What is Fascism ?
by Rich Gibson
from his website
1. Fascism is the unchecked rule of a
class of the privileged, or relatively rich, in power--a full-scale
assault on poor and working people. Parliamentary institutions
are usually set aside, or so demeaned as to be meaningless. (The
Holocaust was legal). Elites issue direct orders, frequently through
a populist leader. Wages, any social safety net, working hour
laws, labor laws; all come under legal (and extra-legal) attack.
The stick replaces the carrot.
Even between capitalists of the same nation,
Fascism in its early stages has been popular
among masses of people mystified by nationalism, racism, and sexism.
These ideas are key to the construction of fascism. But, "war
means work" for some, which may also explain its historical
Fascism requires and is built on the support
of capitalist elites. Henry Ford, the Dulles family, the Catholic
Church, and the German Krupps among many others, were early supporters
of fascism in the U.S.
Fascism is an element of the modern era,
which carries forward elements of feudalism. Fascism has taken
the form of state capitalism in Japan, Germany, and in more sophisticated
ways, the Soviet Union in the Stalin era. But fascism has also
grown in less developed countries, Romania, Bulgaria, most of
Eastern Europe, Cambodia, Argentina, Guatemala, Chile; and taken
significantly different forms.
2. Fascism and capitalism are inseparable.
There has never been a form of capital that was not built on a
fascist base--from early British action against the Chartists
to today's varieties of imperialism. All major capitalist nations
have fascist ties.
Hence, while fascism may not be the dominant
form of capitalist government, elements of fascist ideology (biological
determinism, rabid nationalism, etc.) and fascist organizations
(sectors of the police, KKK, skinheads, etc.) are always present.
No capitalist government has ever required a revolution to institute
Fascism does emerge in capitalist crises,
the moments when the struggle for production reaches a point when
the workers can no longer purchase the products they produce,
a crisis of over-production and declining profits and/or an intense
battle for cheaper labor, raw materials, and new markets; that
However, neither war nor capitalist crisis
is a pre-condition of fascism; consider Saudi Arabia or Kuwait.
In addition, it is possible to live under fascism within a nation
that is not itself entirely fascist, that is, to live as a jobless
black youth in Sao Paulo, or Los Angeles.
3. Fascism deceptively calls for the national
unity of social classes, class-collaboration, but actually promotes
the division of people by race, sex, culture, nation, or religion.
Fascism was, under Mussolini and, later, Hitler, conceived as
the "corporate state", that is, all the resources of
the society were directed toward the support of corporate profits
in the name of national unity and economic development. In order
to motivate warriors and bolster profits, fascism conceals the
real and insoluble tensions between those who own and those who
4. Fascism frequently is employed as a
strategic base for war. Fascist shifts in government and official
ideology grow with war preparations.
5. Violence and terror, made tolerable
by racism and sexism (ideas which view people as sub-human) become
6. Fascism relies on mysticism, organized
irrationalism, a culture which turns to superstition, irrationality
(extreme religious dogmatism, the fear of sexuality, celebrations
of misogyny, death, and hopelessness--serving to explain apparent
systematic despair), and retards science and social production
in order to mask its own decay. Indeed, fascism is organized decay.
There is a jagged line which runs from
conservative Christianity to anti-semitism to anti-communism which
underpins much of fascist writing. But, there is no consistency
to fascist ideology, other than to preserve capitalism. Fascism
is irrationalism organized to sustain inequality and authoritarianism.
Even so, the role of the ideology of irrationalism can become
powerful, that is, Nazis sacrificed the productive work of many
Jews in order to kill them.
7. Fascism is virulently anti-communist.
Communists (and perhaps some anarchists), who have been the only
consistent and effective anti-fascist fighters, are the fascist's
8. Fascism has only been defeated internally
(primarily by the actions of indigenous national resistance),
perhaps, twice: in Albania and, maybe, China. However, resistance
movements have changed fascism and halted its birth.
9. There is evidence that combined theoretical
and physical struggle causes fascism to retreat--in ideology and
materially. In ideology, there is a growing body of research which
indicates that vocal and written opposition to fascist ideas does
cause a reevaluation and moderation of thinking in individuals.
In pre-fascist Germany in the 1930's, areas which actively put
people on the streets to fight the Nazis regularly caused Nazi
withdrawals--and minimized fascist group membership. There is
nothing inevitable about fascism. It is a political movement,
reaching from production relations into the mass consciousness,
and can be combatted physically and intellectually.
10. If these factors are true, then it
seems effective resistance to fascism must be based on a class
analysis of society, an internationalist perspective that attacks
imperialist war, a multi-racial, anti-racist/sexist, organized
approach (as opposed to ephemeral coalitions based on sex, race,
religion), willingness to consider violence, and the grasp of
the critical role of ideology in combatting fascist practice.