FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

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FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTIONA Study of the economics and Politics of theExtreme Stages of Capitalism in Decayby R. PALME DUTTProletarian PublishersEdition 1974Second Printing 1976Third Printing 1978Proletarian PublishersP.O. Box 3566Chicago IL 60654

“We say to the workers: ‘You will have to go through fifteen, twenty, fifty years of civil warsand international wars, not only in order to change existing conditions, but also in order tochange yourselves and fit yourselves for the exercise of political power.”‘MARX (On the Communist Trial at Cologne, 1851).“The bourgeoisie sees in Bolshevism only one side. insurrection, violence, terror; itendeavours, therefore, to prepare itself especially for resistance and opposition in that directionalone. It is possible that in single cases, in single countries, for more or less short periods, theywill succeed. We must reckon with such a possibility, and there is absolutely nothing dreadful tous in the fact that the bourgeoisie might succeed in this. Communism ‘springs up’ frompositively all sides of social life, its sprouts are everywhere, without exception-the ‘contagion’(to use the favourite and ‘pleasantest’ comparison of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois police)has very thoroughly penetrated into the organism and has totally impregnated it. If one of the‘vents’ were to be stopped up with special care, ‘contagion’ would find another, sometimes mostunexpected. Life will assert itself. Let the bourgeoisie rave, let it work itself into a frenzy,commit stupidities, take vengeance in advance on the Bolsheviks, and endeavour to exterminatein India, Hungary, Germany, etc., more hundreds, thousands, and hundreds of thousands of theBolsheviks of yesterday or those of to-morrow. Acting thus, the bourgeoisie acts as did allclasses condemned to death by history. The Communists must know that the future at any rate istheirs; therefore we can and must unite the intensest passion in the great revolutionary strugglewith the coolest and soberest calculations of the mad ravings of the bourgeoisie. In all casesand in all countries Communism grows; its roots are so deep that persecution neither weakens,nor debilitates, but rather strengthens it,”LENIN (“Left-Wing” Communism, 1921),

CONTENTSPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION .vINTRODUCTION .xI. TECHNIQUE AND REVOLUTION .11. The Growth of the Productive Forces .22. The Conflict of the Productive Forces Against Existing Society .63. Productivity and Unemployment .104. The Alternative-Social Revolution or Destruction .16II. THE END OF STABILISATION .171. The Last Attempt to Restore Pre-War Capitalism .172. The Collapse of the Illusions of the Stabilisation Period .213. After the Collapse .24III. THE NEW ECONOMICS AND POLITICS .281. The Destruction of the Productive Forces .282. The Revolt Against the Machine .323. The Revolt Against Science .364. The Revolt Against “Democracy” and Parliament .395. “National Self –Sufficiency .416. War as the Final “Solution” .45IV. WHAT IS FASCISM? .481. The Class-Content of Fascism .492. Middle-Class Revolution or Dictatorship of Finance-Capital? .513. The Middle Class and the Proletariat .554. The Definition of Fascism .58V. HOW FASCISM CAME IN ITALY .611. The Priority of Italian Fascism .612. Socialism in Italy .623. Was Revolution Possible in Italy? .644. The Growth and Victory of Fascism .66VI. How FASCISM CAME IN GERMANY .711. The Strangling of the 1918 Revolution .712. The Growth of National Socialism .763. The Crucial Question of the United Front .784. The Causes of the Victory of Fascism .80VII. HOW FASCISM CAME IN AUSTRIA .871. The Significance of the Austrian Experience .872. The Betrayal of the Central-European Revolution .893. The Fascist Dictatorship and the February Rising .92

VIII. SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND FASCISM .981. The Capitalist View of Social Democracy and Fascism .982. The Germs of Fascism in Social Democracy.1023. How Social Democracy Assists Fascism to Power.1074. The Question of the Split in the Working Class .1095. The Adaptation of Social Democracy to Fascism.112IX. THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF FASCISM .1161. Is There a “Theory” of Fascism? .1162. Demagogy as a Science .1203. Capitalism, Socialism and the Corporate State .1264. The Outcome of Fascism in the Economic Sphere .1355. Fascism and War .1396. Fascism and the Women’s Question .143X. THE ESSENCE OF FASCISM-THE ORGANISATION OF SOCIAL DECAY.147XI. TENDENCIES TO FASCISM IN WESTERN EUROPE AND AMERICA .1531. The Basis for Fascism in Britain, the United States and France .1542. The Significance of the National Government in Britain .1593. The Roosevelt Emergency Regime .1624. The February Days and the National Concentration Government in France.1655. The Beginnings of Fascist Movements .170XII. FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION .1781. The Dialectics of Fascism and Revolution .1782. The Fight Against Fascism .181INDEX .190

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITIONThe issue of a second edition of this book provides the opportunity for a short note on thedevelopment of Fascism and Anti- Fascism in the six months since May 1934.The outstanding development in the world of Fascism during this period has been the signsof the first stages of a gathering crisis of Fascism-most sharply expressed in the events of June30 in Germany, but also reflected in the desperate murder-coup fiasco against Dollfuss on July25, in the extreme German-Italian war-tension, and in the Arpinati episode in Italy, and stillfurther reflected (in the countries not yet conquered by Fascism) in the setback to the Fascistadvance in France during the months immediately succeeding the February offensive, in thesetback to Mosley in Britain as shown by Olympia and Hyde Park and by the formaldisassociation of Rothermere from Mosley, and in the strength of the Spanish workers’ resistanceto Fascism. While it would be a mistake to exaggerate the significance of particular events andfluctuations in a long-drawn and profound world-conflict, it is evident that there has been duringthis period an increase in the inner contradictions and difficulties of Fascism and an awakeningand gathering of the mass forces of resistance to Fascism.The central point of this process for Fascism has been the events of June 30 in Germany,which marked a turning point of international significance. The leaders of the fighting forces ofGerman Fascism, the principal leaders of the Storm Troops, within fifteen months of theaccession of Fascism to power had to be shot down by the leader of German Fascism, Hitler, asthe representative and agent of the demands of German Finance-Capital and of its directinstrument, the Reichswehr. The majority of the Storm Troops had to be liquidated. We see herethe classic demonstration of the process of Fascism after power, the alienation anddisillusionment of the petit-bourgeois and semi-proletarian elements which were made the toolsand dupes of Finance-Capital and now find all their aspirations thwarted with the denial of “thesecond revolution,” the consequent narrowing of the social basis of the Fascist regime, and theever more open demonstration of its real character as the terrorist dictatorship of FinanceCapital. While a warning must again be uttered against exaggerating the tempo of developmentand rate of growth of mass opposition, it is evident that a single chain unites the phases of thefactory elections in the spring of 1934, with their unfavourable results for the Nazis, the intensivecampaign against the “critics and carpers,” the alleged “revolt” and its bloody suppression onJune 3o, and the results of the plebiscite in August, when (after the declaration of Goebbels onthe eve of the poll that the loss of a single vote in comparison with the previous November wouldbe a disaster) the direct No vote rose from 2.1 millions in November, 1933, to 4.3 millions inAugust, 1934, and reached an average of 20 per cent. in the main industrial towns. Parallel withthis process has gone forward the steadily worsening economic situation, the mounting adversetrade balance in place of the previous exports surplus, the sharp cutting down of imports ofessential raw materials, and tightening Organisation on a war basis of rationing and hardship(reflected in the tone of Hitler’s Buckerberg speech of September 30, 1934: “Never will theybring us to our knees,” “if the worst comes to the worst” etc. The whole concentration of Nazipolicy becomes more and more openly directed to the most intensive preparation of war as thesole path forward.On the other side, the examples of Germany and Austria have led to a widespread awakeningof working class and general popular opposition to Fascism in all countries; and this has led to arapid advance of the united working class front, and, in particular, the united front of theSocialist and Communist Parties, against the fascist and war menace in a number of leadingv

countries. This extending development of the united working class front is the most importantand the most hopeful development of 1934. In this advance the French working class has led theway. The united front pact of the French Socialist Party and of the French Communist Party wasfinally signed on July 27, 1934; and the powerful influence of this common front is stimulatingand mobilising the entire working class, and spreading confidence and fighting spirit, has beenthe decisive factor in delaying the planned rapid offensive of Fascism in France during 1934.With the fall of the Doumergue-Tardieu Cabinet of National Concentration in November, withthe combined demand of all the bourgeois forces for anti-democratic constitutional changes, andwith the Fascist groupings preparing renewed offensives, heavy tests are now in front for thefighting strength of the united working class in France.At the same time in Austria the lessons of the February battles have produced a far-reachingtransformation in the working class. The illegal Communist Party has advanced to the position ofa mass party with the absorption of the left Social Democratic and Schutzbund elements, manyorganisations in leading working-class districts coming over en bloc.The Revolutionary Socialist Committees, composed of former Social Democratic elementsand later setting up the United Socialist Party, have maintained the old forms and contact withthe emigrant leadership and with the Second International but have proclaimed the aim of thedictatorship of the proletariat and denounced the old “democratic and reformist illusions” (“TheFascist dictatorship in Austria has dispelled all democratic and reformist illusions among theworkers” – letter of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Socialists of Vienna to Bauerand to the Second International on May 20, 1934). In July a united front was established by theCommunist Party, the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Socialists of Austria, and theCommittee of Action of the Schutzbund, with a joint manifesto for “the revolutionarydictatorship of the working class” and for “a united revolutionary class party of the Austrianproletariat.”The united front of the Socialist and Communist Parties was also established in Italy, in theSaar and (in September) in Spain. Among the working class youth organisations in all countriesthe advance of the united front was even more marked.On the other hand, the British Labour Party and a number of other Social Democratic Parties,notably the Scandinavian, the Dutch, the Belgian, the Swiss and the Czecho-Slovak, activelyopposed the united front and even developed extended disciplinary measures to prevent itsrealisation. In October, 1934, the Communist International approached the Second Internationalfor common action in support of the Spanish workers. A meeting took place, at which therepresentatives of the Second International, Vandervelde and Adler, while declaring themselvesunable to agree to any immediate common action or to commit their constituent parties, agreed tocontinue the negotiations with a view to reaching a basis of common action analogous to that inFrance. The British Labour Party, on the other hand, which is the largest section of the SecondInternational, and which had just at its Southport Conference passed draconian decisions againstany form of united front or even “loose association” with Communism, expressed strongdisapproval of any negotiations taking place. At the same time the Spanish Socialist Party,equally a section of the Second International, had not only reached a united front with theCommunist Party, but was taking direct part in armed civil war under the slogan of thedictatorship of the proletariat.This extreme and extending division and disparateness of policies among the parties of theSecond International is a symptom of the profound process of transformation going forwardamong the Social Democratic workers under the influence of the object-lesson of Fascism. Thevi

further development of this situation in the international working-class movement is of criticalimportance.The Spanish revolutionary mass struggle, reaching in October 1934, to the stage of open civilwar against the advancing Fascist offensive of the combined reactionary clerical-militaristlandlord-bourgeois forces, and in the province of Asturias reaching to the formation of Soviets,has immeasurably raised the whole international working-class movement, even more than thebattles of Vienna in February. It has revealed a far higher degree of mass-participation and unity,and of consciousness of revolutionary aim, even though not yet reaching the conditions ofOrganisation and leadership for final victory. The formation of the Soviet regime in Asturias atthe outset of the struggle, and the prolonged and tenacious resistance against all the forces of theSpanish Government, reaches a point of revolutionary struggle unequalled in Western Europesince the days of the Hungarian and Bavarian Soviet Republics in 1919. The lesson endeavouredto be drawn by the reformists, of the inevitable failure of armed struggle against the militaryresources of modern governments, is the exact opposite of the reality; for the prolongedresistance of the workers of Asturias, facing alone the entire forces of the Spanish Governmentand its African levies, has abundantly shown that, if the workers of the other principal regions,and especially Catalonia, Andalusia and Madrid, had been fighting at the same time, with equaltenacity and leadership, the forces of the Government would have been powerless to cope withthe situation, and a Soviet Spain would have been already won. The Spanish revolutionarystruggle at the end of 1934, following on Vienna at the beginning, is the signal of the future inEurope.But the heaviest struggles are still in front. In the face of the present international situation ofthe increasing difficulties, desperation and discrediting of Fascism, the weakening of its massbasis in the countries where it has won power, and the gathering of mass forces of resistance inthe countries where it has not yet won power, a new illusion has begun to be w

development of Fascism and Anti- Fascism in the six months since May 1934. The outstanding development in the world of Fascism during this period has been the signs of the first stages of a gathering crisis of Fasc

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