Fascism
Fascism is a reactionary political movement which seeks the openly terroristic dictatorship of capital against working class and socialist movements and the abolition of the liberal system of bourgeois democracy and its nominal freedoms while still preserving the capitalist system. The common characteristics of fascism include corporatism, ultra-nationalism, anti-communism, militarism, racism, reactionism, and chauvinism. The most well-known forms of fascism in the 20th century include Nazism, Italian fascism, Shōwa statism, Francoism, and Salazarism.[1]
After the defeat of fascist states in the Second World War largely by working class and anti-imperialist forces, the original fascist movements, along with other ultra-nationalist tendencies, developed into modern neo-fascism.
Analysis
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"Fascism, although in the early stages making a show of vague and patently disingenuous anti-capitalist propaganda to attract mass-support, is from the outset fostered, nourished, maintained and subsidized by the big bourgeoisie, by the big landlords, financiers and industrialists."
Relation to capitalism
Fascism is a method to regulate workers with a repressive state protecting the bourgeoisie and halting revolutionary proletarian movements. When the bourgeoisie can no longer suffice with liberal democracy, they become fascistic. As the Georgi Dimitrov, the Marxist–Leninist–Stalinist who was released from Nazi Germany because he exposed them so thoroughly, said, "The accession to power of fascism is not an ordinary succession of one bourgeois government by another, but a substitution of one state form of class domination of the bourgeoisie — bourgeois democracy — by another form — open terrorist dictatorship."
Role of social democracy
Social democracy has often been a core element in the rise of fascist movements, both being mechanisms to maintain capitalism in times of crisis and socialist revolution. Social democracy divides the working class and labor movements and drives them away from revolutionary change in favor of reliance on bourgeois democracy and reformism from within. Whereas fascism relies on open violence and coercion alongside some amount of deception, social democracy is able to primarily employ deception to assist the bourgeoisie in weakening working class movements.[2] Joseph Stalin described the relationship between fascism and social democracy:
"Fascism is the bourgeoisie’s fighting organisation that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism."
— Concerning the International Situation, 1924
Ideology
Theory
Fascism is primarily a movement led by the bourgeoisie for the purposes of facilitating the maintenance and defense of the capitalist system against working class movements, and therefore lacks true ideological content or theory, instead being purely practice. Any and all nominally ideological aspects of fascism are vacillating and constantly changing to meet the needs of the bourgeoisie:[3]
"The reality of Fascism is the violent attempt of decaying capitalism to defeat the proletarian revolution and forcibly arrest the growing contradictions of its whole development. All the rest is decoration and stage-play, whether conscious or unconscious, to cover and make presentable or attractive this basic reactionary aim, which cannot be openly stated without defeating its purpose." —R. Palme Dutt, Fascism and Social Revolution
Despite this, there are common aspects and beliefs within fascist movements which can be elaborated.
Class collaboration
Fascists denies and attempts to obscure the presence and inherent nature of class struggle and exploitation between exploited and exploiting strata and introduces sentiments of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie. For instance, fascists have claimed that their state is "above" classes:
"[...] Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State — a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values — interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people. No individuals or groups (political parties, cultural associations, economic unions, social classes) outside the State. Fascism is therefore opposed to Socialism to which unity within the State (which amalgamates classes into a single economic and ethical reality) is unknown, and which sees in history nothing but the class struggle." —Benito Mussolini[4]
In reality, this is to hide the position of the fascist state as a totalitarian dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and an extreme expression of monopoly capitalism.
Economics
Despite representing a defensive mechanism of the capitalist system, fascists often claim to represent a "third position" — one which is neither capitalism nor socialism, but "corporatism." Fascists claim to uphold an economic system which is able to both resolve class contradictions between the workers and capitalists without abolishing private property, but by "unifying" the workers and owners into corporate syndicates to achieve their vision of national unity. In practice, however, fascist economic policies were largely to the exclusive benefit of the large bourgeoisie, who are able to profit heavily from the fascist war economy and extensive privatization[a] as well as from the brutal terror employed by the fascist state against communist and working class organizations.[6]
Militarism and war
"Fascism believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it."
— Benito Mussolini, The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism
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National chauvinism and racism
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Palingenesis
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Deception towards the working class
Fascism presents its views in ambiguous, vague ways, often changing based on the circumstances. This aspect is inherent to fascism, because of its deceptive, anti-intellectual character and position as defenders of the ruling class.[3]
See also
Further reading
References
- ↑ Georgi Dimitrov (1935). The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism. Available on the Marxists Internet Archive.
- ↑ R. P. Dutt (1935). Fascism and Social Revolution, Ch. VIII, Social Democracy and Fascism. Available on the Marxists Internet Archive.
"[...] if the Fascist dictatorship weakens, Social Democracy stands ready to come to the rescue of capitalism. The distinction of Social Democracy and Fascism is no less important to understand than the parallelism. Both are instruments of the rule of monopoly capital. Both fight the working-class revolution. Both weaken and disrupt the class organisations of the workers. But their methods differ. Fascism shatters the class organisations of the workers from without, opposing their whole basis, and putting forward an alternative “national” ideology. Social Democracy undermines the class organisations of the workers from within, building on the basis of the previous independent movement and “Marxist” ideology, which still holds the workers’ traditions and discipline, in order more effectively to carry through the policy of capital and smash all militant struggle. Fascism accordingly requires for its full realisation the “totalitarian” terroristic class-State. Social Democracy controls the workers most favourably and successfully in the liberal- parliamentary class-State, utilising its own “internal” methods of discipline, and occasional State coercion, for the suppression of all militant struggle. Fascism operates primarily by coercion alongside of deception. Social Democracy operates primarily by deception, alongside of coercion." - ↑ 3.0 3.1 Rajani Palme Dutt (1934). Fascism and Social Revolution, Ch. IX "The Theory and Practice of Fascism", pp. 197. Available on the Marxists Internet Archive.
- ↑ Benito Mussolini (1932). "The Doctrine of Fascism".
- ↑ BEL, Germà (2009). From Public to Private: Privatization in 1920's Fascist Italy, EUI RSCAS'. Florence School of Regulation - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/12319
- ↑ Daniel Gueri (1939). Fascism and Big Business. Pathfinder Press.