What fascism meant then…and now

By Mark Langabeer, Hastings and Rye Labour Member

During the 1930s, Leon Trotsky wrote about the rise of fascism in Germany and other European countries. He explained that fascism arose from the social and economic decay of capitalism and the failure of the labour movement to offer an alternative way out of the crisis.

Fascism was a mass movement, he explained, and it drew its support mainly from the ranks of small businesses, the self-employed and those we would nowadays call the middle-class, although they also drew lumpen elements – petty-criminals, thugs, ne’er-do-wells and some of the more politically backward and unorganised layers of the working class.

The ultimate aim of fascism, well-financed by sections of big business circles, was to destroy the organisations of the labour movement, the very existence of which posed a threat, even if in the long run, to the interests of capitalism. All the democratic rights of the working class came to present a threat to profits: the right to vote, to organise and to take industrial action, so these had to be eliminated. Any independent movement of workers, against their exploitation by the capitalist class, had to be curbed.

Hitler set up concentration camps within weeks of taking office

As one German boss said, every eight-hour day is a nail in the coffin for business. Trotsky graphically described fascism as the ‘putrid vapours’ of capitalism, and the latter’s survival rested on the destruction of the labour movement. 

Within weeks of being made Chancellor in Germany, Hitler had established concentration camps where the Nazis incarcerated opponents, including some Jews, but overwhelmingly in the early stages, communists, socialists and trade unionists, including all of those who you could consider to be local or national leaders. Society as a whole was terrorised by the brown-shirts, but it was the Jewish population and the entire structure of the organised labour movement that was utterly crushed.

Much the same was true in Italy, even though the process took longer, and in Spain, after the war was won by the fascists, tens of thousands of former communists, anarchists, socialists and trade unionists were summarily shot, the luckiest of them held in concentration camps for years.

Fascism was not just a ‘far right’ movement, but a movement that sought – and in some cases succeeded – in destroying the ability of the working class to fight, at least for many years afterwards.

Mostly lumpen and thuggish elements

Today’s fascists are still small fry in comparison to those of the past and – with the former middle class either disappeared (like small businesses) or drawn towards the labour movement (like teachers and doctors) – they are composed mostly from lumpen and thuggish elements, the same people who make up groups of football hooligans. Groups like the English Defence League, have recently been active in organising against Muslims and immigrants in general.

In the past few days, they have exploited the horrific murder of three children in Southport, to wave the flag of racism. Coming into towns from the outside, and tanked up with beer, they have shouted slogans, like ‘stop the boats’, ‘save our children’ and ‘Rule Britannia’. They have been responsible for violence, not only against the police, but also locals, including attacking mosques.

In so far as these drunken hooligans have any political ideas, they blame immigrants for the lack of affordable housing, job insecurity and general poverty. They pose a physical threat to our Muslim neighbours and the Labour movement must mobilise in defence of local communities threatened by the EDL.

It is an indication – not that readers of Left Horizons really need it – that threats of social violence do not come from the left, but from the right of politics, where the insecurities and uncertainties of capitalism are used to instigate violence against ethnic minorities and the left. Our motto has to be ‘an injury to one is an injury to all’.

Small now, but potentially larger in the future

In my opinion, the first task we have as a labour and trade union movement is an education programme about the ultimate aims of these fascist groups. They may be small now, but they are potentially more serious in the future, merging with ‘respectable’ parties like Reform UK and the Tory Party right wing.

It is one thing to look at the limited events in Southport and in other cities as just ‘thuggery’, which it is, but it is insufficient to leave it at that. What is required is a programme from the labour movemet that offers an alternative to the demagoguery of the far right.

Nigel Farrage and the so- called Reform Party certainly drink from the same well as the fascists, although at this stage, they don’t advocate the destruction of organised labour, because they know it would lose them support. However, that may change in the future. The Tory right also indulges in regular dog-whistle racism to attract support. Suella Braverman fell out of favour with some of the Tory hierarchy, but that was largely because of her ‘tone’, rather than the substance of her message.

Unfortunately, the Labour Party right-wing also play the numbers game when it comes to migration, rather than explaining where the real causes of poverty and inequality lie – in the workings of the so-called ‘free-market’ system. Labour has to offer an answer to what are very real problems in living standards, housing, education and public services, notably the NHS.

Labour must offer lasting and meaningful improvements

Labour has to offer real, lasting, meaningful improvements in workers’ lives, not cuts dressed up as “difficult choices”. If it does not, then creatures like the EDL and Reform UK will begin to thrive.

Another pamphlet that is worth reading is The Mence of Fascism, written by Ted Grant many years ago. He explained then that the social base of fascism has declined and the labour movement has been strengthened since the Second World War. It is possible, he argued, that the threat of reaction would be more likely to emerge from the tops of the army, police and civil service.

The capitalist class in Europe in the 1930s paid a heavy price for losing control of the state apparatus to fascist thugs. In the end, they lost half of Europe to the Soviet Union as a result of the war. They might also be reluctant to hand power to the fascists today because if it meant a new world war that could raise the spectre of nuclear war and the destruction of civilisation.

In the longer term, Trotsky wrote all those years ago, the choice faced by humanity is either Socialism or Barbarism. That could be updated, given the potential destruction by climate change. Today’s choice might be better described as Socialism or Annihilation.

[Picture top: EDL demo in Rotherham 2014, from Wikimedia Commons]