See below:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joel Wendland [mailto:joelrw at hotmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2004 10:29 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] Bohemian Grove
>
>
> Sorry to jump so late into this thread, but can you explain
> how the quotes
> you provide below differ from Dimitrov?
>
> I read him as saying that fascism "has managed to gain the
> following of the
> mass of the petty bourgeoisie...and even certain sections...of the
> proletariat." Further, he says that fascism is successful
> because it plays
> on anti-capitalist sentiments. I read Dimitrov as saying that
> at certain
> points in the the development of cpaitalism, some capitalists
> have needs and
> some p.b. and w.c. people have needs and form a multi-class
> alliance or a
> fascist party. Like all multi-party alliances the capitalists
> have the
> upperhand, but this does not mean that people on the bottom
> have no role.
>
> Point of clarification: Is the view you are supporting
> suggesting that
> fascist movements that rise to dominant status have no connection to
> sections of the capitalist class?
>
> Joel Wendland
> http://www.politicalaffairs.net
OK. I do like some of Dimitrov:
"The accession to power of fascism is not an ordinary succession of one bourgeois government by another, but a substitution of one state form of class domination of the bourgeoisie--bourgeois democracy--by another form--open terrorist dictatorship. It would be a serious mistake to ignore this distinction, a mistake liable to prevent the revolutionary proletariat from mobilizing the widest strata of the working people of town and country for the struggle against the menace of seizure of power by the fascists, and from taking advantage of the contradictions which exist in the camp of the bourgeoisie itself. But it is a mistake, no less serious and dangerous, to underrate the importance of, for the establishment of fascist dictatorship, of the reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie at present increasingly developing in bourgeois-democratic countries--measures which suppress the democratic liberties of the working people, falsify and curtail the rights of parliament and intensify the repression of the revolutionary movement."
What I really do not like is the definition, which is invoked parrot-like. It is arguable that the definition is accurate for SOME fascist regimes in state power; but it distracts from the analysis of how to block fsacist or proto-fascist social movements before they gains state power.
Fascist movements on the rise DO have a connection to sections of the power eilte (capitalist class in MLM vernacular), but it changes over time, and is only consolidated in the abrupt transfer of power to the dictatoriship of fascist rule.
What Dimitrov and others got wrong was the idea of the social fascists as a main enemy. Not that it is not in part true, but that stopping fascism in fact requires a popular front not a united front composed of only the workers. And that despite all evidence to the contrary, the Stalinists continue to claim that stopping Hitler was a victory for the united front thesis.
So I argue that we need a broad popular front to both oppose the erosion of liberties under Bush & Ashcrosft, and to also flank the various proto-fascist movements that want the left to join them in an anti-regime crusade (after which we all get the night of the long knives--which is why I mention the Strasserites).
Thus opposing conspiracism (the simple-minded progeny of anti-dialectical anti-logical demonization and scapegoating) is part of a strategy to build a popular front that does not get harvested by anti-regime fascists.
If antisemitism is the socialism of fools, then conspiracism is the sucker punch by which fascists fool the left.
-Chip