Workers of the World, Unite!

Across the world we are witnessing unspeakable events and actions that despite being miles away, have a fundamental impact on us all. Aggressive wars, threats of military action, the kidnapping of presidents of sovereign nations and interference in their affairs, and illegal economic sanctions that impoverish and kill millions. Thes aren’t some other peoples’ problems, they are our problem too.
It appears that we, the British working class, think that what happens elsewhere is not really our problem. That it does not affect us or that we cannot influence things. But we would be wrong, because the people causing the misery, mayhem and murder are our ruling class, supported by our politicians, and we are only being spared their absolute brutality because it’s not necessary to inflict it upon us – yet.

The longer our ignorance and apathy continue, the deeper the crisis becomes, until eventually it arrives to our shores, to our streets, to our lives. Just because our children have not yet been conscripted, because wars are still being fought by proxy forces, does not mean that will remain the case. The only reason our ruling class is not conscripting them is fear of our reprisal. Because that would be a spark that awakens the British working class and compels it to act. But we would be foolish to wait for that inevitability. Failure to understand the direction of travel will only lead to further crisis and misery.

A review of history helps us to understand how patterns of economic depression and military build-up lead to the rise of fascism and world war.
We need to ask how a country’s leader and his wife can be abducted and imprisoned by a neighbouring nation, as in the US’s illegal action in Venezuela.
We need to ask how that same powerful state can demand, dictate and destroy other countries’ facilities, seemingly unhindered, as in Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

We need to ask how the small nation of Israel can continue to destroy and defile an entire people in Gaza while our politicians, the UN and the world stand by.
We need to ask why there is a move to the extreme right across Europe that could be the precursor to fascism.

We need to ask why poverty is growing while governments across the world increase spending on arms for war and the gap between rich and poor widens alarmingly.

We need to ask how a small group of non-violent activists protesting against a genocide can be proscribed a terrorist organisation or how trial by jury can be abolished on the precursor of a backlog of cases.

We need to ask a whole lot more than we do!
These are some of the many questions we must confront because all these unhindered actions lead to the repression of workers, and repression is inseparable from the question of fascism and its re-emergence. It must concern us all.

In the 1930s, fascism in Germany took shape in the form of Nazism, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Its emergence was not sudden. It developed from the defeat of Germany in the First World War, the world economic collapse, the Great Depression, and the deep political instability that followed.

Fascism gains traction during periods of severe capitalist crisis, marked by mass unemployment, inflation, financial collapse and the social unrest these conditions foment. During such periods, liberal democratic institutions prove incapable of maintaining stability. As people endure severe and increasing cuts to basic needs – food, housing, healthcare, education and secure employment – and can no longer sustain their lives or those of their families, they lose faith in parliamentary processes, and their class consciousness develops.

Fascism exploits this instability by identifying scapegoats, as in Nazi Germany: Jews, communists, Roma, trade unionists and others, promising national rebirth, order and strength. Today, migrants are increasingly labelled as targets.

Fascism presents itself as standing above class conflict, claiming to unite people into a single national community. In practice, this so-called unity is achieved by destroying trade unions, people’s organisations and communist parties, and by eliminating any remaining independent media – all institutions that empower ordinary people. Fascism is what emerges when the usual social-democratic façade can no longer stabilise the system.
Governments, including the present Labour government in Britain, introduce increasingly repressive legislation and expand police powers as their concern about maintaining control grows, particularly as people begin to organise and mobilise, for example in opposition to the genocide in Palestine.

These legislative powers remain and will continue to be used wherever opposition develops.
Fascism is a political ideology that has caused immense devastation in the past and remains a profound danger today. Although its outward form may change, its essence remains the same. In 1934, Joseph Stalin stated: “Social democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism.” This means that when working people recognise the sham of western democracy, the same state reveals its true face. Best we see it for what it is now and begin to build our forces of resistance.
Workers of the world unite!