FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION

Appendix

Fascism and Anti-Fascism, June 1934–March 1935

A short note may be added on the development of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in the second half of 1934 and the beginning of 1935. The outstanding development in the world of Fascism during this period has been the signs of the first stages of a gathering crisis of Fascism, and as the necessary accompaniment of this, the rapid intensification of the drive to war. The outstanding development in the camp of the opposition to Fascism has been the advance of the united working class front.

The beginnings of a crisis of Fascism found their first sharp expression in the coup of June 30, 1934, in Germany, with the shooting of the principal militant Fascist leaders and the liquidation of the majority of the Storm Troops. The open concentration of power in the hands of the General Staff and direct leaders of finance-capital with Hitler as the figurehead, has become increasingly visible to all. This has not meant, however, the stabilisation of Fascism. On the contrary, it has gone hand in hand with a steady worsening of the economic situation, and an increasing drive to war-preparation and an aggressive foreign policy. This process found further expression in the desperate murder-coup fiasco against Dollfuss on July 25, in the extreme German-Italian war-tension with mobilisation of troops, in the murder-coup against Barthou and King Alexander at Marseilles in October, in the Italian Fascist offensive against Ethiopia, and in the German Fascist proclamation of conscription in March 1935.

The war-significance of Fascism, as its inner situation worsens, more and more openly dominates the European situation. The armaments race of all the imperialist Powers develops at an accelerating pace. Diplomatic negotiations and preparations of alliances for future war are in full swing. All this reflects the increasingly menacing situation of capitalism moving to war as the only path forward from its present dilemmas. Fascism is more and more revealed as an integral part of the preparations for war.

The rising mass opposition to Fascism and to the advance to war, developing below the surface in the Fascist countries, has been shown most powerfully in the recent period in the countries not yet conquered by Fascism. It has shown itself in the setback to the Fascist offensive in France after the February assault, through the strength of the united front, and in the fall of the Doumergue Government in November, and also in the setback to Mosley in Britain, as shown by Olympia in June and Hyde Park on September 9, 1934, as well as by the nominal dissociation of Rothermere from Mosley.

Above all, this period has seen the signal strength of the revolutionary armed struggle of the Spanish workers against the Fascist offensive.

From all this development it is clear that, while it would be a mistake to exaggerate the significance of particular events and fluctuations in a long-drawn and profound world-conflict, there has undoubtedly been during this period an increase in the inner contradictions and difficulties of Fascism and an awakening and gathering of the mass forces of resistance to Fascism. At the same time the forms of direct Fascism have gone forward in a number of smaller states, and the process of fascisation has advanced in varying degree in all the major imperialist states. With the development of the war situation the battle is moving to a new intensity.

The decisive turning-point which heralded the opening of this new phase of gathering inner contradictions of Fascism was constituted by the events of June 30 in Germany, which marked a transformation of international significance. The leaders of the fighting forces of German Fascism, the principal leaders of the Storm Troops, within fifteen months of the accession of Fascism to power had to be shot down by the leader of German Fascism, Hitler, as the representative and agent of the demands of German Finance-Capital and of its direct instrument, the Reichswehr. The majority of the Storm Troops had to be liquidated. We see here the classic demonstration of the process of Fascism after power, the alienation and disillusionment of the petit-bourgeois and semi-proletarian elements which were made the tools and dupes of Finance-Capital and now find all their aspirations thwarted with the denial of “the second revolution,” the consequent narrowing of the social basis of the Fascist regime, and the ever more open demonstration of its real character as the terrorist dictatorship of Finance-Capital. While a warning must again be uttered against exaggerating the tempo of development and rate of growth of mass opposition, it is evident that a single chain unites the phases of the factory elections in the spring of 1934, with their unfavourable results for the Nazis, the intensive campaign against the “critics and carpers,” the alleged “revolt” and its bloody suppression on June 30, and the results of the plebiscite in August, when (after the declaration of Goebbels on the eve of the poll that the loss of a single vote in comparison with the previous November would be a disaster) the direct No vote rose from 2.1 millions in November, 1933, to 4.3 millions in August, 1934, and reached an average of 20 per cent, in the main industrial towns. Parallel with this process has gone forward the steadily worsening economic situation, the mounting adverse trade balance in place of the previous exports surplus, the sharp cutting down of imports of essential 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 they bring us to our knees,” “if the worst comes to the worst,” etc.) The whole concentration of Nazi policy becomes more and more openly directed to the most intensive preparation of war as the sole path forward.

On the other side, the examples of Germany and Austria have led to a widespread awakening of working class and general popular opposition to Fascism in all countries; and this has led to a rapid advance of the united working class front, and, in particular, the united front of the Socialist and Communist Parties, against the fascist and war menace in a number of leading countries. This extending development of the united working class front is the most important and the most hopeful development of 1934. In this advance the French working class has led the way. The united front pact of the French Socialist Party and of the French Communist Party was finally signed on July 27, 1934; and the powerful influence of this common front is stimulating and mobilising the entire working class, and spreading confidence and fighting spirit, has been the 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, with the combined demand of all the bourgeois forces for anti-democratic constitutional changes, and with the Fascist groupings preparing renewed offensives, heavy tests are now in front for the fighting strength of the united working class in France.

At the same time in Austria the lessons of the February battles have produced a far-reaching transformation in the working class. The illegal Communist Party has advanced to the position of a mass party with the absorption of the left Social Democratic and Schutzbund elements, many organisations in leading working-class districts coming over en bloc.

The Revolutionary Socialist Committees, composed of former Social Democratic elements and later setting up the United Socialist Party, have maintained the old forms and contact with the emigrant leadership and with the Second International but have proclaimed the aim of the dictatorship of the proletariat and denounced the old “democratic and reformist illusions” (“The Fascist dictatorship in Austria has dispelled all democratic and reformist illusions among the workers”—letter of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Socialists of Vienna to Bauer and to the Second International on May 20, 1934). In July a united front was established by the Communist Party, the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Socialists of Austria, and the Committee of Action of the Schutzbund, with a joint manifesto for “the revolutionary dictatorship of the working class” and for “a united revolutionary class party of the Austrian proletariat.”

The united front of the Socialist and Communist Parties was also established in Italy, in the Saar and (in September) in Spain. Among the working class youth organisations in all countries the 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, actively opposed the united front and even developed extended disciplinary measures to prevent its realisation. In October, 1934, the Communist International approached the Second International for common action in support of the Spanish workers. A meeting took place between the representatives of the two Internationals in October. In November, however, the Executive of the Second International at Paris, after a four-days’ debate, by a narrow majority rejected the proposal of the united front and broke oS negotiations. Nevertheless, the strength of the united front movement in a number of leading countries was such that the ban of the Second International on the united front for its separate sections had to be lifted; and a minority declaration of seven parties was issued in support of the united front.

Thus alongside the gathering crisis of Fascism and of capitalist politics has developed a gathering crisis of Social Democracy and of the Second International. While the British Labour Party, the strongest section of the Second International, had at its Southport Conference in October 1934 passed draconian decisions against any form of united front or even “loose association” with Communism, and expressed strong disapproval of the international united front negotiations, the French Socialist Party was already a partner in a united front with the Communist Party, and the Spanish Socialist Party, equally a section of the Second International, had not only reached a united front with the Communist Party, but was taking direct part in armed civil war under the slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

This extreme and extending division and disparateness of policies among the parties of the Second International is a symptom of the profound process of transformation going forward among the Social Democratic workers under the influence of the object-lesson of Fascism. The further development of this situation in the international working-class movement is of critical importance.

The Spanish revolutionary mass struggle, reaching in October 1934, to the stage of open armed struggle against the advancing Fascist offensive of the combined reactionary clerical-militarist-landlord-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 the battles 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 of organisation and leadership for final victory. The formation of the Soviet regime in Asturias at the outset of the struggle, and the prolonged and tenacious resistance against all the forces of the Spanish Government, reaches a point of revolutionary struggle unequalled in Western Europe since the days of the Hungarian and Bavarian Soviet Republics in 1919. The lesson endeavoured to be drawn by the reformists, of the inevitable failure of armed struggle against the military resources of modern governments, is the exact opposite of the reality; for the prolonged resistance of the workers of Asturias, facing alone the entire forces of the Spanish Government and 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 equal tenacity and leadership, the forces of the Government would have been powerless to cope with the situation, and a Soviet Spain would have been already won. The Spanish revolutionary struggle at the end of 1934, following on Vienna at the beginning, is the signal of the future in Europe.

But the heaviest struggles are still in front. In the face of the present international situation of the increasing difficulties, desperation and discrediting of Fascism, the weakening of its mass basis in the countries where it has won power, and the gathering of mass forces of resistance in the countries where it has not yet won power, a new illusion has begun to be widely spread in Liberal and Social Democratic circles—the illusion of the retreat of Fascism. It is said that Fascism has passed its zenith, is on the downgrade, that the heaviest danger of Fascism is passing. The extreme pessimistic defeatism of a year and a half ago is giving place to a no less baseless and illusory optimistic complacency. A year ago the prophecies were all of an “epoch of Fascism” lasting for decades. To-day a Citrine can declare that “dictatorship in every land has passed its peak; there was an appearance of stability about the regime in Germany, but he was satisfied that even there a change would gradually but surely come, and that ultimately the democratic rights of the people would assert themselves” (speech to the International Clothing Workers’ Conference, August, 1934).

Underlying this outlook of a section of the Social Democratic leadership is undoubtedly the belief that Fascism, faced with increasing internal difficulties and mass discontent, may yet be compelled to turn to Social Democracy for assistance, and that a renewed sphere of permitted activity may open out for the Social Democratic and trade union leadership within Fascism (as was already hoped for and sought by German Social Democracy in the initial period of the Hitler regime by the May 17 vote for Hitler and the trade union bureaucracy’s courting of the Nazis). Nor are signs of this possibility lacking. The well-informed Manchester Guardian special correspondent (always in close touch with Social Democratic circles) reported in August that Hitler, in view of the failure of the Labour Front and the Nazi factory cells to win the support of the workers, had approached former Social Democratic leaders with a view to the formation of “non-political trade unions”; the proposal had been referred to the Executive at Prague, and “Wels was in favour of further negotiations” (the subsequent formal denial issued by Wels, to the effect that he had not met any representative of Hitler—the intermediary was in fact a Social Democrat—left the essence of the Manchester Guardian report unrefuted). Similarly may be noted Bauer’s suggestion in the August Kampf that the Schuschnigg Clerico-Fascist Government might extend its basis to the left by “an understanding with the working class.” In Italy during the same period Mussolini made his approach to the former Socialist leaders, Caldara and Schiavi, for their collaboration and even for the issue of a permitted “Socialist” journal in Milan. These are only signs so far; but the possibility is not excluded that Fascism in difficulties may turn to the collaboration of a section of the Social Democratic and old trade union leadership (as was done by De Rivera in Spain, by Pilsudski in Poland, by Bulgarian Fascism, etc.).

These hopes of a section of the old Social Democratic leadership, however, bear no relation to the real process of transformation taking place in the main body of the Social Democratic workers and rapid advance to militant struggle and working class unity.

No illusion could be more dangerous than the illusion that Fascism can be in retreat without a decisive struggle, or that the menace of Fascism can ever be finally overcome save by the working-class revolution and the establishment of the working-class dictatorship. It is equally necessary to fight the illusion of the inevitability of Fascism, or of the inevitable long-term power of Fascism in the countries where it has won power, as it is necessary to fight the illusion that a temporary fluctuation can mean the retreat and ultimate disappearance of Fascism, or disappearance of the menace of Fascism in the countries where it has not yet conquered, without a decisive revolutionary struggle. On the contrary, the greater the difficulties of Fascism, the more desperate and ruthless will be its fight for existence. The massing of the working-class united front does not yet mean the defeat of Fascism; it means only the massing of the forces for the struggle against Fascism and for the final revoutionary struggle.

In particular, the drive to war, in close unity with the drive to Fascist forms of organisation and preparation of war within each country, becomes the more and more dominant character of the present stage.

The supreme task now is to build up the widest United Front against Fascism and War. Widespread anti-Fascist and anti-war feeling exists on all sides. But the essential need is organisation. The resistance to the united front must be overcome. No separate and sectional interests can be allowed to stand in the way of this. The all-inclusive united working-class front, drawing in its wake the mass of the petit-bourgeois and unorganised elements, and on this basis establishing a broad anti-fascist popular front, requires to be built up in every country. Only the widest common front can defeat Fascism. And for the victory of the struggle it is essential to understand the true character of the issues, the final necessity of the revolutionary alternative, which can alone defeat Fascism and war by the victory of the socialist revolution.