Leftist Opposition to Fascism [Archive]

Montes

16th January 2010, 19:51

As ignorant as I am to leftist theory (something I'm trying to fix, I promise you), I've been interested in learning more about fascism as a theory, and why it's so diametrically opposed to socialism. As I have it understood, fascism is also a theory which targets the workers and is against capitalism, so the parallelisms between the two are apparent.

I was watching a TV show a bit ago (llamado Vientos de Agua, muy buena le serie), and they were talking about Peron. They talked about how with Peron, the owners wouldn't be able to fire workers, workers get paid vacation, etc. So is the main basis to the opposition of fascism that fascism subsidizes the workers (ergo reducing revolutionary fervor for a true workers society) and does not fundamentally change the production relationship in society?

Decolonize The Left

17th January 2010, 02:13

I'm reading this and I'm have difficulty understanding why fascism is essentially a petty bourgeoisie movement. Care to explain?

Fascism rallies individuals around the following ideals:
- The state/nation
- The 'golden age' of said state/nation which is no longer present due to (see next point)
- The 'other,' and hatred of this group of people
- The individual personified as greatest in the 'leader'

You can see that fascism is anti-working class because it attempts to split the working class according to nationality, race, sexuality, etc... in order to secure an 'us vs. them' mentality.

I wrote this in another thread on fascism in this forum, it may help:

Both Marxism and Fascism aren't exactly philosophies. Marxism is an economic theory - and this is important because it is communism which is a political philosophy. Likewise, fascism is a political ideology which has philosophical elements to it: It has an ethical code, a theory of human nature, etc...

Marxism, as an economic theory, focuses on class as the driving force of history. That is, Marxism claims that the class antagonisms are what drive the material course of history.

To say that fascism 'focuses on will' is rather short-sighted. The individual will is certainly a large factor in a fascist ideology, but it is an individualized factor, not an overarching one.
The general tenets of a fascist ideology are: fear of the 'other' (in Nazi ideology this other was the Jews, in KKK ideology this other is the black/Latino population), nationalism and a 'return to the golden era' (all fascist ideologies claim that the present state is a deformed version of a better time when their race/culture prevailed), militant aggression in defense of the nation and against the other, and a cult of personality surrounding the leader (in all fascist ideologies, the leader embodies both physically and psychologically the values/ideals of the people).

So as a philosophy, fascism is inherent reactionary. Fascism reacts to a present situation and attempts to re-establish a previous situation by destroying that which has 'tainted' it.

The draw of fascism is its inherent simplicity. If something is wrong, it isn't oneself that is the problem, it's someone else. Hence it is up to oneself and ones like oneself to solve the problem through ridding the community/nation of these problematic others. This is where the individual will factors in. Fascism imbues individuals with a sense of purpose and community through its focus on individual will. It makes the individual the driving force of change - remember that the 'leader' is the ultimate individual towards which all strive to emulate - and hence one can identify with the leader and take action in his name. Yet this action is always defined as one's own.
The key to fascism and the individual will is that while one's action is always one's own, it is taken in the name of the state. Hence one is absolved of responsibility for one is only fulfilling then needs of the state. This allows for great atrocities to occur as individual responsibility is transferred to an external ambiguous entity.

I hope that helps.

- August