MLM
Conception of Fascism (Part 3)
Massline.org
www.massline.org/Politics/ScottH/Fascism-MLM-Conception.doc
The
Third Principle: How the regime treats revolutionaries
and revolutionary parties (along with
the militant mass movements they organize and lead) is especially key in
determining whether a regime is a fascist one or not.
The Second Principle, just above, says
that whether or not a regime is fascist is primarily a question of how it goes
about exercising its dictatorship over the working class and its allies. But
the working class itself has different components, some more active and
advanced, and others less active or advanced. Thus the dictatorship of the
bourgeoisie will inevitably come down much harder on the active and advanced
segments of the working class than it will on the rest of the class. And that
is true under both forms of bourgeois dictatorship, under both fascism and bourgeois democracy.
So when we say that the deciding factor
(between fascism and bourgeois democracy) is “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”, we have
to especially look at just how the
bourgeois ruling class acts in relation to those who are more active and advanced, and who therefore are speaking out, protesting, forming
revolutionary groups, and so forth. After all, even the most vicious fascist
capitalist ruling class will normally not do much, if anything, to those
workers who themselves do nothing, do not protest or strike, do not complain
and try to organize themselves, and who have no militant or revolutionary
ideas! In that case the rulers don’t need
to do anything to these totally compliant and beaten down workers, since they
are already behaving the way the rulers want them to behave.
The real test of a bourgeois society (as
to whether it is fascist or bourgeois democratic) is in how it acts in relation
to those who are actually stirring up the masses, educating them in their own
interests, organizing them, and leading them in struggle against those rulers
and oppressors. And that means that how the state acts against revolutionaries and revolutionary parties, and the militant mass movements they
organize and lead, is a key indicator of whether it is a fascist state or not.
We could even say that for us
revolutionary Marxists the most important thing which distinguishes fascism
from bourgeois democracy is how the
bourgeois state treats revolutionaries and revolutionary mass movements, in
particular. Why revolutionaries, specifically, rather than just the working
class in general? Is this looking at things too narrowly? Not really.
Revolutionaries, and revolutionary
parties, concentrate and focus the interests and actions of the
working class and masses. That is the job of revolutionaries and their parties;
that is what they are there for. The Marxist conception of the revolutionary
party is that of an organized nucleus arising primarily from within the working
class itself, which seeks to lead the whole class and the broad masses forward
in struggle.
There is a tendency, frequently even among
revolutionaries themselves, to see revolutionaries and revolutionary parties as
separate from and outside the working class. Of course sometimes we talk that
way when we are focusing on how revolutionaries should relate to the rest of the class and the masses.
But no class party is really any good unless it is deeply a part of the class
it represents, i.e., unless it is its intellectual and leadership core. (New parties are necessarily small
and limited in their influence within their class, but they must still have
this solid determination to represent and lead their class if they are ever to
amount to anything in the future.)
If revolutionaries are mostly allowed to
openly express their ideas without being arrested, if they are allowed to have
meetings and demonstrations, form legal organizations, print and distribute
leaflets, pamphlets, newspapers and books, and are allowed to openly talk to
the rest of the masses and build mass struggles, then this is a qualitative
difference in the regime as compared to the situation where these actual
freedoms are suppressed or severely limited. If all these things are allowed
(or at least pretty much allowed) then we call the form of capitalist rule a
bourgeois democracy.
True, even in this case the democratic
aspects of society are severely curtailed; elections are still basically a
manipulated fraud; the bourgeoisie still massively dominates the press and
educational system; there is no democracy at all at the capitalist workplaces;
and so forth. But under bourgeois “democracy” we revolutionaries are allowed
(for a time, and to a limited degree) to openly organize and bring revolutionary
ideas to the masses, and that is very important to us. We revolutionaries are
able to operate in a qualitatively different way.
The
Fourth Principle: The role of terrorism.
As mentioned above, the traditional
Marxist definition of fascism is that it is the “open terrorist dictatorship”
of the bourgeoisie. But this “terrorist” aspect, while certainly true of fascism,
needs further discussion.
First of all, terrorism is an integral and
inherent part of all class rule; one
of the main goals of the ruling class is to enforce its dictatorship in part
through instilling considerable fear or terror in the subjected classes about
what will happen to them should they dare to attempt to overthrow that existing
class dictatorship.
And specifically, terrorism is an inherent
part of both of the two fundamental types of bourgeois class dictatorship, that
is, of both fascism and bourgeois democracy. Even if the
workers and masses are allowed some considerable level of freedom of speech,
organization, and the like, under bourgeois democracy, there will still be
plenty of things that it is illegal for them to do. It might be illegal for
them to assemble except in a few isolated and out-of-the-way places for
example, or to arm themselves, and it will certainly still be illegal for them
to try to defend their interests and welfare through any type of force or
violence. Should they be driven to do so, which will inevitably happen from
time to time, then the full terroristic violence of the state will come down on
their heads. Not only will the bourgeois state strive mightily to stop those directly
involved in these rebellions, it will attempt to make them an “object lesson”
for anyone else who might be tempted to rebel. In short, the goal is always to
terrorize all those whose actual class interests might lead them toward
rebellion or revolution.
So we must be very clear that it is not just the fascist form of bourgeois
rule that is terroristic, but bourgeois democracy as well.
On the other hand, fascism is typically much more terroristic than bourgeois
democracy. One of the reasons for this is simply that more things are illegal
under fascism, and the people have fewer “rights”. So when they do even such
things as peacefully assemble, peacefully protest, publish leaflets, newspapers
or other literature, or form organizations to represent their interests, these
things will be viciously and violently attacked by the state in the same way
that any form of violent protest or action would be. The scope and “necessity”
(from the viewpoint of the capitalist rulers) for state terrorism is much
broader.
Since fascist regimes regularly rely on
terroristic violence to a much greater degree than bourgeois democratic
regimes, the police and other enforcers of the bourgeois dictatorship in that
form also become even more vicious and inhuman than they already usually are
even under bourgeois democracy. Torture, for example, typically becomes much
more common and much more extreme. The massacre of “innocents” (i.e., those who
are not even protesting against exploitation and injustice) becomes more
frequent and widespread.
Nevertheless, these things also do occur
from time to time under even the most “generous” forms of bourgeois democracy.
All forms of bourgeois dictatorship involve violence directed against the
people “as is needed” to keep them under control, and also terrorism, torture,
and so forth. In this regard, between fascism and bourgeois democracy, there is
a definite difference in degree, but not really a difference in kind.
The Fifth Principle: Fascism and
bourgeois democracy are theoretical extremes or archetypes; all actual regimes
have elements of both types of bourgeois rule.
In
reality no actual regime is an example of “pure fascism” or “pure bourgeois
democracy”. All real regimes lie in between these two theoretical archetypes.
However,
the Nazi regime did come pretty close to the “pure fascism” end of the
spectrum, and Hitler and his minions tried as hard as they could to achieve
that “perfection”. According to the “Führerprinzip”[i]
(“leader principle”), for example, every single person in Germany was under the
absolute obligation to be uncritically loyal to Der Führer. However, there still were many private disagreements,
and even small circles of organized disagreements with Hitler, sometimes even
within the German army. Still, Nazi Germany did come grotesquely close to fascism
“uncorrupted” by bourgeois liberalism.
It
is much harder to find examples of regimes which even begin to approach the pure
ideals of bourgeois democracy. Some of the modern Scandinavian countries
perhaps come the closest, but they are still far from “pure”. All have many
laws to control and limit strikes and every other form of mass activity. I
think we can lay it down as a law of bourgeois society that there never has
been, and never will be, anything really closely approaching a pure form of
bourgeois democracy. (Moreover, as I mentioned above, if such a thing ever could
arise it would only be very temporary, until events “required” the rulers to
crack down on the working class in order to preserve capitalist rule.)
So all actual bourgeois regimes (with the
possible exception of Nazi Germany) are made up of a blend of bourgeois
democratic and fascist elements.
The
Sixth Principle: Regimes can be categorized as either fascist or bourgeois
democratic based on whether they more closely approximate the fascist
theoretical archetype or the bourgeois democratic theoretical archetype.
Just because there is a blend of elements
characteristic of both forms of bourgeois rule in every actual bourgeois
society, it does not follow that there is no way to characterize a particular
regime as being overall close to one or the other of the two basic types. Even
if Mussolini’s Italy was slightly
more liberal than Nazi Germany, it was still a clear case of a vicious fascist
regime.
There are also some regimes, such as
present-day capitalist China, which must be considered to be a relative “soft”
form of fascism as compared with Germany and Italy in the 1930s. There are of
course very tight laws restricting the democratic rights of the masses,
including the working class, as well as constant attempts to imbue them with
the ruling class’s ideology. But for the most part the workers and masses are
left pretty much alone to think as they wish until they actually protest
publicly or try to change society in their own interests. Nevertheless
contemporary China is a clear example
of fascism, as far as the basic Marxist conception is concerned. Revolutionaries
are arrested and imprisoned, and sometimes tortured or executed, and no
revolutionary organizations or publications are allowed. Moreover, it would still be fascism there even if the
bourgeois rulers were to allow contested elections (as they sometimes already
do on the local level), as long as the democratic rights of free speech, a free
press, assembly, protest, and organization among the workers and peasants to
advance their own interests were still prohibited.
It is true that there are bound to be some
regimes, at one time or another, whose fascist and bourgeois democratic
elements are roughly on a par. In those cases we might be hard pressed to say
whether the regime should be called a fascist country or not, and even well informed
opinions might differ. However, there
are intermediate cases between men who are bald or not bald too, but that does
not keep us from reasonably categorizing most men as one or the other.
One good thing to do in the intermediate
cases is to focus on which direction the new changes are being made. If a
country is roughly half-way between fascism and bourgeois democracy, but all
the recent changes are in the direction of more fascism, then it seems quite
reasonable to describe that country as at least undergoing “developing
fascism”. In general in politics, the direction
of development is often more important than where things actually stand at the
given moment.
The Seventh Principle: Individual
laws or actions by the bourgeois state can be categorized as fascist if they correspond to the sorts
of laws or actions typical of the fascist theoretical archetype, and whether or
not they occur in a regime which we overall categorize as fascist.
Strangely enough, there is a very common
tendency to resist calling laws which are characteristic of fascist countries
“fascist laws”, when applied to laws in a country which is overall correctly
called a bourgeois democracy. The idea seems to be that there can only be fascist laws in a totally fascist
regime! This is complete nonsense.
There are in fact many laws and government
policies characteristic of fascism in
even the most democratic bourgeois state, and it is by no means wrong to label
them as such. In fact it is very
important to label them as such, as part of the continuing struggle against
fascism.
As we said earlier, every actual bourgeois
regime has a mixture of fascist and bourgeois democratic elements. That means
that of necessity there are always
fascist laws, restrictions, policies, actions and the like on the part of the
state. And these fascist elements should be labeled for what they are, and
firmly opposed.
Are all
repressive laws properly viewed as fascist
laws even under a bourgeois democracy? This might depend to some degree on
what is meant by a “repressive law” in the first place. But if the term refers
to a law that actually restricts or prohibits what would otherwise be properly considered
some democratic rights of the working class and masses, then yes, it can and should just as well be
called a fascist law too. I see no reason to support the notion that there are
“two categories” of the suppression of democratic rights: “ordinary repression”,
and “fascist repression”. That would echo back to the old notion that something
should only be called “fascist” if it brings all the horrors of Nazi Germany to mind. If there are two distinct
categories, “repressive laws” and “fascist laws”, on just what grounds do we
decide that a particular law is one or the other? There would need to be some
principle which leads us to make the appropriate choice.
Moreover, if we arbitrarily decide to call
a law or policy a fascist one only if it
occurs in a fully fascist country, this would then force us to say that
identical laws, with identical results, are fascist in one country and merely
“repressive” in another country! Wouldn’t that amount to using a euphemism for
the law in the bourgeois democratic country? Wouldn’t it be sort of a cover-up
or implicit apology for the bourgeois democratic country? It seems much better
to simply say that if a law or policy is a fascist
one in a fascist country, then it is a fascist one anywhere else too.
The
Eighth Principle: Since fascism vs. bourgeois democracy is a matter of how the bourgeoisie rules, it is possible for it to rule in different
ways in different areas (as well as at different times), and therefore to be a
fascist regime in one area and a bourgeois democratic regime in another area.
Some people think in simplistic black and
white terms, and say that a country must either be entirely and completely
fascist, or else that it must be entirely
and completely a bourgeois democracy.
But why “must” it be? The world is
far more complex than simple conceptual schemes like that allow for.
Suppose, for example, that a state
declares martial law in a region and “suspends” all democratic rights,
including the right to assemble, free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of
organization, perhaps to vote, and so forth. That is our definition of fascism.
Martial law is one common form that fascism takes.
In particular it is relatively common for imperialist
states to administer their internal colonies and territories in a more fascist
manner than they do the rest of their domain.
[i] For a bit more on the Führerprinzip and other aspects of
bourgeois “leadership”, see “Leadership of the Masses: Bourgeois and
Proletarian”, Chapter 12 in my book The
Mass Line and the American Revolutionary Movement, on the Internet at: http://www.massline.info/mlms/mlch12.htm
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