A Study of the economics and Politics
of the Extreme Stages of Capitalism in Decay
by R. PALME DUTT
THE issue of a second edition of this book provides
the opportunity for a short note on the development of
Fascism and Anti- Fascism in the six months since May
1934.
The outstanding development in the world of Fascism
during this period has been the signs of the first
stages of a gathering crisis of Fascism-most sharply
expressed in the events of June 30 in Germany, but also
reflected in the desperate murder-coup fiasco against
Dollfuss on July 25, in the extreme GermanItalian
war-tension, and in the Arpinati episode in Italy, and
still further reflected (in the countries not yet
conquered by Fascism) in the setback to the Fascist
advance in France during the months immediately
succeeding the February offensive, in the setback to
Mosley in Britain as shown by Olympia and Hyde Park and
by the formal disassociation of Rothermere from Mosley,
and in the strength of the Spanish workers' resistance
to Fascism. While it would be a mistake to exaggerate
the significance of particular events and fluctuations
in a long-drawn and profound world-conflict, it is
evident that there has been during this period an
increase in the inner contradictions and difficulties of
ΠFascism and an awakening and gathering of the mass
forces of resistance to Fascism.
The central point of this process for Fascism has
been the events of June 30 in Germany, which marked a
turning point of international significance. The leaders
of the fighting forces of German Fascism, the principal
leaders of the Storm Troops, within fifteen months of
the accession of Fascism to power had to be shot down by
the leader of German Fascism, Hitler, as the
representative and agent of the demands of German
Finance-Capital and of its direct instrument, the
Reichswehr. The majority of the Storm Troops had to be
liquidated. We see here the classic demonstration of the
process of Fascism after power, the alienation and
disillusionment of the petit-bourgeois and
semi-proletarian elements which were made the tools and
dupes of Finance-Capital and now find all their
aspirations thwarted with the denialof "the second revolution," the consequent narrowing
of the social basis of the Fascist regime, and the ever
more open demonstration of its real character as the
terrorist dictatorship of Finance-Capital. While a
warning must again be uttered against exaggerating the
tempo of development and rate of growth of mass
opposition, it is evident that a single chain unites the
phases of the factory elections in the spring of 11934,
with their unfavourable results for the Nazis, the
intensive campaign against the "critics and carpers,"
the alleged "revolt" and its bloody suppression on June
3o, and the results of the plebiscite in August, when
(after the declaration of Goebbels on the eve of the
poll that the loss of a single vote in comparison with
the previous November would be a disaster) the direct No
vote rose from 2.1 millions in November, 1933, to 4.3
millions in August, 1934, and reached an average Of 20
per cent. in the main industrial towns. Parallel with
this process has gone forward the steadily worsening
economic situation, the mounting adverse trade balance
in place of the previous exports surplus, the sharp
cutting down of imports of essential raw materials, and
tightening Organisation on a war basis of rationing and
hardship (reflected in the tone of Hitler's Buckerberg
speech of September 30, 1934: "Never will they bring us
to our knees," "if the worst comes to the worst" etc..
The whole concentration of Nazi policy becomes more and
more openly directed to the most intensive preparation
of war as the sole path forward.
On the other side, the examples of Germany and
Austria have led to a widespread awakening of working
class and general popular opposition to Fascism in all
countries; and this has led to a rapid advance of the
united working class front, and, in particular, the
united front of the Socialist and Communist Parties,
against the fascist and war menace in a number of
leading countries. This extending development of the
united working class front is the most important and the
most hopeful development of 1934. In this advance the
French working class has led the way. The united front
pact of the French Socialist Party and of the French
Communist Party was finally signed Πon July 27, 1934;
and the powerful influence of this common front is
stimulating and mobilising the entire working class, and
spreading confidence and fighting spirit, has been the
decisive factor in delaying the planned rapid offensive
of Fascism in France during 1934. With the fall of the
Doumergue- Tardieu Cabinet of National Concentration in
November, with the combined demand of all the bourgeois
forces for anti-democratic constitutional changes, and
with the Fascist groupings preparing renewed offensives,
heavy tests are now in front for the fighting strength
of the united working class in France.
At the same time in Austria the lessons of the
February battles have produced a far-reaching
transformation in the working class. The illegal
Communist Party has advanced to the position of a mass
party with the absorption of the left Social Democratic
and Schutzbund elements, many organisations in leading
working-class districts coming over en bloc.
The Revolutionary Socialist Committees, composed of
former Social Democratic elements and later setting up
the United Socialist Party, have maintained the old
forms and contact with the emigrant leadership and with
the Second International but have proclaimed the aim of
the dictatorship of the proletariat and denounced the
old "democratic and reformist illusions" ("The Fascist
dictatorship in Austria has dispelled all democratic and
reformist illusions among the workers"letter of the
Central Committee of the Revolutionary Socialists of
Vienna to Bauer and to the Second International on May
20, 1934). In July a united front was established by the
Communist Party, the Central Committee of the
Revolutionary Socialists of Austria, and the Committee
of Action of the Schutzbund, with a joint manifesto for
"the revolutionary dictatorship of the working class"
and for "a united revolutionary class party of the
Austrian proletariat."
The united front of the Socialist and Communist
Parties was also established in Italy, in the Saar and
(in September) in Spain. Among the working class youth
organisations in all countries the advance of the united
front was even more marked.
On the other hand, the British Labour Party and a
number of other Social Democratic Parties, notably the
Scandinavian, the Dutch, the Belgian, the Swiss and the
Czecho-Slovak, actively opposed the united front and
even developed extended disciplinary measures to prevent
its realisation. In October, 1934, the Communist
International approached the Second International for
common action in support of the Spanish workers. A meeting took place, at which the
representatives of the Second International, Vandervelde
and Adler, while declaring Πthemselves unable to agree
to any immediate common action or to commit their
constituent parties, agreed to continue the negotiations
with a view to reaching a basis of common action
analogous to that in France. The British Labour Party,
on the other hand, which is the largest section of the
Second International, and which had just at its
Southport Conference passed draconian decisions against
any form of united front or even "loose association"
with Communism, expressed strong disapproval of any
negotiations taking place. At the same time the Spanish
Socialist Party, equally a section of the Second
International, had not only reached a united front with
the Communist Party, but was taking direct part in armed
civil war under the slogan of the dictatorship of the
proletariat.
This extreme and extending division and disparateness
of policies among the parties of the Second
International is a symptom of the profound process of
transformation going forward among the Social Democratic
workers under the influence of the object-lesson of
Fascism. The further development of this situation in
the international working-class movement is of critical
importance.
The Spanish revolutionary mass struggle, reaching in
October 1934, to the stage of open civil war against the
advancing Fascist offensive of the combined reactionary
clerical-militarist-landlord-bourgeois forces, and in
the province of Asturias reaching to the formation of
Soviets, has immeasurably raised the whole international
working-class movement, even more than the battles of
Vienna in February. It has revealed a far higher degree
of mass-participation and unity, and of consciousness of
revolutionary aim, even though not yet reaching the
conditions of Organisation and leadership for final
victory. The formation of the Soviet regime in Asturias
at the outset of the struggle, and the prolonged and
tenacious resistance against all the forces of the
Spanish Government, reaches a point of revolutionary
struggle unequalled in Western Europe since the days of
the Hungarian and Bavarian Soviet Republics in 1919. The
lesson endeavoured to be drawn by the reformists, of the
inevitable failure of armed struggle against the
military resources of modern governments, is the exact opposite of the reality; for the prolonged
resistance of the workers of Asturias, facing alone the
entire forces of the Spanish Government and its African
levies, has abundantly shown that, if the workers of the
other principal regions, and especially Catalonia,
Andalusia and Madrid, had been fighting at the same
time, with equal tenacity and leadership, the forces of
the Government would have been powerless to cope with
the situation, and a Soviet Spain would have been
already won. The Spanish revolutionary struggle at the
end of 1934, following on Vienna at the beginning, is
the signal of the future in Europe.
But the heaviest struggles are still in front. In the
face of the present international situation of the
increasing difficulties, desperation and discrediting of
Fascism, the weakening of its mass Πbasis in the
countries where it has won power, and the gathering of
mass forces of resistance in the countries where it has
not yet won power, a new illusion has begun to be widely
spread in Liberal and Social Democratic circles-the
illusion of the retreat of Fascism. It is said that
Fascism has passed its zenith, is on the downgrade, that
the heaviest danger of Fascism is passing. The extreme
pessimisitic defeatism of a year and a half ago is
giving place to a no less baseless and illusory
optimistic complacency. A year ago the prophecies were
all of an "epoch of Fascism" lasting for decades. To-day
a Citrine can declare that "dictatorship in every land
has passed its peak; there was an appearance of
stability about the regime in Germany, but he was
satisfied that even there a change would gradually but
surely come, and that ultimately the democratic rights
of the people would assert themselves" (speech to the
International Clothing Workers' Conference, August,
1934).
Underlying this outlook of a section of the Social
Democratic leadership is undoubtedly the belief that
Fascism, faced with increasing internal difficulties and
mass discontent, may yet be compelled to turn to Social
Democracy for assistance, and that a renewed sphere of
permitted activity may open out for the Social
Democratic and trade union leadership within Fascism (as
was already hoped for and sought by German Social
Democracy in the initial period of the Hitler regime by
the May 17 vote for Hitler and the trade union
bureaucracy's courting of the Nazis). Nor are signs of
this possibility lacking. The well-informed Manchester Guardian special
correspondent (always in close touch with Social
Democratic circles) reported in August that Hitler, in
view of the failure of the Labour Front and the Nazi
factory cells to win the support of the workers, had
approached former Social Democratic leaders with a view
to the formation of "non-political trade unions"; the
proposal had been referred to the Executive at Prague,
and "Wels was in favour of further negotiations" (the
subsequent formal denial issued by Wels, to the effect
that he had not met any representative of Hitler-the
intermediary was in fact a Social Democrat- left the
essence of the Manchester Guardian report unrefuted).
Similarly may be noted Bauer's suggestion in the August
Kampf that the Schuschnigg Clerico-Fascist Government
might extend its basis to the left by "an understanding
with the working class." In Italy during the same period
Mussolini made his approach to the former Socialist
leaders, Caldara and Schiavi, for their collaboration
and even for the issue of a permitted "Socialist"
journal in Milan. These are only signs so far; but the
possibility is not excluded that Fascism in difficulties
may turn to the collaboration of a section of the Social
Democratic and old trade union leadership (as was done
by De Rivera in Spain, by Pilsudski in Poland, by
Bulgarian Fascism, etc.).*
These hopes of a section of the old Social Democratic
leadership, however, bear no relation to the real
process of transformation taking Πplace in the main
body of the Social Democratic workers and rapid advance
to militant struggle and working class unity.
* How thin is the margin between the ideology of the
old Social Democratic leadership and Fascism is
illustrated by the expression of a representative of
German Social Democracy, E. Conze, who has been
conducting propaganda in the British Labour Movement
since the advent of Hitler to power. He writes:
"Fascism is the organised attempt to introduce
Socialist planning with the consent of Big Business" (E.
Conze, Time and Tide, July 28, 1934.)
"I do not mind the Fascists being labelled
'capitalistic.' 1 want to add, however, that the
self-destructive policy of German reformism and
Communism created to a certain extent a temporary
harmony between the interests of the masses and those of
the capitalists, which was exploited by Fascism. If the
masses have no chance to get socialism, they must back
capitalist imperialism as the only alternative" (E.
Conze, Plebs, October 1934).
From this typical Social Democratic view of Fascism
as "the organised attempt to introduce Socialist
planning with the consent of Big Business," representing
"to a certain extent a temporary harmony between the
interests of the masses and those of the capitalists,"
it is obviously no very far step to cooperation with
Fascism,
No illusion could be more dangerous than the illusion
that Fascism can be in retreat without a decisive
struggle, that Fascism can ever be finally overcome save
by the workingclass revolution and the establishment of
the working-class dictatorship. It is equally necessary
to fight the illusion of the inevitability of Fascism,
or of the inevitable long-term power of Fascism in the
countries where it has won power, as it is necessary to
fight the illusion that a temporary fluctuation can mean
the retreat and ultimate disappearance of Fascism, or
disappearance of the menace of Fascism in the countries
where it has not yet conquered, without a decisive
revolutionary struggle. On the contrary, the greater the
difficulties of Fascism, the more desperate and ruthless
will be its fight for existence. The massing of the
working-class united front does not yet mean the defeat
of Fascism; it means only the massing of the forces for
the struggle against Fascism and for the final
revolutionary struggle.
It has been the essential purpose of the present book
to establish that Fascism is not merely the expression
of a particular Πmovement, of a particular party within
modern society, but that it is the most complete
expression of the whole tendency of modern capitalism in
decay, as the final attempt to defeat the working- class
revolution and organise society on the basis of decay.
This tendency runs through all modern capitalist
countries without exception, and the advent of open
Fascism to power is only its final and completed
expression. The drive against the working- class, the
strengthening of executive and police powers (Sedition
Bill in England, constitutional reforms in France, new
emergency dictatorship forms in the United States), the
attempt to paralyse the working-class organisations from
within upon a basis of enforced class-co-operation and
war against all revolutionary elements (social fascism),
the drive to war and increasing Organisation of the
entire economic social and political structure for war,
go rapidly forward in all countries, including the
formally "democratic" countries,
Britain, France and the United States. The fight
against Fascism is the fight against this entire process
of modern capitalism.
In particular, the drive to war, in close unity with
the drive
to Fascist forms of Organisation and preparation of
war within each country, becomes the more and more dominant
character of the present stage.
The supreme task now is to build up the widest United
Front against Fascism and War. Widespread anti-Fascist
and anti-war feeling exists on all sides. But the
essential need is organisation. The resistance to the
united front must be overcome. No separate and sectional
interests can be allowed to stand in the way of this.
The all- inclusive united working-class front, drawing
in its wake the mass of the petit-bourgeois and
unorganised elements, requires to be built up in every
country. Only the widest common front can defeat
Fascism. And for the victory of the struggle it is
essential to understand the true character of the
issues, the final necessity of the revolutionary
alternative, which can alone defeat Fascism and war by
the victory of the socialist revolution.
In the six months since this book was published, the
urgency of these issues has become still greater.
November, 1934. R. P. D.