/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

Dutt's is most accurate I think. Dmitrov seems to underestimate the role of the petty bourgeoisie in shaping fascism. It's been a while since I read The Fascist Offensive, but iirc he essentially argues that it originates with the big bourgeoisie and is tailored to bring the petty bourgeoisie on board as footsoldiers. In reality it originates with the petty bourgeoisie and adapts itself to the big bourgeoisie in order to take and secure power, shedding its petty bourgeois ecclecticism in the process. This is also why some people argue that certain far right autocracies like those of Franco or Pinochet are not strictly speaking fascist, since they originated among the wealthiest classes in those countries and weren't as concerned with populism or an alternative, reactionary "revolution" the way the Nazis or Italian fascists were. Personally however I think the difference is academic. Any country in which there is no legal space for socialist organizing is fascist for all intents and purposes, even if it still has a multi party system, a legislature with actual power, competitive elections, etc. Russia is effectively a one party state, and yet it is objectively farther from fascism than Ukraine because legal socialist organizing is possible in the former, but not the latter.

>>2816552
"Modern" falangists of both the IRL and online persuasion are so fucking funny. Sorry chuds but Franco and co. absolutely liquidated you and helped make Spain more reliant on tourism.

>>2816552
>Any country in which there is no legal space for socialist organizing is fascist for all intents and purposes
I think there is a meaningful difference between Weimar and Nazi Germany, even though the Weimar government also had Communists banned periodically. You can also see it with Japan in the 1930s versus in the early 1940s, Communism was banned either way but I think the anti-Communist bourgeois system of government has a clear meaningful difference: Whether bourgeois criticism of the government's policies is allowed in the press, basically, if freedom of speech exists for the part of the bourgeoisie which lost out on shaping government policy.

Fascism is when my neighbor is my enemy whom I must be careful what I say or do around

>>2816569
>even though the Weimar government also had Communists banned periodically
Those bans were fleeting and sporadic though. For the most part communists were allowed to operate legally and did so quite effectively. I'd also argue that to qualify as fascist this kind of repression should include socialists in general, not just MLs.
>Whether bourgeois criticism of the government's policies is allowed in the press, basically, if freedom of speech exists for the part of the bourgeoisie which lost out on shaping government policy.
That's an interesting point to raise, but honestly I don't think that's enough to preclude a state from being fascist. Pretty much every state has a spectrum of acceptable political opinion, the range of views that it will tolerate, outside of which repression becomes the standard, official response. I think that what sets fascism and liberalism apart (insofar as they are different) is that in a liberal state this spectrum includes working class politics. In short, liberalism allows the workers a legal voice whereas fascists do not. If the workers are excluded from above ground politics then I don't really see the relevance of the bourgeoisie bickering amongst themselves. It's similar to the distinction between a feudal society with an absolute monarchy and one with a strong and relatively independent nobility. From the perspective of a peasant, the difference is pretty minor.

>>2816574
>I think that what sets fascism and liberalism apart (insofar as they are different) is that in a liberal state this spectrum includes working class politics
Working class politics was explicitly banned by the liberal Japanese bourgeois democratic system in 1925, but again, I think there's a clear difference between that system to the bourgeois system in place in 1941. Fascist states do not allow the losing bourgeois faction to make a big mess by sowing division in the press, making the bourgeoisie spend its resources fighting itself like how the US Republicans make huge culture wars for every token policy the Democrats propose.
In fascist states these disputes are to be brought up behind closed doors. This is why in Germany certain pro-Nazi capitalists like Hjalmar Schacht became disillusioned; the Nazis went along with other competing financiers and he was left without a means to push his politics.

>>2816549
I think Togliatti was the best communist theorist of fascism. He was also Italian. He doesn't have a one-line definition of it really but I'd look up his lectures.

>>2816578
I get your point Anon, I just don't think that fascism ought to be defined by whether or not the bourgeoisie are allowed to bicker amongst themselves in public. In both cases communists would need to operate underground, through clandestine means, etc. From a practical perspective of organiaing and waging the struggle the difference is negligible. Surely these things should be assessed in terms of their world historical significance, and their effect on class struggle no?

>>2816581
I'll second this, his analysis seemed the most grounded and the least contaminated by political imperatives the way Dmitrov was. During the Popular Front era in particular there was something of a desire to downplay the role of the petty bourgeoisie in fascism since they considered them a potential partner in a broad anti-fascist coalition that included liberals (iirc Dmitrov mentions them specifically as a class formation that could be brought into this coalition). I think this contributed to his mistakes.

Somewhere between all four.

If we look at the median of regimes that people generally agree to fascist, the underlying trend is developed capitalism with the absence of liberalism. It's a political doctrine that preserves the social relations of capitalism, while abandoning liberal democracy and civil liberties in favor of strong, blunt state control. What exactly this looks like, and how exactly we get to it, varies from place to place, but the overall combination of elements is undeniable.

>>2816620
I think what this definition neglects are the mass mobilizing features of fascism. It's not simply brute-force repression it's mass games, mass rallies, mass rituals, marches and all kinds of really scary shit (which is also pretty alien to most of us, people living in the 21st century). Togliatti stressed that it has to also be understood as a party and a movement that mobilized the masses.

I suspect that this might make communists uncomfortable because communists also did these things. But I don't mean that in some horseshoe theory sort of way because the ends are very different.

Each are accurate, to the point where I don't see any reason not to synthesize them together.

>>2816582
If that's your point of view you are falling into the same trap that the KPD fell into when they called Weimar fascist when they passed laws banning Communists. Genuine questions, do you really see South Korea as a fascist state? Is there really not so much distincting it from when it was under Park Chung-hee or Rhee Syng-man? All socialist activity is still banned but I think calling it a fascist country would be silly considering we have a blatantly fascist era we can compare it to.

I have not had the time to do it myself yet but I want to warn the anons in this thread from simplifying rather than complicating this thread.
The question in the OP need to be further expanded into the consequences it ends up in in regards to United Front, United Front from Below and Popular Front tactics.
>>2816631
They are not.
>>2816620
Lazy.

>Wobbly-flag posts
Wobbly-flag user is VWobbly, a mod which false-flags for no reason and is actually always perpetuating right-wing revisionist ML talking-points.

Show your literacy ITT comrades!

Some notes from Togliatti

>>2816549
Umberto Eco's definition is uniquely bad because all of these traits are present in every single modern state and they were even more present for all of human history.
It's what a liberal says when they're trying to gaslight you.
>yeah, we don't have any conspiracy theories, trusted snopes experts verified that everything bad is an asiatic plot from the russians, chinese, iranians etc
>no we don't support two whole ultranationalist countries with artificial languages and identities that objectively did not exist before we forced it, they were always real since 9000 bce and the land was promised to them
>yeah displaying a soviet flag at may 9th celebration is basically a crime (not even dissent)
Or go tell a roman emperor that he shouldn't be so obsessed with conspiracies. Or Martin Luther that he shouldn't be so antisemitic.

It's so disconnected from reality. The normie lib definition is also shit because it basically exists to stroke liberal egos.

Dimitrov and Dutt's definitions are both good. Dutt's definition is probably the best a historian can do with the "commonly accepted idea" of fascism. Dimitrov's definition is the actually useful one but it doesn't correspond with the commonly accepted idea of what fascism is because the country that took up the mantle immediately after Hitler died has cultural hegemony.

>>2816645
Eco wasn't proposing a definition, he was listing out a series of traits that fascist social movements like. And Martin Luther wasn't antisemitic, antisemitism emerges in the 19th century as a rejection of theological anti-Judaism.

>fascism analysis
>no trotsky and bordiga
Wow… this is worthless

>>2816634
>If that's your point of view you are falling into the same trap that the KPD fell into when they called Weimar fascist when they passed laws banning Communists
But again, those laws weren't in place for long. Also I would concede that there can be significant differences between different types of fascistic repression, such as just banning a party vs hunting down and exterminating all of its members. I think the KPD's mistake was simply not considering the latter to be a possibility. If you really want to separate an otherwise liberal state that bans communism from a "real" fascist one that eradicates it, perhaps that could be the distinction. I suppose that's a take I could agree with since it actually separates fascists from liberals according to how their actions impact the class struggle, rather than how they impact intra-bourgeois politics. Theoretically however, such severe repression could still take place in an otherwise liberal state with a multi-party legislature, free bourgeois press, etc.
>do you really see South Korea as a fascist state?
I would say so. I mean, what value are the ROK's "liberal" institutions to socialists if we can't use them as a medium of class struggle?

For a long time, during an idealist phase I went through while studying Hegel, I had thought that fascism also has to do with ancien regime Sittlichkeit trying to adapt itself with modern conditions of civil society. This is of course too abstract, has no class analysis, no political content whatsoever. But it seems to me that, since fascism arose precisely in countries that where second or later in line in industrialization and bourgeois domination, the vicinity or sediment of ancien regime relations has something to do with it, at least historically. I wouldn't go as far as saying it's the main factor like someone said in a thread a few days ago though.

There is no such thing as fascism, it’s just rebranded liberalism. Liberalism does mean civil liberties or elected politicians, it means capitalism. You can’t find a single policy in Germany, Italy, and Japan at the time that wasn’t implemented by Napoleon, Simon Bolivar, the US, British, and French Empires. The only unique thing about German fascism in particular is having European victims. No one cares about victims of British colonialism. Believing fascism exists at all or is a unique threat betrays the left’s own whiteness and inability to universalize.