On Charlottesville: Our Stance on Anti‑Fascism

A Letter from the USA

Anti-fascists, currently flying under the “antifa” banner, however radical they may appear, are not communists. In the 20s and the 30s, communists opposed the fascists because they represented one of the parties defending capitalism. Now communists must once again shout from the rooftops: it is not enough to oppose fascism unless you also oppose bourgeois democracy. On the other hand, as we have shown in countless articles in many languages, historical and recent, anti-fascism has proved to be a very effective weapon against communism, both before and after the 2nd World War.

The political United Front tactic, which was proposed by the Third International in 1921, and rejected by our current as opportunism, involved a rapprochement between communism and social democracy. Subsequenly the Communist International would consider fighting fascism to be more important than fighting what had given birth to it – capitalism. For the Comintern it became the duty of the communists to preserve left-bourgeois governments in the face of fascism. Even worse, the communist parties actively destroyed their own organizational integrity: filling the ranks of the communist party with boilerplate leftists and bringing genuine communists together with social democrats of every type. This opportunism of the Stalinist parties resulted in open class collaboration and suffocated the communist struggle… against fascism as well.

In the May 1934 edition of Bilan, we instead read: « …if the proletariat is really strong enough to impose a governmental solution on the bourgeoisie, then why should it stop at this objective, rather than posing its own central demands for the destruction of the capitalist state? By contrast, if the proletariat is not yet strong enough to launch the insurrection, then doesn’t pushing it towards a democratic government mean in effect spurring it down a path that will make the enemy’s victory possible? » (Anti-Fascism: A Formula for Confusion)

Far from being “purists” the left communists maintained that the fight against fascism necessarily needs to be a fight versus both fascist and democratic parties, not of communists and democrats parties versus fascism.

The left communists were right in predicting that the bourgeois parties couldn’t be expected to stop fascism.Indeed, nearly every party ended up deeming Hitler and Mussolini a non threat and a defence against revolution. They supported them, and paved the way for them to win state-power. It cannot be forgotten that the united front not only destroyed the communists’ political independence in the name of “anti-fascism”, but it didn’t even stop fascism from taking power.
That is the root of our distrust of antifascism.

Yes, many say, that is all well and good, but this isn’t the interbellum era, times are different, and besides, there is no working class movement. But capitalism still reigns now as as then. Sure, there is no large working class movement, and the communist party doesn’t have a large following. But there definitely won’t be if its independence and principles are sacrificed. If we are to build a communist movement it is the principles that count: not principles that are deemed true for all time, but ones resulting from 1) what the world is 2) what the world is in the process of becoming.

The “leftwing” antifascists say they aren’t like that. They don’t participate in the ruse of electoralism and they certainly don’t take sides in intra-capitalist conflicts (nevermind, though, that if pressed hard enough they prefer the social democrats – and in America, even worse, the Democrats!). They fail to understand they are just a “street” (and thus more “militant”) component of bourgeois anti-fascist, interclassist politics, which loudly screams yet offers no solutions: they are not for anything, they are just against fascism. They present no program, they do not organize into a communist political party, they do not work for working class autonomy. Their political activity does not go farther than organizing against fascists. They are still stuck in the trap of “fascism vs democracy”, where fascism is everything they don’t like and democracy is meant in a “true” sense that excludes Congress and Parliament, but what it actually means remains a mystery. Both in theory and in practice, these antifascist positions have nothing to contribute to working class politics. The theory must be rejected and different tactics and strategy must be pursued.

It is a theory that is needed, along with tactics and a strategy to follow.

A paper written in Italy in 1920 called “Lenin and Abstentioinism” (Il Soviet, 1 February), discusses opposition to parliament on the basis of political principles, that running for parliament is detrimental to the attainment ofcommunist objectives. We read there that Communism is an innate need, that you join the communist party in order to commit yourself to actively channelling the energy of the “masses” onto a clearly communist political path.

Of course, this isn’t to say that the alt-right, the kkk, neo-nazi meth gangs, christian identitarians, or whatever racist group, aren’t a problem. Of course they are, and of course they must be fought. But unlike the antifascists, communists must fight them from a class-oriented perspective, i.e., from within a political party which encourages independent working class organization. If such a perspective is lacking, fighting in the streets is simply not enough.

Recently in Charlottesville, at a “Unite the Right” rally, clashes with protesters resulted in deaths. The anti-fascists are keen to remind us of these tragedies in order to justify their activity and their politics.

But even on these occasions communists must do their utmost to point out that these defeats demonstrate not only the limitations of antifascism, but the need for methods of action that are purely class-based. There is certainly a need, let us be quite clear, for workers and communists, and of course for ethnic communities as well, to defend themselves from right-wing attacks. Itis rather the interclassist and democratic stance, typical of anti-fascism, that we are criticizing here, not the fact you need to defend yourself and conseqently also against these nazis. We cannot however let the response to this be “we need more antifa” but rather “we need working class politics”. And not in the vulgar sense of repeating what the bulk of working class people think, but in the sense of the politics that is in the interests of the workers.
 
Communists do not offer a “solution” regarding what the relationship between the bourgeois State and Fascism should be. They don’t call on the democratic bourgeois State to repress anti-democratic fascism. We don’t, for instance, have a position on whether the white supremacist Richard Spencer should be evicted or not.

We say that racist and nationalist ideologies will only be overcome in a communist society. What the anti-fascists fail to realize is that even if there are times when it is relevant to confront racists and fascists, and with violence, in the workers’ organizations and mutual aid networks (never in the party) nationalists and racists will always be around, etc. The solution is showing that they are wrong, that workers of all races and countries must unite in their common struggle and cast aside racist ideology. Unfortunately, we must live in the real world, where the solution is not beating everyone up all the time.

It is a fact cops did nothing while counter-protestors were shot at and killed in Charlottesville. It is undeniable that the police are racists and have been infiltrated by white nationalists. And it is undeniable that the state will transfer power to the fascists when it needs to. Logically speaking, therefore, every anti-fascist should be an anti-capitalist, and every democrat a communist. But that is not the reality of this situation.

Meanwhile, Cruz, Romney, and Bush have come out to condemn white nationalism, and Clinton specifically referred to the alt-right as “deplorables”; and it is a fact that the FBI has, and will continue to,infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan. Indeed, several of these racists found themselves fired shortly after their tiki torch stunt. But communism in fact doesn’t want to fight fascism as such, it wants to fight capitalism, be it democratic or fascist.

Ideologically, antifa is framed in a street style radical social democratism, and organizationally it is nothing beyond an organizer of brawls. To go beyond that, to be for communism and for broader working class organization and mobilization, not against just racism but for other class issues and ultimately for communism, the antifa initiate must first know our critique of anti-fascism; and then, our continued condemnation of the hardcore antifa activists. The duty of communists is therefore to continue to critique antifascism, giving no ideological grounds to it.

Communists must hold onto the dogma – proven time and time again – that the only way to fight capitalism in all its loathsome reality is through class war.