lived in Germany, Trotsky wrote:
"The bonfires which burn the impious literature of Marxism light up brilliantly the class nature of National While the Nazis acted as a party and not as a state power, they did not quite find an approach to the working class.
'On the other side, the big bourgeoisie, even those who supported Hitler with money. did not consider his party theirs. The national renaissance' leanea wholly the middle classes, the most backward part of the nalion, the heavy ballast of his into oneness through its common hostility to the proletariat. What must be done in order to improve things?
First of all, throttle those who are underneath. Impotent before big capital, the petty bourgeoisie hopes in the future to regain its through workers."
Today we are confronted with the so-called 'new world have made when analysing this situation is to put part (or all) of the blame for the rise of fascism on the collapse of Stalinism.
This is a fundamental mistake. In Eastern Europe it has been the failure of Stalinist leaderships - themselves often anti-semitic and nationalisticto deal national chauvinism that has left an ideological vacuum in which the far right have been able to make gains.
The core of the problem is cause of the exceptional posi tion of the efforts rapidly to incorporate the former East Germany into the capitalist Today's crisis of capitalism does similarities with aspects of the 50 million jobless The fact that 50 million people are unemployed across Europe means there is going to be a reservoir of support into which the fascists can tap To make matters worse, the crisis of leadership in the workers' movement is any. thing but reso ved. Sociall democrats are implementing swingeing austerity packages in France and Spain, the CPs are decomposing in Italy and France and the far left has relatively little social weight in any country.
what circumstances would drive today's bourgeoisie to turn to fasdsm? Germany in the 1930s suggests
play any mass support today or a Le Pen type formation, nor has it opted for the reac tionary parochialism of the Northern Leagues in Italy.
The two main fascist grouptions available to the far right in today's Europe. On the one side there is the increasingly predominant BNP with overt message of race war, on dling numbers of the NF.
The NF, which grew in the late 1970s, has never recovered from being sidelines by Thatcher's ascension to power and the playing of the race card when she talked of being 'swamped' by alien cultures.
The choice has become increasingly one between the 'open' fascist party and entryism into the Tory party and its fringe groups Further splits, caused not least because there were a served further to disorientate Today however it is the BNP that is becoming close to hegemonic. With party leader Tyndall and another leader Edmonds having a track record of convictions for possessing of fensive weapons there has been a move by some to define the as a 'criminal conspiracy cules. Firsty it fails t difficulties. t fails t srasp ine neme or what tas cism really is, by simply rely. 1us on appeal! riminals to be brought to bool - through reliance upon the repressive police apparatus of the capitalist state.
This ignores the fact that the capitalists are quite content to use the fascists as and when they need to against the working class.
The second difficulty flows from the first in that calls for right has led far more often to ganisations of the left and the working class. his was certainly the experience of the left in the USA.
Today again we are seeing the police in Germany trying to blame 'extremists' of both This is precisely the process American socialist Farrell Dobbs observed when he warned:, "The more intense the struggle becomes, the more they (the capitalists) will be inclined to use their sceming neutrality in the class struggle for less and less attention to what the fascists are doing. The government will let them do damn please, while more and more using its authority to curb the rights of the left. Thus, even If the covernment does someting in passing to curb the rights of the lascists, dr that nappens in the last analysis is that the rulers he anti-capitalist forces. They will . piously i moving in a perfectly fair.
the extremists' on both sides of the controversy."
Features To treat fascism as simply a gaggle of criminals is also a political error:
It is precisely because of its overt racism, its oppressive attitude to its homophobia, and because its eventual aim is to smash up the workers' movement, that a wide range of fascism's potential victims can and must be mobilised to defeat it.
Smashed
This can only be done on the basis of exposing the political programme of fascism, ac nowledging that they are a political movement, but one vhich which must be confronted and smashed both ideologically and physically.
The fundamental nature of fascism has changed not one iota from Hitler's 1930s National Socialism.
Now British fascism is also makis a concentea euron toat through music/youth culture under the broad umbrella of Offering an Identity to disure defined by rampant racism is a tactic brought the far right a number North-cast Organiser claimed that even support for a football team was an ideal seed for the far right to work on, since from this flowed support of the from there opposition to those who were not English could happen that way, and there are important initiatives at a number of football clubs to oppose The current economic situation opens up some areas which the British fascists have target. while Hitler's Nazis built up their strength in numbers by concentrating initially on the countryside, today certain areas of particular neglect, such as East London, have become a focus for fascist ac so too have areas such as the East Midlands, where if the miners' struggle were to be defcated whole communities would be unemployed.
The BNP can see the potential - but the left has yet (again) to determine upon a united response between the anti-fasists only gives further breathng space for the far righ fascists have set up Combat 18, with a specific brief to monitor and attack the lett. ine creaton of this organisation means that no anti-fascist strategy will be The left cannot mobilise and win the working class and its allies against fascist violence just by making appeals against Nazism. We must put forward an alternative, radical set of demands, beginning with organised self-defence of the working class against the fascist thugs ...
No. 37 able to register any success whout beins prepared to take up the issue of physical confrontation One of the dangers of today's i ya period, quite unlike the s, is the degree to which people look towards purely peaceful, even pacifist, answers to resolve the probdevelops to crisis point, the left working class and its allies against fascist violence just by making appeals Nazism. We must put forward an alternative, radical set of demands, beginning with organised self-defence of the working class and its communities and minorities against the fascist thugs, but also taking on the fight around unemployment, housing, and the ending of the conditions on which fascism feeds.
International The international character the 1930s - and today - should not be forgotten. Once again we need co-ordinated international action to beat back the fascist threat.
Fascism can be defeated, not only in Britain but across Europe. Our task as socialists is to unite and mobilise the labour movement and the op pressed against the racism of the state and the far right, and to fight to develop a credible Above all one lesson has to be learned from the rise of Hitler. Division breeds defeat.
Whether we are dealing with Le Pen, the NF or the BNP, the fascists are the enemy, and not those in other groups or currents who simply have a different line in fighting fascism.
In this context we must the tamous ing that "Those who do not learn the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them"
February 13, 1993 Page 11