100% Fascism Eradication: An Alternative to Incorrect Anti-Fascism

Isn’t it curious that the fascists first came for the communists in the famous poem by Martin Niemoller’s? Let’s come back to this quote later.

Fascism as understood by communists, such as Rajani Palme Dutt, is an outgrowth of imperialism. Out from the murky depths of the formation of monopolies by the capitalist class, the tendrils of fascism begin to emerge to maintain the rule of those monopolies Lenin calls imperialism. The ultimate goal of fascism is the maintenance of imperialism through halting the growth of socialist development out of capitalism by sowing division in the proletariat and attacking workers who fascists have failed to divide. Anti-fascism has existed in reaction to fascism in different forms. Some of these forms are very ineffective in practice and are typically pushed by liberal, social democratic and opportunist forces trying to stem fascism without challenging the rule of imperialism. This leads to ineffective anti-fascist practice and at times paves the way for fascists to take root in the state. The alternative to this approach is the communist one: by preparing for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, through the application of Marxist-Leninist theory.

There are different errors that anti-fascist campaigns make in Ireland:

• Incorrect conceptions which inform practice leading to groups spreading ‘anti-fascist’ ideas, without advancing the material interests of the working class, resulting in failure to counteract fascist organising.
• Class collaborationist fronts/coalitions being used to counter fascism as “stepping stones” towards socialism.

Counter-Protests

Some of the main self described “anti-fascist” groups in Ireland are socialist/trotskyist parties.

Trotskyist parties fail to organise around the objective interests of the working class as they misunderstand the role of demands for reforms within the strategy for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, and are thus unable to embed themselves within the working class. This misunderstanding is expressed in their common strategies against fascism: spreading their political ideas without appreciating the current position of the working class. A good example of this is the practice of the counter-protest. The purpose of the counter protest is two-fold according to these groups: to show ordinary working class people (non-activists) that there is an alternative to fascism and to make minorities feel safe while the fascists march and rally. On the first point, opportunities to raise consciousness are absent at counter protests, as anti-capitalist groups across the board do not prioritise organising the working class around their material needs, thus are not embedded in the working class and from this position cannot influence them. The second justification for the counter protest is that they are to make minorities feel “safe”. How can a party claim to protect the interests of working class minority groups if you do not organise with them to end racism and fascism where it appears most prevalently in Irish society.

Organising the Proletariat

An anti-capitalist group trying to organise and embed itself in the working class of Ireland is the Community Action Tenants Union (CATU). Here you can see by facilitating the tenants who are members of CATU in achieving the goal of safe, comfortable, affordable housing. CATU arms the working class with the structure of a democratic anti-landlord group and the militant tools of collective direct action. When tenants are engaged in the union, they begin to understand that their issue is one that is shared and can be improved alongside many others outside of the boundaries of state and judicial institutions. Suddenly, the opportunity to convince these tenants that their interests are actually in contradiction with the economic system of imperialism appears. Once the opportunity is taken correctly, a crack in bourgeois ideology is chiseled. In CATU, they can organise to smash one of, if not the most racist sections of the Southern state, International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS).

These organisations should also encourage their members to be active within the Independent Workers Union (IWU): to do the day to day work of a union that is one of, if not the only staunchly anti-racist, anti-fascist militant unions organised on a class basis, contributing to the march toward socialism rather than maintaining capitalist relations of exploitation through social partnership. Each trade union in Ireland has an important role to play in combating fascism, but the majority of the Irish workers are not in trade unions and the trade union movement must be rebuilt. In the conditions of a weak and disorganised working class, the role which the IWU plays in this process is necessary as a union which is organised on strictly militant and class lines.

It is these organisations, which should be the organising priority in the creation of structures within the working class to combat the rise of fascism. However, these trends follow a decades-long theme of trotskyist parties using incorrect conceptions to try to unify the proletariat, using baseless fronts instead of building organisations which are embedded within our class. It is idealist to believe you can explain and convince the proletariat of your anti-fascist, anti-rascist politics without at the same time organising and facilitating the advancement of their material interests. This work is long and complicated, but absolutely unavoidable.

Class Collaboration

Although Irish trotskyist parties claim they are working toward a United Front to get into government, fight against fascism and secure socialism, in reality they are working toward a reformist ‘Left Government’ with Sinn Féin and other bourgeois parties. Irish trotskyist parties fail to see that the class collaboration of their ‘Popular Front’ strategy with bourgeois organisations such as Sinn Féin will disarm and drive them toward reactionary tendencies. Sinn Féin has enabled the immiseration of the Irish working class by driving austerity through the transfer of publicly owned land to private companies in West Belfast and sweetening up to foreign investors to enrich the imperialists of the North. Why would this behaviour not be repeated once they are in power in a ‘Left Government’ in the South? Achieving this bourgeois management will only further demoralise the working class when they realise the ‘alternative’ parties, such as Sinn Féin, represent a different cheek of the same bourgeois arse.

Fascist organisers will have more ammunition to convince the proletariat that their country’s leaders and their “left supporters” prioritise immigrant workers over “native” workers, obfuscating the fact that the only minority the proletariat should battle is the bourgeoisie. We have seen opportunist parties in the South betray the proletariat before with Labour and the Greens, so why do the trotskyists believe Sinn Féin, a bourgeois party happily representing imperialists in the North, will be any different. How on earth can Sinn Féin bring us closer to socialism? Outside of the parliaments of Ireland, class collaborationist anti-fascist organisations have been set up such as Le Chéile with the ”[…] aim of making Ireland a country where all can live without the fear of harassment or persecution because of their ethnicity, beliefs, ability, gender, sexuality or identity.” Le Chéile quickly became a defunct organisation as it was entirely disconnected from the working class. It is an example of the ineffective class collaborationist approach where bourgeois and opportunist parties, trotskyist parties as well as community groups funded by the bourgeois state fail to take on the only effective anti-fascist approach: preparing for socialist revolution. Instead these groups actively work at maintaining capitalism in Ireland, while “rooting out the bad individuals”.

Conclusion

In summary, fascism cannot be defeated in Ireland with class-collaboration inside or outside bourgeois structures.

The correct approach to anti-fascism involves following a communist line, which involves combining scientifically correct theory with organising and unifying the proletariat around their shared objective interests. What this looks like in practice is:

1. Combatting the social democratic leadership of the ICTU trade unions in favour of principled communist leaders by organising the working class within the structure of the workplace as well as any other structure they are to be found in large numbers along anti-capitalist and anti-monopolist lines.
2. Organise the proletariat within militant, democratic mass organisations such as but not limited to trade and tenants unions, to provide an alternative to class collaborationist endeavors and directly challenge the state.
3. Develop the vanguard of a revolutionary party to organise the most advanced elements of the proletariat in preparation of a revolutionary moment.

An area that this article did not approach is that, historically and to this day, there has also been a relationship between fascism and the reactionary ideology of loyalism. This is an important consideration for communists in our approach to the North, and how to approach fascism in that specific context, and needs much more analysis and investigation. We will return to it in much greater detail in a future article.

At the start of the article we referenced Niemoller, “First they came for the communists”. It is clear why the fascists did so, the communists’ revolutionary approach has always been the most effective form of anti-fascism. We cannot continue to shout our ideas at those organised by the fascists as well as the isolated ordinary working class person and expect it to transfer by osmosis. We must build trust and long lasting ties within our class by guiding them toward improving their conditions en masse. The proletariat’s material interests must be addressed before an opportunity to persuade them that the ideology of imperialism they are engulfed by is ultimately contrary to the pursuit of those interests. Then, with the iron fist of socialist revolution, the rotten, reactionary ideology of fascism and its basis in the capitalist system can be eradicated.