17

May

9:25pm
Jack Peachey UK
Fascism: The Boot of Capital

Fascism: The Boot of Capital

Jack Peachey UK //9:25pm, May 17th '22

Part: 1

The contradictions are sharpening! As is the tradition during crisis periods under capitalism, a wave of fascism has spread over the world-prepared to defend the interests of the ruling class. The neoliberal ruling powers of the Liberal Democratic regimes march towards fascism without being impeded by the very functions of parliamentarism that we are told are supposed to prevent it whilst neo-brownshirts and police attack immigrants and other minority communities. All whilst this violence occurs, the liberals and the left-wing anticommunists are rendered hapless; able to only recognise fascism when it wears itself as stark populism. Indeed, when fascism wears a suit it is rendered invisible to the liberal.

We must draw ourselves not only to the established definitions of fascism, but we must combine this definition of ideology with the material conditions that allow it to rise. We must deduce what elements unite the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet etc and their policies of ultranationalism, eugenics, security statism, lebensraum, reaction, privatisation and market expansion. In this piece we shall uncover how fascism is the application of reaction and contradiction to protect the bourgeois from revolution-strengthening the liberal state by destroying opposition to unrestricted capitalism, perfecting the repressive forces of the state and expanding imperial hegemony through a genocidal regime. This shall deliver us to the inevitable conclusion; that the only cure for this virulent parasite is the victory of people; the victory of communism.

Image

I. Palingenetic Ultranationalism

History Professor Robert Griffin created a popular definition of fascism with his coining the phrase ‘Palingenetic Ultranationalism’, explained in the following quote1:

“How are we to characterise the core myth of generic fascism which results from the fusion of a revolutionary project with anti-liberal but populist nationalism? It can be expressed in a single binomial term, albeit an initially cryptic one: ‘palingenetic ultra-nationalism’... Fascism thus emerges when populist ultra-nationalism combines with the myth of a radical crusade against decadence and for renewal in every sphere of national life. The result is an ideology which operates as a mythic force celebrating the unity and sovereignty of the whole people in a specifically anti-liberal, and anti-Marxist sense”

We shall address the matter of whether fascism can truly be called ‘anti-liberal’ at a later point. The theory of ‘Palingenetic Ultranationalism’, however, serves a great deal of use to our analysis.

If you read our blogs then why not our magazine!!!
Image
Click here to subscribe our monthly magazine

The principle of palingenesis-the restoration of what once was-highlights a most important element of fascism; it is inherently reactionary. It involves, as Umberto Eco alleged, a ‘cult of tradition’2. It involves the deification of the past and a desire to return to this idealised conception (We shall look more to this idealism at a later point). This indeed entails looking back to an earlier economic mode of production and earlier class relations (Romanticising slave-based economy with Mussolini, deifing times of the Kaiser’s reign in the case of Hitler etc). This palingenetic propaganda achieves two things for the fascist:

  • The ‘fall’ of the nation into corruption is blamed on cultural weakness, affiliated with the minority populations entering the country, scapegoating these populations as responsible for economic crises that are, in truth, provoked by capitalism.
  • The romanticisation of the past creates conditions wherein the population look backwards rather than forwards; preserving the current economic base rather than moving forward to the next.
  • This brings us to ultranationalism; fascist governments emphasise the well-being of their nation over that of others. This does not entail isolationism per se, but does entail a policy of conquest, of domination. In concert with the prior tenant, fascism stresses national unity and strength thought lost following the era it deifies. The nation was once strong, but has since been polluted by an outside force that has invaded the nation-the fascist argues. This manufactures consent for the nation then to expand and invade other nations; to spread the nation’s ‘superior’ values and out of revenge for the supposed slight-all whilst benefiting the same rich owner class as before, expanding firms and exploitation into new territories whilst settling the nation’s people there-committing cultural genocide to allow for greater exploitation of indigenous populations and for expanded markets.

    The marriage of this idealism, of a nonsensical conception of a purified past for the nation that should be returned to through the total domination via an expanding regime, to the idealism of liberalism (of markets that are built to fail and of a deferential system that yields stagnancy and oppression) is core to the ideology of fascism-which we will now discuss.

    A Poem by Yanis Iqbal
    Yanis Iqbal India//9:46am, Jan 2nd '22

    A Poem by Yanis Iqbal

    A Hunger-stricken Child Someone knocks on the glittering glass of a posh car,Someone ruffles the sleek surface of a dead conscience.Heaps of bones, sheets of muscles - Can the intruder in the rich man's....

    Read More
    How Neoliberalism is Destroying our Environment
    Karl Fluri Canada//8:49pm, Dec 7th '22

    How Neoliberalism is Destroying our Environment

    Despite the many climate action conferences around the world today, compared to even a few decades ago, it seems that having hundreds of world leaders and billionaires flying around in private jets and....

    Read More
    COCHABAMBA WATER WAR: The Effects of Privatization of Water Supply
    Sumedha Chatterjee Ireland//10:44pm, Nov 14th '21

    COCHABAMBA WATER WAR: The Effects of Privatization of Water Supply

    As the world we are living in becomes increasingly globalized, we see the traditional roles of the state to be ebbing. The lines between state and non state activities shall blur to an extent that there....

    Read More
    THE PROBLEM IS POVERTY: IN CONVERSATION WITH THE BANGAISA CREW
    Special Correspondent The International//5:13pm, Feb 23rd '22

    THE PROBLEM IS POVERTY: IN CONVERSATION WITH THE BANGAISA CREW

    Part 1Based in rural part of western Kenya, the Bangaisa crew has amassed popularity for all the right reasons. As the election approaches, their campaign song for the Kenyan communist party has created....

    Read More
    Ideological work in the new era of socialism in China - Part 3
    Gabriel Martinez//1:50am, Sep 23rd '22

    Ideological work in the new era of socialism in China - Part 3

    … click here to read the previous partIdeological work and class struggleThe struggle between bourgeois ideas, with all their effects, and the ideas of the proletariat, represented by Marxism, is a long-lasting....

    Read More
     A PRELIMINARY DIAGNOSIS OF Dr WILLIAM RUTO 5th PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KENYA – Part 2: The hustler nation
    Ann Waithera Kenya//10:30pm, Jan 12th '23

    A PRELIMINARY DIAGNOSIS OF Dr WILLIAM RUTO 5th PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KENYA – Part 2: The hustler nation

    …click here to read the previous partWorld buildingThe veil of mass delusion was lifted from Kenyan society following the contested 2007 General Election results which resulted inthe 2007/08 post-election....

    Read More