Dimitrios Patelis: On The Relationship Between Imperialism and Fascism During Third World
February 2024
About the author: Professor of Philosophy Technical University of Crete/Greece
The aim of this article is to present in a short way the historical aspects of the relationship between imperialism and the fascist phenomenon that are important for the anti-imperialist movement.
What is fascism and how did it emerge historically?
Fascism (Italian fascismo, from fascio = bundle, a sheaf, league) is an ideological and political trend and system of government that emerged during the period of the general crisis of capitalism (after the victory of the first early socialist revolution, the Great October Revolution). It represents the interests of the most reactionary and aggressive forces of the imperialist bourgeoisie.
Fascist regimes were established in European countries during the inter-war period, notably in Italy, Spain and Germany. According to Georgi Dimitrov, “Fascism is not a form of state power “standing above both classes – the proletariat and the bourgeoisie,” as Otto Bauer, for instance, has asserted. It is not “the revolt of the petty bourgeoisie which has captured the machinery of the state,” as the British Socialist Brailsford declares. No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations…. The development of fascism, and the fascist dictatorship itself, assume different forms in different countries, according to historical, social, and economic conditions and to the national peculiarities, and the international position of the given country.”
Wherever it comes to power, fascism imposes the terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary and aggressive forces of monopoly capital, for the preservation of the capitalist regime, for the strengthening of the forces of imperialist reaction and counter-revolution, against the popular democratic forces of anti imperialism, social progress, revolution and socialism/communism.
Fascist ideology and practice are characterised by extremely aggressive anti-communism, claims to subjugate the working class, intolerance, nationalism, chauvinism, and racism.
The fascist mode of organising and exercising power involves the large-scale use of mechanisms of aggressive mass propaganda/manipulation, the most stringent control and repression of all aspects and manifestations of people’s social and personal life, extreme forms of violence and police repression for the subjugation of the working class and of the people as a whole.
Historically, it emerged as an expedient set of methods and means for the ruling class to manage structural crises and to tame and oppress the labour movement, popular discontent, as a form of legitimation of the aggressive use of state-monopoly methods of regulating the economy. It constitutes an effective form of militarisation of the capitalist economy and society as a whole, as a preparation for the effective involvement in aggressive war, for the achievement of imperialist grabs and conquests at the expense of rival imperialist powers, for the colonisation of countries and populations, for the crushing of anti imperialist movements and of socialism.
Fascism rises and establishes itself by achieving, on the one hand, the pacification and subjugation of the people through terrorism and, on the other hand, the manipulation, political activation and mobilisation of significant sections of the popular masses, practising nationalist, xenophobic, racist and social demagogy in order to achieve the urgent strategic goals of the capitalist regime. The primary initial mass base of fascism is mainly the middle strata of capitalist society affected by the crisis, while it then recruits and enlists wider popular masses and even a section of the working class.
Fascist “movements” and regimes, despite their common characteristics, present certain differentiations and variations depending on the national and other historical peculiarities of their fields of application. A common feature is the association of fascism with the secret services of the bourgeois state, with the deep state, with paramilitary, organisations adjacent to the church, etc.
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