Workers' Struggles in Fascist Regimes

[Zanthorus]

According to The Italian Communist Left 1926-45 by the International Communist Current:


At the beggining of October 1942, a general strike broke out at FIAT in Turin. This movement, in the second working class concentration in Italy, was the prologue to the mass strikes which in March '43 hit the Italian food, chemical, and metal industries... From November 1941, strikes began among the Gemran workers. Despite repression and above all their isolation they contined through the year 1942. The biggest struggles broke out in 1943, when all the Italian immigrant workers ceased work, supported tacitly or actively by German workers.

Does anyone have any sources or information on these events or other instances of workers' struggles within and against fascist regimes?

[Tavarisch_Mike]

Cant find some stats about it, but i have the impression that the workers in Iran tend to be very radical (specially the buss drivers).

[Devrim]

Cant find some stats about it, but i have the impression that the workers in Iran tend to be very radical (specially the buss drivers).

I don't think Iran is a fascist state though.

Devrim

[Devrim]

Does anyone have any sources or information on these events or other instances of workers' struggles within and against fascist regimes?

Try the 'February Strike' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_strike) . There is some stuff about it in our book on the German/Dutch left, but I don't know how much.

Devrim

[Rafiq]

I don't think Iran is a fascist state though.

Devrim

True, Iran is not Fascist, although the Regime is very oppressive and reactionary, but not Fascist.

[Leo]

Does anyone have any sources or information on these events

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/075_1943.html

[Devrim]

True, Iran is not Fascist, although the Regime is very oppressive and reactionary, but not Fascist.

I think that part of the problem comes from leftists throwing the word fascist about like it is going out of fashion. Fascism was a particular phenomenon of Europe between the wars. Iran actually shares more characteristics with fascism than most regimes that are labelled fascist, such as corporatism, being built on the back of a crushed workers' revolution, and I think you could make a reasonable case for describing Iran as fascist. I don't think it is though, and I think the people who call it that are merely using leftist buzz words.

Devrim

[Devrim]

If the resistance movements inside the fascist countries count, here is a link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_during_World_War_II).

The resistance movements were part of the allied imperialist war machine, armed directed by, to a large extent, by the imperialist powers.

Devrim

[Rafiq]

I think that part of the problem comes from leftists throwing the word fascist about like it is going out of fashion. Fascism was a particular phenomenon of Europe between the wars. Iran actually shares more characteristics with fascism than most regimes that are labelled fascist, such as corporatism, being built on the back of a crushed workers' revolution, and I think you could make a reasonable case for describing Iran as fascist. I don't think it is though, and I think the people who call it that are merely using leftist buzz words.

Devrim

I wasn't being sarcastic.

Iran isn't Fascist, and shouldn't be labelled Fascist either.

The Regime is Reactionary, but that doesn't make it close to Fascist.

[Devrim]

I wasn't being sarcastic.

I didn't think you were.:confused:

Devrim

[Apoi_Viitor]

I guess this is kind of related...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapp_Putsch

[Rafiq]

I didn't think you were.:confused:

Devrim

Oh, well I could see what I wrote could be taken as Sarcasm.

[Widerstand]

At the LiMesse they had quite a bit of books, pamphlets and articles about Worker's resistance in Fascist Germany, especially in the Ruhr Valley.

Of interest is the Red Ruhr Army (a reaction to the Kapp Putsch), supported by KPD, USPD and FAUD sympathizers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhr_Red_Army.

And the FAUD in general: http://libcom.org/history/articles/faud-crushed

[black magick hustla]

These movements involved large numbers of workers, including workers belonging to minorities, fighting to save their lives from fascism.

To dismiss all of them as "imperialist" sounds bizarre.

all factions in war involve "large number of workers, including minorities". that has been the point of revolutionary defeatism since the social democratic cowards backed their bosses in the first world war

[Apoi_Viitor]

The Spanish Civil War.

[Devrim]

These movements involved large numbers of workers, including workers belonging to minorities, fighting to save their lives from fascism.

To dismiss all of them as "imperialist" sounds bizarre.

As has been pointed out already, all armies involve large numbers of workers. The Germany Nazi party was also made up mostly of workers. So what?

That the resistance groups were armed and directed by the imperialist powers is a fact. They were a part of the imperialist war machine.

Devrim

[Devrim]

I don't think that is a correct analogy. In WW1, all factions of the bourgeoisie were equally reactionary, but in WW2, one faction represented bourgeois democracy and another represented fascism. It is in the interest of workers to defend democracy from fascism, unless you think that bourgeois democracy and fascism are exactly the same.

Fascism and democracy are not exactly the same. Nevertheless there are no progressive factions of the bourgeoisie. Both sides were imperialist, and both sides had their hands drenched in workers blood. It is not in the interest to defend one, democratic, imperialist power against another.


You seem to be implying that workers should never mobilise themselves as a class in anything except economic struggles. I have to disagree with this. Workers can mobilise to defend other things than economic gains. Specifically, in this case, workers were backed by the Bolsheviks who did not represent any bourgeoisie, but were themselves part of a workers regime. It was a political struggle between fascism, democracy and communism. So, the workers in the resistance had everything to gain by taking part in this political struggle and helping the Soviets.

No, I don't imply that at all. However, by 1939, the Russian state was not in any way a 'workers regime', but an imperialist capitalist power.

Devrim