MLM Conception of Fascism (part 2)

MLM Conception of Fascism (part 2)

 Massline.org www.massline.org/Politics/ScottH/Fascism-MLM-Conception.doc

The First Principle in the MLM Conception of Fascism:

Fascism is one of the two major forms of bourgeois class rule.

      Based on our own initial presumptions, for us the first major principle concerning fascism is that it is one of the two major forms of bourgeois class rule, the other being bourgeois democracy. Thus, we view both fascism and bourgeois democracy as forms of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie over other classes, and especially over the working class (proletariat). The “democratic” elements in so-called bourgeois democracy are mostly just for the bourgeoisie itself.

      Still, we do recognize secondary differences between fascism and bourgeois democracy. And the primary secondary difference we recognize is that for the proletariat, under bourgeois democracy, there is qualitatively more freedom to express their opinions, to protest, to organize themselves, and for their organizations and political parties to operate openly without being suppressed, to publish and distribute newspapers and other literature, etc.

      We view these things as far more important than whether or not the working class is allowed to vote or run candidates in elections, or even on whether there actually are any elections! We do certainly support having elections in bourgeois society; we just don’t normally view them as being all that important as compared with rights of free speech, free assembly, and the rights to organize and demand changes in society. And we don’t view elections as normally being of great importance because it is obvious to us that they are always rigged and controlled via the dominant ruling-class mass media and “education” (i.e., indoctrination).

      This is exactly opposite to the bourgeois conception here. Their ideologists view the main issue as being whether or not regular “free” elections occur. “Free elections”, on their conception, mean ones where the parties they support are allowed to run candidates, where everyone is allowed to vote (at least in theory), where the votes are correctly counted, and there is no ballot-box stuffing and the like. They only object to the domination of the mass media by one rich clique (say the existing government) when they themselves are in another clique and are unable to buy up a major part of the media in order to dominate public opinion with their own specific views!

      We must note here that the bourgeois-democratic form of capitalist rule is never absolute or permanent. Whenever the ruling bourgeoisie perceives a serious growing danger to itself from the rising protests and organization of the proletariat and masses it will inevitably seek to control or suppress that “dangerous development” by removing (temporarily or permanently) those rights to free speech, a “free press”, to assemble, to protest, to form organizations, and so forth. This is a major part of why even bourgeois democracy is still a form of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. These democratic rights are only granted (and only to the degree) that they are not perceived by the ruling capitalist class as a serious danger to itself. Indeed, such rights are most often granted as a means of promoting the false idea that they rule with the consent and approval of the people. Granting the masses “rights”, but only when it seems to the rulers that they make no real difference, is highly useful to them as part of fooling the masses about just who is running society.

      On the other hand, the partial freedoms of speech, press, assembly and organization, etc., under bourgeois democracy are still important to us in the revolutionary movement. We know (or should know!) that these “rights” will one day be stripped away from us under new fascist laws or policies, but in the meanwhile we can make good use of them to begin to build up the revolutionary movement of the workers and masses. It would be foolish not to demand and fight for rights (even if quite limited) that help us build struggle and organization that will take our class at least a part of the way along the path toward revolution.

The Second Principle: Whether or not a regime is fascist is primarily a question of how it goes about exercising its dictatorship over other classes—and especially over the proletariat and the masses.

      For bourgeois political theorists, the primary question in determining whether a regime is fascist or not is simply whether it holds so-called “free elections”. For us revolutionary Marxists, the deciding factor is instead just how the bourgeoisie exercises its dictatorship, and most essentially, whether or not the working class is (for the time being) allowed some considerable freedoms to openly and legally speak out, protest, and create organizations and parties which champion its own collective interests, including its fundamental interest in making social revolution.

      For bourgeois political theorists, fascism mostly means the prohibition of other bourgeois parties, ending “pluralism”, and removing the right of other bourgeois individuals to express and promote ideas contrary to the ruling party. Thus the bourgeois conception of “fascism” is mostly an “intra-class” issue, and is quite narrow and limited compared to ours.

      This is a major point of difference for us from bourgeois conceptions of fascism. We concentrate on the democratic rights and freedoms of the working class; they focus almost entirely on the rights of other sections of the bourgeoisie who wish to promote alternative ideas and programs for the management of the society their class controls.

#####