LAST AUTUMN, the new European fascists made important electoral gains. The Lombardy League won around 10 per cent in a by-election in the northern Italian town of Brescia.
In Antwerp, the Viaams Blok ("Flemish Bloc) won a staggering 25 percent of the vote. The tar-right Austrian Peoples Party won more votes than the mainstream Tories of the Freedom Party. And Jean-Marie Le Pen's party is consistently given over 20 per cent in opinion polls.
Uramatic images of German skinheads giving the Hitler salute do not give an fufy accurate impression of the reality of modern European fascism. The serious far-right forces are very different types of organisations to the German Nazis and Mussolini's fascists in the 1920s and Classical fascism was buit in the aftermath of World War 1 in a head-on battle with the labour movement, in particular the mass Communist parties. Mussolini and Hitler fought to win the allegiance of ruined sections of the middle class. and especialy the unemployed, away from the aternative of socialse. This allected the form of the moverent.
Fascism of course is a form of extreme reacbonary capitalist dietatorship. But the fascists had the ideology and appearance of a movement, employing an antiFor tactical reasons the Nazis supported especially those against the Social Democratic goverment in Prussia. The Nazis throw of iberal democracy, utilising the methods of terror and 'storm in the streets"!
How does this compare with the new fascists? By far the biggest far-right organisations French Front National, the German Republican Party and the German Peoples Union. the Austrian Preocom rany. ine nortern lakar leagues and the Flemish Viaams Blok present themseives as parties within the framework of Jan. 18, 1992 No. 14 Iberal democracy * is true that all these parties use strong arm methods and have their own goon squads. But there is nothing remotely resembling the Nazi storm-troopers or the Italian squadistr capitalist themes are totally absent form their propaganda.
Traditional fascism constructed a 'corporato state and poitcaly expropriated the capitalist class, replacing its parliamentary rule with the For the ruling European ruling class, not least that part in Germany and italy, it had disastrous consequences.
The most successful new fascists like Le Pen are keen to curry favour with capitalist eites who have no intentions of supporting another Hitler experiment. The Front National is recruting among young technocrats and highying civil servants, something the Nazis didnt do unti they were on the verge of taking power Of course their policies are anything but Iberal: the coming to power of these parties would mean massive repression against immigrant workers, black people, women, lesbians and gay men - and of course the labour movement. And it is true that these parties are evoh. ing; at a future and more intense stage of the class struggle they could take on characteristics of the old fascist parties.
Knowing the new fascists are different from their old-style parents shoukin't lead us into comold-style fascism had different opponents and different tasks. Most importantly the Hitleritos confronted a labour movement - with a strong revolutionary component, which is not true today.
To deal with strikers and other 'disordedy elements the ruling class in Europe has constructed special riot police and repressive units. Storm-troopers are unnecessary and potentially Nowhere in Europe are the new fascists on the veroe of takino power. But they set ae al permanent pressure, dragging the political spectrum to the right. most spectacularly in France. Exposing and defeating them is an integral part of the light against racism. So, what's new? Police arrest anti-fascists in Cable Street, 1936. And their latter-day colleagues carry on the same way ralist Wor
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