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Books
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Articles
The Seventh Congress of the Communist International has brought in a new stage of the struggle of Fascism and Anti-Fascism. The period of the division of the working class forces, of the holding back of the majority of the workers from a common class front by the policies of reformism, which alone has made possible the temporary victories of fascism in a number of countries, is drawing to its close. The period of the united working class front, and of the drawing together of all the working masses in a wide anti-fascist people’s front, is now opening. The directives of the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, on the basis of the historic report of Georgi Dimitrov on Fascism and the United Front, will have played a decisive role in developing this new stage, which opens the way to the defeat of Fascism.
The present study of Fascism was originally written in the latter part of 1933 and the early months of 1934 and was published in England and America in the summer of 1934. It thus represents a study of Fascism at the height of the wave of the second Fascist offensive, based on the whole development and history of Fascism in Italy, in Germany and in Austria, on the beginnings of the Fascist offensive in France, in England and the United States, and on the beginnings of the united front of resistance to Fascism in France in 1934. An appendix brings the record up to date to the beginning of 1935.
A general theoretical study of Fascism on an international scale as a phenomenon of post-war capitalism is still lacking. In the meantime this book represents a first attempt in this direction. The main aims of the book are fourfold:
First, to analyse the essence and role of Fascism in the history of capitalism as a phenomenon of extreme capitalist decay and of the intensified general crisis of capitalism, and in particular to relate it to the general economic and political tendencies of post-war capitalism in the most recent period.
Second, to show the causes of the victory of Fascism in a number of countries, on the basis of a historical examination of the transition to Fascism in Italy, Germany and Austria, with special reference to the decisive role of Social Democracy in facilitating the victory of Fascism.
Third, to expose the actual character, ideology, programme and practice of Fascism as the open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinist and most imperialist elements of finance capital, endeavouring to mask its real aims by the most extreme and shameless social and national demagogy, and in this way seeking to build up a basis of support in the population, especially among the petty-bourgeoisie and backward workers, but in reality exercising the heaviest oppression and intensified exploitation against all the working masses and lower and middle strata in the interests of monopoly capital, and driving forward to war as its necessary outcome.
Fourth, to show the conditions of the fight against Fascism, and in particular the decisive importance of the united working class front and of the broad anti-Fascist front of the working masses for the successful fight against Fascism; and in this connection to deal with the relations of bourgeois democracy and Fascism, the question of the defence of bourgeois democratic rights and liberties against the Fascist offensive, and at the same time to show the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of the Socialist revolution as the only final alternative to Fascism and the only guarantee of final victory over Fascism.
Since the book originally appeared, many new developments have taken place, among the most important of which are the new processes taking place in the Social Democratic Parties, offering hopes of a healing of the split in the working class and of the passing over of the majority of the workers to the revolutionary camp. The sections on Social Democracy, analysing its role in the period 1918 to 1933, must therefore be read historically.
The decisive battles against Fascism, the most malignant and barbarous expression of modern capitalism in decay, are still before us. The two camps are forming with ever clearer alignment on a world scale. The menace of Fascism and the menace of war, both the expression of the present stage of capitalism in the period of the intensified general crisis and of the intensification of all antagonisms, overhang the existing world situation. The decisive battles between the forces of the old decaying society and the rising new social forces will be fought in the coming period.
August, 1935.