How to Fight Fascism

Too many “anti-fascists” are quick to throw the label of “fascist” at any right-wing politician or figure of authority that they dislike.

Fascist parties use reactionary ideas that are prevalent within society as a whole – such as nationalism, racism, religious sectarianism, and homophobia – to provide them with a unifying ideology. But so do many other parties – meaning that you cannot, for example, identify a party as “fascist” solely on account of its hostility to immigration or its promotion of “traditional family values.”  It is what fascism does, and not just what it says, that makes it dangerous.

To take immigration as an example – racist politicians of the mainstream parties whip up anti-immigrant hysteria and then propose the “solution” of restrictive immigration laws to deal with the “problem.” Fascists conduct and/or encourage a guerrilla war against immigrant communities by individual racists and gangs of racist thugs.

Fascists don’t just try to win elections – they try to build a movement that violently attacks, terrorizes, intimidates, and harasses convenient scapegoats for the failures of the capitalist system. It is out of this movement that fascism hopes to construct fighting squads to attack the organizations of the working class as a whole – such as trade unions, anti-racist organizations, socialist, and communist parties.

Fascism needs to be seen on the streets and project an image of “strength” to be able to grow.

Who it attracts

Fascism appeals primarily to those layers of society made desperate by social crisis and insecurity, and who are outside of the two major social classes: the working class and the capitalist class. It attracts the likes of small businessmen, shopkeepers and the self-employed that are fearful of an organized working class but are also jealous of the wealth and privilege of the bosses. It targets and attracts the unemployed and other marginal “underclasses” who are easily convinced of its poisonous hatred and prejudice (made legitimate by the mainstream politicians), who are looking for radical solutions to their problems, and who are eager to blame their miserable situation on the nearest available scapegoats.

Fascism also attracts those who the “official” workers’ movement has abandoned or failed to provide hope to. When it is on the rise as a movement, it can even attract a section of the working class – the least organized section of workers who are attracted by its strength and disillusioned with the weakness of the trade-union leaders and the betrayals of “socialist” governments.

It does so by presenting itself as an anti-establishment movement and likes to cloak itself in Left language.

Fascist regimes

But looking at the examples of Germany, Italy, and Spain, which all had fascist governments, we can see what a fascist regime looks like in power. The mass murder of millions of Jews, Roma, socialists, communists, trade unionists, gays, and lesbian is well known. But what is not so well talked about is the complete stamping out of all democratic rights. Every independent organization that was not state sanctioned was outlawed – especially trade unions, other political parties, and even the boy scouts.

But more than just that, the fascist regimes created a system of governmental control that was used to stop any independent organization of workers and young people. All of this was done under the guise of protecting the nation, but in reality, it was about protecting the rule of capitalism. All the major German and Italian firms made a fortune under the fascists. Workers couldn’t organize themselves to fight against their exploitation at work for fear of the secret police.

This is another distinguishing feature of fascism – it is the party of civil war against the working class both in its methods and its objectives. Whenever the ruling class has allowed fascism into power, it has been because the bosses could not fool and rule the workers any longer through the usual “democratic” machinery or repress and defeat them through one or another form of military dictatorship. Ordinary bourgeois politicians use the state against the working class.

Fascism acts independently of the state and uses a section of the masses – organized under its leadership – to penetrate, crush, divide, and atomize the working class more efficiently than any “normal” dictatorship could. So it was no surprise that when the bosses in Italy, Germany, and Spain were facing a massive social crisis and the threat of workers’ revolution was just around the corner, they turned to the fascists like Hitler and Mussolini to save capitalism for them.

What to do about it

That is why we can never give the fascist any room to grow. We need to organize all anti-racists and anti-fascists, trade unionists, and democrats into a campaign to crush them before they can grow. This means not allowing them to organize, driving them off the streets whenever they try to march, and closing down their public meetings. We must smash their every attempt to meet and organize themselves.

But ultimately getting rid of the fascists once and for all means getting rid of the racist system that gave birth to them – capitalism.