On the present mode of Fascism

Sumit Ghosh

[First published in 'Colloquial Haze' in Bengali (2020). The present transcript is an English translation with several changes and new incorporations.]  

In 1924, Russian leader Stalin wrote an article on the political nature of fascism. In ‘Concerning the International Situation’, he stated, “Firstly, it is not true that fascism is the only fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie. Fascism is not only a military-technical category. Fascism is the bourgeoisie’s fighting organisation that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism. There is no ground for assuming that the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of Social-Democracy. There is just as little ground for thinking that Social-Democracy can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie. These organisations do not negate, but supplement each other. They are not antipodes, they are twins. Fascism is an informal political bloc of these two chief organisations; a bloc, which arose in the circumstances of the post-war crisis of imperialism, and which is intended for combating the proletarian revolution. The bourgeoisie cannot retain power without such a bloc. It would therefore be a mistake to think that “pacifism” signifies the liquidation of fascism. In the present situation, “pacifism” is the strengthening of fascism with its moderate, Social-Democratic wing pushed into the forefront”. This article reveals what should be the outlook of the revolutionary camp during the pre-fascist era i.e., the united struggle of the communists and leftists against all the populists and fascists.

Georgei Dmitrov's thesis “The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism”, delivered at the 7^th World Congress of the Communist International in 1935, revealed the class basis and economic nature of fascism. The steps taken on the basis of this thesis helped the Soviet Red Army to win against the Nazis. This essay has so far been the most successful in uncovering the economic basis of fascism.

Dmitrov was a Bulgarian communist revolutionary. He was arrested in Berlin due to alleged proximity with a communist accused of the Reichstag Fire. During the Leipzig Trial, Dmitrov famously refused legal assistance and defended himself against Nazi accusers like Hermann Goring. He used the trial as a golden opportunity to defend communism. He was acquitted and expelled to the Soviet Union after the USSR granted him Soviet citizenship. He became the head of the Comintern in 1934 and was elected its General Secretary in 1935.

Dmitrov's definition of fascism is: '... the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital'. He went on to reveal the origins of fascism in Italy and Germany by stating: 'With the development of the very deep economic crisis, with the general crisis of capitalism becoming sharply accentuated and the mass of working people becoming revolutionized, fascism has embarked upon a wide offensive'.

In this discussion of fascism, it is first necessary to clarify what is meant by 'imperialism' from the Leninist perspective. In Leninist view, 'imperialism' refers to the era of monopoly at a higher stage of capitalist society; not colonialism from the era of the former worldwide European rule.

Capitalism refers to the era of factory-based production. Evolving from the pre-capitalist tool system and the manufacturing system of Europe in the 15th-16th centuries, manual labor became important in the era of factory production of the capitalist system. Free trade first appeared on the path of progress of capitalism, then the cartel were formed from which they evolved into monopoly and reached the highest level in the imperialist stage. The "severe economic crisis" that Dmitrov spoke of erupted in the contemporary United States during the Great Depression of 1929. It is currently being experienced through the 2000 dot com (.com) crisis, the 2008 real estate crisis, the 2016 Chinese stock market crisis and the 2020 corporate debt crisis. These crises are only a hint of a qualitative change in the current financial system.

The character of this system of finance is the lack of ability of the entire working class to purchase the entire product, in totality, which is manifested as 'overproduction' on the part of the seller. This over-production has been termed as the 'general crisis of capitalism'. The Keynsian era was meant to treat this overproduction epidemic. A specific stage of evolution of the capitalist system of production was characterized by the production of more durable and less expensive goods to overcome overproduction. This was the Keynsian model. But after a certain period in history, this system also began to show its failures since overproduction is an inherent characteristic of capitalism. Presently, capitalism has reached the present age of repetitively producing more expensive and less durable goods as a new way to prevent overproduction. The increase in the wages of a section of the working people as a result of the ongoing leftist movements has made them the new ‘consumers’ of the expensive commodities of the current neoliberal era.

Today, speculation is playing a major role in leaving the entire production process in the hands of the future. The features of this neo-liberal era are government austerity, privatization and deregulation, that is to say, the social order of the rich. Neo-liberalism entered our country during the tenure of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and the present Modi government is only a part of that same financial system. The difference between the present Modi government and the previous Vajpayee or UPA government is that in the context of the crisis arising from the unbridled economic policies of the previous governments, the present government is implementing the same policies more ruthlessly to catalyze the profits of the capitalist class. India imports the most from China and exports the most to the United States. The Indian economy is plunged into deep darkness as a result of the ongoing economic downturn in both the countries since 2016. As a result, the global recession is accelerating the recession in the Indian market.

A direct feature of futuristic speculation is the emergence of a credit system. As a result, these credit bubbles have repeatedly exploded, disrupting the equation of contract transactions and creating a kind of economic crisis. To get out of an economic crisis, large multinational corporations historically resorted to 'merger and acquisition', that is, they tried to handle the situation by merging or acquiring other companies. If this plan failed, they tried to occupy the markets that were located in the states outside their own economic colonies. As a result, war became inevitable. What is needed to manage this war is a theoretical model of hatred which existed during World War II through the crisis of ‘nationalism’ that blossomed into German racism and in the current era of neo-liberal ‘market’ economy, it is ‘international’ Muslim hatred.

Revealing the nature of fascism, Dmitrov said: '... not a power standing above class, nor the government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself’. Extremist chaotic rule is often mistaken for a lumpen regime. Trotsky made that mistake. For example, the reign of Louis Bonaparte in France is often regarded as a semi-lumpen proletarian government. Many bourgeois economists have made the same mistake while searching for the nature of fascism.

Historically, two camps can be observed among the bourgeoisie. The liberal bourgeoisie advocates free trade, open market policy and deregulation. The conservative bourgeoisie, on the other hand, advocates some degree of government control over the economy in the interest of securing profits. At this present stage, we need to be aware of the differences and similarities in the economic outlook of the conservative bourgeoisie and the Social Democrats.

Before the introduction of the neo-liberal economy, the conservative bourgeoisie set out to form a welfare state according to the Keynsian model. The first five-year plan introduced by the first Prime Minister of India was also influenced by the Harod-Domar or Keynsian principles. This model promoted government support for control of speculation, education, health, etc., and government intervention to boost the market (100 days work with the slogan 'dig the road and pave the road'). But the state never indulges in class compromise. In fact, by adopting this model, the main objective of the state was to stifle the movements against exploitation. As a result, the conservative bourgeoisie that introduced the Keynsian model tried to control capital to some extent in order to maintain the dominance of the monopolies.

Social Democrats, on the other hand, advocate social control over capital in order to destroy the dominance of monopolies in the pursuit of petty bourgeois interests. The class base of the left wing of the Social Democrats are the petty producers who belong to a certain class but are not proletarians, but rather the point of view of both the capitalists and workers are present among them. Marx described them as the reserved army of the proletariat. Their obsession with class compromise introduces revisionist ideology while their spontaneous leftist radicalism leads to reckless sectarianism. As a result, although both ideologies want to control capital, this is the difference between the conservative bourgeoisie and the Social Democrats.

Contrary to both these ideologies, the communists want the ultimate overthrow of capitalism. At first, they want to overthrow the big capital and gradually the small capital. As a result, they ally themselves with various political fronts of oppressed classes to destroy large capital. When the policy introduced by the liberal bourgeoisie and the economic disorientation of the Social Democrats escalate the economic crisis, that is, when the people are angry with their infighting and multiple financial scandals, the state wants to take direct ownership of the production sector. The basis of this control will be political dictatorship and cultural conservatism, which will help to establish supreme authority of the state. This is how fascism is born. In his article, Stalin showed how the Social Democrat policy accelerated the rise of fascism by tightening the hands of the conservative bourgeoisie. The Social Democrats weakened the revolutionary entity of the working people by promoting the ideology of social control over capital and class compromise.

At a certain level of capitalism, the bank played the role of intermediary between the various fields of industrial capital. Gradually, the bank or finance capital joined hands with the monopoly sectors, moved to the dominant role and began to control the investment of production capital. This is the stage of modern imperialism as described by Lenin. In this phase, the conflict of finance capital with production capital is observed. For example, let's say that with the advancement of technology, the fields of investment in the sector of aluminium products have opened up for production capital, but the steel production of the colonies is the main source of national finance capital. In this situation, the finance capital will want to invest in any other small steel producing sector and the large monopoly capital will want to invest in the sector of aluminium products. In the midst of this conflict, those who want to protect the interests of production capital emerge as the liberal bourgeoisie and those who want to protect the interests of finance capital emerge as the conservative bourgeoisie. Failure to continue the production process by avoiding conflicts within their own colonies in various ways inevitably leads to war (in order to colonize areas rich in aluminium, according to our example). This was the economic basis of the First and Second World Wars.

Finance capital has taken on an international dimension since the fall of the Bretton-Wood system. Production capital has also become trans-national. At present, the dependence of production capital on finance capital is seen all over the world because investment in the production sectors occur with loans from finance capital. At the same time, there is a conflict of interest, but this conflict is not currently dividing the bourgeoisie into liberal and conservative camps.

According to the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission, in times of agricultural crisis, the government should allow farmers to sell their crops at the minimum support price. The conservative bourgeoisie were supposed to adopt a populist policy to ensure profits following the Keynsian model of the past, but in 2016-2018, it was observed that no bourgeois party initially followed the commission's recommendation. When the movement for waiver of agricultural loans took a revolutionary form, the government partially accepted its demand for financial assistance. As a result, the present conservative bourgeoisie is abandoning the Keynsian model and moving away from the path of capital control. Social Democrat policy is also changing and moving towards economic liberalism. Therefore, the direct political confrontation of the communists against all populist and fascist governments on the basis of unity against neo-liberalism and fascism is the demand of the time. In the era of fascist uprising, it is seen that some of the corporates want to get out of the crisis by compromising with the government. The rest of the victims continue to oppose the government. But in the age of neo-liberalism, the ideology of the bourgeoisie are not segregating them into conservative and liberal camps. In this age of futuristic production-based speculation, the crisis of finance capital has led to the repetitive production of more expensive goods rather than less expensive ones, that is to say, capitalism has now evolved from quantitative overproduction to the era of temporal overproduction. As a result, it remains to be seen whether there will be any sharp conflict between corporates during the tenure of economic crisis in the near future. Only then the question of forming a united front of different classes can come up.

At a time when the recent global economic is in downturn, the war situation is accelerating in various countries by using Muslim hatred. The Modi government of India is trying to get out of this crisis through demonetisation, introduction of GST and channelling public anger towards communal aspirations manifested through the repeal of Article 370 of Jammu & Kashmir, extension of AFSPA Act in Nagaland, NRC in Assam and implementation of CAA and NPR across the entire country. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court's Ram Mandir verdict, the banking crisis and the recession in various trade sectors of the country are further accelerating the process of the rise of fascism.

Thus, Com. Stalins’s essay and Dmitrov’s thesis act as a guide for the revolutionary camp to understand the character and mass basis of fascism & adopt policies likewise. However, it must be noted that the context and era which such works represent must be taken into account. A blind implementation of the main tenets of such theses may lead to historical blunders.

References:

1. The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism - Georgei Dmitrov (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm)

2. Concerning the International Situation - Joseph Stalin (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/09/20.htm)

3. Fascism-What it is and how to fight it - Leon Trotsky (https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm)

4. Neoliberalism-No Reformist Solution to its Crisis - Basudev Nag Chowdhury (http://jabardakhal.in/english/neoliberalism-no-reformist-solution-to-its-crisis/)