June 2002 

Revisionist Minds Think Alike

Is the National Front fascist? Is the Pope Catholic? Various opportunist leftists are desperately trying to explain away the recent sharp political shift to the right in France and across Europe by redefining dyed-in-the-wool fascists into plain old vote-hustlers. But this ominous development cannot be disappeared by sleight of hand. Even if they’re currently wearing sheep’s clothing, dressed in fashionable double-breasted suits and ties instead of black or brown shirts, they’re still fascist wolves. 

We have exposed how the International Communist League (ICL) echoes the bourgeoisie in claiming that Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front in France, Gianfranco Fini’s National Alliance in Italy and Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party in Austria are no longer fascist but merely “electoral parties.” But the left-centrist ICL is not alone. These fairy tales are also spread by the reformist tendencies led by Ted Grant and Peter Taaffe, the remnants of the pseudo-Trotskyist Militant tendency that for decades was buried in the British Labour Party.

It is striking how identical arguments are repeated, often word for word, by centrists and reformists. Where the ICL says Le Pen/Fini/Haider may have fascist origins and ideology but their parties are merely vote-collecting machines, Taaffe’s Committee for a Workers International (CWI) writes:

“Despite the neo-fascist antecedents of many of the leaders of the far-right parties, these formations are not fascist-type parties with their own para-military forces (apart from small groups of thugs that still shelter within them).
“Leaders like Le Pen and Haider have past links with neo-Nazi organizations and there are still elements of racist authoritarian ideology in their politics. But they have grown on an electoral level, presenting a respectable face, distancing themselves from the tiny neo-fascist groups on the fringes of far-right politics….
“The far-right parties have grown as an electoral phenomenon, not as paramilitary forces on the lines of the fascist militias of Hitler and Mussolini.” 
–Socialism Today, June 2002

“In fact, Le Pen is not a fascist, but a reactionary racist and a pacemaker for fascism. If he had been elected, he would have behaved in the same way as Fini, the leader of the Italian neo-fascist party the National Alliance, which has become just another right-wing conservative party…. 
“We must, of course, combat reaction and racism at all times. [Of course!] But it is a serious mistake to sound the alarm bells and start shouting about fascism every time some reactionary demagogue gets an increase in votes.
“At this moment in time the real fascist organizations have been reduced everywhere to virulent sects…. The ruling class does not need these elements at the present time.” 

Attempts by opportunists to revise the communism of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky invariably reflect a loss of confidence in the revolutionary capacity of the proletariat and adaptation to the pressures of the bourgeoisie. Thus the ICL pretends that these parties are not fascist because the bourgeoisie doesn’t need fascism today, due to a “qualitative” regression in the consciousness of the proletariat following the destruction of the Soviet Union. Similarly, the CWI asserts:

“Despite the swing to the right electorally, the balance of social forces does not favour a resurgence of fascist reaction…. A major factor has been the setback to class consciousness following the collapse of Stalinism after 1989.”

“There was a profound setback to working-class consciousness as a result of the collapse of the Stalinist regimes…. Even the politically advanced layers of workers were disoriented and confused. There have been massive industrial struggles and protest movements throughout Europe during the 1990s and more recently. These struggles, however, lacked cohesion and clear political direction.”

“Across West Europe, the working class has engaged in some of the largest and most militant battles in years, yet for the first time since the Paris Commune, the masses of workers in struggle do not identify their immediate felt needs with the ideals of socialism or program of socialist revolution.” 

“The noisy propaganda about the ‘risk of fascism’ in Europe is entirely false. The bourgeois in Europe burnt their fingers badly with fascism in the past, and are not likely to hand power again to fascist madmen like Hitler and Mussolini.” (Grantites)

“The bourgeoisie burned its fingers with fascism in the inter-war period, or rather burned its arms and legs…. The bourgeoisie will not make the same mistake again.” (Taaffeites) 

What is the programmatic conclusion of the opportunists’ latest discovery? Taaffe & Co. call for “the formation of broad, democratic workers’ parties, on the basis of an anti-capitalist programme.” In other words, they want to recreate the Old Labour Party so they can bury themselves in it again. Lutte Ouvrière (LO) in France likewise envisages a new “party of the working people.” The ICL uses the same arguments to justify its desertion from the class struggle, since workers’ struggles supposedly no longer have anything to do with socialism, and the fascists supposedly are no longer fascist. 

In France this spring, tens of thousands of youth streamed into the streets to protest against the fascist National Front. Mainstream reformists sought to divert this justified anger into the safe channels of an electoral popular front that ended up channeling votes to the arch-reactionary Chirac. For their part, various pseudo-Trotskyists like Taaffe, Grant, LO and the ICL deny that the FN is fascist and pooh-pooh all talk of a danger of fascist reaction. Whatever tomorrow may bring, Woods preaches, “At the present time there is no danger of fascism or even Bonapartist reaction in any developed capitalist country.” Amen, say the ICL and CWI.

The League for the Fourth International has uniquely warned that the very real danger represented by the fascists in Europe is that they are on the cutting edge of a drive toward bonapartist and semi-bonapartist regimes. Their central aims are to go after immigrants, rip up workers’ gains and break the power of labor. We have underlined that bourgeois conservatives and liberals as well as reformist workers parties have joined in this drive, voting for police-state measures in the name of fighting “terrorism” and “crime.” 

The way to combat this is not by chaining the workers to the class enemy through “popular fronts” or by lulling them to sleep by pretending that fascism is dead and gone. It’s necessary to build genuine Trotskyist parties that warn of the danger to the workers and oppressed of a capitalist “strong state” and put forward a program to mobilize the working class to sweep away this deadly threat through socialist revolution. n

Go to:  National Front at forefront of capitalist drive toward “strong state” in France (8 June 2002)
           French elections: beware of bourgeois ‘saviors of the nation’ (4 May 2002)
           France: Popular front paves the way for fascist reaction (26 April 2002)