Fascism

Far-right rioting has spread across Britain, with fascist gangs launching pogroms against Muslim and Asian communities. Appeals for ‘calm’ will not suffice. To eradicate this scourge, organised workers and youth must take militant mass action.

The reactionary Chega party is making electoral gains in Portugal. How should Marxists respond to the threat of the far right? In addition to the analysis here, our Portuguese comrades are running an event on 8 November that will ask the question, What is Fascism? If you are interested, sign up today! Please note, this event will be held in the Portuguese language. 

In this video from the 2017 October Revolution festival, Marie Frederiksen discusses the rise of reactionary figures like Trump and Le Pen, and explains how these racist right-wing politicians differ from genuinely fascist leaders and movement. Providing a detailed example in the form of Mussolini's Italy, Marie describes how fascism came to power historically, and also the lessons to be learnt in terms of fighting the far right today.

The election of Donald Trump in the US and the rise of Marine Le Pen in the French presidential elections has naturally been received with alarm by millions of people around the world. Some have even warned of a new rise of fascism. As Marxists, we feel it is important not to replace serious analysis with scaremongering and exaggeration. In this article, Rob Sewell - editor of Socialist Appeal - asks: what is fascism? And does it pose an imminent threat today?

This in depth article deals with the horrors that capitalism has inflicted on humanity. In the first part of this article we see the real face of the capitalist class, both its predatory nature on a global scale and its capacity for violent suppression of any mass popular revolt that challenges its right to rule. Some will say, yes but this was in the past; now the system has become more civilised and humane. Recent history shows that this is utterly false.

In this talk from the Revolution 2016 Marxist festival, Hans-Gerd Öfinger discusses the rise of the Nazis in Germany, discussing how Hitler was able to come to power - in his own words - "without so much as breaking a pane of glass".

In this talk from a 2016 Socialist Appeal day school, Adam Booth - editor of www.socialist.net - provides a Marxist analysis of fascism, analysing its historical rise and role, and discussing the nature of the far-right parties and leaders that are gaining support today.

In the aftermath of Donald trump's selection as President of the United States of America, cries of “fascism!” again fill the air. However, as we shall see, although Donald Trump is a crass, bigoted, billionaire businessman, he is not a fascist. The secret to his win is not that he rode a mass fascist movement to power, but that the lesser-evil policy of the labor leaders and the “left” ran out of steam. With no class-independent alternative provided by the unions or Bernie Sanders, uninspired Americans stayed home in droves and the balance of victory was handed to Trump by rust-belt workers sick and tired of the decades of betrayals by the Democrats.

Saturday marked the 70th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, with the surrender of German troops, a key turning point in the Second World War, where about 800,000 German and Axis troops were either killed or captured, including the entire German Sixth Army and its commander-in-chief – a shattering blow to Hitler.

The year 2001 marks the 70th anniversary of the proclamation of the Spanish Republic in 1931, an event which was the opening shot in the Spanish Revolution. Also 65 years ago, on July 18th 1936, we saw the uprising of Franco, once the Spanish ruling class understood that they could no longer rule through 'democratic' means. We are publishing here an article by Alan Woods which deals with the last period of the spanish Revolution. This article was first published in 1986 as a concluding part of a series of articles on the Spanish Revolution 1931-37.

The 4th October marks the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, a momentous event in which the working people of London united to deliver a decisive blow against the menace British fascism. In this article we commemorate the brave stand of those workers who fought the fascists while seeking to expose the real nature of fascism and drawing lessons for today's struggles against the English Defence League (EDL) and the British National Party (BNP).

In Italy under Mussolini, formally speaking, there were “trade unions”. However, they were state-run unions, i.e. instruments of the state. One therefore should not confuse these “unions” with genuine trade unions. Yet, in spite of this, Communists worked successfully inside them.