6th World Congress of the CWI: Racism, Fascism and the Future for Reaction

[First draft written in November 1993, presented by the International Secretariat, voted in December 1993]

An important feature of the present world situation is a certain growth of the forces of reaction: racism, fascist and neo-fascist organisations in Europe; vicious ethnic and national conflict in the former Stalinist states of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union; and communalism, tribal conflict, etc., in parts of the colonial and semi-colonial world.

The analysis of our International on this issue must avoid the pitfalls of ultra-leftism – “fascist and racist organisations are about to come to power” – and the deadly complacency of ossified “Marxism”, which grossly underestimates the danger, although of an incipient character at this stage, of the growth of reaction in all its forms. Genuine Marxism is saturated with the spirit of optimism. Yet this in no way contradicts a sober appraisal of the objective situation at each stage. It involves facing up to, analysing and assessing the dangers facing the working class and its organisations. Theoretically, but also in action, through the marvellous all-Europe campaign of the YRE, we have confronted the growth of racist and fascist forces head on.

There is hardly a country in western Europe which has remained unaffected. The main causes of this are to be found in the worsening social conditions resulting from the crisis of capitalism, which have been enormously aggravated by the recent recession, and the incapacity of the labour and trade union leaders to offer an alternative. The attempt to introduce capitalism into the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe has resulted in an unprecedented collapse of the productive forces, the gangsterism of “wild capitalism”, mass pauperisation, hyperinflation, and national conflict. This in its turn has resulted in a headlong flight of millions from the consequences of resurgent capitalism and civil war, resulting in a massive influx of “asylum seekers” from the East alongside the so-called “economic refugees” from crisis hit Africa and the Middle East. They are not the cause of western Europe’s ills; in fact until the mid-1970s imperialism was importing labour into these countries. These refugees are the consequence and victims of capitalism’s increasing international inability to take society forward. But, given the complete failure of the labour leaders to offer a clear explanation and class alternative, this has created fertile soil upon which racist, neo-fascist and fascist organisations have grown.

Refugees from horror

The scale of the horrors which declining capitalism means for the peoples of the world is shown by the fact that in 1992, 10,000 people every day were forced to leave their own countries, bringing the number of refugees officially to 18.2 m by the beginning of 1993. Another 24 million have been “forcibly displaced” without technically becoming refugees; in other words, they are “internal refugees’. In the early 1970s, the average number of asylum seekers arriving in western Europe was 30,000 per year. By the late 1980s this had already surpassed 400,000 but following the collapse of Stalinism, and above all the disintegration of Yugoslavia, this increased to 690,000 last year. This is just a little taste of a massive wave of refugees which could flood into Europe. There are at least four million refugees arising from the conflict in Bosnia, with estimates of the dead ranging from 150,000 to 400,000 from the Yugoslav confrontation. The bourgeois are seeking to shore up “fortress Europe” with a “moat around it” as a means of stemming this tide. It is also being used to step up the repressive role of the bourgeois state and acquire additional weapons to be used against the labour movement.

Germany has felt the greatest effects from this influx. The number of “asylum seekers” increased from 121,000 in 1989 to 439,000 in 1992. There were 54 racist murders in the EC last year; by far the most of these were in Germany. Officially there have been 7555 attacks on foreigners in Germany since unification and an estimated 30 racist/fascist murders. In the September 1993 Hamburg city elections, the total far-right vote (the German Peoples’ Union (DVU) and Republicans) reached almost 8%. The neo-fascist Republicans got only 4.8% of the vote and the DVU got 2.8%, which meant that they did not win any seats. This vote for the far right, however, has to be balanced by the doubling of the votes for the Greens from 7.2% to 13.5% alongside the emergence of the “Instead of a party” which won eight seats and 5.6% of the vote.

At the same time it cannot be excluded that the Republican Party may enter the Bundestag if it can reach the required five per cent threshold in the general election scheduled for October 1994. Last year it won 10.9% of the vote and 15 seats in the Baden-Württemberg state elections and has a total of 370 councillors. In the March 1993 local elections in Frankfurt it won ten seats with 9.3% of the vote. At the same time, the DVU has 6 seats in both the Bremen and the Schleswig-Holstein regional parliaments. Some estimates expect the Republicans to make big gains in Bavaria alone in the 1994 state and general elections. The number of “hardcore” fascists in Germany has been officially estimated at 35,000. But these organisations represent at this stage a small force in German society as a whole.

The French National Front

In France, on the other hand, the National Front of Le Pen, although slightly dipping in support in the last elections, and now having no MPs, still registered 12.5 per cent of the vote with over three million voting for them. Moreover, Le Pen received 4.3 million votes in the presidential elections of 1988. While France does not log the vicious racist attacks which have been a feature of French society over the last ten years, it is estimated that at least 200 black people were killed in “apparently racist attacks between 1980 and 1992″ (The Independent). Most of these occurred at the hands of the police rather than from organised fascist or racist attacks.

Official government polls have indicated that a total of 70 per cent of the French population believe “France has too many Arabs”. In Belgium the Vlaams Blok received 6.6 per cent of the vote in the last election while in Antwerp it scored 25 per cent of the vote. It has six senators, five provincial councillors and 23 municipal councillors.

Even in southern Europe, there has been a steady increase in the growth of racism and racist attacks. In Italy, for instance, five Muslims from Kosovo were killed in March, 1993, when an old farm house on the outskirts of Trento was burned down, with racists suspected. In Rome, three Sinhalese were shot at and one was killed. Africans sleeping out amongst the ancient ruins in Rome have been brutally stabbed or beaten up by fascist gangs on “punishment expeditions”. In Italy, the openly fascist MSI had 35 deputies in the national parliament and has been joined by the Northern League with 55 deputies. The MSI had, moreover, seen a substantial increase in its vote in the first round of local elections in November 1993. It gained over a third of the votes in both Rome and Naples. But, as we predicted, the success of the MSI in the first round of these elections alarmed the Italian workers who mobilised to defeat them in the second round. Nevertheless the MSI still received 46.9% of the vote in Rome and 44.4% in Naples.

A discredited ruling class

Without in any way closing our eyes to the dangers posed to the Italian labour movement we must point out that this MSI success does not mean that a firm base has been established for fascism in Italy, or that the fascists are about to come to power. The most striking feature of the Italian elections is the collapse of the Christian Democrats. They have slumped from the 29% that they had in the April 1992 general election, to around 10%. Their erstwhile allies, particularly the PSI (Socialists), have fared even worse and are close to extinction. The Socialists have received less than 2% of the vote and, as we predicted, will probably disappear. Filling the vacuum left by the collapse of the Christian Democrats is, temporarily, the MSI in Rome and Naples and other parts of the south, and more importantly the PDS, and in some areas the RC, on the left. The ex-Stalinist PDS has emerged as probably the largest political party in Italy, and is poised to become the centrepiece of some kind of coalition which can emerge from a new general election.

The increased support for the MSI does not represent a substantial vote for the ideas and methods of fascism. In the main it represented a protest of former Christian Democrat voters against the corruption of the discredited “ruling class”. It has not been smeared by corruption, because unlike its inspiration, Mussolini, whose state was corrupt from top to bottom, it has not been in power. The MSI undoubtedly utilised the influx of immigrants, combined with the rapid deterioration in social conditions, to bolster its support. But it did not elaborate open fascist policies and methods. Indeed its spokespersons took great pains to disassociate themselves from their fascist past: “I am not a fascist, I am a democrat” (Alessandra Mussolini). This was of course combined with the usual semi-fascist demagogy against the “corrupt ruling class” and “I hate the bourgeois” (Alessandra Mussolini).

Italy: a key country

It was the “respectable” and parliamentary face of fascism that was to the fore in the MSI’s campaign. This result will nevertheless have shocked the Italian labour movement and working class, as well as in the rest of Europe. It will result in a huge counter movement in which we can play a decisive role through the YRE. The movement of the Italian working class will undermine the MSI. Its electoral support can evaporate just as quickly as it has appeared to grow recently. Italy is a key country in Europe at this stage. The overwhelming tendency is towards the left; indeed there are features of a pre pre-revolutionary situation, which we will elaborate further in written and oral material.

Bossi’s Northern League is not an openly fascist, or neo-fascist, organisation. It is a right-wing “populist” party playing on the suspicion of northern Italians to “foreigners” whether from southern Italy, the influx of refugees from Yugoslavia or those from North Africa. In Spain armed attacks on Arabs in the Basque Country have been followed by the machine gunning of citizens of the Dominican Republic in Madrid. In Scandinavia also there has been a growth of racist groupings and parties, with a steady escalation of violent assaults on “immigrants”. However, in Norway, the racist Progressive Party saw its percentage of the vote collapse from 13 per cent and 22 seats in the 1989 election to six per cent and eleven seats in September’s general election.

In Britain also the BNP won 34% of the vote in the Millwall by-election with the election of the first fascist local councillor since the 1970s. They do not possess anywhere near the clout, either in terms of numbers or electoral support, which the far-right neo-fascist organisations possess in Europe. It is now estimated that there are 4-7 million who now vote for “extremist and neo-fascist groups” in Europe.

The reasons for the growth in neo-fascist, as well as outright fascist activity and organisations, is to be found in the worsening economic and social situation of stagnating capitalism. There are 18 million unemployed in Europe and this looks set to rise to over 20 million in the next period. At the same time, we have the unprecedented weakening, the “hollowing out”, of the traditional workers’ organisations. Combined with the weakness of Marxism at this stage, this has allowed the racists and fascists to step into the vacuum and have a certain effect.

The whip of counter-revolution

It is possible to draw pessimistic conclusions from these developments. The collapse of capitalism, it can be reasoned, and the demise of Stalinism, has resulted in the first instance not in a radicalisation of the proletariat but in a growth in reaction. This, however, would be an entirely one-sided, undialectical way of assessing the situation which has developed in the past period in Europe in particular.

The growth of right-wing fascist and neo-fascist organisations has been paralleled, in many instances, in the growth of radicalised organisations to the left of the social democratic and former Stalinist organisations. Moreover, the very success of racist and fascist organisations, limited though they are, has acted like a crack of thunder to awaken the proletariat, above all the youth, into action. The massive anti-racist and anti-fascist demonstrations, largely concealed and covered up by the bourgeois press, have shown that the whip of the counter-revolution has pushed forward the revolution. This has brought new layers of the proletariat onto the political arena.

Opposition in Germany

In Germany, for instance, following the attack on a Turkish family in Mölln, more than 300,000 turned out in massive anti-racist, anti-fascist demonstrations in Hamburg and Munich. There have been numerous demonstrations, some organised by our tendency in Germany, which have massively dwarfed the fascist and neo-fascist demonstrations.

It is quite clear that Kohl adopted a policy of “benign neglect” when the first murderous fascist attacks were unleashed. The police stood aside while a wave of assaults developed. The German bourgeoisie saw this as a convenient way of diverting attention from itself as the economic, social and political costs of German unification multiplied. They probably also calculated that fascist activity against “foreigners” would act to deter refugees from seeking to enter the country.

They were, however, compelled to switch tactics once a ferocious counter-movement set in. The semi-insurrectionary mood of the Turkish population, particularly the youth, following the Solingen outrage, together with the self-arming of sections of leftward-leaning youth, terrified them. They have taken action against a number of small, openly fascist organisations. At the same time, by changing the “asylum laws”, supported by the right-wing social democrats, they have fed the impression that Germany’s worsening economic plight is caused by “foreigners”.

From a propaganda point of view we should point out that in the 1980s, immigration into the United States, including ‘illegals’, was greater than the ‘wave’ which up to now has affected Western Europe. The “immigrant” share of the US labour force rose from 6.9 per cent in 1980 to 9.3 per cent in 1988. Thus, at ten per cent of the US labour force, it puts in the shade the 2.8 per cent of “non-EC citizens” living in Europe up to 1991. Even with the rise which has taken place since 1991, Europe’s “immigrant population” is still less than half that of the US in the 1980s as a percentage of the population. Moreover, the influx of immigrants into the US labour force was not only absorbed, because of a growing market, but some bourgeois economists are now claiming it acted as a “stimulus” by providing a section of the labour force which was largely non-union and prepared to work at reduced wages.

Organise the resistance

Some bourgeois economists are now invoking this example, to argue that Europe’s “economic regeneration” could be helped by allowing a certain number of immigrants to enter Europe and then using them as a source of non-union cheap labour to undermine the working class’s present rights and conditions. This goes hand in hand with the increasing tendency of the European bourgeois to abandon the “Social Chapter”. The British bourgeoisie, which already enjoys one of the lowest wage rates in Western Europe, is naturally in the vanguard of such a movement.

These developments underline the vital importance of us urging a drive to organise immigrants into unions as a vital part of the anti-racist struggle. Opposition to racism and fascism has assumed an all-Europe character. In Spain, 100,000 marched through the centre of Madrid in protest against racist murders. In Holland tens of thousands also marched with footballers wearing black and white laces in solidarity with the anti-racist movement. In Belgium, our magnificent 50,000-strong demonstration in Brussels last year has been followed by the trade unions linking up with our organisation in further anti-racist and anti-fascist demonstrations. In Italy, professional footballers openly opposed racism in a five-minute action before matches earlier this year. Hundreds of thousands have also marched in Italy in opposition to the threat from the right.

And yet, until the recent European strike wave, a common view, also reflected in our ranks, was that the difficulties of capitalism, recession, economic stagnation, etc., have resulted in the first instance, not in a growth of the left, but of the right. The horrific scale of racist attacks (there were 70,000 and 12 racist murders in Britain alone in the last year) can feed this impression.

But entirely forgotten is the fact that not only have racist organisations grown but so also have left formations, including our own. This is underlined by the experience of the open organisation in Britain, Sweden and Ireland. The massive industrial reawakening of the European proletariat over the last period was predicted by our organisation. Big movements in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, soon to be followed by huge eruptions in the other countries of Western Europe, will be the trend in the next period.

A repeat of history

While in no way underestimating the danger that there is of racism and fascism, there is no comparison, at this stage, to the situation which existed in the interwar period immediately prior to Hitler, Mussolini and Franco coming to power. Historically, fascism, as Trotsky pointed out, found its mass base in the deranged petty bourgeoisie and in the smattering of support amongst the lumpen-proletariat.

It is true that there is disenchantment with traditional politics and politicians in all layers of the population. This mood also affects the middle class. Yet the majority of the middle class is not prepared at this stage to embrace the “extreme solution” offered by the fascist and neo-fascist parties. A layer of the petty bourgeois, who in any case are generally more prone to nationalism than the proletariat, can be seduced temporarily into supporting overtly racist policies and organisations which allegedly defend ‘the nation’.

Few of these extreme right-wing parties are “chemically pure” fascist organisations on the model of their prewar predecessors. Even then, Hitler and Mussolini oscillated between the extra-parliamentary, paramilitary phase (Munich, 1923, in the case of Hitler) to the predominantly parliamentary phase (with paramilitary activity kept to a minimum). This was the case in Germany following the relative stabilisation which resulted from the Dawes plan of 1924. On the other hand, from 1929-33, paramilitary methods were combined with a “parliamentary face”. However, the Nazis more and more resorted to the open use of force against the workers’ organisations.

Today, apart from small, largely ineffective fascist organisations, no organisation of the right is capable of attracting significant support while crudely imitating the Nazis. Their real policies have to be dressed up with a “parliamentary image”. Openly racist propaganda forms the cornerstone of their policies while they seek to camouflage their anti-working class, anti-trade union policies.

Racism and fascism: a differentiation

It is, of course, necessary to clearly differentiate, insofar as this is at all possible, between the specifically fascist and neo-fascist organisations and right-wing formations with racist policies. It is clear, for instance, that Haider’s party in Austria is anti-immigrant, racist and has a leader who praises some of the policies of the Third Reich, etc. But it does not constitute a clear fascist formation with a paramilitary wing aiming to crush the organised power of the working class and replace bourgeois democracy with a dictatorship.

In France, on the other hand, the National Front has some of the features of a neo-fascist organisation. Its vicious racist policies alone do not allow us to characterise it as “neo-fascist”. It has a programme for mass repatriation of blacks. It also has a proven record of violence against blacks and workers. It has a paramilitary wing aimed against both immigrants and the labour movement. These are some of the features of a neo-fascist organisation. However, with the growth of its electoral support, Le Pen has been compelled to downgrade its “violent” pedigree and play up its parliamentary and “democratic” image.

Whenever it appears to be associated with the Nazis, its electoral support suffers. For instance, the desecration of 100 Jewish graves in Perpignan had a disastrous effect on the National Front’s candidate in the elections in that city in June. In March it had received one third of the vote with high hopes of capturing the mayor’s position. Following this outburst of anti-semitism its candidate was defeated, coming a poor third.

Their bases of support

The votes for neo-fascist and fascist parties comes in their initial phase from disenchanted workers, with limited support also from the middle class. In Britain, for instance, the area in which the BNP won their council seat has been in one of those areas in London where the fascists in the past had a toe-hold In the March 1937 London local council elections, Mosley’s British Union of Fascists received 3000 votes in Bethnal Green. In Limehouse (which included parts of Millwall where the BNP gained its seat) they received 2000 votes and in Shoreditch, 2500 votes. Their percentage of the vote for these seats were 23 per cent, 16 per cent and 14 per cent respectively. However, apart from Shoreditch, where there was a slight dip, the Labour vote remained intact. It was part of the Tory and Liberal vote which went over to the fascists. These would in the main have been middle class voters, with a very small percentage of workers supporting the fascists.

It is evident that today the BNP drew a large part, if not the majority of its support, from disenchanted workers, suffering chronic housing and other social problems. They were seduced by the false idea that the 12 per cent of the population of Bangladeshi origin were the cause of their problems. This is one consequence of the neglect of this area under previous right-wing Labour administrations in the Tower Hamlets area as well as the racist policies of the Liberals.

The fact that the BNP can find even a limited echo at this stage is also a reflection of the current weakness of the organised labour movement as a vehicle for solving the problems of the working class. But it also indicates that there is no stable basis for the BNP in this vote. A large element of it is a “protest vote” by former Labour voters, some involved in the anti-poll tax struggle, which can evaporate once the labour movement moves into action, particularly on the basis of our ideas. The ferocious reaction to the very limited impact of the fascists in Britain, as shown by the marvellous demonstrations of 8 May and 16 October and the hounding of Le Pen on his attempted visit, is a little anticipation of the reaction of the labour movement and the working class if it should appear that the fascists are finding a big echo in Britain.

The experience of the working class is collective. The horrors of the racial attacks in Germany, combined with the nightmare of Bosnia, have acted upon the consciousness of the working class of Britain, particularly the youth. The feeling that we “mustn’t let it happen here” accounts for the ferocity of the anti-racist protests, organised and led by our organisation.

The role of the revolutionary party

The vital role of the subjective factor is underlined by the work of our organisation in Britain, Germany, Sweden and Belgium in particular. It is a fact that Le Pen was not able to set foot in Britain, being hounded from Scotland to London by the YRE. In Ireland and Sweden our anti-racist/anti-fascist organisations played a central role in barring the fascist historians David Irving and Faurisson from speaking.

It is, moreover, an incontestable fact that it was our organisation which physically confronted the fascists in Brick Lane and meted out some of the treatment which they had previously inflicted on defenceless black and Asian workers. This has had a salutary effect in their ranks while at the same time enormously raising the authority and prestige of our organisation, particularly of our youth comrades. At the same time, we avoided falling into the trap of single combat between ourselves and the fascists over the heads of the proletariat.

At this stage, it is not a question of direct confrontation with the capitalist state, as a matter of principle, in combating racism and fascism. This invariably is the approach of the ultra-left sects on the outskirts of the labour movement. They combine this with a haughty attitude and an attempt at self-imposed “leadership” in black, Asian and immigrant areas. This inevitably brings them into confrontation with some of the most combative black and Asian workers who could be drawn into the struggle against racism and fascism.

The question of self-defence

The issue of self-defence against racist and fascist attacks is a key question which has been posed in the struggle in the past period. In the first instance, this involves the protection of our forces and our organisation, who are one of the main targets of fascist attacks, given the vanguard role of our organisation in this struggle.

At the same time, we have demonstrated in practice a serious, Marxist attitude, in contradiction to the frivolous, dilettantist attitude of the sects towards the protection of mass demonstrations both from fascist and police attacks. Our methods were clearly shown in the marvellous Brussels demonstration, as with the 8 May and 16 October anti-racist marches in Britain. Without question, serious injuries, possibly including a number of deaths, would have resulted from the unprecedented police assaults on the 16 October demonstration but for the heroic activity of our stewards and our organisation on the day.

This again is an anticipation of what would be possible on a mass scale by the organised labour movement on the basis of our ideas and methods. At the same time it is possible that some of our courageous but nevertheless politically inexperienced young forces can be carried away by such struggles. The idea of an “offensive” campaign against the fascists, largely of a physical character, would be entirely wrong at this stage.

The campaign against racism and fascism is in general 90 per cent political, above all explaining to workers the danger and providing answers to the arguments of the racists and fascists, and only 10 per cent “physical”. Even then our approach must be essentially of a defensive character, at all times attempting to broaden the struggle and draw in the widest layers of workers and youth. False comparisons, based upon quotes from Trotsky from the 1930s, must be avoided. We are not at the stage of Germany, or even France, at the time when Trotsky wrote Whither France?, let alone the civil war situation in Spain.

Indeed, the bourgeoisie has no need to, nor can it, call out its fascist dogs now against the labour movement. We have fully analysed in the past the reasons why the bourgeoisie will never again allow a petty bourgeois fascist upstart like Hitler or Mussolini to take power. The establishment of a fascist regime means that the direct political control of the bourgeois is loosened. The fascist state, which in any case is quickly transformed into a normal bourgeois Bonapartist regime, while defending capitalism, also assumes a certain autonomy in relation to the capitalist class upon which it ultimately rests.

The military police dictatorships

As we know, this resulted in Hitler continuing the second world war, long after it was in the interests of the German bourgeois to terminate it. This resulted in the loss of half of Germany to Stalinism for at least 40 years. Never again will the bourgeoisie be prepared to entrust its fate to petty bourgeois, fascist upstarts. When they are no longer able to contain the class tensions within the framework of bourgeois democracy, they are more likely to turn to a military-police dictatorship, whose major figures or figure will come from the ranks of the bourgeois themselves. This was the pattern which emerged from the crushing of the Chilean workers in 1973. The Pinochet regime was a military police dictatorship, which used fascist bands as an auxiliary both before and after the coup. It was a Bonapartist regime which in effect used some of the methods of fascism. The very fact, however, that it was a Bonapartist regime and not completely fascist in character, ensured that it was less stable than Hitler and Mussolini, at least in the immediate period following its seizure of power.

The Pinochet regime was sustained in power by a combination of peculiar circumstances. The immediate period following the 1973 coup coincided with the first postwar world recession. The terrible political defeat was compounded by the severe economic privations of the masses.

Chile’s economy further collapsed as a result of the mad monetarist policies of the “Chicago boys” even during the upswing of 1975-79. Then came the recession of 1979-82.

Economic collapse, after a severe political defeat rather than radicalising the working class, can lead to its opposite. Economic upswing can increase confidence and lead to a resurgence of the mass movement.

During the 1980s, a period of economic recovery in Chile, the working class, in a series of movements, shook the dictatorship. But the absence of the subjective factor, combined with the impression that Chile was about to experience an economic “golden age”, allowed the Pinochet regime a longer lease of life than could have been expected.

The option of Bonapartism

But even the option of Bonapartism, of a military police dictatorship, is not one that can be resorted to at will by the bourgeois. On the contrary, the present world situation means that military police dictatorships will not be immediately on the agenda. In the advanced capitalist countries and even in the colonial and semi-colonial world it will not be easy to go over to dictatorship.

This is underlined by the events in Nigeria. At the time of writing the seizure of power by another military clique reinforced for a period the general strike and a near-insurrectionary mood amongst the masses. The very future of the country as a unified state has also been put in jeopardy. This regime is unlikely to be able to hold power for long.

Only when the bourgeois believe their vital interests are at stake will they support dictatorial methods. Thus in Algeria, the threat of a radical Islamic fundamentalist regime coming to power (the FIS were clearly about to win the elections) led to the suspension of elections with a chorus of support from the international bourgeoisie.

Illusions in Democracy

The demise of Stalinism, perceived by big sections of the working class as arising from popular movements for “democracy”, has ushered in an international phase of broad democratic illusions. The bourgeois is compelled to take account of this. The pressure of public opinion, which is in turn determined by the class balance of world forces, compels the bourgeois to pay lip service to democracy and “democratic forms of government”.

As we have analysed elsewhere, the collapse of Stalinism has not decisively altered the relationship of class forces in favour of the bourgeoisie and against the proletariat on a world scale. Despite the enfeeblement of the traditional parties and a certain weakening of the trade unions in most of the advanced industrial countries, the power of the proletariat remains intact. Leaving aside the situation in the former Stalinist states of Eastern Europe – which is a separate issue – the proletariat throughout the capitalist world has not suffered defeats on the scale of the interwar period. This fact puts its stamp on the whole social and political situation throughout the capitalist world.

An additional factor determining the approach of the bourgeois is that, following the collapse of Stalinism, they do not appear to have an immediate challenge to their rule. Their main world protagonist [mistaken for “antagonist“?], Stalinism, resting on an antagonistic social system to its own, has collapsed. This allows the bourgeois a certain luxury to engage in democratic phrase-mongering.

But it is the class balance of forces which is the most decisive factor determining their attitude in the present situation. It is quite striking that even where the bourgeois, or the putative bourgeois as in the case of Russia, is compelled to resort to dictatorial, or semi-dictatorial powers, it must be cloaked in the garb of “democracy”.

The experience of Yeltsin

Wilhelm Liebknecht characterised the Bismarck regime’s Reichstag (parliament) as the “fig leaf of absolutism”. The same phenomena is to be witnessed in Yeltsin’s Russia today. Yeltsin’s coup, which had as its aim the dissolution of the discredited parliament, nevertheless was conducted under the banner of “restoring democracy”. The clear purpose was to create the conditions for the concentration of greater and greater power in the hands of the president, Yeltsin himself. However, Yeltsin’s real intentions were camouflaged by the promise of early elections to a reconstituted parliament in December 1993, with the vague promise of presidential elections in June 1994.

No sooner had Yeltsin’s coup succeeded, with his opponents safely incarcerated in prison, than he announced a new constitution and presidential elections postponed until his five-year term is up. The new constitution is clearly designed to establish a powerful parliamentary Bonapartist regime in the image of de Gaulle following his 1958 coup in France. It gives much greater powers to Yeltsin than the American constitution does to its president. A lengthy procedure is needed in order to “impeach” the president.

This is despite the fact that an important layer of the pro-capitalist forces in the former Soviet Union have constantly invoked “the Chinese model”. The working classes’ newly-won democratic rights, as limited as they are, are seen as an obstacle in the drive to establish stable capitalism in the region. The preferred option is an authoritarian regime ruthlessly driving towards “the market”.

The very fact that Yeltsin was not able to go down this road in the aftermath of his coup says a lot about the relationship of class forces both in the region and internationally. Despite the fact that the proletariat lacks genuine independent workers’ organisations and appears prostrate in the face of economic collapse and massive inflation, reaction, nevertheless, has to adopt “democratic” forms. This shows that the latent power of the working class remains intact.

Any attempt by Yeltsin to establish a ruthlessly authoritarian, one-party regime would undoubtedly have promoted a huge backlash from the working class. This would inevitably have conjured up in their minds a reversal to the political forms of Stalinism. It is this factor as well as the bias of world public opinion in the direction of “democracy” which stays the hand of the bourgeois forces. This prevents them from moving in the direction of a complete authoritarian solution.

This is in no way to underestimate the potential for racist, nationalist and ethnic reaction in Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union. This arises from deep-rooted, historical factors, as well as the ideological blight which Stalinism meant for these countries.

It is not at all accidental that in conflict around the White House in Moscow, the Stalinists, fascists and neo-fascists could join hands with one another in the so-called “red-brown” alliance against Yeltsin. Beginning with Stalin himself, the Stalinists used openly chauvinist, nationalist and racialist weapons, including vicious anti-semitism, to maintain their rule. It should not be forgotten that even before the overthrow of Russian Stalinism, Pamyat and other racist, nationalist and fascist groups were tolerated by the regime, while of course Trotskyists and left dissidents were viciously persecuted.

Racism in Eastern Europe

In Eastern Europe, if anything, the poison has gone deeper. In Romania openly chauvinist, anti-semitic, anti-gypsy, anti-Hungarian, anti-gay organisations have been deployed by the regime and its supporters. In Hungary Horthy’s family led a mass demonstration commemorating the pre-war Horthy regime with the participation of an openly fascist organisation led by Ivan Csurska. However, a previous demonstration in opposition to Csurska dwarfed this one with 80,000 attending. In the former Soviet Union in 1991 the fascists fielded a presidential candidate, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who got eight per cent of the vote, on a platform which included the promise of cheap vodka!

Undoubtedly, one of the factors which allows the nationalist chauvinist groups, as well as the fascist and neo-fascist organisations, to find a certain echo is the situation of political naïveté and political heterogeneity which is a striking feature of all the former Stalinist states.

In Poland the existence of the myriad parties, some with as little as five per cent of the vote, reflects the complete ideological confusion. Only very gradually, with the recent election of a “social democratic”-type government, is a certain polarisation on class lines taking place.

In the former Soviet Union, above all in Russia, from the monolith of Stalinist politics the country has moved to the other extreme. Cynics comment on the phenomena of “one person, one party” as well as the numerous “sofa parties’ – you can get all their members on one sofa! Even these parties inevitably split into different factions.

In the absence of parties with roots in the population, the Yeltsin regime has stipulated that any party or bloc will need 100,000 signatures to be registered. This has in turn forced all the smaller parties to make alliances, resulting in 33 blocs so far in the forthcoming elections. However, only 15 have acquired the required number of signatures. In time parties which reflect the growing class divisions within these societies will emerge.

The prospects for fascists in Russia

Meanwhile it cannot be excluded that quite large nationalist and even neo-fascist groups and parties will arise. Indeed the December 1993 Russian elections have underlined this, with Zhirinovsky’s party receiving 22.79% of the vote. This does not represent a conscious vote for fascism. Zhirinovsky’s support in the elections was extremely heterogeneous. Part consisted of workers and middle layers of society seduced by his nationalism, extreme xenophobia, and promises to restore Russia’s former glories. Others were attracted by his anti-semitism. But as well as these, there were confused workers, probably the majority, who simply wanted to strike a blow at Yeltsin and his programme of the “fast track” to the market, with its hyperinflation, impoverishment, and looming mass unemployment. Once it becomes clear to them the precise nature of Zhirinovsky’s programme his support will be undermined. Immediately after the elections he had to drop his crude anti-Jewish statements, saying he had been “misunderstood” and “misquoted”.

This is in no way to minimise the growth of Russian nationalism, which has fuelled his campaign and which has compelled even Yeltsin to switch to a more aggressive foreign policy. Zhirinovsky’s threat to reoccupy the former satellite countries of the Baltic and eastern Europe was calculated to attract support among discontented army officers, one third of whom voted for him. Now Yeltsin’s foreign minister Kozyrev has threatened first that Russian troops will not leave the Baltic states, and then “amended” his statement to imply they would.

Nationalism and reaction

Nationalism, bourgeois nationalism to be precise, is also a manifestation of reaction. It will be a big complicating factor in Russia, Ukraine, and the whole of eastern Europe for some time. But at a certain stage the very factors mentioned above which stayed the hand of Russia’s authoritarians, will operate more and more decisively in the countries of Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union. It will not be possible to easily move over to an openly dictatorial regime, at least in the immediate period ahead. The bourgeois do not face a mass movement of the proletariat which at this stage is challenging its rule. Such a situation will inevitably develop in the future.

But at this particular conjuncture it is not possible to establish an open dictatorial regime.

Wałesa in Poland, as we have commented, has invoked the threat of “presidential rule” for the establishment of a Bonapartist regime. Despite the frustration of the pro-bourgeois forces and their inability to politically consolidate their economic rule, Wałesa has not dared to openly establish a dictatorship. Such a development cannot be ruled out in the future. But at this stage, because of the class balance of forces, such an attempt could blow up in the face of Polish capitalism.

We have correctly compared the situation of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, not to the capitalism of Sweden, Germany or the United States, but to enfeebled crisis-ridden Latin American capitalism. Yet despite the chronic crisis of landlordism and capitalism which blights the Latin American continent, the difficulties of passing over into an open dictatorship is precisely revealed here.

Dictatorship and democracy in Peru

What the continent could face is a process of “Fujimorisation”, à la Peru, at a certain stage. While unable to go over to naked dictatorship, nevertheless the bourgeois could face increasing difficulties in containing the pressure of the masses within the framework of a “normal” bourgeois democracy. In this situation, while maintaining a “parliament” and the trappings of democratic rights, more and more power could be gathered into the hands of the state in the form of increased powers for a President or Government. It is an open question as to whether Peru for instance is a “dictatorship” or a “parliamentary democracy”. In reality it reflects features of both. The direction in which it is moving is in turn determined by the complicated balance of class forces both within Peru and internationally, where currently there is pressure from imperialism, particularly US imperialism, to avoid an open dictatorship.

Fujimori established a virtual military dictatorship (the parliament was suspended) in the war against Shining Path. Nevertheless, he found it necessary to legitimise his position by calling elections and establishing a “parliament”. In the rest of Latin America any attempt to move in the direction of a dictatorship, certainly one on the right, would provoke an uprising of the proletariat. In Venezuela the attempted coup came from the ’left’, from disenchanted lower petty bourgeois officers, with large support from the workers and the peasants. We saw a similar process in Guatemala with the forced resignation of the president.

Even in Brazil, threatening noises have been made by sections of the military. But it is extremely unlikely that the Brazilian bourgeoisie would sanction another attempt to establish a military dictatorship in the next period. Before seeking recourse to such a drastic situation they will send the masses to the school of reformism, a PT dominated

government or a government including the PT’s participation. Only after the masses have been thoroughly disillusioned will it be possible for the generals to return.

Revolutionary explosions

Even then the bourgeois will hesitate many times. It is one thing to establish a dictatorship, it is another thing entirely to dismantle it without risking revolution. They were fortunate in the 1980s that a combination of economic revival in some countries (Chile) and a compliant workers’ leadership ensured a relatively smooth “transition” from dictatorship to democracy.

But this will not always be the case. The scenario next time could well be similar to that which developed in Italy in 1943. The mere replacement of Mussolini by another fascist, Badoglio, resulted in a revolutionary explosion of the masses. We saw a similar development in Argentina in 1972/73. The stepping aside of the generals released a process of revolution.

The imposition of dictatorship could, over time, radicalise the masses. The demise of Stalinism and the consequent weakening of the Communist Parties, with their virtual disintegration in some countries, means that one of the means of restraining the masses has gone. Under dictatorship, the workers’ organisations can be transformed in radical and revolutionary directions.

If a coup attempt is to be made it would in all probability be against the “corruption of the politicians”. It would inevitably reflect the mass discontent with deteriorating social conditions, and would probably be forced to adopt nationalist and radical phraseology. It could be a different kind of coup to those of a right-wing character which preceded the establishment of bourgeois democracy in Brazil in the 1980s.

The processes of the future

In Africa, as we have commented in the colonial revolution document, the process is clearly in the direction of the overthrow of dictatorships and the establishment of bourgeois democratic regimes, although of a very shaky, fragile character. This does not preclude future attempts to establish military police dictatorships. Indeed such a process is inevitable in the future.

But once the yoke of military regimes is lifted it is not at all easy to quickly bridle the masses once more. Nevertheless, faced with a threat to their very existence by an insurgent movement of the masses, which is absolutely inevitable in the colonial and semi-colonial world before this decade is out, the bourgeois will once more seek to go down the road of dictatorship.

It is not even excluded that in this or that extreme situation such attempts will be made in the next period. However, in general we do not face a process leading to the establishment of dictatorships. A growth of nationalism, a reversion to tribalism, ethnic and racial conflict: yes, all of this is possible, even likely, particularly in the poorest continent of Africa.

Yet even in the teeth of vicious reaction, the voice of the proletariat will be raised and will grow stronger as the recoil to barbarous nationalism and its consequent disintegration sets in. Even in Bosnia, the worst example in “Europe” since 1945 of savage ethnic and racial division, where the voice of the proletariat appears to be completely drowned out, class divisions have emerged. In Banja Luka, for instance, the population led by the Serbian fighters rose against the war racketeers, the profiteers “who grow rich on our suffering and death”. They demanded that Karadžić come to the area to account for the crimes of himself and his supporters. In Serbia independent trade unions have once more stepped forward to challenge the rule of Milošević.

Revolution and counter-revolution

The epoch which is opening up is not one of unrestrained reaction. The process of revolution and counter-revolution can sometimes run in tandem. Which predominates depends upon the rhythm of the class struggle, the role of the workers’ organisations and above all the role of the subjective factor.

At this historical moment in time, however, the main tendency is towards the radicalisation of the proletariat. This will not always be revealed in open mass movements. But below the surface, huge discontent is brewing which can break out into mass movements in the near future. The colossal upheavals which are taking place in Italy, France and above all Belgium are harbingers for future events in the whole of Western Europe, and even in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Once the proletariat rises to its feet, the very small forces of reaction will be trampled underfoot. The attacks of the racists and the fascists will result in a huge counter-movement which will reduce them to insignificance in the next period. Nevertheless, while the racist and fascist organisations can suffer defeat, with this issue temporarily sinking into the background, so long as capitalism exists it will come back again and again on to the agenda of the workers’ organisations. An assessment of the danger of reaction at each stage of the development of the workers’ movement, as well as the elaboration of a programme to combat racism, fascism and bourgeois nationalism is a key question for our International.


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