In order to have a scientific understanding of fascism, it is critical to understand its economic basis—how people relate to work, classes, and each other—first before moving on to the many ways in which it can manifest in the superstructure—the realm of law, politics, art, religion, media, etc. In order to do so, we’ve used the work of various Communists who analysed fascism as it existed in their respective times and researchers who studied the history of fascism, developed a definition based on the core components of fascism, and then applied this to our present day. Most notably, we drew on the work of R. Palme Dutt and George Jackson. We also agree that the definition proposed by the Red Clarion (Red Clarion) is correct in general but could use refining and expansion in some areas which we aim to do here.
To determine the core components, we analysed European fascism in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. This is because, due to varied and inaccurate definitions, there are many disagreements on what countries and/or movements can be accurately defined as fascist. However, there is consensus that countries such as Germany, Italy, and Austria at least were fascist during this time period.
Our analysis reveals that fascism is a specific arrangement of capitalism. It involves the integration of state, business, and sections of organized labour to form a collaborationist machine focused on ensuring the continuation of capitalism. This is done by implementing nationalistic settler-colonial relations to ensure collaborating workers identify and side with the material and social interests of capitalists, destroying independent revolutionary worker organizations, and the social murder, genocide, and replacement of those deemed undesirable or unproductive by capital and those on lands marked for appropriation.
This analysis shows that Canada, the USA, and Israel are stable fascist countries. Each bears all core components of fascism, and each propagates this economic structure throughout the world. This document will outline these components, the historical circumstances that cause them to be the heart of fascism, and their present-day effect.
The advent of capitalist imperialism at the end of the 19th century was an important tipping point for the world. It marked the near-total division of the globe between capitalist powers. However, for an economic system requiring constant expansion, this presented a new problem: the capitalist powers could no longer expand by colonizing existing non-capitalist civilizations to extract imperial super-profits. The result was an inversion of the cycle of capitalism.
Table 1: Colonial Possessions of the Great Powers (in million sq. km and million inhabitants)
| Colonies | Metropolitan Countries | Total | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1876 | 1914 | 1914 | 1914 | |||||
| Area | Pop. | Area | Pop. | Area | Pop. | Area | Pop. | |
| Great Britain | 22.5 | 251.9 | 33.5 | 393.5 | 0.3 | 45.6 | 33.8 | 444.0 |
| Russia | 17.0 | 15.9 | 17.4 | 33.2 | 5.4 | 136.2 | 22.8 | 169.4 |
| France | 0.9 | 6.0 | 10.6 | 55.5 | 0.5 | 39.6 | 11.1 | 95.1 |
| Germany | – | – | 2.9 | 12.3 | 0.5 | 64.9 | 3.4 | 77.2 |
| United States | – | – | 0.3 | 9.7 | 9.4 | 97.0 | 9.7 | 106.7 |
| Japan | – | – | 0.3 | 19.2 | 0.4 | 53.0 | 0.7 | 72.2 |
| Total for 6 Great Powers | 40.4 | 273.8 | 65.0 | 523.4 | 16.5 | 437.2 | 81.5 | 960.6 |
| Colonies of other powers (Belgium, Holland, etc.) | 9.9 | 45.3 | ||||||
| Semi-colonial countries (Persia, China, Turkey) | 14.5 | 361.2 | ||||||
| Other countries | 28.0 | 289.9 | ||||||
| Total for the world | 133.9 | 1657.0 | ||||||
Source: V.I. Lenin. Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, 1916.
Prior to this, capitalism’s boom-bust cycle manifested as booms marking huge increases in production and technology occasionally separated by corresponding horrible busts. The new-found restricted expansion caused this relationship to invert. Now busts were the norm, and booms were the exception (Dutt, 26). This sent global capitalism into a state of decay which still exists today.
The capitalist remedy to this problem was to look to the colonial territories held captive by other imperialist countries for “new” markets to expand into and territory of metropole countries themselves for their productive power. The imperialist stage of capitalism is marked by competition between imperialist rivals (Lenin, 68). This led to skirmishes between imperialist armies which then changed to open war in 1914 as European capitalists sent millions of workers to their deaths in the quest for more profits.
By this time, scientific socialism had developed among workers’ movements and the Second International had been founded to coordinate the multitude of socialist organizations in capitalist countries. However, the development of war divided them in two groups: one group took a national chauvinist route by supporting “their own” capitalist-imperialist governments in the war and a second group that took an internationalist and revolutionary route. The latter group understood reforming capitalism would not work, opposed imperialism, and worked toward overthrowing “their” governments in favour of socialism. This split, between the reformists and revolutionaries, resulted in the end of the Second International and led to many of the revolutionaries at the time renaming themselves “Communists”.
In Germany, this split was felt very acutely. The SPD (Germany’s social democratic party) sided with Germany’s capitalists throughout the war, encouraging labour organizations to support the war effort and voting in favour of war credits (Lenz). During Germany’s revolution at the end of the war, while the SPD certainly played a large role, it betrayed the revolutionaries and secured itself as the head of the Weimar Republic—yet another capitalist state. The SPD utilized the Freikorps (a mercenary group made of nationalistic soldiers who would later join the Nazis) to suppress revolutionary socialist and Communist movements including the execution of revolutionaries Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht (Dutt, 73).
Similarly, Italy had a near-socialist revolution where workers took control of the entirety of the Italian economy. The control of the country was so complete, the only thing left standing in the way of the destruction of the capitalist state and the building of a socialist state was to march against the state institutions themselves. However, the reformist leadership of the Socialist Party (Italy’s social democratic party) and reformist unions convinced workers to lay down arms and return to their jobs—entrusting their fate to the existing government, capitalists, aristocrats, and monarchy. Many disillusioned workers left to join the growing fascist movement and the Socialist Party while collaborationist unions continued their reformism (Dutt, 62-65).
Class collaboration is not a new phenomenon. It occurs when an exploited or oppressed class works for the goals of its exploiting and oppressing class. Workers fighting in an inter-imperialist war over territory to be exploited by capitalists is an example of class collaboration.
Alongside the development of capitalist imperialism, organized political action by workers became increasingly common, particularly with the development of larger unions and labour parties in the mid to late 1800s. While class collaboration existed beforehand, the Second International split was a qualitative change to how organized labour related to imperialist states.
The Nazi and Italian Fascists had many petty-bourgeois professional members (small business owners, scientists, lawyers, engineers, etc.), but they also had a strong force of workers disillusioned with the reformism of social democracy. The betrayal from reformists and the failure of revolutionaries to offer an effective alternative drove workers into these fascist movements (Dutt, 51-55). This phenomenon continues today.
Fascist movements that do not have power are in opposition to independent and revolutionary labour organizing. Where such organizations exist, fascist gangs work to destroy them either by direct violent action or by disrupting their connection to workers. While the Nazis and Italian Fascists both attacked unions and labour parties and their militias, they also both established “labour” organizations (such as the Sindacati Fascisti and the NSBO). These pseudo-labour groups were tasked with spreading a populist message to sway workers to support fascism.
During fascist rule in Germany and Italy, capital interests reigned supreme just as they did before. The key difference, developing from social democracy’s prior integration of their parties with the capitalist state system, was aligning and integrating the broader workers’ movement with the capitalist state. Now, workers collaborated en masse and utilized modern labour organization to achieve greater and greater profits for capitalists and their imperialist endeavours.
The trade unions have come into being as the organised self-help of the working class; and in the course of their history through natural causes have become more and more fused with the State itself. The social tasks of the trade unions have to be fulfilled no matter what the form of the State regime is.... The trade unions are fully prepared, even beyond the field of wages and working conditions, to enter into permanent co-operation with the employers’ organisations. A State supervision over such collaboration could in certain circumstances be conducive towards raising its value and rendering its execution more easy. The trade unions do not claim to influence directly the policy of the State. Their task in this respect can only be to direct the just claims of the workers to the attention of the Government with reference to its measures of social and economic policy and legislation, and also to be of service to the Government and Parliament through its knowledge and experience in this field (Dutt, 106).
Critical to this advanced form of class collaboration is its management. To achieve this, a strong labour aristocracy is necessary. This consists of people in positions of power within the labour movement (i.e. union executives, union staff, social democratic party staff and politicians, managers, and workers with particularly large salaries and benefits) who advocate for and/or act on behalf of capitalist interests. While not everyone in such a position does betray workers in this way, the labour aristocracy as a whole helps capitalists by suppressing revolutionary ideas (i.e. national liberation for oppressed peoples and worker control of the economy) in favour of economism (i.e. simple pay raises, striking only when the capitalist state allows, etc.). These are examples of reformism and the ultimate betrayal of workers and oppressed peoples by the “agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement” (Lenin, 8).
We can see that the collaboration of workers with “their” capitalists on the basis of organized labour is a critical component of fascism. Independent revolutionary organizations are co-opted, defanged, and brought into the fold or outright destroyed. A solid labour aristocracy manages the collaboration of workers, encouraging them to seek only short-term benefits like wage increases and to avoid revolutionary thought and action.
The basic relationship of class collaboration is this: capitalists gain the willing assistance of workers by offering some benefits. These benefits must be taken from somewhere; things do not appear out of thin air! In order to achieve a secure collaboration, capitalists must take from somewhere and give to enough workers. But take from where? And which workers should benefits be given to? The capitalists insist a line must be drawn somewhere.
Europe has a history of collaboration along religious lines. However, with the dawn of the modern concept of nation in the 17th century, this shifted—over time—toward collaboration along national and racial lines.
Both Italy and Germany implemented settler-colonial relations. This first involved the theft of land and property from people oppressed on a national and racial basis. Then what was stolen was either used for the exclusive benefit of the fascist national identity or outright given to them. Members of this national identity were moved onto stolen land and property to secure it (Bernhard, 71). The most well-known example is the plight of Jewish people under Nazism, but fascists also exterminated Communists, queer people, and those they deemed unfit for productive labour.
The Nazi’s Lebensraum (living space) was Germany’s project of colonization mainly of Europe and the USSR. This involved pushing a frontier of conquest followed by German settlers and extensive propaganda campaigns assuring the settlers that they had a right to the land. Italy expanded its colonial territories under Mussolini and moved a number of Italian settlers onto newly stolen land in Libya and Ethiopia. Italy referred to these settlers as “soldier-peasants”, simultaneously a defensive workforce and an offensive militia that could support the military when necessary (Bernhard, 70). Italian colonial aspirations included sections of France, Yugoslavia, and parts of the Balkans.
Here we use “fascist national identity” because it is a) a moving target and b) not necessarily real. This national identity can be contracted or expanded as needed by capitalism. For the Nazis, “German” might have meant “a member of the German nation” at one time while at another it meant an “Aryan” (a made-up identity based on race). Austria and Italy further divided their fascist national identities along religious lines. The “true” Austrians and Italians were Catholic (De Grand, 54-55). This changed again as Germany absorbed Austria to “unite the German people.”
Just like the Nazis and Italian Fascists, fascist movements in Europe during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s all did or expressed a desire to implement some form of settler-colonial relations. This is the basis through which fascism achieves class collaboration upon national and racial lines.
The “gifts of land” and benefits given to members of the fascist national identity must come from somewhere. Those inhabiting the land, or who otherwise represent a threat to private property, must be removed. Fascism then uses genocidal tactics to eliminate and subjugate oppressed peoples to make the theft of land easier.
Such tactics of course include waging outright war against oppressed peoples. It was no secret that the Nazis desired to invade Eastern Europe and the USSR as this was openly discussed and propagandized by the Nazis including Hitler himself (Hitler, 121–123). As their eastward war advanced, those the Nazis considered sub-human (the justification for theft of land) were marked for death and killed by the millions.
On top of this, fascism also attempts to eliminate those it considers unproductive or a threat to the strict hierarchy that private property and capital accumulation impose on society. For example, people with disabilities are targets due to capitalist systems deeming them unproductive and gender diverse people are targets because they disrupt the strict division of labour between “man” and “woman”.
Genocidal tactics are not limited to just open warfare, however. Fascists also use such horrors as sterilization and euthanasia. These are used to shape society so that only members of the preferred fascist national identity remain, or at the very least, maintain control of oppressed peoples and the land they inhabit.
Further to this, rigid gender and sex lines are important to the management of the fascist national identity as well as the eradication of non-capitalist and colonized societies for two main reasons. Firstly, private property demands division of reproductive labour (labour which assists in the reproduction of human existence such as: meal preparation, domestic cleaning, raising children, etc.). This division is also intended to ensure a continuous stock of workers to exploit. Secondly, these strict lines are antagonistic toward the concept of sex and gender in many non-capitalist societies because these societies had far less strict delineation of sex and gender.
One of the more well-known examples of enforcing this division are the assaults on the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in 1933. The German Student Union began the first assault on May 6th, joined later by the Sturmabteilung (a large Nazi paramilitary organization formally associated with the Nazi Party). This event—and attacks only days later—saw the destruction of thousands of works relating to sex and gender studies.
This process attempts to replace colonized and oppressed peoples with those fascism considers beneficial and compliant—fascist nationals who will produce, propagate, and consume. Fascism uses these tactics for the management of populations. On one hand, oppressed peoples are either marked for eradication or are permanently subjugated and hyper-exploited. On the other hand, the fascist nationals—while still economically exploited by their bosses—are given social and economic benefits (bribes) and are cultivated to expand their population in order to defend the territory controlled by the fascist state.
But the final reason why the importance of ideology in fascism must be denied is the fact that it exists in more than one form. In fact, historically it has proved to have three different faces. One “out of power” that tends almost to be revolutionary and subversive, anticapitalist and antisocialist. One “in power but not secure”—this is the sensational aspect of fascism that we see on screen and read of in pulp novels, when the ruling class, through its instrumental regime, is able to suppress the vanguard party of the people’s and workers’ movement. The third face of fascism exists when it is “in power and securely so”. During this phase some dissent may even be allowed. In Italy, Trilussa the poet wrote and published more bitter and biting satires attacking the political regime than can be found in any of the so-called liberal democratic states. In April 1925, three years after the fascist March on Rome, Benedetto Croce was able to publish a clearly anti-fascist manifesto (Jackson, 143).
Fascism can be split into three stages: movement, crisis, and stable.
In the movement stage, fascism is out of power. It adopts pseudo-revolutionary aesthetics and rhetoric to depict itself as oppositional to the existing system. This allows fascist movements to gain support both from those with an interest in maintaining systems and those exploited by them but disillusioned with (or unaware of) the socialist alternative.
The crisis stage is when fascism has achieved power, yet has a tenuous hold on it. This looks like the fascism depicted in films. Open suppression and destruction are the chief methods of rule in this stage.
In stable fascism, its power is secure. It does not need to openly suppress or destroy. It may even allow various forms of dissent, so long as it is mostly toothless. Democratic forms may exist, though little real power is controlled by them. This may fool people into believing that the country is not fascist.
After the German SS agents or Italian Black Shirts kick in the doors and herd Jews and Communist partisans to death camps... in other words, after the fascists have succeeded in crushing the vanguard elements and the threat they pose is removed, the ruling class goes on about the business of making profits as usual. The significance of the “new fascist arrangement” lies in the fact that this business-as-usual is accompanied by concessions to the degenerate segment of the working class, with the aim of creating a buffer zone between the ruling class and the still potentially revolutionary segments of the lower classes (Jackson, 119).
It’s important to note that these stages are not static or isolated from one another. They may manifest in a different order and they may overlap as a society transitions from one to the other. They may also appear competing at times such as present-day US and Canadian fascisms. In both settler-colonies, we see that they are in stable fascism and in a process of transition to crisis fascism. However, we also see the presence of movement fascism appearing in opposition to the current leadership of the settler-colonies.
In the history of capitalism, there have been three major changes to how the capitalist state relates to the economy: laissez-faire, welfare state, and neoliberal.
A laissez-faire state takes a hands-off approach to its economy. Business is separate from the state, largely unregulated, and worker protections barely exist. Capitalism first developed in Europe in this manner. However, the increasing desire of workers for economic and political power (and the increasing organization to achieve that) of the mid to late 19th century required a different approach for capitalists to maintain their rule.
The welfare state was an arrangement of capitalism that saw the state intervening to provide some benefits and protections for some workers against the harsher edges of capitalism. This was explicitly to prevent revolution and other disruptions of capital accumulation “at home”, and many industries and services were nationalized to provide readily available cheap goods and services. Social democratic parties supported or even managed these states on behalf of capitalists. The benefits European workers received under welfare states were largely paid for by the super-profits extracted from colonies. However, the ever-expanding nature of capitalism brought on imperialist conflict that once again threatened the total collapse of the system.
Neoliberalism is the present-day relationship between the state and the economy. It began in embryo during the fascist years of Italy and later Germany. In a departure from previous state-economic relations, a new economic order developed where the state integrated with businesses and intervened in the economy primarily on their behalf (Jackson, 152). Welfare state policies still existed to some degree to ensure workers remained on-side (again, largely paid for by imperialist plunder), but more and more direct and overt control of the economy was given to private business.
The Nazis embarked on their Reprivatisierung (re-privatization) to sell off nationalized public services to private businesses and public shareholders. Wages were frozen, collective bargaining was banned, and corporate profits soared (Tooze, 102). The Italian Fascists similarly implemented their own version of the “corporatist” model before the Nazis. A system of binding arbitration was developed where labour disputes between fascist unions and their fascist employers would be resolved by a fascist-friendly appointed third-party (De Grand, 69). Several new organizations were created to collectively manage the interests of both workers and capitalists, but functionally they did little but support businesses.
Post-WW2, the US-led investment in Europe’s reconstruction “created” the economic miracle of rebuilding Germany. In reality, much of West Germany’s post-war government turned to “former” Nazis to fill positions, and West German policy relied heavily upon Nazi policies. Its judiciary held a large number of former Nazis as well, and the capitalists who ran the Nazi economy were now running the West German economy (Görtemaker, Safferling, 20). The “miracle” was therefore a return to much of the Nazi economic policies prior to the end of the war.
As West Germany proved a success for businesses, it was necessary to trial this model elsewhere. In Chile, because of the Allende government’s policies like land reform and a budding friendship with socialist Cuba, the US feared the country would turn Red. In order to prevent this, sanctions, CIA-backed strikes and coups, with a collaborating “middle class” eventually led to the fall of the Allende government and the installation of Pinochet who implemented a neoliberal framework (further developed by the University of Chicago’s “Chicago boys”: Larry Sjaastad, Milton Friedman, and Arnold Harberger) for the country.
Following this “success” for business, Western economies transformed over the next decades to neoliberalism. Now, these countries run primarily on what began as the economic model that powered fascist countries of the early- to mid-20th century while maintaining some welfare state policies as needed to placate the workforce.
All this should sound reminiscent of the colonization and collaboration of the areas now under American and Canadian control, because all the components for modern fascism began their development here. While colonization began before the ascension of capitalism, the violent theft of land, genocide of entire peoples, and destruction of non-European societies were the basis for the European powers’ conquest. And when the existing religious class collaboration outlived its usefulness, national class collaboration rose alongside the newly declared United States of America and later Canada (Horne, 33). Without the development of mass organized labour collaboration, however, this era might be better termed proto-fascism, embryonic fascism, or perhaps pre-fascism.
Once the development of unions and worker parties arrived, these new forms of labour organization were gradually integrated into the state apparatus either legally or informally through the rising labour aristocracy. Around the same time as Europe developed fascist states, the US and Canada developed in a similar manner. That the US and Canada fought against Germany and Italy does not remove their fascist character. For their part of the war, this was an inter-imperialist conflict. No imperialist power opposed the methods of fascism, but instead celebrated them. The Nazis’ great sin was bringing the violence of colonization to the “garden of Europe”.
After the USSR defeated Germany, the Western powers sought alliance with the “former” Nazis themselves! Leading this effort to bring supposed enemies into the fold was the USA and Canada. Fascists (now a dirty word that the majority of American and Canadian fascists avoid to this day) who could no longer openly work for their ideals, were hired as scientists, politicians, military strategists, ambassadors, and soldiers in death squads. Both the USA and Canada required more secure settler-colonial holdings within their borders and foresaw a coming lengthy global war against Communism and other movements of liberation from colonialism and imperialism. One example of Canadian labour collaboration is the Great Compromise after WW2, which provided unions with benefits in the form of legal recognition while surrendering control of workplaces to managers and owners. This often takes the form of “no-strike” clauses and union leadership siding with the capitalist state at the expense of union members.
The post-WW2 era was marked by the newly ascended global hegemon, the USA, and its economically integrated partner-in-crime, Canada, terrorizing the world through economic and military warfare, genocides, proxy wars, engineered coups, assassinations, and more. As the decades turned, the US-led fascist empire became more secure through the subjugation of the majority of the world, including the collapse of the Soviet Union. The “rules-based international order” has one cardinal rule: the US makes the rules.
The model of fascism from the 1920s through the 1940s persists today. Its origins are found in the settler-colonies of North America, crystallized by the Italian Fascists and the Nazis, and then returned home to the US and Canada already transformed into modern stable fascism. As such, we can split fascism on this continent—beginning with the development of settler-colonial relations—into two general periods: proto-fascism (or embryonic fascism or pre-fascism) and modern fascism. These periods are separated by the decades of the early 20th century which saw the full development of organized labour and its integration with the state.
Fascism’s central component is class collaboration between capitalists, the petty-bourgeoisie, and workers on the basis of a settler-national identity. A strong labour aristocracy manages this pact through captured unions, political parties, and other organizations to continue worker support for the capitalist state. Members of the settler national identity receive benefits gained through the subjugation of colonized and oppressed peoples and the theft of land and property. To facilitate such subjugation, various tactics of eugenics are employed to destroy peoples who are a direct threat to capital accumulation. Fascism appears in three stages: movement (reactionary mass movement with pseudo-revolutionary rhetoric), stable (expanded social and political systems that allow defanged dissent), and crisis (contracted social and political systems). The exact social and political expressions of fascism fluctuate due to changes in its stability and the history of where each fascist movement is found, but its economic features remain the same.
By this definition, drawn from the European fascist states in the 1920s–1940s, we can see that the US and Canada are fascist and have been for some time. Proto-fascism was developed here before being identified by European fascist movements. During the fascist takeovers in Europe, the US and Canada went through a process of change into modern fascism. But with settler-relations already in place—and the subsequent war with other fascist states—both countries transitioned into stable fascist states hiding behind a veneer of liberalism.
The changes we are witnessing now are not “the rise of fascism” or “fascism arriving” in the US and Canada. They are the shaking of stable fascism that is under threat from its own contradictions and is on its way to decaying into crisis fascism in order to stabilize profits.