To install click the Add extension button. That's it.

The source code for the WIKI 2 extension is being checked by specialists of the Mozilla Foundation, Google, and Apple. You could also do it yourself at any point in time.

4,5
Kelly Slayton
Congratulations on this excellent venture… what a great idea!
Alexander Grigorievskiy
I use WIKI 2 every day and almost forgot how the original Wikipedia looks like.
What we do. Every page goes through several hundred of perfecting techniques; in live mode. Quite the same Wikipedia. Just better.
.
Leo
Newton
Brights
Milds

Social fascism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Social fascism was a theory developed by the Communist International (Comintern) in the early 1930s which saw social democracy as a moderate variant of fascism.[1]

The Comintern argued that capitalism had entered a Third Period in which proletarian revolution was imminent, but could be prevented by social democrats and other "fascist" forces.[1][2][2]

YouTube Encyclopedic

  • 1/5
    Views:
    448 322
    176 276
    10 252
    332 091
    369
  • Fascism and Mussolini | The 20th century | World history | Khan Academy
  • Understand Socialism, Communism, Fascism, & Nazism in 15 Minutes (Part I)
  • Mark Mazower - Fascism and Democracy Today: What Use is the Study of History in the Current Crisis?
  • FASCISM DEFINED | The Difference between Fascism and National Socialism
  • Social Fascism: Meaning and Background (pt. 2/2) ─ PSMLS Audio

Transcription

When people use the terms "fascism" or "fascist" today, they're usually using it in a derogatory way to refer to a group, a regime, or even an individual that is overly aggressive, and controlling, and totalitarian. But its roots, actually, lie with Benito Mussolini, who was in power in Italy during the 1920s, and 1930s, and through World War II. And they proudly call themselves the Fascists and their ideology as fascism. And the root of fascist and fascism come from the Italian word "fascio," which literally refers to a bundle. It comes out of this idea that a bundle of things will be stronger together than individually. And this is actually the symbol for fascism. And this symbol of this bundle, this sheath of sticks, this actually predates Mussolini by thousands of years. It goes back to Roman times. And even, based on some of the things I've read, even predates Roman times as a symbol of unity, a symbol of official strength. And even before Mussolini came around, the term was used by many, many, many groups that viewed themselves as a league of revolutionaries. A group of people somehow fighting for change. And Mussolini was no different. When in the end of 1914 and then in early 1915, he establishes the Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria. And I'm, once again, so sorry for my butchering of an Italian word. But this literally translates to group action revolutionary, or you could say the revolutionary action group, founded by Mussolini in 1915. And it was really a splinter of the Socialist Party. Well, there's an irony there because Mussolini and fascism, in particular, is associated with strongly anti-socialist ideology. But as Europe was entering into World War I in 1914, some of the mainstream of the Italian Socialist Party was against Italy entering the war. They wanted Italy to maintain their neutrality. But you had splinter groups, more nationalist groups, that said, hey, look, this is Italy's chance to claim its right. It should join the war on the side of the Entente. And Mussolini was one of these individuals. And because of his strong pro-war stance, he was actually kicked out of his-- he was head of a socialist paper in 1914. And then he eventually, by 1915, establishes the Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria. And by the end of World War I, as we get into 1919, it regroups under the name Fasci Italiani di Combattimento. So this literally translates as, you could view Fasci as a group, or league, or revolutionary league of Italians of Combatants. Or the Combatant Italian Revolutionary Group-- I guess is one way to think about it-- or the Group of Italian Combatants, is another way to think about it. And their ideology-- and their ideology wasn't well established right when they set up. It was just really around this idea of being super pro-nationalist-- but it began to develop over the course of the '20s and the 1930s. The core idea, and I've already said it multiple times, is an extreme nationalism. And when we talk about extreme nationalism, or nationalism in general, it's talking about the interests of one nation, of one group, above all others. About putting the state above all other things. Oftentimes, fascism is viewed as a right-wing group. But in its purest form, it's neither left- or right-wing. At the left end of the spectrum, you could imagine communist or socialism. I'll write communism, which you could view as an extreme form of socialism. Communism. And at the extreme right, you could imagine just complete free-market. Complete, unfettered, free-market. Ultra small government. And fascists and extreme nationalists, they didn't view themselves as either end of the spectrum. They kind of viewed themselves as a separate way where everything was subordinate. The economy itself was subordinate to the state. Now with that said, they tended to align themselves more with folks on the right. So even though they weren't completely free-market capitalists, they were staunchly anti-communist and anti-socialist, which caused them to form alliances a little bit more with the right. But from their point of view, it wasn't one of these extreme right-wing ideologies that the government should be subordinate to the economy, that the government should be as small as possible. It was much more that the economy was there to serve national interests. Some of the other ideologies that the fascists began to hold is this idea that force was a legitimate part of politics. So force in politics. And you would see this when Benito Mussolini's fascists, through the use of the Black Shirts, which was their paramilitary group, which allowed them to eventually take political control and enforce political control. And we later see it with other groups like the Nazis. Who are also tended to be associated with fascism. And their storm troopers and their storm battalions, their paramilitary forces, that are used to, essentially, take political control. The other aspect of them-- and, as you could imagine, when we're talking about either Mussolini or the Nazis-- is that they weren't really fans of democracy. Not only did they think that everything should be subordinate to the state, but that the state should have absolute control. So it's not about democracy. It's about having a strong leader at the top. A strong one party at the top. And in the case of Mussolini it was the fascists. In the case of Hitler it ends up being the Nazis. So totalitarian. Completely totalitarian. And then, they also-- and these all gel together-- this idea of aggressive foreign policy. And this aggressive foreign policy is really rooted in this belief of cultural superiority. And, if you take the case of the Nazis, this belief in extreme racial superiority, cultural superiority. And I'm making a slight distinction there because in Mussolini's eyes, he was actually quite disparaging. Even though Hitler looked to Mussolini as something of a role model when Mussolini took power in 1922, it inspired Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch. Mussolini did not think much of Hitler through much of the 1920s and even early 1930s. He thought Hitler's ideas of racial purity were really an illusion. That there was no racially pure race. He didn't really appreciate Hitler calling the Italians a mongrel race. But Mussolini himself did think that the Italians were culturally superior. And that would be their justification for an aggressive foreign policy. For them taking over other territory in Europe and in Africa. And as we'll see, because they shared so much in common ideologically, the Nazis were, you could kind of view as a more extreme form. And the fascists themselves were quite extreme. But the Nazis were a more extreme form of the same ideology. They will, even though in the '20s and early '30s Mussolini is more eager to align himself with some of the other powers in Europe, in particular Great Britain and France. As we go into the second half of 1930s, Mussolini and Hitler find themselves to be kindred spirits. They both want to be aggressive in their foreign policy. They both want to secure other territory. They both have this idea that they need space for their superior populations, to their culturally superior, and in the case of the Nazis, racially superior populations to grow and thrive. And so as we enter into the second half of the 1930s and World War II, you have Mussolini and the fascists become close allies of Hitler and the Nazis.

Overview

Poster of the Portuguese MRPP of a rally on 12 October 1975 at Campo Pequeno, in Lisbon, commemorating a killed party member, whose slogan reads: "Neither Fascism, nor Social fascism. Popular Government"

At the 6th World Congress of the Comintern in 1928, the end of capitalist stability and the beginning of the "Third Period" was proclaimed. The end of capitalism, accompanied with a working class revolution, was expected and social democracy was identified as the main enemy of the communists. The Comintern's theory had roots in Grigory Zinoviev's argument that international social democracy is a wing of fascism. That view was accepted by Stalin, who described fascism and social democracy as "twin brothers", arguing that fascism depends on the active support of social democracy and that social democracy depends on the active support of fascism. After it was declared at the Sixth Congress, the theory of social fascism became accepted by many in the world communist movement.[3]

The new direction was closely linked to the internal politics of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). After a faction fight inside that party following the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, the victorious group around Stalin shifted decisively to the left by advocating the end of the mixed economy New Economic Policy and declaring an intensification of the class struggle inside the Soviet Union. An atmosphere of revolutionary fervour was created and saw any enemy of the ruling group around Stalin denounced as "wreckers" and "traitors", an attitude that was translated on to the international stage, where both social democrats and communist dissidents were denounced as fascists.[citation needed]

Joseph Stalin stated in a speech in 1924:

Fascism is not only a military-technical category. Fascism is the bourgeoisie’s fighting organisation that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism. There is no ground for assuming that the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of Social-Democracy.[4]

At the same time, under leadership of German Chancellor Hermann Müller the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) agreed with anti-communist parties that Stalinists were fascists.[5] That led to mutual hostility between social democrats and communists, which were additionally intensified in 1929 when Berlin's police, then under control of the SPD government, shot down communist workers demonstrating on May Day in what became called Blutmai (Bloody May). That and the repressive legislation against the communists that followed served as further evidence to communists that social democrats were indeed "social fascists".[6] In 1929, the KPD's paramilitary organisation, the Roter Frontkämpferbund ("Alliance of Red Front-Fighters"), was banned as extremist by the governing social democrats.[7] A KPD resolution described the "social fascists" [social democrats] as the "main pillar of the dictatorship of Capital".[8] In 1930, Kurt Schumacher of the SPD accused Communists of being "red-lacquered doppelgangers of the Nazis".[9] In Prussia, the largest state of Germany, the KPD united with the Nazis in unsuccessful attempt to bring down the state government of SPD by means of a Landtag referendum.[10]

After Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party came to power in Germany, the KPD was outlawed and thousands of its members were arrested, including Thälmann. Those events made the Comintern do a complete turn on the question of alliance with social democrats and the theory of social fascism was abandoned. At the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in 1935, Georgi Dimitrov outlined the new policy of the popular front in his address "For the Unity of the Working Class Against Fascism".[11] This popular front dissolved with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.[12][13] The American historian Theodore Draper argued that "the so-called theory of social fascism and the practice based on it constituted one of the chief factors contributing to the victory of German fascism in January 1933".[14][15]

Criticism of the theory

By Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky argued against the accusations of "social fascism". In the March 1932 Bulletin of the Opposition, he declared: "Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank. [...] And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory". However, Trotsky also wrote in the same essay that any co-operation with the social democrats was only tactical and temporary and that in the final analysis social democracy would have to be defeated and subverted by the revolutionary faction:

The front must now be directed against fascism. And this common front of direct struggle against fascism, embracing the entire proletariat, must be utilized in the struggle against the Social Democracy, directed as a flank attack, but no less effective for all that. [...] No common platform with the Social Democracy, or with the leaders of the German trade unions, no common publications, banners, placards! March separately, but strike together! Agree only how to strike, whom to strike, and when to strike! Such an agreement can be concluded even with the devil himself. [...] No retraction of our criticism of the Social Democracy. No forgetting of all that has been. The whole historical reckoning, including the reckoning for Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, will be presented at the proper time, just as the Russian Bolsheviks finally presented a general reckoning to the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries for the baiting, calumny, imprisonment and murder of workers, soldiers, and peasants.[16]

Other historical criticism

In part of The Open Society And Its Enemies (1945), philosopher Karl Popper criticized what he saw as Communist inaction during the rise of fascism, stating that "there was never a 'communist danger' to the fascist conquest of power". Popper argued that some radical parties of the era welcomed or turned a blind eye to the weakening of democracy, or saw a dictatorship as a temporary stepping stone to a revolution.[17][18]

According to this assertion, not much could be lost and something would be gained if that hidden dictatorship became an open one, apparent to all; for this could only bring the revolution nearer. [Communists] even hoped that a totalitarian dictatorship in Central Europe would speed up matters [...] Accordingly, the Communists did not fight when the fascists seized power. (Nobody expected the Social Democrats to fight). For the Communists were sure that the proletarian revolution was overdue and that the fascist interlude, necessary for its speeding up, could not last longer than a few months.

In 1969, the ex-communist historian Theodore Draper argued that the Communists who proposed the theory of social fascism, "were chiefly concerned with drawing a line of blood between themselves and all others to the 'right' of them, including the most 'left-wing' of the Social-Democrats."[14]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Haro, Lea (2011). "Entering a Theoretical Void: The Theory of Social Fascism and Stalinism in the German Communist Party". Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory. 39 (4): 563–582. doi:10.1080/03017605.2011.621248. S2CID 146848013.
  2. ^ a b Hoppe, Bert (2011). In Stalins Gefolgschaft: Moskau und die KPD 1928–1933 (in German). Oldenbourg Verlag. ISBN 9783486711738.
  3. ^ Hildebrand, Klaus (1984). The Third Reich. Routledge. p. 106. ISBN 0-415-07861-X.
  4. ^ "Concerning the International Situation". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 2022-02-04.
  5. ^ von Saldern, Adelheid (2002). The Challenge of Modernity: German Social and Cultural Studies, 1890-1960. University of Michigan Press. p. 78. ISBN 0-472-10986-3.
  6. ^ Kitchen, Martin (2006). A History Of Modern Germany 1800-2000. Blackwell Publishing. p. 245. ISBN 1-4051-0040-0.
  7. ^ Schuster, Kurt G. P. (1975). Der rote Frontkämpferbund 1924–1929 [The Red Front Fighter League 1924–1929] (in German). Droste, Düsseldorf. ISBN 3-7700-5083-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ^ Braunthal, Julius (1963). Geschichte der Internationale: 1914–1943 [History of the International: 1914–1943] (in German). Vol. 2. Dietz. p. 414.
  9. ^ Schmeitzner, Mike (2007). Totalitarismuskritik von links: deutsche Diskurse im 20. Jahrhundert [Criticism of totalitarianism from the left: German discourses in the 20th century] (in German). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. p. 255. ISBN 978-3-525-36910-4. OCLC 169002787.
  10. ^ Sewell, Rob (1988). "Chapter 7". Germany: From Revolution to Counter-Revolution. Fortress Books. ISBN 1-870958-04-7.
  11. ^ Dimitrov, Georgi (1972) [13 August 1935]. "For the Unity of the Working Class Against Fascism". Georgi Dimitrov: Selected Works. Vol. 2. Sofia: Sofia Press. pp. 86–119.
  12. ^ Graham, Helen; Preston, Paul (1988-12-05). The Popular Front in Europe. Springer. ISBN 978-1-349-10618-9.
  13. ^ Daskalov, Roumen (2011-05-10). Debating the Past: Modern Bulgarian Historiography—From Stambolov to Zhivkov. Central European University Press. p. 131. ISBN 978-615-5053-53-5.
  14. ^ a b Draper, Theodore (February 1969). "The Ghost of Social-Fascism". Commentary: 29–42.
  15. ^ Winner, David (3 October 2018). "How the left enabled fascism". New Statesman.
  16. ^ Trotsky, Leon (March 1932). "For a Workers' United Front Against Fascism". Bulletine of the Opposition. No. 27.
  17. ^ Popper, Karl (2005-07-26). "19. The Revolution. VI". The Open Society and Its Enemies: Hegel and Marx. Routledge. pp. 178–181. ISBN 978-1-135-55256-5.
  18. ^ Hacohen, Malachi H. (1998). "Karl Popper, the Vienna Circle, and Red Vienna". Journal of the History of Ideas. 59 (4): 730. doi:10.2307/3653940. ISSN 0022-5037. JSTOR 3653940.

Further reading

  • Browder, Earl (1933). The Meaning of Social-Fascism: Its Historical and Theoretical Background. New York: Workers Library Publishers.
  • Draper, Theodore (February 1969). "The Ghost of Social-Fascism". Commentary. pp. 29-42.
  • Lovestone, Jay (1937). The People's Front Illusion: From "Social Fascism" to the "People's Front". New York: Workers Age Publishers.
  • Manuilsky, D. M. (1934). Social Democracy — Stepping Stone to Fascism: Or Otto Bauer's Latest Discovery. New York: Workers Library Publishers.
This page was last edited on 9 March 2024, at 06:25
Basis of this page is in Wikipedia. Text is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported License. Non-text media are available under their specified licenses. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. WIKI 2 is an independent company and has no affiliation with Wikimedia Foundation.