The Menace of Fascism¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter presents a Marxist analysis of fascism as an inevitable product of capitalism in crisis, tracing its development from the Italian and German experiences to the contemporary British context. The core argument holds that fascism is not an aberration but a deliberate instrument of the ruling class, deployed when the working class threatens capitalist domination and the middle class is ruined by economic collapse.
The evidence from Italy is devastating. Between 1919 and 1922, industrialists and landowners financed Mussolini's fascist bands to crush workers' and peasants' organisations. The capitalist state was complicit throughout: police recruited for fascists, courts acquitted fascist criminals, and the army supplied munitions while directing demobilised officers to lead the Blackshirts. The socialist and union leadership fatally refused armed resistance, signing a peace pact with Mussolini in August 1921 and pleading for state protection that never came. Only where organised military-style resistance occurred, as in Parma in August 1922, did workers temporarily defeat fascist attacks. Despite holding merely 35 of 600 parliamentary seats, Mussolini was handed power by the king at the demand of banking and industrial federations. The consequences were immediate: unions crushed, strikes abolished, wages driven down, meat consumption falling from 22kg per person annually in 1928 to 18kg in 1932, while unemployment doubled.
The German catastrophe followed a similar pattern. After the 1918 revolution, Social Democrats conspired with the General Staff to destroy the workers' movement, murdering Luxemburg and Liebknecht. The revolutionary crisis of 1923 was bungled by Stalin's catastrophic advice to wait for fascists to attack first. After the 1929 slump, big industrialists poured funds into the Nazi Party, culminating in Hitler being handed power at banker Schroder's home. Trotsky's call for a united front between Communists and Social Democrats was denounced by Stalinists as counter-revolutionary; instead, the Communist International labelled Social Democrats 'social fascists' and even advocated uniting with fascists against them. The German labour movement was surrendered without a shot. On election night, Reichsbanner leaders asked for the signal for insurrection but were told to be calm.
The chapter launches a fierce polemic against both reformist and Stalinist leadership. After 1936, the Communist Party abandoned militant counter-action, degenerating into an instrument of Russian foreign policy, switching to popular-frontism and class-collaboration with 'good' capitalists. The Labour government treats the fascist revival with complacency, affording police protection to Mosley while hamstringing anti-fascists. The only decisive solution, the chapter concludes, is the destruction of the capitalist system itself.