WHAT IS FASCISM?
WHAT is Fascism?
In the first three chapters of this book attention
has been deliberately concentrated on the developing
tendencies of modern capitalist society as a whole since
the wax, in place of limiting attention to the
distinctively "Fascist" countries Italy, Germany, etc.
Such a survey has revealed how close is the parallel
which can be traced in every field, economic, political
and ideological, between the increasingly dominant
tendencies of theory and practice of all modern
capitalism since the war and the professedly peculiar
theory and practice of Fascism.
Fascism, in fact, is no peculiar, independent
doctrine and system arising in opposition to existing
capitalist society. Fascism, on the contrary, is the
most complete and consistent working out, in certain
conditions of extreme decay, of the most typical
tendencies and policies of modem capitalism.
What are these characteristics which are common,
subject to a difference in degree, to all modern
capitalism and to Fascism? The most outstanding of these
characteristics may be summarised as follows:
I. The basic aim of the maintenance of capitalism in
the face of the revolution which the advance of
productive technique and of class antagonisms threatens.
2. The consequent intensification of the capitalist
dictatorship
3. The limitation and repression of the independent
workingclass movement, and building up of a system of
organised classco- operation.
4. The revolt against, and increasing supersession
of, parliamentary democracy.
5. The extending State monopolist organisation of
industry and finance.
6. The closer concentration of each imperialist bloc
into a single economic-political unit. Œ
THE CLASS-CONTENT OF FASCISM 93
7. The advance to war as the necessary accompaniment
of the increasing imperialist antagonisms. All these
characteristics are typical, in greater or lesser
degree, of all modem capitalist states, no less than of
the specifically Fascist states. In this wider sense it
is possible to speak of the development towards Fascism
of all modern capitalist states. The examples of the
Roosevelt and Bruning regimes offer particular
illustrations of near- Fascist or pre-Fascist stages of
development towards complete Fascism within the shell of
the old forms. Nor is it necessarily the case that the
development to Fascism takes the same form in detail in
each country. The sum-total of the policies of modern
capitalism provide already in essence and in germ the
sum-total of the policies of Fascism. But they are not
yet complete Fascism. The completed Fascist dictatorship
is still only so far realised over a limited area. What
is the specific character of complete Fascism? The
specific character of complete Fascism lies in the means
adopted towards the realisation of these policies, in
the new social and political mechanism built tip for
their realisation. This is the specific or narrower
significance of Fascism in the sense of the Fascist
movements or the completed Fascist dictatorships as
realised in Italy, Germany and other countries. Fascism
in this specific or narrower sense is marked by definite
familiar characteristics: in the case of the Fascist
movements, by the characteristics of terrorism,
extra-legal fighting formations, anti-parliamentarism,
national and social demagogy, etc.; in the case of the
completed Fascist dictatorships, by the suppression of
all other parties and organisations, and in particular
the violent suppression of all independent workingclass
organisation, the reign of terror, the "totalitarian"
state, etc. It is to this specific sense of Fascism,
that is to say, to fully complete Fascism, that we now
need to come. I. The Class-Content of Fascism. What,
then, is Fascism in this specific or narrower sense? The
definitions of Fascism abound, and are marked by the
greatest diversity and even contradictory character,
despite the identity of the concrete reality which it is
attempted to describe. Fascism, in the view of the
Fascists themselves, is a spiritual
Π94 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
reality. It is described by them in terms of
ideology. It represents the principle of "duty," of
"order," of "authority," of "the State," of "the
nation," of "history," etc. Mussolini finds the essence
of Fascism in the conception of the "State": The
foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State,
its character, its duty and its aim. Fascism conceives
of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which
all individuals or groups are relative. . . . Whoever
says Fascism implies the State. (Mussolini's article on
"Fascism" in the Enciclopedia Italiana, 1932, published
in English under the title "The Political and Social
Doctrine of Fascism," 1933.)
We further learn that "Fascism believes in holiness
and in heroism"; "the Fascist conceives of life as duty
and struggle and conquest, life which should be high and
full, lived for oneself, but above all for others";
"Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic
ideology"; "Fascism believes neither in the possibility
nor the utility of perpetual peace"; "the Fascist State
is an embodied will to power"; "the Fascist State is not
indifferent to the fact of religion"; "for Fascism the
growth of Empire is an essential manifestation of
virility"; "Fascism denies the materialist conception of
happiness as a possibility"-and similar profound, and
hardly very original philosophisings in an endless
string, the ordinary stock-in-trade of all Conservatism.
Luigi Villari, the semi-official exponent of Fascism in
the Encyclopaedia. Britannica, writes: The programme of
the Fascists differs from that of other parties, as it
represents for its members not only a rule of political
conduct, but also a moral code. Mosley in his Greater
Britain, the official handbook of British Fascism,
explains: The movement is Fascist (I) because it is
based on a high conception of citizenship-ideals as
lofty as those which inspired the reformers of a hundred
years ago; (2) because it recognises the necessity for
an authoritative State, above party and sectional
interests. The Fascist, the organ of the Imperial
Fascist League, defines Fascism (in its issue of August
1933): Fascism is defined as a patriotic revolt against
democracy, and
95 THE CLASS-CONTENT OF FASCISM
a return to statesmanship. Fascist rule insists upon
the duty of co- operation. Fascism itself is less a
policy than a state of mind. It is the national
observance of duty towards others. It is manifest that
all this verbiage is very little use to bring out Πthe
real essential character of Fascism. In the first place,
all these abstract general conceptions which are paraded
as the peculiar outlook of Fascism have no distinctive
character whatever, but are common to a thousand schools
of bourgeois political philosophy, which are not yet
Fascist, and in particular to all national-conservative
schools. The generalisations of "duty of co-operation,"
"duty towards others ... .. life as duty and struggle,"
"a high conception of citizenship," "the State above
classes," "the common interest before self" (motto of
the German National Socialist Programme), are the dreary
commonplaces of all bourgeois politicians and petty
moralisers to cover the realities of class domination
and class-exploitation. The professedly distinctive
philosophy of the idealisation of the State as an
"absolute end" transcending all individuals and sections
is only the vulgarisation of the whole school of Hegel
and his successors, constituting the foundation of the
dominant school of bourgeois political philosophy. In
all these conceptions there is not a trace of original
or distinctive thought. In the second place, it is in
fact incorrect to look for an explanation of Fascism in
terms of a particular theory, in ideological terms.
Fascism, as its leaders are frequently fond of
insisting, developed as a movement in practice without a
theory ("In the now distant March of 1919," says
Mussolini in his encyclopaedia article, "since the
creation of the Fascist Revolutionary Party, which took
place in the January of 1915, I had no specific
doctrinal attitude in my mind"), and only later
endeavoured to invent a theory in order to justify its
existence. Fascism, in fact, developed as a movement in
practice, in the conditions of threatening proletarian
revolution, as a counter- revolutionary mass movement
supported by the bourgeoisie, employing weapons of mixed
social demagogy and terrorism to defeat the revolution
and build up a strengthened capitalist state
dictatorship; and only later endeavoured to adorn and
rationalise this process with a "theory." It is in this
actual historical process that the reality of Fascism
must be
96 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
found, and not in the secondary derivative attempts
post festum at adornment with a theory. No less
unsatisfactory are the attempted anti-Fascist
interpretations of Fascism in terms of ideology or
abstract political conceptions. The conventional
anti-Fascist ideological interpretations of Fascism see
in Fascism only the principle of "dictatorship" or
"violence." This approach, which is the hallmark of the
liberal and social democratic schools of thought in
relation to Fascism, sees Fascism as the parallel
extreme to Communism, both being counterposed to
bourgeois "democracy." Fascism is defined as
"Dictatorship from the Right" in contrast to Communism
as "Dictatorship from the Left" (this line is
characteristically expressed in the Labour Party
Manifesto of March Π1933, on "Democracy versus
Dictatorship" in explanation of the Labour refusal of
the united workingclass front against Fascism). It is
evident that this definition of Fascism is equally
useless as an explanation of the real essential
character of Fascism. "Dictatorships from the Right"
have existed and can exist in hundreds of forms without
in any sense constituting Fascism. Tsarism. was a
"Dictatorship from the Right." But Tsarism was not
Fascism. The White Guard dictatorships immediately after
the war for crushing the revolution were "Dictatorships
from the Right." But these White Guard dictatorships
were not yet Fascism, and only subsequently began to
develop Fascist characteristics as they began to try to
organise a more permanent basis (subsequent evolution in
Hungary and Finland). Fascism may be in fact a
reactionary dictatorship. But not every reactionary
dictatorship is Fascism. The specific character of
Fascism has still to be defined. Wherein, then, lies the
specific character of Fascism? The specific character of
Fascism cannot be defined in terms of abstract ideology
or political first principles. The specific character of
Fascism can only be defined by laying bare its
class-basis, the system of class-relations within which
it develops and functions, and the class-role which it
performs. Only so can Fascism be seen in its concrete
reality, corresponding to a given historical stage of
capitalist development and decay. As soon, however, as
we endeavour to come to the class
MIDDLE-CLASS REVOLUTION OR DICTATORSHIP? 97
analysis of Fascism we find ourselves confronted with
a diametrical opposition of two viewpoints. In the one
viewpoint Fascism is presented as an independent
movement of the middle class or petit-bourgeoisie in
opposition to both the proletariat and to large-scale
capital. In the other viewpoint Fascism is presented as
a weapon of finance- capital, utilising the support of
the middle class, of the slum proletariat and of
demoralised working-class elements against the organised
working class, but throughout acting as the instrument
and effective representative of the interests of
finance-capital. Only when we have cleared this
opposition, and what lies behind it, can we finally come
to the real definition of Fascism.
2. Middle-Class Revolution or Dictatorship of
Finance-Capital? Fascism is commonly presented as a
"middle-class" (i.e., petit- bourgeois) movement. There
is an obvious measure of truth in this in the sense that
Fascism in its inception commonly originates from
middle-class (petit- bourgeois) elements, directs a
great deal of its appeal to the middle class, to small
business and the professional classes against the
organised working class and the trusts and big finance,
draws a great Πpart of its composition, and especially
its leadership, from the middle class, and is soaked
through with the ideology of the middle class, of the
petit-bourgeoisie under conditions of crisis. So far,
there is common agreement as to the obvious facts. But
Fascism is also often presented as a middle-class
movement in the sense of an indcpendent movement of the
middle class, as a "third party" independent of capital
or labour, in opposition to both the organised working
class and large-scale capital. The Fascist dictatorship
is accordingly presented as a "conquest of power" by the
middle class in opposition to both the organised working
class and to the previous domination of finance-capital.
This conception is common in liberal and social
democratic treatment of Fascism. Thus the liberal-labour
New Statesman and Nation writes (October 28, 1933): The
collapse of capitalism does not at all necessarily lead
to the seizure of power by the proletarians, but more
probably to the
98 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
dictatorship of the middle class. This is surely the
Achilles heel of Communist theory. Brailsford, the
leading theorist of English Social Democracy, writes: If
the Marxist conception of history be sound, somewhere
surely on the surface of this stricken planet the
increasing misery of the workers should have produced
some aggressive stirring. That is nowhere the case.
There is, however, an aggressive class which has made in
one great industrial country its revolutionary stroke.
The German Nazis are emphatically the party of the small
middle class. . . . This class rose and captured the
machinery of the State, because it was "miserable" and
desperate. It shrank in terror from the menace of
large-sc(H. N. Brailsford, "No Hands Wanted," New
Clarion, July 8, 1933.) And again: A militant middle
class, with its dare-devil younger generation to lead
it, faces the organised workers. If on both sides there
has developed a distrust in parliamentary procedure, and
a contempt for its dilatory and irresolute ways, the
issue between them can be decided only by force. The
class which first decides to organise itself for this
new phase will enter the contest with an overwhelming
advantage(H. N. Brailsford, "Will England Go Fascist?"
NewsChronicle, November 28, 1933.) The Socialist Review
in January 1929 published an article entitled "The Third
Nation," arguing that "the assumption at the root of all
Communist theory" of a basic division between the
capitalists and the Πproletariat as the decisive issue
of modern society was false: Apart from the capitalists
and the proletariat-and between them - there is a third
class. Here, then, is the fundamental question for
Marxists: Does this class exhibit the characteristics of
a subject class, about to make a bid for supremacy? A
possible answer is that, in one country-Italy-they have
already emerged as a revolutionary class. The Fascist
revolution was essentially a revolution of the third
class. The American would-be "Marxist" journal, the
Modern Monthly, says in an editorial on "What is
Fascism?": The first task of the Fascist dictatorship
was to wrest state power
MIDDLE-CLASS REVOLUTION OR DICTATORSHIP? 99
from the hands of the private bankers, industrialists
and landlords who possessed it. . . . The Fascist
dictatorship, it is clear, then, became possible only
because of the two factors above noted: first, the
crisis in imperialism and the consequent collapse of
ruling-class power and policy, and, secondly the rise of
a belligerent lower middle-class which provided a mass
basis for its assumption of power. (V. F. Calverton in
the Modern Monthly, July, 1933.) Even Scott Nearing's
otherwise fruitful and valuable study of "Fascism" is
marred by this same basic theory of Fascism as a petit-
bourgeois revolution: At the centre of the Fascist
movement is the middle class, seeking to save itself
from decimation or annihilation by seizing power and
establishing its own political and social institutions.
It therefore has the essential characteristics of a
social revolutionary movement, since its success means
the shift of the centre of power from one class to
another. Fascism arises out of the revolt of the middle
class against the intolerable burdens of capitalist
imperialism. (Scott Nearing, "Fascism," Vanguard Press,
New York,P.42.)
This separation of Fascism from the bourgeois
dictatorship reaches its extreme point in the official
Labour Party and Trades Union Congress organ, the Daily
Herald, which, on May 2, 1933, after the full
demonstration of the real character of Hitlerism in
practice, still looked hopefully towards it to carry out
some form of "socialist" programme against big capital:
The "National-Socialists," it is essential to
remember, call themselves "Socialist" as well as
"National." Their "Socialism" is not the Socialism of
the Labour Party, or that of any recognised Socialist
Party in other countries. But in many ways it is a creed
that is anathema to the big landlords, Πthe big
industrialists and the big financiers. And the Nazi
leaders are bound to go forward with the "Socialist"
side of their programme. (Daily Herald editorial on
"Hitler's May Day," May 2, 1933.)
Thus Fascism in the view of the Labour Party is
almost a wing of Socialism, a rather unorthodox variety
of Socialism, but "anathema to the big landlords, the
big industrialists and the big financiers" (who,
curiously enough, maintained it in funds
100 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
and finally placed it in power). The same day that
this article appeared in the British Labour and trade
union organ, this party whose creed was "anathema to the
big landlords, the big industrialists and the big
financiers" seized and closed down the workers' trade
unions in Germany. It is evident that this view of
Fascism as a petit-bourgeois revolution against the big
bourgeoisie is incorrect in fact, and dangerous in the
extreme to any serious understanding of the real
character of Fascism and of the fight against it. That
it is incorrect in fact is manifest from the most
elementary survey of the actual history, development,
basis and practice of Fascism. The open and avowed
supporters of Fascism in every country are the
representatives of big capital, the Thyssens, Krupps,
Monds, Deterdings and Owen Youngs. Fascism, although in
the early stages making a show of vague and patently
disingenuous anti-capitalist propaganda to attract mass-
support, is from the outset fostered, nourished,
maintained and subsidised by the big bourgeoisie, by the
big landlords, financiers and industrialists.* Further,
Fascism is only enabled to grow, and is saved from being
wiped out in the early stages by the working-class move
*See Mowrer, Germany Puts the Clock Back, 1933, P. I
17, for a characteristic report of a private
conversation of a leading Jewish banker in Berlin who
"to a somewhat bewildered gathering in a drawing-room in
plutocratic Berlin unctuously explained how for years he
had been a heavy subsidiser of the National Socialists."
Ile financial backing of Hitler by big industry was
already laid bare in the HitlerLudendorff trial of 1924
and in the Bavarian Diet Investigation Committee. "In
later years the list of the alleged financial patrons of
the National Socialist Movement became extremely long.
Factory owners, managers, general Πcounsel (syndici)
were as thick as they might be on the subscription list
of the Republican National Committee in the United
States" (Mowrer, p. 144). Foreign supporters were stated
to include Deterding, Kreuger and Ford. Paul Faure
stated in the French Chamber of Deputies on February 11,
1932, that the foreign financial backers of the Nazis
included the directors of the Skoda armaments firm,
controlled by Schneider-Creusot. The reader should
consult Ernst Henri's Hitler Over Europe (1934) for the
most detailed examination of the financial backing and
control of National Socialism since 1927 by the Ruhr
Steel Trust elements dominated by Thyssen: "Thyssen
persuaded the two political centres of German Ruhr
capital, the 'Bergbauverein Essen' and the
'Nordwestgruppe der Eisen-und Stahlindustrie' to agree
that every coal and steel concern had, by way of a
particular obligatory tax, to deliver a certain sum into
the election funds of the National Socialists. In order
to raise this money, the price of coal was raised in
Germany. For the Presidential elections of 1932 alone
Thyssen provided the Nazis with more than 3 million
marks within a few days. Without this help the fantastic
measures resorted to by the Hitler agitation in the
years 1930-1(33 would never have been possible" (pp.
11-12). For the general policy, see the statement of the
Deutsche Fiihrerbriefe, or confidential bulletin of the
Federation of German Industries, quoted in the next
chapter.
MIDDLE-CLASS REVOLUTION OR DICTATORSHIP 101
ment, solely through the direct protection of the
bourgeois dictatorship. Fascism is able to count on the
assistance of the greater part of the State forces, of
the higher army staffs, of the police authorities, and
of the lawcourts and magistracy, who exert all their
force to crush working-class opposition, while treating
Fascist illegality with open connivance (banning of the
Red Front alongside permission of the Storm Troops).*
Finally, has Fascism "conquered power" from the
bourgeois state dictatorship? Fascism has never
"conquered power" in any country. In every case Fascism
has been placed in power from above by the bourgeois
dictatorship. In Italy Fascism was placed in power by
the King, who refused to sign the decree of martial law
against it, and invited Mussolini to power; Mussolini's
legendary Π"March on Rome" took place in a Wagon-Lit
sleeping-car. In Germany Fascism was placed in power by
the President, at a time when it was heavily sinking in
support in the country, as shown by the elections. The
bourgeoisie, in fact, has in practice passed power from
one hand to the other, and called it a "revolution,"
while the only reality has been the intensified
oppression of the working class. After the establishment
of the full Fascist dictatorship, the policy has been
still more openly and completely, despite a
* For the protection of Fascism by the lawcourts and
police, and savage vindictiveness against all
working-class defence, see Mowrer, op. cit., Ch. xviii.
For the same process in Italy, see Salvemini, The
Fascist Dictatorship, Vol. 1. Salvemini relat es (P. 71
how in 1920 the Liberal Giolitti Cabinet, with Bonomi,
the Reformist Socialist, as Minister for War, "thought
that the Fascist offensive might be utilised to break
the strength of the Socialists and Communists" and
"therefore allowed the chiefs of the Army to equip the
Fascists with rifles and lorries and authorised retired
officers and officers-on-leave to command them." The
"March on Rome" was led by six Army Generals (P. 153).
The pro-Fascist Survey of Fascism, 1928, admits that
Fascism in Italy grew up "not without a certain
toleration and even some assistance from high quarters"
(P. 38). Mowrer confesses himself unable to understand
why the pre-Fascist governments in Germany tolerated the
growth of Fascism. "It is inconceivable that any German
Chancellor, even a clerical militarist like Heinrich
Bruning, should have allowed the constitution and
training of such a force, armed or unarmed. Why he did
so has never been satisfactorily settled-perhaps never
will be" (p. 277). There is no mystery, no more with
Bruning than with Giolitti, once the class realities of
bourgeois policy and Fascism are clearly understood. In
Germany, the officers who led the Kapp Putsch were never
sentenced; a worker who shot a Kapp rebel was sentenced
to fifteen years hard labour. Hitler, for his armed
revolt against the State in 1923, was given a light
sentence of detention, and released in a few months. The
beginnings of the same process of discrimination by the
lawcourts, with leniency to the early hooliganism of the
nascent Fascist movements and savage sentencing of
workers' attempts at self-defence, are already visible
in Britain. Œ
102 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
show of a few gestures of assistance to small
capital, the most unlimited and ruthless policy of
monopolist capital, with the whole machinery of Fascism
mercilessly turned against those of its former
supporters who have been innocent enough to expect some
anti- capitalist action and called for a "second
revolution." *
Fascism, in short, is a movement of mixed elements,
dominantly petit-bourgeois, but also slum-proletarian
and demoralised working class, financed and directed by
financecapital, by the big industrialists, landlords and
financiers, to defeat the working-class revolution and
smash the workingclass organisations.
* The argument sometimes put forward that the
elimination of Hugenberg from the Nazi- National
Government represented a breach between the Nazis and
Big Capital, and the defeat of the latter, is a
childishly superficial attempt to substitute the fate of
an individual for the really decisive social forces.
Hugenberg was removed from the Nazi-National Government,
not because he was a big capitalist, but because he was
the leader of the National Party, and the completed
Fascist system cannot tolerate the existence of two
parties. Certainly, this reflects an undoubted and sharp
division within the bourgeoisie, between the alternative
methods of maintaining bourgeois rule, between the old
traditional National Party mechanism and the new Nazi
Party mechanism, to the necessity of which a great part
of the bourgeoisie have only reconciled themselves with
many misgivings and much anxiety for the future. But the
Nazi method remains a method, although a hazardous one,
of maintaining the rule of finance-capital.
Financecapital remains supreme, as was abundantly shown
by the composition of the Provisional Supreme Economic
Council appointed under the aegis of the Nazi
Government. Its leading members included;
Herr Krupp von Bohlen, armaments king; private
fortune, L6,000,000; capital represented, L15,000,000.
Herr Fritz Thyssen, steel king; private fortune
L6,000,000; capital interests German Steel Trust,
1140,000,000. Herr F. C. Von Siemens, electrical king;
private fortune, L6,500,000; capital represented,
112,500,000. ΠProf. Karl Bosch, Dye Trust millionaire;
private fortune, 12,000,000; capital represented,
155,000,000. Dr.A. Vogler, German Steel Trust; private
fortune, L6,000,000; capital represented, L40,000,000.
Herr A. Diehn, director Potash Syndicate; capital
represented, L10,000,000. Herr Bochinger, director
Maximilian Steel Works; capital, L15,000,000. Herr F.
von Schroeder, banker. Herr A. von Finck, banker. Herr
F. Reinhart, banker.
This glittering galaxy of the leaders of German
finance-capital is sufficient proof of the relations of
the Nazis and finance-capital. The subsequent further
reorganisation of German industry, announced in March
1934, in twelve industrial groups, under the control of
the principal large capitalists in each group, and under
the general leadership, for heavy industry and also for
industry as a whole, of Herr Krupp von Bohlen, has still
more conspicuously illustrated this process of
systematisation of Nazi rule as the most complete and
even statutory domination of Monopoly Capital.
103 THE MIDDLE CLASS AND THE PROLETARIAT
3. The Middle Class and the Proletariat.
This question of the role of the middle class or
petitbourgeoisie, in relation to the working class and
to the big bourgeoisie, is so important for the whole
dynamic of present capitalist society and the social
revolution, that it deserves fuller clearing.
The controversy over the role of the middle class, or
many and varied intermediate strata between the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat (small business men,
small and middle peasantry, handicraftsmen, independent
workers, small rentiers, liberal professions, technical,
managerial and commercial employees) is no new one. In
the nineteenth century Marx had dealt very fully with
the economic and political situation and tendencies of
these elements. He had shown how these middle elements
were increasingly ground between the advance of large
capital and of the proletariat, with growing numbers
from their ranks falling into proletarian or
semi-proletarian conditions; he had shown their
vacillating and unstable political role, now siding with
the bourgeoisie and now with the proletariat, torn
between their bourgeois prejudices, traditions and
aspirations, and the actual process Πof ruination and
proletarisation at work among them; and he had shown how
the proletariat should win the alliance of the lower
strata of the peasantry and urban petit-bourgeoisie
under its leadership in order to conquer power.
In the beginning of the imperialist era the question
of the middle class was anew raised sharply to the
forefront by Bernstein and the Revisionists in the last
years of the nineteenth century and the first years of
the twentieth. The Revisionists challenged Marx's
teaching of the increasing proletarisation of the middle
strata and consequent increasing sharpness of the issue
between capitalism and the proletariat. On the contrary,
they argued that the middle class was growing, and
pointed to the figures of income returns, property
returns and shareholding, to prove the growth of the
middle class. On this basis they denied Marx's
revolutionary teaching, saw instead the increasing
harmony of classes and democratisation of capital, and
looked to the gradual peaceful advance towards socialism
through capitalist reorganisation, social reform and
State intervention.
What the Revisionists really represented, as is now
abundantly clear, was the o wth of the "new middle
class" of
104 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
salaried employees of capitalism. In fact the process
predicted by Marx was abundantly realised through the
course of the nineteenth century. The concentration of
capital went forward at an increasing pace. Large-scale
capital pressed small-scale capital to the wall. The
former small owners and independent workers became, as
Marx said, "overseers and underlings." In this way a
"new middle class" came more and more to the front,
based on the increasing disappearance of the old
independent small owners. This new middle class
resembled the old in its two-faced position and outlook,
between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and its
dreams of occupying an "independent" position above the
class struggle; but it was already dependent for its
livelihood on employment under large capital, and no
longer primarily on its own property. Thus the
development of this new middle class was in fact a stage
in the process of proletarisation, in the increasing
divorce of the everwidening mass of the population from
an independent property basis; and its lower strata
began to draw closer to the proletariat and to the
proletarian movement (beginnings of "middleclass" trade
unionism, recruiting to social democracy). The
distinctive outlook of this new middle class was
typically expressed in England by Fabianism and the
leadership of the Independent Labour Party.
Against the Revisionists, the Marxists were easily
able to show, Πnot only that the development of this
new middle class increasingly replacing the old was in
reality a phase of the process of proletarisation, but
that further economic development was in turn affecting
the position of this new middle class, and creating a
crisis in its ranks and a new stage of proletarisation.
The overstocking of the professional market, the turning
out from the universities and technical schools of
increasing numbers beyond the possibilities of
employment, and the cutting down of personnel through
the further concentration of businesses, was already
before the war creating a more and more sharp crisis of
the new middle class.
This crisis of the middle class (both old and new)
has been carried enormously forward in the post-war
period. The operations of finance-capital-inflation,
currency and exchange manipulations, share-juggling,
monopoly prices and heavy taxation-have played havoc
with small savings and investments, and with the old
stability of middle-class incomes. At
THE MIDDLE CLASS AND THE PROLETARIAT 105
the same time unemployment and redundancy in all the
professions has reached desperate heights.
"Throughout the Continent," wrote Keynes in his
Treatise on Monetary Reform (p. 16), "pre-war savings of
the middle class, so far as they were invested in bonds,
mortgages or bank deposits, have been largely or
entirely wiped out." The German property valuation
returns showed that the number of those owning from
thirty to fifty thousand marks worth of property L1,500
to 2,500) fell from over 500,000 in 1913 to 216,000 in
1925; owners of from fifty to a hundred thousand marks
L2,500 to 15,000) fell from nearly 400,000 in 1913 to
136,000 in 1925. Although, despite the disillusionment
of the wiping out of their savings by inflation, the
middle class began hopefully to save anew after
stabilisation, the total of savings rapidly began to
fall after the economic crisis, and is now threatened
anew by the new wave of world inflation. In Britain, a
marked decline in small savings is noticeable in the
post-war period even before the world economic crisis.
Thus while in 1909-13 the Post Office Savings Bank
accounts registered a net increase Of ;E12 million, in
1923-7 they registered a net decrease of 117 million, as
well as a net decrease of government securities standing
to their holders' credit by I IS million, or a total
decline of L35 million; Trustee Savings' Banks showed a
net decline of ;112 million; after allowing against
this, the net increase in National Savings Certificates
in the same period by ;E14 million, there is still left
a total loss in these main forms of small savings
between 1923-7 Of L33 million (Economist, February 23,
1929).
If the impoverishment of the small middle class
alongside the enrichment of monopoly capital is thus a
characteristic feature of the Πpost-war period, even
more so is the increasingly desperate situation of
overcrowding in the professions. The world economic
crisis brought this situation to an extreme point.
In Germany, it was reported that of 8,000 graduates
from the technical colleges and universities in 1931-2,
Only 1,000 found employment in their professions.
According to a statement issued by the Prussian Minister
of Education, Of 22,000 teachers who completed their
training in 193 1-2, only 990 found posts. "Engineers
have become mere wage-earners; while of the technical
school engineering graduates only one in five found any
job at all" (H. H. Tiltman, Slump, 1932, P. 75).
106 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
R. Schairer in Die Akademische Berufsnot, 1932,
reported that 45,000 graduated students were unemployed,
and that this figure, it was estimated, would, in the
absence of remedial measures, reach 105,000 by 1935.
Here we can see a large part of the social basis for the
desperate armies of Fascism.
The impoverished and desperate middle class is driven
from its former philistine slumbers into political
activity. But this political activity takes on a new
character. Whereas the Bernsteinian dreams had seen in
the middle class a stabilising and harmonising factor in
the social structure, wedded to liberalism and social
reform, and smoothing over the antagonism of classes,
the new dispossessed and ruined middle-class elements
break out as an extremely unstable, violent force
potentially revolutionary or, alternately,
ultra-reactionary, without dear social basis or
consciousness, but recklessly seeking any line of
immediate action, which may offer a hope of immediate
relief (relief from debts, State aid to small
businesses, smashing the large stores, etc.) or the
prospect of jobs (the new bureaucracy, mercenary
fighting forces, displacement of Jews, war).
In what direction, however, can these middle-class
elements turn their political activity? They can in
practice only line up in the service of either
finance-capital or of the proletariat. The myth of their
"independent" role, of the "third party," is still
endeavoured to be hung before them. The Liberal Yellow
Book, characteristically enough, endeavoured to make
much of "the third party in industry" as the force of
the future. But these dreams are soon shattered by
reality. For the ownership of the means of production is
decisive, and to this the middle class can never aspire.
Either finance-capital, owning the means of production,
can seek to make the middle class its auxiliary, giving
a measure of employment, if diminishingly in production,
then at any rate increasingly in the tasks of violent
coercion of the working class (fascist militia,
police-officer class, fascist bureaucracy). Or the Œ
proletariat, socialising the means of production, can at
last give full scope to all the useful trained and
technical abilities within the middle class in the
gigantic tasks of social reconstruction. These are the
only two alternatives before the middle class. The first
is the line of Fascism. The second is the line of
Communism.
The true interests of the majority of the middle
class, of all the
THE DEFINITION OF FASCISM 107
lower strata of the middle class, lie with the
proletariat, with the line of Communism. Finance-capital
is the enemy and exploiter of both sections. The line of
Fascism of service with finance-capital against the
working class, means in fact no solution for the
economic crisis of the middle class; alongside
privileges and rewards for a handful, it means
intensified servitude, oppression and spoliation of the
majority of the middle class at the hands of the great
trusts and banks.
Where the working-class movement is strong, follows a
revolutionary line, and is able to stand out as the
political leader of the fight of all oppressed sections
against large capital, there the mass of the
petit-bourgeoisie is swept in the wake of the working
class. This was the general situation in the postwar
revolutionary wave of 1919-20. During this time Fascism
could win no hold.
But where the working-class movement fails to realise
its revolutionary role, follows the leadership of
Reformism and thus surrenders to large capital, and even
appears to enter into collaboration with it, there the
discontented petit-bourgeois elements and declassed
proletarian elements begin to look elsewhere for their
leadership. On this basis Fascism is able to win its
hold. In the name of demagogic slogans against large
capital and exploiting their grievances, these elements
are drawn in practice into the service of large capital.
4. The Definition of Fascism.
Fascism is often spoken of as a consequence of
Communism. "Reaction of the 'Left,' " declared the
Labour Manifesto on "Democracy and Dictatorship" in
1933, "is displaced by triumphant reaction of the
'Right."' With strikingly similar identity of outlook to
the Labour Party, the Conservative leader, Baldwin, also
declared: "Fascism is begotten of Communism out of civil
discord. Whenever you get Communism and civil discord,
you get Fascism" (House of Commons, November 23, 1933).
This picture is a fully misleading picture.
Undoubtedly, the Πparallel advance of the forces of
revolution and counterrevolution represents in fact the
two sides of the single process of the break- up of
capitalism; the continuous interaction of the opposing
forces of revolution and counter-revolution was long ago
described by Marx. But the inference attempted to be
108 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
drawn from this that, if the working class follows
the line of Communism, then Fascism will triumph, is the
direct opposite of historical experience. The reality
shows the exact contrary.
Where the majority of the working class has followed
the line of Reformism (Germany, Italy, etc.), there at a
certain stage Fascism invariably grows and conquers.
What is the character of that stage? That stage
arises when the breakdown of the old capitalist
institutions and the advance of working- class movement
has reached a point at which the working class should
advance to the seizure of power, but when the working
class is held in by reformist leadership.
In that case . owing to the failure of decisive
working-class leadership to rally all discontented
strata, the discredited old regime is able to draw to
its support under specious quasirevolutionary slogans
all the wavering elements, petit-bourgeoisie, backward
workers, etc., and on the very basis of the crisis and
discontent which should have given allies to the
revolution, build up the forces of reaction in the form
of Fascism. The continued hesitation and retreat of the
reformist working-class leadership at each point (policy
of the "lesser evil") encourages the growth of Fascism.
On this basis Fascism is able finally to step in and
seize the reins, not through its own strength, but
through the failure of working-class leadership. The
collapse of bourgeois democracy is succeeded, not by the
advance to proletarian democracy, but by the regression
to fascist dictatorship.*
We are now in a position to reach our general
definition of the character of Fascism, the conditions
of its development and its class- rule. This definition
has received its most complete scientific expression in
the Programme of the Communist International in 1928:
Under certain special historical conditions the
progress of the bourgeois, imperialist, reactionary
offensive assumes the form of Fascism.
These conditions are: instability of capitalist
relationships; the
*Reference may be made to the present writer's
suggested definition of the conditions of the advance to
Fascism, written in 1025: "Fascism arises where a
powerful working-class movement reaches a stage of
growth which inevitably raises revolutionary issues, but
is held in from decisive action by reformist leadership.
. . . Fascism is the child of Reformism" (Labour
Monthly, July 1925). The subsequent events in Germany
have abundantly Illustrated the truth of this.
THE DEFINITION OF FASCISM 109
existence of considerable declassed social elements,
the pauperisation of broad strata of the urban
petit-bourgeoisie and of the intelligentsia; discontent
among the rural petit-bourgeoisie, and, finally, the
constant menace of mass proletarian action. In order to
stabilise and perpetuate its rule the bourgeoisie is
compelled to an increasing degree to abandon the
parliamentary system in favour of the fascist system,
which is independent of inter-party arrangements and
combinations.
The Fascist system is a system of direct
dictatorship, ideologically masked by the "national
idea" and representation of the "professions" (in
reality, representation of the various groups of the
ruling class). It is a system that resorts to a peculiar
form of social demagogy (anti- Semitism, occasional
sorties against usurer's capital and gestures of
impatience with the parliamentary "talking shop") in
order to utilise the discontent of the petit- bourgeois,
the intellectual and other strata of society; and to
corruption through the building up of a compact and
well-paid hierarchy of Fascist units, a party apparatus
and a bureaucracy. At the same time, Fascism strives to
permeate the working class by recruiting the most
backward strata of the workers to its ranks, by playing
upon their discontent, by taking advantage of the
inaction of Social Democracy, etc.
The principal aim of Fascism is to destroy the
revolutionary labour vanguard, i.e., the Communist
sections and leading units of the proletariat. The
combination of social demagogy, corruption and active
White terror, in conjunction with extreme imperialist
aggression in the sphere of foreign politics, are the
characteristic features of Fascism. In periods of acute
crisis for the bourgeoisie, Fascism resorts to anti-
capitalist phraseology, but, after it has established
itself at the helm of State, it casts aside its
anti-capitalist rattle, and discloses itself as a
terrorist dictatorship of big capital.
Alongside of this may be placed the parallel analysis
of Fascism in the Resolution on the International
Situation of the same Sixth Congress of the Communist
International in 1928:
The characteristic feature of Fascism is that, as a
consequence of Πthe shock suffered by the capitalist
economic system and of special objective and subjective
circumstances, the bourgeoisie-in order to hinder the
development of the revolution-utilises the discontent of
the petty and middle, urban and rural bourgeoisie and
even of certain strata of the declassed proletariat, for
the purpose of creating a reactionary mass movement.
Fascism resorts to methods of open violence in order
to break the power of the labour organisations and those
of the peasant poor, and to proceed to capture power.
110 FASCISM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
After capturing power, Fascism strives to establish
political and organisational unity among all the
governing classes of capitalist society (the bankers,
the big industrialists and the agrarians), and to
establish their undivided, open and consistent
dictatorship. It places at the disposal of the governing
classes armed forces specially trained for civil war,
and establishes a new type of State, openly based on
violence, coercion and corruption, not only of the
petitbourgeois strata, but even of certain elements of
the working class (office employees, ex-reformist
leaders who have become government officials, trade
union officials and officials of the Fascist Party, and
also poor peasants and declassed proletarians recruited
into the Fascist militia).
The further characteristics of Fascism indicated in
the above analysis, both in respect of its advance to
power, and of its programme and practice after power, it
will now be necessary to examine.