textfiles/politics/SPUNK/sp001130.txt

2 articles [2nd is 'Can the European fascists come to 
power today?', WS 39]

******** The fight against fascism to-day *********
                      from Workers Solidarity No 37
                                            [1993]

"What is Fascism, at bottom, but the direct product 
of the failure to achieve socialism?"

Daniel Guerin wrote the above words in 1945 when 
the classic example of fascism had been defeated.  
However unlike others he was not naive enough to 
believe that fascism was defeated once and for all.  
A certain fact remains true to today, that in a 
period when capitalism is experiencing a crisis we 
are once again observing a rise in fascist politics 
across Europe.  The politics are initially racist to 
begin with but more recently we see that less and 
less shame is being attached to waving Swastikas 
or giving a fascist salute.  

This is mainly due to the revised History which is being 
spewed out by people like David Irving.  Irving, the 
supposed historian, likes to espouse ideas that Hitler "an 
ordinary, walking, talking human being" was unaware 
of the systematic slaughter of nearly six million Jews. 
Irving's output, coupled along with such views of history as 
"Did Six Million Really Die" by Richard Verall, means 
that the Nazi heritage can be revealed with less shame and 
more perverse pride by the far-right in Germany.

Nazi Germany in the 1930s and early 1940s demonstrated 
the reality of fascism.  Today the fascists re not on the way 
to taking state power anywhere in the world.  However this 
does not mean that they can be safely ignored.  Tapping 
into widespread discontent, they are providing the 
leadership and stimulus for growing racist hatred and terror.  
They represent an immediate threat to immigrants and 
minorities like lesbians and gays.  Should they continue to 
grow they will pose a major threat to all working class and 
left-wing organisations.

RACISM AND ROSTOCK

The task in Europe is to combat racism, to oppose it in all its 
manifestations.  This is what the victims of racist oppression 
need, and this is what can deny the fascists the possibility 
of a mass base.  Fighting the specifically fascist groups, and 
stopping their activities and recruitment drives is necessary.  
But the fight against racism, both institutional and 
otherwise, is the main component of the struggle.

The German town of Rostock recently became infamous as 
we witnessed pictures of neo-nazi youth hurling petrol 
bombs at the asylum hostel containing mostly Bulgarian and 
Romanian refugees.  One local activist in Germany reported 
the following.  "On Sunday night, a line of riot police 
could not prevent a second night of attacks, this time by 
nazi youths armed with molotov cocktails.  It seemed 
the nazis were very well organized.  Christian Worch of 
the far-right 'National List' party from Hamburg was 
on hand to provide leadership, and neo-nazi cadres 
with walky-talkies (and even police radios!) helped 
provide organization. The obvious lack of police 
intervention made it clear that at least some elements 
within the police force were quietly sympathetic, or 
may even have aided in preparations for the neo-nazi 
attacks.  This became clearer when 100 anti-fascists 
were brutally dispersed as they arrived on the scene.  
At least 60 local anti-fascists were arrested in Rostock 
on Sunday night, many were placed in prison cells full 
of neo-nazis.  Obviously the cops wanted to see them get 
the shit kicked out of them."

However what was the reaction of the German politicians to 
the events of Rostock, Ketzin and Leverkusen?  The Social 
Democrats dropped their opposition to a change in the right 
of asylum for the politically persecuted.  This now means 
that Article 16(II)2 - which was included in the German 
Basic Law out of responsibility for the many refugees who 
fled from the Nazis in the 1930's - is likely to be fully 
undermined.  This seems a strange way to combat the rise of 
the far-right and their racist attacks on refugees.

FRANCE

In France Le Pen's Front National received 13.9% of the 
vote in elections in March.  In 1984 (Orwellian irony) the 
FN received 2,204,961 in the European elections.  At this 
present FN has a presence on every regional council in 
France.  Le Pen and his party have made very significant 
gains from the time 10 years previously  when he could not 
muster the 500 signatures needed to run for the 
presidential election.  These gains have been made over the 
last ten years when the 'Socialists' were in power in France.  
Over this time racism has become an acceptable part of the 
political culture.  

The so-called Socialist government talked of the "necessity" 
of setting up detention centres in all ports and airports.  
The mayor of Chavieu Chavagnon, near Lyons, buldozed a 
local mosque with 12 worshippers inside in 1989.   Mr 
Dezenpte (the mayor) boasts that his efforts have more than 
halved the local Moslem population.  Yet, Dezenpte is not a 
member of the FN, he is in the Gaullist RPR (who vote with 
Fianna F<>il in the EC parliament).  He was re-elected 
mayor, trouncing the local FN candidate, getting 66.7% of 
the vote.  

This is just an example to indicate how racism has become 
an endemic part of the established Parties' politics in 
France.  The racist agenda being set by the politicians has 
lead to a broader acceptance of the policies advocated by the 
Front National.  Recent polls in France showed that 84% 
"understand" racist reactions and 75% in one poll thought 
that there was "too many Arabs in France".

LE PEN'S PROGRAMME UNFOLDS

It is on the back of such open and obvious hostility to 
immigrants  (e.g. 300 riot police storming a hostel and 
arresting 168 people, deporting 19 of them within 24 hours. 
This was under a 'Socialist' government) that Le Pen and 
his mob can now raise more openly extremist politics.  The 
obvious growth of the FN in the polls can be related to the 
racists rolling in behind them.  However new FN policy 
against the Veil law (legalised abortion) is shown in their 
slogan "kill the infant and you kill France".  

They are also campaigning "against the right to strike".  
In this campaign Le Pen said that "the strike is a weapon 
against the workers".  Here he is obviously trying to lead 
his already racist flock down the murky path towards 
fascism.  It will be interesting to see if he loses some of his 
support or if more of the disenfranchised join his ranks.  In 
France, as everywhere else, the Left has weakened.  In a 
country which was buoyant with hopes when the Socialists 
took power in 1982 the people then went on to see the same 
party propose Bernard Tappie (multi-millionare and owner of 
Marsiellies Football Club) on the 'Socialist' ticket for 
election. 

There has been large demonstrations against the Front 
National on the streets of Paris, Nice, Brest, Lyon, Nancy 
Djion and other cetres.  The demonstrations may well have 
been strong and morale-boosting for the participants.   
However, the only real way to dispose of the FN is to erode 
their support by combating their openly racist politics.  You 
have to expose their ideas as racist and unacceptable in 
order to destroy the support which Le Pen and the FN now 
have. 

BRITAIN

In Britain where you have three anti-fascist organisations, 
the Anti-Racist Alliance, the Anti-Nazi League and Anti-
Fascist Action, you only have one fair sized fascist party the 
British National Party.  The Anti-Nazi League has risen like 
a phoenix from the flames.  The reason for its resurrection 
was to ensure "the growth of the far right in Europe 
...does not give strength and confidence to Nazi 
organisiations in this country".  Unfortunately however, 
with the recent poor showing of the BNP in the local 
elections it would be rather more truthful to say that the 
ANL were set up by the Socialist Workers Party as a focus 
around which to rally and recruit new members during a 
period of low levels of class struggle.  

The Anti-Racist Alliance is led by Black professionals with 
the support of various liberals and former Stalinists.  It sees 
itself as a leadership and 'voice' for the victims of racism.  It 
places no particular importance on getting people involved 
in activity.

Anti-Fascist Action, unlike the other two organisations, is 
committed to preventing the fascists openly recruiting.  
They are prepared to physically oppose BNP and NF 
meetings and marches.  They also recognise that physical 
confrontation is only part of the anti-fascist struggle, their 
ideas must also be defeated.  

The threat of a growth of fascism in Britain seems very 
small.  In the recent local elections no single candidate 
received more than 1,310 votes.  Out of 13 BNP candidates, 
only two received more than 2% of the vote in their 
constituency.  The National Front faired even worse with 
the highest vote for one of their 14 candidates being 675.  
What needs to be combated is the racism which is leads to a 
higher number of race related attacks each year.  Unless 
energies are used in such a way as to make racism 
unacceptable then anti-fascists will always be chasing the 
same fascists around areas like Tower Hamlets or Bethnal 
Green.

The east German people have come through a period where 
their hopes have been raised and dashed.  The Berlin Wall 
may have fallen but the unified Germany is fulfilling very 
few dreams.  The neo-Nazi movement taps into the despair of 
people' lives and encourages the dislike of asylum seekers 
and foreigners.  They have turned this dislike into open 
hostilities such as those witnessed in Rostock and 
Leverkusen.  The left in Germany have organised the 
ANTIFA (Anti-Fascist Action) which is a broad based action 
group of the far-left.  This serves as a rallying point for the 
divergent groups.  The Left in Germany is experiencing a 
dark time as all the ills of the GDR are blamed on "40 years 
of Communism".  The far-left is in a state of disarray.  The 
Anti-Fascist movements serve as a great focus for the far-left 
but once again the ideological battle is being left on the 
back burner.  

DASHED HOPES AND MISDIRECTED ANGER

In an historical sense fascism has been portrayed as a 
religion. During a crisis in capitalism people start to turn 
towards extremes and, as Mussolini succinctly put it, "if 
fascism were not a faith how could it give it's 
adherents stoicism and courage".  Fascism draws towards 
it the unquestioning, those who seek a seemingly radical 
solution to their problems.  Fascism actively seeks the youth 
by exalting them and saying they has a special role to play 
in the upheaval against the "has-beens" of the world.  For 
some east Germans who have seen the horror of their old 
state and had their hopes dashed in the newly unified 
Germany, the far-right is seen by them as having the radical 
solution. 

The growth of the ultra-right in Germany is demonstrated 
in Universities by the right-wing fraternities known as 
"Burschenschafen" which are enjoying a revival.  These 
fraternities were founded in the days of Bismark.  With the 
Left enduring a very unfashionable period on the campuses 
these "Burschenschafen" are filling a vacuum with an 
active membership of 6,000.  They are fencing clubs who use 
slogans such as "Honour, Freedom and Fatherland".  

They have also had David Irving as an invited guest 
speaker.  The Silesian German territories lost to Poland in 
1945 are a hotly debated subject.  One member, Christian 
Paulwitz (23), said "What we keep calling east Germany 
today is for me middle Germany".  Given that conditions 
in most of the universities are steadily deteriorating it is of 
concer to see right-wing politics gain a strong grip on the 
campuses.  This could ultimately lead to a right-wing revolt 
in the 1990s which may compare with the left-wing revolts 
of the 1960s.  Once again it seems that the Right are 
recruiting the Left's loss.   This is exactly what Guerin 
meant when he said "What is Fascism, ...but a direct 
product of the failure to achieve socialism".

Many arguments have been made to suggest that fascism 
needs a strong Left and labour movement, coupled with 
funding by the big capitalists to grow.  Well obviously the 
first two are almost non-existent in the present period and 
the final criteria is doubtful, but if we continue to only 
chase these fascists/racists off the streets and fail to counter 
their arguments ideologically then we truly run the risk of 
watching the numbers of people we have to chase 
increasing.  The anti-authoritarian Left needs to organise, 
develop its policies, get their message across to the working 
class that real socialism has not failed them and that there 
is a way out of this capitalist nightmare.   We do not need 
to delve into diabolical fascism to achieve this.

Dermot Sreenan

****** Can the European fascists come to power? ****
                                          From WS 39
                                            [1993?]

THE GROWTH of the far-right throughout Europe in the 
last few years has alarmed many who thought fascism 
died with Hitler.  It also has given rise to a debate 
on the left over the nature of fascism, one that has 
spilled over into the letters pages of Workers 
Solidarity.  The debate continues with Andrew Flood 
discussing some of the historical features of fascism 
and the importance of racism as the central plank of 
fascism to-day.

In order to explain the rise of fascism to-day it is useful 
to look at the rise of fascism historically.  On the left, 
fascism is often presented as something that arose to head 
off imminent revolution.  There is some truth in this as in 
both Italy and Germany fascism appeared in a period of great 
social upheaval.  Germany saw workers' risings in 1918 and 
1923.  In Italy the years from the end of the war to the 
early twenties were known as the Red Years and saw waves of 
land and factory occupations.

Although the prototypes of the fascist organisations came 
into existence at this time they were not significant in 
defeating these uprisings.  They were defeated instead 
through a combination of the conventional forces of the state 
and the intervention of the social-democrats, turning protest 
away from an attempt to fundamentally change society into one 
of gaining a "fairer" version of capitalism.  Significant 
reforms were won including higher wages, the eight hour day 
and breaking up of some of the larger landlords' estates.  In 
both Italy and Germany the workers had set up factory 
councils.  Rather then going for a head on confrontation with 
these bodies the bosses legalised them and converted them 
into toothless consultative bodies.

The bosses were not altogether happy with this because such 
reforms were paid for in part out of their profits.  Heavy 
industry in particular with its much heavier ratio of fixed 
costs in the shape of machinery resented this.  The state 
however represented the interests of the capitalists as a 
whole, and light industry preferred the stable conditions 
created by the policy of class collaboration rather than a 
confrontational approach.  Therefore the state was unwilling 
to launch the serious attacks on the workers' organisations 
that heavy industry demanded.

FASCISM AND BIG BUSINESS

The heavy industrialists were the first to turn to fascism to 
help them win back their profits.  Initially this was by 
financing and arming the variety of fascist gangs that had 
arisen after the war.  In Italy in particular the 
industrialists funded an army of fascists composed of 
alienated war veterans, adventurists and petty criminals that 
would arrive in a particular locality and set about smashing 
the local union organisation and whatever socialist 
organisations existed.  At the time only the anarchists were 
willing to physically fight the fascists but the fascist 
tactic of smashing the left on an area by area basis meant 
they, on their own, lacked the strength to stop the fascists.  
Armed anarchist resistance to fascism was to continue 
throughout Europe until 1945.

This fascist tactic of swamping areas was only possible 
because these gangs were funded by the industrialists while 
those fighting against them were workers who could not leave 
their jobs for long periods of time to concentrate where ever 
the fascists were.  Later on the main unions would also, 
sometimes, hold demonstrations against fascism but more often 
then not these were broken up by fascists, sometimes even 
though the fascists were heavily outnumbered.  Most of the 
left shied away from any physical confrontation, preferring 
to relay on the social democrats and the liberals to protect 
them through the state.

The fascists served other purposes for heavy industry as 
well.  Their focus on "the nation" and rearming suited the 
industrialists.  Heavy industry was the main supplier for the 
war industry and during re-armament massive profits were made 
by the industrialists.  Re-armament essentially served to 
provide massive state subsidies and guaranteed profits for 
the bosses.  To achieve this goal and to drive down wages and 
conditions heavy industry supported fascism in its drive for 
power.  The importance of this financial support was 
explained by Hitler when in 1934 he invited his audience to 
consider what it had meant in the elections for the Nazis to 
have a thousand cars put at their disposal.

Did the difference between heavy industry and light industry 
mean that the light industrialists were natural anti-
fascists.  Their business were not so capital intensive as 
heavy industry so they did not have the same need to drive 
down wages as recession could be controlled by laying off a 
section of the workforce.  They supported social partnership 
with the social democrats and the trade unions.  To a large 
extent a militaristic expansion did not favour their needs 
and because they would, at least in part, have to pay for it.

WE NEED A REVOLUTION

However as fascism grew and gained mass support it became 
obvious it was going to come to power.  The only thing that 
could have stopped it would have been a revolution.  The 
light industrialists, when faced with a choice of losing 
their power through a workers' revolution or the more minor 
disadvantages of fascism, were obviously going to make one 
choice.  In any case fascism did promise them lower wages and 
the destruction of workplace organisation.  This went some 
way towards making up for its potential disadvantages.

Fascism's mass base was built around the middle class, which 
in both Italy and Germany had been impoverished.  After the 
war very high inflation served both to drive down their 
earnings and reduce drastically the real value of their 
income.  They lacked the organisation of the workers so it 
was not unusual for them to be paid less than manual workers.  
In this situation they could have been won over to socialism 
but socialism has been very much discredited by the 
combination of the degeneration of the Russian revolution 
under Lenin and the repeated betrayals of the social 
democrats in power.

The same was true for the peasantry.  Agricultural prices had 
plummeted in the post war years.  The left for the most part 
made no attempt to influence the peasantry, influenced 
primarily by the concept that peasants could play no 
progressive role.  Indeed the Russian revolution was attacked 
at the Italian Socialist Party conference for having given 
the land to the peasants.  In these circumstances it was the 
fascists rather than the socialists who gained support in 
rural areas.  In Germany the big landowners were able to use 
fascism to get the peasants to form a block with them, 
calling for higher food prices.

Fascism also recruited from other sources but it was 
singularly unsuccessful in recruiting any sort of working 
class base.  In the German factory council election of 1931 
the fascists achieved only 5% of the vote.  In the partial 
elections of 1933 they achieved only 3% and this with Hitler 
in power.  In Italy the fascist unions were only built by 
waiting for the fascists gangs to arrive in an area and then 
firing anyone who was not a member of the fascist union.  The 
gangs would fill the employers need for labour and smash any 
resistance.  Eventually the workers would be starved into 
joining the fascist unions.  Despite the odds against them it 
would sometimes take months before a majority of the workers 
would submit.

FASCISM TODAY

Today it would appear the far right are on the march again.  
If election figures alone were anything to go by they are 
2/3rds of the way to power in France and about 1/3 in Germany 
(Hitler never got more than 33% of the vote).  Is there 
really an imminent threat of the Fascists taking power?  In 
fact these figures serve to highlight not only the real 
danger of modern day fascism but also the differences between 
the situation in the twenties and thirties and that which 
exists today.

Two different threats need to be distinguished when we talk 
about fascism.  The first threat is the threat to individuals 
of being set upon and maimed or killed by fascist thugs.  
This clearly exists today in almost every European country.  
Since the early eighties an average of two racist murders 
have occurred a week in France.  Racist attacks in Germany 
last year became a regular feature on all the worlds news 
services.  Attacks on leftists have also become far more 
common throughout Europe in the last few years.

The second threat is different, this is the threat of fascism 
on the road to power, where the right wing attempts to smash 
all opposition by physical means.  European fascism has not 
yet entered this phase.  It does not have the backing of any 
sizeable section of the ruling class.  Its attacks to date 
are designed by the leaders of the fascist organisations to 
win it more support.  The concentration on racism rather than 
attacks on workplace organisation is not primarily due to the 
fascists hiding their true colours.  As yet big business has 
not called upon the fascists to play their historic role of 
smashing potential opposition to austerity measures.

There are few reports of fascists attacking pickets or 
breaking up the premises of unions.  Direct attacks by 
fascists on the left have increased but are still very much 
fewer than the number of attacks on immigrants.  This is not 
to say there are none, the bomb attack on the office of the 
Danish section of the International Socialists in which one 
of their members was killed or the physical attacks by FN 
supporters on anti-fascist demonstrations show such activity 
is occurring.  Leftists have been killed in Germany by 
fascists and in Britain physical attacks on the left have 
become more common.  

There was the recent daytime attack on the anarchist Freedom 
Bookshop in London's Whitechapel by the neo-nazi C18 gang 
(the 1 and 8 refers to the letters of the alphabet, A & H or 
Adolph Hitler) and the attempt to burn down another anarchist 
bookshop, the 121 Centre in Brixton.  It is, however, a 
secondary feature of the activities of fascists to-day.  

LONDON ARRESTS

As yet there is little evidence for any substantial link 
between the fascists and sections of the ruling class.  This 
is also the reason why the police can sometimes choose to 
move in force against the fascists.  The recent arrest of 
some 300 fascists trying to attack the Bloody Sunday march in 
London is a case in point.  This is not to say the cops are 
an ally in the fight against fascism, just that at the moment 
the cops and the state have no great enthusiasm for the 
fascist groups.  The fascists have little support from any 
section of the ruling class so any support they get from the 
police is restricted to that engendered by a set of common 
prejudices they share.

There is no doubt though that the fascists in Germany have 
the passive if not active support of the cops a lot of the 
time.  At Rostock the local police failed to do anything to 
protect the immigrants or prevent fascists from arriving at 
the town.  Considerable numbers of anti-fascists were 
arrested in Rostock however.  

Yet the German polices response when sections of the left use 
physical force as a weapon is much more spectacular.  In the 
70's the terrorist Red Army Fraction (RAF) killed a much 
smaller number of people than the fascists have killed in 
Germany.  This activity was enough for the German state to 
ban members of left organisations from any state employment, 
hounding tens of thousands out of their jobs.  It saw waves 
of arrests and torture in police custody.  It saw the murder 
of three of the leading members of the RAF in jail by the 
state.  The German far right has not received anything like 
the same sort of treatment.  They do have the support of at 
least a small section of the ruling class.

FASCISM OR RACISM?

The concentration by the fascists on racism also explains why 
their supporters include many workers this time around.  When 
all the mainstream political parties are blaming unemployment 
and poor housing on immigration the fascists are able to say, 
look we are fighting to get you jobs by driving out these 
foreigners.  This is why many on the left see the far-right 
as being ultra-racists rather than fascists.  At the moment 
the fight against the manifestations of racism is more 
important, but this can not be artificially divided from the 
fight against the far-right parties.  This separation also 
comes out of a analysis of fascism that sees it as something 
which can only arise in opposition to the existence of a 
large militant socialist movement.  Essentially in this 
analysis fascism is a tool the bosses use only when there is 
a working class movement heading in a revolutionary 
direction.

Before World War Two fascism did not arise to head off an 
imminent revolution in either Germany or Italy.  It arose 
because the bosses needed to squeeze the working class a lot 
harder than the democratic capitalist state was capable of.  
Wage cuts were so savage under fascism that wages in Germany, 
for instance, did not reach the 1931 level until 1956.  
Including cuts in the social wage, new taxes and direct wage 
cuts workers lost at least 50% of their pay.  In fact a large 
part of the German "economic miracle" after World War Two was 
due to the fact that post-war German bosses were left both 
with the physical legacy of the capital created under fascism 
but also a level of wages and conditions much lower then the 
rest of Europe.

At the moment capitalism is in a deep crisis and it would 
appear that neither social partnership as practised in 
Ireland or the "free market" economics of the Thatcherites 
can pull it out.  This does not mean that the bosses will 
necessarily turn to fascism in the near future, it does 
however mean that it would be dangerous to rule out this 
possibility.  It has been argued that the unions are very 
weak and the bosses would not need to resort to such measure 
to drive down wages.  As against this wages in most European 
countries have not yet fallen in real terms.  

Attempts by the bosses to actually cut back wages have been 
met with limited resistance like the metal workers' strike in 
Germany or the miners' marches in Britain.  Some workers, 
like the tube workers in London, have taken action outside 
the official structure of their unions.  The actual level of 
resistance to substantial real cuts is unmeasured, the bosses 
could decide the current states are incapable of enforcing 
their will.

SOFT RACISTS

The current status of the European far-right as a primarily 
racist rather than fascist movement does effect the way we 
fight it.  It is the official racism of the governments and 
opposition parties that has made the far right acceptable.  
Yet many of their campaigns built by the left to-day have 
sought to include soft racists in the fight against the hard 
racists.  This is a mistake for three reasons.  Firstly it 
means those sections of the population subject to racism will 
just see the left as not offering any real alternative.  
Secondly it makes the fascists' racist agenda itself more 
acceptable although it aims to make their methods less so.  
Thirdly, it's wrong to give any respectability or comfort to 
racism.

The racists have succeeded in creating a consensus throughout 
Europe that runs from the far right to the soft left.  
Immigration is identified as the key to the problem affecting 
workers' conditions.  The difference between the fascists 
fire-bombing houses and the French Socialist Party deporting 
immigrants is, in the final analysis, one of tactics and not 
one of principle.  The fascists may well lose support to the 
more moderate racists if these 'moderates' succeed in slowing 
immigration.  This demonstrates how it is not the fascists 
setting the terms of debate but rather the mainstream 
parties.  There is a need to win what remains of the 
activists in social democratic parties to a more serious 
anti-fascism but this can not be effectively done through 
alliances with the leaderships of these organisations.

All of the larger far left groupings in Europe do not seem to 
be serious about fighting the rise of fascism.  Many of the 
anti-fascist organisations that have been set up are no more 
than the crudest of recruiting fronts for various Leninist  
parties.  Some like the Anti-Nazi League and 'Youth against 
Racism in Europe' do not even have a real branch structure or 
meetings.  They operate entirely as a wing of the Party, 
propagating a somewhat watered down version of the full line 
with the aim of identifying potential recruits.  Outside 
involvement is confined to big name speakers.

This is very much a repeat of the tactics used by both the 
Communist Parties and the social democrats in the early 
thirties (albeit from a different political angle).  They 
tended to identify the other left groups as a more serious 
threat to themselves then the fascists, the Communist Parties 
going so far as to characterise the social democrats as 
"social-fascists".  Later when the depth of the threat had 
been realised alliances with "progressive" elements of the 
bourgeoisie were ranked as being more important than any 
physical opposition to the fascists.  Indeed it was feared 
that any physical confrontation might drive away liberal 
supporters.

CONTROLLING THE ANTI-FASCISTS?

What is needed is an open campaign that will fight against 
fascism as part of a broader campaign against racism.  
Physical confrontation, and physical defence and mobilisation 
of their victims, will have to form a key part of this.  What 
we can expect is unfortunately somewhat different to this.  
The bulk of the left is so demoralised by the events of the 
last few years that all of the large organisations are afraid 
of involving their members outside the immediate role of 
paper sellers.

It was the refusal of the left in the 20's and 30's to 
recognise a common enemy and work against it that helped 
fascism into power.  The struggle for the control of the 
anti-fascists became more important then the struggle against 
fascism.  Cute phrases about history repeating itself can not 
sufficiently describe the horror that will come about if the 
same mistake is made again.