The politics of anti-fascism
To try and limit the growth of the BNP in the June
elections a new organisation, Unite Against Fascism, has recently been launched.
NAOMI BYRON assesses whether it can succeed in its aim.
THE NEO-NAZI British National Party (BNP) is hoping to make
substantial gains in the June polls, with seats in 167 local councils in England
and Wales up for election. They also hope to win at least one seat in the
European parliament and, if they can win 5% of the vote, a seat in the London
assembly.
In the face of this threat, a new anti-BNP initiative, Unite
Against Fascism (UAF), has recently been launched. Its aim is to "counter the
rising threat of the extreme right and the BNP" by building "the broadest unity
against the alarming rise in racism and fascism in Britain today... this
dangerous situation requires a new and united response from all those dedicated
to freedom and democracy. Now is the time for all of us to combine our forces
and unite in a broad and common front against this common threat". (Unite
Against Fascism founding statement)
So far the main strategy has been to encourage people to
vote for other parties, to reduce the danger of BNP candidates being elected.
"The majority of people in this country abhor the BNP. If everyone votes we can
stop the BNP. Our campaign will urge people to use their vote to stop the BNP".
(What is Unite Against Fascism?, on the UAF website) On their leaflets UAF say
that "every non-BNP vote will help to stop the fascists". There is no doubt that
some people, however much they hate the main three parties, will be prepared to
vote for one of them in order to keep out the BNP. However, will this be enough
to stop them winning, or from building sufficient support to win in the future?
The material produced by UAF so far is unlikely to convince
people who may consider voting for the BNP not to support them. In ‘Ten facts
the BNP won’t tell you’, the UAF uses mainly old quotes from John Tyndall, who
lost the leadership of the BNP to Nick Griffin five years ago. Since then
Griffin, keen to discredit his old opponent and assign the BNP’s neo-Nazi image
to the past, has portrayed Tyndall as an ‘old-style BNP member’ and attempted
(unsuccessfully) to expel him from the party last year.
The anti-fascist movement doesn’t gain anything by
pretending that the BNP has not changed or is not following different tactics to
the past. The anti-fascist magazine Searchlight has had to concede that "the old
tactic of producing a leaflet which labels the BNP as Nazi and giving it out
from a stall in the high street is simply not effective enough". (Local
solutions to Britain’s national problem, Steve Silver, Searchlight, October
2003) Of course, it is essential that any campaign against the BNP exposes the
neo-Nazi beliefs of its leading members. However, this must be done in a way
that makes it clear how these beliefs are a relevant threat to people in Britain
today if it is going to succeed in reaching any of those who are attracted to
the BNP.
What is fascism?
THIS IS WHY we need to understand what fascism actually is.
Steve Silver, the editor of Searchlight, argues that "what distinguishes the BNP
as a fascist organisation is its fusion of nationalism, anti-communism,
anti-rationality and crucially anti-Semitism and racism. The fact that its
entire world view is reflected through the prism of anti-Semitism and race
distinguishes it from all legitimate political parties. Yes, the other political
parties have racists in them, they even pass racist immigration laws, but they
don’t reduce everything to race. This was the Nazi contribution to European
fascism – where race is all. This makes the BNP not only a fascist party but a
Nazi one". (The BNP’s Nazism, Searchlight, January 2004)
Paul Mackney, general secretary of the lecturers’ union,
NATFHE, and a leading trade union supporter of UAF, argues that "we should not
see the BNP as just another right-wing party. Fascism is not about free speech
or academic freedom, but about personalised violence against black people, trade
union activists and Jews". (Campaign Group News, December 2003)
What such definitions leave out is the class nature of
fascism, and the concrete historical circumstances in which fascism first arose.
Without an understanding of these, and of how the situation then compares to
today, it is impossible to find an effective strategy to combat the BNP.
Leon Trotsky described fascism as a mass movement whose aim
was to smash the organisations of the working-class in order to save capitalism.
The racism and anti-Semitism of the classical fascist movements (the Italian
fascists and the Nazi party in Germany) mentioned in the quotes above, horrific
as it was, was not the central purpose of fascism in the way implied. The
fascists absorbed and used prejudices within the societies where they were
organised in order to build up support, particularly amongst the most backward
layers. The Nazis, for example, were strongly anti-Semitic, reflecting the high
levels of anti-Semitism in Germany at the time, while the Italian fascists were
more concerned with pushing racist ideas about the ‘inferiority’ of Africans to
justify their imperial ambitions in North Africa. Mussolini tried to resist
introducing anti-Jewish measures into Italy, including the transportation of
Jews to the concentration camps, not for humanitarian reasons but because it was
a distraction from the war effort.
The whipping up of prejudices, combined with the use of
left-wing phraseology, went hand-in-hand with the building of armed fascist
militias that were used to attack the workers’ movement, as well as the
minorities that the fascists targeted. Rather than ‘personalised’ violence
though, this was mass violence and intimidation.
Though the fascists had party structures – the ‘respectable’
face of their movement through which they campaigned for votes and new members –
the central factor which set fascism apart from other reactionary capitalist
parties was their militias which fought, arms in hand, with the workers’
movement for control of the streets. Even at quite an early stage fascism in
Germany and Italy was able to get backing from sections of big business, who saw
the fascists as useful allies because they were prepared to carry out attacks on
the working-class movement.
How fascism first arose
A SERIES OF workers’ revolutions aimed at ending capitalism
and establishing socialism had swept across Europe around the end of the first
world war. In Russia the workers took power in 1917 and began to construct a new
society, anticipating the spread of the revolution to more economically advanced
countries. However, because of mistakes by the leaders of the young Communist
Parties and betrayals by the leaders of the reformist Social Democratic Parties,
the revolutions in other countries failed, and the workers were unable to take
power.
The enormous strength and power of the workers’ movement and
the example of revolutionary Russia had drawn the middle layers in society
behind the working-class. But as revolution after revolution failed to change
society these middle layers – ruined by capitalism and the bosses’ war,
beginning to despair of socialism – began to look for other alternatives. It was
these middle layers – ex-army officers, small shopkeepers, farmers, officials
etc – who the Nazis in Germany and the fascists in Italy were able to appeal to.
The capitalist class in Europe was weakened by the war
effort and under siege from their own populations. In Germany and Italy there
was enormous political instability as one establishment party after another fell
from government, unwilling to meet the demands of the workers and unable to
defend the interests of their big business masters.
When the fascists took power they did so with the reluctant
backing of the majority of the ruling class. Because it had the active support
of a mass movement, however, fascism in power was able to do what the regular
state forces had been unable to achieve: destroy the workers’ movement in Italy
and Germany for more than a generation.
This was what big business had wanted. However, fascism was
not under the direct control of the capitalists and, particularly in Germany,
went far beyond defeating the workers’ movement. Mussolini invaded Abyssinia.
The Nazis in Germany began to annex territories (beginning with those with large
German or German-speaking populations). They organised a detailed campaign of
harassment, slave labour and imprisonment against those not considered part of
the ‘Aryan master race’ – including Romanies and Slavs – and then, finally,
genocide against the Jews.
These actions were not seen as a major problem by the
capitalists internationally until the Nazis’ aggressive expansionist policy
began to threaten the interests of larger imperialist countries such as Britain
and France. It was this that precipitated world war two. This was a disaster for
capitalism and is one of the main reasons why the establishment today is so wary
of fascism and neo-Nazi groups.
It would be easy to get the impression from some
anti-fascists that the recent rise of the far right in Britain and Europe means
that we are currently on the road to fascism. After Le Pen, leader of the French
National Front, won enough votes to go through to the second round of the French
presidential election two years ago, the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) argued
that: "The French election results point to our future. Fascism grows out of
despair and the inability of capitalism to deliver even basic improvements in
people’s lives. Bank collapses in Argentina, war in the Middle East, South Asia
and Colombia, constant pressure on workers to work harder, and the threat of
unemployment, all echo the 1930s, when Hitler came to power. We are still far
from that, but the last decade has been like a film of the 1930s run in slow
motion. Events in France have speeded it up". (Editorial, Socialist Review, May
2002)
But this alarmist perspective ignores the differences
between the 1930s and today. Fascism as a mass force can only develop on the
basis of a series of defeats for the working class. The conditions in which the
current increase in support for far-right parties in Europe is taking place are
not remotely similar to the desperate situation of failed revolutions that
workers faced in the period after world war one.
The collapse of Stalinism in Eastern Europe and Russia in
1989-90 had a huge impact on the political situation worldwide. The ruling class
used it to launch an all-out ideological attack on the ideas of socialism,
trumpeting the victory of capitalism and saying that it was the best way of
organising society. Under attack, the reformist leaders of workers’ parties
around the world adopted pro-big business neo-liberal policies. They became
openly bourgeois parties, abandoning any pretence at representing the interests
of working-class people. As the differences between the mainstream parties have
grown smaller and smaller and their neo-liberal policies attacked the
working-class, their votes have been collapsing. Increasing numbers have chosen
either not to vote at all, or to vote for parties to the left or right of the
mainstream.
Though the working-class in Europe has suffered serious
setbacks, particularly from the neo-liberal offensive begun by Thatcher, it is
still a powerful force. Even in countries like Italy and Austria, where
far-right groups led by figures with a neo-Nazi background have entered
coalition governments, the result has not been suppression of the workers’
movement. In fact, the anti-working-class policies of these right-wing
governments has acted more to spur the working-class to greater struggle than to
demoralise and defeat it.
This is a very different situation to the rise of mass
fascist forces in the 1920s and 1930s. By the end of 1930 the Nazi Party’s main
armed militia, the SA (the ‘Brownshirt’ Storm Troopers), had 100,000 members who
were physically fighting the workers’ movement in Germany for control of the
streets. In contrast, in Italy today for example, despite police repression on
some occasions, there is no question that mass anti-government demonstrations
can ‘possess the streets’. Any neo-fascist gangs are extremely small and weak
compared to the mass forces fascism was able to mobilise in the inter-war
period.
This does not mean that today’s far-right and neo-Nazis no
longer pose a threat; but a different type of threat to that of the 1920s-30s.
For working-class communities the BNP mainly represents an ideological threat,
splitting the working-class by feeding existing tensions and prejudices, making
it much harder for them to fight back against attacks on their living standards
or services. BNP successes encourage an increase in open racist attitudes and
other prejudices which, if left unchecked, turn into an increase in attacks and
violence.
The reasons that working-class people need to fight against
the BNP, however, are very different from the reasons why many establishment
politicians would like to curb its growth. The ruling class have no use at this
stage for the BNP. They prefer to use the traditional arms of the state – the
courts, the press, police and army – to undermine or attack the workers’
movement and the left. They regard the BNP’s electoral successes, and even more
any attempt to ‘take the streets’, as a source of unwelcome political and social
instability.
The BNP, recognising the political situation they are in,
have no perspective of physically confronting the workers’ movement at this
stage but instead are concentrating on winning votes and ‘respectability’. While
the BNP leadership would undoubtedly like to repeat the experiences of classical
fascism if they were able to, it is precluded by a political situation which is
completely different to the past.
Who can defeat the far-right?
VARIOUS UAF SIGNATORIES refer to the anti-fascist campaigns
of the past to argue for a campaign where all the opponents of the BNP unite,
‘leaving aside’ their differences.
Paul Mackney argues that "we are at a similar turning point
today" to the battle of Cable Street in 1936, where a demonstration of 100,000
prevented the British Union of Fascists (BUF) from marching. After this defeat
the BUF began a long decline. "The situation is different from the 1930s and the
1970s", he continues, in that "the brutes in boots of the NF have become the
brutes in suits of the BNP, but the fascist threat remains the same… We need to
build a campaign uniting all people who are threatened by fascism and leave our
differences outside the door – even fundamental ones such as over
Israel/Palestine".
Julie Waterson, of the SWP and the Anti-Nazi League (ANL),
has similarly written that "we now face the task of repeating the history of
anti-fascists in the 1930s, the 1970s and the 1990s to build a vibrant anti-Nazi
movement, mobilising the anti-racist majority into a force for change. Such a
movement can unite those with diverging political opinions to defeat a common
enemy, dividing the hardcore Nazis from their potential members". (The bitter
fruit of Blair’s rule, Socialist Review, July/August 2001)
‘The anti-racist majority’, ‘all people who are threatened
by fascism’, ‘all those dedicated to freedom and democracy’. What do these
phrases mean? Everyone who declares themselves to be against racism and fascism,
no matter what their record on these issues? Everyone who declares themselves to
be in favour of freedom and democracy?
New Labour declares itself to be against racism and fascism,
yet it is their policies that opened the door to the growth of the BNP. As the
resentment and anger against their anti-working-class policies grew, New Labour
used asylum-seekers as a scapegoat. They deliberately whipped up prejudice to
distract attention from their own unpopular policies.
In this situation, Searchlight has even looked to the
Tories, and the Liberal Democrats in particular, as forces able to ‘win back’
BNP voters. After the Liberal Democrats won a by-election in Hapton-with-Park in
Burnley that the BNP were widely expected to win, Searchlight acclaimed the
result as proving that "the BNP can be beaten and that the Lib Dems are capable
of providing a respectable alternative to voters disillusioned with Labour".
(Searchlight, July 2003)
Yet neither the Tories nor the Liberal Democrats are any
better as a long-term solution to the problem of the BNP. Big-business parties,
they both support the same neo-liberal policies that Labour is implementing.
Both are also happy to whip up racism and prejudice if they think that it will
suit their short-term political interests.
History shows that it is the working-class that has most
interest in defeating fascism, and that when fascist or neo-fascist groups have
grown, it is the workers’ movement and the left that have defeated them. Most
often this has been achieved despite obstruction from the establishment, rather
than the help that UAF implies the anti-fascist movement can rely on.
The battle of Cable Street that Paul Mackney mentions, for
example, was not between fascist gangs and the workers, trade unionists, local
residents and Communist Party members who demonstrated against them, but between
the anti-fascist demonstrators and the police, who tried for several hours to
force a passage for the fascists. The movements in Britain against the National
Front in the 1970s and the BNP in the 1990s were also led by the left, trade
unionists and community organisations. Again, they succeeded despite political
attacks from establishment politicians and the press, physical attacks from the
police, arrests and prosecutions.
Socialist Party members who have expressed disagreements
with the strategy of UAF have been criticised for not being willing to unite
with all forces, no matter who, against the BNP, particularly by members of the
SWP. Some have even gone so far as to say that it was the mistake of failing to
get ‘unity against the fascists’ that allowed Hitler to come to power in
Germany.
This is a gross over-simplification of history. The two main
workers’ parties – the Social-Democratic Party (SPD) and the Communist Party (KPD)
– did make a fatal mistake in failing to recognise the Nazi threat. The KPD
pursued an ultra-left policy, arguing that the social democrats, who they
labelled ‘social fascists’, were the main danger. The consequent failure to
mobilise their joint forces, including party and trade union militias of far
greater size than the Brownshirts, in common action against the Nazis, allowed
the SA to act with impunity, breaking strikes, attacking workers’ demonstrations
and raiding union and party premises, eventually wearing down and demoralising
large sections of the workers’ movement.
Meanwhile the SPD, which had renounced revolutionary ideas
in favour of ‘socialism by reform’, had no confidence in the workers’ ability to
fight and therefore relied almost entirely on the capitalist establishment to
keep Hitler out of power. In the April 1932 presidential election the SPD
supported Field Marshall von Hindenburg, arguing that the best way to block
Hitler was for everyone else to unite around Hindenburg. Less than a year later
it was Hindenburg who invited Hitler to form a coalition government, appointing
him chancellor on 30 January 1933 (following the November 1932 parliamentary
elections which had seen growing support for the workers’ parties and a decline
in the Nazi vote).
Above all, because of the role of the leaders of the SPD and
the KPD the working class was not able to take advantage of the numerous
revolutionary situations that took place in Germany before the Nazis eventually
came to power. As a result the workers’ movement, despite tremendous sacrifices,
was never able to take power in Germany and establish a socialist regime that
could have destroyed fascism and capitalism for good.
One of the key lessons of the rise of Hitler, then, is that
the left and the workers’ movement should always maintain an independent policy
and organisation in order to fight fascism and have no trust in the
establishment’s ability or willingness to fight. Unity, yes, but unity of
socialist and workers’ organisations not a false unity with capitalist
politicians. This does not mean that socialists, trade unionists and
anti-fascists should not accept practical support even from pro-capitalist
politicians in the struggle against neo-Nazi or far-right organisations,
provided this does not compromise their political and organisational
independence. But how would it help, for example, if socialists and the workers’
movement agree to ‘leave their opposition’ to privatisation and cuts in public
services ‘outside the door’ in the interests of a ‘united fight’ against the BNP?
Though racism and prejudice against asylum-seekers are very
big factors in the BNP’s increase in support, they have also cleverly exploited
the increasingly radical consciousness that exists in Britain. In the February
2004 edition of their paper, The Voice of Freedom, the BNP writes that "public
transport should be run as a service and not for profit. There is only one
policy which will make Britain’s rail network, once again, the vital transport
arteries of our country. That policy is re-nationalisation!" Of course for the
BNP this is just rhetoric – an opportunist way of exploiting majority support
for public ownership of the railways, while none of the main establishment
parties are prepared to back this. But amongst some of those who are sick of the
way that privatisation and cuts are slowly killing their communities and their
quality of life, this rhetoric is getting an echo. How can you answer this
without talking about the bread-and-butter issues of privatisation, low pay,
council tax rises and cuts in services?
Steve Silver, editor of Searchlight, admits that "the lesson
of the past is that fighting fascism as an isolated phenomenon will not defeat
it. The same organisations that are taking the lead against the BNP need also to
be prominent in dealing with other local issues and defending jobs and local
services". (Unions hold the key to defeating the BNP, Searchlight, September
2003.)
This is absolutely correct. Where trade unions are actively
involved in struggle to defend or improve local jobs and services they can
become a positive pole of attraction to people who might otherwise look to the
BNP. Fellow Searchlight reporter, Nick Lowles, also accepts that such anti-BNP
campaigning would have much more credibility and chance of success than "lining
up politicians to moralise against the BNP [which] will at best fail and at
worst harden voters’ support for the BNP". (Why the BNP must be confronted,
Searchlight, March 2004)
Sadly, however, Steve Silver, Nick Lowles and the initiators
of UAF do not go on to draw the necessary conclusions from this argument: that
to defeat the BNP the workers’ movement must be prepared to challenge them and
the parties of the establishment on the electoral field as well as in community
campaigning work.
Working-class people no longer have a political party that
represents their interests and can act as a channel for working-class struggle.
The BNP is taking advantage of this huge political vacuum in Britain, trying to
exploit the radicalisation and anger that exists. The most urgent task in the
battle to halt the BNP’s growth is the construction of a new mass workers’
party, that would be able to put a positive, socialist alternative to the
problems the BNP is trying to exploit. By involving workers, young people and
the local community in an active struggle to improve their conditions of life,
it could cut across potential support for the BNP and any other far-right
groups. Would this not be a better use of trade union resources than continuing
to give money to the New Labour politicians who are privatising trade union
members’ jobs and making them redundant? Or devoting time and money to a
campaign against the BNP whose main objective is to shore up the collapsing
votes of the mainstream parties who all represent the interests of big business?
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