement, but grab hold of it so as to define the Communist movement. Those that define it have unanimously encouraged their organizations to attend and radicalize these Blackshirt dry-runs. It is ironic that as they flock in droves to provide the petit-bourgeois spectacle a political alternative, these organizations will damn the Left itself with no choice at all. To participate in the mass politic, to enmesh ourselves in the development of American fasci, or to die trying. 

We will meet the workers, or rather at these marches the upper semi-proletarians and small business owners where they are at, and strengthen a new, more Democratic and more Fascist Republic.

To a Fascist Republic

What is this Fascism, the presumed “real” enemy this past weekend sought to mobilize against? Does it represent anything new in the production and reproduction of society? Is it much different from Democracy? We draw from one of the more compelling definitions below, while still offering several criticisms of  this “Fascistology”. 

“What is the real thrust of fascism, if not the economic and political unification of capital, a tendency which has become general since 1914? Fascism was a particular way of bringing about that unity in countries — Italy and Germany — where, even though the revolution had been snuffed out, the state was unable to impose order, including order in the ranks of the bourgeoisie. Mussolini was no Thiers, with a solid base in power, ordering regular forces to massacre the Communards. An essential aspect of fascism is its birth in the streets, its use of disorder to impose order, its mobilisation of the old middle classes crazed by their own decline, and its regeneration, from without, of a state unable to deal with the crisis of capitalism. Fascism was an effort of the bourgeoisie to forcibly tame its own contradictions, to turn working class methods of mobilisation to its own advantage, and to deploy all the resources of the modern state, first against an internal enemy, then against an external one” (Dauvé, 1979).

We find Dauvé’s analysis historically accurate on 20th century Fascist movements, yet one must remember his inscriptions as related to the Fascist movements and not on capitalist development itself. “Fascism” is not a point in historical development nor of capitalist development. It is not unique in its “economic and political” unification of capital”, the primary consideration from Dauvé: Economics and politics are unified in every capitalist State. Fascist movements may give rise to qualitatively different ideologists, rhetoric and even means of organization-birth in the streets, for one-but Fascism is yet to inscribe itself as a unique historical stage. Likewise, Democracy is as much of an effort to “forcibly tame bourgeois contradictions”, depending on the definition of force and the specific actions of each State. The notion of pivoting State resources toward internal, then external enemies as well is also a nonstarter! Even enlightened Fidel and his compañeros couldn’t help but open up a few concentration camps, before pivoting their State-military resources elsewhere. The sheer inability of anyone to truly isolate Fascism as a phenomenon points to the critical understanding that Fascism is not an isolated phenomenon. Thus even our attempting to describe Fascism serves a moot point. So why are we organizing around and against it?

When “Fascism” arises in a society, it is dealt with by the liberal bourgeoisie and the Communist Parties as an external threat to pre-existing conditions (Democracy). On the contrary, Fascism is a push to save Democracy from itself, from its own fallacious attempts to tame the contradiction of class. When Democracy is truly wrecked, such as in Italy or Germany, Capital is unified in its political decision-making. Politics, or the language of distribution and allocation, and therefore Capital, becomes altogether more synonymous with this sole form of representation. Whatever existed previously is integrated into this form of representation, and whatever cannot be integrated is disposed of in violent speed. 

We are communists, so naturally we wish to survive the next great wave of counterrevolution, and maybe even see through the abolition of the capitalist relation. We understand the feelings of trepidation regarding the State, and the human desire to see it out, to survive. That being said we cannot help but see the rallying cries toward anti-monarchist, even anti-fascist mass-spectacular events as the enmeshing of working class organizations, of communist and anarchist organizations, within the reproduction of capital. We do ourselves no favors here, only further identifying as Democratic forces in a world providing no alternative. “All out to the march of millions” is the rational and efficient choice, but it is not the effective one. We consider the actions of Crimethinc, for example, to essentially be the offering up of Anarchists to these Democratic forces. 

The next section will cover this in greater detail, after developing an understanding of  the “technical” and “rational”, essentially how these calls to act within mass politics reproduce structures of Democratic legitimacy. We refer to Jacques Ellul’s framing of atomization within production and social reproduction here: Technique “has become the dominant factor in the Western world, so that the best name for our society is the “technicist society.” It is on technique that all other factors depend. Technique is no longer some uncertain and incomplete intermediary between humanity and the natural milieu. The latter is totally dominated and utilized (in Western society). Technique now constitutes a fabric of its own, replacing nature. Technique is the complex and complete milieu in which human beings must live and in relation to which they must define themselves. It is a universal mediator, producing a generalized mediation, totalizing and aspiring to totality.” Furthermore, Ellul argues that “technique constitutes a system in the strict sense of the term, that is to say, an ensemble in which factors are so closely linked together that:

• Each element has a meaning or significance only within the ensemble;
• Any modification of an element has repercussions on the ensemble and modifies it. Any modification of the ensemble likewise modifies the elements of their relationships;
• Privileged, almost exclusive relationships exist among the elements of the system, regardless of what is situated outside the system.”

While we find ourselves much in disagreement with Ellul’s idealist historical method, he provides a rough outline of atomization in productive and reproductive capacities. In a capitalist society where all human interaction revolves around efficiency and mediation, it is in the name of “rationality” that we meet the masses where they are. But as we do so, the significance of any given ideological banner is slighted by the reproduction of motion. Consider the following.

It means nothing to be an anarchist/communist/liberal/fascist/monarchist on an individual level, but in an ensemble we find our isolated traits becoming fruitful. Or rather, we believe that our respective ideological traditions can intervene in struggles once they brush the ground. Thus the tendency to mass-meet and make mass, to congeal and burrow into the proletarians and semi-proletariants, the lumpen and the petit-bourgeoisie. Yet ideology cannot make history, and it cannot alter the motion of capitalist technique toward the fulfillment of any ensemble. 

Ideology only has significance when it has mass support, but any construction of mass support directly alters the function of a given ideology. Anarchism, for example, may very well be the most revolutionary and anti-formist of all ideology: We aren’t the proper ideologists to judge these proceedings… But in the mass movement, and specifically at this moment in the ‘No Kings’ episodic series, an Anarchist ideological endeavor has a real tendency to be pick-pocketed. In order to relate to the protest and its adherents, Anarchism must now be an individual habit of consumption, or a tendency to make sandwiches for the poor, or to become allocative, even patriotic. It doesn’t matter how an Anarchist presents oneself here, because the function of the ensemble has already modified it and done away with the rest. The protest itself is a pageant, and in its many sins cannot help but reproduce activists doing activism for the Republic. Furthermore, an event like ‘No Kings’ is deliberately designed to congeal mass dissent and provide the dexterity to renew support for the national project. We will listen to the statesmen and loudspeakers, we will all stand around doing nothing, and we will walk through the streets ever so peacefully, with a gracious escort of police vehicles. Anarchist, “Communiser”, it does not matter. The ensemble has shown it can successfully neutralize any perceived threat with venom. Thus what once rested as a historical critique is washed away to realize itself as a plaything, one of the 20-odd playthings at a legalistic, bourgeois carnival. 

We talk not in vague terms here. In the following section, we deal with the specific pitch some Anarchists have predetermined their calls to: A remarkable reduction from class struggle and communism itself, to that of an “anti-authoritarian” popular front.

On Authority, the Cousin of Capital: An Anarchist-Populist Fallacy

We posit the theses of communisation theory leave very little institutional or legal juncture: How easy it is to proclaim communism itself… To get there we are but fools, and the series of trial and error our comrades embark on is welcome. 

In these experiments, we have noted that “radicalizing” a protest is a reactionary process. One can take the reins of technique and technology, but it cannot make them neutral, or even positive forces in the process of revolution and counterrevolution. The protest is still the lightning in the bottle, the codification of constraint and contradiction, into a weary puddle of unrealized exhaustion. Insurrection plucked from the womb in infancy, this time around with snarky t-shirts and inflatable suits.

Countering this, a poignant and prevailing faith seems to reside in the process of taking a protest to escalation. As it comprises a most dutiful allegiance to the mass political form, we specifically reference Crimethinc’s call to form “anti-authoritarian blocs”. On October 9th 2025, the “rebel alliance” initially called for a bourgeois alliance with “everyone, of all walks of life, to proclaim that opposition to fascism”. On March 16th, they doubled down, encouraging their readership to “Be someone’s radical moment”: “Some participants at No Kings are not going to be open to hearing radical critiques of capitalism and the state, but make it your mission to find the ones who are ready to join the struggle, who just need a framework and an idea of where to begin. Talk to them about their views and how those might fit within a larger global history of resistance. It’s not about convincing them, but sharing tools to give a name to their longing for liberation”. What has resulted from these calls encapsulates the dead weight of these platitudes to “resist”. Thus, we will critique the “anti-authoritarian bloc” in its performance and rhetorical content.

Across the country, as millions of upper semi-proletarians and petit-bourgeois take to the streets, a much smaller sub-sect are actively moving among them, attempting to counter hegemonic ideas. Whereas the Leninists sell ideology and book club invitations, the insurrectionist and Anarchist extend the most convincing of suggestions: To seize the protest and actually do something. To act outside of the confines of the bourgeoisie, to turn the capitalist donors on their head, and spit in the face of their elected faces in doing so. This is something that has been tried to varying degrees in several No Kings marches around the country. In those circumstances which have remotely succeeded, Anarchists have led splinter marches or even the entire thing. Crimethinc themselves advertise one of these moments as to “rubber-stamp” the most dreamlike efficacy of forming the bloc.

Again, the critique is that of a twofold account. Foremost, we have to question the nature of authority and subversion, both terms already ready to fit right into the liberal ensemble. Abstractly, we can say we are against “authority”. It at least sounds rather dulling. But when seeking to overturn said authority, we cannot pretend as if it is the contradiction which squeaks and grinds away. Rather, any harsh notion of “authority” is the sour taste of capitalist alienation, refracted light from which we now arrive at a thesis accommodating capital. To proclaim war on authority alone, therefore, is to retain the capitalist and salvage a “more capitalist capitalism” (Dauvé, 1979). 

What Crimethinc proclaims on the basis of being against authority is precisely to make inroads with those who marched on the Capitol. They too, were and are against fractures of authority. To be against authority, we may even extend our hands to Netanyahu or those Israeli settlers of the West Bank. They, perhaps more than any other, truly spit in the face of authority, bring about the nullification of the international bourgeois courts, and with it the entire moral-liberal framework. Should we offer critical support to such a cause, if it is against some authority? Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, all of the statesmen of history were first and foremost: “Against authority”. The Republican Party, domineering in all capacities, has long used the same language against overreaching government hands. Thus the protest is no different than a mock-putsch if it does not fundamentally alter the bond between classes (and therefore the classes themselves). Having a run-in with the police is welcome, but at what point is the expense of proletarian blood greater than the brief rush of energy against “authority”? On the secondary point of real tactical performance: If we launch an anti-authoritarian bloc ourselves, herd ‘No Kings’ protestors away from the monotony and toward the police line, none of it will matter if we all show up for work the next day. What bleeds from this tactic is lifestylism. Yet for building a bloc and a popular front, we have let our enemies trickle in behind us! They will continue to subject us to misery in the name of “anti-authoritarianism”.

The concept of an anti-authoritarian bloc, and the ceaseless calls to mass-politicize on the basis of authority itself, is an affront to the communist movement precisely because it undermines what makes us radical. Authority is but a tangent to the war on classes itself, and in emphasizing unity around the former, these Anarchist-Populists show they have forgotten the lessons of the Spanish Civil War. The Popular Front lives on. Capital lives on. And therefore, in our minds at least, “authority” survives as well.

Conclusion

So, whatever is Fascism and Authority? Fascism is nothing, and Authority is a Class (out of respect for these mobilizations, we won’t say which one). Yet if the Democratic Forces today-Liberals and Stalinists, Anarchists and Maoists-continue to mobilize under the mass politic, we are sure to taste both. 

Citations

1. Dauvé, G. (1979). When Insurrections Die. Endnotes. https://www.endnotes.org.uk/issues/issue-1/gilles-dauve-when-insurrections-die 
2. Ellul, J. (1983). Technology is Not the Same as Technique!. International Jacques Ellul Society. https://ellul.org/themes/ellul-and-technique/ 
3. Collective, CrimethInc. E.-W. (2025, October 9). No Kings, No Masters. CrimethInc. https://crimethinc.com/2025/10/09/no-kings-no-masters-a-call-for-anti-authoritarian-blocs-at-the-october-18-no-kings-demonstrations 
4. Collective, CrimethInc. E.-W. (2026, March 16). No Kings, No Masters: Building the Resistance. CrimethInc. https://crimethinc.com/2026/03/16/no-kings-no-masters-a-call-to-mobilize-at-the-march-28-no-kings-rallies 
5. Collective, CrimethInc. E.-W. (2025b, October 20). Anarchists At the No Kings Rallies. CrimethInc. https://crimethinc.com/2025/10/20/anarchists-at-the-no-kings-rallies-reports-from-around-the-country#account-i-a-small-city