Defeating fascism means recognizing its different forms, building the left, and mobilizing a mass united fight
At the center of imperialism, and at the purulent heart of the web of fascism, is the US. This is displayed particularly clearly in the regime of Donald Trump. In the heartland of capitalism in its imperialist stage we see before us the slow but steady march towards fascism. It has not yet consolidated itself into a fully-fledged system, but it is moving by incremental steps into a new and perhaps unique form of fascism.
Consider that very early in his regime, he demanded that the Gulf of Mexico be re-named the Gulf of America. No one now even mentions this strange and disturbing incident, nor the threats to annex Greenland or Panama or Canada.
The Trump regime is rife with social demagogy. Increasingly, anyone who opposes Trump is called a “communist” or a “radical Marxist extremist,” when in fact they are not. When Trump calls someone a communist he is invoking the memory of the McCarthy period when state propaganda turned the American people against socialism. It is intended to evoke hatred and loathing, and is a barely hidden call to violence in the same way that all fascist leaders from Hitler onward have used anti-communism.
Trump has insisted that he will “restore law-and-order.” To that end the military has appeared in the streets of America, and in the very Capital itself. A new national police force is in the offing, backed up by the fanatical forces of Trump’s MAGA movement. And like every fascist dictator, from the first day of his regime, he has been governing by executive order, sidelining both Congress and the courts and any form of democratic institution.
There is only one way to defeat fascism, and Former General Secretary of the Communist International Georgi Dimitrov knew what it was. All the forces and people’s movements and political parties from the center to the left, including democratic socialists, social democrats, other left entities and communists themselves must put aside their differences and organize themselves into a mass united front to resist and to confront and to oppose every manifestation of fascism.
This will not be an easy task. Class collaboration and opportunism is rife among the non-communist center and center-left, and communist parties throughout the capitalist-imperialist world are still in the slow process of rebuilding their strength and influence in a period of counter-revolution. Still, it is a task which must be done. Fascism must be destroyed.
David Lethbridge is former research director of the Bethune Institute for Anti-Fascist Studies
Retrieved from Peoples Voice, Canada: People’s Voice – Canada’s leading socialist publication
