In 1946 the soon-to-be abolished Italian monarchy designated 25 April as “Liberation Day” referring to the final defeat of fascism in 1945. It has remained a national “anti-fascist” holiday under the Italian Republic ever since, accompanied by patriotic ceremonies and demonstrations. The following leaflet was distributed by our comrades in Battaglia Comunista at this year’s anniversary which had more resonance given that Meloni’s Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) party, the heirs of fascist movements of the past, and the Italian version of the new populist nationalism, is in government...

Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, the political heirs of fascism and its logic are advancing and governing, here and in other parts of the world. It is the profound crisis of capitalism that has set them in motion, because it is reducing the room for manoeuvre for the "democratic" bourgeoisie.

But can fascism really be fought with that electoral fiction, the ballot paper, in other words with bourgeois democracy? Or should it be considered, as it actually is, as a phenomenon endemic to the current economic system? Will only the disappearance of the latter as its cause make the effect disappear?

The Constitution prohibits (verbally) the reconstitution of the dissolved fascist party. The problem, for many, would be that it has not been applied properly. Its "non-application" however is implicit in its very nature. In fact, in addition to playing its part as a daughter of the Resistance, the Constitution affirms the inviolability of private property and defends free enterprise. Therefore it defends the bosses. Exactly the same ones who armed and financed fascism using it as a weapon against workers. Even if many fascists have the cheek to call themselves “anti-capitalist” or “leftist”, they “forget” where they came from, who supported them and who supports them now.

Every appeal to defend the Constitution, especially if it comes from someone who claims to be an opponent of this system, is nothing but pathetic democratic whining. To those who bring up the sacrifice of the partisans to legitimise it, we must respond, with objectivity and bitterness, that it was a useless sacrifice.

If, today, the fascistoid currents (populist nationalism in all its international expressions) do not use open physical aggression against the proletariat, it is only because up to now the wage labouring class is disoriented, confused, resigned, passively suffers the social attacks carried out by governments of all kinds, under the mandate of the bourgeoisie. Up to now, there is no need for the truncheon and systematic political murder, but for "simple" anti-strike decrees, to bring the "working" class into line, because it is already "in line", thanks also and not least to the fake political friends and the unions, who call themselves "left-wing".

Has the Constitution defended us from the fascists and their murderous plots? No. Has it prevented their return? Not at all. And so the time has finally come to stop considering it as a Bible before which to kneel. And it is also time to consider fascism and democracy as two players on the same team coached by the bosses, who they themselves alternate on the field every so many years according to their convenience, their needs and above all the level of the class struggle. Finally, it is time to channel all the energies that are spent on anti-fascism (and unfortunately only on that, having no other serious content) into an anti-capitalist perspective of overcoming this filthy social system.

A system that in order to survive must intensify exploitation, poverty, environmental devastation and wars, as we face the prospect of a generalised war.

You can resist today, attack tomorrow, resist again the day after tomorrow and go on like this forever. But if we really think we can solve the problem once and for all without coming to a showdown with the system that fascism lives off (i.e. capitalism), we are deluding ourselves.

Against capitalism and its horrors, against the bourgeoisie and its servants, whatever clothes they wear, for a different and better world, for communism!