Anti-Fascism Against the Working Class

On Saturday 9 November, the CWO held a public meeting in London on the topic of anti-fascism. We publish here the presentation followed by notes from the discussion.

The Presentation

We are now in early November and today is the 106th anniversary of the start of the German Revolution.⁽¹⁾ Class struggle, started by the German sailors, put an end to the first imperialist world war. This is an important historical fact which this meeting must recognise. Class struggle, not alliances with liberal sections of the bourgeoisie is the only proletarian response to imperialist war. Anti-fascism is an alliance with liberal sections of the capitalist class and this is why we will argue it is fatal to the interests of the working class.

106 years on from the German Revolution we see the war in Ukraine, the war in the Middle East, the escalating war threats against China, all being justified on the basis of "democracy" against "dictatorship" with the dictatorships often called "fascist". Biden made defence of "democracy" the justification for arming Ukraine while Putin described his attack on Ukraine as an "anti-fascist" military operation. Israel presents itself as the only "democracy" in the Middle East fighting Islamic "dictatorships" again often described as "fascist". In reality these are all imperialist wars and the description of enemies as "fascist" is ideological camouflage for naked imperialist conflicts.

In the UK, we have seen the rise of the populist parties, the latest version being Reform, which are also dubbed as "fascist". The recent riots are, the left tells us, an example of fascism in action hence, they tell us, we must mobilise against fascism.

What were the real causes of the riots?

Workers’ share of the national income has been declining for over three decades. The social wage which workers’ pay for such things as the health service, schools, social benefits, pensions are all declining, utility companies use our money to speculate on international markets and we are forced to accept higher bills while rivers and our coasts are polluted with sewage. The crisis in turn is ruining sections of the petty bourgeoisie and turning them to support the likes of UKIP or Reform who blame all this on immigrants and asylum seekers.

But the cause of all this is clearly the crisis of the capitalist system itself which is bringing us poverty, massive inequality and barbaric warfare. Blaming all this on immigrants and refugees is just ridiculous. But it serves two purposes. Firstly, it is a means of disguising what’s really happening, and secondly it diverts the working class from fighting its real enemy, the capitalist class. The riots therefore serve the capitalist class.⁽²⁾

The capitalist class on the one hand want immigrants so they can be used as cheap labour to keep wages down, but on the other are happy to see them blamed for the crisis because this is a means of dividing the working class, to keep us fighting each other rather than our real enemies.

What has been the response of the left of capitalism’s political apparatus?

The trade unions, Stalinists, Trotskyists and some anarchists have mobilised their forces on the basis of anti-fascism with marches and rallies against the right wing of the capitalist class and their shock troops in the Tommy Robinson brigade.

But mobilisation against only one faction of the capitalist class, namely the fascists, implies support for capitalist democracy itself. The theoretical justification behind this is that workers should support the lesser evil amongst the bourgeoisie political factions. Our political ancestors in the Italian left argued from the early 1920s that fascism represents another strategy to crush the working class, and that there is a continuity between "democracy" and "fascism". The relationship between "democracy" and "fascism" is symbiotic. Both should be fought equally.

The logic of anti-fascism is to resist fascism by defending bourgeois democracy. A brief glance at history shows that the Italian democratic bourgeoisie paved the way for Mussolini, while in Germany, the social democrats Noske and Scheidemann paved the bloody path to the Weimar Republic and the Weimar bourgeoisie brought the Nazis to power. Capitalist democracy and fascism are little different as far as the exploited are concerned.

Mobilisation to support any faction of the bourgeoisie is not a mistaken strategy, it is fatal and counter-revolutionary strategy. It is this which Stalinists, Trotskyists and the degenerated Communist International supported in the 1930s and are again supporting today. History has shown how it has led to hundreds of thousands of proletarian deaths while leaving the capitalist class firmly in power. The most blatant example of this was the Spanish Civil War. However, we need also to remember that anti-fascism was the mobilisation call for the Second World War, a war with deaths numbered in tens of millions. Revolutionary defeatism is the only strategy the proletariat can use to end imperialist war. Mobilisation on the basis of anti-fascism in imperialist wars is the complete opposite of revolutionary defeatism.

What is fascism?

As mentioned, the Communist Left unequivocally rejects the false political distinction between bourgeois "democracy" and "fascism" as far as the working class is concerned. They are both strategies the capitalist class uses, dependent on the situation, to crush the resistance of the working class. When democratic methods are no longer working, they will resort of fascism.

Fascism is a movement of the petty bourgeoisie brought to power by the bourgeoisie themselves to carry out the bourgeois programme.

The clearest illustrations of this are in Italy and Germany. Both were countries that considered their imperialist aims had been thwarted by the settlement after the First World War and the crisis following the war had brought ruin to the petty bourgeoisie.

In Italy, Giolitti, the representative of the liberal bourgeoisie, gave free reign to the fascist squads, allowing them to attack the working class in the post-war era. This occurred before the so-called “march on Rome” of 1922. After the march on Rome, the Italian capitalist class supported Mussolini’s government. The names of the capitalists who funded and supported Mussolini read like a who’s who of Italian capitalism, Agnelli of Fiat, Pirelli, Benni, Ansaldo and so on.

Similarly, a decade later Hitler was invited to form a government by the democratic Weimar government’s chancellor Hindenburg. As in Italy, the Nazis were funded and supported by key sections of the German bourgeoisie such as Vogler, Thyssen, Stinnes, Funk, Krupp, etc.

Once in power fascism forms an alliance with the bourgeoisie and operates via a strong state removing democratic restrictions. It rules by decree, smashes workers’ political and industrial organisations and forces workers to submit to capitalist exploitation often using paramilitary formations such as the Italian squadristas, and the Nazi SA or later the SS. Mobilising slogans are those of nationalism and racism, while everything which is wrong with capitalism is blamed on factors outside of capitalism itself, such unjust treaties, Jews, immigrants, different races and so on.

In Italy it was Gramsci who produced a justification of anti-fascism.

The Communist Party of Italy, the PCd’I, in the period when Bordiga led it, supported the political position we outlined above. Fascism was seen as a weapon taken up by the bourgeoisie as a whole to defeat the working class. The consequence of this position was that there could be no support for the democratic section of the bourgeoisie under any circumstances. That there was no lesser evil amongst capitalist factions. As a result, the party did not support the anti-fascist brigades who were not class based and aimed to restore democracy, the “Arditi del Popolo”.

This does not imply indifference to the attacks of fascism on the working class or proletarian parties. We support organised working-class defence of workers and their political and industrial organisations. In fact, members of the PCd’I organised protection against fascist squads. For example, in a skirmish during an attack on one of the comrades who was later to help found the PCInt, Onorato Damen, one of the fascists was killed. The PCd’I had its own independent fighting groups and underground organisation, coordinated by militants of the left like Bruno Fortichiari. We mention this to show that PCd’I defended itself against the fascist squads on the basis of anti-capitalism not bourgeois democracy.

However, the political position on fascism changed under the new leadership installed by the Comintern in 1923 and headed by Gramsci. Gramsci concluded that fascism was an expression of the pre-bourgeois feudal order in the South combining with reactionary sections of the bourgeoisie in the North. In his view the bourgeois revolution in Italy was not completed and therefore alliances between the progressive bourgeois forces and workers political organisations were possible. This was an extension of the Comintern’s support for “workers’ governments” and the "united front", a policy which had led to disaster in Germany in 1923. All this confusion led to the consolidation of the Mussolini dictatorship. The actual events which precipitated this are also worth mentioning. In 1924 a socialist deputy Matteotti was kidnapped and murdered by a fascist squad.⁽³⁾ When what had happened became clear, this produced a crisis for the fascists. It was also a period of seething discontent amongst the working class. Instead of calling for class struggle in the form of mass strikes, Gramsci combined with the bourgeois opposition within parliament and led the combined opposition out of parliament in the so-called Aventine Secession. The boycott of parliament lasted six months leading to the consolidation of the dictatorship of Mussolini. Two years later the PCd’I was banned and all leading members imprisoned.

In Spain anti-fascism went one step further and joined the bourgeois government.

The civil war in Spain provided the definitive proof of the catastrophe which anti-fascism represents for the working class.⁽⁴⁾ Instead of only supporting the anti-fascist faction of the capitalist class, the workers' parties, the Spanish anarchists, Stalinists, POUM, entered into the government and administered the capitalist state in conjunction with the democratic bourgeoisie.

The Popular Front government was elected in February 1936. Between February and July, when Franco launched his coup, there had been 113 general strikes and 228 local strikes. The working class was in a state of insurrectionary ferment. When Franco launched his coup, workers launched mass strikes which defeated the coup. After the initial failure of the coup there was a period of chaos and state power collapsed. At this critical point the question of state power should have been posed. The class struggle should have been continued and fraternisation with the conscripts who were in Francoist armies should have been undertaken. Workers’ councils should have been created and moves to destroy the state started. Instead, the anarchist leaders went to talk to the president of the Catalonia regional government, the Generalitat, who gave them a load of flannel and they called off the general strike telling their members that they should look no further than the defeat of fascism. The anarchists and the POUM subsequently joined the Catalonia government. The power of the bourgeoisie in Catalonia had been saved in the cause of anti-fascism. Two months after joining the Catalan government the anarchists entered the Madrid government.

For the Stalinists participation in bourgeois popular front governments became the lynchpin of Soviet imperialism. This was formalised by the Comintern at its Seventh World Congress in 1935. Behind this was the USSR's attempt to forge an alliance with imperialist powers of Britain and France against the threat of imperialist Germany. The cause of bourgeois democracy was put above that of proletarian revolution.

The military fronts proved to be the grave diggers of the Spanish workers. They represented the front line of capitalism’s war against the workers. Instead of forming an anti-fascist front with the bourgeois republicans the Spanish workers should have adopted a revolutionary defeatist position and opposed both republican and Franco’s forces proclaiming fraternisation on the basis of class.

The tragic events in Spain were the dress rehearsal for the far more devastating second imperialist world war. As in the case of the Spanish war the recruiting cry was democracy against fascism. After some hesitation, caused by uncertainty as to which imperialist side to support, the Stalinists and their Trotskyist supporters rallied their supporters behind the democratic bourgeoisie, in the Popular Front, in opposition to fascism. The result of the war was whole scale slaughter, not just of workers on the front lines but civilians, mass murder in occupied countries, devastation of cities and infrastructure on a scale never before seen in human history. The only political force to oppose the war on a class basis was the Internationalist Communist Party (PCInt) in Italy which was formed in 1943 and which is the political ancestor of the CWO and the ICT. The PCInt denounced the war as imperialist on both sides and called for desertions and fraternisation between opposing soldiers, i.e. the policy of revolutionary defeatism.⁽⁵⁾ They similarly denounced the anti-fascist struggle. This resulted in the Stalinists denouncing the PCInt as an agent of the Gestapo and putting them on death lists and actually assassinating some comrades.⁽⁶⁾ This is another example of how anti-fascism provides cover for the viciousness with which the bourgeoisie attacks the working class in the name of anti-fascism.

In Britain the proto-fascist movements have arisen, disappeared and resurrected themselves with different names. Their strength has been related to the crises of capitalism. In the late 1960s the National Front, which had an organic link to the British Union of Fascists of the 1930s, was probably the most successful of these. Others such as the British National Party or the British Movement base themselves on racism. More recently the Tommy Robinson brigade bases itself specifically on anti-Islam. The capitalist left has mobilised against these movements forming popular fronts of Trotskyists, trade unionists and social democrats around the cause of anti-fascism. The Anti-Nazi League of the late 1970s was probably the most successful example. Today Unite Against Fascism and Stand Up to Racism are its apparent successors. These movements are primarily recruiting fronts for their leftist animators. The truth is that the British bourgeoisie have no need of fascism at present since democratic control of working-class exploitation is working well. These movements will remain on the sidelines of bourgeois politics in the present period. However, as we have shown anti-fascism logically leads to support for bourgeois democracy. The anti-fascist organisations represent popular fronts which could play a significant role recruiting workers to fight for democracy if the economic crisis intensifies to the point of bringing the fascist political forces nearer to power.

Working class history has shown that anti-fascism is a force against the working class and it is being prepared for this purpose again today. On a world scale mobilisations against dictatorships and fascism show the ideological battle lines which are being drawn which will be used to recruit us to fight in a future global war.

The Discussion

One of the new people we did not know queried the appeal of fascism to the petty bourgeoisie. In the discussion on this we said this was a result of their fear of being thrown into the ranks of the proletariat by the economic crisis. There were several contributions on the topic including from a contact of the ICC who argued this was a consequence of the present phase of "decomposition". The question of the similarity between now and the 1920s and 30s was raised by the ICC maintaining that the present situation was not analogous because the working class today would prevent any move towards fascism since it had not suffered the defeats of the 1920s. We noted that while we are in a period of low class-consciousness, and while fascism is not needed currently, it remained a possibility. The bourgeoisie could see the use for it again in the eventuality of rising class struggle. There was discussion on the recent riots and the counter-demonstrations. It was suggested that opposition to racist attacks as a positive (if politically limited) expression of solidarity and the need to move beyond a limited framing of what the working class looks like.

One of the new people asked how the working class could regain consciousness of what needed to be done. This led to an extended discussion on class consciousness. We explained how the question was posed by Marx in the German Ideology and referred comrades to our pamphlet on the subject which one of the new people subsequently bought. We pointed out that we were a small organisation and could only try to influence events and put forward our perspectives where we can. This could change if the class struggle revives. We pointed to the construction of No War but the Class War (NWBCW) committees as a step to combine with other internationalists to try to influence working class struggles and link the austerity the working class is suffering to the imperialist drive to war. An issue raised was the use of social media to organise mobilisations. There was the implication that this could be used to raise class consciousness though this was noted it was not followed up.

Communist Workers’ Organisation
December 2024